Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/21

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10 FRIDAY NOT .UNLUCKY. the unlucky day has been maligned, (for, was it not a piece of luck that our Western World was discovered on Friday? How superstitious some people are!) let us look at this record: Friday, August 3rd, left Palos. Friday, October 12th, landed at San Salvaaor. Friday, , left New World for home. Friday, February 15th, first saw land on return. Friday, March 15th, arrived at Palos. But Columbus and his men must be transplantea in our minds from the supposed Indies to the Uttle port of Palos, where they arrived with the Pinta and the Nina with eighty-one of the one hundred and twenty souls, having been gone seven months and twelve days, traveling over tho trackless ocean about 2,900 leagues, or 8,000 miles in round numbers. The Santa Maria had been lost, and owing to the lack of means to transport, or perhaps to hold the country while the discoverers returned to Europe, thirty-nine men were left at Port au Paix, Hayti, aD of whom were killed by the natives. It has been heretofore stated that the two vessels arrived with eighty-one people, but we must add a little history. "Columbus tried to induce some of the natives (of San Salvador) to go with him and show where the land of gold was to be found. But this they refused to do; so on the next day, Sunday the 14th, taking by force seven natives that he might iastnict thorn in Spanish and make interpreters of