The details of the landing, the astonishment of the natives, “naked as when their mothers gave them birth,” at the sight of mail- and silk-clad warriors and the sound of cannons; the account of various expeditions made to other islands and of the fort built in Española;—these like the actual voyages may be read at length in the pages of Washington Irving. It is with the triumphant home-coming of the hero not with his adventures that we are here concerned. Attention you two most wise and venerable men and hear of a new discovery [wrote Peter Martyr to the Archbishop of Granada and Count of Tendilla]. You remember Columbus the Ligurian, who persisted, when in the camps with the sovereigns, that one could pass over by way of the Western Antipodes to a new hemisphere of the globe.... He is returned safe and declares he has found wonderful things. Wonderful things indeed! Brown-skinned Indians, green and scarlet parrots, golden nuggets and ornaments, cotton fibre and strange roots and seeds; these that he brought with him were but proofs and trophies of the still more wonderful adventures he hastened to relate before the sovereigns and their Court. In his disembarkation at Palos on the 15th of March, 1493, and still more in his “solemn and very beautiful reception” by the sovereigns at Barcelona graphically described by the historian Las Casas, he was to reap at last the meed of honour and enthusiasm so long denied him. Kneeling before his King and Queen to kiss the hands that afterwards raised him in gracious condescension to sit with royalty upon the dais, flattered and fêted by courtiers who had before patronized or mocked, riding through the crowded streets by Ferdinand’s side amid cries of admiration and applause;—in these moments he reached the climax of worldly glory. Long years stretched before him, when circumstances, his own failings, and the envy and spite of others, were to rob him of ease, popularity, and even royal confidence; but for the time being he was “Don,” “Admiral,” the honoured of Kings, the most discussed and admired man in Spain, perhaps in all Europe. In one country at least, the kingdom of Portugal, the result of his voyage was a subject for poignant regret; and Ferdinand and Isabel, having obtained from Alexander VI. papal recognition of their right to the newly discovered territories, were driven to demand a series of bulls, that would provide them with a definition of their empire, lest Portuguese rivals, too slow to forestall them in the discovery, should now rob them of their gains.