ands of illimitable wealth described by Marco Polo. To be sure,
Columbus had not as yet seen the evidences of this oriental splendor,
and had been puzzled at not finding them, but he felt confident that he
had come very near them and would come full upon them in a second
voyage. There was nobody who knew enough to refute these opinions, and
really why should not this great geographer, who had accomplished so
much already which people had scouted as impossible--why should he not
know what he was about? It was easy enough now to get men and money for
the second voyage. When the Admiral sailed from Cadiz on September 25,
1493, it was with seventeen ships, carrying 1,500 men. Their dreams were
of the marble palaces of Quinsay, of isles of spices, and the treasures
of Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such
untold riches were vouchsafed them, by the special decree of Heaven, as
a reward for having overcome the Moors at Granada and banished the Jews
from Spain. Columbus shared these views, and regarded himself as a
special instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow
to rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising within the next seven years to
equip at his own expense a crusading army of 50,000 foot and 4,000
horse; within five years thereafter he would follow this with a second
army of like dimensions.

Thus nobody had the faintest suspicion of what had been done. In the
famous letter to Santangel there is of course not a word about a new
world. The grandeur of the achievement was quite beyond the ken of the
generation that witnessed it. For we have since come to learn that in
1492 the contact between the eastern and the western halves of our
planet was first really begun, and the two streams of human life which
had flowed on for countless ages, apart, were thenceforth to mingle
together. The first voyage of Columbus is thus a unique event in the
history of mankind. Nothing like it was ever done before, and nothing
like it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for a future Columbus
to conquer. The era of which this great Italian mariner was the most
illustrious representative has closed forever.

VINLAND.

JOHN FISKE, an American historian. Born in Connecticut, 1842. From
"Washington and his Country."[38]

Learned men had long known that the earth is round, but people generally
did not believe it, and it had not occurred to anybody that such a
voyage would be pract