thing but grease and paint. And the land showed no signs of the
marble temples and gold-roofed palaces the sailors expected to find. It
was a little, low, flat green island, partly covered with trees and with
what looked like a lake in the center.

This land was, in fact, one of the three thousand keys or coral islands
that stretch from the capes of Florida to the island of Hayti, and are
known as the Bahama Islands. The one upon which Columbus landed was
called by the natives Guanahani, and was either the little island now
marked on the map as Cat Island or else the one called Watling's Island.
Just which of these it was has been discussed over and over again, but
careful scholars have now but little doubt that it was the one known
to-day as Watling's Island. To see no sign of glittering palaces and
gayly dressed people was quite a disappointment to Columbus. But then,
he said, this, is probably the island farthest out to sea, and the
people who live here are not the real Cathay folks. We shall see them
very soon.

So with the royal banner and the green-cross standards floating above
him, with his captains and chief officers and some of the sailors
gathered about him, while all the others watched him from the decks of
his fleet, Columbus stepped upon the shore. Then he took off his hat,
and holding the royal banner in one hand and his sword in the other
he said aloud: I take possession of this island, which I name San
Salvador,(*) and of all the islands and lands about it in the name of my
patron and sovereign lady, Isabella, and her kingdom of Castile. This,
or something like it, he said, for the exact words are not known to us.

(*) The island of San Salvador means the island of the Holy
Saviour. Columbus and the Spanish explorers who followed him
gave Bible or religious names to very much of the land they
discovered.

And when he had done this the captains and sailors fell at his feet
in wonder and admiration, begging him to forgive them for all the hard
things they had said about him. For you have found Cathay, they cried.
You are our leader. You will make us rich and powerful. Hurrah for the
great Admiral!

And when the naked and astonished people of the island saw all this--the
canoes with wings, as they called the ships, the richly-dressed men with
white and bearded faces, the flags and swords, and the people kneeling
about this grand-looking old man in the crimson cloak--they said to on