we have read somewhere that "in 1492 columbus sailed the waters blue," and we know that the big exposition held in chicago in 1893 was to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of america, but no one can possibly tell how long it was after the golden hearted sailed away, until columbus came.
and nobody knows where the golden hearted went.
he said he was going to tlapalla, which we know meant the happy island, but no one can find it any more, and there are traditions which say that the island, with all its inhabitants, sank in the ocean. this may be why the golden hearted never came back again. of course the wise men and the primitive people in the americas believed that he would return because he said he would, and they watched and waited all the long years from one generation to another. many times bright and promising young men, just out of the universities, or fresh from victories on the battle fields, would take the vows of a priest, and give up all their hopes 141 and ambitions to serve in the temples erected in honor of the golden hearted. they did not know anything more about him than we do, but they had faith in him.
they said:
"all the good we know comes from him, and when he returns all wrongs will be righted and every heart made to rejoice. he will give us everything we wish for."
several times during the year whole nations would fast and do severe penance to induce him to come quickly. not one of them could be made to believe that he was dead.
"no, no," they said, "he is asleep in the bosom of the sun. he will surely come again; he promised us he would."
then they would get the idea that he was offended, and the kings would order great sacrifice to be made to appease him. in some places i am sorry to say they offered the quivering, bleeding hearts of human beings by the hundreds, but still he did not come. in other places they remembered his gentleness and only laid fruit, flowers and perfumes on the sacred fire altars which they still kept burning. there were many places where they carefully preserved his sayings by cutting them in sign language on the stones of the temples, and every child was taught to imitate his virtues and follow his example.
for several years before columbus arrived the priests and wise men had been prophesying 142 that the golden hearted was soon to return, that the sun was bringing him back, accompanied by companions like himself, who would rule over them. not even the great-great-grandfathers of the men then living had seen the golden hearted, so they did not know how he looked, but their traditions said that he was a bearded white man, and we shall see by and by what a curious mistake this led them to make about the first white men who came to them after the discovery of america.
before we can understand how such things could happen, we must remember that the people in europe did not know there was an america, and that many of them had very queer ideas about the shape of the earth. some said it was four-cornered and square like a dry goods box, and others thought it was round and flat like a plate, surrounded by water which finally changed into vapor and mist, and that whoever ventured far out into the misty clouds fell through and went—heaven knows where!
in the quaint old italian city of genoa was born a little boy named christopher columbus, who was to change all this, and be the innocent cause of much suffering to the descendants of the races who had been visited by the golden hearted. when a mere lad at school, he was greatly interested in boats, and he not only studied geography and history, but read all the books of travel he could find, and dreamed night and day of a great long voyage he was going to make on the ocean some time. he did not waste his time fishing and playing on the beach 143 like other boys, but picked up the chips that washed ashore and examined them very carefully, because he believed that if there was an unknown land some where in the west, that the waves would bring something ashore from there. he was really quite an old man before he found anything, but one day he picked up some strange chips at cadiz that had been cut by hand, and then he knew he was right.
sailors always do have wonderful tales to tell about the sea, and in those days they were so superstitious that they were sure that there were huge monsters living in the distant waters just waiting to eat up any sailor foolish enough to venture near them. there was not one of them willing to listen to columbus, when he tried to explain that the earth is round like an orange, and that we live on the outside of it. he said to them repeatedly:
"if we sail west steadily, we shall in time arrive back at the place from which we started." finally, not only the sailors, but the people in the streets pointed their fingers at him and said:
"there goes the crazy old man, who thinks the world is as round as an apple."
the more he talked and reasoned and argued and even drew maps to prove that he was right, the more everybody shook their heads and called him crazy.
columbus was about to give up in despair because he was very poor, and there seemed to be no way by which he could demonstrate that his theory of the shape of the earth was correct.
and now comes a curious coincidence. 144
he was a very devout christian, and felt certain that the inhabitants of this strange country in the west had never heard of our god nor of his beloved son jesus, and his heart was fired with zeal to reach these poor heathens and tell them the story of the christ.
about this time some influential friend secured an audience for him with the king of portugal, but it did no good to tell his story to the rich monarch, who was neither of a scientific nor a religious turn of mind, and he might as well have talked to the wind. utterly discouraged columbus decided to go to spain, which is a near neighbor of portugal, and see if he could not induce the famous king ferdinand and isabella, the queen, to give him boats to make his longed-for voyage. the queen especially was very pious and was much interested in columbus' story about the heathens, but the ministers of her court laughed at columbus and said:
"it is a foolish dream which can never be carried out."
almost heart-broken columbus silently turned his back on the spanish capital and walked a long way to a seaport called palos, where there was a queer old convent in which strangers were made welcome by the kind monks living in it. knocking upon the gate, he said to the porter:
"will you please give me a bit of bread and a drink of water."
fortunately, the prior, a learned man and an intimate friend of queen isabella came along, and 145 was quick to see that columbus was no common beggar. he invited him in, and after listening quietly and thoughtfully to his visitor's plan of crossing the ocean to convert the heathen to christianity, he borrowed a mule and rode miles across the country to the castle where the queen was staying and persuaded her to help columbus.
"it is your duty," he said. "god has given you riches and many blessings that you may assist your fellow men, and these strange people know nothing of our god, and they need teachers to help them find the right way of living."
queen isabella was so impressed with what he said that she immediately petitioned the royal treasurer to give columbus money to make his voyage of discovery.
"your majesty, there is no money to spare," was the polite answer of the treasurer, who, like all the rest of the court, thought columbus was a visionary dreamer if not crazy.
"very well," she said. "i will pawn my crown jewels," and she did. this was a most noble and courageous act on her part, for a queen in those days was scarcely considered dignified or respectable without splendid crown jewels to wear on public occasions, but she was bent upon sending the gospel of christ to the heathen in america. does it not seem strange that the golden hearted and the queen of spain should be credited with the same desire to help the people of the americas, 146 and that they lived hundreds of years apart and could never have known of each other, and that one incident is a fact of history and the other only a legend?
but as soon as columbus secured the money another difficulty arose. no sailor could be found who would risk his life on an unknown sea with such a crazy old man. finally queen isabella had to promise liberty and full pardon to the convicts in the prisons before columbus could get any one to go with him. it was a terrible thing for him but he had a brave heart, and the monks from the convent at palos sent some of their number with him to teach the natives.
on and on, the three caravels, the santa maria, the pinta and nina, sailed without finding land, until their provisions were getting low and the crews of convicts were about to mutiny and kill columbus. in order to keep them quiet he told them wonderful stories of the riches of this land they were trying to find.
"you can have all the gold, and silver, and precious gems you can carry," he promised them. in an instant you could see the cunning and greed in their wicked faces. they did not care whether the earth was round or flat, nor what became of the natives, if they only had gold, and then they would gather around columbus and question him closely about the size of the nuggets and precious stones. of course he could only guess at it, but he knew that to save his life he must say something, so he replied: 148
"i firmly believe that there are immense pieces of solid gold to be found there, and that it is abundant."
"on and on the three caravels sailed."
see opposite page
some thought they would find it in lumps as big as a house, and they all expected to pick up hands full of gems just anywhere. columbus had strained his eyes looking for the land until he was nearly blind, but one night he imagined he saw a glimmer of light ahead. where there was light there must be land, he thought. so he called one of the sailors to him and asked him what he saw.
"land! land ahead!"
"a light! a light!" cried the sailor joyfully. but it was not until nearly two o'clock in the morning 149 that the commander of one of the other boats started the cry:
"land! land ahead!"
you can imagine what excitement there was on all the caravels, and how thankful columbus was. the padres gathered around him, and as he sprang ashore, he dropped on his knees and stooped and kissed the ground. even the sailors forgot about the gold while he and the padres prayed and thanked god for giving mankind a new world.
immediately the flag of spain was planted and the land claimed for king ferdinand and isabella, but wonderful indeed were the things surrounding them. men and women of a bronze color crowded around them and offered them strange, but delicious fruits and flowers and brought them food and water. in his first letter to queen isabella, columbus said of them:
"there is not in all the world a better people nor a better land. their converse is ever sweet and gentle, and is accompanied by a smile. they truly love their neighbor as themselves."
finding them docile and kind the padres set about teaching them, and the simple natives were very willing listeners. it was quite a long time before they could understand each other well, but the padres told the story of the christ the first time they held a service, which was on a sunday. remembering the precepts of the golden hearted, the faces of the natives lighted up understandingly when they heard the words of jesus which bade 150 them be loving and kind to each other, and they nodded their heads and exclaimed:
"el dorado! el dorado!"
at least that is what the ignorant convict sailors thought they said. the words "el dorado" in spanish, which was their mother tongue, meant "the golden," or "the gilded one." we know they were eager and greedy to find gold and that they had been told to help themselves freely to all they could get, so they immediately began to question the simple natives.
"yes, yes; we have plenty of gold," the natives said, in surprise, because they did not value it at all, except for ornaments, and they ran to fetch some for their visitors. when they saw how glad it made the sailors, they were happy and content as a lot of children, and they not only brought all they had, but told where there was plenty more to be found.
