FROM CORDOVA TO CATHAY.

(Second Paper.)
AT THE NEW WORLD’S PORTAL.

S we have seen, Columbus, crowned with success,

departed for Palos, invested with all the rights

and privileges he had been for years so anxious to
obtain.

But two months after the surrender of Boabdil to
Ferdinand and Isabella, the same hands that had received
the emblems of their triumph over the Moors, affixed the
royal sign-manual to a paper confirming Columbus in his
title to a yet undiscovered country beyond the unknown sea. A commemorative
chapel on the bank of the Xenil marks’ the spot made famous by the surrender
of the Moor; in the royal chapel attached to the cathedral of Granada the
alabaster tombs of the king and queen are sacred shrines, to which pilgrims by
thousands annually wend their way; but no monument rises above the spot
where the great navigator engaged to barter a world for prospective emolument
and titular honors.

We know with what tenacity he clung to the scheme he had formulated for
the enrichment and ennobling of himself and his family, preferring to abandon
the country rather than to
abate one iota of his project.
And it was with doubtful
pace that he followed the
messenger from Isabella, who
had overtaken him at the
Bridge of Pines, with the
promise of her consent.

But at last he was on his
way back to Palos, trium-
phant at every point. And,
while he is pursuing his
way toward the coast, let us
briefly review his history
hitherto.

He was born in Genoa, the historians tell us, in the year 1446. This may
not be the exact date, and respecting his youth and early manhood there is the

 

THE MOORISH ARCH, PALOS.

 

THE CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE, PALOS.