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 under Bartholomew Dias, while the crews of his ships consisted of his own countrymen, and partly, too, of his own dependants. But Columbus was a stranger among strangers; and the seamen who manned his vessels were altogether devoid of confidence in a commander into whose service they had been forced by the imperative order of their sovereigns. His voyages of discovery lay across unknown seas, amid a wilderness of waters, which both ancient and modern mariners had alike portrayed in the most gloomy colours; and so far from having the benefit of the services of any pilot who had ever attempted to navigate that then mysterious ocean, most persons in his service considered the voyages on which he was about to embark as alike visionary and dangerous.

While the Portuguese were prosecuting their valuable discoveries in the East, the Spaniards were following up their less lucrative but more important researches to the West. In their voyages to the Caribbean Sea, and along the shores of the Mexican Gulf, they had heard rumours of great seas still further to the West; but it was not until 1513, a few years after a small colony had been established at Darien, that one of their countrymen, Vasco Nuñez de Bilboa, discovered the Pacific Ocean. The discovery was hailed with great joy by the Spaniards, who, having been restricted by the Pope to confine their researches to the West, now hoped to find within the prescribed limits another road to that far-famed Cathay, which had proved such a vast source of wealth to their rivals the Portuguese.

It was not, however, until Magellan [Fernando de