Columbus immediately began to prepare for another voyage. With a fleet of seventeen ships, bearing supplies and colonists, he sailed across the Sea of Darkness once more to the islands of the New World. He planted a colony there. He discovered other islands. And he still kept on searching diligently for Cathay the Golden.
Turbulent adventurers, rapacious gold-hunters, and vicious men, were among the colonists. And Columbus, in the name of his Sovereigns, with great difficulty ruled over them all.
THE FATAL PEARLS
Tierra Firme
It was in May, 1498. The fleet of Admiral Don Christopher Columbus, in the name of the Holy Trinity, set sail from Spain for a third voyage across the Atlantic.
It was no longer a Sea of Darkness to Columbus, but a sure pathway to golden lands. There he still hoped to find the Earthly Paradise from which Adam and Eve had been driven. And there too, he still expected to discover Cathay the Golden in Tartary, and Cipango, the great island of the western sea, which we call Japan.
His ships sailed on, now plunging through the lifting billows, now lying becalmed on glassy waters under the fierce rays of the tropic sun, and now moving through a region of balmy airs and light refreshing breezes.
July arrived, yet he had not sighted land. The fierce heat of the sun had sprung the seams of the ships. The provisions were rancid. There was scarcely any sweet water left in the casks. The anxious, watchful Admiral scanned the horizon.
On the last day of the month, came a shout from the masthead:—“Land!”
And Columbus beheld the peaks of three mountains rising from the sea, outlined sharply against the sky. Then he and his men, lifting up their voices, sang anthems of praise and repeated prayers of thanksgiving.