ty of punishment if they joined the expedition. At
two o'clock in the morning of Friday, the 12th of October, Columbus
discovered land. On the fourth of January of the year 1493, Columbus
waved farewell to the 44 men of the little fortress of La Navidad (none
of whom was ever again seen alive) and returned homeward. By the middle
of February he reached the Azores where the Portuguese threatened
to throw him into gaol. On the fifteenth of March, 1493, the admiral
reached Palos and together with his Indians (for he was convinced that
he had discovered some outlying islands of the Indies and called the
natives red Indians) he hastened to Barcelona to tell his faithful
patrons that he had been successful and that the road to the gold and
the silver of Cathay and Zipangu was at the disposal of their most
Catholic Majesties.

Alas, Columbus never knew the truth. Towards the end of his life, on his
fourth voyage, when he had touched the mainland of South America, he may
have suspected that all was not well with his discovery. But he died
in the firm belief that there was no solid continent between Europe and
Asia and that he had found the direct route to China.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese, sticking to their eastern route, had been
more fortunate. In the year 1498, Vasco da Gama had been able to reach
the coast of Malabar and return safely to Lisbon with a cargo of spice.
In the year 1502 he had repeated the visit. But along the western route,
the work of exploration had been most disappointing. In 1497 and 1498
John and Sebastian Cabot had tried to find a passage to Japan but they
had seen nothing but the snowbound coasts and the rocks of Newfoundland,
which had first been sighted by the Northmen, five centuries before.
Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine who became the Pilot Major of Spain, and
who gave his name to our continent, had explored the coast of Brazil,
but had found not a trace of the Indies.

In the year 1513, seven years after the death of Columbus, the truth at
last began to dawn upon the geographers of Europe. Vasco Nunez de
Balboa had crossed the Isthmus of Panama, had climbed the famous peak in
Darien, and had looked down upon a vast expanse of water which seemed to
suggest the existence of another ocean.

Finally in the year 1519 a fleet of five small Spanish ships under
command of the Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand de Magellan, sailed
westward (and not eastward since that route, was absolutely in the hands
o