h sails unfurled,
He drew it westward from the coast of Spain,
And linked it firmly to another world.

Tho' blinding tempests drove his ships astray,
And on the decks conspiring Spaniards grew
More mutinous and dangerous, day by day,
Than did the deadly winds that round him blew,
Yet the bluff captain, with his bearded lip,
His lordly purpose, and his high disdain,
Stood like a master with uplifted whip,
And urged his mad sea-horses o'er the main.

Onward and onward thro' the blue profound,
Into the west a thousand leagues or more,
His caravels cut the billows till they ground
Upon the shallows of San Salvador.
Then, robed in scarlet like a rising morn,
He climbed ashore and on the shining sod
He gave to man a continent new-born;
Then, kneeling, gave his gratitude to God.

And his reward? In all the books of fate
There is no page so pitiful as this--
A cruel dungeon, and a monarch's hate,
And penury and calumny were his;
Robbed of his honors in his feeble age,
Despoiled of glory, the old Genoese
Withdrew at length from life's ungrateful stage,
To try the waves of other unknown seas.

EAGER TO SHARE THE REWARD.

Letter written by the Duke of MEDINA CELI to the Grand Cardinal of
Spain, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, dated March 19, 1493.

MOST REVEREND SIR: I am not aware whether your Lordship knows that I had
Cristoforo Colon under my roof for a long time when he came from
Portugal, and wished to go to the King of France, in order that he might
go in search of the Indies with his Majesty's aid and countenance. I
myself wished to make the venture, and to dispatch him from my port
[Santa Maria], where I had a good equipment of three or four caravels,
_since he asked no more from me_; but as I recognized that this was an
undertaking for the Queen, our sovereign, I wrote about the matter to
her Highness from Rota, and she replied that I should send him to her.
Therefore I sent him, and asked her Highness that, since I did not
desire to pursue the enterprise but had arranged it for her service, she
should direct that compensation be made to me, and that I might have a
share in it by having the loading and unloading of the commerce done in
the port.

Her Highness received him [Colon], and referred him to Alonso de
Quintanilla, who, in turn, _wrote me that he did not consider this
affair to be very certain_; but that if it shou