Comic History of the United States | Page 3

popular. Why discover a place when it is so far out of the way? Why discover a country with no improvements? Why discover a country that is so far from the railroad? Why discover, at great expense, an entirely new country?
But Isabella did not stop to listen to these croaks. In the language of the Honorable Jeremiah M. Rusk, "She seen her duty and she done it." That was Isabella's style.
Columbus now began to select steamer-chairs and rugs. He had already secured the Ni?a, Pinta, and Santa Maria, and on the 3d of August, 1492, he sailed from Palos.
Isabella brought him a large bunch of beautiful flowers as he was about to sail, and Ferdinand gave him a nice yachting-cap and a spicy French novel to read on the road.
He was given a commission as viceroy or governor of all the lands he might discover, with hunting and shooting privileges on same.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S STEAMER-CHAIR.]
He stopped several weeks at the Canary Islands, where he and his one hundred and twenty men rested and got fresh water. He then set out sailing due west over an unknown sea to blaze the way for liberty.
Soon, however, his men began to murmur. They began also to pick on Columbus and occupy his steamer-chair when he wanted to use it himself. They got to making chalk-marks on the deck and compelling him to pay a shilling before he could cross them. Some claimed that they were lost and that they had been sailing around for over a week in a circle, one man stating that he recognized a spot in the sea that they had passed eight times already.
Finally they mutinied, and started to throw the great navigator overboard, but he told them that if they would wait until the next morning he would tell them a highly amusing story that he heard just before he left Palos.
Thus his life was saved, for early in the morning the cry of "Land ho!" was heard, and America was discovered.
A saloon was at once started, and the first step thus taken towards the foundation of a republic. From that one little timid saloon, with its family entrance, has sprung the magnificent and majestic machine which, lubricated with spoils and driven by wind, gives to every American to-day the right to live under a Government selected for him by men who make that their business.
Columbus discovered America several times after the 12th of October, 1492, and finally, while prowling about looking for more islands, discovered South America near the mouth of the Orinoco.
He was succeeded as governor by Francisco de Bobadilla, who sent him back finally in chains. Thus we see that the great are not always happy. There is no doubt that millions of people every year avoid many discomforts by remaining in obscurity.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS HAVING TROUBLE WITH HIS SAILORS.]
The life of Columbus has been written by hundreds of men, both in this country and abroad, but the foregoing facts are distilled from this great biographical mass by skilful hands, and, like the succeeding pages, will stand for centuries unshaken by the bombardment of the critic, while succeeding years shall try them with frost and thaw, and the tide of time dash high against their massive front, only to recede, quelled and defeated.[1]
[Footnote 1: The author acknowledges especially the courtesy of San Diego Colon Columbus, a son of the great navigator, whose book "Historiadores Primitivos" was so generously loaned the author by relatives of young Columbus.
I have refrained from announcing in the foregoing chapter the death of Columbus, which occurred May 20, 1506, at Valladolid, the funeral taking place from his late residence, because I dislike to give needless pain.
B. N.]

[Illustration:]
CHAPTER II.
OTHER DISCOVERIES--WET AND DRY.
America had many other discoverers besides Columbus, but he seems to have made more satisfactory arrangements with the historians than any of the others. He had genius, and was also a married man. He was a good after-dinner speaker, and was first to use the egg trick, which so many after-dinner speakers have since wished they had thought of before Chris did.
In falsifying the log-book in order to make his sailors believe that they had not sailed so far as they had, Columbus did a wrong act, unworthy of his high notions regarding the pious discovery of this land. The artist has shown here not only one of the most faithful portraits of Columbus and his crooked log-book, but the punishment which he should have received.
The man on the left is Columbus; History is concealed just around the corner in a loose wrapper.
Spain at this time regarded the new land as a vast jewelry store in charge of simple children of the forest who did not know the value of their rich agricultural lands or gold-ribbed farms. Spain, therefore, expected to exchange bone