He accordingly
sailed from Palos, in Andalusia, on the 3d of August, 1492; and in
thirty-three days landed on one of the Bahamas. He had already sailed nine
hundred and fifty leagues west from the Canaries: after touching at the
Bahamas, he continued his course to the west, and at length discovered the
island of Cuba. He went no farther on this voyage; but on his return home,
he discovered Hispaniola. The variation of the compass was first observed
in this voyage. In a second voyage, in 1492, Columbus discovered Jamaica,
and in a third, in 1494, he visited Trinidad and the continent of America,
near the mouth of the Orinoco. In 1502, he made a fourth and last voyage,
in which he explored some part of the shores of the Gulph of Mexico. The
ungrateful return he met with from his country is well known: worn out with
fatigue, disappointment, and sorrow, he died at Valladolid, on the 20th of
May, 1506, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
In the mean time, the completion of the discovery of America was rapidly
advancing. In 1499, Ogeda, one of Columbus's companions, sailed for the new
world: he was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci: little was discovered on the
voyage, except some part of the coast of Guana and Terra Firma. But
Amerigo, having, on his return to Spain, published the first account of the
New World, the whole of this extensive quarter of the globe was called
after him.
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