It was on the morning of Friday, 12th October 1492, that Christopher Columbus first saw the New World rising on the ocean horizon. The ardently prayed-for land proved to be an island, called by the natives Guanahanè, and by the explorer baptized San Salvador, but known to us now as the chief of the Bahamas group. After making friends with the gentle natives, and taking in supplies of food and water, Columbus, though at some loss as to which way he should direct his course, set sail once more. Such a multitude of islands lay before him, large and small, "green, level, and fertile," that he grew fairly confused as to which way to turn. He fancied he was sailing in the Archipelago, described by Marco Polo as studding the seas which washed the shores of Chin, or China, a great, great distance from the mainland. These, the Venetian traveller had declared, numbered some 7000 or 8000--rich in gold, silver, drugs, spices, and many other precious objects of commerce. Night obscured the delightful vision, and the verdure-clad islands faded into the tropical darkness. The next morning Columbus landed on a pretty islet, the inhabitants of which greeted him in the most friendly manner, and to which he gave the name of Santa Maria de la Concepcion. But the extreme simplicity of their costume--they were clad in all their native innocence--and the absence of all signs of wealth, led the Discoverer to think that perhaps, after all, he was still far from that part of the world mentioned by the imaginative Marco. Next, he landed on a beautiful island, now known as Exuma, to which he gave the name of Fernandina, in honour of His Most Christian Majesty. Here the ladies betrayed more native modesty, for, he gravely assures us, "they wore mantles made of feathers, and cotton aprons." He had disembarked in a noble harbour, bordered by shady groves, "as fresh and green as in the month of May in Andalusia." The trees, the fruits, the herbs, the flowers, the very stones, were, for the most part, as different from those of Spain as day is to night.