associates of Columbus at this time--Medina Celi, Alonso de Quintanilla,
Cabrero, Arana, DEA, Hernando de Talavera, Gonzales de Mendoza, Alonso de
Cardenas, Perez, Hernandez, Luis de Santangel, and Rodriguez de
Maldonado--names that now, in his hour of triumph, are like banners
streaming in the wind against a summer sky.




CHAPTER XII

THE PREPARATIONS AT PALOS

The Palos that witnessed the fitting out of the ships of Columbus exists
no longer. The soul is gone from it; the trade that in those days made
it great and busy has floated away from it into other channels; and it
has dwindled and shrunk, until to-day it consists of nothing but a double
street of poor white houses, such almost as you may see in any sea-coast
village in Ireland. The slow salt tides of the Atlantic come flooding in
over the Manto bank, across the bar of Saltes, and, dividing at the
tongue of land that separates the two rivers, creep up the mud banks of
the Tinto and the Odiel until they lie deep beside the wharves of Huelva
and Palos; but although Huelva still has a trade the tides bring nothing
to Palos, and take nothing away with them again. From La Rabida now you
can no longer see, as Columbus saw, fleets of caravels lying-to and
standing off and on outside the bar waiting for the flood tide; only a
few poor boats fishing for tunny in the empty sunny waters, or the smoke
of a steamer standing on her course for the Guadalquiver or Cadiz.

But in those spring days of 1492 there was a great stir and bustle of