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Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmAs A des taux de reduction diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reprodult en un seul cliche, il est filmA A partir da I'angle supArleur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 6 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR t^e ^torg of gie Eife anb ^orft TOGETHER WITH An Account of the pre-Columbian Discovery OF America BY / HENRY FREDERIC REDDALL AUTHOK OF "FROM THE GOI.nKN CATF. TO THE GOI.DPN llclRN," " THE SUNNY SIDE OP POLITICS," " FACT, FANCV, AND FABl.li," ETC. OOPYniwi^^^ '^.^ NEW YORK EMPIRE PUBLISHING COMPANY 146 AND 148 Worth Street J CoPYmCHT, l8q2, BY UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. [All rights reservei/.] C.W^ e « / 7 9 C \i ii' COLUMBUS. (AT HAVANA.) ' There, 'mid these paradises of the seas, The root beneath of this cathedral old, That lifts its suppliant arms above the trees. Each clasping in Its hand a cross of gold, Columbus sleeps— his crumbling tomb below I By faith his soul rose eagle-winged and free, And reachetl that power whose wisdom never fails. Wallced 'mid the kindled stars, and reverently Tlie light earth weighed in God's own golden scales A man of ijassions lilie to men's was he. He overcame them, and with hope and trust Made strong his soul for higher destiny, And, following Christ., he walked upon the sea; The waves upheld him,— what is here is dust." —Hezekiah Butterworth, H i t II y p j i' -»j f W ■■ ■". ■ .?g! CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PACB. The Norseman 11 CHAPTER II. A New Europe — 40 CHAPTER III. Christopher Columbus 00 CHAPTER IV. Across the Western Ocean 157 CHAPTER V. Results akd Bbwards ^f2l ~\: ^■'■f i r'- "^' - i "''^'r'- ■-'■'—"—' LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ' I FAOB ^ PoRTHAiT OF CHRISTOPHER C0LUMBD8 Frotitispiece. -i Norsemen on the Coast of America 14 V Leif Ericson 24 V Map op Vinland 30 '■J The Old Stone Mill, Newport 34 >/ The Yanez Portrait OF Columbus 102 V Columbus's first Interview ^vith Father Perez 134 V Columbus recalled by order of Isabella 142 ^Columbus received by Isabella 148 ^ Father Juan and Garcia watching the Departure of Columbus 156 "^ The Ships of Columbus 178 ^ Columbus presenting an " Indian " to Ferdinand and Isabella 210 ^ Columbian Monument designed by Jose de Man- jabres 218 ^ bobadilla locking columbus in a dungeon 264 ^ Columbus sent to Spain in chains 268 •* Death of Columbus 276 ■i Sunal's Statue of Columbus, Central Park, New York 280 !.: * PREFATORY NOTE. Probably none of the world's men of mark has been more frequently AViitten about than Chris- topher Columbus, and it may be that there is nothing very new to be said concerning his career. But it seemed to the author that at this junc- ture, with the four hundredth anniversary of the Columbian re-discovery of America at hand, there was room for a sketch which should present in brief form the life-story of the great explorer, and at the same time acquaint the reader with t!".e facts concerning the pre-Columbian discoveries and voyages in the Western World by the Norse- men from Iceland and Greenland in the tenth and eleventh centuries of our era. There are upward of a hundred notable books dealing with the discovery of America, dating from 1076 to 1892. Washington Ir\4ng's « Life " D KSRU^ 10 PREFATORY NOTE. ■ V ' can never be surpassed as a romance j he had access to materials and documents never before collated. Next in value stand Prescott's " Reign of Ferdi- nand and Isabella," and Sir Arthur Helps' brief biography of the great admiral, and his " History of the Spanish Conquest in America." Professor Tarducci published in 1891 an exceedingly able and painstaking life of the great pioneer, as did Mr. Justin Winsor, in 1892. These works prac- tically exhaust the subject, though they are not mucfi read by the masses, and they have been freely consulted in the preparation of the present book. To them and to Laing's " Heimskringla,'| Da Costa's " Pre-Columbian Discovery of Amei4ca," Brinton's " Myths of the New World," Professor Rasmus B. Anderson's " America not Discovered by Columbus," Marie A. Brown's (Mrs. Shipley) "Icelandic Discoveries of America," Mr. J. B. Shipley's " English Re-Discovery and Colonization of America," Mrs. J. B. Shipley's " Leif Ericson and not Columbus the Discoverer of America," and her "Suppressed Historical Facts Concerning the Discovery of America," the reader is referred who desires to pursue this fascinating theme at greater length. ^ ^ ^^ Xkw Yuuk, 1892. d access iollated. f Feidi- )s' brief History rofessor gly able , as did ks prac- are not ve been > present tringla," menca," 'rofessor scovered Shipley) r. J. 13. onization f Ericson imerica," >ncerning I referred theme at . F. K. COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOK. CHAPTER I. THE N O R S K M E N , " Lightly the long-snake Loaps after tonipfsts, aiu (ilows after laiii. Ill lal)<;r and ilarinj; Lies liK'k for all mortals. Nornr Sar/a. Who first " discovered " America will probably never be known, but " discovered " it was many thousands of years prior to the Heeting visits of the Scandinavian vikings to the coasts of New Ensrland and Newfoundland. Far back in the childhood or the early manhood of the human race the great Western Continent was peopled, at least in part, either by migrations from the east m MM mKr ^^i mt ai iti'iitif i ii j t vf\H f ^m.^^f;fi^^^ ■-"JW I ,., COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOlt. across the Atlantic or from the west across the Pacific. These primitive peoples were the first immigrants to America. But the links of com- munication with the continents on either hancl- if such ever existed-werehroken, and "this New World which is the Old" was unknown to Europe until the eighth or tenth century of our era. Even then the veil of ohscurity was only lifted for a brief glimpse of the beyond, and then dropped ^vhile Europe slumbered in the apathy of the Dark Ages for mu.ther five hundred years. It is a curious but none the less well-attested fact that among the mythical traditions of the pre- Colun^bian ^habitants of Ame.ica-Mexioans, Peruvians, Aztecs, and Indians-was the belief that their national heroes, depicted as fair of skin and nvighty in battle, should at some not distant day return and restore the race to its pristine power and influence. Always these mighty ones were to come from the east, whence thly were named the "Dawn Heroes." And -wrf^«=w<^^*--vt»***"«^ '*"»*^"**"" •OSS the he lii'st of eom- liancl — his New ) Europe u Even ed for a dropped ^ of the irs. l-attested I the pre- Mexioans, ;he belief s fair of some not vce to its ays these ,st, whence OS." And iiiuitsQm ■ i J i ii^ i H S fff ^ ruiwit ii >'i i - 8-2 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. mouth of the river were large islands. On the low grounds they found fields of wheat growing wild, and on the rising ground vines Karisefne went to Norway with a Vinlaud cargo in the summer of 1012, and it was considered very valuable. He even sold a piece of wood used for a door-bar or a broomstick to a Bremen merchant for half a mark of gold, for it was of ^ massur-wood of Vinland. He returned and pui^ '^ chased land in Iceland, and many people of dis- tinction are descended from him and his son Snorro, who was born in Vinland." Commenting on the foregoing concise narrative, Mr. Laing observes that " all the geographical knowledge that can be drawn from the accounts of the natural products of Vinland in these chapters, points clearly to the Ubrador coast, or Newfoundland, or some places north u£ the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The description of the land is unsatisfactory as a means of discovering the locaUties m Vinland they visited without more COLUMBUS THE yAriGATOli. S3 tht wmg L'JlVgO (lered wood •emen fas of I pui- •t dis- s son rative, iphical counts these ast, or e Gulf land is ig the t more precise data. A country of stony soil, with little vegetjition among the slaty fragments that cover it, applies to all the country from Hudson's Bay to Newfoundland. Markland, so called hecause low or level and covered with thick forests, as a description, may be apphed to any part of America as well as to Nova Scotia. An island with a sound between it and the main, or a low shore with remarkably white sand cliffs and shallow water, a fiord or inlet of the sea, a river running out of a lake, : bay between two headlands, one of them of a conspicuous figure, are good landmarks for identifying a country of which the position is known, but good for nothing as data for fixing that position itself ; because these are features common to all sea- coasts, and, on a small or great scale, to be found within every hundred miles. of a run along the seaboard of a country A.11 the details seem merely the filling up of imagination, to make a story of a main fact, the discovery of Vinland by The "Stone Mill," Xcwjmt. COLUMBUS THE XAVIGATOR. 85 certain personages, -whose names, and the fact of their discovering unknown lands southwest of Greenland, are alone to he depended upon." Not so very long ago archteologists who favored the story of Leif Ericson were wont to « point with pride " to two objects of interest on the coast of New England— the stone tower at Newport and Dighton Eock. But nowadays the evidence which would prove the one an erec- tion of the Vikings and the hieroglyphics on the other to be the mystic record of their acts is too slight to be of value. The stone tower is an everyday mill with a modern pedigree ; Dighton Rock was scratched by Indians if by anybody. « It is not impossible," says John Clark Ridpath, « that, before the final relinquishment of Amer- ica by the Norse adventurers, a sea-wanderer from rugged Wales had touched our eastern shores. It is claimed that the Welsh Prince Madoc was not less fortunate than Leif Ericson in finding the western shore of the Atlantic. ! il il • »'■ 86 COLUMBUS THE NAVIOATOR. But the evidence of such an exploit is far less satisfactory than that hy which the Icelandic dis- coveries have been authenticated. According to the legend which the Cambrian chroniclers with patriotic pride have preserved, and the poet Southey has transmitted, Madoc was the son of the Welsh king, Owen Gwynnedd, who flour- ished about the middle of the twelfth century. At this time a civil disturbance occurred in Wales, and Prince Madoc was obliged to save himself by flight. With a small fleet, he left the country in the year 1170, and, after sailing westward for several weeks, came to an unknown country, beautiful and wild, inhabited by a strange race of men, unUke the people of Europe. For some time the prince and his sailors ttirried in the new land, delighted with its exuberance and with the salubrious climate. Then^ all but twenty of the daring company set sail and returned to Wales. It was the intention of Madoc to make prepara- tions and return again. Ten ships were accord- • less c dis- ig to with poet t)n o£ floiir- itury. V^ales, Bl£by untry id for untry, s race some le new th the of the Wales, repara- iccord- COLUMBVS TUB NAVIGATOR. 37 ingly fitted out, and the leader and his adven- turous crew a second time set their prows to the west. The vessels dropped out of sight one by one, but were never heard of more. The thing may have happened." If any corroborative opinion be needed as to the verity of the Norse voyages to America, we have that of Humboldt, in his " Cosmos," wherein he says : " We are here on historical ground. The discovery of the northern part of America by the Norsemen cannot be disputed. The length of the voyage, the direction in which they sailed, the time of the sun's rising and setting, are accurately given. While the Caliphate of Bagdad was still flourishing, America was dis- covered about the year 1000 A. D. by Leif, the son of Eric the Red, at the latitude of forty-one and a half degrees north." What were the results of these successive voy- ages to the rest of the world ? Absolutely noth- ing. Europe was not yet awakened from her I 88 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. medieval slumbers, nor had that wild spirit of adventure which dominated the centuries from the fifteenth to the eighteenth yet appeared among the English, the Spanish, and the Dutch. The news of the exploits of Leif Ericson was confined to a few ; it is not certain that the ex- istmg rude records thereof were penned until many years after. f As has been well said, the importance of any historical event is to be weighed by its conse- quences. The Norsemen sailed back and forth across the " roaring forties," but mankind was neither wiser, richer, nor better therefor. One by one the colonies dissolved ; there was no glory in fighting a few naked savages ; and Vinland was once more left untrodden by the white man. It is said that a desultory com- munication was kept up with America during the 13th and 14th centuries, but of this there is no certainty. True it is, however, that the Norse- men had no conception that they had discovered ; of rom ired tch. was i ex- intil any )n8e- Eorth was I was and f the com- uiing are is '^^orse- vered COLUMBUS TUE NAVIGATOR. 39 a new continent ; they imagined that Vinland was but a continuation of the coast of Greenland trending south and west. Leif and liis sailors went to Vallialla; the name of Vinland was forgotten; the red man once more held undisturbed sway from the Hudson to the St. Lawrence ; and the Western World lay hidden for more than four hundred years from the ken of Europeans. H 40 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOli. CHAPTER n. A NEW EUROPE. «' Westward the course of Empire Ukes its way." In penning the famous line which heads this chapter, Bishop Berkeley voiced the sentiment o£ the ages, from classic time to our own. West- ward the hopes and aspirations of the race have ever turned. Ancient mythology always placed its Fortunate Islands, the " Dixie " of those days, in the track of the setting sun, beyond where foot of man or keel of ship had never passed. The Hesperides of the Blest were located on an island to the west of Mt. Atlas in Africa, somewhere in that unknown sea outside the Pillars of Hercules.* » It would seom that the Canaries were knov.-n to the anclent« but that the knowledge became lost to the modems, andthoy < w lr m l i> ii «in > mm ii mn- . uL mm s this ent o£ West- > have placed B days, (re foot . The I island liere in icules.* ancients, andthoy COL UMB Ua THE NA VIGA TOR. 41 By degrees, the Ultima Thule of the ancient world was shifted by successive generations from point to point, but always westward, until it rested on wave-buffeted Iceland, where it re- mained for many hundreds of years. Despite its fear of the unknown, which is always terrible, the ancient world persisted with almost prophetic insight in imagining a vast extent of land somewhere to the westward of Spain — for so many centuries the occidental boundary of the ancient world. Nor is it even now measurably certain that these imaginings were entirely vain. The fabled Atlantis is a case in point, embodying as it does the pith of the legends of a pre-historic Atlantean continent. Nine thousand years before Plato lived and wrote, there existed, he tells us in his "Timseus,'* m the ocean that separates the Old World from the New, an island larger than Asia Minor and were re-discovcretl by an accident early in tlie 15tli century. From them Ptolemy commenced to count the longitude. nr- 42 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. Northern Africa combined, densely peopled h\ a powerful race. He locates it in what is now a watery waste, midway between the westward projection of the desert coast of Africa and the corresponding indentation by the Gulf of Mexico of the " Paradise of America." On its western shores were other and smaller islands by way of which access might be had to a vast continent beyond. Its. civilization was as advanced as that of ancient Egypt. Its people were descended from Neptune and mortal women, and by for-e of aims then: warriors penetrated into Africa as far eastward as Egypt, and into Europe as far as the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea (the western coast of Italy). Then- conquests were checked by the Greeks after the Atlantean sea-kings had attempted to subjugate Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the deed was accounted one of the glories of Athens. At length, however, the people became 80 desperately wicked that the island with all its inhabitants was swept away by a deluge. In a T i«Mili b\ a ow a bward i the [exico Bstem ray of tinent s that iended n^e of as far far as western liecked rs had i Asia, )rie8 of became all its . In a COLUMBUS THE NAYIGATOB. 43 day and a night Atlantis disappeared beneath the waves. Another account, slightly varied, says that after the defeat of the islanders, a terrific earthquake, attended by inundations of the sea, caused the island to sink, and for a long time thereafter the ocean was impassable by reason of the muddy shoals. Such is the substance of a legend, first communicated to Solon by an Egyptian priest, and perhaps founded on fact, that has existed from a very early date. On old Venetian maps Atlantis was placed to the west- ward of the Canaries and the Azores. To the ancients, the unknown was always gigantic or fearful; so they represented Atlantis as being larger than either Europe or Africa, though the great extent assigned to the island may have only signified one very large in proportion to the smaller isles of the Mediterranean — the only islands with which the ancients were familiar. Diodorus Siculus tells us that '* over against Africa lies a very great island in the vast ocean, 44 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. many days' sail from Libya westward. The soil there is very fruitful, a great part whereof is mountainous, but much likewise champaign, which is the most sweet and pleasant part, for it is watered by several navigable streams, and beautiful with many gardens of pleasure, planted by divers sorts of trees and an abundance of orchards. The towns are adorned ^vith stately buildings and banqueting-houses, pleasantly situated in their gardens and orchards." The inhabitants of Venezuela and of Guiana retained traditions of a convulsion " which swallowed up a vast country in the region now covered by the Atlantic Ocean." The Toltecs, the ancient inhabitants of Central America, have a tradition of the " cataclysm of the Antilles;" among the Indians of North America there is a similar legend. The tribes located farther southward have a circumstantial narrative to the effect that the waves of the ocean were seen rolling in Uke mountains from * ■■^~4i''zJflirf-'fT.'vould result from the drainage of a large extent of mountainous or hilly knd. " If geology can furnish us with such facts as these," says Prof. Anthon, « it may surely he pardonable in us to hngei with something of fond belief around the legend of Atlantis-a legend that could hardly be , the offspring of a poetic imagination, but must have had some foundation in truth." 'Twere hard to leave this fascinating subject without a glance at the flora which such a land as Atlantis must have possessed, supposing its exist- ence to have been a reahty. Looking at the Canaries, which we have supposed to be the remains of its eastern end, the observer is hnpressed with the richness of their almost tropical verdure. In thcie "Happy Isles" the generous grape is indigenous j the more homely cereals abundantly • . t lickness. nt bere, iry long , such as ;e extent logy can ays Prof, in us to ound the hardly he but must g subject i a land as f its exist- ng at the to be the lunj al verdure. is grape is abundantly COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 5f flourish ; and fruits of all kinds burden the air with their mellow fragrance. In the Bermudas, the opposite extremity of this supposititious continent, nature awaits us with still greater prodigality. Man's natural wants are bountifully suppUed without the laborious ma- chinery 80 needful in our northern climate, which dooms the majority of our population to a cease- less drudgery for their dully bread. Fruits fit for the palate of Epicurus hang in clusters, and man has but to raise his hand to pluck them. What possibihties were there not contained in a land which swept from the Canaries and the West Indies to the Bahamas and Ne^vf oundland ? It must have been indeed a « land flowing with milk and honey ; " a region in which every variety of climate was enjoyed, from the breezy vigor of its wind-swept mountain ranges to the dreamy, sensuous luxuriance of its tropical vaUeys. But did it reaUy exist ? We cannot say ; but whether or no, only its phantom is left, and to us ^58 CoTATMBirs THE NAVIGATOn. it is indeed a lost Atlantis, and an indication of the >vorld's faith in the existence of a continental mass of land to the westward of Europe. We refer to the Atlantean myth-if such it be -at some length because of its inthnate associa- tion with the dreams of many of the explorers of Columbus's day. It should be borne in mmd, however, that the Genoese set out, not to discover a new world, but to reach an old-world country by a fresh route. He essayed to sail to the land of Kublai Kluvu and of Prester John by water and to the westward ; whereas a land route, to the east, had been hitherto the only means of approach to the Cathay of Marco Polo. In order the better to appreciate the full signi- ficance of such an event as the discovery of anew continent, it may profit us to glance at the condi- tion of Europe in the fifteenth century. And first let us see how large was the known world Anno Domini 1400. Take an ordinary flat projection of a map of atlon of ntineutal iicli it be 8 associa- plorers of in mind, discover d country 1 the land ' water and ite, to the f approach full signi- ry of a new b the condi- And first world Anno ,f a map of COL UMB US TUE NA VIGATOR. 59 the world ; blot out the whole of the Western continent ; blot out all the bleak lands to the north of the North Cape in Norway ; blot out all of Africa save a crescent-shaped strip of coast-line from Alexandria to Cape Nun, together with the Cape Veru . Islands ; blot out the whole of Aus- traUa and the Pacific archipelago ; blot out Japan and the extr. me nort^ ^-eastern nart of Asia. When we look at what is left . are surprised and amused at the conceit oi the Romans, who claimed that thea- empire filled ail the world. « When that empire fell into the hands of a .in-le person," says Gibbon, " the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies ; the slave of imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag the gilded chain in Rome, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rocks of Seriphus or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in .r. -:- despair; to resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly; on every side he was encom- passed with a vast extent of sea and land, which QQ COL UMB US THE NA VIGA TOR. he could never hope to traverse Avithout being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master." At the commencement of the Renais- sance in Europe the territorial conditions were not greatly enlarged beyond those existing in the days of JuUus Caesar. But more than this, the terrors of men had clothed the unknown beyond with named and nameless horrors. Certain death in various repulsive and terrible forms awaited those who, afoot or afloat, pushed out into the unknown. The maxim of the map-makers of the time was, « Where you know nothing place terrors," and Jonathan Swift's well-known hues expressed " a condition, not a theory " : " So geographers in Afrlc maps With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns." Any old map wUl illustrate this. One before It being irritated ! Renais- were not I the days men had mied and I various [lose who, unknown, time was, i-ors," and iressed " a One before COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 61 US as we write depicts the southern part of Africa being ravened by an impossible beast like to that portrayed in Stockton's quaint story of " The Griffin and the Minor Canon ;" the whole of the north-eastern coast of Asia is occupied with a creature half-bear, half-boar, with an appendage Uke the trunk of an elephant for a tail; while a gigantic serpent reclines at ease where now the waters of the Pacific wash the shores of Chinaand Japan. This alarming practice on the part of these ignorant but well-meaning gentry is referred to by Plutarch, where he says that " geographers crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, addmg notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs." Even inour own day a vast area of the United States, long labeled "The Great American Uesert" has been proved to be in large part a veritable garden of loveUness. Nor were the travellers themselves one whit behind 62 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. the geographers in ascribing hideous dangers to the regions beyond which they had ventured. For a long time Cape Bojador was the extreme southern limit of discovery. This cape was for- midable in itself, being terminated by a ridge of rocks, with fierce currents surging round them, but was much more formidable from the fancies which the mariners had formed of the sea and land beyond it. " It is clear," they were wont to say, " that beyond this cape there are no people whatever ; the land is bare — no water, no trees, no grass upon it ; the sea so shallow that at a league from the land it is only a fathom deep ; the currents so fierce that the ship which passes that cape will never return." It is scarcely possible for us to put ourselves in the place of the men of the fifteenth century. " Geographical knowledge," says Sir Arthur Helps, the writer just quoted, "was but just awakening after ages of slumber ; and through- out those ages the wildest dreams had mingled mgers to ventured. I extreme was for- ridge of nd them, le fancies e sea and ere wont no people no trees, that at a om deep ; Ich passes irselves in 1 century. r Arthur but just through- i mingled COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 68 fiction with fact. Legends telling of monsters of the deep, jealous of invasion of their territory ; of rocks of lodestone, powerful enough to extract every particle of iron from a passing ship; of stagnant seas and fiery skies ; of wandering saints and flying islands; all combined to invest the unknown with the terrors of the supernatural and to deter the explorer of the great ocean. The half-decked vessels that crept along the Mediter- ranean shores were but ill-fitted to bear the brunt of the furious waves of the Atlantic. The now indispensable sextant was but clumsily anticipated by the newly invented astrolabe. The use of the compass had scarcely become familiar to naviga- tors, who indeed but imperfectly understood its properties. And who could tell, it was objected, that a ship which might succeed in sailing down the waste of waters woidd ever be able to return, for would not the voyage home be a perpetual journey up a mountain of sea ? The truth of the proposition that the earth G4 COL UMB US THE NA VIGA TOU. was a sphere as yet found but few acceptors. Many of these shared the above belief as to the fate awaiting the ship which should tempt fate by sailing too far down the incUne ; those who clung to the more orthodox idea that the earth was a flat plane enjoyed an equally comforting opinion that he who ventured to the edge thereof would fall off into space. Columbus, of course, in common with the other master minds of his time, believed in the spheri- city of the earth, but he and they were not the first to entertain that belief. Writing in 1356, a hundred and thirty-six years before the re-discovery of America, staunch old Sir John Mandeville, the great traveller, put forth the following logical argument in favor of a round world : « In that land and in others beyond no man may see the fixed star of the North which we call Lode Star. But there men see another star called the Antarctic, opposite to the star of the North. And just as mariners in this hemisphere take their coeptors. as to the mpt fate lose who ;he earth )mforting je thereof I the other he spheri- re not the in 1356, a >-(liscovery leville, the ig logical d no man ich we call star called the North, e take their COLUMBUS THE XAVIGArOR. 65 reckoning and govern their course by the North Star, so do the mariners of the South by the Antarctic. But the star of the Ninth appears not to the people of the South. Wherefore men may easily perceive that the land and the sea are of round shape and figure. For that part of the firmament which is seen in one country is not seen in another. And men may prove both by expeiience and sound reasoning that if a man, having passage by ship, should go to search the world, he might with his vessel sail around the world, both above and under it. This proposi- tion I prove as follows : I have myself in Prussia seen the North Star by the astrolabe fifty-three degrees above the horizon. Further on in Bo- hemia it rises to the height of fifty-eight degrees. And stiU farther northward it is sixty-two de- grees and some minutes high. I myself have so measured it. Now the South Pole Star, is, as I have said, opposite the North Pole Star. And about these poles the whole celestial sphere !lSS'i'''R^'*9'9'iM8'!i!i.^M'9 ee COLVMUVS fUE NAVlOATOn. revolves Uke a wheel about the axle ; and the firmament is thus clivUlecl into two equal parts. From the North I have turned southward, passed the equator, and found that in Lyhia the Ant- arctic Star first appears above the horizon. Far- ther on in those lands that star rises higher, until in southern Lybia it reaches the height of eigh- teen degrees and certain minutes, sixty minutes making a degree. After going by sea and by land towards that country (Australia perhaps) of which I have spoken, I have found the Antarctic Star more than thirty-three degrees above the horizon. And {f I had had company and shq^ ping to go still farther, I knoto of a certainty that I should have seen the iMe circumference of the heavens. And T repeat that men may en- viron the whole world, as well under as above, and return to their own country, if they had company, and ships, and conduct. And always, as well as in their own land, shall they find m- habited continents and islands. For know you 11 1 and the ual parts, rd, passed the Ant- ion. Far- ' rher, until it of eigh- ty minutes ea and by perhaps) of B Antarctic above the / and 8hi2>- a certainty •ciimference len may en- r as above, f they had ^nd always, bhey find in- r know you COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 67 well, that they who dwell in the southern hemi- sphere are feet against feet of them who dwell m the northern hemisphere, just as we and they that dwell under ns are feet to feet. For every part of the sea and the land hath its antipode. Moreover, when men go on a journey toward India and the foreign islands, they do, on the whole route, circle the circumference of the earth, even to those countries which are under us. And therefore hath that same thing, which I heard recited when I was young, happened many times. Howbeit, upon a time, a worthy man de- parted from our country to explore the world. And so he passed India and the islands beyond India-more than five thousand in number-and so long he went by sea and land, environing the world for many seasons, that he found an island where he heard them speaking his own language, hallooing at the oxen in the plow with the iden- tical words spoken to beasts in his own country. Forsooth, he was astonished ; for he knew not MMM ^K ' W.^ 'i i . ' WiawmtHJWw.-H ' 68 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. how the thing might happen. But I assure you that he had gone so far by land and sea that he had actually gone round the world and was come again through the long circuit to his own dis- ' trict. It only remained for him to go forth and find his particular neighborhood. Unfortunately he turned from the coast which he had reached, and thereby lost all his painful labor, as he him- self afterwards acknowledged when he returned home. For it happened by and by that he went into Norway, being driven thither by a storm; and there he recognized an island as being the same in which he had heard men calling the oxen in his own tongue ; and that was a possible thing. And yet it seemeth to simple, unlearned rustics that men may not go around the world, and if they did theij would fall of! But that absurd thing never could happen unless we ourselves from where we are should fall toward heaven ! For upon what part soever of the earth men dweU, whether above or under, it always seemeth 1 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 69 sure you I that he svas come own dis- Porth and trtunately L reached, s he him- leturned t he went a storm; being the r the oxen ible thing, led rustics rid, and if lat absurd ! ourselves d heaven ! earth men lys seemeth to them that they walk more perpendicularly than other folks ! And just as it seemeth to us that our antipodes are under us head downwards, just so it seemeth to them that we are under them head downwards. If a man might fall from the earth towards heaven, by much more reason the earth itself, being so heavy, should fall to heaven-an impossible thing. Perhaps of a thousand men who should go round the world, not one might succeed in returning to his own particular neighborhood. For the earth is indeed a body of great size, its circumference being- according to the old wise astronomers— twenty thousand four hundred and twenty-five miles. And I do not reject their estimates ; but accord- ing to my judgment, saving their reverence, the circumference of the earth h somewhat more than that. And in order to have a clearer under- standing of the matter, I use the following de- monstration. Let there be imagined a great sphere, and about the point called the center au- - -■^tJ I 1jl» ! E ff W3!l ' 4^- ' - '^' Wi -l' J'J ! i1^ ^^ffi'^r'fmm'^fmifmP'^- «iwwiw«*I)«'JW ■■' 7a COLL- Mil us TilK SAVIOATOn. Other smaller sphere. Then from different parts of the great sphere let lines he drawn meeting at the center. It is clear that hy this means the two spheres will he divided into an equal numher of parts having the same relation to each other; but between the divisions on the smaller sphere the absolute space will be less. Now the great sphere represents the heavens and the smaller sphere the earth. But che firmament is divided by astron- omers into twelve Signs, and each Sign into thirty degrees, making three hundred and sixty degrees in all. On the surface of the earth there ^ill be, of course, divisions exactly corresponding to those of the celestial sphere, every hue, degree, and zone of the latter answering to a hue, degree, or zone of the former. And now know well that according to the authors of astronomy seven hundred furlongs, or eighty-seven miles and four furlongs, answer to a degree of the firmament. Multiplying eighty-seven and a half miles by three hundred and sixty-the number of degrees m the parts ting at he two iber of er ; but ere the ; sphere lere the astron- fjn into id sixty th there ponding , degree, , degree, well that \y seven and four imament. i by three ees in the COL VMtt us THE NA VWA TOR. 71 firmament-we have thirty-one thousand five hundred English miles. And this according to my belief and demonstration is the true measure- ment of the circumference of the earth." If the astronomers and geographers of the day had given Sir John the correct measurement of a degree of latitude he would not have mis-stated the circumference of our globe by as mu.h as ten miles ! But Europe was now at the dawning of a new day. With a mighty hand, as when the skies clear after storm, the clouds of ignorance and superstition were about to be swept away. For historical purposes what is known as the Dark Ages comprise the thousand years from the invasion of France by Clovis in 486 to that of Naples by Charles VIII. in 1495, or from the date of the transfer of the imperial dignity from Rome to Constantinople in 476 down to the in- vention of printing 143842. Although the period covered by the term « Dark Ages " is at ''-■ 72 VOU'MmH THE NAVIOATOn. best an arbitrary one, the latter event would seem to signalize more fittingly the conclusion of the period of ignorance and bigotry, and to usher in the centuries which should be dominated by a New Europe. " The weary old world was ripe for something new. " While the sun of chivalry set and the expir- ing energies of f eudaUsm ebbed away ; while the elder Capets gave place to the Houses of Valois and Orleans in France; and whUe the bloody wars of Lancaster and York made England deso- late and barren, the mystery of the Atlantic still lay unsolved under the shadows of the West. At last Louis XL rose above the ruins of feudal France, and Henry VH. over the fragments of broken EngLand. In Spain, Ferdinand and Isa- bella, expelling both the Jew and the Moham- medan, consolidated the kingdom and prepared the way for the Spanish ascendency in the time of their grandeur." At this juncture there appeared— a Man— ll -"3BSB?W!5:" lid seem u of the usher in ;e(l by a 1 ripe for ;he expir- while the of Valois e bloody [and deso- antie still ;he West, of feudal rments of I and Isa- e Moham- l prepared I the time —a Man — COL UMB CS TUE AM VIOA TOR. T8 Prince Henry of Portugal, who boasted one of the most enlightened minds of his time. " This prince Avas born in i:«)4. He was the third son of John the First of Portugal and Philippa, the daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. That good Plantagenet blood on the mother's side was, doubtless, not without avail to a man whose life was to be spent in con- tinucms and insatiate efforts to work out a great idea. Prince Henry was with his father at the memorable capture of Ceufci, the ancient Sep- lem, in the year Ulf.. This town, which lies opposite to Gibraltar, was of great ma nificence, and one of the principal marts in that age for the productions of the eastern world. K was here that the Portuguese first planted a finn foot in Africa; and the date of this town's capture may, perhaps, be taken as that from which Prince Henry began to meditate further and far greater conquests. His aims, however, were directed to a point long beyond the range I 71 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. of the mere conquering soldier. He was especially learned for that age of the world, being .killed in mathematical and geographical knowledge. He eagerly acquired from the Moors of Fez and Morocco such scanty information as could be gathered concerning tiie remote districts of Africa. The shrewd conjectures of learned men, the con- fused records of Arabic geographers, the fables of chivalry were not without their influence upo.i an enthusiastic mhul. The especial reason >vhich impelled the prince to take the burden of discovery on himself was that neither mariner nor merchant would be likely to adopt an enter- prise in which there was no clear hope of profit. " It belonged, therefore, to great men and princes; and among such he knew of no one but himself who was inclined to it. This is not an uncommon motive. A man sees something that ought to be done, knows of no one that will do it but himself, and so is driven to the enterprise even should it be repugnant to him. ^specially tr skilled lowledge. E Fez and could be of Af liea. , the eon- the fables influence Aid reason burden of iv mariner ; an entei- ; of profit. ; men and no one but 3 is not an ething that liat will do ,6 enterprise COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 75 « Prince Henry, then, having once the well- grounded idea in his mind that Africa did not end, according to the common belief, at Cape Nun, but that there was a region beyond that forbidding negative, seems never to have rested until he had made known tliat quarter of the world to his own." It is not unworthy of a few moments' digres- sion to remark that when, in 1480, the Portu- guese navigator, Bartholomew de Diaz, re-dis- covered the southern promontory of the African continent, and named it " Cabo Tormentoso," " Cape of Storms," he did but revive the old appel- lation by Avhich, entirely unknown to him, of course, the Cape of Good Hope had been known to the maritime adventurers of nearly two thou- sand years before. "Re-discovered" we say advisedly and with ample authority. There is every reason to be- Ueve that, long b' .re our records of modern |ri|||llllllfi|i^jl^iftL#:^tifwMN^^^^^^^ 70 COLUMBUS rilE NAVWATOIi. discovery commence, the circumnavigation of Africa Avas accomplished. About 600 years before Christ there reigned on , the throne of Egypt, Necho, the. king .vho commenced the famous canal between the Nde and the Arabian Gulf, which enterprise, by the way, was abandoned after costing the lives of 120,000 men. "* At this time, and in fact throughout the ancient world, Africa was believed to be surrounded by water on all side., except at the narrow neck now traversed by the Suez Canal. But the precise c(mformation of the southern part was an un- solved problem, and was deemed to be " an un- discovered country from whose bourne no traveb ler returned." In that age of superstition and idolatry the most fabul.)us stories were current aboul 'what was unknown. So that it is not suange that exaggerated representations of the dangers to be encountered, of the frightful coasts, aiAd of the stormy and boundless ocean atiou of lioned on ing Avho the Nile jr the way, 1 120,000 le ancient )unded by neck now lie precise iis an iin- \ " an un- no travel- itition and 316 current it is not ions of the y frightful lless ocean COLUMBUS rriE NAVIOATOU. 7T supposed to stretch to the confines of earth's surface, were rife, and were recounted again, and yet again, in the hearing of the credulous mar- iners whose only experience of Neptune's fury was within the narrow limits of the " Magna Mare " of the Romans. The Phoenicians were at that date the mari- ners ;;«r .x-c6??enc. of the whole known world; their enterprise and adventurous spirits led them far past the Pillars of Hercules, those grim guardians on the threshold of the Atlantic, even to the shore, of Britain. Their high-sterned, single-masted craft were to he seen in the waters of every sea then known ; they enrolled them- selves under the banner of any monarch or king- dom who would make it sufficiently to their interest, and among those whom they served was the before-mentioned Necho, King of Egypt. Herodotus, whose writings cover such an im- portant era in the world's history, viz., the cen- turies preceding the Nativity at Bethlehem, gives a -8 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. most mteresting account of what was undoubtedly a great feat, and from it and other sources we learn that when Neeho at last desisted from opening a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, he cast about him for some other kingly enterprise. Accordingly "he sent certain Ph(Bnicians m ships with orders to pass by the Columns of Hercules into the sea that lies to the north of Africa, and thus return to Egypt. These Phcem- cians thereupon set sail from the Red Sea and entered into the Southern Ocean. They saded south for many months. On the approach o! autumn they landed in Africa, and planted some grain in the quarter to which they had cm^e ; when this was ripe and they had cut it down, they put to sea again. Having spent two years in this way, they in the third passed the Col- umns of Hercules and returned to Egypt." Now comes what is to us the strange part of the narrative of Herodotus, but at the same time the best confirmation we could wish that he was not oubtedly Lirces we ed from d Sea, he Qterprise. icians in lumns of north of se Phteni- l Sea and hey sailed proa(!h Oi. nted some lad come ; it it down, two years d the Col- pt." Now art of the le time the he was not - COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 79 rekting a mere "sailor's yarn," as he himself evidently believes. He goes on to say : "Then- relations may obtain credit with scnne, but to me it seems impossible of belief; for they affirmed that, as they sailed arouiul the coa^t of Africa, they had the sun on their right handl" But to us who bask in the revelations of modern science, the report which Herodotus thought so fabulous as to throw discredit upon the entire narrative, namely, that in passi..g round Africa they found the sun on their right, affords to us the strong- est presumption in favor of its truth. Such a statement as this could nev«r have been imagined in an age when the science of astronomy was m its infaucy-when the earth was believed to be a Hat plane and the center of the universe. Of course, after having passed the Cape of Good Hope, and turning their prows northward, the Phoenician, must have found the sun on their right hand. In addition they brought back the most fabulous stories of what they saw; for some ^ COLUilttVS rllE NAViaATOD. Of which we ave undoubtedly mdebted to their imagination. It is true that many writers have labored to prove ttat the voyage in all l>robability never took pbce, urging as their chief objections that the time occutied was too short in that age of slow and caution. saiUng, when it was customary to sail only by day, and to anchor at night; and also that the undertaking was .me for wluch the Phoenician galleys of the time were entnely un- fitted. On the other hand, s,m,e of the best authorities are agreed that such a feat was not only possible, but that it actually took pbce, else how could the voyagm have returned to the.r startinrpoint from an opposite direction to that in which they set out, and how did they come to ' observe the sun on their right hand? It .s suf- flcient to say that these .juestions have never been answered. After diligent study of the writings ot the an- cients. Prince Henry came to the ■ oclusion that to their ibored to levev took that tho sre o£ sU)W itoiuary to t ; and also which the iitively un- £ the best sat was not L pkce, else led to their ition to that ley come to ? It is suf- e never been rs of the an- n elusion that COLUMBUS rilK NAVIGATOn. 81 the continent of Africa could be circumnavigated to the southward. It is true that " the possibxhty of circumnavigating Africa, after being for a long tune admitted by geographers, was denied by .^.-^j^paiuJius, who considered each sea shut up and land-bound in its peculiar basin ; and that Af nca ^;;;i;;ntinent continuing onward to the south pole, and surrounding the Indian sea, so as to join Asia beyond the Ganges. This opinion had been adopted by Ptolemy, whose works, ux the time of Prince Henry, were the highest authority m geography. The prince, however, clung to the ancient belief, that Africa was circumnavxgable andfoundhis opinion sanctioned by various learned men of more modern date. To settle this ques- tion, and achieve the circumnavigation of Atnca, was an object worthy the ambition of aprince, and his mind was fired with the idea of the vast benefits that would arise to his country should M he accomplished by Portuguese enterprise." " The discovery of America by Columbus," says 82 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. Professor John Fiske, " was due to the shifting of the lines of Asiatic trade on accoiHifeof the encroach- ment of the Turks. Ever since the Crusades the routes by way of the Mediterranean Sea as well as the overland paths for caravans, had been much traveled. In 1453 the Mussulmans captured the seat of the Eastern Empire and thus the sultan's sway became wider. The avenues of trade were closed, although the volume of commerce in this direction was swelling. The merchants of Genoa, Pisa, Florence, and other places were compelled to seek new routes. At this time two opposite views as to the shape of the earth were current. That of Pomponius Mela af&rmed that land to the southward ceased with the Sahara Desert, while Claudius Ptolemy held that the earth ex- tended to the south pole ; thus denying that Af- rica was circumnavigable. It was natural for the Portuguese to start the movement toward finding new passages, as they were the first people after the Northmen to engage in distant commerce." -; shifting of 3 encroach- usades the lea as well been much ptured the be sultan's trade were Hce in this ? of Genoa, )mpelled to o opposite sre current, at land to ira Desert, 9 earth ex- ng that Af- xral for the ard finding jeople after nmerce." COLUMIWS THE NAVIGATOR. 8P For over a century the Lombards had monop- olized the overland trade Avith Africa ; the republics of Venice and Genoa owed their Avealth and import- ance to this trade ; and while very profitable to these merchants, the heavy cost of land carriage greatly enhanced the value of the articles brought from India and the East. " It was the grand idea of Prince Henry, by circumnavigating Africa, to open a direct and easy route to the source of this commerce ; to turn it in a golden tide upon his country. He was, however, before the age in thought, and had to counteract ignorance and prejudice, and to endure the delays to which vivid and penetrating minds are subjected from the tardy co-operation of the dull and the doubt- ful. The navigation of the Atlantic was yet in its infancy. Mariners looked with distrust upon a boisterous expanse, which appeared to have no opposite shore, and feared to venture out of sight of the landmarks. Every bold headland and far- stretching promontory was a wall to bar their met.' 84 COLUMliUS THE yAVWATOR. progress. They crept timor..usl^ along t.he Bar- bary shores, and thought they had accoiuplished a wonderful expedition when they had ventured a few degrees beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. Cape Nun was long the limit of their daring ; they hesitated to double its rocky point, beaten by winds and threatening to thrust them forth upon the raging deep. "Independent of these vague fears, they had others, sanctioned by philosophy itself. They still thought that the earth at the equator was girdled by a torrid zone, over which the sun held his vertical and fiery course, separating the hemi- suheres by a region of impassive heat. They fancied Cape Bojador the utmost boundary of secure enterprise,andfosteredasuperstitiousbelief that whoever doubled it would never return. • They looked with dismay upon the rapid current. of its neighborhood, and the furious surf which beat upon its arid coast. They imagined that beyond it lay the frightful region of the torrid r ihe Bar- luplished a ventured a Gibraltar. ir daring ; mt, beaten them forth ,, they had self. They gquator was he sun held gthe hemi- leat. They •oundary of ititious belief (ver return, ipid currents } surf which magined that )f the torrid COLUMnUS THE NAVIGATOR. 85 zone, scorched by a blazing sun ; a region of fire, where the very waves, which beat upon the shores, boiled under the intolerable fervor of the heavens. " To dispel these errors, and to give a scope to navigation equal to the grandeur of his designs, Vr' e Henry established a naval college, and erected an observatory at Sagres, and he invited thither the most eminent professors of the nautical sciences ; appointing as president James of Mal- lorca, a man learned in navigation, and skillful in making charts and instruments. " The effects of this estabhshment were soon apparent. AH that was known relative to geogra phy and navigation was gathered together and reduced to system. A vast improvement took place in maps. The compass was also brought into more general use, 'especially among the Por- tuguese, rendering the mariner more bold and venturous, by enabling him to navigate in the most gloomy day and in the darkest night. Encour- aged by these advantages, and stimulated by the : 8G COLUMBUS TUE NAVICATOlt. munificence of Prince Henry, the Portuguese marine became sij^nalized for the i- Mtliliood of its enterprises and tlie extent of its discovoried. Cape Bojador was doubled ; the region of the tropics penetrated, and divested of its fancied terrors ; tlie greater part of the African coast, from Cape Blanco to Cape de Verde, explored ; and the Cape de Verde and Azores Lslnuds, which lay three hundred leagir :5 distant from the conti- nent, were rescued from the oblivious empire of the ocean. To secure the quiet -prosecution and full enjopnent of his discoveries, Henry obtained the protection of a papal bull, granting to the crown of Portugal sovereign authority over all the lands it might discover in the Atlantic, to India inclusive, with plenary indulgence to all who should die in these expeditions ; at the same time menacing with the terrors of the Church all who should interfere in these Christian conquests. " Henry died on the 13th of November, 1473, without accomplishing the great object of his Portuguese ,)tliliood of diHCOYorit's. ^ion of the its fancied rican coast, B, explored ; lands, which the conti- ; empire of lecution and iry obtained iting to the ity over all Atlantic, to fence to all at the same 2 Church all n conquests, mber, 1473, 3Ject of his ; IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I Z Ui 11120 1.8 L25 II U 11.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation ^0 23 WIST MAIN STRUT WBBSTIR.N.Y. MS80 (716) 872-4503 L »,' CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. 1. Canadian Institute for Historical JVIicroreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques COLUMltr.S TlIK XAViaATOIl. gy ambition. It Avas not until many years after- wards, that Vasco da Gama, pursuino- with a Por- tuguese fleet the track he had pointed out, realized his anticipations by doubling the Cape of Good Hope, sailing along the southern coast of India, and thus opening a highway for ccmimerce to the opulent regions of the East. Henry, however, lived long enough to reap some of the richest re- wards of a great and good mind. He beheld, through his means, his native country in a grand and active career of prosperity. The discoveries of the Portuguese were the wonder and admira- tion of the fifteenth century, and Portugal, from being one of the least among nations, suddenly rose to be one of the most important. All this was effected, not by arms, but by arts ; not by the stratagems of a cabinet, but by the wisdom of a college. It was the great achievement of a prince who has well been described as ' full of thoughts of lofty enterjjrise, and acts of generous spirit : ' one who bore for his device the niafjnanimous 8S COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. motto, * The talent to do good,' the only talent worthy the ambition of princes. " Henry, at his death, left it in charoe to his country to prosecute the route to India. He had formed companies and associations, l)y which commercial zeal was enlisted in the cause, and it was made a matter of interest and competition to enterprising individuals. From time to time Lis- bon was thrown into a tumult of excitement by the launching forth of some new expedition, or the return of a squadron with accounts of new tracts explored and new kingdoms visited. Everything was confident promise and sanguine anticipation. The miserable hordes of the African coast were magnified into powerful nations, and the voyagers continually heard of opulent coun- tries farther on. It was as yet the twilight of geographic knowledge ; imagination went hand in hand with discovery, and as the latter groped its slow and cautious way, the former peopled all beyond with wonders. The fame of the Portu- %■■ ;' talent to his He had which and it Ition to me Lis- lent by tion, or of new visited, iinguine African )ns, and it coiin- Ught of hand in •oped its pled all e Portu- COLUMIiUS THE NAVWATOl}. 89 guese discoveries, and of the expeditions continu- ally setting out, drew the attention of the world. Strangers from all })arts, the learned, the curious, and the adventurous, resorted to Lisbon to inquire into the particulars or to partici{)ate in the advan- tages of these enterprises. Among these was Christopher Columbus." 90 CULUMItUS THE NAVICATOR. CHAPTER III. :!HRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. " Honor ami shiune from no condition rise, — Act well your part, thore all the honor lies." We have seen that the woikl was ripe for a great discovery, or a series of great discoveries. Not ak)ne in the reahn of action and enterprise, pioneered hy the Portugnese, were new vistas opening np, hut the whole fiekl of intellectnal specuhition and deduction was in a ferment, and men's minds as well as men's bodies imperatively demanded new worlds to conqner. What won- der, then, that the Western riddle should be chosen as one of the first for solution ! All that was wanted was the Man, and he now appeared. [)e for a icoveries. iterprise, w vistas tellectual lent, and leratively liat won- loulcl be All that appeared. coLUMiirs Tin: yAvwAToii. 91 " Whether in old times, heyond the reach of history or tradition, and in some remote period of civilization, when, as some imagine, the arts may have flourished to a degree unknown to those whom we term the Ancients, there existed an intercourse between the opposite shores of the Atlantic ; whether the Egyptian legend, narrated by Plato, respecting- the island of Atlantis was indeed no fable, bnt the obscure tradition of some vast country, engulfed by one of those mighty con- vulsions of our globe, which have left traces of the ocean on the summits of lofty mountains, must ever remain matters of vague and visionary spec- idation. As far as authenticated history extends, nothing was known of terra firma and the islands of the Western hemisphere until their discovery towards the close of the fifteenth century. A wandering bark may occasionally have lost sight of the landmarks of the old continents, and been driven by tempest across the wilderness of waters long before the invention of the compass, but I f)2 t<)L UMB US THE ^A \ ' Id. 1 TOU. never returned to reveal the secrets of the ocean. And thouuli, from time to time, some strai.ge flotsam came to the shores of the ohl Avorkl, giv- in<>- to its wonderinjij inhahitants evidences of land far beyond their Avntery horizon, yet no one ven- tured to spread a sail, and seek that land envel- oped in mystery and peril. The Scandinavian voyagers had hut transient glimpses of the new ■world, leading to no certain or permanent knowl- edge, and in a little time lost again to mankind. Certain it is that at the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the most intelligent minds were seekiu"- in every direction for the scattered lights of geograpliic;d knowledge, a profound ignorance prevailed among the learned as to the Avestern reus as a guest, and mentions that at his death, which occurred in 1506, he was verging on his 70th year. And yet still later than this conclusion of Tarducci we find Harrisse, in the lievue Jlistoriqiie, quoting from a manuscript, dated Oct. 30, 1470, recently discovered in the Genoa archives, this memorandum : " Christofferus de Columbo, filius Dominici, major annis decem- novem." Putting this with sundry other facts Harrisse regards it as certain that Columbus could not have been born before 1446 nor after 1451, with the probability that his birth took place ;lWiHI«54AIUgJ>W COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 101 seilles for reinforcement. Columbus made a feint of acquiescence, but craftily arranged the compass so that it appeared that they were returning, while they were really steering their original course, and so arrived at Carthagena the next morning, think- ing all the while that they were in full sail for Marseilles." There are no very good or authentic portraits of Columbus extant, as might perhaps be expected. This much, however, seems to be certain — that he was tall of stature and dignified in bearing, with a long oval countenance, an aquiline nose, and ex- pressive light gray eyes. His hair and complex- ion were fair; the former turned white Avhile he was yet in the prune of life. His manners were grave, courteous, and winning. He was at once resolute and humane ; courageous and com- passionate. He was simple, unaffected, and deeply religious. To his superiors he was unflinchingly hdnest and loyal, and he endeavored to command alike obedience in turn from those placed under X'ihuu 102 COLUMBUS THE NAVIOATOli. his command. There are dark and dubious facts and passages in his Hfe ; he has been called phate, buccaneer, and slave-driver. But he lived in a period o£ storm and stress ; his faults were those of his time and of those w'lom he served. In saying that he was brave, steadfast, with the rough honor of a bluft' old sea-dog, we complete the portrait outlines of a veritable Bayard of the Seas ; and if his enthusiasm for his own beliefs some- times deafened and blinded him to more prudent counsels, he remained in adversity, and in pros- perity, and in adversity again, a knight without fear and without reproach.* • In answering the query " Was f'olinnbus a Jew ?" the Jewixh World anys: " Jews figure proniinciilly in tlie liistory of the dis- covery of America. Tlie plans and calculations of Columbus' ex- pedition were largely the Avork of two IIcl)rew astronomers and mathematicians. Two .lews were also employed as interpreters by ("olumbus, and one of them, Luiz de Torres, was tlie first Euro- pean to set foot in the New World. When Columbus sighted the island of San Salvador he sent Torres, who was engaged for his knowledge of the Arabi<', ashore to make hKiuiries of the natives. It w^as probably this Torres who was the Madrid Jew to whom Columbus bequeathed lialf a mark of silver in his will. '' Another curious fact is that it has lieeri curiously suggested — by Franz Delitzsch, we believe— tliat Columbus himself was a Jew rinces to determine any- thing upon such weak grounds of information.' Ferdinand and Isabella seem not to have taken the extremely unfavorable view of the matter entertained by the junta of cosmographers, or at least to have been wilUng to dismiss Columbus gently, for they merely said that, with the wars at present on their hands, and especially that of Granada, they could not undertake any new ex- penses, but when that war was ended, they would examuie his plan more carefully. " Thus terminated a solicitation at the court of ii'erdinand and Isabella, which, according to some '^•MtalMti cuteness olumbiis ?aching ; of eradi- » judges In fine, vain and >■ to the line any- I'mation.' ve taken s matter ers, or at /olumbus the wars y tliat of new ex- ey would > court of r to some COLUMBUS THE NAVIUATOU. las authorities, lasted five years ; for the facts above mentioned, though short in narration, occupied no little time in transaction. During the whole of this period, Columbus appears to have followed the sovereigns in the movements which the war necessitated, and to have been treated by them with much consideration. Sums were from time to time granted from the royal treasury for his private expenses, and he was billeted as a public functionary in the various towns of Andalusia where the court rested. But his must have been a very xip-hill task. I^is Casas, who, from an experience larger even than that Avhich fell to the lot of Columbus, knew what it was to endure the cold and indolent neglect of superficial men in small authority, and all the vast delay, which cannot be comprehended except by those who have suffered under it, that belongs to the trans- action of any affair in which many persons have to co-operate, compares the suit of Columbus to a battle, ' a terrible, continuous, painful, prolix 1 1 m COL UMB US Til E NA VIGA TOR. 186 battle.' The tide of this long war (for war it was, rather than a battle) having turned against him, Columbus left the court, and went to Seville ' with much sadness and discomfiture.' During this dreary period of a suitor's life— which, how- ever, has been endured by some of the greatest men the world has seen, which was well known by close observation, or bitter experience, to Spenser, Camiiens, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Bacon —one joy at least was not untastedby Columbus, namely, that of love. His beloved Beatrice, whom he first met at Cordova, must have believed in him, even if no one else had done so ; but love was not suflicient to retain at her side a man goaded by a great idea, or perhaps that love did but impel him to still greater efforts for her sake, as is the way with lovers of the nobler sort. " Other friends, too, shared his enthusiasm, and uro-ed him onward. Juan Perez de la Marchena, guardian of the monastery of La Rabida, in An- dalusia, had been the confessor of Queen Isabella, 180 COLUMBUS THE yAVIGATOH. but had exchanged the bustle of the court for the learned leisure of the cloister. The little town of Palos, with its seafaring population and niari- tune interests, was near the monastery, and the principal men of ihe place were glad to pass the long winter evenings in the society of Juan Perez, discussing questions of cosmograjdiy and astron- omy. Among these visitors were Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the chief ship-owner of Palos, and Garcia Hernandez, the village doctor ; and one can fancy how the schemes of Columbus must have appeared to the little conclave as a ray of sunlight in the du'ness of their simple life. Hernandez, espe- cially, who seems to have been somewhat skilled ni physical science, and therefore capable of appre- ciating the arguments of Columbus, became a warm believer in his project. It is worthy of notice that a person who appears only once, as it were, in a sentence in history, should have ex- ercised so much influence upon it as Garcia Her- nandez, who was probably a man of far superior •ourt for ttle town md mari- , and the pass the an Perez, id asti'on- in Alonzo lid Garcia can fancy appeared ht in the lez, espe- skilled in of appre- became a worthy of once, as it I have ex- arcia Her- 1,1' superior con UMU US TIJE NA VWA TOR. 1:17 attainments to those around him, and was in the habit of depk)ring, as such men do, his hard k)t in being plaited where he eoukl be so Uttle under- stood. Now, however, he was to do more at one stroke than many a man who has been all his days before the world. Columbus had abandoned his suit at court in disgust, uul had arrived at the monastery before quitting Spain to fetch his son Diego, whom he had left with Juan Perez to be educated. All his griefs and struggles he con- fided to Perez, who could not bear to hear of his intention to leave the country for France or England, and to make a foreign nation greater by allowing it to adopt his project. The three friends— the monk, the learned physician, and the skilled cosmographer— discussed together the proposition so unhappily familiar to the last- named member of their council. The affection of Juan Perez and the learning of Hernandez were not slow to follow in the track which the enthusiasm of the great adventurer made out I 13S coLUMnrs THE yAVKiATOU. before them; and they became, no doubt, as convinced as Cohuubus himself of the feasiblhty of his iindeitakini.-. The difficuky, however, was not in becominj^ beUevers themselves, but in persuading- those to believe who would have power to further the < nterprise. Their discussions upon this point ended in the conclusion that Juan Perez, who was known to the (pieen, having acted as her confessor, should write to her high- ness, lie did so ; and the result was favorable. The (pieen sent for him, heard what he had to say, and in conseipience remitted money to Co- lumbus lo enable him to come to court and renew his stiit. He attended the court again ; his nego- tiations were resumed, but were again bioken off on the ground of the largeness of the conditions which he asked for. His opponents said that these conditions were too large if he succeeded, and if he should not succeed and the conditions should come to nothing, they thought that there was an air of trilling in granting such conditions iOlAMlliS Tin: SAVKiMon. VM doubt, as feasibility however, es, but in live power iious upon that Juan n, having her high- favorable. lie had to ley to Co- and renew ; his nego- bi'oken off conditions said that succeeded, conditions that there conditions at all. And, indeed, they wore verv luge; namelv, that he was to be mnde an acbuiral at once to be appointed viceroy of the countries he should discover, and to have an eighth <.l' the profits of the expedition. The (»nly probable way of accounting for the extent of these de- mands and his perseverance in making them, even to the risk of total failure, is that the dis- covering of the Indies was but a step in his mind to greater undertakings, as they seemed to him, which he had in view, of going t<» .Terusak'm with an army and nuddng another crusaih'. Fcr Co- lumbus carried the chivalrous ideas of the twelfth century into the somewhat self-seeking fifteenth. The negotiation, however, failed a second time, and Cohunbus resolved again to go to France, when Alonz<» de Quintanilla and Juan Pere/. contrived to obtain a hearing for the great ad- venturer from Cardinal Mendoza, who was pleased with him. Columbus then offered, in order to meet the objections of his opponents, to pay an ! l^ COLUMISUS THE NAVIGATOU. eighth part of the expense «>£ the expedition. Still nothing- was done. And now, finally, Columbus determined to go to Fiance, and indeed had actu- ally set off one day in January of the year 1492, when Luis de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesi- astical revenues of the crown of Aiagou, a person nuich devoted to the plans of Columbus, ad- dressed the queen with all the energy that a man throws iiit(» his words when he is aware that it is his last time for speaking in favor of a thing which ho has much at heart. He told her that he wondered that, as she always had a lofty mind for o-reat things, it should be wanting to her on this occasion. He endeavored to pique her jeal- ousy as a monarch by suggesting that the entei- prise might fall into the hands of other princes. Then he said something in behalf of Columbus himself, and the queen was not unlikely to know well the bearing of a great man. He intimated to her highness that what was an impossibility to the cosmographers, might not be so in nature. on. Still Columbus had Hctu- ear 1492, le ecclesi- i, a person ubus, ad- liat a man ; that it is if a thing 1 her that lofty mind to her on ,8 her jeal- the entei"- ?r princes. Columbus [y to know intimated (ssibility to in nature. COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOl}. :41 Nor, continued he, should any endeavor in so urden each, and therefore not larger in carrying capa- city than the American yachts whose ocean race from New York to Cowes was regarded as an ex- ample of immense hardihood, even in the year 1867. But Columbus considered them very suitable for the undertaking. The Santa Maria which Columbus himsel* commanded, was the only one of the three thus, was decked through- out. The official persons and the crew on board 140 COL UMB US THE NA VIGA TOB. lier were sixteen in number. The two other vefi- sels were of the chiss culled caravels, and were decked fore and aft, hut not amidshi{)s, the stem and stern beinjj;' built so as to rise high out of the water. One of them, the Pinta, was manned by a crew of tbirty, connnanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon. The other, the Nhxi, had Vincent Yanez Pinzon for captain, and a crew of twenty- four men. The whole munber of adventurers amounted to a hundred and twenty persons, men of various nationalities, including among" them two natives of the British Isles." At this juncture it may not be out of place to glance at the controlling motives of the illustrious man who planned and controlled the expedition. More than two hundred years had passed since the disastrous eiul of the eighth and last of those gigantic pulsations of religious faith and fanaticism known as the Crusades. Yet the great dream of Columbus was nothing less then the revival of the Crusades for the recovery of the Holy Ljind from ;her ves- 1(1 were ■he stem it of the manned I Ahnizo Vincent twenty- en turers ma, men g them phice to iiistrious sedition, id since of those naticism [ream of il of tlie nd from VOLVMBUS THE NAVWATOli. 117 V the nde of the Moslem. Another of his principal objects, says Irving", " was undoubtedly the propa- gation of the Christian faith." He expected to arrive at the extremity of Asia, and to open a direct and easy communication with the vast and mag- nificent empire of the Grand Khan. The conver- sion of that heathen potentate had, in former times, been a favorite aim of various 'jjolitiffs and pious sovereigns, and various missions had been sent to the remote regions of the East for that purpose. Colmnbus now considered himself about to effect this great work j to spread the lightrof revelation to the very ends of the earth, and thus to be the instrument of accomplishing one of the sublime predictions of Holy Writ. Ferdinand listened with complacency to these enthusiastic anticipa- tions. With him, however, religion was subservient to Interest ; and he had found, in the recent con- quest of Granada, that extending the sway of the Church might be made a laudable means of ex- tending his own dominions. According to the ,1 -1 k ii nmm I i m um w oiw iii I ! ^m. I ^ ^ Vi ^/ ^ A COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 149 doctrines of the day, every nation that refused to acknowledge the truths of Christianity was fair spoil for a Christian invader ; and it is probahle that Ferdinand was more stimulated by the ac- counts given of the wealth of Cipango, Cathay, and other provinces belonging to the Grand Khan, than by any anxiety for the conversion of him and his semi-barbarous subjects. Isabella had nobler inducements ; she was filled with a pious zeal at the idea of effecting such a great work of salvation. From different motives, therefore, both of the sovereigns accorded with the views of Columbus in this particular, and when he after- wards departed on his voyage, letters weye actually given him for the Grand Khan of Tartary. The ardent enthusiasm of Columbus did not stop here. Anticipating boundless wealth from his discovei- les, he suggested that the treasures thus acquired should be consecrated to the pious purpose of rescuing the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem from the power of the infidels. The sovereigns smiled at ..,E,J»rT,»-'iir'"^-'= "" ■' ■•>- " " '~^' "!■'■"• 150 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. this sally of the ima«>iiuiti<)ii, hut expressed them- selves well i)lease(l with it, and assured him that even without the funds he anticipated, they should be well disposed to that holy undertaking. What the kino- and queen, however, may have con- sidered a mere sally of momentary excitement, was a deep and cherished design of Columbus. It is a curious and characteristic fact, which has never been particularly noticed, that the recovery of the holy sepulchre was one of the great objects of his ambition, meditated throughout the re- mainder of his Ufe, and solemnly provided for in his will. In fact, he subseipiently considered it the main work for which he was chosen by Heaven as an agent, and that his great discovery was but a preparatory dispensation of Providence to fur- nish means for its accomplishment. " A home-felt mark of favor, characteristic of the kind and considerate heart of Isabella, was accorded to Colundius before his departure from the court. An albahi^ or letter-patent, was issued COLUMUiS THE ^■AyIGATOlt. 151 theiii- i that iliould What J coii- it, was It is never ery of jbjects he re- t'or in ered it leaven iras but to fui- istic of ila, was •e from s issued by the queen on the 8th of May, ai)pointing his son Diego page to Prince Juan, the heir apparent, \\'ith an allowance for his support; an honor granted only to the sons of persons of distinguished rank. Thus COLUMBUS THE SAVIGATOn. "The si'ming- of the contract with Cohimhus by Ferdinand and Isabella, was a momentous act," says A. W. Wright. "It marked the certain beginning of an enterprise which had a profound effect upon the welfare of the human race. Ad- vancing civihzatiou had been rapidly pavinjv the way for it. There are ages of special mental ac- tivity in which mankind seems to progress much more swiftly than in others. Columbus lived, not only during the revival of classical and other learning, but stood upon the threshold of the greatest advance of physical knowledge within a given time the world has ever known— our own time, perhaps, excepted The trade to the East by the Mediterranean was mainly in the hands of the Italians, and in the general development of nautical enterprise Castile and Portugal were forced to turn their eyes to the Atlantic. These two nationalities, after a series of quarrels as to new possessions, made a treaty of division, Portu- gal securing Madeira, the Azores, and the African inbus act, ' irtain ound Ad- »• the il ac- much d, not other )f the ;hin a X own leEast lids of ent of were These i as to Portu- Vfrican coLUMnrs the yAriGATOR. 15:i coast. Castile took the Canaries and what she mi<-ht find elsewhere. This apparently losing bargain for the latter confined her to a direction which led to America and the enormons results which followetl. At this time, too, what soon became the great empire of Charles V. and Philip II. was founded by the union of Aragon and Castile in the persons of Ferdinand and Isabella. Under these monarchs Spain became a united na- tion, and the career of the Moors in the peninsula, which had lasted for eight centuries, was termi- nated." The written terms which Columbus insisted upon, and to which the sovereigns after holding out some time placed their names, according to Prescott, <' constituted Christopher Columbus their Admiral Viceroy, and Governoi-General of all such islands and continents as he should discover in the Western Ocean, with the privilege of nominating three candidates for the selection of one by the crown for the government of each of lo4 couyrnrs tuk yAVUiAnm. these territories. He was to be vested Avith ex- elusive rig;lit of jurisdiction over idl commercial transactions within his admiralty. He was to be entitled to one-tenth of all the products and profits within the limits of his discoveries, and an additional eighth i)rovided he should contribute one-ei'i-hth part of the expense." He was also to receive the title of Don, which then meant much more than it does now, for himself and his heirs forever. T^he share of the expense to be defrayed by Columbus was met through a loan from his friends the Pinzons. The amount ventured by the crown in the undertaking was oidy seventeen thousand florins. SomeAvriters have commented "upon the hesita- tion of Ferdinand and Isabella in investing so small a sum in so profitable an enterprise as discovering America ; but, considering the circum- stances, it was a very bold and advanced thing to do, and Isabella at least was decidedly ahead of the times in her day and generation. No other 10 ;h ex ercial to be and nd an I'ibute Iso to much 1 heirs frayed m his ed by snteeii hesita- ing so •ise as ireum- ling to ead of ) other COL UMB US THE NA 1 'IGA TOR. 1 5.') monarch in Europe conld be induced to take the step so uncertain of results, and she had to over- come the opposition of her husband. Next to Columbus himself sliould Isabella be honored in whatever ceremonies may be observed in the comuio" commemoration of the discovery t)f the New World. She remained his fast friend, and he wrote of her on his third voyage, ' In the midst of the general incredulity the Almighty infused into the Queen, my lady, the spirit of intelligence and energy, and whilst every one else in his ignorance was expatiating on the incon- venience and cost, her Highness approved it, on the contrary, and gave it all the support in her power. jwi (Hij W M.nnn;i ! |W » i^ WiHB r.ilhii- Jiiit,! II, 111 Ciii-rUi Ifi nuiiiiTr; iralflihui llii J)i imrfuri I'J I ..Iniil.ii.-. ^t liiri I'l COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. IV. ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN. " Cease, rude Boreas, blustering ralkr I List, ye landsmen all to me ; Messmates, hear a brother sailor Sing the dangers of the sea ! " On the third of August, 1492, after all the ships' companies had confessed and received the sacrament, the little flf.et set sail from the harbor of Palos, and steered straight for the Canary Islands, the nearest land. Columbus's design was evidently to postpone as long as possible the actual plunge into the unknown, out of regard to the feelings of his motley crew. It is worthy of note that the most n. mentous sea-voyage ever undertaken was begun on a Friday, although down to our own time seamen have continued to regard that day as one of ill-omen. But in this case i nmfi i i-M i riwrt i - 158 COLUMUiS THE NAVIGATOU. least, Friday was not inauspicious, although the relatives of those on board the ships bade them farewell as men doomed to certain death. At the outset Cohmibus commenced a regular journal for the insjjection of his royal patrons on his return — for the sublime faith of the man never doubted but that he would return again to sunny Spain. This diary began with a dignified preface as follows : "In nomine D. N. Jesu Christi. Whereas most Christian, most high, most excellent, and most powerful prim-es, king and queen of the Spains, and of the islands of the sea, our sover- eigns, in the present year of 1402, after your highnesses had put an end to the war with the Moors who ruled in Europe, and had concluded that warfare in the great city of Granada, where, on the second of January, of this present year, I saw the royal banners of your highnesses placed by force of arms on the vowers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and beheld the COL rmi us the na no a to n. 1 -^^ Moorish king sally forth from the gates of the city, and kiss the royal hands of your highnesses and of my lord the prince ; and immediately in that same month, in consequence of the informa- tion which I had given to your highnesses of the lands of India, and of a prince who is called the Grand Khan, which is to say in our language, king of kings ; how that many times he and his predecessors had sent to Rome to entreat for doctors of our holy faith to instruct him in the same ; and that the Holy Father had never pro- vided him with them, and thus so many i)eople were lost, believing in idolatries, and imbibing doctrines of perdition ; therefore your highnesses, as Catholic Christians and princes, lovers \m\ pro- moters of the holy Christian faith, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet, and of all idolatries and heresies, determined to send me, Christopher Co- lumbus, to the said parts of India, to see the said princes, and th«^ people and lands, and discover the nature and disposition of them all, and the (1 IGO COL UMB VS THE NA VtGA 'FOR. means to he taken for the conversion of them to our holy faith ; and ordeiecl that 1 should not go by land to the east, by which it is the custom to go, but by a voyage to the west, by which course, unto the present time, we do not know for certain that any one hath passed. Your highnesses, therefore, after having expelled all the Jews from your kingdoms and territories, connnanded me, in the same month of January, to proceed Avith a sufficient armament to the said i}arts of India ; and for this purpose bestowed great favors uj)on me, ennobling me, that thenceforward I might style myself Don, ajjpointing me high admiral of the Ocean sea, and perpetual viceroy and governor of all the islands and continents I should discover and gain, and which henceforward may be dis- covered and gained, in the Ocean sea ; and that my eldest son should succeed me, and so on from generation to generation forever. I departed, therefore, from the city of Granada, on Saturday, the 12th of May, of the same year 1492, to Palos, COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOIt. 101 lem to not go torn to course, certain nesses, s from 3d me, witli a i; and )n me, t style of the rnor of iscover be dis- id that II from parted, iurday, I Palos, a seaport, where 1 armed three ships well calcu- lated for such service, and sailed from that port well furnished with provisions and with many seamen, on Friday, the 3d of August, of the same year, half an hour before sunrise, and took the route for the Canary Islands of your highnesses, to steer my course thence, and navigate until I should arrive at the Indies, and deliver the em- bassy of your highnesses to those princes, and accompli«ii that which you had commanded. For this purpose I intend to write during this voyage, very punctually from day to day, all that I may do, and see, and experience, as will hereafter be seen. Also, my r.overeign princes, beside describ- ing each night all that has occurred in the day, and in the day the navigation of the night, I pro- pose to make a chart, in which I will set down the waters and lands of the Ocean sea in their proper situations under their bearings ; and fur- ther, to compose a book, and illustrate the whole in picture by latitude from the e^piinoctial, and 16-2 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. I II longitude from the west ; and upon the whole it Avill be essential that I should forget sleep and attend closely to the navigation to accompUsh these things, which will be a great labor." * A current writer has called attention to the curious fact, already noted, that "it was on a Friday, the 3d of August, 1402, tliat Columbus left the little island of Saltes nu hih memorable first voyage, and continues to comment that it was also on a Friday, the 12tli of October, that he landed in the New World ; that on a Friday he set sail homeward ; that on a Friday again, the 15th of February, 141)3, land Avas sighted on his return to Europe ; finally, that on a Friday, the loth of March, he arrived in Palos. What strikes one in perusing the story of the great voy- age is how nature aided him in his task. The weather was delightful, and again and again his * Irving' s translation. Two tilings may be noted in his preface ; the religious object of the expedition and the statement that it was not certainly known that anyone had previously crossed the Atlantic from Europe to America. COLUMBUS THE NAVIOATOIi. 163 journal says " there could not be a more favor- able wind." In the flis. The admiral tried in every way to soothe their distress, and to inspire them with his own glorious anticipations. He described to them the magnificent countries to which he was ahout to conduct them ; the islands of the Indian seas teeming with gold and precious stones : the regions of Cipango and Cathay, with their cities of luuivalled wealth and splendor. Hfe pron\ised them land and riches, and every- tliing that could arouse their cupidity or inflame their imaginations ; nor were these promises made for purposes of mere deception ; he certainly be- lieved that he should realize them all. " He issued orders to the commanders of the rmuuwuw * i J ■ *■*«' Behind f inan ; e them lil. In 'vspaired of the ke into 1 every re them Bseribed liich he 1 of the precious Ij! with plendor. I every- inflame es made linly be- s of the COL UMBV8 TIIE NA VIGA TOR. 1G7 Other vessels that, in the event of separation by any accident, they should continue directly west- ward ; but that after sailing seven hundred leagues they should lay by from midnight until daylight, as at about that distance he confidently ex- pected to find land. In the meantime, as he thought it possible he migh* )t discover land within the distance thus assigned, and as he fore- saw that the vague terrors already awakened among the seamen would increase with the space which intervened between them and their homes, he commenced a stratagem* which he continued throughout the voyage. He kept two reckon- ings ; one correct, in which the true way of the ship was noted, and which was retained in secret for his own government ; in the other, which was open to general inspection, a number of leagues was daily subtracted from the sailing of the ship, so that the crews were kept in ignorance of the real distance they had advanced. •Au old device with Columbus; see Chapter n. f 108 COLUMJiUS TIIK yAVIGATOn. " On the 11th of September, when abont one hundred and fifty leagt'ps west of Ferro, they fell in with part of a mast, which from its size ap- peared to have belonged to a vessel of about a hundred and twenty tons' burden, and which had evidently been a long- time in the water. The crews, trend)lingly alive to everything that could excite their hopes or foars, looked with rueful eye upon this wreck of some unfortunate voyager, drifting ominously at the entrance of those un- known seas. On the 13th of September, in the evpninTr-^r-'W?^?S3?IZv5r-?*3''-- vCKi ^<^U a'V. ^-^> ^^ ■if ,^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET {MT-3) 1.0 I.I £: us, 1110 1.8 11-25 ill 1.4 11.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 13 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-450 J l_. ■'^fssrs^^^m :& CfHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historicai Microreproductions / institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques COL vmh us the na viga tou. 169 that the variation increased as he advanced. He at first made no mention of this phenomenon, knowing how ready his people were to take alarm, but it soon attracted the attention of the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were entering another world, subject to unknown influences. They ap- prehended that the compass was about to lose its mysterious virtues, and, without this guide, what was to become of them in a vast and trackless ocean ? " Columbus tasked his science and ingenuity for reasons with which to allay their terror. He observed that the direction of the needle was not to the polar star, but to some fixed and invisible point. The variation, therefore, he said, was not caused by any fallacy in the compass, but by the movement of the north star itself, which, like the other heavenly bodies, had its changes and revolu- tions, and every day described a circle round the 170 COLUMBUS TUB NAVIGATOR. pole. The high opinion which the pilots enter- tained of Columbus as a profound astronomer gave weight to this theory, and their alarm sub- sided. As yet the solar system of Copernicus was unknown : the explanation, therefore, was highly plausible and ingenious, and it shows the vivacity of his mind, ever ready to meet the emergency of the moment. The theory may at first have been advanced merely to satisfy the minds of others, but Columbus appears subsequently to have re- mained satisfied with it himself. The phenomenon has now become familiar to us, but we still con- tinue ijjnorant of its cause. It is one of those mysteries of nature, open to daily observation and experiment, and apparently simple from their familiarity, but which on investigation make the human mind conscious of its limits ; baffling the experience of the practical, and humbling the pride of science." Throughout the voyage Columbus's diary an- swered pretty much to the log-book which a modern s enter- •onomer •m sub- Icus was 5 highly vivacity fency of ve been ' others, lave re- omenon ;ill con- if those ion and n their ake the ing the ing the iary an- modern COLUMBUS TUE yAVIUATOli. 171 sea-captain keeps. All the petty incidents o£ a sea-voyage which even nowadays lend interest to each day are recorded, as the following extracts show : « On the 14th, th«^ sailors of the caravel Nina saw two tropical birds, which they said were never wont to be seen at more than fifteen or twenty leagues from shore. On the 15th they all saw a meteor fall from heaven, which made them very sad. On the 16th, they first came upon those immense plains of seaweed (the fucus nutans), which constitute the Sargasso Sea, and which occupy a space in the Atlantic almost equal to seven times the extent of France. The aspect of these plains greatly terrified the sailors, who thought they might be coming upon submerged lands and rocks; but finding that the vessels cut their way through this sea-weed, the sailors there- upon took heart. . . . Tn the morning of the same day they catch a crab, from which Columbus infers that they cannot be more than eighty 573;.T«;raSP«^»'aWi'i-"' 17-2 COL UM II US THE yAVKlATOH. leagues distant from land. The 18th, they sec many hirds, and a cloud in the distance ; and that night they expect to see land. On the IDth, in the morning, comes a pelican (a bird not usually seen twenty leagues from the coast) ; in the evening, another ; also drizzling rain without wind, a certain sign, as the diary says, of proximity to land. " The admiral, however, will not heat about for land, as he concludes that the land which these various natural phenomena give token of, can only be islands, as indeed it proved to be. He will see them on his return ; but now he must press on to the Indies. This determination shows his strength of mind, and indicates the almost certain basis on which his great resolve reposed. Accord- ingly, he was not to be diverted from the main design by any partial success, though by this time he knew well the fears of his men, some of wliom had already come to the conclusion, ' that it would be their best plan to throw him quietly into the ;liev see ind that M)th, in usually in the Avithout •oximity )out for •h these •an only will see )i'ess on :)ws his ; certain Accord- le main liis time if whom t would nto the (■orA'MIiUS THE NAVIGATOn. 178 sea, and say he unfortunately fell in, while he stood absorbed in looking- at the stars.' Indeed, three days after he had resolved to pass on to the Indies, we find hhn saying, for Las Casas gives his words, ' Very needfid f!7r7^ 174 COLVMUV:^ THE NAVUiATOn. " These manners were stout-hearted, too ; hui what a daring thing it was to pUmge, down-hill as it were, into ' A world of waves, a sea wilhout a shore, Trackless, and vast, and wild,' mocked day by day with signs of land that neared not. And these men had left at home all that is dearest to man, and did not bring out any great idea to uphold them, and had already done enough to make them important men in their towns, and to furnish ample talk for the evenings of their lives. Still we find Columbus, as late as the 3d of October, saying, ' that he did not choose to stop beating about last week during those days that they had such signs of land, although he had knowledge of there being certain islands in that neighborhood, because he would not suffer any detention, since his object was to go to the Indies ; and if he should stop on the way it would show a want of mind.' " Meanwhile, he had a hard task to keep his oo ; l)ui [owii-hill it neared all that out any ,(ly done in their evenings IS late as ot choose lose days ;h he had ', in that iffer any le Indies ; Id show a keep his coiAwnns THE .v. ir/'.i /"/.'• l""> men in any order. Tctor Martyr, Avho knew C()liun1)us well, and had probably been favored with a special acc;oant from him of these perilous days, describes his Avay of dealiug with the re- fractory mariners, and how he contrived to Avin them onwards front day to day ; now soothlno- them Avith soft words, now carrying their minds from thought of the present danger by spreadhig out large hopes before them, not forgetting to let them know Avhat their princes would say to them if they attempted aught against hhn, or would not obey his orders. With this untutored crowd of Avild, frightened men around him, Avith mocknig hopes, not knowhig what each day would bring to him, on Avtmt Columbus." He had already, as we have seen, adopted the device of keeping a doulde-reckoning of the miles sailed— one, for the men, wherein their progress Avas made to appear slower than Avas really ih'j case, and a correct reckoning for himself. It must be remembered that the admiral was not sure T-^^sjsaj':::*^'^ _--?(iT'Ti.K'»^*^ r- .•?*;»;oas|77JI'JA>*MW'-'"-"^Ti:Wfc ^-iU'^i'-'^ysT'' 'T I ! I \ 176 COLUMBUS TIIK .V.I I/'.. I /O/,'. of his distances, altlioucrh lie believed tluit his eonjeetures would prove to he truths ; and in the second place, he did not wish to arouse the fears of the crews by letting them know how many watery leagues intervened between them and home. On the first of October the crew of the Santa Maria were told they had sailed five hundred and ei««htv-four leasrues to the Avestward, but the pri- vate reckoning of Columbus shoAved seven hun- dred and seven. Thus far Columbus had steered Aue west. Time and again the wt icome cry of " Land ho ! " had rung out from the difl^erent vessels, but in each instance it was proved to be a delusive cloud which melted into thin air. When they had sailed seven hundred and fifty leagues, the dis- tance at which the admiral had expected to sight Cipango, even his stout heart began to have its misgivings. Great flocks of small birds were observed flying to the southwest, and remember- in--r^->s COLUMBUS THE yAVIGATOU. 179 the crews as so'many delusions beguiling them on to destruction ; and when on the evening of the third day they heheld the sun go down upon a shoreless ocean, they broke forth into turbulent clamor. They exclaimed against this obstinacy in tempting fate by continuing on hito a bound- less sea. They insisted upon Uirning homeward, and abandoning the voyage as hopeless. Col- umbus endeavored to pacify them by gentle words and promises of large rewards ; but finding that they only increased in clamor he assumed a decided tone. He told them it was useless to murmur ; the expedition had been sent by the sovereigns to seek the Indies, and, happen what might, he was determined to persevere, until, by the" blessing of God, he should acc, -it^ all his captan.s and their crews, he named the island San Salvador, (its native name was Guanahani) and took formal possession thereof in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella.* Bahamas or Luca>os str uaioi , ,, „tl,or in f^en- „,,lr.Hls of islau.ls some of \''-"' 1 ;'~ ,„„, .noro or ,,, The l"'^-;;,^f '^,i' ;i\h;t tnumion rointod to named it Nan Sahador. irMn« ,. ,„ ^^..^^ , . ,,,.„„ ^'^zrz:n:.^'^«^^«"' '«« >"■»-• „"■; raised from the rinta, am i (i.-uide Salina of the Turk Navarelte ideulilied iV^^^';-; ^^'^^ ",* „ , Muno., as early l.,a„ds ; ^^^^-'^^^^^^J^^^^J^tont iif.y mile. «outh- as nus, pointed out tUat \ at 1 (.„uunbus ; Capt. eastoi C=^7;;;r;i^;:^j^', '^uelnd ealled Samana. The Fox, favored the elaims oi iw m,„..oz and by sueh ,„lhor.M. •' ■^- "• ™ ■ „„„. „„»l important, be- following his eourse. October," says 1 188 COLrMlll'S THE yA\'I(!ArUl!. It was a mere islet of the Bahama j^ioiip, hut to Cohunlms it rei)reseiite(l a woiKl. Though ai)pareutl^' utu-ukivated it seemed to he teeming with population, the natives soon heccnning oh- Columbtis at a lator ilay sot up a I'laiiu for the reward for the first discovery on the streiii;th of this mysterious iij,'hl. to the exclusion of tlie poor sailor who tirst actually saw laud from the I'inta, has suhjected his memory to some discredit, at least with those who reckon niasnauiudty among the virtues. At aliou! 2 o'clock, the moon then shininj:, a mariner on the Pinta discerned unmistakably a low, sandy shore. In the morning a landing was made, and with prayer and ceremony, possession was taken of the new-found island in the name of the Spanish sovereigns." What land was this ? Fox, working out Columbus's log, shows that he had sailed n,4.'>8 miles, I'nknown currents had helped him. The actual distance from Palos, in Spain to the islands he ndght have landed on shows an excess over the distance logged, to Grand Turk, (i24 miles ; to Marignaiui, t'.'C) ; to Watling, ;i."):) ; to Cat, ol7 ; to Samana, :!87. Columbus speaks of the island as "small " and again as " pretty large." He calls it very level, with abundance of water and a very large lagoon in the middle, and it was in the last month of the rainy season, when the low parts of the islands are usually flooded. I. — Cat , or San Salvador. Alexander S. Mackenzie of the United States Xavy worked out the problem for Irving, and this island is fixed upon in the latter's " Lif(^ of Columbus." II. — Watling's Island is thirteen miles long by about six broad, with a height of 140 feet, and having about one-third of its interior water. This island was suggested by Miuioz in 17t»;!, and is advo- cated by Capt. IJecher, H. X., I'escher and I!. II. Major, and is most parefully worked out by Lieut. .1. 15. Murdock. U. S. N. III.— Grand Turk is five and one-half by one and a quarter miles ; its highest part seventy feet, and one-third of its surface is interior water. Navarrete, Kettell and George Gibbs adopted Grand Turk, and Major followed them in his first edition. I'V. — Mariguana is twenty-three and a half miles long by an 13 '3i!nS!1S5»*SMBK^vrEfft-fS52^'^i>iC5 fmsmmoimmss&^m' - COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOIi. 189 jects of interest to the Spaniaras, while the latter excited awe and veneration on the part of the islanders, who thought them gods from heaven, u The appearance of the natives," says Irvuig, u.ave nopronr.se of either wealth or civilization, fo^rthey were entirely naked, and painted with a variety of colors. With so.ne it was confined ,nerely to a part of the face, the nose, or around the eyes ; with <.thers it extended to the .vhole hody, and gave them a wild and fantastic appear- ance Their ccmiplexion was of a tawny or copper hue, and they were entirely destitute of heards. Their hair was not crisped, like the then recently- discovered trihes of the African coast, under the same latitude, hiit straight and coarse, partly cut average of four vvidc : ri.o« 101 foot, and 1>- - into.-ior .ator. It ^:S^.afor.yDe^an....;of...^^ V.-Samaiia or AttAs ood s I .v> , is „„i„habitoa, half ^vi.U^ .ith the highest nd^o UM t- „^^^ ^^^,, ,,. but contains evidonoos of abongmal habiUt ^^^^^_^ lectod for the landfall l,y Gustavus A . W.x lu 10t> COLVMlilS TIIK XAVIGATOII. short above the ears, hut sonieh)eks weiek^ft long hehhid and t'allini>- ni)()n their shouhk'rs. Their fea- tures, though obscured and disHouied by paint,were agreeabk' ; they had h)fty foreheads and remarkably fine eyes. They were of moderate stature and well shai)ed ; most of them a})peared to be under thirty years of age ; there was but one female with them, quite young, naked like her companions, and beautifully formed. As Cohuubus supposed him- self to have landed on an island at the extremity of India, he called the natives by the general appella- tion of Indians, which was universally adopted before the true nature of his discovery was known, and has since been extended to all the aboriginals of the New World. "The island<'rs were friendly and gentle. Their only arms were lances, hardened at the end by fire, or pointed with a Hint, or the teeth or bone of a fish. There was no iron to be seen, nor did they appear acquainted with its proper- ties ; for, Avhen a drawn sword was presented to ft loiifj it'ir t'ea- iiit,were ijukably uul well '1 thirty li them, !is, and ?ecl hiiu- emity of appella- a(h)pte(l known, (I'io-inals gentle, the end :;eeth or be seen, proper- ■nted to COLl'.UnrS THK NAVIGATOU. 101 them, they unguarcltnlly took it by the edge. Columbus distributed anionISSi^mi^d;M^!iA^V^-i>i*->'-':i'ii--^-^'J'"- l'-^-"&-''^-»i fill their places. A few gold trinkets were found on the natives, and on (piesti..ning them as to where this was procured Columbus learned of a great island to the south called Cuba ; his own hopes and wishes so colored the accounts ..f the simple people that he "understood it to be of great ex- tent, abounding in gold and pearls and spices, carrying on an extensive commence in these arti- cles in large merchant ships." The natives in speaking of this island used the word " Cubana- can-," they merely meant "the center of Cuba;" but here was the talisman which Columbus sought ! tl K 198 COLUMBUS THE NAVIUATOU. This must be the huul of Kuhhii Khan, the rich Cipango of Marco Pok) and other romancers. So, on October 24, every sail was spread to the breeze, the fleet steered west-south-west, and after three days' saihno-, on tlie niornino- of October 28th, came in sight of Cuba, then as now, the Pearl of the Antilles. But here also they foxmd no gold, nor pearls, nor spicer . When they showed the natives sam- ples of cinnamon and dye-woods they declared that these things grew only to the southward. Con- vinced, however, that he was on the sliores of Cipango, Columlms pushed inland by way of a river to find the king, named Guancanagari, by whom he was received most cordially — but he was not the great, the all-powerful Grand Khan. However, two conunodities in use by the natives came to the notice of the Spaniards, though at first they accounted them of no value. The first was the potato, and the second was tobacco ; the last, " commercially speaking, proved more pro- the rich lers. So, le hreeze, fter three 3er 28th, the Pearl or pearls, ives sam- lared that rd. Con- shores of way of a agari, by )ut he was Lhan. ;he natives though at The first lacco ; the more pro- COL UMB US THE NA VIGA TOR. 199 ductive to the Spanish crown than all the gold mines of the Indies." While sojourning on the coast of Cuba, Martm Alonzo Pinzon deserted with the Phitn. He had heard from the natives of a certain island whence all the gold was said to come, and hoped to fore- stall Columbus in the discovery of this El Dorado. Thus early in the history of the Spanish dominion in the New World did the greed for gold manifest itself Pinzon did secure a large amount of the preciousmetalbybarter;onehalfhekeptforhim- self , the rest he divided among his crew to secure their silence. Here, also, the admiral's ship, the Santa Maria, was wrecked on a reef through dis- obedience of orders on the part of her pilot. With her timbers Columbus buUt a fort, which he called La Navidad, having determined to leave a colony in Cuba. This he did, entrusting its care to a small band of his followers, whom he com- mended to the care of the good king Guacanagari. The admiral then shifted his flag to the Nina, the only vessel left to the admiral. T 200 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. It is worthy of note that Columbus never en- tirely circumnavigated Cuba, and to the day of his death supposed that it was a part of the mainland of America ! Naturally Columbus was anxious to return to Spain, to announce his triumph. His fleet was reduced in strength, and his remaining vessel was badly strained. So, after making such repairs as were possible, the admiral set sail for Spain on the 4th of January,, 1493, taking several natives with him to exhibit to the Old World. Scarcely had the anchor been weighed, however, when the Pinta hove in sight, which was all the more welcome since the Nina was the smallest of the fleet. Pin- zon explained his desertion on the plea that he had been forced to part company by stress of weather, and Columbus accepted his excuses, though he did not believe them. Some writers have thought it more than probable that Pinzon, in possession of private information, had been off on a little search on his own account. never en* day of his mainland return to fleet was vessel was repairs as ain on the tives with ircely had the Pinta > welcome eet. Pin- liat he had i weather, igh he did bhought it ^session of ttle search COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 20t They coasted along the island of Hispaniola, or Hayti, as far as the Bay of Samana, and at last, on the sixteenth of January, left this bay home- ward bound, although the admiral deviated from his course at first in the hope of finding the island of Babeque, peopled with Amazons, described by Marco Polo, of which he had understood the natives of Haytitogivehimintelligence. Such a discovery would be, he considered, a conclusive proof of the identity of his new country with Marco Polo's Indies, and when four natives offered to act as his guides he thought it worth while to steer (in the direction of Martinique) in quest of the f.Mlous Amazonians. But the breeze blew towards Spain ; home-sickness took possession of the crews; mur- murs arose at the prolongation of the voyage among the currents and reefs of those strange seas; and, in deference to the universal wish of his companions, Columbus soon abandoned all idea of further discovery, and resumed his course for • Europe. m •] I pi l2(fj COLVMin's rilK XAVIGATOIl. " At first the v<)ya<;e was tranquil eiH)Ujj:li, thouuh the adverse trade-winds and the bad sail- in«^- of the J'iiifd retarded the pr()<>ress of both vessels. But on the twelfth of February a storm overtook them, and became nu)re and more furious, until on the fourteenth it rose to a hurricane, before which Pinzon's vessel could only drift help- lessly, while the jVina was able to set .- dose- reefed foresiiil, which ke})t her from being l.uried hi the trough of the sea. In the evening- both caravels were scudding under bare poles, and when darkness fell, and the signal light of the Pint a gleamed farther and farther off, through the blind- ing spray, until at last it coidii be seen no more, when his panic-stricken crew gave themselves up to despair, as the winds howled louder and louder, and the seas burst over his frail vessel — then, in- deed, without a single skilled navigator to advise or to aid him, Columbus must have felt himself alone with the tempest and the night. But his brave heart bore him up, and his wonderful ca- -trr"-.' •.'-.-?.';■ zr:vn:- f.Zii'^--i -^.s^ '-Tj«^--.-^V^Wa^^ ' I bad sail- i of both V a storm e furious, lurricaue, hift belp- ; i), I'lose- iig lau'ied liug both and when hf P'mtd the blind- no more, iselves up id louder, -then, in- to advise It himself But his derf ul ca- c,„.r...«r» rat- -V.1 .■.(.•.»"'■•■ 2"-> ,„,,i.v fo,. aevisin. CKpeaients „„ s,ul,l..n .u,e. ieneies ,li„ ,...t f„.«>Ue Uh,,. A. the st„.os «^ 1 • i. 1-/1 f<« tike on i«»ar(l ai which €..hu..hus h,.a ."tcnawl to t.,ke ,Ue A„u>.,n-.«, Ul-a. ■Falthe™„,t.vc.a»ks ,,i„,.ate,-.M,..s„ia,-HuaU.tth™««veasbal- ,.,t • un exHieu. »hi.a, has SJV.."" commo" :,„:„gh„«.v,hut.hu.hthe„«aM-'-'-'y""S'- ''''D,,,ingtl,e height ,,f. he st.,v„,Coh,n,b«s ana ,,U «ew. attev the „,a„nev „f the th„e, .uaae a ™,v t,. the Vhgh, that they .ouW all «o ,n ,,0- f..„t t., the tiist shrill., they met shouU irriiiiage on tu'itt" "le niM Ly W l,evn.itt.a to -each huul. Th,s vow wa» „„U,„ive of some nnlookea-fo,. co„se.,«enees as wiU he seen. AtV. the /•."'" ai»a,,-«' '1- thought that the whole history of his a.seovevy leaonthesafetyotthe..aiUV;.«mieaCoU.m. h„s with aismay, so he pennea a hiief account o whathehaaaecomphshea,anasealea,tup.na stout cask, which was eommittea to the waves. fl ■t i»( 1 1 (JOL UM It US THE XA VKi. 1 TO I!. Tn 1858, says Sir Arthur Helps, a paragrapli went the rounds of the Euirhsh press affirmino- that this cask liad been picked up by tlie ship Ch'nftaln on the coast of Alrica, but the story was a hoax. After nearly a week of fierce tempests, the bat- tered little Xhm succeeded in reaching- tluj island of St. Mary's, in the Azores. On the followino- IS day the ship's comj)any proceeded on shore to fulfil their vow to the Virgin at a small hermitage or chapel on the coast. One half of the crew went on shore, barefoot and in their shirts, Co- lumbus remaining- on board with the other half to await their return. While the first party were at their devotions, the Portuguese Governor, Casta- neda, surrounded them, and made them all pris- oners. Supposuig- that this action proceeded from the Portuguese hostility to himself, Columbus was much perplexed. The next day the weather be- came so tempestuous that they were driven from their anchorage, and obliged to stand to sea to- ward the island of St. Michael. For two days the L ' J ^ gL " ] ' ! ! ! . ' J ' W- ' V-J- ' graph went iii»- that this > C/i!re liberated, lad collected ich elucidated ■st the expedi- with his own )mmanders of d detain him [n compliance in the first ; in the chapel, tended to get was deterred Such was the 1 return to the ;s and troubles COLUMBUS TUE NAVIGATOR. . 207 with which he was to be requited throughout the remainder of his life." On the twenty-fourth of February the iS^/na again steered for Spain, and after encountering another fearful gale came to anchor in the Tagus on the fourth of March. To the King of Portugal Columbus, being in his dominions, sent a despatch announcing his arrival, and received a pressing invitation to come to the court. This he accepted, as he says, 'Mn order m)t to show mistrust, al- though he disliked it," and the highest honors were showered upon the gallant navigator. Columbus wisely declined the olfer of a safe- conduct to Spanish soil by land, and on the 13th of March left the Tagus for the harbor of Palos, which he reached on the 15th-again on a Fri- day. « The enthusiasm and excitement aroused by the success of the expedition were unbounded. At Palos, especially, where few families had not a personal interest in some of the band of ex- ■m 208 COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. plorers, the little community was filled with ex- traordinary delight. Not an individual member of the expedition but was elevated into a hero— not a debtor or a criminal whom the charter of im- munity had led, rather than bear the ills he had, to fly to others that he knew not of — but had ex- piated his social misdeeds, and had become a person of consideration and an object of enthu- siasm. The court was at Barcelona. Immediately on his arrival Columbus despatched a letter to the king and queen, stating in general terms the success of his project ; and proceeded forthwith to present himself in person to their highnesses. Almost at the same time, the P'mta, which had been separated from her consort in the first storm which they encountered, made the port of Bayonne, whence Pinzon had forwarded a letter to the sovereigns, announcing 'his' discoveries, and pro- posing to come to court and give full intelligence as to them. Columbus, whom he probably sup- posed to have perished at sea, he seems to have id with ex* al member I hero — not i-ter of im- ills he had, but had ex- L become a t of enthu- mmediately a letter to 1 terms the d forthwith hijjhnesses. , which had le first storm of Bayonne, jtter to the ies, and pro- intelligence ■obably sup- ems to have COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. 209 ignored utterly, and when he received a reply from the king and queen, directing him not to go to court without the admiral, chagrin and grief overcaiue him to such an extent that he took to his bed; and if any man ever died from mental distress and a broken heart, that man was Martm Alonzo Pinzon." Columbus was now the foremost man in all the Spanish peninsula, and, indeed, in the whole world. " The court prepared a solemn reception for the admiral at Barcelona, where the people poured out in such numbers to see him that the streets could not contain them. A triumphal procession like his the world had not yet seen. The captives that accompanied a Roman general's car might be sirai.ge barbarians of a tribe from which Rome had not before had slaves. But barbarians were m>t unknown creatures. Here, with Columbus, were beings of a new world. Here was the conqueror, not of man, but of nature, not of flesh and blood, but of the fearful n ■;■ I I I i! I J \ I ~ fK L^ p^. t.i^rt4^''' ' 't^'-''°^"^^- ' -^^^ 216 COIAMIsr.-i THE yAVlUAWU. Oiioi' li'> had walkod Thi> sclf-sunc ways, rootlfss and poor aii(\ sad, A be""ar at old coiivciit doors, and heard The very children jeer liini in the streets, And ate his enist, and made his roofless l)e(l I'lion tlie flowers besiiU- Ids boy, and prayed, And found in trust a pillow radiant With dreams iiuiuortal. Now ? III. That w as a glorious day That dawned on Bari'elona. Haiiners filled The thronginu towers, the old bells ninj;. and blasts Of lordly trumpets seemed to reaeh the sky Cerulean. All Spain had gathered then-. And waited tliere his eomiiig ; Castiliau knights, (Jay eavaliers. hidalgiH young, and e'en the old Tuissant grandees of far Aragon, With glittering mail, and waving plumes, and all The peasant multitude with bannerets And eharuis and flowers. Beneath pavilions Of broeades of gold, the Court had met. The dual crowns of I.eon old and proud Castile There waited him, the peasant mariner. The trumpets waited Near the open gates ; the minstrels young and fair Upon the tapestries and arrased walls. And everywhere from all the happy provinces The wandering troubadours. Afar was heard A cry, a long acclaim. Afar was seen 1 blasts ;lits, uld 111 all I lie ml fair es COL UMB ra THE NA VIC A TOU. 21 7 A proiul a».l stately stee.l with nod.linf? plunios, Bridled with gold, whose rider stately rode, And still afar a long and sinuous train ( )f silvery cavaliers. A shout arose, And all the .-ity, all the vales and hills, With silvery trumpets rung. lie came, the Genoese, With reverent lo..k and calm and lofty mien, And saw the wondering eyes and heard the cries And trumpet peals, as one who fallowed still Some Guide unseen. Before his steed Crowned In.lians marched with lowly faces. And wondered at the new world that they saw ; G.y parrots shouted from their goUl-bound arms, Vnd from their crests swept airy plumes. The sun Shone full in splendor on the scene, and here The old and new world met. But— IV. nark : the heralds ! How they thrill all hearts and till all eyes with tears ! The very air seems throbbing with delight ; Hark '. hark ! the cry, in chorus all they cry :- - ,1 C^tilla y li ■^(■.iiii •! iiii -III--" ill Miijjiirri'.-i. V- j^ ' y^ iijarri .N. COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOU. 210 From wall to wall, from knights and cavaliers, And from the multitudinous throngs, A mighty chorus of the vales and hills ! "yt Citstilla y ii Leon!" And now the golden steed Draws near the throne ; the crowds mov hack, and rise The reverent crowns of Leon and Castile ; Anil stands before the tear-liUcd eyes of all The multitudes the form of Isabella. Semiramis? Zenobia? What were they To her, as met her eyes again the eyes of him « Into whose hands her love a year before Emptied its jewels ! He told his tale : The untried deep, the green Sargasso Sea, The varyiny compass, the affrighted crews, The hymn they sung on every doubtful eve, The sweet hymn to the Virgin. How there came The land birds singing, and the drifting weeds. How broke the morn on fair San Salvador, How the Te Deiim on that isle was sung, And how the cross was lifted in the name Of Leon and Castile. And then he turned His face towards Heaven, " O Queen ! O Queen ! There kingdoms wait the triumphs of the cross I " Then Isabella rose. With face illumined : then overcome with joy She sank upon her knees, and king and court 220 COLCMRUS THE NAVIGATOR. Anil nobles rose and knelt beside her, And followed them the sobbing multitude ; Then i-anie a burst of joy, a ehorus grand, And mighty antiphon — " llVyovf/.'"' Ilicp, Lonl, e baptized. I, and the jijively an- tce to enter lb us, which COLUMBUS rUE yAVIGATOli. "iil which Cokunbus himself rose to the svimmit of his fame and favor. " It is wonderful," says a recent Avriter, " how much was discovered during that first expedition. It was then that Columbus found the potato, which ' ..s come to be so important to mankind, as well as tobacco, which the natives smoked in the form of ' dry weeds, rolled up in a leaf, which was dry also, shaped. liked the paper muskets the boys made on the feast of Pentecost ; and light- ing one end of it, they suck the r.cher, and absorb or inhale the smoke.' Of course there were novel fruits and spices, enormous reeds and gourds, and cotton so abundant that in a single house 12,000 pounds of it were found spun, and rolled in balls, although it seemed to be used for little but ham- mocks and women's aprons." ^> 9 a result of n ooo COLUMBUS THE NAVIGATOR. V. RESULTS AND REWARDS. " Thus the whirligig of Timo brings in his revenges." Scarcely were the sails of the Phita and the Nina dry than the monarchs of Spain commanded that a second fleet be fitted out, with which to further explore the new-found continent, and better secure the same to their crowns. There was need for haste, for John the Second, of Portu- gal, was believed to be about to seize by stratagem what he had lost by timidity. Regretting too late that the project of Columbus had been spurned and scoffed at, John also equipped a large force of ships, the avowed destination of which was Africa, but which had secret instructions to sail Westward Ho ! and grab a goodly slice of the so-called Indies. But Ferdinand was a master of all the arts of intrigue, and he managed to en- .- ■ ^Hi,ii«^«l.W ' . ' -l.;y ^^ ' >M«JBa-CT fffg |U i tfe-tl. ' iM > WIJ.«V ^ .! gt^3C irenges." ita and the iommanded h Avhich to inent, and ns. There 1, of Portu- f stratagem retting too had been ped a hirge ti of which ructions to sUce of the a master of ged to en- COL UMB us THE NA VIGA TOR. 2'23 tangle the King of Portugal in long-drawn-out negotiations conducted by slow-moving embassies until the Spanish fleet was weU advanced. Frequently, during this long interchange of international courtesies, the Spanish sovereigns wrote to Columbus, urging the utmost despatch. But the admiral needed no spurring ; he was too anxious to be afloat once more, with a goodly force at his back, and on the way to further ex- plore his " Indies." " Twelve caravels and five smaller vessels were made ready, and were laden with horses and other animals, and with plants, seeds, and agricultural implements for the cultivation of the new coun- tries. Artificers of various trades were engaged, and a qnantlty of merchandise and gaudy trifles, fit for bartering with the natives, were placed on board. There was no need to press men into the service now; volunteers for the expedition were only too numerous. The fever for discovery was universal. Columbus was confident that he had f]' 2tM COLVMUni THE XAVlGATOti. been on the outskirts of Cathay, and that the scriptural land of Ilavihih, the home of g'ohl, was not far olf. Untohl riches were to he acquired, and prohahly there was not one of the 1,500 pei- sons who took sh'p in the s(piadron that did not anticipate a prodigious fortune as the reward of tlie voyage. Nor was what continued to l)e the great object of these discoveries luu-ared for. Twelve nussionaries, eager to eidi"hten the sjjiritual darkness of the western lands, were placed under the charg-e of Bernard Buil, a Bene- dictine monk, who was specially appointed by tlu Po})e, in order to ensure an authorized teaching of the faith, and to superintend the religious edu- cation of the Indians. The instrr.ctions to Co- lumbus, dated the21)th of May, 1-493, are the first strokes upon that obdurate mass of colonial diffi- culty which, at last, by incessant working of great princes, great churchmen, and great statesmen, was eventually to be hammered into some righteous form of Avisdom and of mercy. In the course of ;i:;t-»;t..i.-»t»,ss.ii;4:».=*i«**S»:V<=i*--*'.-»'l»'' nd that the of j»'()hl, was he acquired, le 1,500 per- that did not le reward of id to he the incared for. lighten the hinds, were 3uil, a Bene- (inted hy t\u zed teaching eligious e(hi- tions to Co- are tlie first !oh)nial diffi- :in<>' of g-reat t statesmen, me righteous he course of VUUMUrs THE yAVIOATOll. -i-i.. these instructions, the admiral is ordered to labor in all possible ways to bring the dwellers in the Indies to a knowledge of the Holy Catholic Faith. And that this may the easier be d«nus all the armada is to be charged to deal ' lovingly ' with the Indian. ; the admiral is to make them presents, and to ' honor them much ' ; and, if by chance any person or persons should treat the Indians ill, in any matter whatever, the admiral is to chastise such ill-doers severely." Thousands were eager to embark for the new Land of Plenty, in marked contrast to the apathy and dread displayed at the outset of tlie first voyage. The limit had been set at one thousand ; but so persistent were the volunteers, " many offei- i„g to enlist without pay," that the number ac- cepted was twelve hundred. But at least three hundred more managed to secrete themselves just before saQing, or got on board "by fraud and device," so that about fifteen hundred comprised the final strength of the expedition. ,.. ^..^.,« W M . W I« IWII«--».l.- l 'M*w-" ' '' ^ ^ nm^wtf* ' n , , g mi..j ii ... i- mu. i ji. i. " r* 220) COLl'MIirs rilE S.WICATOU. So, on September twenty-fifth, 1493, the squadron set sail from Cadiz, and after taking in fresh water and provisions, Cohimbus sailed from Ferro for the second time, on October 13th. The voyage was almost uneventful, and the pas- sage a quick one for those days, for on the third of November the ships came in sight of land, having " by the goodness of God and the wise management of the admiral sailed in as straight a track as if they had come by a well-known and frequented route." The day being Sunday, the name Dominica was bestowed on the first island to which they came. Cf>lumbus had steered a more southerly course, " in the hope of falling in with the islands of the Caribs, of which he had heard such wonderful accounts from the Indians." At Dominica no inhabitants were found, and being anxious to reach the colony at La Navidad the fleet stood to the north and northwest, visit- ing and naming on the way the islands of Maria Galante, Guadaloupe, Montserrat, Antigua, St. ■*W B wa ' i."-. ' i 'i ' --ua^ . t/j^.it ■ 1493, the f'ter takinjj iibiis sailed tober 1.3tli. id the pas- n the tliird ht of land, id the wise as straight known and lunday, the first island I steered a f falling in ich he had e Indians." found, and La Navidad iwest, visit- is of Maria ntigua, St. VOLL-MUL'S Tilt: yAVIiiAToli. i-.n Martin, Santa Cruz, and Torto Kico. Some of the aborigines were asserte.l to be cannibals, a "discovery" which filled the Spaniards with horror. At length, on the twenty-second of November, Columbus reached Hispaniola, and coasted along the northern shore till he reached L.i Navidad. But not a vestige of the colony remained ! " The fort was razed to the ground. Not one of the settlers was alive to tell the tale. The account which Guacanagari gave to Columbus, and which there seems no reason to doubt, is, that the Spaniards who had been left behind took to evil courses, quarrelled amongst themselves, straggled about the country, and finally were set upon, when weak and few in numbers, by a neighboring Indian chief named Caonabo, who burned the tower and killed or dispersed the garrison, none of whom were ever discovered. It was in Caonabo's coun- try that the gold mines were reported to exist, and it is probable that both the cupidity and the ,iWijflKWJ(B!73.*MrS' » : ^ w i w^;,^ ' V"rf" ' «£ m 1 1 I II " fl •2-lH (oijMiirs Tin: .\.\\i(;.\ ion. pr(»riii;;i('y of the colonists wvve so gross as to draw down n|>on tliiMn the not unreasonable ven- geance of the natives. Guacanagari, the friendly cacique, Avho had received the admiral amicably on his first voyage, declared that he and his tribe had done their utmost in defense of the Europeans, in proof of which he exhibited recent wounds which had evidently baen inflicted by savage weapons. lie Avas, naturally, scarcely so friendly as before, but comnumication with him was made easy by the aid of one of the Indians whom Columbus had taken to Spain, and who acted as interpreter. Guacanagari Avas willing that a second fort should be built oa the site of the first, but the admiral thought it better to seek a new locality, both because the position of the old fort had been unhealthy, and because the disgusting licentiousness of the settlers had offended the Indians to such an extent that Avhereas they had at first regarded the white men as angels from heaven, now they considered them as debased ross us to icible ven- jo friendly 1 amicably d his tribe Europeans, \t wounds by sava}>e so friendly was made ans whom » acted as