COLUMBUS'S FIRST DISCOVERY. BY WASHINGTON IRVING. [WASHINGTON IRVING was the son of an Orkney Islands emigrant merchant, and born in New York city, April 3, 1783. He studied law but found literature more congenial, and after a visit to Europe undertook with James K. Paulding the publication of Salmagundi, a humorous magazine; and in 1809 brought out "The History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker," as pure a fantasy as if laid in fairy-land, but its pictures of Dutch life are still accepted by most as authentic. It placed him at once at the head of American letters. Entering into a commercial partnership with his brothers, in 1815 he went to Europe, and remained abroad for seventeen years, traveling widely. About 1817 the house failed, and he devoted himself to literature for a subsistence. He became secretary of the American embassy (1829); Minister to Spain (1842); and after his return, four years later, passed the rest of his days at Sunnyside, on the banks of the Hudson river, near Tarrytown, N. Y., where he died Nov. 28, 1859. His other works are: "The Sketch Book" (1820), "Bracebridge Hall" (1822), "Tales of a Traveller" (1824), "Life and Voyages of Columbus" (1828), "Conquest of Granada" (1829), "Voyages of the Companions of Columbus" (1831), "The Alhambra" (1832), “Astoria" (1836), "Adventures of Captain Bonneville" (1837), “Life of Goldsmith" (1849), “Mahomet and his Successors" (1850), “Wolfert's Roost" (1855), “Life of Washington” (1855–1859). THE situation of Columbus was daily becoming more and more critical. In proportion as he approached the regions where he expected to find land, the impatience of his crews augmented. The favorable signs which increased his confidence were derided by them as delusive; and there was danger of their rebelling, and obliging him to turn back, when on the point of realizing the object of all his labors. They beheld themselves with dismay still wafted onward, over the boundless wastes of what appeared to them a mere watery desert, surrounding the habitable world. What was to become of them should their provisions fail? Their ships were too weak and defective even for the great voyage they had already made; but if they were still to press forward, adding at every moment to the immense expanse behind them, how should they ever be able to return, having no intervening port where they might victual and refit? In this way they fed each other's discontents, gathering together in little knots, and fomenting a spirit of mutinous opposition; and when we consider the natural fire of the Spanish temperament, and its impatience of control, and that a great part of these men were sailing on compulsion, we cannot wonder that there was imminent danger of their breaking forth into |