68. America was discovered. Shout, Palos! Seven months only have
passed, and here come the heroes back again--back from Cipango and
Cathay. Weep for joy, daughters and sweethearts and wives! Little
children, gaze with fear upon those dark-skinned painted savages, and
be consoled that they brought no dragons. Barcelona, ring your bells!
The hero, Columbus, is coming in state! Crowd the streets, the doors,
the windows, the roofs; king and queen receive him in magnificence.
Hail to the man who has _succeeded_!
69. Three times afterward Columbus crossed the ocean to the new-found
Indies, touching once the mainland of South America. No need to go
into the details of his after life. How can one have the heart to tell
of the quick subsiding of his triumph, the malicious envy of
courtiers, the unreasonable discontent of subordinates, the selfish
ambition of rivals, the wanton wickedness of the West Indian settlers;
of his removal from the governorship, and his voyage home in chains,
over _his_ Atlantic, of his weakening health, his accumulating
anxieties, his troubled old age? The peaceful death that closed it all
in 1506 was relief to the bold spirit which injustice and pain could
not subdue, but only hamper and fret. From the island of Jamaica,
three years before his death, America's discoverer writes to his king
and queen:
70.
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