een wore out.

It wuz in one of the rooms of the convent that he met the Monks in
debate, and also argued back and forth with Garcia Fernandez and Alonzo
Penzen, gettin' the better of Alonzo every time, but makin' it up to him
afterwards by lettin' him command one of the vessels of his fleet. It
wuz from here the superior of the convent, won over by Columbuses
eloquence, went for audience with the Queen, and from it Columbus wuz
summoned to appear at court.

In this very convent he made his preparations for his voyage, and on the
mornin' he sailed from Palos he worshipped God in this little chapel.
What visions riz up before his eyes as he knelt on the brick floor of
that little chapel, jest ready to leave the certainty and sail out into
the oncertainty, leavin' the oncertainty and goin' out into the
certainty!

A curious prayer that must have been, and a riz up one.

In that prayer, in the confidence and aspiration of that one man, lay
the hull new world. The hope, the freedom, the liberty, the
enlightenment of a globe, jest riz up on the breath of that one prayer.

A momentious prayer as wuz ever riz up on earth.

But the stun walls didn't give no heed to it, and I dare say that Alonzo
and the rest wuz sick a-waitin' for him, and wanted to cut it short.

Yes, Columbus must have had emotions in this convent as hefty and as
soarin' as they make, and truly they must have been immense to gone
ahead of mine, as I stood there and thought on him, what he had done and
what he had suffered.

Why, I had more'n a hundred and twenty-five or thirty a minute right
along, and I don't know but more.

When I see them relics of that noble creeter, paper that he had had his
own hand on, that his own eyes had looked at, his own brain had
dictated, every one of 'em full of the ardentcy and earnestness of his
religion--why, they increased the number and frequency of my emotions to
a almost alarmin' extent.

[Illustration: Manuscripts]

Here are twenty-nine manuscripts all in his own hand.

They are truly worth more than their weight in gold--they are worth
their weight in diamonds.

Amongst the most priceless manuscripts and documents is the original of
the contract made with the Soverigns of Spain before his first voyage,
under which Columbus made his first voyage to America.

The most remarkable contract that wuz ever drawn, in which the Soverigns
of Spain guaranteed to Columbus and his heirs forever one eighth of all
t