_One gentle guardian once could shield the brave; But now that guardian slumbers in the grave._
The death of queen Isabella, which happened before the last return of Columbus from America, was a subject of great sorrow to him. In her he lost his only powerful friend in Spain, on whose influence he was accustomed to rely in counteracting the perpetual intrigues of a host of enemies, whose rank and fortune gave them a high standing at the court of Valladolid. Their situation and connexions must havee commanded a weight of authority not easily resisted by an individual foreigner, however illustrious from his merit.
It was a grievous reflection for Columbus that his services, tho great in themselves and unequalled in their consequences to the world, had been performed in an age and for a nation which knew not their value, as well as for an ungrateful monarch who chose to disregard them.
_As, awed to silence, savage lands gave place, And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race._
The original inhabitants of Hispaniola were worshippers of the sun. The Europeans, when they first landed there, were supposed by them to be gods, and consequently descended from the sun. See the subject of solar worship treated more at large in a subsequent note.
_High lanterned in his heaven the cloudless White Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;_
The White Mountain of Newhampshire, tho eighty miles from the sea, is the first land to be discovered in approaching that part of the coast of North America. It serves as a landmark for a considerable length of coast, of difficult navigation.
_Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides, Maragnon leads his congregating tides;_
This river, from different circumstances, has obtained several different names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I choose to follow.