"I, lying here, bedridden and alone, Cast off, put by, scouted by count and king, The first discoverer starves." And so the brilliant navigator, Christopher Columbus, passed away, all unconscious of the great New World he had reached. Four centuries have passed away, but-- "When shall the world forget The glory and the debt, Indomitable soul, Immortal Genoese? Not while the shrewd salt gale Whines amid shroud and sail, Above the rhythmic roll And thunder of the seas." It has been well said, "injustice was not buried with Columbus," and soon after his death an attempt was made, and made successfully, to name the New World after another--a Florentine pilot, Amerigo Vespucci. [Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN IN 1500, THE FIRST TO SHOW AMERICA. By Juan de la Cosa, who is supposed to have been the pilot of Columbus. At the top, between the two green masses representing America, La Cosa has drawn Columbus as St. Christopher carrying the infant Christ, according to the legend.] It was but natural that when the first discoveries by Columbus of land to westward had been made known, that others should follow in the track of the great navigator. Among these was a handsome young Spaniard--one Hojeda--who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. Soon after, he fitted out an expedition, 1499, reaching the mainland of the yet unknown continent near the Trinidad of Columbus. With him was Amerigo Vespucci. Here they found a native village with houses built on tree trunks and connected by bridges. It was so like a bit of old Venice that the explorers named it Little Venice or Venezuela, which name it bears to-day. Nothing was publicly known of this voyage till a year after the death of Columbus, when men had coasted farther to the south of Venezuela and discovered that this land was neither Asia nor Africa, that it was not the land of Marco Polo, but a new continent indeed. "It is proper to call it a New World," says Amerigo Vespucci. "Men of old said over and over again that there was no land south of the Equator. But this last voyage of mine has proved them wrong, since in southern regions I have found a country more thickly inhabited by people and animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa." [Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI. From the sculpture by Grazzini in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.] These words among others, and an account of his voyages published in Paris, 1507, created a deep impression. A letter from Columbus announcing his discoveries had been published in 1493, but he said nothing, because he knew nothing, of a New World. Men therefore said that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered a new continent, "wherefore the new continent ought to be called America from its discoverer Amerigo, a man of rare ability, inasmuch as Europe and Asia derived their names from women." CHAPTER XXIV VASCO DA GAMA REACHES INDIA