Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-10-10

pted5eS tile captain, because III OiOWs
them farther aud farther away from the
European coast and farther on toward
the shore Of another country. IL there is
any.
After awhile there comes calm day,
and the attempt is made to fathom the
ocean. and they cannot touch bottom,
though the line and lead run down two
hundred fathoms. More delightful sem
saticns for those who are not good sail
'l'sl a fsthom Is six feet, and two hun
bred f;lthoms. one Thousand two hundred
] feet. and below that it may be many
liuAdred feet deeper. To add interest to
the voyage, on the twentieth day out a
violent storm sweeps the sea, and the
Atlantic ocean tries what it can do with
the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the
Nina. Some of you know something of
what sea can do with the Umbria, the
| MaJestic, the Teutonic and the City Of
Paris, and you must imagine what the
ocean could do with those three small
shios Of olden time.
Nou may judge what the ocean was
then by what 1t is now. 1t has never
changed its habits. 1t can smile like
the morning, but often it is the archangel
Of wrath, and its most rollicking fun is q
| shipwreck. The mutinous crew would
have killed Columbus had it not been
for the general opinion on shipboard
that he was the only one that could take
thein back home in safety. The promise
Of silk waistcoat and forty dollars in
| money to the man who should first dis
oser land appeased them somewhat, but
| th indignation and blasphemy and
tbreats of assassination must have been
awful. Yet God sustained the great
sailor commanding the Santa Maria.
Every evening on shipboard they had
prayers and sung vesper hymn. But
after all the patience Of those on board
tie ships had been exhausted, and the
great captain or admiral had been
cursed by every anathema that human
lil,s could frame, one night sailor saw
light moving along the shore, and then
moving up and down, and then disap-
pcaiing. On Friday morning at two
o'clock, just long enough after Thurs
day to make it sure that it was Friday,
AID SO give another blow at the worlds
idea Of unlucky days-on Friday morn
ing, Oct. 12, 1492, gun from the Pinta
signaled Gland ahead"
Then the ships lay to, and the boats
were lowered, and Captain Christopher
Columbus first stepped upon the shore,
amid the song Of birds and the air q
surge Of redolence, and took possession
in the name of the Father, and the Son
41.. Io1x nLaaf L. {ha
that began with the sacrament ended
with "Gloria in Excelsis Deo." From
that day onward you say there can be
nothing for Columbus but honors, re-
wards. rhapsodies, palaces and world
wide applause. No! mol On his way
back to Spain the ship was SO wrenched
by the tempest and 80 threatened with
destruction that he wrote a brief ac-
CONT of his discovery and put it in a
caslS aud threw it overheard that the
world might not lose the advantage of
his adventures.
Honors awaited him on the beach, but
he undertook second voyage, and with
it came all maligning and persecution
and denunciation and poverty. He was
called land grabber, liar, q cheat, a
fraud, deceiver Of nations. Specu-
lators robbed him Of his good name,
courtiers deprecated his discoveries, and
there came to him ruined health and i'm
prisonment and chains, Of which he said
while he ratified them on his wrists, 81
will wear them as memento of the
gratitude of princes" Amid keen ap-
probation of the worlds abuse and
cruelty, and with body writhing in the
tortures Of gout he groaned out his last
words. "In manus tuas Domino com
mendo spiritum meum"-"Into thy
hands, 0 Lord, commend my spirit"
OF course he had regal obsequies
That is the way the world tries to atone
for its mean treatment of great benefac-
tors. Many man has had fine ride
70 his grave who during this life had to
walk all the way. A big funeral, and
instead Of bread they give him stone
that is tombstone. But death, that
brings quiet to the body of others, did not
bring quiet to his. First buried in the
church of Santa Maria. Seven years
afterward removed to Seville. Twenty
three years afterward removed to San
Domingo. Finally removed to Cuba.
Four postmortem journeys from sepul-
cher to sepulcher.
wish his bones might be moved just
once more, and now that they have come
30 near to America as Cuba they might
during the great Columbian year be
transported to our own shores, where
they belong, and that in the fifth CEN
tury after his decease the American con-
tinent might build mausoleum worthy
OF him who picked this jewel of hemi-
sphere out of the sea and set it in the
crown of the worlds geography.
But the bright MONDAY sun of that
old sailors prosperity went down in
thickest night, and though here and
there a monument has been lifted in his
memory, and here and there city called
after him, the continent that he was the
means of founding was named after an
other name, and no fitting commemora-
ton of his work has been proposed until
nearly four hundred years after his body
turned TO dust. May the imposing dem
onstration now being made In his honor
on tho Atlantic coast and TO be made
next year in his honor midcontinent, be
brilliant enough and far resounding
enough and Christian enough and mag
nitcent enough 10 atone for the neglect
of oenturiesl May the good Lord allow
that most illustrious sailor of all time to
look over the amethystine battlements
long enough TO see some of the garlands
wreathed around his name and hear
something OF the hemisphere shout that