years,
from the memorable defeat of Roderick, the last of the Goths, on the
banks of the Guadalete. This great triumph of our holy Catholic faith
took place in the beginning of January, 1492, being three thousand six
hundred fifty-five years from the population of Spain by the patriarch
Tubal; three thousand seven hundred ninety-seven from the general deluge;
five thousand four hundred fifty-three from the creation of the world,
according to Hebrew calculation; and in the month Rabic, in the eight
hundred ninety-seventh year of the Hegira, or flight of Mahomet.

[Footnote 1: Musa ben Abil Gazan, Boabdil's best cavalier--a fiery
soldier, of royal lineage.]

[Footnote 2: A mountainous region in the provinces of Granada and
Almeria.]

[Footnote 3: So say Arabian historians. According to another account,
Musa, meeting a party of Andalusian cavaliers, killed several of them,
but, being disabled by wounds, threw himself into the Xenel and was
drowned.]

COLUMBUS DISCOVERS AMERICA

A.D. 1492

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FERDINAND COLUMBUS

The year 1492, in which Columbus discovered America, is adopted by some
writers as separating the modern from the mediaeval period in history.
It marks the culmination of the wonderful achievements in discovery
for which the fifteenth century is so memorable. By 1492 the world had
advanced far beyond the ignorance of the period when Marco Polo made and
described his famous travels from Europe to the East, 1324, and when Sir
John Mandeville's extravagant account of Eastern journeys, 1357-1371, was
published. European knowledge of the Orient had been greatly increased
by the crusades, and this, together with the spread of commerce, had
quickened the desire of Western peoples for still further explorations of
the world.

During the first half of the fifteenth century the Portuguese were most
enterprising in the work of discovery, and before 1500 they had searched
the western coast of Africa, passed the equator, and seen the Cape of
Good Hope, which Vasco da Gama doubled in 1497, on his way to India.

Meanwhile Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, a famous maritime
city, was planning a route of his own for a voyage to the East
Indies--the great object, at that period, of all ambitious navigators.
As the Portuguese sought, and at last found, an ocean route by the east
around Africa, so Columbus meditated a westward voyage, and was the first
to seek India in that direction. After va