A School History of the United States | Page 3

America was discovered by a Norse voyager named Leif Ericsson. The records are very meager; but the discovery of our country by such a people is possible and not improbable. For an account of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp. 148-255.]
[Illustration: Santa Maria]
His course led first to the Canary Islands, where he turned and went directly westward. The earth was not then generally believed to be round. Men supposed it to be flat, and the only parts of it known to Europeans were Iceland, the British Isles, the continent of Europe, a small part of Asia, and a strip along the coast of the northern part of Africa. The ocean on which Columbus was now embarked, and which in our time is crossed in less than a week, was then utterly unknown, and was well named "The Sea of Darkness." Little wonder, then, that as the shores of the last of the Canaries sank out of sight on the 9th of September, many of the sailors wept, wailed, and loudly bemoaned their cruel fate. After sailing for what seemed a very long time, they saw signs of land. But when no land appeared, their hopes gave way to fear, and they rose against Columbus in order to force him to return.
[Illustration: Ni?a]
But he calmed their fears, explained the sights they could not understand, hid from them the true distance sailed, and kept steadily on westward till October 7, when a flock of land birds were seen flying to the southwest. Pinzon (peen-thon'), who commanded one of the vessels, begged Columbus to follow the birds, as they seemed to be going toward land. Had the little fleet kept on its way, it would have brought up on the coast of Florida. But Columbus yielded to Pinzon. The ships were headed southwestward, and about ten o'clock on the night of October 11, Columbus saw a light moving in the distance. It was made by the inhabitants going from hut to hut on a neighboring coast. At dawn the shore itself was seen by a sailor, and Columbus, followed by many of his men, hastened to the beach, where, October 12, 1492, he raised a huge cross, and took possession of the country in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, who had supplied him with caravels and men.[1] He had landed on one of a group of islands which we call the Bahamas.[2]
[Footnote 1: Columbus called the new land San Salvador (sahn sahl-vah-dor', Holy Savior), because October 12, the day on which it was discovered, was so named in the Spanish calendar.]
[Footnote 2: Three islands of this group, Cat, Turks, and Watlings, have rival claims as the landing place of Columbus. At present, Watlings Island is believed to be the one on which he first set foot. Read an account of the voyage in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp. 408-442; Irving's _Life and Voyages of Columbus_, Vol. I., Book III.]
[Illustration: Coat of arms of Columbus]
During ten days he sailed among these islands. Then, turning southward, he coasted along Cuba to the eastern end, and so to Haiti, which he named Hispaniola, or Little Spain. There the Santa Maria was wrecked. The Pinta had by this time deserted him, and, as the _Ni?a_ could not carry all the men, forty were left at Hispaniola, to found the first colony of Europeans in the New World. Giving the men food enough to last a year, Columbus set sail for Spain on the 3d of January, 1493, and on March 15 was safe at Palos.
Of the greatness of his discovery, Columbus had not the faintest idea. That he had found a new world; that a continent was blocking his way to the East, never entered his mind. He supposed he had landed on some islands off the east coast of Asia, and as that coast was called the Indies, and as the islands were reached by sailing westward, they came to be called the West Indies, and their inhabitants Indians; and the native races of the New World have ever since been called Indians. Although Columbus in after years made three more voyages to the New World, he never found out his mistake, and died firm in the belief that he had discovered a direct route to Asia.[1]
[Footnote 1: Columbus began his second voyage in September, 1493, and discovered Jamaica, Porto Rico (por'-to ree'-co), and the islands of the Caribbean Sea. On his third voyage, in 1498, he discovered the island of Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela, and saw South America at the mouth of the Orinoco River. During his fourth and last voyage, 1502-1504, he explored the shores of Honduras and the Isthmus of Panama in search of a strait leading to