"…during which the food supply threatened to fail…"

   Put that on the screen, please. Columbus surrounded by
ten sailors, dividing up a potato.

   "…the caravels arrived in safety at the beautiful island
of San Salvador. Columbus, bearing the banner of Spain,
stepped first ashore. Surrounded by a wondering crowd of
savages he prostrated himself upon the beach and kissed
the soil of the New World that he had discovered."

   All this is so easy that it's too easy. It runs into
pictures of itself. Anybody, accustomed to the movies,
can see Columbus with his banner and the movie savages
hopping up and down around him. Movie savages are gay,
gladsome creatures anyway, and hopping up and down is
their chief mode of expressing themselves. Add to them
a sandy beach, with palm trees waving visibly in the wind
(it is always windy in the movies) and the thing is done.

   Just one further picture is needed to complete the film.

   "Columbus who returned to Europe to lay at the feet of
the Spanish sovereigns the world he had discovered, fell
presently under the disfavour of the court, and died in
poverty and obscurity, a victim of the ingratitude of
princes."

   Last picture. Columbus dying under the poignant
circumstances known only in the movies—a garret
room—ceiling lower than ever—a truckle bed, narrow
enough to kill him if all else failed—Teresa Colombo
his aged mother alone at his bedside—she offers him
medicine in a long spoon—(this shows, if nothing else
would, that the man is ill)—he shakes his head—puts
out his hand and rests it on the little globe—reaches
feebly for his compasses—can't manage it—rolls up his
eyes and fades.

   The music plays softly and the inexorable film, like

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