people, and the royal order was read with great solemnity:

But it excited at first only indignation or dismay. The expedition was
most unpopular. Sailors refused to enlist, and the authorities, who had
already offended the crown, so that they had to furnish these vessels,
as it were, as a fine, refused to do what they were bidden. Other orders
from Court were necessary. But it seems to have been the courage and
determination of the Pinzons which carried the preparations through.
After weeks had been lost, Martin Alonso Pinzon and his brothers
said they would go in person on the expedition. They were well-known
merchants and seamen, and were much respected. Sailors were impressed,
by the royal authority, and the needful stores were taken in the same
way. It seems now strange that so much difficulty should have surrounded
an expedition in itself so small. But the plan met then all the
superstition, terror and other prejudice of the time.

All that Columbus asked or needed was three small vessels and their
stores and crews. The largest ships engaged were little larger than the
large yachts, whose races every summer delight the people of America.
The Gallega and the Pinta were the two largest. They were called
caravels, a name then given to the smallest three-masted vessels.
Columbus once uses it for a vessel of forty tons; but it generally
applied in Portuguese or Spanish use to a vessel, ranging one hundred
and twenty to one hundred and forty Spanish "toneles." This word
represents a capacity about one-tenth larger than that expressed by our
English "ton."

The reader should remember that most of the commerce of the time was the
coasting commerce of the Mediterranean, and that it was not well that
the ships should draw much water. The fleet of Columbus, as it sailed,