THE WATLING'S ISLAND MONUMENT RAISED BY THE CHICAGO "HERALD."
With true Chicago enterprise, the wideawake Chicago Herald dispatched an expedition to the West Indies in 1891 to search out the landing place of Columbus. The members of the party, after careful search and inquiry, erected a monument fifteen feet high on Watling's Island bearing the following inscription:
ON THIS SPOT
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
FIRST SET FOOT ON THE SOIL OF THE NEW WORLD.
Erected by
The Chicago Herald,
June 15, 1891.
COLUMBUS.
FOR THE FESTIVAL AT HUELVA.
Á Castillo, y á Leon
Nuevo Mundo dió Colon.
Theodore Watts, in the Athenæum (England).
To Christ he cried to quell Death's deafening measure,
Sung by the storm to Death's own chartless sea;
To Christ he cried for glimpse of grass or tree
When, hovering o'er the calm, Death watch'd at leisure;
And when he showed the men, now dazed with pleasure,
Faith's new world glittering star-like on the lee,
"I trust that by the help of Christ," said he,
"I presently shall light on golden treasure."
What treasure found he? Chains and pains and sorrow.
Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find
Whose footfalls mark the music of mankind.
'Twas his to lend a life; 'twas man's to borrow;
'Twas his to make, but not to share, the morrow,
Who in love's memory lives this morn enshrined.