He was given a power that only the richest and noblest could hope for.

But more than all, he was to have the chance he had wished and worked for so long.

He was to find the Indies; he was to see Cathay; he was to have his share in all the wealth he should discover and bring away.

The son of the poor wool-weaver of Genoa was to be the friend of kings and princes; the cabin boy of a pirate was now Admiral of the Seas and Governor of the Colonies of Spain! Do you wonder that he felt proud?
So, as I have told you, just before sunrise on a Friday morning in August, he boarded the Santa Maria and gave orders to his captains "to get under way." The sailors with a "yo heave ho!" (or whatever the Spanish for that is) tugged at the anchors, the sails filled with the morning breeze, and while the people of Palos watched them from the shore, while the good friar, Juan Perez, raised his hands to Heaven calling down a blessing on the enterprise, while the children waved a last good-by from the water-stairs, the three vessels steered out from Palos Harbor, and before that day's sun had set, Columbus and his fleet were full fifty miles on their way across the Sea of Darkness.

The westward voyage to those wonderful lands, the Indies and Cathay, had at last begun..