Part III. represents Columbus and his boy Diego in poverty before the Convent La Rabida. They pray for aid, and are succored by Father Juan Perez and his monks. Part IV. contains a Spanish dance by the courtiers and ladies of Queen Isabella's court; a song by the Queen, wherein she tells of her admiration for Columbus; the appearance of Father Juan, who pleads for the navigator and his cause; the discouraging arguments of Talavera; the hesitation of the Queen; her final decision to help Columbus in his undertaking, and her prayer for the success of the voyage. Part V. is devoted to the voyage. Mr. Pratt has here endeavored to picture in a symphonic prelude "the peaceful progress upon the waters, the jubilant feeling of Columbus, and a flight of birds"--subjects dissimilar enough certainly to lend variety to any orchestral composition. The part, in addition to this prelude, contains the recitation by a sailor of "The Legend of St. Brandon's Isle"; a song by Columbus; the mutiny of the sailors, and Columbus' vain attempts to quell it; his appeal to Christ and the holy cross for aid, following which "the miraculous appearance takes place and the sailors are awed into submission"; the chanting of evening vespers; the firing of the signal gun which announces the discovery of land, and the singing of a _Gloria in Excelsis_ by Columbus, the sailors, and a chorus of angels. Part VI. is the "grand pageantry of Columbus' reception at Barcelona. A triumphal march by chorus, band, and orchestra forms an accompaniment to a procession and the final reception." STRANGE AND COLOSSAL MAN. From an introduction to "The Story of Columbus," in the New York _Herald_, 1892. What manner of man was this Columbus, this admiral of the seas and lord of the Indies, who gave to Castille and Leon a new world? Was he the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer of the skeptic biographer, who weighed all men by the sum of ages and not by the age in which they lived, or the religious hero who carried a flaming cross into the darkness of the unknown West, as his reverential historians have painted him? There have been over six hundred biographers of this strange and colossal man, advancing all degrees of criticism, from filial affection to religious and fanatical hate, yet those who dwell in the lands he discovered know him only by his achievements, caring nothing about the trivial weaknesses of his private life. One of his fairest critics has said he was the conspicuous developer of a great world movement, the embodiment of the ripened aspirations of his time. His life is enveloped in an almost impenetrable veil of obscurity; in fact, the date and the place of his birth are in dispute. There are no authentic portraits of him, though hundreds have been printed.