Evening star., 1938-10-16

no better and no worse than the men OF
his day. Certainly he was no saint in his
actions. Some writer's have called him an
INSPIRED dreamer" liar and 4 braggart," :"
a "seducer," an ambitious and unscrupu-
lous adventurer" and many other similar
expressions. On the other hand, Columbus
has had many more defenders than he has
had detractors
The best known facts OF the admirars
life are concerned with his discoveries, yet
to this day his first landfall in the West
Indies remains Unknown, and no amount
of diligent research seems likely to solve
the problem.
After the return from his fourth voyage
Columbus seems to have been i'll physically
and mentally, it being now believed that
he suffered from q brain disorder due to
syphilis. Probably he passed away on May
20, 1906, at Valladolid. Spain, but his death
appears not to have been noted in the
records of that city until ~ years later,
when people read the admiral is dead"
The exact location of his body at that
time is uncertain, although it may have
Monastery OF Santa Maria de las Cuervas
in Seville. From there the Spanish govern
ment on three different occasions ordered
the body removed to the Island Of Espanola,
as Santo Domingo was then called. But
the transfer does not apear to have been
made until l54l. In the island the re-
mains, if indeed they were those of Colum-
bus, were inferred in the Columbus Chapel
One hundred and thirty-five years later the
cathedral records showed that the bones
of the navigator lay on the right side Of
the altar while on the left side lay the
remains of his brother Bartolome Another
hundred and twenty years passed when in
1896 the island was ceded to France and
the body of the discoverer was removed to
the cathedral at Havana. Cuba, where 4
fitting monument was erected bearing the
inscription:
20, rest thou image OF. great Colon.
Thousand centuries remain guarded IN
the urn
And in the remembrance OF our nation"
Empty Vault Found.
Eighty-one years now passed until 1877,
when repairs were being made in the Ca
thedral of Santo Domingo the workers
found an empty vault and near it another
containing lead CONN with an inscription
which seemed to indicate that it contained
the body of the Admiral Thereupon the
Bishop decided that the wrong body had
been taken to Havana and that the body
remaining behind was that of Christopher
Columbus. This opinion was reversed
by the Academy of History at Madrid after
an investigation in which it showed that
the remains at Santo Domingo were those
of one of the Admirals grandsons and that
the inscription on the casket had been
added to or altered
Finally in 1898, during the war between
Spain and the United States the Spanish
Government transferred the body from the
cathedral at Havana to the cathedral at
Seville, Spain. And if this history Of the
burial place Of Columbus is not complicated
enough to confuse the searcher for the
tomb of the admiral it may be added that
every now and then a new alleged burial
place is found in Spain
Thus the story OF Columbus remains be-
clouded and obscure. About the only
serious assertion people have not made
about. him. is that he was an American.
But whatever he was he accomplished a
great deed in great way in a great age.
and his name will be remembered as long
as man lives in this hemisphere.