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Nor have the southern ports of Huelva and Seville been much behind it in their rapid progress; while on the Mediterranean coast are Malaga, Almería, Aguilas, Cartagena, Valencia, and Tarragona all vying with the older, and once singular, centre of commercial and industrial activity, Barcelona.
Thus it was that little Diego never got to his aunt in Huelva; for by the time Martin Alonzo had returned, the monks had grown so fond of the child, and were so impressed with the great future that lay before his inspired father, that they offered to keep him and educate him free of all expense. This offer Columbus was glad to accept.
And these two possessions Columbus took with him when he set out for Spain in the year 1485. His first care was to take little Diego to the town of Huelva, where there lived a sister of Philippa's who had married a Spaniard named Muliartes. This done, he was able to devote himself solely to the furtherance of his Idea.
His good wife Felipa had died, and he had to find some place where he could leave his little son Diego while he went to court to ask for ships. Felipa had a sister married to a Spaniard and living in Huelva. With this lady Columbus decided to leave the boy.
As I doctored some small ill one day in the forecastle, a great fellow named Francisco from Huelva would tell me his dream of the night before. He had already told it, it seemed, to all who would listen, and now again he had considerable audience, crowding at the door. He said that he dreamed he was in Cipango.
Your grandchildren's grandchildren shall say, 'The Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina and one that was our ancestor sailed in this one or in that one, to the glory and gain of the world, wherefore we still make festival of his birthday!" At this they stirred, whether from Palos or Huelva or Fishertown. They looked at him now as though indeed he were great mage, or even apostle.
Diego, now a growing boy nearly eleven years old, had been staying with Beatriz at Cordova, and going to school there; Christopher would take him back to his aunt's at Huelva before he went away. He set out with a heavy heart, but with purpose and determination unimpaired.
Though merchantmen had gone to the bottom as victims of German submarines before, the proclamation of a "war zone" was issued they were individual cases; the first instance of a merchant ship being sunk as a result of the new policy of the German admiralty was the sinking of the British steamer Cambark on the 20th of February, 1915. This ship was bound for Liverpool, from Huelva, Spain.
What surprised me was, to find no semblance of a sea-port; there was neither wharf nor landing-place nothing but a naked river bank, with the hulk of a ferry-boat, which I was told carried passengers to Huelva, lying high and dry on the sands, deserted by the tide. Palos, though it has doubtless dwindled away from its former size, can never have been important as to extent and population.
Oddly enough, the ships Columbus was to take on his voyage were, according to royal command, to be supplied by that very seaport of Palos by which he is supposed to have entered Spain. Palos, Huelva, and Moguer, all thriving maritime cities in Columbus's day, are grouped at the mouth of the Rio Tinto.
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