Let me send out a more competent man than yourself
to handle it, and do you devote your energies entirely to discovery.
That alone shall be your work. Carry it as far as you can, for you are
not young and the day will come when you can sail no more."
If a sympathetic, convincing, friendly voice had whispered this good
advice to the harassed governor of Espanola, what a load of trouble it
might have lifted from his heart. But Bishop Fonseca, unfortunately, was
not the man to help another in his hour of trouble. He merely treated
Columbus coldly and put every sort of obstacle in his way.
Ships and men were at last ready to sail from Cadiz on May 30, 1498. It
happened that ten days before Vasco da Gama, following the Portuguese
track around Africa, had left the coast and gone across the Indian
Ocean, reaching the rich mainland of the real India--the brilliant,
civilized city of Calcutta. Let us be thankful for poor Columbus's sake
that there were no cables in those days to apprise him of the fact, else
he might have felt even more keenly what a poor showing his own
discovery had made.
His fleet this time consisted of six vessels. They stopped as usual at
the Canaries, then went farther south to the Cape Verde Islands. Thus a
whole month passed before they were ready to cross the Atlantic.
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