ions were heightened by
that vague sense of wonder that is linked with the unknown. No wonder,
then, that Columbus, with a bent almost preternatural toward the
undiscovered regions of the globe, should dream of new lands, new men,
new scenery, and new wealth. But to his vivid imagination dreams became
realities, until he believed with all the force of his ardent nature
that he was divinely commissioned to be a discoverer. Hitherto the
Portuguese voyages familiar to Columbus had only skirted the coast of
Africa, and discovered the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores. It was not
till 1486, years after the idea of his western voyage took firm root in
his mind, that the Cape of Good Hope was at last doubled by Vasco da
Gama. All voyages prior to his had been only tentative and brief, slowly
creeping from headland to headland, or else finding new islands by being
drifted out of courses long familiar to mariners.

It was the supreme merit of Columbus that he was the first to cut loose
from one continent to find another, and to steer boldly across an
unknown sea, in search of an unknown world. We need not belittle (still
less need we deny) the finding of Greenland and of other parts of North
America by the Norsemen in the ninth and tenth centuries. We may hail
Eric the Red and his stout son, Leif Ericson, as pioneers in what may be
termed coasting voyages of discovery. But the story of America gains as
little from these shadowy and abortive voyages as civilization has
gained from their fruitless results.

On the first voyage of Columbus, he was more fortunate in the uncertain
elements which always affect sea voyages so overpoweringly than in some
of his later ones. His own vessel, with single deck, was about ninety
feet long, by a breadth of twenty feet. The Pinta, a faster sailer, and
the Nina (or "baby") were smaller caravels, and without decks, commanded
respectively by the brothers Martin and Vicente Pinzon. The three
vessels carried ninety persons, sailing September 6, 1492, running first
south to the Canaries, and then stretching straight westward on the
twenty-eighth parallel for what the admiral believed to be the coast of
Japan. Delightful weather favored the voyagers, but when, on the tenth
day out from Spain, the caravels struck into that wonderful stretch of
seaweed and grass, known as the Sargasso Sea, fear lest they should run
aground or soon be unable to sail in either direction took possession of
the crews. In f