Page:History of Columbus (2).pdf/8

8 to take any part in the enterprise as King of Arragon; and as the whole expense of the expedition was to be defrayed by the crown of Castile, Isabella reserved for her subjects of that kingdom an exclusive right to all the benefits which might accrue from its success.

On August 3, 1492, he left Spain in the presence of a crowd of spectators, who united their supplications to heaven for his success. He steered directly for the Canary Islands, where he arrived and refitted, as well as he could, his crazy and ill-appointed fleet. Hence he sailed, September 6th, a due western course into an unknown ocean. Columbus now found a thousand unforeseen hardships to encounter, which demanded all his judgment, fortitude, and address to surmount. Besides the difficulties unavoidable from the nature of his undertaking, he had to struggle with those which arose from the ignorance and timidity of the people under his command. On the 14th of September, he was astonished to find that the magnetic needle in their compass did not point exactly to the polar star, but varied toward the west ; and as they proceeded, this variation increased. This new phenomenon, which is now familiar, though the cause remains one of the arcana of nature, filled the companions of Columbus with terror. Nature itself seemed to have sustained a change; and the only guide they had left, to point them to a safe retreat from an unbounded and trackless ocean, was about to fail them. Columbus, with no less quickness than ingenuity, assigned a reason for this appearance, which, though it did not satisfy himself, seemed so plausible to them, that it dispelled their fears, or silenced their murmurs