Columbus was at once recalled; and though the pledging of the Queen’s jewels was not found necessary, she aided him now with all the energy and enthusiasm of her character. On the 17th April, 1492, the stipulations granting full powers to Columbus, and conferring on him and his heirs the honors he had demanded, were signed at the city of Santa Fé, in the plain of Grenada: and on the 3rd August of the same year, eighteen years after he first conceived the idea of the voyage, our hero――all preliminary difficulties over――at last set sail from the bar of Saltos, near Palos (N. lat. 37° 11′, W. long. 6° 47′), in command of three vessels――the _Santa Maria_, the _Pinta_, and the _Niña_, only one of which, the first, and that on which the Admiral himself embarked, was decked. He was leader of one hundred and twenty men; but the motley character of his crews, enlisted on compulsion, and thoroughly imbued with all the superstitions of the age with regard to the perils of the deep, caused Columbus much embarrassment from the very first, and he was detained for three weeks at the Canaries by an “accident”――supposed to have been purposely brought about――to the rudder of the _Pinta_. It was not until the 6th September that the actual voyage of discovery can be said to have commenced. Setting sail that day from the island of Gomera he passed Ferro, the last of the Canaries, on the 9th. As the last traces of land faded from the sight of the untutored mariners, their hearts failed them, and with tears and groans they entreated their leader to turn back while there was yet time. The passing of a portion of a wreck on the 11th still further aroused their fears, and it was all that Columbus could do to induce them to obey his orders. On the 13th September a slight but deeply significant incident occurred. Columbus, watching with eager interest the little compass――which, surrounded as he was by timid, vacillating spirits, must have seemed to him his one steadfast, unchangeable friend――noticed a variation in the needle. To quote the words of Washington Irving, “he perceived about nightfall that the needle, instead of pointing to the north star, varied about half a point, or between five and six degrees, to the north-west, and still more on the following morning.” Knowing how greatly this phenomenon would alarm his people, Columbus at first kept it to himself; but it was soon remarked by the pilots, and their report sent a fresh thrill of horror through the crews. They were entering a new world, where the very laws of nature were changing, and in which even inanimate objects were subject to weird, unearthly influences.