In August, 1492, he sailed from
Palos with 100 men in three small ships, the largest of which weighed
only a hundred tons. After a tiresome voyage he landed (12 October,
1492) on "San Salvador," one of the Bahama Islands. In that bold voyage
across the trackless Atlantic lay the greatness of Columbus. He was not
attempting to prove a theory that the earth was spherical--that was
accepted generally by the well informed. Nor was he in search of a new
continent. The realization that he had discovered not Asia, but a new
world, would have been his bitterest disappointment. He was seeking
merely another route to the spices and treasures of the East; and he
bore with him a royal letter of introduction to the great Khan of
Cathay (China). In his quest he failed, even though he returned in
1493, in 1498, and finally in 1502 and explored successively the
Caribbean Sea, the coast of Venezuela, and Central America in a vain
search for the island "Cipangu" and the realms of the "Great Khan." He
found only "lands of vanity and delusion as the miserable graves of
Castilian gentlemen," and he died ignorant of the magnitude of his real
achievement.
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