with an eye to the offer of Pinzon, he had, when twitted with his poverty, offered to bear one-eighth of the expense. This condition was embodied in the so-called "capitulations," signed by Ferdinand and Isabella on the 17th of April, 1492; and with the aid of the Pinzons of Palos a third vessel was added to the expedition, nominally at the expense of Columbus. The port of Palos, the head-quarters of the Pinzons, was fixed on by Columbus as that of equipment and embarkation. Towards the beginning of August, 1492, the squadron was ready for sea. It was, for the magnitude of the enterprise, on a wonderfully small scale, and consisted of three little vessels. Two of them were of the class called "caravels"—light vessels, somewhat like those employed in our river and coasting trade, built high at prow and stern, with forecastles and cabins for the crew, but without decks. One of these was the Pinta, commanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon and his brother; the other, the Nina, with lateen sails, was commanded by a third of the brothers Pinzon. The largest, prepared expressly for the voyage and decked, was the Santa Maria, and this was the admiral's ship. The exact tonnage of the vessels cannot be ascertained, but Columbus, in a subsequent voyage, is known to have complained of the undue size of his ship, which was nearly a hundred tons burthen! In such craft did the brave voyager and his friends face the mysterious terrors of the unknown Atlantic. Amid the doubts and fears of those on shore, with prayers to heaven for mercy and guidance, the expedition set sail from the sand-bar of Sultes (near the confluence of the Tinto and Odiel, rivers of Palos and Huelva) on the morning of Friday, the 3rd of August, 1492. One hundred and twenty persons constituted the population of the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina.
Slight mishaps and panics ushered in this memorable voyage. The loss of the Pinta s rudder kept the expedition three weeks at the Canaries, in unsuccessful search for another vessel, and the volcanic flames of Teneriffe terrified the ignorant and superstitious crews. On the 9th of September, Ferro, the most south-westerly of the Canaries, faded out of sight, and lamentations broke out among the crews, promptly met by the sonorous eloquence of the confident and enthusiastic admiral. To conceal from the timid crews the real distance which lay between them and their homes, Columbus kept two reckonings. A correct one was retained for his own secret inspection; from this a number of leagues was daily subtracted, and thus the diminished log was shown to the crews. On the 13th of September, Columbus noticed, for the first time, the variation of the magnetic needle. He endeavoured to conceal it from the crews, but the pilots soon observed it and were terror-struck at the sight, fearing that the compass itself was about to desert them in the unknown waste of waters, and leave them guideless and hopeless. Columbus, with his quick ingenuity, ascribed the variation to a movement in the pole-star itself, and by one of his unfounded but lucky theories succeeded in allaying the alarm of the pilots.
Hope and fear swayed alternately in the breasts of the crews. The admiral alone knew no vicissitudes of feeling. Two days before the first notice of the variation of the needle, the seamen were dismayed by the sight of part of a mast, which had evidently been long in the water, and regarded it as a warning to themselves. Three days afterwards they were buoyed up by the appearance of a heron and a tropical bird, neither of which, it was thought, could have ventured far from land. Soon the vessels were within the influence of the trade-wind, and were wafted on by it pleasantly westward. Patches of herbs and weeds came drifting from the west, and some of them were thought to grow only in rivers. For a time the crews were in the highest spirits. Then came a false report of land to the west, which turned out to be cloudland, and after several similar disappointments the men began to murmur. Even the trade-wind was a source of alarm to them, for they feared that in those seas it blew always from the east, and they could thus never return to Spain. The crisis of their discontent arrived when the vessels were becalmed, or nearly so, amid vast masses of weeds; and it was in vain that Columbus argued with them that the calmness arose from the nearness of land. The nearer they approached the goal the more mutinous they became; and at last they began to speak of making away with the admiral and returning home. Columbus preserved his serenity—now conciliating, now stern, as suited the characters of those with whom he was dealing.
At last, after many disappointments, and when the crews could scarcely be kept from open mutiny, on the 11th of October there were picked up not only river-weeds, and a branch of thorn, with berries, but a reed, a small board, and a staff, artificially carved. Joy and hope were once more the order of the day. In the evening, after the singing of the usual vesper hymn, the admiral addressed his men in pious and confident accents. At ten at night, Columbus, who had long been gazing anxiously on the horizon from the poop of his vessel, descried what seemed to him a light. At two in the morning a gun from the Pinta announced that land was seen. The vessels lay to, until the dawn should reveal the truth. There, as day dawned, it lay, a level island, covered with trees, from which the naked natives were running astonished to the shore. It was Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, a date for ever memorable in the history of the world. The voyage had lasted seventy days. The island, of which Columbus immediately took possession in the name of Spain, he called San Salvador. It is the Cat-island of the English mariner, one of the great Bahama cluster. The claims of Turks Island have found able assertors. Columbus, believing then and ever afterwards that he had reached the confines of India, the new populations were spoken of as Indians; and those insular regions remain the West Indies to this day.
Onwards from the point reached in our narrative, the life of Columbus is so connected with history, general and special, that a rapid summary may suffice for a work avowedly biographical. Henceforth, the biography of Columbus can present little else than developments interesting indeed, but unimportant, when compared with the grand and primal fact of the discovery itself. Alas! the "little else" is of a saddening and tragical kind. After discovering, among other islands, Cuba and Hispaniola, Columbus erected on the latter the fortress of La Naoidad, and established a colony. On the 15th of March, 1493, he arrived from his first voyage at the port of Palos, from which he had sailed on the preceding 3rd of August. His reception in Spain was magnificent; his triumphal entry into Barcelona was almost worthy of the man and his achievements. When with characteristic ardour he set sail on his second voyage on the 25th of September, 1493, he was attended by the blessings and prayers, the enthusiastic God-speed of a whole nation. But the seeds of future calamity were already sown. A "department of Indian affairs," as we would say, had been created, and at the head of it was placed Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville, afterwards patriarch of the Indies. He retained the office during thirty years, and was ever the jealous and malignant enemy of Columbus. The chief discoveries of Columbus during his second voyage were Jamaica and the Caribbee islands. He did not reach Spain again until the 28th of April, 1496, and such were the difficulties of the homeward voyage, that he and his crew disembarked, weather-worn and emaciated, and received but a cold reception from the disappointed and lukewarm Spanish public. The still-continued favour of royalty made some amends for this mortification. But Columbus soon felt that there was a power behind the throne. The eight ships which he requested for a third voyage were verbally conceded, yet official intrigue succeeded in delaying his departure until the 30th of May, 1498. Little more than six months had elapsed between his return from his first voyage and his departure on his second one. Between his arrival from his second voyage and his departure on his third one, an interval of nearly a year was interposed. During his third voyage, Columbus discovered Trinidad and for the first time the Terra Firma of the American continent, that in its immediate vicinity. True to his belief that he had reached Asia, he fancied that he had found at Paria the abode of our first parents! On reaching Hispaniola he was grieved by the spectacle of the colony disorganized and disobedient to himself. He was engaged in restoring order when a more terrible blow was struck at him from beyond the ocean. Mal-contents, who had returned to Spain, accused him of tyranny and extortion. Wearied by these complaints, which were skilfully aggravated by Fonseca, Ferdinand, in an evil hour, despatched on a mission of inquiry, and with authority to supersede Columbus if desirable, Francisco de Bobadilla [See Bobadilla], whose treatment of the great navigator has given an infamous celebrity to his name. Arriving at Hispaniola, Bobadilla at once and without investigation superseded Columbus, seized his effects and papers, and despatched him in criminal fashion to Spain, a prisoner and in chains! The master of the caravel which bore to Spain the illustrious captive, with respectful compassion offered to remove
