ngratulation to his crew, and commended watchfulness to them.
[Sidenote: Discovery of America.] His course was now due west. A little
before midnight, Columbus, on the fore-castle of his ship, saw a moving
light at a distance; and two hours after a signal-gun was fired from the
Pinta. A sailor, Rodrigo de Triana, had descried land. The ships were
laid to. As soon as day dawned they made it out to be a verdant island.
There were naked Indians upon the beach watching their movements. At
sunrise, October 12, 1492, the boats were manned and armed, and Columbus
was the first European to set foot on the new world.

[Sidenote: Events of the voyage.] The chief events of the voyage of
Columbus were, 1st. The discovery of the line of no magnetic variation,
which, as we shall see, eventually led to the circumnavigation of the
earth. 2nd. The navigability of the sea to the remote west, the weeds
not offering any insuperable obstruction. When the ships left Palos it
was universally believed that the final border or verge of the earth is
where the western sky rests upon the sea, and the air and clouds, fogs
and water, are commingled. Indeed, that boundary could not actually be
attained; for, long before it was possible to reach it, the sea was
laden with inextricable weeds, through which a ship could not pass. This
legend was perhaps derived from the stories of adventurous sailors, who
had been driven by stress of weather towards the Sargasso Sea, and seen
an island of weeds many hundreds of square miles in extent--green
meadows floating in the ocean. 3rd. As to the new continent, Columbus
never knew the nature of his own discovery. He died in the belief that
it was actually some part of Asia, and Americus Vespucius entertained
the same misconception. Their immediate successors supposed that Mexico
was the Quinsay, in China, of Marco Polo. For this reason I do not think
that the severe remark that the "name of America is a monument of human
injustice" is altogether merited. Had the true state of things been
known, doubtless the event would have been different. The name of
America first occurs in an edition of Ptolemy's Geography, on a map by
Hylacomylus.

[Sidenote: End of Patristic Geography.] Two other incidents of no little
interest followed this successful voyage: the first was the destruction
of Patristic Geography; the second the consequence of the flight of
Pinzon's parrots. Though, as we now know, the conclusion that India ha