Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/37

Rh traveled, begged and toiled for recognition and favor from those who could give aid, and at last found a good priest who sympathized with his grand idea, and through whose influence, Queen Isabella of Spain was induced to recall a former refusal of aid.

How Columbus finally induced Queen Isabella to support his enterprise with money and two small ships, while a third ship was added by himself and friends, and how on August 3, 1492, he sailed out of Palos harbor with one hundred and twenty men in the three little ships—Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina—is an oft-told story and familiar tale. This exploratory voyage, all things considered, is the greatest enterprise ever planned and carried out by the genius and energy of a single man. The voyage itself was not a great affair, the little vessels of still less account, the use of the compass was then but little understood; the seamen were all ignorant and superstitious to the limit; but when we consider the weakness of such an outfit to venture out upon a vast and unknown ocean and brave all the terrors pictured by the imagination in addition to the real dangers of the sea, and then place over and against them all the glory and grandeur of the achievement in practically adding to the use and enjoyment of the race of man, a new world as large, useful and beautiful as the one already enjoyed, our minds are unable to grasp and no words can fully express the greatness of the achievement, or the honor, praise and obligation which mankind owes to the name of Christopher Columbus.

After seventy days' sailing westward, Columbus struck Cat Island in the West Indies. It was inhabited by red men. The people of Hindostan (India) were red. Columbus believed he had reached India—the east coast of Asia; and he called the natives Indians. The name stuck, and thus all the natives of America came to be called Indians. Columbus made three subsequent voyages from Spain to the West India islands, but never reached the mainland, and died in ignorance of his great discover}' of a continent equal to the old world and separated from it by two great oceans.

It may seem irrelevant to go back over four hundred years to begin this narrative about the state of Oregon; but it must be remembered that it was Christopher Columbus who started and steered the tide of the Caucasian race across the Atlantic which finally overran the American continent and never halted until here on the Willamette to found a state. And believing that the readers of this book will take a genuine interest in the man who discovered America, and will be glad to have a lifelike, truthful portrait of his face, we have, at much trouble and expense, procured from the Marine Museum, at Madrid, Spain, and here print the best likeness ever made of the great man.

When we look into the books of geographical discovery, we find that Oregon was for a long period of time the center of a great unknown region of myths and mystery. To see how that idea got abroad in the world, it will be necessary to go back to the opening of the Fifteenth century and follow the current of geographical exploration around the world.

The proposition of Columbus to find a short cut to Asia by sailing west from Spain was not to perish with his death. It was the good fortune of the Italian navigator, Amerieus Vespucius. who made four voyages to America and finally to discover the mainland of the continent near the equator. And like Columbus, he too returned to Spain and died poor at Seville in 1512, without knowing he