with the accounts of those opulent regions. When the natives spoke of enemies to the north-west, he concluded these to be people from the mainland of Asia, the subjects of the great Khan of Tatary, who, the Venetian traveller stated, were wont to make war on the islands and to enslave their inhabitants. When they described the country to the south as abounding in gold, he felt convinced that this must refer to the famous island of Zipango, of the magnificent capital of which Marco Polo had given such a glowing description. The fine gold trinkets the natives possessed confirmed their reports and his own impressions, whetted the avarice of the Spaniards, and made a search for the great Khan and his golden islands the chief results of his expedition.
Indeed the main purpose of Columbus, like that of Vasco de Gama—though the former was a man of far loftier character than the latter—was to find an opulent and civilized country in the East, with whom he might establish commercial relations, carrying home gold, spices, drugs, and Oriental merchandise. He hoped, too, that he would thus have the means of establishing the Christian religion in heathen lands, and from the profits of the undertaking to rescue the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem from the power of the Infidels. Such an enterprise had been the dream of his early manhood; nor indeed was it forgotten when his own earthly pilgrimage came to a close, for by his will he directs his son to appropriate certain sums of money to that sacred cause.
Wreck of one of the vessels of the expedition. While cruising among the islands, Columbus had the misfortune to lose one of the three vessels of his
