first church, dedicated to the Virgin, which they should meet with on
arriving at land; and this vow, as we shall see presently, was followed by
quite unexpected consequences.


NARRATIVE INCLOSED IN CASK.

When the chances of weathering the storm had become small indeed, Columbus
determined that, if possible, the tidings of his discovery should not
perish with him. He wrote a short account of his voyage on parchment, and
this he enclosed in wax, and placed in a cask,[14] which he committed to
the waves. Thinking, probably, that his crew would interpret this as an
abandonment of all hope, he concealed from them the real nature of the
contents of the cask, so that they believed that their commander was
performing some religious rite which might assuage the fury of the
elements.

[Footnote 14: About the year 1852 a paragraph went the round of the
English press announcing the discovery of this cask on the African
coast, by the barque "Chieftain," of Boston (Mass). Lamartine has
accepted this story as correct, but it has never been authenticated, and
there is a strong presumption in favour of its having been invented by
some ingeniously circumstantial newspaper correspondent.]


THE PILGRIMS CAPTURED.

On the 15th of February the storm abated to some extent, and at last they
came in sight of some land on the E.N.E., which the pilots held to be the
Rock of Lisbon, but which the admiral more accurately determined to be one