FROM CORDOVA TOGA THAY.

conference in the convent took place in the latter part of the year 1491; as the
result a messenger was dispatched to Isabella, then in camp at Santa Fé, who
returned after fourteen days with royal orders for the prior to come to Granada ;
he departs in haste, and eventually returns with the queen’s command for
Columbus to appear before the court, and with the necessary money for the
trip. Columbus arrives at Santa Fé the first week in January, 1492, in good
time (as we have seen) to witness the surrender of Granada; he has audience
with his sovereigns, cannot agree upon terms, prepares to depart from Spain, is
overtaken by the queen’s courier at Puente de Pinos, returns, and is finally
made happy with the royal consent.

The “ capitulation” for conquest and exploration is signed April 17, 1492,
and May 12 he sets out for Palos. Ten days later, the twenty-third, the royal
command for the people of Palos to furnish men for the voyage is read in the
church of St. George, and the Pinzon family come to his assistance. Prepara-
tions are hurried forward, and by the first of August the vessels drop down the
Rio Tinto to the Domingo Rubio, where the final departure is taken at the Con-
vent of La Rabida. This much for a chronological statement of events.

We will now retrace our steps and visit in person the scenes of the great
discoverer’s weary wanderings and his final gladsome trip through Andalusia.
Memorials of Columbus are scattered throughout Spain to-day: in Madrid the
royal armory contains his armor, the naval museum one of his charts; at Valla-
dolid, in 1506, he died, and the house is still pointed out in which he drew
his last breath; the convent, also, in which his remains were first interred.

But, though we may trace the wanderings of our hero over a great portion
of Spain, it isin the South that the most interesting event occurred. Vastly
rich is Seville, the queen city of the Guadalquivir, in Columbian memories ; for
here we find that valuable library, the Colombina, bequeathed the city by his
son, Fernando, containing twenty thousand volumes, among them some that.
once pertained to the great man himself; one with marginal notes by his own
hand, and one of his charts. Those very islands of the Bahamas, which I myself
have seen, dim and shadowy, and shining in the sun, are here outlined by the
great discoverer himself, upon paper discolored and stained by sea-salt, as
though it had accompanied him on all his voyages.

That, however, which oftenest drew me and longest held me was the marble
slab in the pavement of the great cathedral, that formerly covered the remains
of Columbus, and now marks the resting-place of his son Fernando, with its
world-famous inscription: A Castilla y a Leon Mundo Nuevo dio Colon; “To
Castile and to Leon a New World gave Columbus.” Thus, although the
remains of Columbus himself are now in the New World, many glorious memo-
rials of him are to be seen in Spain, and mainly in Seville.

At Seville, I dwelt in the house of a cleric, and my friend gave me a letter
of introduction to the Cura of Moguer, the town nearest to Palos. It was on