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It is February, 1492. A poor man, with gray hair, disheartened and dejected, is going out of the gate from the beautiful Alhambra, in Granada, on a mule. Ever since he was a boy, he has been haunted with the idea that the earth is round. He has believed that the pieces of carved wood, picked up four hundred miles at sea, and the bodies of two men, unlike any other human beings known, found on the shores of Portugal, have drifted from unknown lands in the west. But his last hope of obtaining aid for a voyage of discovery has failed. King John of Portugal, under pretense of helping him, has secretly sent out an expedition of his own. His friends have abandoned him; he has begged bread; has drawn maps to keep him from starving, and lost his wife; his friends have called him crazy, and have forsaken him. The council of wise men, called by Ferdinand and Isabella, ridicule his theory of reaching the east by sailing west. “But the sun and moon are round,” replies Columbus, “why not the earth?” “If the earth is a ball, what holds it up?” the wise men ask. “What holds the sun and moon up?” Columbus replies.

A learned doctor asks, “How can men walk with their heads hanging down, and their feet up, like flies on a ceiling?” “How can trees grow with their roots in the air?” “The water would run out of the ponds, and we should fall off,” says another. “The doctrine is contrary to the Bible, which says, ‘The heavens are stretched out like a tent.'” “Of course it is flat; it is rank heresy to say it is round.”

He has waited seven long years. He has had his last interview, hoping to get assistance from Ferdinand and Isabella after they drive the Moors out of Spain. Isabella was almost persuaded, but finally refused. He is now old, his last hope has fled; the ambition of his life has failed. He hears a voice calling him. He looks back and sees an old friend pursuing him on a horse, and beckoning him to come back. He saw Columbus turn away from the Alhambra, disheartened, and he hastens to the queen and tells her what a great thing it would be, at a trifling expense, if what the sailor believes should prove true. “It shall be done,” Isabella replies. “I will pledge my jewels to raise the money; call him back.” Columbus turns back, and with him turns the world.

Three frail vessels, little larger than fishing boats, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, set sail from Palos, August 3, 1492, for an unknown land, upon untried seas; the sailors would not volunteer, but were forced to go by the king. Friends ridiculed them for following a crazy man to certain destruction, for they believed the sea beyond the Canaries was boiling hot. “What if the earth is round?” they said, “and you sail down the other side, how can you get back again? Can ships sail up hill?”

Only three days out, the Pinto’s signal of distress is flying; she has broken her rudder. September 8 they discover a broken mast covered with seaweed floating in the sea. Terror seizes the sailors, but Columbus calms their fears with pictures of gold and precious stones of India. September 13, two hundred miles west of the Canaries, Columbus is horrified to find that the compass, his only guide, is failing him, and no longer points to the north star. No one had yet dreamed that the earth turns on its axis. The sailors are ready for mutiny, but Columbus tells them the north star is not exactly in the north. October 1 they are two thousand three hundred miles from land, though Columbus tells the sailors one thousand seven hundred. Columbus discovers a bush in the sea, with berries on it, and soon they see birds and a piece of carved wood. At sunset, the crew kneel upon the deck and chant the vesper hymn. It is sixty-seven days since they left Palos, and they have sailed nearly three thousand miles, only changing their course once. At ten o’clock at night they see a light ahead, but it vanishes. Two o’clock in the morning, October 12, Roderigo de Friana, on watch at the masthead of the Pinta, shouts, “Land! land! land!” The sailors are wild with joy, and throw themselves on their knees before Columbus, and ask forgiveness. They reach the shore, and the hero of the world’s greatest expedition unfolds the flag of Spain and takes possession of the new world. Perhaps no greater honor was ever paid man than Columbus received on his return to Ferdinand and Isabella. Yet, after his second visit to the land he discovered, he was taken back to Spain in chains, and finally died in poverty and neglect; while a pickle dealer of Seville, who had never risen above second mate, on a fishing vessel, Amerigo Vespucci, gave his name to the new world. Amerigo’s name was put on an old chart or sketch to indicate the point of land where he landed, five years after Columbus discovered the country, and this crept into print by accident.