seemed to argue the existence of land in that direction. Martin Vicenti, a pilot in the Portuguese service, had picked up a piece of carved wood floating in the ocean four hundred and fifty leagues west of St Vincent, which, as the wind was westerly, he concluded must have come from some land opposite to Africa. Columbus's brother-in-law, Pedro Correa, had seen a similar piece of wood, which had drifted across the ocean from the same quarter; and had also heard of large canes seen floating on the waves west of Madeira, apparently resembling the reeds known to be produced in the East Indies. It was likewise reported that, when the wind had blown long from the west, trunks of huge pine-trees were often cast ashore upon the Azores; and that once two dead bodies, evidently the corpses neither of Europeans nor Africans, were driven upon the beach of the island of Flores. All these and many other arguments convinced Columbus that the East Indies could be reached by sailing westward from Gibraltar, or the western coast of Africa. Every circumstance corroborative of this view which came to his knowledge he diligently noted down; and at last the conviction became so strong, that he conceived himself to be expressly destined by God for the great work of discovering a new world. No doubt a hesitation remained in his mind; and his only wish was to find the means of making the contemplated voyage. Once launched upon the Atlantic, he was absolutely certain that, after having sailed seven or eight hundred leagues to the west of the Canaries, he would come upon Marco Polo's island of Cipango, or the dominions of the great khan of Tartary. Impressed with these delusive convictions, Columbus was eager to make application to some of the governments of Europe for means to make a voyage of discovery on the Atlantic. He first applied to John II., king of Portugal, who inherited the enterprising spirit of his grand-uncle Prince Henry, and in whose reign the means of finding the latitude at sea had been discovered. Columbus, without much difficulty, obtained an interview with the Portuguese monarch, to whom he explained his scheme of reaching the East Indies, not by the route round Africa, which all other navigators were pursuing, but by a shorter one across the Atlantic. Various accounts are given of the manner in which the proposal was received. John himself was a wise and magnanimous prince, and he appears to have been much impressed by the earnestness of the noble-looking foreigner who addressed him. Naturally cautious, however, of patronising an enterprise which might turn out to be a mere chimera, he referred the matter to some of his counsellors, who dissuaded him from engaging in it. Still, such was the effect of Columbus's representations, that John did not at once dismiss the project. On the contrary, by a piece of meanness not agreeing with his general character, he followed the advice of some of his counsellors, and having, on false pretences, procured from Columbus a detailed plan of his contemplated voyage, with maps and charts to correspond, he secretly despatched a vessel to ascertain the practicability of the intended route. The vessel actually sailed a considerable way beyond the Cape Verd islands; but a storm arising, the crew became afraid to venture farther, and put back, reporting that Columbus's notion was mad and irrational. Indignant at this unjust treatment, Columbus, whose wife had for some time been dead, secretly left Lisbon, taking with him his young son Diego. The reason for his leaving the city secretly is said by some to have been the fear of being prevented by the government; by others, the fear of being apprehended for debts which he was unable to pay. Proceeding to his native city of Genoa, he renewed an offer which he had previously made by letter, of conducting the enterprise under the patronage of the Genoese government-an offer which was contemptuously refused, Genoa being already in the decline of her fortunes, and too broken-spirited to engage in any more bold enterprises. It is said that Columbus's next offer was made to the Venetian government; which, however, is improbable. The usual account, also, of his sending his brother Bartholomew at this time to England to propose the scheme to Henry VII., is incorrect: it was not till the year 1488, when the negotiations with Spain had begun, that Bartholomew proceeded to England on this errand. COLUMBUS'S NEGOTIATIONS IN SPAIN. Spain was the country to which Columbus looked with the greatest hope after the rejection of his scheme by Portugal. No country at that time occupied the attention of Europe so much as Spain. By the marriage of Ferdinand II. of Aragon with Isabella of Castile, the whole of the peninsula, except Portugal, had been consolidated into one powerful kingdom. Ruling separately over their distinct territories-the wise, cold, and wary Ferdinand over his subjects of Aragon, and the generous and high-souled Isabella over hers of Castile-the two made it their common endeavour to promote the glory of Spain, and raise its reputation as one of the first powers of Christendom. They were at this time engaged in a war with Granada, the last of the Moorish kingdoms in Spain; and all their energies were occupied in the accomplishment of what was then regarded a noble and chivalrous enterprise-the entire expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula. Spain, accordingly, was then the land of daring deeds, and hither our poor Italian resolved to bend his steps, with the scheme of a new world. In Andalusia, one of the most southern of the Spanish provinces, and next to Granada, is an insignificant little seaport, of the name of Palos de Moguer. At a little distance from this village stood, and we believe still stands, a Franciscan convent, dedicated to Santa Marie de Rabida. One day, late in the year 1485, a stranger on foot, accompanied by a little boy, stopped at he the convent gate and begged a little bread and water for his child. The stranger was of a noble aspect, venerable from his white hairs, and interesting from his foreign accent. While the porter of the convent was supplying him with what he had asked, the prior, Juan Perez de Marchena, chanced to pass, and, struck with the stranger's appearance, he entered into conversation with him. The stranger informed him that his name was Columbus, and that, with his son, he was on his way to the neighbouring town of Huelva, where his brother-in-law resided. Inviting him into the convent, the prior soon learned the rest of his story; and instantly conceiving a wonderful affection for the extraordinary man whom Providence had thus cast in his way, insisted on his taking up his residence with him until a fit time should arrive for proceeding to the court of the Spanish sovereigns. Himself a man of information and ability, Juan Perez entered heartily into Columbus's views, and sent for such scientific sons in the neighbourhood as he thought would be able to form a judgment on the matter. Here, in the midst of a little club of listeners, gathered in the evenings in the comfortable apartment of the prior, did Columbus produce his charts and expound his project in the winter of 1485-6; and long afterwards, in the height of his fame, did the great navigator remember Juan Perez, his first kind friend in Spain. per Early in the year 1486 Columbus set out for Cordova, where the Spanish court then resided, making preparations for a spring campaign against the Moors of Granada. He left his son Diego under the charge of the worthy prior, who, to add to his other kindnesses, furnished him with a letter of introduction to Fernando de Talavera, prior of Prado, and confessor of Queen Isabella—a man, therefore, of some importance, and likely to be of use to him. The letter proved of small avail; either Juan Perez had overrated his influence with so great a personage as Talavera, or Talavera was too busy to pay any attention to the poor Italian enthusiast who was introduced to him. Neither Columbus nor his project appears to have been mentioned to the Spanish sovereigns; and the campaign against the Moors having commenced, there was no hope of his obtaining an interview with them for some time. While the court was thus shifting about, Columbus remained in Cordova, supporting himself, as before, by his skill in designing maps. Here also his worth, his noble appearance, and the modest enthusiasm of his manners, gained him many kind friends, through whom he made the acquaintance of Mendoza, archbishop of Toledo, and grand cardinal of Spain. Mendoza, after being satisfied that there was something more in Columbus's project than a mere vague fancy, procured him an audience with Ferdinand and Isabella. The able Ferdinand instantly perceived the propriety of at least inquiring into the scheme which was proposed to him; he therefore referred the matter to Fernando de Talavera, the above mentioned prior, to whom Columbus had already been introduced instructing him to hold a council of the most learned geographers and scientific men to examine and report on the plan submitted by Columbus. Few meetings ever held are more interesting to us now than the great meeting of scientific men held in the convent of St Stephen, at Salamanca, to investigate into the feasibility of Columbus's project of reaching the East Indies by sailing due west. There were assembled all the sages of Spain, professors of astronomy, geography, and mathematics, most of them churchmen, together with a number of learned friars and ecclesiastical dignitaries in their robes; and in the midst of them all stood a simple mariner of Genoa, ready to explain his scheme and answer questions. A great majority seem to have been prepossessed against Columbus from the beginning, arguing that of necessity he must be wrong, seeing that it was not in the nature of things that one man could know better about such matters than all the rest of the world. Others, however, favoured him so far as to be ready at least to enter into argument with him. The arguments produced against him were of the strangest kind—a mixture of crude science with religious dogmas-quotations from Scripture interpreted in the oddest manner; together with extracts from the Greek and Latin fathers. To all the objections urged Columbus answered with firmness and modesty, failing, however, as may be supposed, to convince men against long-cherished prejudice, backed by an erroneous interpretation of Scripture. The deliberations of the assembly were interrupted by the departure of the court from Cordova in the spring of 1487. No answer had as yet been given to Columbus with respect to his project; on the whole, however, there seemed little hope of a favourable one. The next five years were occupied by the Spanish sovereigns in the war against Granada, so that they had no leisure to enter personally into a consideration of the merits of the proposal made to them by the Genoese navigator. During all that time Columbus waited patiently, generally residing at Cordova, where, it is said, the children in the streets used to point to their foreheads as he passed, bidding each other look at the mad Italian; sometimes, however, following the court in its journeys from place to place, and even taking part in the sieges and battles in which the Spanish troops were engaged. His hopes seem to have alternately risen and sunk during these five years. In the year 1488 he appears to have despaired of a favourable issue to his application; for in that year he despatched his brother Bartholomew Columbus to England to make an offer of his project to Henry VII. Unfortunately, Bartholomew was captured by pirates on the voyage, and was not able to reach England for some years, otherwise Spain might have been for ever deprived of the advantages offered her; for when the scheme was ultimately proposed to Henry VII., he embraced it more warmly than any monarch to whom it had been broached before. In the same year, 1488, Columbus received a letter from the king of Portugal, inviting him to return to that country; but he refused the invitation. In the winter of 1491, when the Spanish monarchs were about to commence their last Moorish campaign, Columbus received an answer to his frequent applications. He was informed that the expenses of the war prevented the sovereigns from engaging at present in any new enterprise, but that, when the war was over, his scheme would be again considered. This was most disheartening to one who had waited so long. Already advanced in years, he began to fear that death would overtake him before he had obtained the means of accomplishing his design. He resolved to quit Spain. Before doing so, however, he offered his scheme to two of the Spanish nobles, whose wealth and importance made them almost independent princes-the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Duke of Medina Celi. Both, after some delay, refused to engage in the project, as too ambitious for any but a great sovereign. Columbus, therefore, hesitated no longer, but prepared to go to France, where he anticipated a more favourable reception. Before setting out, he proceeded to the convent at Palos, to visit his friend Juan Perez, and to bring away his son Diego, whom, with his other son, Fernando, he intended to leave at Cordova. When his old friend the prior saw Columbus once more at the gate of his monastery, after several years of vain solicitation at court, he was deeply affected. He intreated him by all means to remain in the country. He had been father confessor to the queen, and thought he might still exercise an influence over her mind. He accordingly proceeded to Santa Fé, where the sovereigns were in person superintending the siege of the capital of Granada. Perez obtained a ready access to the queen. He laid before her the propositions of Columbus with freedom and eloquence. Isabella was moved with the grandeur of the project. The principles upon which it was founded, the advantages that would result from its success, and the glory it would shed upon Spain, were for the first time represented to her in their true colours. She promised her patronage to the undertaking. Columbus was summoned to court, and 20,000 maravedies, equivalent to upwards of £40 of our money, were sent him to pay his travelling expenses; and he arrived in time to witness the memorable surrender of Granada to the Spanish arms. It was now only necessary to agree upon the terms of the proposed enterprise. Columbus would listen only to princely conditions. A meaner spirit, after years of unsuccessful toil, poverty, and disappointment, would have been glad to secure the assistance of the sovereigns on such arrangements as their own liberality might dictate. But Columbus stipulated his own rewards and honours, and would consent |