It will be seen by the foregoing that history presents quite a number of candidates for being the first discoverers of America. Who knows what influence these adventurous voyages of the Northmen may have had upon the discovery of America by Columbus? That great navigator is stated to have visited Iceland in 1477; and may he not then have heard of this land of the grape and vine to the westward? and may not the tales of the Icelanders have encouraged his western aspirations, which are said to have originated as far back as 1470? This supposition would not, however, detract from the great merit of Columbus; for the idea of crossing the Atlantic, and of reaching Asia by the west, was not original with Columbus, nor even with his generation. The glory was not in the conception, but in the execution. It has been said that the name America is “a monument of man’s ingratitude;” but this is hardly true, since the name Columbus gave to his own discoveries was, as we all know, West Indies, in the full belief that he was within reach of the rich treasures of the Orient; and even after Columbus’s death, and after the conquests of Cortez, Mexico was marked down upon the maps of the period as a part of China, and, indeed, the capital city of the Montezumas was shown to be only a few days’ journey _overland_ from the mouths of the Ganges. It was not until Balboa had waded into the waters of the Pacific Ocean, and had thus taken possession of the newly-discovered sea, that the idea of a new world, or new continent, having been discovered began to enter into the minds of men. The belief of Marco Polo, who looked out over the ocean eastward from China, and the belief of the ambitious Genoese navigator, who looked westward from the shores of Spain, was the same, and it was shared by every body: this belief being that the Atlantic Ocean extended from Asia to Europe; and what we now call America was nowhere at all in their imaginations. CHAPTER X. THE LAST MAN. The final destruction of the Northmen in Greenland is a matter of melancholy interest. Exactly when it came about we can not know. We have seen that the bishop’s see was abandoned in 1409. Prior to that time, however, we have accounts of the desperate straits to which the people were reduced. In 1383 we find the following curious entry in the Icelandic annals: “A ship came from Greenland to Norway which had lain in the former country six years, and certain men returned by this vessel who had escaped from the wreck of Thorlast’s ship. This ship brought the news of Bishop Alf’s death from Greenland, which had taken place there six years before.”