he has traversed.  He encourages them by inflaming their cupidity.  He is nearly baffled by their mutinous spirit.  He is in danger, not from coral reefs and whirlpools and sunken rocks and tempests, as at first was feared, but from his men themselves, who clamor to return.  It is his faith and moral courage and fertility of resources which we most admire.  Days pass in alternate hope and disappointment, amid angry clamors, in great anxiety, for no land appears after he has sailed far beyond the points where he expected to find it.  The world is larger than even he has supposed.  He promises great rewards to the one who shall first see the unknown shores.  It is said that he himself was the first to discover land by observing a flickering light, which is exceedingly improbable, as he was several leagues from shore; but certain it is, that the very night the land was seen from the Admiral’s vessel, it was also discovered by one of the seamen on board another ship.  The problem of the age was at last solved.  A new continent was given to Ferdinand and Isabella.

On the 12th of October Columbus lands—­not, however, on the continent, as he supposed, but on an island—­in great pomp, as admiral of the seas and viceroy of the king, in a purple doublet, and with a drawn sword in one hand and the standard of Spain in the other, followed by officers in appropriate costume, and a friar bearing the emblem of our redemption, which is solemnly planted on the shore, and the land called San Salvador.  This little island, one of the Bahamas, is not, however, gilded with the anticipated splendors of Oriental countries.  He finds neither gold, nor jewels, nor silks, nor spices, nor any signs of civilization; only naked men and women, without any indication of wealth or culture or power.  But he finds a soft and genial climate, and a soil of unparalleled fertility, and trees and shrubs as green as Andalusia in spring and birds with every variety of plumage, and insects glistening with every color of the rainbow; while the natives are gentle and unsuspecting and full of worship.  Columbus is disappointed, but not discouraged.  He sets sail to find the real Cipango of which he is in search.  He cruises among the Bahama islands, discovers Cuba and Hispaniola (now called Hayti), explores their coasts, holds peaceful intercourse with the natives, and is transported with enthusiasm in view of the beauty of the country and its great capacities; but he sees no gold, only a few ornaments to show that there is gold somewhere near, if it only could be found.  Nor has he reached the Cipango of his dreams, but new countries, of which there was no record or suspicion of existence, yet of vast extent, and fertile beyond knowledge.  He is puzzled, but filled with intoxicating joy.  He has performed a great feat.  He has doubtless added indefinitely to the dominion of Spain.