Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/43

 the coast of South America, he was sent home in chains. We only linger a moment by the manacled hero to quote once more from Tennyson's "Columbus."

. . . . . .You know The flies at home that ever swarm about, And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down Truth in the distance—these outbuzzed me so, That even our prudent king, our righteous queen— I prayed them, being so calumniated, They would commission one of weight and worth To judge between my slandered self and me— Fonseca, my main enemy at their court, They send me out his tool, Bovadilla, one As ignorant and impolitic as a beast— Blockish irreverence, brainless greed—who sack'd My dwelling, seized upon my papers, loos'd My captives, fee'd the rebels of the crown, Sold the crown-farms for all but nothing, gave All but free leave for all to work the mines, Drove me and my good brothers home in chains; And gathering ruthless gold—a single piece Weighed nigh four thousand castillanos—so They tell me—weigh'd him down into the abysm. The hurricane of the latitude on him fell, The seas of our discovering over-roll Him and his gold; the frailer caravel, With what was mine, came happily to the shore. There was a glimmering of God's hand."

Soon after the conclusion of his fourth and last voyage, Columbus died at Valladolid in poverty and disgrace, leaving others—many of whom he had himself trained to be able navigators—to reap the fruits of his labors.

One of the first explorers to follow in the track of Columbus was Amerigo Vespucci, whose name, for some reason not very clearly made out, was bestowed on the land discovered by his great predecessor. The work of Amerigo was, however, almost entirely confined to the southern half of the vast continent called after him, although he is supposed to have sailed without landing as far north as Chesapeake Bay; and we therefore pass on to the Cabots, one of whom appears to have been the first European of modern times to set foot in North America.