people
to assist him in his voyage. I entered the church, which was all
whitewashed, and felt, as I did at Rabida, that it was a better
monument than I had reason to expect.

Its walls were one yard thick, its floors of tiles laid in an L form. As
I measured the floor it seemed to me to be sixty-six feet wide and
sixty-six feet long, but to the length must be added the altar chapel,
bringing it up to ninety feet, and to the width must be added the side
chapels, making the total width about eighty feet. The nave has a
sharper arched top than the two aisles, which have round arches. The
height of the roof is about thirty-five feet. The big door by which I
entered the church is fifteen feet high by eight feet wide. Some very
odd settees which I coveted were in the nave. The chief feature,
however, is the pulpit, which stands at the cross of the church, so that
persons gathered in the transepts, nave, or aisles can hear the
preacher. It has an iron pulpit of a round form springing from one stem
and railed in, and steps lead up to it which are inclosed. It looks old,
and worn by human hands, and is supposed to be the identical pulpit from
which the notary announced that, as a punishment of their offenses, the
Queen's subjects must start with this unknown man upon his unknown
venture. Those were high times in Palos, and it took Columbus a long
while to get his expedition ready, and special threats as of high
treason had to be made against the heads of families and women. But when
Columbus returned, and the same day Pinzon came back after their
separation of weeks, Palos church was full of triumph and hosannas. The
wild man had been successful, and Spain found another world than the
apostle knew of.

The grown boy, as he showed the building, went into an old lumber room,
or dark closet, at one corner of the church, and when I was about to
enter he motioned me back with his palm, as if I might not enter there
with my heretic feet. He then brought out an image of wood from four to
five feet high, or, I might say, the full size of a young woman. It was
plain that she had once been the Virgin worshiped here, but age and
moisture had taken most of the color from her, and washed the gilt from
her crown, and now we could only see that in her arm she bore a child,
and this child held in its hand a dove or pigeon. The back of the female
was hollow, and in there were driven hooks by which she had once been
suspended at some height. T