water in order to trim her) and flying before a tempest
such as he had never experienced in his life. As a last resource, and in
order to give his wonderful news a chance of reaching Spain in case the
ship were lost, he went into his cabin and somehow or other managed to
write on a piece of parchment a brief account of his discoveries, begging
any one who might find it to carry it to the Spanish Sovereigns. He tied
up the parchment in a waxed cloth, and put it into a large barrel without
any one seeing him, and then ordered the barrel to be thrown into the
sea, which the crew took to be some pious act of sacrifice or devotion.
Then he went back on deck and watched the last of the daylight going and
the green seas swelling and thundering about his little ship, and thought
anxiously of his two little boys at school in Cordova, and wondered what
would become of them if he were lost. The next morning the wind had
changed a little, though it was still very high; but he was able to hoist
up the bonnet or topsail, and presently the sea began to go down a
little. When the sun rose they saw land to the east-north-east. Some of
them thought it was Madeira, others the rock of Cintra in Portugal; the
pilots said it was the coast of Spain, the Admiral thought it was the
Azores; but at any rate it was land of some kind. The sun was shining
upon it and upon the tumbling sea; and although the waves were still
raging mast-high and the wind still blowing a hard gale, the miserable
crew were able to hope that, having lived through the night, they could
live through the day also. They had to beat about to make the land,
which was now ahead of them, now on the beam, and now astern; and
although they had first sighted it at sunrise on Friday morning it was
early on Monday morning, February 18th, before Columbus was able to cast
anchor off the northern coast of an island which he discovered to be the
island of Santa Maria in the Azores. On this day Columbus found time to
write a letter to Luis de Santangel, the royal Treasurer, giving a full
account of his voyage and discoveries; which letter he kept and
despatched on the 4th of March, after he had arrived in Lisbon. Since it
contained a postscript written at the last moment we shall read it at
that stage of our narrative. The inhabitants of Santa Maria received the
voyagers with astonishment, for they believed that nothing could have
lived through the tempest that had been raging for