Oddly enough, the ships Columbus was to take on his voyage were, according to royal command, to be supplied by that very seaport of Palos by which he is supposed to have entered Spain. Palos, Huelva, and Moguer, all thriving maritime cities in Columbus's day, are grouped at the mouth of the Rio Tinto. Tinto means deep-colored, like wine; and as this river flows through the richest copper region in the whole world, it is not surprising that its waters are reddish, nor that the copper trade enriched the neighboring towns. How the now unimportant Palos at the mouth of the Rio Tinto came to be chosen as the seaport from which Columbus should embark is an amusing story.

Some time before, its inhabitants had, through disobedience or some other offense, incurred the displeasure of their sovereigns. By way of punishment, the Crown ordered that Palos should fit out two caravels at its own expense and lend them to the government for a year whenever the government should call for them. The royal intention was, no doubt, to use the boats against Naples and Sicily, which they hoped to conquer after finishing the Moorish war. But when they decided finally to help Columbus, they remembered the punishment due Palos, and called upon it to give the two caravels to "Cristobal Colon, our captain, going into certain parts of the Ocean Sea on matters pertaining to our service."

Thus while Ferdinand and Isabella meant to punish the little town, they instead conferred a great honor upon it. Little did Columbus dream, the day on which he and his boy approached it so empty-handed five years before, that he was to make it forever famous. Palos to-day is a miserably poor, humble little place; but its people, especially the Pinzon family who still live there, are very proud that it was the starting-point of the momentous voyage of discovery; and hundreds of tourists visit it who never know that the sovereigns had intended punishing, instead of glorifying, the port.

In May, 1492, however, when Columbus returned from Granada, the Palos inhabitants did not see any glory at all! They saw nothing but the heavy penalty. Not only did this royal command mean that every citizen of Palos must furnish money to buy the ships and pay the crew, it meant that the ships and crew would never come back again from the "Sea of Darkness"! An expedition through the well-known Mediterranean to Sicily or Naples would have seemed like a pleasure trip compared with the terrifying one now contemplated! They were handing over the equipment to a madman! Poor little Palos was filled with misgiving, and we may be sure that Columbus, as he passed through the streets, was looked upon as the common enemy.

The royal decree ordered Palos to have its contribution ready in ten days; meanwhile, a third caravel was to be bought; but so violently were the people of Palos opposed to the enterprise that not a single ship- owner would sell his vessel. Another difficulty was to get a crew of experienced seamen. With very few exceptions, sailors were afraid to go out on the unexplored Atlantic Ocean beyond the Azores. Spanish sailors had not had the excellent schooling of those in Portugal, where, for seventy years or more, expeditions had been going out to discover new lands and coming back safely.

Columbus, therefore, found it difficult to induce the sea-going men of Palos to share his enthusiasm. This difficulty of getting a crew together must have been foreseen at court, for the royal secretary issued an order intended to help Columbus, but which instead hurt his cause and proved most unwise. The curious order in question was to the effect that all criminals who would sign for the expedition would be "privileged from arrest or further imprisonment for any offense or crime committed by them up to this date, and during the time they might be on the voyage, and for two months after their return from the voyage."

To criminals, apparently, being devoured by monsters rimming the western Atlantic appeared a better fate than languishing in a cruel Spanish prison, for the first men who enlisted were from this class. A more unfortunate method of recruiting a crew could hardly be imagined. Such men were undesirable, not only because of their lawless character, but also because they had never before sailed on a ship; and the more this class rallied to the front, the more the respectable sailors of Palos, Moguer, Huelva, and other adjacent towns hung back. To go forth into the unknown was bad enough; to go there in the society of malefactors was even worse.

Here again Juan Perez, the good priest of La Rabida, and Pinzon, the friendly navigator of Palos, came forward and helped. Friar Juan went among the population exhorting them to have faith in Columbus as he had faith in him; he explained to them all that he understood of geography, and how, according to his understanding, the Italian was sure to succeed. As we know, a priest was often the only educated man in an entire community, and was looked up to accordingly; and so Friar Juan was able to persuade several respectable men to enter Columbus's service. As for Pinzon, both his moral and his practical support were so great that it is doubtful whether the expedition could have been arranged without him. Long before, at the Rabida conference, he had offered to go as captain; now he induced his two brothers to sign also. Palos, seeing three members of its most important family ready to go, took heart. Pinzon next helped to find the three vessels needed, and put them in order. One of these ships belonged to Juan de la Cosa, a well- known pilot, and Juan himself was prevailed upon to sail with it. (Later this Juan became a great explorer and made the first map of the New World.) Another and less fortunate purchase was of a vessel whose owners regretted the sale the moment they had parted with her; so down they went to where the calkers and painters were making her seaworthy for the voyage, and tried to persuade them to do everything just as badly as it could be done. One can readily see that these were hard days for Christopher Columbus. The preparations that Queen Isabella expected would take only ten days took ten long weeks.

[Illustration: THE THREE CARAVELS OF COLUMBUS.]

When finally ready, Columbus's little fleet consisted of three caravels —the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina (pronounced Neen'ya). A caravel was a small, roundish, stubby sort of craft, galley-rigged, with a double tower at the stern and a single one in the bow. It was much used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries for the herring fisheries which took men far from the coast; and when the Portuguese tried to find far-off India, they too used the caravel form of vessel.

The largest vessel of the "Discovery Fleet" was only sixty-five or seventy feet long by about twenty feet in breadth, and of one hundred tons' burden; Columbus having purposely chosen small ships because they would be better adapted for going close to shore and up rivers. Only the Santa Maria was decked amidships, the others had their cabins at either end. The cross was painted on all the sails. Columbus commanded the Santa Maria, with Juan de la Cosa as pilot; Martin Alonzo Pinzon took the Pinta, and his brother Vincente (pronounced Vin- then'tay) took the Nina.

All told, one hundred men went forth on the famous voyage (although some writers put it at one hundred and twenty) and a number of these had never been to sea before. Among the hundred was a notary to draw up all papers of ownership (when it came to dividing Columbus's tenth part of the gold, precious stones, etc., that should be found); a historian, to keep an official record of all that should occur; a metallurgist, to examine ores; and an orientalist, learned in foreign tongues, who would interpret what the western peoples might say to the newcomers who claimed the heathen lands for Spain. Besides these, there were two other learned men—a physician and a surgeon. Columbus himself was to act as map-maker and chart-maker. Strange to say, there is no record of a priest accompanying the expedition.

The great seriousness of the undertaking was felt more and more in Palos as work on the little caravels progressed. People spoke of it in awed tones and shook their heads dismally. Every day during the last week or two all the crew went religiously and faithfully to church. Columbus, being a religious man, no doubt approved of this; yet it surely would have sent him forth in better spirits if his crew had looked upon his venture more light-heartedly, and less as if they were foredoomed to destruction.

Now that we know the sort of men and ships that were to take part in this mighty enterprise, let us see the sort of charts and maps and instruments our navigator carried along; for until one understands these somewhat, one cannot realize the bravery it took to set out across the Atlantic in 1492. First, as to maps. Now that this world of ours has been so thoroughly explored that every bit of land and water is named and accurately noted, it is difficult for us to understand how the inaccurate, incomplete, fifteenth-century map could have been of any use whatever to an explorer. But we must always remember that our Genoese had a rich imagination. Our maps leave nothing to the imagination, either of the man who makes them or of us who look at them. Fifteenth- century maps, on the contrary, were a positive feast for the fifteenth- century imagination! Their wild beasts and queer legends fascinated as well as terrified. Their three distinct Indies, two in Asia and one in Africa, offered every sailor who was intrepid enough a chance to reach that region of wealth. The latest and most accurate map, marking the Portuguese discoveries, would really have been helpful to any one who had not the "Go West" idea so firmly fixed in his mind; but in that one direction it marked no routes farther than the Madeiras and the Azores. All beyond these islands was wholly imagination.

It was the same with the sea-charts; no soundings or currents were marked. As to instruments, there were the lodestone and the compass, which had been known and used for several centuries; and the astrolabe, a recent improvement on the primitive quadrant for taking the altitude of the sun. The hourglass was the time measurer. In short, in that wonderful fifteenth century, when the surface of the world was doubled, there was nothing scientific about navigation.

Beyond these slight aids, Christopher Columbus had to rely on an imperfect knowledge of astronomy and on those practical observations of wind and weather and water that he had made during his own voyages. Such slender equipment, plus the tub-like little caravels, would not have invited many men to try unknown waters, unless such men had Christopher's blessed gifts of imagination and persistency.

At last the solemn hour has come to those quaking Palos souls. It is early dawn of August 3, and a Friday at that! The Santa Maria and the Pinta and the Nina are moored out in the copper- colored river, ready to go with the tide. Last night the last sack of flour and the last barrel of wine came aboard; likewise, the last straggler of the crew, for they must be ready for the early tide. It is still quite dark, and on the shore all Palos appears to be running about with lanterns. Friar Juan is there to wring the hands of the one-time wanderer who came to his gate, and to assure him that one of the Rabida monks will conduct Columbus's little son Diego safely to Cordova. Columbus is rowed out to the largest ship. He gives the command and those ashore hear the pulling up of anchors, the hoisting of sails, and the cutting of moorings. Then the flags are raised—the Admiral's with a great cross in the center—and down the murky Tinto go the three little caravels with their unwilling, frightened, human freight. Those on shore turn tearfully into church to pray; and those aboard watch the dim outline of Palos fade away; by and by they notice that the reddish Tinto has become the blue ocean sparkling in the early sunshine; but no sparkle enters their timid souls. They can only keep looking longingly backward till the last tawny rocks of Spain and Portugal are left behind, and then there is nothing to do but sigh and mutter a dismal prayer. But Christopher's prayer is one of thankfulness.