soil of Cathay! Could anything be more pathetic, or better illustrate
the profound irony with which our universe seems to be governed?

[Sidenote: Columbus reaches Cuba, and sends envoys to find a certain
Asiatic prince.]

On reaching Cuba the Admiral was charmed with the marvellous beauty of
the landscape,--a point in which he seems to have been unusually
sensitive. He found pearl oysters along the shore, and although no
splendid cities as yet appeared, he did not doubt that he had reached
Cipango. But his attempts at talking with the amazed natives only served
to darken counsel. He understood them to say that Cuba was part of the
Asiatic continent, and that there was a king in the neighbourhood who
was at war with the Great Khan! So he sent two messengers to seek this
refractory potentate,--one of them a converted Jew acquainted with
Arabic, a language sometimes heard far eastward in Asia, as Columbus
must have known. These envoys found pleasant villages, with large
houses, surrounded with fields of such unknown vegetables as maize,
potatoes, and tobacco; they saw men and women smoking cigars,[520] and
little dreamed that in that fragrant and soothing herb there was a
richer source of revenue than the spices of the East. They passed acres
of growing cotton and saw in the houses piles of yarn waiting to be
woven into rude cloth or twisted into nets for hammocks. But they found
neither cities nor kings, neither gold nor spices, and after a tedious
quest returned, somewhat disappointed, to the coast.

[Footnote 520: The first recorded mention of tobacco is in
Columbus's diary for November 20, 1492:--"Hallaron los dos
cristianos por el camino mucha gente que atravesaba a sus
pueblos, mugeres y hombres con un tizon en la mano, yerbas para
tomar sus sahumerios que acostumbraban," i. e. "the two
Christians met on the road a great many people going to their
villages, men and women with brands in their hands, made of
herbs for taking their customary smoke." Navarrete, tom. i. p.
51.]

[Sidenote: Columbus turns eastward; Pinzon deserts him.]

Columbus seems now to have become perplexed, and to have vacillated
somewhat in his purposes. If this was the continent of Asia it was
nearer than he had supposed, and how far mistaken he had been in his
calculations no one could tell. But where was Cipango? He gathered from
the natives that there was a