oken bones, and was consequently left behind. The fleet
sailed from San Lucar de Barrameda on February 13, 1502, which according
to Las Casas was the first Sunday in lent of that year.(4)

The usual course, by way of the Canary Islands, was followed, but after
eight days at sea, a violent tempest wrecked one ship, _La Rabida_, with
one hundred and twenty people on board, and scattered the remainder; some
vessels were obliged to throw most of their cargo overboard, but all,
after many dangers, gradually found refuge in various ports of the
neighbouring islands.

The wreckage of _La Rabida_, and that of some other vessels which had also
foundered while carrying sugar from the islands, drifted back to the
Spanish coast and gave rise to the rumour that the entire fleet was lost.
This caused such a general sense of affliction that the sovereigns, on
receipt of this false report, shut themselves up in the palace at Granada
and mourned for eight days.

The vessels which had weathered the tempest united after some delay in the
port of the island of Gomera, and being joined there by another, fitted
out in the Canaries by people eager to go to America, the fleet was thus
brought up to its original complement. The commander divided his squadron
in to two sections, the first of which, composed of the fastest vessels,
he kept under his command, while the second was placed under command of
Antonio de Torres. Ovando's division reached Hispaniola on the fifteenth
of April and the second squadron came safely to port some twelve days
later. Thus did Bartholomew de Las Casas first land in the New World.

CHAPTER II. - THE DISCOVERIES OF COLUMBUS. CHARACTER OF THE AMERICAN
INDIANS. THE BEGINNINGS OF SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE

In the ever-memorable month of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed
on the shores of the New World he had discovered by sailing westward. To
this great undertaking Columbus had advanced through a long career during
which he had had unusual adventures and experiences in almost every part
of the known world. A Genoese by birth, he had studied at Pavia,(5) where
he had acquired some knowledge of Latin, and was introduced to the study
of those sciences to which his inclinations and his opportunities enabled
him later to devote himself. He knew the Atlantic Coast from El Mina in
Africa,(6) to England and Iceland,(7) and he had visited the Levant(8)and
the islands of the Grecian Archipelago.