Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
I am sorry that you have no little children to play with you sometimes; but I think you are very happy with your books, and your many, many friends. On Washington's birthday a great many people came here to see the blind children; and I read for them from your poems, and showed them some beautiful shells, which came from a little island near Palos.
The Maria leads, with the sign of the Redemption painted on her mainsail and the standard of Castile flying at her mizzen; and there is cheering from ships and from shore, and a faint sound of bells from the town of Huelva. Thus, the sea being calm, and a fresh breeze blowing off the land, did Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos at sunrise on Friday the 3rd of August 1492.
Then will we never get home to Palos and our wives and children never and never and never!" Said the Admiral, "It will not change further, or if it does a very little further!" In his most decisive, most convincing voice he explained why the needle no longer pointed precisely to the star.
Perhaps, being in some ways a cleverer man than Christopher, he knew the Admiral's weak points; knew that he was kind-hearted, and would remember those days of preparation at Palos when Martin Alonso had been his principal stay and help.
With very few exceptions, sailors were afraid to go out on the unexplored Atlantic Ocean beyond the Azores. Spanish sailors had not had the excellent schooling of those in Portugal, where, for seventy years or more, expeditions had been going out to discover new lands and coming back safely. Columbus, therefore, found it difficult to induce the sea-going men of Palos to share his enthusiasm.
But he who had made so many pilgrimages to Court as a suitor could revel in a position that made it possible for him to hang back, and to be pressed and invited; and so when his business at Palos was finished he sent a messenger with his letters and reports to Barcelona, and himself, with his crew and his Indians and all his trophies, departed for Seville, where he arrived on Palm Sunday.
During the hours in which he stood off and on waiting for the tide he was able to recognise again all the old landmarks and the scenes which had been so familiar to him in those busy days of preparation nine months before; and at midday he sailed in with the flood tide and dropped his anchor again in the mud of the river by Palos.
The enthusiasm and excitement aroused by the success of the expedition were unbounded. At Palos, especially, where few families had not a personal interest in some of the band of explorers, the little community was filled with extraordinary delight.
Martin Alonso has in fact shown himself at last in his true colours. He has got the fastest ship, he has got a picked company of his own men from Palos; he has got an Indian on board, moreover, who has guaranteed to take him straight to where the gold is; and he has a very agreeable plan of going and getting it, and returning to Spain with the first news and the first wealth.
The people of Palos had hardly hoped to see again those who had sailed away on so desperate an adventure. Now, when they saw only one of the three vessels return their joy was mingled with grief. When, however, they learned that Columbus returned in triumph, and that India had been reached, their joy knew no bounds.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking