combine variables to matrix

I just got stuck with a quite simple question. I've just read in an 
ASCII table from a plain text file with read.table(). It's a 1200x1200 
table. R has assigned variables for each column: V1,V2,V3,V4,...
For small data sets

data <- read.table("data.txt");
data.matrix <- cbind(V1,V2,V3);

works. But how could I put together 1200 columns?

I've searched the R mailing help and stumbled upon this entry:
https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2007-July/137121.html
which doesn't help me.

thanks for your help.

andre