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time of the most painful anxiety; and now, when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon, in search of the most vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten o'clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a distance! Fearing that his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrery, gentleman of the king's bedchamber, and inquired whether he saw a light in that direction; the latter replied in the affirmative. Columbus, yet doubtful whether it might not be some delusion of the fancy, called Roderigo Sanchery, of Segovia, and made the same inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the round-house the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams; as it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the waves; or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. 'o transient and uncertain were these gleams that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.

They continued their course until two in the morning, when a gun from the Pinta gave the joyful signal of land. It was first discovered by a mariner named Rodrigo de Triano, but the reward was afterwards adjudged to the admiral, for having previously perceived the light. The land was now clearly seen about two leagues distant; whereupon they took in sail and lay to, waiting impatiently for the dawn.

The thoughts and feelings of Columbus in this little space of time must have been tumultuous and intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed; his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly established; he had secured to himself a glory which must be as durable as the world itself.

It is difficult even for the imagination to conceive the feelings of such a man at the moment of so sublime a discovery. What a bewildering crowd of conjectures must have thronged upon his mind as to the land which lay before him, covered with darkness. That it was fruitful was evident, from the vegetables which floated from its shores. He thought, too, that he perceived in the balmy air the fragrance of aromatic groves. The moving light which he had beheld had proved that it was

the residence of man. But what were its inhabitants? Were they like those of the other parts of the globe? or were they some strange and monstrous race, such as the imagination in those times was prone to give to all remote and unknown regions? Had he come upon some wild island far in the Indian Sea? or was this the famed Cipango1 itself, the object of his golden fancies? A thousand speculations of the kind must have swarmed upon him, as, with his anxious crews, he waited for the night to pass away, wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage wilderness, or dawn upon spicy groves, and glittering fanes, and gilded cities, and all the splendour of oriental civilization.

1 When and where was Columbus born? | Admiral, and not to the mariner? 2. Give the date of the discovery of the New World.

3. Who actually saw the land first.
4. Why was the reward adjudged to the

5. In what circumstances did this great man die?

6. Where did his death take place, and when?

"COLONIZATION OF THE NEW WORLD."
(From the Conquest of Peru, by W. H. Prescott.)
Legend, n. (L. lego), literally, any-

Col'o-nize, v. (L. colo), to plant a
new country with inhabitants,
in order to cultivate it.

Stim ́u-late, v. (L. stimulus), to spur
on; to incite; to instigate.
Em'i-grant, n. (L. e, migro), one
who removes from one country
to another.

Chi-me'ra, n. (Gr. chimaira), in
ancient mythology, a monster of
inconsistent parts,—hence, any
wild fancy.

El Dora'do, n. (Sp. The Golden), a fabled country of S. America, abounding in gems and all the precious metals. The term has become proverbial for any place pretendedly rich in all the gifts of nature.

Il-lu'sion, n. (L. in, lusum, see ludo), false show; mockery;

error.

thing to be read;-an incredible story; an unauthentic narrative. Chiv'al-ry, n. (Fr. cheval), knighthood; the hazards and exploits of the ancient knights. Errant, adj. (L. erro), wandering; rambling; applied to knights, who in the middle ages wandered about in search of adventures. Av'a-rice, n. (L. avārus), too eager

desire of gain; covetousness. Cru-sa'der, n. (L. crux), one employed in the expedition against the infidels to recover the Holy Land.

Spe'cious, adj. (L. specio), pleasing to the view; apparently correct; plausible.

Pre-text', n. (L. prae, textum, see

tego), ostensible motive assigned as a cloak to conceal the real one; pretence.

Ir Is not easy at this time to comprehend the impulse given

1 Supposed to be Japan.

to Europe by the discovery of America. It was not the gradual acquisition of some border territory, a province, or a kingdom that had been gained; but a new world that was now thrown open to the European. The races of animals, the mineral treasures, the vegetable forms, and the varied aspects of nature, man in the different phases of civilisation, filled the mind with entirely new sets of ideas, that changed the habitual current of thought and stimulated it to indefinite conjecture. The eagerness to explore the wonderful secrets of the new hemisphere became so active, that the principal cities of Spain were, in a manner, depopulated, as emigrants thronged one after another to take their chance upon the deep. It was a world of romance that was thrown open; for, whatever might be the luck of the adventurer, his reports on his return were tinged with a colouring of romance that stimulated still higher the sensitive fancies of his countrymen, and nourished the chimerical sentiments of an age of chivalry. They listened with attentive ears to tales of Amazons, which seemed to realise the classic legends of antiquity, to stories of Patagonian giants, to flaming pictures of an El Dorado, where the sands sparkled with gems, and golden pebbles as large as birds' eggs were dragged in nets out of the rivers.

Yet that the adventurers were no impostors, but dupes, too easy dupes, of their own credulous fancies, is shown by the extravagant character of their enterprises: by expeditions in search of the magical Fountain of Health, of the golden Temple of Doboyba, of the golden sepulchres of Yenu-for gold was ever floating before their distempered vision, and the name of Castilla del Oro, (Golden Castile,) the most unhealthy and unprofitable region of the Isthmus, held out a bright promise to the unfortunate settler, who too frequently instead of gold found there only his grave.

In this realm of enchantment all the accessories served to maintain the illusion. The simple natives, with their defenceless bodies and rude weapons, were no match for the European warrior armed to the teeth in mail. The odds were as great as those found in any legend of chivalry, where the lance of the good knight overturned hundreds at a touch. The perils that lay in the discoverer's path, and the sufferings he had to sustain, were scarcely inferior to those that beset the knight errant. Hunger, and thirst, and fatigue, the deadly effluvia of the morass, with its swarms of venomous insects, the cold of moun

tain snows, and the scorching sun of the tropics,-these were the lot of every cavalier who came to seek his fortunes in the New World. It was the reality of romance. The life of the Spanish adventurer was one chapter more, and not the least remarkable, in the chronicles of knight errantry.

The character of the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated colouring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invicible confidence in his own resources, no danger could appal and no toil could tire him. The greater the danger, indeed, the higher the charm; for his soul revelled in excitement, and the enterprise without peril wanted that spur of romance which was necessary to rouse his energies into action. Yet in the motives of action meaner influences were strangely mingled with the loftier, the temporal with the spiritual. Gold was the incentive and the recompense, and in the pursuit of it his inflexible nature rarely hesitated as to the means. His courage was sullied with cruelty, the cruelty that flowed equally, strange as it may seem, from his avarice and his religion; religion as it was understood in that age-the religion of the Crusader. It was the convenient cloak for a multitude of sins, which covered them even from himself. The Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy, committed more cruelties in the name of religion than were ever practised by the pagan idolater or the fanatical Moslem. The burning of the infidel was a sacrifice acceptable to Heaven, and the conversion of those who survived amply atoned for the foulest offences. It is a melancholy and mortifying consideration that the most uncompromising spirit of intolerance the spirit of the Inquisitor at home, and of the Crusader abroad-should have emanated from a religion which preached peace upon earth and good-will towards man!

What a contrast did these children of Southern Europe present to the Anglo-Saxon races, who scattered themselves along the great northern division of the western hemisphere! For the principle of action with these latter was not avarice, nor the more specious pretext of proselytism; but independence-independence, religious and political. To secure this, they were content to earn a bare subsistence by a life of fru

1 "The Pilgrim Fathers" fled from England to Holland, in order to escape the cruel persecution of James I., who refused liberty of conscience in religious matters to his subjects. They again left Holland for the New World, and finally settled in Virginia, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Rational freedom, and not gold, was the treasure they sought.

gality and toil. They asked nothing from the soil but the reasonable returns of their own labour. No golden visions threw a deceitful halo around their path, and beckoned them onwards through seas of blood to the subversion of an unoffending dynasty. They were content with the slow but steady progress of their social polity. They patiently endured the privations of the wilderness, watering the tree of liberty with their tears and with the sweat of their brow, till it took deep root in the land and sent up its branches high towards the heavens, while the communities of the neighbouring continent, shooting up into the sudden splendours of a tropical vegetation, exhibited, even in their prime, the sure symptoms of decay.

It would seem to have been especially ordered by Providence that the discovery of the two great divisions of the American hemisphere should fall to the two races best fitted to conquer and colonise them. Thus the northern section was consigned to the Anglo-Saxon race, whose orderly industrious habits found an ample field for development under its colder skies and on its more rugged soil; while the southern portion, with its rich tropical products and treasures of mineral wealth, held out the most attractive bait to invite the enterprise of the Spaniard. How different might have been the result, if the bark of Columbus had taken a more northerly direction, as he at one time meditated, and landed its band of adventurers on the shores of what is now Protestant America!

THE ACQUITTAL OF THE BISHOPS.

(From Macaulay's History of England.) JAMES SECOND was born in 1633, and began to reign 6th Feb., 1685, but after a short reign of 2 years, he was obliged to abdicate, Jan. 11, 1688, for attempting to put down Protestantism in England. On the throne becoming vacant, William and Mary, the Prince and Princess of Orange, were proclaimed King and Queen of England. Such was the revolution of 1688, justly called Glorious.

Ac-quit'tal, n. (Fr.quitter, L. quies), a setting free from the charge of an offence; discharge; release. Ver'dict, n. (L. verum, dictum, see, dico), a true declaration; decision of a jury.

Nun'ci-o, n. (L. nuncio), an ambassador or messenger from the Pope.

Culprit, n. (L. culpa), a person accused of a crime, and arraigned before a judge.

Al-ter-ca'tion, n. (L. alter), the

assertion of another or different thing; contention; debate. Con-vict', v. (L. con, victum, see vinco), to subdue the opposition to truth, by proving a charge against a person; to prove one guilty.

Mi-nor‍i-ty, n. (L. minor), the smaller number.

Im-peach', v. (Fr. empecher, L. impedire, see pes), to hinder or resist, hence, to put upon trial; to arraign; to accuse.

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