THE LAKD FALL OF COLUMBTTS. 303 



carefully followed the great navigator's every movement, as min- 

 utely described by himself, from his first landing upon the island 

 Avliich the natives called Guanahani, until he anchored off the 

 island of Cuba. He arrives at the conclusion that Columbus 

 first landed upon "Watling's Island and named it San Salvador, 

 and that he did not visit at all the island now known by that 

 name. After carefully considering the facts which lead to this 

 result, we are clearly of the opinion the author of the ''Land 

 Fall " is entitled to the credit of exposing a great historical error 

 after it had received the sanction of eminent writers, and been 

 hallowed by time. 



Watling's Island is one of the Bahamas, and nearly or quite two 

 hundred miles distant in a north-easterly direction from Nassau. 

 The great importance of this discovery as seenin the light of the 

 four centuries which will soon be completed — so apparent to us — 

 far exceeds all that Columbus had imagined in his wildest dreams. 

 No wonder that Europe was thrown into a ferment of intense 

 excitement when the intelligence of his wonderful success was 

 made known. Many a long cycle of a thousand years had been 

 completed, during all which time no human being, standing upon 

 the eastern shores of the Atlantic, could discern anything in or be- 

 yond the illimitable waste of waters but a Great Unknown. A 

 deep and profound mystery, like the pall of the darkest night, 

 ever brooded over the billows that received the setting sun. 

 Philosophers gazed but to speculate, men of fervid imaginations 

 to dream, and poets, in measured numbers, to sing tlieir weird 

 and wildest songs. 



Upon the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, — in Abyssinia 

 and Upper Egypt, — down the fertile valley of the Nile, — and 

 upon both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, civilization, empire 

 and imperial power had for thousands of years made their slow 

 but grand and solemn march, only to be at last barred and baffled 

 by a vast and unknown waste of waters. 



