Andes
Habsburg
George Patton
Machu Picchu
Panama
F-22 Raptor
The Golden Hind
Habakkuk 3:19
“The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.”
THE GOLDEN HIND.
The famous ship in which Drake made his voyage of circumnavigation (1577-1580). Originally called the Pelican, it was renamed the Golden Hind at Port St. Julian, near the entrance to the Straits of Magellan, in 1578. Drake was knighted on board the Golden Hind in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I on 4 April 1581.
"Alguien que me esperó entre los violines
encontró un mundo como una torre enterrada
hundiendo su espiral más abajo de todas
las hojas de color de ronco azufre:
más abajo, en el oro de la geología,
como una espada envuelta en meteoros,
hundí la mano turbulenta y dulce
en lo más genital de lo terrestre."~~~Pablo Neruda: Alturas de Machu Picchu
"Nature assisted him in this effort, for it had made the city easy to defend: Cartagena stood in the middle of a strange island. Stretching some seven and a half miles along the coast of South America, with one shore beautiful, straight and smooth, and the other resembling an octopus with many arm- and leg-like peninsulas, with vast impenetrable swamps and unscalable cliffs, this island was designed by nature gone mad. To invade its one settlement, Cartagena, was almost impossible. Of course, when an adversary came at Cartagena from the Caribbean he found an approach that appeared both easy and promising, for at the southern tip of the octopus island waited a broad, beautiful entrance into the harbor leading to the city; Boca Grande it was called, Big Mouth. But its allure was deceptive, for it was extremely shallow; and what was worse, to keep out any enemy, Don Diego had commanded that ships be scuttled in the middle of the passage, which meant that not even an alien rowboat could penetrate.
And if the arriving enemy continued some easy miles to the south, he came upon Boca Chica, Little Mouth, a deep entrance but treacherous because of its extreme narrowness and certain intruding islands. Should a determined ship captain work his way through, he would find himself lost in the first of four distinct bays: big Southern leading into smaller Middle, which led into small Northern, which debouched into tiny Harbor atop which rose the battlements of the city. Cartagena was well-nigh impregnable."~~~James A. Michener: CARIBBEAN. Ch4 The Spanish Lake.
"Don Diego was inordinately proud of his family’s ancient fame and saw in his three unmarried daughters—Juana, María and Isabella—an opportunity to enhance it if he could find acceptable young men to marry them, but he never lost sight of his primary obligation: augmenting his family’s present power. As a young naval officer of unusual daring, he had won an enviable reputation for defending against pirates the Spanish armadas which carried Peruvian gold and Panamanian silver across the Caribbean on its way to Sevilla in southern Spain. His bold successes enabled him to rise swiftly to the rank of captain, and in 1556, at the age of only twenty-four, he had been appointed governor at Cartagena. During his first day on the job he issued the order which would characterize his long tenure: ‘The Caribbean is a Spanish lake, from which all intruders will be expelled.’ The first step he took to enforce this boast was to make his home city of Cartagena so impregnable that no enemy would dare attack it."~~~James A. Michener: CARIBBEAN. Ch4 The Spanish Lake.
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Chess: "Andes" "George Patton" "Machu Picchu" "Panama" "F-22 Raptor" "The Golden Hind" "Habsburg"
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