lumbus returned to Spain with the two smaller vessels (the larger having been wrecked on the island of Hispaniola), leaving behind him a colony of thirty-nine men, furnished with a year's provisions, and lodged in a fort which had been built of the timber saved from the wreck. During his passage he met with a violent tempest, which threatened him with destruction. In this extremity he gave an admirable proof of his calmness and foresight. He wrote on parchment an account of his discoveries, wrapped it in a piece of oiled cloth, and enclosed it in a cake of wax, which he put into a tight cask and threw into the sea. Another parchment, secured in the same manner, he placed on the stern, that, if the ship should sink, the cask might float, and possibly one or the other might be driven on shore, or taken up at sea by some future navigator. But this precaution proved fruitless. He arrived safe in Spain, in March,† 1493, and was received with the honours due to his merit.

equally politic and Christian, and in fine contrast with the sav age and murderous course pursued by later adventurers.-H.]

* [He set sail from La Navidad Jan. 4th, 1493.-H.]

+ [He reached the mouth of the Tagus on the fourth of the month. The brief and scanty outline of this voyage given in the text may easily be filled out from the ample mate

The account which Columbus gave of his new discoveries, the specimens of gold and other valuable productions, and the sight of the natives which he carried from the West Indies to Spain, were so pleasing that the court determined on another expedition.† But first it was necessary to obtain the sanction of the pope, who readily granted it; and by an imaginary line, drawn from pole to pole, at the distance of one hundred leagues westward of the Azores, he divided between the crowns of Spain and Portugal all the new countries already discovered or to be discovered, giving the western part to the former, and the eastern to the latter. No provision, however, was made in case that they should meet, and their claims should in

rials now before the public. The reader is particularly referred to Irving's Columbus, i., 79-168, the collections of Navarrette, and the First Voyage of Columbus, &c.—H.]

* [He still supposed himself to have touched on the eastern shore of the Continent of India. His imagination, naturally ardent, was excited by all he saw in the new regions he had opened to the world, and still more by the vague accounts he had received from the natives. He fully believed, and honestly reported, that he had found the region of spices, of gold, and of pearls.-H.]

† [The journey of Columbus from Seville to Barcelona, where the court then was, has been likened to a royal progress, and his entrance into Barcelona to a triumph, so great was the joy universally felt for his discoveries, and so great the honour ́s coveroion and the nobles were now disposed to pay him The

terfere on the opposite side of the globe. The bull containing this famous but imperfect line of demarcation was signed by Alexander VI.* on the second day of May, 1493; and on the 28th of the same month, the king and queen of Spain, by a written instrument, explained and confirmed the privileges and powers which they had before granted to Columbus, making the office of viceroy and governor of the Indies hereditary in his fam-ily. On the 25th of September following he sailed from Cadiz, with a fleet of seventeen ships, great and small, well furnished with all necessaries for the voyage, and having on board 1500 people, with horses, cattle, and implements, to establish plantations.†

second voyage was determined on before he left Seville, and the arrangements for it already begun. To secure regularity in all affairs touching the Indies, a superintendent was appointed by the crown, with a treasurer and comptroller; and, to provide for the expenses of the new expedition, a large portion of the church tithes were appropriated, and the property of a multitude of exiled Jews confiscated.-H.]

* [Alexander VI. was by birth a Spaniard. The bull defining the line between the future possessions of Spain and Portugal was issued on the third of May: one had already been granted on the second, giving to the Spaniards the same rights in the lands discovered by them which had been previously given to the Portuguese.-Irving., i., 187. The grant was made on the condition of planting in them the Catholic faith.-H.]

[There was, this time, no lack of adventurers. The covetVOL. I.-Q

On Sunday, the third of November, he dis

covered an island, to which, in honour of the day, he gave the name of Dominica.* Afterward he discovered in succession other islands, which he called Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Montserrat, Redonda, Antigua, St. Martin's, St. Ursula, and St. John. On the 12th of November he came to Navidad,† on the north side of Hispaniola, where he had built his fort and left his colony; but he had the mortification to find that the people were all dead, and that the fort had been destroyed.

The account given by the natives of the loss of the colony was, that they fell into discord among themselves on the usual subjects of controversy, women and gold; that, having provoked a chief, whose name was Canaubo, he came against them with a superior force, and destroyed them; that some of the natives, in attempting to defend them, had been killed, and others were then ill of their

ous and the heroic, soldiers and priests, gentlemen and nobles, all were eager to embark in an enterprise in which gain or fame was to be won.-H.]

* [From having discovered it on Sunday, Dies Dominica, i. e., the Lord's Day.-H.]

† [Nov. 14 he discovered Santa Cruz; still later, an island which he called St. Juan Bautista, now called Porto Rico, and cast anchor off La Navidad on the 27th.-Irving, i., 217.—H.]

wounds, which, on inspection, appeared to have been made with Indian weapons.

Columbus prudently forbore to make any critical inquiry into the matter, but hasted to establish another colony, in a more eligible situation, to the eastward, which he called Isabella, after his royal patroness. He had many difficulties to contend with besides those which unavoidably attend undertakings of such novelty and magnitude. Nature, in

deed, was bountiful: the soil and climate produced vegetation with a rapidity to which the Spaniards had not been accustomed. From wheat sown at the end of January, full ears were gathered at the end of March. The stones of fruit, the slips of vines, and the joints of sugarcane sprouted in seven days, and many other seeds in half the time. This was an encouraging prospect; but the slow operations of agriculture did not meet the views of sanguine adventurers. The numerous followers of Columbus, some of whom were of the best families in Spain, had conceived hopes of suddenly enriching themselves by the precious metals of those new regions, and were not disposed to listen to his recommendations of patience and industry in cultivating the earth. The natives were