Great Inventions and DiscoveriesPiercy, Willis Duff
History
Great Inventions and Discoveries
Piercy, Willis Duff
Inventions
In May, 1502, Columbus set sail on his fourth and last voyage, during
which he endured very great dangers. Two of his vessels were destroyed
by a storm and the other two were wrecked off the coast of Jamaica.
Separated from all the rest of the world, a number of his companions
revolted, threatened his life, deserted him, and settled on another
part of the island. The natives ceased to bring him food, and death
seemed imminent. In this extremity he took advantage of an approaching
eclipse of the moon. He told the natives that his God would destroy the
moon as a token of the punishment to be inflicted upon them, if they
did not bring the white men food. When the eclipse came, the natives
implored Columbus to intercede for them with his God, and they brought
him food in abundance. After the shipwreck, the navigator sent some of
his boldest men in canoes to ask relief of the governor of the colony
in Hispaniola. The messengers reached the colony in safety, but the
governor would not undertake the rescue of Columbus. They bought a
vessel, took it to Jamaica, and after a year of danger and anxiety on
the island, in June, 1504, Columbus started on his homeward voyage. In
September of this year he landed on Spanish soil for the last time.
This final voyage was not productive of any important results.
Soon after his return Queen Isabella died, and about two years later,
on May 12, 1506, Columbus himself died at Valladolid, Spain. He was
buried first at Valladolid, but his remains were soon transferred to a
monastery in Seville, Spain. They were exhumed in 1536 and taken across
the sea to the city of Santo Domingo, on the island of Hayti, which he
had discovered. In 1796 the remains were taken to Havana, Cuba, where
they remained until the close of the Spanish-American war. In 1898,
after the island of Cuba had passed from Spain to the United States,
the body of the great admiral was taken across the Atlantic again to
Spain, where it now rests.
In person Columbus was tall and well formed. Early in life he had
auburn hair, but by the time he was thirty years old his hair had been
turned white with care, hardship, and trouble. His face was long, and
he had gray eyes and an aquiline nose. He was moderate in all his
habits, and was one of the most religious of men. He was of a poetic
temperament and thus lacked some of the essential qualities of great
leadership. He was broad in his outlook, noble in his aspirations, and
benevolent in spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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