A VISIT TO PALOS.
I can not express to you what were my feelings on treading the shore which had once been animated by the bustle of departure, and whose sands had been printed by the last footstep of Columbus. The solemn and sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the silent and empty stage of some great drama when all the actors had departed. The very aspect of the landscape, so tranquilly beautiful, had an effect upon me, and as I paced the deserted shore by the side of a descendant of one of the discoverers I felt my heart swelling with emotion and my eyes filling with tears.—Ibid.
COLUMBUS AT SALAMANCA.
Columbus appeared in a most unfavorable light before a select assembly—an obscure navigator, a member of no learned institution, destitute of all the trappings and circumstances which sometimes give oracular authority to dullness, and depending on the mere force of natural genius.
Some of the junta entertained the popular notion that he was an adventurer, or at best a visionary; and others had that morbid impatience which any innovation upon established doctrine is apt to produce in systematic minds. What a striking spectacle must the hall of the old convent have presented at this memorable conference! A simple mariner standing forth in the midst of an imposing array of professors, friars, and dignitaries of the Church, maintaining his theory with natural eloquence, and, as it were, pleading the cause of the New World.—Ibid.
A MEMORIAL TO COLUMBUS AT OLD ISABELLA.
From the Sacred Heart Review of Boston, Mass.
Early in September, 1891, the proposition of erecting a monument to Columbus on the site of his first settlement in the New World, at Old Isabella, in Santo Domingo, was first broached to the Sacred Heart Review of Boston by Mr. Thomas H. Cummings of that city. As the first house built by Columbus in the settlement was a church, it was suggested that such a monument would indeed fitly commemorate the starting-point and rise of Christian civilization in America. The Review entered heartily into the project, and steps were at once taken to secure a suitable plot of ground for the site of the monument. Plans were also drawn of a monument whose estimated cost would be from $3,000 to $5,000. A design which included a granite plinth and ball three feet in diameter, surmounting a pyramid of coral and limestone twenty feet high,[41] was transmitted, through the Dominican consul-general at New York to the Dominican government in Santo Domingo. Accompanying this plan was a petition, of which the following is a copy, setting forth the purpose of the Review, and asking certain concessions in return:
"Boston, Mass., October 7, 1891.
"Hon. Fco. Leonte Vazques, Dominican Consul-general, "New York City.