In spite of the knowledge that Columbus was actually leaving Spain with a very slight prospect of ever returning, the departure of the ships cast a gloom over Palos. The people felt that to sacrifice one hundred and nineteen lives, with three valuable vessels, was a heavy price to pay, even for permanently ridding Spain of the devastating talker. Still, we are not told that they permitted sentiment to overpower their patriotism, and they were probably sustained by the reflection that it was better that one hundred and nineteen other people should be drowned, than that they themselves should be talked to death. It is universally agreed that it is impossible not to admire the courage displayed by Columbus and his associates. The ships of the expedition were small and unseaworthy. They were not supplied with ice-houses, hot water, electric bells, saloons amidships where the motion is least perceptible, smoking and bath rooms, or any of the various other devices by which the safety of modern steamships is secured. The crew knew that they were bound to an unknown port, and that if their vessels managed to reach it there was no certainty that they would find any rum. Columbus had employed eighteen years in convincing himself that if he once set sail he would ultimately arrive somewhere; but now that he was finally afloat, his faith must have wavered somewhat. As he was an excellent sailor, he could not but have felt uncomfortable when he remembered that he had set sail on Friday. However, he professed to be in the very best of spirits, and no one can deny that he was as brave as he was tedious. On the third day out, the _Pinta_ unshipped her rudder, and soon after began to leak badly. Her commander made shift partially to repair the disaster to the rudder, but Columbus determined to put into the Canaries, and charter another vessel in her place. He knew that he was then not far from the Canaries, although the pilots, either because their minds were already weakening under the strain of their commander’s conversation, or because they were ready to contradict him at every possible opportunity, insisted that the islands were a long way off. Columbus was right, and on the 9th of August they reached the Canaries, where we may suppose the pilots were permitted to go ashore and obtain a little rest.