  THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD Christopher Columbus. Six years before Vasco da Gama made his famous voyage to India around Africa and opened a new trade route for the Portuguese merchants, another seaman had formed and carried out a much bolder plan. This was Christopher Columbus, and his plan was to sail directly west from Europe into the unknown ocean in search of new islands and the coast of Asia. Columbus, who was a native of Genoa in Italy, had followed his younger brother to Portugal. Both were probably led there by the fame of Prince Henry's explorations. The brothers became very skilful in making maps and charts for the Portuguese. They also frequently sailed with them on their expeditions along the coast of Africa. All the early associations of Columbus were with men interested in voyages of discovery, and particularly with those engaged in the daring search for a sea route to India. How Columbus formed his Plan. Columbus gathered all the information on geography which he could from ancient writers and from modern discoverers. Many of them believed that the world was shaped like a ball. If such were its shape, Columbus reasoned, why might not a ship sail around it from east to west? Or, better, why not sail directly west to India, and perhaps find many wonderful islands between Europe and Asia? His imagination was also fired by Marco Polo's description of the marvelous riches of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. But the idea of going directly west into the midst of the unknown and seemingly boundless waste of water, and on and on to Asia, appeared to most men of the fifteenth century to be madness.
His Notion of the Distance to Asia. Columbus made two fortunate errors in reckoning the distance to the Indies. He imagined that Asia extended much farther eastward than it actually does, making it nearer Europe, and estimated the earth to be smaller than it is. His figures placed Japan less than 3,000 miles west of the Canary Islands, instead of the 12,000 miles which is the real distance. He accordingly thought Japan would be found about where Mexico or Florida is situated. How he secured Help. Even so, many years passed before Columbus was able to undertake a voyage. He was too poor himself, and needed the help of some government to fit out such an expedition. He may have tried to get his native city, Genoa, to help him. There is such a story. If he did, it was without success. He tried to obtain the help of Portugal, where he lived a long time, and whose princes were greatly interested in the discovery of new trade routes. His brother visited England in the same cause. Neither of these countries, however, was willing to undertake this expensive and doubtful enterprise. The King and Queen of Spain, to whom Columbus turned, kept him waiting many years for an answer. They thought that they had more important work in hand. There was another king in Spain at the time, the king of the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella, the Christian king and queen, were trying to conquer the Moors, and thus to end the struggle between Christians and Mohammedans for the possession of Spain, which had lasted nearly eight centuries. This war required all the strength and revenue of Spain. Fortunately, just as Columbus was becoming thoroughly discouraged, the war with the Moors came to an end. Granada, the seat of their former power, was finally taken in January, 1492. Now was a good time to ask favors of the sovereigns of Spain, and to plan large enterprises for the future. Powerful friends aided Columbus to renew his petition, and Queen Isabella was persuaded to promise him all the help that he needed. The Ships of Columbus. Three ships, or caravels as they were called, were fitted out. The Santa Maria was the largest of the three, but it was not much larger than the small sailing yachts which we see to-day. It was about ninety feet long by twenty feet broad, and had a single deck. This was Columbus's principal ship or flagship. The second caravel, the Pinta, was much swifter, built high at the prow and stern, and furnished with a forecastle for the crew and a cabin for the officers, but without a deck in the center. The third and smallest caravel, called the NiÑa, the Spanish word for baby, was built much like the Pinta. Ninety persons made up the three crews.
The ships were the usual size of those which coasted along the shores of Europe in the fifteenth century. Expeditions had never gone far out into the ocean. Columbus preferred the smaller vessels in a voyage of discovery, because they would be able to run close to the shores and into the smaller harbors and up the rivers. Beginning of the Voyage. The expedition set sail from Palos in Spain, August 3, 1492. It went directly to the Canary Islands. These were owned by Spain, and were selected by Columbus as the most convenient starting-point. The little fleet was delayed three weeks at the islands making repairs. On September 6 Columbus was off again. He struck due west from the Canaries. The Terrors of the Voyage. While the little fleet was still in sight of the Canary Islands a volcanic eruption nearly frightened the sailors out of their wits. They deemed such an event an omen of evil. But the expedition had fine weather day after day. Steady, gentle, easterly winds, the trade winds of the tropics, wafted them slowly westward. But the timid sailors began to wonder how they would ever be able to return against winds which seemed never to change from the east. Then they came to an immense field of seaweed, larger in area than the whole of Spain. This terrified the sailors, who feared they might be driven on hidden rocks or be engulfed in quicksands. They imagined, too, that great sea-monsters were lurking beyond the seaweed waiting to devour them.
The first Signs of a New Land. In spite of fears and complaints, and threats of resistance, Columbus kept a westward course for more than four weeks. Then as he began to see so many birds flying to the southwest, he concluded that land must be nearer in that direction. He had heard that most of the islands held by the Portuguese were discovered by following the flight of birds. So on October 7 the westward course was changed to one slightly southwest. From this time on the signs of land grew frequent. Floating branches, occasionally covered with berries, pieces of wood, bits of cane, were encouraging signs. Birds like ducks and sandpipers became common sights. The Queen had promised a small pension to the one who should first see land. Columbus had offered to give a silken doublet in addition. With what eagerness the sailors must have kept on the lookout! The great Discovery. At last as the fleet was sailing onward in the bright moonlight Columbus saw a light moving as if carried by hand along a shore. A few hours later, about two o'clock on the morning of October 12, a sailor on the Pinta saw land distinctly, and soon all beheld, a few miles away, a long, low beach. The vessels hove to and waited for daylight. Early the same day, Friday, October 12, 1492, they approached the land, which proved to be a small island. Columbus named it San Salvador, which means Holy Saviour. We do not know which one of the Bahama islands he first saw, but we believe it was the one now called Watling Island. Columbus went ashore with the royal standard and banners flying to take possession of the land in the name of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Where Columbus thought he was. The astonished inhabitants of the island soon gathered to see the strange sight--the landing of white men in the West Indies. They looked upon the ships as sea-monsters, and the white men as gods. Nor was Columbus less puzzled by what he saw. The people were a strange race--cinnamon colored, naked, greased, and painted to suit each one's fancy. They had only the rudest means of self-defense, and were almost as poor as the parrots that chattered in the trees above them. Such savages bore little resemblance to the people whom Marco Polo said inhabited the Spice Islands. Columbus thought that he had reached some outlying island not far from Japan. A cruise of a few days among the Bahamas satisfied him that he was in the ocean near the coast of Asia, for had not Marco Polo described it as studded with thousands of spice-bearing islands? He had not found any spices, but the air was full of fragrance and the trees and herbs were strange in appearance. Of course if the islands were the Indies, the people must be Indians. Columbus called them Indians, and this name clung to the red men, although their islands were not the true Indies.
The Search for the Golden East. Columbus thought that the natives meant to tell him in their sign language of a great land to the south where gold abounded. He set off in search of this, and came upon a land the natives called Cuba. Its large size convinced him that he had at last found the Asiatic mainland, and he sent two messengers, one a Jew knowing many languages, in search of the Emperor of China. They found neither cities nor kingdoms, neither gold nor spices. This was a great disappointment to Columbus, but he patiently kept up his search for the riches which he expected to find. The Misfortunes of Columbus. While on the coast of Cuba, Pinzon, the commander of the Pinta, deserted him. Pinzon, whose ship was swifter than the others, probably wished to be the first to get home, in order to tell a story which would gain him the credit of the discovery of the Indies. A few days later Columbus discovered a large island which the natives called Hayti, and which he called EspaÑola or "Spanish Land." At every island he searched for the spices and gold which Marco Polo had given him reason to expect. In a storm off EspaÑola Columbus's own ship, the Santa Maria, was totally wrecked. Such disasters convinced him that it was high time to return to Spain with the news of his discovery. Preparations for Return to Spain. As there was not room for both crews on the tiny NiÑa, his one remaining ship, it became necessary to leave about forty sailors in EspaÑola. A fort was built, and supplies were left for a year. Columbus with the rest set off on the return to Spain. Ten Indians were captured and taken with them to show to his friends in Europe. Besides, Columbus hoped that they would learn the language of Spain, and carry Christianity back to their people. The Search for China renewed. There was rejoicing in Palos when the voyagers returned. Great honors were bestowed upon Columbus. It was now easy to get men and money for another voyage. In September, 1493, Columbus started to return to his islands, this time with seventeen ships and fifteen hundred men, all confident that they would soon see the marble palaces of China, and secure a share in the wealth of the Spice Islands. No one yet realized that a new world--two great continents--lay between them and their coveted goal in Asia. Columbus went directly to EspaÑola, where he found that his colony of the previous year had been murdered by the Indians. A new settlement was quickly started. A little town called Isabella was built, with a fort, a church, a market place, public granary, and dwelling-houses. Isabella was the first real settlement in the New World.
Other Voyages to the New World. Columbus made two other voyages. He continued to search for the coast of Asia, which he believed to be near. He made a third voyage from Spain to the West Indies in 1498. He sailed farther south, and came upon the mainland which later was called South America. A fourth expedition in 1502 touched on the coast that we call Central America. He died soon after this voyage, still believing that he had discovered a new route to the Indies and new lands on the coast of Asia. The sad End of Columbus's Life. The close of his life was a sad one. The lands he had found did not yield the riches which he had expected. The colonists whom he had sent out to the islands had rebelled, and jealous enemies had accused him falsely before the king and queen of misgovernment in his territories. Once his opponents had him carried to Spain chained like a common prisoner. He was given his liberty on reaching Spain, but the people had become prejudiced against him. Ferdinand, the son of Columbus, tells us that as he and his brother Diego, who were pages in the queen's service, happened to pass a crowd of his father's enemies, the latter greeted them with hoots: "There go the sons of the Admiral of Mosquitoland, the man who has discovered a land of vanity and deceit, the grave of Spanish gentlemen." Hardships and disappointments broke down the great discoverer, and he died neglected and almost forgotten by the people of Spain.
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