es and China
or Cathay by a new route, and therefore gave them the name which has
ever since attached to the islands where he first landed, of the West
Indies, and called the natives, Indians; and, strangest of all, that
four hundred and six years after he first landed at San Salvador, the
remains of the great discoverer should have been transferred from the
cathedral at Havana to Spain, the scene of all his triumphs and all his
sorrows, on September 24, 1898, just about the close of the
Spanish-American war, which is celebrated in the last or thirteenth of
this remarkable series of paintings.

The courage, faith and fortitude of Columbus in persisting in his
westward journey, in full confidence that he would eventually reach the
shore which must ever have been pictured in his mind, in spite of the
doubts and fears and protestations of his weary crew, are beautifully
and concisely expressed in the stanzas of Friedrich Schiller:[G]

"Brave sailor, steer onward! Though the jester deride
And the hand of the pilot the helm drops in fear;
Sail on to the West, till that shore is descried
Which so clearly defined to thy mind doth appear.

"Follow God's guiding hand and the great silent ocean!
For the shore, were it not, from the waves it would rise.
With genius is nature linked in such bonds of devotion
That what genius presages, nature never denies."

MIDNIGHT MASS ON THE MISSISSIPPI
Over the Body of Ferdinand de Soto

1542

[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Edward Moran.]

V.

MIDNIGHT MASS ON THE MISSISSIPPI OVER THE BODY OF FERDINAND DE SOTO,
1542.[H]

As simple, gloomy and severe as were the circumstances surrounding the
departure of the expeditions of Lief Erickson and Columbus, and
subsequently of Henry Hudson and the Pilgrim Fathers, so brilliant,
hopeful and coveted was the journey of Fernando De Soto, when he set
sail from Spain in April, 1538, to conquer Florida and in search of a
new Eldorado. Having previously returned from the conquest of Peru, as
the chief lieutenant of Francisco Pizarro, possessed of great wealth,
and through his marriage with the beautiful Isabella Bobadilla
affiliated with the highest nobility, and having been appointed Governor
of Cuba by Charles V.--the flower of the Spanish and Portuguese
aristocracy flocked to his standard. The seven large and three small
ships, including his flag-ship, the "San Christoval," in which the