[Footnote 2:  There is reason to believe that about the year 1000 A.D. the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named Leif Ericsson.  The records are very meager; but the discovery of our country by such a people is possible and not improbable.  For an account of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske’s Discovery of America, Vol.  I., pp. 148-255.]

[Illustration:  Santa Maria]

His course led first to the Canary Islands, where he turned and went directly westward.  The earth was not then generally believed to be round.  Men supposed it to be flat, and the only parts of it known to Europeans were Iceland, the British Isles, the continent of Europe, a small part of Asia, and a strip along the coast of the northern part of Africa.  The ocean on which Columbus was now embarked, and which in our time is crossed in less than a week, was then utterly unknown, and was well named “The Sea of Darkness.”  Little wonder, then, that as the shores of the last of the Canaries sank out of sight on the 9th of September, many of the sailors wept, wailed, and loudly bemoaned their cruel fate.  After sailing for what seemed a very long time, they saw signs of land.  But when no land appeared, their hopes gave way to fear, and they rose against Columbus in order to force him to return.

[Illustration:  Nina]

But he calmed their fears, explained the sights they could not understand, hid from them the true distance sailed, and kept steadily on westward till October 7, when a flock of land birds were seen flying to the southwest.  Pinzon (peen-thon’), who commanded one of the vessels, begged Columbus to follow the birds, as they seemed to be going toward land.  Had the little fleet kept on its way, it would have brought up on the coast of Florida.  But Columbus yielded to Pinzon.  The ships were headed southwestward, and about ten o’clock on the night of October 11, Columbus saw a light moving in the distance.  It was made by the inhabitants going from hut to hut on a neighboring coast.  At dawn the shore itself was seen by a sailor, and Columbus, followed by many of his men, hastened to the beach, where, October 12, 1492, he raised a huge cross, and took possession of the country in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, who had supplied him with caravels and men.[1] He had landed on one of a group of islands which we call the Bahamas.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Columbus called the new land San Salvador (sahn sahl-vah-dor’, Holy Savior), because October 12, the day on which it was discovered, was so named in the Spanish calendar.]

[Footnote 2:  Three islands of this group, Cat, Turks, and Watlings, have rival claims as the landing place of Columbus.  At present, Watlings Island is believed to be the one on which he first set foot.  Read an account of the voyage in Fiske’s Discovery of America, Vol.  I., pp. 408-442; Irving’s Life and Voyages of Columbus, Vol.  I., Book III.]