see the busy imagination of the admiral interpret ing everything into unison with his preconceived ideas. Las Casas assures us that there was no cacique ever known in the island who wore garments, or answered in other respects to this description. This king, with a saintly title, was probably nothing more than a reflected image haunting the mind of Columbus, of that mysterious potentate, Prester John, who had long figured in the narrations of all eastern travellers, sometimes as a monarch, sometimes as a priest, the situation of whose empire and court was always a matter of doubt and contradiction, and had recently become again an object of curious inquiry.

The information derived from these people concerning the coast to the westward was entirely vague. They said that it continued for at least twenty days' journey, but whether it terminated there they did not know. They appeared but little informed of anything out of their immediate neighborhood. Taking an Indian from this place as a guide, Columbus steered for the distant mountains, said to be inhabited by this cacique in white raiment, hoping they might prove the confines of a more civilized country. He had not gone far before he was involved in the usual perplexities of keys, shelves, and sand-banks. The vessels frequently stirred up the sand and lime from the bottom of the sea; at other times they were almost imbedded in narrow channels, where there was no room to tack, and it was necessary to haul them forward by means of the

capstan, to their great injury. At one time they came to where the sea was almost covered with tortoises; at another time flights of cormorants and wood-pigeons darkened the sun, and one day the whole air was filled with clouds of gaudy butterflies, until dispelled by the evening shower.

When they approached the mountainous regions, they found the coast bordered by drowned lands or morasses; and beset by such thick forests, that it was impossible to penetrate to the interior. They were several days seeking fresh water, of which they were in great want. At length they found a spring in a grove of palm-trees, and near it shells of the pearl oyster, from which Columbus thought there might be a valuable pearl-fishery in the neighborhood.

The

While thus cut off from all intercourse with the interior by a belt of swamp and forests, the country appeared to be well peopled. Columns of smoke ascended from various parts, which grew more frequent as the vessels advanced, until they rose from every rock and woody height. Spaniards were at a loss to determine whether these arose from villages and towns, or whether from signal fires, to give notice of the approach of the ships, and to alarm the country; such as were usual on European sea-shores, when an enemy was descried hovering in the vicinity.

For several days Columbus continued exploring this perplexed and lonely coast, whose intricate channels are seldom visited, even at the present day, excepting by the solitary and lurking bark of the smuggler. As he proceeded,

however, he found that the coast took a general bend to the south-west. This accorded precisely with the descriptions given by Marco Polo of the remote coast of Asia. He now became fully assured that he was on that part of the Asiatic continent which is beyond the boundaries of the Old World as laid down by Ptolemy. Let him but continue his course, he thought, and he must surely arrive at the point where this range of coast terminated in the Aurea Chersonesus of the ancients.1

The ardent imagination of Columbus was always sallying in the advance, and suggesting some splendid track of enterprise. Combining his present conjectures as to his situation with the imperfect lights of geography, he conceived a triumphant route for his return to Spain. Doubling the Aurea Chersonesus, he should emerge into the seas frequented by the ancients, and bordered by the luxurious nations of the East. Stretching across the gulf of the Ganges, he might pass by Taprobana, and continuing on to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, arrive on the shores of the Red Sea. Thence he might make his way by land to Jerusalem, take shipping at Joppa, and traverse the Mediterranean to Spain. Or should the route from Ethiopia to Jerusalem be deemed too perilous from savage and warlike tribes, or should he not choose to separate from his vessels, he might sail round the whole coast of Africa, pass triumphantly by the Portuguese, in their midway groping along the shores of Guinea, and after 1 The present peninsula of Malacca.

1

having thus circumnavigated the globe, furl his adventurous sails at the Pillars of Hercules, the ne plus ultra of the ancient world! Such was the soaring meditation of Columbus, as recorded by one of his intimate associates; nor is there anything surprising in his ignorance of the real magnitude of our globe. The mechanical admeasurement of a known part of its circle has rendered its circumference a familiar fact in our day; but in his time it still remained a problem with the most profound philosophers.

1 Cura de los Palacios, cap. 123, MS.

HE opinion of Columbus, that he was coasting the continent of Asia, and approaching the confines of Eastern civilization, was shared by all his fellow-voyagers, among whom were several able and experienced navigators. They were far, however, from sharing his enthusiasm. They were to derive no glory from the success of the enterprise, and they shrunk from its increasing difficulties and perils. The ships were strained and crazed by the various injuries they had received, in running frequently aground. Their cables and rigging were worn, their provisions were growing scanty, a great part of the biscuit was spoiled by the sea-water, which oozed in through innumerable leaks. The crews were worn out by incessant labor, and disheartened at the appearance of the sea before them, which continued to exhibit a mere wilderness of islands. They remonstrated, therefore, against persisting any longer in this voyage. They