ared to brave the superstitions
of the age and the unknown ocean which was supposed to be peopled with
demons and monsters, in quest of what was believed to be an absolutely
impossible pathway to China and the East Indies, and from which there
could not be any hope of return. A model of these caravels was exhibited
in the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, at the sight of which
wonder grew to incredulity that, under such circumstances as surrounded
this first voyage of Columbus, any one should have risked his life in
such a craft.

Even assuming with John Fiske that the spherical form of the earth was
known long before Columbus, and that he derived his knowledge of the
existence of the westernmost shore of the Atlantic Ocean through
information which he received of the voyages of the Norsemen, on his
visit to Iceland in 1477, his opinion that the same shore might be
reached by crossing the Atlantic, where it had never been traversed
before, was based upon mere surmise. No wonder that his crew were
disheartened and on the verge of open mutiny when, under such
circumstances, after about sixty-nine days had elapsed since they had
sailed from Palos on August 3, 1492, they had still not reached the
longed-for land. What faith, almost inspired, must have been his, that
he should succeed in persuading his men to hold out only a few days
more, and how strange that on the very next day, the seventieth of his
voyage, on the evening of October 11, 1492, the long-wished-for goal
should be descried in the dim distance, and that on the following day
they should actually disembark from their floating prisons to stand once
more upon solid ground!

The artist has chosen the inspiring moments of these two events to
immortalize them in these two pictures: in the one, the three tiny barks
in the shadow of the evening, still in the gloom and uncertainty of what
the morrow would bring forth--and then, in the other, the brilliant
spectacle of Columbus with cross uplifted, in magnificent regalia of
scarlet and gold and purple, and his officers with the standards of
Castile and Leon, and the white and green colors of the expedition,
disembarking with his men when his hopes had become a reality, for the
purpose of claiming the newly discovered land.

I quote from Emilio Castelar the following description of the events
illustrated by these pictures:

"Land! land! the cry fell as a joyous peal upon the ears of these
mariners