in his mind but that it was the very land he was looking for. It wasn’t—not by one vast continent and one mighty ocean. San Salvador he named this island—and he knew very shortly that it was an island. In full pomp, with banners flying, he took possession in the name of their majesties of Castile and Leon.
And that day, October 12, 1492, was
also a Friday. That his discovery was an island made no difference to Columbus.
It was, he felt sure, part of India, and the
mainland would be found further on. He never knew that
he had made the greater discovery of a new and separate continent, richer and more wonderful than all the thenknown world, and he died in the full belief that he had
established his claims, and found a direct sea route westward to India. Again came a Friday—January 4, 1493—and Columbus set sail for Palos to take the news of his success to his royal masters of Spain, and he landed at Palos on Friday, March 15, 1493. The outward voyage had taken seventy-one days; the return voyage exactly the same length of time. On Friday it began; on a Friday he reached the new world; he began his return voyage ona Friday; and landed in Spain on a Friday. An unlucky day? Not for Christopher Columbus. This island of San Salvador, with the group of which it was a part, came to be called the West Indies; the idea
being that they bordered and screened the eastern coast of India, but had been found by sailing “West.” Spain
