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THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
America was founded by Columbus in 1642. This is an easy date to remember because it rhymes with ‘ocean blue’, which was the color of the Atlantic in those days. If he had sailed a year later the date would still be easy to remember because it would rhyme with ‘boundless sea’.
Columbus fled to this country because of persecution by Ferdinand and Isabella, who refused to believe the world was round, even when Columbus showed them an egg. Ferdinand later became famous because he objected to bullfights and said he preferred to smell flowers if he had to smell anything. He was stung in the end by a bee.
Before Columbus reached America, which he named after a man called American Vesuvius, he cried 'Ceylon! Ceylon!' because he wanted to see India, which was engraved on his heart, before he died. When he arrived, he cried again. This time he cried 'Excelsior!' meaning ‘I have founded it’. Excel sior has been widely used ever since by persons returning with chinaware from China and with india ware from India.
Columbus was mistaken in thinking he had reached India when actually he had not got even as far as Indiana. There is still a great deal of confusion about the East and the West. As Columbus discovered, if you go west long enough you find yourself in the east, and vice versa. The East and the West are kept apart by the Date Line, just as the North and South are kept apart by the Masons' Dixon Line. In the New World most of the eastern half of the country is called the Middle West, although it is known as the East by those who live in the Far West.
Columbus, who was as confused as anybody who has been at sea for a long time, called the first people he saw 'Indians'. It is not known what they called Columbus. His unfortunate error has been perpetuated through the centuries. The original Americans are still known as 'Indians', while all manner of immigrants from England, Ireland, Angora, and Lichtenstein are referred to as 'Americans'.
Accompanied by his devoted followers, the Knights of Co lumbus, Columbus made several other voyages in search of India. Try as he might, however, he kept discovering America, and finally returned to Spain to die. He lived for a time in Madrid, but spent his last days in Disgrace.
FURTHER EXPLORATIONS
After Columbus proved the world was round, a great many people went around it. Marco Polo, who was one of the earlier explorers, had the misfortune to live several centuries before Columbus. Therefore, although he got around a good deal, he did not get completely around. He went far to the north, how ever, and is remembered for his discovery of the Polo regions.
The chief rivals in exploration were England and Spain. Eng land had men like Cabot, who spoke only to a man named Lowell, and Sir Francis Drake, who had a singed beard and a ship called the Golden Behind.
Nor should we forget Sir Martin Fourflusher.
The struggle between England and Spain came to a climax in an epic sea battle off the Azores known as the Last Fight of the Revenge. In this decisive conflict, Sir Richard Grenville and Alfred Lord Tennyson proved conclusively that the lighter English warships could get more miles to the galleon. England has ruled the waves ever since and has kept the sun from setting anywhere on her empire, thus providing a longer working day than in other countries.
THE INDIANS
The people who were already in the New World when the white men arrived were the first Americans, or America Firsters. They were, also referred to as the First Families of Virginia.
The early colonists found the Indians living in toupees, or wigwams, and sending up smoke signals, or wigwags, with piece pipes. Apparently because of a shortage of pipes, they sat in a circle and passed one pipe around, each biting off a piece as it passed. The chief Indian was named Hiawatha, and his squaw, whose name was Evangeline, did all the work. This was later to become an Old American Custom.
The Chiefs, it must be said in all fairness, were too busy to work. They were engaged in making wampum, or whoopee, when they were not mixing war paint or scattering arrowheads about, to be found centuries later.
In order to have their hands free to work, the squaws carried their babies, on their back, very much as kangaroos carry their babies on their front, only different.
The Indians were stern, silent people who never showed their feelings, even while being scalped. They crept up on their enemies without breaking a twig and were familiar with all the warpaths. Despite their savage ways, they sincerely loved peace, and were called Nobel Savages.
Their favourite word was 'How', which the colonists soon learned was not a question.
The whites feared the redskins and considered them the forest's prime evil. Some went so far as to say that 'The only good Indian is a wooden Indian'. The redskins resented the whiteskins because they thought they had come to take their lands away from them, and their fears were well grounded.