Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/27

Rh of his royal gratitude, remembered the man who had so magnificently enlarged the grandeur of Spain. He ordered that obsequies for the deceased should be celebrated conformably to his rank of High Admiral. His coffin was exhumed from the convent of St. Francis, and transported to the cathedral of Seville, where, at the expense of the sovereign, a solemn service was performed; after which the body was deposited in the vaults of the convent of Las Cuevas, in the newly-constructed chapel of Christ. On the mortuary-stone was engraved, in two verses, the legend of his arms; and then all was said and done.

Columbus, providentially come from Italy to Spain, was there considered a foreigner, notwithstanding his letters of naturalization. He did not leave there, in dying, any powerful alliance who could espouse the interests of his glory and of his posterity. During nine years, the route boldly opened by his genius across the "Gloomy Ocean," until then dreaded and believed impassable, was ploughed by able and lucky adventurers. Numerous discoveries had succeeded to his. The easy successes of the present caused men to forget the toilsome labors of the past, better known by its wonders than by its riches. New stars arose in the horizon of fame. The discoveries of the Portuguese in the East, and the navigation of the Castilians in the West Indies, brought to notice unknown names. Since Vasco de Gama had doubled the Cape of Tempests, discovered Mozambique, Melinda, Guzarat, and established settlements at Cochin and at Cananor, in another direction, under the flag of Castile, Vincent Yaũes Pinzon had crossed the equinoctial line. Whilst the submission of Madagascar and of Soccotora, the discovery of Sumatra and of Malacca, and the conquest of Goa spread afar the glory of the Portuguese arms, a new ardor animated the ports of Spain, and hastened the attempts of establishing colonies on the new continent, on the Gulf of Uraba, of Darien, at Porto Bello; and led to the discovery of Florida by Juan Ponce de Leon, soon followed by that of the Pacific Ocean, by the intrepid Vasco