the Spaniards, who burst with such dramatic unexpectedness on their
north-eastern shores.




CHAPTER II

COLUMBUS


Columbus was admittedly a visionary. It was to the benefit of his fellow
Europeans and to the detriment of the South American tribes that to his
dreams he joined the practical side of his nature. Certainly the value
of imagination in a human being has never been more strikingly proved
than by the triumph of Columbus.

The enthusiasm of the great Genoese was of the kind which has tided men
over obstacles and difficulties and troubles throughout the ages. He was
undoubtedly of the nervous and highly-wrought temperament common to one
of his genius. He loved the dramatic. There are few who have not heard
the story of the egg with the crushed end which stood upright. But there
are innumerable other instances of the demonstrative powers of Columbus.
For instance, when asked to describe the Island of Madeira, he troubled
not to utter a word in reply, but snatched up a piece of writing-paper
and, crumpling it by a single motion of his hand, held it aloft as a
triumphant exhibition of the island's peaks and valleys.

Fortunately for the adventurers of his period, his belief in his mission
was unshakable. It was, of course, a mere matter of chance that Columbus