SARGASSO WEEDS AND WAVES 9 



My mind went back to the details of that expedi- 

 tion and as the sublime may be compared with the 

 ridiculous, so I compare the efforts of Columbus 

 with my own. How absurd and petty became the 

 few delays and disappointments of my prepara- 

 tions when I recalled the years and years during 

 which he passed from country to country, trying 

 to make his convictions real, his ideals practical to 

 one sovereign after another. The entire cost of 

 outfitting the three caravels of Columbus was $7,- 

 203.73 but, while this seems like an astonishingly 

 small sum, we must remember that the purchasing 

 power of coin at the end of the fifteenth century, 

 for ships, labor and food, was at least twelve times 

 what it is today. Hence it is probable that seven 

 thousand dollars in 1492 would equal eighty thou- 

 sand today. However, we must agree with 

 Thatcher that "Under any circumstances, whether 

 we consider the maravedis expended or the results 

 achieved, we may regard it as the most fortunate 

 outlay of money since gold and silver and copper 

 were minted into coin." 



Here was I with my one vessel, on an expedition 

 which was to cost more than twenty times Colum- 

 bus' original outlay, with hope of results, which 

 even at the maximum, could be considered only as 

 a burlesque upon his achievement. And as a final 

 commentary let us recall that, as a result of his be- 

 ing the first individual on his own expedition to 

 detect the certainty of western land, he was re- 

 warded by the munificent annual grant of ten thou- 

 sand maravedis, or sixty-one dollars, a perquisite or 



