uld bring the
territory, which had made the Great Khan so rich, into the possession of
the king of Spain.

He showed to Ferdinand and Isabella that, if they would once more let
him go forward, on the adventure which had been checked untimely by the
cruelty of Bobadilla, this time they would have wealth which would place
them at the head of the Christian sovereigns of the world.

While he was inactive at Seville, and the great squadron was being
prepared which Ovando was to command, he wrote what is known as the
"Book of Prophecies," in which he attempted to convince the Catholic
kings of the necessity of carrying forward the enterprise which he
proposed. He urged haste, because he believed the world was only to last
a hundred and fifty-five years longer; and, with so much before them to
be done, it was necessary that they should begin.

He remembered an old vow that he had undertaken, that, within seven
years of the time of his discovery, he would furnish fifty thousand
foot soldiers and five thousand horsemen for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulchre. He now arranged in order prophecies from the Holy Scripture,
passages from the writings of the Fathers, and whatever else suggested
itself, mystical and hopeful, as to the success of an enterprise by
which the new world could be used for the conversion of the Gentiles and
for the improvement of the Christianity of the old world.

He had the assistance of a Carthusian monk, who seems to have been
skilled in literary work, and the two arranged these passages in order,
illustrated them with poetry, and collected them into a manuscript
volume which was sent to the sovereigns.

Columbus accompanied the Book of Prophecies with one of his own long
letters, written with the utmost fervor. In this letter he begins, as
Peter the Hermit might do, by urging the sovereigns to set on foot a
crusade. If they are tempted to consider his advice extravagant, he asks
them how his first scheme of discovery was treated. He shows that, as
heaven had chosen him to discover the new world, heaven has also chosen
him to discover the Holy Sepulchre. God himself had opened his eyes that
he might make the great discovery, which has reflected such honor upon
them and theirs.

"If his hopes had been answered," says a Catholic writer, "the modern
question of holy places, which is the Gordian knot of the religious
politics of the future, would have been solved long ago by the gold of
the new world, o