IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS. 



FREDERICK A. OBER 



I have selected as the- subject of this paper that of a work re- 

 cently ]3ublished by me, entitled " In the Wake of Columbus." 

 Certain friends have rather cruelly suggested that it might 

 better be called ^^At the wake of Columbus," since the subject 

 has been a long time dead, and it is high time he was buried. 



But, ignoring their evident flij^pancy, we shall, with your per- 

 mission, follow awhile in the wake of the great navigator, and 

 inquire if there are any remaining evidences of his voyages and 

 of his discoveries in the land he was the means of bringing to 

 the notice of Europe. The fact that several towns and cities 

 claim the honor of his birth-place and two islands possess his 

 last and only remains should not deter the investigator, since 

 there are places identified with his career that are well authen- 

 ticated. 



Leaving the somewhat mythical events of Columbus' youth 

 and early manhood to the historian, we will glance at those 

 places that stand forth most conspicuously, particularly in Spain 

 and the New World. Summoning before us the picture of those 

 times, when occurred the events that shaped the beginnings of 

 American history, I suppose there is not one so well defined as 

 the siege of Granada, when, after years of fighting, the Spaniards 

 had at last reduced the Moors to the last extremity, had cooped 

 them up in the fortress of the Alhambra, and had seated them- 

 selves before the city of Granada, determined to drive them 

 from this their last stronghold in Europe. That they succeeded 

 we know, and that it was at the termination of the siege, when 

 Boabdil, the last king of the Moors, had surrendered the keys of 

 Granada, that Columbus appeared upon the scene, is a matter of 

 history. 



It was in April, 1491, that the armies of Ferdinand and Isa- 

 bella, 50,000 strong, entered the Vega of Granada and intrenched 



(187) 



