[1493.]

ISTRUSTFUL of some attempt on the part of Portugal to interfere with their discoveries, the Spanish sovereigns, in the course of their negotiations, wrote repeatedly to Columbus, urging him to hasten his departure. His zeal, however, needed no incitement; immediately on arriving at Seville, in the beginning of June, he proceeded with all diligence to fit out the armament, making use of the powers given him to put in requisition the ships and crews which were in the harbors of Andalusia. He was joined soon after by Fonseca and Soria, who had remained for a time at Barcelona; and with their united exertions, a fleet of seventeen vessels, large and small, was soon in a state of preparation. The best pilots were chosen for the service, and the crews were mustered in presence of Soria the comptroller. A number of skillful husbandmen, miners, carpenters, and other mechanics, were engaged for the projected colony. Horses, both

LIFE AND VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS. 329

for military purposes and for stocking the country, cattle, and domestic animals of all kinds, were likewise provided. Grain, seeds of various plants, vines, sugar-canes, grafts, and saplings, were embarked, together with a great quantity of merchandise, consisting of trinkets, beads, hawks' bells, looking-glasses, and other showy trifles, calculated for trafficking with the natives. Nor was there wanting an abundant supply of provisions of all sorts, munitions of war, and medicines and refreshments for the sick.

An extraordinary degree of excitement prevailed respecting this expedition. The most extravagant fancies were entertained with respect to the New World. The accounts given by the voyagers who had visited it were full of exaggeration; for in fact they had nothing but vague and confused notions concerning it, like the recollection of a dream, and it has been shown that Columbus himself had beheld everything through the most delusive medium. The vivacity of his descriptions, and the sanguine anticipations of his ardent spirit, while they roused the public to a wonderful degree of enthusiasm, prepared the way for bitter disappointment. The cupidity of the avaricious was inflamed with the idea of regions of unappropriated wealth, where the rivers rolled over golden sands, and the mountains teemed with gems and precious metals; where the groves produced spices and perfumes, and the shores of the ocean were sown with pearl. Others had conceived visions of a loftier kind. It was a romantic and stirring age, and

the wars with the Moors being over, and hostilities with the French suspended, the bold and restless spirits of the nation, impatient of the monotony of peaceful life, were eager for employment. To these, the New World presented a vast field for wild enterprise and extraordinary adventure, so congenial to the Spanish character in that period of its meridian fervor and brilliancy. Many hidalgos of high rank, officers of the royal household, and Andalusian cavaliers, schooled in arms, and inspired with a passion for hardy achievements by the romantic wars of Granada, pressed into the expedition, some in the royal service, others at their own cost. To them it was the commencement of a new series of cru sades, surpassing in extent and splendor the chivalrous enterprises of the Holy Land. They pictured to themselves vast and beautiful islands of the ocean to be overrun and subdued; their internal wonders to be explored, and the banner of the cross to be planted on the walls of the cities they were supposed to contain. Thence they were to make their way to the shores of India, or rather Asia, penetrate into Mangi and Cathay, convert, or what was the same thing, conquer, the Grand Khan, and thus open a glorious career of arms among the splendid countries and semi-barbarous nations of the East. Thus, no one had any definite idea of the object or nature of the service on which he was embarking, or the situation and character of the region to which he was bound. Indeed, during this fever of the imagination, had sober facts and

cold realities been presented, they would have been rejected with disdain; for there is nothing of which the public is more impatient than of being disturbed in the indulgence of any cf its golden dreams.

Among the noted personages who engaged in the expedition, was a young cavalier of the name of Don Alonso de Ojeda, celebrated for his extraordinary personal endowments and his daring spirit; and who distinguished himself among the early discoverers by many perilous expeditions and singular exploits. He was of a good family, cousin-german to the venerable Father Alonso de Ojeda, Inquisitor of Spain; had been brought up under the patronage of the Duke of Medina Celi, and had served in the wars against the Moors. He was of small stature, but vigorous make, well proportioned, dark complexioned, of handsome, animated countenance, and incredible strength and agility. Expert at all kinds of weapons, accomplished in all manly and warlike exercises, an admirable horseman, and a partisan soldier of the highest order; bold of heart, free of spirit, open of hand; fierce in fight, quick in brawl, but ready to forgive and prone to forget an injury; he was for a long time the idol of the rash and roving youth who engaged in the early expeditions to the New World, and has been made the hero of many wonderful tales. ducing him to historical notice, Las Casas gives an anecdote of one of his exploits, which would be unworthy of record, but that it exhibits the singular character of the man.

On intro

Queen Isabella being in the tower of the ca thedral at Seville, better known as the Giralda, Ojeda, to entertain her majesty, and to give proofs of his courage and agility, mounted on a great beam which projected in the air, twenty feet from the tower, at such an immense height from the ground, that the people below looked like dwarfs, and it was enough to make Ojeda himself shudder to look down. Along this beam he walked briskly, and with as much confidence as though he had been pacing his chamber. When he arrived at the end, he stood on one leg, lifting the other in the air; then turning nimbly round, he returned in the same way to the tower, unaffected by the giddy height, whence the least false step would have precipitated him and dashed him to pieces. He afterwards stood with one foot on the beam, and placing the other against the wall of the building, threw an orange to the summit of the tower, a proof, says Las Casas, of immense muscular strength. Such was Alonso de Ojeda, who soon became conspicuous among the followers of Columbus, and was always foremost in every enterprise of an adventurous nature; who courted peril as if for the very love of danger, and seemed to fight more for the pleasure of fighting than for the sake of distinction.1

The number of persons permitted to embark in the expedition had been limited to ore thousand; but such was the urgent application of volunteers to be allowed to enlist without pay,

1 Las Casas, lib. i., MS. Pizarro, Varones Illustres. Her rera, Hist. Ind., decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 5.