Illustration: Columbus begging at the Franciscan Convent.]

[1484-1492]

The war for Granada ended, Santangel and others of his converts at court
secured Columbus an interview with Isabella, but his demands seeming to
her arrogant, he was dismissed. Nothing daunted, the hero had started
for France, there to plead as he had pleaded in Portugal and Spain
already, when to his joy a messenger overtook him with orders to come
once more before the queen.

Fuller thought and argument had convinced this eminent woman that the
experiment urged by Columbus ought to be tried and a contract was soon
concluded, by which, on condition that he should bear one-eighth the
expense of the expedition, the public chest of Castile was to furnish
the remainder. The story of the crown jewels having been pledged for
this purpose is now discredited. If such pledging occurred, it was
earlier, in prosecuting the war with the Moors. The whole sum needed for
the voyage was about fifty thousand dollars. Columbus was made admiral,
also viceroy of whatever lands should be discovered, and he was to have
ten per cent of all the revenues from such lands. For his contribution
to the outfit he was indebted to the Pinzons.

This arrangement was made in April or May, 1492, and on the third of the
next August, after the utmost difficulty in shipping crews for this sail
into the sea of darkness, Columbus put out from Palos with one hundred
and twenty men, on three ships. These were the Santa Maria, the Nina,
and the Pinta. The largest, the Santa Maria, was of not over one hundred
tons, having a deck-length of sixty-three feet, a keel of fifty-one
feet, a draft of ten feet six inches, and her mast-head sixty feet above
sea-level. She probably had four anchors, with hemp cables.

[Illustration: Embarkation of Christopher Columbus at Palos. From an old
print.]

From Palos they first bore southward to the Canary Islands, into the
track of the prevalent east winds, then headed west, for Cipango, as
Columbus supposed, but really toward the northern part of Florida. When
a little beyond what he regarded the longitude of Cipango, noticing the
flight of birds to the southwest, he was induced to follow these, which
accident made his landfall occur at Guanahani (San Salvador), in the
Bahamas, instead of the Florida coast.

Near midnight, between October 11th and 12th, Columbus, being on the
watch, descried a light ahead. About two o'clock on the morning of the
12t