For nearly a week the ships sailed over these vast sea-meadows, and when they were out of them they struck what we call the trade-winds—­a never-failing breeze that blew them ever westward.  Then the sailors cried out that they were in an enchanted land where there was but one wind and never a breeze to blow the poor sailors home again.  Were they not fearfully “scarey?” But no doubt we should have been so, too, if we had been with them and knew no more than they did.

And when they had been over fifty days from home on the twenty-fifth of September, some one suddenly cried Land!  Land!  And all hands crowded to the side.  Sure enough, they all saw it, straight ahead of them—­fair green islands and lofty hills and a city with castles and temples and palaces that glittered beautifully in the sun.

Then they all cried for joy and sang hymns of praise and shouted to each other that their troubles were over.  Cathay, it is Cathay! they cried; and they steered straight for the shining city.  But, worst of all their troubles, even as they sailed toward the land they thought to be Cathay, behold! it all disappeared—­island and castle and palace and temple and city, and nothing but the tossing sea lay all about them.

For this that they had seen was what is called a mirage—­a trick of the clouds and the sun and the sea that makes people imagine they see what they would like to, but really do not.  But after this Columbus had a harder time than ever with his men, for they were sure he was leading them all astray.

And so with frights and imaginings and mysteries like these, with strange birds flying about the ships and floating things in the water that told of land somewhere about them, with hopes again and again disappointed, and with the sailors growing more and more restless and discontented, and muttering threats against this Italian adventurer who, was leading the ships and sailors of the Spanish king to sure destruction, Columbus still sailed on, as full of patience and of faith, as certain of success as he had ever been.

On the seventh of October, 1492, the true record that Columbus was keeping showed that he had sailed twenty-seven hundred miles from the Canaries; the false record that the sailors saw said they had sailed twenty-two hundred miles.  Had Columbus kept straight on, he would have landed very soon upon the coast of Florida or South Carolina, and would really have discovered the mainland of America.  But Captain Alonso Pinzon saw what looked like a flock of parrots flying south.  This made him think the land lay that way; so he begged the Admiral to change his course to the southward as he was sure there was no land to the west.  Against his will, Columbus at last consented, and turning to the southwest headed for Cuba.

But he thought he was steering for Cathay.  The islands of Japan, were, he thought, only a few leagues away to the west.  They were really, as you know, away across the United States and then across the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles farther west than Columbus could sail.  But according to his reckoning he hoped within a day or two to see the cities and palaces of this wonderful land.