Nation in a Nutshell

be, familiar to every American who can read. How he sailed forth from the roads of Saltez on the 3d of August, 1492, with three vessels and a crew of one hundred and twenty men; how the voyage was stormy and full of doubts and discouragements; how, finally, early on the morning of October 12, Rodrigo Triana, a seaman of the _Pinta_, first descried the land which Columbus christened San Salvador; how they pushed on and found Cuba and Hayti; how, after returning to Spain, Columbus made two more voyages westward,--one in 1493, when he discovered Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Porto Rico: and another in 1498 when the Orinoco and the coast of Para rewarded his researches; and his subsequent unhappy fate--all these events have been related by many writers, and most vividly of all by the graphic pen of Washington Irving.

[Sidenote: Menendez.]

The era of American discovery may be said to have continued till the memorable fourth day of September, 1565, when the Spaniard Menendez founded the first town on this continen