age was the
frail bark freighted with his property.

CHAPTER VII.

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS SHIPWRECKED, AND ALSO OF THE MANNER OF HIS
DEATH.

Columbus soon left Hispaniola where he met with so inhospitable a
reception, and steering towards the west, he arrived on the coast of
Honduras. There he had an interview with some of the inhabitants of the
continent, who came off in a large canoe; they appeared to be more
civilized than any whom he had hitherto discovered.

In return to the inquiries which the Spaniards made with their usual
eagerness, where the Indians got the gold which they wore by way of
ornaments, they directed him to countries situated to the west, in which
gold was found in such profusion that it was applied to the most common
uses.

Well would it have been for Columbus had he followed their advice.
Within a day or two he would have arrived at Yucatan; the discovery of
Mexico and the other opulent countries of New Spain would have
necessarily followed, the Southern Ocean would have been disclosed to
him, and a succession of splendid discoveries would have shed fresh
glory on his declining age.

But the admiral's mind was bent upon discovering the supposed strait
that was to lead to the Indian Ocean. In this navigation he explored a
great extent of coast from Cape Gracios a Dios till he came to a
harbour, which on account of its beauty and security, he called Porto
Bello.

On quitting this harbour he steered for the south, and he had not
followed this course many days when he was overtaken by storms more
terrible than any he had yet encountered.

For nine days the vessels were tossed about at the mercy of a raging
tempest. The sea, according to the description of Columbus, boiled at
times like a cauldron, at other times it ran in mountain waves covered
with foam: at night the raging billows sparkled with luminous particles,
which made them resemble great surges of flame.

For a day and a night the heavens glowed like a furnace with incessant
flashes of lightning, while the loud claps of thunder were often
mistaken for signal guns of their foundering companions.

In the midst of this wild tumult of the elements, they beheld a new
object of alarm. The ocean, in one place, became strangely agitated; the
water was whirled up into a kind of pyramid or cone; while a livid
cloud, tapering to a point, bent down to meet it; joining together, they
formed a column, which rapidly approached