It was a happy notion, and creditable to the ingenuity of the Spaniards, to celebrate the auspicious event, which made Palos famous four hundred years ago, by a little dramatic representation. The caravel Maria, manned by appropriately dressed sailors, must be a sight better than many eloquent speeches. She has, we are told, been built in careful imitation of the flagship of Columbus' little squadron. If the fidelity of the builders has been thorough, if she has not been coppered, has no inner skin, and has to trust mainly to her caulking to keep out the water, we hope that she will have unbroken good weather on her way to New York. The voyage to Havana across the "Ladies' Sea" is a simple business; but the coast of the United States in early autumn will be trying to a vessel which will be buoyant enough as long as she is water-tight, but is not to be trusted to remain so under a severe strain. She will not escape the strain wholly by being towed. We are not told whether the Maria is to make the landfall of Columbus as well as take his departure. The disputes of the learned as to the exact spot might make it difficult to decide for which of the Bahamas the captain ought to steer. On the other hand, if it were left to luck, to the wind, and the currents, the result might throw some light on a vexed question. It might be interesting to see whether the Maria touched at Turk Island, Watling's Island, or Mariguana, or at none of the three. The event which the Spaniards are celebrating with natural pride is peculiarly fitted to give an excuse for a centenary feast. The complaints justly made as to the artificial character of the excuses often chosen for these gatherings and their eloquence do not apply here. Beyond all doubt, when Columbus sailed from Palos on August 3, 1492, he did something by which the history of the world was profoundly influenced. Every schoolboy of course knows that if Columbus had never lived America would have been discovered all the same, when Pedro Alvarez Cabral, the Portuguese admiral, was carried by the trade-winds over to the coast of Brazil in 1500. But in that case it would not have been discovered by Spain, and the whole course of the inevitable European settlement on the continent must have been modified.