fresh chapter in the world's history had been begun. The thoughts and
emotions that surged through the ardent Italian, as he knelt on that coral
beach, were lofty and unselfish; as were, in truth, those of the age whose
representative he was, when it saw him depart on his adventure. But before
the man of destiny had risen from his knees, he had ceased to act as the
instrument of God, and had begun to think of personal emoluments. So much
he must make over to Spain; so much he might keep for himself; so much was
promised to his shipmates. He would be famous--yes: and rich and powerful
too; he would be a great vicegerent; his attire should be of silk and
velvet, with a gold chain about his neck, and gems on his hands. So
adversity set his name among the stars, and prosperity abased his soul to
dust. The remaining years of his life were a fruitless struggle to secure
what he deemed his rightful wages--to coin his immortal exploit into
ducats; and his end was sorrowful and dishonored. The proud
self-abnegation of the ancient Roman was lacking in the medieval Genoese.

The white-maned horses of the Atlantic once mastered, there came riders
enough. During the next thirty years such men as Amerigo Vespucci (who
enjoyed the not singular distinction of having his name associated with
the discovery of another man), the Cabots, father and son; Balboa, and
Magellan, crossed the sea and visited the new domain. Magellan performed
the only unprecedented feat left for mariners by sailing round the earth
by way of the South American straits that bear his name; but Vasco da Gama
had already entered the Pacific by the Cape of Good Hope. It was by this
time beginning to be understood that the new land was really new, and not
the other side of the old one; but this only prompted the adventurers to
get past or through it to the first goal of their ambition. They had not
yet realized the vastness of the Pacific, and took America to be a mere
breakwater protecting the precious shores of Cathay. Later, they found
that America repaid looting on her own account; but meanwhile there was