intercept a Venetian galliot. And this exploit furnishes illustrations
both of his boldness and his tact. During the voyage the news was brought
that the galliot was convoyed by three other vessels. Thereupon the crew
were unwilling to hazard an engagement, and insisted that Columbus should
return to Marseilles for re-inforcement. Columbus made a feint of
acquiescence, but craftily arranged the compass so that it appeared that
they were returning, while they were really steering their original
course, and so arrived at Carthagena on the next morning, thinking all the
while that they were in full sail for Marseilles.

[Footnote 7: The account of this voyage to the north of Europe, as
commonly quoted, furnishes a singular instance of the inaccuracy of
translators in the matter of figures. Columbus is there made to say,
that at the Ultima Thule, which be reached, "the tides were so great as
to rise and fall twenty-six fathoms," i.e. 156 feet. Of course this an
absurdity; for no tides in Europe rise much above 50 feet. We have no
record of the exact words used by Columbus, but in the extant Italian
translation he is made to speak of the rise being venti sei bracchia,
i.e. twenty-six ells (not fathoms), or about fifty-two feet. But even
this reduced estimate must be excessive. Except in the Bristol Channel
there is no rise of tide in the seas of Northern Europe which at all
approaches this limit. At Reikiavik (Iceland) the rise is seventeen and
a half feet. In Greenland it varies from a minimum of seven feet at
Julianshaab to a maximum of twelve and a half feet at Frederikshaab.]


CHARACTERISTICS OF COLUMBUS

Considering how much more real the hero of a biography appears if we can
picture him accurately in our mind's eye, and see him "in his habit as he