mutinous sailors should be scattered so that they could not easily act
together. Pedro was taken on as cabin-boy, for he was thirteen, and
wiser than his age.

On that May day when Christoval Colón,[1] the hare-brained foreigner
whom the King and Queen had made an Admiral, read the royal orders in
the Church of San Jorge in Palos, there was amazement, wrath and horror
in that small seaport. Queen Ysabel had indeed been so rash as to pledge
her jewels to meet the cost of this expedition; but the royal
treasurers, looking over their accounts, noted that Palos owed a fine to
the Crown which had never been paid. Very good; let Palos contribute the
use and maintenance of two ships for two months, and let the magistrates
of the Andalusian ports hunt up shipmasters and crews and supplies. The
officers of the government came with Colón to enforce this order.

In vain did the Pinzon brothers, who had really been convinced by the
arguments of Colón, use all their influence to secure him a proper
equipment. Even after they had themselves enlisted as captains, with
their own ship the _Nina_, they could not get men enough to go on so
doubtful a venture. The royal officers finally took to the reckless
course of pardoning all prisoners guilty of any crime short of murder or
treason, on condition of their shipping for the voyage. At least half
the sailors of the three ships were pressed men.

The _Santa Maria_, largest of the three caravels, was ninety feet long
and twenty broad. She was a decked ship; the others had only the tiny
cabin and forecastle. A caravel was never intended for long voyages into
unknown seas. Her builders designed her for coasting trade, not for a
quick voyage independent of wind and tide; but on the other hand she was
cheaper to build and to sail than a Genoese galley. The Admiral believed