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But Columbus, though he knew that his explanation was wrong, said the compass was all right. The North Star, toward which the needle always pointed, had, so he said, changed its position. This quieted the sailors for a while.

When they had been about forty days out from Palos, the ship ran into what is marked upon your maps as the Sargasso Sea. This is a vast meadow of floating seaweed and seagrass in the middle of the Atlantic; it is kept drifting about in the same place by the two great sea currents that flow past it but not through it.

The sailors did not know this, of course, and when the ships began to sail slower and slower because the seaweed was so thick and heavy and because there was no current to carry them along, they were sure that they were somewhere near to the jumping-off place, and that the horrible monsters they had heard of were making ready to stop their ships, and when they had got them all snarled up in this weed to drag them all down to the bottom of the sea.

For nearly a week the ships sailed over these vast sea- meadows, and when they were out of them they struck what we call the trade-winds--a never-failing breeze that blew them ever westward. Then the sailors cried out that they were in an enchanted land where there was but one wind and never a breeze to blow the poor sailors home again. Were they not fearfully "scarey?" But no doubt we should have been so, too, if we had been with them and knew no more than they did.

And when they had been over fifty days from home on the twenty-fifth of September, some one suddenly cried Land! Land! And all hands crowded to the side. Sure enough, they all saw it, straight ahead of them--fair green islands and lofty hills and a city with castles and temples and palaces that glittered beautifully in the sun.

Then they all cried for joy and sang hymns of praise and shouted to each other that their troubles were over. Cathay, it is Cathay! they cried; and they steered straight for the shining city. But, worst of all their troubles, even as they sailed toward the land they thought to be Cathay, behold! it all disappeared--island and castle and palace and temple and city, and nothing but the tossing sea lay all about them.

For this that they had seen was what is called a mirage--a trick of the clouds and the sun and the sea that makes people imagine they see what they would like to, but really do not. But after this Columbus had a harder time than ever with his men, for they were sure he was leading them all astray.

And so with frights and imaginings and mysteries like these, with strange birds flying about the ships and floating things in the water that told of land somewhere about them, with hopes again and again disappointed, and with the sailors growing more and more restless and discontented, and muttering threats against this Italian adventurer who, was leading the ships and sailors of the Spanish king to sure destruction, Columbus still sailed on, as full of patience and of faith, as certain of success as he had ever been.

On the seventh of October, 1492, the true record that Columbus was keeping showed that he had sailed twenty-seven hundred miles from the Canaries; the false record that the sailors saw said they had sailed twenty- two hundred miles. Had Columbus kept straight on, he would have landed very soon upon the coast of Florida or South Carolina, and would really have discovered the mainland of America. But Captain Alonso Pinzon saw what looked like a flock of parrots flying south. This made him think the land lay that way; so he begged the Admiral to change his course to the southward as he was sure there was no land to the west. Against his will, Columbus at last consented, and turning to the southwest headed for Cuba.

But he thought he was steering for Cathay. The islands of Japan, were, he thought, only a few leagues away to the west. They were really, as you know, away across the United States and then across the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles farther west than Columbus could sail. But according to his reckoning he hoped within a day or two to see the cities and palaces of this wonderful land.

When they sailed from the Canaries a reward had been offered to whomsoever should first see land. This reward was to be a silken jacket and nearly five hundred dollars in money; so all the sailors were on the watch.

At about ten o'clock on the evening of the eleventh of October, Columbus, standing on the high raised stern of the Santa Maria, saw a moving light, as if some one on the shore were running with a flaming torch. At two o'clock the next morning--Friday, the twelfth of October, 1492 the sharp eyes of a watchful sailor on the Pinta (his name was Rodrigo de Triana) caught sight of a long low coastline not far away. He raised the joyful shout Land, ho! The ships ran in as near to the shore as they dared, and just ten weeks after the anchors had been hauled up in Palos Harbor they were dropped overboard, and the hips of Columbus were anchored in the waters of a new world.

Where was it? What was it? Was it Cathay? Columbus was sure that it was. He was certain that the morning sun would shine for him upon the marble towers and golden roofs of the wonderful city of the kings of Cathay.

CHAPTER VI. WHAT COLUMBUS DISCOVERED.

A little over three hundred years ago there was a Pope of Rome whose name was Gregory XIII. He was greatly interested in learning and science, and when the scholars and wise men of his day showed him that a mistake in reckoning time had long before been made he set about to make it right. At that time the Pope of Rome had great influence with the kings and queens of Europe, and whatever he wished them to do they generally did.

So they all agreed to his plan of renumbering the days of the year, and a new reckoning of time was made upon the rule that most of you know by heart in the old rhyme:

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November; All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting February which alone Hath twenty-eight--and this, in fine, One year in four hath twenty-nine.

And the order of the days of the months and the year is what is called, after Pope Gregory, the Gregorian Calendar.

This change in reckoning time made, of course, all past dates wrong. The old dates, which were called Old Style, had to be made to correspond with the new dates which were called New Style.

Now, according to the Old Style, Columbus discovered the islands he thought to be the Indies (and which have ever since been called the West Indies) on the twelfth of October, 1492. But, according to the New Style, adopted nearly one hundred years after his discovery, the right date would be the twenty-first of October. And this is why, in the Columbian memorial year of 1892, the world celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America on the twenty-first of October; which, as you see, is the same as the twelfth under the Old Style of reckoning time.

But did Columbus discover America? What was this land that greeted his eyes as the daylight came on that Friday morning, and he saw the low green shores that lay ahead of his caravels

As far as Columbus was concerned he was sure that he had found some one of the outermost islands of Cipango or Japan. So he dropped his anchors, ordered out his rowboat, and prepared to take possession of the land in the name of the queen of Spain, who had helped him in his. enterprise.

Just why or by what right a man from one country could sail up to the land belonging to another country and, planting in the ground the flag of his king, could say, "This land belongs to my king!" is a hard question to answer. But there is an old saying that tells us, Might makes right; and the servants of the kings and queens--the adventurers and explorers of old--used to go sailing about the world with this idea in their heads, and as soon as they came to a land they, had never seen before, up would go their flag, and they would say, This land is mine and my king's! They would not of course do this in any of the well-known or "Christian lands" of Europe; but they believed that all "pagan lands" belonged by right to the first European king whose sailors should discover and claim them.

So Columbus lowered a boat from the Santa Maria, and with two of his chief men and some sailors for rowers he pulled off toward the island.

But before he did so, he had to listen to the cheers and congratulations of the very sailors who, only a few days before, were ready to kill him. But, you see, this man whom they thought crazy had really brought them to the beautiful land, just as he had promised. It does make such a difference, you know, in what people say whether a thing turns out right or not.

Columbus, as I say, got into his rowboat with his chief inspector and his lawyer. He wore a crimson cloak over his armor, and in his hand he held the royal banner of Spain. Following him came Captain Alonso Pinzon in a rowboat from the Pinta, and in a rowboat from the Nina Captain Vincent Pinzon. Each of these captains carried the "banner of the green cross" on which were to be seen the initials of the king and queen of Spain.

As they rowed toward the land they saw some people on the shore. They were not dressed in the splendid clothes the Spaniards expected to find the people of Cathay wearing. In fact, they did not have on much of anything but grease and paint. And the land showed no signs of the marble temples and gold-roofed palaces the sailors expected to find. It was a little, low, flat green island, partly covered with trees and with what looked like a lake in the center.

This land was, in fact, one of the three thousand keys or coral islands that stretch from the capes of Florida to the island of Hayti, and are known as the Bahama Islands. The one upon which Columbus landed was called by the natives Guanahani, and was either the little island now marked on the map as Cat Island or else the one called Watling's Island. Just which of these it was has been discussed over and over again, but careful scholars have now but little doubt that it was the one known to-day as Watling's Island. To see no sign of glittering palaces and gayly dressed people was quite a disappointment to Columbus. But then, he said, this, is probably the island farthest out to sea, and the people who live here are not the real Cathay folks. We shall see them very soon.

So with the royal banner and the green-cross standards floating above him, with his captains and chief officers and some of the sailors gathered about him, while all the others watched him from the decks of his fleet, Columbus stepped upon the shore. Then he took off his hat, and holding the royal banner in one hand and his sword in the other he said aloud: I take possession of this island, which I name San Salvador,[*] and of all the islands and lands about it in the name of my patron and sovereign lady, Isabella, and her kingdom of Castile. This, or something like it, he said, for the exact words are not known to us.

[*] The island of San Salvador means the island of the Holy Saviour. Columbus and the Spanish explorers who followed him gave Bible or religious names to very much of the land they discovered.

And when he had done this the captains and sailors fell at his feet in wonder and admiration, begging him to forgive them for all the hard things they had said about him. For you have found Cathay, they cried. You are our leader. You will make us rich and powerful. Hurrah for the great Admiral!

And when the naked and astonished people of the island saw all this--the canoes with wings, as they called the ships, the richly-dressed men with white and bearded faces, the flags and swords, and the people kneeling about this grand-looking old man in the crimson cloak--they said to one another: These men are gods; they have come from Heaven to see us. And then, they, too, fell on the ground and worshiped these men from Heaven, as they supposed Columbus and his sailors to be.

And when they found that the men from Heaven did not offer to hurt them, they came nearer; and the man in the crimson cloak gave them beads and pieces of bright cloth and other beautiful things they had never seen before. And this made them feel all the more certain that these men who had come to see them in the canoes with wings must really be from Heaven. So they brought them fruits and flowers and feathers and birds as presents; and both parties, the men with clothes and the men without clothes, got on very well together.

But Columbus, as we know, had come across the water for one especial reason. He was to find Cathay, and he was to find it so that he could carry back to Spain the gold and jewels and spices of Cathay. The first thing, therefore, that he tried to find out from the people of the island--whom he called "Indians," because he thought he had come to a part of the coast of India was where Cathay might be.

Of course they did not understand him. Even Louis, the interpreter, who knew a dozen languages and who tried them all, could not make out what these "Indians" said. But from their signs and actions and from the sound of the words they spoke, Columbus understood that Cathay was off somewhere to the southwest, and that the gold he was bound to find came from there. The "Indians" had little bits of gold hanging in their ears and noses. So Columbus supposed that among the finer people he hoped soon to meet in the southwest, he should find great quantities of the yellow metal. He was delighted. Success, he felt, was not far off. Japan was near, China was near, India was near. Of this he was certain; and even until he died Columbus did not have any idea that he had found a new world--such as America really was. He was sure that he had simply landed upon the eastern coasts of Asia and that he had found what he set out to discover--the nearest route to the Indies.

The next day Columbus pulled up his anchors, and having seized and carried off to his ships some of the poor natives who had welcomed him so gladly, he commenced a cruise among the islands of the group he had discovered.

Day after day he sailed among these beautiful tropic islands, and of them and of the people who lived upon them he wrote to the king and queen of Spain: "This country excels all others as far as the day surpasses the night in splendor. The natives love their neighbors as themselves; their conversation is the sweetest imaginable; their faces smiling; and so gentle and so affectionate are they, that I swear to Your Highness there is not a better people in the world."

Does it not seem a pity that so great a man should have acted so meanly toward these innocent people who loved and trusted him so? For it was Columbus who first stole them away from their island homes and who first thought of making them slaves to the white men.

CHAPTER VII. HOW A BOY BROUGHT THE ADMIRAL TO GRIEF.

Columbus kept sailing on from one island to another. Each new island he found would, he hoped, bring him nearer to Cathay and to the marble temples and golden palaces and splendid cities he was looking for. But the temples and palaces and cities did not appear. When the Admiral came to the coast of Cuba he said: This, I know, is the mainland of Asia. So he sent off Louis, the interpreter, with a letter to the "great Emperor of Cathay." Louis was gone several days; but he found no emperor, no palace, no city, no gold, no jewels, no spices, no Cathay--only frail houses of bark and reeds, fields of corn and grain, with simple people who could tell him nothing about Cathay or Cipango or the Indies.