Strength of purpose and strength of will had won the day. Had the Genoese mariner given in to discouragement when his half-criminal sailors grew mutinous and wished to return to Spain after they had passed the Sargossa Sea, to some one else would have belonged the honor of the discovery of the West Indies. Had he not used a firm hand in dealing with them, they would have marooned him on one of the islands which he discovered and would have left him there to die. Had he not been sure that he would find what he was after, Queen Isabella would not have aided him to glory and renown. Great and valiant Sailor, you should indeed be remembered with reverence, for you knew how to triumph over doubt and discouragement and your faith was sublime! All honor then to Christopher Columbus!
The remaining adventures of this gallant soul can be briefly narrated. Upon a second voyage to the West Indies he found the men whom he had left behind him had all been murdered by the Indians. After Columbus had sailed to Spain the Spaniards had stolen some of the Indian women and had consequently stirred up the wrath of the great chief who lived in the interior of the island of Hayti, where they had been instructed to build a fort and live until the return of their companions. A row of graves under the swaying palm trees showed where once had been thirty-nine adventurous souls from Palos in Spain.
The Spaniards came over in numbers after this expedition, but, although they founded a city and attempted to settle in the new world, there were continual dissensions with the natives; fights; ambuscades; massacres. The men from Castile were lazy; greedy for gold; cruel to the natives; and treated them brutally when the poor Indians could not furnish them with the glittering metal which they so keenly desired. Then the more rapacious ones turned on Columbus himself, threw him in irons on one occasion, and continually derided him to the King of Spain, who, because the Indies did not produce the revenues which he had expected them to, turned coldly upon the mariner from Palos, and rather took the part of these malcontents against him. Like all persons who reach a certain pinnacle of greatness, Columbus could not remain a popular idol, for all men are human and he had the ambitions of others to contend with. There were fights with the natives; fights among the Colonists themselves; fights with the malaria, the yellow fever, and with other diseases.
Columbus himself fared badly. After the death of good Queen Isabella, Ferdinand would not aid him in the least. He had saved no money, after all these adventures, and, as his life drew to a close, had to live by borrowing. He did not even own a home in Spain, and had to reside at Inns and at boarding houses. Alone, neglected, miserable, poor, he finally passed to another and better world, on May the twentieth 1500. He was seventy years of age.
Buried in the convent of St. Francisco, at Valladolid, Spain, his body was removed to the monastery of Las Cuevas at Seville, and, still later, to the cathedral of San Domingo at Hispaniola. But again it was taken up, and transported by vessel to Havana, Cuba, that rich tropic isle which the great navigator himself had discovered. Here to-day it is lying, and the sad spirit of this strange man of destiny hovers over the richest of all the possessions which Spain held in the West Indies, until wrested from her feeble grasp by the people of the United States in the year 1898, and magnanimously presented to the Cuban people themselves, to govern as they wished.
Could the poor old mariner, as he lay dying at Valladolid, have but looked forward into the centuries and seen the New World which he had discovered, he would have indeed been well satisfied. Had he known that a great Exposition would have been held to his memory and fame, and could he have guessed that the children of the civilized world would ever afterwards be taught the history of his life, of his perseverance, his courage, and his faith, he would indeed have been cheered in those last cheerless and poverty-stricken days.
In the career of this poor Italian dreamer, studying in every moment of leisure, asking assistance year after year from crowned heads until he was fifty-six years of age, in order that he might make his immortal discoveries, is a lesson to all who feel that their lives have not been perhaps worth while as they near middle age. The lesson is:—keep on trying to win, and, even though you may not be appreciated during your lifetime, history will always give you a proper niche in the temple of fame. And do not believe that youth is the only time for adventurous discoveries. Columbus did not sail upon his epoch-making journey towards the West until after he had reached his fifty-sixth year. Middle age and perseverance, then, are good aids to place one within the halls of the immortals.
THE SONG OF THE ISLANDER
O brother, good brother, look out on the bay,