Columbus stopped at the monastery of San Antonio, at Villa Franca, to visit the queen, who had expressed an earnest wish to see this extraordinary and enterprising man, whose achievement was the theme of every tongue. He found her attended by a few of her favorite ladies, and experienced the most flattering reception. Her majesty made him relate the principal events of his voyage, and describe the countries he had found; and she and her ladies hung with eager curiosity upon his narration. That night he slept at Llandra, and being on the point of departing in the morning, a servant of the king arrived, to attend him to the frontier, if he preferred to return to Spain by land, and to provide horses, lodgings, and everything he might stand in need of, at the royal expense. The weather, however, having moderated, he preferred returning in his caravel. Putting to sea, therefore, on the 13th of March, he arrived safely at the bar of Saltes on sunrise of the 15th, and at mid-day entered the harbor of Palos; whence he had sailed on the 3d of August in the preceding year, having taken not quite seven months and a half to accomplish this most momentous of all maritime enterprises.1

1 Works generally consulted in this chapter:- Las Casas, Hist. Ind. lib. i. cap. 17; Hist. del Almirante, cap. 39, 40, 41; Journal of Columb., Navarrete, tom. i.

HE triumphant return of Columbus was a prodigious event in the history of the

little port of Palos, where everybody was more or less interested in the fate of his expedition. The most important and wealthy seacaptains of the place had engaged in it, and scarcely a family but had some relative or friend among the navigators. The departure of the ships, upon what appeared a chimerical and desperate cruise, had spread gloom and dismay over the place; and the storms which had raged throughout the winter had heightened the public despondency. Many lamented their friends as lost, while imagination lent mysterious horrors to their fate, picturing them as driven about over wild and desert wastes of water without a shore, or as perishing amidst rocks, and quicksands, and whirlpools; or a prey to those monsters of the deep, with which credulity peopled every distant and unfrequented sea. There was something more awful in such a mysterious fate than in

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death itself, under any defined and ordinary form.1

Great was the agitation of the inhabitants, therefore, when they beheld one of the ships standing up the river; but when they learnt that she returned in triumph from the discovery of a world, the whole community broke forth into transports of joy. The bells were rung, the shops shut, all business was suspended: for a time there was nothing but hurry and tumult. Some were anxious to know the fate of a relative, others of a friend, and all to learn the particulars of so wonderful a voyage. When Columbus landed, the multitude thronged to see and welcome him, and a grand procession was formed to the principal church, to return thanks to God for so signal a discovery made by the people of that place, forgetting, in their exultation, the thousand difficulties they had thrown in the way of the enterprise. Wherever Columbus passed, he was hailed with shouts and acclamations. What a contrast to his departure a few months before, followed by murmurs and execrations; or, rather, what a contrast to his first arrival at Palos, a poor pedestrian, craving bread and water for his child at the gate of a convent!

1 In the maps and charts of those times, and even in those of a much later date, the variety of formidable and hideous monsters depicted in all remote parts of the ocean, evince the terrors and dangers with which the imagination clothed it. The same may also be said of distant and unknown lands; the remote parts of Asia and Africa have monsters depicted in them which it would be difficult to trace to any originals in natural history.

Understanding that the court was at Barcelona, he felt disposed to proceed thither immediately in his caravel; reflecting, however, on the dangers and disasters he had already experienced on the seas, he resolved to proceed by land. He dispatched a letter to the king and queen, informing them of his arrival, and soon after departed for Seville to await their orders, taking with him six of the natives whom he had brought from the New World. One had died at sea, and three were left ill at Palos.

It is a singular coincidence, which appears to be well authenticated, that on the very evening of the arrival of Columbus at Palos, and while the peals of triumph were still ringing from its towers, the Pinta, commanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon, likewise entered the river. After her separation from the admiral in the storm, she had been driven before the gale into the Bay of Biscay, and had made the port of Bayonne. Doubting whether Columbus had survived the tempest, Pinzon had immediately written to the sovereigns, giving information of the discovery he had made, and had requested permission to come to court, and communicate the particulars in person. As soon as the weather permitted, he had again set sail, anticipating a triumphant reception in his native port of Palos. When, on entering the harbor, he beheld the vessel of the admiral riding at anchor, and learnt the enthusiasm with which he had been received, the heart of Pinzon died within him. It is said that he feared to meet Columbus in this hour of his triumph, lest he

should put him under arrest for his desertion on the coast of Cuba; but he was a man of too much resolution to indulge in such a fear. It is more probable that a consciousness of his misconduct made him unwilling to appear before the public in the midst of their enthusiasm for Columbus, and perhaps he sickened at the honors heaped upon a man whose superiority he had been so unwilling to acknowledge. Getting into his boat, therefore, he landed privately and kept out of sight until he heard of the admiral's departure. He then returned to his home, broken in health, and deeply dejected, considering all the honors and eulogiums heaped upon Columbus as so many reproaches on himself. The reply of the sovereigns to his letter at length arrived. It was of a reproachful tenor, and forbade his appearance at court. This letter completed his humiliation; the anguish of his feelings gave virulence to his bodily malady, and in a few days he died, a victim to deep chagrin.1

Let no one, however, indulge in hard censures over the grave of Pinzon! His merits and services are entitled to the highest praise; his errors should be regarded with indulgence. He was one of the foremost in Spain to appreciate the project of Columbus, animating him by his concurrence and aiding him with his purse, when poor and unknown at Palos. He afterwards enabled him to procure and fit out ships, when even the mandates of the sovereigns were in

1 Muñoz, Hist. N. Mundo, lib. iv. § 14. Charlevoix, Hist. St. Domin. lib. ii.