Children's Stories in American History

by Henrietta Christian Wright

But there were some people who really believed there was land lying across the great sea, and one of those persons was Columbus.

He was a very wise man, and had learned all that was then known of geography, and he felt sure from many things that the earth was round in shape, and that if he sailed west across the Atlantic, he would come to land. He did not dream of finding a new country, but he thought that the world was much smaller than it really is, and that by sailing westward he would come to India much sooner than by going the usual way.

At that time India was a very important country. Very rare and beautiful things were brought from there, such as silks, gold, pearls, ivory, diamonds, rare woods, and many other costly and useful things. Great companies of men were all the time going and coming overland to and from India, and it took a long time, and was a very expensive way of going. The merchants travelled part of the way on horses and part of the way on camels, and the long caravan would go winding across the desert, and through mountain passes, over the plains, guided by the stars, or resting at night around great fires; and if you could see such a sight now you would think it was a great gypsy camp. Then, oftentimes, people who wished to travel to India, or to the places on the way thither, would join these caravans, as it was much the cheaper and safer way, and so there would be found every kind of people travelling together—Jews, Arabs, Spaniards, Dutch, and many others—all on their way to obtain those wonderful and beautiful things from the East; if you had lived at that time, and had started on a journey to India, it would have been as different from such a journey now as you can imagine. Then, after leaving Europe you would have travelled all the way on the back of a camel; and although these caravans sometimes moved during the day, resting at night, still, much the greater part of the travelling, owing to the heat of the sun, was done in the night-time. About ten o'clock at night you would have heard the sound of the trumpets. This was to tell you that the caravan was about to move on. Then the tents were folded up, the camels loaded with the merchandise, the travellers mounted on their horses or camels, and about midnight, after the third blast from the trumpets, the march would begin. Great kettles of burning pitch would send their flames flashing over the desert, and the men and beasts travelled onward through the night by this ruddy gleam. Sometimes, in the earlier part of the journey, the line of march would lay along the sea, and then the thunder of its waves would be heard mingling with the songs of the slaves and the bells of the camels. Riding across a desert is much like sailing across the sea. There is very little variety. You see the same thing day after day. In sailing, you see the sea and sky, and occasionally a ship's sail; in journeying across a desert you see the sand and sky, sometimes an Arab or two looking wonderingly at the caravan before darting off to their hidden retreats, and more often only the bones of camels and elephants scattered on either side of the route, and dazzling the sight with their white gleam. The only thing that would break in upon the sameness would be the stops at the springs for water and rest, when the sacks of food and wine were unpacked from the camels, and the travellers would alight and stay until the heat of the day was past.

Of course, you little American boys and girls have never travelled in this way, but it was the usual way at that time, and much labor and time and money it cost; and so it was considered that it would be a great gain to the world if people could find a shorter way of going to India, and this was one reason why Columbus wished to see if the world were really round. For, of course, if it were round, India, they said, must be right on the other side of the Atlantic. You see they had no idea that this big America lay in the way between them and India. They thought that, at the most, there were only some large islands there.

And so Columbus thought it all over and decided to try for himself, and see if he could reach India by sailing across the ocean. But he was to have many disappointments before he started off. In the first place, very few people thought as he did about the shape of the earth, and the different countries were unwilling to risk men and money in an undertaking which they were sure would amount to nothing. Columbus tried to obtain help from his own people; first, from the republic of Genoa, then from the republic of Venice, and the court of Portugal, and for seven years he tried to get help from Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain. And at last, after ten years of waiting and seeking, the wished-for help came. Isabella, queen of Spain, listened to Columbus' plans, and liked them so much that she said she would send the expedition out at the expense of her own kingdom of Castile, and, if necessary, would pawn her jewels to get enough of money; but this last she did not have to do.

It was hard work to find sailors willing to go on this long voyage across the unknown seas, and many of the men had to be forced into the service; but after three months' delay the expedition was ready, and on August 3, 1492, the three ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, left the port of Palos on the most wonderful voyage that has ever been undertaken—the voyage which ended in the discovery of the great New World.

And so Columbus sailed away toward the sun setting. In about a month he reached and passed the Canary Islands, the farthest known land. This was on Sunday, September 6, 1492. And then the voyage really began. The day passed, and, as the sky and the sea grew dark, the sailors became terrified, and when at last night fell, and they lost sight of the land which bordered the great sea of darkness, they wept from fear, and said they should never return to their homes. Columbus had a hard time to quiet their fears, but finally they grew calm and listened to his descriptions of the beautiful country toward which they were sailing. And so they went on, sometimes hopeful and sometimes despairing, and once they made a plot to throw Columbus overboard and then turn the ships about and go home, but happily this was not carried out. As they advanced, the oldest sailors were deceived by frequent signs of land. On the 26th they entered into a region where the air was soft and balmy, and fields of sea-weed began to appear. "This day and the day after," said Columbus, "the air was so mild that it wanted but the song of the nightingales, to make it like the month of April in Andalusia."

One evening, just as the sun was going down there came a cry of "Land!" from the Pinta, which was leading the other ships. Columbus had promised a reward to him who should first see land, and Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who was ahead in the Pinta, now claimed the reward. He said that he saw land in the west; they all looked and saw a dark, cloudy mass about twenty-five leagues away. Columbus and the sailors knelt and sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo; but in the morning, when they looked again for the hoped-for land, they saw nothing but the wide sea stretching away as far as the eye could see. The land which Martin Pinzon had seen from the stern of the Pinta had been but a cloud, which had disappeared in the night.

But Columbus sailed on with hope and faith in his heart. Again and again they thought they saw land, and again and again they were disappointed; but at last they saw land-birds flying around, a piece of carved wood was picked up by the Pinta, and the Nina secured a branch of thorn with red berries, which was drifting by, and Columbus felt sure that they were near their journey's end. The men were called to evening prayer, and the vesper hymn to the Virgin floated out over the waves of the Atlantic, the first time probably that a Christian hymn had ever been sung upon that darkening sea. Then Columbus ordered a double watch to be set. "We shall see land in the morning," said he. He spent the entire night on the deck; no one slept; they were all too much excited at the prospect of seeing land. Can you not imagine how rejoiced Columbus must have been to think that at last his long and weary voyage was nearly over, and that he had been right in saying that the world was round, and that there was land across the ocean? Ah! no one can understand how he felt, for no one before or since ever started out on such a voyage as that. A voyage across the great, mysterious, unknown sea, which was supposed to extend to the ends of the earth, and on whose farther borders demons and terrible beasts were thought to live.

At ten o'clock that night Columbus, looking wistfully seaward, saw a light; he called to two of the sailors, one of whom saw the light and one did not. At two o'clock the next morning, being Friday, October 12, 1492, the Pinta fired a gun, the signal for land. Rodrigo Triana, a sailor of the Pinta, was the first who saw the New World. The ships lay to, and all waited impatiently for morning.