town of Huelva.

Thus, the sea being--calm, and a fresh breeze blowing off the land, did
Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos at sunrise on Friday the 3rd of
August 1492.

CHAPTER XIII

EVENTS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE

"In nomine D.N. Jesu Christi--Friday, August 3, 1492, at eight
o'clock we started from the bar of Saltes. We went with a strong
sea breeze sixty miles,--[Columbus reckoned in Italian miles, of
which four = one league.]--which are fifteen leagues, towards the
south, until sunset: afterwards to the south-west and to the south,
quarter south-west, which was the way to the Canaries."

[The account of Columbus's first voyage is taken from a Journal
written by himself, but which in its original form does not exist.
Las Casas had it in his possession, but as he regarded it (no doubt
with justice) as too voluminous and discursive to be interesting, he
made an abridged edition, in which the exact words of Columbus were
sometimes quoted, but which for the most part is condensed into a
narrative in the third person. This abridged Journal, consisting of
seventy-six closely written folios, was first published by
Navarrette in 1825. When Las Casas wrote his 'Historie,' however,
he appears here and there to have restored sections of the original
Journal into the abridged one; and many of these restorations are of
importance. If the whole account of his voyage written by Columbus
himself were available in its exact form I would print it here; but
as it is not, I think it better to continue my narrative, simply
using the Journal of Las Casas as a document.]

With these rousing words the Journal of Columbus's voyage begins; and
they sound a salt and mighty chord which contains the true diapason of
the symphony of his voyages. There could not have been a more fortunate
beginning, with clear weather and a calm sea, and the wind in exactly
the right quarter. On Saturday and Sunday the same conditions held, so
there was time and opportunity for the three very miscellaneous ships'
companies to shake down into something like order, and for all the
elaborate discipline of sea life to be arranged and established; and we
may employ the interval by noting what aids to navigation Columbus had
at his disposal.

The chief instrument was the astrolabe, which was an improvement on the
primitive quadrant then in u