ance were killed on both sides, the Admiral's ship took fire, as
did a great Venetian galley, which, being fast grappled together with
iron hooks and chains used to this purpose by seafaring men, could
neither of them be relieved because of the confusion there was among
them and the fright of the fire, which in a short time was so increased
that there was no other remedy but for all that could to leap into the
water, so to die sooner, rather than bear the torture of the fire._

_But the Admiral being an excellent swimmer, and seeing himself two
leagues or a little farther from land, laying hold of an oar, which good
fortune offered him, and, sometimes resting upon it, sometimes swimming,
it pleased God, who had preserved him for greater ends, to give him
strength to get to shore, but so tired and spent with the water that he
had much ado to recover himself. And because it was not far from Lisbon,
where he knew there were many Genoeses, his countrymen, he went away
thither as fast as he could, where, being known by them, he was so
courteously received and entertained that he set up house and married a
wife in that city. And forasmuch as he behaved himself honorably, and
was a man of comely presence, and did nothing but what was just, it
happened that a lady whose name was Dona Felipa Moniz, of a good family,
and pensioner in the Monastery of All Saints, whither the Admiral used
to go to mass, was so taken with him that she became his wife._

PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES.

From a letter of Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella:

_Such is my fate that twenty years of service, through which I passed
with so much toil and danger, have profited me nothing; and at this day
I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to
eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and I
seldom have wherewith to pay the bill. I have not a hair upon me that is
not gray; my body is infirm; and all that was left me, as well as to my
brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore,
to my great dishonor. I implore your Highnesses to forgive my
complaints. I am indeed in as ruined a condition as I have related.
Hitherto I have wept over others; may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and
may the earth weep for me._

THE SELF-SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION OF COLUMBUS.

From Columbus' own account of his discovery:

_Such is my plan; if it be dangerous to execute, I am no mere theorist