gainst such indomitable perseverance. For some years now the
stately figure of Columbus had been a familiar sight in the streets of
Seville and Cordova, and as he passed along, with his white hair
streaming in the breeze, and countenance aglow with intensity of purpose
or haggard with disappointment at some fresh rebuff, the ragged urchins
of the pavement tapped their foreheads and smiled with mingled wonder
and amusement at this madman. Seventeen years had elapsed since the
letter from Toscanelli to Martinez, and all that was mortal of the
Florentine astronomer had long since been laid in the grave. For
Columbus himself old age was not far away, yet he seemed no nearer the
fulfilment of his grand purpose than when he had first set it forth to
the king of Portugal. We can well imagine that when he started from
Huelva, with his little son Diego, now some eleven or twelve years old,
again to begin renewing his suit in a strange country, his thoughts must
have been sombre enough. For some reason or other--tradition says to ask
for some bread and water for his boy--he stopped at the Franciscan
monastery of La Rabida, about half a league from Palos. The prior, Juan
Perez, who had never seen Columbus before, became greatly interested in
him and listened with earnest attention to his story. This worthy monk,
who before 1478 had been Isabella's father-confessor, had a mind
hospitable to new ideas. He sent for Garcia Fernandez, a physician of
Palos, who was somewhat versed in cosmography, and for Martin Alonso
Pinzon, a well-to-do ship-owner and trained mariner of that town, and in
the quiet of the monastery a conference was held in which Columbus
carried conviction to the minds of these new friends. Pinzon declared
himself ready to embark in the enterprise in person. The venerable prior
forthwith sent a letter to the queen, and received a very prompt reply
summoning him to attend her in the camp before Granada. The result of
the interview was that within a few days Perez returned to the convent
with a purse of 20,000 maravedis (equivalent to about 1,180 dollars of
the present day), out of which Columbus bought a new suit of clothes and
a mule; and about the first of December he set out for the camp in
company with Juan Perez, leaving the boy Diego in charge of the priest
Martin Sanchez and a certain Rodriguez Cabejudo, upon whose sworn
testimony, together with that of the physician Garcia Fernandez, some
years afterward, several