that he should have a tenth of all the riches he should collect or seize, and that he should be made viceroy and admiral over the unexplored realm; these high offices to be transmitted by inheritance to his descendants.
With this royal contract signed, sealed and delivered, Columbus sailed from Palos, on the southern coast of Spain, on Friday, August 3, 1492. Note the day—Friday. He had three ships, really little more than sailboats, the Santa Maria of a hundred tons being the largest. This Columbus commanded, with fifty-two men under him. Then came the Pinta, a fifty-ton boat, with eighteen men under Martin Pinzon, and yet smaller, only forty tons, the Nina, commanded by Vincente Yanez, with a crew of eighteen.
Westward these small craft sailed to circle the globe, cross the Atlantic, and find India; a daring and adventurous voyage based on these wonderful stories of Marco Polo, and the cosmographic theories of Columbus. And strangely enough, Columbus found land just as he expected he would, almost to a day of the time he reckoned, on October 12, 1492; and there wasn’t the slightest doubt
