mised everything, and ended by discovering nothing but "a wilderness
peopled with naked savages."

COLUMBUS AND THE INDIANS.

Gen. THOMAS J. MORGAN, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In an
article, "Columbus and the Indians," in the New York _Independent_,
June 2, 1892.

Columbus, when he landed, was confronted with an Indian problem, which
he handed down to others, and they to us. Four hundred years have rolled
by, and it is still unsolved. Who were the strange people who met him at
the end of his long and perilous voyage? He guessed at it and missed it
by the diameter of the globe. He called them Indians--people of
India--and thus registered the fifteenth century attainments in
geography and anthropology. How many were there of them? Alas! there was
no census bureau here then, and no record has come down to us of any
count or enumeration. Would they have lived any longer if they had been
counted? Would a census have strengthened them to resist the threatened
tide of invaders that the coming of Columbus heralded? If instead of
corn they had presented census rolls to their strange visitors, and
exhibited maps to show that the continent was already occupied, would
that have changed the whole course of history and left us without any
Mayflower or Plymouth Rock, Bunker Hill or Appomattox?

INTENSE UNCERTAINTY.

CHARLES MORRIS, an American writer of the present day. In "Half
Hours with American History."

The land was clearly seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took
in sail and waited impatiently for the dawn. The thoughts and feelings
of Columbus in this little space of time must have been tumultuous and
intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had
accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed;
his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly
established; he secured to himself a glory durable as the world itself.

It is difficult to conceive the feelings of such a man at such a moment,
or the conjectures which must have thronged upon his mind as to the land
before him, covered with darkness. A thousand speculations must have
swarmed upon him, as with his anxious crews he waited for the night to
pass away, wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage
wilderness, or dawn upon spicy groves and glittering fanes and gilded
cities, and all the splendor of oriental civilization.

THE FIRST TO GREET COLUMBUS.