324 To the River Plate and Back 



of November, as the sun came up, and I stood and 

 watched the glory of his rising beams flooding the 

 mountains, the hillsides, and the valley. 



Columbus never knew that his eyes had rested upon 

 "a new world." The names he gave to many of the 

 places he found did not stick. The Holy Island a few 

 years later was discovered to be a continent, and to it 

 was given the name of an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, 

 who sailed with Alonso de Ojeda, an old comrade of 

 Columbus, to try to get some of the pearls which the 

 great discoverer in his dispatches had said were to be 

 obtained at Paria. The story of Columbus is in many 

 respects a tragedy. He sowed and other men reaped. 

 But that after all is true of most successful men. The 

 path-finders and leaders rarely profit from their dis- 

 coveries and exploits. It is generally left to second-rate 

 men who come after them to make the profits. 



While I was hurriedly eating my breakfast prepara- 

 tory to going ashore, my table-steward handed me a 

 cablegram announcing that the home of my younger 

 son had been gladdened by the advent of a little 

 daughter. My companions at table tendered me their 

 congratulations. Like nerves the wires bind the lands 

 together. The whole globe is fast becoming a great 

 sensitive organism. Our loved ones speak to us out of 

 the deeps and across oceans. Nothing is hidden. 

 Individuals and nations commune with each other 

 daily, regardless of the barriers erected by seas and 

 mountains. I have in my custody a letter written in 

 October, 1799, by Alexander von Humboldt from a spot 

 not far from Port of Spain to a friend of his, who lived 

 and died in Pittsburgh. The postage on that letter 

 cost nearly thirty shillings sterling ($7.50), far more 

 than the cablegram which was handed to me at break- 



