The admiral, however, was not a man to be much influenced by the sayings of the unthoughtful and the unlearned.

He fortified himself by references to St.Isidro, Beda, Strabo, St.Ambrose, and Duns Scotus, and held stoutly to the conclusion that he had discovered the site of the earthly Paradise.

It is said, that he exclaimed to his men, that they were in the richest country in the world.
Columbus did not forget to claim, with all due formalities, the possession of this approach to Paradise, for his employers, the Catholic Sovereigns.
Accordingly, when at Paria, he had landed and taken possession of the coast in their names, erecting a great cross upon the shore, which, he tells Ferdinand and Isabella, he was in the habit of doing at every headland, the religious aspect of the conquest being one which always had great influence with the admiral, as he believed it to have with the Catholic monarchs.

In communicating this discovery, he reminds them how they bade him go on with the enterprise, if he should discover only stones and rocks, and had told him that they counted the cost for nothing, considering that the Faith would be increased, and their dominions widened.
GRACEFUL REARING OF NATIVES; BEAUTY OF THE LAND.
It was, however, no poor discovery of mere "rocks and stones" which the admiral had now made.

It will be interesting to see his first impressions of the men and the scenery of this continent which he had now, unconsciously, for the first time, discovered.