THE EXPEDITION STARTS. 



159 



his cell. The coming day was Friday, a day inauspicious to 

 sailors, but to him a day of good omen. He arose, summoned 

 Marchena, from whom he received the communion, and then 

 descended, on foot, the steep declivity which leads to Palos. 



The Santa Maria at once sent her boat to receive the admiral, 

 and at the sound of the preparations and the orders of the pilots, 

 the inhabitants awoke and opened wide their windows. Mothers, 

 wives and sisters, fathers and brothers, ran in confusion to the 

 shore, to bid a last farewell to those whom they might perhaps* 

 never see again. The royal standard, representing the Cruci- 

 fixion, was hoisted at the main; and Columbus, standing upon 

 the quarter-deck, gave the order to spread the sails in the name 

 of Jesus Christ. Thus commenced the most memorable venture 

 upon the ocean that man had then made or has made since, — 

 the record of whose shortest day is more stored with incident 

 than was the whole voyage of Jason, from the Whirling Rocks* 

 to the Golden Fleece. 



Columbus commenced his journal at once, and it is from the 

 passages of this narrative which are still extant, that we shall 

 derive an account of the voyage. He begins by declaring the 

 object of the expedition to be to extend the blessings of the 

 gospel to nations supposed to be without it. He adds, that he 

 shall write at night the events of the day, and each morning the 

 occurrences of the night. He will mark the lands he shall dis- 

 discover upon the chart, and will banish sleep from his eyelids 

 in order to watch the progress of his vessel. 



All went well till Monday, when the helm of the Pinta fell to 

 pieces, — this accident having been a second time prepared by 

 her refractory owners. The fleet made the best of their way to 

 the Canaries, where the Pinta was repaired. They sailed again 

 on the 6th of September, narrowly escaping attack from three 

 Portuguese caravels that King John had sent against Columbus, 

 indignant that he should have transferred to another power the 

 proposal he had once made to himself. 



