but always to go direct to the head man; and when the whole purpose and ambition of his life was to be put to the test it was only consistent in him, since he could not be independent, to go forth under the protection of the united Crown of Aragon and Castile.  Where or how he raised his share of the cost is not known; it is possible that his old friend the Duke of Medina Celi came to his help, or that the Pinzon family, who believed enough in the expedition to risk their lives in it, lent some of the necessary money.

Ever since ships were in danger of going to sea short-handed methods of recruiting and manning them have been very much the same; and there must have been some hot work about the harbour of Palos in the summer of 1492.  The place was in a panic.  It is highly probable that many of the volunteers were a ruffianly riff-raff from the prisons, to whom personal freedom meant nothing but a chance of plunder; and the recruiting office in Palos must have seen many a picturesque scoundrel coming and taking the oath and making his mark.  The presence of these adventurers, many of them entirely ignorant of the sea, would not be exactly an encouragement to the ordinary seaman.  It is here very likely that the influence of the Pinzon family was usefully applied.  I call it influence, since that is a polite term which covers the application of force in varying degrees; and it was an awkward thing for a Palos sailor to offend the Pinzons, who owned and controlled so much of the shipping in the port.  Little by little the preparations went on.  In the purchasing of provisions and stores the Pinzons were most helpful to Columbus and, it is not improbable, to themselves also.  They also procured the ships; altogether, in the whole history of the fitting out of expeditions, I know nothing since the voyage of the Ark which was so well kept within one family.  Moreover it is interesting to notice, since we know the names and places of residence of all the members of the expedition, that the Pinzons, who personally commanded two of the caravels, had them almost exclusively manned by sailors from Palos, while the Admiral’s ship was manned by a miscellaneous crew from other places.  To be sure they gave the Admiral the biggest ship, but (in his own words) it proved “a dull sailer and unfit for discovery”; while they commanded the two caravels, small and open, but much faster and handier.  Clearly these Pinzons will take no harm from a little watching.  They may be honest souls enough, but their conduct is just a little suspicious, and we cannot be too careful.

Three vessels were at last secured.  The first, named the Santa Maria, was the largest, and was chosen to be the flagship of Columbus.  She was of about one hundred tons burden, and would be about ninety feet in length by twenty feet beam.  She was decked over, and had a high poop astern and a high forecastle in the bows.  She had three masts, two of them square-rigged, with a latine sail on the