THE RIVER OF LIFE.

21

In other respects he shared the superstitions and prejudices of his age. A marked token of this is found in the fact that he made, in 1501, elaborate plans for an expedition to recover the holy sepulchre from the Moslems. This was before his fourth voyage, when he was at Granada trying to put his affairs into

RUINS OF COLUMBUS' HOUSE, ST. DOMINGO.

order, after the great confusion into which they had fallen subsequent to his third voyage. That voyage was one of the sad experiences of his sad life. He had fondly thought that he had actually discovered the River of Life flowing from the Tree of Life in the midst of the Terrestrial Paradise, when sailing off the Oronoco river, and while in this exalted state, he had

been involved through the jealousy of courtiers in Spain, and the dissensions of his own men, had been superseded in command and taken to Spain in irons. The burst of popular indignation caused by his arrival in this condition, forced Ferdinand to disavow connection with the transaction, and Columbus

went to the New World again, but he never regained his prestige.

He had vowed that he would furnish within seven years after the discovery of the Western Continent, a force of fifty thousand foot and five thousand horse, to recover the holy sepulchre. He had not derived

DEATH OF COLUMBUS,

23

from his discoveries the expected means to do this; but he endeavored to incite the sovereigns to the enterprise. He set himself to the study of the Bible, the Fathers, and all other works from which he could hope for arguments to support his scheme. He said that he had been set apart from infancy by Heaven for the accomplishment of the discovery of the New World and the rescue of the sepulchre. He argued with the court with eloquence; and when Vasco de Gama had achieved the signal success of sailing to India around the Cape of Good Hope, the old desire. revived; he was roused to emulation, and pleaded for an equipment to enable him to search for a strait, which he supposed he should find near the Isthmus of Darien, that would give him a direct route to the Indies. He thus worked upon the cupidity of Ferdinand, and was sent on his fourth voyage May 9, 1502. He did not forget his other project, however, and wrote a letter of apology to the Pope, in which he gave the reasons for postponing his pious enterprise.

Columbus returned from his fourth voyage in November, 1504, and died in neglect, poverty, and pain, at Valladolid, on the twentieth of May, 1506. He was honored with a pompous funeral, and on his monument the inscription was put,

A Castilla y a Leon

Nuevo mundo dio Colon.*

The body of Columbus was destined to almost as many vicissitudes after death as it had experienced in life. Deposited first in the parochial church at Val

* To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world.

ladolid, it was afterwards transferred to Seville, where that of his son Diego was also deposited; and in 1536, both were removed to Hispaniola and buried in the chief chapel of the Cathedral of San Domingo. There the remains of Columbus are supposed to rest still, a box containing them having been found with evidences of its authenticity, in September, 1877, though it is believed that the remains of Diego were removed to Havana, in 1795.

Beautiful realm beyond the western main,
That hymns thee ever with resounding wave,
Thine is the glorious sun's peculiar reign!
Fruits, flowers, and gems, in rich mosaic pave

Thy paths; like giant altars o'er the plain

Thy mountains blaze, loud thundering, 'mid the rave
Of mighty streams, that shoreward rush amain,
Like Polypheme from his Etnean cave.
Joy, joy, for Spain! A seaman's hand confers
These glorious gifts, and half the world is hers!
But where is he - that light whose radiance glows

The loadstar of succeeding mariners?

Behold him! crushed beneath o'ermastering woesHopeless, heartbroken, chained, abandoned to his foes! - Sir Aubrey de Vere.

The legends of the Norsemen whom the Sagas tell us came to these shores five hundred years before Columbus, belong rather to the domain of the antiquary or the poet than to that of the historian. While, as Dr. Palfrey says, it is nowise unlikely that these sturdy voyagers pushed their keels as far as the Western continent, it is surely true that they left nothing which has impressed our civilization or our history. The Round Tower at Newport, and the skeleton found at Fall River, Mass., gave Mr. Longfellow an opportunity to bring a romantic voice from the past, though it related a tale that the Sagas had forgotten; but the acute criticism of Dr. Palfrey has conclusively