History of the United States, Volume 1 | Page 9

age even to admit the spherical figure
of the earth. According to Scripture, they said, the earth is flat, adding
that it was contrary to reason for men to walk heads downward, or
snow and rain to ascend, or trees to grow with their roots upward.

[Illustration: Columbus begging at the Franciscan Convent.]
[1484-1492]
The war for Granada ended, Santangel and others of his converts at
court secured Columbus an interview with Isabella, but his demands
seeming to her arrogant, he was dismissed. Nothing daunted, the hero
had started for France, there to plead as he had pleaded in Portugal and
Spain already, when to his joy a messenger overtook him with orders to
come once more before the queen.
Fuller thought and argument had convinced this eminent woman that
the experiment urged by Columbus ought to be tried and a contract was
soon concluded, by which, on condition that he should bear one-eighth
the expense of the expedition, the public chest of Castile was to furnish
the remainder. The story of the crown jewels having been pledged for
this purpose is now discredited. If such pledging occurred, it was earlier,
in prosecuting the war with the Moors. The whole sum needed for the
voyage was about fifty thousand dollars. Columbus was made admiral,
also viceroy of whatever lands should be discovered, and he was to
have ten per cent of all the revenues from such lands. For his
contribution to the outfit he was indebted to the Pinzons.
This arrangement was made in April or May, 1492, and on the third of
the next August, after the utmost difficulty in shipping crews for this
sail into the sea of darkness, Columbus put out from Palos with one
hundred and twenty men, on three ships. These were the Santa Maria,
the Nina, and the Pinta. The largest, the Santa Maria, was of not over
one hundred tons, having a deck-length of sixty-three feet, a keel of
fifty-one feet, a draft of ten feet six inches, and her mast-head sixty feet
above sea-level. She probably had four anchors, with hemp cables.
[Illustration: Embarkation of Christopher Columbus at Palos. From an
old print.]
From Palos they first bore southward to the Canary Islands, into the
track of the prevalent east winds, then headed west, for Cipango, as
Columbus supposed, but really toward the northern part of Florida.

When a little beyond what he regarded the longitude of Cipango,
noticing the flight of birds to the southwest, he was induced to follow
these, which accident made his landfall occur at Guanahani (San
Salvador), in the Bahamas, instead of the Florida coast.
Near midnight, between October 11th and 12th, Columbus, being on
the watch, descried a light ahead. About two o'clock on the morning of
the 12th the lookout on the Pinta distinctly saw land through the
moonlight. When it was day they went on shore. The 12th of October,
1492, therefore, was the date on which for the first time, so far as
history attests with assurance, a European foot pressed the soil of this
continent. Adding nine days to this to translate it into New Style, we
have October 21st as the day answering to that on which Columbus
first became sure that his long toil and watching had not been in vain.
[1493-1500]
The admiral having failed to note its latitude and longitude, it is not
known which of the Bahamas was the San Salvador of Columbus,
whether Grand Turk Island, Cat (the present San Salvador), Watling,
Mariguana, Acklin, or Samana, though the last named well corresponds
with his description. Mr. Justin Winsor, however, and with him a
majority of the latest critics, believes that Watling's Island was the
place. Before returning to Spain, Columbus discovered Cuba, and also
Hayti or Espagnola (Hispaniola), on the latter of which islands he built
a fort.
In a second voyage, from Cadiz, 1493-1496, the great explorer
discovered the Lesser Antilles and Jamaica. In a third, 1498-1500, he
came upon Trinidad and the mainland of South America, at the mouth
of the Orinoco. This was later by thirteen months and a week than the
Cabots' landfall at Labrador or Nova Scotia, though a year before
Amerigo Vespucci saw the coast of Brazil. It was during this third
absence that Columbus, hated as an Italian and for his undeniable greed,
was superseded by Bobadilla, who sent him and his brother home in
chains. Soon free again, he sets off in 1502 upon a fourth cruise, in
which he reaches the coast of Honduras.

To the day of his death, however, the discoverer of America never
suspected that he had brought to light a new continent. Even during this
his last expedition he maintained that the coast he had touched was that
of Mangi, contiguous to Cathay, and that nineteen