over the matter once more. She wrote back that she would like to hear what her friend the monk might have to say about it. He started the very night he received the queen’s letter, and talked with her about converting to the Christian faith the people of the new lands Columbus might discover. As a result of this talk the good monk wrote to Columbus who, with his young son, was waiting at the monastery:
“Our Lord has heard his servants’ prayers. My heart swims in a sea of comfort and my spirit leaps with joy. Start quickly, for the queen awaits you, and I yet more than she. Commend me to the prayers of my brethren and of the little Diego. The grace of God be with you.”
The queen received Columbus this time with sympathy and kindness. She is said to have pledged her jewels to raise money enough to fit out three ships for his great voyage. Columbus was to command one of these and the monk’s friends were to be captains of the other two. But after making the little fleet ready, they could not induce sailors to man the vessels for their ghastly voyage across the Sea of Outer Darkness. Sailors were always superstitious. Even to-day they will not start out on Friday, and many seafaring men will refuse to sail with a ship if the flag should happen to be raised “union down,” or wrong side up, no matter how quickly it may be set right. At last Columbus had to take convicts out of prison and condemn them to hard labor as sailors for the terrible trial trip. Some of these men were desperate criminals.
The unknown western sea was far wider than Columbus had thought. This showed that the world must be much larger than he supposed. As they sailed on and on, day after day and week after week, across the untraveled sea, the superstitious convict-sailors were half-dead with fear. They planned to murder the Admiral, as Columbus was now called, and his two captains, in order to turn the ship about and go back before they were engulfed in some great whirlpool of disaster. Columbus kept himself well guarded, and coaxed and flattered the frightened creatures, promising them all kinds of wealth and pleasures if they would only keep on a day or two longer. He offered an extra prize to the man who first caught sight of land.
On the night of the 11th of October, 1492, one of the sailors saw a glimmering light to the west. On the morning of the 12th, the Admiral was an early riser. There lay a tropical island, with “gardens of the most beautiful trees I ever saw,” he said afterward. The sea was as deep blue as that along the shores of his native Italy. He and his two captains went ashore, with well-armed men in boats from all three ships. The water was clear and the bottom was white with sand and shells, while strange, bright fish darted about as they paddled along. On the island were parrots and other birds of gay plumage flitting from tree to tree as if startled by the coming of the first white men into their world. Columbus did not need his armed soldiers. After looking a long while he saw naked red men peering at them from behind the strange, tropical plants. After he made signs of friendship, the natives were no longer afraid.
Christopher Columbus was first to set foot on the new-found shore. Falling on his knees, his eyes filled with tears of joy, he bowed his face and kissed the sand of the new world. The happy company repeated prayers and sang a hymn of praise. The naked natives looked on with wonder to see the leader, who was dressed in rich red velvet, set up a red, white, and gold banner—the combined flag of Ferdinand and Isabella—and go through a long ceremony. They did not know that those white strangers were claiming the country in the name of a king and queen far across the sea. Columbus named this island—one of the group now called Bahamas—San Salvador, or Holy Saviour. He still thought he had reached the Far East.
Admiral Columbus returned to Spain to report upon his reaching eastern India by sailing west. With him went ten of the red men he had found, whom he called Indians. He made several voyages after that—only once landing on the continent of South America. Some of his Spanish followers were jealous of their Italian Admiral, and Columbus died in a prison in Spain, after all he had done for that country, without even knowing that it was America, not India, that he had discovered.