of sight of land for eight weeks, and while some of the sailors thought
they might be in the Bay of Biscay, and others that they were in the
English Channel, the Admiral suddenly announced that they were close to
Cape Saint Vincent.

No land was in sight, but he ordered that sail should be shortened that
evening; and sure enough the next morning they sighted the land close by
Cape Saint Vincent. Columbus managed his landfalls with a fine dramatic
sense as though they were conjuring tricks; and indeed they must have
seemed like conjuring tricks, except that they were almost always
successful.




CHAPTER IV

IN SPAIN AGAIN

The loiterers about the harbour of Cadiz saw a curious sight on June
11th, 1496, when the two battered ships, bearing back the voyagers from
the Eldorado of the West, disembarked their passengers. There were some
220 souls on board, including thirty Indians: and instead of leaping
ashore, flushed with health, and bringing the fortunes which they had
gone out to seek, they crawled miserably from the boats or were carried
ashore, emaciated by starvation, yellow with disease, ragged and unkempt
from poverty, and with practically no possessions other than the clothes
they stood up in. Even the Admiral, now in his forty-sixth year, hardly
had the appearance that one would expect in a Viceroy of the Indies. His
white hair and beard were rough and matted, his handsome face furrowed by