COL. Your Majesty shall not repent your heroic resolve. I will return-be sure I will return-and lay at your feet such a jewel as never queen wore yet, an imperishable fame that shall couple with your memory the benedictions of millions yet unborn in climes yet unknown to civilized man. There is a conviction in my mind that your Majesty will live to bless the hour you came to this decision.

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

SHALL not occupy time by discussing the huge mass of suppositions, conjectures, and probabilities respecting the first discovery of this country, with which unhappy historians overload themselves, in their endeavors to satisfy the doubts of an incredulous world. It is painful to see these laborious wights panting and toiling and sweating under an enormous burden, at the very outset of their work, which, on being opened, turns out to be nothing but a mighty bundle of straw. As, however, by unwearied assiduity they seem to have established the fact, to the satisfaction of all the world, that this country has been discovered, I shall avail myself of their useful labors to be extremely brief upon this point.

I shall not, therefore, stop to inquire whether America was first discovered by a wandering vessel of that celebrated Phoenician fleet which, according to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa, or by that Carthaginian expedition which Pliny, the naturalist, informs us discovered the Canary Islands; or whether it was settled by a temporary colony from Tyre, as hinted by Aristotle and Seneca.

I shall neither inquire whether it was first discovered by the Chinese, as Vossius, with great shrewdness, advances; nor by the Norwegians in 1002 under Broin; nor by Behem, the German

navigator; nor shall I investigate the more modern claims of the Welsh, founded on the voyage of Prince Madoc in the eleventh century, who, having never returned, it has been wisely concluded that he must have gone to America, and that for a plain reason—if he did not go there, where else could he have gone? a question which most Socratically shuts out all further dispute.

Laying aside, therefore, all the conjectures above mentioned, with a multitude of others equally satisfactory, I shall take for granted the vulgar opinion that America was discovered on the 12th of October, 1492, by Christoval Colon, a Genoese, who has been clumsily nicknamed Columbus, but for what reason I cannot discern. Of the voyages and adventures of this Colon, I shall say nothing, seeing that they are already sufficiently known. Nor shall I undertake to prove that this country should have been called Colonia, after his name, that being notoriously self-evident.

Having thus happily got my readers on this side of the Atlantic, I picture them to myself all impatience to enter upon the enjoyment of the land of promise, and in full expectation that I will immediately deliver it into their possession. But if I do, may I ever forfeit the reputation of a regular-bred historian! No, no; most curious and thrice learned readers (for thrice learned ye are if ye have read all that has gone before, and nine times learned shall ye be if ye read that which comes after), we have yet a world of work before us. Think you the first discoverers of this fair quarter of the globe had nothing to do but go on shore and find a country ready laid out and cultivated like a garden, wherein they might revel at their ease? No such thing: they had forests to cut down, underwood to grub up, marshes to drain, and savages to exter-. minate.

In like manner I have sundry doubts to clear away, questions to resolve, and paradoxes to explain, before I permit you to range at random; but these difficulties once overcome we shall be enabled to jog on right merrily, though the rest of our history. Thus my work shall, in a manner, echo the nature of the subject, in the same manner as the sound of poetry has been found by certain

shrewd critics to echo the sense, this being an improvement in history which I claim the merit of having invented.

It was on Friday morning, the 12th of October, 1492, that Columbus first beheld the New World.

On landing, he threw himself on his knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by the rest, whose hearts indeed overflowed with the sam feelings of gratitude.

Columbus then, rising, drew his sword, displayed the royal standard, and took solemn possession in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of San Salvador. Having complied with the requisite forms and ceremonies, he called upon all present to take the oath of obedience to him, as admiral and viceroy representing the persons of the sovereigns.

The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most extravagant transports. They thronged about the Admiral with overflowing zeal, some embracing him, others kissing his hands. Those who had been most mutinous and turbulent during the voyage, were now most devoted and enthusiastic. Some begged favors of him, as if he had already wealth and honors in his gift. Many abject spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, now crouched at his feet, begging pardon for all the trouble they had caused him, and promising the blindest obedience for the future.

As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at the extremity of India, he called the natives by the general appellation of Indians, which was universally adopted before the true nature of his discovery was known, and has since been extended to all the aboriginals of the New World. The islanders were friendly and gentle. Their only arms were lances, hardened at the end by fire, or pointed with a flint, or the teeth or bone of a fish. There was no iron to be seen, nor did they appear acquainted with its properties; for when a drawn sword was presented to them, they unguardedly took it by the edge.

On the following morning, at break of day, the shore was thronged with the natives; some swam off to the ships, others came

in light barks, which they called canoes, formed of a single tree hollowed, and capable of holding from one man up to the number of forty or fifty.

They were eager to procure toys and trinkets, not, apparently, from any idea of their intrinsic value, but because everything from the hands of the strangers possessed a supernatural virtue in their eyes, as having been brought from heaven; they even picked up fragments of glass and earthenware as valuable prizes.

noses.

The avarice of the discoverers was quickly excited by the sight of small ornaments of gold, worn by some of the natives in their These the latter gladly exchanged for glass beads and hawks' bells; and both parties exulted in the bargain, no doubt admiring each other's simplicity. As gold, however, was an object of royal monopoly in all enterprises of discovery, Columbus forbade any traffic in it without his express sanction; and he put the same prohibition on the traffic for cotton, reserving to the crown all trade for it, wherever it should be found in any quantity.

He inquired of the natives where this gold was procured. They answered him by signs, pointing to the south, where, he understood them, dwelt a king of such wealth that he was served in vessels of wrought gold. He understood, also, that there was land to the south, the southwest, and the northwest; and that the people from the lastmentioned quarter frequently proceeded to the southwest in quest of gold and precious stones, making in their way descents upon the islands, and carrying off the inhabitants. Several of the natives showed him scars of wounds received in battles with these invaders. It is evident that a great part of this fancied intelligence was self-delusion on the part of Columbus; for he was under a spell of imagination which gave its own shapes and colors to every object.

He was persuaded that he had arrived among the islands described by Marco Polo as lying opposite Cathay, in the Chinese Sea, and he construed everything to accord with the account given of those opulent regions. Thus the enemies which the natives spoke of as coming from the northwest, he concluded to be the

people of the mainland of Asia, the subjects of the great Khan of Tartary, who were represented by the Venetian traveller as accustomed to make war upon the islands, and to enslave their inhabitants. The country to the south, abounding in gold, could be no other than the famous island of Cipango; and the king, who was served out of vessels of gold, must be the monarch whose magnificent city and gorgeous palace, covered with plates of gold, had been extolled in such splendid terms by Marco Polo.

After a brief interval, the sovereigns requested of Columbus a recital of his adventures. His manner was sedate and dignified, but warmed by the glow of natural enthusiasm. He enumerated the several islands he had visited, expatiated on the temperate character of the climate, and the capacity of the soil for every variety of production, appealing to the samples imported by him as evidence of their natural productiveness. He dwelt more at large on the precious metals to be found in these islands, which he inferred less from the specimens actually obtained than from the uniform testimony of the natives to their abundance in the unexplored regions of the interior. Lastly, he pointed out the wide scope afforded to Christian zeal in the illumination of a race of men whose minds, far from being wedded to any system of idolatry, were prepared by their extreme simplicity for the reception of pure and uncorrupted doctrine.

The last consideration touched Isabella's heart most sensibly; and the whole audience, kindled with various emotions by the speaker's eloquence, filled up the perspective with the gorgeous coloring of their own fancies, as ambition or avarice or devotional feeling predominated in their bosoms. When Columbus ceased, the King and Queen, together with all present, prostrated themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgiving, while the solemn strains of the Te Deum were poured forth by the choir of the royal chapel, as in commemoration of some glorious victory.