When we think of a voyage across the Atlantic nowadays, we think of vessels as large as the big three-masted ships or the great ocean steamers—­vessels over six hundred feet long and fifty feet wide.  But these “ships” of Columbus were not really ships.  They were hardly larger than the “fishing smacks” that sail up and down our coast to-day.  Some of them were not so large.  The Santa Maria was, as I have told you, the largest of the three, and she was only sixty-three feet long, twenty feet wide and ten and a half feet deep.  Just measure this out on the ground and see how small, after all, the Admiral’s “flag-ship” really was.  The Pinta was even smaller than this, while the little Nina was hardly anything more than a good-sized sail boat.  Do you wonder that the poor people of Palos and the towns round about were frightened when they thought of their fathers and brothers and sons putting out to sea, on the great ocean they had learned to dread so much, in such shaky little boats as these?

But finally the vessels were ready.  The crews were selected.  The time had come to go.  Most of the sailors were Spanish men from the towns near to the sea, but somehow a few who were not Spaniards joined the crew.

One of the first men to land in America from one of the ships of Columbus was an Irishman named William, from the County Galway.  And another was an Englishman named either Arthur Laws or Arthur Larkins.  The Spanish names for both these men look very queer, and only a wise scholar who digs among names and words could have found out what they really were.  But such a one did find it out, and it increases our interest in the discovery of America to know that some of our own northern blood—­the Irishman and the Englishman—­were in the crews of Columbus.

The Admiral Columbus was so sure he was going to find a rich and civilized country, such as India and Cathay were said to be, that he took along on his ships the men he would need in such places as he expected to visit and among such splendid people as he was sure he should meet.  He took along a lawyer to make out all the forms and proclamations and papers that would have to be sent by the Admiral to the kings and princes he expected to visit; he had a secretary and historian to write out the story of what he should find and what he should do.  There was a learned Jew, named Louis, who could speak almost a dozen languages, and who could, of course, tell him what the people of Cathay and Cipango and the Indies were talking about.  There was a jeweler and silversmith who knew all about the gold and silver and precious stones that Columbus was going to load the ships with; there was a doctor and a surgeon; there were cooks and pilots, and even a little fellow, who sailed in the Santa Maria as the Admiral’s cabin boy, and whose name was Pedro de Acevedo.