Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia / being a concordance of choice tributes to the great Genoese, his grand discovery, and his greatness of mind and purpose

by Unknown

COLUMBUS, 1492.

It was presented to the colony by Sir James Carmichael Smyth, Governor of the Bahamas, 1829-1833, was modeled in London in 1831, is made of metal and painted white, and was erected May, 1832.

Santo Domingo Cathedral.—Above the boveda, or vault, in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, from which the remains of Columbus were taken in 1877, is a marble slab with the following:

Reposaron en este sitio los restos de Don Cristobal Colon el célebre descrubridor del Nuevo Mundo, desde el año de 1536, en que fueron trasladados de España, hasta el 10 de Setiembre 1877, en que se desenterraron para constatar su autenticidad. Y á posteridad la dedica el Presbitero Billini.

(There reposed in this place the remains of Christopher Columbus, the celebrated discoverer of the New World, from the year 1536, in which they were transferred from Spain, until the 10th September, 1877, in which year they were disinterred for the purpose of identification. Dedicated to posterity by Padre Billini) (curate in charge when the vault was opened.)

In the cathedral there is also preserved a large cross of mahogany, rough and uneven, as though hewn with an adze out of a log, and then left in the rough. This, it is claimed, is the cross made by Columbus and erected on the opposite bank of the Ozama River, where the first settlement in the West Indies was made. In a little room by itself they keep a leaden casket, which Santo Domingoans claim contains the bones of Christopher Columbus, and, in another, those of his brother.

Plaza of Santo Domingo.—Humboldt once wrote that America could boast of no worthy monument to its discoverer, but since his time many memorials have been erected, not only in the New World, but the Old. In the plaza in front of the cathedral, in the city of Santo Domingo, stands a statue, heroic, in bronze, representing Columbus pointing to the westward. Crouched at his feet is the figure of a female Indian, supposed to be the unfortunate Anacaona, the caciquess of Xaragua, tracing an inscription:

Yllustre y Esclarecido Varon Don Cristoval Colon.

The statue was cast in France, a few years ago, and stands in the center of the plaza, in front of the cathedral.