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diff --git a/42059-8.txt b/42059-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3b748f7..0000000 --- a/42059-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25807 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christopher Columbus and How He Received -and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery, by Justin Winsor - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery - -Author: Justin Winsor - -Release Date: February 10, 2013 [EBook #42059] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS *** - - - - -Produced by Julia Miller, Matthias Grammel and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from scans of public domain material -produced by Microsoft for their Live Search Books site.) - - - - - - - - - - By Justin Winsor. - - NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA. - With Bibliographical and Descriptive Essays on its - Historical Sources and Authorities. Profusely - illustrated with portraits, maps, facsimiles, etc. - Edited by JUSTIN WINSOR, Librarian of Harvard - University, with the coöperation of a Committee - from the Massachusetts Historical Society, and with - the aid of other learned Societies. In eight royal - 8vo volumes. Each volume, _net_, $5.50; sheep, - _net_, $6.50; half morocco, _net_, $7.50. - (_Sold only by subscription for the entire set._) - - READER'S HANDBOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. - 16mo, $1.25. - - WAS SHAKESPEARE SHAPLEIGH? - 16mo, rubricated parchment paper, 75 cents. - - CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. - With portrait and maps. 8vo. - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, - BOSTON AND NEW YORK. - - - - -[Illustration: BEHAIM, 1492.] - -[Illustration: AMERICA, 1892.] - - - - - CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS - - AND HOW HE RECEIVED AND - IMPARTED THE SPIRIT - OF DISCOVERY - - BY - JUSTIN WINSOR - - - They that go down to the sea in ships, - that do business in great waters, these - see the works of the Lord and his - wonders in the deep.--_Psalms_, cvii. 23, 24 - - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - The Riverside Press, Cambridge - 1891 - - - - - - Copyright, 1891, - BY JUSTIN WINSOR. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._ - Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. - - - - - To FRANCIS PARKMAN, LL.D., - - THE HISTORIAN OF NEW FRANCE. - - -DEAR PARKMAN:-- - -You and I have not followed the maritime peoples of western Europe in -planting and defending their flags on the American shores without -observing the strange fortunes of the Italians, in that they have -provided pioneers for those Atlantic nations without having once secured -in the New World a foothold for themselves. - -When Venice gave her Cabot to England and Florence bestowed Verrazano -upon France, these explorers established the territorial claims of their -respective and foster motherlands, leading to those contrasts and -conflicts which it has been your fortune to illustrate as no one else -has. - -When Genoa gave Columbus to Spain and Florence accredited her Vespucius -to Portugal, these adjacent powers, whom the Bull of Demarcation would -have kept asunder in the new hemisphere, established their rival races -in middle and southern America, neighboring as in the Old World; but -their contrasts and conflicts have never had so worthy a historian as -you have been for those of the north. - -The beginnings of their commingled history I have tried to relate in the -present work, and I turn naturally to associate in it the name of the -brilliant historian of FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA with that of -your obliged friend, - -[Illustration: Justin Winsor] - - CAMBRIDGE, _June, 1890_. - - - - - -CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. - - - PAGE - CHAPTER I. - - SOURCES, AND THE GATHERERS OF THEM 1 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Manuscript of Columbus, 2; the Genoa Custodia, 5; - Columbus's Letter to the Bank of St. George, 6; Columbus's - Annotations on the _Imago Mundi_, 8; First Page, Columbus's - First Letter, Latin edition (1493), 16; Archivo de Simancas, 24. - - - CHAPTER II. - - BIOGRAPHERS AND PORTRAITISTS 30 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Page of the Giustiniani Psalter, 31; Notes of - Ferdinand Columbus on his Books, 42; Las Casas, 48; Roselly de - Lorgues, 53; St. Christopher, a Vignette on La Cosa's Map (1500), - 62; Earliest Engraved Likeness of Columbus in Jovius, 63; the - Florence Columbus, 65; the Yañez Columbus, 66; a Reproduction of - the Capriolo Cut of Columbus, 67; De Bry's Engraving of Columbus, - 68; the Bust on the Tomb at Havana, 69. - - - CHAPTER III. - - THE ANCESTRY AND HOME OF COLUMBUS 71 - - - CHAPTER IV. - - THE UNCERTAINTIES OF THE EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS 79 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Drawing ascribed to Columbus, 80; Benincasa's Map - (1476), 81; Ship of the Fifteenth Century, 82. - - - CHAPTER V. - - THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL 85 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Part of the Laurentian Portolano, 87; Map of - Andrea Bianco, 89; Prince Henry, the Navigator, 93; Astrolabes - of Regiomontanus, 95, 96; Sketch Map of African Discovery, 98; - Fra Mauro's World-Map, 99; Tomb of Prince Henry at Batalha, - 100; Statue of Prince Henry at Belem, 101. - - CHAPTER VI. - - COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL 103 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Toscanelli's Map restored, 110; Map of Eastern - Asia, with Old and New Names, 113; Catalan Map of Eastern Asia - (1375), 114; Marco Polo, 115; Albertus Magnus, 120; the Laon - Globe, 123; Oceanic Currents, 130; Tables of Regiomontanus - (1474-1506), 132; Map of the African Coast (1478), 133; Martin - Behaim, 134. - - - CHAPTER VII. - - WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH? 135 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of Olaus Magnus (1539), 136; Map of Claudius - Clavus (1427), 141; Bordone's Map (1528), 142; Map of Sigurd - Stephanus (1570), 145. - - CHAPTER VIII. - - COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN 149 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Portuguese Mappemonde (1490), 152; Père Juan - Perez de Marchena, 155; University of Salamanca, 162; Monument - to Columbus at Genoa, 163; Ptolemy's Map of Spain (1482), 165; - Cathedral of Seville, 171; Cathedral of Cordoba, 172. - - - CHAPTER IX. - - THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND THE FIRST VOYAGE, 1492 178 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Behaim's Globe (1492), 186, 187; Doppelmayer's - Reproduction of this Globe, 188, 189; the actual America in - Relation to Behaim's Geography, 190; Ships of Columbus's Time, - 192, 193; Map of the Canary Islands, 194; Map of the Routes of - Columbus, 196; of his track in 1492, 197; Map of the Agonic - Line, 199; Lapis Polaris Magnes, 200; Map of Polar Regions by - Mercator (1509), 202; Map of the Landfall of Columbus, 210; - Columbus's Armor, 211; Maps of the Bahamas (1601 and modern), - 212, 213. - - - CHAPTER X. - - AMONG THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE 218 - - ILLUSTRATION: Indian Beds, 222. - - - CHAPTER XI. - - COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN; MARCH TO SEPTEMBER, 1493 243 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: The Arms of Columbus, 250; Pope Alexander VI., - 253; Crossbow-Maker, 258; Clock-Maker, 260. - - - CHAPTER XII. - - THE SECOND VOYAGE, 1493-1494 264 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, and Dominica, - 267; Cannibal Islands, 269. - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - THE SECOND VOYAGE, CONTINUED, 1494 284 - - ILLUSTRATION: Mass on Shore, 298. - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - THE SECOND VOYAGE, CONTINUED, 1494-1496 303 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of - the Native Divisions of Española, 306; Map of Spanish - Settlements in Española, 321. - - - CHAPTER XV. - - IN SPAIN, 1496-1498. DA GAMA, VESPUCIUS, CABOT 325 - - LLUSTRATIONS: Ferdinand of Aragon, 328; Bartholomew Columbus, 329; - Vasco Da Gama, 334; Map of South Africa (1513), 335; Earliest - Representation of South American Natives, 336. - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - THE THIRD VOYAGE, 1498-1500 347 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of the Gulf of Paria, 353; Pre-Columbian - Mappemonde, restored, 357; Ramusio's Map of Española, 369; - La Cosa's Map (1500), 380, 381; Ribero's Map of the Antilles - (1529), 383; Wytfliet's Cuba, 384, 385. - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - THE DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT OF COLUMBUS (1500) 388 - - ILLUSTRATION: Santo Domingo, 391. - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - - COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN, 1500-1502 407 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: First Page of the _Mundus Novus_, 411; Map of - the Straits of Belle Isle, 413; Manuscript of Gaspar Cortereal, - 414; of Miguel Cortereal, 416; the Cantino Map, 419. - - - CHAPTER XIX. - - THE FOURTH VOYAGE, 1502-1504 437 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Bellin's Map of Honduras, 443; of Veragua, 446. - - - CHAPTER XX. - - COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS. DEATH AND CHARACTER 477 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: House where Columbus died, 490; Cathedral at Santo - Domingo, 493; Statue of Columbus at Santo Domingo, 495. - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS 513 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Pope Julius II., 517; Charles the Fifth, 519; - Ruins of Diego Colon's House, 521. - - - APPENDIX. - - THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS 529 - - ILLUSTRATIONS: Ptolemy, 530; Map by Donis (1482), 531; Ruysch's - Map (1508), 532; the so-called Admiral's Map (1513), 534; - Münster's Map (1532), 535; Title-Page of the _Globus Mundi_, - 352; of Eden's _Treatyse of the Newe India_, 537; Vespucius, - 539; Title of the _Cosmographiæ Introductio_, 541; Map in - Ptolemy (1513), 544, 545; the Tross Gores, 547; the Hauslab - Globe, 548; the Nordenskiöld Gores, 549; Map by Apianus (1520), - 550; Schöner's Globe (1515), 551; Frisius's Map (1522), 552; - Peter Martyr's Map (1511), 557; Ponce de Leon, 558; his tracks - on the Florida Coast, 559; Ayllon's Map, 561; Balboa, 563; - Grijalva, 566; Globe in Schöner's _Opusculum_, 567; Garay's - Map of the Gulf of Mexico, 568; Cortes's Map of the Gulf of - Mexico, 569; the Maiollo Map (1527), 570; the Lenox Globe, 571; - Schöner's Globe (1520), 572; Magellan, 573; Magellan's Straits - by Pizafetta, 575; Modern Map of the Straits, 576; Freire's Map - (1546), 578; Sylvanus's Map in Ptolemy (1511), 579; Stobnieza's - Map, 580; the Alleged Da Vinci Sketch-Map, 582; Reisch's Map - (1515), 583; Pomponius Mela's World-Map, 584; Vadianus, 585; - Apianus, 586; Schöner, 588; Rosenthal or Nuremberg Gores, 590; - the Martyr-Oviedo Map (1534), 592, 593; the Verrazano Map, 594; - Sketch of Agnese's Map (1536), 595; Münster's Map (1540), 596, - 597; Michael Lok's Map (1582), 598; John White's Map, 599; - Robert Thorne's Map (1527), 600; Sebastian Münster, 602; - House and Library of Ferdinand Columbus, 604; Spanish Map (1527), - 605; the Nancy Globe, 606, 607; Map of Orontius Finæus (1532), - 608; the same, reduced to Mercator's projection, 609; Cortes, - 610; Castillo's California, 611; Extract from an old Portolano - of the northeast Coast of North America, 613; Homem's Map (1558), - 614; Ziegler's Schondia, 615; Ruscelli's Map (1544), 616; Carta - Marina (1548), 617; Myritius's Map (1590), 618; Zaltière's Map - (1566), 619; Porcacchi's Map (1572), 620; Mercator's Globe - (1538), 622, 623; Münster's America (1545), 624; Mercator's - Gores (1541), reduced to a plane projection, 625; Sebastian - Cabot's Mappemonde (1544), 626; Medina's Map (1544), 628, 629; - Wytfliet's America (1597), 630, 631; the Cross-Staff, 632; the - Zeni Map, 634, 635; the Map in the Warsaw Codex (1467), 636, - 637; Mercator's America (1569), 638; Portrait of Mercator, - 639; of Ortelius, 640; Map by Ortelius (1570), 641; Sebastian - Cabot, 642; Frobisher, 643; Frobisher's Chart (1578), 644; - Francis Drake, 645; Gilbert's Map (1576), 647; the Back-Staff, - 648; Luke Fox's Map of the Arctic Regions (1635), 651; - Hennepin's Map of Jesso, 653; Domina Farrer's Map (1651), 654, - 655; Buache's Theory of North American Geography (1752), 656; - Map of Bering's Straits, 657; Map of the Northwest Passage, 659. - - INDEX 661 - - - - - -CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -SOURCES, AND THE GATHERERS OF THEM. - - -In considering the sources of information, which are original, as -distinct from those which are derivative, we must place first in -importance the writings of Columbus himself. We may place next the -documentary proofs belonging to private and public archives. - -[Sidenote: His prolixity.] - -Harrisse points out that Columbus, in his time, acquired such a popular -reputation for prolixity that a court fool of Charles the Fifth linked -the discoverer of the Indies with Ptolemy as twins in the art of -blotting. He wrote as easily as people of rapid impulses usually do, -when they are not restrained by habits of orderly deliberation. He has -left us a mass of jumbled thoughts and experiences, which, -unfortunately, often perplex the historian, while they of necessity aid -him. - -[Sidenote: His writings.] - -Ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by the hand of Columbus either -exist or are known to have existed. Of such, whether memoirs, relations, -or letters, sixty-four are preserved in their entirety. These include -twenty-four which are wholly or in part in his own hand. All of them -have been printed entire, except one which is in the Biblioteca -Colombina, in Seville, the _Libro de las Proficias_, written apparently -between 1501 and 1504, of which only part is in Columbus's own hand. A -second document, a memoir addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella, before -June, 1497, is now in the collection of the Marquis of San Roman at -Madrid, and was printed for the first time by Harrisse in his -_Christophe Colomb_. A third and fourth are in the public archives in -Madrid, being letters addressed to the Spanish monarchs: one without -date in 1496 or 1497, or perhaps earlier, in 1493, and the other -February 6, 1502; and both have been printed and given in facsimile in -the _Cartas de Indias_, a collection published by the Spanish government -in 1877. The majority of the existing private papers of Columbus are -preserved in Spain, in the hands of the present representative of -Columbus, the Duke of Veragua, and these have all been printed in the -great collection of Navarrete. They consist, as enumerated by Harrisse -in his _Columbus and the Bank of Saint George_, of the following pieces: -a single letter addressed about the year 1500 to Ferdinand and Isabella; -four letters addressed to Father Gaspar Gorricio,--one from San Lucar, -April 4, 1502; a second from the Grand Canaria, May, 1502; a third from -Jamaica, July 7, 1503; and the last from Seville, January 4, 1505;--a -memorial addressed to his son, Diego, written either in December, 1504, -or in January, 1505; and eleven letters addressed also to Diego, all -from Seville, late in 1504 or early in 1505. - -[Illustration: MANUSCRIPT OF COLUMBUS. - -[From a MS. in the Biblioteca Colombina, given in Harrisse's _Notes -on Columbus_.]] - -[Sidenote: All in Spanish.] - -Without exception, the letters of Columbus of which we have knowledge -were written in Spanish. Harrisse has conjectured that his stay in Spain -made him a better master of that language than the poor advantages of -his early life had made him of his mother tongue. - -[Sidenote: His privileges.] - -Columbus was more careful of the documentary proofs of his titles and -privileges, granted in consequence of his discoveries, than of his own -writings. He had more solicitude to protect, by such records, the -pecuniary and titular rights of his descendants than to preserve those -personal papers which, in the eyes of the historian, are far more -valuable. These attested evidences of his rights were for a while -inclosed in an iron chest, kept at his tomb in the monastery of Las -Cuevas, near Seville, and they remained down to 1609 in the custody of -the Carthusian friars of that convent. At this date, Nuño de Portugallo -having been declared the heir to the estate and titles of Columbus, the -papers were transferred to his keeping; and in the end, by legal -decision, they passed to that Duke of Veragua who was the grandfather of -the present duke, who in due time inherited these public memorials, and -now preserves them in Madrid. - -[Sidenote: _Codex Diplomaticus._] - -In 1502 there were copies made in book form, known as the _Codex -Diplomaticus_, of these and other pertinent documents, raising the -number from thirty-six to forty-four. These copies were attested at -Seville, by order of the Admiral, who then aimed to place them so that -the record of his deeds and rights should not be lost. Two copies seem -to have been sent by him through different channels to Nicoló Oderigo, -the Genoese ambassador in Madrid; and in 1670 both of these copies came -from a descendant of that ambassador as a gift to the Republic of Genoa. -Both of these later disappeared from its archives. A third copy was sent -to Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, the factor of Columbus in Española, and -this copy is not now known. A fourth copy was deposited in the monastery -of Las Cuevas, near Seville, to be later sent to Father Gorricio. It is -very likely this last copy which is mentioned by Edward Everett in a -note to his oration at Plymouth (Boston, 1825, p. 64), where, referring -to the two copies sent to Oderigo as the only ones made by the order of -Columbus, as then understood, he adds: "Whether the two manuscripts thus -mentioned be the only ones in existence may admit of doubt. When I was -in Florence, in 1818, a small folio manuscript was brought to me, -written on parchment, apparently two or three centuries old, in binding -once very rich, but now worn, containing a series of documents in Latin -and Spanish, with the following title on the first blank page: 'Treslado -de las Bullas del Papa Alexandro VI., de la concession de las Indias y -los titulos, privilegios y cedulas reales, que se dieron a Christoval -Colon.' I was led by this title to purchase the book." After referring -to the _Codice_, then just published, he adds: "I was surprised to find -my manuscript, as far as it goes, nearly identical in its contents with -that of Genoa, supposed to be one of the only two in existence. My -manuscript consists of almost eighty closely written folio pages, which -coincide precisely with the text of the first thirty-seven documents, -contained in two hundred and forty pages of the Genoese volume." - -Caleb Cushing says of the Everett manuscript, which he had examined -before he wrote of it in the _North American Review_, October, 1825, -that, "so far as it goes, it is a much more perfect one than the Oderigo -manuscript, as several passages which Spotorno was unable to decipher in -the latter are very plain and legible in the former, which indeed is in -most complete preservation." I am sorry to learn from Dr. William -Everett that this manuscript is not at present easily accessible. - -Of the two copies named above as having disappeared from the archives of -Genoa, Harrisse at a late day found one in the archives of the Ministry -of Foreign Affairs in Paris. It had been taken to Paris in 1811, when -Napoleon I. caused the archives of Genoa to be sent to that city, and it -was not returned when the chief part of the documents was recovered by -Genoa in 1815. The other copy was in 1816 among the papers of Count -Cambiaso, and was bought by the Sardinian government, and given to the -city of Genoa, where it is now deposited in a marble _custodia_, which, -surmounted by a bust of Columbus, stands at present in the main hall of -the palace of the municipality. This "custodia" is a pillar, in which a -door of gilded bronze closes the receptacle that contains the relics, -which are themselves inclosed in a bag of Spanish leather, richly -embossed. A copy of this last document was made and placed in the -archives at Turin. - -[Sidenote: Their publication by Spotorno.] - -These papers, as selected by Columbus for preservation, were edited by -Father Spotorno at Genoa, in 1823, in a volume called _Codice -diplomatico Colombo-Americano_, and published by authority of the state. -There was an English edition at London, in 1823; and a Spanish at -Havana, in 1867. Spotorno was reprinted, with additional matter, at -Genoa, in 1857, as _La Tavola di Bronzo, il pallio di seta, ed il Codice -Colomboamericano, nuovamente illustrati per cura di Giuseppe Banchero_. - -[Illustration: THE GENOA CUSTODIA.] - -[Sidenote: Letters to the Bank of St. George.] - -This Spotorno volume included two additional letters of Columbus, not -yet mentioned, and addressed, March 21, 1502, and December 27, 1504, to -Oderigo. They were found pasted in the duplicate copy of the papers -given to Genoa, and are now preserved in a glass case, in the same -custodia. A third letter, April 2, 1502, addressed to the governors of -the bank of St. George, was omitted by Spotorno; but it is given by -Harrisse in his _Columbus and the Bank of Saint George_ (New York, -1888). This last was one of two letters, which Columbus sent, as he -says, to the bank, but the other has not been found. The history of the -one preserved is traced by Harrisse in the work last mentioned, and -there are lithographic and photographic reproductions of it. Harrisse's -work just referred to was undertaken to prove the forgery of a -manuscript which has within a few years been offered for sale, either as -a duplicate of the one at Genoa, or as the original. When represented as -the original, the one at Genoa is pronounced a facsimile of it. Harrisse -seems to have proved the forgery of the one which is seeking a -purchaser. - -[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S LETTER, APRIL 2, 1502, ADDRESSED TO THE BANK - OF ST. GEORGE IN GENOA. - -[Reduced in size by photographic process.]] - -[Sidenote: Marginalia.] - -[Sidenote: Toscanelli's letter.] - -Some manuscript marginalia found in three different books, used by -Columbus and preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville, are also -remnants of the autographs of Columbus. These marginal notes are in -copies of Æneas Sylvius's _Historia Rerum ubique gestarum_ (Venice, -1477) of a Latin version of Marco Polo (Antwerp, 1485?), and of Pierre -d'Ailly's _De Imagine Mundi_ (perhaps 1490), though there is some -suspicion that these last-mentioned notes may be those of Bartholomew, -and not of Christopher, Columbus. These books have been particularly -described in José Silverio Jorrin's _Varios Autografos ineditos de -Cristóbal Colon_, published at Havana in 1888. In May, 1860, José Maria -Fernandez y Velasco, the librarian of the Biblioteca Colombina, -discovered a Latin text of the letter of Toscanelli, written by Columbus -in this same copy of Æneas Sylvius. He believed it a Latin version of a -letter originally written in Italian; but it was left for Harrisse to -discover that the Latin was the original draft. A facsimile of this -script is in Harrisse's _Fernando Colon_ (Seville, 1871), and specimens -of the marginalia were first given by Harrisse in his _Notes on -Columbus_, whence they are reproduced in part in the _Narrative and -Critical History of America_ (vol. ii.). - -[Sidenote: Harrisse's memorial of Columbus.] - -It is understood that, under the auspices of the Italian government, -Harrisse is now engaged in collating the texts and preparing a national -memorial issue of the writings of Columbus, somewhat in accordance with -a proposition which he made to the Minister of Public Instruction at -Rome in his _Le Quatrième Centenaire de la Découverte du Nouveau Monde_ -(Genoa, 1887). - -[Sidenote: Columbus's printed works.] - -There are references to printed works of Columbus which I have not seen, -as a _Declaracion de Tabla Navigatoria_, annexed to a treatise, _Del Uso -de la Carta de Navegar_, by Dr. Grajales: a _Tratado de las Cinco Zonas -Habitables_, which Humboldt found it very difficult to find. - -[Illustration: ANNOTATIONS BY COLUMBUS ON THE _IMAGO MUNDI_. - -[From Harrisse's _Notes on Columbus_.]] - -[Sidenote: His lost writings.] - -Of the manuscripts of Columbus which are lost, there are traces still to -be discovered. One letter, which he dated off the Canaries, February 15, -1493, and which must have contained some account of his first voyage, -is only known to us from an intimation of Marino Sanuto that it was -included in the _Chronica Delphinea_. It is probably from an imperfect -copy of this last in the library at Brescia, that the letter in question -was given in the book's third part (A. D. 1457-1500), which is now -missing. We know also, from a letter still preserved (December 27, -1504), that there must be a letter somewhere, if not destroyed, sent by -him respecting his fourth voyage, to Messer Gian Luigi Fieschi, as is -supposed, the same who led the famous conspiracy against the house of -Doria. Other letters, Columbus tells us, were sent at times to the -Signora Madonna Catalina, who was in some way related to Fieschi. - -In 1780, Francesco Pesaro, examining the papers of the Council of Ten, -at Venice, read there a memoir of Columbus, setting forth his maritime -project; or at least Pesaro was so understood by Marin, who gives the -story at a later day in the seventh volume of his history of Venetian -commerce. As Harrisse remarks, this paper, if it could be discovered, -would prove the most interesting of all Columbian documents, since it -would probably be found to fall within a period, from 1473 to 1487, when -we have little or nothing authentic respecting Columbus's life. Indeed, -it might happily elucidate a stage in the development of the Admiral's -cosmographical views of which we know nothing. - -We have the letter which Columbus addressed to Alexander VI., in -February, 1502, as preserved in a copy made by his son Ferdinand; but no -historical student has ever seen the Commentary, which he is said to -have written after the manner of Cæsar, recounting the haps and mishaps -of the first voyage, and which he is thought to have sent to the ruling -Pontiff. This act of duty, if done after his return from his last -voyage, must have been made to Julius the Second, not to Alexander. - -[Sidenote: Journal of his first voyage.] - -Irving and others seem to have considered that this Cæsarian performance -was in fact, the well-known journal of the first voyage; but there is a -good deal of difficulty in identifying that which we only know in an -abridged form, as made by Las Casas, with the narrative sent or intended -to be sent to the Pope. - -Ferdinand, or the writer of the _Historie_, later to be mentioned, -it seems clear, had Columbus's journal before him, though he excuses -himself from quoting much from it, in order to avoid wearying the -reader. - -The original "journal" seems to have been in 1554 still in the -possession of Luis Colon. It had not, accordingly, at that date been put -among the treasures of the Biblioteca Colombina. Thus it may have -fallen, with Luis's other papers, to his nephew and heir, Diego Colon y -Pravia, who in 1578 entrusted them to Luis de Cardona. Here we lose -sight of them. - -[Sidenote: Abridged by Las Casas.] - -Las Casas's abridgment in his own handwriting, however, has come down to -us, and some entries in it would seem to indicate that Las Casas -abridged a copy, and not the original. It was, up to 1886, in the -library of the Duke of Orsuna, in Madrid, and was at that date bought by -the Spanish government. While it was in the possession of Orsuna, it was -printed by Varnhagen, in his _Verdadera Guanahani_ (1864). It was -clearly used by Las Casas in his own _Historia_, and was also in the -hands of Ferdinand, when he wrote, or outlined, perhaps, what now passes -for the life of his father, and Ferdinand's statements can sometimes -correct or qualify the text in Las Casas. There is some reason to -suppose that Herrera may have used the original. Las Casas tells us that -in some parts, and particularly in describing the landfall and the -events immediately succeeding, he did not vary the words of the -original. This Las Casas abridgment was in the archives of the Duke del -Infantado, when Navarrete discovered its importance, and edited it as -early as 1791, though it was not given to the public till Navarrete -published his _Coleccion_ in 1825. When this journal is read, even as we -have it, it is hard to imagine that Columbus could have intended so -disjointed a performance to be an imitation of the method of Cæsar's -_Commentaries_. - -The American public was early given an opportunity to judge of this, and -of its importance. It was by the instigation of George Ticknor that -Samuel Kettell made a translation of the text as given by Navarrete, and -published it in Boston in 1827, as a _Personal Narrative of the first -Voyage of Columbus to America, from a Manuscript recently discovered in -Spain_. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Descriptions of his first voyage.] - -We also know that Columbus wrote other concise accounts of his -discovery. On his return voyage, during a gale, on February 14, 1493, -fearing his ship would founder, he prepared a statement on parchment, -which was incased in wax, put in a barrel, and thrown overboard, to take -the chance of washing ashore. A similar account, protected in like -manner, he placed on his vessel's poop, to be washed off in case of -disaster. Neither of these came, as far as is known, to the notice of -anybody. They very likely simply duplicated the letters which he wrote -on the voyage, intended to be dispatched to their destination on -reaching port. The dates and places of these letters are not -reconcilable with his journal. He was apparently approaching the Azores, -when, on February 15, he dated a letter "off the Canaries," directed to -Luis de Santangel. So false a record as "the Canaries" has never been -satisfactorily explained. It may be imagined, perhaps, that the letter -had been written when Columbus supposed he would make those islands -instead of the Azores, and that the place of writing was not changed. It -is quite enough, however, to rest satisfied with the fact that Columbus -was always careless, and easily erred in such things, as Navarrete has -shown. The postscript which is added is dated March 14, which seems -hardly probable, or even possible, so that March 4 has been suggested. -He professes to write it on the day of his entering the Tagus, and this -was March 4. It is possible that he altered the date when he reached -Palos, as is Major's opinion. Columbus calls this a second letter. -Perhaps a former letter was the one which, as already stated, we have -lost in the missing part of the _Chronica Delphinea_. - -[Sidenote: Letter to Santangel.] - -[Sidenote: Letter to Sanchez.] - -The original of this letter to Santangel, the treasurer of Aragon, and -intended for the eyes of Ferdinand and Isabella, was in Spanish, and is -known in what is thought to be a contemporary copy, found by Navarrete -at Simancas; and it is printed by him in his _Coleccion_, and is given -by Kettell in English, to make no other mention of places where it is -accessible. Harrisse denies that this Simancas manuscript represents the -original, as Navarrete had contended. A letter dated off the island of -Santa Maria, the southernmost of the Azores, three days after the letter -to Santangel, February 18, essentially the same, and addressed to -Gabriel Sanchez, was found in what seemed to be an early copy, among the -papers of the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca. This text was printed by -Varnhagen at Valencia, in 1858, as _Primera Epistola del Almirante Don -Cristóbal Colon_, and it is claimed by him that it probably much more -nearly represents the original of Columbus's own drafting. - -[Sidenote: Printed editions.] - -There was placed in 1852 in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan, from the -library of Baron Pietro Custodi, a printed edition of this Spanish -letter, issued in 1493, perhaps somewhere in Spain or Portugal, for -Barcelona and Lisbon have been named. Harrisse conjectures that Sanchez -gave his copy to some printer in Barcelona. Others have contended that -it was not printed in Spain at all. No other copy of this edition has -ever been discovered. It was edited by Cesare Correnti at Milan in 1863, -in a volume called _Lettere autografe di Cristoforo Colombo, nuovamente -stampate_, and was again issued in facsimile in 1866 at Milan, under the -care of Girolamo d'Adda, as _Lettera in lingua Spagnuola diretta da -Cristoforo Colombo a Luis de Sant-Angel_. Major and Becher, among -others, have given versions of it to the English reader, and Harrisse -gives it side by side with a French version in his _Christophe Colomb_ -(i. 420), and with an English one in his _Notes on Columbus_. - -This text in Spanish print had been thought the only avenue of approach -to the actual manuscript draft of Columbus, till very recently two other -editions, slightly varying, are said to have been discovered, one or -both of which are held by some, but on no satisfactory showing, to have -preceded in issue, probably by a short interval, the Ambrosian copy. - -One of these newly alleged editions is on four leaves in quarto, and -represents the letter as dated on February 15 and March 14, and its cut -of type has been held to be evidence of having been printed at Burgos, -or possibly at Salamanca. That this and the Ambrosian letter were -printed one from the other, or independently from some unknown anterior -edition, has been held to be clear from the fact that they correspond -throughout in the division of lines and pages. It is not easily -determined which was the earlier of the two, since there are errors in -each corrected in the other. This unique four-leaf quarto was a few -months since offered for sale in London, by Ellis and Elvey, who have -published (1889) an English translation of it, with annotations by Julia -E. S. Rae. It is now understood to be in the possession of a New York -collector. It is but fair to say that suspicions of its genuineness have -been entertained; indeed, there can be scarce a doubt that it is a -modern fabrication. - -The other of these newly discovered editions is in folio of two leaves, -and was the last discovered, and was very recently held by Maisonneuve -of Paris at 65,000 francs, and has since been offered by Quaritch in -London for £1,600. It is said to have been discovered in Spain, and to -have been printed at Barcelona; and this last fact is thought to be -apparent from the Catalan form of some of the Spanish, which has -disappeared in the Ambrosian text. It also gives the dates February 15 -and March 14. A facsimile edition has been issued under the title _La -Lettre de Christophe Colomb, annonçant la Découverte du Nouveau Monde_. - -Caleb Cushing, in the _North American Review_ in October, 1825, refers -to newspaper stories then current of a recent sale of a copy of the -Spanish text in London, for £33 12_s._ to the Duke of Buckingham. It -cannot now be traced. - -[Sidenote: Catalan text.] - -Harrisse finds in Ferdinand's catalogue of the Biblioteca Colombina what -was probably a Catalan text of this Spanish letter; but it has -disappeared from the collection. - -[Sidenote: Letter found by Bergenroth.] - -Bergenroth found at Simancas, some years ago, the text of another letter -by Columbus, with the identical dates already given, and addressed to a -friend; but it conveyed nothing not known in the printed Spanish texts. -He, however, gave a full abstract of it in the _Calendar of State Papers -relating to England and Spain_. - -[Sidenote: Columbus gives papers to Bernaldez.] - -Columbus is known, after his return from the second voyage, to have been -the guest of Andrès Bernaldez, the Cura de los Palacios, and he is also -known to have placed papers in this friend's hands; and so it has been -held probable by Muñoz that another Spanish text of Columbus's first -account is embodied in Bernaldez's _Historia de los Reyes Católicos_. -The manuscript of this work, which gives thirteen chapters to Columbus, -long remained unprinted in the royal library at Madrid, and Irving, -Prescott, and Humboldt all used it in that form. It was finally printed -at Granada in 1856, as edited by Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara, and was -reprinted at Seville in 1870. Harrisse, in his _Notes on Columbus_, -gives an English version of this section on the Columbus voyage. - -[Sidenote: Varieties of the Spanish text.] - -These, then, are all the varieties of the Spanish text of Columbus's -first announcement of his discovery which are at present known. When the -Ambrosian text was thought to be the only printed form of it, Varnhagen, -in his _Carta de Cristóbal Colon enviada de Lisboa á Barcelona en Marzo -de 1493_ (Vienna, 1869; and Paris, 1870), collated the different texts -to try to reconstruct a possible original text, as Columbus wrote it. In -the opinion of Major no one of these texts can be considered an accurate -transcript of the original. - -[Sidenote: Origin of the Latin text.] - -There is a difference of opinion among these critics as to the origin of -the Latin text which scholars generally cite as this first letter of -Columbus. Major thinks this Latin text was not taken from the Spanish, -though similar to it; while Varnhagen thinks that the particular Spanish -text found in the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca was the original of the Latin -version. - -[Sidenote: Transient fame of the discovery.] - -There is nothing more striking in the history of the years immediately -following the discovery of America than the transient character of the -fame which Columbus acquired by it. It was another and later generation -that fixed his name in the world's regard. - -[Sidenote: English mentions of it.] - -Harrisse points out how some of the standard chroniclers of the world's -history, like Ferrebouc, Regnault, Galliot du Pré, and Fabian, failed -during the early half of the sixteenth century to make any note of the -acts of Columbus; and he could find no earlier mention among the German -chroniclers than that of Heinrich Steinhowel, some time after 1531. -There was even great reticence among the chroniclers of the Low -Countries; and in England we need to look into the dispatches sent -thence by the Spanish ambassadors to find the merest mention of Columbus -so early as 1498. Perhaps the reference to him made eleven years later -(1509), in an English version of Brandt's _Shyppe of Fools_, and another -still ten years later in a little native comedy called _The New -Interlude_, may have been not wholly unintelligible. It was not till -about 1550 that, so far as England is concerned, Columbus really became -a historical character, in Edward Hall's _Chronicle_. - -Speaking of the fewness of the autographs of Columbus which are -preserved, Harrisse adds: "The fact is that Columbus was very far from -being in his lifetime the important personage he now is; and his -writings, which then commanded neither respect nor attention, were -probably thrown into the waste-basket as soon as received." - -[Sidenote: Editions of the Latin text.] - -Nevertheless, substantial proof seems to exist in the several editions -of the Latin version of this first letter, which were issued in the -months immediately following the return of Columbus from his first -voyage, as well as in the popular versification of its text by Dati in -two editions, both in October, 1493, besides another at Florence in -1495, to show that for a brief interval, at least, the news was more or -less engrossing to the public mind in certain confined areas of Europe. -Before the discovery of the printed editions of the Spanish text, there -existed an impression that either the interest in Spain was less than in -Italy, or some effort was made by the Spanish government to prevent a -wide dissemination of the details of the news. - -The two Genoese ambassadors who left Barcelona some time after the -return of Columbus, perhaps in August, 1493, may possibly have taken to -Italy with them some Spanish edition of the letter. The news, however, -had in some form reached Rome in season to be the subject of a papal -bull on May 3d. We know that Aliander or Leander de Cosco, who made the -Latin version, very likely from the Sanchez copy, finished it probably -at Barcelona, on the 29th of April, not on the 25th as is sometimes -said. Cosco sent it at once to Rome to be printed, and his manuscript -possibly conveyed the first tidings, to Italy,--such is Harrisse's -theory,--where it reached first the hands of the Bishop of Monte Peloso, -who added to it a Latin epigram. It was he who is supposed to have -committed it to the printer in Rome, and in that city, during the rest -of 1493, four editions at least of Cosco's Latin appeared. Two of these -editions are supposed to be printed by Plannck, a famous Roman printer; -one is known to have come from the press of Franck Silber. All but one -were little quartos, of the familiar old style, of three or four -black-letter leaves; while the exception was a small octavo with -woodcuts. It is Harrisse's opinion that this pictorial edition was -really printed at Basle. In Paris, during the same time or shortly -after, there were three editions of a similar appearance, all from one -press. The latest of all, brought to light but recently, seems to have -been printed by a distinguished Flemish printer, Thierry Martens, -probably at Antwerp. It is not improbable that other editions printed in -all these or other cities may yet be found. It is noteworthy that -nothing was issued in Germany, as far as we know, before a German -version of the letter appeared at Strassburg in 1497. - -[Illustration: FIRST PAGE, COLUMBUS'S FIRST LETTER, LATIN EDITION, 1493. - -[From the Barlow copy, now in the Boston Public Library.]] - -The text in all these Latin editions is intended to be the same. But a -very few copies of any edition, and only a single copy of two or three -of them, are known. The Lenox, the Carter-Brown, and the Ives libraries -in this country are the chief ones possessing any of them, and the -collections of the late Henry C. Murphy and Samuel L. M. Barlow also -possessed a copy or two, the edition owned by Barlow passing in -February, 1890, to the Boston Public Library. This scarcity and the -rivalry of collectors would probably, in case any one of them should be -brought upon the market, raise the price to fifteen hundred dollars or -more. The student is not so restricted as this might imply, for in -several cases there have been modern facsimiles and reprints, and there -is an early reprint by Veradus, annexed to his poem (1494) on the -capture of Granada. The text usually quoted by the older writers, -however, is that embodied in the _Bellum Christianorum Principum_ of -Robertus Monarchus (Basle, 1533). - -[Sidenote: Order of publication.] - -In these original small quartos and octavos, there is just enough -uncertainty and obscurity as to dates and printers, to lure -bibliographers and critics of typography into research and controversy; -and hardly any two of them agree in assigning the same order of -publication to these several issues. The present writer has in the -second volume of the _Narrative and Critical History of America_ grouped -the varied views, so far as they had in 1885 been made known. The -bibliography to which Harrisse refers as being at the end of his work on -Columbus was crowded out of its place and has not appeared; but he -enters into a long examination of the question of priority in the second -chapter of his last volume. The earliest English translation of this -Latin text appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1816, and other issues -have been variously made since that date. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Additional sources respecting the first voyage.] - -We get some details of this first voyage in Oviedo, which we do not find -in the journal, and Vicente Yañez Pinzon and Hernan Perez Matheos, who -were companions of Columbus, are said to be the source of this -additional matter. The testimony in the lawsuit of 1515, particularly -that of Garcia Hernandez, who was in the "Pinta," and of a sailor named -Francisco Garcia Vallejo, adds other details. - -[Sidenote: Second voyage.] - -There is no existing account by Columbus himself of his experiences -during his second voyage, and of that cruise along the Cuban coast in -which he supposed himself to have come in sight of the Golden -Chersonesus. The _Historie_ tells us that during this cruise he kept a -journal, _Libro del Segundo Viage_, till he was prostrated by sickness, -and this itinerary is cited both in the _Historie_ and by Las Casas. We -also get at second-hand from Columbus, what was derived from him in -conversation after his return to Spain, in the account of these -explorations which Bernaldez has embodied in his _Reyes Católicos_. -Irving says that he found these descriptions of Bernaldez by far the -most useful of the sources for this period, as giving him the details -for a picturesque narrative. On disembarking at Cadiz in June, 1495, -Columbus sent to his sovereigns two dispatches, neither of which is now -known. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's letters.] - -It was in the collection of the Duke of Veragua that Navarrete -discovered fifteen autograph letters of Columbus, four of them addressed -to his friend, the Father Gaspar Gorricio, and the rest to his son -Diego. Navarrete speaks of them when found as in a very deplorable and -in parts almost unreadable condition, and severely taxing, for -deciphering them, the practiced skill of Tomas Gonzalez, which had been -acquired in the care which he had bestowed on the archives of Simancas. -It is known that two letters addressed to Gorricio in 1498, and four in -1501, beside a single letter addressed in the last year to Diego Colon, -which were in the iron chest at Las Cuevas, are not now in the archives -of the Duke of Veragua; and it is further known that during the great -lawsuit of Columbus's heirs, Cristoval de Cardona tampered with that -chest, and was brought to account for the act in 1580. Whatever he -removed may possibly some day be found, as Harrisse thinks, among the -notarial records of Valencia. - -[Sidenote: Third voyage.] - -Two letters of Columbus respecting his third voyage are only known in -early copies; one in Las Casas's hand belonged to the Duke of Orsuna, -and the other addressed to the nurse of Prince Juan is in the Custodia -collection at Genoa. Both are printed by Navarrete. - -[Sidenote: Fourth voyage.] - -Columbus, in a letter dated December 27, 1504, mentions a relation of -his fourth voyage with a supplement, which he had sent from Seville to -Oderigo; but it is not known. We are without trace also of other -letters, which he wrote at Dominica and at other points during this -voyage. We do know, however, a letter addressed by Columbus to Ferdinand -and Isabella, giving some account of his voyage to July 7, 1503. The -lost Spanish original is represented in an early copy, which is printed -by Navarrete. Though no contemporary Spanish edition is known, an -Italian version was issued at Venice in 1505, as _Copia de la Lettera -per Colombo mandata_. This was reprinted with comments by Morelli, at -Bassano, in 1810, and the title which this librarian gave it of _Lettera -Rarissima_ has clung to it, in most of the citations which refer to it. - -Peter Martyr, writing in January, 1494, mentions just having received a -letter from Columbus, but it is not known to exist. - -[Sidenote: Las Casas uses Columbus's papers.] - -Las Casas is said to have once possessed a treatise by Columbus on the -information obtained from Portuguese and Spanish pilots, concerning -western lands; and he also refers to _Libros de Memorias del Almirante_. -He is also known by his own statements to have had numerous autograph -letters of Columbus. What has become of them is not known. If they were -left in the monastery of San Gregorio at Valladolid, where Las Casas -used them, they have disappeared with papers of the convent, since they -were not among the archives of the suppressed convents, as Harrisse -tells us, which were entrusted in 1850 to the Academy of History at -Madrid. - -[Sidenote: Work on the Arctic pole.] - -In his letter to Doña Juana, Columbus says that he has deposited a work -in the Convent de la Mejorada, in which he has predicted the discovery -of the Arctic pole. It has not been found. - -[Sidenote: Missing letters.] - -Harrisse also tells us of the unsuccessful search which he has made for -an alleged letter of Columbus, said in Gunther and Schultz's handbook of -autographs (Leipzig, 1856) to have been bought in England by the Duke of -Buckingham; and it was learned from Tross, the Paris bookseller, that -about 1850 some autograph letters of Columbus, seen by him, were sent to -England for sale. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's maps.] - -After his return from his first voyage, Columbus prepared a map and an -accompanying table of longitudes and latitudes for the new discoveries. -They are known to have been the subject of correspondence between him -and the queen. - -There are various other references to maps which Columbus had -constructed, to embody his views or show his discoveries. Not one, -certainly to be attributed to him, is known, though Ojeda, Niño, and -others are recorded as having used, in their explorations, maps made by -Columbus. Peter Martyr's language does not indicate that Columbus ever -completed any chart, though he had, with the help of his brother -Bartholomew, begun one. The map in the Ptolemy of 1513 is said by -Santarem to have been drawn by Columbus, or to have been based on his -memoranda, but the explanation on the map seems rather to imply that -information derived from an admiral in the service of Portugal was used -in correcting it, and since Harrisse has brought to light what is -usually called the Cantino map, there is strong ground for supposing -that the two had one prototype. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Italian notarial records.] - -Let us pass from records by Columbus to those about him. We owe to an -ancient custom of Italy that so much has been preserved, to throw in the -aggregate no small amount of light on the domestic life of the family in -which Columbus was the oldest born. During the fourteen years in which -his father lived at Savona, every little business act and legal -transaction was attested before notaries, whose records have been -preserved filed in _filzas_ in the archives of the town. - -These _filzas_ were simply a file of documents tied together by a string -passed through each, and a _filza_ generally embraced a year's -accumulation. The photographic facsimile which Harrisse gives in his -_Columbus and the Bank of Saint George_, of the letter of Columbus -preserved by the bank, shows how the sheet was folded once lengthwise, -and then the hole was made midway in each fold. - -We learn in this way that, as early as 1470 and later, Columbus stood -security for his father. We find him in 1472 the witness of another's -will. As under the Justinian procedure the notary's declaration -sufficed, such documents in Italy are not rendered additionally -interesting by the autograph of the witness, as they would be in -England. This notarial resource is no new discovery. As early as 1602, -thirteen documents drawn from similar depositaries were printed at -Genoa, in some annotations by Giulio Salinerio upon Cornelius Tacitus. -Other similar papers were discovered by the archivists of Savona, Gian -Tommaso and Giambattista Belloro, in 1810 (reprinted, 1821) and 1839 -respectively, and proving the general correctness of the earlier -accounts of Columbus's younger days given in Gallo, Senarega, and -Giustiniani. It is to be regretted that the original entries of some of -these notarial acts are not now to be found, but patient search may yet -discover them, and even do something more to elucidate the life of the -Columbus family in Savona. - -[Sidenote: Savona.] - -There has been brought into prominence and published lately a memoir of -the illustrious natives of Savona, written by a lawyer, Giovanni -Vincenzo Verzellino, who died in that town in 1638. This document was -printed at Savona in 1885, under the editorial care of Andrea Astengo; -but Harrisse has given greater currency to its elucidations for our -purpose in his _Christophe Colomb et Savone_ (Genoa, 1877). - -[Sidenote: Genoa notarial records.] - -Harrisse is not unwisely confident that the nineteen documents--if no -more have been added--throwing light on minor points of the obscure -parts of the life of Columbus and his kindred, which during recent years -have been discovered in the notarial files of Genoa by the Marquis -Marcello Staglieno, may be only the precursors of others yet to be -unearthed, and that the pages of the _Giornale Ligustico_ may continue -to record such discoveries as it has in the past. - -[Sidenote: Records of the Bank of St. George.] - -The records of the Bank of Saint George in Genoa have yielded something, -but not much. In the state archives of Genoa, preserved since 1817 in -the Palazzetto, we might hope to find some report of the great -discovery, of which the Genoese ambassadors, Francesco Marchesio and -Gian Antonio Grimaldi, were informed, just as they were taking leave of -Ferdinand and Isabella for returning to Italy; but nothing of that kind -has yet been brought to light there; nor was it ever there, unless the -account which Senarega gives in the narrative printed in Muratori was -borrowed thence. We may hope, but probably in vain, to have these public -archives determine if Columbus really offered to serve his native -country in a voyage of discovery. The inquirer is more fortunate if he -explores what there is left of the archives of the old abbey of St. -Stephen, which, since the suppression of the convents in 1797, have been -a part of the public papers, for he can find in them some help in -solving some pertinent questions. - -[Sidenote: Vatican archives.] - -[Sidenote: Hidden manuscripts.] - -[Sidenote: Letters about Columbus.] - -Harrisse tells us in 1887 that he had been waiting two years for -permission to search the archives of the Vatican. What may yet be -revealed in that repository, the world waits anxiously to learn. It may -be that some one shall yet discover there the communication in which -Ferdinand and Isabella announced to the Pope the consummation of the -hopes of Columbus. It may be that the diplomatic correspondence covering -the claims of Spain by virtue of the discovery of Columbus, and leading -to the bull of demarcation of May, 1493, may yet be found, accompanied -by maps, of the highest interest in interpreting the relations of the -new geography. There is no assurance that the end of manuscript -disclosures has yet come. Some new bit of documentary proof has been -found at times in places quite unexpected. The number of Italian -observers in those days of maritime excitement living in the seaports -and trading places of Spain and Portugal, kept their home friends alert -in expectation by reason of such appetizing news. Such are the letters -sent to Italy by Hanibal Januarius, and by Luca, the Florentine -engineer, concerning the first voyage. There are similar transient -summaries of the second voyage. Some have been found in the papers of -Macchiavelli, and others had been arranged by Zorzi for a new edition of -his documentary collection. These have all been recovered of recent -years, and Harrisse himself, Gargiolli, Guerrini, and others, have been -instrumental in their publication. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Spanish archives.] - -[Sidenote: Simancas and Seville.] - -[Sidenote: Simancas.] - -It was thirty-seven years after the death of Columbus before, under an -order of Charles the Fifth, February 19, 1543, the archives of Spain -were placed in some sort of order and security at Simancas. The great -masses of papers filed by the crown secretaries and the Councils of the -Indies and of Seville, were gradually gathered there, but not until many -had been lost. Others apparently disappeared at a later day, for we are -now aware that many to which Herrera refers cannot be found. New efforts -to secure the preservation and systematize the accumulation of -manuscripts were made by order of Philip the Second in 1567, but it -would seem without all the success that might have been desired. Towards -the end of the last century, it was the wish of Charles the Third that -all the public papers relating to the New World should be selected from -Simancas and all other places of deposit and carried to Seville. The act -was accomplished in 1788, when they were placed in a new building which -had been provided for them. Thus it is that to-day the student of -Columbus must rather search Seville than Simancas for new documents, -though a few papers of some interest in connection with the contests of -his heirs with the crown of Castile may still exist at Simancas. Thirty -years ago, if not now, as Bergenroth tells us, there was little comfort -for the student of history in working at Simancas. The papers are -preserved in an old castle, formerly belonging to the admirals of -Castile, which had been confiscated and devoted to the uses of such a -repository. The one large room which was assigned for the accommodation -of readers had a northern aspect, and as no fires were allowed, the -note-taker found not infrequently in winter the ink partially congealed -in his pen. There was no imaginable warmth even in the landscape as seen -from the windows, since, amid a treeless waste, the whistle of cold -blasts in winter and a blinding African heat in summer characterize the -climate of this part of Old Castile. - -Of the early career of Columbus, it is very certain that something may -be gained at Simancas, for when Bergenroth, sent by the English -government, made search there to illustrate the relations of Spain with -England, and published his results, with the assistance of Gayangos, in -1862-1879, as a _Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers -relating to Negotiations between England and Spain_, one of the earliest -entries of his first printed volume, under 1485, was a complaint of -Ferdinand and Isabella against a Columbus--some have supposed it our -Christopher--for his participancy in the piratical service of the -French. - -[Illustration: ARCHIVO DE SIMANCAS. - -[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's _España_.]] - -[Sidenote: Seville.] - -Harrisse complains that we have as yet but scant knowledge of what the -archives of the Indies at Seville may contain, but they probably throw -light rather upon the successors of Columbus than upon the career of the -Admiral himself. - -[Sidenote: Seville notarial records.] - -The notarial archives of Seville are of recent construction, the -gathering of scattered material having been first ordered so late as -1869. The partial examination which has since been made of them has -revealed some slight evidences of the life of some of Columbus's -kindred, and it is quite possible some future inquirer will be rewarded -for his diligent search among them. - -It is also not unlikely that something of interest may be brought to -light respecting the descendants of Columbus who have lived in Seville, -like the Counts of Gelves; but little can be expected regarding the life -of the Admiral himself. - -[Sidenote: Santa Maria de las Cuevas.] - -The personal fame of Columbus is much more intimately connected with the -monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas. Here his remains were -transported in 1509; and at a later time, his brother and son, each -Diego by name, were laid beside him, as was his grandson Luis. Here in -an iron chest the family muniments and jewels were kept, as has been -said. It is affirmed that all the documents which might have grown out -of these transactions of duty and precaution, and which might -incidentally have yielded some biographical information, are nowhere to -be found in the records of the monastery. A century ago or so, when -Muñoz was working in these records, there seems to have been enough to -repay his exertions, as we know by his citations made between 1781 and -1792. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Portuguese archives. Torre do Tombo.] - -The national archives of the Torre do Tombo, at Lisbon, begun so far -back as 1390, are well known to have been explored by Santarem, then -their keeper, primarily for traces of the career of Vespucius; but so -intelligent an antiquary could not have forgotten, as a secondary aim, -the acts of Columbus. The search yielded him, however, nothing in this -last direction; nor was Varnhagen more fortunate. Harrisse had hopes to -discover there the correspondence of Columbus with John the Second, in -1488; but the search was futile in this respect, though it yielded not -a little respecting the Perestrello family, out of which Columbus took -his wife, the mother of the heir of his titles. There is even hope that -the notarial acts of Lisbon might serve a similar purpose to those which -have been so fruitful in Genoa and Savona. There are documents of great -interest which may be yet obscurely hidden away, somewhere in Portugal, -like the letter from the mouth of the Tagus, which Columbus on his -return in March, 1493, addressed to the Portuguese king, and the -diplomatic correspondence of John the Second and Ferdinand of Aragon, -which the project of a second voyage occasioned, as well as the -preliminaries of the treaty of Tordesillas. - -[Sidenote: Santo Domingo archives.] - -[Sidenote: Lawsuit papers.] - -There may be yet some hope from the archives of Santo Domingo itself, -and from those of its Cathedral, to trace in some of their lines the -descendants of the Admiral through his son Diego. The mishaps of nature -and war have, however, much impaired the records. Of Columbus himself -there is scarce a chance to learn anything here. The papers of the -famous lawsuit of Diego Colon with the crown seem to have escaped the -attention of all the historians before the time of Muñoz and Navarrete. -The direct line of male descendants of the Admiral ended in 1578, when -his great-grandson, Diego Colon y Pravia, died on the 27th January, a -childless man. Then began another contest for the heritage and titles, -and it lasted for thirty years, till in 1608 the Council of the Indies -judged the rights to descend by a turn back to Diego's aunt Isabel, and -thence to her grandson, Nuño de Portugallo, Count of Gelves. The -excluded heirs, represented by the children of a sister of Diego, -Francisca, who had married Diego Ortegon, were naturally not content; -and out of the contest which followed we get a large mass of printed -statements and counter statements, which used with caution, offer a -study perhaps of some of the transmitted traits of Columbus. Harrisse -names and describes nineteen of these documentary memorials, the last of -which bears date in 1792. The most important of them all, however, is -one printed at Madrid in 1606, known as _Memorial del Pleyto_, in which -we find the descent of the true and spurious lines, and learn something -too much of the scandalous life of Luis, the grandson of the Admiral, to -say nothing of the illegitimate taints of various other branches. -Harrisse finds assistance in working out some of the lines of the -Admiral's descendants, in Antonio Caetano de Sousa's _Historia -Genealogica da Casa Real Portugueza_ (Lisbon, 1735-49, in 14 vols.). - -[Sidenote: The Muñoz collection.] - -The most important collection of documents gathered by individual -efforts in Spain, to illustrate the early history of the New World, was -that made by Juan Bautista Muñoz, in pursuance of royal orders issued to -him in 1781 and 1788, to examine all Spanish archives, for the purpose -of collecting material for a comprehensive History of the Indies. Muñoz -has given in the introduction of his history a clear statement of the -condition of the different depositories of archives in Spain, as he -found them towards the end of the last century, when a royal order -opened them all to his search. A first volume of Muñoz's elaborate and -judicious work was issued in 1793, and Muñoz died in 1799, without -venturing on a second volume to carry the story beyond 1500, where he -had left it. He was attacked for his views, and there was more or less -of a pamphlet war over the book before death took him from the strife; -but he left a fragment of the second volume in manuscript, and of this -there is a copy in the Lenox Library in New York. Another copy was sold -in the Brinley sale. The Muñoz collection of copies came in part, at -least, at some time after the collector's death into the hands of -Antonio de Uguina, who placed them at the disposal of Irving; and -Ternaux seems also to have used them. They were finally deposited by the -Spanish government in the Academy of History at Madrid. Here Alfred -Demersey saw them in 1862-63, and described them in the _Bulletin_ of -the French Geographical Society in June, 1864, and it is on this -description as well as on one in Fuster's _Biblioteca Valenciana_, that -Harrisse depends, not having himself examined the documents. - -[Sidenote: The Navarrete collection.] - -Martin Fernandez de Navarrete was guided in his career as a collector of -documents, when Charles the Fourth made an order, October 15, 1789, that -there should be such a work begun to constitute the nucleus of a library -and museum. The troublous times which succeeded interrupted the work, -and it was not till 1825 that Navarrete brought out the first volume of -his _Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los -Españoles desde_ _Fines del Siglo XV._, a publication which a fifth -volume completed in 1837, when he was over seventy years of age. - -Any life of Columbus written from documentary sources must reflect much -light from this collection of Navarrete, of which the first two volumes -are entirely given to the career of the Admiral, and indeed bear the -distinctive title of _Relaciones, Cartas y otros Documentos_, relating -to him. - -[Sidenote: The researches of Navarrete.] - -Navarrete was engaged thirty years on his work in the archives of Spain, -and was aided part of the time by Muñoz the historian, and by Gonzales -the keeper of the archives at Simancas. His researches extended to all -the public repositories, and to such private ones as could be thought to -illustrate the period of discovery. Navarrete has told the story of his -searches in the various archives of Spain, in the introduction to his -_Coleccion_, and how it was while searching for the evidences of the -alleged voyage of Maldonado on the Pacific coast of North America, in -1588, that he stumbled upon Las Casas's copies of the relations of -Columbus, for his first and third voyages, then hid away in the archives -of the Duc del Infantado; and he was happy to have first brought them to -the attention of Muñoz. - -There are some advantages for the student in the use of the French -edition of Navarrete's _Relations des Quatre Voyages entrepris par -Colomb_, since the version was revised by Navarrete himself, and it is -elucidated, not so much as one would wish, with notes by Rémusat, Balbi, -Cuvier, Jomard, Letronne, St. Martin, Walckenaer, and others. It was -published at Paris in three volumes in 1828. The work contains -Navarrete's accounts of Spanish pre-Columbian voyages, of the later -literature on Columbus, and of the voyages of discovery made by other -efforts of the Spaniards, beside the documentary material respecting -Columbus and his voyages, the result of his continued labors. Caleb -Cushing, in his _Reminiscences of Spain_ in 1833, while commending the -general purposes of Navarrete, complains of his attempts to divert the -indignation of posterity from the selfish conduct of Ferdinand, and to -vindicate him from the charge of injustice towards Columbus. This plea -does not find to-day the same sympathy in students that it did sixty -years ago. - -[Sidenote: Madrid Academy of History.] - -Father Antonio de Aspa of the monastery of the Mejorada, formed a -collection of documents relating to the discovery of the New World, and -it was in this collection, now preserved in the Academy of History at -Madrid, that Navarrete discovered that curious narration of the second -voyage of Columbus by Dr. Chanca, which had been sent to the chapter of -the Cathedral, and which Navarrete included in his collection. It is -thought that Bernaldez had used this Chanca narrative in his _Reyes -Católicos_. - -[Sidenote: _Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos._] - -Navarrete's name is also connected, as one of its editors, with the -extensive _Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de España_, -the publication of which was begun in Madrid in 1847, two years before -Navarrete's death. This collection yields something in elucidation of -the story to be here told; but not much, except that in it, at a late -day, the _Historia_ of Las Casas was first printed. - -In 1864, there was still another series begun at Madrid, _Coleccion de -Documentos Ineditos relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y -Colonizacion de las Posesiones Españolas en América y Oceania_, under -the editing of Joaquin Pacheco and Francisco de Cárdenas, who have not -always satisfied students by the way in which they have done their work. -Beyond the papers which Navarrete had earlier given, and which are here -reprinted, there is not much in this collection to repay the student of -Columbus, except some long accounts of the Repartimiento in Española. - -[Sidenote: Cartas de Indias.] - -The latest documentary contribution is the large folio, with an appendix -of facsimile writings of Columbus, Vespucius, and others, published at -Madrid in 1877, by the government, and called _Cartas de Indias_, in -which it has been hinted some use has been made of the matter -accumulated by Navarrete for additional volumes of his _Coleccion_. - -[Illustration: PART OF A PAGE IN THE GIUSTINIANI PSALTER, SHOWING THE -BEGINNING OF THE EARLIEST PRINTED LIFE OF COLUMBUS. - -[From the copy in Harvard College Library.]] - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -BIOGRAPHERS AND PORTRAITISTS. - - -[Sidenote: Contemporary notices.] - -[Sidenote: Giustiniani.] - -We may most readily divide by the nationalities of the writers our -enumeration of those who have used the material which has been -considered in the previous chapter. We begin, naturally, with the -Italians, the countrymen of Columbus. We may look first to three -Genoese, and it has been shown that while they used documents apparently -now lost, they took nothing from them which we cannot get from other -sources; and they all borrowed from common originals, or from each -other. Two of these writers are Antonio Gallo, the official chronicler -of the Genoese Republic, on the first and second voyages of Columbus, -and so presumably writing before the third was made, and Bartholomew -Senarega on the affairs of Genoa, both of which recitals were published -by Muratori, in his great Italian collection. The third is Giustiniani, -the Bishop of Nebbio, who, publishing in 1516, at Genoa, a polyglot -Psalter, added, as one of his elucidations of the nineteenth psalm, on -the plea that Columbus had often boasted he was chosen to fulfill its -prophecy, a brief life of Columbus, in which the story of the humble -origin of the navigator has in the past been supposed to have first been -told. The other accounts, it now appears, had given that condition an -equal prominence. Giustiniani was but a child when Columbus left Genoa, -and could not have known him; and taking, very likely, much from -hearsay, he might have made some errors, which were repeated or only -partly corrected in his Annals of Genoa, published in 1537, the year -following his own death. It is not found, however, that the sketch is in -any essential particular far from correct, and it has been confirmed by -recent investigations. The English of it is given in Harrisse's _Notes -on Columbus_ (pp. 74-79). The statements of the Psalter respecting -Columbus were reckoned with other things so false that the Senate of -Genoa prohibited its perusal and allowed no one to possess it,--at least -so it is claimed in the _Historie_ of 1571; but no one has ever found -such a decree, nor is it mentioned by any who would have been likely to -revert to it, had it ever existed. - -[Sidenote: Bergomas.] - -The account in the _Collectanea_ of Battista Fulgoso (sometimes written -Fregoso), printed at Milan in 1509, is of scarcely any original value, -though of interest as the work of another Genoese. Allegetto degli -Allegetti, whose _Ephemerides_ is also published in Muratori, deserves -scarcely more credit, though he seems to have got his information from -the letters of Italian merchants living in Spain, who communicated -current news to their home correspondents. Bergomas, who had published a -chronicle as early as 1483, made additions to his work from time to -time, and in an edition printed at Venice, in 1503, he paraphrased -Columbus's own account of his first voyage, which was reprinted in the -subsequent edition of 1506. In this latter year Maffei de Volterra -published a commentary at Rome, of much the same importance. Such was -the filtering process by which Italy, through her own writers, acquired -contemporary knowledge of her adventurous son. - -The method was scarcely improved in the condensation of Jovius (1551), -or in the traveler's tales of Benzoni (1565). - -[Sidenote: Casoni, 1708.] - -[Sidenote: Bossi.] - -Harrisse affirms that it is not till we come down to the Annals of -Genoa, published by Filippo Casoni, in 1708, that we get any new -material in an Italian writer, and on a few points this last writer has -adduced documentary evidence, not earlier made known. It is only when we -pass into the present century that we find any of the countrymen of -Columbus undertaking in a sustained way to tell the whole story of -Columbus's life. Léon had noted that at some time in Spain, without -giving place and date, Columbus had printed a little tract, _Declaration -de Tabla Navigatoria_; but no one before Luigi Bossi had undertaken to -investigate the writings of Columbus. He is precursor of all the modern -biographers of Columbus, and his book was published at Milan, in 1818. -He claimed in his appendix to have added rare and unpublished documents, -but Harrisse points out how they had all been printed earlier. - -Bossi expresses opinions respecting the Spanish nation that are by no -means acceptable to that people, and Navarrete not infrequently takes -the Italian writer to task for this as for his many errors of statement, -and for the confidence which he places even in the pictorial designs of -De Bry as historical records. - -There is nothing more striking in the history of American discovery than -the fact that the Italian people furnished to Spain Columbus, to England -Cabot, and to France Verrazano; and that the three leading powers of -Europe, following as maritime explorers in the lead of Portugal, who -could not dispense with Vespucius, another Italian, pushed their rights -through men whom they had borrowed from the central region of the -Mediterranean, while Italy in its own name never possessed a rood of -American soil. The adopted country of each of these Italians gave more -or less of its own impress to its foster child. No one of these men was -so impressible as Columbus, and no country so much as Spain was likely -at this time to exercise an influence on the character of an alien. -Humboldt has remarked that Columbus got his theological fervor in -Andalusia and Granada, and we can scarcely imagine Columbus in the garb -of a Franciscan walking the streets of free and commercial Genoa as he -did those of Seville, when he returned from his second voyage. - -The latest of the considerable popular Italian lives of Columbus is G. -B. Lemoyne's _Colombo e la Scoperta dell' America_, issued at Turin, in -1873. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Portuguese writers.] - -We may pass now to the historians of that country to which Columbus -betook himself on leaving Italy; but about all to be found at first hand -is in the chronicle of João II. of Portugal, as prepared by Ruy de Pina, -the archivist of the Torre do Tombo. At the time of the voyage of -Columbus Ruy was over fifty, while Garcia de Resende was a young man -then living at the Portuguese court, who in his _Choronica_, published -in 1596, did little more than borrow from his elder, Ruy; and Resende in -turn furnished to João de Barros the staple of the latter's narrative in -his _Decada da Asia_, printed at Lisbon, in 1752. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Spanish writers.] - -[Sidenote: Peter Martyr.] - -We find more of value when we summon the Spanish writers. Although Peter -Martyr d'Anghiera was an Italian, Muñoz reckons him a Spaniard, since he -was naturalized in Spain. He was a man of thirty years, when, coming -from Rome, he settled in Spain, a few years before Columbus attracted -much notice. Martyr had been borne thither on a reputation of his own, -which had commended his busy young nature to the attention of the -Spanish court. He took orders and entered upon a prosperous career, -proceeding by steps, which successively made him the chaplain of Queen -Isabella, a prior of the Cathedral of Granada, and ultimately the -official chronicler of the Indies. Very soon after his arrival in Spain, -he had disclosed a quick eye for the changeful life about him, and he -began in 1488 the writing of those letters which, to the number of over -eight hundred, exist to attest his active interest in the events of his -day. These events he continued to observe till 1525. We have no more -vivid source of the contemporary history, particularly as it concerned -the maritime enterprise of the peninsular peoples. He wrote fluently, -and, as he tells us, sometimes while waiting for dinner, and necessarily -with haste. He jotted down first and unconfirmed reports, and let them -stand. He got news by hearsay, and confounded events. He had candor and -sincerity enough, however, not to prize his own works above their true -value. He knew Columbus, and, his letters readily reflect what interest -there was in the exploits of Columbus, immediately on his return from -his first voyage; but the earlier preparations of the navigator for that -voyage, with the problematical characteristics of the undertaking, do -not seem to have made any impression upon Peter Martyr, and it is not -till May of 1493, when the discovery had been made, and later in -September, that he chronicles the divulged existence of the newly -discovered islands. The three letters in which this wonderful -intelligence was first communicated are printed by Harrisse in English, -in his _Notes on Columbus_. Las Casas tells us how Peter Martyr got his -accounts of the first discoveries directly from the lips of Columbus -himself and from those who accompanied him; but he does not fail to tell -us also of the dangers of too implicitly trusting to all that Peter -says. From May 14, 1493, to June 5, 1497, in twelve separate letters, we -read what this observer has to say of the great navigator who had -suddenly and temporarily stepped into the glare of notice. These and -other letters of Peter Martyr have not escaped some serious criticism. -There are contradictions and anachronisms in them that have forcibly -helped Ranke, Hallam, Gerigk, and others to count the text which we have -as more or less changed from what must have been the text, if honestly -written by Martyr. They have imagined that some editor, willful or -careless, has thrown this luckless accompaniment upon them. The letters, -however, claimed the confidence of Prescott, and have, as regards the -parts touching the new discoveries, seldom failed to impress with their -importance those who have used them. It is the opinion of the last -examiner of them, J. H. Mariéjol, in his _Peter Martyr d'Anghera_ -(Paris, 1887), that to read them attentively is the best refutation of -the skeptics. Martyr ceased to refer to the affairs of the New World -after 1499, and those of his earlier letters which illustrate the early -voyage have appeared in a French version, made by Gaffarel and Louvot -(Paris, 1885). - -The representations of Columbus easily convinced Martyr that there -opened a subject worthy of his pen, and he set about composing a special -treatise on the discoveries in the New World, and, under the title of -_De Orbe Novo_, it occupied his attention from October, 1494, to the day -of his death. For the earlier years he had, if we may believe him, not a -little help from Columbus himself; and it would seem from his one -hundred and thirty-five epistles that he was not altogether prepared to -go with Columbus, in accounting the new islands as lying off the coast -of Asia. He is particularly valuable to us in treating of Columbus's -conflicts with the natives of Española, and Las Casas found him as -helpful as we do. - -These _Decades_, as the treatise is usually called, formed enlarged -bulletins, which, in several copies, were transmitted by him to some of -his noble friends in Italy, to keep them conversant with the passing -events. - -[Sidenote: Trivigiano.] - -A certain Angelo Trivigiano, into whose hands a copy of some of the -early sections fell, translated them into easy, not to say vulgar, -Italian, and sent them to Venice, in four different copies, a few months -after they were written; and in this way the first seven books of the -first decade fell into the hands of a Venetian printer, who, in April, -1504, brought out a little book of sixteen leaves in the dialect of that -region, known in bibliography as the _Libretto de Tutta la Navigation -de Re de Spagna de le Isole et Terreni novamente trovati_. This -publication is known to us in a single copy lacking a title, in the -Biblioteca Marciana. Here we have the first account of the new -discoveries, written upon report, and supplementing the narrative of -Columbus himself. We also find in this little narrative some personal -details about Columbus, not contained in the same portions when embodied -in the larger _De Orbe Novo_ of Martyr, and it may be a question if -somebody who acted as editor to the Venetian version may not have added -them to the translation. The story of the new discoveries attracted -enough notice to make Zorzi or Montalboddo--if one or the other were its -editor--include this Venetian version of Martyr bodily in the collection -of voyages which, as _Paesi novamente retrovati_, was published at -Vicentia somewhere about November, 1507. It is, perhaps, a measure of -the interest felt in the undertakings of Columbus, not easily understood -at this day, that it took fourteen years for a scant recital of such -events to work themselves into the context of so composite a record of -discovery as the _Paesi_ proved to be; and still more remarkable it may -be accounted that the story could be told with but few actual references -to the hero of the transactions, "Columbus, the Genoese." It is not only -the compiler who is so reticent, but it is the author whence he borrowed -what he had to say, Martyr himself, the observer and acquaintance of -Columbus, who buries the discoverer under the event. With such an -augury, it is not so strange that at about the same time in the little -town of St. Dié, in the Vosges, a sequestered teacher could suggest a -name derived from that of a follower of Columbus, Americus Vespucius, -for that part of the new lands then brought into prominence. If the -documentary proofs of Columbus's priority had given to the Admiral's -name the same prominence which the event received, the result might not, -in the end, have been so discouraging to justice. - -Martyr, unfortunately, with all his advantages, and with his access to -the archives of the Indies, did not burden his recital with documents. -He was even less observant of the lighter traits that interest those -eager for news than might have been expected, for the busy chaplain was -a gossip by nature: he liked to retail hearsays and rumors; he enlivened -his letters with personal characteristics; but in speaking of Columbus -he is singularly reticent upon all that might picture the man to us as -he lived. - -[Sidenote: Oviedo.] - -[Sidenote: Ramusio.] - -When, in 1534, these portions of Martyr's _Decades_ were combined with a -summary of Oviedo, in a fresh publication, there were some curious -personal details added to Martyr's narrative; but as Ramusio is supposed -to have edited the compilation, these particulars are usually accredited -to that author. It is not known whence this Italian compiler could have -got them, and there is no confirmation of them elsewhere to be found. If -these additions, as is supposed, were a foreign graft upon Martyr's -recitals, the staple of his narrative still remains not altogether free -from some suspicions that, as a writer himself, he was not wholly frank -and trustworthy. At least a certain confusion in his method leads some -of the critics to discover something like imposture in what they charge -as a habit of antedating a letter so as to appear prophetic; while his -defenders find in these same evidences of incongruity a sign of -spontaneity that argues freshness and sincerity. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Bernaldez.] - -The confidence which we may readily place in what is said of Columbus in -the chronicle of Ferdinand and Isabella, written by Andrès Bernaldez, is -prompted by his acquaintance with Columbus, and by his being the -recipient of some of the navigator's own writings from his own hands. He -is also known to have had access to what Chanca and other companions of -Columbus had written. This country curate, who lived in the neighborhood -of Seville, was also the chaplain of the Archbishop of Seville, a -personal friend of the Admiral, and from him Bernaldez received some -help. He does not add much, however, to what is given us by Peter -Martyr, though in respect to the second voyage and to a few personal -details Bernaldez is of some confirmatory value. The manuscript of his -narrative remained unprinted in the royal library at Madrid till about -thirty-five years ago; but nearly all the leading writers have made use -of it in copies which have been furnished. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Oviedo.] - -In coming to Oviedo, we encounter a chronicler who, as a writer, -possesses an art far from skillful. Muñoz laments that his learning was -not equal to his diligence. He finds him of little service for the times -of Columbus, and largely because he was neglectful of documents and -pursued uncritical combinations of tales and truths. With all his -vagaries he is a helpful guide. "It is not," says Harrisse, "that Oviedo -shows so much critical sagacity, as it is that he collates all the -sources available to him, and gives the reader the clues to a final -judgment." He is generally deemed honest, though Las Casas thought him -otherwise. The author of the _Historie_ looks upon him as an enemy of -Columbus, and would make it appear that he listened to the tales of the -Pinzons, who were enemies of the Admiral. His administrative services in -the Indies show that he could be faithful to a trust, even at the risk -of popularity. This gives a presumption in favor of his historic -fairness. He was intelligent if not learned, and a power of happy -judgments served him in good stead, even with a somewhat loose method of -taking things as he heard them. He further inspires us with a certain -amount of confidence, because he is not always a hero-worshiper, and he -does not hesitate to tell a story, which seems to have been in -circulation, to the effect that Columbus got his geographical ideas from -an old pilot. Oviedo, however, refrains from setting the tale down as a -fact, as some of the later writers, using little of Oviedo's caution, -and borrowing from him, did. His opportunities of knowing the truth were -certainly exceptional, though it does not appear that he ever had direct -communication with the Admiral himself. He was but a lad of fifteen when -we find him jotting down notes of what he saw and heard, as a page in -attendance upon Don Juan, the son of the Spanish sovereigns, when, at -Barcelona, he saw them receive Columbus after his first voyage. During -five years, between 1497 and 1502, he was in Italy. With that exception -he was living within the Spanish court up to 1514, when he was sent to -the New World, and passed there the greater part of his remaining life. -While he had been at court in his earlier years, the sons of Columbus, -Diego and Ferdinand, were his companions in the pages' anteroom, and he -could hardly have failed to profit by their acquaintance. We know that -from the younger son he did derive not a little information. When he -went to America, some of Columbus's companions and followers were still -living,--Pinzon, Ponce de Leon, and Diego Velasquez,--and all these -could hardly have failed to help him in his note-taking. He also tells -us that he sought some of the Italian compatriots of the Admiral, though -Harrisse judges that what he got from them was not altogether -trustworthy. Oviedo rose naturally in due time into the position of -chronicler of the Indies, and tried his skill at first in a descriptive -account of the New World. A command of Charles the Fifth, with all the -facilities which such an order implied, though doubtless in some degree -embarrassed by many of the documentary proofs being preserved rather in -Spain than in the Indies, finally set him to work on a _Historia General -de las Indias_, the opening portions of which, and those covering the -career of Columbus, were printed at Seville in 1535. It is the work of a -consistent though not blinded admirer of the Discoverer, and while we -might wish he had helped us to more of the proofs of his narrative, his -recital is, on the whole, one to be signally grateful for. - -Gomara, in the early part of his history, mixed up what he took from -Oviedo with what else came in his way, with an avidity that rejected -little. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: _Historie_ ascribed to Ferdinand Columbus.] - -But it is to a biography of Columbus, written by his youngest son, -Ferdinand, as was universally believed up to 1871, that all the -historians of the Admiral have been mainly indebted for the personal -details and other circumstances which lend vividness to his story. As -the book has to-day a good many able defenders, notwithstanding the -discredit which Harrisse has sought to place upon it, it is worth while -to trace the devious paths of its transmission, and to measure the -burden of confidence placed upon it from the days of Ferdinand to our -own. - -The rumor goes that some of the statements in the Psalter note of 1516, -particularly one respecting the low origin of the Admiral, disturbed the -pride of Ferdinand to such a degree that this son of Columbus undertook -to leave behind him a detailed account of his father's career, such as -the Admiral, though urged to do it, had never found time to write. -Ferdinand was his youngest son, and was born only three or four years -before his father left Palos. There are two dates given for his birth, -each apparently on good authority, but these are a year apart. - -[Sidenote: Career of Ferdinand Columbus.] - -The language of Columbus's will, as well as the explicit statements of -Oviedo and Las Casas, leaves no reasonable ground for doubting his -illegitimacy. Bastardy was no bar to heirship in Spain, if a testator -chose to make a natural son his heir, as Columbus did, in giving -Ferdinand the right to his titles after the failure of heirs to Diego, -his legitimate son. Columbus's influence early found him a place as a -page at court, and during the Admiral's fourth voyage, in 1502-1504, the -boy accompanied his father, and once or twice at a later day he again -visited the Indies. When Columbus died, this son inherited many of his -papers; but if his own avowal be believed, he had neglected occasions in -his father's lifetime to question the Admiral respecting his early life, -not having, as he says, at that time learned to have interest in such -matters. His subsequent education at court, however, implanted in his -mind a good deal of the scholar's taste, and as a courtier in attendance -upon Charles the Fifth he had seasons of travel, visiting pretty much -every part of Western Europe, during which he had opportunities to pick -up in many places a large collection of books. He often noted in them -the place and date of purchase, so that it is not difficult to learn in -this way something of his wanderings. - -The income of Ferdinand was large, or the equivalent of what Harrisse -calls to-day 180,000 francs, which was derived from territorial rights -in San Domingo, coming to him from the Admiral, increased by slave labor -in the mines, assigned to him by King Ferdinand, which at one time -included the service of four hundred Indians, and enlarged by pensions -bestowed by Charles the Fifth. - -It has been said sometimes that he was in orders; but Harrisse, his -chief biographer, could find no proof of it. Oviedo describes him in -1535 as a person of "much nobility of character, of an affable turn and -of a sweet conversation." - -[Sidenote: Biblioteca Colombina.] - -When he died at Seville, July 12, 1539, he had amassed a collection of -books, variously estimated in contemporary accounts at from twelve to -twenty thousand volumes. Harrisse, in his _Grandeur et Décadence de la -Colombine_ (2d ed., Paris, 1885), represents Ferdinand as having -searched from 1510 to 1537 all the principal book marts of Europe. He -left these books by will to his minor nephew, Luis Colon, son of Diego, -but there was a considerable delay before Luis renounced the legacy, -with the conditions attached. Legal proceedings, which accompanied the -transactions of its executors, so delayed the consummation of the -alternative injunction of the will that the chapter of the Cathedral of -Seville, which, was to receive the library in case Don Luis declined it, -did not get possession of it till 1552. - -The care of it which ensued seems to have been of a varied nature. Forty -years later a scholar bitterly complains that it was inaccessible. It is -known that by royal command certain books and papers were given up to -enrich the national archives, which, however, no longer contain them. -When, in 1684, the monks awoke to a sense of their responsibility and -had a new inventory of the books made, it was found that the collection -had been reduced to four or five thousand volumes. After the librarian -who then had charge of it died in 1709, the collection again fell into -neglect. There are sad stories of roistering children let loose in its -halls to make havoc of its treasures. There was no responsible care -again taken of it till a new librarian was chosen, in 1832, who -discovered what any one might have learned before, that the money which -Ferdinand left for the care and increase of the library had never been -applied to it, and that the principal, even, had disappeared. Other -means of increasing it were availed of, and the loss of the original -inestimable bibliographical treasures was forgotten in the crowd of -modern books which were placed upon its shelves. Amid all this new -growth, it does not appear just how many of the books which descended -from Ferdinand still remain in it. Something of the old carelessness--to -give it no worse name--has despoiled it, even as late as 1884 and 1885, -when large numbers of the priceless treasures still remaining found a -way to the Quay Voltaire and other marts for old books in Paris, while -others were disposed of in London, Amsterdam, and even in Spain. This -outrage was promptly exposed by Harrisse in the _Revue Critique_, and in -two monographs, _Grandeur et Décadence_, etc., already named, and in his -_Colombine et Clément Marot_ (Paris, 1886); and the story has been -further recapitulated in the accounts of Ferdinand and his library, -which Harrisse has also given in his _Excerpta Colombiana: Bibliographie -de Quatre Cents Pièces Gothiques_ _Francaises, Italiennes et Latines du -Commencement du XVI Siecle_ (Paris, 1887), an account of book rarities -found in that library. - -[Illustration: SPECIMENS OF THE NOTES OF FERDINAND COLUMBUS ON HIS -BOOKS. - -[From Harrisse's _Grandeur el Décadence de la Colombine_ (Paris, -1885).]] - -[Sidenote: Perez de Oliva.] - -We are fortunate, nevertheless, in having a manuscript catalogue of it -in Ferdinand's own hand, though not a complete one, for he died while he -was making it. This library, as well as what we know of his writings and -of the reputation which he bore among his contemporaries, many of whom -speak of him and of his library with approbation, shows us that a habit, -careless of inquiry in his boyhood, gave place in his riper years to -study and respect for learning. He is said by the inscription on his -tomb to have composed an extensive work on the New World and his -father's finding of it, but it has disappeared. Neither in his library -nor in his catalogue do we find any trace of the life of his father -which he is credited with having prepared. None of his friends, some of -them writers on the New World, make any mention of such a book. There is -in the catalogue a note, however, of a life of Columbus written about -1525, of which the manuscript is credited to Ferdinand Perez de Oliva, a -man of some repute, who died in 1530. Whether this writing bore any -significant relation to the life which is associated with the owner of -the library is apparently beyond discovery. It can scarcely be supposed -that it could have been written other than with Ferdinand's cognizance. -That there was an account of the Admiral's career, quoted in Las Casas -and attributed to Ferdinand Columbus, and that it existed before 1559, -seems to be nearly certain. A manuscript of the end of the sixteenth -century, by Gonzalo Argote de Molina, mentions a report that Ferdinand -had written a life of his father. Harrisse tells us that he has seen a -printed book catalogue, apparently of the time of Muñoz or Navarette, in -which a Spanish life of Columbus by Ferdinand Columbus is entered; but -the fact stands without any explanation or verification. Spotorno, in -1823, in an introduction to his collection of documents about Columbus, -says that the manuscript of what has passed for Ferdinand's memoir of -his father was taken from Spain to Genoa by Luis Colon, the Duke of -Veragua, son of Diego and grandson of Christopher Columbus. It is not -known that Luis ever had any personal relations with Ferdinand, who died -while Luis was still in Santo Domingo. - -[Sidenote: Character of the _Historie_.] - -It is said that it was in 1568 that Luis took the manuscript to Genoa, -but in that year he is known to have been living elsewhere. He had been -arrested in Spain in 1558 for having three wives, when he was exiled to -Oran, in Africa, for ten years, and he died in 1572. Spotorno adds that -the manuscript afterwards fell into the hands of a patrician, Marini, -from whom Alfonzo de Ullua received it, and translated it into Italian. -It is shown, however, that Marini was not living at this time. The -original Spanish, if that was the tongue of the manuscript, then -disappeared, and the world has only known it in this Italian _Historie_, -published in 1571. Whether the copy brought to Italy had been in any way -changed from its original condition, or whether the version then made -public fairly represented it, there does not seem any way of determining -to the satisfaction of everybody. At all events, the world thought it -had got something of value and of authority, and in sundry editions and -retranslations, with more or less editing and augmentation, it has -passed down to our time--the last edition appearing in -1867--unquestioned for its service to the biographers of Columbus. Muñoz -hardly knew what to make of some of "its unaccountable errors," and -conjectured that the Italian version had been made from "a corrupt and -false copy;" and coupling with it the "miserable" Spanish rendering in -Barcia's _Historiadores_, Muñoz adds that "a number of falsities and -absurdities is discernible in both." Humboldt had indeed expressed -wonder at the ignorance of the book in nautical matters, considering the -reputation which Ferdinand held in such affairs. It began the Admiral's -story in detail when he was said to be fifty-six years of age. It has -never been clear to all minds that Ferdinand's asseveration of a -youthful want of curiosity respecting the Admiral's early life was -sufficient to account for so much reticence respecting that formative -period. It has been, accordingly, sometimes suspected that a desire to -ignore the family's early insignificance rather than ignorance had most -to do with this absence of information. This seems to be Irving's -inference from the facts. - -[Sidenote: Attacked by Harrisse.] - -In 1871, Henry Harrisse, who in 1866 had written of the book, "It is -generally accepted with some latitude," made the first assault on its -integrity, in his _Fernando Colon_, published in Seville, in -Spanish, which was followed the next year by his _Fernand Colomb_, in -the original French text as it had been written, and published at Paris. -Harrisse's view was reënforced in the _Additions_ to his _Bibliotheca -Americana Vetustissima_, and he again reverted to the subject in the -first volume of his _Christophe Colomb_, in 1884. In the interim the -entire text of Las Casas's _Historia_ had been published for the first -time, rendering a comparison of the two books more easy. Harrisse -availed himself of this facility of examination, and made no abatement -of his confident disbelief. That Las Casas borrowed from the _Historie_, -or rather that the two books had a common source, Harrisse thinks -satisfactorily shown. He further throws out the hint that this source, -or prototype, may have been one of the lost essays of Ferdinand, in -which he had followed the career of his father; or indeed, in some way, -the account written by Oliva may have formed the basis of the book. He -further implies that, in the transformation to the Italian edition of -1571, there were engrafted upon the narrative many contradictions and -anachronisms, which seriously impair its value. Hence, as he contends, -it is a shame to impose its authorship in that foreign shape upon -Ferdinand. He also denies in the main the story of its transmission as -told by Spotorno. - -So much of this book as is authentic, and may be found to be -corroborated by other evidence, may very likely be due to the manuscript -of Oliva, transported to Italy, and used as the work of Ferdinand -Columbus, to give it larger interest than the name of Oliva would carry; -while, to gratify prejudices and increase its attractions, the various -interpolations were made, which Harrisse thinks--and with much -reason--could not have proceeded from one so near to Columbus, so well -informed, and so kindly in disposition as we know his son Ferdinand to -have been. - -[Sidenote: Defended by Stevens and others.] - -So iconoclastic an outburst was sure to elicit vindicators of the -world's faith as it had long been held. In counter publications, -Harrisse and D'Avezac, the latter an eminent French authority on -questions of this period, fought out their battle, not without some -sharpness. Henry Stevens, an old antagonist of Harrisse, assailed the -new views with his accustomed confidence and rasping assertion. Oscar -Peschel, the German historian, and Count Circourt, the French student, -gave their opposing opinions; and the issue has been joined by others, -particularly within a few years by Prospero Peragallo, the pastor of an -Italian church in Lisbon, who has pressed defensive views with some -force in his _L'Autenticità delle Historie di Fernando Colombo_ (1884), -and later in his _Cristoforo Colombo et sua Famiglia_ (1888). It is held -by some of these later advocates of the book that parts of the original -Spanish text can be identified in Las Casas. The controversy has thus -had two stages. The first was marked by the strenuousness of D'Avezac -fifteen years ago. The second sprang from the renewed propositions of -Harrisse in his _Christophe Colomb_, ten years later. Sundry critics -have summed up the opposing arguments with more or less tendency to -oppose the iconoclast, and chief among them are two German scholars: -Professor Max Büdinger, in his _Acten zur Columbus' Geschichte_ (Wien, -1886), and his _Zur Columbus Literatur_ (Wien, 1889); and Professor -Eugen Gelcich, in the _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu -Berlin_ (1887). - -Harrisse's views cannot be said to have conquered a position; but his -own scrutiny and that which he has engendered in others have done good -work in keeping the _Historie_ constantly subject to critical caution. -Dr. Shea still says of it: "It is based on the same documents of -Christopher Columbus which Las Casas used. It is a work of authority." - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Las Casas.] - -Reference has already been made to the tardy publication of the -narrative of Las Casas. Columbus had been dead something over twenty -years, when this good man set about the task of describing in this work -what he had seen and heard respecting the New World,--or at least this -is the generally accredited interval, making him begin the work in 1527; -and yet it is best to remember that Helps could not find any positive -evidence of his being at work on the manuscript before 1552. Las Casas -did not live to finish the task, though he labored upon it down to 1561, -when he was eighty-seven years old. He died five years later. Irving, -who made great use of Las Casas, professed to consult him with that -caution which he deemed necessary in respect to a writer given to -prejudice and overheated zeal. For the period of Columbus's public life -(1492-1506), no other one of his contemporaries gives us so much of -documentary proof. Of the thirty-one papers, falling within this -interval, which he transcribed into his pages nearly in their -entirety,--throwing out some preserved in the archives of the Duke of -Veragua, and others found at Simancas or Seville,--there remain -seventeen, that would be lost to us but for this faithful chronicler. -How did he command this rich resource? As a native of Seville, Las Casas -had come there to be consecrated as bishop in 1544, and again in 1547, -after he had quitted the New World forever. At this time the family -papers of Columbus, then held for Luis Colon, a minor, were locked up in -a strong box in the custody of the monks of the neighboring monastery of -Las Cuevas. There is no evidence, however, that the chest was opened for -the inspection of the chronicler. He also professes to use original -letters sent by Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, which he must have -found in the archives at Valladolid before 1545, or at Simancas after -that date. Again he speaks of citing as in his own collection attested -copies of some of Columbus's letters. - -In 1550, and during his later years, Las Casas lived in the monastery of -San Gregorio, at Valladolid, leaving it only for visits to Toledo or -Madrid, unless it was for briefer visits to Simancas, not far off. Some -of the documents, which he might have found in that repository, are not -at present in those archives. It was there that he might have found -numerous letters which he cites, but which are not otherwise known. From -the use Las Casas makes of them, it would seem that they were of more -importance in showing the discontent and querulousness of Columbus than -as adding to details of his career. Again it appears clear that Las -Casas got documents in some way from the royal archives. We know the -journal of Columbus on his first voyage only from the abridgment which -Las Casas made of it, and much the same is true of the record of his -third voyage. - -In some portion, at least, of his citations from the letters of -Columbus, there may be reason to think that Las Casas took them at -second hand, and Harrisse, with his belief in the derivative character -of the _Historie_ of Ferdinand Columbus, very easily conjectures that -this primal source may have been the manuscript upon which the compiler -of the _Historie_ was equally dependent. One kind of reasoning which -Harrisse uses is this: If Las Casas had used the original Latin of the -correspondence with Toscanelli, instead of the text of this supposed -Spanish prototype, it would not appear in so bad a state as it does in -Las Casas's book. - -[Illustration: LAS CASAS.] - -If this missing prototype of the _Historie_ was among Ferdinand's books -in his library, which had been removed from his house in 1544 to the -convent of San Pablo in Seville, and was not removed to the cathedral -till 1552, it may also have happened that along with it he used there -the _De Imagine Mundi_ of Pierre d'Ailly, Columbus's own copy of which -was, and still is, preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina, and shows the -Admiral's own manuscript annotations. - -It was in the chapel of San Pablo that Las Casas had been consecrated as -bishop in 1544, and his associations with the monks could have given -easy access to what they held in custody,--too easy, perhaps, if -Harrisse's supposition is correct, that they let him take away the map -which Toscanelli sent to Columbus, and which would account for its not -being in the library now. - -[Sidenote: His opportunities.] - -We know, also, that Las Casas had use of the famous letter respecting -his third voyage, which the Admiral addressed to the nurse of the Infant -Don Juan, and which was first laid before modern students when Spotorno -printed it, in 1823. We further understand that the account of the -fourth voyage, which students now call, in its Italian form, the -_Lettera Rarissima_, was also at his disposal, as were many letters of -Bartholomew, the brother of Columbus, though they apparently only -elucidate the African voyage of Diaz. - -In addition to these manuscript sources, Las Casas shows that, as a -student, he was familiar with and appreciated the decades of Peter -Martyr, and had read the accounts of Columbus in Garcia de Resende, -Barros, and Castañeda,--to say nothing of what he may have derived from -the supposable prototype of the _Historie_. It is certain that his -personal acquaintance brought him into relations with the Admiral -himself,--for he accompanied him on his fourth voyage,--with the -Admiral's brother, son, and son's wife; and moreover his own father and -uncle had sailed with Columbus. There were, among his other -acquaintances, the Archbishop of Seville, Pinzon, and other of the -contemporary navigators. It has been claimed by some, not accurately, we -suspect, that Las Casas had also accompanied Columbus on his third -voyage. Notwithstanding all these opportunities of acquiring a thorough -intimacy with the story of Columbus, it is contended by Harrisse that -the aid afforded by Las Casas disappoints one; and that all essential -data with which his narrative is supplied can be found elsewhere, -nearer the primal source. - -[Sidenote: Character of his writings.] - -This condition arises, as he thinks, from the fact that the one -engrossing purpose of Las Casas--his aim to emancipate the Indians from -a cruel domination--constantly stood in the way of a critical -consideration of the other aspects of the early Spanish contact with the -New World. It was while at the University of Salamanca that the father -of Las Casas gave the son an Indian slave, one of those whom Columbus -had sent home; and it was taken from the young student when Isabella -decreed the undoing of Columbus's kidnapping exploits. It was this event -which set Las Casas to thinking on the miseries of the poor natives, -which Columbus had planned, and which enables us to discover, in the -example of Las Casas, that the customs of the time are not altogether an -unanswerable defense of the time's inhumanity and greed. - -As is well known, all but the most recent writers on Spanish-American -history have been forced to use this work of Las Casas in manuscript -copies, as a license to print such an exposure of Spanish cruelty could -not be obtained till 1875, when the _Historia_ was first printed at -Madrid. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Herrera.] - -Herrera, so far as his record concerns Columbus, simply gives us what he -takes from Las Casas. He was born about the time that the older writer -was probably making his investigations. Herrera did not publish his -results, which are slavishly chronological in their method, till half a -century later (1601-15). Though then the official historiographer of the -Indies, with all the chances for close investigation which that -situation afforded him, Herrera failed in all ways to make the record of -his _Historia_ that comprehensive and genuine source of the story of -Columbus which the reader might naturally look for. The continued -obscuration of Las Casas by reason of the long delay in printing his -manuscript served to give Herrera, through many generations, a -prominence as an authoritative source which he could not otherwise have -had. Irving, when he worked at the subject, soon discovered that Las -Casas stood behind the story as Herrera told it, and accordingly the -American writer resorted by preference to such a copy of the manuscript -of Las Casas as he could get. There is a manifest tendency in Herrera to -turn Las Casas's qualified statements into absolute ones. - -[Sidenote: Later Spanish writers.] - -The personal contributions of the later writers, Muñoz and Navarrete, -have been already considered, in speaking of the diversified mass of -documentary proofs which accompany or gave rise to their narratives. - -The _Colon en España_ of Tomas Rodriguez Pinilla (Madrid, 1884) is in -effect a life of the Admiral; but it ignores much of the recent critical -and controversial literature, and deals mainly with the old established -outline of events. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: German writers.] - -[Sidenote: Humboldt.] - -Among the Germans there was nothing published of any importance till the -critical studies of Forster, Peschel, and Ruge, in recent days. De Bry -had, indeed, by his translations of Benzoni (1594) and Herrera (1623), -familiarized the Germans with the main facts of the career of Columbus. -During the present century, Humboldt, in his _Examen Critique de -l'Histoire et de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent_, has borrowed the -language of France to show the scope of his critical and learned -inquiries into the early history of the Spanish contact in America, and -has left it to another hand to give a German rendering to his labors. -With this work by Humboldt, brought out in its completer shape in -1836-39, and using most happily all that had been done by Muñoz and -Navarrete to make clear both the acts and environments of the Admiral, -the intelligence of our own time may indeed be said to have first -clearly apprehended, under the light of a critical spirit, in which -Irving was deficient, the true significance of the great deeds that gave -America to Europe. Humboldt has strikingly grouped the lives of -Toscanelli and Las Casas, from the birth of the Florentine physician in -1397 to the death of the Apostle to the Indians in 1566, as covering the -beginning and end of the great discoveries of the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries. - -[Sidenote: Henry Harrisse.] - -It is also to be remarked that this service of broadly, and at the same -time critically, surveying the field was the work of a German writing in -French; while it is to an American citizen writing in French that we -owe, in more recent years, such a minute collation and examination of -every original source of information as set the labors of Henry -Harrisse, for thoroughness and discrimination, in advance of any -critical labor that has ever before been given to the career and -character of Christopher Columbus. Without the aid of his researches, as -embodied in his _Christophe Colomb_ (Paris, 1884), it would have been -quite impossible for the present writer to have reached conclusions on a -good many mooted points in the history of the Admiral and of his -reputation. Of almost equal usefulness have been the various subsidiary -books and tracts which Harrisse has devoted to similar fields. - -Harrisse's books constitute a good example of the constant change of -opinion and revision of the relations of facts which are going on -incessantly in the mind of a vigilant student in recondite fields of -research. The progress of the correction of error respecting Columbus is -illustrated continually in his series of books on the great navigator, -beginning with the _Notes on Columbus_ (N. Y., 1866), which have been -intermittently published by him during the last twenty-five years. - -Harrisse himself is a good deal addicted to hypotheses; but they fare -hard at his hands if advanced by others. - -[Sidenote: French writers.] - -[Sidenote: Attempted canonization of Columbus.] - -[Illustration: ROSELLY DE LORGUES.] - -The only other significant essays which have been made in French have -been a series of biographies of Columbus, emphasizing his missionary -spirit, which have been aimed to prepare the way for the canonization of -the great navigator, in recognition of his instrumentality in carrying -the cross to the New World. That, in the spirit which characterized the -age of discovery, the voyage of Columbus was, at least in profession, -held to be one conducted primarily for that end does not, certainly, -admit of dispute. Columbus himself, in his letter to Sanchez, speaks of -the rejoicing of Christ at seeing the future redemption of souls. He -made a first offering of the foreign gold by converting a mass of it -into a cup to hold the sacred host, and he spent a wordy enthusiasm in -promises of a new crusade to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the Moslems. -Ferdinand and Isabella dwelt upon the propagandist spirit of the -enterprise they had sanctioned, in their appeals to the Pontiff to -confirm their worldly gain in its results. Ferdinand, the son of the -Admiral, referring to the family name of Colombo, speaks of his father -as like Noah's dove, carrying the olive branch and oil of baptism over -the ocean. Professions, however, were easy; faith is always exuberant -under success, and the world, and even the Catholic world, learned, as -the ages went on, to look upon the spirit that put the poor heathen -beyond the pale of humanity as not particularly sanctifying a pioneer of -devastation. - -[Sidenote: Roselly de Lorgues.] - -It is the world's misfortune when a great opportunity loses any of its -dignity; and it is no great satisfaction to look upon a person of -Columbus's environments and find him but a creature of questionable -grace. So his canonization has not, with all the endeavors which have -been made, been brought about. The most conspicuous of the advocates of -it, with a crowd of imitators about him, has been Antoine François Félix -Valalette, Comte Roselly de Lorgues, who began in 1844 to devote his -energies to this end. He has published several books on Columbus, part -of them biographical, and all of them, including his _Christoph Colomb_ -of 1864, mere disguised supplications to the Pope to order a deserved -sanctification. As contributions to the historical study of the life of -Columbus, they are of no importance whatever. Every act and saying of -the Admiral capable of subserving the purpose in view are simply made -the salient points of a career assumed to be holy. Columbus was in fact -of a piece, in this respect, with the age in which he lived. The -official and officious religious profession of the time belonged to a -period which invented the Inquisition and extirpated a race in order to -send them to heaven. None knew this better than those, like Las Casas, -who mated their faith with charity of act. Columbus and Las Casas had -little in common. - -The _Histoire Posthume de Colomb_, which Roselly de Lorgues finally -published in 1885, is recognized even by Catholic writers as a work of -great violence and indiscretion, in its denunciations of all who fail to -see the saintly character of Columbus. Its inordinate intemperance gave -a great advantage to Cesario Fernandez Duro in his examination of De -Lorgues's position, made in his _Colon y la Historia Postuma_. - -Columbus was certainly a mundane verity. De Lorgues tells us that if we -cannot believe in the supernatural we cannot understand this worldly -man. The writers who have followed him, like Charles Buet in his -_Christophe Colomb_ (Paris, 1886), have taken this position. The -Catholic body has so far summoned enough advocates of historic truth to -prevent the result which these enthusiasts have kept in view, -notwithstanding the seeming acquiescence of Pius IX. The most popular of -the idealizing lives of Columbus is probably that by Auguste, Marquis de -Belloy, which is tricked out with a display of engravings as idealized -as the text, and has been reproduced in English at Philadelphia (1878, -1889). It is simply an ordinary rendering of the common and conventional -stories of the last four centuries. The most eminent Catholic historical -student of the United States, Dr. John Gilmary Shea, in a paper on this -century's estimates of Columbus, in the _American Catholic Quarterly -Review_ (1887), while referring to the "imposing array of members of the -hierarchy" who have urged the beatification of Columbus, added, "But -calm official scrutiny of the question was required before permission -could be given to introduce the cause;" and this permission has not yet -been given, and the evidence in its favor has not yet been officially -produced. - -France has taken the lead in these movements for canonization, -ostensibly for the reason that she needed to make some reparation for -snatching the honor of naming the New World from Columbus, through the -printing-presses of Saint Dié and Strassburg. A sketch of the literature -which has followed this movement is given in Baron van Brocken's _Des -Vicissitudes Posthumes de Christophe Colomb, et de sa Beatification -Possible_ (Leipzig et Paris, 1865). - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: English writers.] - -[Sidenote: Robertson.] - -Of the writers in English, the labors of Hakluyt and Purchas only -incidentally touched the career of Columbus; and it was not till Stevens -issued his garbled version of Herrera in 1725, that the English public -got the record of the Spanish historian, garnished with something that -did not represent the original. This book of Stevens is responsible for -not a little in English opinion respecting the Spanish age of discovery, -which needs in these later days to be qualified. Some of the early -collections of voyages, like those of Churchill, Pinkerton, and Kerr, -included the story of the _Historie_ of 1571. It was not till Robertson, -in 1777, published the beginning of a contemplated _History of America_ -that the English reader had for the first time a scholarly and justified -narrative, which indeed for a long time remained the ordinary source of -the English view of Columbus. It was, however, but an outline sketch, -not a sixth or seventh part in extent of what Irving, when he was -considering the subject, thought necessary for a reasonable presentation -of the subject. Robertson's footnotes show that his main dependence for -the story of Columbus was upon the pages of the _Historie_ of 1571, -Peter Martyr, Oviedo, and Herrera. He was debarred the help to be -derived from what we now use, as conveying Columbus's own record of his -story. Lord Grantham, then the British ambassador at Madrid, did all the -service he could, and his secretary of legation worked asssiduously in -complying with the wishes which Robertson preferred; but no solicitation -could at that day render easily accessible the archives at Simancas. -Still, Robertson got from one source or another more than it was -pleasant to the Spanish authorities to see in print, and they later -contrived to prevent a publication of his work in Spanish. - -[Sidenote: Jeremy Belknap.] - -The earliest considerable recounting of the story of Columbus in America -was by Dr. Jeremy Belknap, who, having delivered a commemorative -discourse in Boston in 1792, before the Massachusetts Historical -Society, afterward augmented his text when it became a part of his -well-known _American Biography_, a work of respectable standing for the -time, but little remembered to-day. - -[Sidenote: Washington Irving.] - -It was in 1827 that Washington Irving published his _Life of Columbus_, -and he produced a book that has long remained for the English reader a -standard biography. Irving's canons of historical criticism were not, -however, such as the fearless and discriminating student to-day would -approve. He commended Herrera for "the amiable and pardonable error of -softening excesses," as if a historian sat in a confessional to deal out -exculpations. The learning which probes long established pretenses and -grateful deceits was not acceptable to Irving. "There is a certain -meddlesome spirit," he says, "which, in the garb of learned research, -goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its monuments, and -marring and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to -vindicate great names from such pernicious erudition." - -Under such conditions as Irving summoned, there was little chance that a -world's exemplar would be pushed from his pedestal, no matter what the -evidence. The _vera pro gratis_ in personal characterization must not -assail the traditional hero. And such was Irving's notion of the upright -intelligence of a historian. - -Mr. Alexander H. Everett, who was then the minister of the United States -at Madrid, saw a chance of making a readable book out of the journal of -Columbus as preserved by Las Casas, and recommended the task of -translating it to Irving, then in Europe. This proposition carried the -willing writer to Madrid, where he found comfortable quarters, with -quick sympathy of intercourse, under the roof of a Boston scholar then -living there, Obadiah Rich. The first two volumes of the documentary -work of Navarrete coming out opportunely, Irving was not long in -determining that, with its wealth of material, there was a better -opportunity for a newly studied life of Columbus than for the proposed -task. So Irving settled down in Madrid to the larger endeavor, and soon -found that he could have other assistance and encouragement from -Navarrete himself, from the Duke of Veragua, and from the then possessor -of the papers of Muñoz. The subject grew under his hands. "I had no -idea," he says, "of what a complete labyrinth I had entangled myself -in." He regretted that the third volume of Navarrete's book was not far -enough advanced to be serviceable; but he worked as best he could, and -found many more facilities than Robertson's helper had discovered. He -went to the Biblioteca Colombina, and he even brought the annotations of -Columbus in the copy of Pierre d'Ailly, there preserved, to the -attention of its custodians for the first time; almost feeling himself -the discoverer of the book, though it was known to him that Las Casas, -at least, had had the advantage of using these minutes of Columbus. -Irving knew that his pains were not unavailing, at any rate, for the -English reader. "I have woven into my book," he says, "many curious -particulars not hitherto known concerning Columbus; and I think I have -thrown light upon some points of his character which have not been -brought out by his former biographers." One of the things that pleased -the new biographer most was his discovery, as he felt, in the account by -Bernaldez, that Columbus was born ten years earlier than had been -usually reckoned; and he supposed that this increase of the age of the -discoverer at the time of his voyage added much greater force to the -characteristics of his career. Irving's book readily made a mark. -Jeffrey thought that its fame would be enduring, and at a time when no -one looked for new light from Italy, he considered that Irving had done -best in working, almost exclusively, the Spanish field, where alone "it -was obvious" material could be found. - -When Alexander H. Everett, pardonably, as a godfather to the work, -undertook in January, 1829, to say in the _North American Review_ that -Irving's book was a delight of readers, he anticipated the judgment of -posterity; but when he added that it was, by its perfection, the despair -of critics, he was forgetful of a method of critical research that is -not prone to be dazed by the prestige of demigods. - -In the interval between the first and second editions of the book, -Irving paid a visit to Palos and the convent of La Rabida, and he got -elsewhere some new light in the papers of the lawsuit of Columbus's -heirs. The new edition which soon followed profited by all these -circumstances. - -[Sidenote: Prescott.] - -Irving's occupation of the field rendered it both easy and gracious for -Prescott, when, ten years later (1837), he published his _Ferdinand and -Isabella_, to say that his predecessor had stripped the story of -Columbus of the charm of novelty; but he was not quite sure, however, in -the privacy of his correspondence, that Irving, by attempting to -continue the course of Columbus's life in detail after the striking -crisis of the discovery, had made so imposing a drama as he would have -done by condensing the story of his later years. In this Prescott shared -something of the spirit of Irving, in composing history to be read as a -pastime, rather than as a study of completed truth. Prescott's own -treatment of the subject is scant, as he confined his detailed record to -the actions incident to the inception and perfection of the enterprise -of the Admiral, to the doings in Spain or at court. He was, at the same -time, far more independent than Irving had been, in his views of the -individual character round which so much revolves, and the reader is not -wholly blinded to the unwholesome deceit and overweening selfishness of -Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Arthur Helps.] - -Within twenty years Arthur Helps approached the subject from the point -of view of one who was determined, as he thought no one of the writers -on the subject of the Spanish Conquest had been, to trace the origin of, -and responsibility for, the devastating methods of Spanish colonial -government; "not conquest only, but the result of conquest, the mode of -colonial government which ultimately prevailed, the extirpation of -native races, the introduction of other races, the growth of slavery, -and the settlement of the _encomiendas_, on which all Indian society -depended." It is not to Helps, therefore, that we are to look for any -extended biography of Columbus; and when he finds him in chains, sent -back to Spain, he says of the prisoner, "He did not know how many -wretched beings would have to traverse those seas, in bonds much worse -than his; nor did he foresee, I trust, that some of his doings would -further all this coming misery." It does not appear from his footnotes -that Helps depended upon other than the obvious authorities, though he -says that he examined the Muñoz collection, then as now in the Royal -Academy of History at Madrid. - -[Sidenote: R. H. Major.] - -The last scholarly summary of Columbus's career previous to the views -incident to the criticism of Harrisse on the _Historie_ of 1571 was that -which was given by R. H. Major, in the second edition of his _Select -Letters of Columbus_ (London, 1870). - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Aaron Goodrich.] - -There have been two treatments of the subject by Americans within the -last twenty years, which are characteristic. The _Life and Achievements -of the So-called Christopher Columbus_ (New York, 1874), by Aaron -Goodrich, mixes that unreasoning trust and querulous conceit which is so -often thrown into the scale when the merits of the discoverers of the -alleged Vinland are contrasted with those of the imagined Indies. With a -craze of petulancy, he is not able to see anything that cannot be -twisted into defamation, and his book is as absurdly constant in -derogation as the hallucinations of De Lorgues are in the other -direction. - -[Sidenote: H. H. Bancroft.] - -When Hubert Howe Bancroft opened the story of his Pacific States in his -_History of Central America_ (San Francisco, 1882), he rehearsed the -story of Columbus, but did not attempt to follow it critically except as -he tracked the Admiral along the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and -Costa Rica. This writer's estimate of the character of Columbus conveys -a representation of what the Admiral really was, juster than national -pride, religious sympathy, or kindly adulation has usually permitted. It -is unfortunately, not altogether chaste in its literary presentation. -His characterization of Irving and Prescott in their endeavors to draw -the character of Columbus has more merit in its insight than skill in -its drafting. - -[Sidenote: Winsor.] - -[Sidenote: Bibliography of Columbus.] - -The brief sketch of the career of Columbus, and the examination of the -events that culminated in his maritime risks and developments, as it was -included in the _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (vol. ii., -Boston, 1885), gave the present writer an opportunity to study the -sources and trace the bibliographical threads that run through an -extended and diversified literature, in a way, it may be, not earlier -presented to the English reader. If any one desires to compass all the -elucidations and guides which a thorough student of the career and fame -of Columbus would wish to consider, the apparatus thus referred to, and -the footnotes in Harrisse's _Christophe Colomb_ and in his other germane -publications, would probably most essentially shorten his labors. -Harrisse, who has prepared, but not yet published, lists of the books -devoted to Columbus _exclusively_, says that they number about six -hundred titles. The literature which treats of him incidentally is of a -vast extent. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Varied estimates of Columbus.] - -In concluding this summary of the commentaries upon the life of -Columbus, the thought comes back that his career has been singularly -subject to the gauging of opinionated chroniclers. The figure of the -man, as he lives to-day in the mind of the general reader, in whatever -country, comports in the main with the characterizations of Irving, De -Lorgues, or Goodrich. These last two have entered upon their works with -a determined purpose, the Frenchman of making a saint, and the American -a scamp, of the great discoverer of America. They each, in their twists, -pervert and emphasize every trait and every incident to favor their -views. Their narratives are each without any background of that mixture -of incongruity, inconsistency, and fatality from which no human being is -wholly free. Their books are absolutely worthless as historical records. -That of Goodrich has probably done little to make proselytes. That of De -Lorgues has infected a large body of tributary devotees of the Catholic -Church. - -The work of Irving is much above any such level; but it has done more -harm because its charms are insidious. He recognized at least that human -life is composite; but he had as much of a predetermination as they, and -his purpose was to create a hero. He glorified what was heroic, -palliated what was unheroic, and minimized the doubtful aspects of -Columbus's character. His book is, therefore, dangerously seductive to -the popular sense. The genuine Columbus evaporates under the warmth of -the writer's genius, and we have nothing left but a refinement of his -clay. The _Life of Columbus_ was a sudden product of success, and it has -kept its hold on the public very constantly; but it has lost ground in -these later years among scholarly inquirers. They have, by their -collation of its narrative with the original sources, discovered its -flaccid character. They have outgrown the witcheries of its graceful -style. They have learned to put at their value the repetitionary changes -of stock sentiment, which swell the body of the text, sometimes, -provokingly. - -[Sidenote: Portraits of Columbus.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus's person.] - -Out of the variety of testimony respecting the person of the adult -Columbus, it is not easy to draw a picture that his contemporaries would -surely recognize. Likeness we have none that can be proved beyond a -question the result of any sitting, or even of any acquaintance. If we -were called upon to picture him as he stood on San Salvador, we might -figure a man of impressive stature with lofty, not to say austere, -bearing, his face longer by something more than its breadth, his cheek -bones high, his nose aquiline, his eyes a light gray, his complexion -fair with freckles spotting a ruddy glow, his hair once light, but then -turned to gray. His favorite garb seems to have been the frock of a -Franciscan monk. Such a figure would not conflict with the descriptions -which those who knew him, and those who had questioned his associates, -have transmitted to us, as we read them in the pages ascribed to -Ferdinand, his son; in those of the Spanish historian, Oviedo; of the -priest Las Casas; and in the later recitals of Gomara and Benzoni, and -of the official chronicler of the Spanish Indies, Antonio Herrera. The -oldest description of all is one made in 1501, in the unauthorized -version of the first decade of Peter Martyr, emanating, very likely, -from the translator Trivigiano, who had then recently come in contact -with Columbus. - -[Sidenote: La Cosa's St. Christopher.] - -Turning from these descriptions to the pictures that have been put forth -as likenesses, we find not a little difficulty in reconciling the two. -There is nothing that unmistakably goes back to the lifetime of Columbus -except the figure of St. Christopher, which makes a vignette in colors -on the mappemonde, which was drawn in 1500, by one of Columbus's pilots, -Juan de la Cosa, and is now preserved in Madrid. It has been fondly -claimed that Cosa transferred the features of his master to the -lineaments of the saint; but the assertion is wholly without proof. - -[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER. - -[The vignette of La Cosa's map.]] - - -[Sidenote: Jovius's gallery.] - -[Illustration: JOVIUS'S COLUMBUS, THE EARLIEST ENGRAVED LIKENESS.] - -Paolo Giovio, or, as better known in the Latin form, Paulus Jovius, was -old enough in 1492 to have, in later life, remembered the thrill of -expectation which ran for the moment through parts of Europe, when the -letter of Columbus describing his voyage was published in Italy, where -Jovius was then a schoolboy. He was but an infant, or perhaps not born -when Columbus left Italy. So the interest of Jovius in the Discoverer -could hardly have arisen from any other associations than those easily -suggestive to one who, like Jovius, was a student of his own times. -Columbus had been dead ten years when Jovius, as a historian, attracted -the notice of Pope Leo X., and entered upon such a career of prosperity -that he could build a villa on Lake Como, and adorn it with a gallery of -portraits of those who had made his age famous. That he included a -likeness of Columbus among his heroes there seems to be no doubt. -Whether the likeness was painted from life, and by whom, or modeled -after an ideal, more or less accordant with the reports of those who may -have known the Genoese, is entirely beyond our knowledge. As a -historian Jovius professed the right to distort the truth for any -purpose that suited him, and his conceptions of the truth of portraiture -may quite as well have been equally loose. Just a year before his own -death, Jovius gave a sketch of Columbus's career in his _Elogia Virorum -Illustrium_, published at Florence in 1551; but it was not till -twenty-four years later, in 1575, that a new edition of the book gave -wood-cuts of the portraits in the gallery of the Como villa, to -illustrate the sketches, and that of Columbus appeared among them. This -engraving, then, is the oldest likeness of Columbus presenting any -claims to consideration. It found place also, within a year or two, in -what purported to be a collection of portraits from the Jovian gallery; -and the engraver of them was Tobias Stimmer, a Swiss designer, who -stands in the biographical dictionaries of artists as born in 1534, and -of course could not have assisted his skill by any knowledge of -Columbus, on his own part. This picture, to which a large part of the -very various likenesses called those of Columbus can be traced, is done -in the bold, easy handling common in the wood-cuts of that day, and with -a precision of skill that might well make one believe that it preserves -a dashing verisimilitude to the original picture. It represents a -full-face, shaven, curly-haired man, with a thoughtful and somewhat sad -countenance, his hands gathering about the waist a priest's robe, of -which the hood has fallen about his neck. If there is any picture to be -judged authentic, this is best entitled to that estimation. - -[Sidenote: The Florence picture.] - -Connection with the Como gallery is held to be so significant of the -authenticity of any portrait of Columbus that it is claimed for two -other pictures, which are near enough alike to have followed the same -prototype, and which are not, except in garb, very unlike the Jovian -wood-cut. As copies of the Como original in features, they may easily -have varied in apparel. One of these is a picture preserved in the -gallery at Florence,--a well-moulded, intellectual head, full-faced, -above a closely buttoned tunic, or frock, seen within drapery that falls -off the shoulders. It is not claimed to be the Como portrait, but it may -have been painted from it, perhaps by Christofano dell' Altissimo, some -time before 1568. A copy of it was made for Thomas Jefferson, which, -having hung for a while at Monticello, came at last to Boston, and -passed into the gallery of the Massachusetts Historical Society. - -[Illustration: THE FLORENCE COLUMBUS.] - -[Sidenote: The Yanez picture.] - -The picture resembling this, and which may have had equal claims of -association with the Jovian gallery, is one now preserved in Madrid, and -the oldest canvas representing Columbus that is known in Spain. It takes -the name of the Yanez portrait from that of the owner of it, from whom -it was bought in Granada, in 1763. Representing, when brought to notice, -a garment trimmed with fur, there has been disclosed upon it, and -underlying this later paint, an original, close-fitting tunic, much like -the Florence picture; while a further removal of the superposed pigment -has revealed an inscription, supposed to authenticate it as Columbus, -the discoverer of the New World. It is said that the Duke of Veragua -holds it to be the most authentic likeness of his ancestor. - -[Illustration: THE YANEZ COLUMBUS.] - -[Sidenote: De Bry's picture.] - -[Illustration: COLUMBUS. - -[A reproduction of the so-called Capriolo cut given in Giuseppe -Banchero's _La Tavola di Bronzo_, (Genoa, 1857), and based on the -Jovian type.]] - -Another conspicuous portrait is that given by De Bry in the larger -series of his Collection of Early Voyages. De Bry claims that it was -painted by order of King Ferdinand, and that it was purloined from the -offices of the Council of the Indies in Spain, and brought to the -Netherlands, and in this way fell into the hands of that engraver and -editor. It bears little resemblance to the pictures already mentioned; -nor does it appear to conform to the descriptions of Columbus's person. -It has a more rugged and shorter face, with a profusion of closely waved -hair falling beneath an ugly, angular cap. De Bry engraved it, or rather -published it, in 1595, twenty years after the Jovian wood-cut appeared, -and we know of no engraving intervening. No one of the generation that -was old enough to have known the navigator could then have survived, -and the picture has no other voucher than the professions of the -engraver of it. - -[Illustration: DE BRY'S COLUMBUS.] - -[Sidenote: Other portraits.] - -[Sidenote: Havana monument.] - -[Sidenote: Peschiera's bust.] - -These are but a few of the many pictures that have been made to pass, -first and last, for Columbus, and the only ones meriting serious study -for their claims. The American public was long taught to regard the -effigy of Columbus as that of a bedizened courtier, because Prescott -selected for an engraving to adorn his _Ferdinand and Isabella_ a -picture of such a person, which is ascribed to Parmigiano, and is -preserved in the Museo Borbonico, at Naples. Its claims long ago ceased -to be considered. The traveler in Cuba sees in the Cathedral at Havana a -monumental effigy, of which there is no evidence of authenticity worthy -of consideration. The traveler in Italy can see in Genoa, placed on the -cabinet which was made to hold the manuscript titles of Columbus, a -bust by Peschiera. It has the negative merit of having no relation to -any of the alleged portraits; but represents the sculptor's conception -of the man, guided by the scant descriptions of him given to us by his -contemporaries. - -[Illustration: THE BUST OF COLUMBUS ON THE TOMB AT HAVANA.] - -If the reader desires to see how extensive the field of research is, -for one who can spend the time in tracing all the clues connected with -all the representations which pass for Columbus, he can make a -beginning, at least, under the guidance of the essay on the portraits -which the present writer contributed to the _Narrative and Critical -History of America_, vol. ii. - -When Columbus, in 1502, ordered a tenth of his income to be paid -annually to the Bank of St. George, in Genoa, for the purpose of -reducing the tax upon corn, wine, and other provisions, the generous -act, if it had been carried out, would have entitled him to such a -recognition as a public benefactor as the bank was accustomed to bestow. -The main hall of the palace of this institution commemorates such -patriotic efforts by showing a sitting statue for the largest -benefactors; a standing figure for lesser gifts, while still lower -gradations of charitable help are indicated in busts, or in mere -inscriptions on a mural tablet. It has been thought that posterity, -curious to see the great Admiral as his contemporaries saw him, suffers -with the state of Genoa, in not having such an effigy, by the neglect or -inattention which followed upon the announced purpose of Columbus. We -certainly find there to-day no such visible proof of his munificence or -aspect. Harrisse, while referring to this deprivation, takes occasion, -in his _Bank of St. George_ (p. 108), to say that he does not "believe -that the portrait of Columbus was ever drawn, carved, or painted from -the life." He contends that portrait-painting was not common in Spain, -in Columbus's day, and that we have no trace of the painters, whose work -constitutes the beginning of the art, in any record, or authentic -effigy, to show that the person of the Admiral was ever made the subject -of the art. The same writer indicates that the interval during which -Columbus was popular enough to be painted extended over only six weeks -in April and May, 1493. He finds that much greater heroes, as the world -then determined, like Boabdil and Cordova, were not thus honored, and -holds that the portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, which editions of -Prescott have made familiar, are really fancy pictures of the close of -the sixteenth century. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE ANCESTRY AND HOME OF COLUMBUS. - - -[Sidenote: The name Colombo.] - -No one has mastered so thoroughly as Harrisse the intricacies of the -Columbus genealogy. A pride in the name of Colombo has been shared by -all who have borne it or have had relationship with it, and there has -been a not unworthy competition among many branches of the common stock -to establish the evidences of their descent in connection, more or less -intimate, with the greatest name that has signalized the family history. - -This reduplication of families, as well as the constant recurrence of -the same fore-names, particularly common in Italian families, has -rendered it difficult to construct the genealogical tree of the Admiral, -and has given ground for drafts of his pedigree, acceptable to some, and -disputed by other claimants of kinship. - -[Sidenote: The French Colombos.] - -There was a Gascon-French subject of Louis XI., Guillaume de Casanove, -sometimes called Coulomp, Coullon, Colon, in the Italian accounts -Colombo, and Latinized as Columbus, who is said to have commanded a -fleet of seven sail, which, in October, 1474, captured two galleys -belonging to Ferdinand, king of Sicily. When Leibnitz published, for the -first time, some of the diplomatic correspondence which ensued, he -interjected the fore-name Christophorus in the references to the -Columbus of this narrative. This was in his _Codex Juris Gentium -Diplomaticus_, published at Hannover in 1693. Leibnitz was soon -undeceived by Nicolas Thoynard, who explained that the corsair in -question was Guillaume de Casanove, vice-admiral of France, and Leibnitz -disavowed the imputation upon the Genoese navigator in a subsequent -volume. Though there is some difference of opinion respecting the -identity of Casanove and the capturer of the galleys, there can no -longer be any doubt, in the light of pertinent investigations, that the -French Colombos were of no immediate kin to the family of Genoa and -Savona, as is abundantly set forth by Harrisse in his _Les Colombo de -France et d'Italie_ (Paris, 1874). Since the French Coullon, or Coulomp, -was sometimes in the waters neighboring to Genoa, it is not unlikely -that some confusion may arise in separating the Italian from the French -Colombos; and it has been pointed out that a certain entry of wreckage -in the registry of Genoa, which Spotorno associates with Christopher -Columbus, may more probably be connected with this Gascon navigator. - -Bossi, the earliest biographer in recent times, considers that a Colombo -named in a letter to the Duke of Milan as being in a naval fight off -Cyprus, between Genoese and Venetian vessels, in 1476, was the -discoverer of the New World. Harrisse, in his _Les Colombo_, has printed -this letter, and from it it does not appear that the commander of the -Genoese fleet is known by name, and that the only mention of a Colombo -is that a fleet commanded by one of that name was somewhere encountered. -There is no indication, however, that this commander was Christopher -Columbus. The presumption is that he was the roving Casanove. - -Leibnitz was doubtless misled by the assertion of the _Historie_ of -1571, which allows that Christopher Columbus had sailed under the orders -of an admiral of his name and family, and, particularly, was in that -naval combat off Lisbon, when, his vessel getting on fire, he swam with -the aid of an oar to the Portuguese shore. The doubtful character of -this episode will be considered later; but it is more to the purpose -here that this same book, in citing a letter, of which we are supposed -to have the complete text as preserved by Columbus himself, makes -Columbus say that he was not the only admiral which his family had -produced. This is a clear reference, it is supposed, to this -vice-admiral of France. It is enough to say that the genuine text of -this letter to the nurse of Don Juan does not contain this controverted -passage, and the defenders of the truth of the _Historie_, like -D'Avezac, are forced to imagine there must have been another letter, not -now known. - -[Sidenote: The younger French admiral.] - -Beside the elder admiral of France, the name of Colombo Junior belonged -to another of these French sea-rovers in the fifteenth century, who has -been held to be a nephew, or at least a relative, of the elder. He has -also sometimes been confounded with the Genoese Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Genealogy.] - -[Sidenote: Pretenders.] - -To determine the exact relationship between the various French and -Italian Colombos and Coulons of the fifteenth century would be -hazardous. It is enough to say that no evidence that stands a critical -test remains to connect these famous mariners with the line of -Christopher Columbus. The genealogical tables which Spotorno presents, -upon which Caleb Cushing enlightened American readers at the time in the -_North American Review_, and in which the French family is made to issue -from an alleged great-grandfather of Christopher Columbus, are affirmed -by Harrisse, with much reason, to have been made up not far from 1583, -to support the claims of Bernardo and Baldassare (Balthazar) Colombo, as -pretenders to the rights and titles of the discoverer of the New World. - - * * * * * - -Ferdinand is made in his own name to say of his father, "I think it -better that all the honor be derived to us from his person than to go -about to inquire whether his father was a merchant or a man of quality, -that kept his hawks and hounds." Other biographers, however, have -pursued the inquiry diligently. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's family line.] - -In one of the sections of his book on _Christopher Columbus and the Bank -of Saint George_, Harrisse has shown how the notarial records of Savona -and Genoa have been worked, to develop the early history of the -Admiral's family from documentary proofs. These evidences are distinct -from the narratives of those who had known him, or who at a later day -had told his story, as Gallo, the writer of the _Historie_, and Oviedo -did. Reference has already been made to the prevalence of Colombo as a -patronymic in Genoa and the neighboring country at that time. Harrisse -in his _Christophe Colomb_ has enumerated two hundred of this name in -Liguria alone, in those days, who seem to have had no kinship to the -family of the Admiral. There appear to have been in Genoa, moreover, -four Colombos, and in Liguria, outside of Genoa, six others who bore the -name of Christopher's father, Domenico; but the searchers have not yet -found a single other Christoforo. These facts show the discrimination -which those who of late years have been investigating the history of the -Admiral's family have been obliged to exercise. There are sixty notarial -acts of one kind and another, out of which these investigators have -constructed a pedigree, which must stand till present knowledge is -increased or overthrown. - -[Sidenote: His grandfather.] - -What we know in the main is this: Giovanni Colombo, the grandfather of -the Admiral, lived probably in Quinto al Mare, and was of a stock that -seemingly had been earlier settled in the valley of Fontanabuona, a -region east of Genoa. This is a parentage of the father of Columbus -quite different from that shown in the genealogical chart made by -Napione in 1805 and later; and Harrisse tells us that the notarial acts -which were given then as the authority for such other line of descent -cannot now be found, and that there are grave doubts of their -authenticity. - -[Sidenote: His father.] - -It was this Giovanni's son, Domenico, who came from Quinto (where he -left a brother, Antonio) at least as early as 1439, and perhaps earlier, -and settled himself in the wool-weaver's quarter, so called, in Genoa, -where in due time he owned a house. Thence he seems to have removed to -Savona, where various notarial acts recognize him at a later period as a -Genoese, resident in Savona. - -The essential thing remaining to be proved is that the Domenico Colombo -of these notarial acts was the Domenico who was the father of -Christopher Columbus. For this purpose we must take the testimony of -those who knew the genuine Colombos, as Oviedo and Gallo did; and from -their statements we learn that the father of Christopher was a weaver -named Domenico, who lived in Genoa, and had sons, Christoforo, -Bartolomeo, and Giacomo. These, then, are the test conditions, and -finding them every one answered in the Savona-Genoa family, the proof -seems incontestable, even to the further fact that at the end of the -fifteenth century all three brothers had for some years lived under the -Spanish crown. - -It is too much to say that this concatenation of identities may not -possibly be overturned, perhaps by discrediting the documents, not -indeed untried already by Peragallo and others, but it is safe to accept -it under present conditions of knowledge; though we have to trust on -some points to the statements of those who have seen what no longer can -be found. Domenico Colombo, who had removed to Savona in 1470, did not, -apparently, prosper there. He and his son Christopher pursued their -trade as weavers, as the notarial records show. Lamartine, in his _Life -of Columbus_, speaking of the wool-carding of the time, calls it "a -business now low, but then respectable and almost noble,"--an -idealization quite of a kind with the spirit that pervades Lamartine's -book, and a spirit in which it has been a fashion to write of Columbus -and other heroes. The calling was doubtless, then as now, simply -respectable. The father added some experience, it would seem, in keeping -a house of entertainment. The joint profit, however, of these two -occupations did not suffice to keep him free from debt, out of which his -son Christopher is known to have helped him in some measure. Domenico -sold and bought small landed properties, but did not pay for one of them -at least. There were fifteen years of this precarious life passed in -Savona, during which he lost his wife, when, putting his youngest son to -an apprenticeship, he returned in 1484, or perhaps a little earlier, to -Genoa, to try other chances. His fortune here was no better. Insolvency -still followed him. When we lose sight of him, in 1494, the old man may, -it is hoped, have heard rumors of the transient prosperity of his son, -and perhaps have read in the fresh little quartos of Plaanck the -marvelous tale of the great discovery. He lived we know not how much -longer, but probably died before the winter of 1499-1500, when the heirs -of Corrado de Cuneo, who had never received due payment for an estate -which Domenico had bought in Savona, got judgment against Christopher -and his brother Diego, the sons of Domenico, then of course beyond reach -in foreign lands. - -[Sidenote: Domenico's house in Genoa.] - -Within a few years the Marquis Marcello Staglieno, a learned antiquary -in Genoa, who has succeeded in throwing much new light on the early life -of Columbus from the notarial records of that city, has identified a -house in the Vico Dritto Ponticello, No. 37, as the one in which -Domenico Colombo lived during the younger years of Christopher's life. -The municipality bought this estate in June, 1887, and placed over its -door an inscription recording the associations of the spot. Harrisse -thinks it not unlikely that the great navigator was even born here. The -discovery of his father's ownership of the house seems to have been made -by carefully tracing back the title of the land to the time when -Domenico owned it. This was rendered surer by tracing the titles of the -adjoining estates back to the time of Nicolas Paravania and Antonio -Bondi, who, according to the notarial act of 1477, recording Domenico's -wife's assent to the sale of the property, lived as Domenico's next -neighbors. - -[Sidenote: Columbus born.] - -If Christopher Columbus was born in this house, that event took place, -as notarial records, brought to bear by the Marquis Staglieno, make -evident, between October 29, 1446, and October 29, 1451; and if some -degree of inference be allowed, Harrisse thinks he can narrow the range -to the twelve months between March 15, 1446, and March 20, 1447. This is -the period within which, by deduction from other statements, some of the -modern authorities, like Muñoz, Bossi, and Spotorno, among the Italians, -D'Avezac among the French, and Major in England, have placed the event -of Columbus's birth without the aid of attested documents. This -conclusion has been reached by taking an avowal of Columbus that he had -led twenty-three years a sailor's life at the time of his first voyage, -and was fourteen years old when he began a seaman's career. The question -which complicates the decision is: When did Columbus consider his -sailor's life to have ended? If in 1492, as Peschel contends, it would -carry his birth back no farther than 1455-56, according as fractions are -managed; and Peschel accepts this date, because he believes the -unconfirmed statement of Columbus in a letter of July 7, 1503, that he -was twenty-eight when he entered the service of Spain in 1484. - -[Sidenote: 1445-1447.] - -But if 1484 is accepted as the termination of that twenty-three years of -sea life, as Muñoz and the others already mentioned say, then we get the -result which most nearly accords with the notarial records, and we can -place the birth of Columbus somewhere in the years 1445-47, according as -the fractions are considered. This again is confirmed by another of the -varied statements of Columbus, that in 1501 it was forty years since, at -fourteen, he first took to the sea. - -[Sidenote: 1435-1437.] - -There has been one other deduction used, through which Navarrete, -Humboldt, Irving, Roselly de Lorgues, Napione, and others, who copy -them, determine that his birth must have taken place, by a similar -fractional allowance of margin, in 1435-37. This is based upon the -explicit statement of Andrès Bernaldez, in his book on the Catholic -monarchs of Spain, that Columbus at his death was about seventy years -old. So there is a twenty years' range for those who may be influenced -by one line of argument or another in determining the date of the -Admiral's birth. Many writers have discussed the arguments; but the -weight of authority seems, on the whole, to rest upon the records which -are used by Harrisse. - -[Sidenote: His mother, brothers, and sister.] - -The mother of Columbus was Susanna, a daughter of Giacomo de -Fontanarossa, and Domenico married her in the Bisagno country, a region -lying east of Genoa. She was certainly dead in 1489, and had, perhaps, -died as early as 1482, in Savona. Beside Christoforo, this alliance with -Domenico Colombo produced four other children, who were probably born in -one and the same house. They were Giovanni-Pellegrino, who, in 1501, had -been dead ten years, and was unmarried; Bartolomeo, who was never -married, and who will be encountered later as Bartholomew; and Giacomo, -who when he went to Spain became known as Diego Colon, but who is called -Jacobus in all Latin narratives. There was also a daughter, -Bianchinetta, who married a cheesemonger named Bavarello, and had one -child. - -[Sidenote: His uncle and cousins.] - -Antonio, the brother of Domenico, seems to have had three sons, -Giovanni, Matteo, and Amighetto. They were thus cousins of the Admiral, -and they were so far cognizant of his fame in 1496 as to combine in a -declaration before a notary that they united in sending one of their -number, Giovanni, on a voyage to Spain to visit their famous kinsman, -the Admiral of the Indies; their object being, most probably, to profit, -if they could, by basking in his favor. - -[Sidenote: Born in Genoa.] - -[Sidenote: Claim for Savona,] - -[Sidenote: and other places.] - -If the evidences thus set forth of his family history be accepted, there -is no question that Columbus, as he himself always said, and finally in -his will declared, and as Ferdinand knew, although it is not affirmed in -the _Historie_, was born in Genoa. Among the early writers, if we except -Galindez de Carvajal, who claimed him for Savona, there seems to have -been little or no doubt that he was born in Genoa. Peter Martyr and Las -Casas affirm it. Bernaldez believed it. Giustiniani asserts it. But when -Oviedo, not many years after Columbus's death, wrote, it was become so -doubtful where Columbus was born that he mentions five or six towns -which claimed the honor of being his birthplace. The claim for Savona -has always remained, after Genoa, that which has received the best -recognition. The grounds of such a belief, however, have been pretty -well disproved in Harrisse's _Christophe Colomb et Savone_ (Genoa, -1887), and it has been shown, as it would seem conclusively, that, prior -to Domenico Colombo's settling in Savona in 1470-71, he had lived in -Genoa, where his children, taking into account their known or computed -ages, must have been born. It seems useless to rehearse the arguments -which strenuous advocates have, at one time or another, offered in -support of the pretensions of many other Italian towns and villages to -have furnished the great discoverer to the world,--Plaisance, Cuccaro, -Cogoleto, Pradello, Nervi, Albissola, Bogliasco, Cosseria, Finale, -Oneglia, Quinto, Novare, Chiavari, Milan, Modena. The pretensions of -some of them were so urgent that in 1812 the Academy of History at Genoa -thought it worth while to present the proofs as respects their city in a -formal way. The claims of Cuccaro were used in support of a suit by -Balthazar Colombo, to obtain possession of the Admiral's legal rights. -The claim of Cogoleto seems to have been mixed up with the supposed -birth of the corsairs, Colombos, in that town, who for a long while were -confounded with the Admiral. There is left in favor of any of them, -after their claims are critically examined, nothing but local pride and -enthusiasm. - -The latest claimant for the honor is the town of Calvi, in Corsica, and -this cause has been particularly embraced by the French. So late as -1882, President Grévy, of the French Republic, undertook to give a -national sanction to these claims by approving the erection there of a -statue of Columbus. The assumption is based upon a tradition that the -great discoverer was a native of that place. The principal elucidator of -that claim, the Abbé Martin Casanova de Pioggiola, seems to have a -comfortable notion that tradition is the strongest kind of historical -proof, though it is not certain that he would think so with respect to -the twenty and more other places on the Italian coast where similar -traditions exist or are said to be current. Harrisse seems to have -thought the claim worth refuting in his _Christophe Colomb et La Corse_ -(Paris, 1888), to say nothing of other examinations of the subject in -the _Revue de Paris_ and the _Revue Critique_, and of two very recent -refutations, one by the Abbé Casabianca in his _Le Berceau de Christophe -Colomb et la Corse_ (Paris, 1889), and the last word of Harrisse in the -_Revue Historique_ (1890, p. 182). - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE UNCERTAINTIES OF THE EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS. - - -The condition of knowledge respecting Columbus's early life was such, -when Prescott wrote, that few would dispute his conclusion that it is -hopeless to unravel the entanglement of events, associated with the -opening of his career. The critical discernment of Harrisse and other -recent investigators has since then done something to make the confusion -even more apparent by unsettling convictions too hastily assumed. A -bunch of bewildering statements, in despite of all that present -scholarship can do, is left to such experts as may be possessed in the -future of more determinate knowledge. It may well be doubted if absolute -clarification of the record is ever to be possible. - -[Sidenote: His education.] - -[Illustration: DRAWING ASCRIBED TO COLUMBUS.] - -The student naturally inquires of the contemporaries of Columbus as to -the quality and extent of his early education, and he derives most from -Las Casas and the _Historie_ of 1571. It has of late been ascertained -that the woolcombers of Genoa established local schools for the -education of their children, and the young Christopher may have had his -share of their instruction, in addition to whatever he picked up at his -trade, which continued, as long as he remained in Italy, that of his -father. We know from the manuscripts which have come down to us that -Columbus acquired the manual dexterity of a good penman; and if some -existing drawings are not apocryphal, he had a deft hand, too, in making -a spirited sketch with a few strokes. His drawing of maps, which we are -also told about, implies that he had fulfilled Ptolemy's definition of -that art of the cosmographer which could represent the cartographic -outlines of countries with supposable correctness. He could do it with -such skill that he practiced it at one time, as is said, for the gaining -of a livelihood. We know, trusting the _Historie_, that he was for a -brief period at the University of Pavia, perhaps not far from 1460, -where he sought to understand the mysteries of cosmography, astrology, -and geometry. - -[Sidenote: At Pavia.] - -Bossi has enumerated the professors in these departments at that time, -from whose teaching Columbus may possibly have profited. Harrisse with -his accustomed distrust, throws great doubt on the whole narrative of -his university experiences, and thinks Pavia at this time offered no -peculiar advantages for an aspiring seaman, to be compared with the -practical instruction which Genoa in its commercial eminence could at -the same time have offered to any sea-smitten boy. It was at Genoa at -this very time (1461), that Benincasa was producing his famous -sea-charts. - -[Illustration: ANDREAS BENINCASA, 1476. - -[From St. Martin's _Atlas_.]] - -[Sidenote: Goes to sea.] - -After his possible, if not probable, sojourn at Pavia, made transient, -it has been suggested but not proved, by the failing fortunes of his -father, Christopher returned to Genoa, and then after an uncertain -interval entered on his seafaring career. If what passes for his own -statement be taken he was at this turn of his life not more than -fourteen years old. The attractions of the sea at that period of the -fifteenth century were great for adventurous youths. There was a spice -of piracy in even the soberest ventures of commerce. The ships of one -Christian state preyed on another. Private ventures were buccaneerish, -and the hand of the Catalonian and of the Moslem were turned against -all. The news which sped from one end of the Mediterranean to the other -was of fight and plunder, here and everywhere. Occasionally it was mixed -with rumors of the voyages beyond the Straits of Hercules, which told of -the Portuguese and their hazards on the African coast towards the -equator. - -[Sidenote: Prince Henry, the Navigator.] - -Not far from the time when our vigorous young Genoese wool-comber may be -supposed to have embarked on some of these venturesome exploits of the -great inland sea, there might have come jumping from port to port, -westerly along the Mediterranean shores, the story of the death of that -great maritime spirit of Portugal, Prince Henry, the Navigator, and of -the latest feats of his captains in the great ocean of the west. - -[Illustration: SHIP, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. - -[From the _Isolario_, 1547.]] - -[Sidenote: Anjou's expedition.] - -It has been usual to associate the earliest maritime career of our -dashing Genoese with an expedition fitted out in Genoa by John of Anjou, -Duke of Calabria, to recover possession of the kingdom of Naples for his -father, Duke René, Count of Provence. This is known to have been -undertaken in 1459-61. The pride of Genoa encouraged the service of the -attacking fleet, and many a citizen cast in his lot with that naval -armament, and embarked with his own subsidiary command. There is mention -of a certain doughty captain, Colombo by name, as leading one part of -this expeditionary force. He was very likely one of those French -corsairs of that name, already mentioned, and likely to have been a man -of importance in the Franco-Genoese train. He has, indeed, been -sometimes made a kinsman of the wool-comber's son. There is little -likelihood of his having been our Christopher himself, then, as we may -easily picture him, a red-haired youth, or in life's early prime, with a -ruddy complexion,--a type of the Italian which one to-day is not without -the chance of encountering in the north of Italy, preserving, it may be, -some of that northern blood which had produced the Vikings. - -The _Historie_ of 1571 gives what purports to be a letter of Columbus -describing some of the events of this campaign. It was addressed to the -Spanish monarchs in 1495. If Anjou was connected with any service in -which Columbus took part, it is easy to make it manifest that it could -not have happened later than 1461, because the reverses of that year -drove the unfortunate René into permanent retirement. The rebuttal of -this testimony depends largely upon the date of Columbus's birth; and if -that is placed in 1446, as seems well established, Columbus, the Genoese -mariner, could hardly have commanded a galley in it at fourteen; and it -is still more improbable if, as D'Avezac says, Columbus was in the -expedition when it set out in 1459, since the boy Christopher was then -but twelve. As Harrisse puts it, the letter of Columbus quoted in the -_Historie_ is apocryphal, or the correct date of Columbus's birth is not -1446. - -It is, however, not to be forgotten that Columbus himself testifies to -the tender age at which he began his sea-service, when, in 1501, he -recalled some of his early experiences; but, unfortunately, Columbus was -chronically given to looseness of statement, and the testimony of his -contemporaries is often the better authority. In 1501, his mind, -moreover, was verging on irresponsibility. He had a talent for deceit, -and sometimes boasted of it, or at least counted it a merit. - -Much investigation has wonderfully confirmed the accuracy of that -earliest sketch of his career contained in the Giustiniani Psalter in -1516; and it is learned from that narrative that Columbus had -attained an adult age when he first went to sea,--and this was one of -the statements which the _Historie_ of 1571 sought to discredit. If the -notarial records of Savona are correct in calling Columbus a wool-comber -in 1472, and he was of the Savona family, and born in 1446, he was then -twenty-six years old, and of the adult age that is claimed by the -Psalter and by other early writers, who either knew or mentioned him, -when he began his seafaring life. In that case he could have had no part -in the Anjou-René expedition, whose whole story, even with the -expositions of Harrisse and Max Büdinger, is shrouded in uncertainties -of time and place. That after 1473 he disappears from every notarial -record that can be found in Genoa shows, in Harrisse's opinion, that it -was not till then that he took to the sea as a profession. - -We cannot say that the information which we have of this early seafaring -life of Columbus, whenever beginning, is deserving of much credit, and -it is difficult to place whatever it includes in chronological order. - -We may infer from one of his statements that he had, at some time, been -at Scio observing the making of mastic. Certain reports which most -likely concern his namesakes, the French corsairs, are sometimes -associated with him as leading an attack on Spanish galleys somewhere in -the service of Louis XI., or as cruising near Cyprus. - -So everything is misty about these early days; but the imagination of -some of his biographers gives us abundant precision for the daily life -of the school-boy, apprentice, cabin boy, mariner, and corsair, even to -the receiving of a wound which we know troubled him in his later years. -Such a story of details is the filling up of a scant outline with the -colors of an unfaithful limner. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -THE ALLUREMENTS OF PORTUGAL. - - -[Sidenote: 1473.] - -[Sidenote: Maritime enterprise in Portugal.] - -Columbus, disappearing from Italy in 1473, is next found in Portugal, -and it is a natural inquiry why an active, adventurous spirit, having -tested the exhilaration of the sea, should have made his way to that -outpost of maritime ambition, bordering on the great waters, that had -for many ages attracted and puzzled the discoverer and cosmographer. It -is hardly to be doubted that the fame of the Portuguese voyaging out -upon the vasty deep, or following the western coast of Africa, had for -some time been a not unusual topic of talk among the seamen of the -Mediterranean. It may be only less probable that an intercourse of -seafaring Mediterranean people with the Arabs of the Levant had brought -rumors of voyages in the ocean that washed the eastern shores of Africa. -These stories from the Orient might well have induced some to speculate -that such voyages were but the complements of those of the Portuguese in -their efforts to solve the problem of the circumnavigation of the great -African continent. It is not, then, surprising that a doughty mariner -like Columbus, in life's prime, should have desired to be in the thick -of such discussions, and to no other European region could he have -turned as a wanderer with the same satisfaction as to Portugal. - -Let us see how the great maritime questions stood in Portugal in 1473, -and from what antecedents they had arisen. - -[Sidenote: Portuguese seamanship.] - -[Sidenote: Explorations on the Sea of Darkness.] - -[Sidenote: Marino Sanuto, 1306.] - -The Portuguese, at this time, had the reputation of being the most -expert seamen in Europe, or at least they divided it with the Catalans -and Majorcans. Their fame lasted, and at a later day was repeated by -Acosta. These hardy mariners had pushed boldly out, as early as we have -any records, into the enticing and yet forbidding Sea of Darkness, not -often perhaps willingly out of sight of land; but storms not -infrequently gave them the experience of sea and sky, and nothing else. -The great ocean was an untried waste for cartography. A few straggling -beliefs in islands lying westward had come down from the ancients, and -the fantastic notions of floating islands and steady lands, upon which -the imagination of the Middle Ages thrived, were still rife, when we -find in the map of Marino Sanuto, in 1306, what may well be considered -the beginning of Atlantic cartography. - -[Sidenote: The Canaries.] - -There is no occasion to make it evident that the Islands of the West -found by the Phoenicians, the Fortunate Islands of Sertorius, and the -Hesperides of Pliny were the Canaries of later times, brought to light -after thirteen centuries of oblivion; but these islands stand in the -planisphere of Sanuto at the beginning of the fourteenth century, to be -casually visited by the Spaniards and others for a hundred years and -more before the Norman, Jean de Béthencourt, in the beginning of the -fifteenth century (1402), settled himself on one of them. Here his -kinspeople ruled, till finally the rival claims of sovereignty by Spain -and Portugal ended in the rights of Spain being established, with -compensating exclusive rights to Portugal on the African coast. - -[Sidenote: The Genoese in Portugal.] - -But it was by Genoese in the service of Portugal, the fame of whose -exploits may not have been unknown to Columbus, that the most important -discoveries of ocean islands had been made. - -[Sidenote: Madeira.] - -It was in the early part of the fourteenth century that the Madeira -group had been discovered. In the Laurentian portolano of 1351, -preserved at Florence, it is unmistakably laid down and properly named, -and that atlas has been considered, for several reasons, the work of -Genoese, and as probably recording the voyage by the Genoese Pezagno for -the Portuguese king,--at least Major holds that to be demonstrable. The -real right of the Portuguese to these islands, rests, however, on their -rediscovery by Prince Henry's captains at a still later period, in -1418-20, when Madeira, seen as a cloud in the horizon from Porto Santo, -was approached in a boat from the smaller island. - -[Sidenote: Azores.] - -[Sidenote: Maps.] - -It is also from the Laurentian portolano of 1351 that we know how, at -some anterior time, the greater group of the Azores had been found by -Portuguese vessels under Genoese commanders. We find these islands also -in the Catalan map of 1373, and in that of Pizigani of the same period -(1367, 1373). - -[Illustration: PART OF THE LAURENTIAN PORTOLANO. - -[From Major's _Prince Henry_.]] - -[Sidenote: Robert Machin.] - -It was in the reign of Edward III. of England that one Robert Machin, -flying from England to avoid pursuit for stealing a wife, accidentally -reached the island of Madeira. Here disaster overtook Machin's company, -but some of his crew reached Africa in a boat and were made captives by -the Moors. In 1416, the Spaniards sent an expedition to redeem Christian -captives held by these same Moors, and, while bringing them away, the -Spanish ship was overcome by a Portuguese navigator, Zarco, and among -his prisoners was one Morales, who had heard, as was reported, of the -experiences of Machin. - -[Sidenote: Porto Santo and Madeira rediscovered.] - -Zarco, a little later, being sent by Prince Henry of Portugal to the -coast of Guinea, was driven out to sea, and discovered the island of -Porto Santo; and subsequently, under the prompting of Morales, he -rediscovered Madeira, then uninhabited. This was in 1418 or 1419, and -though there are some divergences in the different forms of the story, -and though romance and anachronism somewhat obscure its truth, the main -circumstances are fairly discernible. - -[Sidenote: The Perestrello family.] - -This discovery was the beginning of the revelations which the navigators -of Prince Henry were to make. A few years later (1425) he dispatched -colonists to occupy the two islands, and among them was a gentleman of -the household, Bartolomeo Perestrello, whose name, in a descendant, we -shall again encounter when, near the close of the century, we follow -Columbus himself to this same island of Porto Santo. - -[Sidenote: Maps.] - -It is conjectured that the position of the Azores was laid down on a map -which, brought to Portugal from Venice in 1428, instigated Prince Henry -to order his seamen to rediscover those islands. That they are laid down -on Valsequa's Catalan map of 1439 is held to indicate the accomplishment -of the prince's purpose, probably in 1432, though it took twenty years -to bring the entire group within the knowledge of the Portuguese. - -[Sidenote: Bianco's map, 1436.] - -[Sidenote: Other maps.] - -The well-known map of Andrea Bianco in 1436, preserved in the Biblioteca -Marciana at Venice, records also the extent of supposition at that date -respecting the island-studded waste of the Atlantic. Between this date -and the period of the arrival of Columbus in Portugal, the best known -names of the map makers of the Atlantic are those of Valsequa (1439), -Leardo (1448, 1452, 1458), Pareto (1455), and Fra Mauro (1459). This -last there will be occasion to mention later. - -[Sidenote: Flores.] - -In 1452, Pedro de Valasco, in sailing about Fayal westerly, seeing and -following a flight of birds, had discovered the island of Flores. From -what Columbus says in the journal of his first voyage, forty years -later, this tracking of the flight of birds was not an unusual way, in -these early exploring days, of finding new islands. - -[Illustration: MAP OF ANDREA BIANCO. - -[From _Allgem. Geog. Ephemeriden_, Weimar, 1807.]] - - -Thus it was that down to a period a very little later than the middle of -the fifteenth century the Portuguese had been accustoming themselves to -these hazards of the open ocean. Without knowing it they had, in the -discovery of Flores, actually reached the farthest land westerly, which -could in the better knowledge of later years be looked upon as the -remotest outpost of the Old World. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The African route to India.] - -There was, as they thought, a much larger cosmographical problem lying -to the south,--a route to India by a supposable African cape. - -For centuries the Orient had been the dream of the philosopher and the -goal of the merchant. Everything in the East was thought to be on a -larger scale than in Europe,--metals were more abundant, pearls were -rarer, spices were richer, plants were nobler, animals were statelier. -Everything but man was more lordly. He had been fed there so luxuriously -that he was believed to have dwindled in character. Europe was the world -of active intelligence, the inheritor of Greek and Roman power, and its -typical man belonged naturally with the grander externals of the East. -There was a fitness in bringing the better man and the better nature -into such relations that the one should sustain and enjoy the other. - -[Sidenote: China.] - -The earliest historical record of the peoples of Western Asia with China -goes back, according to Yule, to the second century before Christ. Three -hundred years later we find the first trace of Roman intercourse (A. D. -166). With India, China had some trade by sea as early as the fourth -century, and with Babylonia possibly in the fifth century. There were -Christian Nestorian missionaries there as early as the eighth century, -and some of their teachings had been found there by Western travelers in -the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The communication of Ceylon -with China was revived in the thirteenth century. - -[Sidenote: Cathay.] - -[Sidenote: Marco Polo.] - -It was in the twelfth century, under the Mongol dynasty, that China -became first generally known in Europe, under the name of Cathay, and -then for the first time the Western nations received travelers' stories -of the kingdom of the great Khan. Two Franciscans, one an Italian, Plano -Carpini, the other a Fleming, Rubruquis, sent on missions for the -Church, returned to Europe respectively in 1247 and 1255. It was not, -however, till Marco Polo returned from his visit to Kublai Khan, in the -latter part of the thirteenth century, that a new enlargement of the -ideas of Europe respecting the far Orient took place. The influence of -his marvelous tales continued down to the days of Columbus, and -when the great discoverer came on the scene it was to find the public -mind occupied with the hopes of reaching these Eastern realms by way of -the south. The experimental and accidental voyagings of the Portuguese -on the Atlantic were held to be but preliminary to a steadier -progression down the coast of Africa. - -[Sidenote: The African route and the ancients.] - -[Sidenote: The African cape.] - -Whether the ancients had succeeded in circumnavigating Africa is a -question never likely to be definitely settled, and opposing views, as -weighed by Bunbury in his _History of Ancient Geography_, are too evenly -balanced to allow either side readily to make conquest of judicial -minds. It is certain that Hipparchus had denied the possibility of it, -and had supposed the Indian Ocean a land-bound sea, Africa extending at -the south so as to connect with a southern prolongation of eastern Asia. -This view had been adopted by Ptolemy, whose opinions were dominating at -this time the Western mind. Nevertheless, that Africa ended in a -southern cape seems to have been conceived of by those who doubted the -authority of Ptolemy early enough for Sanuto, in 1306, to portray such a -cape in his planisphere. If Sanuto really knew of its existence the -source of his knowledge is a subject for curious speculation. Not -unlikely an African cape may have been surmised by the Venetian sailors, -who, frequenting the Mediterranean coasts of Asia Minor, came in contact -with the Arabs. These last may have cherished the traditions of maritime -explorers on the east coast of Africa, who may have already discovered -the great southern cape, perhaps without passing it. - -[Sidenote: African coast discovery, 1393.] - -Navarrete records that as early as 1393 a company had been formed in -Andalusia and Biscay for promoting discoveries down the coast of Africa. -It was an effort to secure in the end such a route to Asia as might -enable the people of the Iberian peninsula to share with those of the -Italian the trade with the East, which the latter had long conducted -wholly or in part overland from the Levant. The port of Barcelona had -indeed a share in this opulent commerce; but its product for Spain was -insignificant in comparison with that for Italy. - -[Sidenote: -Prince Henry, the Navigator.] - -The guiding spirit in this new habit of exploration was that scion of -the royal family of Portugal who became famous eventually as Prince -Henry the Navigator, and whose biography has been laid before the -English reader within twenty years, abundantly elucidated by the -careful hand of Richard H. Major. The Prince had assisted King João -in the attack on the Moors at Ceuta, in 1415, and this success had -opened to the Prince the prospect of possessing the Guinea coast, and of -ultimately finding and passing the anticipated cape at the southern end -of Africa. - -[Sidenote: Cape Bojador.] - -This was the mission to which the Prince early in the fifteenth century -gave himself. His ships began to crawl down the western Barbary coast, -and each season added to the extent of their explorations, but Cape -Bojador for a while blocked their way, just as it had stayed other hardy -adventurers even before the birth of Henry. "We may wonder," says Helps, -"that he never took personal command of any of his expeditions, but he -may have thought that he served the cause better by remaining at home, -and forming a centre whence the electric energy of enterprise was -communicated to many discoverers and then again collected from them." - -[Sidenote: Sagres.] - -Meanwhile, Prince Henry had received from his father the government of -Algaroe, and he selected the secluded promontory of Sagres, jutting into -the sea at the southwestern extremity of Portugal, as his home, going -here in 1418, or possibly somewhat later. Whether he so organized his -efforts as to establish here a school of navigation is in dispute, but -it is probably merely a question of what constitutes a school. There -seems no doubt that he built an observatory and drew about him skillful -men in the nautical arts, including a somewhat famous Majorcan, Jayme. -He and his staff of workers took seamanship as they found it, with its -cylindrical charts, and so developed it that it became in the hands of -the Portuguese the evidence of the highest skill then attainable. - -[Sidenote: Art of seamanship.] - -Seamanship as then practiced has become an interesting study. Under the -guidance of Humboldt, in his remarkable work, the _Examen Critique_, in -which he couples a consideration of the nautical astronomy with the -needs of this age of discovery, we find an easy path among the -intricacies of the art. These complications have, in special aspects, -been further elucidated by Navarrete, Margry, and a recent German -writer, Professor Ernst Mayer. - -[Sidenote: Lully's _Arte de Navegar_.] - -It was just at the end of the thirteenth century (1295) that the _Arte -de Navegar_ of Raymond Lully, or Lullius, gave mariners a handbook, -which, so far as is made apparent, was not superseded by a better even -in the time of Columbus. - -[Illustration: PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. - -[From a Chronicle in the National Library at Paris.]] - - -[Sidenote: Sacrobosco.] - -Another nautical text-book at this time was a treatise by John Holywood, -a Yorkshire man, who needs to be a little dressed up when we think of -him as the Latinized Sacrobosco. His _Sphera Mundi_ was not put into -type till 1472, just before Columbus's arrival in Portugal,--a work -which is mainly paraphrased from Ptolemy's _Almagest_. It was one of the -books which, by law, the royal cosmographer of Spain, at a later day, -was directed to expound in his courses of instruction. - -[Sidenote: The loadstone.] - -The loadstone was known in western and northern Europe as early as the -eleventh century, and for two or three centuries there are found in -books occasional references to the magnet. We are in much doubt, -however, as to the prevalence of its use in navigation. If we are to -believe some writers on the subject, it was known to the Norsemen as -early as the seventh century. Its use in the Levant, derived, doubtless, -from the peoples navigating the Indian Ocean, goes back to an antiquity -not easily to be limited. - -[Sidenote: Magnetic needle.] - -By the year 1200, a knowledge of the magnetic needle, coming from China -through the Arabs, had become common enough in Europe to be mentioned in -literature, and in another century its use did not escape record by the -chroniclers of maritime progress. In the fourteenth century, the -adventurous spirit of the Catalans and the Normans stretched the scope -of their observations from the Hebrides on the north to the west coast -of tropical Africa on the south, and to the westward, two fifths across -the Atlantic to the neighborhood of the Azores,--voyages made safely -under the direction of the magnet. - -[Sidenote: Observations for latitude.] - -[Sidenote: The astrolabe.] - -There was not much difficulty in computing latitude either by the -altitude of the polar star or by using tables of the sun's declination, -which the astronomers of the time were equal to calculating. The -astrolabe used for gauging the altitude was a simple instrument, which -had been long in use among the Mediterranean seamen, and had been -described by Raymond Lullius in the latter part of the thirteenth -century. Before Columbus's time it had been somewhat improved by -Johannes Müller of Königsberg, who became better known from the Latin -form of his native town as Regiomontanus. He had, perhaps, the best -reputation in his day as a nautical astronomer, and Humboldt has -explained the importance of his labors in the help which he afforded in -an age of discovery. - -[Sidenote: Dead reckoning.] - -It is quite certain that the navigators of Prince Henry, and even -Columbus, practiced no artificial method for ascertaining the speed of -their ships. With vessels of the model of those days, no great rapidity -was possible, and the utmost a ship could do under favorable -circumstances was not usually beyond four miles an hour. The hourglass -gave them the time, and afforded the multiple according as the eye -adjusted the apparent number of miles which the ship was making hour by -hour. This was the method by which Columbus, in 1492, calculated the -distances, which he recorded day by day in his journal. Of course the -practiced seaman made allowances for drift in the ocean currents, and -met with more or less intelligence the various deterrent elements in -beating to windward. - -[Sidenote: The seaman's log.] - -Humboldt, with his keen insight into all such problems concerning their -relations to oceanic discoveries, tells us in his _Cosmos_ how he has -made the history of the log a subject of special investigation in the -sixth volume of his _Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie_, -which, unfortunately, the world has never seen; but he gives, -apparently, the results in his later _Cosmos_. - -[Illustration: THE ASTROLABE OF REGIOMONTANUS.] - -It is perhaps surprising that the Mediterranean peoples had not -perceived a method, somewhat clumsy as it was, which had been in use by -the Romans in the time of the republic. Though the habit of throwing the -log is still, in our day, kept up on ocean steamers, I find that -experienced commanders quite as willingly depend on the report of their -engineers as to the number of revolutions which the wheel or screw has -made in the twenty-four hours. In this they were anticipated by these -republicans of Rome who attached wheels of four feet diameter to the -sides of their ships and let the passage of the water turn them. Their -revolutions were then recorded by a device which threw a pebble into a -tally-pot for each revolution. - -[Illustration: REGIOMONTANUS'S ASTROLABE, 1468. - -[After an original in the museum at Nuremberg, shown in E. Mayer's _Die -Hilfsmittel der Schiffahrtskunde_.]] - -From that time, so far as Humboldt could ascertain, down to a period -later than Columbus, and certainly after the revival of long ocean -voyages by the Catalans, Portuguese, and Normans, there seems to have -been no skill beyond that of the eyes in measuring the speed of vessels. -After the days of Columbus, it is only when we come to the voyages of -Magellan that we find any mention of such a device as a log, which -consisted, as his chronicler explains, of some arrangements of -cog-wheels and chains carried on the poop. - -[Sidenote: Prince Henry's character.] - -Such were in brief the elements of seamanship in which Prince Henry the -Navigator caused his sailors to be instructed, and which more or less -governed the instrumentalities employed in his career of discovery. He -was a man who, as his motto tells us, wished, and was able, to do well. -He was shadowed with few infirmities of spirit. He joined with the pluck -of his half-English blood--for he was the grandson of John of Gaunt--a -training for endurance derived in his country's prolonged contests with -the Moor. He was the staple and lofty exemplar of this great age of -discovery. He was more so than Columbus, and rendered the adventitious -career of the Genoese possible. He knew how to manage men, and stuck -devotedly to his work. He respected his helpers too much to drug them -with deceit, and there is a straightforward honesty of purpose in his -endeavors. He was a trainer of men, and they grew courageous under his -instruction. To sail into the supposed burning zone beyond Cape Bojador, -and to face the destruction of life which was believed to be inevitable, -required a courage quite as conspicuous as to cleave the floating -verdure of the Sargasso Sea, on a western passage. It must be confessed -that he shared with Columbus those proclivities which in the instigators -of African slavery so easily slipped into cruelty. They each believed -there was a merit, if a heathen's soul be at stake, in not letting -commiseration get the better of piety. - -[Sidenote: Cape Bojador passed, 1434.] - -It was not till 1434 that Prince Henry's captains finally passed Cape -Bojador. It was a strenuous and daring effort in the face of conceded -danger, and under the impulse of the Prince's earnest urging. Gil Eannes -returned from this accomplished act a hero in the eyes of his master. -Had it ever been passed before? Not apparently in any way to affect the -importance of this Portuguese enterprise. We can go back indeed, to the -expedition of Hanno the Carthaginian, and in the commentaries of Carl -Müller and Vivien de St. Martin track that navigator outside the Pillars -of Hercules, and follow him southerly possibly to Cape Verde or its -vicinity; and this, if Major's arguments are to be accepted, is the only -antecedent venture beyond Cape Bojador, though there have been claims -set up for the Genoese, the Catalans, and the Dieppese. That the map of -Marino Sanuto in 1306, and the so-called Laurentian portolano of 1351, -both of which establish a vague southerly limit to Africa, rather give -expression to a theory than chronicle the experience of navigators is -the opinion of Major. It is of course possible that some indefinite -knowledge of oriental tracking of the eastern coast of Africa, and -developing its terminal shape southerly, may have passed, as already -intimated, with other nautical knowledge, by the Red Sea to the -Mediterranean peoples. To attempt to settle the question of any -circumnavigation of Africa before the days of Diaz and Da Gama, by the -evidence of earlier maps, makes us confront very closely geographical -theories on the one hand, and on the other a possible actual knowledge -filtered through the Arabs. All this renders it imprudent to assume any -tone of certainty in the matter. - -[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF AFRICAN DISCOVERY.] - -The captains of Prince Henry now began, season by season, to make a -steady advance. The Pope had granted to the Portuguese monarchy the -exclusive right to discovered lands on this unexplored route to India, -and had enjoined all others not to interfere. - -[Sidenote: Cape Blanco passed, 1441.] - -In 1441 the Prince's ships passed beyond Cape Blanco, and in succeeding -years they still pushed on little by little, bringing home in 1442 some -negroes for slaves, the first which were seen in Europe, as Helps -supposes, though this is a matter of some doubt. - -[Sidenote: Cape Verde reached, 1445.] - -Cape Verde had been reached by Diniz Dyàz (Fernandez) in 1445, and the -discovery that the coast beyond had a general easterly trend did much to -encourage the Portuguese, with the illusory hope that the way to India -was at last opened. They had by this time passed beyond the countries of -the Moors, and were coasting along a country inhabited by negroes. - -[Sidenote: Cadamosto, 1445.] - -[Sidenote: Cape Verde Islands.] - -In 1455, the Venetian Cadamosto, a man who proved that he could write -intelligently of what he saw, was induced by Prince Henry to conduct a -new expedition, which was led to the Gambia; so that Europeans saw for -the first time the constellation of the Southern Cross. In the following -year, still patronized by Prince Henry, who fitted out one of his -vessels, Cadamosto discovered the Cape Verde Islands, or at least his -narrative would indicate that he did. By comparison of documents, -however, Major has made it pretty clear that Cadamosto arrogated to -himself a glory which belonged to another, and that the true discoverer -of the Cape Verde Islands was Diogo Gomez, in 1460. It was on this -second voyage that Cadamosto passed Cape Roxo, and reached the Rio -Grande. - -[Illustration: FRA MAURO'S WORLD, 1439.] - -[Sidenote: Fra Mauro's maps, 1457.] - -[Illustration: TOMB OF PRINCE HENRY AT BATALHA. - -[From Major's _Prince Henry_.]] - -[Sidenote: Prince Henry dies, 1460.] - -In 1457, Prince Henry sent, by order of his nephew and sovereign, -Alfonso V., the maps of his captains to Venice, to have them combined in -a large mappemonde; and Fra Mauro was entrusted with the making of it, -in which he was assisted by Andrea Bianco, a famous cartographer of the -time. This great map came to Portugal the year before the Prince died, -and it stands as his final record, left behind him at his death, -November 13, 1460, to attest his constancy and leadership. The -pecuniary sacrifices which he had so greatly incurred in his -enterprises had fatally embarrassed his estate. His death was not as -Columbus's was, an obscuration that no one noted; his life was prolonged -in the school of seamanship which he had created. - -[Illustration: STATUE OF PRINCE HENRY AT BELEM. - -[From Major's _Prince Henry_.]] - -The Prince's enthusiasm in his belief that there was a great southern -point of Africa had been imparted to all his followers. Fra Mauro gave -it credence in his map by an indication that an Indian junk from the -East had rounded the cape with the sun in 1420. In this Mauro map the -easterly trend of the coast beyond Cape Verde is adequately shown, but -it is made only as the northern shore of a deep gulf indenting the -continent. The more southern parts are simply forced into a shape to -suit and fill out the circular dimensions of the map. - -[Sidenote: Sierra Leone, Gold Coast.] - -[Sidenote: La Mina.] - -Within a few years after Henry's death--though some place it -earlier--the explorations had been pushed to Sierra Leone and beyond -Cape Mezurada. When the revenues of the Gold Coast were farmed out in -1469, it was agreed that discovery should be pushed a hundred leagues -farther south annually; and by 1474, when the contract expired, Fernam -Gomez, who had taken it, had already found the gold dust region of La -Mina, which Columbus, in 1492, was counseled by Spain to avoid while -searching for his western lands. - -This, then, was the condition of Portuguese seamanship and of its -exploits when Columbus, some time, probably, in 1473, reached Portugal. -He found that country so content with the rich product of the Guinea -coast that it was some years later before the Portuguese began to push -still farther to the south. The desire to extend the Christian faith to -heathen, often on the lips of the discoverers of the fifteenth century, -was never so powerful but that gold and pearls made them forget it. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. - - -[Sidenote: Date of his arrival.] - -[Sidenote: 1470.] - -It has been held by Navarrete, Irving, and other writers of the older -school that Columbus first arrived in Portugal in 1470; and his coming -has commonly been connected with a naval battle near Lisbon, in which he -escaped from a burning ship by swimming to land with the aid of an oar. -It is easily proved, however, that notarial entries in Italy show him to -have been in that country on August 7, 1473. We may, indeed, by some -stretch of inference, allow the old date to be sustained, by supposing -that he really was domiciled in Lisbon as early as 1470, but made -occasional visits to his motherland for the next three or four years. - -[Sidenote: Supposed naval battle.] - -The naval battle, in its details, is borrowed by the _Historie_ of 1571 -from the _Rerum Venitiarum ab Urbe Condita_ of Sabellicus. This author -makes Christopher Columbus a son of the younger corsair Colombo, who -commanded in the fight, which could not have happened either in 1470, -the year usually given, or in 1473-74, the time better determined for -Columbus's arrival in Portugal, since this particular action is known to -have taken place on August 22, 1485. Those who defend the _Historie_, -like D'Avezac, claim that its account simply confounds the battle of -1485 with an earlier one, and that the story of the oar must be accepted -as an incident of this supposable anterior fight. The action in 1485 -took place when the French corsair, Casaneuve or Colombo, intercepted -some richly laden Venetian galleys between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent. -History makes no mention of any earlier action of similar import which -could have been the occasion of the escape by swimming; and to sustain -the _Historie_ by supposing such is a simple, perhaps allowable, -hypothesis. - -[Sidenote: Probable -arrival in 1473-1474.] - -Rawdon Brown, in the introduction to his volumes of the _Calendar of -State Papers in the Archives of Venice_, has connected Columbus -with this naval combat, but, as he later acknowledged to Harrisse, -solely on the authority of the _Historie_. Irving has rejected the -story. There seems no occasion to doubt its inconsistencies and -anachronisms, and, once discarded, we are thrown back upon the -notarial evidence in Italy, by which we may venture to accept the date -of 1473-74 as that of the entrance of Columbus into Portugal. Irving, -though he discards the associated incidents, accepts the earlier date. -Nevertheless, the date of 1473-74 is not taken without some hazard. As -it has been of late ascertained that when Columbus left Portugal it was -not for good, as was supposed, so it may yet be discovered that it was -from some earlier adventure that the buoyancy of an oar took him to the -land. - -[Sidenote: Italians as maritime discoverers.] - -This coming of an Italian to Portugal to throw in his lot with a foreign -people leads the considerate observer to reflect on the strange -vicissitudes which caused Italy to furnish to the western nations so -many conspicuous leaders in the great explorations of the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries, without profiting in the slightest degree through -territorial return. Cadamosto and Cabot, the Venetians, Columbus, the -Genoese, Vespucius and Verrazano, the Florentines, are, on the whole, -the most important of the great captains of discovery in this virgin age -of maritime exploration through the dark waters of the Atlantic; and yet -Spain and Portugal, France and England, were those who profited by their -genius and labors. - -It is a singular fact that, during the years which Columbus spent in -Portugal, there is not a single act of his life that can be credited -with an exact date, and few can be placed beyond cavil by undisputed -documentary evidence. - -[Sidenote: Occupation in Portugal.] - -It is the usual story, given by his earliest Italian biographers, Gallo -and his copiers, that Columbus had found his brother Bartholomew already -domiciled in Portugal, and earning a living by making charts and selling -books, and that Christopher naturally fell, for a while, into similar -occupations. He was not, we are also told, unmindful of his father's -distresses in Italy, when he disposed of his small earnings. We likewise -know the names of a few of his fellow Genoese settled in Lisbon in -traffic, because he speaks of their kindnesses to him, and the help -which they had given him (1482) in what would appear to have been -commercial ventures. - -It seems not unlikely that he had not been long in the country when the -incident occurred at Lisbon which led to his marriage, which is thus -recorded in the _Historie_. - -[Sidenote: His marriage.] - -During his customary attendance upon divine worship in the Convent of -All Saints, his devotion was observed by one of the pensioners of the -monastery, who sought him with such expressions of affection that he -easily yielded to her charms. This woman, Felipa Moñiz by name, is said -to have been a daughter, by his wife Caterina Visconti, of Bartolomeo -Perestrello, a gentleman of Italian origin, who is associated with the -colonization of Madeira and Porto Santo. From anything which Columbus -himself says and is preserved to us, we know nothing more than that he -desired in his will that masses should be said for the repose of her -soul; for she was then long dead, and, as Diego tells us, was buried in -Lisbon. We learn her name for the first time from Diego's will, in 1509, -and this is absolutely all the documentary evidence which we have -concerning her. Oviedo and the writers who wrote before the publication -of the _Historie_ had only said that Columbus had married in Portugal, -without further particulars. - -[Sidenote: The Perestrellos.] - -But the _Historie_, with Las Casas following it, does not wholly satisfy -our curiosity, neither does Oviedo, later, nor Gomara and Benzoni, who -copy from Oviedo. There arises a question of the identity of this -Bartolomeo Perestrello, among three of the name of three succeeding -generations. Somewhere about 1420, or later, the eldest of this line was -made the first governor of Porto Santo, after the island had been -discovered by one of the expeditions which had been down the African -coast. It is of him the story goes that, taking some rabbits thither, -their progeny so quickly possessed the island that its settlers deserted -it! Such genealogical information as can be acquired of this earliest -Perestrello is against the supposition of his being the father of Felipa -Moñiz, but rather indicates that by a second wife, Isabel Moñiz by name, -he had the second Bartolomeo, who in turn became the father of our -Felipa Moñiz. The testimony of Las Casas seems to favor this view. If -this is the Bartolomeo who, having attained his majority, was assigned -to the captaincy of Porto Santo in 1473, it could hardly be that a -daughter would have been old enough to marry in 1474-75. - -The first Bartolomeo, if he was the father-in-law of Columbus, seems to -have died in 1457, and was succeeded in 1458, in command of the island -of Porto Santo, by another son-in-law, Pedro Correa da Cunha, who -married a daughter of his first marriage,--or at least that is one -version of this genealogical complication,--and who was later succeeded -in 1473 by the second Bartolomeo. - -The Count Bernardo Pallastrelli, a modern member of the family, has of -late years, in his _Il Suocero e la Moglie di Cristoforo Colombo_ (2d -ed., Piacenza, 1876), attempted to identify the kindred of the wife of -Columbus. He has examined the views of Harrisse, who is on the whole -inclined to believe that the wife of Columbus was a daughter of one -Vasco Gill Moñiz, whose sister had married the Perestrello of the -_Historie_ story. The successive wills of Diego Columbus, it may be -observed, call her in one (1509) Philippa Moñiz, and in the other (1523) -Philippa Muñiz, without the addition of Perestrello. The genealogical -table of the count's monograph, on the other hand, makes Felipa to be -the child of Isabella Moñiz, who was the second wife of Bartolomeo -Pallastrelli, the son of Felipo, who came to Portugal some time after -1371, from Plaisance, in Italy. Bartolomeo had been one of the household -of Prince Henry, and had been charged by him with founding a colony at -Porto Santo, in 1425, over which island he was long afterward (1446) -made governor. We must leave it as a question involved in much doubt. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's son Diego born.] - -The issue of this marriage was one son, Diego, but there is no distinct -evidence as to the date of his birth. Sundry incidents go to show that -it was somewhere between 1475 and 1479. Columbus's marriage to Doña -Felipa had probably taken place at Lisbon, and not before 1474 at the -earliest, a date not difficult to reconcile with the year (1473-74) now -held to be that of his arrival in Portugal. It is supposed that it was -while Columbus was living at Porto Santo, where his wife had some -property, that Diego was born, though Harrisse doubts if any evidence -can be adduced to support such a statement beyond a sort of conjecture -on Las Casas's part, derived from something he thought he remembered -Diego to have told him. - -[Sidenote: Perestrello's MSS.] - -The story of Columbus's marriage, as given in the _Historie_ -and followed by Oviedo, couples with it the belief that it was among the -papers of his dead father-in-law, Perestrello, that Columbus found -documents and maps which prompted him to the conception of a western -passage to Asia. In that case, this may perhaps have been the motive -which induced him to draw from Paolo Toscanelli that famous letter, -which is usually held to have had an important influence on the mind of -Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Story of a sailor dying in Columbus's house.] - -The fact of such relationship of Columbus with Perestrello is called in -question, and so is another incident often related by the biographers of -Columbus. This is that an old seaman who had returned from an -adventurous voyage westward had found shelter in the house of Columbus, -and had died there, but not before he had disclosed to him a discovery -he had made of land to the west. This story is not told in any writer -that is now known before Gomara (1552), and we are warned by Benzoni -that in Gomara's hands this pilot story was simply an invention "to -diminish the immortal fame of Christopher Columbus, as there were many -who could not endure that a foreigner and Italian should have acquired -so much honor and so much glory, not only for the Spanish kingdom, but -also for the other nations of the world." - -[Sidenote: Pomponius Mela, Strabo, etc.] - -[Sidenote: Manilius, Solinus, Ptolemy.] - -It is certain, however, that under the impulse of the young art of -printing men's minds had at this time become more alive than they had -been for centuries to the search for cosmographical views. The old -geographers, just at this time, were one by one finding their way into -print, mainly in Italy, while the intercourse of that country with -Portugal was quickened by the attractions of the Portuguese discoveries. -While Columbus was still in Italy, the great popularity of Pomponius -Mela began with the first edition in Latin, which was printed at Milan -in 1471, followed soon by other editions in Venice. The _De Situ Orbis_ -of Strabo had already been given to the world in Latin as early as 1469, -and during the next few years this text was several times reprinted at -Rome and Venice. The teaching of the sphericity of the earth in the -astronomical poem of Manilius, long a favorite with the monks of the -Middle Ages, who repeated it in their labored script, appeared in type -at Nuremberg at the same time. The _Polyhistor_ of Solinus did not long -delay to follow. A Latin version of Ptolemy had existed since 1409, but -it was later than the rest in appearing in print, and bears the date of -1475. These were the newer issues of the Italian and German presses, -which were attracting the notice of the learned in this country of the -new activities when Columbus came among them, and they were having their -palpable effect. - -[Sidenote: Toscanelli's theory.] - -[Sidenote: His letter to Columbus.] - -Just when we know not, but some time earlier than this, Alfonso V. of -Portugal had sought, through the medium of the monk Fernando Martinez -(Fernam Martins), to know precisely what was meant by the bruit of -Toscanelli's theory of a westward way to India. To an inquiry thus -vouched Toscanelli had replied to Fernando Martinez (June 25, 1474), -some days before a similar inquiry addressed to Toscanelli reached -Florence, from Columbus himself, and through the agency of an aged -Florentine merchant settled in Lisbon. It seems probable that no -knowledge of Martinez's correspondence with Toscanelli had come to the -notice of Columbus; and that the message which the Genoese sent to the -Florentine was due simply to the same current rumors of Toscanelli's -views which had attracted the attention of the king. So in replying to -Columbus Toscanelli simply shortened his task by inclosing, with a brief -introduction, a copy of the letter, which he says he had sent "some days -before" to Martinez. This letter outlined a plan of western discovery; -but it is difficult to establish beyond doubt the exact position which -the letter of Toscanelli should hold in the growth of Columbus's views. -If Columbus reached Portugal as late as 1473-74, as seems likely, it is -rendered less certain that Columbus had grasped his idea anterior to the -spread of Toscanelli's theory. In any event, the letter of the -Florentine physician would strengthen the growing notions of the -Genoese. - -As Toscanelli was at this time a man of seventy-seven, and as a belief -in the sphericity of the earth was then not unprevalent, and as the -theory of a westward way to the East was a necessary concomitant of such -views in the minds of thinking men, it can hardly be denied that the -latent faith in a westward passage only needed a vigilant mind to -develop the theory, and an adventurous spirit to prove its correctness. -The development had been found in Toscanelli and the proof was waiting -for Columbus,--both Italians; but Humboldt points out how the -Florentine very likely thought he was communicating with a Portuguese, -when he wrote to Columbus. - -This letter has been known since 1571 in the Italian text as given in -the _Historie_, which, as it turns out, was inexact and overladen with -additions. At least such is the inference when we compare this Italian -text with a Latin text, supposed to be the original tongue of the -letter, which has been discovered of late years in the handwriting of -Columbus himself, on the flyleaf of an Æneas Sylvius (1477), once -belonging to Columbus, and still preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina -at Seville. The letter which is given in the _Historie_ is accompanied -by an antescript, which says that the copy had been sent to Columbus at -his request, and that it had been originally addressed to Martinez, some -time "before the wars of Castile." How much later than the date June 25, -1474, this copy was sent to Columbus, and when it was received by him, -there is no sure means of determining, and it may yet be in itself one -of the factors for limiting the range of months during which Columbus -must have arrived in Portugal. - -[Sidenote: Toscanelli's visions of the East.] - -The extravagances of the letter of Toscanelli, in his opulent -descriptions of a marvelous Asiatic region, were safely made in that age -without incurring the charge of credulity. Travelers could tell tales -then that were as secure from detection as the revealed arcana of the -Zuñi have been in our own days. Two hundred towns, whose marble bridges -spanned a single river, and whose commerce could incite the cupidity of -the world, was a tale easily to stir numerous circles of listeners in -the maritime towns of the Mediterranean, wherever wandering mongers of -marvels came and went. There were such travelers whose recitals -Toscanelli had read, and others whose tales he had heard from their own -lips, and these last were pretty sure to augment the wonders of the -elder talebearers. - -Columbus had felt this influence with the rest, and the tales lost -nothing of their vividness in coming to him freshened, as it were, by -the curious mind of the Florentine physician. The map which accompanied -Toscanelli's letter, and which depicted his notions of the Asiatic coast -lying over against that of Spain, is lost to us, but various attempts -have been made to restore it, as is done in the sketch annexed. It will -be a precious memorial, if ever recovered, worthy of study as a reflex, -in more concise representation than is found in the text of the letter, -of the ideas which one of the most learned cosmographers of his day had -imbibed from mingled demonstrations of science and imagination. - -[Illustration: TOSCANELLI'S MAP AS RESTORED IN _DAS AUSLAND_.] - -[Sidenote: The passage westward.] - -It is said that in our own day, in the first stages of a belief in the -practicability of an Atlantic telegraphic cable, it was seriously -claimed that the vast stretch of its extension could be broken by a -halfway station on Jacquet Island, one of those relics of the Middle -Ages, which has disappeared from our ocean charts only in recent years. - -[Sidenote: Antillia.] - -Just in the same way all the beliefs which men had had in the island of -Antillia, and in the existence of many another visionary bit of land, -came to the assistance of these theoretical discoverers in planning the -chances of a desperate voyage far out into a sea of gorgons and chimeras -dire. Toscanelli's map sought to direct the course of any one who dared -to make the passage, in a way that, in case of disaster to his ships, a -secure harbor could be found in Antillia, and in such other havens as no -lack of islands would supply. - -Ferdinand claimed to have found in his father's papers some statements -which he had drawn from Aristotle of Carthaginian voyages to Antillia, -on the strength of which the Portuguese had laid that island down in -their charts in the latitude of Lisbon, as one occupied by their people -in 714, when Spain was conquered by the Moors. Even so recently as the -time of Prince Henry it had been visited by Portuguese ships, if records -were to be believed. It also stands in the Bianco map of 1436. - -[Sidenote: Fabulous islands of the Atlantic.] - -There are few more curious investigations than those which concern these -fantastic and fabulous islands of the Sea of Darkness. They are -connected with views which were an inheritance in part from the classic -times, with involved notions of the abodes of the blessed and of -demoniacal spirits. In part they were the aërial creation of popular -mythologies, going back to a remoteness of which it is impossible to -trace the beginning, and which got a variable color from the popular -fancies of succeeding generations. The whole subject is curiously -without the field of geography, though entering into all surveys of -mediæval knowledge of the earth, and depending very largely for its -elucidation on the maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, -whose mythical traces are not beyond recognition in some of the best -maps which have instructed a generation still living. - -[Sidenote: St. Brandan.] - -To place the island of the Irish St. Brandan--whose coming there with -his monks is spoken of as taking place in the sixth century--in the -catalogue of insular entities is to place geography in such a marvelous -guise as would have satisfied the monk Philoponus and the rest of the -credulous fictionmongers who hang about the skirts of the historic -field. But the belief in it long prevailed, and the apparition sometimes -came to sailors' eyes as late as the last century. - -[Sidenote: Antillia, or the Seven Cities.] - -The great island of Antillia, or the Seven Cities, already referred to, -was recognized, so far as we know, for the first time in the Weimar map -of 1424, and is known in legends as the resort of some Spanish bishops, -flying from the victorious Moors, in the eighth century. It never quite -died out from the recognition of curious minds, and was even thought to -have been seen by the Portuguese, not far from the time when Columbus -was born. Peter Martyr also, after Columbus had returned from his first -voyage, had a fancy that what the Admiral had discovered was really the -great island of Antillia, and its attendant groups of smaller isles, and -the fancy was perpetuated when Wytfliet and Ortelius popularized the -name of Antilles for the West Indian Archipelago. - -[Sidenote: Brazil Island.] - -Another fleeting insular vision of this pseudo-geographical realm was a -smaller body of floating land, very inconstant in position, which is -always given some form of the name that, in later times, got a constant -shape in the word Brazil. We can trace it back into the portolanos of -the middle of the fourteenth century; and it had not disappeared as a -survival twenty or thirty years ago in the admiralty charts of Great -Britain. The English were sending out expeditions from Bristol in search -of it even while Columbus was seeking countenance for his western -schemes; and Cabot, at a little later day, was instrumental in other -searches. - -[Sidenote: Travelers in the Orient.] - -Foremost among the travelers who had excited the interest of Toscanelli, -and whose names he possibly brought for the first time to the attention -of Columbus, were Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and Nicolas de Conti. - -[Illustration: MODERN EASTERN ASIA, WITH THE OLD AND NEW NAMES. - -[From Yule's _Cathay_.]] - -[Sidenote: Marco Polo,] - -It is a question to be resolved only by critical study as to what was -the language in which Marco Polo first dictated, in a Genoese prison in -1298, the original narrative of his experiences in Cathay. The inquiry -has engaged the attention of all his editors, and has invited the -critical sagacity of D'Avezac. There seems little doubt that it was -written down in French. - -[Illustration: EASTERN ASIA, CATALAN MAP, 1375. - -[From Yule's _Cathay_, vol. i.]] - -[Illustration: MARCO POLO. - -[From an original at Rome.]] - -There are no references by Columbus himself to the Asiatic travels of -Marco Polo, but his acquaintance with the marvelous book of the Venetian -observer may safely be assumed. The multiplication of texts of the -_Milione_ following upon his first dictation, and upon the subsequent -revision in 1307, may not, indeed, have caused it to be widely known in -various manuscript forms, be it in Latin or Italian. Nor is it likely -that Columbus could have read the earliest edition which was put in -type, for it was in German in 1477; but there is the interesting -possibility that this work of the Nuremberg press may have been known to -Martin Behaim, a Nuremberger then in Lisbon, and likely enough to have -been a familiar of Columbus. The fact that there is in the Biblioteca -Colombina at Seville a copy of the first Latin printed edition (1485) -with notes, which seem to be in Columbus's handwriting, may be taken as -evidence, that at least in the later years of his study the inspiration -which Marco Polo could well have been to him was not wanting; and the -story may even be true as told in Navarrete, that Columbus had a copy -of this famous book at his side during his first voyage, in 1492. - -At the time when Humboldt doubted the knowledge of Columbus in respect -to Marco Polo, this treasure of the Colombina was not known, and these -later developments have shown how such a question was not to be settled -as Humboldt supposed, by the fact that Columbus quoted Æneas Sylvius -upon Cipango, and did not quote Marco Polo. - -[Sidenote: Sir John Mandeville.] - -Neither does Columbus refer to the journey and strange stories of Sir -John Mandeville, whose recitals came to a generation which was beginning -to forget the stories of Marco Polo, and which, by fostering a passion -for the marvelous, had readily become open to the English knight's -bewildering fancies. The same negation of evidence, however, that -satisfied Humboldt as respects Marco Polo will hardly suffice to -establish Columbus's ignorance of the marvels which did more, perhaps, -than the narratives of any other traveler to awaken Europe to the -wonders of the Orient. Bernaldez, in fact, tells us that Columbus was a -reader of Mandeville, whose recital was first printed in French at Lyons -in 1480, within a few years after Columbus's arrival in Portugal. - -[Sidenote: Nicolo di Conti.] - -It was to Florence, in Toscanelli's time, not far from 1420, that Nicolo -di Conti, a Venetian, came, after his long sojourn of a quarter of a -century in the far East. In Conti's new marvels, the Florentine scholar -saw a rejuvenation of the wonders of Marco Polo. It was from Conti, -doubtless, that Toscanelli got some of that confidence in a western -voyage which, in his epistle to Columbus, he speaks of as derived from a -returned traveler. - -Pope Eugene IV., not far from the time of the birth of Columbus, -compelled Conti to relate his experiences to Poggio Bracciolini. This -scribe made what he could out of the monstrous tales, and translated the -stories into Latin. In this condition Columbus may have known the -narrative at a later day. The information which Conti gave was eagerly -availed of by the cosmographers of the time, and Colonel Yule, the -modern English writer on ancient Cathay, thinks that Fra Mauro got for -his map more from Conti than that traveler ventured to disclose to -Poggio. - -[Sidenote: Toscanelli's death, 1482.] - -Toscanelli, at the time of writing this letter to Columbus, had long -enjoyed a reputation as a student of terrestrial and celestial -phenomena. He had received, in 1463, the dedication by Regiomontanus of -his treatise on the quadrature of the circle. He was, as has been said, -an old man of seventy-seven when Columbus opened his correspondence with -him. It was not his fate to live long enough to see his physical views -substantiated by Diaz and Columbus, for he died in 1482. - -[Sidenote: Columbus confers with others.] - -In two of the contemporary writers, Bartholomew Columbus is credited -with having incited his brother Christopher to the views which he -developed regarding a western passage, and these two were Antonio Gallo -and Giustiniani, the commentator of the Psalms. It has been of late -contended by H. Grothe, in his _Leonardo da Vinci_ (Berlin, 1874), that -it was at this time, too, when that eminent artist conducted a -correspondence with Columbus about a western way to Asia. But there is -little need of particularizing other advocates of a belief which had -within the range of credible history never ceased to have exponents. The -conception was in no respect the merit of Columbus, except as he grasped -a tradition, which others did not, and it is strange, that Navarrete in -quoting the testimony of Ferdinand and Isabella, of August 8, 1497, to -the credit of the discovery of Columbus, as his own proper work, does -not see that it was the venturesome, and as was then thought foolhardy, -deed to prove the conception which those monarchs commended, and not the -conception itself. - -[Sidenote: Columbus writes out reasons for his belief.] - -We learn from the _Historie_ that its writer had found among the papers -of Columbus the evidence of the grounds of his belief in the western -passage, as under varying impressions it had been formulated in his -mind. These reasons divide easily into three groups: First, those based -on deductions drawn from scientific research, and as expressed in the -beliefs of Ptolemy, Marinus, Strabo, and Pliny; second, views which the -authority of eminent writers had rendered weightier, quoting as such the -works of Aristotle, Seneca, Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, Marco Polo, -Mandeville, Pierre d'Ailly, and Toscanelli; and third, the stories of -sailors as to lands and indications of lands westerly. - -From these views, instigated or confirmed by such opinions, Columbus -gradually arranged his opinions, in not one of which did he prove to be -right, except as regards the sphericity of the earth; and the last was a -belief which had been the common property of learned men, and at -intervals occupying even the popular mind, from a very early date. - -[Sidenote: Sphericity of the earth.] - -[Sidenote: Transmission of the belief in it.] - -The conception among the Greeks of a plane earth, which was taught in -the Homeric and Hesiodic poems, began to give place to a crude notion of -a spherical form at a period that no one can definitely determine, -though we find it taught by the Pythagoreans in Italy in the sixth -century before Christ. The spherical view and its demonstration passed -down through long generations of Greeks, under the sanction of Plato and -their other highest thinkers. In the fourth century before Christ, -Aristotle and others, by watching the moon's shadow in an eclipse, and -by observing the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies in different -latitudes, had proved the roundness of the earth to their satisfaction; -Eratosthenes first measured a degree of latitude in the third century; -Hipparchus, in the second century, was the earliest to establish -geographical positions; and in the second century of the Christian era -Ptolemy had formulated for succeeding times the general scope of the -transmitted belief. During all these centuries it was perhaps rather a -possession of the learned. We infer from Aristotle that the view was a -novelty in his time; but in the third century before Christ it began to -engage popular attention in the poem of Aratus, and at about 200 B. C. -Crates is said to have given palpable manifestation of the theory in a -globe, ten feet in diameter, which he constructed. - -The belief passed to Italy and the Latins, and was sung by Hyginus and -Manilius in the time of Augustus. We find it also in the minds of Pliny, -Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. So the belief became the heirloom of the -learned throughout the classic times, and it was directly coupled in the -minds of Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Strabo, Seneca, and others with a -conviction, more or less pronounced, of an easy western voyage from -Spain to India. - -[Sidenote: Seneca's _Medea_.] - -[Sidenote: Cosmas.] - -[Sidenote: Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Pierre d'Ailly.] - -No one of the ancient expressions of this belief seems to have clung -more in the memory of Columbus than that in the _Medea_ of Seneca; and -it is an interesting confirmation that in a copy of the book which -belonged to his son Ferdinand, and which is now preserved in Seville, -the passage is scored by the son's hand, while in a marginal note he has -attested the fact that its prophecy of a western passage had been made -good by his father in 1492. Though the opinion was opposed by St. -Chrysostom in the fourth century, it was taught by St. Augustine and -Isidore in the fifth. Cosmas in the sixth century was unable to -understand how, if the earth was a sphere, those at the antipodes could -see Christ at his coming. That settled the question in his mind. The -Venerable Bede, however, in the eighth century, was not constrained by -any such arguments, and taught the spherical theory. Jourdain, a modern -French authority, has found distinct evidence that all through the -Middle Ages the belief in the western way was kept alive by the study of -Aristotle; and we know how the Arabs perpetuated the teachings of that -philosopher, which in turn were percolated through the Levant to -Mediterranean peoples. It is a striking fact that at a time when Spain -was bending all her energies to drive the Moor from the Iberian -peninsula, that country was also engaged in pursuing those discoveries -along the western way to India which were almost a direct result of the -Arab preservation of the cosmographical learning of Aristotle and -Ptolemy. A belief in an earth-ball had the testimony of Dante in the -twelfth century, and it was the well-known faith of Albertus Magnus, -Roger Bacon, and the schoolmen, in the thirteenth. It continued to be -held by the philosophers, who kept alive these more recent names, and -came to Columbus because of the use of Bacon which Pierre d'Ailly had -made. - -The belief in the sphericity of the earth carried with it of necessity -another,--that the east was to be found in the west. Superstition, -ignorance, and fear might magnify the obstacles to a passage through -that drear Sea of Darkness, but in Columbus's time, in some learned -minds at least, there was no distrust as to the accomplishment of such a -voyage beyond the chance of obstacles in the way. - -[Illustration: ALBERTUS MAGNUS. - -[From Reusner's _Icones_.]] - -[Sidenote: The belief opposed by the Church.] - -It is true that in this interval of very many centuries there had been -lapses into unbelief. There were long periods, indeed, when no one dared -to teach the doctrine. Whenever and wherever the Epicureans supplanted -the Pythagoreans, the belief fell with the disciples of Pythagoras. -There had been, during the days of St. Chrysostom and other of the -fathers, a decision of the Church against it. There were doubtless, as -Humboldt says, conservers, during all this time, of the traditions of -antiquity, since the monasteries and colleges--even in an age when to be -unlearned was more pardonable than to be pagan--were of themselves quite -a world apart from the dullness of the masses of the people. - -[Sidenote: Pierre D'Ailly's _Imago Mundi_.] - -[Sidenote: Roger Bacon's _Opus Majus_.] - -A hundred years before Columbus, the inheritor of much of this -conservation was the Bishop of Cambray, that Pierre d'Ailly whose _Imago -Mundi_ (1410) was so often on the lips of Columbus, and out of which it -is more than likely that Columbus drank of the knowledge of Aristotle, -Strabo, and Seneca, and to a degree greater perhaps than he was aware of -he took thence the wisdom of Roger Bacon. It was through the _Opus -Majus_ (1267) of this English philosopher that western Europe found -accessible the stories of the "silver walls and golden towers" of -Quinsay as described by Rubruquis, the wandering missionary, who in the -thirteenth century excited the cupidity of the Mediterranean merchants -by his accounts of the inexhaustible treasures of eastern Asia, and -which the reader of to-day may find in the collections of Samuel -Purchas. - -Pierre d'Ailly's position in regard to cosmographical knowledge was -hardly a dominant one. He seems to know nothing of Marco Polo, Bacon's -contemporary, and he never speaks of Cathay, even when he urges the -views which he has borrowed from Roger Bacon, of the extension of Asia -towards Western Europe. - -Any acquaintance with the _Imago Mundi_ during these days of Columbus in -Portugal came probably through report, though possibly he may have met -with manuscripts of the work; for it was not till after he had gone to -Spain that D'Ailly could have been read in any printed edition, the -first being issued in 1490. - -[Sidenote: Rotundity and gravitation.] - -The theory of the rotundity of the earth carried with it one objection, -which in the time of Columbus was sure sooner or later to be seized -upon. If, going west, the ship sank with the declivity of the earth's -contour, how was she going to mount such an elevation on her return -voyage?--a doubt not so unreasonable in an age which had hardly more -than the vaguest notion of the laws of gravitation, though some, like -Vespucius, were not without a certain prescience of the fact. - -[Sidenote: Size of the earth.] - -By the middle of the third century before Christ, Eratosthenes, -accepting sphericity, had by astronomical methods studied the extent of -the earth's circumference, and, according to the interpretation of his -results by modern scholars, he came surprisingly near to the actual -size, when he exceeded the truth by perhaps a twelfth part. The -calculations of Eratosthenes commended themselves to Hipparchus, Strabo, -and Pliny. A century later than Eratosthenes, a new calculation, made by -Posidonius of Rhodes, reduced the magnitude to a globe of about four -fifths its proper size. It was palpably certain to the observant -philosophers, from the beginning of their observations on the size of -the earth, that the portion known to commerce and curiosity was but a -small part of what might yet be known. The unknown, however, is always a -terror. Going north from temperate Europe increased the cold, going -south augmented the heat; and it was no bold thought for the naturalist -to conclude that a north existed in which the cold was unbearable, and a -south in which the heat was too great for life. Views like these stayed -the impulse for exploration even down to the century of Columbus, and -magnified the horrors which so long balked the exploration of the -Portuguese on the African coast. There had been intervals, however, when -men in the Indian Ocean had dared to pass the equator. - -[Sidenote: Unknown regions.] - -[Sidenote: Strabo and Marinus on the size of the earth.] - -Therefore it was before the age of Columbus that, east and west along -the temperate belt, men's minds groped to find new conditions beyond the -range of known habitable regions. Strabo, in the first century before -Christ, made this habitable zone stretch over 120 degrees, or a third of -the circumference of the earth. The corresponding extension of Marinus -of Tyre in the second century after Christ stretched over 225 degrees. -This geographer did not define the land's border on the ocean at the -east, but it was not unusual with the cosmographers who followed him to -carry the farthest limits of Asia to what is actually the meridian of -the Sandwich Islands. On the west Marinus pushed the Fortunate Islands -(Canaries) two degrees and a half beyond Cape Finisterre, failing to -comprehend their real position, which for the westernmost, Ferro, is -something like nine degrees beyond the farther limits of the main land. - -[Sidenote: Ptolemy's view.] - -The belt of the known world running in the direction of the equator was, -in the conception of Ptolemy, the contemporary of Marinus, about -seventy-nine degrees wide, sixteen of these being south of the -equatorial line. This was a contraction from the previous estimate of -Marinus, who had made it over eighty-seven degrees. - -[Sidenote: Toscanelli's view.] - -Toscanelli reduced the globe to a circumference of about 18,000 miles, -losing about 6,000 miles; and the untracked ocean, lying west of Lisbon, -was about one third of this distance. In other words, the known world -occupied about 240 of the 360 degrees constituting the equatorial -length. Few of the various computations of this time gave such scant -dimensions to the unknown proportion of the line. The Laon globe, which -was made ten or twelve years later than Toscanelli's time, was equally -scant. Behaim, who figured out the relations of the known to the unknown -circuit, during the summer before Columbus sailed on his first voyage, -reduced what was known to not much more than a third of the whole. It -was the fashion, too, with an easy reliance on their genuineness, to -refer to the visions of Esdras in support of a belief in the small -part--a sixth--of the surface of the globe covered by the ocean. - -[Illustration: LAON GLOBE. - -[After D'Avezac.]] - -[Sidenote: Views of Columbus.] - -The problem lay in Columbus's mind thus: he accepted the theory of the -division of the circumference of the earth into twenty-four hours, as it -had come down from Marinus of Tyre, when this ancient astronomer -supposed that from the eastern verge of Asia to the western extremity of -Europe there was a space of fifteen hours. The discovery of the Azores -had pushed the known limit a single hour farther towards the setting -sun, making sixteen hours, or two thirds of the circumference of 360 -degrees. There were left eight hours, or one hundred and twenty degrees, -to represent the space between the Azores and Asia. This calculation in -reality brought the Asiatic coast forward to the meridian of California, -obliterating the width of the Pacific at that latitude, and reducing by -so much the size of the globe as Columbus measured it, on the assumption -that Marinus was correct. This, however, he denied. If the _Historie_ -reports Columbus exactly, he contended that the testimony of Marco Polo -and Mandeville carried the verge of Asia so far east that the land -distance was more than fifteen hours across; and by as much as this -increased the distance, by so much more was the Asiatic shore pushed -nearer the coasts of Europe. "We can thus determine," he says, "that -India is even neighboring to Spain and Africa." - -[Sidenote: Length of a degree.] - -The calculation of course depended on what was the length of a degree, -and on this point there was some difference of opinion. Toscanelli had -so reduced a degree's length that China was brought forward on his -planisphere till its coast line cut the meridian of the present -Newfoundland. - -[Sidenote: Quinsay.] - -We can well imagine how this undue contraction of the size of the globe, -as the belief lay in the mind of Columbus, and as he expressed it later -(July 7, 1503), did much to push him forward, and was a helpful illusion -in inducing others to venture upon the voyage with him. The courage -required to sail out of some Iberian port due west a hundred and twenty -degrees in order to strike the regions about the great Chinese city of -Quinsay, or Kanfu, Hangtscheufu, and Kingszu, as it has been later -called, was more easily summoned than if the actual distance of two -hundred and thirty-one degrees had been recognized, or even the two -hundred and four degrees necessary in reality to reach Cipango, or -Japan. The views of Toscanelli, as we have seen, reduced the duration of -risk westward to so small a figure as fifty-two degrees. So it had not -been an unusual belief, more or less prominent for many generations, -that with a fair wind it required no great run westward to reach Cathay, -if one dared to undertake it. If there were no insurmountable obstacles -in the Sea of Darkness, it would not be difficult to reach earlier that -multitude of islands which was supposed to fringe the coast of China. - -[Sidenote: Asiatic islands.] - -[Sidenote: Cipango.] - -[Sidenote: Spanish and Portuguese explorations.] - -It was a common belief, moreover, that somewhere in this void lay the -great island of Cipango,--the goal of Columbus's voyage. Sometimes -nearer and sometimes farther it lay from the Asiatic coast. Pinzon saw -in Rome in 1491 a map which carried it well away from that coast; and if -one could find somewhere in the English archives the sea-chart with -which Bartholomew Columbus enforced the views of his brother, to gain -the support of the English king, it is supposed that it would reveal a -somewhat similar location of the coveted island. Here, then, was a -space, larger or smaller, as men differently believed, interjacent along -this known zone between the ascertained extreme east in Asia and the -accepted most distant west at Cape St. Vincent in Spain, as was thought -in Strabo's time, or at the Canaries, as was comprehended in the days of -Ptolemy. What there was in this unknown space between Spain and Cathay -was the problem which balked the philosophers quite as much as that -other uncertainty, which concerned what might possibly be found in the -southern hemisphere, could one dare to enter the torrid heats of the -supposed equatorial ocean, or in the northern wastes, could one venture -to sail beyond the Arctic Circle. These curious quests of the -inquisitive and learned minds of the early centuries of the Christian -era were the prototypes of the actual explorations which it was given in -the fifteenth century to the Spaniards and Portuguese respectively to -undertake. The commercial rivalry which had in the past kept Genoa and -Venice watchful of each other's advantage had by their maritime ventures -in the Atlantic passed to these two peninsular nations, and England was -not long behind them in starting in her race for maritime supremacy. - -[Sidenote: Sea of Darkness.] - -It was in human nature that these unknown regions should become those -either of enchantment or dismay, according to personal proclivities. It -is not necessary to seek far for any reason for this. An unknown stretch -of waters was just the place for the resorts of the Gorgons and to find -the Islands of the Blest, and to nurture other creations of the literary -and spiritual instincts, seeking to give a habitation to fancies. It is -equally in human nature that what the intellect has habilitated in this -way the fears, desires, and superstitions of men in due time turn to -their own use. It was easy, under the stress of all this complexity of -belief and anticipation, for this supposable interjacent oceanic void to -teem in men's imaginations with regions of almost every imaginable -character; and when, in the days of the Roman republic, the Canaries -were reached, there was no doubt but the ancient Islands of the Blest -had been found, only in turn to pass out of cognizance, and once more to -fall into the abyss of the Unknown. - -[Sidenote: Story of Atlantis.] - -[Sidenote: Land of the Meropes.] - -[Sidenote: Saturnian continent.] - -There are, however, three legends which have come down to us from the -classic times, which the discovery of America revived with new interest -in the speculative excursions of the curiously learned, and it is one of -the proofs of the narrow range of Columbus's acquaintance with original -classic writers that these legends were not pressed by him in support of -his views. The most persistent of these in presenting a question for the -physical geographer is the story of Atlantis, traced to a tale told by -Plato of a tradition of an island in the Atlantic which eight thousand -years ago had existed in the west, opposite the Pillars of Hercules; and -which, in a great inundation, had sunken beneath the sea, leaving in mid -ocean large mud shoals to impede navigation and add to the terrors of a -vast unknown deep. There have been those since the time of Gomara who -have believed that the land which Columbus found dry and inhabited was a -resurrected Atlantis, and geographers even of the seventeenth century -have mapped out its provinces within the usual outline of the American -continents. Others have held, and some still hold, that the Atlantic -islands are but peaks of this submerged continent. There is no evidence -to show that these fancies of the philosopher ever disturbed even the -most erratic moments of Columbus, nor could he have pored over the -printed Latin of Plato, if it came in his way, till its first edition -appeared in 1483, during his stay in Portugal. Neither do we find that -he makes any references to that other creation, the land of the Meropes, -as figured in the passages cited by Ælian some seven hundred years after -Theopompus had conjured up the vision in the fourth century before -Christ. Equally ignorant was Columbus, it would appear, of the great -Saturnian continent, lying five days west from Britain, which makes a -story in Plutarch's _Morals_. - -[Sidenote: Earlier voyages on the Atlantic.] - -[Sidenote: Phoenicians.] - -[Sidenote: Carthaginians.] - -[Sidenote: Romans.] - -We deal with a different problem when we pass from these theories and -imaginings of western lands to such records as exist of what seem like -attempts in the earliest days to attain by actual exploration the secret -of this interjacent void. The Phoenicians had passed the Straits of -Gibraltar and found Gades (Cadiz), and very likely attempted to course -the Atlantic, about 1100 years before the birth of Christ. Perhaps they -went to Cornwall for tin. It may have been by no means impossible for -them to have passed among the Azores and even to have reached the -American islands and main, as a statement in Diodorus Siculus has been -interpreted to signify. Then five hundred years later or more we observe -the Carthaginians pursuing their adventurous way outside the Pillars of -Hercules, going down the African coast under Hanno to try the equatorial -horrors, or running westerly under Hamilko to wonder at the Sargasso -sea. Later, the Phoenicians seem to have made some lodgment in the -islands off the coasts of northwestern Africa. The Romans in the fourth -century before Christ pushed their way out into the Atlantic under -Pytheas and Euthymenes, the one daring to go as far as Thule--whatever -that was--in the north, and the other to Senegal in the south. It was in -the same century that Rome had the strange sight of some unknown -barbarians, of a race not recognizable, who were taken upon the shores -of the German Ocean, where they had been cast away. Later writers have -imagined--for no stronger word can be used--that these weird beings were -North American Indians, or rather more probably Eskimos. About the same -time, Sertorius, a Roman commander in Spain, learned, as already -mentioned, of some salubrious islands lying westward from Africa, and -gave Horace an opportunity, in the evil days of the civil war, to -picture them as a refuge. - -When the Romans ruled the world, commerce lost much of the hazard and -enterprise which had earlier instigated international rivalry. The -interest in the western ocean subsided into merely speculative concern; -and wild fancy was brought into play in depicting its horrors, its -demons and shoals, with the intermingling of sky and water. - -[Sidenote: Knowledge of such early attempts.] - -[Sidenote: Maps XVth cent.] - -[Sidenote: Genoese voyages, 1291.] - -It is by no means certain that Columbus knew anything of this ancient -lore of the early Mediterranean people. There is little or nothing in -the early maps of the fifteenth century to indicate that such knowledge -was current among those who made or contributed to the making of such of -these maps as have come down to us. The work of some of the more famous -chart makers Columbus could hardly have failed to see, or heard -discussed in the maritime circles of Portugal; and indeed it was to his -own countrymen, Marino Sanuto, Pizignani, Bianco, and Fra Mauro, that -Portuguese navigators were most indebted for the broad cartographical -treatment of their own discoveries. At the same time there was no dearth -of legends of the venturesome Genoese, with fortunes not always -reassuring. There was a story, for instance, of some of these latter -people, who in 1291 had sailed west from the Pillars of Hercules and had -never returned. Such was a legend that might not have escaped Columbus's -attention even in his own country, associating with it the names of the -luckless Tedisio Doria and Ugolino Vivaldi in their efforts to find a -western way to India. Harrisse, however, who has gone over all the -evidence of such a purpose, fails to be satisfied. - -These stories of ocean hazards hung naturally about the seaports of -Portugal. - -[Sidenote: Antillia.] - -Galvano tells us of such a tale concerning a Portuguese ship, driven -west, in 1447, to an island with seven cities, where its sailors found -the people speaking Portuguese, who said they had deserted their country -on the death of King Roderigo. This is the legend of Antillia, already -referred to. - -[Sidenote: Islands seen.] - -Columbus recalled, when afterwards at the Canaries on his first voyage, -how it was during his sojourn in Portugal that some one from Madeira -presented to the Portuguese king a petition for a vessel to go in quest -of land, occasionally seen to the westward from that island. Similar -stories were not unknown to him of like apparitions being familiar in -the Azores. A story which he had also heard of one Antonio Leme having -seen three islands one hundred leagues west of the Azores had been set -down to a credulous eye, which had been deceived by floating fields of -vegetation. - -[Sidenote: The Basques.] - -There was no obstacle in the passing of similar reports around the Bay -of Biscay from the coasts of the Basques, and the story might be heard -of Jean de Echaide, who had found stores of stockfish off a land far -oceanward,--an exploit supposed to be commemorated in the island of -Stokafixia, which stands far away to the westward in the Bianco map of -1436. All these tales of the early visits of the Basques to what -imaginative minds have supposed parts of the American coasts derive much -of their perennial charm from associations with a remarkable people. -There is indeed nothing improbable in a hardy daring which could have -borne the Basques to the Newfoundland shores at almost any date earlier -than the time of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Newfoundland banks possibly visited.] - -Fructuoso, writing as late as 1590, claimed that a Portuguese navigator, -João Vaz Cortereal, had sailed to the codfish coast of Newfoundland as -early as 1464, but Barrow seems to be the only writer of recent times -who has believed the tale, and Biddle and Harrisse find no evidence to -sustain it. - -[Sidenote: Tartary supposed to be seen.] - -There is a statement recorded by Columbus, if we may trust the account -of the _Historie_, that a sailor at Santa Maria had told him how, being -driven westerly in a voyage to Ireland, he had seen land, which he then -thought to be Tartary. Some similar experiences were also told to -Columbus by Pieter de Velasco, of Galicia; and this land, according to -the account, would seem to have been the same sought at a later day by -the Cortereals (1500). - -[Sidenote: Dubious pre-Columbian voyages.] - -It is not easy to deal historically with long-held traditions. The -furbishers of transmitted lore easily make it reflect what they bring to -it. To find illustrations in any inquiry is not so difficult if you -select what you wish, and discard all else, and the result of this -discriminating accretion often looks very plausible. Historical truth is -reached by balancing everything, and not by assimilating that which -easily suits. Almost all these discussions of pre-Columbian voyagings to -America afford illustrations of this perverted method. Events in which -there is no inherent untruth are not left with the natural defense of -probability, but are proved by deductions and inferences which could -just as well be applied to prove many things else, and are indeed -applied in a new way by every new upstart in such inquiries. The story -of each discoverer before Columbus has been upheld by the stock -intimation of white-bearded men, whose advent is somehow -mysteriously discovered to have left traces among the aborigines of every -section of the coast. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: OCEANIC CURRENTS. - -[From Reclus's _Amérique Boréale_.]] - -[Sidenote: Traces of a western land in drift.] - -There was another class of evidence which, as the _Historie_ informs us, -served some purpose in bringing conviction to the mind of Columbus. Such -were the phenomenal washing ashore on European coasts of unknown pines -and other trees, sculptured logs, huge bamboos, whose joints could be -made into vessels to hold nine bottles of wine, and dead bodies with -strange, broad faces. Even canoes, with living men in them of wonderful -aspects, had at times been reported as thrown upon the Atlantic islands. -Such events had not been unnoticed ever since the Canaries and the -Azores had been inhabited by a continental race, and conjectures had -been rife long before the time of Columbus that westerly winds had -brought these estrays from a distant land,--a belief more -comprehensible at that time than any dependence upon the unsuspected -fact that it was the oceanic currents, rather, which impelled these -migratory objects. - -[Sidenote: Gulf Stream.] - -It required the experiences of later Spanish navigators along the Bahama -Channel, and those of the French and English farther north upon the -Banks of Newfoundland, before it became clear that the currents of the -Atlantic, grazing the Cape of Good Hope and whirling in the Gulf of -Mexico, sprayed in a curling fringe in the North Atlantic. This in a -measure became patent to Sir Humphrey Gilbert sixty or seventy years -after the death of Columbus. - -If science had then been equal to the microscopic tasks which at this -day it imposes on itself, the question of western lands might have been -studied with an interest beyond what attached to the trunks of trees, -carved timbers, edible nuts, and seeds of alien plants, which the Gulf -Stream is still bringing to the shores of Europe. It might have found in -the dust settling upon the throngs of men in the Old World, the shells -of animalcules, differing from those known to the observing eye in -Europe, which, indeed, had been carried in the upper currents of air -from the banks of the Orinoco. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Influence of Portuguese discoveries upon Columbus.] - -[Sidenote: _Ephemerides_ of Regiomontanus.] - -Once in Portugal, Columbus was brought in close contact with that eager -spirit of exploration which had survived the example of Prince Henry and -his navigators. If Las Casas was well informed, these Portuguese -discoveries were not without great influence upon the Genoese's -receptive mind. He was now where he could hear the fresh stories of -their extending acquaintance with the African coast. His wife's sister, -by the accepted accounts, had married Pedro Correa, a navigator not -without fame in those days, and a companion in maritime inquiry upon -whom Columbus could naturally depend,--unless, as Harrisse decides, he -was no navigator at all. Columbus was also at hand to observe the -growing skill in the arts of navigation which gave the Portuguese their -preëminence. He had not been long in Lisbon when Regiomontanus gave a -new power in astronomical calculations of positions at sea by publishing -his _Ephemerides_, for the interval from 1475 to 1506, upon which -Columbus was yet to depend in his eventful voyage. - -[Sidenote: Martin Behaim.] - -The most famous of the pupils of this German mathematician was himself -in Lisbon during the years of Columbus's sojourn. We have no distinct -evidence that Martin Behaim, a Nuremberger, passed any courtesies with -the Genoese adventurer, but it is not improbable that he did. His -position was one that would attract Columbus, who might never have been -sought by Behaim. The Nuremberger's standing was, indeed, such as to -gain the attention of the Court, and he was thought not unworthy to be -joined with the two royal physicians, Roderigo and Josef, on a -commission to improve the astrolabe. Their perfected results mark an -epoch in the art of seamanship in that age. - -[Illustration: SAMPLES OF THE TABLES OF REGIOMONTANUS, 1474-1506.] - -[Illustration: THE AFRICAN COAST, 1478. - -[From Nordenskiöld's _Facsimile Atlas_.]] - -[Sidenote: Guinea coast, 1482.] - -[Sidenote: The Congo reached, 1484.] - -It was a new sensation when news came that at last the Portuguese had -crossed the equator, in pushing along the African coast. In January, -1482, they had said their first mass on the Guinea coast, and the castle -of San Jorge da Mina was soon built under the new impulse to enterprise -which came with the accession of João II. In 1484 they reached the -Congo, under the guidance of Diogo Cam, and Martin Behaim was of his -company. - -[Illustration: MARTIN BEHAIM.] - -These voyages were not without strong allurements to the Genoese sailor. -He is thought to have been a participant in some of the later cruises. -The _Historie_ claims that he began to reason, from his new experiences, -that if land could be discovered to the south there was much the same -chance of like discoveries in the west. But there were experiences of -other kinds which, in the interim, if we believe the story, he underwent -in the north. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -WAS COLUMBUS IN THE NORTH? - - -[Sidenote: Columbus supposed to have sailed beyond Iceland, 1477.] - -There is, in the minds of some inquirers into the early discovery of -America, no more pivotal incident attaching to the career of Columbus -than an alleged voyage made to the vicinity of what is supposed to have -been Iceland, in the assigned year of 1477. The incident is surrounded -with the confusion that belongs to everything dependent on Columbus's -own statements, or on what is put forth as such. - -Our chief knowledge of his voyage is in the doubtful Italian rendering -of the _Historie_ of 1571, where, citing a memoir by Columbus himself on -the five habitable zones, the translator or adapter of that book makes -the Admiral say that "in February, 1477, he sailed a hundred leagues -beyond the island Tile, which lies under the seventy-third parallel, and -not under the sixty-third, as some say." The only evidence that he saw -Tile, in sailing beyond it, is in what he further says, that he was able -to ascertain that the tide rose and fell twenty-six fathoms, which -observation necessitates the seeing of some land, whether Tile or not. - -[Sidenote: Inconsistencies in the statement.] - -There is no land at all in the northern Atlantic under 73°. Iceland -stretches from 64° to 67°; Jan Mayen is too small for Columbus's further -description of the island, and is at 71°, and Spitzbergen is at 76°. -What Columbus says of the English of Bristol trading at this island -points to Iceland; and it is easy, if one will, to imagine a misprint of -the figures, an error of calculation, a carelessness of statement, or -even the disappearance, through some cataclysm, of the island, as has -been suggested. - -[Illustration: MAP OF OLAUS MAGNUS, 1539. - -[From Dr. Brenner's Essay.]] - -Humboldt in his _Cosmos_ quotes Columbus as saying of this voyage near -Thule that "the sea was not at that time covered with ice," and he -credits that statement to the same _Tratado de las Cinco Zonas -Habitables_ of Columbus, and urges in proof that Finn Magnusen had found -in ancient historical sources that in February, 1477, ice had not set in -on the southern coast of that island. - -[Sidenote: Thyle.] - -Speaking of "Tile," the same narrative adds that "it is west of the -western verge of Ptolemy [that is, Ptolemy's world map], and larger than -England." This expression of its size could point only to Iceland, of -all islands in the northern seas. - -There are elements in the story, however, not easily reconcilable with -what might be expected of an experienced mariner; and if the story is -true in its main purpose, there is little more in the details than the -careless inexactness, which characterizes a good many of the -well-authenticated asseverations of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: The Zeni's Frisland.] - -Again the narrative says, "It is true that Ptolemy's Thule is where that -geographer placed it, but that it is now called Frislande." Does this -mean that the Zeni story had been a matter of common talk forty years -after the voyage to their Frisland had been made, and eighty-four years -before a later scion of the family published the remarkable narrative in -Venice, in 1558? It is possible that the maker of the _Historie_ of -1571, in the way in which it was given to the world, had interpolated -this reference to the Frisland of the Zeni to help sustain the credit of -his own or the other book. - -A voyage undertaken by Columbus to such high latitudes is rendered in -all respects doubtful, to say the least, from the fact that in 1492 -Columbus detailed for the eyes of his sovereigns the unusual advantages -of the harbors of the new islands which he had discovered, and added -that he was entitled to express such an opinion, because his exploration -had extended from Guinea on the south to England on the north. It was an -occasion when he desired to make his acquaintance seem as wide as the -facts would warrant, and yet he does not profess to have been farther -north than England. A hundred leagues, moreover, beyond Iceland might -well have carried him to the upper Greenland coast, but he makes no -mention of other land being seen in those high latitudes. - -[Sidenote: Thyle and Iceland.] - -Thyle and Iceland are made different islands in the Ptolemy of 1486, -which, if it does not prove that Iceland was not then the same as Thyle -in the mind of geographers, shows that geographical confusion still -prevailed at the north. It may be further remarked that Muñoz and others -have found no time in Columbus's career to which this voyage to the -north could so easily pertain as to a period anterior to his going to -Portugal, and consequently some years before the 1477 of the _Historie_. - -[Sidenote: The English in Iceland.] - -[Sidenote: Kolno.] - -[Sidenote: The Zeni.] - -A voyage to Iceland was certainly no new thing. The English traded -there, and a large commerce was maintained with it by Bristol, and had -been for many years. A story grew up at a later day, and found -expression in Gomara and Wytfliet, that in 1476, the year before this -alleged voyage of Columbus, a Danish expedition, under the command of -the Pole Kolno, or Skolno, had found in these northern regions an -entrance to the straits of Anian, which figure so constantly in later -maps, and which opened a passage to the Indies; but there seems to be no -reason to believe that it had any definite foundation, and it could -hardly have been known to Columbus. It is also easy to conjecture that -Columbus had been impelled to join some English trading vessel from -Bristol, through mere nautical curiosity, and even been urged by reports -which may have reached him of the northern explorations of the Zeni, -long before the accounts were printed. But if he knew anything, he -either treasured it up as a proof of his theories, not yet to be -divulged,--why is not clear,--or, what is vastly more probable, it never -occurred to him to associate any of these dim regions with the coasts of -Marco Polo's Cathay. - -[Sidenote: Madoc.] - -There was no lack of stories, even at this time, of venturesome voyages -west along the latitude of England and to the northwest, and of these -tales Columbus may possibly have heard. Such was the story which had -been obscurely recorded, that Madoc, a Welsh chieftain, in the later -years of the twelfth century had carried a colony westerly. Nor can it -be positively asserted that the Estotiland and Drogeo of the Zeni -narrative, then lying in the cabinet of an Italian family unknown, had -ever come to his knowledge. - -There are stories in the _Historie_ of reports which had reached him, -that mariners sailing for Ireland had been driven west, and had sighted -land which had been supposed to be Tartary, which at a later day was -thought to be the Baccalaos of the Cortereals. - -[Sidenote: Bresil, or Brazil, Island.] - -The island of Bresil had been floating about the Atlantic, usually in -the latitude of Ireland, since the days when the maker of the Catalan -planisphere, in 1375, placed it in that sea, and current stories of its -existence resulted, at a later day (1480), in the sending from Bristol -of an expedition of search, as has already been said. - -[Sidenote: Did Columbus land on Thule?] - -Finn Magnusen among the Scandinavian writers, and De Costa and others -among Americans, have thought it probable that Columbus landed at -Hualfiord, in Iceland. Columbus, however, does not give sufficient -ground for any such inference. He says he went beyond Thule, not to it, -whatever Thule was, and we only know by his observations on the tides, -that he approached dry land. - -[Sidenote: Bishop Magnus in Iceland.] - -Laing, in his introduction to the _Heimskringla_, says confidently that -Columbus "came to Iceland from Bristol, in 1477, on purpose to gain -nautical information,"--an inference merely,--"and must have heard of -the written accounts of the Norse discoveries recorded in" the _Codex -Flatoyensis_. Laing says again that as Bishop Magnus is known to have -been in Iceland in the spring of 1477, "it is presumed Columbus must -have met and conversed with him"! - -A great deal turns on this purely imaginary conversation, and the -possibilities of its scope. - -[Sidenote: The Norse in Iceland.] - -[Sidenote: Eric the Red.] - -[Sidenote: Greenland.] - -The listening Columbus might, indeed, have heard of Irish monks and -their followers, who had been found in Iceland by the first Norse -visitors, six hundred years before, if perchance the traditions of them -had been preserved, and these may even have included the somewhat vague -stories of visits to a country somewhere, which they called Ireland the -Great. Possibly, too, there were stories told at the firesides of the -adventures of a sea-rover, Gunnbiorn by name, who had been driven -westerly from Iceland and had seen a strange land, which after some -years was visited by Eric the Red; and there might have been wondrous -stories told of this same land, which Eric had called Greenland, in -order to lure settlers, where there is some reason to believe yet -earlier wanderers had found a home. - -[Sidenote: _Heimskringla._] - -[Sidenote: Position of Greenland.] - -[Sidenote: Thought to be a part of Europe.] - -There mightpossibly have been shown to Columbus an old manuscript -chronicle of the kings of Norway, which they called the _Heimskringla_, -and which had been written by Snorre Sturlason in the thirteenth -century; and if he had turned the leaves with any curiosity, he could -have read, or have had translated for him, accounts of the Norse -colonization of Greenland in the ninth century. Where, then, was this -Greenland? Could it possibly have had any connection with that Cathay of -Marco Polo, so real in the vision of Columbus, and which was supposed to -lie above India in the higher latitudes? As a student of contemporary -cartography, Columbus would have answered such a question readily, had -it been suggested; for he would have known that Greenland had been -represented in all the maps, since it was first recognized at all, as -merely an extended peninsula of Scandinavia, made by a southward twist -to enfold a northern sea, in which Iceland lay. One certainly cannot -venture to say how far Columbus may have had an acquaintance with the -cartographical repertories, more or less well stocked, as they doubtless -were, in the great commercial centres of maritime Europe, but the -knowledge which we to-day have in detail could hardly have been -otherwise than a common possession among students of geography then. We -comprehend now how, as far back as 1427, a map of Claudius Clavus showed -Greenland as this peninsular adjunct to the northwest of Europe,--a view -enforced also in a map of 1447, in the Pitti palace, and in one which -Nordenskiöld recently found in a Codex of Ptolemy at Warsaw, dated in -1467. A few years later, and certainly before Columbus could have gone -on this voyage, we find a map which it is more probable he could have -known, and that is the engraved one of Nicholas Donis, drawn presumably -in 1471, and later included in the edition of Ptolemy published at Ulm -in 1482. The same European connection is here maintained. Again it is -represented in the map of Henricus Martellus (1489-90), in a way that -produced a succession of maps, which till long after the death of -Columbus continued to make this Norse colony a territorial appendage of -Scandinavian Europe, betraying not the slightest symptom of a belief -that Eric the Red had strayed beyond the circle of European connections. - - - - -[Illustration: CLAUDIUS CLAVUS, 1427. - -[From Nordenskiöld's _Studien_.]] - -[Illustration: BORDONE, 1528. - -[Greenland is the Northernmost Peninsula of N. W. Europe.]] - -[Sidenote: Made a Part of Asia.] - -It is only when we get down to the later years of Columbus's life that -we find, on a Portuguese chart of 1503, a glimmer of the truth, and this -only transiently, though the conception of the mariners, upon which this -map was based, probably associated Greenland with the Asiatic main, as -Ruysch certainly did, by a bold effort to reconcile the Norse traditions -with the new views of his time, when he produced the first engraved map -of the discoveries of Columbus and Cabot in the Roman Ptolemy of 1508. - -[Sidenote: Again made a part of Europe.] - -It is thus beyond dispute that if Columbus entertained any views as to -the geographical relations of Greenland, which had been practically lost -to Europe since communication with it ceased, earlier in the fifteenth -century, they were simply those of a peninsula of northern Europe, which -could have no connection with any country lying beyond the Atlantic; for -it was not till after his death that any general conception of it -associated with the Asiatic main arose. It is quite certain, however, -that as the conception began to prevail, after the discovery of the -South Sea by Balboa, in 1513, that an interjacent new world had really -been found, there was a tendency, as shown in the map of Thorne (1527), -representing current views in Spain, and in those of Finæus (1531), -Ziegler (1532), Mercator (1538), and Bordone (1528-1547), to relegate -the position of Greenland to a peninsular connection with Europe. - -There is a curious instance of the evolution of the correct idea in the -Ptolemy of 1525, and repeated in the same plate as used in the editions -of 1535 and 1545. The map was originally engraved to show "Gronlandia" -as a European peninsula, but apparently, at a later stage, the word -Gronlandia was cut in the corner beside the sketch of an elephant, and -farther west, as if to indicate its transoceanic and Asiatic situation, -though there was no attempt to draw in a coast line. - -[Sidenote: Later diverse views.] - -Later in the century there was a strife of opinion between the -geographers of the north, as represented in the Olaus Magnus map of -1567, who disconnected the country from Europe, and those of the south, -who still united Greenland with Scandinavia, as was done in the Zeno map -of 1558. By this time, however, the southern geographers had begun to -doubt, and after 1540 we find Labrador and Greenland put in close -proximity in many of their maps; and in this the editors of the Ptolemy -of 1561 agreed, when they altered their reëngraved map--as the plate -shows--in a way to disconnect Greenland from Scandinavia. - -It is not necessary to trace the cartographical history of Greenland to -a later day. It is manifest that it was long after Columbus's death when -the question was raised of its having any other connection than with -Europe, and Columbus could have learned in Iceland nothing to suggest to -him that the land of Eric the Red had any connection with the western -shores of Asia, of which he was dreaming. - -[Sidenote: Discovery of Vinland.] - -If any of the learned men in Iceland had referred Columbus once more to -the _Heimskringla_, it would have been to the brief entry which it shows -in the records as the leading Norse historian made it, of the story of -the discovery of Vinland. There he would have read, "Leif also found -Vinland the Good," and he could have read nothing more. There was -nothing in this to excite the most vivid imagination as to place or -direction. - -[Sidenote: Scandinavian views of Vinland.] - -[Sidenote: Stephanius's map, 1570.] - -It was not till a time long after the period of Columbus that, so far as -we know, any cartographical records of the discoveries associated with -the Vinland voyages were made in the north; and not till the discoveries -of Columbus and his successors were a common inheritance in Europe did -some of the northern geographers, in 1570, undertake to reconcile the -tales of the sagas with the new beliefs. The testimony of these later -maps is presumably the transmitted view then held in the north from the -interpretation of the Norse sagas in the light of later knowledge. This -testimony is that the "America" of the Spaniards, including Terra -Florida and the "Albania" of the English, was a territory south of the -Norse region and beyond a separating water, very likely that of Davis' -Straits. The map of Sigurd Stephanius of this date (1570) puts Vinland -north of the Straits of Belle Isle, and makes it end at the south in a -"wild sea," which separates it [B of map] from "America." Torfæus quotes -Torlacius as saying that this map of Stephanius's was drawn from ancient -Icelandic records. If this cartographical record has its apparent value, -it is not likely that Columbus could have seen in it anything more than -a manifestation of that vague boreal region which was far remote from -the thoughts which possessed him, in seeking a way to India over -against Spain. - -[Illustration: SIGURD STEPHANIUS, 1570.] - -[Sidenote: Dubious sagas.] - -Beside the scant historic record respecting Vinland which has been cited -from the _Heimskringla_, it is further possible that Columbus may have -seen that series of sagas which had come down in oral shape to the -twelfth century. At this period put into writing, two hundred years -after the events of the Vinland voyages, there are none of the -manuscript copies of these sagas now existing which go back of the -fourteenth century. This rendering of the old sagas into script came at -a time when, in addition to the inevitable transformations of long oral -tradition, there was superadded the romancing spirit then rife in the -north, and which had come to them from the south of Europe. The result -of this blending of confused tradition with the romancing of the period -of the written preservation has thrown, even among the Scandinavians -themselves, a shade of doubt, more or less intense at times, which -envelops the saga record with much that is indistinguishable from myth, -leaving little but the general drift of the story to be held of the -nature of a historic record. The Icelandic editor of Egel's saga, -published at Reikjavik in 1856, acknowledges this unavoidable reflex of -the times when the sagas were reduced to writing, and the most -experienced of the recent writers on Greenland, Henrik Rink, has allowed -the untrustworthiness of the sagas except for their general scope. - -[Sidenote: Codex Flatoyensis.] - -[Sidenote: Leif Erikson.] - -Less than a hundred years before the alleged visit of Columbus to Thule, -there had been a compilation of some of the early sagas, and this _Codex -Flatoyensis_ is the only authority which we have for any details of the -Vinland voyages. It is possible that the manuscript now known is but one -copy of several or many which may have been made at an early period, not -preceding, however, the twelfth century, when writing was introduced. -This particular manuscript was discovered in an Icelandic monastery in -the seventeenth century, and there is no evidence of its being known -before. Of course it is possible that copies may have been in the hands -of learned Icelanders at the time of Columbus's supposed voyage to the -north, and he may have heard of it, or have had parts of it read to him. -The collection is recognized by Scandinavian writers as being the most -confused and incongruous of similar records; and it is out of such -romancing, traditionary, and conflicting recitals that the story of the -Norse voyages to Vinland is made, if it is made at all. The sagas say -that it was sixteen winters after the settlement of Greenland that Leif -went to Norway, and in the next year he sailed to Vinland. These are the -data from which the year A. D. 1000 has been deduced as that of the -beginning of the Vinland voyages. The principal events are to be traced -in the saga of Eric the Red, which, in the judgment of Rask, a leading -Norse authority, is "somewhat fabulous, written long after the event, -and taken from tradition." - -[Sidenote: Peringskiöld's edition of the sagas.] - -Such, then, was the record which, if it ever came to the notice of -Columbus, was little suited to make upon him any impression to be -associated in his mind with the Asia of his dreams. Humboldt, discussing -the chances of Columbus's gaining any knowledge of the story, thinks -that when the Spanish Crown was contesting with the heirs of the Admiral -his rights of discovery, the citing of these northern experiences of -Columbus would have been in the Crown's favor, if there had been any -conception at that time that the Norse discoveries, even if known to -general Europe, had any relation to the geographical problems then under -discussion. Similar views have been expressed by Wheaton and Prescott, -and there is no evidence that up to the time of Columbus an acquaintance -with the Vinland story had ever entered into the body of historical -knowledge possessed by Europeans in general. The scant references in the -manuscripts of Adam of Bremen (A. D. 1073), of Ordericus Vitalis (A. D. -1140), and of Saxo Grammaticus (A. D. 1200), were not likely to be -widely comprehended, even if they were at all known, and a close -scrutiny of the literature of the subject does not seem to indicate that -there was any considerable means of propagating a knowledge of the sagas -before Peringskiöld printed them in 1697, two hundred years after the -time of Columbus. This editor inserted them in an edition of the -_Heimskringla_ and concealed the patchwork. This deception caused it -afterwards to be supposed that the accounts in the _Heimskringla_ had -been interpolated by some later reviser of the chronicle; but the truth -regarding Peringskiöld's action was ultimately known. - -[Sidenote: Probabilities.] - -Basing, then, their investigation on a narrative confessedly confused -and unauthentic, modern writers have sought to determine with precision -the fact of Norse visits to British America, and to identify the -localities. The fact that every investigator finds geographical -correspondences where he likes, and quite independently of all others, -is testimony of itself to the confused condition of the story. The soil -of the United States and Nova Scotia contiguous to the Atlantic may now -safely be said to have been examined by competent critics sufficiently -to affirm that no archæological trace of the presence of the Norse here -is discernible. As to such a forbidding coast as that of Labrador, there -has been as yet no such familiarity with it by trained archæologists as -to render it reasonably certain that some trace may not be found there, -and on this account George Bancroft allows the possibility that the -Norse may have reached that coast. There remains, then, no evidence -beyond a strong probability that the Norse from Greenland crossed Davis' -Straits and followed south the American coast. That indisputable -archæological proofs may yet be found to establish the fact of their -southern course and sojourn is certainly possible. Meanwhile we must be -content that there is no testimony satisfactory to a careful historical -student, that this course and such sojourn ever took place. A belief in -it must rest on the probabilities of the case. - -Many writers upon the Norseman discovery would do well to remember the -advice of Ampère to present as doubtful what is true, sooner than to -give as true what is doubtful. - -"Ignorance," says Muñoz, in speaking of the treacherous grounds of -unsupported narrative, "is generally accompanied by vanity and -temerity." - -[Sidenote: Did Columbus hear of the saga stories?] - -It is an obvious and alluring supposition that this story should have -been presented to Columbus, whatever the effect may have been on his -mind. Lowell in a poem pardonably pictures him as saying:-- - -"I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale Of happy Atlantis; and heard -Björne's keel Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore, For I -believed the poets." - -But the belief is only a proposition. Rafn and other extreme advocates -of the Norse discovery have made as much as they could of the -supposition of Columbus's cognizance of the Norse voyages. Laing seems -confident that this contact must have happened. The question, however, -must remain unsettled; and whether Columbus landed in Iceland or not, -and whether the bruit of the Norse expeditions struck his ears elsewhere -or not, the fact of his never mentioning them, when he summoned every -supposable evidence to induce acceptance of his views, seems to be -enough to show at least that to a mind possessed as his was of the -scheme of finding India by the west the stories of such northern -wandering offered no suggestion applicable to his purpose. It is, -moreover, inconceivable that Columbus should have taken a course -southwest from the Canaries, if he had been prompted in any way by -tidings of land in the northwest. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -COLUMBUS LEAVES PORTUGAL FOR SPAIN. - - -[Sidenote: Columbus's obscure record, 1473-1487.] - -It is a rather striking fact, as Harrisse puts it, that we cannot place -with an exact date any event in Columbus's life from August 7, 1473, -when a document shows him to have been in Savona, Italy, till he -received at Cordoba, Spain, from the treasurer of the Catholic -sovereigns, his first gratuity on May 5, 1487, as is shown by the entry -in the books, "given this day 3,000 maravedis," about $18, "to Cristobal -Colomo, a stranger." The events of this period of about fourteen years -were those which made possible his later career. The incidents connected -with this time have become the shuttlecocks which have been driven -backward and forward in their chronological bearings, by all who have -undertaken to study the details of this part of Columbus's life. It is -nearly as true now as it was when Prescott wrote, that "the -discrepancies among the earliest authorities are such as to render -hopeless any attempt to settle with precision the chronology of -Columbus's movements previous to his first voyage." - -[Sidenote: His motives for leaving Portugal.] - -[Sidenote: Chief sources of our knowledge.] - -The motives which induced him to abandon Portugal, where he had married, -and where he had apparently found not a little to reconcile him to his -exile, are not obscure ones as detailed in the ordinary accounts of his -life. All these narratives are in the main based, first, on the -_Historie_ (1571); secondly, on the great historical work of Joam de -Barros, pertaining to the discoveries of the Portuguese in the East -Indies, first published in 1552, and still holding probably the loftiest -position in the historical literature of that country; and, finally, on -the lives of João II., then monarch of Portugal, by Ruy de Pina and by -Vasconcellos. The latter borrowing in the main from the former, was -exclusively used by Irving. Las Casas apparently depended on Barros as -well as on the _Historie_. It is necessary to reconcile their -statements, as well as it can be done, to get even an inductive view of -the events concerned. - -The treatment of the subject by Irving would make it certain that it was -a new confidence in the ability to make long voyages, inspired by the -improvements of the astrolabe as directed by Behaim, that first gave -Columbus the assurance to ask for royal patronage of the maritime scheme -which had been developing in his mind. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Behaim.] - -Just what constituted the acquaintance of Columbus with Behaim is not -clearly established. Herrera speaks of them as friends. Humboldt thinks -some intimacy between them may have existed, but finds no decisive proof -of it. Behaim had spent much of his life in Lisbon and in the Azores, -and there are some striking correspondences in their careers, if we -accept the usual accounts. They were born and died in the same year. -Each lived for a while on an Atlantic island, the Nuremberger at Fayal, -and the Genoese at Porto Santo; and each married the daughter of the -governor of his respective island. They pursued their nautical studies -at the same time in Lisbon, and the same physicians who reported to the -Portuguese king upon Columbus's scheme of westward sailing were engaged -with Behaim in perfecting the sea astrolabe. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the king of Portugal.] - -The account of the audience with the king which we find in the -_Historie_ is to the effect that Columbus finally succeeded in inducing -João to believe in the practicability of a western passage to Asia; but -that the monarch could not be brought to assent to all the titular and -pecuniary rewards which Columbus contended for as emoluments of success, -and that a commission, to whom the monarch referred the project, -pronounced the views of Columbus simply chimerical. Barros represents -that the advances of Columbus were altogether too arrogant and fantastic -ever to have gained the consideration of the king, who easily disposed -of the Genoese's pretentious importunities by throwing the burden of -denial upon a commission. This body consisted of the two physicians of -the royal household, already mentioned, Roderigo and Josef, to whom was -added Cazadilla, the Bishop of Ceuta. - -Vasconcellos's addition to this story, which he derived almost entirely -from Ruy de Pina, Resende, and Barros, is that there was subsequently -another reference to a royal council, in which the subject was discussed -in arguments, of which that historian preserves some reports. This -discussion went farther than was perhaps intended, since Cazadilla -proceeded to discourage all attempts at exploration even by the African -route, as imperiling the safety of the state, because of the money which -was required; and because it kept at too great a distance for an -emergency a considerable force in ships and men. In fact the drift of -the debate seems to have ignored the main projects as of little moment -and as too visionary, and the energy of the hour was centered in a -rallying speech made by the Count of Villa Real, who endeavored to save -the interests of African exploration. The count's speech quite -accomplished its purpose, if we can trust the reports, since it -reassured the rather drooping energies of the king, and induced some -active measures to reach the extremity of Africa. - -[Sidenote: Diaz's African voyage, 1486.] - -[Sidenote: Passes the Cape.] - -[Illustration: PORTUGUESE MAPPEMONDE, 1490. - -[Sketched from the original MS. in the British Museum.]] - -In August, 1486, Bartholomew Diaz, the most eminent of a line of -Portuguese navigators, had departed on the African route, with two -consorts. As he neared the latitude of the looked-for Cape, he was -driven south, and forced away from the land, by a storm. When he was -enabled to return on his track he struck the coast, really to the -eastward of the true cape, though he did not at the time know it. This -was in May, 1487. His crew being unwilling to proceed farther, he -finally turned westerly, and in due time discovered what he had done. -The first passage of the Cape was thus made while sailing west, just as, -possibly, the mariners of the Indian seas may have done. In December he -was back in Lisbon with the exhilarating news, and it was probably -conveyed to Columbus, who was then in Spain, by his brother Bartholomew, -the companion of Diaz in this eventful voyage, as Las Casas discovered -by an entry made by Bartholomew himself in a copy of D'Ailly's _Imago -Mundi_. Thirty years before, as we have seen, Fra Mauro had prefigured -the Cape in his map, but it was now to be put on the charts as a -geographical discovery; and by 1490, or thereabouts, succeeding -Portuguese navigators had pushed up the west coast of Africa to a point -shown in a map preserved in the British Museum, but not far enough to -connect with what was supposed with some certainty to be the limit -reached during the voyages of the Arabian navigators, while sailing -south from the Red Sea. There was apparently not a clear conception in -the minds of the Portuguese, at this time, just how far from the Cape -the entrance of the Arabian waters really was. It is possible that -intelligence may have thus early come from the Indian Ocean, by way of -the Mediterranean, that the Oriental sailors knew of the great African -cape by approaching it from the east. - -[Sidenote: Portuguese missionaries to Egypt.] - -Such knowledge, if held to be visionary, was, however, established with -some certainty in men's minds before Da Gama actually effected the -passage of the Cape. This confirmation had doubtless come through some -missionaries of the Portuguese king, who in 1490 sent such a positive -message from Cairo. - -But while the new exertions along the African coast, thus inadvertently -instigated by Columbus, were making, what was becoming of his own -westward scheme? - -[Sidenote: The Portuguese send out an expedition to forestall Columbus.] - -The story goes that it was by the advice of Cazadilla that the -Portuguese king lent himself to an unworthy device. This was a project -to test the views of Columbus, and profit by them without paying him his -price. An outline of his intended voyage had been secured from him in -the investigation already mentioned. A caravel, under pretense of a -voyage to the Cape de Verde Islands, was now dispatched to search for -the Cipango of Marco Polo, in the position which Columbus had given it -in his chart. The mercenary craft started out, and buffeted with head -seas and angry winds long enough to emasculate what little courage the -crew possessed. Without the prop of conviction they deserted their -purpose and returned. Once in port, they began to berate the Genoese for -his foolhardy scheme. In this way they sought to vindicate their own -timidity. This disclosed to Columbus the trick which had been played -upon him. Such is the story as the _Historie_ tells it, and which has -been adopted by Herrera and others. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus leaves Portugal, 1484.] - -At this point there is too much uncertainty respecting the movements of -Columbus for even his credulous biographers to fill out the tale. It -seems to be agreed that in the latter part of 1484 he left Portugal with -a secrecy which was supposed to be necessary to escape the vigilance of -the government spies. There is beside some reason for believing that it -was also well for him to shun arrest for debts, which had been incurred -in the distractions of his affairs. - -[Sidenote: Supposed visit of Columbus to Genoa.] - -There is no other authority than Ramusio for believing with Muñoz that -Columbus had already laid his project before the government of Genoa by -letter, and that he now went to reënforce it in person. That power was -sorely pressed with misfortunes at this time, and is said to have -declined to entertain his proposals. It may be the applicant was -dismissed contemptuously, as is sometimes said. It is not, however, as -Harrisse has pointed out, till we come down to Cassoni, in his _Annals -of Genoa_, published in 1708, that we find a single Genoese authority -crediting the story of this visit to Genoa. Harrisse, with his skeptical -tendency, does not believe the statement. - -[Sidenote: Supposed visit to Venice.] - -Eagerness to fill the gaps in his itinerary has sometimes induced the -supposition that Columbus made an equally unsuccessful offer to Venice; -but the statement is not found except in modern writers, with no other -citations to sustain it than the recollections of some one who had seen -at some time in the archives a memorial to this effect made by Columbus. -Some writers make him at this time also visit his father and provide for -his comfort,--a belief not altogether consonant with the supposition of -Columbus's escape from Portugal as a debtor. - -[Sidenote: The death of his wife.] - -[Sidenote: Shown to be uncertain.] - -Irving and the biographers in general find in the death of Columbus's -wife a severing of the ties which bound him to Portugal; but if there is -any truth in the tumultuous letter which Columbus wrote to Doña Juana de -la Torre in 1500, he left behind him in Portugal, when he fled into -Spain, a wife and children. If there is the necessary veracity in the -_Historie_, this wife had died before he abandoned the country. That he -had other children at this time than Diego is only known through this -sad, ejaculatory epistle. If he left a wife in Portugal, as his own -words aver, Harrisse seems justified in saying that he deserted her, and -in the same letter Columbus himself says that he never saw her again. - -[Sidenote: Convent of Rabida.] - -Ever since a physician of Palos, Garcia Fernandez, gave his testimony in -the lawsuit through which, after Columbus's death, his son defended his -titles against the Crown, the picturesque story of the convent of -Rabida, and the appearance at its gate of a forlorn traveler accompanied -by a little boy, and the supplication for bread and water for the child, -has stood in the lives of Columbus as the opening scene of his career in -Spain. - -This Franciscan convent, dedicated to Santa Maria de Rabida, stood on a -height within sight of the sea, very near the town of Palos, and after -having fallen into a ruin it was restored by the Duke of Montpensier in -1855. A recent traveler has found this restoration "modernized, -whitewashed, and forlorn," while the refurnishing of the interior is -described as "paltry and vulgar," even in the cell of its friar, where -the visitor now finds a portrait of Columbus and pictures of scenes in -his career. - -[Illustration: PÈRE JUAN PEREZ DE MARCHENA. - -[As given by Roselly de Lorgues.]] - -[Sidenote: Friar Marchena.] - -This friar, Juan Perez de Marchena, was at the time of the supposed -visit of Columbus the prior of the convent, and being casually attracted -by the scene at the gate, where the porter was refreshing the vagrant -travelers, and by the foreign accent of the stranger, he entered into -talk with the elder of them and learned his name. Columbus also told him -that he was bound to Huelva to find the home of one Muliar, a Spaniard -who had married the youngest sister of his wife. The story goes further -that the friar was not uninformed in the cosmographical lore of the -time, had not been unobservant of the maritime intelligence which had -naturally been rife in the neighboring seaport of Palos, and had kept -watch of the recent progress in geographical science. He was -accordingly able to appreciate the interest which Columbus manifested in -such subjects, as he unfolded his own notions of still greater -discoveries which might be made at the west. Keeping the wanderer and -his little child a few days, Marchena invited to the convent, to join -with them in discussion, the most learned man whom the neighborhood -afforded, the physician of Palos,--the very one from whose testimony our -information comes. Their talks were not without reënforcements from the -experiences of some of the mariners of that seaport, particularly one -Pedro de Velasco, who told of manifestation of land which he had himself -seen, without absolute contact, thirty years before, when his ship had -been blown a long distance to the northwest of Ireland. - -[Sidenote: Columbus goes to Cordoba.] - -The friendship formed in the convent kept Columbus there amid congenial -sympathizers, and it was not till some time in the winter of 1485-86, -and when he heard that the Spanish sovereigns were at Cordoba, gathering -a force to attack the Moors in Granada, that, leaving behind his boy to -be instructed in the convent, Columbus started for that city. He went -not without confidence and elation, as he bore a letter of credentials -which the friar had given him to a friend, Fernando de Talavera, the -prior of the monastery of Prado, and confessor of Queen Isabella. - -[Sidenote: Doubts about the visits to Rabida.] - -This story has almost always been placed in the opening of the career of -Columbus in Spain. It has often in sympathizing hands pointed a moral in -contrasting the abject condition of those days with the proud expectancy -under which, some years later, he sailed out of the neighboring harbor -of Palos, within eyeshot of the monks of Rabida. Irving, however, as he -analyzed the reports of the famous trial already referred to, was quite -sure that the events of two visits to Rabida had been unwittingly run -into one in testimony given after so long an interval of years. It does -indeed seem that we must either apply this evidence of 1513 and 1515 to -a later visit, or else we must determine that there was great similarity -in some of the incidents of the two visits. - -The date of 1491, to which Harrisse pushes the incidents forward, -depends in part on the evidence of one Rodriguez Cobezudo that in 1513 -it was about twenty-two years since he had lent a mule to Juan Perez de -Marchena, when he went to Santa Fé from Rabida to interpose for -Columbus. The testimony of Garcia Fernandez is that this visit of -Marchena took place after Columbus had once been rebuffed at court, and -the words of the witness indicate that it was on that visit when Juan -Perez asked Columbus who he was and whence he came; showing, perhaps, -that it was the first time Perez had seen Columbus. Accordingly this, as -well as the mule story, points to 1491. But that the circumstances of -the visit which Garcia Fernandez recounts may have belonged to an -earlier visit, in part confounded after fifteen years with a later one, -may yet be not beyond a possibility. It is to be remembered that the -_Historie_ speaks of two visits, one later than that of 1484. It is not -easy to see that all the testimony which Harrisse introduced to make the -visit of 1491 the first and only visit of Columbus to the convent is -sufficient to do more than render the case probable. - -[Sidenote: 1486. Enters the service of Spain.] - -We determine the exact date of the entering of Columbus into the service -of Spain to be January 20, 1486, from a record of his in his journal on -shipboard under January 14, 1493, where he says that on the 20th of the -same month he would have been in their Highnesses' service just seven -years. We find almost as a matter of course other statements of his -which give somewhat different dates by deduction. Two statements of -Columbus agreeing would be a little suspicious. Certain payments on the -part of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon do not seem to have begun, -however, till the next year, or at least we have no earlier record of -such than one on May 5, 1487, and from that date on they were made at -not great intervals, till an interruption came, as will be later shown. - -[Sidenote: Changes his name to Colon.] - -In Spain the Christoforo Colombo of Genoa chose to call himself -Cristoval Colon, and the _Historie_ tells us that he sought merely to -make his descendants distinct of name from their remote kin. He argued -that the Roman name was Colonus, which readily was transformed to a -Spanish equivalent. Inasmuch as the Duke of Medina-Celi, who kept -Columbus in his house for two years during the early years of his -Spanish residence, calls him Colomo in 1493, and Oviedo calls him Colom, -it is a question if he chose the form of Colon before he became famous -by his voyage. - -[Sidenote: The Genoese in Spain.] - -The Genoese had been for a long period a privileged people in Spain, -dating such acceptance back to the time of St. Ferdinand. Navarrete has -instanced numerous confirmations of these early favors by successive -monarchs down to the time of Columbus. But neither this prestige of his -birthright nor the letter of Friar Perez had been sufficient to secure -in the busy camp at Cordoba any recognition of this otherwise unheralded -and humble suitor. The power of the sovereigns was overtaxed already in -the engrossing preparations which the Court and army were making for a -vigorous campaign against the Moors. The exigencies of the war carried -the sovereigns, sometimes together and at other times apart, from point -to point. Siege after siege was conducted, and Talavera, whose devotion -had been counted upon by Columbus, had too much to occupy his attention, -to give ear to propositions which at best he deemed chimerical. - -[Sidenote: Columbus in Cordoba.] - -We know in a vague way that while the Court was thus withdrawn from -Cordoba the disheartened wanderer remained in that city, supporting -himself, according to Bernaldez, in drafting charts and in selling -printed books, which Harrisse suspects may have been publications, such -as were then current, containing calendars and astronomical predictions, -like the _Lunarios_ of Granollach and Andrès de Li. - -[Sidenote: Makes acquaintances.] - -It was probably at this time, too, that he made the acquaintance of -Alonso de Quintanilla, the comptroller of the finances of Castile. He -attained some terms of friendship with Antonio Geraldini, the papal -nuncio, and his brother, Alexander Geraldini, the tutor of the royal -children. It is claimed that all these friends became interested in his -projects, and were advocates of them. - -[Sidenote: Writes out the proofs of a western land.] - -We are told by Las Casas that Columbus at one time gathered and placed -in order all the varied manifestations, as he conceived them, of some -such transatlantic region as his theory demanded; and it seems probable -that this task was done during a period of weary waiting in Cordoba. We -know nothing, however, of the manuscript except as Las Casas and the -_Historie_ have used its material, and through them some of the details -have been gleaned in the preceding chapter. - -[Sidenote: Mendoza.] - -These accessions of friends, aided doubtless by some such systemization -of the knowledge to be brought to the question as this lost manuscript -implies, opened the way to an acquaintance with Pedro Gonzales de -Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo and Grand Cardinal of Spain. This prelate, -from the confidence which the sovereigns placed in him, was known in -Martyr's phrase as "the third king of Spain," and it could but be seen -by Columbus that his sympathies were essential to the success of plans -so far reaching as his own. The cardinal was gracious in his -intercourse, and by no means inaccessible to such a suitor as Columbus; -but he was educated in the exclusive spirit of the prevailing theology, -and he had a keen scent for anything that might be supposed heterodox. -It proved necessary for the thought of a spherical earth to rest some -time in his mind, till his ruminations could bring him to a perception -of the truths of science. - -[Sidenote: Gets the ear of Ferdinand for Columbus.] - -According to the reports which Oviedo gives us, the seed which Columbus -sowed, in his various talks with the cardinal, in due time germinated, -and the constant mentor of the sovereigns was at last brought to prepare -the way, so that Columbus could have a royal audience. Thus it was that -Columbus finally got the ear of Ferdinand, at Salamanca, whither the -monarchs had come for a winter's sojourn after the turmoils of a -summer's campaign against the Moors. - -[Sidenote: Characters of the sovereigns of Spain.] - -We cannot proceed farther in this narrative without understanding, in -the light of all the early and late evidence which we have, what kind of -beings these sovereigns of Aragon and Castile were, with whom Columbus -was to have so much intercourse in the years to come. Ferdinand and -Isabella, the wearers of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, were linked -in common interests, and their joint reign had augured a powerful, -because united, Spain. The student of their characters, as he works -among the documents of the time, cannot avoid the recognition of -qualities little calculated to satisfy demands for nobleness and -devotion which the world has learned to associate with royal -obligations. It may be possibly too much to say that habitually, but not -too much to assert that often, these Spanish monarchs were more ready at -perfidy and deceit than even an allowance for the teachings of their -time would permit. Often the student will find himself forced to grant -that the queen was more culpable in these respects than the king. An -anxious inquirer into the queen's ways is not quite sure that she was -able to distinguish between her own interests and those of God. The -documentary researches of Bergenroth have decidedly lowered her in the -judgments of those who have studied that investigator's results. We need -to plead the times for her, and we need to push the plea very far. - -[Sidenote: Isabella.] - -"Perhaps," says Helps, speaking of Isabella, "there is hardly any great -personage whose name and authority are found in connection with so much -that is strikingly evil, all of it done, or rather assented to, upon the -highest and purest motives." To palliate on such grounds is to believe -in the irresponsibility of motives, which should transcend times and -occasions. - -She is not, however, without loyal adulators of her own time and race. - -We read in Oviedo of her splendid soul. Peter Martyr found commendations -of ordinary humanity not enough for her. Those nearest her person spoke -as admiringly. It is the fortune, however, of a historical student, who -lies beyond the influence of personal favor, to read in archives her -most secret professions, and to gauge the innermost wishes of a soul -which was carefully posed before her contemporaries. It is mirrored -to-day in a thousand revealing lenses that were not to be seen by her -contemporaries. Irving and Prescott simply fall into the adulation of -her servitors, and make her confessors responsible for her acquiescence -in the expulsion of the Jews and in the horrors of the Inquisition. - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand.] - -The king, perhaps, was good enough for a king as such personages went in -the fifteenth century; but his smiles and remorseless coldness were -mixed as few could mix them, even in those days. If the Pope regarded -him from Italy, that Holy Father called him pious. The modern student -finds him a bigot. His subjects thought him great and glorious, but they -did not see his dispatches, nor know his sometimes baleful domination in -his cabinet. The French would not trust him. The English watched his -ambition. The Moors knew him as their conqueror. The Jews fled before -his evil eye. The miserable saw him in his inquisitors. All this -pleased the Pope, and the papal will made him in preferred phrase His -Most Catholic Majesty,--a phrase that rings in diplomatic formalities -to-day. - -Every purpose upon which he had set his heart was apt to blind him to -aught else, and at times very conveniently so. We may allow that it is -precisely this single mind which makes a conspicuous name in history; -but conspicuousness and justness do not always march with a locked step. - -He had, of course, virtues that shone when the sun shone. He could be -equable. He knew how to work steadily, to eat moderately, and to dress -simply. He was enterprising in his actions, as the Moors and heretics -found out. He did not extort money; he only extorted agonized -confessions. He said masses, and prayed equally well for God's -benediction on evil as on good things. He made promises, and then got -the papal dispensation to break them. He juggled in state policy as his -mind changed, and he worked his craft very readily. Machiavelli would -have liked this in him, and indeed he was a good scholar of an existing -school, which counted the act of outwitting better than the arts of -honesty; and perhaps the world is not loftier in the purposes of -statecraft to-day. He got people to admire him, but few to love him. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's views considered by Talavera and others.] - -[Sidenote: At Salamanca.] - -The result of an audience with the king was that the projects of -Columbus were committed to Talavera, to be laid by him before such a -body of wise men as the prior could gather in council. Las Casas says -that the consideration of the plans was entrusted to "certain persons of -the Court," and he enumerates Cardinal Mendoza, Diego de Deza, Alonso de -Cardenas, and Juan Cabrero, the royal chamberlain. The meeting was -seemingly held in the winter of 1486-87. The Catholic writers accuse -Irving, and apparently with right, of an unwarranted assumption of the -importance of what he calls the Council at Salamanca, and they find he -has no authority for it, except a writer one hundred and twenty years -after the event, who mentions the matter but incidentally. This source -was Remesal's _Historia de Chyapa_ (Madrid, 1619), an account of one of -the Mexican provinces. There seems no reason to suppose that at best it -was anything more than some informal conference of Talavera with a few -councilors, and in no way associated with the prestige of the university -at Salamanca. The registers of the university, which begin back of the -assigned date for such Council, have been examined in vain for any -reference to it. - -[Illustration: UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA. - -[_España_, p. 132]] - - -[Illustration: MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS ERECTED AT GENOA, 1862.] - -The "Junta of Salamanca" has passed into history as a convocation of -considerable extent and importance, and a representation of it is made -to adorn one of the bas-reliefs of the Admiral's monument at Genoa. We -have, however, absolutely no documentary records of it. Of whatever -moment it may have been, if the problem as Columbus would have presented -it had been discussed, the reports, if preserved, could have thrown -much light upon the relations which the cosmographical views of its -principal character bore to the opinions then prevailing in learned -circles of Spain. We know what the _Historie_, Bernaldez, and Las Casas -tell us of Columbus's advocacy, but we must regret the loss of his own -language and his own way of explaining himself to these learned men. -Such a paper would serve a purpose of showing how, in this period of -courageous and ardent insistence on a physical truth, he stood manfully -for the light that was in him; and it would afford a needed foil to -those pitiful aberrations of intellect which, in the years following, -took possession of him, and which were so constantly reiterated with -painful and maundering wailing. - -[Sidenote: Find favor with Deza.] - -Discarding, then, the array of argument which Irving borrows from -Remesal, and barely associating a little conference, in which Columbus -is a central figure, with that St. Stephen's convent whose wondrous -petrifactions of creamy and reticulated stone still hold the admiring -traveler, we must accept nothing more about its meetings than the scant -testimony which has come down to us. It is pleasant to think how it was -here that the active interest which Diego de Deza, a Dominican friar, -finally took in the cause of Columbus may have had its beginning; but -the extent of our positive knowledge regarding the meeting is the -deposition of Rodriguez de Maldonado, who simply says that several -learned men and mariners, hearing the arguments of Columbus, decided -they could not be true, or at least a majority so decided, and that this -testimony against Columbus had no effect to convince him of his errors. -This is all that the "Junta of Salamanca" meant. A minority of unknown -size favored the advocate. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1487. The Court at Cordoba.] - -[Sidenote: Malaga surrenders, 1487.] - -When the spring of 1487 came, and the court departed to Cordoba, and -began to make preparations for the campaign against Malaga, there was no -hope that the considerations which had begun in the learned sessions at -Salamanca would be followed up. Columbus seems to have journeyed after -the Court in its migrations: sometimes lured by pittances doled out to -him by the royal treasurer; sometimes getting pecuniary assistance from -his new friend, Diego de Deza; selling now and then a map that he had -made, it may be; and accepting hospitality where he could get it, from -such as Alonso de Quintanilla. In these wandering days, he was for a -while, at least, in attendance on the Court, then surrounded with -military parade, before the Moorish stronghold at Malaga. The town -surrendered on August 18, 1487, and the Court then returned to Cordoba. - -[Illustration: SPAIN, 1482. - -[From the _Ptolemy_ of 1482.]] - -[Sidenote: 1487. Intimacy of Columbus with Beatrix Enriquez.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand Columbus born, 1488.] - -It was in the autumn of 1487, at Cordoba, that Columbus fell into such -an intimacy as spousehood only can sanction with a person of good -condition as to birth, but poor in the world's goods. Whether this -relation had the sanction of the Church or not has been a subject of -much inquiry and opinion. The class of French writers, who are aiming to -secure the canonization of Columbus, have found it essential to clear -the moral character of Columbus from every taint, and they confidently -assert, and doubtless think they show, that nothing but conjugal right -is manifest in this connection,--a question which the Church will in due -time have to decide, if it ever brings itself to the recognition of the -saintly character of the great discoverer. Even the ardent supporters of -the cause of beatification are forced to admit that there is no record -of such a marriage. No contemporary recognition of such a relation is -evinced by any family ceremonies of baptism or the like, and there is no -mention of a wife in all the transactions of the crowning endeavors of -his life. As viceroy, at a later day, he constantly appears with no -attendant vice-queen. She is absolutely out of sight until Columbus -makes a significant reference to her in his last will, when he -recommends this Beatrix Enriquez to his lawful son Diego; saying that -she is a person to whom the testator had been under great obligations, -and that his conscience is burdened respecting her, for a reason which -he does not then think fitting to explain. This testamentary behest and -acknowledgment, in connection with other manifestations, and the absence -of proof to the contrary, has caused the belief to be general among his -biographers, early and late, that the fruit of this intimacy, Ferdinand -Columbus, was an illegitimate offspring. He was born, as near as can be -made out, on the 15th of August, 1488. The mother very likely received -for a while some consolation from her lover, but Columbus did not -apparently carry her to Seville, when he went there himself; and the -support which he gave her was not altogether regularly afforded, and was -never of the quality which he asked Diego to grant to her when he died. -She unquestionably survived the making of Diego's will in 1523, and then -she fades into oblivion. Her son, Ferdinand, if he is the author of the -_Historie_, makes no mention of a marriage to his mother, though he is -careful to record the one which was indisputably legal, and whose fruit -was Diego, the Admiral's successor. The lawful son was directed by -Columbus, when starting on his third voyage, to pay to Beatrix ten -thousand maravedis a year; but he seems to have neglected to do so for -the last three or four years of her life. Diego finally ordered these -arrears to be paid to her heirs. Las Casas distinctly speaks of -Ferdinand as a natural son, and Las Casas had the best of opportunities -for knowing whereof he wrote. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus sends his brother to England.] - -[Sidenote: Relations of England to the views of Columbus.] - -While all this suspense and amorous intrigue were perplexing the ardent -theorist, he is supposed to have dispatched his brother Bartholomew to -England to disclose his projects to Henry VII. Hakluyt, in his _Westerne -Planting_, tells us that it "made much for the title of the kings of -England" to the New World that Henry VII. gave a ready acceptance to the -theory of Columbus as set forth somewhat tardily by his brother -Bartholomew, when escaping from the detention of the pirates, he was at -last able, on February 13, 1488, to offer in England his sea-card, -embodying Christopher's theories, for the royal consideration. - -[Sidenote: The Cabots in England.] - -William Castell, in his _Short Discovery of America_, says that Henry -VII. "unhappily refused to be at any charge in the discovery, supposing -the learned Columbus to build castles in the air." It is a common story -that Henry finally brought himself to accede to the importunities of -Bartholomew, but only at a late day, and after Christopher had effected -his conquest of the Spanish Court. Columbus himself is credited with -saying that Henry actually wrote him a letter of acceptance. This -epistle was very likely a fruition of the new impulses to oceanic -discovery which the presence, a little later, of the Venetian Cabots, -was making current among the English sailors; for John Cabot and his -sons, one of whom, Sebastian, being at that time a youth of sixteen or -seventeen, had, according to the best testimony, established a home in -Bristol, not far from 1490. - -If the report of the Spanish envoy in England to his sovereigns is -correct as to dates, it was near this time that the Bristol merchants -were renewing their quests oceanward for the islands of Brazil and the -Seven Cities. We have seen that these islands with others had for some -time appeared on the conjectural charts of the Atlantic, and very likely -they had appeared on the sea-card shown by Bartholomew Columbus to Henry -VII. These efforts may perhaps have been in a measure instigated by that -fact. At all events, any hazards of further western exploration could be -met with greater heart if such stations of progress could be found in -mid ocean. Of the report of all this which Bartholomew may have made to -his brother we know absolutely nothing, and he seems not to have -returned to Spain till after a sojourn in France which ended in 1494. - -[Sidenote: Columbus invited back to Portugal.] - -It was believed by Irving that Columbus, having opened a correspondence -with the Portuguese king respecting a return to the service of that -country, had received from that monarch an epistle, dated March 20, -1488, in which he was permitted to come back, with the offer of -protection against any suit of civil or criminal nature, and that this -had been declined. We are left to conjecture of what suits of either -kind he could have been apprehensive. - -Humboldt commends the sagacity of Navarrete in discerning that it was -not so much the persuasion of Diego de Deza which kept Columbus at this -time from accepting such royal offers, as the illicit connection which -he had formed in Cordoba with Doña Beatrix Enriquez, who before the -summer was over had given birth to a son. - -On the other hand, that the permission was not neglected seems proved by -a memorandum made by Columbus's own hand in a copy of Pierre d'Ailly's -_Imago Mundi_, preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville, where, -under date of December, 1488, "at Lisbon," he speaks of the return of -Diaz from his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. This proof is indeed -subject to the qualification that Las Casas has considered the -handwriting of the note to be that of Bartholomew Columbus, but Harrisse -has no question of its identity with the chirography of Columbus. This -last critic ventures the conjecture that it was in some way to settle -the estate of his wife that Columbus at this time visited Portugal. - -[Sidenote: Spanish subsidies withheld.] - -Columbus had ceased to receive the Spanish subsidies in June, 1488, or -at least we know no record of any later largess. Ferdinand was born to -him in August. It was very likely subsequent to this last event -that Columbus crossed the Spanish frontier into Portugal, if Harrisse's -view of his crossing at all be accepted. His stay was without doubt a -short one, and from 1489 to 1492 there is every indication that he never -left the Spanish kingdom. - -[Sidenote: Duke of Medina-Celi harbors Columbus.] - -We know on the testimony of a letter of Luis de la Cerda, the Duke of -Medina-Celi, given in Navarrete, that for two years after the arrival of -Columbus from Portugal he had been a guest under the duke's roof in -Cogulludo, and it seems to Harrisse probable that this gracious help on -the part of the duke was bestowed after the return to Spain. All that we -know with certainty of its date is that it occurred before the first -voyage, the duke himself mentioning it in a letter of March 19, 1493. - -[Sidenote: 1489. Columbus ordered to Cordoba.] - -It was not till May, 1489, when the court was again at Cordoba, -according to Diego Ortiz de Zuñiga, in his work on Seville, that the -sovereigns were gracious enough to order Columbus to appear there, when -they furnished him lodgings. They also, perhaps, at the same time, -issued a general order, dated at Cordoba May 12, in which all cities and -towns were directed to furnish suitable accommodations to Columbus and -his attendants, inasmuch as he was journeying in the royal service. - -[Sidenote: Columbus at the siege of Baza.] - -[Sidenote: Friars from the Holy Sepulchre.] - -The year 1489 was a hazardous but fruitful one. The sovereigns were -pushing vigorously their conquest of the Moor. Isabella herself attended -the army, and may have appeared in the beleaguering lines about Baza, in -one of those suits of armor which are still shown to travelers. Zuñiga -says that Columbus arrayed himself among the combatants, and was -doubtless acquainted with the mission of two friars who had been -guardians of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. These priests arrived -during the siege, bringing a message from the Grand Soldan of Egypt, in -which that potentate threatened to destroy all Christians within his -grasp, unless the war against Granada should be stopped. The point of -driving the Moors from Spain was too nearly reached for such a threat to -be effective, and Isabella decreed the annual payment of a thousand -ducats to support the faithful custodians of the Sepulchre, and sent a -veil embroidered with her own hand to decorate the shrine. Irving traces -to this circumstance the impulse, which Columbus frequently in later -days showed, to devote the anticipated wealth of the Indies to a crusade -in Palestine, to recover and protect the Holy Sepulchre. - -[Sidenote: Boabdil surrenders, December 22, 1489.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus's views again considered.] - -The campaign closed with the surrender on December 22 of the fortress of -Baza, when Spain received from Muley Boabdil, the elder of the rival -Moorish kings, all the territory which he claimed to have in his power. -In February, 1490, Ferdinand and Isabella entered Seville in triumph, -and a season of hilarity and splendor followed, signalized in the spring -by the celebration with great jubilation of the marriage of the Princess -Isabella with Don Alonzo, the heir to the crown of Portugal. These -engrossing scenes were little suited to give Columbus a chance to press -his projects on the Court. He soon found nothing could be done to get -the farther attention of the monarchs till some respites occurred in the -preparations for their final campaign against the younger Moorish king. -It was at this time, as Irving and others have conjectured, that the -consideration of the project of a western passage, which had been -dropped when events moved the Court from Salamanca, was again taken up -by such investigators as Talavera had summoned, and again the result was -an adverse decision. This determination was communicated by Talavera -himself to the sovereign, and it was accompanied by the opinion that it -did not become great princes to engage in such chimerical undertakings. - -[Sidenote: Deza impressed.] - -[Sidenote: Delays.] - -It is supposed, however, that the decision was not reached without some -reservation in the minds of certain of the reviewers, and that -especially this was the case with Diego de Deza, who showed that the -stress of the arguments advanced by Columbus had not been without -result. This friar was tutor to Prince Juan, and it was not difficult -for him to modify the emphatic denial of the judges. It was the pride of -those who later erected the tombstone of Deza, in the cathedral at -Seville, to inscribe upon it that he was the generous and faithful -patron of Columbus. A temporizing policy was, therefore, adopted by the -monarchs, and Columbus was informed that for the present the perils and -expenses of the war called for an undivided attention, and that further -consideration of his project must be deferred till the war was over. It -was at Cordoba that this decision reached Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Columbus goes to Seville; but is repelled.] - -In his eagerness of hope he suspected that the judgment had received -some adverse color in passing through Talavera's mind, and so he -hastened to Seville, but only to meet the same chilling repulse from the -monarchs themselves. With dashed expectations he left the city, feeling -that the instrumentality of Talavera, as Peter Martyr tells us, had -turned the sovereigns against him. - -[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE. - -[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's _España_.]] - -[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF CORDOBA. - -[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's _España_.]] - -[Sidenote: Seeks the grandees of Spain.] - -[Sidenote: Medina-Sidonia and Medina-Celi.] - -Columbus now sought to engage the attention of some of the powerful -grandees of Spain, who, though subjects, were almost autocratic in their -own regions, serving the Crown not so much as vassals as sympathetic -helpers in its wars. They were depended upon to recruit the armies from -their own trains and dependents; money came from their chests, -provisions from their estates, and ships from their own marine; their -landed patrimonies, indeed, covered long stretches of the coast, whose -harbors sheltered their considerable navies. Such were the dukes of -Medina-Sidonia and Medina-Celi. Columbus found in them, however, the -same wariness which he had experienced at the greater court. There was a -willingness to listen; they found some lures in the great hopes of -Eastern wealth which animated Columbus, but in the end there was the -same disappointment. One of them, the Duke of Medina-Celi, at last -adroitly parried the importunities of Columbus, by averring that the -project deserved the royal patronage rather than his meaner aid. He, -however, told the suitor, if a farther application should be made to the -Crown at some more opportune moment, he would labor with the queen in -its behalf. The duke kept his word, and we get much of what we know of -his interest in Columbus from the information given by one of the duke's -household to Las Casas. This differs so far as to make the duke, perhaps -as Harrisse thinks in the spring of 1491, actually fit out some caravels -for the use of Columbus; but when seeking a royal license, he was -informed that the queen had determined to embark in the enterprise -herself. Such a decision seems to carry this part of the story, at -least, forward to a time when Columbus was summoned from Rabida. - -[Sidenote: Columbus at Rabida.] - -A consultation which now took place at the convent of Rabida affords -particulars which the historians have found difficulty, as already -stated, in keeping distinct from those of an earlier visit, if there was -such. Columbus, according to the usual story, visited the convent -apparently in October or November, 1491, with the purpose of reclaiming -his son Diego, and taking him to Cordoba, where he might be left with -Ferdinand in the charge of the latter's mother. Columbus himself -intended to pass to France, to see if a letter, which had been received -from the king of France, might possibly open the way to the fulfillment -of his great hopes. It is represented that it was this expressed -intention of abandoning Spain which aroused the patriotism of Marchena, -who undertook to prevent the sacrifice. - -[Sidenote: Marchena encourages him.] - -[Sidenote: Talks with Pinzon.] - -We derive what we know of his method of prevention from the testimony of -Garcia Fernandez, the physician of Palos, who has been cited in respect -to the alleged earlier visit. This witness says that he was summoned to -Rabida to confer with Columbus. It is also made a part of the story that -the head of a family of famous navigators in Palos, Martin Alonso -Pinzon, was likewise drawn into the little company assembled by the -friar to consider the new situation. Pinzon readily gave his adherence -to the views of Columbus. It is claimed, however, that the presence of -Pinzon is disproved by documents showing him to have been in Rome at -this time. - -[Sidenote: Cousin's alleged voyage, 1488,] - -[Sidenote: and Pinzon's supposed connection with it.] - -An alleged voyage of Jean Cousin, in 1488, two years and more before -this, from Dieppe to the coast of Brazil, is here brought in by certain -French writers, like Estancelin and Gaffarel, as throwing some light on -the intercourse of Columbus and Pinzon, later if not now. It must be -acknowledged that few other than French writers have credited the voyage -at all. Major, who gave the story careful examination, utterly -discredits it. It is a part of the story that one Pinzon, a Castilian, -accompanied Cousin as a pilot, and this man is identified by these -French writers as the navigator who is now represented as yielding a -ready credence to the views of Columbus, and for the reason that he knew -more than he openly professed. They find in the later intercourse of -Columbus and this Pinzon certain evidence of the estimation in which -Columbus seemed to hold the practiced judgment, if not the knowledge, of -Pinzon. This they think conspicuous in the yielding which Columbus made -to Pinzon's opinion during Columbus's first voyage, in changing his -course to the southwest, which is taken to have been due to a knowledge -of Pinzon's former experience in passing those seas in 1488. They trace -to it the confidence of Pinzon in separating from the Admiral on the -coast of Cuba, and in his seeking to anticipate Columbus by an earlier -arrival at Palos, on the return, as the reader will later learn. Thus it -is ingeniously claimed that the pilot of Cousin and colleague of -Columbus were one and the same person. It has hardly convinced other -students than the French. When the Pinzon of the "Pinta" at a later day -was striving to discredit the leadership of Columbus, in the famous -suit of the Admiral's heirs, he could hardly, for any reason which the -French writers aver, have neglected so important a piece of evidence as -the fact of the Cousin voyage and his connection with it, if there had -been any truth in it. - -[Sidenote: Pinzon aids Columbus,] - -So we must be content, it is pretty clear, in charging Pinzon's -conversion to the views of Columbus at Rabida upon the efficacy of -Columbus's arguments. This success of Columbus brought some substantial -fruit in the promise which Pinzon now made to bear the expenses of a -renewed suit to Ferdinand and Isabella. - -[Sidenote: and Rodriguez goes to Santa Fé, with a letter to the queen.] - -[Sidenote: Marchena follows.] - -[Sidenote: The queen invites Columbus once more.] - -A conclusion to the deliberation of this little circle in the convent -was soon reached. Columbus threw his cause into the hands of his -friends, and agreed to rest quietly in the convent while they pressed -his claims. Perez wrote a letter of supplication to the Queen, and it -was dispatched by a respectable navigator of the neighborhood, Sebastian -Rodriguez. He found the Queen in the city of Santa Fé, which had grown -up in the military surroundings before the city of Granada, whose siege -the Spanish armies were then pressing. The epistle was opportune, for it -reënforced one which she had already received from the Duke of -Medina-Celi, who had been faithful to his promise to Columbus, and who, -judging from a letter which he wrote at a later day, March 19, 1493, -took to himself not a little credit that he had thus been instrumental, -as he thought, in preventing Columbus throwing himself into the service -of France. The result was that the pilot took back to Rabida an -intimation to Marchena that his presence would be welcome at Santa Fé. -So mounting his mule, after midnight, fourteen days after Rodriguez had -departed, the friar followed the pilot's tracks, which took him through -some of the regions already conquered from the Moors, and, reaching the -Court, presented himself before the Queen. Perez is said to have found a -seconder in Luis de Santangel, a fiscal officer of Aragon, and in the -Marchioness of Moya, one of the ladies of the household. The friar is -thought to have urged his petition so strongly that the Queen, who had -all along been more open to the representations of Columbus than -Ferdinand had been, finally determined to listen once more to the -Genoese's appeals. - -[Sidenote: Columbus reaches Santa Fé, December, 1491.] - -[Sidenote: Quintanilla and Mendoza.] - -Learning of the poor plight of Columbus, she ordered a gratuity to be -sent to him, to restore his wardrobe and to furnish himself with the -conveniences of the journey. Perez, having borne back the happy news, -again returned to the Court, with Columbus under his protection. Thus -once more buoyed in hope, and suitably arrayed for appearing at Court, -Columbus, on his mule, early in December, 1491, rode into the camp at -Santa Fé, where he was received and provided with lodgings by the -accountant-general. This officer was one whom he had occasion happily to -remember, Alonso de Quintanilla, through whose offices it was, in the -end, that the Grand Cardinal of Spain, Mendoza, was at this time brought -into sympathy with the Genoese aspirant. - -[Sidenote: Boabdil the younger submits.] - -[Sidenote: The Moorish wars end.] - -Military events were still too imposing, however, for any immediate -attention to his projects, and he looked on with admiration and a -reserved expectancy, while the grand parade of the final submission of -Boabdil the younger, the last of the Moorish kings, took place, and a -long procession of the magnificence of Spain moved forward from the -beleaguering camp to receive the keys of the Alhambra. Wars succeeding -wars for nearly eight centuries had now come to an end. The Christian -banner of Spain floated over the Moorish palace. The kingdom was alive -in all its provinces. Congratulation and jubilation, with glitter and -vauntings, pervaded the air. - -[Sidenote: Talavera and Columbus.] - -Few observed the humble Genoese who stood waiting the sovereigns' -pleasure during all this tumult of joy; but he was not forgotten. They -remembered, as he did, the promise given him at Seville. The war was -over, and the time was come. Talavera had by this time gone so far -towards an appreciation of Columbus's views that Peter Martyr tells him, -at a later day, that the project would not have succeeded without him. -He was directed to confer with the expectant dreamer, and Cardinal -Mendoza became prominent in the negotiations. - -Columbus's position was thus changed. He had been a suitor. He was now -sought. He had been persuaded from his purposed visit to France, in -order that he might by his plans rehabilitate Spain with a new glory, -complemental to her martial pride. This view as presented by Perez to -Isabella had been accepted, and Columbus was summoned to present his -case. - -[Sidenote: The mistake of Columbus.] - -Here, when he seemed at last to be on the verge of success, the poor -man, unused to good fortune, and mistaking its token, repeated the -mistake which had driven him an outcast from Portugal. His arrogant -spirit led him to magnify his importance before he had proved it; and he -failed in the modesty which marks a conquering spirit. - -True science places no gratulations higher than those of its own -conscience. Copernicus was at this moment delving into the secrets of -nature like a nobleman of the universe. So he stands for all time in -lofty contrast to the plebeian nature and sordid cravings of his -contemporary. - -[Sidenote: His pretensions.] - -When, at the very outset of the negotiations, Talavera found this -uplifted suitor making demands that belonged rather to proved success -than to a contingent one, there was little prospect of accommodation, -unless one side or the other should abandon its position. If Columbus's -own words count for anything, he was conscious of being a -laughing-stock, while he was making claims for office and emoluments -that would mortgage the power of a kingdom. A dramatic instinct has in -many minds saved Columbus from the critical estimate of such -presumption. Irving and the French canonizers dwell on what strikes them -as constancy of purpose and loftiness of spirit. They marvel that -poverty, neglect, ridicule, contumely, and disappointment had not -dwarfed his spirit. This is the vulgar liking for the hero who is -without heroism, and the martyr who makes a trade of it. The honest -historian has another purpose. He tries to gauge pretense by wisdom. -Columbus was indeed to succeed; but his success was an error in -geography, and a failure in policy and in morals. The Crown was yet to -succumb; but its submission was to entail miseries upon Columbus and his -line, and a reproach upon Spain. The outcome to Columbus and to Spain is -the direst comment of all. - -Columbus would not abate one jot of his pretensions, and an end was put -to the negotiations. Making up his mind to carry his suit to France, he -left Cordoba on his mule, in the beginning of February, 1492. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND THE FIRST VOYAGE, 1492. - - -[Sidenote: Columbus leaves the Court.] - -Columbus, a disheartened wanderer, with his back turned on the Spanish -Court, his mule plodding the road to Cordoba, offered a sad picture to -the few adherents whom he had left behind. They had grown to have his -grasp of confidence, but lacked his spirit to clothe an experimental -service with all the certainties of an accomplished fact. - -[Sidenote: The Queen relents.] - -The sight of the departing theorist abandoning the country, and going to -seek countenance at rival courts, stirred the Spanish pride. He and his -friends had, in mutual counsels, pictured the realms of the Indies made -tributary to the Spanish fame. It was this conception of a chance so -near fruition, and now vanishing, that moved Luis de Santangel and -Alonso de Quintanilla to determine on one last effort. They immediately -sought the Queen. In an audience the two advocates presented the case -anew, appealing to the royal ambition, to the opportunity of spreading -her holy religion, to the occasions of replenishing her treasure-chests, -emptied by the war, and to every other impulse, whether of pride or -patriotism. The trivial cost and risk were contrasted with the glowing -possibilities. They repeated the offer of Columbus to share an eighth of -the expense. They pictured her caravels, fitted out at a cost of not -more than 3,000,000 crowns, bearing the banner of Spain to these regions -of opulence. The vision, once fixed in the royal eye, spread under their -warmth of description, into succeeding glimpses of increasing splendor. -Finally the warmth and glory of an almost realized expectancy filled the -Queen's cabinet. - -The conquest was made. The royal companion, the Marchioness of Moya, saw -and encouraged the kindling enthusiasm of Isabella; but a shade came -over the Queen's face. The others knew it was the thought of Ferdinand's -aloofness. The warrior of Aragon, with new conquests to regulate, with -a treasury drained almost to the last penny, would have little heart for -an undertaking in which his enthusiasm, if existing at all, had always -been dull as compared with hers. She solved the difficulty in a flash. -The voyage shall be the venture of Castile alone, and it shall be -undertaken. - -[Sidenote: Columbus brought back.] - -Orders were at once given for a messenger to overtake Columbus. A -horseman came up with him at the bridge of Pinòs, two leagues from -Granada. There was a moment's hesitancy, as thoughts of cruelly -protracted and suspended feelings in the past came over him. His -decision, however, was not stayed. He turned his mule, and journeyed -back to the city. Columbus was sought once more, and in a way to give -him the vantage which his imperious demands could easily use. - -The interview with the Queen which followed removed all doubt of his -complete ascendency. Ferdinand in turn yielded to the persuasions of his -chamberlain, Juan Cabrero, and to the supplications of Isabella; but he -succumbed without faith, if the story which is told of him in relation -to the demand for similar concessions made twenty years later by Ponce -de Leon is to be believed. "Ah," said Ferdinand, to the discoverer of -Florida, "it is one thing to give a stretch of power when no one -anticipates the exercise of it; but we have learned something since -then; you will succeed, and it is another thing to give such power to -you." This story goes a great way to explain the later efforts of the -Crown to counteract the power which was, in the flush of excitement, -unwittingly given to the new Admiral. - -[Sidenote: The Queen's jewels.] - -The ensuing days were devoted to the arrangement of details. The usual -story, derived from the _Historie_, is that the Queen offered to pawn -her jewels, as her treasury of Castile could hardly furnish the small -sum required; but Harrisse is led to believe that the exigencies of the -war had already required this sacrifice of the Queen, though the -documentary evidence is wanting. Santangel, however, interposed. As -treasurer of the ecclesiastical revenues in Aragon, he was able to show -that while Isabella was foremost in promoting the enterprise, Ferdinand -could join her in a loan from these coffers; and so it was that the -necessary funds were, in reality, paid in the end from the revenues of -Aragon. This is the common story, enlarged by later writers upon the -narrative in Las Casas; but Harrisse finds no warrant for it, and judges -the advance of funds to have been by Santangel from his private -revenues, and in the interests of Castile only. And this seems to be -proved by the invariable exclusion of Ferdinand's subjects from -participating in the advantages of trade in the new lands, unless an -exception was made for some signal service. This rule, indeed, -prevailed, even after Ferdinand began to reign alone. - -[Sidenote: Aims of the expedition.] - -[Sidenote: End of the world approaching.] - -There is something quite as amusing as edifying in the ostensible -purposes of all this endeavor. To tap the resources of the luxuriant -East might be gratifying, but it was holy to conceive that the energies -of the undertaking were going to fill the treasury out of which a new -crusade for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre could be sustained. The -pearls and spices of the Orient, the gold and precious jewels of its -mines, might conduce to the gorgeous and luxurious display of the -throne, but there was a noble condescension in giving Columbus a -gracious letter to the Great Khan, and in hoping to seduce his subjects -to the sway of a religion that allowed to the heathen no rights but -conversion. There was at least a century and a half of such holy -endeavors left for the ministrants of the church, as was believed, since -the seven thousand years of the earth's duration was within one hundred -and fifty-five years of its close, as the calculations of King Alonso -showed. Columbus had been further drawn to these conclusions from his -study of that conglomerating cardinal, Pierre d'Ailly, whose works, in a -full edition, had been at this time only a few months in the book -stalls. Humboldt has gone into an examination of the data to show that -Columbus's calculation was singularly inexact; but the labor of -verification seems hardly necessary, except as a curious study of -absurdities. Columbus's career has too many such to detain us on any -one. - -[Sidenote: 1492. April 17. Agreement with Columbus.] - -On April 17, 1492, the King and Queen signed at Santa Fé and delivered -to Columbus a passport to all persons in unknown parts, commending the -Admiral to their friendship. This paper is preserved in Barcelona. On -the same day the monarchs agreed to the conditions of a document which -was drawn by the royal secretary, Juan de Coloma, and is preserved -among the papers of the Duke of Veragua. It was printed from that copy -by Navarrete, and is again printed by Bergenroth as found at Barcelona. -As formulated in English by Irving, its purport is as follows:-- - - -1. That Columbus should have for himself during his life, and for his -heirs and successors forever, the office of Admiral in all the lands and -continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean, with similar -honors and prerogatives to those enjoyed by the high admiral of Castile -in his district. - -2. That he should be viceroy and governor-general over all the said -lands and continents, with the privilege of nominating three candidates -for the government of each island or province, one of whom should be -selected by the sovereigns. - -3. That he should be entitled to reserve for himself one tenth of all -pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and all other articles of -merchandises, in whatever manner found, bought, bartered, or gained -within his admiralty, the costs being first deducted. - -4. That he or his lieutenant should be the sole judge in all causes or -disputes arising out of traffic between those countries and Spain, -provided the high admiral of Castile had similar jurisdiction in his -district. - -5. That he might then and at all after times contribute an eighth part -of the expense in fitting out vessels to sail on this enterprise, and -receive an eighth part of the profits. - - -[Sidenote: 1492. April 30. Colummbus allowed to use the prefix Don.] - -These capitulations were followed on the 30th of April by a commission -which the sovereigns signed at Granada, in which it was further granted -that the Admiral and his heirs should use the prefix Don. - -[Sidenote: Arranges his domestic affairs.] - -It is supposed he now gave some heed to his domestic concerns. We know -nothing, however, of any provision for the lonely Beatrix, but it is -said that he placed his boy Ferdinand, then but four years of age, at -school in Cordoba near his mother. He left his lawful son, Diego, well -provided for through an appointment by the Queen, on May 8, which made -him page to Prince Juan, the heir apparent. - -[Sidenote: 1492. May. Reaches Palos.] - -Columbus himself tells us that he then left Granada on the 12th of May, -1492, and went direct to Palos; stopping, however, on the way at Rabida, -to exchange congratulations with its friar, Juan Perez, if indeed he did -not lodge at the convent during his stay in the seaport. - -[Sidenote: Palos described.] - -Palos to-day consists of a double street of lowly, whitened houses, in a -depression among the hills. The guides point out the ruins of a larger -house, which was the home of the Pinzons. The Moorish mosque, converted -into St. George's church in Columbus's day, still stands on the hill, -just outside the village, with an image of St. George and the dragon -over its high altar, just as Columbus saw it, while above the church are -existing ruins of an old Moorish castle. - -[Sidenote: Ships fitted out.] - -The story which Las Casas has told of the fitting out of the vessels -does not agree in some leading particulars with that which Navarrete -holds to be more safely drawn from the documents which he has published. -The fact seems to be that two of the vessels of Columbus were not -constructed by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, and later bought by the -Queen, as Las Casas says; but, it happening that the town of Palos, in -consequence of some offense to the royal dignity, had been mulcted in -the service of two armed caravels for twelve months, the opportunity was -now taken by royal order, dated April 30, 1492, of assigning this -service of crews and vessels to Columbus's fateful expedition. - -[Sidenote: The Pinzons aid him.] - -The royal command had also provided that Columbus might add a third -vessel, which he did with the aid, it is supposed, of the Pinzons, -though there is no documentary proof to show whence he acquired the -necessary means. Las Casas and Herrera, however, favor the supposition, -and it is of course sustained in the evidence adduced in the famous -trial which was intended to magnify the service of the Pinzons. It was -also directed that the seamen of the little fleet should receive the -usual wages of those serving in armed vessels, and be paid four months -in advance. All maritime towns were enjoined to furnish supplies at a -reasonable price. All criminal processes against anybody engaged for the -voyage were to be suspended, and this suspension was to last for two -months after the return. - -[Sidenote: 1492. May 23. Demands two ships of Palos.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. June 20. Vessels and crews impressed.] - -[Sidenote: The Pinzons.] - -It was on the 23d of May that, accompanied by Juan Perez, Columbus met -the people of Palos assembled in the church of St. George, while a -notary read the royal commands laid upon the town. It took a little time -for the simple people to divine the full extent of such an order,--its -consignment of fellow-creatures to the dreaded evils of the great -unknown ocean. The reluctance to enter upon the undertaking proved so -great, except among a few prisoners taken from the jails, that it became -necessary to report the obstacle to the Court, when a new peremptory -order was issued on June 20 to impress the vessels and crews. Juan de -Peñalosa, an officer of the royal household, appeared in Palos to -enforce this demand. Even such imperative measures availed little, and -it was not till Martin Alonso Pinzon came forward, and either by an -agreement to divide with Columbus the profits, or through some other -understanding,--for the testimony on the point is doubtful, and Las -Casas disbelieves any such division of profits,--exerted his influence, -in which he was aided by his brother, also a navigator, Vicente Yañez -Pinzon. There is a story traceable to a son of the elder Pinzon, who -testified in the Columbus lawsuit that Martin Alonso had at one time -become convinced of the existence of western lands from some documents -and charts which he had seen at Rome. The story, like that of his -companionship with Cousin, already referred to, has in it, however, many -elements of suspicion. - -This help of the Pinzons proved opportune and did much to save the -cause, for it had up to this time seemed impossible to get vessels or -crews. The standing of these navigators as men and their promise to -embark personally put a new complexion on the undertaking, and within a -month the armament was made up. Harrisse has examined the evidence in -the matter to see if there is any proof that the Pinzons contributed -more than their personal influence, but there is no apparent ground for -believing they did, unless they stood behind Columbus in his share of -the expenses, which are computed at 500,000 maravedis, while those of -the Queen, arranged through Santangel, are reckoned at 1,140,000 of that -money. The fleet consisted, as Peter Martyr tells us, of two open -caravels, "Nina" and "Pinta"--the latter, with its crew, being pressed -into the service,--decked only at the extremities, where high prows and -poops gave quarters for the crews and their officers. A large-decked -vessel of the register known as a carack, and renamed by Columbus the -"Santa Maria," which proved "a dull sailer and unfit for discovery," was -taken by Columbus as his flagship. There is some confusion in the -testimony relating to the name of this ship. The _Historie_ alone calls -her by this name. Las Casas simply styles her "The Captain." One of the -pilots speaks of her as the "Mari Galante." Her owner was one Juan de la -Cosa, apparently not the same person as the navigator and cosmographer -later to be met, and he had command of her, while Pero Alonso Nino and -Sancho Ruis served as pilots. - -[Sidenote: Character of the ships.] - -Captain G. V. Fox has made an estimate of her dimensions from her -reputed tonnage by the scale of that time, and thinks she was -sixty-three feet over all in length, fifty-one feet along her keel, -twenty feet beam, and ten and a half in depth. - -[Sidenote: The crews.] - -The two Pinzons were assigned to the command of the other -caravels,--Martin Alonso to the "Pinta," the larger of the two, with a -third brother of his as pilot, and Vicente Yañez to the "Nina." Many -obstacles and the natural repugnances of sailors to embark in so -hazardous a service still delayed the preparations, but by the beginning -of August the arrangements were complete, and a hundred and twenty -persons, as Peter Martyr and Oviedo tell us, but perhaps the _Historie_ -and Las Casas are more correct in saying ninety in all, were ready to be -committed to what many of them felt were most desperate fortunes. Duro -has of late published in his _Colón y Pinzon_ what purports to be a list -of their names. It shows in Tallerte de Lajes a native of England who -has been thought to be one named in his vernacular Arthur Lake; and -Guillemio Ires, called of Galway, has sometimes been fancied to have -borne in his own land the name perhaps of Rice, Herries, or Harris. -There was no lack of the formal assignments usual in such important -undertakings. There was a notary to record the proceedings and a -historian to array the story; an interpreter to be prepared with Latin, -Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, and Armenian, in the hopes that one of -these tongues might serve in intercourse with the great Asiatic -potentates, and a metallurgist to pronounce upon precious ores. They -were not without a physician and a surgeon. It does not appear if their -hazards should require the last solemn rites that there was any priest -to shrive them; but Columbus determined to start with all the solemnity -that a confession and the communion could impart, and this service was -performed by Juan Perez, both for him and for his entire company. - -[Sidenote: Sailing directions from the Crown.] - -The directions of the Crown also provided that Columbus should avoid the -Guinea coast and all other possessions of the Portuguese, which seems to -be little more than a striking manifestation of a certain kind of -incredulity respecting what Columbus, after all, meant by sailing west. -Indeed, there was necessarily more or less vagueness in everybody's mind -as to what a western passage would reveal, or how far a westerly course -might of necessity be swung one way or the other. - -[Sidenote: Islands first to be sought.] - -The _Historie_ tells us distinctly that Columbus hoped to find some -intermediate land before reaching India, to be used, as the modern -phrase goes, as a sort of base of operations. This hope rested on the -belief, then common, that there was more land than sea on the earth, and -consequently that no wide stretch of ocean could exist without -interlying lands. - -There was, moreover, no confidence that such things as floating islands -might not be encountered. Pliny and Seneca had described them, and -Columbus was inclined to believe that St. Brandan and the Seven Cities, -and such isles as the dwellers at the Azores had claimed to see in the -offing, might be of this character. - -There seems, in fact, to be ground for believing that Columbus thought -his course to the Asiatic shores could hardly fail to bring him in view -of other regions or islands lying in the western ocean. Muñoz holds that -"the glory of such discoveries inflamed him still more, perhaps, than -his chief design." - -[Sidenote: Asiatic archipelago.] - -That a vast archipelago would, be the first land encountered was not -without confident believers. The Catalan map of 1374 had shown such -islands in vast numbers, amounting to 7,548 in all; Marco Polo had made -them 12,700, or was thought to do so; and Behaim was yet to cite the -latter on his globe. - -[Sidenote: Behaim's globe.] - -It was, indeed, at this very season that Behaim, having returned from -Lisbon to his home in Nuremberg, had imparted to the burghers of that -inland town those great cosmographical conceptions, which he was -accustomed to hear discussed in the Atlantic seaports. Such views were -exemplified in a large globe which Behaim had spent the summer in -constructing in Nuremberg. It was made of pasteboard covered with -parchment, and is twenty-one inches in diameter. - -[Illustration: BEHAIM'S GLOBE, 1492. - -_Note._ The curved sides of these cuts divide the Globe in the mid -Atlantic.] - -[Illustration: BEHAIM'S GLOBE, 1492. - -[Taken from Ernest Mayer's _Die Hilfsmittel der Schiffahrtkunde_ (Wein, -1879).]] - -[Illustration: DOPPELMAYER'S ENGRAVING OF BEHAIM'S GLOBE, MUCH REDUCED.] - -[Sidenote: Laon globe.] - -It shows the equator, the tropics, the polar circle, in a latitudinal -way; but the first meridian, passing through Madeira, is the only one of -the longitudinal sectors which it represents. Behaim had in this work -the help of Holtzschner, and the globe has come down to our day, -preserved in the town hall at Nuremberg, one of the sights and honors of -that city. It shares the credit, however, with another, called the Laon -globe, as the only well-authenticated geographical spheres which date -back of the discovery of America. This Laon globe is much smaller, being -only six inches in diameter; and though it is dated 1493, it is thought -to have been made a few years earlier,--as D'Avezac thinks, in 1486. - -[Illustration: THE ACTUAL AMERICA IN RELATION TO BEHAIM'S GEOGRAPHY.] - -Clements K. Markham, in a recent edition of Robert Hues' _Tractatus de -Globis_, cites Nordenskiöld as considering Behaim's globe, without -comparison, the most important geographical document since the atlas of -Ptolemy, in A. D. 150. "He points out that it is the first which -unreservedly adopts the existence of antipodes; the first which clearly -shows that there is a passage from Europe to India; the first which -attempts to deal with the discoveries of Marco Polo. It is an exact -representation of geographical knowledge immediately previous to the -first voyage of Columbus." - -The Behaim globe has become familiar by many published drawings. - -[Sidenote: Toscanelli's map.] - -It has been claimed that Columbus probably took with him, on his voyage, -the map which he had received from Toscanelli, with its delineation of -the interjacent and island-studded ocean, which washed alike the shores -of Europe and Asia, and that it was the subject of study by him and -Pinzon at a time when Columbus refers in his journal to the use they -made of a chart. - -That Toscanelli's map long survived the voyage is known, and Las Casas -used it. Humboldt has not the same confidence which Sprengel had, that -at this time it crossed the sea in the "Santa Maria;" and he is inclined -rather to suppose that the details of Toscanelli's chart, added to all -others which Columbus had gathered from the maps of Bianco and -Benincasa--for it is not possible he could have seen the work of Behaim, -unless indeed, in fragmentary preconceptions--must have served him -better as laid down on a chart of his own drafting. There is good reason -to suppose that, more than once, with the skill which he is known to -have possessed, he must have made such charts, to enforce and -demonstrate his belief, which, though in the main like that of -Toscanelli, were in matters of distance quite different. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1492, August 3, Columbus sails.] - -So, everything being ready, on the third of August, 1492, a half hour -before sunrise, he unmoored his little fleet in the stream and, -spreading his sails, the vessels passed out of the little river -roadstead of Palos, gazed after, perhaps, in the increasing light, as -the little crafts reached the ocean, by the friar of Rabida, from its -distant promontory of rock. - -[Illustration: SHIPS OF COLUMBUS'S TIME. - -(From Medina's _Arte de Navegar_, 1545.)] - -[Sidenote: On Friday.] - -The day was Friday, and the advocates of Columbus's canonization have -not failed to see a purpose in its choice, as the day of our Redemption, -and as that of the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre by Geoffrey de -Bouillon, and of the rendition of Granada, with the fall of the Moslem -power in Spain. We must resort to the books of such advocates, if we -would enliven the picture with a multitude of rites and devotional -feelings that they gather in the meshes of the story of the departure. -They supply to the embarkation a variety of detail that their holy -purposes readily imagine, and place Columbus at last on his poop, with -the standard of the Cross, the image of the Saviour nailed to the holy -wood, waving in the early breezes that heralded the day. The -embellishments may be pleasing, but they are not of the strictest -authenticity. - -[Illustration: SHIP, 1486.] - -[Sidenote: Keeps a journal.] - -In order that his performance of an embassy to the princes of the East -might be duly chronicled, Columbus determined, as his journal says, to -keep an account of the voyage by the west, "by which course," he says, -"unto the present time, we do not know, _for certain_, that any one has -passed." It was his purpose to write down, as he proceeded, everything -he saw and all that he did, and to make a chart of his discoveries, and -to show the directions of his track. - -[Illustration: [From Bethencourt's _Canarian_, London, 1872.]] - -[Sidenote: The "Pinta" disabled.] - -Nothing occurred during those early August days to mar his run to the -Canaries, except the apprehension which he felt that an accident, -happening to the rudder of the "Pinta,"--a steering gear now for some -time in use, in place of the old lateral paddles,--was a trick of two -men, her owners, Gomez Rascon and Christopher Quintero, to impede a -voyage in which they had no heart. The Admiral knew the disposition of -these men well enough not to be surprised at the mishap, but he tried to -feel secure in the prompt energy of Pinzon, who commanded the "Pinta." - -[Sidenote: Reaches the Canaries.] - -As he passed (August 24-25, 1492) the peak of Teneriffe, it was the time -of an eruption, of which he makes bare mention in his journal. It is to -the corresponding passages of the _Historie_, that we owe the somewhat -sensational stories of the terrors of the sailors, some of whom -certainly must long have been accustomed to like displays in the -volcanoes of the Mediterranean. - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 6, leaves Gomera.] - -At the Gran Canaria the "Nina" was left to have her lateen sails changed -to square ones; and the "Pinta," it being found impossible to find a -better vessel to take her place, was also left to be overhauled for her -leaks, and to have her rudder again repaired, while Columbus visited -Gomera, another of the islands. The fleet was reunited at Gomera on -September 2. Here he fell in with some residents of Ferro, the -westernmost of the group, who repeated the old stories of land -occasionally seen from its heights, lying towards the setting sun. -Having taking on board wood, water, and provisions, Columbus finally -sailed from Gomera on the morning of Thursday, September 6. He seems to -have soon spoken a vessel from Ferro, and from this he learned that -three Portuguese caravels were lying in wait for him in the neighborhood -of that island, with a purpose as he thought of visiting in some way -upon him, for having gone over to the interests of Spain, the -indignation of the Portuguese king. He escaped encountering them. - -[Sidenote: Sunday, September 9, 1492.] - -[Sidenote: Falsifies his reckoning.] - -Up to Sunday, September 9, they had experienced so much calm weather, -that their progress had been slow. This tediousness soon raised an -apprehension in the mind of Columbus that the voyage might prove too -long for the constancy of his men. He accordingly determined to falsify -his reckoning. This deceit was a large confession of his own timidity in -dealing with his crew, and it marked the beginning of a long struggle -with deceived and mutinous subordinates, which forms so large a part of -the record of his subsequent career. - -[Illustration: ROUTES OF COLUMBUS'S FOUR VOYAGES. - -[Taken from the map in Blanchero's _La Tavola di Bronzo_ (Geneva, -1857).]] - -[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S TRACK IN 1492.] The result of Monday's sail, -which he knew to be sixty leagues, he noted as forty-eight, so that the -distance from home might appear less than it was. He continued to -practice this deceit. - -[Sidenote: His dead reckoning.] - -The distances given by Columbus are those of dead reckoning beyond any -question. Lieutenant Murdock, of the United States navy, who has -commented on this voyage, makes his league the equivalent of three -modern nautical miles, and his mile about three quarters of our present -estimate for that distance. Navarrete says that Columbus reckoned in -Italian miles, which are a quarter less than a Spanish mile. The Admiral -had expected to make land after sailing about seven hundred leagues from -Ferro; and in ordering his vessels in case of separation to proceed -westward, he warned them when they sailed that distance to come to the -wind at night, and only to proceed by day. - -The log as at present understood in navigation had not yet been devised. -Columbus depended in judging of his speed on the eye alone, basing his -calculations on the passage of objects or bubbles past the ship, while -the running out of his hour glasses afforded the multiple for long -distances. - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 13.] - -[Sidenote: Reaches point of no variation of the needle.] - -[Sidenote: Knowledge of the magnet.] - -On Thursday, the 13th of September, he notes that the ships were -encountering adverse currents. He was now three degrees west of Flores, -and the needle of the compass pointed as it had never been observed -before, directly to the true north. His observation of this fact marks a -significant point in the history of navigation. The polarity of the -magnet, an ancient possession of the Chinese, had been known perhaps for -three hundred years, when this new spirit of discovery awoke in the -fifteenth century. The Indian Ocean and its traditions were to impart, -perhaps through the Arabs, perhaps through the returning Crusaders, a -knowledge of the magnet to the dwellers on the shores of the -Mediterranean, and to the hardier mariners who pushed beyond the Pillars -of Hercules, so that the new route to that same Indian Ocean was made -possible in the fifteenth century. The way was prepared for it -gradually. The Catalans from the port of Barcelona pushed out into the -great Sea of Darkness under the direction of their needles, as early at -least as the twelfth century. The pilots of Genoa and Venice, the hardy -Majorcans and the adventurous Moors, were followers of almost equal -temerity. - -[Illustration: [From the _United States Coast Survey Report_, 1880, No. -84.]] - -[Sidenote: Variation of the needle.] - -A knowledge of the variation of the needle came more slowly to be known -to the mariners of the Mediterranean. It had been observed by Peregrini -as early as 1269, but that knowledge of it which rendered it greatly -serviceable in voyages does not seem to be plainly indicated in any of -the charts of these transition centuries, till we find it laid down on -the maps of Andrea Bianco in 1436. - -[Illustration: [From Hirth's _Bilderbuch_, vol. iii.]] - -It was no new thing then when Columbus, as he sailed westward, marked -the variation, proceeding from the northeast more and more westerly; but -it was a revelation when he came to a position where the magnetic north -and the north star stood in conjunction, as they did on this 13th of -September, 1492. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's misconception of the line of no variation.] - -[Sidenote: Sebastian Cabot's observations of its help in determining -longitude.] - -As he still moved westerly the magnetic line was found to move farther -and farther away from the pole as it had before the 13th approached it. -To an observer of Columbus's quick perceptions, there was a ready guess -to possess his mind. This inference was that this line of no variation -was a meridian line, and that divergences from it east and west might -have a regularity which would be found to furnish a method of -ascertaining longitude far easier and surer than tables or water clocks. -We know that four years later he tried to sail his ship on observations -of this kind. The same idea seems to have occurred to Sebastian Cabot, -when a little afterwards he approached and passed in a higher latitude, -what he supposed to be the meridian of no variation. Humboldt is -inclined to believe that the possibility of such a method of -ascertaining longitude was that uncommunicable secret, which Sebastian -Cabot many years later hinted at on his death-bed. - -The claim was made near a century later by Livio Sanuto in his -_Geographia_, published at Venice, in 1588, that Sebastian Cabot had -been the first to observe this variation, and had explained it to Edward -VI., and that he had on a chart placed the line of no variation at a -point one hundred and ten miles west of the island of Flores in the -Azores. - -[Sidenote: Various views.] - -These observations of Columbus and Cabot were not wholly accepted during -the sixteenth century. Robert Hues, in 1592, a hundred years later, -tells us that Medina, the Spanish grand pilot, was not disinclined to -believe that mariners saw more in it than really existed and that they -found it a convenient way to excuse their own blunders. Nonius was -credited with saying that it simply meant that worn-out magnets were -used, which had lost their power to point correctly to the pole. Others -had contended that it was through insufficient application of the -loadstone to the iron that it was so devious in its work. - -[Illustration: PART OF MERCATOR'S POLAR REGIONS, 1569. - -[From R. Mercator's Atlas of 1595.]] - -[Sidenote: Better understood.] - -What was thought possible by the early navigators possessed the minds of -all seamen in varying experiments for two centuries and a half. Though -not reaching such satisfactory results as were hoped for, the -expectation did not prove so chimerical as was sometimes imagined when -it was discovered that the lines of variation were neither parallel, nor -straight, nor constant. The line of no variation which Columbus found -near the Azores has moved westward with erratic inclinations, until -to-day it is not far from a straight line from Carolina to Guiana. -Science, beginning with its crude efforts at the hands of Alonzo de -Santa Cruz, in 1530, has so mapped the surface of the globe with -observations of its multifarious freaks of variation, and the changes -are so slow, that a magnetic chart is not a bad guide to-day for -ascertaining the longitude in any latitude for a few years neighboring -to the date of its records. So science has come round in some measure to -the dreams of Columbus and Cabot. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus remarks on changes of temperature and aberrations of -stars.] - -But this was not the only development which came from this ominous day -in the mid Atlantic in that September of 1492. The fancy of Columbus was -easily excited, and notions of a change of climate, and even aberrations -of the stars were easily imagined by him amid the strange phenomena of -that untracked waste. - -While Columbus was suspecting that the north star was somewhat willfully -shifting from the magnetic pole, now to a distance of 5° and then of -10°, the calculations of modern astronomers have gauged the polar -distance existing in 1492 at 3° 28´, as against the 1° 20´ of to-day. -The confusion of Columbus was very like his confounding an old world -with a new, inasmuch as he supposed it was the pole star and not the -needle which was shifting. - -[Sidenote: Imagines a protuberance on the earth.] - -He argued from what he saw, or thought he saw, that the line of no -variation marked the beginning of a protuberance of the earth, up which -he ascended as he sailed westerly, and that this was the reason of the -cooler weather which he experienced. He never got over some notions of -this kind, and believed he found confirmation of them in his later -voyages. - -[Sidenote: The magnetic pole.] - -Even as early as the reign of Edward III. of England, Nicholas of Lynn, -a voyager to the northern seas, is thought to have definitely fixed the -magnetic pole in the Arctic regions, transmitting his views to Cnoyen, -the master of the later Mercator, in respect to the four circumpolar -islands, which in the sixteenth century made so constant a surrounding -of the northern pole. - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 14.] - -[Sidenote: September 15.] - -[Sidenote: September 16.] - -[Sidenote: Sargasso Sea.] - -The next day (September 14), after these magnetic observations, a water -wagtail was seen from the "Nina,"--a bird which Columbus thought -unaccustomed to fly over twenty-five leagues from land, and the ships -were now, according to their reckoning, not far from two hundred leagues -from the Canaries. On Saturday, they saw a distant bolt of fire fall -into the sea. On Sunday, they had a drizzling rain, followed by pleasant -weather, which reminded Columbus of the nightingales, gladdening the -climate of Andalusia in April. They found around the ships much green -floatage of weeds, which led them to think some islands must be near. -Navarrete thinks there was some truth in this, inasmuch as the charts of -the early part of this century represent breakers as having been seen in -1802, near the spot where Columbus can be computed to have been at this -time. Columbus was in fact within that extensive _prairie_ of floating -seaweed which is known as the Sargasso Sea, whose principal longitudinal -axis is found in modern times to lie along the parallel of 41° 30´, and -the best calculations which can be made from the rather uncertain data -of Columbus's journal seem to point to about the same position. - -There is nothing in all these accounts, as we have them abridged by Las -Casas, to indicate any great surprise, and certainly nothing of the -overwhelming fear which, the _Historie_ tells us, the sailors -experienced when they found their ships among these floating masses of -weeds, raising apprehension of a perpetual entanglement in their -swashing folds. - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 17.] - -[Sidenote: September 18.] - -The next day (September 17) the currents became favorable, and the weeds -still floated about them. The variation of the needle now became so -great that the seamen were dismayed, as the journal says, and the -observation being repeated Columbus practiced another deceit and made it -appear that there had been really no variation, but only a shifting of -the polar star! The weeds were now judged to be river weeds, and a live -crab was found among them,--a sure sign of near land, as Columbus -believed, or affected to believe. They killed a tunny and saw others. -They again observed a water wagtail, "which does not sleep at sea." Each -ship pushed on for the advance, for it was thought the goal was near. -The next day the "Pinta" shot ahead and saw great flocks of birds -towards the west. Columbus conceived that the sea was growing fresher. -Heavy clouds hung on the northern horizon, a sure sign of land, it was -supposed. - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 19.] - -On the next day two pelicans came on board, and Columbus records that -these birds are not accustomed to go twenty leagues from land. So he -sounded with a line of two hundred fathoms to be sure he was not -approaching land; but no bottom was found. A drizzling rain also -betokened land, which they could not stop to find, but would search for -on their return, as the journal says. The pilots now compared their -reckonings. Columbus said they were 400 leagues, while the "Pinta's" -record showed 420, and the "Nina's" 440. - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 20.] - -[Sidenote: September 22. Changes his course.] - -[Sidenote: Head wind.] - -[Sidenote: September 25.] - -On September 20, other pelicans came on board; and the ships were again -among the weeds. Columbus was determined to ascertain if these indicated -shoal water and sounded, but could not reach bottom. The men caught a -bird with feet like a gull; but they were convinced it was a river bird. -Then singing land-birds, as was fancied, hovered about as it darkened, -but they disappeared before morning. Then a pelican was observed flying -to the southwest, and as "these birds sleep on shore, and go to sea in -the morning," the men encouraged themselves with the belief that they -could not be far from land. The next day a whale could but be another -indication of land; and the weeds covered the sea all about. On -Saturday, they steered west by northwest, and got clear of the weeds. -This change of course so far to the north, which had begun on the -previous day, was occasioned by a head wind, and Columbus says that he -welcomed it, because it had the effect of convincing the sailors that -westerly winds to return by were not impossible. On Sunday (September -23), they found the wind still varying; but they made more westering -than before,--weeds, crabs, and birds still about them. Now there was -smooth water, which again depressed the seamen; then the sea arose, -mysteriously, for there was no wind to cause it. They still kept their -course westerly and continued it till the night of September 25. - -[Sidenote: Appearances of land.] - -[Sidenote: Again changes his course.] - -[Sidenote: September 26.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. September 27.] - -[Sidenote: September 30.] - -[Sidenote: October 1.] - -[Sidenote: October 3.] - -[Sidenote: October 6.] - -[Sidenote: October 7.] - -[Sidenote: Shifts his course to follow some birds.] - -Columbus at this time conferred with Pinzon, as to a chart which they -carried, which showed some islands, near where they now supposed the -ships to be. That they had not seen land, they believed was either due -to currents which had carried them too far north, or else their -reckoning was not correct. At sunset Pinzon hailed the Admiral, and said -he saw land, claiming the reward. The two crews were confident that such -was the case, and under the lead of their commanders they all kneeled -and repeated the _Gloria in Excelsis_. The land appeared to lie -southwest, and everybody saw the apparition. Columbus changed the -fleet's course to reach it; and as the vessels went on, in the smooth -sea, the men had the heart, under their expectation, to bathe in its -amber glories. On Wednesday, they were undeceived, and found that the -clouds had played them a trick. On the 27th their course lay more -directly west. So they went on, and still remarked upon all the birds -they saw and weed-drift which they pierced. Some of the fowl they -thought to be such as were common at the Cape de Verde Islands, and were -not supposed to go far to sea. On the 30th September, they still -observed the needles of their compasses to vary, but the journal records -that it was the pole star which moved, and not the needle. On October 1, -Columbus says they were 707 leagues from Ferro; but he had made his crew -believe they were only 584. As they went on, little new for the next few -days is recorded in the journal; but on October 3, they thought they saw -among the weeds something like fruits. By the 6th, Pinzon began to urge -a southwesterly course, in order to find the islands, which the signs -seemed to indicate in that direction. Still the Admiral would not swerve -from his purpose, and kept his course westerly. On Sunday, the "Nina" -fired a bombard and hoisted a flag as a signal that she saw land, but it -proved a delusion. Observing towards evening a flock of birds flying to -the southwest, the Admiral yielded to Pinzon's belief, and shifted his -course to follow the birds. He records as a further reason for it that -it was by following the flight of birds that the Portuguese had been so -successful in discovering islands in other seas. - -[Sidenote: Cipango.] - -Columbus now found himself two hundred miles and more farther than the -three thousand miles west of Spain, where he supposed Cipango to lie, -and he was 25-1/2° north of the equator, according to his astrolabe. The -true distance of Cipango or Japan was sixty-eight hundred miles still -farther, or beyond both North America and the Pacific. How much beyond -that island, in its supposed geographical position, Columbus expected to -find the Asiatic main we can only conjecture from the restorations which -modern scholars have made of Toscanelli's map, which makes the island -about 10° east of Asia, and from Behaim's globe, which makes it 20°. It -should be borne in mind that the knowledge of its position came from -Marco Polo, and he does not distinctly say how far it was from the -Asiatic coast. In a general way, as to these distances from Spain to -China, Toscanelli and Behaim agreed, and there is no reason to believe -that the views of Columbus were in any noteworthy degree different. - -[Sidenote: Relations of Pinzon to the change of course.] - -In the trial, years afterwards, when the Fiscal contested the rights of -Diego Colon, it was put in evidence by one Vallejo, a seaman, that -Pinzon was induced to urge the direction to be changed to the southwest, -because he had in the preceding evening observed a flight of parrots in -that direction, which could have only been seeking land. It was the main -purpose of the evidence in this part of the trial to show that Pinzon -had all along forced Columbus forward against his will. - -How pregnant this change of course in the vessels of Columbus was has -not escaped the observation of Humboldt and many others. A day or two -further on his westerly way, and the Gulf Stream would, perhaps, -insensibly have borne the little fleet up the Atlantic coast of the -future United States, so that the banner of Castile might have been -planted at Carolina. - -[Sidenote: October 7.] - -[Sidenote: October 8-10.] - -On the 7th of October, Columbus was pretty nearly in latitude 25° -50',--that of one of the Bahama Islands. Just where he was by longitude -there is much more doubt, probably between 65° and 66°. On the next day -the land birds flying along the course of the ships seemed to confirm -their hopes. On the 10th the journal records that the men began to lose -patience; but the Admiral reassured them by reminding them of the -profits in store for them, and of the folly of seeking to return, when -they had already gone so far. - -[Sidenote: Story of a mutiny.] - -It is possible that, in this entry, Columbus conceals the story which -later came out in the recital of Oviedo, with more detail than in the -_Historie_ and Las Casas, that the rebellion of his crew was threatening -enough to oblige him to promise to turn back if land was not discovered -in three days. Most commentators, however, are inclined to think that -this story of a mutinous revolt was merely engrafted from hearsay or -other source by Oviedo upon the more genuine recital, and that the -conspiracy to throw the Admiral into the sea has no substantial basis in -contemporary report. Irving, who has a dramatic tendency throughout his -whole account of the voyage to heighten his recital with touches of the -imagination, nevertheless allows this, and thinks that Oviedo was misled -by listening to a pilot, who was a personal enemy of the Admiral. - -The elucidations of the voyage which were drawn out in the famous suit -of Diego with the Crown in 1513 and 1515, afford no ground for any -belief in this story of the mutiny and the concession of Columbus to it. - -It is not, however, difficult to conceive the recurrent fears of his men -and the incessant anxiety of Columbus to quiet them. From what Peter -Martyr tells us,--and he may have got it directly from Columbus's -lips,--the task was not an easy one to preserve subordination and to -instill confidence. He represents that Columbus was forced to resort in -turn to argument, persuasion, and enticements, and to picture the -misfortunes of the royal displeasure. - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 11.] - -The next day, notwithstanding a heavier sea than they had before -encountered, certain signs sufficed to lift them out of their -despondency. These were floating logs, or pieces of wood, one of them -apparently carved by hand, bits of cane, a green rush, a stalk of rose -berries, and other drifting tokens. - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 11. Steer west.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus sees a light.] - -Their southwesterly course had now brought them down to about the -twenty-fourth parallel, when after sunset on the 11th they shifted their -course to due west, while the crew of the Admiral's ship united, with -more fervor than usual, in the _Salve Regina_. At about ten o'clock -Columbus, peering into the night, thought he saw--if we may believe -him--a moving light, and pointing out the direction to Pero Gutierrez, -this companion saw it too; but another, Rodrigo Sanchez, situated -apparently on another part of the vessel, was not able to see it. It was -not brought to the attention of any others. The Admiral says that the -light seemed to be moving up and down, and he claimed to have got other -glimpses of its glimmer at a later moment. He ordered the _Salve_ to be -chanted, and directed a vigilant watch to be set on the forecastle. To -sharpen their vision he promised a silken jacket, beside the income of -ten thousand maravedis which the King and Queen had offered to the -fortunate man who should first descry the coveted land. - -This light has been the occasion of much comment, and nothing will ever, -it is likely, be settled about it, further than that the Admiral, with -an inconsiderate rivalry of a common sailor who later saw the actual -land, and with an ungenerous assurance ill-befitting a commander, -pocketed a reward which belonged to another. If Oviedo, with his -prejudices, is to be believed, Columbus was not even the first who -claimed to have seen this dubious light. There is a common story that -the poor sailor, who was defrauded, later turned Mohammedan, and went to -live among that juster people. There is a sort of retributive justice in -the fact that the pension of the Crown was made a charge upon the -shambles of Seville, and thence Columbus received it till he died. - -Whether the light is to be considered a reality or a fiction will depend -much on the theory each may hold regarding the position of the landfall. -When Columbus claimed to have discovered it, he was twelve or fourteen -leagues away from the island where, four hours later, land was -indubitably found. Was the light on a canoe? Was it on some small, -outlying island, as has been suggested? Was it a torch carried from hut -to hut, as Herrera avers? Was it on either of the other vessels? Was it -on the low island on which, the next morning, he landed? There was no -elevation on that island sufficient to show even a strong light at a -distance of ten leagues. Was it a fancy or a deceit? No one can say. -It is very difficult for Navarrete, and even for Irving, to rest -satisfied with what, after all, may have been only an illusion of a -fevered mind, making a record of the incident in the excitement of a -wonderful hour, when his intelligence was not as circumspect as it might -have been. - -[Illustration: THE LANDFALL OF COLUMBUS, 1492. - -[After Ruge.]] - -[Sidenote: 1492, October 12, land discovered.] - -[Sidenote: Guanahani.] - -Four hours after the light was seen, at two o'clock in the morning, when -the moon, near its third quarter, was in the east, the "Pinta" keeping -ahead, one of her sailors, Rodrigo de Triana, descried the land, two -leagues away, and a gun communicated the joyful intelligence to the -other ships. The fleet took in sail, and each vessel, under backed -sheets, was pointed to the wind. Thus they waited for daybreak. It was a -proud moment of painful suspense for Columbus; and brimming hopes, -perhaps fears of disappointment, must have accompanied that hour of -wavering enchantment. It was Friday, October 12, of the old chronology, -and the little fleet had been thirty-three days on its way from the -Canaries, and we must add ten days more, to complete the period since -they left Palos. The land before them was seen, as the day dawned, to be -a small island, "called in the Indian tongue" Guanahani. Some naked -natives were descried. The Admiral and the commanders of the other -vessels prepared to land. Columbus took the royal standard and the -others each a banner of the green cross, which bore the initials of the -sovereign with a cross between, a crown surmounting every letter. Thus, -with the emblems of their power, and accompanied by Rodrigo de Escoveda -and Rodrigo Sanchez and some seamen, the boat rowed to the shore. They -immediately took formal possession of the land, and the notary recorded -it. - -[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S ARMOR.] - -[Illustration: BAHAMA ISLANDS -ANTONIO DE HERRERA -1601. - -[From Major's _Select Letters of Columbus_, 2d Edition.]] - -[Illustration: BAHAMA ISLANDS -MODERN - -[From Major's _Select Letters of Columbus_, 2d Edition.]] - -[Sidenote: Columbus lands and utters a prayer.] - -The words of the prayer usually given as uttered by Columbus on taking -possession of San Salvador, when he named the island, cannot be traced -farther back than a collection of _Tablas Chronologicas_, got together -at Valencia in 1689, by a Jesuit father, Claudio Clemente. Harrisse -finds no authority for the statement of the French canonizers that -Columbus established a form of prayer which was long in vogue, for such -occupations of new lands. - -Las Casas, from whom we have the best account of the ceremonies of the -landing, does not mention it; but we find pictured in his pages the -grave impressiveness of the hour; the form of Columbus, with a crimson -robe over his armor, central and grand; and the humbleness of his -followers in their contrition for the hours of their faint-heartedness. - -[Sidenote: The island described.] - -Columbus now enters in his journal his impressions of the island and its -inhabitants. He says of the land that it bore green trees, was watered -by many streams, and produced divers fruits. In another place he speaks -of the island as flat, without lofty eminence, surrounded by reefs, with -a lake in the interior. - -The courses and distances of his sailing both before and on leaving the -island, as well as this description, are the best means we have of -identifying the spot of this portentous landfall. The early maps may -help in a subsidiary way, but with little precision. - -[Sidenote: Identification of the landfall.] - -There is just enough uncertainty and contradiction respecting the data -and arguments applied in the solution of this question, to render it -probable that men will never quite agree which of the Bahamas it was -upon which these startled and exultant Europeans first stepped. Though -Las Casas reports the journal of Columbus unabridged for a period after -the landfall, he unfortunately condenses it for some time previous. -There is apparently no chance of finding geographical conditions that in -every respect will agree with this record of Columbus, and we must -content ourselves with what offers the fewest disagreements. An obvious -method, if we could depend on Columbus's dead reckoning, would be to see -for what island the actual distance from the Canaries would be nearest -to his computed run; but currents and errors of the eye necessarily -throw this sort of computation out of the question, and Capt. G. A. Fox, -who has tried it, finds that Cat Island is three hundred and seventeen, -the Grand Turk six hundred and twenty-four nautical miles, and the other -supposable points at intermediate distances out of the way as compared -with his computation of the distance run by Columbus, three thousand -four hundred and fifty-eight of such miles. - -[Sidenote: The Bahamas.] - -[Sidenote: San Salvador, or Cat Island.] - -[Sidenote: Other islands.] - -[Sidenote: Methods of identification.] - -[Sidenote: Acklin Island.] - -The reader will remember the Bahama group as a range of islands, islets, -and rocks, said to be some three thousand in number, running southeast -from a point part way up the Florida coast, and approaching at the other -end the coast of Hispaniola. In the latitude of the lower point of -Florida, and five degrees east of it, is the island of San Salvador or -Cat Island, which is the most northerly of those claimed to have been -the landfall of Columbus. Proceeding down the group, we encounter -Watling's, Samana, Acklin (with the Plana Cays), Mariguana, and the -Grand Turk,--all of which have their advocates. The three methods of -identification which have been followed are, first, by plotting the -outward track; second, by plotting the track between the landfall and -Cuba, both forward and backward; third, by applying the descriptions, -particularly Columbus's, of the island first seen. In this last test, -Harrisse prefers to apply the description of Las Casas, which is -borrowed in part from that of the _Historie_, and he reconciles -Columbus's apparent discrepancy when he says in one place that the -island was "pretty large," and in another "small," by supposing that he -may have applied these opposite terms, the lesser to the Plana Cays, as -first seen, and the other to the Crooked Group, or Acklin Island, lying -just westerly, on which he may have landed. Harrisse is the only one who -makes this identification; and he finds some confirmation in later maps, -which show thereabout an island, Triango or Triangulo, a name said by -Las Casas to have been applied to Guanahani at a later day. There is no -known map earlier than 1540 bearing this alternative name of Triango. - -[Sidenote: San Salvador.] - -San Salvador seems to have been the island selected by the earliest of -modern inquirers, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it -has had the support of Irving and Humboldt in later times. Captain -Alexander Slidell Mackenzie of the United States navy worked out the -problem for Irving. It is much larger than any of the other islands, and -could hardly have been called by Columbus in any alternative way a -"small" island, while it does not answer Columbus's description of -being level, having on it an eminence of four hundred feet, and no -interior lagoon, as his Guanahani demands. The French canonizers stand -by the old traditions, and find it meet to say that "the English -Protestants not finding the name San Salvador fine enough have -substituted for it that of Cat, and in their hydrographical atlases the -Island of the Holy Saviour is nobly called Cat Island." - -[Sidenote: Watling's Island.] - -The weight of modern testimony seems to favor Watling's island, and it -so far answers to Columbus's description that about one third of its -interior is water, corresponding to his "large lagoon." Muñoz first -suggested it in 1793; but the arguments in its favor were first spread -out by Captain Becher of the royal navy in 1856, and he seems to have -induced Oscar Peschel in 1858 to adopt the same views in his history of -the range of modern discovery. Major, the map custodian of the British -Museum, who had previously followed Navarrete in favoring the Grand -Turk, again addressed himself to the problem in 1870, and fell into line -with the adherents of Watling's. No other considerable advocacy of this -island, if we except the testimony of Gerard Stein in 1883, in a book on -voyages of discovery, appeared till Lieut. J. B. Murdoch, an officer of -the American navy, made a very careful examination of the subject in the -_Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute_ in 1884, which is -accepted by Charles A. Schott in the _Bulletin of the United States -Coast Survey_. Murdoch was the first to plot in a backward way the track -between Guanahani and Cuba, and he finds more points of resemblance in -Columbus's description with Watling's than with any other. The latest -adherent is the eminent geographer, Clements R. Markham, in the bulletin -of the Italian Geographical Society in 1889. Perhaps no cartographical -argument has been so effective as that of Major in comparing modern -charts with the map of Herrera, in which the latter lays Guanahani down. - -[Sidenote: Samana.] - -[Sidenote: Grand Turk Island.] - -An elaborate attempt to identify Samana as the landfall was made by the -late Capt. Gustavus Vasa Fox, in an appendix to the _Report of the -United States Coast Survey_ for 1880. Varnhagen, in 1864, selected -Mariguana, and defended his choice in a paper. This island fails to -satisfy the physical conditions in being without interior water. Such a -qualification, however, belongs to the Grand Turk Island, which was -advocated first by Navarrete in 1826, whose views have since been -supported by George Gibbs, and for a while by Major. - -It is rather curious to note that Caleb Cushing, who undertook to -examine this question in the _North American Review_, under the guidance -of Navarrete's theory, tried the same backward method which has been -later applied to the problem, but with quite different results from -those reached by more recent investigators. He says, "By setting out -from Nipe [which is the point where Columbus struck Cuba] and proceeding -in a retrograde direction along his course, we may surely trace his -path, and shall be convinced that Guanahani is no other than Turk's -Island." - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -AMONG THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE. - - -[Sidenote: The natives of Guanahani.] - -We learn that, after these ceremonies on the shore, the natives began -fearlessly to gather about the strangers. Columbus, by causing red caps, -strings of beads, and other trinkets to be distributed among them, made -an easy conquest of their friendship. Later the men swam out to the ship -to exchange their balls of thread, their javelins, and parrots for -whatever they could get in return. - -The description which Columbus gives us in his journal of the appearance -and condition of these new people is the earliest, of course, in our -knowledge of them. His record is interesting for the effect which the -creatures had upon him, and for the statement of their condition before -the Spaniards had set an impress upon their unfortunate race. - -They struck Columbus as, on the whole, a very poor people, going naked, -and, judging from a single girl whom he saw, this nudity was the -practice of the women. They all seemed young, not over thirty, well -made, with fine shapes and faces. Their hair was coarse, and combed -short over the forehead; but hung long behind. The bodies of many were -differently colored with pigments of many hues, though of some only the -face, the eyes, or the nose were painted. Columbus was satisfied that -they had no knowledge of edged weapons, because they grasped his sword -by the blade and cut themselves. Their javelins were sticks pointed with -fishbones. When he observed scars on their bodies, they managed to -explain to him that enemies, whom the Admiral supposed to come from the -continent, sometimes invaded their island, and that such wounds were -received in defending themselves. They appeared to him to have no -religion, which satisfied him that the task of converting them to -Christianity would not be difficult. They learned readily to pronounce -such words as were repeated to them. - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 13.] - -[Sidenote: Affinities of the Lucayans.] - -On the next day after landing, Saturday, Columbus describes again the -throng that came to the shore, and was struck with their broad -foreheads. He deemed it a natural coincidence, being in the latitude of -the Canaries, that the natives had the complexion prevalent among the -natives of those islands. In this he anticipated the conclusions of the -anthropologists, who have found in the skulls preserved in caves both in -the Bahamas and in the Canaries, such striking similarities as have led -to the supposition that ocean currents may have borne across the sea -some of the old Guanche stock of the Canaries, itself very likely the -remnant of the people of the European river-drift. - -Professor W. K. Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins University, who has -recently published in the _Popular Science Monthly_ (November, 1889) a -study of the bones of the Lucayans as found in caves in the Bahamas, -reports that these relics indicate a muscular, heavy people, about the -size of the average European, with protuberant square jaws, sloping -eyes, and very round skulls, but artificially flattened on the -forehead,--a result singularly confirming Columbus's description of -broader heads than he had ever seen. - -[Sidenote: Hammocks.] - -"The Ceboynas," says a recent writer on these Indians, "gave us the -hammock, and this one Lucayan word is their only monument," for a -population larger than inhabits these islands to-day were in twelve -years swept from the surface of the earth by a system devised by -Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Canoes.] - -The Admiral also describes their canoes, made in a wonderful manner of a -single tree-trunk, and large enough to hold forty or forty-five men, -though some were so small as to carry a single person only. Their oars -are shaped like the wooden shovels with which bakers slip their loaves -into ovens. If a canoe upsets, it is righted as they swim. - -[Sidenote: Gold among them.] - -Columbus was attracted by bits of gold dangling at the nose of some -among them. By signs he soon learned that a greater abundance of this -metal could be found on an island to the south; but they seemed unable -to direct him with any precision how to reach that island, or at least -it was not easy so to interpret any of their signs. "Poor wretches!" -exclaims Helps, "if they had possessed the slightest gift of prophecy, -they would have thrown these baubles into the deepest sea." - -[Sidenote: Columbus traffics with them.] - -They pointed in all directions, but towards the east as the way to other -lands; and implied that those enemies who came from the northwest often -passed to the south after gold. He found that broken dishes and bits of -glass served as well for traffic with them as more valuable articles, -and balls of threads of cotton, grown on the island, seemed their most -merchantable commodity. - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 14, sails towards Cipango.] - -With this rude foretaste, Columbus determined to push on for the richer -Cipango. On the next day he coasted along the island in his boats, -discovering two or three villages, where the inhabitants were friendly. -They seemed to think that the strangers had come from heaven,--at least -Columbus so interpreted their prostrations and uplifted hands. Columbus, -fearful of the reefs parallel to the shore, kept outside of them, and as -he moved along, saw a point of land which a ditch might convert into an -island. He thought this would afford a good site for a fort, if there -was need of one. - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 14.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus proposes to enslave the natives.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 15.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 16.] - -It was on this Sunday that Columbus, in what he thought doubtless the -spirit of the day in dealing with heathens, gives us his first -intimation of the desirability of using force to make these poor -creatures serve their new masters. On returning to the ships and setting -sail, he soon found that he was in an archipelago. He had seized some -natives, who were now on board. These repeated to him the names of more -than a hundred islands. He describes those within sight as level, -fertile, and populous, and he determined to steer for what seemed the -largest. He stood off and on during the night of the 14th, and by noon -of the 15th he had reached this other island, which he found at the -easterly end to run five leagues north and south, and to extend east and -west a distance of ten leagues. Lured by a still larger island farther -west he pushed on, and skirting the shore reached its western extremity. -He cast anchor there at sunset, and named the island Santa Maria de la -Concepcion. The natives on board told him that the people here wore gold -bracelets. Columbus thought this story might be a device of his -prisoners to obtain opportunities to escape. On the next day, he -repeated the forms of landing and taking possession. Two of the -prisoners contrived to escape. One of them jumped overboard and was -rescued by a native canoe. The Spaniards overtook the canoe, but not -till its occupants had escaped. A single man, coming off in another -canoe, was seized and taken on board; but Columbus thought him a good -messenger of amity, and loading him with presents, "not worth four -maravedis," he put him ashore. Columbus watched the liberated savage, -and judged from the wonder of the crowds which surrounded him that his -ruse of friendship had been well played. - -[Sidenote: Columbus sees a large island.] - -Another large island appeared westerly about nine leagues, famous for -its gold ornaments, as his prisoners again declared. It is significant -that in his journal, since he discovered the bits of gold at San -Salvador, Columbus has not a word to say of reclaiming the benighted -heathen; but he constantly repeats his hope "with the help of our Lord," -of finding gold. On the way thither he had picked up a second single man -in a canoe, who had apparently followed him from San Salvador. He -determined to bestow some favors upon him and let him go, as he had done -with the other. - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 16.] - -This new island, which he reached October 16, and called Fernandina, he -found to be about twenty-eight leagues long, with a safer shore than the -others. He anchored near a village, where the man whom he had set free -had already come, bringing good reports of the stranger, and so the -Spaniards got a kind reception. Great numbers of natives came off in -canoes, to whom the men gave trinkets and molasses. He took on board -some water, the natives assisting the crew. Getting an impression that -the island contained a mine of gold, he resolved to follow the coast, -and find Samaot, where the gold was said to be. Columbus thought he saw -some improvement in the natives over those he had seen before, remarking -upon the cotton cloth with which they partly covered their persons. He -was surprised to find that distinct branches of the same tree bore -different leaves. A single tree, as he says, will show as many as five -or six varieties, not done by grafting, but a natural growth. He -wondered at the brilliant fish, and found no land creatures but parrots -and lizards, though a boy of the company told him that he had seen a -snake. On Wednesday he started to sail around the island. In a little -haven, where they tarried awhile, they first entered the native houses. - -[Sidenote: Hammocks.] - -They found everything in them neat, with nets extended between posts, -which they called _hamacs_,--a name soon adopted by sailors for -swinging-beds. The houses were shaped like tents, with high chimneys, -but not more than twelve or fifteen together. Dogs were running about -them, but they could not bark. Columbus endeavored to buy a bit of gold, -cut or stamped, which was hanging from a man's nose; but the savage -refused his offers. - -[Illustration: INDIAN BEDS.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 19.] - -The ships continued their course about the island, the weather not -altogether favorable; but on October 19 they veered away to another -island to the west of Fernandina, which Columbus named Isabella, after -his Queen. This he pronounced the most beautiful he had seen; and he -remarks on the interior region of it being higher than in the other -islands, and the source of streams. The breezes from the shore brought -him odors, and when he landed he became conscious that his botanical -knowledge did not aid him in selecting such dyestuffs, medicines, and -spices as would command high prices in Spain. He saw a hideous reptile, -and the canonizers, after their amusing fashion, tell us that "to see -and attack him were the same thing for Columbus, for he considered it of -importance to accustom Spanish intrepidity to such warfare." - -[Sidenote: To find gold Columbus's main object.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 21.] - -The reptile proved inoffensive. The signs of his prisoners were -interpreted to repeat here the welcome tale of gold. He understood them -to refer to a king decked with gold. "I do not, however," he adds, "give -much credit to these accounts, for I understand the natives but -imperfectly." "I am proceeding solely in quest of gold and spices," he -says again. - -[Sidenote: Cuba heard of.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. October 24. Isabella.] - -On Sunday they went ashore, and found a house from which the occupants -had recently departed. The foliage was enchanting. Flocks of parrots -obscured the sky. Specimens were gathered of wonderful trees. They -killed a snake in a lake. They cajoled some timid natives with beads, -and got their help in filling their water cask. They heard of a very -large island named Colba, which had ships and sailors, as the natives -were thought to say. They had little doubt that these stories referred -to Cipango. They hoped the native king would bring them gold in the -night; but this not happening, and being cheered by the accounts of -Colba, they made up their minds that it would be a waste of time to -search longer for this backward king, and so resolved to run for the big -island. - -[Sidenote: October 26.] - -Starting from Isabella at midnight on October 24, and passing other -smaller islands, they finally, on Sunday, October 26, entered a river -near the easterly end of Cuba. - -[Sidenote: Cuba.] - -The track of Columbus from San Salvador to Cuba has been as variously -disputed as the landfall; indeed, the divergent views of the landfall -necessitate such later variations. - -[Sidenote: Pearls.] - -They landed within the river's mouth, and discovered deserted houses, -which from the implements within they supposed to be the houses of -fishermen. Columbus observed that the grass grew down to the water's -edge; and he reasoned therefrom that the sea could never be rough. He -now observed mountains, and likened them to those of Sicily. He finally -supposed his prisoners to affirm by their signs that the island was too -large for a canoe to sail round it in twenty days. There were the old -stories of gold; but the mention of pearls appears now for the first -time in the journal, which in this place, however, we have only in Las -Casas's abridgment. - -[Sidenote: Columbus supposes himself at Mangi.] - -When the natives pointed to the interior and said, "Cubanacan," meaning, -it is supposed, an inland region, Columbus imagined it was a reference -to Kublai Khan; and the Cuban name of Mangon he was very ready to -associate with the Mangi of Mandeville. - -As he still coasted westerly he found river and village, and made more -use of his prisoners than had before been possible. They seem by this -time to have settled into an acquiescent spirit. He wondered in one -place at statues which looked like women. He was not quite sure whether -the natives kept them for the love of the beautiful, or for worship. - -[Sidenote: Columbus supposes himself on the coast of Cathay.] - -He found domesticated fowl; and saw a skull, which he supposed was a -cow's, which was probably that of the sea-calf, a denizen of these -waters. He thought the temperature cooler than in the other islands, and -ascribed the change to the mountains. He observed on one of these -eminences a protuberance that looked like a mosque. Such interpretation -as the Spaniards could make of their prisoners' signs convinced them -that if they sailed farther west they would find some potentate, and so -they pushed on. Bad weather, however, delayed them, and they again -opened communication with the natives. They could hear nothing of gold, -but saw a silver trinket; and learned, as they thought, that news of -their coming had been carried to the distant king. Columbus felt -convinced that the people of these regions were banded enemies of the -Great Khan, and that he had at last struck the continent of Cathay, and -was skirting the shores of the Zartun and Quinsay of Marco Polo. Taking -an observation, Columbus found himself to be in 21° north latitude, and -as near as he could reckon, he was 1142 leagues west of Ferro. He really -was 1105. - -[Sidenote: 1492. November 2-5.] - -[Sidenote: Cuba explored.] - -[Sidenote: Tobacco.] - -[Sidenote: Potatoes.] - -From Friday, November 2, to Monday, November 5, two Spaniards, whom -Columbus had sent into the interior, accompanied by some Indians, had -made their way unmolested in their search for a king. They had been -entertained here and there with ceremony, and apparently worshiped as -celestial comers. The evidences of the early Spanish voyagers give -pretty constant testimony that the whites were supposed to have come -from the skies. Columbus had given to his envoys samples of cinnamon, -pepper, and other spices, which were shown to the people. In reply, his -messengers learned that such things grew to the southeast of them. -Columbus later, in his first letter, speaks of cinnamon as one of the -spices which they found, but it turned out to be the bark of a sort of -laurel. Las Casas, in mentioning this expedition, says that the -Spaniards found the natives smoking small tubes of dried leaves, filled -with other leaves, which they called _tobacos_. Sir Arthur Helps aptly -remarks on this trivial discovery by the Spaniards of a great financial -resource of modern statesmen, since tobacco has in the end proved more -productive to the Spanish crown than the gold which Columbus sought. The -Spaniards found no large villages; but they perceived great stores of -fine cotton of a long staple. They found the people eating what we must -recognize as potatoes. The absence of gold gave Columbus an opportunity -to wish more fervently than before for the conversion of some of these -people. - -[Sidenote: One-eyed and dog-faced men.] - -[Sidenote: Cannibals.] - -While this party was absent, Columbus found a quiet beach, and careened -his ships, one at a time. In melting his tar, the wood which he used -gave out a powerful odor, and he pronounced it the mastic gum, which -Europe had always got from Chios. As this work was going on, the -Spaniards got from the natives, as best they could, many intimations of -larger wealth and commerce to the southeast. Other strange stories were -told of men with one eye, and faces like dogs, and of cruel, -bloodthirsty man-eaters, who fought to appease their appetite on the -flesh of the slain. - -[Sidenote: 1492. November 12.] - -[Sidenote: Babeque.] - -It was not till the 12th of November that Columbus left this hospitable -haven, at daybreak, in search of a place called Babeque, "where gold was -collected at night by torch-light upon the shore, and afterward hammered -into bars." He the more readily retraced his track, that the coast to -the westward seemed to trend northerly, and he dreaded a colder climate. -He must leave for another time the sight of men with tails, who -inhabited a province in that direction, as he was informed. - -Again the historian recognizes how a chance turned the Spaniards away -from a greater goal. If Columbus had gone on westerly and discovered the -insular character of Cuba, he might have sought the main of Mexico and -Yucatan, and anticipated the wonders of the conquest of Cortez. He -never was undeceived in believing that Cuba was the Asiatic main. - -[Sidenote: Columbus captures some natives.] - -Columbus sailed back over his course with an inordinate idea of the -riches of the country which he was leaving. He thought the people -docile; that their simple belief in a God was easily to be enlarged into -the true faith, whereby Spain might gain vassals and the church a -people. He managed to entice on board, and took away, six men, seven -women, and three children, condoning the act of kidnapping--the -canonizers call it "retaining on board"--by a purpose to teach them the -Spanish language, and open a readier avenue to their benighted souls. He -allowed the men to have women to share their durance, as such ways, he -says, had proved useful on the coast of Guinea. - -The Admiral says in his first letter, referring to his captives, "that -we immediately understood each other, either by words or signs." This -was his message to expectant Europe. His journal is far from conveying -that impression. - -[Sidenote: 1492. November 14.] - -The ships now steered east-by-south, passing mountainous lands, which on -November 14 he tried to approach. After a while he discovered a harbor, -which he could enter, and found it filled with lofty wooded islands, -some pointed and some flat at the top. He was quite sure he had now got -among the islands which are made to swarm on the Asiatic coast in the -early accounts and maps. He now speaks of his practice in all his -landings to set up and leave a cross. He observed, also, a promontory in -the bay fit for a fortress, and caught a strange fish resembling a hog. -He was at this time embayed in the King's Garden, as the archipelago is -called. - -[Sidenote: Pinzon deserts.] - -[Sidenote: 1492. November 23.] - -Shortly after this, when they had been baffled in their courses, Martin -Alonso Pinzon, incited, as the record says, by his cupidity to find the -stores of gold to which some of his Indian captives had directed him, -disregarded the Admiral's signals, and sailed away in the "Pinta." The -flagship kept a light for him all night, at the mast-head; but in the -morning the caravel was out of sight. The Admiral takes occasion in his -journal to remark that this was not the first act of Pinzon's -insubordination. On Friday, November 23, the vessels approached a -headland, which the Indians called Bohio. - -[Sidenote: 1492. November 24.] - -The prisoners here began to manifest fear, for it was a spot where the -one-eyed people and the cannibals dwelt; but on Saturday, November 24, -the ships were forced back into the gulf with the many islands, where -Columbus found a desirable roadstead, which he had not before -discovered. - -[Sidenote: 1492. November 25.] - -On Sunday, exploring in a boat, he found in a stream "certain stones -which shone with spots of a golden hue; and recollecting that gold was -found in the river Tagus near the sea, he entertained no doubt that this -was the metal, and directed that a collection of the stones should be -made to carry to the King and Queen." It becomes noticeable, as Columbus -goes on, that every new place surpasses all others; the atmosphere is -better; the trees are more marvelous. He now found pines fit for masts, -and secured some for the "Nina." - -As he coasted the next day along what he believed to be a continental -coast, he tried in his journal to account for the absence of towns in so -beautiful a country. That there were inhabitants he knew, for he found -traces of them on going ashore. He had discovered that all the natives -had a great dread of a people whom they called Caniba or Canima, and he -argued that the towns were kept back from the coast to avoid the chances -of the maritime attacks of this fierce people. There was no doubt in the -mind of Columbus that these inroads were conducted by subjects of the -Great Khan. - -While he was still stretching his course along this coast, observing its -harbors, seeing more signs of habitation, and attempting to hold -intercourse with the frightened natives, now anchoring in some haven, -and now running up adjacent rivers in a galley, he found time to jot -down in this journal for the future perusal of his sovereigns some of -his suspicions, prophecies, and determinations. He complains of the -difficulty of understanding his prisoners, and seems conscious of his -frequent misconceptions of their meaning. He says he has lost confidence -in them, and somewhat innocently imagines that they would escape if they -could! Then he speaks of a determination to acquire their language, -which he supposes to be the same through all the region. "In this way," -he adds, "we can learn the riches of the country, and make endeavors to -convert these people to our religion, for they are without even the -faith of an idolater." He descants upon the salubrity of the air; not -one of his crew had had any illness, "except an old man, all his life a -sufferer from the stone." There is at times a somewhat amusing innocence -in his conclusions, as when finding a cake of wax in one of the houses, -which Las Casas thinks was brought from Yucatan, he "was of the opinion -that where wax was found there must be a great many other valuable -commodities." - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 4.] - -[Sidenote: Leaves Cuba or Juana.] - -[Sidenote: Bohio. Española.] - -[Sidenote: Tortuga.] - -The ships were now detained in their harbor for several days, during -which the men made excursions, and found a populous country; they -succeeded at times in getting into communication with the natives. -Finally, on December 4, he left the Puerto Santo, as he called it, and -coasting along easterly he reached the next day the extreme eastern end -of what we now know to be Cuba, or Juana as he had named it, after -Prince Juan. Cruising about, he seems to have had an apprehension that -the land he had been following might not after all be the main, for he -appears to have looked around the southerly side of this end of Cuba and -to have seen the southwesterly trend of its coast. He observed, the same -day, land in the southeast, which his Indians called Bohio, and this was -subsequently named Española. Las Casas explains that Columbus here -mistook the Indian word meaning house for the name of the island, which -was really in their tongue called Haiti. It is significant of the -difficulty in identifying the bays and headlands of the journal, that at -this point Las Casas puts on one side, and Navarrete on the opposite -side, of the passage dividing Cuba from Española, one of the capes which -Columbus indicates. Changing his course for this lofty island, he -dispatched the "Nina" to search its shore and find a harbor. That night -the Admiral's ship beat about, waiting for daylight. When it came, he -took his observations of the coast, and espying an island separated by a -wide channel from the other land, he named this island Tortuga. Finding -his way into a harbor--the present St. Nicholas--he declares that a -thousand caracks could sail about in it. Here he saw, as before, large -canoes, and many natives, who fled on his approach. The Spaniards soon -began as they went on to observe lofty and extensive mountains, "the -whole country appearing like Castile." They saw another reminder of -Spain as they were rowing about a harbor, which they entered, and which -was opposite Tortuga, when a skate leaped into their boat, and the -Admiral records it as a first instance in which they had seen a fish -similar to those of the Spanish waters. He says, too, that he heard on -the shore nightingales "and other Spanish birds," mistaking of course -their identity. He saw myrtles and other trees "like those of Castile." -There was another obvious reference to the old country in the name of -Española, which he now bestowed upon the island. He could find few of -the inhabitants, and conjectured that their towns were back from the -coast. The men, however, captured a handsome young woman who wore a bit -of gold at her nose; and having bestowed upon her gifts, let her go. -Soon after, the Admiral sent a party to a town of a thousand houses, -thinking the luck of the woman would embolden the people to have a -parley. The inhabitants fled in fear at first; but growing bolder came -in great crowds, and brought presents of parrots. - -[Sidenote: Columbus finds his latitude.] - -It was here that Columbus took his latitude and found it to be -17°,--while in fact it was 20°. The journal gives numerous instances -during all these explorations of the bestowing of names upon headlands -and harbors, few of which have remained to this day. It was a common -custom to make such use of a Saint's name on his natal day. - -[Sidenote: Saints' names.] - -Dr. Shea in a paper which he published in 1876, in the first volume of -the _American Catholic Quarterly_, has emphasized the help which the -Roman nomenclature of Saints' days, given to rivers and headlands, -affords to the geographical student in tracking the early explorers -along the coasts of the New World. This method of tracing the progress -of maritime discovery suggested itself early to Oviedo, and has been -appealed to by Henry C. Murphy and other modern authorities on this -subject. - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 14.] - -[Sidenote: Tortuga.] - -Finally, on Friday, December 14, they sailed out of the harbor toward -Tortuga. He found this island to be under extensive cultivation like a -plain of Cordoba. The wind not holding for him to take the course which -he wished to run, Columbus returned to his last harbor, the Puerto de la -Concepcion. Again on Saturday he left it, and standing across to Tortuga -once more, he went towards the shore and proceeded up a stream in his -boats. The inhabitants fled as he approached, and burning fires in -Tortuga as well as in Española seemed to be signals that the Spaniards -were moving. - -[Sidenote: Babeque.] - -During the night, proceeding along the channel between the two islands, -the Admiral met and took on board a solitary Indian in his canoe. The -usual gifts were put upon him, and when the ships anchored near a -village, he was sent ashore with the customary effect. The beach soon -swarmed with people, gathered with their king, and some came on board. -The Spaniards got from them without difficulty the bits of gold which -they wore at their ears and noses. One of the captive Indians who talked -with the king told this "youth of twenty-one," that the Spaniards had -come from heaven and were going to Babeque to find gold; and the king -told the Admiral's messenger, who delivered to him a present, that if he -sailed in a certain course two days he would arrive there. This is the -last we hear of Babeque, a place Columbus never found, at least under -that name. Humboldt remarks that Columbus mentions the name of Babeque -more than fourteen times in his journal, but it cannot certainly be -identified with Española, as the _Historie_ of 1571 declares it to be. -D'Avezac has since shared Humboldt's view. Las Casas hesitatingly -thought it might have referred to Jamaica. - -Then the journal describes the country, saying that the land is lofty, -but that the highest mountains are arable, and that the trees are so -luxuriant that they become black rather than green. The journal further -describes this new people as stout and courageous, very different from -the timid islanders of other parts, and without religion. With his usual -habit of contradiction, Columbus goes on immediately to speak of their -pusillanimity, saying that three Spaniards were more than a match for a -thousand of them. He prefigures their fate in calling them "well-fitted -to be governed and set to work to till the land and do whatsoever is -necessary." - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 17.] - -[Sidenote: Cannibals.] - -It was on Monday, December 17, while lying off Española, that the -Spaniards got for the first time something more than rumor respecting -the people of Caniba or the cannibals. These new evidences were certain -arrows which the natives showed to them, and which they said had -belonged to those man-eaters. They were pieces of cane, tipped with -sticks which had been hardened by fire. - -[Sidenote: Cacique.] - -"They were exhibited by two Indians who had lost some flesh from their -bodies, eaten out by the cannibals. This the Admiral did not believe." -It was now, too, that the Spaniards found gold in larger quantities than -they had seen it before. They saw some beaten into thin plates. The -cacique--here this word appears for the first time--cut a plate as big -as his hand into pieces and bartered them, promising to have more to -exchange the next day. He gave the Spaniards to understand that there -was more gold in Tortuga than in Española. It is to be remarked, also, -in the Admiral's account, that while "Our Lord" is not recorded as -indicating to him any method of converting the poor heathen, it was "Our -Lord" who was now about to direct the Admiral to Babeque. - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 18.] - -The next day, December 18, the Admiral lay at anchor, both because wind -failed him, and because he would be able to see the gold which the -cacique had promised to bring. It also gave him an opportunity to deck -his ships and fire his guns in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed -Virgin. - -In due time the king appeared, borne on a sort of litter by his men, and -boarding the ship, that chieftain found Columbus at table in his cabin. -The cacique was placed beside the Admiral, and similar viands and drinks -were placed before him, of which he partook. Two of his dusky followers, -sitting at his feet, followed their master in the act. Columbus, -observing that the hangings of his bed had attracted the attention of -the savage, gave them to him, and added to the present some amber beads -from his own neck, some red shoes, and a flask of orange-flower water. -"This day," says the record, "little gold was obtained; but an old man -indicated that at a distance of a hundred leagues or more were some -islands, where much gold could be found, and in some it was so plentiful -that it was collected and bolted with sieves, then melted and beaten -into divers forms. One of the islands was said to be all gold, and the -Admiral determined to go in the direction which this man pointed." - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 20.] - -[Sidenote: St. Thomas Island.] - -That night they tried in vain to stand out beyond Tortuga, but on the -20th of December, the record places the ships in a harbor between a -little island, which Columbus called St. Thomas, and the main island. -During the following day, December 21, he surveyed the roadstead, and -going about the region in his boats, he had a number of interviews with -the natives, which ended with an interchange of gifts and courtesies. - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 22.] - -On Saturday, December 22, they encountered some people, sent by a -neighboring cacique, whom the Admiral's own Indians could not readily -understand, the first of this kind mentioned in the journal. Writing in -regard to a party which Columbus at this time sent to visit a large town -not far off, he speaks of having his secretary accompany them, in order -to repress the Spaniards' greediness,--an estimate of his followers -which the Admiral had not before suffered himself to record, if we can -trust the Las Casas manuscript. The results of this foray were three fat -geese and some bits of gold. As he entered the adventure in his journal, -he dwelt on the hope of gold being on the island in abundance, and if -only the spot could be found, it might be got for little or nothing. -"Our Lord, in whose hands are all things, be my help," he cries. "Our -Lord, in his mercy, direct me where I may find the gold mine." - -[Sidenote: Cibao.] - -The Admiral now learns the name of another chief officer, Nitayno, whose -precise position was not apparent, but Las Casas tells us later that -this word was the title of one nearest in rank to the cacique. When an -Indian spoke of a place named Cibao, far to the east, where the king had -banners made of plates of gold, the Admiral, in his eager confidence, -had no hesitation in identifying it with Cipango and its gorgeous -prince. It proved to be the place where in the end the best mines were -found. - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 23.] - -In speaking of the next day, Sunday, December 23, Las Casas tells us -that Columbus was not in the habit of sailing on Sunday, not because he -was superstitious, but because he was pious; but that he did not omit -the opportunity at this time of coursing the coast, "in order to display -the symbols of Redemption." - -[Sidenote: Columbus shipwrecked.] - -Christmas found them in distress. The night before, everything looking -favorable, and the vessel sailing along quietly, Columbus had gone to -bed, being much in need of rest. The helmsman put a boy at the tiller -and went to sleep. The rest of the crew were not slow to do the same. -The vessel was in this condition, with no one but the boy awake, when, -carried out of her course by the current, she struck a sand bank. The -cry of the boy awakened the Admiral, and he was the first to discover -the danger of their situation. He ordered out a boat's crew to carry an -anchor astern, but, bewildered or frightened, the men pulled for the -"Nina." The crew of that caravel warned them off, to do their duty, and -sent their own boat to assist. Help, however, availed nothing. The -"Santa Maria" had careened, and her seams were opening. Her mast had -been cut away, but she failed to right herself. The Admiral now -abandoned her and rowed to the "Nina" with his men. Communicating with -the cacique in the morning, that chieftain sent many canoes to assist in -unloading the ship, so that in a short time everything of value was -saved. This assistance gave occasion for mutual confidences between the -Spaniards and the natives. "They are a loving, uncovetous people," he -enters in his journal. One wonders, with the later experience of his new -friends, if the cacique could have said as much in return. The Admiral -began to be convinced that "the Lord had permitted the shipwreck in -order that he might choose this place for a settlement." The canonizers -go further and say, "the shipwreck made him an engineer." - -Irving, whose heedless embellishments of the story of these times may -amuse the pastime reader, but hardly satisfy the student, was not blind -to the misfortunes of what Columbus at the time called the divine -interposition. "This shipwreck," Irving says, "shackled and limited all -Columbus's future discoveries. It linked his fortunes for the remainder -of his life to this island, which was doomed to be to him a source of -cares and troubles, to involve him in a thousand perplexities, and to -becloud his declining years with humiliation and disappointment." - -[Sidenote: Fort built.] - -The saving of his stores and the loss of his ship had indeed already -suggested what some of his men had asked for, that they might be left -there, while the Admiral returned to Spain with the tidings of the -discovery, if--as the uncomfortable thought sprung up in his mind--he -had not already been anticipated by the recreant commander of the -"Pinta." Accordingly Columbus ordered the construction of a fort, with -tower and ditch, and arrangements were soon made to provide bread and -wine for more than a year, beside seed for the next planting-time. The -ship's long-boat could be left; and a calker, carpenter, cooper, -engineer, tailor, and surgeon could be found among his company, to be of -the party who were to remain and "search for the gold mine." He says -that he expected they would collect a ton of gold in the interval of his -absence; "for I have before protested to your Highnesses," he adds as he -makes an entry for his sovereigns to read, "that the profits shall go to -making a conquest of Jerusalem." - -[Sidenote: Garrison of La Navidad.] - -We know the names of those who agreed to stay on the island. Navarrete -discovered the list in a proclamation made in 1507 to pay what was due -them to their next of kin. This list gives forty names, though some -accounts of the voyage say they numbered a few less. The company -included the Irishman and Englishman already mentioned. - -[Sidenote: 1492. December 27.] - -[Sidenote: December 30.] - -[Sidenote: December 31.] - -On the 27th of December, Columbus got the first tidings of the "Pinta" -since she deserted him; and he sent a Spaniard, with Indians to handle -the canoe, to a harbor at the end of the island, where he supposed -Pinzon's ship to be. Columbus was now perfecting his plans for the fort, -and tried to make out if Guacanagari, the king, was not trying to -conceal from him the situation of the mines. On Sunday, December 30, the -Spanish and native leaders vied with each other in graciousness. The -savage put his crown upon the Admiral. Columbus took off his necklace -and scarlet cloak and placed them on the king. He clothed the savage's -naked feet with buskins and decked the dusky hand with a silver ring. On -Monday, work was resumed in preparing for their return to Spain, for, -with the "Pinta" gone--for the canoe sent to find her had returned -unsuccessful--and the "Nina" alone remaining, it was necessary to -diminish the risk attending the enterprise. - -[Sidenote: 1493. January 2.] - -On January 2, 1493, there was to be leave-taking of the cacique. To -impart to him and to his people a dread of Spanish power, in the -interests of those to be left, he made an exhibition of the force of his -bombards, by sending a shot clean through the hull of the dismantled -wreck. It is curious to observe how Irving, with a somewhat cheap -melodramatic instinct, makes this shot tear through a beautiful grove -like a bolt from heaven! - -The king made some return by ordering an effigy of Columbus to be -finished in gold, in ten days,--as at least so Columbus understood -one of his Indians to announce the cacique's purpose. - -[Sidenote: 1493. January 4.] - -[Sidenote: January 6.] - -Having commissioned Diego de Arana as commander and Pedro Gutierrez and -Roderigo de Escoveda to act as his lieutenants of the fort and its -thirty-nine men, Columbus now embarked, but not before he had addressed -all sorts of good advice to those he was to leave behind,--advice that -did no good, if the subsequent events are clearly divined. It was not, -however, till Friday, January 4, 1493, that the wind permitted him to -stand out of the harbor of the Villa de Navidad, as he had named the -fort and settlement from the fact of his shipwreck there on the day of -the nativity. Two days later they met the "Pinta," and Pinzon, her -commander, soon boarded the Admiral to explain his absence, "saying he -had left against his will." The Admiral doubted such professions; but -did not think it prudent to show active resentment, as Las Casas tells -us. The fact apparently was that Pinzon had not found the gold he went -in search of and so he had returned to meet his commander. He had been -coasting the island for over twenty days, and had been seen by the -natives, who made the report to the Admiral already mentioned. Some -Indians whom he had taken captive were subsequently released by the -Admiral, for the usual ulterior purpose. It is curious to observe how an -act of kidnapping which emulated the Admiral's, if done by Pinzon, is -called by the canonizers, "joining violence to rapine." - -[Sidenote: Jamaica.] - -At this time Columbus records his first intelligence respecting an -island, Yamaye, south of Cuba, which seems to have been Jamaica, where, -as he learned, gold was to be found in grains of the size of beans, -while in Española the grains were nearly the size of kernels of wheat. -He was also informed of an island to the east, inhabited by women only. -He also understood that the people of the continent to the south were -clothed, and did not go naked like those of the islands. - -Both vessels now having made a harbor, and the "Nina" beginning to leak, -a day was spent in calking her seams. Columbus was not without -apprehension that the two brothers, Martin Alonso Pinzon of the "Pinta," -and Vicente Jañez Pinzon who had commanded the "Nina," might now with -their adherents combine for mischief. He was accordingly all the more -anxious to hasten his departure, without further following the coast of -Española. Going up a river to replenish his water, he found on taking -the casks on board that the crevices of the hoops had gathered fine bits -of gold from the stream. This led him to count the neighboring streams, -which he supposed might also contain gold. - -[Sidenote: Columbus sees mermaids.] - -It was not only gold which he saw. Three mermaids stood high out of the -water, with not very comely faces to be sure, but similar to those of -human beings; and he recalled having seen the like on the pepper coast -in Guinea. The commentators suppose they may have been sea-calves -indistinctly seen. - -[Sidenote: 1493. January 10. The ships sail for Spain.] - -[Sidenote: January 12. Caribs.] - -The two ships started once more on the 10th, sometimes lying to at night -for fear of shoals, making and naming cape after cape. On the 12th, -entering a harbor, Columbus discovered an Indian, whom he took for a -Carib, as he had learned to call the cannibals which he so often heard -of. His own Indians did not wholly understand this strange savage. When -they sent him ashore the Spaniards found fifty-five Indians armed with -bows and wooden swords. They were prevailed upon at first to hold -communication; but soon showed a less friendly spirit, and Columbus for -the first time records a fight, in which several of the natives were -wounded. An island to the eastward was now supposed to be the Carib -region, and he desired to capture some of its natives. Navarrete -supposes that Porto Rico is here referred to. He also observed, as his -vessels went easterly, that he was encountering some of the same sort of -seaweed which he had sailed through when steering west, and it occurred -to him that perhaps these islands stretched easterly, so as really to be -not far distant from the Canaries. It may be observed that this -propinquity of the new islands to those of the Atlantic, longer known, -was not wholly eradicated from the maps till well into the earlier years -of the sixteenth century. - -[Sidenote: Caribs and Amazons.] - -They had secured some additional Indians near where they had had their -fight, and one of them now directed Columbus towards the island of the -Caribs. The leaks of the vessels increasing and his crews desponding, -Columbus soon thought it more prudent to shift his course for Spain -direct, supposing at the same time that it would take him near Matinino, -where the tribe of women lived. He had gotten the story somehow, very -likely by a credulous adaptation of Marco Polo, that the Caribs visited -this island once a year and reclaimed the male offspring, leaving the -female young to keep up the tribe. - -In following the Admiral along these coasts of Cuba and Española, no -attempt has here been made to identify all his bays and rivers. -Navarrete and the other commentators have done so, but not always with -agreement. - -[Sidenote: 1493. January 16.] - -On the 16th, they had their last look at a distant cape of Española, and -were then in the broad ocean, with seaweed and tunnies and pelicans to -break its monotony. The "Pinta," having an unsound mast, lagged behind, -and so the "Nina" had to slacken sail. - -[Sidenote: Homeward voyage.] - -Columbus now followed a course which for a long time, owing to defects -in the methods of ascertaining longitude, was the mariner's readiest -recourse to reach his port. This was to run up his latitudes to that of -his destination, and then follow the parallel till he sighted a familiar -landmark. - -[Sidenote: 1493. February 10.] - -[Sidenote: February 13.] - -[Sidenote: A gale.] - -By February 10, when they began to compare reckonings, Columbus placed -his position in the latitude of Flores, while the others thought they -were on a more southern course, and a hundred and fifty leagues nearer -Spain. By the 12th it was apparent that a gale was coming on. The next -day, February 13, the storm increased. During the following night both -vessels took in all sail and scudded before the wind. They lost sight of -each other's lights, and never joined company. The "Pinta" with her weak -mast was blown away to the north. The Admiral's ship could bear the gale -better, but as his ballast was insufficient, he had to fill his water -casks with sea-water. Sensible of their peril, his crew made vows, to be -kept if they were saved. They drew lots to determine who should carry a -wax taper of five pounds to St. Mary of Guadalupe, and the penance fell -to the Admiral. A sailor by another lot was doomed to make a pilgrimage -to St. Mary of Lorette in the papal territory. A third lot was drawn for -a night watch at St. Clara de Mogues, and it fell upon Columbus. Then -they all vowed to pay their devotions at the nearest church of Our Lady -if only they got ashore alive. - -[Sidenote: A narrative of his voyage thrown overboard.] - -There was one thought which more than another troubled Columbus at this -moment, and this was that in case his ship foundered, the world might -never know of his success, for he was apprehensive that the "Pinta" had -already foundered. Not to alarm the crew, he kept from them the fact -that a cask which they had seen him throw overboard contained an account -of his voyage, written on parchment, rolled in a waxed cloth. He trusted -to the chance of some one finding it. He placed a similar cask on the -poop, to be washed off in case the ship went down. He does not mention -this in the journal. - -[Sidenote: 1493. January 15.] - -[Sidenote: January 16. Land seen.] - -[Sidenote: At the Azores.] - -[Sidenote: 1493. February 18.] - -After sunset on the 15th there were signs of clearing in the west, and -the waves began to fall. The next morning at sunrise there was land -ahead. Now came the test of their reckoning. Some thought it the rock of -Cintra near Lisbon; others said Madeira; Columbus decided they were near -the Azores. The land was soon made out to be an island; but a head wind -thwarted them. Other land was next seen astern. While they were saying -their _Salve_ in the evening, some of the crew discerned a light to -leeward, which might have been on the island first seen. Then later they -saw another island, but night and the clouds obscured it too much to be -recognized. The journal is blank for the 17th of February, except that -under the next day, the 18th, Columbus records that after sunset of the -17th they sailed round an island to find an anchorage; but being -unsuccessful in the search they beat out to sea again. In the morning of -the 18th they stood in, discovered an anchorage, sent a boat ashore, and -found it was St. Mary's of the Azores. Columbus was right! - -[Sidenote: 1493. February 21.] - -After sunset he received some provisions, which Juan de Casteñeda, the -Portuguese governor of the island, had sent to him. Meanwhile three -Spaniards whom Columbus sent ashore had failed to return, not a little -to his disturbance, for he was aware that there might be among the -Portuguese some jealousy of his success. To fulfill one of the vows made -during the gale, he now sent one half his crew ashore in penitential -garments to a hermitage near the shore, intending on their return to go -himself with the other half. The record then reads: "The men being at -their devotion, they were attacked by Casteñeda with horse and foot, -and made prisoners." Not being able to see the hermitage from his -anchorage, and not suspecting this event, but still anxious, he made -sail and proceeded till he got a view of the spot. Now he saw the -horsemen, and how presently they dismounted, and with arms in their -hands, entering a boat, approached the ship. Then followed a parley, in -which Columbus thought he discovered a purpose of the Portuguese to -capture him, and they on their part discovered it to be not quite safe -to board the Admiral. To enforce his dignity and authority as a -representative of the sovereigns of Castile, he held up to the boats his -commission with its royal insignia; and reminded them that his -instructions had been to treat all Portuguese ships with respect, since -a spirit of amity existed between the two Crowns. It behooved the -Portuguese, as he told them, to be wary lest by any hostile act they -brought upon themselves the indignation of those higher in authority. -The lofty bearing of Casteñeda continuing, Columbus began to fear that -hostilities might possibly have broken out between Spain and Portugal. -So the interview ended with little satisfaction to either, and the -Admiral returned to his old anchorage. The next day, to work off the lee -shore, they sailed for St. Michael's, and the weather continuing stormy -he found himself crippled in having but three experienced seamen among -the crew which remained to him. So not seeing St. Michael's they again -bore away, on Thursday the 21st, for St. Mary's, and again reached their -former anchorage. - -The storms of these latter days here induced Columbus in his journal to -recall how placid the sea had been among those other new-found islands, -and how likely it was the terrestrial] paradise was in that region, as -theologians and learned philosophers had supposed. From these thoughts -he was aroused by a boat from shore with a notary on board, and -Columbus, after completing his entertainment of the visitors, was asked -to show his royal commission. He records his belief that this was done -to give the Portuguese an opportunity of retreating from their -belligerent attitude. At all events it had that effect, and the -Spaniards who had been restrained were at once released. It is surmised -that the conduct of Casteñeda was in conformity with instructions from -Lisbon, to detain Columbus should he find his way to any dependency of -the Portuguese crown. - -[Sidenote: 1493. February 24.] - -[Sidenote: February 25.] - -[Sidenote: Rock of Cintra seen.] - -[Sidenote: In the Tagus.] - -[Sidenote: Sends letter to the king of Portugal.] - -On Sunday, the 24th, the ship again put out to sea; on Wednesday, they -encountered another gale; and on the following Sunday, they were again -in such peril that they made new vows. At daylight the next day, some -land which they had seen in the night, not without gloomy apprehension -of being driven upon it, proved to be the rock of Cintra. The mouth of -the Tagus was before them, and the people of the adjacent town, -observing the peril of the strange ship, offered prayers for its safety. -The entrance of the river was safely made and the multitude welcomed -them. Up the Tagus they went to Rastelo, and anchored at about three -o'clock in the afternoon. Here Columbus learned that the wintry -roughness which he had recently experienced was but a part of the -general severity of the season. From this place he dispatched a -messenger to Spain to convey the news of his arrival to his sovereigns, -and at the same time he sent a letter to the king of Portugal, then -sojourning nine leagues away. He explained in it how he had asked the -hospitality of a Portuguese port, because the Spanish sovereigns had -directed him to do so, if he needed supplies. He further informed the -king that he had come from the "Indies," which he had reached by sailing -west. He hoped he would be allowed to bring his caravel to Lisbon, to be -more secure; for rumors of a lading of gold might incite reckless -persons, in so lonely a place as he then lay, to deeds of violence. - -[Sidenote: Name of India.] - -The _Historie_ says that Columbus had determined beforehand to call -whatever land he should discover, India, because he thought India was a -name to suggest riches, and to invite encouragement for his project. - -While this letter to the Portuguese king was in transit, the attempt was -made by certain officers of the Portuguese navy in the port of Rastelo -to induce Columbus to leave his ship and give an account of himself; but -he would make no compromise of the dignity of a Castilian admiral. When -his resentment was known and his commission was shown, the Portuguese -officers changed their policy to one of courtesy. - -The next day, and on the one following, the news of his arrival being -spread about, a vast multitude came in boats from all parts to see him -and his Indians. - -[Sidenote: 1493. March 8.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus visits the king.] - -On the third day, a royal messenger brought an invitation from the king -to come and visit the court, which Columbus, not without apprehension, -accepted. The king's steward had been sent to accompany him and provide -for his entertainment on the way. On the night of the following day, he -reached Val do Paraiso, where the king was. This spot was nine leagues -from Lisbon, and it was supposed that his reception was not held in that -city because a pest was raging there. A royal greeting was given to him. -The king affected to believe that the voyage of Columbus was made to -regions which the Portuguese had been allowed to occupy by a convention -agreed upon with Spain in 1479. The Admiral undeceived him, and showed -the king that his ships had not been near Guinea. - -We have another account of this interview at Val do Paraiso, in the -pages of the Portuguese historian, Barros, tinged, doubtless, with -something of pique and prejudice, because the profit of the voyage had -not been for the benefit of Portugal. That historian charges Columbus -with extravagance, and even insolence, in his language to the king. He -says that Columbus chided the monarch for the faithlessness that had -lost him such an empire. He is represented as launching these rebukes so -vehemently that the attending nobles were provoked to a degree which -prompted whispers of assassination. That Columbus found his first harbor -in the Tagus has given other of the older Portuguese writers, like Faria -y Sousa, in his _Europa Portuguesa_, and Vasconcelles and Resende, in -their lives of João II., occasion to represent that his entering it was -not so much induced by stress of weather as to seek a triumph over the -Portuguese king in the first flush of the news. It is also said that the -resolution was formed by the king to avail himself of the knowledge of -two Portuguese who were found among Columbus's men. With their aid he -proposed to send an armed expedition to take possession of the new-found -regions before Columbus could fit out a fleet for a second voyage. -Francisco de Almeida was even selected, according to the report, to -command this force. We hear, however, nothing more of it, and the Bull -of Demarcation put an end to all such rivalries. - -If, on the contrary, we may believe Columbus himself, in a letter which -he subsequently wrote, he did not escape being suspected in Spain of -having thus put himself in the power of the Portuguese in order to -surrender the Indies to them. - -[Sidenote: 1493. March 11. Columbus leaves the court.] - -[Sidenote: Sails from the Tagus.] - -[Sidenote: Reaches Palos, March 15, 1493.] - -Spending Sunday at court, Columbus departed on Monday, March 11, having -first dispatched messages to the King and Queen of Spain. An escort of -knights was provided for him, and taking the monastery of Villafranca on -his way, he kissed the hand of the Portuguese queen, who was there -lodging, and journeying on, arrived at his caravel on Tuesday night. The -next day he put to sea, and on Thursday morning was off Cape St. -Vincent. The next morning they were off the island of Saltes, and -crossing bar with the flood, he anchored on March 15, 1493, not far from -noon, where he had unmoored the "Santa Maria" over seven months before. - -"I made the passage thither in seventy-one days," he says in his -published letter; "and back in forty-eight, during thirteen of which -number I was driven about by storms." - -[Sidenote: The "Pinta's" experiences.] - -The "Pinta," which had parted company with the Admiral on the 14th of -February, had been driven by the gale into Bayona, a port of Gallicia, -in the northwest corner of Spain, whence Pinzon, its commander, had -dispatched a messenger to give information of his arrival and of his -intended visit to the Court. A royal order peremptorily stayed, however, -his projected visit, and left the first announcement of the news to be -proclaimed by Columbus himself. This is the story which later writers -have borrowed from the _Historie_. - -[Sidenote: She reaches Palos.] - -[Sidenote: Death of Pinzon.] - -Oviedo tells us that the "Pinta" put to sea again from the Gallician -harbor, and entered the port of Palos on the same day with Columbus, but -her commander, fearing arrest or other unpleasantness, kept himself -concealed till Columbus had started for Barcelona. Not many days later -Pinzon died in his own house in Palos. Las Casas would have us believe -that his death arose from mortification at the displeasure of his -sovereigns; but Harrisse points out that when Charles V. bestowed a -coat-armor on the family, he recognized his merit as the discoverer of -Española. There is little trustworthy information on the matter, and -Muñoz, whose lack of knowledge prompts inferences on his part, -represents that it was Pinzon's request to explain his desertion of -Columbus, which was neglected by the Court, and impressed him with the -royal displeasure. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN; MARCH TO SEPTEMBER, 1493. - - -Peter Martyr tells us of the common ignorance and dread pervading the -ordinary ranks of society, before and during the absence of Columbus, in -respect to all that part of the earth's circumference which the sun -looked upon beyond Gades, till it again cast its rays upon the Golden -Chersonesus. During this absence from the known and habitable regions of -the globe, that orb was thought to sweep over the ominous and foreboding -Sea of Darkness. No one could tell how wide that sea was. The learned -disagreed in their estimates. A conception, far under the actual -condition, had played no small part in making the voyage of Columbus -possible. Men possessed legends of its mysteries. Fables of its many -islands were repeated; but no one then living was credibly thought to -have tested its glooms except by sailing a little beyond the outermost -of the Azores. - -[Sidenote: Palos aroused at the return of Columbus.] - -It calls for no stretch of the imagination to picture the public -sentiment in little Palos during the months of anxiety which many -households had endured since that August morning, when in its dim light -Columbus, the Pinzons, and all their companions had been wafted gently -out to sea by the current and the breeze. The winter had been unusually -savage and weird. The navigators to the Atlantic islands had reported -rough passages, and the ocean had broken wildly for long intervals along -the rocks and sands of the peninsular shores. It is a natural movement -of the mind to wrap the absent in the gloom of the present hour; and -while Columbus had been passing along the gentle waters of the new -archipelago, his actual experiences had been in strange contrast to the -turmoil of the sea as it washed the European shores. He had indeed -suffered on his return voyage the full tumultuousness of the elements, -and we can hardly fail to recognize the disquiet of mind and falling of -heart which those savage gales must have given to the kin and friends -of the untraceable wanderers. - -The stories, then, which we have of the thanksgiving and jubilation of -the people of Palos, when the "Nina" was descried passing the bar of the -river, fall readily among the accepted truths of history. We can imagine -how despondency vanished amid the acclaims of exultation; how multitudes -hung upon the words of strange revelations; how the gaping populace -wondered at the bedecked Indians; and how throngs of people opened a way -that Columbus might lead the votive procession to the church. The -canonizers of course read between the lines of the records that it was -to the Church of Rabida that Columbus with his men now betook -themselves. It matters little. - -There was much to mar the delight of some in the households. Comforting -reports must be told of those who were left at La Navidad. No one had -died, unless the gale had submerged the "Pinta" and her crew. She had -not been seen since the "Nina" parted with her in the gale. - -The story of her rescue has already been told. She entered the river -before the rejoicings of the day were over, and relieved the remaining -anxiety. - -[Sidenote: The Court at Barcelona.] - -The Spanish Court was known to be at this time at Barcelona, the Catalan -port on the Mediterranean. Columbus's first impulse was to proceed -thither in his caravel; but his recent hazards made him prudent, and so -dispatching a messenger to the Court, he proceeded to Seville to wait -their majesties' commands. Of the native prisoners which he had brought -away, one had died at sea, three were too sick to follow him, and were -left at Palos, while six accompanied him on his journey. - -[Sidenote: 1493. March 30. Columbus summoned to Court.] - -The messenger with such startling news had sped quickly; and Columbus -did not wait long for a response to his letter. The document (March 30) -showed that the event had made a deep impression on the Court. The new -domain of the west dwarfed for a while the conquests from the Moors. -There was great eagerness to complete the title, and gather its wealth. -Columbus was accordingly instructed to set in motion at once measures -for a new expedition, and then to appear at Court and explain to the -monarchs what action on their part was needful. The demand was promptly -answered; and having organized the necessary arrangements in Seville for -the preparation of a fleet, he departed for Barcelona to make homage to -his sovereigns. His Indians accompanied him. Porters bore his various -wonders from the new islands. His story had preceded him, and town after -town vied with each other in welcoming him, and passing him on to new -amazements and honors. - -[Sidenote: 1493. April. In Barcelona.] - -[Sidenote: Received by the sovereigns.] - -By the middle of April he approached Barcelona, and was met by throngs -of people, who conducted him into the city. His Indians, arrayed in -effective if not accustomed ornament of gold, led the line. Bearers of -all the marvels of the Indies followed, with their forty parrots and -other strange birds of liveliest plumage, with the skins of unknown -animals, with priceless plants that would now supplant the eastern -spices, and with the precious ornaments of the dusky kings and princes -whom he had met. Next, on horseback, came Columbus himself, conspicuous -amid the mounted chivalry of Spain. Thus the procession marched on, -through crowded streets, amid the shouts of lookers-on, to the alcazar -of the Moorish kings in the Calle Ancha, at this time the residence of -the Bishop of Urgil, where it is supposed Ferdinand and Isabella had -caused their thrones to be set up, with a canopy of brocaded gold -drooping about them. Here the monarchs awaited the coming of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: King Ferdinand.] - -[Sidenote: Queen Isabella.] - -Ferdinand, as the accounts picture him, was a man whose moderate stature -was helped by his erectness and robes to a decided dignity of carriage. -His expression in the ruddy glow of his complexion, clearness of eye, -and loftiness of brow, grew gracious in any pleasurable excitement. The -Queen was a very suitable companion, grave and graceful in her demeanor. -Her blue eyes and auburn tresses comported with her outwardly benign -air, and one looked sharply to see anything of her firmness and courage -in the prevailing sweetness of her manner. The heir apparent, Prince -Juan, was seated by their side. The dignitaries of the Court were -grouped about. - -[Sidenote: Columbus before the Court.] - -Las Casas tells us how commanding Columbus looked when he entered the -room, surrounded by a brilliant company of cavaliers. When he approached -the royal dais, both monarchs rose to receive him standing; and when he -stooped to kiss their hands, they gently and graciously lifted him, and -made him sit as they did. They then asked to be told of what he had -seen. - -As Columbus proceeded in his narrative, he pointed out the visible -objects of his speech,--the Indians, the birds, the skins, the barbaric -ornaments, and the stores of gold. We are told of the prayer of the -sovereigns at the close, in which all joined; and of the chanted _Te -Deum_ from the choir of the royal chapel, which bore the thoughts of -every one, says the narrator, on the wings of melody to celestial -delights. This ceremony ended, Columbus was conducted like a royal guest -to the lodgings which had been provided for him. - -It has been a question if the details of this reception, which are put -by Irving in imaginative fullness, and are commonly told on such a -thread of incidents as have been related, are warranted by the scant -accounts which are furnished us in the _Historie_, in Las Casas, and in -Peter Martyr, particularly since the incident does not seem to have made -enough of an impression at the time to have been noticed at all in the -_Dietaria_ of the city, a record of events embodying those of far -inferior interest as we would now value them. Mr. George Sumner -carefully scanned this record many years ago, and could find not the -slightest reference to the festivities. He fancies that the incidents in -the mind of the recorder may have lost their significance through an -Aragonese jealousy of the supremacy of Leon and Castile. - -It is certainly true that in Peter Martyr, the contemporary observer of -this supposed pageantry, there is nothing to warrant the exuberance of -later writers. Martyr simply says that Columbus was allowed to sit in -the sovereigns' presence. - -Whatever the fact as to details, it seems quite evident that this season -at Barcelona made the only unalloyed days of happiness, freed of -anxiety, which Columbus ever experienced. He was observed of all, and -everybody was complacent to him. His will was apparently law to King and -subject. Las Casas tells us that he passed among the admiring throngs -with his face wreathed with smiles of content. An equal complacency of -delight and expectation settled upon all with whom he talked of the -wonders of the land which he had found. They dreamed as he did of -entering into golden cities with their hundred bridges, that might -cause new exultations, to which the present were as nothing. It was a -fatal lure to the proud Spanish nature, and no one was doomed to expiate -the folly of the delusion more poignantly than Columbus himself. - -[Sidenote: Spread of the news.] - -Now that India had been found by the west, as was believed, and -Barcelona was very likely palpitating with the thought, the news spread -in every direction. What were the discoveries of the Phoenicians to -this? What questions of ethnology, language, species, migrations, -phenomena of all sorts, in man and in the natural world, were pressing -upon the mind, as the results were considered? Were not these parrots -which Columbus had exhibited such as Pliny tells us are in Asia? - -The great event had fallen in the midst of geographical development, and -was understood at last. Marco Polo and the others had told their marvels -of the east. The navigators of Prince Henry had found new wonders on the -sea. Regiomontanus, Behaim, and Toscanelli had not communed in vain with -cosmographical problems. Even errors had been stepping-stones; as when -the belief in the easterly over-extension of Asia had pictured it near -enough in the west to convince men that the hazard of the Sea of -Darkness was not so great after all. - -[Sidenote: Peter Martyr records the event.] - -Spain was then the centre of much activity of mind. "I am here," records -Peter Martyr, "at the source of this welcome intelligence from the new -found lands, and as the historian of such events, I may hope to go down -to posterity as their recorder." We must remember this profession when -we try to account for his meagre record of the reception at Barcelona. - -That part of the letter of Peter Martyr, dated at Barcelona, on the ides -of May, 1493, which conveyed to his correspondent the first tidings of -Columbus's return, is in these words, as translated by Harrisse: "A -certain Christopher Colonus, a Ligurian, returned from the antipodes. He -had obtained for that purpose three ships from my sovereigns, with much -difficulty, because the ideas which he expressed were considered -extravagant. He came back and brought specimens of many precious things, -especially gold, which those regions naturally produce." Martyr also -tells us that when Pomponius Laetus got such news, he could scarcely -refrain "from tears of joy at so unlooked-for an event." "What more -delicious food for an ingenious mind!" said Martyr to him in return. "To -talk with people who have seen all this is elevating to the mind." The -confidence of Martyr, however, in the belief of Columbus that the true -Indies had been found was not marked. He speaks of the islands as -adjacent to, and not themselves, the East. - -[Sidenote: The news in England.] - -Sebastian Cabot remembered the time when these marvelous tidings reached -the court of Henry VII. in London, and he tells us that it was accounted -a "thing more divine than human." - -[Sidenote: Columbus's first letter.] - -A letter which Columbus had written and early dispatched to Barcelona, -nearly in duplicate, to the treasurers of the two crowns was promptly -translated into Latin, and was sent to Italy to be issued in numerous -editions, to be copied in turn by the Paris and Antwerp printers, and a -little more sluggishly by those of Germany. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the event.] - -There is, however, singularly little commenting on these events that -passed into print and has come down to us; and we may well doubt if the -effect on the public mind, beyond certain learned circles, was at all -commensurate with what we may now imagine the recognition of so -important an event ought to have been. Nordenskiöld, studying the -cartography and literature of the early discoveries in America in his -_Facsimile Atlas_, is forced to the conclusion that "scarcely any -discovery of importance was ever received with so much indifference, -even in circles where sufficient genius and statesmanship ought to have -prevailed to appreciate the changes they foreshadowed in the development -of the economical and political conditions of mankind." - -[Sidenote: 1493. June 19. Carjaval's oration.] - -It happened on June 19, 1493, but a few weeks after the Pope had made -his first public recognition of the discovery, that the Spanish -ambassador at the Papal Court, Bernardin de Carjaval, referred in an -oration to "the unknown lands, lately found, lying towards the Indies;" -and at about the same time there was but a mere reference to the event -in the _Los Tratados_ of Doctor Alonso Ortis, published at Seville. - -[Sidenote: Columbus in favor.] - -While this strange bruit was thus spreading more or less, we get some -glimpses of the personal life of Columbus during these days of his -sojourn in Barcelona. We hear of him riding through the streets on -horseback, on one side of the King, with Prince Juan on the other. - -[Sidenote: Reward for first seeing land.] - -We find record of his being awarded the pension of thirty crowns, as the -first discoverer of land, by virtue of the mysterious light, and Irving -thinks that we may condone this theft from the brave sailor who -unquestionably saw land the first, by remembering that "Columbus's whole -ambition was involved." It seems to others that his whole character was -involved. - -[Sidenote: Story of the egg.] - -We find him a guest at a banquet given by Cardinal Mendoza, and the -well-known story of his making an egg stand upright, by chipping one end -of it, is associated with this merriment of the table. An impertinent -question of a shallow courtier had induced Columbus to show a table full -of guests that it was easy enough to do anything when the way was -pointed out. The story, except as belonging to a traditional stock of -anecdotes, dating far back of Columbus, always ready for an application, -has no authority earlier than Benzoni, and loses its point in the -destruction of the end on which the aim was to make it stand. This has -been so palpable to some of the repeaters of the story that they have -supposed that the feat was accomplished, not by cracking the end of the -egg, but by using a quick motion which broke the sack which holds the -yolk, so that that weightier substance settled at one end, and balanced -the egg in an upright position. - -So passed the time with the new-made hero, in drinking, as Irving -expresses it, "the honeyed draught of popularity before enmity and -detraction had time to drug it with bitterness." - -[Sidenote: 1493. May 20. Receives a coat of arms.] - -We find the sovereigns bestowing upon him, on the 20th of May, a coat of -arms, which shows a castle and a lion in the upper quarters, and in -those below, a group of golden islands in a sea of waves, on the one -hand, and the arms to which his family had been entitled, on the other. -Humboldt speaks of this archipelago as the first map of America, but he -apparently knew only Oviedo's description of the arms, for the latter -places the islands in a gulf formed by a mainland, and in this fashion -they are grouped in a blazon of the arms which is preserved at the -Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Paris--a duplicate being at Genoa. -Harrisse says that this design is the original water-color, made under -Columbus's eye in 1502. In this picture,--which is the earliest blazonry -which has come down to us,--the other lower quarter has the five golden -anchors on a blue ground, which it is claimed was adjudged to Columbus -as the distinctive badge of an Admiral of Spain. The personal arms are -relegated to a minor overlying shield at the lower point of the -escutcheon. Oviedo also says that trees and other objects should be -figured on the mainland. - -[Illustration: THE ARMS OF COLUMBUS. - -[From Oviedo's _Cosmica_.]] - -The lion and castle of the original grant were simply reminders of the -arms of Leon and Castile; but Columbus seems, of his own motion, so far -as Harrisse can discover, to have changed the blazonry of those objects -in the drawing of 1502 to agree with those of the royal arms. It was by -the same arrogant license, apparently, that he introduced later the -continental shore of the archipelago; and Harrisse can find no record -that the anchors were ever by any authority added to his blazon, nor -that the professed family arms, borne in connection, had any warrant -whatever. - -The earliest engraved copy of the arms is in the _Historia General_ of -Oviedo in 1535, where a profile helmet supports a crest made of a globe -topped by a cross. In Oviedo's _Coronica_ of 1547, the helmet is shown -in front view. There seems to have been some wide discrepancies in the -heraldic excursions of these early writers. Las Casas, for instance, -puts the golden lion in a silver field,--when heraldry abhors a -conjunction of metals, as much as nature abhors a vacuum. The discussion -of the family arms which were added by Columbus to the escutcheon made a -significant part of the arguments in the suit, many years later, of -Baldassare (Balthazar) Colombo to possess the Admiral's dignities; and -as Harrisse points out, the emblem of those Italian Colombos of any -pretensions to nobility was invariably a dove of some kind,--a device -quite distinct from those designated by Columbus. This assumption of -family arms by Columbus is held by Harrisse to be simply a concession to -the prejudices of his period, and to the exigencies of his new position. - -The arms have been changed under the dukes of Veragua to show -silver-capped waves in the sea, while a globe surmounted by a cross is -placed in the midst of a gulf containing only five islands. - -[Sidenote: His alleged motto.] - -There is another later accompaniment of the arms, of which the origin -has escaped all search. It is far more familiar than the escutcheon, on -which it plays the part of a motto. It sometimes represents that -Columbus found for the allied crowns a new world, and at other times -that he gave one to them. - - Por Castilla é por Leon - Nuevo Mundo halló Colon. - - A Castilla, y a Leon - Nuevo Mundo dió Colon. - -Oviedo is the earliest to mention this distich in 1535. It is given in -the _Historie_, not as a motto of the arms, but as an inscription placed -by the king on the tomb of Columbus some years after his death. If this -is true, it does away with the claims of Gomara that Columbus himself -added it to his arms. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Diplomacy of the Bull of Demarcation.] - -But diplomacy had its part to play in these events. As the Christian -world at that time recognized the rights of the Holy Father to confirm -any trespass on the possessions of the heathen, there was a prompt -effort on the part of Ferdinand to bring the matter to the attention of -the Pope. As early as 1438, bulls of Martin V. and Eugene IV. had -permitted the Spaniards to sail west and the Portuguese south; and a -confirmation of the same had been made by Pope Nicholas the Fifth. In -1479, the rival crowns of Portugal and Spain had agreed to respect their -mutual rights under these papal decisions. - -The messengers whom Ferdinand sent to Rome were instructed to intimate -that the actual possession which had been made in their behalf of these -new regions did not require papal sanction, as they had met there no -Christian occupants; but that as dutiful children of the church it would -be grateful to receive such a benediction on their energies for the -faith as a confirmatory bull would imply. Ferdinand had too much of -wiliness in his own nature, and the practice of it was too much a part -of the epoch, wholly to trust a man so notoriously perverse and -obstinate as Alexander VI. was. Though Muñoz calls Alexander the friend -of Ferdinand, and though the Pope was by birth an Aragonese, experience -had shown that there was no certainty of his support in a matter -affecting the interest of Spain. - -[Sidenote: 1493. May 3. The Bull issued.] - -A folio printed leaf in Gothic characters, of which the single copy sold -in London in 1854 is said to be the only one known to bibliographers, -made public to the world the famous Bull of Demarcation of Alexander -VI., bearing date May 3, 1493. If one would believe Hakluyt, the Pope -had been induced to do this act by his own option, rather than at the -intercession of the Spanish monarchs. Under it, and a second bull of the -day following, Spain was entitled to possess, "on condition of planting -the Catholic faith," all lands not already occupied by Christian powers, -west of a meridian drawn one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape -de Verde Islands, evidently on the supposition that these two groups -were in the same longitude, the fact being that the most westerly of the -southern, and the most easterly of the northern, group possessed nearly -the same meridian. Though Portugal was not mentioned in describing this -line, it was understood that there was reserved to her the same -privilege easterly. - -[Illustration: POPE ALEXANDER VI. - -[A bust in the Berlin Museum.]] - -There was not as yet any consideration given to the division which this -great circle meridian was likely to make on the other side of the globe, -where Portugal was yet to be most interested. The Cape of Good Hope had -not then been doubled, and the present effect of the division was to -confine the Portuguese to an exploration of the western African coast -and to adjacent islands. It will be observed that in the placing of this -line the magnetic phenomena which Columbus had observed on his recent -voyage were not forgotten, if the coincidence can be so interpreted. -Humboldt suggests that it can. - -[Sidenote: Line of no variation.] - -To make a physical limit serve a political one was an obvious recourse -at a time when the line of no variation was thought to be unique and of -a true north and south direction; but within a century the observers -found three other lines, as Acosta tells us in his _Historia Natural de -las Indias_, in 1589; and there proved to be a persistent migration of -these lines, all little suited to terrestrial demarcations. Roselly de -Lorgues and the canonizers, however, having given to Columbus the -planning of the line in his cell at Rabida, think, with a surprising -prescience on his part, and with a very convenient obliviousness on -their part, that he had chosen "precisely the only point of our planet -which science would choose in our day,--a mysterious demarcation made by -its omnipotent Creator," in sovereign disregard, unfortunately, of the -laws of his own universe! - -[Sidenote: Suspicious movements in Portugal.] - -Meanwhile there were movements in Portugal which Ferdinand had not -failed to notice. An ambassador had come from its king, asking -permission to buy certain articles of prohibited exportation for use on -an African expedition which the Portuguese were fitting out. Ferdinand -suspected that the true purpose of this armament was to seize the new -islands, under a pretense as dishonorable as that which covered the -ostensible voyage to the Cape de Verde Islands, by whose exposure -Columbus had been driven into Spain. The Spanish monarch was alert -enough to get quite beforehand with his royal brother. Before the -ambassador of which mention has been made had come to the Spanish Court, -Ferdinand had dispatched Lope de Herrera to Lisbon, armed with a -conciliatory and a denunciatory letter, to use one or the other, as he -might find the conditions demanded. The Portuguese historian Resende -tells us that João, in order to give a wrong scent, had openly bestowed -largesses on some and had secretly suborned other members of Ferdinand's -cabinet, so that he did not lack for knowledge of the Spanish intentions -from the latter members. He and his ambassadors were accordingly found -by Ferdinand to be inexplicably prepared at every new turn of the -negotiations. - -In this way João had been informed of the double mission of Herrera, and -could avoid the issue with him, while he sent his own ambassadors to -Spain, to promise that, pending their negotiations, no vessel should -sail on any voyage of discovery for sixty days. They were also to -propose that instead of the papal line, one should be drawn due west -from the Canaries, giving all new discoveries north to the Spaniards, -and all south to the Portuguese. This new move Ferdinand turned to his -own advantage, for it gave him the opportunity to enter upon a course of -diplomacy which he could extend long enough to allow Columbus to get off -with a new armament. He then sent a fresh embassy, with instructions to -move slowly and protract the discussion, but to resort, when compelled, -to a proposition for arbitration. João was foiled and he knew it. "These -ambassadors," he said, "have no feet to hurry and no head to propound." -The Spanish game was the best played, and the Portuguese king grew -fretful under it, and intimated sometimes a purpose to proceed to -violence, but he was restrained by a better wisdom. We depend mainly -upon the Portuguese historians for understanding these complications, -and it is to be hoped that some time the archives of the Vatican may -reveal the substance of these tripartite negotiations of the papal court -and the two crowns. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1493. May. Honors of Columbus confirmed.] - -[Sidenote: May 28. Columbus leaves Barcelona.] - -[Sidenote: June. In Seville.] - -[Sidenote: Fonseca.] - -Before Columbus had left Barcelona, a large gratuity had been awarded to -him by his sovereigns; an order had been issued commanding free lodgings -to be given to him and his followers, wherever he went, and the original -stipulations as to honors and authority, made by the sovereigns at Santa -Fé, had been confirmed (May 28). A royal seal was now confided to his -keeping, to be set to letters patent, and to commissions that it might -be found necessary to issue. It might be used even in appointing a -deputy, to act in the absence of Columbus. His appointments were to hold -during the royal pleasure. His own power was defined at the same time, -and in particular to hold command over the entire expedition, and to -conduct its future government and explorations. He left Barcelona, after -leavetakings, on May 28; and his instructions, as printed by Navarrete, -were signed the next day. It is not unlikely they were based on -suggestions of Columbus made in a letter, without date, which has -recently been printed in the _Cartas de Indias_ (1877). Early in June, -he was in Seville, and soon after he was joined by Juan Rodriguez de -Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville, who, as representative of the Crown, had -been made the chief director of the preparations. It is claimed by -Harrisse that this priest has been painted by the biographers of -Columbus much blacker than he really was, on the strength of the -objurgations which the _Historie_ bestows upon him. Las Casas calls him -worldly; and he deserves the epithet if a dominating career of thirty -years in controlling the affairs of the Indies is any evidence of -fitness in such matters. His position placed him where he had purposes -to thwart as well as projects to foster, and the record of this age of -discovery is not without many proofs of selfish and dishonorable -motives, which Fonseca might be called upon to repress. That his -discrimination was not always clear-sighted may be expected; that he was -sometimes perfidious may be true, but he was dealing mainly with those -who could be perfidious also. That he abused his authority might also go -without dispute; but so did Columbus and the rest. In the game of -diamond-cut-diamond, it is not always just to single out a single victim -for condemnation, as is done by Irving and the canonizers. - -It was while at Seville, engaged in this work of preparation, that -Fonseca sought to check the demands of Columbus as respects the number -of his personal servitors. That these demands were immoderate, the -character of Columbus, never cautious under incitement, warrants us in -believing; and that the official guardian of the royal treasury should -have views of his own is not to be wondered at. The story goes that the -sovereigns forced Fonseca to yield, and that this was the offense of -Columbus which could neither be forgotten nor forgiven by Fonseca, and -for which severities were visited upon him and his heirs in the years to -come. Irving is confident that Fonseca has escaped the condemnation -which Spanish writers would willingly have put upon him, for fear of the -ecclesiastical censors of the press. - -[Sidenote: Council for the Indies.] - -The measures which were now taken in accordance with the instructions -given to Columbus, already referred to, to regulate the commerce of the -Indies, with a custom house at Cadiz and a corresponding one in Española -under the control of the Admiral, ripened in time into what was known as -the Council for the Indies. It had been early determined (May 23) to -control all emigration to the new regions, and no one was allowed to -trade thither except under license from the monarchs, Columbus, or -Fonseca. - -[Sidenote: New fleet equipped.] - -A royal order had put all ships and appurtenances in the ports of -Andalusia at the demand of Fonseca and Columbus, for a reasonable -compensation, and compelled all persons required for the service to -embark in it on suitable pay. Two thirds of the ecclesiastical tithes, -the sequestered property of banished Jews, and other resources were set -apart to meet these expenses, and the treasurer was authorized to -contract a loan, if necessary. To eke out the resources, this last was -resorted to, and 5,000,000 maravedis were borrowed from the Duke of -Medina-Sidonia. All the transactions relating to the procuring and -dispensing of moneys had been confided to a treasurer, Francisco Pinelo; -with the aid of an accountant, Juan de Soria. Everything was hurriedly -gathered for the armament, for it was of the utmost importance that the -preparations should move faster than the watching diplomacy. - -Artillery which had been in use on shipboard for more than a century and -a half was speedily amassed. The arquebuse, however, had not altogether -been supplanted by the matchlock, and was yet preferred in some hands -for its lightness. Military stores which had been left over from the -Moorish war and were now housed in the Alhambra, at this time converted -into an arsenal, were opportunely drawn upon. - -[Sidenote: Beradi and Vespucius.] - -The labor of an intermediary in much of this preparation fell upon -Juonato Beradi, a Florentine merchant then settled in Seville, and it is -interesting to know that Americus Vespucius, then a mature man of two -and forty, was engaged under Beradi in this work of preparation. - -[Sidenote: 1493. June 20.] - -From the fact that certain horsemen and agriculturists were ordered to -be in Seville on June 20, and to hold themselves in readiness to embark, -it may be inferred that the sailing of some portion of the fleet may at -that time have been expected at a date not much later. - -[Illustration: CROSSBOW-MAKER. - -[From Jost Amman's _Beschreibung_, 1586.]] - -[Sidenote: Isabella's interest.] - -[Sidenote: Indians baptized.] - -The interest of Isabella in the new expedition was almost wholly on its -emotional and intellectual side. She had been greatly engrossed with the -spiritual welfare of the Indians whom Columbus had taken to Barcelona. -Their baptism had taken place with great state and ceremony, the King, -Queen, and Prince Juan officiating as sponsors. It was intended that -they should reëmbark with the new expedition. Prince Juan, however, -picked out one of these Indians for his personal service, and when the -fellow died, two years later, it was a source of gratification, as -Herrera tells us, that at last one of his race had entered the gates of -heaven! Only four of the six ever reached their native country. We know -nothing of the fate of those left sick at Palos. - -[Sidenote: Father Buil.] - -The Pope, to further all methods for the extension of the faith, had -commissioned (June 24) a Benedictine monk, Bernardo Buil (Boyle), of -Catalonia, to be his apostolic vicar in the new world, and this priest -was to be accompanied by eleven brothers of the order. The Queen -intrusted to them the sacred vessels and vestments from her own altar. -The instructions which Columbus received were to deal lovingly with the -poor natives. We shall see how faithful he was to the behest. - -Isabella's musings were not, however, all so piously confined. She wrote -to Columbus from Segovia in August, requiring him to make provisions for -bringing back to Spain specimens of the peculiar birds of the new -regions, as indications of untried climates and seasons. - -[Sidenote: Astronomy and navigation.] - -Again, in writing to Columbus, September 5, she urged him not to rely -wholly on his own great knowledge, but to take such a skillful -astronomer on his voyage as Fray Antonio de Marchena,--the same whom -Columbus later spoke of as being one of the two persons who had never -made him a laughing-stock. Muñoz says the office of astronomer was not -filled. - -Dealing with the question of longitude was a matter in which there was -at this time little insight, and no general agreement. Columbus, as we -have seen, suspected the variation of the needle might afford the basis -of a system; but he grew to apprehend, as he tells us in the narrative -of his fourth voyage, that the astronomical method was the only -infallible one, but whether his preference was for the opposition of -planets, the occultations of stars, the changes in the moon's -declination, or the comparisons of Jupiter's altitude with the lunar -position,--all of which were in some form in vogue,--does not appear. -The method by conveyance of time, so well known now in the use of -chronometers, seems to have later been suggested by Alonso de Santa -Cruz,--too late for the recognition of Columbus; but the instrumentality -of water-clocks, sand-clocks, and other crude devices, like the timing -of burning wicks, was too uncertain to obtain even transient sanction. - -[Sidenote: Astrolabe.] - -The astrolabe, for all the improvements of Behaim, was still an awkward -instrument for ascertaining latitude, especially on a rolling or -pitching ship, and we know that Vasco da Gama went on shore at the Cape -de Verde Islands to take observations when the motion of the sea balked -him on shipboard. - -[Illustration: THE CLOCK-MAKER. - -[From Jost Amman's _Beschreibung_, Frankfort.]] - - -[Sidenote: Cross-staff and Jackstaff.] - -Whether the cross-staff or Jackstaff, a seaboard implement somewhat more -convenient than the astrolabe, was known to Columbus is not very -clear,--probably it was not; but the navigators that soon followed him -found it more manageable on rolling ships than the older instruments. It -was simply a stick, along which, after one end of it was placed at the -eye, a scaled crossbar was pushed until its two ends touched, the lower, -the horizon, and the upper, the heavenly body whose altitude was to be -taken. A scale on the stick then showed, at the point where the bar was -left, the degree of latitude. - -[Sidenote: Errors in latitude.] - -The best of such aids, however, did not conduce to great accuracy, and -the early maps, in comparison with modern, show sometimes several -degrees of error in scaling from the equator. An error once committed -was readily copied, and different cartographical records put in service -by the professional map makers came sometimes by a process of averages -to show some surprising diversities, with positive errors of -considerable extent. The island of Cuba, for instance, early found place -in the charts seven and eight degrees too far north, with dependent -islands in equally wrong positions. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Seventeen vessels ready.] - -As the preparations went on, a fleet of seventeen vessels, large and -small, three of which were called transports, had, according to the best -estimates, finally been put in readiness. Scillacio tells us that some -of the smallest had been constructed of light draft, especially for -exploring service. Horses and domestic animals of all kinds were at last -gathered on board. Every kind of seed and agricultural implement, stores -of commodities for barter with the Indians, and all the appurtenances of -active life were accumulated. Muñoz remarks that it is evident that -sugar cane, rice, and vines had not been discovered or noted by Columbus -on his first voyage, or we would not have found them among the -commodities provided for the second. - -[Sidenote: Ojeda.] - -[Sidenote: Their companies.] - -In making up the company of the adventurers, there was little need of -active measures to induce recruits. Many an Hidalgo and cavalier took -service at their own cost. Galvano, who must have received the reports -by tradition, says that such was the "desire of travel that the men were -ready to leap into the sea to swim, if it had been possible, into these -new found parts." Traffic, adventure, luxury, feats of arms,--all were -inducements that lured one individual or another. Some there were to -make names for themselves in their new fields. Such was Alonso de Ojeda, -a daring youth, expert in all activities, who had served his ambition in -the Moorish wars, and had been particularly favored by the Duke of -Medina-Celi, the friend of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Las Casas, Ponce de Leon, La Cosa, etc.] - -We find others whose names we shall again encounter. The younger brother -of Columbus, Diego Colon, had come to Spain, attracted by the success of -Christopher. The father and uncle of Las Casas, from whose conversations -with the Admiral that historian could profit in the future, Juan Ponce -de Leon, the later discoverer of Florida, Juan de la Cosa, whose map is -the first we have of the New World, and Dr. Chanca, a physician of -Seville, who was pensioned by the Crown, and to whom we owe one of the -narratives of the voyage, were also of the company. - -[Sidenote: 1,500 souls embark.] - -The thousand persons to which the expedition had at first been limited -became, under the pressure of eager cavaliers, nearer 1,200, and this -number was eventually increased by stowaways and other hangers-on, till -the number embarked was not much short of 1,500. This is Oviedo's -statement. Bernaldez and Peter Martyr make the number 1,200, or -thereabouts. Perhaps these were the ordinary hands, and the 300 more -were officers and the like, for the statements do not render it certain -how the enumerations are made. So far as we know their names, but a -single companion of Columbus in his first voyage was now with him. The -twenty horsemen, already mentioned are supposed to be the only mounted -soldiers that embarked. Columbus says, in a letter addressed to their -majesties, that "the number of colonists who desire to go thither -amounts to two thousand," which would indicate that a large number were -denied. The letter is undated, and may not be of a date near the -sailing; if it is, it probably indicates to some degree the number of -persons who were denied embarkation. As the day approached for the -departure there was some uneasiness over a report of a Portuguese -caravel sailing westward from Madeira, and it was proposed to send some -of the fleet in advance to overtake the vessel; but after some -diplomatic fence between Ferdinand and João, the disquiet ended, or at -least nothing was done on either side. - -At one time Columbus had hoped to embark on the 15th of August; but it -was six weeks later before everything was ready. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -THE SECOND VOYAGE. - -1493-1494. - - -[Sidenote: The embarkation.] - -The last day in port was a season of solemnity and gratulation. Coma, a -Spaniard, who, if not an eyewitness, got his description from observers, -thus describes the scene in a letter to Scillacio in Pavia: "The -religious rites usual on such occasions were performed by the sailors; -the last embraces were given; the ships were hung with brilliant cloths; -streamers were wound in the rigging; and the royal standard flapped -everywhere at the sterns of the vessels. The pipers and harpers held in -mute astonishment the Nereids and even the Sirens with their sweet -modulations. The shores reëchoed the clang of trumpets and the braying -of clarions. The discharge of cannon rolled over the water. Some -Venetian galleys chancing to enter the harbor joined in the jubilation, -and the cheers of united nations went up with prayers for blessings on -the venturing crews." - -[Sidenote: 1493. September 25. The fleet sails.] - -Night followed, calm or broken, restful or wearisome, as the case might -be, for one or another, and when the day dawned (September 25, 1493) the -note of preparation was everywhere heard. It was the same on the three -great caracks, on the lesser caravels, and on the light craft, which had -been especially fitted for exploration. The eager and curious mass of -beings which crowded their decks were certainly a motley show. There -were cavalier and priest, hidalgo and artisan, soldier and sailor. The -ambitious thoughts which animated them were as various as their habits. -There were those of the adventurer, with no purpose whatever but -pastime, be it easy or severe. There was the greed of the speculator, -counting the values of trinkets against stores of gold. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's character.] - -There was the brooding of the administrators, with unsolved problems of -new communities in their heads. There were ears that already caught the -songs of salvation from native throats. There was Columbus himself, -combining all ambitions in one, looking around this harbor of Cadiz -studded with his lordly fleet, spreading its creaking sails, lifting its -dripping anchors. It was his to contrast it with the scene at Palos a -little over a year before. This needy Genoese vested with the -viceroyalty of a new world was more of an adventurer than any. He was a -speculator who overstepped them all in audacious visions and golden -expectancies. He was an administrator over a new government, untried and -undivined. To his ears the hymns of the Church soared with a militant -warning, dooming the heathen of the Indies, and appalling the Moslem -hordes that imperiled the Holy Sepulchre. - -[Sidenote: 1493. October 1. Canaries.] - -Under the eye of this one commanding spirit, the vessels fell into a -common course, and were wafted out upon the great ocean under the lead -of the escorting galleys of the Venetians. The responsibility of the -captain-general of the great armament had begun. He had been instructed -to steer widely clear of the Portuguese coast, and he bore away in the -lead directly to the southwest. On the seventh day (October 1) they -reached the Gran Canaria, where they tarried to repair a leaky ship. On -the 5th they anchored at Gomera. Two days were required here to complete -some parts of their equipment, for the islands had already become the -centre of great industries and produced largely. "They have enterprising -merchants who carry their commerce to many shores," wrote Coma to -Scillacio. - -There were wood and water to be taken on board. A variety of domestic -animals, calves, goats, sheep, and swine; some fowls, and the seed of -many orchard and garden fruits, oranges, lemons, melons, and the like, -were gathered from the inhabitants and stowed away in the remaining -spaces of the ships. - -[Sidenote: 1493. October 13. At sea.] - -On the 7th the fleet sailed, but it was not till the 13th that the -gentle winds had taken them beyond Ferro and the unbounded sea was about -the great Admiral. He bore away much more southerly than in his first -voyage, so as to strike, if he could, the islands that were so -constantly spoken of, the previous year, as lying southeasterly from -Española. - -[Sidenote: St. Elmo's light.] - -His ultimate port was, of course, the harbor of La Navidad, and he had -issued sealed instructions to all his commanders, to guide any one who -should part company with the fleet. The winds were favorable, but the -dull sailing of the Admiral's ship restrained the rest. In ten days they -had overshot the longitude of the Sargossa Sea without seeing it, -leaving its floating weeds to the north. In a few days more they -experienced heavy tempests. They gathered confidence from an old belief, -when they saw St. Elmo waving his lambent flames about the upper -rigging, while they greeted his presence with their prayers and songs. - -"The fact is certain," says Coma, "that two lights shone through the -darkness of the night on the topmast of the Admiral's ship. Forthwith -the tempest began to abate, the sea to remit its fury, the waves their -violence, and the surface of the waves became as smooth as polished -marble." This sudden gale of four hours' duration came on St. Simon's -eve. - -The same authority represents that the protracted voyage had caused -their water to run low, for the Admiral, confident of his nearness to -land, and partly to reassure the timid, had caused it to be served -unstintingly. "You might compare him to Moses," adds Coma, "encouraging -the thirsty armies of the Israelites in the dry wastes of the -wilderness." - -[Sidenote: 1493. November 2.] - -[Sidenote: November 3.] - -[Sidenote: Dominica Island.] - -[Sidenote: Marigalante.] - -[Sidenote: 1493. November 3. Guadaloupe.] - -On Saturday, November 2, the leaders compared reckonings. Some thought -they had come 780 leagues from Ferro; others, 800. There were anxiety -and weariness on board. The constant fatigue of bailing out the leaky -ships had had its disheartening effect. Columbus, with a practiced eye, -saw signs of land in the color of the water and the shifting winds, and -he signaled every vessel to take in sail. It was a waiting night. The -first light of Sunday glinted on the top of a lofty mountain ahead, -descried by a watch at the Admiral's masthead. As the island was -approached, the Admiral named it, in remembrance of the holy day, -Dominica. The usual service with the _Salve Regina_ was chanted -throughout the fleet, which moved on steadily, bringing island after -island into view. Columbus could find no good anchorage at Dominica, and -leaving one vessel to continue the search, he passed on to another -island, which he named from his ship, Marigalante. Here he landed, set -up the royal banner in token of possession of the group,--for he had -seen six islands,--and sought for inhabitants. He could find none, nor -any signs of occupation. There was nothing but a tangle of wood in every -direction, a sparkling mass of leafage, trembling in luxurious beauty -and giving off odors of spice. Some of the men tasted an unknown fruit, -and suffered an immediate inflammation about the face, which it required -remedies to assuage. The next morning Columbus was attracted by the -lofty volcanic peak of another island, and, sailing up to it, he could -see cascades on the sides of this eminence. - -[Illustration: GUADALOUPE, MARIE GALANTE, AND DOMINICA. - -[From Henrique's _Les Colonies Françoises_, Paris, 1889.]] - -"Among those who viewed this marvelous phenomena at a distance from the -ships," says Coma, "it was at first a subject of dispute whether it were -light reflected from masses of compact snow, or the broad surface of a -smooth-worn road. At last the opinion prevailed that it was a vast -river." - -[Sidenote: November 4.] - -Columbus remembered that he had promised the monks of Our Lady of -Guadaloupe, in Estremadura, to place some token of them in this strange -world, and so he gave this island the name of Guadaloupe. Landing the -next day, a week of wonders followed. - -[Sidenote: Cannibals.] - -The exploring parties found the first village abandoned; but this had -been done so hastily that some young children had been left behind. -These they decked with hawks' bells, to win their returning parents. One -place showed a public square surrounded by rectangular houses, made of -logs and intertwined branches, and thatched with palms. They went -through the houses and noted what they saw. They observed at the -entrance of one some serpents carved in wood. They found netted -hammocks, beside calabashes, pottery, and even skulls used for utensils -of household service. They discovered cloth made of cotton; bows and -bone-tipped arrows, said sometimes to be pointed with human shin-bones; -domesticated fowl very like geese; tame parrots; and pineapples, whose -flavor enchanted them. They found what might possibly be relics of -Europe, washed hither by the equatorial currents as they set from the -African coasts,--an iron pot, as they thought it (we know this from the -_Historie_), and the stern-timber of a vessel, which they could have -less easily mistaken. They found something to horrify them in human -bones, the remains of a feast, as they were ready enough to believe, for -they were seeking confirmation of the stories of cannibals which -Columbus had heard on his first voyage. They learned that boys were -fattened like capons. - -[Illustration: [From Philoponus's _Nota Typis Transacta Navigatio_.]] - -The next day they captured a youth and some women, but the men eluded -them. Columbus was now fully convinced that he had at last discovered -the cannibals, and when it was found that one of his captains and eight -men had not returned to their ship, he was under great apprehensions. He -sent exploring parties into the woods. They hallooed and fired their -arquebuses, but to no avail. As they threaded their way through the -thickets, they came upon some villages, but the inhabitants fled, -leaving their meals half cooked; and they were convinced they saw human -flesh on the spit and in the pots. While this party was absent, some -women belonging to the neighboring islands, captives of this savage -people, came off to the ships and sought protection. Columbus decked -them with rings and bells, and forced them ashore, while they begged to -remain. The islanders stripped off their ornaments, and allowed them to -return for more. These women said that the chief of the island and most -of the warriors were absent on a predatory expedition. - -[Sidenote: Ojeda's expedition.] - -The party searching for the lost men returned without success, when -Alonso de Ojeda offered to lead forty men into the interior for a more -thorough search. This party was as unsuccessful as the other. Ojeda -reported he had crossed twenty-six streams in going inland, and that the -country was found everywhere abounding in odorous trees, strange and -delicious fruits, and brilliant birds. - -While this second party was gone, the crews took aboard a supply of -water, and on Ojeda's return Columbus resolved to proceed, and was on -the point of sailing, when the absent men appeared on the shore and -signaled to be taken off. They had got lost in a tangled and pathless -forest, and all efforts to climb high enough in trees to see the stars -and determine their course had been hopeless. Finally striking the sea, -they had followed the shore till they opportunely espied the fleet. They -brought with them some women and boys, but reported they had seen no -men. - -[Sidenote: Cannibals.] - -Among the accounts of these early experiences of the Spaniards with the -native people, the story of cannibalism is a constant theme. To -circulate such stories enhanced the wonder with which Europe was to be -impressed. - -[Sidenote: Caribs.] - -The cruelty of the custom was not altogether unwelcome to warrant a -retaliatory mercilessness. Historians have not wholly decided that this -is enough to account for the most positive statements about man-eating -tribes. Fears and prejudices might do much to raise such a belief, or at -least to magnify the habits. Irving remarks that the preservation of -parts of the human body, among the natives of Española, was looked upon -as a votive service to ancestors, and it may have needed only prejudice -to convert such a custom into cannibalism when found with the Caribs. -The adventurousness of the nature of this fierce people and their -wanderings in wars naturally served to sharpen their intellects beyond -the passive unobservance of the pacific tribes on which they preyed; so -they became more readily, for this reason, the possessors of any passion -or vice that the European instinct craved to fasten somewhere upon a -strange people. - -[Sidenote: Caribs and Lucayans.] - -The contiguity of these two races, the fierce Carib and the timid tribes -of the more northern islands, has long puzzled the ethnologist. Irving -indulged in some rambling notions of the origin of the Carib, derived -from observations of the early students of the obscure relations of the -American peoples. Larger inquiry and more scientific observation has -since Irving's time been given to the subject, still without bringing -the question to recognizable bearings. The craniology of the Caribs is -scantily known, and there is much yet to be divulged. The race in its -purity has long been extinct. Lucien de Rosny, in an anthropological -study of the Antilles published by the French Society of Ethnology in -1886, has amassed considerable data for future deductions. It is a -question with some modern examiners if the distinction between these -insular peoples was not one of accident and surroundings rather than of -blood. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1493. November 10. Columbus leaves Guadaloupe.] - -When Columbus sailed from Guadaloupe on November 10, he steered -northwest for Española, though his captives told him that the mainland -lay to the south. He passed various islands, but did not cast anchor -till the 14th, when he reached the island named by him Santa Cruz, and -found it still a region of Caribs. It was here the Spaniards had their -first fight with this fierce people in trying to capture a canoe filled -with them. The white men rammed and overturned the hollowed log; but -the Indians fought in the water so courageously that some of the Spanish -bucklers were pierced with the native poisoned arrows, and one of the -Spaniards, later, died of such a wound inflicted by one of the savage -women. All the Caribs, however, were finally captured and placed in -irons on board ship. One was so badly wounded that recovery was not -thought possible, and he was thrown overboard. The fellow struck for the -shore, and was killed by the Spanish arrows. The accounts describe their -ferocious aspect, their coarse hair, their eyes circled with red paint, -and the muscular parts of their limbs artificially extended by tight -bands below and above. - -[Sidenote: Porto Rico.] - -Proceeding thence and passing a group of wild and craggy islets, which -he named after St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins, Columbus at -last reached the island now called Porto Rico, which his captives -pointed out to him as their home and the usual field of the Carib -incursions. The island struck the strangers by its size, its beautiful -woods and many harbors, in one of which, at its west end, they finally -anchored. There was a village close by, which, by their accounts, was -trim, and not without some pretensions to skill in laying out, with its -seaside terraces. The inhabitants, however, had fled. Two days later, -the fleet weighed anchor and steered for La Navidad. - -[Sidenote: 1493. November 22. Española.] - -It was the 22d of November when the explorers made a level shore, which -they later discovered to be the eastern end of Española. They passed -gently along the northern coast, and at an attractive spot sent a boat -ashore with the body of the Biscayan sailor who had died of the poisoned -arrow, while two of the light caravels hovered near the beach to protect -the burying party. Coming to the spot where Columbus had had his armed -conflict with the natives the year before, and where one of the Indians -who had been baptized at Barcelona was taken, this fellow, loaded with -presents and decked in person, was sent on shore for the influence he -might exert on his people. This supposable neophyte does not again -appear in history. Only one of these native converts now remained, and -the accounts say that he lived faithfully with the Spaniards. Five of -the seven who embarked had died on the voyage. - -[Sidenote: 1493. November 25.] - -[Sidenote: 1493. November 27. Off La Navidad.] - -On the 25th, while the fleet was at anchor at Monte Christo, where -Columbus had found gold in the river during his first voyage, the -sailors discovered some decomposed bodies, one of them showing a beard, -which raised apprehensions of the fate of the men left at La Navidad. -The neighboring natives came aboard for traffic with so much readiness, -however, that it did much to allay suspicion. It was the 27th when, -after dark, Columbus cast anchor opposite the fort, about a league from -land. It was too late to see anything more than the outline of the -hills. Expecting a response from the fort, he fired two cannons; but -there was no sound except the echoes. The Spaniards looked in vain for -lights on the shore. The darkness was mysterious and painful. Before -midnight a canoe was heard approaching, and a native twice asked for the -Admiral. A boat was lowered from one of the vessels, and towed the canoe -to the flag-ship. The natives were not willing to board her till -Columbus himself appeared at the waist, and by the light of a lantern -revealed his countenance to them. This reassured them. Their leader -brought presents--some accounts say ewers of gold, others say masks -ornamented with gold--from the cacique, Guacanagari, whose friendly -assistance had been counted upon so much to befriend the little garrison -at La Navidad. - -[Sidenote: Its garrison killed.] - -These formalities over, Columbus inquired for Diego de Arana and his -men. The young Lucayan, now Columbus's only interpreter, did the best he -could with a dialect not his own to make a connected story out of the -replies, which was in effect that sickness and dissension, together with -the withdrawal of some to other parts of the island, had reduced the -ranks of the garrison, when the fort as well as the neighboring village -of Guacanagari was suddenly attacked by a mountain chieftain, Caonabo, -who burned both fort and village. Those of the Spaniards who were not -driven into the sea to perish had been put to death. In this fight the -friendly cacique had been wounded. The visitors said that this -chieftain's hurt had prevented his coming with them to greet the -Admiral; but that he would come in the morning. Coma, in his account of -this midnight interview, is not so explicit, and leaves the reader to -infer that Columbus did not get quite so clear an apprehension of the -fate of his colony. - -When the dawn came, the harbor appeared desolate. Not a canoe was seen -where so many sped about in the previous year. A boat was sent ashore, -and found every sign that the fort had been sacked as well as destroyed. -Fragments of clothing and bits of merchandise were scattered amid its -blackened ruins. There were Indians lurking behind distant trees, but no -one approached, and as the cacique had not kept the word which he had -sent of coming himself in the morning, suspicions began to arise that -the story of its destruction had not been honestly given. The new-comers -passed a disturbed night with increasing mistrust, and the next morning -Columbus landed and saw all for himself. He traveled farther away from -the shore than those who landed on the preceding day, and gained some -confirmation of the story in finding the village of the cacique a mass -of blackened ruins. Cannon were again discharged, in the hopes that -their reverberating echoes might reach the ears of those who were said -to have abandoned the fort before the massacre. The well and ditch were -cleaned out to see if any treasure had been cast into it, as Columbus -had directed in case of disaster. Nothing was found, and this seemed to -confirm the tale of the suddenness of the attack. Columbus and his men -went still farther inland to a village; but its inmates had hurriedly -fled, so that many articles of European make, stockings and a Moorish -robe among them, had been left behind, spoils doubtless of the fort. -Returning nearer the fort, they discovered the bodies of eleven men -buried, with the grass growing above them, and enough remained of their -clothing to show they were Europeans. This is Dr. Chanca's statement, -who says the men had not been dead two months. Coma says that the bodies -were unburied, and had lain for nearly three months in the open air; and -that they were now given Christian burial. - -[Sidenote: Guacanagari and Caonabo.] - -Later in the day, a few of the natives were lured by friendly signs to -come near enough to talk with the Lucayan interpreter. The story in much -of its details was gradually drawn out, and Columbus finally possessed -himself of a pretty clear conception of the course of the disastrous -events. It was a tale of cruelty, avarice, and sensuality towards the -natives on the part of the Spaniards, and of jealousy and brawls among -themselves. No word of their governor had been sufficient to restrain -their outbursts of passionate encounter, and no sense of insecurity -could deter them from the most foolhardy risks while away from the -fort's protection. Those who had been appointed to succeed Arana, if -there were an occasion, revolted against him, and, being unsuccessful in -overthrowing him, they went off with their adherents in search of the -mines of Cibao. This carried them beyond the protection of Guacanagari, -and into the territory of his enemy, Caonabo, a wandering Carib who had -offered himself to the interior natives as their chieftain, and who had -acquired a great ascendency in the island. This leader, who had learned -of the dissensions among the Spaniards, was no sooner informed of the -coming of these renegades within his reach than he caused them to be -seized and killed. This emboldened him to join forces with another -cacique, a neighbor of Guacanagari, and to attempt to drive the -Spaniards from the island, since they had become a standing menace to -his power, as he reasoned. The confederates marched stealthily, and -stole into the vicinity of the fort in the night. Arana had but ten men -within the stockade, and they kept no watch. Other Spaniards were -quartered in the adjacent village. The onset was sudden and effective, -and the dismal ruins of the fort and village were thought to confirm the -story. - -[Sidenote: Doña Catalina.] - -Other confirmations followed. A caravel was sent to explore easterly, -and was soon boarded by two Indians from the shore, who invited the -captain, Maldonado, to visit the cacique, who lay ill at a neighboring -village. The captain went, and found Guacanagari laid up with a bandaged -leg. The savage told a story which agreed with the one just related, and -on its being repeated to Columbus, the Admiral himself, with an imposing -train, went to see the cacique. Guacanagari seemed anxious, in repeating -the story, to convince the Admiral of his own loyalty to the Spaniards, -and pointed to his wounds and to those of some of his people as proof. -There was the usual interchange of presents, hawks' bells for gold, and -similar reckonings. Before leaving, Columbus asked to have his surgeon -examine the wound, which the cacique said had been occasioned by a stone -striking the leg. To get more light, the chieftain went out-of-doors, -leaning upon the Admiral's arm. When the bandage was removed, there was -no external sign of hurt; but the cacique winced if the flesh was -touched. Father Boyle, who was in the Admiral's train, thought the wound -a pretense, and the story fabricated to conceal the perfidy of the -cacique, and urged Columbus to make an instant example of the traitor. -The Admiral was not so confident as the priest, and at all events he -thought a course of pacification and procrastination was the better -policy. The interview did not end, according to Coma, without some -strange manifestations on the part of the cacique, which led the -Spaniards for a moment to fear that a trial of arms was to come. The -chief was not indisposed to try his legs enough to return with the -Admiral to his ship that very evening. Here he saw the Carib prisoners, -and the accounts tell us how he shuddered at the sight of them. He -wondered at the horses and other strange creatures which were shown to -him. Coma tells us that the Indians thought that the horses were fed on -human flesh. The women who had been rescued from the Caribs attracted, -perhaps, even more the attention of the savage, and particularly a lofty -creature among them, whom the Spaniards had named Doña Catalina. -Guacanagari was observed to talk with her more confidingly than he did -with the others. - -Father Boyle urged upon the Admiral that a duress similar to that of -Catalina was none too good for the perfidious cacique, as the priest -persisted in calling the savage, but Columbus hesitated. There was, -however, little left of that mutual confidence which had characterized -the relations of the Admiral and the chieftain during the trying days of -the shipwreck, the year before. When the Admiral offered to hang a cross -on the neck of his visitor, and the cacique understood it to be the -Christian emblem, he shrank from the visible contact of a faith of which -the past months had revealed its character. With this manifestation they -parted, and the cacique was set ashore. Coma seems to unite the -incidents of this interview on the ship with those of the meeting -ashore. - -[Sidenote: The cacique and Catalina.] - -There comes in here, according to the received accounts, a little -passage of Indian intrigue and gallantry. A messenger appeared the next -day to inquire when the Admiral sailed, and later another to barter -gold. This last held some talk with the Indian women, and particularly -with Catalina. About midnight a light appeared on the shore, and -Catalina and her companions, while the ship's company, except a watch, -were sleeping, let themselves down the vessel's side, and struck out -for the shore. The watch discovered the escape, but not in time to -prevent the women having a considerable start. Boats pursued, but the -swimmers touched the beach first. Four of them, however, were caught, -but Catalina and the others escaped. - -When, the next morning, Columbus sent a demand for the fugitives, it was -found that Guacanagari had moved his household and all his effects into -the interior of the island. The story got its fitting climax in the -suspicious minds of the Spaniards, when they supposed that the fugitive -beauty was with him. Here was only a fresh instance of the savage's -perfidy. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus abandons La Navidad.] - -Columbus had before this made up his mind that the vicinity of his -hapless fort was not a good site for the town which he intended to -build. The ground was low, moist, and unhealthy. There were no building -stones near at hand. There was need of haste in a decision. The men were -weary of their confinement on shipboard. The horses and other animals -suffered from a like restraint. Accordingly expeditions were sent to -explore the coast, and it soon became evident that they must move beyond -the limits of Guacanagari's territory, if they would find the conditions -demanded. Melchior Maldonado, in command of one of these expeditions, -had gone eastward until he coasted the country of another cacique. This -chief at first showed hostility, but was won at last by amicable signs. -From him they learned that Guacanagari had gone to the mountains. From -another they got the story of the massacre of the fort, almost entirely -accordant with what they had already discovered. - -[Sidenote: Isabella founded.] - -[Sidenote: Cibao gold mines.] - -Not one of the reports from these minor explorations was satisfactory, -and December 7, the entire fleet weighed anchor to proceed farther east. -Stress of weather caused them to put into a harbor, which on examination -seemed favorable for their building project. The roadstead was wide. A -rocky point offered a site for a citadel. There were two rivers winding -close by in an attractive country, and capable of running mills. Nature, -as they saw it, was variegated and alluring. Flowers and fruits were in -abundance. "Garden seeds came up in five days after they were sown," -says Coma of their trial of the soil, "and the gardens were speedily -clothed in green, producing plentifully onions and pumpkins, radishes -and beets." "Vegetables," wrote Dr. Chanca, "attain a more luxuriant -growth here in eight days than they would in Spain in twenty." It was -also learned that the gold mines of the Cibao mountains were inland from -the spot, at no great distance. - -The disembarkation began. Days of busy exertion followed. Horses, -livestock, provisions, munitions, and the varied merchandise were the -centre of a lively scene about their encampment. This they established -near a sheet of water. Artificers, herdsmen, cavaliers, priests, -laborers, and placemen made up the motley groups which were seen on all -sides. - -[Sidenote: Sickness in the colony.] - -In later years, the Spaniards regulated all the formalities and -prescribed with precision the proceedings in the laying out of towns in -the New World, but Columbus had no such directions. The planting of a -settlement was a novel and untried method. It was a natural thought to -commemorate in the new Christian city the great patroness of his -undertaking, and the settlement bore from the first the name of -Isabella. His engineers laid out square and street. A site for the -church was marked, another for a public storehouse, another for the -house of the Admiral,--all of stone. The ruins of these three buildings -are the most conspicuous relics in the present solitary waste. The great -mass of tenements, which were stretched along the streets back from the -public square, where the main edifice stood, were as hastily run up as -possible, to cover in the colony. It was time enough for solider -structures later to take their places. Parties were occupied in clearing -fields and setting out orchards. There were landing piers to be made at -the shore. So everybody tasked bodily strength in rival endeavors. The -natural results followed in so incongruous a crowd. Those not accustomed -to labor broke down from its hardships. The seekers for pleasure, not -finding it in the common toil, rushed into excesses, and imperiled all. -The little lake, so attractive to the inexperienced, was soon, with its -night vapors, the source of disease. Few knew how to protect themselves -from the insidious malaria. Discomfort induced discouragement, and the -mental firmness so necessary in facing strange and exacting -circumstances gave way. - -[Sidenote: Columbus sick.] - -Forebodings added greater energy to the disease. It was not long before -the colony was a camp of hospitals, about one half the people being -incapacitated for labor. In the midst of all this downheartedness -Columbus himself succumbed, and for some weeks was unable to direct the -trying state of affairs, except as he could do so in the intervals of -his lassitude. - -But as the weeks went on a better condition was apparent. Work took a -more steady aspect. The ships had discharged their burdens. They lay -ready for the return voyage. - -[Sidenote: Sends Ojeda to seek the Cibao mines.] - -Columbus had depended on the exertions of the little colony at La -Navidad to amass a store of gold and other precious commodities with -which to laden the returning vessels. He knew the disappointment which -would arise if they should carry little else than the dismal tale of -disaster. Nothing lay upon his mind more weightily than this -mortification and misfortune. There was nothing to be done but to seek -the mines of Cibao, for the chance of sending more encouraging reports. -Gold had indeed been brought in to the settlement, but only scantily; -and its quantity was not suited to make real the gorgeous dreams of the -East with which Spain was too familiar. - -So an expedition to Cibao was organized, and Ojeda was placed in -command. The force assigned to him was but fifteen men in all, but each -was well armed and courageous. They expected perils, for they had to -invade the territory of Caonabo, the destroyer of La Navidad. - -[Sidenote: 1494. January. First mass.] - -The march began early in January, 1494; perhaps just after they had -celebrated their first solemn mass in a temporary chapel on January 6. -For two days their progress was slow and toilsome, through forests -without a sign of human life, for the savage denizens had moved back -from the vicinity of the Spaniards. The men encamped, the second night, -on the top of a mountain, and when the dawn broke they looked down on -its further side over a broad valley, with its scattered villages. They -boldly descended, and met nothing but hospitality from the villagers. -Their course now lay towards and up the opposite slope of the valley. -They pushed on without an obstacle. - -[Sidenote: Gold found.] - -[Sidenote: Gorvalan's expedition.] - -The rude inhabitants of the mountains were as friendly as those of the -valley. They did not see nor did they hear anything of the great -Caonabo. Every stream they passed glittered with particles of gold in -its sand. The natives had an expert way of separating the metal, and the -Spaniards flattered them for their skill. Occasionally a nugget was -found. Ojeda picked up a lump which weighed nine ounces, and Peter -Martyr looked upon it wonderingly when it reached Spain. If all this was -found on the surface, what must be the wealth in the bowels of these -astounding mountains? The obvious answer was what Ojeda hastened back to -make to Columbus. A similar story was got from a young cavalier, -Gorvalan, who had been dispatched in another direction with another -force. There was in all this the foundation of miracles for the glib -tongue and lively imagination. One of these exuberant stories reached -Coma, and Scillacio makes him say that "the most splendid thing of all -(which I should be ashamed to commit to writing, if I had not received -it from a trustworthy source) is that, a rock adjacent to a mountain -being struck with a club, a large quantity of gold burst out, and -particles of gold of indescribable brightness glittered all around the -spot. Ojeda was loaded down by means of this outburst." It was stories -like these which prepared the way for the future reaction in Spain. - -[Sidenote: Columbus writes to the sovereigns.] - -There was material now to give spirit to the dispatch to his sovereigns, -and Columbus sat down to write it. It has come down to us, and is -printed in Navarrete's collection, just as it was perused by the King -and Queen, who entered in the margins their comments and orders. -Columbus refers at the beginning to letters already written to their -Highnesses, and mentions others addressed to Father Buele and to the -treasurer, but they are not known. Then, speaking of the expeditions of -Ojeda and Gorvalan, he begs the sovereigns to satisfy themselves of the -hopeful prospects for gold by questioning Gorvalan, who was to return -with the ships. He advises their Highnesses to return thanks to God for -all this. Those personages write in the margin, "Their Highnesses return -thanks to God!" He then explains his embarrassment from the sickness of -his men,--the "greater part of all," as he adds,--and says that the -Indians are very familiar, rambling about the settlement both day and -night, necessitating a constant watch. As he makes excuses and gives his -reasons for not doing this or that, the compliant monarchs as -constantly write against the paragraphs, "He has done well." Columbus -says he is building stone bulwarks for defense, and when this is done he -shall provide for accumulating gold. "Exactly as should be done," chime -in the monarchs. He then asks for fresh provisions to be sent to him, -and tells how much they have done in planting. "Fonseca has been ordered -to send further seeds," is the comment. He complains that the wine casks -had been badly coopered at Seville, and that the wine had all run out, -so that wine was their prime necessity. He urges that calves, heifers, -asses, working mares, be sent to them; and that above all, to prevent -discouragement, the supplies should arrive at Isabella by May, and that -particularly medicines should come, as their stock was exhausted. He -then refers to the cannibals whom he would send back, and asks that they -may be made acquainted with the true faith and taught the Spanish -tongue. "His suggestions are good," is the marginal royal comment. - -[Sidenote: Columbus proposes a trade in slaves.] - -Now comes the vital point of his dispatch. We want cattle, he says. They -can be paid for in Carib slaves. Let yearly caravels conduct this trade. -It will be easy, with the boats which are building, to capture a plenty -of these savages. Duties can be levied on these importations of slaves. -On this point he urges a reply. The monarchs see the fatality of the -step, and, according to the marginal comment, suspend judgment and ask -the Admiral's further thoughts. "A more distinct suggestion for the -establishment of a slave trade was never proposed," is the modern -comment of Arthur Helps. Columbus then adds that he has bought for the -use of the colony certain of the vessels which brought them out, and -these would be retained at Isabella, and used in making further -discoveries. The comment is that Fonseca will pay the owners. He then -intimates that more care should be exercised in the selection of -placemen sent to the colony, for the enterprise had suffered already -from unfitness in such matters. The monarchs promise amends. He -complains that the Granada lancemen, who offered themselves in Seville -mounted on fine horses, had subsequently exchanged these animals to -their own personal advantage for inferior horses. He says the footmen -made similar exchanges to fill their own pockets. - -[Sidenote: 1404. January 30. Signs his letter.] - -[Sidenote: Gold, the Christians' God!] - -[Sidenote: 1494. February 2. The fleet returns to Spain.] - -[Sidenote: Chanca's narrative.] - -So, dating this memorial on January 30, 1494, the man who was ambitious -to become the first slave-driver of the New World laid down his quill, -praising God, as he asked his sovereigns to do. The poor creatures who -wandered in and about among the cabins of the Spaniards were fast -forming their own comments, which were quite as astute as those of the -Admiral's royal masters. Holding up a piece of gold, the natives learned -to say,--and Columbus had given them their first lesson in such -philosophy,--"Behold the Christians' God!" Benzoni, the first traveler -who came among them with his eyes open, and daring to record the truth, -heard them say this. Intrusting his memorial to Antonio de Torres, and -putting him in command of the twelve ships that were to return to Spain, -Columbus saw the fleet sail away on February 2, 1494. There would seem -to have been committed to some one on the ships two other accounts of -the results of this second voyage up to this time, which have come down -to us. One of these is a narrative by Dr. Chanca, the physician of the -colony, whom Columbus, in his memorial to the monarchs, credits with -doing good service in his profession at a sacrifice of the larger -emoluments which the practice of it had brought to him in Seville. The -narrative of Chanca had been sent by him to the cathedral chapter of -Seville. The original is thought to be lost; but Navarrete used a -transcript which belonged to a collection formed by Father Antonio de -Aspa, a monk of the monastery of the Mejorada, where Columbus is known -to have deposited some of his papers. Major has given us an English -translation of it in his _Select Letters of Columbus_. Major's text will -also be found in the late James Lenox's English version of the other -account, which he gave to scholars in 1859. - -[Sidenote: Coma's narrative.] - -There is a curious misconception in this last document, which represents -that Columbus had reached these new regions by the African route of the -Portuguese,--a confusion doubtless arising from the imperfect knowledge -which the Italian translator, Nicholas Scillacio, had of the current -geographical developments. A Spaniard, Guglielmo Coma, seems to have -written about the new discoveries in some letters, apparently revived in -some way from somebody's personal observation, which Scillacio put into -a Latin dress, and published at Pavia, or possibly at Pisa. This little -tract is of the utmost rarity, and Mr. Lenox, considering the suggestion -of Ronchini, that the blunder of Scillacio may have caused the -destruction of the edition, replies by calling attention to the fact -that it is scarcely rarer than many other of the contemporary tracts of -Columbus's voyage, about which there exists no such reason. - -[Sidenote: Verde's letters.] - -We get also some reports by Torres himself on the affairs of the colony -in various letters of a Florentine merchant, Simone Verde, to whom he -had communicated them. These letters have been recently (1875) found in -the archives of Florence, and have been made better known still later by -Harrisse. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -THE SECOND VOYAGE, CONTINUED. - -1494. - - -[Sidenote: Life in Isabella.] - -The departure of the fleet made conspicuous at last a threatening -faction of those whose terms of service had prevented their taking -passage in the ships. This organized discontent was the natural result -of a depressing feeling that all the dreams of ease and plenty which had -sustained them in their embarkation were but delusions. Life in Isabella -had made many of them painfully conscious of the lack of that success -and comfort which had been counted upon. The failure of what in these -later days is known as the commissariat was not surprising. With all our -modern experience in fitting out great expeditions, we know how often -the fate of such enterprises is put in jeopardy by rascally contractors. -Their arts, however, are not new ones. Fonseca was not so wary, Columbus -was not so exacting, that such arts could not be practiced in Seville, -as to-day in London and New York. This jobbery, added to the scant -experience of honest endeavor, inevitably brought misfortune and -suffering through spoiled provisions and wasted supplies. - -[Sidenote: Mutinous factions.] - -The faction, taking advantage of this condition, had two persons for -leaders, whose official position gave the body a vantage-ground. Bernal -Diaz de Pisa was the comptroller of the colony, and his office permitted -him to have an oversight of the Admiral's accounts. It is said that -before this time he had put himself in antagonism to authority by -questioning some of the doings of the Admiral. He began now to talk to -the people of the Admiral's deceptive and exaggerating descriptions -intended for effect in Spain, and no doubt represented them to be at -least as false as they were. Diaz drew pictures that produced a -prevailing gloom beyond what the facts warranted, for deceit is a game -of varying extremes. - -[Sidenote: Their schemes discovered.] - -He was helped on by the assayer of the colony, Fermin Cado, who spoke as -an authority on the poor quality of the gold, and on the Indian habit of -amassing it in their families, so that the moderate extent of it which -the natives had offered was not the accretions of a day, but the result -of the labor of generations. With leaders acting in concert, it had been -planned to seize the remaining ships, and to return to Spain. This done, -the mutineers expected to justify their conduct by charges against the -Admiral, and a statement of them had already been drawn up by Bernal -Diaz. The mutiny, however, was discovered, and Columbus had the first of -his many experiences in suppressing a revolt. Bernal Diaz was imprisoned -on one of the ships, and was carried to Spain for trial. Other leaders -were punished in one way and another. To prevent the chances of success -in future schemes of revolt, all munitions and implements of war were -placed together in one of the ships, under a supervision which Columbus -thought he could trust. - -The prompt action of the Admiral had not been taken without some -question of his authority, or at least it was held that he had been -injudicious in the exercise of it. The event left a rankling passion -among many of the colonists against what was called Columbus's -vindictiveness and presumptuous zeal. With it all was the feeling that a -foreigner was oppressing them, and was weaving about them the meshes of -his arbitrary ambition. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus goes to the gold mines.] - -[Sidenote: Diego Colon.] - -Columbus now determined to go himself to the gold regions of the -interior. He arranged that Diego, his brother,--another -foreigner!--should have the command in his absence. Las Casas pictures -for us this younger of the Colombos, and calls him gentle, unobtrusive, -and kindly. He allows to him a priest's devotion, but does not consider -him quite worldly enough in his dealings with men to secure himself -against ungenerous wiles. - -[Sidenote: 1494. March 12.] - -It was the 12th of March when Columbus set out on his march. He -conducted a military contingent of about 400 well-armed men, including -what lancers he could mount. In his train followed an array of workmen, -miners, artificers, and porters, with their burdens of merchandise and -implements. A mass of the natives hovered about the procession. - -[Sidenote: Columbus makes a road.] - -[Sidenote: The Vega Real.] - -Their progress was as martial as it could be made. Banners were -flaunted. Drums and trumpets were sounded. Their armor was made to -glisten. Crossing the low land, they came to a defile in the mountain. -There was nothing before them but a tortuous native trail winding upward -among the rocks and through tangled forest. It was ill suited for the -passage of a heavily burdened force. Some of the younger cavaliers -sprang to the front, and gathering around them woodmen and pioneers, -they opened the way; and thus a road was constructed through the pass, -the first made in the New World. This work of the proud cavaliers was -called _El puerto de los Hidalgos_. The summit of the mountain afforded -afresh the grateful view of the luxuriant valley which had delighted -Ojeda,--royally rich as it was in every aspect, and deserving the name -which Columbus now gave it of the Vega Real. - -[Sidenote: Erects a cross.] - -Here, on the summit of Santo Cerro, the tradition of the island goes -that Columbus caused that cross to be erected which the traveler to-day -looks upon in one of the side chapels of the cathedral at Santo Domingo. -It stood long enough to perform many miracles, as the believers tell us, -and was miraculously saved in an earthquake. De Lorgues does not dare to -connect the actual erection with the holy trophy of the cathedral. -Descending to the lowlands, the little army and its followers attracted -the notice of the amazed natives by clangor and parade. This display was -made more astounding whenever the horses were set to prancing, as they -approached and passed a native hamlet. Las Casas tells us that the first -horseman who dismounted was thought by the natives to have parceled out -a single creature into convenient parts. The Indians, timid at first, -were enticed by a show of trinkets, and played upon by the interpreters. -Thus they gradually were won over to repay all kindnesses with food and -drink, while they rendered many other kindly services. The army came to -a large stream, and Columbus called it the River of Reeds. It was the -same which, the year before, knowing it only where it emptied into the -sea, he had called the River of Gold, because he had been struck with -the shining particles which he found among its sands. Here they -encamped. The men bathed. They found everything about them like the -dales of Paradise, if we may believe their rehearsals. The landscape was -very different from that which Bernal Diaz was to tell of, if only once -he got the ears of the Court in Seville. - -[Sidenote: Cibao mountains.] - -The river was so wide and deep that the men could not ford it, so they -made rafts to take over everything but the horses. These swam the -current. Then the force passed on, but was confronted at last by the -rugged slopes of the Cibao mountains. The soldiers clambered up the -defile painfully and slowly. The pioneers had done what they could to -smooth the way, but the ascent was wearying. They could occasionally -turn from their toil to look back over this luxuriant valley which they -were leaving, and lose their vision in its vast extent. Las Casas -describes it as eighty leagues one way, and twenty or thirty the other. - -[Sidenote: Fort St. Thomas.] - -It was a scene of bewildering beauty that they left behind; it was one -of sterile heights, scraggy pines, and rocky precipices which they -entered. The leaders computed that they were eighteen leagues from -Isabella, and as Columbus thought he saw signs of gold, amber, lapis -lazuli, copper, and one knows not what else of wealth, all about him, he -was content to establish his fortified position hereabouts, without -pushing farther. He looked around, and found at the foot of one of the -declivities of the interior of this mountainous region a fertile plain, -with a running river, gurgling over beds of jasper and marble, and in -the midst of it a little eminence, which he could easily fortify, as the -river nearly surrounded it like a natural ditch. Here he built his fort. -Recent travelers say that an overgrowth of trees now covers traces of -its foundations. The fortress was, as he believed, so near the gold that -one could see it with his eyes and touch it with his hands, and so, as -Las Casas tells us, he named it St. Thomas. - -The Indians had already learned to recognize the Christian's god. They -found the golden deity in bits in the streams. They took the idol -tenderly to his militant people. For their part, the poor natives much -preferred rings and hawks' bells, and so a basis of traffic was easily -found. In this way Columbus got some gold, but he more readily got -stories of other spots, whither the natives pointed vaguely, where -nuggets, which would dwarf all these bits, could be found. Columbus -began to wonder why he never reached the best places. - -[Sidenote: Country examined.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus returns to Isabella.] - -The Spaniards soon got to know the region better. Juan de Luxan, who had -been sent out with a party to see what he could find, reported that the -region was mountainous and in its upper parts sterile, to be sure, but -that there were delicious valleys, and plenty of land to cultivate, and -pasturing enough for herds. When he came back with these reports, the -men put a good deal of heart in the work which they were bestowing on -the citadel of St. Thomas, so that it was soon done. Pedro Margarite was -placed in command with fifty-six men, and then Columbus started to -return to Isabella. - -[Sidenote: Natives of the valley.] - -When the Admiral reached the valley, he met a train of supplies going -forward to St. Thomas, and as there were difficulties of fording and -other obstacles, he spent some time in examining the country and marking -out lines of communication. This brought him into contact with the -villages of the valley, and he grew better informed of the kind of -people among whom his colonists were to live. He did not, however, -discern that under a usually pacific demeanor there was no lack of -vigorous determination in this people, which it might not be so wise to -irritate to the point of vengeance. He found, too, that they had a -religion, perhaps prompting to some virtues he little suspected in his -own, and that they jealously guarded their idols. He discovered that -experience had given them no near acquaintance with the medicinal -properties of the native herbs and trees. They associated myths with -places, and would tell you that the sun and moon were but creatures of -their island which had escaped from one of their caverns, and that -mankind had sprung from the crannies of their rocky places. The -bounteousness of nature, causing little care for the future, had spread -among them a love of hospitality, and Columbus found himself welcome -everywhere, and continued to be so till he and his abused their -privileges. - -[Sidenote: 1494. March 29. Columbus in Isabella.] - -On the 29th of March, Columbus was back in Isabella, to find that the -plantings of January were already yielding fruits, and the colony, in -its agricultural aspects, at least, was promising, for the small areas -that had already been cultivated. But the tidings from the new fort in -the mountains which had just come in by messenger were not so cheering, -for it seemed to be the story of La Navidad repeated. The license and -exactions of the garrison had stirred up the neighboring natives, and -Pedro Margarite, in his message, showed his anxiety lest Caonabo should -be able to mass the savages, exasperated by their wrongs, in an attack -upon the post. Columbus sent a small reinforcement to St. Thomas, and -dispatched a force to make a better road thither, in order to facilitate -any future operations. - -[Sidenote: Condition of the town.] - -The Admiral's more immediate attention was demanded by the condition of -Isabella. Intermittent fever and various other disturbances incident to -a new turning of a reeking soil were making sad ravages in the colony. -The work of building suffered in consequence. The sick engrossed the -attention of men withdrawn from their active labors, or they were left -to suffer from the want of such kindly aid. The humidity of the climate -and a prodigal waste had brought provisions so low that an allowance -even of the unwholesome stock which remained was made necessary. In -order to provide against impending famine, men were taken from the -public works and put to labor on a mill, in order that they might get -flour. No respect was paid to persons, and cavalier and priest were -forced into the common service. The Admiral was obliged to meet the -necessities by compulsory measures, for even an obvious need did not -prevent the indifferent from shirking, and the priest and hidalgo from -asserting their privileged rights. Any authority that enforced sacrifice -galled the proud spirits, and the indignity of labor caused a -mortification and despair that soon thinned the ranks of the best blood -of the colony. Dying voices cursed the delusion which had brought them -to the New World, the victims, as they claimed, of the avarice and -deceit of a hated alien to their race. - -[Sidenote: Ojeda sent to St. Thomas.] - -Supineness in the commander would have brought everything in the colony -to a disastrous close. A steady progression of some sort might be -remedial. The Admiral's active mind determined on the diversion of -further exploration with such a force as could be equipped. He mustered -a little army, consisting of 250 men armed with crossbows, 100 with -matchlocks, 16 mounted lancemen, and 20 officers. Ojeda was put at their -head, with orders to lead them to St. Thomas, which post he was to -govern while Margarite took the expeditionary party and scoured the -country. Navarrete has preserved for us the instructions which Columbus -imparted. They counseled a considerate regard for the natives, who must, -however, be made to furnish all necessaries at fair prices. Above all, -every Spaniard must be prevented from engaging in private trade, since -the profits of such bartering were reserved to the Crown, and it did not -help Columbus in his dealings with the refractory colonists to have it -known that a foreign interloper, like himself, shared this profit with -the Crown. Margarite was also told that he must capture, by force or -stratagem, the cacique Caonabo and his brothers. - -[Sidenote: 1494. April 9.] - -When Ojeda, who had started on April 9, reached the Vega Real, he -learned that three Spaniards, returning from St. Thomas, had been robbed -by a party of Indians, people of a neighboring cacique. Ojeda seized the -offenders, the ears of one of whom he cut off, and then capturing the -cacique himself and some of his family, he sent the whole party to -Isabella. Columbus took prompt revenge, or made the show of doing so; -but just as the sentence of execution was to be inflicted, he yielded to -the importunities of another cacique, and thought to keep by it his -reputation for clemency. Presently another horseman came in from St. -Thomas, who, on his way, had rescued, single-handed and with the aid of -the terror which his animal inspired, another party of five Spaniards, -whom he had found in the hands of the same tribe. - -[Sidenote: Diego and the junto.] - -Such easy conquests convinced Columbus that only proper prudence was -demanded to maintain the Spanish supremacy with even a diminished force. -He had not forgotten the fears of the Portuguese which were harassing -the Spanish Court when he left Seville, and, to anticipate them, he was -anxious to make a more thorough examination of Cuba, which was a part of -the neighboring main of Cathay, as he was ready to suppose. He therefore -commissioned a sort of junto to rule, while in person he should conduct -such an expedition by water. His brother Diego was placed in command -during his absence, and he gave him four counselors, Father Boyle, Pedro -Fernandez Coronel, Alonso Sanchez Carvajal, and Juan de Luxan. He took -three caravels, the smallest of his little fleet, as better suited to -explore, and left the two large ones behind. - -[Sidenote: 1494. April 24. Columbus sails for Cuba.] - -It was April 24 when Columbus sailed from Isabella, and at once he ran -westerly. He stopped at his old fort, La Navidad, but found that -Guacanagari avoided him, and no time could be lost in discovering why. -On the 29th, he left Española behind and struck across to the Cuban -shore. Here, following the southern side of that island, he anchored -first in a harbor where there were preparations for a native feast; but -the people fled when he landed, and the not overfed Spaniards enjoyed -the repast that was abandoned. The Lucayan interpreter, who was of the -party, managed after a while to allure a single Indian, more confident -than the rest, to approach; and when this Cuban learned from one of a -similar race the peaceful purposes of the Spaniards, he went and told -others, and so in a little while Columbus was able to hold a parley with -a considerable group. He caused reparation to be made for the food which -his men had taken, and then exchanged farewells with the astounded folk. - -[Sidenote: 1494. May 1. On the Cuban coast.] - -On May 1, he raised anchor, and coasted still westerly, keeping near the -shore. The country grew more populous. The amenities of his intercourse -with the feast-makers had doubtless been made known along the coast, and -as a result he was easily kept supplied with fresh fruits by the -natives. Their canoes constantly put off from the shore as the ships -glided by. He next anchored in the harbor which was probably that known -to-day as St. Jago de Cuba, where he received the same hospitality, and -dispensed the same store of trinkets in return. - -[Sidenote: 1494. May 3. Steers for Jamaica.] - -Here, as elsewhere along the route, the Lucayan had learned from the -natives that a great island lay away to the south, which was the source -of what gold they had. The information was too frequently repeated to be -casual, and so, on May 3, Columbus boldly stood off shore, and brought -his ships to a course due south. - -[Sidenote: Natives of Jamaica.] - -[Sidenote: A dog set upon them.] - -[Sidenote: Santiago or Jamaica.] - -[Sidenote: Character of natives.] - -It was not long before thin blue films appeared on the horizon. They -deepened and grew into peaks. It was two days before the ships were near -enough to their massive forms to see the signs of habitations everywhere -scattered along the shore. The vessels stood in close to the land. A -native flotilla hovered about, at first with menaces, but their -occupants were soon won to friendliness by kindly signs. Not so, -however, in the harbor, where, on the next day, he sought shelter and -an opportunity to careen a leaky ship. Here the shore swarmed with -painted men, and some canoes with feathered warriors advanced to oppose -a landing. They hurled their javelins without effect, and filled the air -with their screams and whoops. Columbus then sent in his boats nearer -the shore than his ships could go, and under cover of a discharge from -his bombards a party landed, and with their crossbows put the Indians to -flight. Bernaldez tells that a dog was let loose upon the savages, and -this is the earliest mention of that canine warfare which the Spaniards -later made so sanguinary. Columbus now landed and took possession of the -island under the name of Santiago, but the name did not supplant the -native Jamaica. The warning lesson had its effect, and the next day some -envoys of the cacique of the region made offers of amity, which were -readily accepted. For three days this friendly intercourse was kept up, -with the customary exchange of gifts. The Spaniards could but observe a -marked difference in the character of this new people. They were more -martial and better sailors than any they had seen since they left the -Carib islands. The enormous mahogany-trees of the islands furnished them -with trunks, out of which they constructed the largest canoes. Columbus -saw one which was ninety-six feet long and eight broad. There was also -in these people a degree of merriment such as the Spaniards had not -noticed before, more docility and quick apprehension, and Peter Martyr -gathered from those with whom he had talked that in almost all ways they -seemed a manlier and experter race. Their cloth, utensils, and -implements were of a character not differing from others the explorers -had seen, but of better handiwork. - -As soon as he floated his ship, Columbus again stretched his course to -the west, finding no further show of resistance. The native dugout -sallied forth to trade from every little inlet which was passed. -Finally, a youth came off and begged to be taken to the Spaniards' home, -and the _Historie_ tells us that it was not without a scene of distress -that he bade his kinsfolk good-by, in spite of all their endeavors to -reclaim him. Columbus was struck with the courage and confidence of the -youth, and ordered special kindnesses to be shown to him. We hear -nothing more of the lad. - -[Sidenote: Columbus returns to Cuba.] - -[Sidenote: 1494. May 18.] - -[Sidenote: The Queen's Gardens.] - -Reaching now the extreme westerly end of Jamaica, and finding the wind -setting right for Cuba, Columbus shifted his course thither, and bore -away to the north. On the 18th of May, he was once more on its coast. -The people were everywhere friendly. They told him that Cuba was an -island, but of such extent that they had never seen the end of it. This -did not convince Columbus that it was other than the mainland. So he -went on towards the west, in full confidence that he would come to -Cathay, or at least, such seemed his expectation. He presently rounded a -point, and saw before him a large archipelago. He was now at that point -where the Cabo de la Cruz on the south and this archipelago in the -northwest embay a broad gulf. The islands seemed almost without number, -and they studded the sea with verdant spots. He called them the Queen's -Gardens. He could get better seaway by standing further south, and so -pass beyond the islands; but suspecting that they were the very islands -which lay in masses along the coast of Cathay, as Marco Polo and -Mandeville had said, he was prompted to risk the intricacies of their -navigation; so he clung to the shore, and felt that without doubt he was -verging on the territories of the Great Khan. He began soon to apprehend -his risks. The channels were devious. The shoals perplexed him. There -was often no room to wear ship, and the boats had to tow the caravels at -intervals to clearer water. They could not proceed at all without -throwing the lead. The wind was capricious, and whirled round the -compass with the sun. Sudden tempests threatened danger. - -With all this anxiety, there was much to beguile. Every aspect of nature -was like the descriptions of the East in the travelers' tales. The -Spaniards looked for inhabitants, but none were to be seen. At last they -espied a village on one of the islands, but on landing (May 22), not a -soul could be found,--only the spoils of the sea which a fishing people -would be likely to gather. Another day, they met a canoe from which some -natives were fishing. The men came on board without trepidation and gave -the Spaniards what fish they wanted. They had a wonderful way of -catching fish. They used a live fish much as a falcon is used in -catching its quarry. This fish would fasten itself to its prey by -suckers growing about the head. The native fishermen let it out with a -line attached to its tail, and pulled in both the catcher and the caught -when the prey had been seized. These people also told the same story of -the interminable extent westerly of the Cuban coast. - -[Sidenote: 1494. June 3.] - -[Sidenote: Men with tails.] - -Columbus now passed out from among these islands and steered towards a -mountainous region, where he again landed and opened intercourse with a -pacific tribe on June 3. An old cacique repeated the same story of the -illimitable land, and referred to the province of Mangon as lying -farther west. This name was enough to rekindle the imagination of the -Admiral. Was not Mangi the richest of the provinces that Sir John -Mandeville had spoken of? He learned also that a people with tails lived -there, just as that veracious narrator had described, and they wore long -garments to conceal that appendage. What a sight a procession of these -Asiatics would make in another reception at the Spanish Court! - -[Sidenote: Gulf of Xagua.] - -[Sidenote: White-robed men.] - -There was nothing now to impede the progress of the caravels, and on the -vessels went in their westward course. Every day the crews got fresh -fruits from the friendly canoes. They paid nothing for the balmy odors -from the land. They next came to the Gulf of Xagua, and passing this -they again sailed into shallow waters, whitened with the floating sand, -which the waves kept in suspension. The course of the ships was tortuous -among the bars, and they felt relieved when at last they found a place -where their anchors would hold. To make sure that a way through this -labyrinth could be found, Columbus sent his smallest caravel ahead, and -then following her guidance, the little fleet, with great difficulty, -and not without much danger at times, came out into clearer water. -Later, he saw a deep bay on his right, and tacking across the opening he -lay his course for some distant mountains. Here he anchored to replenish -his water-casks. An archer straying into the forest came back on the -run, saying that he had seen white-robed people. Here, then, thought -Columbus, were the people who were concealing their tails! He sent out -two parties to reconnoitre. They found nothing but a tangled wilderness. -It has been suggested that the timorous and credulous archer had got -half a sight of a flock of white cranes feeding in a savanna. Such is -the interpretation of this story by Irving, and Humboldt tells us there -is enough in his experience with the habits of these birds to make it -certain that the interpretation is warranted. - -[Sidenote: Columbus believes he sees the Golden Chersonesus,] - -Still the Admiral went on westerly, opening communication occasionally -with the shore, but to little advantage in gathering information, for -the expedition had gone beyond the range of dialects where the Lucayan -interpreter could be of service. The shore people continued to point -west, and the most that could be made of their signs was that a powerful -king reigned in that direction, and that he wore white robes. This is -the story as Bernaldez gives it; and Columbus very likely thought it a -premonition of Prester John. The coast still stretched to the setting -sun, if Columbus divined the native signs aright, but no one could tell -how far. The sea again became shallow, and the keels of the caravels -stirred up the bottom. The accounts speak of wonderful crowds of -tortoises covering the water, pigeons darkening the sky, and gaudy -butterflies sweeping about in clouds. The shore was too low for -habitation; but they saw smoke and other signs of life in the high lands -of the interior. When the coast line began to trend to the -southwest,--it was Marco Polo who said it would,--there could be little -doubt that the Golden Chersonesus of the ancients, which we know to-day -as the Malacca peninsula, must be beyond. - -[Sidenote: by which he would return to Spain.] - -What next? was the thought which passed through the fevered brain of the -Admiral. He had an answer in his mind, and it would make a new sensation -for his poor colony at Isabella to hear of him in Spain. Passing the -Golden Chersonesus, had he not the alternative of steering homeward by -way of Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, and so astound the Portuguese -more than he did when he entered the Tagus? Or, abandoning the Indian -Ocean and entering the Red Sea, could he not proceed to its northern -extremity, and there, deserting his ships, join a caravan passing -through Jerusalem and Jaffa, and so embark again on the Mediterranean -and sail into Barcelona, a more wonderful explorer than before? - -These were the sublimating thoughts that now buoyed the Admiral, as he -looked along the far-stretching coast,--or at least his friend Bernaldez -got this impression from his intercourse with Columbus after his return -to Spain. - -[Sidenote: His crew rebel.] - -If the compliant spirit of his crew had not been exhausted, he would -perhaps have gone on, and would have been forced by developments to a -revision of his geographical faith. His vessels, unfortunately, were -strained in all their seams. Their leaks had spoiled his provisions. -Incessant labor had begun to tell upon the health of the crew. They much -preferred the chances of a return to Isabella, with all its hazards, -than a sight of Jaffa and the Mediterranean, with the untold dangers of -getting there. - -The Admiral, however, still pursued his course for a few days more to a -point, as Humboldt holds, opposite the St. Philip Keys, when, finding -the coast trending sharply to the southwest, and his crew becoming -clamorous, he determined to go no farther. - -[Sidenote: 1494. June 12. He turns back.] - -It was now the 12th of June, 1494, and if we had nothing but the -_Historie_ to guide us, we should be ignorant of the singular turn which -affairs took. Whoever wrote that book had, by the time it was written, -become conscious that obliviousness was sometimes necessary to preserve -the reputation of the Admiral. The strange document which interests us, -however, has not been lost, and we can read it in Navarrete. - -[Sidenote: Enforces an oath upon his men] - -It is not difficult to understand the disquietude of Columbus's mind. He -had determined to find Cathay as a counterpoise to the troubled -conditions at Isabella, both to assuage the gloomy forebodings of the -colonists and to reassure the public mind in Spain, which might receive, -as he knew, a shock by the reports which Torres's fleet had carried to -Europe. He had been forced by a mutinous crew to a determination to turn -back, but his discontented companions might be complacent enough to -express an opinion, if not complacent enough to run farther hazards. So -Columbus committed himself to the last resort of deluded minds, when -dealing with geographical or historical problems,--that of seeking to -establish the truth by building monuments, placing inscriptions, and -certifications under oath. He caused the eighty men who constituted the -crew of his little squadron--and we find their name in Duro's _Colón y -Pinzón_--to swear before a notary that it was possible to go from Cuba -to Spain by land, across Asia. - -[Sidenote: that Cuba is a continent.] - -It was solemnly affirmed by this official that if any should swerve -from this belief, the miserable skeptic, if an officer, should be fined -10,000 maravedis; and if a sailor, he should receive a hundred lashes -and have his tongue pulled out. Such were the scarcely heroic measures -that Columbus thought it necessary to employ if he would dispel any -belief that all these islands of the Indies were but an ocean -archipelago after all, and that the width of the unknown void between -Europe and Asia, which he was so confident he had traversed, was yet -undetermined. To make Cuba a continent by affidavit was easy; to make it -appear the identical kingdom of the Great Khan, he hoped would follow. -During his first voyage, so far as he could make out an intelligible -statement from what the natives indicated, he was of the opinion that -Cuba was an island. It is to be feared that he had now reached a state -of mind in which he did not dare to think it an island. - -If we believe the _Historie_,--or some passages in it, at -least,--written, as we know, after the geography of the New World was -fairly understood, and if we accept the evidence of the copyist, -Herrera, Columbus never really supposed he was in Asia. If this is true, -he took marvelous pains to deceive others by appearing to be deceived -himself, as this notarial exhibition and his solemn asseveration to the -Pope in 1502 show. The writers just cited say that he simply juggled the -world by giving the name India to these regions, as better suited to -allure emigration. Such testimony, if accepted, establishes the -fraudulent character of these notarial proceedings. It is fair to say, -however, that he wrote to Peter Martyr, just after the return of the -caravels to Isabella, expressing a confident belief in his having come -near to the region of the Ganges; and divesting the testimony of all the -jugglery with which others have invested it, there seems little doubt -that in this belief, at least, Columbus was sincere. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: MASS ON SHORE. - -[From Philoponus's _Nova Typis Transacta Navigatio_.]] - -[Sidenote: 1494. June 13.] - -[Sidenote: 1494. June 30.] - -[Sidenote: 1494. July 7.] - -On the next day, Columbus, standing to the southeast, reached a large -island, the present Isle of Pines, which he called Evangelista. In -endeavoring to skirt it on the south, he was entangled once more in a -way that made him abandon the hope of a directer passage to Española -that way, and to resolve to follow the coast back as he had come. He -lost ten days in these uncertain efforts, which, with his provisions -rapidly diminishing, did not conduce to reassure his crew. On June -30, trying to follow the intricacies of the channels which had perplexed -him before, the Admiral's ship got a severe thump on the bottom, which -for a while threatened disaster. She was pulled through, however, by -main force, and after a while was speeding east in clear water. They had -now sailed beyond those marshy reaches of the coast, where they were cut -off from intercourse with the shore, and hoped soon to find a harbor, -where food and rest might restore the strength of the crew. Their daily -allowance had been reduced to a pound of mouldy bread and a swallow or -two of wine. It was the 7th of July when they anchored in an acceptable -harbor. Here they landed, and interchanged the customary pledges of -amity with a cacique who presented himself on the shore. Men having been -sent to cut down some trees, a large cross was made, and erected in a -grove, and on this spot, with a crowd of natives looking on, the -Spaniard celebrated high mass. A venerable Indian, who watched all the -ceremonials with close attention, divining their religious nature, made -known to the Admiral, through the Lucayan interpreter, something of the -sustaining belief of his own people, in words that were impressive. -Columbus's confidence in the incapacity of the native mind for such high -conceptions as this poor Indian manifested received a grateful shock -when the old man, grave in his manner and unconscious in his dignity, -pictured the opposite rewards of the good and bad in another world. Then -turning to the Admiral, he reminded him that wrong upon the unoffending -was no passport to the blessings of the future. The historian who tells -us this story, and recounts how it impressed the Admiral, does not say -that its warnings troubled him much in the times to come, when the -unoffending were grievously wronged. Perhaps there was something of this -forgetful spirit in the taking of a young Indian away from his friends, -as the chroniclers say he did, in this very harbor. - -[Sidenote: 1494. July 16.] - -[Sidenote: 1494. July 18.] - -[Sidenote: On the coast of Jamaica.] - -On July 16, Columbus left the harbor, and steering off shore to escape -the intricate channels of the Queen's Gardens which he was now -re-approaching, he soon found searoom, and bore away toward Española. A -gale coming on, the caravels were forced in shore, and discovered an -anchorage under Cabo de Cruz. Here they remained for three days, but -the wind still blowing from the east, Columbus thought it a good -opportunity to complete the circuit of Jamaica. He accordingly stood -across towards that island. He was a month in beating to the eastward -along its southern coast, for the winds were very capricious. Every -night he anchored under the land, and the natives supplied him with -provisions. At one place, a cacique presented himself in much feathered -finery, accompanied by his wife and relatives, with a retinue bedizened -in the native fashion, and doing homage to the Admiral. It was shown how -effective the Lucayan's pictures of Spanish glory and prowess had been, -when the cacique proposed to put himself and all his train in the -Admiral's charge for passage to the great country of the Spanish King. -The offer was rather embarrassing to the Admiral, with his provisions -running low, and his ships not of the largest. He relieved himself by -promising to conform to the wishes of the cacique at a more opportune -moment. - -[Sidenote: 1494. August 19.] - -[Sidenote: Española.] - -[Sidenote: 1494. August 23.] - -[Sidenote: Alto Velo.] - -By the 19th of August, Columbus had passed the easternmost extremity of -Jamaica, and on the next day he was skirting the long peninsula which -juts from the southwestern angle of Española. He was not, however, -aware of his position till on the 23d a cacique came off to the -caravels, and addressed Columbus by his title, with some words of -Castilian interlarded in his speech. It was now made clear that the -ships had nearly reached their goal, and nothing was left but to follow -the circuit of the island. It was no easy task to do so with a wornout -crew and crazy ships. The little fleet was separated in a gale, and when -Columbus made the lofty rocky island which is now known as Alto Velo, -resembling as it does in outline a tall ship under sail, he ran under -its lee, and sent a boat ashore, with orders for the men to scale its -heights, to learn if the missing caravels were anywhere to be seen. This -endeavor was without result, but it was not long before the fleet was -reunited. Further on, the Admiral learned from the natives that some of -the Spaniards had been in that part of the island, coming from the other -side. Finding thus through the native reports that all was quiet at -Isabella, he landed nine men to push across the island and report his -coming. Somewhat further to the east, a storm impending, he found a -harbor, where the weather forced him to remain for eight days. The -Admiral's vessel had succeeded in entering a roadstead, but the others -lay outside, buffeting the storm,--naturally a source of constant -anxiety to him. - -[Sidenote: Columbus observes eclipse of the moon.] - -It was while in this suspense that Columbus took advantage of an eclipse -of the moon, to ascertain his longitude. His calculations made him five -hours and a half west of Seville,--an hour and a quarter too much, -making an error of eighteen degrees. This mistake was quite as likely -owing to the rudeness of his method as to the pardonable errors of the -lunar tables of Regiomontanus (Venice, 1492), then in use. These tables -followed methods which had more or less controlled calculations from the -time of Hipparchus. - -The error of Columbus is not surprising. Even a century later, when -Robert Hues published his treatise on the Molineaux globe (1592), the -difficulties were in large part uncontrollable. "The most certain of all -for this purpose," says this mathematician, "is confessed by all writers -to be by eclipses of the moon. But now these eclipses happen but seldom, -but are more seldom seen, yet most seldom and in very few places -observed by the skillful artists in this science. So that there are but -few longitudes of places designed out by this means. But this is an -uncertain and ticklish way, and subject to many difficulties. Others -have gone other ways to work, as, namely, by observing the space of the -equinoctial hours betwixt the meridians of two places, which they -conceive may be taken by the help of sundials, or clocks, or -hourglasses, either with water or sand or the like. But all these -conceits, long since devised, having been more strictly and accurately -examined, have been disallowed and rejected by all learned men--at least -those of riper judgments--as being altogether unable to perform that -which is required of them. I shall not stand here to discover the errors -and uncertainties of these instruments. Away with all such trifling, -cheating rascals!" - -[Sidenote: 1494. September 24.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus reaches Isabella.] - -The weather moderating, Columbus stood out of the channel of Saona on -September 24, and meeting the other caravels, which had weathered the -storm, he still steered to the east. They reached the farthest end of -Española opposite Porto Rico, and ran out to the island of Mona, in the -channel between the two larger islands. Shortly after leaving Mona, -Columbus, worn with the anxieties of a five months' voyage, in which his -nervous excitement and high hopes had sustained him wonderfully, began -to feel the reaction. His near approach to Isabella accelerated this -recoil, till his whole system suddenly succumbed. He lay in a stupor, -knowing little, remembering nothing, his eyes dim and vitality oozing. -Under other command, the little fleet sorrowfully, but gladly, entered -the harbor of Isabella. - -Our most effective source for the history of this striking cruise is the -work of Bernaldez, already referred to. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -THE SECOND VOYAGE, CONTINUED. - -1494-1496. - - -[Sidenote: 1494. September 29. Columbus in Isabella.] - -It was the 29th of September, 1494, when the "Nina," with the senseless -Admiral on board, and her frail consorts stood into the harbor of -Isabella. Taken ashore, the sick man found no restorative like the -presence of his brother Bartholomew, who had reached Isabella during the -Admiral's absence. - -[Sidenote: Finds Bartholomew Columbus there.] - -[Sidenote: Bartholomew's career in England.] - -Several years had elapsed since the two congenial brothers had parted. -We have seen that this brother had probably been with Bartholomew Diaz -when he discovered the African cape. It is supposed, from the -inscriptions on it, that the map delivered by Bartholomew to Henry VII. -had shown the results of Diaz's discoveries. This chart had been taken -to England, when Bartholomew had gone thither, to engage the interest of -Henry VII. in Columbus's behalf. There is some obscurity about the -movements of Bartholomew at this time, but there is thought by some to -be reason to believe that he finally got sufficient encouragement from -that Tudor prince to start for Spain with offers for his brother. The -_Historie_ tells us that the propositions of Bartholomew were speedily -accepted by Henry, and this statement prevails in the earlier English -writers, like Hakluyt and Bacon; but Oviedo says the scheme was derided, -and Geraldini says it was declined. Bartholomew reached Paris just at -the time when word had come there of Columbus's return from his first -voyage. His kinship to the Admiral, and his own expositions of the -geographical problem then attracting so much attention, drew him within -the influence of the French court, and Charles VIII. is said to have -furnished him the means--as Bartholomew was then low in purse--to -pursue his way to Spain. - -[Sidenote: In Spain.] - -He was, however, too late to see the Admiral, who had already departed -from Cadiz on this second voyage. Finding that it had been arranged for -his brother's sons to be pages at Court, he sought them, and in company -with them he presented himself before the Spanish monarchs at -Valladolid. These sovereigns were about fitting out a supply fleet for -Española, and Bartholomew was put in command of an advance section of -it. Sailing from Cadiz on April 30, 1494, with three caravels, he -reached Isabella on St. John's Day, after the Admiral had left for his -western cruise. - -[Sidenote: His character.] - -[Sidenote: Created Adelantado.] - -If it was prudent for Columbus to bring another foreigner to his aid, he -found in Bartholomew a fitter and more courageous spirit than Diego -possessed. The Admiral was pretty sure now to have an active and -fearless deputy, sterner, indeed, in his habitual bearing than Columbus, -and with a hardihood both of spirit and body that fitted him for -command. These qualities were not suited to pacify the haughty hidalgos, -but they were merits which rendered him able to confront the discontent -of all settlers, and gave him the temper to stand in no fear of them. He -brought to the government of an ill-assorted community a good deal that -the Admiral lacked. He was soberer in his imagination; not so prone to -let his wishes figure the future; more practiced, if we may believe Las -Casas, in the arts of composition, and able to speak and write much more -directly and comprehensibly than his brother. He managed men better, and -business proceeded more regularly under his control, and he contrived to -save what was possible from the wreck of disorder into which his -brother's unfitness for command had thrown the colony. This is the man -whom Las Casas enables us to understand, through the traits of character -which he depicts. Columbus was now to create this brother his -representative, in certain ways, with the title of Adelantado. - -It was also no small satisfaction to the Admiral, in his present -weakness, to learn of the well-being of his children, and of the -continued favor with which he was held at Court, little anticipating the -resentment of Ferdinand that an office of the rank of Adelantado should -be created by any delegated authority. - -[Sidenote: Papal Bull of Extension.] - -Columbus had pursued his recent explorations in some measure to -forestall what he feared the Portuguese might be led to attempt in the -same direction, for he had not been unaware of the disturbance in the -court at Lisbon which the papal line of demarcation had created. He was -glad now to learn from his brother that his own fleet had hardly got to -sea from Cadiz, in September, 1493, when the Pope, by another bull on -the 26th of that month, had declared that all countries of the eastern -Indies which the Spaniards might find, in case they were not already in -Christian hands, should be included in the grant made to Spain. This -Bull of Extension, as it was called, was a new thorn in the side of -Portugal, and time would reveal its effect. Alexander had resisted all -importunities to recede from his position, taken in May. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Events in Española during the absence of Columbus.] - -Let us look now at what had happened in Española during the absence of -Columbus; but in the first place, we must mark out the native division -of the island with whose history Columbus's career is so associated. -Just back of Isabella, and about the Vega Real, whose bewildering -beauties of grove and savanna have excited the admiration of modern -visitors, lay the territory tributary to a cacique named Guarionex, -which was bounded south by the Cibao gold mountains. South of these -interior ridges and extending to the southern shore of the island lay -the region (Maguana) of the most warlike of all the native princes, -Caonabo, whose wife, Anacaona, was a sister of Behechio, who governed -Xaragua, as the larger part of the southern coast, westward of Caonabo's -domain, including the long southwestern peninsula, was called. The -northeastern part of the island (Marien) was subject to Guacanagari, the -cacique neighboring to La Navidad. The eastern end (Higuay) of the -island was under the domination of a chief named Cotabanana. - -It will be remembered that before starting for Cuba the Admiral had -equipped an expedition, which, when it arrived at St. Thomas, was to be -consigned to the charge of Pedro Margarite. This officer had -instructions to explore the mountains of Cibao, and map out its -resources. He was not to harass the natives by impositions, but he was -to make them fear his power. It was also his business to avoid reducing -the colony's supplies by making the natives support this exploring -force. If he could not get this support by fair means, he was to use -foul means. Such instructions were hazardous enough; but Margarite was -not the man to soften their application. He had even failed to grasp the -spirit of the instructions which had been given by Columbus to ensnare -Caonabo, which were "as thoroughly base and treacherous as could well be -imagined," says Helps, and the reader can see them in Navarrete. - -[Illustration: NATIVE DIVISIONS OF ESPAÑOLA. - -[From Charlevoix's _L'Isle Espagnole_, Amsterdam, 1733.]] - -This commander had spent his time mainly among the luxurious scenes of -the Vega Real, despoiling its tribes of their provisions, and -squandering the energies of his men in sensual diversions. The natives, -who ought to have been his helpers, became irritated at his extortions -and indignant at the invasion of their household happiness. The -condition in the tribes which this riotous conduct had induced looked so -threatening that Diego Columbus, as president of the council, wrote to -Margarite in remonstrance, and reminded him of the Admiral's -instructions to explore the mountains. - -[Sidenote: Factions.] - -The haughty Spaniard, taking umbrage at what he deemed an interference -with his independent command, readily lent himself to the faction -inimical to Columbus. With his aid and with that of Father Boyle, a -brother Catalonian, who had proved false to his office as a member of -the ruling council and even finally disregardful of the royal wishes -that he should remain in the colony, an uneasy party was soon banded -together in Isabella. The modern French canonizers, in order to -reconcile the choice by the Pope of this recusant priest, claim that his -Holiness, or the king for him, confounded a Benedictine and Franciscan -priest of the same name, and that the Benedictine was an unlucky -changeling--perhaps even purposely--for the true monk of the -Franciscans. - -In the face of Diego, this cabal found little difficulty in planning to -leave the island for Spain in the ships which had come with Bartholomew -Columbus. Diego had no power to meet with compulsion the defiance of -these mutineers, and was subjected to the sore mortification of seeing -the rebels sail out of the harbor for Spain. There was left to Diego, -however, some satisfaction in feeling that such dangerous ringleaders -were gone; but it was not unaccompanied with anxiety to know what effect -their representations would have at Court. A like anxiety now became -poignant in the Admiral's mind, on his return. - -The stories which Diego and Bartholomew were compelled to tell Columbus -of the sequel of this violent abandonment of the colony were sad ones. -The license which Pedro Margarite had permitted became more extended, -when the little armed force of the colony found itself without military -restraint. It soon disbanded in large part, and lawless squads of -soldiers were scattered throughout the country, wherever passion or -avarice could find anything to prey upon. The long-suffering Indians -soon reached the limits of endurance. A few acts of vengeance encouraged -them to commit others, and everywhere small parties of the Spaniards -were cut off as they wandered about for food and lustful conquests. The -inhabitants of villages turned upon such stragglers as abused their -hospitalities. Houses where they sheltered themselves were fired. -Detached posts were besieged. - -[Sidenote: Caonabo and Fort St. Thomas.] - -While this condition prevailed, Caonabo planned to surprise Fort St. -Thomas. Ojeda, here in control with fifty men, commanded about the only -remnant of the Spanish forces which acknowledged the discipline of a -competent leader. The vigilant Ojeda did not fail to get intelligence of -Caonabo's intentions. He made new vows to the Virgin, before an old -Flemish picture of Our Lady which hung in his chamber in the fort, and -which never failed to encourage him, wherever he tarried or wherever he -strayed. Every man was under arms, and every eye was alert, when their -commander, as great in spirit as he was diminutive in stature, marshaled -his fifty men along his ramparts, as Caonabo with his horde of naked -warriors advanced to surprise him. The outraged cacique was too late. No -unclothed natives dared to come within range of the Spanish crossbows -and arquebuses. Ojeda met every artful and stealthy approach by a sally -that dropped the bravest of Caonabo's warriors. - -The cacique next tried to starve the Spaniards out. His parties infested -every path, and if a foraging force came out, or one of succor -endeavored to get in, multitudes of the natives foiled the endeavor. -Famine was impending in the fort. The procrastinations of the arts of -beleaguering always help the white man behind his ramparts, when the -savage is his enemy. The native force dwindled under the delays, and -Caonabo at last abandoned the siege. - -[Sidenote: Caonabo's league.] - -The native leader now gave himself to a larger enterprise. His spies -told him of the weakened condition of Isabella, and he resolved to form -a league of the principal caciques of the island to attack that -settlement. Wherever the Spaniards had penetrated, they had turned the -friendliest feelings into hatred, and in remote parts of the island the -reports of the Spanish ravages served, almost as much as the experience -of them, to embitter the savage. It was no small success for Caonabo to -make the other caciques believe that the supernatural character of the -Spaniards would not protect them if a combined attack should be -arranged. He persuaded all of them but Guacanagari, for that earliest -friend of Columbus remained firm in his devotion to the Spaniards. The -Admiral's confidence in him had not been misplaced. He was subjected to -attacks by the other chieftains, but his constancy survived them all. In -these incursions of his neighbors, his wives were killed and captured, -and among them the dauntless Catalina, as is affirmed; but his zeal for -his white neighbors did not abate. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Guacanagari.] - -When Guacanagari heard that Columbus had returned, he repaired to -Isabella, and from this faithful ally the Admiral learned of the plans -which were only waiting further developments for precipitate action. - -[Sidenote: Fort Conception.] - -Columbus, thus forewarned, was eager to break any confederacy of the -Indians before it could gather strength. He had hardly a leader -disengaged whom he could send on the warpath. It was scarcely politic -to place Bartholomew in any such command over the few remaining Spanish -cavaliers whose spirit was so necessary to any military adventure. He -sent a party, however, to relieve a small garrison near the villages of -Guatiguana, a tributary chief to the great cacique Guarionex; but the -party resorted to the old excesses, and came near defeating the purposes -of Columbus. Guatiguana was prevailed upon, however, to come to the -Spanish settlement, and Columbus, to seal his agreement of amity with -him, persuaded him to let the Lucayan interpreter marry his daughter. To -this diplomatic arrangement the Admiral added the more powerful argument -of a fort, called La Concepcion, which he later built where it could -command the Vega Real. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Torres's ships arrive.] - -It was not long before four ships, with Antonio Torres in command, -arrived from Spain, bringing a new store of provisions, another -physician, and more medicines, and, what was much needed, artificers and -numerous gardeners. There was some hope now that the soil could be made -to do its part in the support of the colony. - -[Sidenote: 1494. June 7. Treaty of Tordesillas.] - -To the Admiral came a letter, dated August 16, from Ferdinand and -Isabella, giving him notice that all the difficulties with Portugal had -been amicably adjusted. The court of Lisbon, finding that Pope Alexander -was not inclined to recede from his position, and Spain not courting any -difference that would lead to hostilities, both countries had easily -been brought to an agreement, which was made at Tordesillas, June 7, -1494, to move the line of demarcation so much farther as to fall 370 -leagues west of the Cape de Verde Islands. Each country then bound -itself to respect its granted rights under the bull thus modified. The -historical study of this diplomatic controversy over the papal division -of the world is much embarrassed by the lack of documentary records of -the correspondence carried on by Spain, Portugal, and the Pope. - -[Sidenote: The sovereign's letter to Columbus,] - -This letter of August 16 must have been very gratifying to Columbus. -Their Majesties told him that one of the principal reasons of their -rejoicing in his discoveries was that they felt it all due to his genius -and perseverance, and that the events had justified his foreknowledge -and their expectations. So now, in their desire to define the new line -of demarcation, and in the hope that it might be found to run through -some ocean island, where a monument could be erected, they turned to him -for assistance, and they expected that if he could not return to assist -in these final negotiations, he would dispatch to them some one who was -competent to deal with the geographical problem. - -[Sidenote: and to the colonists.] - -Torres had also brought a general letter of counsel to the colonists, -commanding them to obey all the wishes and to bow to the authority of -the Admiral. Whatever his lack of responsibility, in some measure at -least, for the undoubted commercial failure of the colony, its want of a -product in any degree commensurate both with expectation and outlay -could not fail, as he well understood, to have a strong effect both on -the spirit of the people and on the constancy of his royal patrons, who -might, under the urging of Margarite and his abettors, have already -swerved from his support. - -[Sidenote: 1495. February 24. The fleet returns to Spain.] - -[Sidenote: Carrying slaves.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -Reasons of this kind made it imperative that the newly arrived ships -should be returned without delay, and with such reassuring messages and -returns as could be furnished. The fleet departed on February 24, 1495. -Himself still prostrate, and needing his brother Bartholomew to act -during this season of his incapacity, there was no one he could spare so -well to meet the wishes of the sovereigns as his other brother. So armed -with maps and instructions, and with the further mission of protecting -the Admiral's interest at Court, Diego embarked in one of the caravels. -All the gold which had been collected was consigned to Diego's care, but -it was only a sorry show, after all. There had been a variety of new -fruits and spices, and samples of baser metals gathered, and these -helped to complete the lading. There was one resource left. He had -intimated his readiness to avail himself of it in the communication of -his views to the sovereigns, which Torres had already conveyed to them. -He now gave the plan the full force of an experiment, and packed into -the little caravels full five hundred of the unhappy natives, to be sold -as slaves. "The very ship," says Helps, "which brought that admirable -reply from Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, begging him to seek some -other way to Christianity than through slavery, even for wild -man-devouring Caribs, should go back full of slaves taken from among the -mild islanders of Hispaniola." The act was a long step in the miserable -degradation which Columbus put upon those poor creatures whose existence -he had made known to the world. Almost in the same breath, as in his -letter to Santangel, he had suggested the future of a slave traffic out -of that very existence. It is an obvious plea in his defense that the -example of the church and of kings had made such heartless conduct a -common resort to meet the financial burdens of conquest. The Portuguese -had done it in Africa; the Spaniards had done it in Spain. The -contemporary history of that age may be said to ring with the wails and -moans of such negro and Moorish victims. A Holy Religion had -unblushingly been made the sponsor for such a crime. Theologians had -proved that the Word of God could ordain misery in this world, if only -the recompense came--or be supposed to come--in a passport to the -Christian's heaven. - -The merit which Columbus arrogated to himself was that he was superior -to the cosmographical knowledge of his time. It was the merit of Las -Casas that he threw upon the reeking passions of the enslaver the light -of a religion that was above sophistry and purer than cupidity. The -existence of Las Casas is the arraignment of Columbus. - -It may be indeed asking too much of weak humanity to be good in all -things, and therein rests the pitiful plea for Columbus, the originator -of American slavery. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Attacked by bloodhounds.] - -Events soon became ominous. A savage host began to gather in the Vega -Real, and all that Columbus, now recovering his strength, could marshal -in his defense was about two hundred foot and twenty horse, but they -were cased in steel, and the natives were naked. In this respect, the -fight was unequal, and the more so that the Spaniards were now able to -take into the field a pack of twenty implacable bloodhounds. The bare -bodies of the Indians had no protection against their insatiate thirst. - -[Sidenote: 1495. March 27. Columbus marches,] - -[Sidenote: and fights in the Vega Real.] - -It was the 27th of March, 1495, when Columbus, at the head of this -little army, marched forth from Isabella, to confront a force of the -natives, which, if we choose to believe the figures that are given by -Las Casas, amounted to 100,000 men, massed under the command of -Manicaotex. The whites climbed the Pass of the Hidalgos, where Columbus -had opened the way the year before, and descended into that lovely -valley, no longer a hospitable paradise. As they approached the hostile -horde, details were sent to make the attacks various and simultaneous. -The Indians were surprised at the flashes of the arquebuses from every -quarter of the woody covert, and the clang of their enemies' drums and -the bray of their trumpets drowned the savage yells. The native army had -already begun to stagger in their wonder and perplexity, when Ojeda, -seizing the opportune moment, dashed with his mounted lancemen right -into the centre of the dusky mass. The bloodhounds rushed to their -sanguinary work on his flanks. The task was soon done. The woods were -filled with flying and shrieking savages. The league of the caciques was -broken, and it was only left for the conquerors to gather up their -prisoners. Guacanagari, who had followed the white army with a train of -his subjects, looked on with the same wonder which struck the Indians -who were beaten. - -[Sidenote: 1495. April 25.] - -There was no opportunity for him to fight at all. The rout had been -complete. This notable conflict taking place on April 25, 1495, is a -central point in a somewhat bewildering tangle of events, as our -authorities relate them, so that it is not easy in all cases to -establish their sequence. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Caonabo captured by Ojeda.] - -The question of dealing with Caonabo was still the most important of -all. It was solved by the cunning and dash of Ojeda. Presenting his plan -to the Admiral, he was commanded to carry it out. Taking ten men whom he -could trust, Ojeda boldly sought the village where Caonabo was -quartered, and with as much intrepidity as cunning put himself in the -power of that cacique. The chieftain was not without chivalry, and the -confidence and audacity of Ojeda won him. Hospitality was extended, and -the confidences of a mutual respect soon ensued. Ojeda proposed that -Caonabo should accompany him to Isabella, to make a compact of -friendship with the Viceroy. All then would be peaceful. Caonabo, who -had often wondered at the talking of the great bell in the chapel at -Isabella, as he had heard it when skulking about the settlement, eagerly -sprang to the lure, when Ojeda promised that he should have the bell. -Ojeda, congratulating himself on the success of his bait, was -disconcerted when he found that the cacique intended that a large force -of armed followers should make the visit with him. To prevent this, -Ojeda resorted to a stratagem, which is related by Las Casas, who says -it was often spoken of when that priest first came to the island, six -years later. Muñoz was not brought to believe the tale; but Helps sees -no obstacle to giving it credence. - -The Spaniards and the Indians were all on the march together, and had -encamped by a river. Ojeda produced a set of burnished steel manacles, -and told the cacique that they were ornaments such as the King of Spain -wore on solemn occasions, and that he had been commanded to give them to -the most distinguished native prince. He first proposed a bath in the -river. The swim over, Caonabo was prevailed upon to be put behind Ojeda -astride the same horse. Then the shining baubles were adjusted, -apparently without exciting suspicion, amid the elation of the savage at -his high seat upon the wondrous beast. A few sweeping gallops of the -horse, guided by Ojeda, and followed by the other mounted spearmen, -scattered the amazed crowd of the cacique's attendants. Then at a -convenient gap in the circle Ojeda spurred his steed, and the whole -mounted party dashed into the forest and away. The party drew up only -when they had got beyond pursuit, in order to bind the cacique faster in -his seat. So in due time, this little cavalcade galloped into Isabella -with its manacled prisoner. - -[Sidenote: Meets Columbus.] - -The meeting of Columbus and his captive was one of very different -emotions in the two,--the Admiral rejoicing that his most active foe was -in his power, and the cacique abating nothing of the defiance which -belonged to his freedom. Las Casas tells us that, as Caonabo lay in his -shackles in an outer apartment of the Admiral's house, the people came -and looked at him. He also relates that the bold Ojeda was the only one -toward whom the prisoner manifested any respect, acknowledging in this -way his admiration for his audacity. He would maintain only an -indifferent haughtiness toward the Admiral, who had not, as he said, the -courage to do himself what he left to the bravery of his lieutenant. - -[Sidenote: Ojeda attacks the Indians.] - -Ojeda presently returned to his command at St. Thomas, only to find that -a brother of Caonabo had gathered the Indians for an assault. Dauntless -audacity again saved him. He had brought with him some new men, and so, -leaving a garrison in the fort, he sallied forth with his horsemen and -with as many foot as he could muster and attacked the approaching host. -A charge of the glittering horse, with the flashing of sabres, broke the -dusky line. The savages fled, leaving their commander a prisoner in -Ojeda's hands. - -Columbus followed up these triumphs by a march through the country. -Every opposition needed scarce more than a dash of Ojeda's cavalry to -break it. The Vega was once more quiet with a sullen submission. The -confederated caciques all sued for peace, except Behechio, who ruled the -southwestern corner of the island. The whites had not yet invaded his -territory, and he retired morosely, taking with him his sister, -Anacaona, the wife of the imprisoned Caonabo. - -[Sidenote: Repartimientos and encomiendas.] - -The battle and the succeeding collapse had settled the fate of the poor -natives. The policy of subjecting men by violence to pay the tribute of -their lives and property to Spanish cupidity was begun in earnest, and -it was shortly after made to include the labor on the Spanish farms, -which, under the names of repartimientos and encomiendas, demoralized -the lives of master and slave. When prisoners were gathered -in such numbers that to guard them was a burden, there could be but -little delay in forcing the issue of the slave trade upon the Crown as a -part of an established policy. To the mind of Columbus, there was now -some chance of repelling the accusations of Margarite and Father Boyle -by palpable returns of olive flesh and shining metal. A scheme of -enforced contribution of gold was accordingly planned. Each native above -the age of fourteen was required to pay every three months, into the -Spanish coffers, his share of gold, measured by the capacity of a hawk's -bell for the common person, and by that of a calabash for the cacique. -In the regions distant from the gold deposits, cotton was accepted as a -substitute, twenty-five pounds for each person. A copper medal was put -on the neck of every Indian for each payment, and new exactions were -levied upon those who failed to show the medals. The amount of this -tribute was more than the poor natives could find, and Guarionex tried -to have it commuted for grain; but the golden greed of Columbus was -inexorable. He preferred to reduce the requirements rather than vary the -kind. A half of a hawk's bell of gold was better than stores of grain. -"It is a curious circumstance," says Irving, "that the miseries of the -poor natives should thus be measured out, as it were, by the very -baubles which first fascinated them." - -[Sidenote: Forts built.] - -To make this payment sure, it was necessary to establish other armed -posts through the country; and there were speedily built that of -Magdalena in the Vega, one called Esperanza in Cibao, another named -Catalina, beside La Concepcion, which has already been mentioned. - -[Sidenote: The natives debased.] - -The change which ensued in the lives of the natives was pitiable. The -labor of sifting the sands of the streams for gold, which they had -heretofore made a mere pastime to secure bits to pound into ornaments, -became a depressing task. To work fields under a tropical sun, where -they had basked for sportive rest, converted their native joyousness -into despair. They sang their grief in melancholy songs, as Peter Martyr -tells us. Gradually they withdrew from their old haunts, and by hiding -in the mountains, they sought to avoid the exactions, and to force the -Spaniards, thus no longer supplied by native labor with food, to abandon -their posts and retire to Isabella, if not to leave the island. - -[Sidenote: Guacanagari disappears.] - -Scant fare for themselves and the misery of dank lurking-places were -preferable to the heavy burdens of the taskmasters. They died in their -retreats rather than return to their miserable labors. Even the -long-tried friend of the Spaniards, Guacanagari, was made no exception. -He and his people suffered every exaction with the rest of their -countrymen. The cacique himself is said eventually to have buried -himself in despair in the mountain fastnesses, and so passed from the -sight of men. - -The Spaniards were not so easily to be thwarted. They hunted the poor -creatures like game, and, under the goading of lashes, such as survived -were in time returned to their slavery. So thoroughly was every instinct -of vengeance rooted out of the naturally timid nature of the Indians -that a Spaniard might, as Las Casas tells us, march solemnly like an -army through the most solitary parts of the island and receive tribute -at every demand. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus's interests in Spain.] - -It is time to watch the effect of the representations of Margarite and -Father Boyle at the Spanish Court. Columbus had been doubtless impelled, -in these schemes of cruel exaction, by the fear of their influence, and -with the hope of meeting their sneers at his ill success with -substantial tribute to the Crown. The charges against Columbus and his -policy and against his misrepresentation had all the immediate effect of -accusations which are supported by one-sided witnesses. Every sentiment -of jealousy and pride was played upon, and every circumstance of -palliation and modification was ignored. The suspicious reservation -which had more or less characterized the bearing of Ferdinand towards -the transactions of the hero could become a background to the newer -emotions. Fonseca and the comptroller Juan de Soria are charged with an -easy acceptance of every insinuation against the Viceroy. The canonizers -cannot execrate Fonseca enough. They make him alternately the creature -and beguiler of the King. His subserviency, his trading in bishoprics, -and his alleged hatred of Columbus are features of all their portraits -of him. - -[Sidenote: Aguado sent to Española.] - -The case against the Admiral was thus successfully argued. Testimony -like that of the receiver of the Crown taxes in rebuttal of charges -seemed to weigh little. Movements having been instituted at once (April -7, 1495) to succor the colony by the immediate dispatch of supplies, it -was two days later agreed with Beradi--the same with whom Vespucius had -been associated, as we have seen--to furnish twelve ships for Española. -The resolution was then taken to send an agent to investigate the -affairs of the colony. If he should find the Admiral still absent,--for -the length of his cruise to Cuba had already, at that time, begun to -excite apprehension of his safety,--this same agent was to superintend -the distribution of the supplies which he was to take. At this juncture, -in April, 1495, Torres, arriving with his fleet, reported the Admiral's -safe return, and submitted the notarial document, in which Columbus had -made it clear to his own satisfaction that the Golden Chersonesus was in -sight. Whether that freak of geographical prescience threw about his -expedition a temporary splendor, and again wakened the gratitude of the -sovereigns, as Irving says it did, may be left to the imagination; but -the fact remains that the sovereigns did not swerve from their purpose -to send an inquisitor to the colony, and the same Juan Aguado who had -come back with credentials from the Admiral himself was selected for the -mission. - -[Sidenote: 1495. April 10. All Spaniards allowed to explore.] - -[Sidenote: Nameless voyagers.] - -There were some recent orders of the Crown which Aguado was to break to -the Admiral, from which Columbus could not fail to discover that the -exclusiveness of his powers was seriously impaired. On the 10th of -April, 1495, it had been ordered that any native-born Spaniard could -invade the seas which had been sacredly apportioned to Columbus, that -such navigator might discover what he could, and even settle, if he -liked, in Española. This order was a ground of serious complaint by -Columbus at a later day, for the reason that this license was availed of -by unworthy interlopers. He declares that after the way had been shown -even the very tailors turned explorers. It seems tolerably certain that -this irresponsible voyaging, which continued till Columbus induced the -monarchs to rescind the order in June, 1497, worked developments in the -current cartography of the new regions which it is difficult to trace to -their distinct sources. Gomara intimates that during this period there -were nameless voyagers, of whose exploits we have no record by which to -identify them, and Navarrete and Humboldt find evidences of -explorations which cannot otherwise be accounted for. - -[Sidenote: Enemies of Columbus.] - -How far this condition of affairs was brought about by the importunities -of the enemies of Columbus is not clear. The surviving Pinzons are said -to have been in part those who influenced the monarchs, but doubtless a -share of profits, which the Crown required from all such private -speculation, was quite as strong an incentive as any importunities of -eager mariners. The burdens of the official expeditions were onerous for -an exhausted treasury, and any resource to replenish its coffers was not -very narrowly scrutinized in the light of the pledges which Columbus had -exacted from a Crown that was beginning to understand the impolicy of -such concessions. - -[Sidenote: Fonseca and Diego Colon.] - -There was also at this time a passage of words between Fonseca and Diego -Colon that was not without irritating elements. The Admiral's brother -had brought some gold with him, which he claimed as his own. Fonseca -withheld it, but in the end obeyed the sovereign's order and released -it. It was no time to add to the complications of the Crown's relations -with the distant Viceroy. - -[Sidenote: Royal letter to Columbus.] - -Aguado bore a royal letter, which commanded Columbus to reduce the -dependents of the colony to five hundred, as a necessary retrenchment. -There had previously been a thousand. Directions were also given to -control the apportionment of rations. A new metallurgist and -master-miner, Pablo Belvis, was sent out, and extraordinary privileges -in the working of the mines were given to him. Muñoz says that he -introduced there the quicksilver process of separating the gold from the -sand. A number of new priests were collected to take the place of those -who had returned, or who desired to come back. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -Such were the companions and instructions that Aguado was commissioned -to bear to Columbus. There was still another movement in the policy of -the Crown that offered the Viceroy little ground for reassurance. The -prisoners which he had sent by the ships raised a serious question. It -was determined that any transaction looking to the making slaves of them -had not been authorized; but the desire of Columbus so to treat them had -at first been met by a royal order directing their sale in the marts of -Andalusia. A few days later, under the influence of Isabella, this -order had been suspended, till an inquiry could be made into the cause -of the capture of the Indians, and until the theologians could decide -upon the justifiableness of such a sale. If we may believe Bernaldez, -who pictures their misery, they were subsequently sold in Seville. -Muñoz, however, says that he could not find that the trouble which -harassed the theologians was ever decided. Such hesitancy was calculated -to present a cruel dilemma to the Viceroy, since the only way in which -the clamor of the Court for gold could be promptly appeased came near -being prohibited by what Columbus must have called the misapplied mercy -of the Queen. He failed to see, as Muñoz suggests, why vassals of the -Crown, entering upon acts of resistance, should not be subjected to -every sort of cruelty. Humboldt wonders at any hesitancy when the grand -inquisitor, Torquemada, was burning heretics so fiercely at this time -that such expiations of the poor Moors and Jews numbered 8,800 between -1481 and 1498! - -[Sidenote: 1495. October. Aguado at Isabella.] - -Aguado, with four caravels, and Diego Columbus accompanying him, having -sailed from Cadiz late in August, 1495, reached the harbor of Isabella -some time in October. The new commissioner found the Admiral absent, -occupied with affairs in other parts of the island. Aguado soon made -known his authority. It was embraced in a brief missive, dated April 9, -1495, and as Irving translates it, it read: "Cavaliers, esquires, and -other persons, who by our orders are in the Indies, we send to you Juan -Aguado, our groom of the chambers, who will speak to you on our part. We -command you to give him faith and credit." The efficacy of such an order -depended on the royal purpose that was behind it, and on the will of the -commissioner, which might or might not conform to that purpose. It has -been a plea of Irving and others that Aguado, elated by a transient -authority, transcended the intentions of the monarchs. It is not easy to -find a definite determination of such a question. It appears that when -the instrument was proclaimed by trumpet, the general opinion did not -interpret the order as a suspension of the Viceroy's powers. The -Adelantado, who was governing in Columbus's absence, saw the new -commissioner order arrests, countermand directions, and in various ways -assume the functions of a governor. Bartholomew was in no condition to -do more than mildly remonstrate. It was clearly not safe for him to -provoke the great body of the discontented colonists, who professed now -to find a champion sent to them by royal order. - -[Sidenote: Meets Columbus.] - -Columbus heard of Aguado's arrival, and at once returned to Isabella. -Aguado, who had started to find him with an escort of horse, missed him -on the road, and this delayed their meeting a little. When the -conference came, Columbus, with a dignified and courteous air, bowed to -a superior authority. It has passed into history that Aguado was -disappointed at this quiet submission, and had hoped for an altercation, -which might warrant some peremptory force. It is also said that later he -endeavored to make it appear how Columbus had not been so complacent as -was becoming. - -It was soon apparent that this displacement of the Admiral was restoring -even the natives to hope, and their caciques were not slow in presenting -complaints, not certainly without reason, to the ascendant power, and -against the merciless extortions of the Admiral. - -[Sidenote: Accuses Columbus.] - -The budget of accusations which Aguado had accumulated was now full -enough, and he ordered the vessels to make ready to carry him back to -Spain. The situation for Columbus was a serious one. He had in all this -trial experienced the results of the intrigues of Margarite and Father -Boyle. He knew of the damaging persuasiveness of the Pinzons. He had not -much to expect from the advocacy of Diego. There was nothing for him to -do but to face in person the charges as reënforced by Aguado. He -resolved to return in the ships. "It is not one of the least singular -traits in his history," says Irving, "that after having been so many -years in persuading mankind that there was a new world to be discovered, -he had almost an equal trouble in proving to them the advantage of the -discovery." He himself never did prove it. - -[Sidenote: Ships wrecked in the harbor.] - -The ships were ready. They lay at anchor in the roadstead. A cloud of -vapor and dust was seen in the east. It was borne headlong before a -hurricane such as the Spaniards had never seen, and the natives could -not remember its equal. It cut a track through the forests. It lashed -the sea until its expanse seethed and writhed and sent its harried -waters tossing in a seeming fright. The uplifted surges broke the -natural barriers and started inland. The ships shuddered at their -anchorage; cables snapped; three caravels sunk, and the rest were dashed -on the beach. The tumult lasted for three hours, and then the sun shone -upon the havoc. - -[Illustration: SPANISH SETTLEMENTS IN ESPAÑOLA. - -[From Charlevoix's _L'Isle Espagnole_ (Amsterdam, 1733).]] - -There was but one vessel left in the harbor, and she was shattered. It -was the "Nina," which had borne Columbus in his western cruise. As soon -as the little colony recovered its senses, men were set to work -repairing the solitary caravel, and constructing another out of the -remnants of the wrecks. - -[Sidenote: Miguel Diaz finds gold.] - -[Sidenote: Hayna mines.] - -[Sidenote: Solomon's Ophir.] - -While this was going on, a young Spaniard, Miguel Diaz by name, -presented himself in Isabella. He had been in the service of the -Adelantado, and was not unrecognized. He was one who had some time -before wounded another Spaniard in a duel, and, supposing that the wound -was mortal, he had, with a few friends, fled into the woods and wandered -away till he came to the banks of the Ozema, a river on the southern -coast of the island, at the mouth of which the city of Santo Domingo now -stands. Here, as he said, he had attracted the attention of a female -cacique, there reigning, and had become her lover. She confided to him -the fact that there were rich gold mines in her territory, and to make -him more content in her company, she suggested that perhaps the Admiral, -if he knew of the mines, would abandon the low site of Isabella, and -find a better one on the Ozema. Acting on this suggestion, Diaz, with -some guides, returned to the neighborhood of Isabella, and lingered in -concealment till he learned that his antagonist had survived his wound. -Then, making bold, he entered the town, as we have seen. His story was a -welcome one, and the Adelantado was dispatched with a force to verify -the adventurer's statement. In due time, the party returned, and -reported that at a river named Hayna they had found such stores of gold -that Cibao was poor in comparison. The explorers had seen the metal in -all the streams; they observed it in the hillsides. They had discovered -two deep excavations, which looked as if the mines had been worked at -some time by a more enterprising people, since of these great holes the -natives could give no account. Once more the Admiral's imagination was -fired. He felt sure that he had come upon the Ophir of Solomon. These -ancient mines must have yielded the gold which covered the great Temple. -Had the Admiral not discovered already the course of the ships which -sought it? Did they not come from the Persian gulf, round the Golden -Chersonesus, and so easterly, as he himself had in the reverse way -tracked the very course? Here was a new splendor for the Court of Spain. -If the name of India was redolent of spices, that of Ophir could but be -resplendent with gold! That was a message worth taking to Europe. - -The two caravels were now ready. The Adelantado was left in command, -with Diego to succeed in case of his death. Francisco Roldan was -commissioned as chief magistrate, and the Fathers Juan Berzognon and -Roman Pane remained behind to pursue missionary labors among the -natives. Instructions were left that the valley of the Ozema should be -occupied, and a fort built in it. Diaz, with his queenly Catalina, had -become important. - -[Sidenote: 1496. March 10. Columbus and Aguado sail for Spain, carrying -Caonabo.] - -There was a motley company of about two hundred and fifty persons, -largely discontents and vagabonds, crowded into the two ships. Columbus -was in one, and Aguado in the other. So they started on their -adventurous and wearying voyage on March 10, 1496. They carried about -thirty Indians in confinement, and among them the manacled Caonabo, with -some of his relatives. Columbus told Bernaldez that he took the -chieftain over to impress him with Spanish power, and that he intended -to send him back and release him in the end. His release came otherwise. -There is some disagreement of testimony on the point, some alleging that -he was drowned during the hurricane in the harbor, but the better -opinion seems to be that he died on the voyage, of a broken spirit. At -any rate, he never reached Spain, and we hear of him only once while on -shipboard. - -[Sidenote: 1496. April 6.] - -We have seen that on his return voyage in 1492 Columbus had pushed north -before turning east. It does not appear how much he had learned of the -experience of Torres's easterly passages. Perhaps it was only to make a -new trial that he now steered directly east. He met the trade winds and -the calms of the tropics, and had been almost a month at sea when, on -April 6, he found himself still neighboring to the islands of the -Caribs. His crew needed rest and provisions, and he bore away to seek -them. He anchored for a while at Marigalante, and then passed on to -Guadaloupe. - -[Sidenote: At Guadaloupe.] - -[Sidenote: 1496. June.] - -[Sidenote: 1496. June 11. Cadiz.] - -He had some difficulty in landing, as a wild, screaming mass of natives -was gathered on the beach in a hostile manner. A discharge of the -Spanish arquebuses cleared the way, and later a party scouring the woods -captured some of the courageous women of the tribe. These were all -released, however, except a strong, powerful woman, who, with a -daughter, refused to be left, for the reason, as the story goes, that -she had conceived a passion for Caonabo. By the 20th, the ships again -set sail; but the same easterly trades baffled them, and another month -was passed without much progress. By the beginning of June, provisions -were so reduced that there were fears of famine, and it began to be -considered whether the voyagers might not emulate the Caribs and eat the -Indians. Columbus interfered, on the plea that the poor creatures were -Christian enough to be protected from such a fate; but as it turned out, -they were not Christian enough to be saved from the slave-block in -Andalusia. The alert senses of Columbus had convinced him that land -could not be far distant, and he was confirmed in this by his reckoning. -These opinions of Columbus were questioned, however, and it was not at -all clear in the minds of some, even of the experienced pilots who were -on board, that they were so near the latitude of Cape St. Vincent as the -Admiral affirmed. Some of these navigators put the ships as far north as -the Bay of Biscay, others even as far as the English Channel. Columbus -one night ordered sail to be taken in. They were too near the land to -proceed. In the morning, they saw land in the neighborhood of Cape St. -Vincent. On June 11, they entered the harbor of Cadiz. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -IN SPAIN, 1496-1498. - -DA GAMA, VESPUCIUS, CABOT. - - -[Sidenote: 1496. Columbus arrives at Cadiz,] - -"The wretched men crawled forth," as Irving tells us of their -debarkation, "emaciated by the diseases of the colony and the hardships -of the voyage, who carried in their yellow countenances, says an old -writer, a mockery of that gold which had been the object of their -search, and who had nothing to relate of the New World but tales of -sickness, poverty, and disappointment." This is the key to the contrasts -in the present reception of the adventurers with that which greeted -Columbus on his return to Palos. - -When Columbus landed at Cadiz, he was clothed with the robe and girdled -with the cord of the Franciscans. His face was unshaven. Whether this -was in penance, or an assumption of piety to serve as a lure, is not -clear. Oviedo says it was to express his humility; and his humbled pride -needed some such expression. - -[Sidenote: and learns the condition of the public mind.] - -He found in the harbor three caravels just about starting for Española -with tardy supplies. It had been intended to send some in January; but -the ships which started with them suffered wreck on the neighboring -coasts. He had only to ask Pedro Alonso Niño, the commander of this -little fleet, for his dispatches, to find the condition of feeling which -he was to encounter in Spain. They gave him a sense, more than ever -before, of the urgent necessity of making the colony tributary to the -treasury of the Crown. It was clear that discord and unproductiveness -were not much longer to be endured. So he wrote a letter to the -Adelantado, which was to go by the ships, urging expedition in quieting -the life of the colonists, and in bringing the resources of the island -under such control that it could be made to yield a steady flow of -treasure. - -[Sidenote: 1496. June 17. Columbus writes to Bartholomew.] - -To this end, the new mines of Hayna must be further explored, and the -working of them started with diligence. A port of shipment should be -found in their neighborhood, he adds. With such instructions to -Bartholomew, the caravels sailed on June 17, 1496. It must have been -with some trepidation that Columbus forwarded to the Court the tidings -of his arrival. If the two dispatches which he sent could have been -preserved, we might better understand his mental condition. - -[Sidenote: Invited to Court.] - -As soon as the messages of Columbus reached their Majesties, then at -Almazan, they sent, July 12, 1496, a letter inviting him to Court, and -reassuring him in his despondency by expressions of kindness. So he -started to join the Court in a somewhat better frame of mind. He led -some of his bedecked Indians in his train, not forgetting "in the towns" -to make a cacique among them wear conspicuously a golden necklace. - -Bernaldez tells us that it was in this wily fashion that Columbus made -his journey into the country of Castile,--"the which collar," that -writer adds, "I have seen and held in these hands;" and he goes on to -describe the other precious ornaments of the natives, which Columbus -took care that the gaping crowds should see on this wandering mission. - -It is one of the anachronisms of the _Historie_ of 1571 that it places -the Court at this time at Burgos, and makes it there to celebrate the -marriage of the crown prince with Margaret of Austria. The author of -that book speaks of seeing the festivities himself, then in attendance -as a page upon Don Juan. It was a singular lapse of memory in Ferdinand -Columbus--if this statement is his--to make two events like the arrival -of his father at Court, with all the incidental parade as described in -the book, and the ceremonies of that wedding festival identical in time. -The wedding was in fact nine months later, in April, 1497. - -[Sidenote: Received by the sovereigns.] - -[Sidenote: Makes new demands.] - -Columbus's reception, wherever it was, seems to have been gracious, and -he made the most of the amenities of the occasion to picture, in his old -exaggerating way, the wealth of the Ophir mines. He was encouraged by -the effect which his enthusiasm had produced to ask to be supplied with -another fleet, partly to send additional supplies to Española, but -mainly to enable him to discover that continental land farther -south, of which he had so constantly heard reports. - -It was easy for the monarchs to give fair promises, and quite as easy to -forget them, for a while at least, in the busy scenes which their -political ambitions were producing. Belligerent relations with France -necessitated a vigilant watch about the Pyrenees. There were fleets to -be maintained to resist, both in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic -coast, attacks which might unexpectedly fall. An imposing armada was -preparing to go to Flanders to carry thither the Princess Juana to her -espousal with Philip of Austria. The same fleet was to bring back -Philip's sister Margaret to become the bride of Prince Juan, in those -ceremonials to which reference has already been made. - -[Sidenote: 1496. Autumn. A new expedition ordered.] - -These events were too engrossing for the monarchs to give much attention -to the wishes of Columbus, and it was not till the autumn of 1496 that -an appropriation was made to equip another little squadron for him. The -hopes it raised were soon dashed, for having some occasion to need money -promptly, at a crisis of the contest which the King was waging with -France, the money which had been intended for Columbus was diverted to -the new exigency. What was worse in the eyes of Columbus, it was to be -paid out of some gold which it was supposed that Niño had brought back -from the mines of Hayna. This officer on arriving at Cadiz had sent to -the Court some boastful messages about his golden lading, which were not -confirmed when in December the sober dispatch of the Adelantado, which -Niño had kept back, came to be read. The nearest approach to gold which -the caravels brought was another crowd of dusky slaves, and the -dispatches of Bartholomew pictured the colony in the same conditions of -destitution as before. There was no stimulant in such reports either for -the Admiral or for the Court, and the New World was again dismissed from -the minds of all, or consigned to their derision. - -[Sidenote: 1497. Spring. Columbus's rights reaffirmed.] - -[Sidenote: New powers.] - -[Illustration: FERDINAND OF ARAGON. - -[From an ancient medallion given in Buckingham Smith's _Coleccion_.]] - -When the spring months of 1497 arrived, there were new hopes. The -wedding of Prince Juan at Burgos was over, and the Queen was left more -at liberty to think of her patronage of the new discoveries. The King -was growing more and more apathetic, and some of the leading spirits of -the Court were inimical, either actively or reservedly. By the Queen's -influence, the old rights bestowed upon Columbus were reaffirmed (April -23, 1497), and he was offered a large landed estate in Española, with a -new territorial title; but he was wise enough to see that to accept it -would complicate his affairs beyond their present entanglement. He was -solicitous, however, to remove some of his present pecuniary -embarrassments, and it was arranged that he should be relieved from -bearing an eighth of the cost of the ventures of the last three years, -and that he should surrender all rights to the profits; while for the -three years to come he should have an eighth of the gross income, and a -further tenth of the net proceeds. Later, the original agreement was to -be restored. His brother Bartholomew was created Adelantado, giving thus -the royal sanction to the earlier act of the Admiral. - -[Sidenote: Fonseca allowed to grant licenses.] - -In the letters patent made out previous to Columbus's second voyage, the -Crown distinctly reserved the right to grant other licenses, and -invested Fonseca with the power to do so, allowing to Columbus nothing -more than one eighth of the tonnage; and in the ordinance of June 2, -1497, in which they now revoked all previous licenses, the revocation -was confined to such things as were repugnant to the rights of Columbus. -It was also agreed that the Crown should maintain for him a body of -three hundred and thirty gentlemen, soldiers, and helpers, to accompany -him on his new expedition, and this number could be increased, if the -profits of the colony warranted the expenditure. Power was given to him -to grant land to such as would cultivate the soil for four years; but -all brazil-wood and metals were to be reserved for the Crown. - -[Illustration: BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS. - -[From Barcia's _Herrera_.]] - -All this seemed to indicate that the complaints which had been made -against the oppressive sternness of the Admiral's rule had not as yet -broken down the barriers of the Queen's protection. Indeed, we find up -to this time no record of any serious question at Court of his -authority, and Irving thinks nothing indicates any symptom of the royal -discontent except the reiterated injunctions, in the orders given to him -respecting the natives and the colonists, that leniency should govern -his conduct so far as was safe. - -[Sidenote: 1498. February 22. Makes a will.] - -Permission being given to him to entail his estates, he marked out in a -testamentary document (February 22, 1498) the succession of his -heirs,--male heirs, with Ferdinand's rights protected, if Diego's line -ran out; then male heirs of his brothers; and if all male heirs failed, -then the estates were to descend by the female line. The title Admiral -was made the paramount honor, and to be the perpetual distinction of his -representatives. The entail was to furnish forever a tenth of its -revenues to charitable uses. Genoa was placed particularly under the -patronage of his succeeding representatives, with injunctions always to -do that city service, as far as the interests of the Church and the -Spanish Crown would permit. Investments were to be made from time to -time in the bank of St. George at Genoa, to accumulate against the -opportune moment when the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre seemed -feasible, either to help to that end any state expedition or to fit out -a private one. He enjoined upon his heirs a constant, unwavering -devotion to the Papal Church and to the Spanish Crown. At every season -of confession, his representative was commanded to lay open his heart to -the confessor, who must be prompted by a perusal of the will to ask the -crucial questions. - -It was in the same document that Columbus prescribed the signature of -his representatives in succeeding generations, following a formula which -he always used himself. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's signature.] - - .S. - .S.A.S. - X M Y - [Greek: Chr~o] FERENS. - -The interpretation of this has been various: _Servus Supplex Altissimi -Salvatoris, Christus, Maria, Yoseph, Christo ferens_, is one solution; -_Servidor sus Altezas sacras, Christo, Maria Ysabel_, is another; and -these are not all. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Unpopularity of Columbus.] - -The complacency of the Queen was soothing; her appointment of his son -Ferdinand as her page (February 18, 1498) was gratifying, but it could -not wholly compensate Columbus for the condition of the public mind, of -which he was in every way forcibly reminded. There were both the whisper -of detraction spreading abroad, and the outspoken objurgation. The -physical debility of his returned companions was made a strong contrast -to his reiterated stories of Paradise. Fortunes wrecked, labor wasted, -and lives lost had found but a pitiable compensation in a few cargoes of -miserable slaves. The people had heard of his enchanting landscapes, but -they had found his aloes and mastic of no value. Hidalgoes said there -was nothing of the luxury they had been told to expect. The gorgeous -cities of the Great Khan had not been found. Such were the kind of -taunts to which he was subjected. - -[Sidenote: His sojourn with Bernaldez.] - -Columbus, during this period of his sojourn in Spain, spent a -considerable interval under the roof of Andres Bernaldez, and we get in -his history of the Spanish kings the advantage of the talks which the -two friends had together. - -The Admiral is known to have left with Bernaldez various documents which -were given to him in the presence of Juan de Fonseca. From the way in -which Bernaldez speaks of these papers, they would seem to have been -accounts of the voyage of Columbus then already made, and it was upon -these documents that Bernaldez says he based his own narratives. - -[Sidenote: Bernaldez's opinions.] - -This ecclesiastic had known Columbus at an earlier day, when the Genoese -was a vender of books in Andalusia, as he says; in characterizing him, -he calls his friend in another place a man of an ingenious turn, but not -of much learning, and he leaves one to infer that the book-vender was -not much suspected of great familiarity with his wares. - -We get as clearly from Bernaldez as from any other source the measure of -the disappointment which the public shared as respects the conspicuous -failure of these voyages of Columbus in their pecuniary relations. - -[Sidenote: Scant returns of gold.] - -The results are summed up by that historian to show that the cost of the -voyages had been so great and the returns so small that it came to be -believed that there was in the new regions no gold to speak of. Taking -the first voyage,--and the second was hardly better, considering the -larger opportunities,--Harrisse has collated, for instance, all the -references to what gold Columbus may have gathered; and though there are -some contradictory reports, the weight of testimony seems to confine the -amount to an inconsiderable sum, which consisted in the main of personal -ornaments. There are legends of the gold brought to Spain from this -voyage being used to gild palaces and churches, to make altar ornaments -for the cathedral at Toledo, to serve as gifts of homage to the Pope, -but we may safely say that no reputable authority supports any such -statements. - -Notwithstanding this seeming royal content of which the signs have been -given, there was, by virtue of a discontented and irritated public -sentiment, a course open to Columbus in these efforts to fit out his new -expedition which was far from easy. There was so much disinclination in -the merchants to furnish ships that it required a royal order to seize -them before the small fleet could be gathered. - -[Sidenote: Difficulties in fitting out the new expedition.] - -[Sidenote: Criminals enlisted.] - -The enlistments to man the ships and make up the contingent destined for -the colony were more difficult still. The alacrity with which everybody -bounded to the summons on his second voyage had entirely gone, and it -was only by the foolish device which Columbus decided upon of opening -the doors of the prisons and of giving pardon to criminals at large, -that he was enabled to help on the registration of his company. - -[Sidenote: 1498. Two caravels sail.] - -Finding that all went slowly, and knowing that the colony at Española -must be suffering from want of supplies, the Queen was induced to order -two caravels of the fleet to sail at once, early in 1498, under the -command of Pedro Fernandez Coronel. This was only possible because the -Queen took some money which she had laid aside as a part of a dower -which was intended for her daughter Isabella, then betrothed to -Emmanuel, the King of Portugal. - -[Sidenote: Fonseca's lack of heart.] - -So much was gratifying; but the main object of the new expedition was to -make new discoveries, and there were many harassing delays yet in store -for Columbus before he could depart with the rest of his fleet. These -delays, as we shall see, enabled another people, under the lead of -another Italian, to precede him and make the first discovery of the -mainland. The Queen was cordial, but an affliction came to distract her, -in the death of Prince Juan. Fonseca, who was now in charge of the -fitting out of the caravels, seems to have lacked heart in the -enterprise; but it serves the purpose of Columbus's adulatory -biographers to give that agent of the Crown the character of a -determined enemy of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's altercation with Fonseca's accountant.] - -Even the prisons did not disgorge their vermin, as he had wished, and -his company gathered very slowly, and never became full. Las Casas tells -us that troubles followed him even to the dock. The accountant of -Fonseca, one Ximeno de Breviesca, got into an altercation with the -Admiral, who knocked him down and exhibited other marks of passion. Las -Casas further tells us that this violence, through the representations -of it which Fonseca made, produced a greater effect on the monarchs than -all the allegations of the Admiral's cruelty and vindictiveness which -his accusers from Española had constantly brought forward, and that it -was the immediate cause of the change of royal sentiment towards him, -which soon afterwards appeared. Columbus seems to have discovered the -mistake he had made very promptly, and wrote to the monarchs to -counteract its effect. It was therefore with this new anxiety upon his -mind that he for the third time committed himself to his career of -adventure and exploration. The canonizers would have it that their -sainted hero found it necessary to prove by his energy in personal -violence that age had not impaired his manhood for the trials before -him! - - * * * * * - -Before following Columbus on this voyage, the reader must take a glance -at the conditions of discovery elsewhere, for these other events were -intimately connected with the significance of Columbus's own voyagings. - -[Sidenote: Da Gama's passage of the African cape.] - -The problem which the Portuguese had undertaken to solve was, as has -been seen, the passage to India by the Stormy Cape of Africa. Even -before Columbus had sailed on his first voyage, word had come in 1490 -to encourage King João II. His emissaries in Cairo had learned from the -Arab sailors that the passage of the cape was practicable on the side of -the Indian Ocean. The success of his Spanish rivals under Columbus in -due time encouraged the Portuguese king still more, or at least piqued -him to new efforts. - -[Illustration: VASCO DA GAMA. - -[From Stanley's _Da Gama_.]] - -[Sidenote: Reaches Calicut May 20, 1498.] - -Vasco da Gama was finally put in command of a fleet specially equipped. -It was now some years since his pilot, Pero de Alemquer, had carried -Diaz well off the cape. On Sunday, July 8, 1497, Da Gama sailed from -below Lisbon, and on November 22 he passed with full sheets the -formidable cape. It was not, however, till December 17 that he reached -the point where Diaz had turned back. His further progress does not -concern us here. Suffice it to say that he cast anchor at Calicut May -20, 1498, and India was reached ten days before Columbus started a third -time to verify his own beliefs, but really to find them errors. - -Towards the end of August, or perhaps early in September, of the next -year (1499), Da Gama arrived at Lisbon on his return voyage, -anticipated, indeed, by one of his caravels, which, separated from the -commander in April or May, had pushed ahead and reached home on the 10th -of July. Portugal at once resounded with jubilation. The fleet had -returned crippled with disabled crews, and half the vessels had -disappeared; but the solution of a great problem had been reached. - -The voyage of Da Gama, opening a trade eagerly pursued and eagerly met, -offered, as we shall see, a great contrast to the small immediate -results which came from the futile efforts of Columbus to find a western -way to the same regions. - -[Illustration: SOUTHERN PART OF AFRICA. - -[From the Ptolemy of 1513.]] - -[Sidenote: Supposed voyage of Vespucius.] - -There have been students of these early explorers who have contended -that, while Columbus was harassed in Spain with these delays in -preparing for his third voyage, the Florentine Vespucius, whom we have -encountered already as helping Berardi in the equipment of Columbus's -fleets, had, in a voyage of which we have some confused chronology, -already in 1497 discovered and coursed the northern shores of the -mainland south of the Caribbean Sea. - -[Illustration: EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF SOUTH AMERICAN NATIVES, -1497-1504. - -[From Stevens's reproduction in his _American Bibliographer_.]] - -Bernaldez tells us that, during the interval between the second and -third voyages of Columbus, the Admiral "accorded permission to other -captains to make discoveries at the west, who went and discovered -various islands." Whether we can connect this statement with any such -voyage as is now to be considered is a matter of dispute. - -[Sidenote: Who discovered South America?] - -This question of the first discovery of the mainland of South -America,--we shall see that North America's mainland had already been -discovered,--whether by Columbus or Vespucius, is one which has long -vexed the historian and still does perplex him, though the general -consensus of opinion at the present day is in favor of Columbus, while -pursuing the voyage through which we are soon to follow him. The -question is much complicated by the uncertainties and confusion of the -narratives which are our only guides. The discovery, if not claimed by -Vespucius, has been vigorously claimed for him. Its particulars are also -made a part of the doubt which has clouded the recitals concerning the -voyage of Pinzon and Solis to the Honduras coast, which are usually -placed later; but by Oviedo and Gomara this voyage is said to have -preceded that of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Claimed for Vespucius.] - -The claim for Vespucius is at the best but an enforced method of -clarifying the published texts concerning the voyages, in the hopes of -finding something like consistency in their dates. Any commentator who -undertakes to get at the truth must necessarily give himself up to some -sort of conjecture, not only as respects the varied inconsistencies of -the narrative, but also as regards the manifold blunders of the printer -of the little book which records the voyages. Muñoz had it in mind, it -is understood, to prove that Vespucius could not have been on the coast -at the date of his alleged discovery; but in the opinions of some the -documents do not prove all that Muñoz, Navarrete, and Humboldt have -claimed, while the advocacy of Varnhagen in favor of Vespucius does not -allow that writer to see what he apparently does not desire to see. The -most, perhaps, that we can say is that the proof against the view of -Varnhagen, who is in favor of such a voyage in 1497, is not wholly -substantiated. The fact seems to be, so far as can be made out, that -Vespucius passed from one commander's employ to another's, at a date -when Ojeda, in 1499, had not completed his voyage, and when Pinzon -started. So supposing a return to Spain in order for Vespucius to -restart with Pinzon, it is also supposable that the year 1499 itself may -have seen him under two different leaders. If this is the correct view, -it of course carries forward the date to a time later than the -discovery of the mainland by Columbus. It is nothing but plausible -conjecture, after all; but something of the nature of conjecture is -necessary to dissipate the confusion. The belief of this sharing of -service is the best working hypothesis yet devised upon the question. - -If Vespucius was thus with Pinzon, and this latter navigator did, as -Oviedo claims, precede Columbus to the mainland, there is no proof of it -to prevent a marked difference of opinion among all the writers, in that -some ignore the Florentine navigator entirely, and others confidently -construct the story of his discovery, which has in turn taken root and -been widely believed. - -[Sidenote: Alleged voyage of 1497.] - -A voyage of 1497 does not find mention in any of the contemporary -Portuguese chroniclers. This absence of reference is serious evidence -against it. It seems to be certain that within twenty years of their -publication, there were doubts raised of the veracity of the narratives -attributed to Vespucius, and Sebastian Cabot tells us in 1505 that he -does not believe them in respect to this one voyage at any rate, and Las -Casas is about as well convinced as Cabot was that the story was -unfounded. Las Casas's papers passed probably to Herrera, who, under the -influence of them, it would seem, formulated a distinct allegation that -Vespucius had falsified the dates, converting 1499 into 1497. To destroy -all the claims associated with Pinzon and Solis, Herrera carried their -voyage forward to 1506. It was in 1601 that this historian made these -points, and so far as he regulated the opinions of Europe for a century -and a half, including those of England as derived through Robertson, -Vespucius lived in the world's regard with a clouded reputation. The -attempt of Bandini in the middle of the last century to lift the shadow -was not very fortunate, but better success followed later, when Canovai -delivered an address which then and afterwards, when it was reinforced -by other publications of his, was something like a gage thrown to the -old-time defamatory spirit. This denunciatory view was vigorously -worked, with Navarrete's help, by Santarem in the _Coleccion_ of that -Spanish scholar, whence Irving in turn got his opinions. Santarem -professed to have made most extensive examinations of Portuguese and -French manuscripts without finding a trace of the Florentine. - -Undaunted by all such negative testimony, the Portuguese Varnhagen, as -early as 1839, began a series of publications aimed at rehabilitating -the fame of Vespucius, against the views of all the later writers, -Humboldt, Navarrete, Santarem, and the rest. Humboldt claimed to adduce -evidence to show that Vespucius was all the while in Europe. Varnhagen -finally brought himself to the belief that in this disputed voyage of -1497 Vespucius, acting under the orders of Vicente Yañez Pinzon and Juan -Diaz de Solis, really reached the main at Honduras, whence he followed -the curvatures of the coast northerly till he reached the capes of -Chesapeake. Thence he steered easterly, passed the Bermudas, and arrived -at Seville. If this is so, he circumnavigated the archipelago of the -Antilles, and disproved the continental connection of Cuba. Varnhagen -even goes so far as to maintain that Vespucius had not been deceived -into supposing the coast was that of Asia, but that he divined the -truth. Varnhagen stands, however, alone in this estimate of the -evidence. - -Valentini, in our day, has even supposed that the incomplete Cuba of the -Ruysch map of 1508 was really the Yucatan shore, which Vespucius had -skirted. - -The claim which some French zealots in maritime discovery have attempted -to sustain, of Norman adventurers being on the Brazil coast in 1497-98, -is hardly worth consideration. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The English expedition under Cabot.] - -We turn now to other problems. The Bull of Demarcation was far from -being acceptable as an ultimate decision in England, and the spirit of -her people towards it is well shown in the _Westerne Planting_ of -Hakluyt. This chronicler mistrusts that its "certain secret -causes"--which words he had found in the papal bull, probably by using -an inaccurate version--were no other than "the feare and jelousie that -King Henry of England, with whom Bartholomew Columbus had been to deal -in this enterprise, and who even now was ready to send him into Spain to -call his brother Christopher to England, should put a foot into this -action;" and so the Pope, "fearing that either the King of Portugal -might be reconciled to Columbus, or that he might be drawn into England, -thought secretly by his unlawful division to defraud England and -Portugal of that benefit." So England and Portugal had something like a -common cause, and the record of how they worked that cause is told in -the stories of Cabot first, and of Cortereal later. We will examine at -this point the Cabot story only. - -[Sidenote: Newfoundland fisheries.] - -Bristol had long been the seat of the English commerce with Iceland, and -one of the commodities received in return for English goods was the -stockfish, which Cabot was to recognize on the Newfoundland banks. These -stories of the codfish noticed by Cabot recalled in the mind of Galvano -in 1555, and again more forcibly to Hakluyt a half century later, when -Germany was now found to be not far from the latitude of Baccalaos, that -there was a tale of some strange men, in the time of Frederick -Barbarossa (A. D. 1153), being driven to Lubec in a canoe. - -It is by no means beyond possibility that the Basque and other fishermen -of Europe may have already strayed to these fishing grounds of -Newfoundland, at some period anterior to this voyage of Cabot, and even -traces of their frequenting the coast in Bradore Bay have been pointed -out, but without convincing as yet the careful student. - -[Sidenote: John Cabot.] - -A Venetian named Zuan Caboto, settling in England, and thenceforward -calling himself John Cabot, being a man of experience in travel, and -having seen at one time at Mecca the caravans returning from the east, -was impressed, as Columbus had been, with a belief in the roundness of -the earth. It is not unlikely that this belief had taken for him a -compelling nature from the stories which had come to England of the -successful voyage of the Spaniards. Indeed, Ramusio distinctly tells us -that it was the bruit of Columbus's first voyage which gave to Cabot "a -great flame of desire to attempt some notable thing." - -[Sidenote: 1496. March 5. Cabot's patent.] - -[Sidenote: 1497. May. Cabot sails.] - -When Cabot had received for himself and his three sons--one of whom was -Sebastian Cabot--a patent (March 5, 1496) from Henry VII. to discover -and trade with unknown countries beyond the seas, the envoy of Ferdinand -and Isabella at the English court was promptly instructed to protest -against any infringement of the rights of Spain in the western regions. -Whether this protest was accountable for the delay in sailing, or not, -does not appear, for Cabot did not set sail from Bristol till May, -1497. - -[Sidenote: Ruysch with Cabot.] - -It is inferred from what Beneventanus says in his _Ptolemy_ of 1508 that -Ruysch, who gives us the earliest engraved map of Cabot's discoveries, -was a companion of Cabot in this initial voyage. When that editor says -that he learned from Ruysch of his experiences in sailing from the south -of England to a point in 53 degrees of north latitude, and thence due -west, it may be referred to such participancy in this expedition from -Bristol. We know from a conversation which is reported in -Ramusio--unless there is some mistake in it--that Cabot apprehended the -nature of what we call great circle sailing, and claimed that his course -to the northwest would open India by a shorter route than the westerly -run of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: 1497. June 24. Cabot sees land.] - -[Sidenote: Date of the voyage, 1494 or 1497?] - -When Cabot had ventured westerly 700 leagues, he found land, June 24, -1497. There has been some confidence at different times, early and late, -that the date of this first Cabot voyage was in reality three years -before this. The belief arose from the date of 1494 being given in what -seem to have been early copies of a map ascribed to Sebastian Cabot, -whence the date 1494 was copied by Hakluyt in 1589, though eleven years -later he changed it to 1497. It is sufficient to say that few of the -critics of our day, except D'Avezac, hold to this date of 1494. Major -supposes that the map of 1544, now in the Paris library and ascribed to -Cabot, was a re-drawn draft from the lost Spanish original, in which the -date in Roman letters, VII, may have been so carelessly made in joining -the arms of the V that it was read IIII; and some such inference was -apparently in the mind of Henry Stevens when he published his little -tract on Sebastian Cabot in 1870. - -The country which Cabot thus first saw was supposed by him to be a part -of Asia, and to be occupied, though no inhabitants were seen. - -[Sidenote: Cabot's landfall.] - -Cabot was for over three hundred years considered as having made his -landfall on the coast of Labrador, or at least we find no record that -the legend of the map of 1544, placing it at Cape Breton, had impressed -itself authoritatively upon the minds of Cabot's contemporaries and -successors. Biddle and Humboldt, in the early part of the present -century, accepted the Labrador landfall with little question. So it -happened that when, in 1843, the Cabot mappemonde of 1544 was -discovered, and it was found to place the landfall at the island of Cape -Breton, a certain definiteness, where there had been so much vagueness, -afforded the student some relief; but as the novelty of the sensation -wore off, confidence was again lost, inasmuch as the various -uncertainties of the document give much ground for the rejection of all -parts of its testimony at variance with better vouched beliefs. It is -quite possible that more satisfactory proofs can be adduced of another -region for the landfall, but none such have yet been presented to -scholars. - -It is commonly held now that, sighting land at Cape Breton, Cabot -coursed northerly, passed the present Prince Edward Island, and then -sailed out of the Strait of Belle Isle,--or at least this is as -reasonable a route to make out of the scant record as any, though there -is nothing like a commonly received opinion on his track. There is some -ground for thinking that he could not have entered the Gulf of St. -Lawrence at all. He landed nowhere and saw no inhabitants. If he struck -the mainland, it was probably the coasts of New Brunswick or Labrador -bordering on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The two islands which he observed -on his right may have been headlands of Newfoundland, seeming to be -isolated. - -[Sidenote: 1497. August. Cabot returns.] - -He reached Bristol in August, having been absent about three months. -Raimondo de Soncino, under date of the 24th of that month, wrote to -Italy of Cabot's return, and a fortnight earlier (August 10) we find -record of a gratuity of ten pounds given to Cabot in recognition of this -service. It proved to be an expedition which was to create a greater -sensation of its kind than the English had before known. Bristol had -nurtured for some years a race of hardy seamen. They had risked the -dangers of the great unknown ocean in efforts to find the fabulous -island of Brazil, and they had pushed adventurously westward at times, -but always to return without success. The intercourse of England with -the northern nations and with Iceland may have given them tidings of -Greenland; but there is no reason to believe that they ever supposed -that country to be other than an extended peninsula of Europe, enfolding -the North Atlantic. - -[Sidenote: Cabot in England.] - -Cabot's telling of a new land, his supposing it the empire of the Great -Khan, his tales of the wonderful fishing ground thereabouts, where the -water was so dense with fish that his vessels were impeded, and his -expectation of finding the land of spices if he went southward from the -region of his landfall, were all stories calculated to incite wonder and -speculation. It was not strange, then, that England found she had her -new sea-hero, as Spain had hers in Columbus; that the king gave him -money and a pension; and that, conscious of a certain dignity, Cabot -went about the city, drawing the attention of the curious by reason of -the fine silks in which he arrayed himself. - -[Sidenote: Spain jealous of England.] - -Cabot had no sooner returned than Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish envoy in -London, again entered a protest, and gave notice to the English king -that the land which had been discovered belonged to his master. There is -some evidence that Spain kept close watch on the country at the north -through succeeding years, and even intended settlement. - -[Sidenote: Cabot in Seville?] - -This Spanish ambassador wrote home from London, July 25, 1498, that -after his first voyage, Cabot had been in Seville and Lisbon. This -renders somewhat probable the suspicion that he may have had conferences -with La Cosa and Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Cabot's charts.] - -That John Cabot, on returning from his first voyage, produced a chart -which he had made, and that on this and on a solid globe, also of his -construction, he had laid down what he considered to be the region he -had reached, now admit of no doubt. Foreign residents at the English -court reported such facts to the courts of Italy and of Spain. In the -map of La Cosa (1500), we find what is considered a reflex of this Cabot -chart, in the words running along a stretch of the northeast coast of -Asia, which announce the waters adjacent as those visited by the -English, and a neighboring headland as the Cape of the English. Even La -Cosa's use of the Cabot map was lost sight of before long, and this -record of La Cosa remained unknown till Humboldt discovered the map in -Paris, in 1832, in the library of Baron Walckenaer, whence it passed in -1853 into the royal museum at Madrid. The views of Cabot respecting this -region seem to have been soon obscured by the more current charts -showing the voyages of the Cortereals, when the Cape of the English -readily disappeared in the "Cabo de Portogesi," a forerunner, very -likely, of what we know to-day as Cape Race. - -[Sidenote: 1497-98. February. The second Cabot voyage.] - -Such an appetizing tale as that of the first Cabot expedition was not -likely to rest without a sequel. On the 3d of February, 1497-98, nearly -four months before Columbus sailed on his third voyage, the English king -granted a new patent to John Cabot, giving him the right to man six -ships if he could, and in May he was at sea. Though his sons were not -mentioned in the patent, it is supposed that Sebastian Cabot accompanied -his father. One vessel putting back to Ireland, five others went on, -carrying John Cabot westward somewhere and to oblivion, for we never -hear of him again. Stevens ventures the suggestion that John Cabot may -have died on the voyage of 1498, whereby Sebastian came into command, -and so into a prominence in his own recollections of the voyage, which -may account for the obscuration of his father's participancy in the -enterprise. One of the ships would seem to have been commanded by -Lanslot Thirkill, of London. - -What we know of this second voyage are mentions in later years, vague in -character, and apparently traceable to what Sebastian had said of it, -and not always clearly, for there is an evident commingling of events of -this and of the earlier voyage. We get what we know mainly from Peter -Martyr, who tells us that Cabot called the region Baccalaos, and from -Ramusio, who reports at second hand Sebastian's account, made forty -years after the event. From such indefinite sources we can make out that -the little fleet steered northwesterly, and got into water packed with -ice, and found itself in a latitude where there was little night. Thence -turning south they ran down to 36° north latitude. The crews landed here -and there, and saw people dressed in skins, who used copper implements. -When they reached England we do not know, but it was after October, -1498. - -[Sidenote: Extent of this voyage.] - -The question of this voyage having extended down the Atlantic seaboard -of the present United States to the region of Florida, as has been -urged, seems to be set at rest in Stevens's opinion, from the fact that, -had Cabot gone so far, he would scarcely have acquiesced in the claims -of Ponce de Leon, Ayllon, and Gomez to have first tracked parts of this -coast, when Sebastian Cabot as pilot major of Spain (1518), and as -president of the Congress of Badajoz (1524), had to adjudicate on such -pretensions. There are some objections to this view, in that the results -of _unofficial_ explorers as shown in the Portuguese map of Cantino--if -that proposition is tenable--and the rival English discoverers, of whom -Cabot had been one, might easily have been held to be beyond the Spanish -jurisdiction. It is not difficult to demonstrate in these matters the -Spanish constant unrecognition of other national explorations. - -It has also sometimes been held that the wild character of the coast -along which Cabot sailed must have convinced him that he was bordering -some continental region intervening between him and the true coast of -Asia; that with the "great displeasure" he had felt in finding the land -running north, Cabot, in fact, must have comprehended the geographical -problem of America long before it was comprehended by the Spaniards. The -testimony of the La Cosa and Ruysch maps is not favorable to such a -belief. - -[Sidenote: England rests her claim on it.] - -It seems pretty certain that the success of the Cabot voyage in any -worldly gain was not sufficient to move the English again for a long -period. Still, the political effect was to raise a claim for England to -a region not then known to be a new continent, but of an appreciable -acquisition, and England never afterwards failed to rest her rights upon -this claim of discovery; and even her successors, the American people, -have not been without cause to rest valuable privileges upon the same. -The geographical effect was seen in the earliest map which we possess of -the new lands as discovered by Spain and England, the great oxhide map -of Juan de la Cosa, the companion of Columbus on his second voyage, and -the cartographer of his discoveries, which has already been mentioned, -and of which a further description will be given later. - -[Sidenote: Scant knowledge of the Cabot voyages.] - -Why is it that we know no more of these voyages of the Cabots? There -seems to be some ground for the suspicion that the "maps and discourses" -which Sebastian Cabot left behind him in the hands of William -Worthington may have fallen, through the subornation by Spain of the -latter, into the hands of the rivals of England at a period just after -the publication (1582) of Hakluyt's _Divers Voyages_, wherein the -possession of them by Worthington was made known; at least, Biddle has -advanced such a theory, and it has some support in what may be -conjectured of the history of the famous Cabot map of 1544, only brought -to light three hundred years later. - -[Sidenote: The Cabot mappemonde.] - -Here was a map evidently based in part on such information as was known -in Spain. It was engraved, as seems likely, though purporting to be the -work of Cabot, in the Low Countries, and was issued without name of -publisher or place, as if to elude responsibility. Notwithstanding it -was an engraved map, implying many copies, it entirely disappeared, and -would not have been known to exist except that there are references to -such a map as having hung in the gallery at Whitehall, as used by -Ortelius before 1570, and as noted by Sanuto in 1588. So thorough a -suppression would seem to imply an effort on the part of the Spanish -authorities to prevent the world's profiting by the publication of -maritime knowledge which in some clandestine way had escaped from the -Spanish hydrographical office. That this suppression was in effect -nearly successful may be inferred from the fact that but a single copy -of the map has come down to us, the one now in the great library at -Paris, which was found in Germany by Von Martius in 1843. - -[Sidenote: Writers on Cabot.] - -There has been a good deal done of late years--beginning with Biddle's -_Sebastian Cabot_ in 1831, a noteworthy book, showing how much the -critical spirit can do to unravel confusion, and ending with the chapter -on Cabot by the late Dr. Charles Deane in the _Narrative and Critical -History of America_, and with the _Jean et Sébastien Cabot_ of Harrisse -(Paris, 1882)--to clear up the great obscurity regarding the two voyages -of John Cabot in 1497 and 1498, an obscurity so dense that for two -hundred years after the events there was no suspicion among writers that -there had been more than a single voyage. It would appear that this -obscurity had mainly arisen from the way in which Sebastian Cabot -himself spoke of his explorations, or rather from the way in which he is -reported to have spoken. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -THE THIRD VOYAGE. - -1498-1500. - - -[Sidenote: Sources. Columbus's letters and journal.] - -In following the events of the third voyage, we have to depend mainly on -two letters written by Columbus himself. One is addressed to the Spanish -monarchs, and is preserved in a copy made by Las Casas. What Peter -Martyr tells us seems to have been borrowed from this letter. The other -is addressed to the "nurse" of Prince Juan, of which there are copies in -the Columbus Custodia at Genoa, and in the Muñoz collection of the Royal -Academy of History at Madrid. They are both printed in Navarrete and -elsewhere, and Major in his _Select Letters of Columbus_ gives English -versions. - -There are also some evidences that the account of this voyage given in -the _Itinerarium Portugalensium_ was based on Columbus's journal, which -Las Casas is known to have had, and to have used in his _Historia_, -adding thereto some details which he got from a recital by Bernaldo de -Ibarra, one of Columbus's companions,--indeed, his secretary. The map -which accompanied these accounts by Columbus is lost. We only know its -existence through the use of it made by Ojeda and others. - -Las Casas interspersed among the details which he recorded from -Columbus's journal some particulars which he got from Alonso de Vallejo. -One of the pilots, Hernan Perez Matheos, enabled Oviedo to add still -something more to the other sources; and then we have additional light -from the mouths of various witnesses in the Columbus lawsuit. There is a -little at second hand, but of small importance, in a letter of Simon -Verde printed by Harrisse. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's son Diego.] - -Before setting sail, Columbus prepared some directions for his son -Diego, of which we have only recently had notes, such appearing in the -bulletin of the Italian Geographical Society for December, 1889. He -commands in these injunctions that Diego shall have an affectionate -regard for the mother of his half-brother Ferdinand, adds some rules for -the guidance of his bearing towards his sovereigns and his fellow-men, -and recommends him to resort to Father Gaspar Gorricio whenever he might -feel in need of advice. - -[Sidenote: 1498. May 30. Columbus sails.] - -[Sidenote: Rumors of a southern continent.] - -Columbus lifted anchor in the port of San Lucar de Barrameda on May 30, -1498. He was physically far from being in a good condition for so -adventurous an undertaking. He had hoped, he says to his sovereigns, "to -find repose in Spain; whereas on the contrary I have experienced nothing -but opposition and vexation." His six vessels stood off to the -southwest, to avoid a French--some say a Portuguese--fleet which was -said to be cruising near Cape St. Vincent. His plan was a definite one, -to keep in a southerly course till he reached the equatorial regions, -and then to proceed west. By this course, he hoped to strike in that -direction the continental mass of which he had intimation both from the -reports of the natives in Española and from the trend which he had found -in his last voyage the Cuban coast to have. Herrera tells us that the -Portuguese king professed to have some knowledge of a continent in this -direction, and we may connect it, if we choose, with the stories -respecting Behaim and others, who had already sailed thitherward, as -some reports go; but it is hard to comprehend that any belief of that -kind was other than a guess at a compensating scheme of geography beyond -the Atlantic, to correspond with the balance of Africa against Europe in -the eastern hemisphere. It is barely possible, though there is no -positive evidence of it, that the reports from England of the Cabot -discoveries at the north may have given a hint of like prolongation to -the south. But a more impelling instinct was the prevalent one of his -time, which accompanied what Michelet calls that terrible malady -breaking out in this age of Europe, the hunger and thirst for gold and -other precious things, and which associated the possession of them with -the warmer regions of the globe. - -"To the south," said Peter Martyr. "He who would find riches must avoid -the cold north!" - -[Sidenote: Jayme Ferrer.] - -Navarrete preserves a letter which was written to Columbus by Jayme -Ferrer, a lapidary of distinction. This jeweler confirmed the prevalent -notion, and said that in all his intercourse with distant marts, whence -Europe derived its gold and jewels, he had learned from their vendors -how such objects of commerce usually came in greatest abundance from -near the equator, while black races were those that predominated near -such sources. Therefore, as Ferrer told Columbus, steer south and find a -black race, if you would get at such opulent abundance. The Admiral -remembered he had heard in Española of blacks that had come from the -south to that island in the past, and he had taken to Spain some of the -metal which had been given to him as of the kind with which their -javelins had been pointed. The Spanish assayers had found it a -composition of gold, copper, and silver. - -[Sidenote: Columbus steers southerly.] - -[Sidenote: 1498. June 16. At Gomera.] - -So it was with expectations like these that Columbus now worked his way -south. He touched for wood and water at Porto Santo and Madeira, and -thence proceeded to Gomera. Here, on June 16, he found a French cruiser -with two Spanish prizes, but the three ships eluded his grasp and got to -sea. He sent three caravels in pursuit, and the Spanish prisoners rising -on the crew of one of the prizes, she was easily captured and brought -into port. - -[Sidenote: Sends three ships direct to Española.] - -The Spanish fleet sailed again on June 21. The Admiral had detailed -three of his ships to proceed direct to Española to find the new port on -its southern side near the mines of Hayna. Their respective captains -were to command the little squadron successively a week at a time. These -men were: Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, a man of good reputation; Pedro de -Arona, a brother of Beatrix de Henriquez, who had borne Ferdinand to the -Admiral; and Juan Antonio Colombo, a Genoese and distant kinsman of the -Admiral. - -[Sidenote: Columbus at the Cape de Verde Islands.] - -Parting with these vessels off Ferro, Columbus, with the three -others,--one of which, the flagship, being decked, of a hundred tons -burthen, and requiring three fathoms of water,--steered for the Cape de -Verde Islands. His stay here was not inspiring. A depressing climate of -vapor and an arid landscape told upon his health and upon that of his -crew. Encountering difficulties in getting fresh provisions and cattle, -he sailed again on July 5, standing to the southwest. - -[Sidenote: 1498. July 15.] - -[Sidenote: Calms and torrid heats.] - -[Sidenote: 1498. July 31. Trinidad seen.] - -[Sidenote: August 1.] - -Calms and the currents among the islands baffled him, however, and it -was the 7th before the high peak of Del Fuego sank astern. By the 15th -of July he had reached the latitude of 5° north. He was now within the -verge of the equatorial calms. The air soon burned everything -distressingly; the rigging oozed with the running tar; the seams of the -vessels opened; provisions grew putrid, and the wine casks shrank and -leaked. The fiery ordeal called for all the constancy of the crew, and -the Admiral himself needed all the fortitude he could command to bear a -brave face amid the twinges of gout which were prostrating him. He -changed his course to see if he could not run out of the intolerable -heat, and after a tedious interval, with no cessation of the humid and -enervating air, the ships gradually drew into a fresher atmosphere. A -breeze rippled the water, and the sun shone the more refreshing for its -clearness. He now steered due west, hoping to find land before his water -and provisions failed. He did not discover land as soon as he expected, -and so bore away to the north, thinking to see some of the Carib -Islands. On July 31 relief came, none too soon, for their water was -nearly exhausted. A mariner, about midday, peering about from the -masthead, saw three peaks just rising above the horizon. The cry of land -was like a benison. The _Salve Regina_ was intoned in every part of the -ship. Columbus now headed the fleet for the land. As the ships went on -and the three peaks grew into a triple mountain, he gave the island the -name of Trinidad, a reminder in its peak of the Trinity, which he had -determined at the start to commemorate by bestowing that appellation on -the first land he saw. He coasted the shore of this island for some -distance before he could find a harbor to careen his ships and replenish -his water casks. On August 1 he anchored to get water, and was surprised -at the fresh luxuriance of the country. He could see habitations in the -interior, but nowhere along the shore were any signs of occupation. His -men, while filling the casks, discovered footprints and other traces of -human life, but those who made them kept out of sight. - -[Sidenote: First sees the South American coast.] - -He was now on the southern side of the island, and in that channel which -separates Trinidad from the low country about the mouths of the Orinoco. -Before long he could see the opposite coast stretching away for twenty -leagues, but he did not suspect it to be other than an island, which he -named La Isla Santa. - -It was indeed strange but not surprising that Columbus found an island -of a new continent, and supposed it the mainland of the Old World, as -happened during his earlier voyages; and equally striking it was that -now when he had actually seen the mainland of a new world he did not -know it. - -[Sidenote: 1498. August 2.] - -By the 2d of August the Admiral had approached that narrow channel where -the southwest corner of Trinidad comes nearest to the mainland, and here -he anchored. A large canoe, containing five and twenty Indians, put off -towards his ships, but finally its occupants lay upon their paddles a -bowshot away. Columbus describes them as comely in shape, naked but for -breech-cloths, and wearing variegated scarfs about their heads. They -were lighter in skin than any Indians he had seen before. This fact was -not very promising in view of the belief that precious products would be -found in a country inhabited by blacks. The men had bucklers, too, a -defense he had never seen before among these new tribes. He tried to -lure them on board by showing trinkets, and by improvising some music -and dances among his crew. The last expedient was evidently looked upon -as a challenge, and was met by a flight of arrows. Two crossbows were -discharged in return, and the canoe fled. The natives seemed to have -less fear of the smaller caravels, and approached near enough for the -captain of one of them to throw some presents to them, a cap, and a -mantle, and the like; but when the Indians saw that a boat was sent to -the Admiral's ship, they again fled. - -While here at anchor, the crew were permitted to go ashore and refresh -themselves. They found much delight in the cool air of the morning and -evening, coming after their experiences of the torrid suffocation of the -calm latitudes. Nature had appeared to them never so fresh. - -[Sidenote: The Gulf Stream.] - -[Sidenote: Boca del Sierpe.] - -[Sidenote: Gulf of Paria.] - -[Sidenote: Boca del Drago.] - -Columbus grew uneasy in his insecure anchorage, for he had discovered as -yet no roadstead. He saw the current flowing by with a strength that -alarmed him. The waters seemed to tumble in commotion as they were -jammed together in the narrow pass before him. It was his first -experience of that African current which, setting across the ocean, -plunges hereabouts into the Caribbean Sea, and, sweeping around the -great gulf, passes north in what we know as the Gulf Stream. Columbus -was as yet ignorant, too, of the great masses of water which the many -mouths of the Orinoco discharge along this shore; and when at night a -great roaring billow of water came across the channel,--very likely an -unusual volume of the river water poured out of a sudden,--and he found -his own ship lifting at her anchor and one of his caravels snapping her -cable, he felt himself in the face of new dangers, and of forces of -nature to which he was not accustomed. To a seaman's senses not used to -such phenomena, the situation of the ships was alarming. Before him was -the surging flow of the current through the narrow pass, which he had -already named the Mouth of the Serpent (Boca del Sierpe). To attempt its -passage was almost foolhardy. To return along the coast stemming such a -current seemed nearly impossible. He then sent his boats to examine the -pass, and they found more water than was supposed, and on the assurances -of the pilot, and the wind favoring, he headed his ships for the boiling -eddies, passed safely through, and soon reached the placid water beyond. -The shore of Trinidad stretched northerly, and he turned to follow it, -but somebody getting a taste of the water found it to be fresh. Here was -a new surprise. He had not yet comprehended that he was within a -land-locked gulf, where the rush of the Orinoco sweetens the tide -throughout. As he approached the northwestern limit of Trinidad, he -found that a lofty cape jutted out opposite a similar headland to the -west, and that between them lay a second surging channel, beset with -rocks and seeming to be more dangerous than the last. So he gave it a -more ferocious name, the Mouth of the Dragon (Boca del Drago). To follow -the opposite coast presented an alternative that did not require so much -risk, and, still ignorant of the way in which his fleet was embayed in -this marvelous water, he ran across on Sunday, August 5, to the opposite -shore. He now coasted it to find a better opening to the north, for he -had supposed this slender peninsula to be another island. The water grew -fresher as he went on. The shore attracted him, with its harbors and -salubrious, restful air, but he was anxious to get into the open sea. -He saw no inhabitants. The liveliest creatures which he observed were -the chattering monkeys. At length, the country becoming more level, he -ran into the mouth of a river and cast anchor. It was perhaps here that -the Spaniards first set foot on the continent. The accounts are somewhat -confused, and need some license in reconciling them. They had, possibly, -landed earlier. - -[Illustration: GULF OF PARIA.] - -[Sidenote: Paria.] - -A canoe with three natives now came out to the caravel nearest shore. -The Spanish captain secured the men by a clever trick. After a parley, -he gave them to understand he would go on shore in their boat, and -jumping violently on its gunwale, he overturned it. The occupants were -easily captured in the water. Being taken on board the flagship, the -inevitable hawks' bells captivated them, and they were set on shore to -delight their fellows. Other parleys and interchanges of gifts followed. -Columbus now ascertained, as well as he could by signs, that the word -"Paria," which he heard, was the name of the country. The Indians -pointed westerly, and indicated that men were much more numerous that -way. The Spaniards were struck with the tall stature of the men, and -noted the absence of braids in their hair. It was curious to see them -smell of everything that was new to them,--a piece of brass, for -instance. It seemed to be their sense of inquiry and recognition. It is -not certain if Columbus participated in this intercourse on shore. He -was suffering from a severe eruption of the eyes, and one of the -witnesses said that the formal taking possession of the country was done -by deputy on that account. This statement is contradicted by others. - -[Sidenote: The natives.] - -As he went on, the country became even more attractive, with its limpid -streams, its open and luxuriant woods, its clambering vines, all -enlivened with the flitting of brilliant birds. So he called the place -The Gardens. The natives appeared to him to partake of the excellence of -the country. They were, as he thought, manlier in bearing, shapelier in -frame, with greater intelligence in their eyes, than any he had earlier -discovered. Their arts were evidently superior to anything he had yet -seen. Their canoes were handier, lighter, and had covered pavilions in -the waist. There were strings of pearls upon the women which raised in -the Spaniards an increased sense of cupidity. The men found oysters -clinging to the boughs that drooped along the shore. Columbus recalled -how he had read in Pliny of the habit of the pearl oyster to open the -mouth to catch the dew, which was converted within into pearls. The -people were as hospitable as they were gracious, and gave the strangers -feasts as they passed from cabin to cabin. They pointed beyond the -hills, and signified that another coast lay there, where a greater store -of pearls could be found. - -[Sidenote: 1498. August 10.] - -To leave this paradise was necessary, and on August 10 the ships went -further on, soon to find the water growing still fresher and more -shallow. At last, thinking it dangerous to push his flagship into such -shoals, Columbus sent his lightest caravel ahead, and waited her coming -back. On the next day she returned, and reported that there was an inner -bay beyond the islands which were seen, into which large volumes of -fresh water poured, as if a huge continent were drained. Here were -conditions for examination under more favorable circumstances, and on -August 11 Columbus turned his prow toward the Dragon's Mouth. His -stewards declared the provisions growing bad, and even the large stores -intended for the colony were beginning to spoil. It was necessary to -reach his destination. Columbus's own health was sinking. His gout had -little cessation. His eyes had almost closed with a weariness that he -had before experienced on the Cuban cruise, and he could but think of -the way in which he had been taken prostrate into Isabella on returning -from that expedition. - -[Sidenote: Passes the Boca del Drago.] - -[Sidenote: Tobago and Grenada.] - -[Sidenote: Cubagua and Margarita.] - -Near the Dragon's Mouth he found a harbor in which to prepare for the -passage of the tumultuous strait. There seemed no escape from the trial. -The passage lay before him, wide enough in itself, but two islands -parted its currents and forced the boiling waters into narrower -confines. Columbus studied their motion, and finally made up his mind -that the turmoil of the waters might after all come from the meeting of -the tide and the fresh currents seeking the open sea, and not from rocks -or shoals. At all events, the passage must be made. The wind veering -round to the right quarter, he set sail and entered the boisterous -currents. As long as the wind lasted there was a good chance of keeping -his steering way. Unfortunately, the wind died away, and so he trusted -to luck and the sweeping currents. They carried him safely beyond. Once -without, he was brought within sight of two islands to the northeast. -They were apparently those we to-day call Tobago and Grenada. It was now -the 15th of August, and Columbus turned westward to track the coast. He -came to the islands of Cubagua and Margarita, and surprised some native -canoes fishing for pearls. - -[Sidenote: Pearls.] - -His crews soon got into parley with the natives, and breaking up some -Valentia ware into bits, the Spaniards bartered them so successfully -that they secured three pounds, as Columbus tells us, of the coveted -jewels. He had satisfied himself that here was a new field for the -wealth which could alone restore his credit in Spain; but he could not -tarry. As he wore ship, he left behind a mountainous reach of the coast -that stretched westerly, and he would fain think that India lay that -way, as it had from Cuba. At that island and here, he had touched, as he -thought, the confines of Asia, two protuberant peninsulas, or perhaps -masses of the continent, separated by a strait, which possibly lay ahead -of him. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's geographical delusions.] - -There was much that had been novel in all these experiences. Columbus -felt that the New World was throwing wider open the gates of its sublime -secrets. Lying on his couch, almost helpless from the cruel agonies of -the gout, and sightless from the malady of his eyes, the active mind of -the Admiral worked at the old problems anew. We know it all from the -letter which a few weeks later he drafted for the perusal of his -sovereigns, and from his reports to Peter Martyr, which that chronicler -has preserved for us. We know from this letter that his thoughts were -still dwelling on the Mount Sopora of Solomon, "which mountain your -Highnesses now possess in the island of Española,"--a convenient -stepping-stone to other credulous fancies, as we shall see. The -sweetness and volume of the water which had met him in the Gulf of Paria -were significant to him of a great watershed behind. He reverted to the -statement in Esdras of the vast preponderance on the globe of land, six -parts to one of water, and thought he saw a confirmation of it in the -immense flow that argued a corresponding expansion of land. He recalled -all that he recollected of Aristotle and the other sages. He went back -to his experiences in mid-ocean, when he was startled at the coincidence -of the needle and the pole star. He remembered how he had found all the -conditions of temperature and the other physical aspects to be changed -as he passed that line, and it seemed as if he was sweeping into regions -more ethereal. He had found the same difference when he passed, a few -weeks before, out of the baleful heats of the tropical calms. He grew to -think that this line of no variation of magnetism with corresponding -marvels of nature marked but the beginning of a new section of the earth -that no one had dreamed of. St. Augustine, St. Basil, and St. Ambrose -had placed the Garden of Eden far in the Old World's east, apart from -the common vicinage of men, high up above the baser parts of the earth, -in a region bathed in the purest ether, and so high that the deluge had -not reached it. All the stories of the Middle Ages, absorbed in the -speculative philosophy of his own time, had pointed to the distant east -as the seat of Paradise, and was he not now coming to it by the western -passage? If the scant riches of the soil could not restore the -enthusiasm which his earlier discoveries aroused in the dull spirits of -Europe, would not a glimpse of the ecstatic pleasures of Eden open their -eyes anew? He had endeavored to make his contemporaries feel that the -earth was round, and he had proved it, as he thought, by almost -touching, in a westward passage, the Golden Chersonesus. It is -significant that the later _Historie_ of 1571 omits this vagary of -Paradise. The world had moved, and geographical discovery had made some -records in the interim, awkward for the biographer of Columbus. - -[Illustration: PRE-COLUMBIAN MAPPEMONDE, PRESERVED AT RAVENNA, RESTORED -BY GRAVIER AFTER D'AVEZAC IN _BULLETIN DE LA SOCIÉTÉ NORMANDE_, 1888.] - -[Sidenote: Paradise found.] - -There was a newer belief linked with this hope of Paradise. All this -wondrous life and salubrity which Columbus saw and felt, if it had not -been able to restore his health, could only come from his progress up a -swelling apex of the earth, which buttressed the Garden of Eden. It was -clear to his mind that instead of being round the earth was pear-shaped, -and that this great eminence, up which he had been going, was constantly -lifting him into purer air. The great fountain which watered the -spacious garden of the early race had discharged its currents down these -ethereal slopes, and sweetened all this gulf that had held him so close -within its embaying girth. If such were the wonders of these outposts of -the celestial life, what must be the products to be seen as one -journeyed up, along the courses of such celestial streams? As he steered -for Española, he found the currents still helped him, or he imagined -they did. Was it not that he was slipping easily down this wonderful -declivity? - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Vespucius.] - -That he had again discovered the mainland he was convinced by such -speculations. He had no conception of the physical truth. The vagaries -of his time found in him the creature of their most rampant -hallucinations. This aberration was a potent cause in depriving him of -the chance to place his own name on this goal of his ambition. It -accounts much for the greater impression which Americus Vespucius, with -his clearer instincts, was soon to make on the expectant and learned -world. The voyage of that Florentine merchant, one of those trespassers -that Columbus complained of, was, before the Admiral should see Spain -again, to instigate the publication of a narrative, which took from its -true discoverer the rightful baptism of the world he had unwittingly -found. The wild imaginings of Columbus, gathered from every resource of -the superstitious past, moulded by him into beliefs that appealed but -little to the soberer intelligence of his time, made known in -tumultuous writings, and presently to be expressed with every symptom -of mental wandering in more elaborate treatises, offered to his time an -obvious contrast to the steadier head of Vespucius. The latter's far -more graphic description gained for him, as we shall see, the position -of a recognized authority. While Columbus was puzzling over the -aberration of the pole star and misshaping the earth, Vespucius was -comprehending the law of gravitation upon our floating sphere, and -ultimately representing it in the diagram which illustrated his -narrative. We shall need to return on a later page to these causes which -led to the naming of America. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1498. August 19. Columbus sees Española.] - -[Sidenote: His observations of nature.] - -[Sidenote: Meets the Adelantado.] - -For four days Columbus had sailed away to the northwest, coming to the -wind every night as a precaution, before he sighted Española on August -19, being then, as he made out, about fifty leagues west of the spot -where he supposed the port had been established for the mines of Hayna. -He thought that he had been steering nearer that point, but the currents -had probably carried him unconsciously west by night, as they were at -that moment doing with the relief ships that he had parted with off -Ferro. As Columbus speculated on this steady flow of waters with that -keenness of observation upon natural phenomena which attracted the -admiration of Humboldt, and which is really striking, if we separate it -from his turbulent fancies, he accounted by its attrition for the -predominating shape of the islands which he had seen, which had their -greatest length in the direction of the current. He knew that its force -would, perhaps, long delay him in his efforts to work eastward, and so -he opened communication with the shore in hopes to find a messenger by -whom to dispatch a letter to the Adelantado. This was easily done, and -the letter reached its destination, whereupon Bartholomew started out in -a caravel to meet the little fleet. It was with some misgiving that -Columbus resumed his course, for he had seen a crossbow in the hands of -a native. It was not an article of commerce, and it might signify -another disaster like that of La Navidad. He was accordingly relieved -when he shortly afterwards saw a Spanish caravel approaching, and, -hailing the vessel, found that the Adelantado had come to greet him. - -There was much interchange of news and thought to occupy the two in -their first conference; and Columbus's anxiety to know the condition of -the colony elicited a wearisome story, little calculated to make any -better record in Spain than the reports of his own rule in the island. - -[Sidenote: Events in Española during the absence of Columbus.] - -[Sidenote: Santo Domingo founded.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -The chief points of it were these: Bartholomew had early carried out the -Admiral's behests to occupy the Hayna country. He had built there a -fortress which he had named St. Cristoval, but the workmen, finding -particles of gold in the stones and sands which they used, had nicknamed -it the Golden Tower. While this was doing, there was difficulty in -supporting the workmen. Provisions were scarce, and the Indians were not -inclined to part with what they had. The Adelantado could go to the Vega -and exact the quarterly tribute under compulsion; but that hardly -sufficed to keep famine from the door at St. Cristoval. Nothing had as -yet been done to plant the ground near the fort, nor had herds been -moved there. The settlement of Isabella was too far away for support. -Meanwhile Niño had arrived with his caravels, but he had not brought all -the expected help, for the passage had spoiled much of the lading. It -was by Niño that Bartholomew received that dispatch from his brother -which he had written in the harbor of Cadiz when, on his arrival from -his second voyage, he had discerned the condition of public opinion. It -was at this time, too, that he repeated to Bartholomew the decision of -the theologians, that to be taken in war, or to be guilty of slaying any -of their Majesties' liege subjects, was quite enough to render the -Indians fit subjects for the slave-block. The Admiral's directions, -therefore, were to be sure that this test kept up the supply of slaves; -and as there was nobody to dispute the judgment of his deputy, Niño had -taken back to Spain those three hundred, which were, as we have seen, so -readily converted into reputed gold on his arrival. - -[Sidenote: Santo Domingo named.] - -Bartholomew had selected the site for a new town near the mouth of the -Ozema, convenient for the shipment of the Hayna treasure, and, naming it -at first the New Isabella, it soon received the more permanent -appellation of Santo Domingo, which it still bears. - -[Sidenote: Xaragua conquered.] - -[Sidenote: Behechio and Anacaona.] - -Bartholomew had a pleasing story to tell of the way in which he had -brought Behechio and his province of Xaragua into subjection. This -territory was the region westward from about the point where Columbus -had touched the island a few days before. Anacaona, the wife of -Caonabo,--now indeed his widow,--had taken refuge with Behechio, her -brother, after the fall of her husband. She is represented as a woman of -fine appearance, and more delicate and susceptible in her thoughts than -was usual among her people; and perhaps Bartholomew told his brother -what has since been surmised by Spanish writers, that she had managed to -get word to him of her friendly sentiments for celestial visitors. -Bartholomew found, as he was marching thither with such forces as he -could spare for the expedition, that the cacique who met him in battle -array was easily disposed, for some reason or other, perhaps through -Anacaona's influence, to dismiss his armed warriors, and to escort his -visitor through his country with great parade of hospitality. When they -reached the cacique's chief town, a sort of fête was prepared in the -Adelantado's honor, and a mock battle, not without sacrifice of life, -was fought for his delectation. Peter Martyr tells us that when the -comely young Indian maidens advanced with their palm branches and -saluted the Adelantado, it seemed as if the beautiful dryads of the -olden tales had slipped out of the vernal woods. Then Anacaona appeared -on a litter, with no apparel but garlands, the most beautiful dryad of -them all. Everybody feasted, and Bartholomew, to ingratiate himself with -his host, eat and praised their rarest delicacy, the guana lizard, which -had been offered to them many times before, but which they never as yet -had tasted. It became after this a fashion with the Spaniards to dote on -lizard flesh. Everything within the next two or three days served to -cement this new friendship, when the Adelantado put it to a test, as -indeed had been his purpose from the beginning. He told the cacique of -the great power of his master and of the Spanish sovereigns; of their -gracious regard for all their distant subjects, and of the poor -recompense of a tribute which was expected for their protection. "Gold!" -exclaimed the cacique, "we have no gold here." "Oh, whatever you have, -cotton, hemp, cassava bread,--anything will be acceptable." So the -details were arranged. The cacique was gratified at being let off so -easy, and the Spaniards went their way. - -[Sidenote: Native conspiracy.] - -This and the subsequent visit of Bartholomew to Xaragua to receive the -tribute were about the only cheery incidents in the dreary retrospect to -which the Admiral listened. The rest was trouble and despair. A line of -military posts had been built connecting the two Spanish settlements, -and the manning of them, with their dependent villages, enabled the -Adelantado to scatter a part of the too numerous colony at Isabella, so -that it might be relieved of so many mouths to feed. This done, there -was a conspiracy of the natives to be crushed. Two of the priests had -made some converts in the Vega, and had built a chapel for the use of -the neophytes. One of the Spaniards had outraged a wife of the cacique. -Either for this cause, or for the audacious propagandism of the priests, -some natives broke into the Spanish chapel, destroyed its shrine, and -buried some of its holy vessels in a field. Plants grew up there in the -form of a cross, say the veracious narrators. This, nevertheless, did -not satisfy the Spaniards. They seized such Indians as they considered -to have been engaged in the desecration, and gave them the fire and -fagots, as they would have done to Moor or Jew. The horrible punishment -aroused the cacique Guarionex with a new fury. He leagued the -neighboring caciques into a conspiracy. Their combined forces were -threatening Fort Conception when the Adelantado arrived with succor. By -an adroit movement, Bartholomew ensnared by night every one of the -leaders in their villages, and executed two of them. The others he -ostentatiously pardoned, and he could tell Columbus of the great renown -he got for his clemency. - -[Sidenote: Roldan's revolt.] - -There was nothing in all the bad tidings which Bartholomew had to -rehearse quite so disheartening as the revolt of Roldan, the chief judge -of the island,--a man who had been lifted from obscurity to a position -of such importance that Columbus had placed the administration of -justice in his hands. The reports of the unpopularity of Columbus in -Spain, and the growing antipathy in Isabella to the rule of Bartholomew -as a foreigner, had served to consolidate the growing number of the -discontented, and Roldan saw the opportunity of easily raising himself -in the popular estimate by organizing the latent spirit of rebellion. It -was even planned to assassinate the Adelantado, under cover of a tumult, -which was to be raised at an execution ordered by him; but as the -Adelantado had pardoned the offender, the occasion slipped by. -Bartholomew's absence in Xaragua gave another opportunity. He had sent -back from that country a caravel loaded with cotton, as a tribute, and -Diego, then in command at Isabella, after unlading the vessel, drew her -up on the beach. The story was busily circulated that this act was done -simply to prevent any one seizing the ship and carrying to Spain -intelligence of the misery to which the rule of the Columbuses was -subjecting the people. The populace made an issue on that act, and asked -that the vessel be sent to Cadiz for supplies. Diego objected, and to -divert the minds of the rebellious, as well as to remove Roldan from -their counsels, he sent him with a force into the Vega, to overawe some -caciques who had been dilatory in their tribute. This mission, however, -only helped Roldan to consolidate his faction, and gave him the chance -to encourage the caciques to join resistance. - -[Sidenote: The mutineers in the Vega Real.] - -[Sidenote: At Isabella.] - -Roldan had seventy well-armed men in his party when he returned to -Isabella to confront Bartholomew, who had by this time got back from -Xaragua. The Adelantado was not so easily frightened as Roldan had -hoped, and finding it not safe to risk an open revolt, this mutinous -leader withdrew to the Vega with the expectation of surprising Fort -Conception. That post, however, as well as an outlying fortified house, -was under loyal command, and Roldan was for a while thwarted. -Bartholomew was not at all sure of any of the principal Spaniards, but -how far the disaffection had gone he was unable to determine. Although -he knew that certain leading men were friendly to Roldan, he was not -prepared to be passive. His safety depended on resolution, and so he -marched at once to the Vega. Roldan was in the neighborhood, and was -invited to a parley. It led to nothing. The mutineers, making up their -minds to fly to the delightful pleasures of Xaragua, suddenly marched -back to Isabella, plundered the arsenal and storehouses, and tried to -launch the caravel. The vessel was too firmly imbedded to move, and -Roldan was forced to undertake the journey to Xaragua by land. To leave -the Adelantado behind was a sure way to bring an enemy in his rear, and -he accordingly thought it safer to reduce the garrison at Conception, -and perhaps capture the Adelantado. - -[Sidenote: Coronel arrives.] - -This movement failed; but it resulted in Roldan's ingratiating himself -with the tributary caciques, and intercepting the garrison's supplies. -It was at this juncture, when everything looked desperate for -Bartholomew, shut up in the Vega fort, that news reached him of the -arrival (February 3, 1498) at the new port of Santo Domingo of the -advance section of the Admiral's fleet, sent thither, as we have seen, -by the Queen's assiduity, under the command of Pedro Fernandez Coronel. - -Bartholomew could tell the Admiral of the good effect which the -intelligence received through Coronel had on the colony. His own title -of Adelantado, it was learned, was legitimated by the act of the -sovereigns; and Columbus himself had been powerful enough to secure -confirmation of his old honors, and to obtain new pledges for the -future. The mutineers soon saw that the aspects of their revolt were -changed. They could not, it would seem, place that dependence on the -unpopularity of the Admiral at Court which had been a good part of their -encouragement. - -[Sidenote: Bartholomew's new honors.] - -Proceeding to Santo Domingo, Bartholomew proclaimed his new honors, and, -anxious to pacificate the island before the arrival of Columbus, he -dispatched Coronel to communicate with Roldan, who had sulkily followed -the Adelantado in his march from the Vega. Roldan refused all -intercourse, and, shielding himself behind a pass in the mountains, he -warned off the pacificator. He would yield to no one but the Admiral. - -[Sidenote: The rebels go to Xaragua.] - -There was nothing for the Adelantado to do but to outlaw the rebels, -who, in turn, sped away to what Irving calls the "soft witcheries" of -the Xaragua dryads. The archrebel was thus well out of the way for a -time; but his influence still worked among the Indians of the Vega, and -Bartholomew had not long left Conception before the garrison was made -aware of a native conspiracy to surprise it. - -[Sidenote: Guarionex's revolt.] - -Word was sent to Santo Domingo, and the Adelantado was promptly on the -march for relief. Guarionex, who had headed the revolt again, fled to -the mountains of Ciguay, where a mountain cacique, Mayobanex, the same -who had conducted the attack on the Spaniards at the Gulf of Samana -during the first voyage, received the fugitive chief of the valley. - -It was into these mountain fastnesses that the Adelantado now pursued -the fugitives, with a force of ninety foot, a few horse, and some -auxiliary Indians. He boldly thridded the defiles, and crossed the -streams, under the showers of lances and arrows. As the native hordes -fled before him, he fired their villages in the hope of forcing the -Ciguayans to surrender their guest; but the mountain leaders could not -be prevailed upon to wrong the rights of hospitality. When no longer -able to resist in arms, Mayobanex and Guarionex fled to the hills. - -The Adelantado now sent all of his men back to the Vega to look after -the crops, except about thirty, and with these he scoured the region. He -would not have had success by mere persistency, but he got it by -artifice and treachery. Both Mayobanex and Guarionex were betrayed in -their hiding-places and captured. Clemency was shown to their families -and adherents, and they were released; but both caciques remained in -their bonds as hostages for the maintenance of the quiet which was now -at last in some measure secured. - -[Sidenote: 1498. August 30. Columbus arrives.] - -Such was the condition of affairs when Columbus arrived and heard the -story of these two troubled years and more during which he had been -absent. - - * * * * * - -It was the 30th of August when Columbus and his brother landed at Santo -Domingo. There had not been much to encourage the Admiral in this story -of the antecedent events. No portrayal of riot, dissolution, rapine, -intrigue, and idleness could surpass what he saw and heard of the -bedraggled and impoverished settlement at Isabella. The stores which he -had brought would be helpful in restoring confidence and health; but it -was a source of anxiety to him that nothing had been heard of the three -caravels from which he had parted off Ferro. - -[Sidenote: Roldan and the belated ships.] - -These vessels appeared not long afterwards, bringing a new perplexity. -Forced by currents which their crews did not understand, they had been -carried westerly, and had wandered about in the unknown seas in search -of Española. A few days before reaching Santo Domingo, the ships had -anchored off the territory of Behechio, where Roldan and his followers -already were. The mutineers observed the approach of the caravels, not -quite sure of their character, thinking possibly that they had been -dispatched against their band; but Roldan boldly went on board, and, -ascertaining their condition, he had the address to represent that he -was stationed in that region to collect the tribute, and was in need of -stores, arms, and munitions. The commander of the vessel at once sent on -shore what he demanded; and while this was going on, Roldan's men -ingratiated themselves with the company on board the caravels, and -readily enlisted a part of them in the revolt. The new-comers, being -some of the emancipated convicts which Columbus had so unwisely -registered among his crews, were not difficult to entice to a life of -pleasure. By the time Roldan had secured his supplies and was ready to -announce his true character, it was not certain how far the captains of -the vessels could trust their crews. The chief of these commanders -undertook, when the worst was known, to bring the revolters back to -their loyalty; but he argued in vain. The wind being easterly, and to -work up against it to Santo Domingo being a slow process, it was decided -that one of the captains, Colombo, should conduct about forty armed men -by land to the new town. When he landed them, the insidious work of the -mutineers became apparent. Only eight of his party stood to his command, -and over forty marched over to the rebels, each with his arms. The -overland march was necessarily given up, and the three caravels, to -prevent further desertions, hoisted sail and departed. Carvajal remained -behind to urge Roldan to duty; but the most he could do was to exact a -promise that he would submit to the Admiral if pardoned, but not to the -Adelantado. - -[Sidenote: 1498. September 12.] - -The report which Carvajal made to Columbus, when shortly afterwards he -joined his companions in Santo Domingo, coming by land, was not very -assuring. Columbus was too conscious of the prevalence of discontent, -and he had been made painfully aware of the uncertainty of convict -loyalty. He then made up his mind that all such men were a menace, and -that they were best got rid of. Accordingly he announced that five ships -were ready to sail for Spain and would take any who should desire to go, -and that the passage would be free. - -[Sidenote: Roldan and Ballester.] - -[Sidenote: 1498. October 18. The ships sail for Spain.] - -Learning from Carvajal that Roldan was likely soon to lead his men near -Fort Conception, Columbus notified Miguel Ballester, its commander, to -be on his guard. He also directed him to seek an interview with the -rebel leader, in order to lure him back to duty by offer of pardon from -the Admiral. As soon as Ballester heard of Roldan's arrival in the -neighborhood, he went out to meet him. Roldan, however, was in no mood -to succumb. His force had grown, and some of the leading Spaniards had -been drawn towards him. So he defied the Admiral in his speeches, and -sent him word that if he had any further communications to make to him -they should be sent by Carvajal, for he would treat with no other. -Columbus, on receiving this message, and not knowing how far the -conspiracy had extended among those about him, ordered out the military -force of the settlement. There were not more than seventy men to -respond; nor did he feel much confidence in half of these. There being -little chance of any turn of affairs for the better with which he could -regale the sovereigns, Columbus ordered the waiting ships to sail, and -on October 18 they put to sea. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -The ships carried two letters which Columbus had written to the -monarchs. In the one he spoke of his new discoveries, and of the views -which had developed in his mind from the new phenomena, as has already -been represented, and promised that the Adelantado should soon be -dispatched with three caravels to make further explorations. In the -other he repeated the story of events since he had landed at Santo -Domingo. He urged that Roldan might be recalled to Spain for -examination, or that he might be committed to the custody of Carvajal -and Ballester to determine the foundation of his grievances. At the same -time he requested that a further license be given, to last two years, -for the capture and transmission of slaves. It was not unlikely that the -case of Roldan and his abettors was represented with equal confidence in -other letters, for there were many hands among the passengers to which -they could be confided. - -[Sidenote: Columbus seeks to quiet the colony.] - -[Sidenote: 1498. October 20.] - -The ships gone, the Admiral gave himself to the difficult task of -pacificating the colony. The vigorous rule of the Adelantado had made -enemies who were to be propitiated, though Las Casas tells us that the -rule had been strict no farther than that it had been necessarily -imperative in emergencies. Columbus wrote on October 20 an expostulatory -letter to Roldan. To send it by Carvajal, as was necessary, if Roldan -was to receive it, would be to intrust negotiations to a person who was -already committed in some sort to the rebel's plan, or at least some of -the Admiral's leading councilors believed such to be the case, -apparently too hastily. Columbus did not share that distrust, and -Carvajal was sent. This letter crossed one from the leading rebels, in -which they demanded from Columbus release from his service, and -expressed their determination to maintain independence. - -[Sidenote: Conferences with Roldan.] - -[Sidenote: 1498. November 6. Roldan's terms.] - -When Carvajal reached Bonao, where the rebels were gathered,--and -Ballester had accompanied him,--their joint persuasions had some effect -on Roldan and others, principal rebels; but the followers, as a mass, -objected to the leaders entering into any conference except under a -written guaranty of safety for them and those that should accompany -them. This message was accordingly returned to Columbus, and Ballester -at the same time wrote to him that the revolt was fast making head; that -the garrisons were disaffected, and losing by desertion; and that the -common people could not be trusted to stand by the Admiral if it came to -war. He advised, therefore, a speedy reconciliation or agreement of some -sort. The guaranty was sent, and Roldan soon presented himself to the -Admiral. The demands of the rebel and the prerogatives of the Admiral -were, it proved, too widely apart for any accommodation. So Roldan, -having possessed himself of the state of feeling in Santo Domingo, -returned to his followers, promising to submit definite terms in -writing. These were sent under date of November 6, 1498, with a demand -for an answer before the 11th. The terms were inadmissible. To disarm -charges of exaction, Columbus made public proclamation of a readiness to -grant pardon to all who should return to allegiance within thirty days, -and to such he would give free transportation to Spain. Carvajal carried -this paper to Roldan, and was accompanied by Columbus's major-domo, -Diego de Salamanca, in the hopes that the two might yet arrange some -terms, mutually acceptable. - -[Illustration: ESPAÑOLA, RAMUSIO, 1555.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus agrees to them.] - -The messenger found Roldan advanced from Bonao, and besieging Ballester -in Conception. The revolt had gone too far, apparently, to be stayed, -but the persuasion of the mediators at last prevailed, and terms were -arranged. These provided full pardon and certificates of good conduct; -free passage from Xaragua, to which point two caravels should be sent; -the full complement of slaves which other returning colonists had; -liberty for such as had them to take their native wives, and restoration -of sequestered property. Roldan and his companions signed this agreement -on November 16, and agreed to wait eight days for the signature of the -Admiral. Columbus signed it on the 21st, and further granted -indulgences of one kind or another to such as chose to remain in -Española. - -[Sidenote: Delays in carrying out the agreement.] - -[Sidenote: New agreement.] - -[Sidenote: Signed September 28, 1499.] - -Under the agreement, the ships were to be ready in fifty days, but -Columbus, in the disorganized state of the colony, found it impossible -to avoid delays, and his self-congratulations that he had got rid of the -turbulent horde were far from warranted. While under this impression, -and absent with the Adelantado, inspecting the posts throughout the -island, and deciding how best he could restore the regularities of life -and business, the arrangements which he had made for carrying out the -agreement with Roldan had sorely miscarried. Nearly double the time -assigned to the preparation of the caravels had elapsed, when the -vessels at last left Santo Domingo for Xaragua. A storm disabling one of -them, there were still further delays; and when all were ready, the -procrastination in their outfit offered new grounds for dispute, and it -was found necessary to revise the agreement. Carvajal was still the -mediator. Roldan met the Admiral on a caravel, which had sailed toward -Xaragua. The terms which Roldan now proposed were that he should be -permitted to send some of his friends, fifteen in number, if he desired -so many, to Spain; that those who remained should have grants of land; -that proclamation should be made of the baseless character of the -charges against him and his accomplices; and that he himself should be -restored to his office of Alcalde Mayor. Columbus, who had received a -letter from Fonseca in the meanwhile, showing that there was little -chance of relief from Spain, saw the hopelessness of his situation, and -sufficiently humbled himself to accept the terms. When they were -submitted to the body of the mutineers, this assembly added another -clause giving them the right to enforce the agreement by compulsion in -case the Admiral failed to carry it out. This, also, was agreed to in -despair; while the Admiral endeavored to relieve the mortification of -the act by inserting a clause enforcing obedience to the commands of the -sovereigns, of himself, and of his regularly appointed justices. This -agreement was ratified at Santo Domingo, September 28, 1499. - -[Sidenote: Roldan reinstated.] - -[Sidenote: Repartimientos.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -It was not a pleasant task for Columbus to brook the presence of Roldan -and his victorious faction in Santo Domingo. The reinstated alcalde had -no occasion to be very complaisant after he had seen the Admiral cringe -before him. Columbus endeavored, in making the grants of lands, to -separate the restored rebels as much as he could, in order to avoid the -risks of other mutinous combinations. He agreed with the caciques that -they should be relieved from the ordinary tribute of treasure if they -would furnish these new grantees with laborers for their farms. Thus at -the hands of Columbus arose the beginning of that system of -_repartimientos_, with all its miseries for the poor natives, which -ended in their extermination. The apologists of Columbus consider that -the exigencies of his situation forced him into these fiendish -enactments, and that he is not to be held responsible for them as of his -free will. They forget the expressions of his first letter to Santangel, -which prefigured all the misery which fell upon myriads of these poor -creatures. The record, unfortunately, shows that it was Columbus who -invariably led opinion in all these oppressions, and not he who followed -it. His artfulness never sprang to a new device so exultingly as when it -was a method of increasing the revenue at the cost of the natives. When -we read, in the letter written to his sovereigns during this absence, of -his always impressing on the natives, in his intercourse with them, "the -courtesy and nobleness of all Christians," we shudder at the hollowness -of the profession. - -[Sidenote: Roldan's demands.] - -The personal demands of Roldan under the capitulation were also to be -met. They included restoration of lands which he called his own, new -lands to be granted, the stocking of them from the public herds; and -Columbus met them, at least, until the grants should be confirmed at -Court. This was not all. Roldan visited Bonao, and made one of his late -lieutenants an assistant alcalde,--an assumption of the power of -appointment at which Columbus was offended, as some tell us; but if the -_Historie_ is to be depended on, the appointment invited no unfavorable -comment from Columbus. When it was found that this new officer was -building a structure ostensibly for farm purposes, but of a character -more like a fortress, suitable for some new mutiny to rally in, Columbus -at last rose on his dignity and forbade it. - -[Sidenote: 1499. October. Caravels sent to Spain.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus sends Ballester to support his cause in Spain.] - -In October, 1499, the Admiral dispatched two caravels to Spain. It did -not seem safe for him to embark in them, though he felt his presence was -needed at Court to counteract the mischief of his enemies and Roldan's -friends. Some of the latter went in the ships. The most he could do was -to trust his cause to Miguel Ballester and Garcia de Barrantes, who -embarked as his representatives. They bore his letters to the monarchs. -In these he enumerated the compulsions under which he had signed the -capitulation with Roldan, and begged their Majesties to treat it as -given under coercion, and to bring the rebels to trial. He then -mentioned what other assistants he needed in governing the colony, such -as a learned judge and some discreet councilors. He ended with asking -that his son, Diego, might be spared from Court to assist him. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Royal infringements of Columbus's privileges.] - -[Sidenote: 1499. Ojeda's voyage.] - -While Columbus was making these requests, he was ignorant of the way in -which the Spanish Court had already made serious trespasses upon his -prerogatives as Admiral of the Indies. He had said in his letter to the -sovereigns, "Your Majesties will determine on what is to be done," in -consequence of these new discoveries at Paria. He was soon to become -painfully conscious of what was done. The real hero of Columbus's second -voyage, Alonso de Ojeda, comes again on the scene. He was in Spain when -the accounts which Columbus had transmitted to Court of his discoveries -about the Gulf of Paria reached Seville. Such glowing descriptions fired -his ambition, and learning from Columbus's other letters and from the -reports by those who had returned of the critical condition of affairs -in Española, he anticipated the truth when he supposed that the Admiral -could not so smother the disquiet of his colony as to venture to leave -it for further explorations. He saw, too, the maps which Columbus had -sent back and the pearls which he had gathered. He acknowledged all this -in a deposition taken at Santo Domingo in 1513. So he proposed to -Fonseca that he might be allowed to undertake a private voyage, and -profit, for himself and for the Crown, by the resources of the country, -inasmuch as it must be a long time before Columbus himself could do so. -Fonseca readily commended the plan and gave him a license, stipulating -that he should avoid any Portuguese possession and any lands that -Columbus had discovered before 1495. It was the purpose, by giving this -date, to throw open the Paria region. - -[Sidenote: Vespucius with Ojeda.] - -[Sidenote: Juan de la Cosa.] - -[Sidenote: 1499. May 20. Ojeda sails.] - -[Sidenote: At Venezuela.] - -The ships were fitted out at Seville in the early part of 1499, and some -men, famous in these years, made part of the company which sailed on -them. There was Americus Vespucius, who was seemingly now for the first -time to embark for the New World, since it is likely that out of this -very expedition the alleged voyage of his in 1497 has been made to -appear by some perversion of chronology. There was Juan de la Cosa, a -famous hydrographer, who was the companion of Columbus in his second -Cuban cruise. Irving says that he was with Columbus in his first voyage; -but it is thought that it was another of the same name who appears in -the registers of that expedition. Several of those who had returned from -Española after the Paria cruise of Columbus were also enlisted, and -among them Bartholomew Roldan, the pilot of that earlier fleet. The -expedition of Ojeda sailed May 20, 1499. They made land 200 leagues east -of the Orinoco, and then, guided by Columbus's charts, the ships -followed his track through the Serpent's and the Dragon's Mouths. Thence -passing Margarita, they sailed on towards the mountains which Columbus -had seen, and finally entered a gulf, where they saw some pile dwellings -of the natives. They accordingly named the basin Venezuela, in reference -to the great sea-built city of the Adriatic. It is noteworthy that -Ojeda, in reporting to their Majesties an account of this voyage, says -that he met in this neighborhood some English vessels, an expedition -which may have been instigated by Cabot's success. It is to be observed, -at the same time, that this is the only authority which we have for such -an early visit of the English to this vicinity, and the statement is not -credited by Biddle, Helps, and other recent writers. Ojeda turned -eastward not long after, having run short of provisions. He then -approached the prohibited Española, and hoped to elude notice while -foraging at its western end. - -[Sidenote: 1499. September 5. Ojeda touches at Española.] - -It was while here that Ojeda's caravels were seen and tidings of their -presence were transmitted to Santo Domingo. Ignorance of what he had to -deal with in these intruders was one of the reasons which made it out of -the question for Columbus to return to Spain in the ships which he had -dispatched in October. Ojeda had appeared on the coast on September 5, -1499, and as succeeding reports came to Columbus, it was divulged that -Ojeda was in command, and that he was cutting dyewoods thereabouts. - -[Sidenote: Columbus sends Roldan to warn Ojeda off.] - -Now was the time to heal the dissensions of Roldan, and to give him a -chance to recover his reputation. So the Admiral selected his late -bitter enemy to manage the expedition which he thought it necessary to -dispatch to the spot. Roldan sailed in command of two caravels on -September 29, and, approaching unobserved the place where Ojeda's ships -were at anchor, he landed with twenty-five men, and sent out scouts. -They soon reported that Ojeda was some distance away from his ships at -an Indian village, making cassava bread. Ojeda heard of the approach, -but not in time to prevent Roldan getting between him and his ships. The -intruder met him boldly, said he was on an exploring expedition, and had -put in for supplies, and that if Roldan would come on board his ships, -he would show his license signed by Fonseca. When Roldan went on board, -he saw the document. He also learned from those he talked with in the -ships--and there were among them some whom he knew, and some who had -been in Española--that the Admiral's name was in disgrace at Court, and -there was imminent danger of his being deprived of his command at -Española. Moreover, the Queen, who had befriended him against all -others, was ill beyond recovery. Ojeda promising to sail round to Santo -Domingo and explain his conduct to the Admiral, Roldan left him, and -carried back the intelligence to Columbus. - -The Viceroy waited patiently for Ojeda's vessels to appear, and to hear -the explanation of what he deemed a flagrant violation of his rights. -Ojeda, having got rid of Roldan, had accomplished all that he intended -by the promise. When he set sail, it was to pass round the coast -easterly to the shore of Xaragua, where he anchored, and opened -communication with the Spanish settlers, remnants of Roldan's party, who -had not been quite satisfied to find their reinstated leader acting as -an emissary of Columbus. Ojeda, with impetuous sympathy, listened to -their complaints, and had agreed to be their leader in marching to Santo -Domingo to demand some redresses, when Roldan, sent by Columbus to watch -him, once more appeared. Ojeda declined a conference, and kept on his -ship. - -[Sidenote: 1500. June. Ojeda reaches Cadiz.] - -Roldan had harbored a deserter from one of Ojeda's fleet, and as he -refusedto give him up, Ojeda watched his opportunity and seized two of -Roldan's men to hold as hostages. So the two wary adventurers watched -each other for an advantage. After a while, Ojeda, in his ships, stood -down the coast. Roldan followed along the shore. Coming up to where the -ships were anchored, Roldan induced Ojeda to send a boat ashore, when, -by an artifice, he captured the boat and its crew. This game of -stratagems ended with an agreement on Ojeda's part to leave the island, -while Roldan restored the captive boat. The prisoners were exchanged. -Ojeda bore off shore, and though Roldan heard of his landing again at a -distant point, he was gone when the pursuers reached the spot. Las Casas -says that Ojeda made for some islands, where he completed his lading of -slaves, and set sail for Spain, arriving at Cadiz in June, 1500. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Niño's voyage to the pearl coast.] - -[Sidenote: Guerra aids him.] - -While Columbus was congratulating himself on being well rid of this -dangerous visitor, he was not at all aware of the uncontrollable -eagerness which the joyous reports of pearls had engendered in the -adventurous spirits of the Spanish seaports. Among such impatient -sailors was the pilot, Pedro Alonso Niño, who had accompanied Columbus -on his first voyage, and had also but recently returned from the Paria -coast, having been likewise with the Admiral on his third voyage. He -found Fonseca as willing, if only the Crown could have its share, as -Ojeda had found him, and just as forgetful of the vested rights of -Columbus. So the license was granted only a few days after that given to -Ojeda, and of similar import. Niño, being a poor man, sought the aid of -Luis Guerra in fitting out a small caravel of only fifty tons; and in -consideration of this assistance, Guerra's brother, Cristoval, was -placed in command, with a crew, all told, of thirty-three souls. They -sailed from Palos early in June, 1499, and were only fifteen days behind -Ojeda on the coast. They had some encounters and some festivities with -the natives; but they studiously attended to their main object of -bartering for pearls, and when they reached Spain on their return in -April, 1500, and laid out the shares for the Crown, for Guerra, and for -the crew, of the rich stores of pearls which they had gathered, men -said, "Here at last is one voyage to the new islands from which some -adequate return is got." And so the first commensurate product of the -Indies, instead of saving the credit of Columbus, filled the pockets of -an interloping adventurer. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: V. Y. Pinzon's voyage.] - -[Sidenote: 1499. December.] - -[Sidenote: Pinzon crosses the equator.] - -[Sidenote: The southern sky.] - -But a more considerable undertaking of the same illegitimate character -was that of Vicente Yañez Pinzon, the companion of Columbus on his first -voyage. Leaguing with him a number of the seamen of the Admiral, -including some of his pilots on his last voyage, Pinzon fitted out at -Palos four caravels, which sailed near the beginning of December, 1499, -not far from the time when Columbus was thinking, because of the flight -of Ojeda, that an end was at last coming to these intrusions within his -prescribed seas. Pinzon was not so much influenced by greed as by -something of that spirit which had led him to embark with Columbus in -1492, the genuine eagerness of the explorer. He was destined to do what -Columbus had been prevented from doing by the intense heat and by the -demoralized condition of his crew,--strike the New World in the -equatorial latitudes. So he stood boldly southwest, and crossed the -equator, the first to do it west of the line of demarcation. Here were -new constellations as well as a new continent for the transatlantic -discoverer. The north star had sunk out of sight. Thus it was that the -southern heavens brought a new difficulty to navigation, as well as -unwonted stellar groups to the curious observer. The sailor of the -northern seas had long been accustomed to the fixity of the polar star -in making his observations for latitude. The southern heavens were -without any conspicuous star in the neighborhood of the pole: and in -order to determine such questions, the star at the foot of the Southern -Cross was soon selected, but it necessitated an allowance of 30° in all -observations. - -[Sidenote: 1500. January 20. Sees Cape Consolation.] - -[Sidenote: Coasts north.] - -It was on January 20, 1500, or thereabouts, that Pinzon saw a cape which -he called Consolation, and which very likely was the modern Cape St. -Augustine,--though the identification is not established to the -satisfaction of all,--which would make Pinzon the first European to see -the most easterly limit of the great southern continent. A belief like -this requires us, necessarily, to reject Varnhagen's view that as early -as the previous June (1499) Ojeda had made his landfall just as far to -the east. Pinzon took possession of the country, and then, sailing -north, passed the mouth of the Amazon, and found that even out of sight -of land he could replenish his water-casks from the flow of fresh -waters, which the great river poured into the ocean. It did not occur to -his practical mind, as it had under similar circumstances to Columbus, -that he was drinking the waters of Paradise! - -[Sidenote: 1500. June. Pinzon at Española.] - -[Sidenote: Reaches Palos, September, 1500.] - -Reaching the Gulf of Paria, Pinzon passed out into the Caribbean Sea, -and touched at Española in the latter part of June, 1500. Proceeding -thence to the Lucayan Islands, two of his caravels were swallowed up in -a gale, and the other two disabled. The remaining ships crossed to -Española to refit, whence sailing once more, they reached Palos in -September, 1500. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1500. January. Diego de Lepe's voyage.] - -Meanwhile, following Pinzon, Diego de Lepe, sailing also from Palos with -two caravels in January, 1500, tracked the coast from below Cape St. -Augustine northward. He was the first to double this cape, as he showed -in the map which he made for Fonseca, and doing so he saw the coast -stretching ahead to the southwest. From this time South America presents -on the charts this established trend of the coast. Humboldt thinks that -Diego touched at Española before returning to Spain in June, 1500. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Portuguese explorations by the African route.] - -We must now return to the further exploration of the Portuguese by the -African route, for we have reached a period when, by accident and -because of the revised line of demarcation, the Portuguese pursuing that -route acquired at the same time a right on the American coast which they -have since maintained in Brazil, as against what seems to have been a -little earlier discovery of that coast by Pinzon, in the voyage already -mentioned. - -[Sidenote: 1500. March 9.] - -[Sidenote: Cabral discovers the Brazil coast.] - -[Sidenote: 1500. May 1.] - -In the year following the return to Lisbon of Da Gama with the marvelous -story of the African route to India, the Portuguese government were -prompted naturally enough to establish more firmly their commercial -relations with Calicut. They accordingly fitted out three ships to make -trial once more of the voyage. The command was given to Pedro Alvarez -Cabral, and there were placed under him Diaz, who had first rounded the -stormy cape, and Coelho, who had accompanied Da Gama. The expedition -sailed on March 9, 1500. Leaving the Cape de Verde Islands, Cabral -shaped his course more westerly than Da Gama had done, but for what -reason is not satisfactorily ascertained. Perhaps it was to avoid the -calms off the coast of Guinea; perhaps to avoid breasting a storm; and -indeed it may have been only to see if any land lay thitherward easterly -of the great line of demarcation. Whatever the motive, the fleet was -brought on April 22 opposite an eminence, which received then the name -of Monte Pascoal, and is to-day, as then it became by right of -discovery, within the Portuguese limits of South America, the Land of -the True Cross, as he named it, Vera Cruz; later, however, to be changed -to Santa Cruz. The coast was examined, and in the bay of Porto Seguro, -on May 1, formal possession of the country was taken for the crown of -Portugal. Cabral sent a caravel back with the news, expressed in a -letter drawn up by Pedro Vaz de Caminha. This letter, which is dated on -the day possession was taken, was first made known by Muñoz, who -discovered it in the archives at Lisbon. It was not till July 29 that -the Portuguese king, in a letter which is printed by Navarrete, notified -the Spanish monarchs of Cabral's discovery, and this letter was printed -in Rome, October 23, 1500. - -It seems to have been the apprehension of the Portuguese, if we may -trust this letter, that the new coast lay directly in the route to the -Cape of Good Hope, though on the right hand. - -[Sidenote: Cabral at Calicut, September 13, 1500.] - -Leaving two banished criminals to seek their chances of life in the -country, and to ascertain its products, Cabral set sail on May 22, and -proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope. Fearful gales were encountered and -four vessels were lost, and his subordinate, Diaz, found an ocean grave -off the stormy cape of his own finding. But Calicut was at last reached, -September 13. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Date of Cabral's discovery.] - -[Sidenote: His landfall.] - -There is a day or two difference in the dates assigned by different -authorities for this discovery of Cabral. Ramusio, quoting a pilot of -the fleet fourteen months after the event, says April 24, and leading -Portuguese historians have followed him; but the letter which Cabral -sent back to Portugal, as already related, says April 22. The question -would be a trifling one, as Humboldt suggests, except that it bears upon -the question of just where this fortuitous landfall was made, involving -estimates of distance sailed before Cabral entered the harbor of Porto -Seguro. It is probable that this was at a point a hundred and seventy -leagues south of the spot reached earlier (January, 1500) by Pinzon and -De Lepe. Yet on this point there are some differences of opinion, which -are recapitulated by Humboldt. - -[Sidenote: Cabral and Pinzon.] - -The most impartial critics, however, agree with Humboldt in giving -Pinzon the lead, if not to the extent of the forty-eight days before -Cabral left Lisbon, as Humboldt contends. - -If Barros is correct in his deductions, it was not known on board of -Cabral's fleet that Columbus had already discovered in the Paria region -what he supposed an extension of the Asiatic main. The first conclusion -of the Portuguese naturally was that they had stumbled either on a new -group of islands, or perhaps on some outlying members of the group of -the Antilles. Of course nothing was known at the time of the discoveries -of Pinzon and Lepe. - -[Sidenote: The results of the African route.] - -It has often been remarked that if Columbus had not sailed in 1492, -Cabral would have revealed America in 1500. It is a striking fact that -the Portuguese had pursued their quest for India with an intelligence -and prescience which geographical truth confirmed. The Spaniards went -their way in error, and it took them nearly thirty years to find a route -that could bring them where they could defend at the antipodes their -rights under the Bull of Demarcation. Columbus sought India and found -America without knowing it. Cabral, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, -stumbled upon Brazil, and preëmpted the share of Portugal in the New -World as Da Gama has already secured it in Asia. Thus the African route -revealed both Cathay and America. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The Columbus lawsuit.] - -[Sidenote: La Cosa's map, 1500.] - -For these voyages commingling with those of Columbus along the spaces of -the Caribbean Sea, we get the best information, all things considered, -from the testimonies of the participants in them, which were rendered in -the famous lawsuit which the Crown waged against the heirs of Columbus. -The well-known map of Juan de la Cosa posts us best on the -cartographical results of these same voyages up to the summer of 1500. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: SKETCH OF LA COSA'S MAP.] - -La Cosa was, as Las Casas called him, the best of the pilots then -living, and there is a story of his arrogating to himself a superiority -to Columbus, even. - -As La Cosa returned to Spain with Ojeda in June, 1500, and sailed again -in October with Bastidas, this famous map was apparently made in that -interval, since it purports in an inscription to have been drafted in -1500. In posting the geographical knowledge which he had acquired up to -that date, La Cosa drew upon his own experiences in the voyages which he -had already made with Columbus (1493-96), and with Ojeda (1499-1500). It -is to be regretted that we have from his pencil no later draft, for his -experience in these seas was long and intimate, since he accompanied -Bastidas in 1500-2, led expeditions of his own in 1504-6 and 1507-8, and -went again with Ojeda in 1509. - -La Cosa, indeed, does not seem to have improved his map on any -subsequent date, and that he puts down Cape St. Augustine so accurately -is another proof of that headland being seen by Pinzon or Lepe in 1500, -and that news of its discovery had reached the map makers. - -[Sidenote: Objections to La Cosa's map.] - -The objections to La Cosa's map as a source of historical information -have been that (1) he gives an incorrect shape to Cuba, and makes it an -island eight years before Ocampo sailed around it; and that (2) he gives -an unrecognizable coast northward from where the Gulf of Mexico should -be. Henry Stevens, in his _Historical and Geographical Notes_, -undertakes to answer these objections. - -[Sidenote: Insularity of Cuba.] - -First, Stevens reverts to the belief of La Cosa that he did not imagine -Cuba to be an island, because no one ever knew of an island 335 leagues -long, as Columbus and he, sailing along its southern side, had found it -to be, taking the distance they had gone rather than the true limits. -Stevens depends much on the belief of Columbus that the bay of islands -which he fancied himself within, when he turned back, was the Gulf of -Ganges,--supposing that Peter Martyr quoted Columbus, when he wrote to -that effect in August, 1495. If Varnhagen is correct in his routes of -Vespucius, that navigator, in 1497, making the circuit of the Gulf of -Mexico, had established the insularity of Cuba. Few modern scholars, it -is fair to say, accept Varnhagen's theories. It became a question, after -Humboldt had made the La Cosa chart public in 1833, how its maker had -got the information of the insularity of Cuba. Humboldt was convinced -that though a "complacent witness" to Columbus's ridiculous notarial -transaction during his second voyage, La Cosa had dared to tell the -truth, even at the small risk of having his tongue pulled out. - -[Illustration: RIBERO'S ANTILLES, 1529.] - -The Admiral's belief, bolstered after his own fashion by suborning his -crew, was far from being accepted by all. - -Peter Martyr not long afterward voiced the hesitancy which was growing. -It was beginning to be believed that the earth was larger than Columbus -thought, and that his discoveries had not taken him as far as Cathay. -Every new report veered the vane on this old gossiper's steeple, and he -went on believing one day and disbelieving the next. - -[Illustration: WYTFLIET'S CUBA.] - -We may perhaps question now if the official promulgation of the Cuban -circumnavigation by Sebastian Ocampo in 1508 was much more than the -Spanish acknowledgment of its insularity, when they could no longer deny -it. Henry Stevens has claimed to put La Cosa's island of Cuba in accord -with Columbus, or at least partly so. He finds this western limit of -Cuba on the La Cosa map drawn with "a dash of green paint," which he -holds to be a color used to define unknown coasts. He studied the map in -Jomard's colored facsimile, and trusted it, not having examined the -original to this end,--though he had apparently seen it in the Paris -auction-room in 1853, when, as a competitor, he had run up the -price which the Spanish government paid for it. He says that the same -green emblem of unknown lands is also placed upon the coast of Asia, -where a peninsular Cuba would have joined it. He seems to forget that he -should have found, to support his theory, a gap rather than a supposable -coast, and should rather have pointed to the vignette of St. Christopher -as affording that gap. - -[Illustration: WYTFLIET'S CUBA.] - -Ruysch in 1507 marked in his map this unknown western limit with a -conventional scroll, while he made his north coast not unlike the -Asiatic coast of Mauro (1457) and Behaim (1492), and with no gap. -Stevens also interprets the St. Dié map of 1508-13 as showing this -peninsular Cuba in what is there placed as the main, with a duplicated -insular Cuba in what is called Isabella. The warrant for this -supposition is the transfer under disguises of the La Cosa and Ruysch -names of their Cuba to the continental coast of the St. Dié map, leaving -the "Isabella" entirely devoid of names. - -Stevens ventures the opinion that La Cosa may have been on the first -voyage of Columbus as well as on the second, and his reason for this is -that the north coast of Cuba, which Columbus then coasted, is so -correctly drawn; but this opinion ignores the probability, indeed the -certainty, that this approximate accuracy could just as well be reached -by copying from Columbus's map of that first voyage. - -It should be borne in mind, however, that Varnhagen, who had faith in -the 1497 voyage of Vespucius as having settled the insular character of -Cuba, interprets this St. Dié map quite differently, as showing a -rudimentary Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi mouth instead of the Gulf -of Ganges. - -[Sidenote: La Cosa's coast of Asia.] - -Second, Stevens grasps the obvious interpretation that La Cosa simply -drew in for this northern coast that of Asia as he conceived it. This -hardly needs elucidation. But his opinion is not so well grounded that -the northern part of this Asiatic coast, where La Cosa intended to -improve on the notions which had come from Marco Polo and the rest, is -simply the _northern_ coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence as laid down by -the explorations of Cabot. If it be taken as giving from Cabot's -recitals the trend of the coasts found by him, it seems to show that -that navigator knew nothing of the southern entrance of that gulf. This -adds further to the uncertainty of what is called the Cabot mappemonde -of 1544. That La Cosa intended the coasts of the Cabots' discoveries to -belong to inland waters Stevens thinks is implied by the sea thereabouts -being called _Mar_ instead of _Mar oceanus_. It is difficult to see the -force of these supplemental views of Stevens, and to look upon the -drawing of La Cosa in this northern region as other than Asia modified -vaguely by the salient points of the outer coast lines as glimpsed by -Cabot. - -If the Spanish envoy in England carried out his intention of sending a -copy of Cabot's chart to Spain, it could hardly have escaped falling -into the hands of La Cosa. We have already mentioned the chance of John -Cabot having visited the peninsula in the interval between his two -voyages. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the Cabot voyages.] - -The chief ground for believing that Columbus ever heard of the voyages -of the Cabots--for there is no plain statement that he did--is that we -know how La Cosa had knowledge of them; and that upon his map the -vignette of St. Christopher bearing the infant Christ may possibly have -been, as it has sometimes been held to be, a direct reference to La -Cosa's commander, who may be supposed in that case to have been -acquainted with the compliment paid him, and consequently with the map's -record of the Cabots. - -[Sidenote: The Cantino map.] - -Whether La Cosa understood the natives better than Columbus, or whether -he had information of which we have no record, it is certain that within -two years rumor or fact brought it to the knowledge of the Portuguese -that the westerly end of Cuba lay contiguous to a continental shore, -stretching to the north, in much the position of the eastern seaboard of -the United States. This is manifest from the Cantino map, which was sent -from Lisbon to Italy before November, 1502, and which prefigured the -so-called Admiral's map of the Ptolemy of 1513. There will be occasion -to discuss later the over-confident dictum of Stevens that this supposed -North American coast was simply a duplicated Cuba, turned north and -south, and stretching from a warm region, as the Spaniards knew it, well -up into the frozen north. Cosa's map seems to have exerted little or no -influence on the earliest printed maps of the New World, and in this it -differs from the Cantino map. - -[Sidenote: Minor expeditions.] - -We know not what unexpected developments may further have sprung from -obscure and furtive explorations, which were now beginning to be common, -and of which the record is often nothing more than an inference. Stories -of gold and pearls were great incentives. The age was full of a spirit -of private adventure. The voyages of Ojeda, Niño, and Pinzon were but -the more conspicuous. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -THE DEGRADATION AND DISHEARTENMENT OF COLUMBUS. - -1500. - - -Columbus, writing to the Spanish sovereigns from Española, said, in -reference to the lifelong opposition which he had encountered:-- - -[Sidenote: Opponents of Columbus.] - -"May it please the Lord to forgive those who have calumniated and still -calumniate this excellent enterprise of mine, and oppose and have -opposed its advancement, without considering how much glory and -greatness will accrue from it to your Highnesses throughout all the -world. They cannot state anything in disparagement of it except its -expense, and that I have not immediately sent back the ships loaded with -gold." - -[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.] - -Was this an honest statement? Columbus knew perfectly well that there -had been much else than disappointment at the scant pecuniary returns. -He knew that there was a widespread dissatisfaction at his personal -mismanagement of the colony; at his alleged arrogance and cupidity as a -foreigner; at his nepotism; at his inordinate exaltation of promise, and -at his errant faith that brooked no dispute. He knew also that his -enthusiasm had captivated the Queen, and that as long as she could be -held captive he could appeal to her not in vain. If there had been any -honesty in the Queen's professions in respect to the selling of slaves, -he knew that he had outraged them. Even when he was writing this letter, -it came over him that there was a fearful hazard for him both in the -persistency of this denunciation of others against him and in the -heedless arrogance of such perverseness on his own part. - -"I know," he says, "that water dropping on a stone will at length make a -hole." We shall see before long that foreboding cavity. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Roldan.] - -[Sidenote: Guevara.] - -[Sidenote: Anacaona's daughter.] - -[Sidenote: Adrian do Moxica.] - -The defection of Roldan turned so completely into servility is but one -of the strange contrasts of the wonderful course of vicissitudes in the -life of Columbus. There presently came a new trial for him and for -Roldan. A young well-born Spaniard, Fernando de Guevara, had appeared in -Española recently, and by his dissolute life he had created such -scandals in Santo Domingo that Columbus had ordered him to leave the -island. He had been sent to Xaragua to embark in one of Ojeda's ships; -but that adventurer had left the coast when the outlaw reached the port. -While waiting another opportunity to embark, Guevara was kept in that -part of the island under Roldan's eye. This implied no such restraint as -to deny him access to the society of Anacaona, with whose daughter, -Higuamota, who seems to have inherited something of her mother's -commanding beauty and mental qualities, he fell in love, and found his -passion requited. He sought companionship also with one of the -lieutenants of Roldan, who had been a leader in his late revolt, Adrian -de Moxica, then living not far away, who had for him the additional -attachment of kinship, for the two were cousins. Las Casas tells us that -Roldan had himself a passion for the young Indian beauty, and it may -have been for this as well as for his desire to obey the Admiral that he -commanded the young cavalier to go to a more distant province. The -ardent lover had sought to prepare his way for a speedy marriage by -trying to procure a priest to baptize the maiden. This caused more -urgent commands from Roldan, which were ostentatiously obeyed, only to -be eluded by a clandestine return, when he was screened with some -associates in the house of Anacaona. This queenly woman seems to have -favored his suit with her daughter. He was once more ordered away, when -he began to bear himself defiantly, but soon changed his method to -suppliancy. Roldan was appeased by this. Guevara, however, only made it -the cloak for revenge, and with some of his friends formed a plot to -kill Roldan. This leaked out, and the youth and his accomplices were -arrested and sent to Santo Domingo. This action aroused Roldan's old -confederate, Moxica, and, indignant at the way in which the renegade -rebel had dared to turn upon his former associates, Moxica resolved upon -revenge. - -[Sidenote: Moxica's plot.] - -[Sidenote: Moxica taken.] - -To carry it out he started on a tour through the country where the late -mutineers were settled, and readily engaged their sympathies. Among -those who joined in his plot was Pedro Riquelme, whom Roldan had made -assistant alcalde. The old spirit of revolt was rampant. The -confederates were ready for any excess, either upon Roldan or upon the -Admiral. Columbus was at Conception in the midst of the aroused -district, when a deserter from the plotters informed him of their plan. -With a small party the Admiral at once sped in the night to the -unguarded quarters of the leaders, and Moxica and several of his chief -advisers were suddenly captured and carried to the fort. The execution -of the ringleader was at once ordered. Impatient at the way in which the -condemned man dallied in his confessions to a priest, Columbus ordered -him pushed headlong from the battlements. The French canonists screen -Columbus for this act by making Roldan the perpetrator of it. The other -confederates were ironed in confinement at Conception, except Riquelme, -who was taken later and conveyed to Santo Domingo. - -The revolt was thus summarily crushed. Those who had escaped fled to -Xaragua, whither the Adelantado and Roldan pursued them without mercy. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus and his colony.] - -Columbus had perhaps never got his colony under better control than -existed after this vigorous exhibition of his authority. Such a show of -prompt and audacious energy was needed to restore the moral supremacy -which his recusancy under the threats of Roldan had lost. The fair -weather was not to last long. - -[Sidenote: 1500. August 23. Bobadilla arrives.] - -Early in the morning of August 23, 1500, two caravels were descried off -the harbor of Santo Domingo. The Admiral's brother Diego was in -authority, Columbus being still at Conception, and Bartholomew absent -with Roldan. Diego sent out a canoe to learn the purpose of the -visitors. It returned, and brought word that a commissioner was come to -inquire into the late rebellion of Roldan. Diego's messengers had at the -same time informed the newcomer of the most recent defection of Moxica, -and that there were still other executions to take place, particularly -those of Riquelme and Guevara, who were confined in the town. As the -ships entered the river, the gibbets on either bank, with their dangling -Spaniards, showed the commissioner that there were other troublous times -to inquire into than those named in his warrant. While the commissioner -remained on board his ship, receiving the court of those who early -sought to propitiate him, and while he was getting his first information -of the condition of the island, mainly from those who had something to -gain by the excess of their denunciations, it is necessary to go back a -little in time, and ascertain who this important personage was, and what -was the mission on which he had been sent. - -[Illustration: VILLE DE S^T. DOMINGUE. - -SANTO DOMINGO. 1754.] - -[Sidenote: Growth of the royal dissatisfaction with Columbus.] - -The arrangements for sending him had been made slowly. They were even -outlined when Ojeda had started on his voyage, for he had, in his -interviews with Roldan, blindly indicated that some astonishment of this -sort was in store. Evidently Fonseca had not allowed Ojeda to depart -without some intimations. - -[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.] - -Notwithstanding Columbus professed to believe that nothing but the lack -of pecuniary return for the great outlays of his expeditions could be -alleged against them, he was well aware, and he had constantly acted as -if well aware, of the great array of accusations which had been made -against him in Spain, with a principal purpose of undermining the -indulgent regard of the Queen for him. He had known it with sorrow -during his last visit to Spain, and had found, as we have seen, that he -could not secure men to accompany him and put themselves under his -control unless he unshackled criminals in the jails. He little thought -that such utter disregard of the morals and self-respect of those whom -he had settled in the New World would, by a sort of retributive justice, -open the way, however unjustly, to put the displaced gyves on himself, -amid the exultant feelings of these same criminals. Such reiterated -criminations were like the water-drops that wear the stone, and he had, -as we have noted, felt the certainty of direful results. - -[Sidenote: His exaggerations of the wealth of the Indies.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus deceives the Crown.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus's sons hooted at in the Alhambra.] - -How much the disappointment at the lack of gold had to do with -increasing the force of these charges, it is not difficult to imagine. -Columbus was certainly not responsible for that; but he was responsible -for the inordinate growth of the belief in the profuse wealth of the -new-found Indies. His constantly repeated stories of the wonderful -richness of the region had done their work. His professions of a purpose -to enrich the world with noble benefactions, and to spend his treasure -on the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, were the vain boastings of a man -who thought thereby to enroll his name among the benefactors of the -Church. He did not perceive that the populace would wonder whence these -resources were to come, unless it was by defrauding the Crown of its -share, and by amassing gold while they could not get any. There is -something ludicrous in the excuse which he later gave for concealing -from the sovereigns his accumulation of pearls. He felt it sufficient to -say that he thought he would wait till he could make as good a show of -gold! There were some things that even fifteenth-century Christians held -to be more sacred than wresting Jerusalem from the Moslem, and these -were money in hand when they had earned it, and food to eat when their -misfortunes had beggared their lives. It was not an uncalled-for strain -on their loyalty to the Crown, when the notion prevailed that the -sovereigns and their favorite were gathering riches out of their -despair. There was little to be wondered at, in the crowd of these -hungry and debilitated victims, wandering about the courts of the -Alhambra, under the royal windows, and clamoring for their pay. There -was nothing to be surprised at in the hootings that followed the -Admiral's sons, pages of the Queen, if they passed within sight of these -embittered throngs. - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand's confessed blunder.] - -It was quite evident that Ferdinand, who had never warmed to the -Admiral's enthusiasm, had long been conscious that in the exclusive and -extended powers which had been given to Columbus a serious -administrative blunder had been made. He said as much at a later day to -Ponce de Leon. - -The Queen had been faithful, but the recurrent charges had given of late -a wrench to her constancy. Was it not certain that something must be -wrong, or these accusations would not go on increasing? Had not the -great discoverer fulfilled his mission when he unveiled a new world? Was -it quite sure that the ability to govern it went along with the genius -to find it? These were the questions which Isabella began to put to -herself. - -[Sidenote: Isabella begins to doubt.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus to be superseded.] - -[Sidenote: Witnesses against Columbus.] - -She was not a person to hesitate at anything, when conviction came. She -had shown this in the treatment of the Jews, of the Moors, and of other -heretics. The conviction that Columbus was not equal to his trust was -now coming to her. The news of the serious outbreak of Roldan's -conspiracy brought the matter to a test, and in the spring of 1499 the -purpose to send out some one with almost unlimited powers for any -emergency was decided upon. Still the details were not worked out, and -there were occurrences in the internal and external affairs of Spain -that required the prior attention of the sovereigns. Very likely the -news of Columbus's success in finding a new source of wealth in the -pearls of Paria may have had something to do with the delay. When the -ships which carried to Spain a crowd of Roldan's followers arrived, the -question took a fresh interest. Columbus's friends, Ballester and -Barrantes, now found their testimony could make little headway against -the crowd of embittered witnesses on the other side. Isabella, besides, -was forced to see in the slaves that Columbus had sent by the same ships -something of an obstinate opposition to her own wishes. Las Casas tells -us that so great was the Queen's displeasure that it was only the -remembrance of Columbus's services that saved him from prompt disgrace. -To be sure, the slaves had been sent in part by virtue of the -capitulation which Columbus had made with the rebels, but should the -Viceroy of the Indies be forced to such capitulations? Had he kept the -colony in a condition worthy of her queenly patronage, when it could be -reported to her that the daughters of caciques were found among these -natives bearing their hybrid babes? "What authority had my viceroy to -give my vassals to such ends?" she asked. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the slave trade.] - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla appointed commissioner.] - -There were two things in recent letters of Columbus which damaged his -cause just at this juncture. One was his petition for a new lease of the -slave trade. This Isabella answered by ordering all slaves which he had -sent home to be sought out and returned. Her agents found a few. The -other was the request of Columbus for a judge to examine the dispute -between himself and Roldan. This Ferdinand answered by appointing the -commissioner whose arrival at Santo Domingo we have chronicled. He -was Francisco de Bobadilla, an officer of the royal household. - -Before disclosing what Bobadilla did in Santo Domingo, it is best to try -to find out what he was expected to do. - -[Sidenote: His character.] - -There is no person connected with the career of Columbus--hardly -excepting Fonseca--more generally defamed than this man, who was, -nevertheless, if we may believe Oviedo, a very honest and a very -religious man. The historians of Columbus need to mete out to Bobadilla -what very few have done, the same measure of palliation which they are -more willing to bestow on Columbus. With this parallel justice, it may -be that he will not bear with discredit a comparison with Columbus -himself, in all that makes a man's actions excusable under provocation -and responsibility. An indecency of haste may come from an excess of -zeal quite as well as from an unbridled virulence. - -It may be in some ways a question if the conditions this man was sent to -correct were the result of the weakness or inadaptability of Columbus, -or merely the outcome of circumstances, enough beyond his control to -allow of excuses. There is, however, no question that the Spanish -government had duties to perform towards itself and its subjects which -made it properly disinclined to jeopardize the interests which accompany -such duties. - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla's powers.] - -Bobadilla was, to be sure, invested with dangerous powers, but not with -more dangerous ones than Columbus himself had possessed. When two such -personations of unbridled authority come in antagonism, the possessor of -the greater authority is sure to confirm himself by commensurate -exactions upon the other. Bobadilla's commission was an implied warrant -to that end. He might have been more prudent of his own state, and -should have remembered that a trust of the nature of that with which he -was invested was sure to be made accountable to those who imparted to -him the power, and perhaps at a time when they chose to abandon their -own instructions. He ought to have known that such an abandonment comes -very easy to all governments in emergencies. He might have been more -considerate of the man whom Spain had so recently flattered. He should -not have forgotten, if almost everybody else had, that the Admiral had -given a new world to Spain. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the criminals.] - -He should not have been unmindful, if almost every one else was, that -this new world was a delusion now, but might dissolve into a beatific -vision. But all this was rather more than human nature was capable of in -an age like that. It is to be said of Bobadilla that when he summoned -Columbus to Santo Domingo and prejudged him guilty, he had shown no more -disregard of a rival power, which he was sent to regulate, than Columbus -had manifested for a deluded colony, when he selfishly infected it with -the poison of the prisons. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that the -strongest support of the new envoy came from the very elements of vice -which Columbus had implanted in the island. He grew to understand this, -and later he was forced to give a condemnation of his own act when he -urged the sending of such as are honorably known, "that the country may -be peopled with honest men." - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla's character.] - -[Sidenote: Did he exceed his powers?] - -Las Casas tells us of Bobadilla that his probity and disinterestedness -were such that no one could attack them. If it be left for posterity to -decide between the word of Las Casas and Columbus, in estimates of -virtue and honesty, there is no question of the result. When Bobadilla -was selected to be sent to Española, there was every reason to choose -the most upright of persons. There was every reason, also, to instruct -him with a care that should consider every probable attendant -circumstance. After this was done, the discretion of the man was to -determine all. We can read in the records the formal instructions; but -there were beside, as is expressly stated, verbal directions which can -only be surmised. Bobadilla was accused of exceeding the wishes of the -Queen. Are we sure that he did? It is no sign of it that the monarchs -subsequently found it politic to disclaim the act of their agent. Such a -desertion of a subordinate was not unusual in those times, nor indeed -would it be now. - -If Isabella, "for the love of Christ and the Virgin Mary," could -depopulate towns, as she said she did, by the ravages of the -inquisition, and fill her coffers by the attendant sequestrations, it is -not difficult to conceive that, with a similar and convenient conviction -of duty, she would give no narrow range to her vindictiveness and -religious zeal when she came to deal with an Admiral whom she had -created, and who was not very deferential to her wishes. - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla's powers.] - -A synopsis of the powers confided to Bobadilla in writing needs to be -presented. They begin with a letter of March 21, 1499, referring to -reports of the Roldan insurrection, and directing him, if on inquiry he -finds any persons culpable, to arrest them and sequestrate their -effects, and to call upon the Admiral for assistance in carrying out -these orders. Two months later, May 21, a circular letter was framed and -addressed to the magistrates of the islands, which seems to have been -intended to accredit Bobadilla to them, if the Admiral should be no -longer in command. This order gave notice to these magistrates of the -full powers which had been given to Bobadilla in civil and criminal -jurisdiction. Another order of the same date, addressed to the "Admiral -of the ocean sea," orders him to surrender all royal property, whether -forts, arms, or otherwise, into Bobadilla's hands,--evidently intended -to have an accompanying effect with the other. Of a date five days later -another letter addressed to the Admiral reads to this effect:-- - -"We have directed Francisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, to tell -you for us of certain things to be mentioned by him. We ask you to give -faith and credence to what he says, and to obey him. May 26, 1499." - -[Sidenote: His verbal orders.] - -[Sidenote: 1500. July. Bobadilla leaves Spain.] - -This is an explicit avowal on the sovereigns' part of having given -verbal orders. In addition to these instructions, a royal order required -the commissioner to ascertain what was due from the Crown for unpaid -salaries, and to compel the Admiral to join in liquidating such -obligations so far as he was bound for them, "that there may be no more -complaints." If one may believe Columbus's own statements as made in his -subsequent letter to the nurse of Prince Juan, it had been neglect, and -not inability, on his part which had allowed these arrears to accrue. -Bobadilla was also furnished with blanks signed by the sovereigns, to be -used to further their purposes in any way and at his discretion. With -these extraordinary documents, and possessed of such verbal and -confidential directions as we may imagine rather than prove, Bobadilla -had sailed in July, 1500, more than a year after the letters were dated. -His two caravels brought back to Española a number of natives, who were -in charge of some Franciscan friars. - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla lands at Santo Domingo.] - -We left Bobadilla on board his ship, receiving court from all who -desired thus early to get his ear. It was not till the next day that he -landed, attended by a guard of twenty-five men, when he proceeded to the -church to mass. - -[Sidenote: His demands.] - -This over, the crowd gathered before the church. Bobadilla ordered a -herald to read his original commission of March 21, 1499, and then he -demanded of the acting governor, Diego, who was present, that Guevara, -Riquelme, and the other prisoners should be delivered to him, together -with all the evidence in their cases, and that the accusers and -magistrates should appear before him. Diego referred him to the Admiral -as alone having power in such matters, and asked for a copy of the -document just read to send to Columbus. This Bobadilla declined to give, -and retired, intimating, however, that there were reserved powers which -he had, before which even the Admiral must bow. - -The peremptoriness of this movement was, it would seem, uncalled for, -and there could have been little misfortune in waiting the coming of the -Admiral, compared with the natural results of such sudden overturning of -established authority in the absence of the holder of it. Urgency may -not, nevertheless, have been without its claims. It was desirable to -stay the intended executions; and we know not what exaggerations had -already filled the ears of Bobadilla. At this time there would seem to -have been the occasion to deliver the letter to Columbus which had -commanded his obedience to the verbal instructions of the sovereigns; -and such a delivery might have turned the current of these hurrying -events, for Columbus had shown, in the case of Agueda, that he was -graciously inclined to authority. Instead of this, however, Bobadilla, -the next day, again appeared at mass, and caused his other commissions -to be read, which in effect made him supersede the Admiral. This -superiority Diego and his councilors still unadvisedly declined to -recognize. The other mandates were read in succession; and the gradual -rise to power, which the documents seemed to imply, as the progress of -the investigations demanded support, was thus reached at a bound. This -is the view of the case which has been taken by Columbus's biographers, -as naturally drawn from the succession of the powers which were given -to Bobadilla. It is merely an inference, and we know not the directions -for their proclamations, which had been verbally imparted to Bobadilla. -It is this uncertainty which surrounds the case with doubt. It is -apparent that the reading of these papers had begun to impress the -rabble, if not those in authority. That order which commanded the -payment of arrears of salaries had a very gratifying effect on those who -had suffered from delays. Nothing, however, moved the representatives of -the Viceroy, who would not believe that anything could surpass his -long-conceded authority. - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla assaults the fort.] - -There is nothing strange in the excitement of an officer who finds his -undoubted supremacy thus obstinately spurned, and we must trace to such -excitement the somewhat overstrained conduct which made a show of -carrying by assault the fortress in which Guevara and the other -prisoners were confined. Miguel Diaz, who commanded the fort,--the same -who had disclosed the Hayna mines,--when summoned to surrender had -referred Bobadilla to the Admiral from whom his orders came, and asked -for copies of the letters patent and orders, for more considerate -attention. It was hardly to be expected that Bobadilla was to be -beguiled by any such device, when he had a force of armed men at his -back, aided by his crew and the aroused rabble, and when there was -nothing before him but a weak citadel with few defenders. There was -nothing to withstand the somewhat ridiculous shock of the assault but a -few frail bars, and no need of the scaling ladders which were -ostentatiously set up. Diaz and one companion, with sword in hand, stood -passively representing the outraged dignity of command. Bobadilla was -victorious, and the manacled Guevara and the rest passed over to new and -less stringent keepers. - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla in full possession.] - -Bobadilla was now in possession of every channel of authority. He -domiciled himself in the house of Columbus, took possession of all his -effects, including his papers, making no distinction between public and -private ones, and used what money he could find to pay the debts of the -Admiral as they were presented to him. This proceeding was well -calculated to increase his popularity, and it was still more enhanced -when he proclaimed liberty to all to gather gold for twenty years, with -only the payment of one seventh instead of a third to the Crown. - -[Sidenote: Columbus hears of Bobadilla.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the Franciscans.] - -Let us turn to Columbus himself. The reports which reached him at Fort -Conception did not at first convey to him an adequate notion of what he -was to encounter. He associated the proceedings with such unwarranted -acts as Ojeda's and Pinzon's in coming with their ships within his -prescribed dominion. The greater audacity, however, alarmed him, and the -threats which Bobadilla had made of sending him to Spain in irons, and -the known success of his usurpation within the town, were little -calculated to make Columbus confident in the temporary character of the -outburst. He moved his quarters to Bonao to be nearer the confusion, and -here he met an officer bearing to him a copy of the letters under which -the government had been assumed by Bobadilla. Still the one addressed to -Columbus, commanding him to acquiesce, was held back. It showed palpably -that Bobadilla conceived he had passed beyond the judicial aim of his -commission. Columbus, on his part, was loath to reach that conclusion, -and tried to gain time. He wrote to Bobadilla an exculpating and -temporizing letter, saying that he was about to leave for Spain, when -everything would pass regularly into Bobadilla's control. He sent other -letters, calculated to create delays, to the Franciscans who had come -with him. He had himself affiliated with that order, and perhaps thought -his influence might not be unheeded. He got no replies, and perhaps -never knew what the spirit of these friars was. They evidently reflected -the kind of testimony which Bobadilla had been accumulating. We find -somewhat later, in a report of one of them, Nicholas Glassberger,--who -speaks of the 1,500 natives whom they had made haste to baptize in Santo -Domingo,--some of the cruel insinuations which were rife, when he speaks -of "a certain admiral, captain, and chief, who had ill treated these -natives, taking their goods and wives, and capturing their virgin -daughters, and had been sent to Spain in chains." - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla sends the sovereigns' letter to Columbus.] - -Columbus as yet could hardly have looked forward to any such indignity -as manacles on his limbs. Nor did he probably suspect that Bobadilla was -using the signed blanks, entrusted to him by the sovereigns, to engage -the interests of Roldan and other deputies of the Viceroy scattered -through the island. Columbus, in these uncertainties, caused it to be -known that he considered his perpetual powers still unrevoked, if indeed -they were revocable at all. This state of his mind was rudely jarred by -receiving a little later, at the hands of Francisco Velasquez, the -deputy treasurer, and of Juan de Trasierra, one of the Franciscans, the -letter addressed to him by the sovereigns, commanding him to respect -what Bobadilla should tell him. Here was tangible authority; and when it -was accompanied by a summons from Bobadilla to appear before him, he -hesitated no longer, and, with the little state befitting his disgrace, -proceeded at once to Santo Domingo. - -[Sidenote: Columbus approaches Santo Domingo.] - -[Sidenote: 1500. August 23. Columbus is imprisoned in chains.] - -The Admiral's brother Diego had already been confined in irons on one of -the caravels; and Bobadilla, affecting to believe, as Irving holds, that -Columbus would not come in any compliant mood, made a bustle of armed -preparation. There was, however, no such intention on Columbus's part, -nor had been, since the royal mandate of implicit obedience had been -received. He came as quietly as the circumstances would permit, and when -the new governor heard he was within his grasp, his orders to seize him -and throw him into prison were promptly executed (August 23, 1500). In -the southeastern part of the town, the tower still stands, with little -signs of decay, which then received the dejected Admiral, and from its -summit all approaching vessels are signaled to-day. Las Casas tells us -of the shameless and graceless cook, one of Columbus's own household, -who riveted the fetters. "I knew the fellow," says that historian, "and -I think his name was Espinosa." - -While the Adelantado was at large with an armed force, Bobadilla was not -altogether secure in his triumph. He demanded of Columbus to write to -his brother and counsel him to come in and surrender. This Columbus did, -assuring the Adelantado of their safety in trusting to the later justice -of the Crown. Bartholomew obeyed, as the best authorities say, though -Peter Martyr mentions a rumor that he came in no accommodating spirit, -and was captured while in advance of his force. It is certain he also -was placed in irons, and confined on one of the caravels. It was -Bobadilla's purpose to keep the leaders apart, so there could be no -concert of action, and even to prevent their seeing any one who could -inform them of the progress of the inquest, which was at once begun. - -[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.] - -It seems evident that Bobadilla, either of his own impulse or in -accordance with secret instructions, was acting with a secrecy and -precipitancy which would have been justifiable in the presence of armed -sedition, but was uncalled for with no organized opposition to embarrass -him. Columbus at a later day tells us that he was denied ample clothing, -even, and was otherwise ill treated. He says, too, he had no statement -of charges given to him. It is a later story, started by Charlevoix, -that such accusations were presented to him in writing, and met by him -in the same method. - -The trial was certainly a remarkable procedure, except we consider it -simply an _ex parte_ process for indictment only, as indeed it really -was. Irving lays stress on the reversal by Bobadilla of the natural -order of his acts, amounting, in fact, to prejudging a person he was -sent to examine. He also thinks that the governor was hurried to his -conclusions in order to make up a show of necessity for his precipitate -action. It has something of that look. "The rebels he had been sent to -judge became, by this singular perversion of rule," says Irving, -"necessary and cherished evidences to criminate those against whom they -had rebelled." This is the mistake of the apologists for Columbus. -Bobadilla seems to have been sent to judge between two parties, and not -to assume that only one was culpable. Even Irving suspects the true -conditions. He allows that Bobadilla would not have dared to go to this -length, had he not felt assured that "certain things," as the mandate to -Columbus expressed it, would not be displeasing to the king. - -The charges against the Admiral had been stock ones for years, and we -have encountered them more than once in the progress of this narrative. -They are rehearsed at length in the documents given by Navarrete, and -are repeated and summarized by Peter Martyr. It is perhaps true that -there was some novelty in the asseveration that Columbus's recent -refusal to have some Indians baptized was simply because it deprived him -of selling them as slaves. This accusation, considering Columbus's -relations to the slave trade which he had created, is as little to be -wondered at as any. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -Las Casas tells us how indignant Isabella had been with his presumptuous -way of dealing with what she called her subjects; and by a royal order -of June 20, 1500, she had ordered, as we have seen, the return in -Bobadilla's fleet of nineteen of the slaves who had been sold. There was -no better way of commending Bobadilla's action to the Queen, apparently, -than by making the most of Columbus's unfortunate relations to the slave -trade. - -As the accusations were piled up, Bobadilla saw the inquest leading, in -his mind, to but one conclusion, the unnatural character of the Viceroy -and his unfitness for command,--a phrase not far from the truth, but -hardly requiring the extraordinary proceedings which had brought the -governor to a recognition of it. There is little question that the -public sentiment of the colony, so far at least as it dare manifest -itself, commended the governor. Columbus in his dungeon might not see -this with his own eyes, but if the reports are true, his ears carried it -to his spirit, for howls and taunts against him came from beyond the -walls, as the expression of the hordes which felt relieved by his fate. -Columbus himself confessed that Bobadilla had "succeeded to the full" in -making him hated of the people. All this was matter to brood upon in his -loneliness. He magnified slight hints. He more than suspected he was -doomed to a violent fate. When Alonso de Villejo, who was to conduct him -to Spain, in charge of the returning ships, came to the dungeon, -Columbus saw for the first time some recognition of his unfortunate -condition. Las Casas, in recounting the interview, says that Villejo was -"an hidalgo of honorable character and my particular friend," and he -doubtless got his account of what took place from that important -participant. - -"Villejo," said the prisoner, "whither do you take me?" - -"To embark on the ship, your excellency." - -"To embark, Villejo? Is that the truth?" - -"It is true," said the captain. - -For the first time the poor Admiral felt that he yet might see Spain and -her sovereigns. - -[Sidenote: 1500. October. Columbus sent to Spain.] - -[Sidenote: His chains.] - -The caravels set sail in October, 1500, and soon passed out of earshot -of the hootings that were sent after the miserable prisoners. The new -keepers of Columbus were not of the same sort as those who cast such -farewell taunts. If the _Historie_ is to be believed, Bobadilla had -ordered the chains to be kept on throughout the voyage, since, as the -writer of that book grimly suggests, Columbus might at any time swim -back, if not secured. Villejo was kind. So was the master of the -caravel, Andreas Martin. They suggested that they could remove the -manacles during the voyage; but the Admiral, with that cherished -constancy which persons feel, not always wisely, in such predicaments, -thinking to magnify martyrdom, refused. "No," he said; "my sovereigns -ordered me to submit, and Bobadilla has chained me. I will wear these -irons until by royal order they are removed, and I shall keep them as -relics and memorials of my services." - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Degradation of Columbus.] - -[Sidenote: His letter to the nurse of Prince Juan analyzed.] - -[Sidenote: Charges against Columbus.] - -The relations of Columbus and Bobadilla bring before us the most -startling of the many combinations of events in the history of a career -which is sadder, perhaps, notwithstanding its glory, than any other -mortal presents in profane history. The degradation of such a man -appeals more forcibly to human sympathy than almost any other event in -the record of humanity. That sympathy has obscured the import of his -degradation, and that mournful explanation of the events, which, either -on his voyage or shortly after his return, Columbus wrote and sent to -the nurse of Prince Juan, has long worked upon the sensibilities of a -world tender for his misfortunes. We cannot indeed read this letter -without compassion, nor can we read it dispassionately without -perceiving that the feelings of the man who wrote it had been despoiled -of a judicial temper by his errors as well as by his miseries. His -statements of the case are wholly one-sided. He never sees what it pains -him to see. He forgets everything that an enemy would remember. He finds -it difficult to tell the truth, and trusts to iterated professions to be -taken for truths. He claims to have no conception why he was imprisoned, -when he knew perfectly well, as he says himself, that he had endeavored -to create an opposition to constituted authority "by verbal and written -declarations;" and he reiterates this statement after he had bowed to -royal commands that were as explicit as his own treatment of them had -been recalcitrant. Indeed, he puts himself in the rather ridiculous -posture of answering a long series of charges, of which at the same time -he professes to be ignorant. - -In the course of this letter, Columbus set up a claim that he had been -seriously misjudged in trying to measure his accountability by the laws -that govern established governments rather than by those which grant -indulgences to the conqueror of a numerous and warlike nation. The -position is curiously inconsistent with his professed intentions, as the -sole ruler of a colony, to be just in the eyes of God and men. The Crown -had given him its authority to establish precisely what he claims had -not been established, a government of laws kindly disposed to protect -both Spaniard and native, and yet he did not understand why his doings -were called in question. He had boasted repeatedly how far from warlike -and dangerous the natives were, so that a score of Spaniards could put -seven thousand to rout, as he was eager to report in one case. The chief -of the accusations against him did not pertain to his malfeasance in -regard to the natives, but towards the Spaniards themselves, and it was -begging the question to consider his companions a conquered nation. If -there were no established government as respects them, he would be the -last to admit it; and if it were proved against him, there was no one so -responsible for the absence of it as himself. Again he says: "I ought to -be judged by cavaliers who have gained victories themselves,--by -gentlemen, and not by lawyers." The fact was that the case had been -judged by hidalgoes without number, and to his disgrace, and it was -taken from them to give him the protection of the law, such as it was; -and, as he himself acknowledges, there is in the Indies "neither civil -right nor judgment seat." As he was the source of all the bulwarks of -life and liberty in these same Indies, he thus acknowledges the -deficiencies of his own protective agencies. There is something -childishly immature in the proposition which he advances that he should -be judged by persons in his own pay. - -[Sidenote: Palliation.] - -It is of course necessary to allow the writer of this letter all the -palliation that a man in his distressed and disordered condition might -claim. Columbus had in fact been perceptibly drifting into a state of -delusion and aberration of mind ever since the sustaining power of a -great cause had been lifted from him. From the moment when he turned his -mule back at the instance of Isabella's message, the lofty purpose had -degenerated to a besetting cupidity, in which he made even the Divinity -a constant abettor. In this same letter he tells of a vision of the -previous Christmas, when the Lord confronted him miraculously, and -reminded him of his vow to amass treasure enough in seven years to -undertake his crusade to Jerusalem. This visible Godhead then comforted -him with the assurance that his divine power would see that it came to -pass. "The seven years you were to await have not yet passed. Trust in -me and all will be right." It is easy to point to numerous such -instances in Columbus's career, and the canonizers do not neglect to do -so, as evincing the sublime confidence of the devoted servant of the -Lord; but one can hardly put out of mind the concomitants of all such -confidence. The most that we can allow is the unaccountableness of a -much-vexed conscience. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -COLUMBUS AGAIN IN SPAIN. - -1500-1502. - - -[Sidenote: 1500. October. Columbus reaches Cadiz.] - -[Sidenote: Public sympathy at his degradation.] - -It was in October, 1500, after a voyage of less discomfort than usual, -that the ships of Villejo, carrying his manacled prisoners, entered the -harbor of Cadiz. If Bobadilla had precipitately prejudged his chief -prisoner, public sentiment, when it became known that Columbus had -arrived in chains, was not less headlong in its sympathetic revulsion. -Bobadilla would at this moment have stood a small chance for a -dispassionate examination. The discoverer of the New World coming back -from it a degraded prisoner was a discordant spectacle in the public -mind, filled with recollections of those days of the first return to -Palos, when a new range had been given to man's conceptions of the -physical world. This common outburst of indignation showed, as many -times before and since, how the world's sense of justice has in it more -of spirit than of steady discernment. The hectic flush was sure to -pass,--as it did. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's letter to the nurse of Prince Juan.] - -It was while on his voyage, or shortly after his return, that Columbus -wrote the letter to the lady of the Court usually spoken of as the nurse -of Prince Juan, which has been already considered. Before the -proceedings of the inquest which Bobadilla had forwarded by the ship -were sent to the Court, then in the Alhambra, Columbus, with the -connivance of Martin, the captain of his caravel, had got this -exculpatory letter off by a special messenger. The lady to whom it was -addressed was, it will be remembered, Doña Juana de la Torre, an -intimate companion of the Queen, with whom the Admiral's two sons, as -pages of the Queen, had been for some months in daily relations. The -text of this letter has long been known. Las Casas copied it in his -_Historia_. Navarrete gives it from another copy, but corrected by the -text preserved at Genoa; while Harrisse tells us that the text in Paris -contains an important passage not in that at Genoa. - -[Sidenote: The sovereigns order Columbus to be released.] - -While its ejaculatory arguments are not well calculated to impose on the -sober historian, there was enough of fervor laid against its background -of distressing humility to work on the sympathies of its recipient, and -of the Queen, to whom it was early and naturally revealed. "I have now -reached that point that there is no man so vile, but thinks it his right -to insult me," was the language, almost at its opening, which met their -eyes. The further reading of the letter brought up a picture of the -manacled Admiral. Very likely the rumor of the rising indignation -spreading from Cadiz to Seville, and from Seville elsewhere, as well as -the letters of the alcalde of Cadiz, into whose hands Columbus had been -delivered, and of Villejo, who had had him in custody, added to the -tumult of sensations mutually shared in that little circle of the -monarchs and the Doña Juana. If we take the prompt action of the -sovereigns in ordering the immediate release of Columbus, their letter -of sympathy at the baseness of his treatment, the two thousand ducats -put at his disposal to prepare for a visit to the Court, and the cordial -royal summons for him to come,--if all these be taken at their apparent -value, the candid observer finds himself growing distrustful of -Bobadilla's justification through his secret instructions. As the -observer goes on in the story and notes the sequel, he is more inclined -to believe that the sovereigns, borne on the rising tide of indignant -sympathy, had defended themselves at the expense of their commissioner. -We may never know the truth. - -[Sidenote: 1500. December 17. Columbus at Court.] - -That was a striking scene when Columbus, delivered from his irons on the -17th of December, 1500, held his first interview with the Spanish -monarchs. Oviedo was an eyewitness of it; but we find more of its -accompaniments in the story as told by Herrera than in the scant -narrative of the _Historie_. Humboldt fancies that it was the Admiral's -son who wrote it. The author of that book had no heart to record at much -length the professions of regret on the part of the King, since they -were not easily reconcilable with what, in that writer's judgment, would -have been the honorable reception of Bobadilla and Roldan, had they -escaped the fate of the tempests which later overwhelmed them. When the -first warmth of Columbus's reception had subsided, there would have been -no reason to suspect that those absent servants of the Crown would have -been denied a suitable welcome. - -Herrera tells us of the touching character of this interview of December -17; how the Queen burst into tears, and the emotional Admiral cast -himself on the ground at her feet. When Columbus could speak, he began -to recall the reasons for which he had been imprisoned, and rehearsed -them with humble and exculpatory professions. He forgot that in the -letter which so excited their sympathy he had denied that he knew any -such reasons, and the sovereigns forgot it too. The meeting had awakened -the tenderer parts of their natures, and their hearts went out to him. -They made verbal promises of largesses and professions of restitution, -but Harrisse could find no written expressions of this kind, till in the -instructions of March 14, 1502, when they expressed their directions for -his guidance during his next voyage. The Admiral grew confident, as of -old, in their presence. He had always reached a coign of vantage in his -personal intercourse with the Queen. He had evidently not lost that -power. He began to picture his return to Santo Domingo with the triumph -that he now enjoyed. It was a hollow hope. He was never again to be -Viceroy of the Indies. - -[Sidenote: Columbus suspended from power.] - -[Sidenote: Other explorers in American waters.] - -[Sidenote: Portuguese claims.] - -The disorders in Española were but a part of the reasons why it was now -decided to suspend the patented rights of the Admiral, if not -permanently to deny the further exercise of them. We have seen how the -government had committed itself to other discoveries, profiting, as it -did, by the maps which Columbus had sent back to Spain. These -discoveries were a new source of tribute which could not be neglected. -Rival nations too were alert, and ships of the Portuguese and of the -English had been found prowling about within the unquestioned limits -allowed to Spain by the new treaty line of Tordesillas. At the north and -at the south these same powers were pushing their search, to see if -perchance portions of the new regions could not be found to project so -far east as to bring them on the Portuguese side of that same line. -Portugal had already claimed that Cabral had found such territory under -the equator and south of it. An eastward projection of Brazil at the -south, twenty degrees and more, is very common in the contemporary -Portuguese maps. - -[Sidenote: 1501. May 13. Coelho's voyage.] - -[Sidenote: Was Vespucius on this voyage?] - -On the 13th of May, 1501, a new Portuguese fleet of three ships, under -the command of Gonçalo Coelho, sailed from Lisbon to develop the coast -of the southern Vera Cruz, as South America was now called, and to see -if a way could be found through it to the Moluccas. In June, the fleet, -while at the Cape de Verde Islands, met Cabral with his vessels on their -return from India. Here it was that Cabral's interpreter, Gasparo, -communicated the particulars of Cabral's discovery to Vespucius, who -was, as seems pretty clear, though by no means certain, on board this -outward-bound fleet. A letter exists, brought to light by Count Baldelli -Boni, not, however, in the hand of Vespucius, in which the writer, under -date of June 4, gave the results of his note-takings with Cabral to Pier -Francisco de Medici. Varnhagen is in some doubt about the genuineness of -this document. Indeed, the historian, if he weighs all the testimony -that has been adduced for and against the participancy of Vespucius in -this voyage, can hardly be quite sure that the Florentine was aboard at -all, and Santarem is confident he was not. Navarrete thinks he was -perhaps there in some subordinate capacity. Humboldt is staggered at the -profession of Vespucius in still keeping the Great Bear above the -horizon at 32° south, since it is lost after reaching 26°. - -[Sidenote: The _Mundus Novus_ of Vespucius.] - -With all this doubt, we have got to make something out of another -letter, which in the published copy purports to have been written in -1503 about this voyage by Vespucius himself, and from it we learn that -his ship had struck the coast at Cape St. Roque, on August 17, 1501. The -discoverers reached and named Cape St. Augustine on August 28. On -November 1, they were at Bahia. By the 3d of April, 1502, they had -reached the latitude of 52° south, when, driven off the coast in a -severe gale, they made apparently the island of Georgia, whence they -stood over to Africa, and reached Lisbon on September, 7, 1502. By what -name Vespucius called this South American coast we do not know, for his -original Italian text is lost, but the _Mundus Novus_ of the Latin -paraphrase or version raised a feeling of expectancy that something new -had really been found, distinct from the spicy East. Varnhagen is -convinced that Vespucius, different from Columbus, had awakened to the -conception of an absolutely new quarter of the earth. There is little -ground for the belief, however, in its full extent and confidence. The -little tract had in it the elements of popularity, and in 1504 and 1505 -the German and French presses gave it currency in several editions in -the Latin tongue, whence it was turned into Italian, German, and Dutch, -spreading through Europe the fame of Vespucius. We trace to this voyage -the origin of the nomenclature of the coast of the South American -continent which then grew up, and is represented in the earlier maps, -like that of Lorenz Fries, for instance, in 1504. - -[Illustration: MUNDUS NOVUS, first page.] - -[Sidenote: Discoveries of Vespucius.] - -[Sidenote: Maps of early voyages.] - -A letter dated August 12, 1507, preserved in Tritemius's _Epistolarum -familiarum libri duo_ (1536), has been thought to refer to a printed map -which showed the discoveries of Vespucius down to 10° south. This map is -unknown, apparently, as the particulars given concerning it do not agree -with the map of Ruysch, the only one, so far as known, to antedate that -epistle. It is possibly the missing map which Waldseemüller is thought -to have first made, and which became the prototype of the recognized -Waldseemüller map of the Ptolemy of 1513, and was possibly the one from -which the Cantino map, yet to be described, was perfected in other parts -than those of the Cortereal discoveries. This anterior map may have been -merely an early state of the plate, and Lelewel gives reasons for -believing that early impressions of this map were in the market in 1507. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Vespucius.] - -Thus while Columbus was nurturing his deferred hopes, neglected and -poor, and awaiting what after all was but a tantalizing revival of royal -interest, the rival Portuguese, acting most probably under the -influences of Columbus's own countryman, this Florentine, were -stretching farther towards the true western route to the Moluccas than -the Admiral had any conception of. Vespucius was also at the same time -unwittingly asserting claims which should in the end rob the Great -Discoverer of the meed of bestowing his name on the new continent which -he had just as unwittingly discovered. The contrast is of the same -strange impressiveness which marks so many of the improbable turns in -the career of Columbus. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1500. Spanish purposes at the north.] - -Meanwhile, what was going on in the north, where Portugal was pushing -her discoveries in the region already explored by Cabot? The Spaniards -had been dilatory here. The monarchs, May 6, 1500, while they were -distracted with the reports of the disquietude of Española, had turned -their attention in this direction, and had thought of sending ships into -the seas which "Sebastian Cabot had discovered." They had done nothing, -however, though Navarrete finds that explorations thitherward, under -Juan Dornelos and Ojeda, had been planned. - -[Illustration: STRAITS OF BELLE ISLE, SHOWING SITE OF EARLY NORMAN -FISHING STATION AT BRADORE. - -[After Reclus's _L'Amerique_.]] - - -[Illustration: MS. OF GASPAR CORTEREAL. - -[From Harrisse's _Cortereal_, _Postscriptum_, 1883.]] - -[Sidenote: Bretons and Normans at the north.] - -If we may believe some of the accounts of explorations this way on the -part of the Bretons and Normans, they had founded a settlement called -Brest on the Labrador coast, just within the Straits of Belle Isle, on a -bay now called Bradore, as early as 1500. It is said that traces of -their houses can be still seen there. But there is no definite -contemporary record of their exploits. We have such records of the -Portuguese movements, though not through Spanish sources. Unaccountably, -Peter Martyr, who kept himself alert for all such impressions, makes no -reference to any Portuguese voyages; and it is only when we come down to -Gomara (1551) that we find a Spanish writer reverting to the narratives. -In doing so, Gomara makes, at the same time, some confusion in the -chronology. - -[Sidenote: Cortereal voyages.] - -Portugal had missed a great opportunity in discrediting Columbus, but -she had succeeded in finding one in Da Gama. She was now in wait for a -chance to mate her southern route with a western, or rather with a -northern,--at any rate, with one which would give her some warrant for -efforts not openly in violation of the negotiations which had followed -upon the Bull of Demarcation. Opportunely, word came to Lisbon of the -successes of the Cabot voyages, and there was the probability of islands -and interjacent passages at the north very like the geographical -configuration which the Spaniards had found farther south. To -appearances, Cabot had met with such land on the Portuguese side of the -division line of the treaty of Tordesillas. - -[Sidenote: 1500. Gaspar Cortereal.] - -[Sidenote: 1501. Gaspar Cortereal again.] - -King Emanuel had a vassal in Gaspar Cortereal, who at this time was a -man about fifty years old, and he had already in years past conducted -explorations oceanward, though we have no definite knowledge of their -results. It has been conjectured that Columbus may have known him; but -there is nothing to make this certain. At any rate, there was little in -the surroundings of Columbus at Española, when he was subjected to -chains in the summer of 1500, to remind him of any northern rivalry, -though the visits of Ojeda and Pinzon to that island were foreboding. It -was just at that time that Cortereal sailed away from Portugal to the -northwest. He discovered the Terra do Labrador, which he named -apparently because he thought its natives would increase very handily -the slave labor of Portugal. To follow up this quest, Gaspar sailed -again with three ships, May 15, 1501, which is the date given by Damian -de Goes. Harrisse is not so sure, but finds that Gaspar was still in -port April 21, 1501. Cortereal ran a course a little more to the west, -and came to a coast, two thousand miles away, as was reckoned, and -skirted it without finding any end. He decided from the volume of its -rivers, that it was probably a continental area. The voyagers found in -the hands of some natives whom they saw a broken sword and two silver -earrings, evidently of Italian make. The natural inference is that they -had fallen among tribes which Cabot had encountered on his second -voyage, if indeed these relics did not represent earlier visitors. -Cortereal also found in a high latitude a country which he called _Terra -Verde_. Two of the vessels returned safely, bringing home some of the -natives, and the capture of such, to make good the name bestowed during -the previous voyage, seems to have been the principal aim of the -explorers. The third ship, with Gaspar on board, was never afterwards -heard of. - -[Illustration: MS. OF MIGUEL CORTEREAL. - -[From Harrisse's _Cortereal, Postscriptum_.]] - -[Sidenote: Original sources on the Cortereal voyages.] - -[Sidenote: Portuguese habit of concealing information.] - -It so happened that Pasqualigo, the Venetian ambassador in Lisbon, made -record of the return of the first of these vessels, in a letter which he -wrote from Lisbon, October 19, 1501; and it is from this, which made -part of the well-known _Paesi novamente retrovati_ (Vicenza, 1507), that -we derive what little knowledge we have of these voyages. The reports -have fortunately been supplemented by Harrisse in a dispatch dated -October 17, 1501, which he has produced from the archives of Modena, in -which one Alberto Cantino tells how he heard the captain of the vessel -which arrived second tell the story to the king. This dispatch to the -Duke of Ferrara was followed by a map showing the new discoveries. This -cartographical record had been known for some years before it was -reproduced by Harrisse on a large scale. It is apparent from this that -the discoverers believed, or feigned to believe, that the new-found -regions lay westward from Ireland half-way to the American coasts. The -evidence that they feigned to believe rather than that they knew these -lands to be east of their limitary line may not be found; but it was -probably some such doubt of their honesty which induced Robert Thorne, -of Bristol, to speak of the purpose which the Portuguese had in -falsifying their maps. Nor were the frauds confined to maps. -Translations were distorted and narratives perverted. Biddle, in his -_Life of Cabot_, points out a marked instance of this, where the simple -language of Pasqualigo is twisted so as to convey the impression of a -long acquaintance of the natives with Italian commodities, as proving -that the Italians had formerly visited the region,--a hint which Biddle -supposed the Zeni narrative at a later date was contrived to sustain, so -as to deceive many writers. We shall soon revert to this Cantino map. - -[Sidenote: 1501. Miguel Cortereal.] - -The voyage which Miguel Cortereal is known to have undertaken in the -summer of 1501, which has been connected with this series of northwest -voyages, is held by Harrisse, in his revised opinions, not to have been -to the New World at all, but to have been conducted against the Grand -Turk, and Cortereal returned from it on November 4, 1501. - -[Sidenote: 1502. Miguel Cortereal again.] - -To search for the missing Gaspar Cortereal, Miguel, on May 10, 1502, -again sailed to the northwest with two or three ships. They found the -same coast as before, searched it without success, and returned again -without a leader; for Miguel's ship missed the others at a rendezvous -and was never again heard of. - -[Sidenote: Terre des Cortereal.] - -[Sidenote: Straits of Anian.] - -The endeavors of the Portuguese in this direction did not end here; and -the region thus brought by them to the attention of the cartographer -soon acquired in their maps the name of _Terre des Cortereal_, or _Terra -dos Corte reals_, or, as Latinized by Sylvanus, _Regalis Domus_. There -is little, however, to connect these earliest ventures with later -history, except perhaps that from their experiences it is that a vague -cartographical conception of the fabled Straits of Anian confronts us in -many of the maps of the latter half of the sixteenth century. No one has -made it quite sure whence the appellation or even the idea of such a -strait came. By some it has been thought to have grown out of Marco -Polo's Ania, which was conceived to be in the north. By Navarrete, -Humboldt, and others it has been made to grow in some way out of these -Cortereal voyages, and Humboldt supposes that the entrance to Hudson -Bay, under 60° north latitude, was thought at that time to lead to some -sort of a transcontinental passage, going it is hardly known where. The -name does not seem at first to have been magnified into all its later -associations of a kingdom, or "regnum" of Anian, as the Latin -nomenclature then had it. Its great city of Quivira did not appear till -some time after the middle of the sixteenth century, and then it was not -always quite certain to the cosmographical mind whether all this -magnificence might not better be placed on the Asiatic side of such a -strait. This imaginary channel was made for a long period to run along -the parallels of latitudes somewhere in the northern regions of the New -World, after America had begun generally to have its independent -existence recognized, south of the Arctic regions at least. The next -stage of the belief violently changed the course of the straits across -the parallels, prefiguring the later discovered Bering's Straits; and -this is made prominent in maps of Zalterius (1566) and Mercator (1569), -and in the maps of those who copied these masters. - - -[Sidenote: Spanish maps.] - -[Sidenote: Maps of the Cortereal discoveries.] - -It took thirty years for the Cortereal discoveries to work their way -into the conceptions of the Spanish map makers. Whether this dilatory -belief came from lack of information, obliviousness, or simply from an -heroic persistence in ignoring what was not their boast, is a question -to be decided through an estimate of the Spanish character. There seems, -however, to have been interest enough on the part of a single Italian -noble to seek information at once, as we see from the Cantino map; but -the knowledge was not, nevertheless, apparently a matter of such -interest but it could escape Ruysch in 1508. Not till Sylvanus issued -his edition of Ptolemy, in 1511, did any signs of these Cortereal -expeditions appear on an engraved map. - -[Illustration: THE CANTINO MAP.] - -[Sidenote: The Cantino map. 1502.] - -Only a few years have passed since students of these cartographical -fields were first allowed free study of this Cantino map. It is, after -La Cosa, the most interesting of all the early maps of the American -coast as its configuration had grown to be comprehended in the ten years -which followed the first voyage of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: The Cortereal discoveries east of the line of demarcation.] - -[Sidenote: Terra Verde.] - -There are three special points of interest in this chart. The first is -the evident purpose of the maker, when sending it (1502) to his -correspondent in Italy, to render it clear that the coasts which the -Portuguese had tracked in the northwest Atlantic were sufficiently -protuberant towards the rising sun to throw them on the Portuguese side -of the revised line of demarcation. It is by no means certain, however, -in doing so, that they pretended their discoveries to have been other -than neighboring to Asia, since a peninsula north of these regions is -called a "point of Asia." The ordinary belief of geographers at that -time was that our modern Greenland was an extension of northern Europe. -So it does not seem altogether certain that the _Terra Verde_ of -Cortereal can be held to be identical with its namesake of the Sagas. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the Cantino map in the Paria region.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus in want.] - -The second point of interest is what seems to be the connection between -this map and those which had emanated from the results of the Columbus -voyages, directly or indirectly. Columbus had made a chart of his track -through the Gulf of Paria, and had sent it to Spain, and Ojeda had -coursed the same region by it. We know from a letter of Angelo -Trivigiano, the secretary of the Venetian ambassador in Spain, dated at -Granada, August 21, 1501, and addressed to Domenico Malipiero, that at -that time Columbus, who had ingratiated himself with the writer of the -letter, was living without money, in great want, and out of favor with -the sovereigns. This letter-writer then speaks of his intercession with -Peter Martyr to have copies of his narrative of the voyages of Columbus -made, and of his pleading with Columbus himself to have transcripts of -his own letters to his sovereigns given to him, as well as a map of the -new discoveries from the Admiral's own charts, which he then had with -him in Granada. - -There are three letters of Trivigiano, but the originals are not known. -Foscarini in 1752 used them in his _Della Letteratura veneziana_, as -found in the library of Jacopo Soranzo; but both these originals and -Foscarini's copies have eluded the search of Harrisse, who gives them -as printed or abstracted by Zurla. - -What we have is not supposed to be the entire text, and we may well -regret the loss of the rest. Trivigiano says of the map that he expected -it to be extremely well executed on a large scale, giving ample details -of the country which had been discovered. He refers to the delays -incident to sending to Palos to have it made, because persons capable of -such work could only be found there. - -No such copy as that made for Malipiero is now known. Harrisse thinks -that if it is ever discovered it will be very like the Cantino map, with -the Cortereal discoveries left out. This same commentator also points -out that there are certainly indications in the Cantino map that the -maker of it, in drafting the region about the Gulf of Paria at least, -worked either from Columbus's map or from some copy of it, for his -information seems to be more correct than that which La Cosa followed. - -[Sidenote: What is the coast north of Cuba?] - -The third point of interest in this Cantino map, and one which has given -rise to opposing views, respects that coast which is drawn in it north -of the completed Cuba, and which at first glance is taken with little -question for the Atlantic coast of the United States from Florida up. Is -it such? Did the cartographers of that time have anything more than -conjecture by which to run such a coast line? - -A letter of Pasqualigo, dated at Lisbon, October 18, 1501, and found by -Von Ranke at Venice in the diary of Marino Sanuto,--a running record of -events, which begins in 1496,--has been interpreted by Humboldt as -signifying that at this time it was known among the Portuguese observers -of the maritime reports that a continental stretch of coast connected -the Spanish discoveries in the Antilles with those of the Portuguese at -the north. Harrisse questions this interpretation, and considers that -what Humboldt thinks knowledge was simply a tentative conjecture. If -this knowledge is represented in the Cantino map, there is certainly too -great remoteness in the regions of the Cortereal discoveries to form -such a connection. It is of course possible that the map is a -falsification in this respect, to make the line of demarcation serve the -Portuguese interests, and such falsification is by no means improbable. - -[Sidenote: The Cantino and La Cosa maps at variance.] - -[Sidenote: Bimini.] - -It will be remembered that the La Cosa map showed no hesitancy in -placing the Antilles on the coast of Asia, and put the region of the -Cabot landfall on the coast of Cathay. Consequently, the difference -between the La Cosa and the Cantino maps for this region north of Cuba -is phenomenal. In these two or three years (1500-1502), something had -come to pass which seemed to raise the suspicion that this northern -continental line might possibly not be Asiatic after all, or at least it -might not have the trend or contour which had before been given it on -the Asiatic theory. It is an interesting question from whom this -information could have come. Was this coast in the Cantino map indeed -not North American, but the coast of Yucatan, misplaced, as one -conjecture has been? But this involves a recognition of some voyage on -the Yucatan coast of which we have no record. Was it the result of one -of the voyages of Vespucius, and was Varnhagen right in tracking that -navigator up the east Florida shore? Was it drawn by some unauthorized -Spanish mariners, who were--we know Columbus complained of -such--invading his vested rights, or perhaps by some of those to whom he -was finally induced to concede the privilege of exploration? Was it -found by some English explorer who answers the description of Ojeda in -1501, when he complains that people of this nation had been in these -regions some years before? Was it the discovery of some of those against -whom a royal prohibition of discovery was issued by the Catholic kings, -September 3, 1501? Was it anything more than the result of some vague -information from the Lucayan Indians, aided by a sprinkling of -supposable names, respecting a land called Bimini lying there away? -Eight or nine years later, Peter Martyr, in the map which he published -in 1511, seems to have thought so, and certain stories of a fountain of -youth in regions lying in that direction were already prevalent, as -Martyr also shows us. The fact seems to be that we have no Spanish map -between the making of La Cosa's in 1500 and this one of Peter Martyr in -1511, to indicate any Spanish acquaintance with such a northern coast. - -[Sidenote: Peter Martyr's map. 1511.] - -This map of 1511, if it is honest enough to show what the Spanish -government knew of Florida, is indicative of but the vaguest -information, and its divulgence of that coast may, in Brevoort's -opinion, account for the rarity of the chart, in view of the -determination of Spain to keep control as far as she could of all -cartographical records of what her explorers found out. - -It is evident, if we accept the theory of this Cantino map showing the -coast of the United States, that we have in it a delineation nearer the -source by several years than those which modern students have longer -known in the Waldseemüller map of 1508, the Stobnicza map of 1512, the -Reisch map of 1515, and the so-called Admiral's map of 1513,--all which -arose, it is very clear, from much the same source as this of Cantino. -What is that source? There are some things that seem to indicate that -this source was the description of Portuguese rather than of other -seamen. This belief falls in with what we know of the cordial relations -of Portugal and Duke René, under whose auspices Waldseemüller at least -worked. Thus it would seem that while Spain was impeding cartographical -knowledge through the rest of Europe, Portugal was so assiduously -helping it that for many years the Ptolemies and other central and -southern European publications were making known the cosmographical -ideas which originated in Portugal. - -It has been already said that Humboldt in his _Examen Critique_ (iv. -262) refers to a letter which indicates that in October, 1501, the -Portuguese had already learned, or it may be only conjectured, that the -coast from the region of the Antilles ran uninterruptedly north till it -united with the snowy shores of the northern discoveries. This, then, -seems to indicate that it was a Portuguese source that supplied -conjecture, if not fact, to the maker of the Cantino map. Harrisse's -solution of this matter, as also mentioned already, is that the letter -found by Von Ranke and the letter which we know Pasqualigo sent to -Venice about the Cortereal voyages were one and the same, and that it -was rather conjecture than fact that the Portuguese possessed at this -time. - -The obvious difficulty in the cartographical problem for the Portuguese -was, as has been said, to make it appear that they were not disregarding -the agreement at Tordesillas while they were securing a region for -sovereignty. We have already said that this accounts for the extreme -eastern position found in the Cantino and the cognate maps of the -Newfoundland region, which, as thus drawn, it was not easy to connect -with the coast line of eastern Florida. Hence the open sea-gap which -exists between them in the maps, while the evidence of the descriptions -would make the coast line continuous. - -We have thus suggested possible solutions of this continental shore -above Florida. It must be confessed that the truth is far from patent, -and we must yet wait perhaps a long time before we discover, if indeed -we ever do, to whom this mapping of the coast, as shown in the Cantino -map, was due. - -[Sidenote: Was the Florida coast known?] - -There are evidences other than those of this Cantino map that the -Portuguese were in this Floridian region in the early years of the -sixteenth century, and Lelewel tried to work out their discoveries from -scattered data, in a conjectural map, which he marks 1501-1504, and -which resembles the Ptolemy map of 1513. The bringing forward of the -Cantino map confirms much of the supposed cartography. - -There is one theory which to some minds gives a very easy solution of -this problem, without requiring belief in any knowledge, clandestine or -public, of such a land. - -Brevoort in his _Verrazano_ had already been inclined to the view later -emphasized by Stevens in his _Schöner_, and reiterated by Coote in his -editorial revision of that posthumous work. - -Stevens is content to allow Ocampo, in 1508, to have been the earliest -probable discoverer of this coast, and Ponce de Leon as the original -attested finder in 1513. - -[Sidenote: This Cantino coast a duplicated Cuba.] - -The Stevens theory is that this seeming Florida arose from a Portuguese -misconception of the first two voyages of Columbus, by which two regions -were thought to have been coasted instead of different sides of the -same, and that what others consider an early premonition of Florida and -the upper coasts was simply a duplicated Cuba, to make good the -Portuguese conception. It is not explained how so strange a -misconception of very palpable truths could have arisen, or how a coast -trending north and south so far could have been confounded with one -stretching at right angles to such a course for so short a distance. - -Stevens traces the influence of his "bogus Cuba" in a long series of -maps based on Portuguese notions, in which he names those of -Waldseemüller (1513), Stobnicza (1512), Schöner (1515, 1520), Reisch -(1515), Bordone (1528), Solinus (1520), Friess (1522), and Grynæus -(1532--made probably earlier), as opposed to the Spanish and more -truthful view, which is expressed by Ruysch (1507-8) and Peter Martyr, -(1511). - -It is a proposition not to be dismissed lightly nor accepted -triumphantly on our present knowledge. We must wait for further -developments. - -The fancy that this coast was Asia and that Cuba was Asia might, indeed, -have led to the transfer to it at one time of the names which Columbus -had placed along the north coast of his supposed peninsular Cuba; but -that proves a misplacement of the names, and not a creation of the -coast. For a while this continental land was backed up on the maps -against a meridian scale, which hid the secret of its western limits, -and left it a possible segment of Asia. Then it stood out alone with a -north and southwestern line, but with Asia beyond, just as if it were no -part of it, and this delineation was common even while there was a -division of geographical belief as to North America and Asia being one. - -[Sidenote: Cuba an island.] - -The fact that Cuba, in the drafting of the La Cosa and Cantino maps, is -represented as an island has at times been held to signify that the -views of Columbus respecting its peninsular rather than its insular -character were not wholly shared by his contemporaries. That foolish act -by which, under penalty, the Admiral forced his crew to swear that it -was a part of the main might well imply that he expected his assertions -would be far from acceptable to other cosmographers. If Varnhagen's -opinion as to the track of Vespucius in his voyage of 1497, following -the contour of the Gulf of Mexico, be accepted as knowledge of the time, -the insularity of Cuba was necessarily proved even at that early day; -but it is the opinion of Henry Stevens, as has been already shown, that -the green outline of the western parts of Cuba in La Cosa's chart was -only the conventional way of expressing an uncertain coast. Consequently -it did not imply insularity. If it is to be supposed that the Portuguese -had a similar method of expressing uncertainties of coast, they did not -employ it in the Cantino map, and Cuba in 1502 is unmistakably an -island. It is, moreover, sufficiently like the Cuba of La Cosa to show -it was drawn from one and the same prototype. If the maker of the -Cantino map followed La Cosa, or a copy of La Cosa, or the material -from which La Cosa worked, there is no proof that he ever suspected the -peninsularity of Cuba. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus looking on at other explorations.] - -Columbus, in his hours of neglect, and amid his unheeded pleas for -recognition, during these two grewsome years in Spain, may never have -comprehended in their full significance these active efforts of the -Portuguese to anticipate his own hopes of a western passage beyond the -Golden Chersonesus; but the doings of Mendoza, Cristobal Guerra, and -other fellow-subjects of Spain were not wholly unknown to him. - -[Sidenote: 1500. October. Bastidas's expedition.] - -In October, 1500, and before Columbus knew just what his reception in -Spain was going to be, Rodrigo de Bastidas, accompanied by La Cosa and -Vasco Nuñez Balboa, sailed from Cadiz on an expedition that had for its -object to secure to the Crown one quarter of the profits, and to make an -examination of the coast line beyond the bay of Venezuela, in order that -it might be made sure that no channel to an open sea lay beyond. The two -caravels followed the shore to Nombre de Dios, and at the narrowest part -of the isthmus, without suspecting their nearness to the longed-for sea, -the navigators turned back. Finding their vessels unseaworthy, for the -worms had riddled their bottoms, they sought a harbor in Española, near -which their vessels foundered after they had saved a part of their -lading. A little later, this gave Bobadilla a chance to arrest the -commander for illicit trade with the natives. This transaction was -nothing more, apparently, than the barter of trinkets for provisions, as -he was leading his men across the island to the settlements. - -[Sidenote: Portuguese and English in these regions.] - -It was while with Bastidas, in 1501-2, that La Cosa reports seeing the -Portuguese prowling about the Caribbean and Mexican waters, seeking for -a passage to Calicut. It was while on a mission of remonstrance to -Lisbon that La Cosa was later arrested and imprisoned, and remained till -August, 1504, a prisoner in Portugal. - -[Sidenote: 1502. January. Ojeda's voyage.] - -We have seen that in 1499 Ojeda had met or heard of English vessels on -the coast of Terra Firma, or professed that he had. The Spanish -government, suspecting they were but precursors of others who might -attempt to occupy the coast, determined on thwarting such purposes, if -possible, by anticipating occupation. Ojeda was given the power to lead -thither a colony, if he could do it without cost to the Crown, which -reserved a due share of his profits. He obtained the assistance of Juan -de Vegara and Garcia de Ocampo, and with this backing he sailed with -four ships from Cadiz in January, 1502, while Columbus was preparing his -own little fleet for his last voyage. It was a venture, however, that -came to naught. The natives, under ample provocation, proved hostile, -food was lacking, the leaders quarreled, and the partners of Ojeda, -combining, overpowered (May, 1502) their leader, and sent him a prisoner -to Española, where he arrived in September, 1502. - -[Sidenote: English in the West Indies.] - -There has never been any clear definition as to who these Englishmen -were, or what was their project, during these earliest years of the -sixteenth century. There is evidence that Henry VII. about this time -authorized some ventures in which his countrymen were joint sharers with -the Portuguese, but we know nothing further of the regions visited than -that the Privy Purse expenses show how some Bristol men received a -gratuity for having been at the "Newefounde Launde." There is also a -vague notion to be formed from an old entry that Sebastian Cabot himself -again visited this region in 1503, and brought home three of the -natives,--to say nothing of additional even vaguer suspicions of other -ventures of the English at this time. - - * * * * * - -In enumerating the ocean movements that were now going on, some -intimation has been given of the tiresome expectancy of something better -which was intermittently beguiling the spirits of Columbus during the -eighteen months that he remained in Spain. It is necessary to trace his -unhappy life in some detail, though the particulars are not abundant. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's life in Spain. 1500-1502.] - -Ferdinand had not been unobservant of all these expeditionary movements, -and they were quite as threatening to the Spanish supremacy in the New -World as his own personal defection was to the dejected Admiral. It had -become very clear that by tying his own hands, as he had in the compact -which Columbus was urging to have observed, the King had allowed -opportunities to pass by which he could profit through the newly aroused -enthusiasm of the seaports. - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand allows other expeditions.] - -We have seen that he had, nevertheless, through Fonseca sanctioned the -expeditions of Ojeda, Pinzon, and others, and had notably in that of -Niño got large profits for the exchequer. He had done this in defiance -of the vested rights of Columbus, and there is little doubt that to -bring Columbus into disgrace by the loss of his Admiral's power served -in part to open the field of discovery more as Ferdinand wished. With -the Viceroy dethroned and become a waiting suitor, there was little to -stay Ferdinand's ambition in sending out other explorers. His experience -had taught him to allow no stipulations on which explorers could found -exorbitant demands upon the booty and profit of the ventures. Anybody -could sail westward now, and there was no longer the courage of -conviction required to face an unknown sea and find an opposite shore. -Columbus, who had shown the way, was now easily cast off as a useless -pilot. - -It was not difficult for the King to frame excuses when Columbus urged -his reinstatement. There was no use in sending back an unpopular viceroy -before the people of the colony had been quieted. Give them time. It -might be seasonable enough to send to them their old master when they -had forgotten their misfortunes under him. Perhaps a better man than -Bobadilla could be found to still the commotions, and if so he might be -sent. In the face of all this and the King's determination, Columbus -could do nothing but acquiesce, and so he gradually made up his mind to -bide his time once more. It was not a new discipline for him. - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla's rule in Española.] - -It was clear from the intelligence which was reaching Spain that -Bobadilla would have to be superseded. Freed from the restraints which -had created so much complaint during the rule of Columbus, and even -courted with offers of indulgence, the miserable colony at Española -readily degenerated from bad to worse. The new governor had hoped to -find that a lack of constraint would do for the people what an excess of -it had failed to do. He erred in his judgment, and let the colony slip -beyond his control. Licentiousness was everywhere. The only exaction he -required was the tribute of gold. He reduced the proportion which must -be surrendered to the Crown from a third to an eleventh, but he so -apportioned the labor of the natives to the colonists that the yield of -gold grew rapidly, and became more with the tax an eleventh than it had -been when it was a third. This inhuman degradation of the poor natives -had become an organized misery when, a little later, Las Casas arrived -in the colony, and he depicts the baleful contrasts of the Indians and -their attractive island. Gold was potent, but it was not potent enough -to keep Bobadilla in his place. The representations of the agony of life -among the natives were so harrowing that it was decided to send a new -governor at once. - -[Sidenote: Ovando sent to Española.] - -The person selected was Nicholas de Ovando, a man of whom Las Casas, who -went out with him, gives a high character for justice, sobriety, and -graciousness. Perhaps he deserved it. The sympathizers with Columbus -find it hard to believe such praise. Ovando was commissioned as governor -over all the continental and insular domains, then acquired or -thereafter to be added to the Crown in the New World. He was to have his -capital at Santo Domingo. He was deputed, with about as much authority -as Bobadilla had had, to correct abuses and punish delinquents, and was -to take one third of all gold so far stored up, and one half of what was -yet to be gathered. He was to monopolize all trade for the Crown. He was -to segregate the colonists as much as possible in settlements. No -supplies were to be allowed to the people unless they got them through -the royal factor. New efforts were to be made through some Franciscans, -who accompanied Ovando, to convert the Indians. The natives were to be -made to work in the mines as hired servants, paid by the Crown. - -[Sidenote: Negro slaves to be introduced.] - -It had already become evident that such labor as the mining of gold -required was too exhausting for the natives, and the death-rate among -them was such that eyes were already opened to the danger of -extermination. By a sophistry which suited a sixteenth-century -Christian, the existence of this poor race was to be prolonged by -introducing the negro race from Africa, to take the heavier burden of -the toil, because it was believed they would die more slowly under the -trial. So it was royally ordered that slaves, born of Africans, in -Spain, might be carried to Española. The promise of Columbus's letter to -Sanchez was beginning to prove delusive. It was going to require the -degradation of two races instead of one. That was all! - -[Sidenote: 1501. Columbus's property restored.] - -[Sidenote: His factor.] - -To assuage the smart of all this forcible deprivation of his power, -Columbus was apprised that under a royal order of September 27, 1501, -Ovando would see to the restitution of any property of his which -Bobadilla had appropriated, and that the Admiral was to be allowed to -send a factor in the fleet to look after his interests under the -articles which divided the gold and treasure between him and the Crown. -To this office of factor Columbus appointed Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal. - -[Sidenote: Ovando's fleet.] - -[Sidenote: 1502. February 3. It sails.] - -The pomp and circumstance of the fleet were like a biting sarcasm to the -poor Admiral. One might expect he could have no high opinions of its -pilots, for we find him writing to the sovereigns, on February 6, a -letter laying before them certain observations on the art of navigation, -in which he says: "There will be many who will desire to sail to the -discovered islands; and if the way is known those who have had -experience of it may safest traverse it." Perhaps he meant to imply that -better pilots were more important than much parade. He in his most -favored time had never been fitted out with a fleet of thirty sail, so -many of them large ships. He had never carried out so many cavaliers, -nor so large a proportion of such persons of rank, as made a shining -part of the 2,500 souls now embarked. He could contrast his Franciscan -gown and girdle of rope with Ovando's brilliant silks and brocades which -the sovereigns authorized him to wear. There was more state in the new -governor's bodyguard of twenty-two esquires, mounted and foot, than -Columbus had ever dreamed of in Santo Domingo. Instead of vile convicts -there were respectable married men with their families, the guaranty of -honorable living. So that when the fleet went to sea, February 13, 1502, -there were hopes that a right method of founding a colony on family life -had at last found favor. - -[Sidenote: 1502. April. Reaches Santo Domingo.] - -The vessels very soon encountered a gale, in which one ship foundered, -and from the deck-loads which were thrown over from the rest and floated -to the shore it was for a long time apprehended that the fleet had -suffered much more severely. A single ship was all that failed finally -to reach Santo Domingo about the middle of April, 1502. - -Let us turn now to Columbus himself. He had not failed, as we have said, -to reach something like mental quiet in the conviction that he could -expect nothing but neglect for the present. So his active mind engaged -in those visionary and speculative trains of thought wherein, when his -body was weary and his spirits harried, he was prone to find relief. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's _Libros de las proficias_.] - -He set himself to the composition of a maundering and erratic paper, -which, under the title of _Libros de las proficias_, is preserved in the -Biblioteca Colombina at Seville. The manuscript, however, is not in the -handwriting of Columbus, and no one has thought it worth while to print -the whole of it. - -[Sidenote: Isaiah's prophecy.] - -[Sidenote: Conquest of the Holy Land.] - -In it there is evidence of his study, with the assistance of a -Carthusian friar, of the Bible and of the early fathers of the Church, -and it shows, as his letter to Juan's nurse had shown, how he had at -last worked himself into the belief that all his early arguments for the -westward passage were vain; that he had simply been impelled by -something that he had not then suspected; and that his was but a -predestined mission to make good what he imagined was the prophecy of -Isaiah in the Apocalypse. This having been done, there was something yet -left to be accomplished before the anticipated eclipse of all earthly -things came on, and that was the conquest of the Holy Land, for which he -was the appointed leader. He addressed this driveling exposition, -together with an urgent appeal for the undertaking of the crusade, to -Ferdinand and Isabella, but without convincing them that such a -self-appointed instrument of God was quite worthy of their employment. - -[Sidenote: End of the world.] - -The great catastrophe of the world's end was, as Columbus calculated, -about 155 years away. He based his estimate upon an opinion of St. -Augustine that the world would endure for 7,000 years; and upon King -Alfonso's reckoning that nearly 5,344 years had passed when Christ -appeared. The 1,501 years since made the sum 6,845, leaving out of the -7,000 the 155 years of his belief. - -[Sidenote: Defeated by Satan.] - -He also fancied, or professed to believe, in a letter which he -subsequently wrote to the Pope, that the present deprivation of his -titles and rights was the work of Satan, who came to see that the -success of Columbus in the Indies would be only a preparation for the -Admiral's long-vaunted recovery of the Holy Land. The Spanish government -meanwhile knew, and they had reason to know, that their denial of his -prerogatives had quite as much to do with other things as with a legion -of diabolical powers. Unfortunately for Columbus, neither they nor the -Pope were inclined to act on any interpretation of fate that did not -include a civil policy of justice and prosperity. - -[Sidenote: His geographical whimsies.] - -[Sidenote: Would seek a passage westerly through the Caribbean Sea.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus misunderstands the currents.] - -These visions of Columbus were harmless, and served to beguile him with -pious whimsies. But the mood did not last. He next turned to his old -geographical problems. The Portuguese were searching north and south for -the passage that would lead to some indefinite land of spices, and -afford a new way to reach the trade with Calicut and the Moluccas, which -at this time, by the African route, was pouring wealth into the -Portuguese treasury in splendid contrast to the scant return from the -Spanish Indies. He harbored a belief that a better passage might yet be -found beyond the Caribbean Sea. La Cosa, in placing that vignette of St. -Christopher and the infant Christ athwart the supposed juncture of Asia -and South America, had eluded the question, not solved it. Columbus -would now go and attack the problem on the spot. His expectation to find -a desired opening in that direction was based on physical phenomena, but -in fact on only partial knowledge of them. He had been aware of the -strong currents which set westward through the Caribbean Sea, and he had -found them still flowing west when he had reached the limit of his -exploration of the southern coast of Cuba. Bastidas, who had just pushed -farther west on the main coast, had turned back while the currents were -still flowing on, along what seemed an endless coast beyond. Bastidas -did not arrive in Spain till some months after Columbus had sailed, for -he was detained a prisoner in Española at this time. Some tidings of his -experiences may have reached Spain, however, or the Admiral may not have -got his confirmation of these views till he found that voyager at Santo -Domingo, later. Columbus had believed Cuba to be another main, confining -this onward waste of waters to the south of it. - -[Sidenote: Gulf Stream.] - -It was clear to him that such currents must find an outlet to the west, -and if found, such a passage would carry him on to the sea that washed -the Golden Chersonesus. He indeed died without knowing the truth. This -same current, deflected about Honduras and Yucatan, sweeps by a -northerly circuit round the great Gulf of Mexico, and, passing out by -the Cape of Florida, flows northward in what we now call the Gulf -Stream. - -There is nothing in all the efforts of the canonizers more absurdly -puerile than De Lorgues's version of the way in which Columbus came to -believe in this strait. He had a vision, and saw it! The only difficulty -in the matter was that the poor Admiral was so ecstatic in his -hallucination that he mistook the narrowness of an isthmus for the -narrowness of a strait! - -[Sidenote: A convenient relief to Ferdinand to send Columbus on such a -search.] - -[Sidenote: 1501. Columbus prepares to equip his ships.] - -[Sidenote: 1502. February. Columbus writes to the Pope.] - -The proposition of such a search was not inopportune in the eyes of -Ferdinand. There were those about the Court who thought it unwise to -give further employment to a man who was degraded from his honors; but -to the King it was a convenient way of removing a persistent and -active-minded complainant from the vicinity of the Court, to send him on -some quest or other, and no one could tell but there was some truth in -his new views. It was worth while to let him try. So once again, by the -royal permission, Columbus set himself to work equipping a little fleet. -It was the autumn of 1501 when he appeared in Seville with the -sovereign's commands. He varied his work of preparing the ships with -spending some part of his time on his treatise on the prophecies, while -a friar named Gaspar Gorricio helped him in the labor. Early in 1502 he -had got it into shape to present to the sovereigns, and in February he -wrote the letter to Pope Alexander VII. which has already been -mentioned. - -[Sidenote: Forbidden to touch at Española.] - -As the preparations went on, he began to think of Española, and how he -might perhaps be allowed to touch there; but orders were given to him -forbidding it on the outward passage, though suffering it on the return, -for it was hoped by that time that the disorders of the island would be -suppressed. It was arranged that the Adelantado and his own son -Ferdinand should accompany him, and some interpreters learned in Arabic -were put on board, in case his success put him in contact with the -people of the Great Khan. - -The suspension of his rights lay heavily on his mind, and early in -March, 1502, he ventured to refer to the subject once more in a letter -to the sovereigns. They replied, March 14, in some instructions which -they sent from Valencia de Torre, advising him to keep his mind at ease, -and leave such things to the care of his son Diego. They assured him -that in due time the proper restitution of all would be made, and that -he must abide the time. - -[Sidenote: 1502. January 5. Columbus's care to preserve his titles, -etc.] - -He had already taken steps to secure a perpetuity of the record of his -honors and deeds, if nothing else could be permanent. It was at Seville, -January 5, 1502, that Columbus, appearing before a notary in his own -house, attested that series of documents respecting his titles and -prerogatives which are so religiously preserved at Genoa. These papers, -as we have seen, were copies which Columbus had lately secured from the -documents in the Spanish Admiralty, among which he was careful to -include the revocation of June 2, 1497, of the licenses which, much to -Columbus's annoyance, had been granted in 1495, to allow others than -himself to explore in the new regions. We may not wonder at this, but we -can hardly conjecture why a transaction of his which had caused as much -as anything his wrongs, mortification, and the loss of his dignities -should have been as assiduously preserved. These are the royal orders -which enabled Columbus, at his request, to fill up his colony with -unshackled convicts. This he might as well have let the world forget. -The royal order requiring Bobadilla or his successor to restore all the -sequestered property of Columbus, and the new declaration of his rights, -he might well have been anxious to preserve. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the Bank of St. George.] - -There was one other act to be done which lay upon his mind, now that the -time of sailing approached. He wished to make provision that his heirs -should be able to confer some favor on his native city, and he directed -that investments should be made for that purpose in the Bank of St. -George at Genoa. He then notified the managers of that bank of his -intention in a letter which is so characteristic of his moods of -dementation that it is here copied as Harrisse translates it:-- - - -HIGH NOBLE LORDS:--Although the body walks about here, the heart is -constantly over there. Our Lord has conferred on me the greatest favor -to any one since David. The results of my undertaking already appear, -and would shine greatly were they not concealed by the blindness of the -government. I am going again to the Indies under the auspices of the -Holy Trinity, soon to return; and since I am mortal, I leave it with my -son Diego that you receive every year, forever, one tenth of the entire -revenue, such as it may be, for the purpose of reducing the tax upon -corn, wine, and other provisions. If that tenth amounts to something, -collect it. If not, take at least the will for the deed. I beg of you to -entertain regard for the son I have recommended to you. Nicolo de -Oderigo knows more about my own affairs than I do myself, and I have -sent him the transcripts of any privileges and letters for safe-keeping. -I should be glad if you could see them. My lords, the King and Queen -endeavor to honor me more than ever. May the Holy Trinity preserve your -noble persons and increase your most magnificent House. Done in Sevilla, -on the second day of April, 1502. - -The chief Admiral of the ocean, Viceroy and Governor-General of the -islands and continent of Asia and the Indies, of my lords, the King and -Queen, their Captain-General of the sea, and of their Council. - - .S. - .S.A.S. - X M Y - [Greek: Chr~o] FERENS. - - -[Sidenote: 1502. December 8. The bank's reply.] - -The letter was handed by Columbus to a Genoese banker, then in Spain, -Francisco de Rivarolla, who forwarded it to Oderigo; but as this -ambassador was then on his way to Spain, Harrisse conjectures that he -did not receive the letter till his return to Genoa, for the reply of -the bank is dated December 8, 1502, long after Columbus had sailed. This -response was addressed to Diego, and inclosed a letter to the Admiral. -The great affection and good will of Columbus towards "his first -country" gratified them inexpressibly, as they said to the son; and to -the father they acknowledged the act of his intentions to be "as great -and extraordinary as that which has been recorded about any man in the -world, considering that by your own skill, energy, and prudence, you -have discovered such a considerable portion of this earth and sphere of -the lower world, which during so many years past and centuries had -remained unknown to its inhabitants." - -The letter of Columbus to the bank remained on the files of that -institution--a single sheet of paper, written on one side only, and -pierced in the centre for the thread of the file--undiscovered till the -archivist of the bank, attracted by the indorsement, M D II, EPLA D. -ADMIRATI DON XROPHORI COLUMBI, identified it in 1829, when, at the -request of the authorities of Genoa, it was transferred to the keeping -of its archivists. It is to be seen at the city hall, to-day, placed -between two glass plates, so that either side of the paper can be read. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -THE FOURTH VOYAGE. - -1502-1504. - - -[Sidenote: 1502. March. Columbus commanded to sail.] - -[Sidenote: May 9-11. Sailed.] - -Their Majesties, in March, 1502, were evidently disturbed at Columbus's -delays in sailing, since such detentions brought to them nothing but the -Admiral's continued importunities. They now instructed him to sail -without the least delay. Nevertheless, Columbus, who had given out, as -Trivigiano reports, that he expected his discoveries on this voyage to -be more surprising and helpful than any yet made, his purpose being, in -fact, to circumnavigate the globe, did not sail from Cadiz till May 9 or -11, 1502,--the accounts vary. He had four caravels, from fifty to -seventy tons each, and they carried in all not over one hundred and -fifty men. - -[Sidenote: His instructions.] - -Apparently not forgetting the Admiral's convenient reservation -respecting the pearls in his third voyage, their Majesties in their -instructions particularly enjoined upon him that all gold and other -precious commodities which he might find should be committed at once to -the keeping of François de Porras, who was sent with him to the end that -the sovereigns might have trustworthy evidence in his accounts of the -amount received. Equally mindful of earlier defections, their further -instructions also forbade the taking of any slaves. - -[Sidenote: The physical and mental condition of Columbus.] - -Years had begun to rest heavily on the frame of Columbus. His -constitution had been strained by long exposures, and his spirits had -little elasticity left. Hope, to be sure, had not altogether departed -from his ardent nature; but it was a hope that had experienced many -reverses, and its pinions were clipped. There was still in him no lack -of mental vitality; but his reason had lost equipoise, and his -discernment was clouded with illusory visions. - -There was the utmost desire at this time on the part of their Majesties -that no rupture should break the friendly relations which were sustained -with the Portuguese court, and it had been arranged that, in case -Columbus should fall in with any Portuguese fleet, there should be the -most civil interchange of courtesies. The Spanish monarchs had also -given orders, since word had come of the Moors besieging a Portuguese -post on the African coast, that Columbus should first go thither and -afford the garrison relief. - -[Sidenote: Columbus stops on the African coast.] - -[Sidenote: 1502. May. At the Canaries.] - -It was found, on reaching that African harbor on the 15th, that the -Moors had departed. So, with no longer delay than to exchange -civilities, he lifted anchor on the same day and put to sea. It was -while he was at the Canaries, May 20-25, taking in wood and water, that -Columbus wrote to his devoted Gorricio a letter, which Navarrete -preserves. "Now my voyage will be made in the name of the Holy Trinity," -he says, "and I hope for success." - -[Sidenote: 1502. June 15. Reaches Martinico.] - -There is little to note on the voyage, which had been a prosperous one, -and on June 15 he reached Martinino (Martinico). He himself professes to -have been but twenty days between Cadiz and Martinino, but the statement -seems to have been confused, with his usual inaccuracy. He thence pushed -leisurely along over much the same track which he had pursued on his -second voyage, till he steered finally for Santo Domingo. - -[Sidenote: Determines to go to Española.] - -It will be recollected that the royal orders issued to him before -leaving Spain were so far at variance with Columbus's wishes that he was -denied the satisfaction of touching at Española. There can be little -question as to the wisdom of an injunction which the Admiral now -determined to disregard. His excuse was that his principal caravel was a -poor sailer, and he thought he could commit no mistake in insuring -greater success for his voyage by exchanging at that port this vessel -for a better one. He forgot his own treatment of Ojeda when he drove -that adventurer from the island, where, to provision a vessel whose crew -was starving, Ojeda dared to trench on his government. When we view this -pretense for thrusting himself upon an unwilling community in the light -of his unusually quick and prosperous voyage and his failure to make -any mention of his vessel's defects when he wrote from the Canaries, we -can hardly avoid the conclusion that his determination to call at -Española was suddenly taken. His whole conduct in the matter looks like -an obstinate purpose to carry his own point against the royal commands, -just as he had tried to carry it against the injunctions respecting the -making of slaves. We must remember this when we come to consider the -later neglect on the part of the King. We must remember, also, the -considerate language with which the sovereigns had conveyed this -injunction: "It is not fit that you should lose so much time; it is much -fitter that you should go another way; though if it appears necessary, -and God is willing, you may stay there a little while on your return." - -Roselly de Lorgues, with his customary disingenuousness, merely says -that Columbus came to Santo Domingo, to deliver letters with which he -was charged, and to exchange one of his caravels. - -[Sidenote: 1502. June 29. Columbus arrives off Santo Domingo.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus forbidden to enter the harbor.] - -It was the 29th of June when the little fleet of Columbus arrived off -the port. He sent in one of his commanders to ask permission to shelter -his ships, and the privilege of negotiating for another caravel, since, -as he says, "one of his ships had become unseaworthy and could no longer -carry sail." His request came to Ovando, who was now in command. This -governor had left Spain in February, only a month before Columbus -received his final instructions, and there can be little doubt that he -had learned from Fonseca that those instructions would enjoin Columbus -not to complicate in any way Ovando's assumption of command by -approaching his capital. Las Casas seems to imply this. However it may -be, Ovando was amply qualified by his own instructions to do what he -thought the circumstances required. Columbus represented that a storm -was coming on, or rather the _Historie_ tells us that he did. It is to -be remarked that Columbus himself makes no such statement. At all -events, word was sent back to Columbus by his boat that he could not -enter the harbor. Irving calls this an "ungracious refusal," and it -turned out that later events have opportunely afforded the apologists -for the Admiral the occasion to point a moral to his advantage, -particularly since Columbus, if we may believe the doubtful story, -confident of his prognostications, had again sent word that the -fleet lying in the harbor, ready to sail, would go out at great peril in -view of an impending storm. It seems to be quite uncertain if at the -time his crew had any knowledge of his reasons for nearing Española, or -of his being denied admittance to the port. At least Porras, from the -way he describes the events, leaves one to make such an inference. - -[Sidenote: Ovando's fleet.] - -[Sidenote: Bobadilla, Roldan, and others on the fleet.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus's factor had placed his gold on one of the ships.] - -This fleet in the harbor was that which had brought Ovando, and was now -laden for the return. There was on board of it, as Columbus might have -learned from his messengers, the man of all men whom he most hated, -Bobadilla, who had gracefully yielded the power to Ovando two months -before, and of whom Las Casas, who was then fresh in his inquisitive -seeking after knowledge respecting the Indies and on the spot, could not -find that any one spoke ill. On the same ship was Columbus's old -rebellious and tergiversating companion, Roldan, whose conduct had been -in these two months examined, and who was now to be sent to Spain for -further investigations. There was also embarked, but in chains, the -unfortunate cacique of the Vega, Guarionex, to be made a show of in -Seville. The lading of the ships was the most wonderful for wealth that -had ever been sent from the island. There was the gold which Bobadilla -had collected, including a remarkable nugget which an Indian woman had -picked up in a brook, and a large quantity which Roldan and his friends -were taking on their own account, as the profit of their separate -enterprises. Carvajal, whom Columbus had sent out with Ovando as his -factor, to look after his pecuniary interests under the provisions which -the royal commands had made, had also placed in one of the caravels four -thousand pieces of the same precious metal, the result of the settlement -of Ovando with Bobadilla, and the accretions of the Admiral's share of -the Crown's profits. - -[Sidenote: Ovando's fleet puts to sea and is wrecked;] - -Undismayed by the warnings of Columbus, this fleet at once put to sea, -the Admiral's little caravels having meanwhile crept under the shore -at a distance to find such shelter as they could. The larger fleet stood -homeward, and was scarcely off the easterly end of Española when a -furious hurricane burst upon it. The ship which carried Bobadilla, -Roldan, and Guarionex succumbed and went down. - -[Sidenote: but ship with Columbus's gold is saved.] - -Others foundered later. Some of the vessels managed to return to Santo -Domingo in a shattered condition. A single caravel, it is usually -stated, survived the shock, so that it alone could proceed on the -voyage; and if the testimony is to be believed, this was the weakest of -them all, but she carried the gold of Columbus. Among the caravels which -put back to Santo Domingo for repairs was one on which Bastidas was -going to Spain for trial. This one arrived at Cadiz in September, 1502. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's ships weather the gale.] - -The ships of Columbus had weathered the gale. That of the Admiral, by -keeping close in to land, had fared best. The others, seeking sea-room, -had suffered more. They lost sight of each other, however, during the -height of the gale; but when it was over, they met together at Port -Hermoso, at the westerly end of the island. The gale is a picture over -which the glow of a retributive justice, under the favoring dispensation -of chance, is so easily thrown by sympathetic writers that the effusions -of the sentimentalists have got to stand at last for historic verity. De -Lorgues does not lose the opportunity to make the most of it. - -[Sidenote: 1502. July 14. Columbus sails away.] - -[Sidenote: July 30. At Guanaja.] - -[Sidenote: Meets a strange canoe.] - -Columbus, having lingered about the island to repair his ships and -refresh his crews, and also to avoid a second storm, did not finally get -away till July 14, when he steered directly for Terra Firma. The -currents perplexed him, and, as there was little wind, he was swept west -further than he expected. He first touched at some islands near Jamaica. -Thence he proceeded west a quarter southwest, for four days, without -seeing land, as Porras tells us, when, bewildered, he turned to the -northwest, and then north. But finding himself (July 24) in the -archipelago near Cuba, which on his second voyage he had called The -Gardens, he soon after getting a fair wind (July 27) stood southwest, -and on July 30 made a small island, off the northern coast of Honduras, -called Guanaja by the natives, and Isla de Pinos by himself. He was now -in sight of the mountains of the mainland. The natives struck him as of -a physical type different from all others whom he had seen. A large -canoe, eight feet beam, and of great length, though made of a single -log, approached with still stranger people in it. - -[Sidenote: On the Honduras coast.] - -They had apparently come from a region further north; and under a canopy -in the waist of the canoe sat a cacique with his dependents. The boat -was propelled by five and twenty men with paddles. It carried various -articles to convince Columbus that he had found a people more advanced -in arts than those of the regions earlier discovered. They had with them -copper implements, including hatchets, bells, and the like. He saw -something like a crucible in which metal had been melted. Their wooden -swords were jagged with sharp flints, their clothes were carefully made, -their utensils were polished and handy. Columbus traded off some -trinkets for such specimens as he wanted. If he now had gone in the -direction from which this marvelous canoe had come, he might have thus -early opened the wondrous world of Yucatan and Mexico, and closed his -career with more marvels yet. His beatific visions, which he supposed -were leading him under the will of the Deity, led him, however, south. -The delusive strait was there. He found an old man among the Indians, -whom he kept as a guide, since the savage could draw a sort of chart of -the coast. He dismissed the rest with presents, after he had wrested -from them what he wanted. Approaching the mainland, near the present -Cape of Honduras, the Adelantado landed on Sunday, August 14, and mass -was celebrated in a grove near the beach. Again, on the 17th, -Bartholomew landed some distance eastward of the first spot, and here, -by a river (Rio de la Posesion, now Rio Tinto), he planted the Castilian -banner and formally took possession of the country. The Indians were -friendly, and there was an interchange of provisions and trinkets. The -natives were tattooed, and they had other customs, such as the wearing -of cotton jackets, and the distending of their ears by rings, which were -new to the Spaniards. - -[Sidenote: Seeking a strait.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus oppressed with the gout.] - -[Illustration: BELLIN'S HONDURAS.] - -Tracking the coast still eastward, Columbus struggled against the -current, apparently without reasoning that he might be thus sailing away -from the strait, so engrossed was he with the thought that such a -channel must be looked for farther south. His visions had not helped him -to comprehend the sweep of waters that would disprove his mock oaths of -the Cuban coast. So he wore ship constantly against the tempest and -current, and crawled with bewildered expectation along the shore. All -this tacking tore his sails, racked his caravels, and wore out his -seamen. The men were in despair, and confessed one another. Some made -vows of penance, if their lives were preserved. Columbus was himself -wrenched with the gout, and from a sort of pavilion, which covered his -couch on the quarter deck, he kept a good eye on all they encountered. -"The distress of my son," he says, "grieved me to the soul, and the more -when I considered his tender age; for he was but thirteen years old, -and he enduring so much toil for so long a time." "My brother," he adds -further, "was in the ship that was in the worst condition and the most -exposed to danger; and my grief on this account was the greater that I -brought him with me against his will." - -[Sidenote: 1502. September. Cape Gracios à Dios.] - -[Sidenote: Loses a boat's crew.] - -[Sidenote: 1502. September 25. The Garden.] - -It was no easy work to make the seventy leagues from Cape Honduras to -Cape Gracios à Dios, and the bestowal of this name denoted his -thankfulness to God, when, after forty days of this strenuous endeavor, -his caravels were at last able to round the cape, on September 12 (or -14). A seaboard stretching away to the south lay open before him,--now -known as the Mosquito Coast. The current which sets west so persistently -here splits and sends a branch down this coast. So with a "fair wind and -tide," as he says, they followed its varied scenery of crag and lowland -for more than sixty leagues, till they discovered a great flow of water -coming out of a river. It seemed to offer an opportunity to replenish -their casks and get some store of wood. On the 16th of September, they -anchored, and sent their boats to explore. A meeting of the tide and the -river's flow raised later a tumultuous sea at the bar, just as the boats -were coming out. The men were unable to surmount the difficulty, and one -of the boats was lost, with all on board. Columbus recorded their -misfortune in the name which he gave to the river, El Rio del Desastre. -Still coasting onward, on September 25 they came to an alluring -roadstead between an island and the main, where there was everything to -enchant that verdure and fragrance could produce. He named the spot The -Garden (La Huerta). Here, at anchor, they had enough to occupy them for -a day or two in restoring the damage of the tempest, and in drying their -stores, which had been drenched by the unceasing downpour of the clouds. -The natives watched them from the shore, and made a show of their -weapons. The Spaniards remaining inactive, the savages grew more -confident of the pacific intent of their visitors, and soon began -swimming off to the caravels. Columbus tried the effect of largesses, -refusing to barter, and made gifts of the Spanish baubles. Such -gratuities, however, created distrust, and every trinket was returned. - -[Sidenote: Character of the natives.] - -Two young girls had been sent on board as hostages, while the Spaniards -were on shore getting water; but even they were stripped of their -Spanish finery when restored to their friends, and every bit of it was -returned to the givers. There seem to be discordant statements by -Columbus and in the _Historie_ respecting these young women, and -Columbus gives them a worse character than his chronicler. When the -Adelantado went ashore with a notary, and this official displayed his -paper and inkhorn, it seemed to strike the wondering natives as a spell. -They fled, and returned with something like a censer, from which they -scattered the smoke as if to disperse all baleful spirits. - -These unaccustomed traits of the natives worked on the superstitions of -the Spaniards. They began to fancy they had got within an atmosphere of -sorceries, and Columbus, thinking of the two Indian maiden hostages, was -certain there was a spell of witchcraft about them, and he never quite -freed his mind of this necromantic ghost. - -The old Indian whom Columbus had taken for a guide when first he touched -the coast, having been set ashore at Cape Gracios à Dios, enriched with -presents, Columbus now seized seven of this new tribe, and selecting two -of the most intelligent as other guides, he let the rest go. The seizure -was greatly resented by the tribe, and they sent emissaries to negotiate -for the release of the captives, but to no effect. - -[Sidenote: 1502. October. Cariari.] - -[Sidenote: Gold sought at Veragua.] - -Departing on October 5 from the region which the natives called Cariari, -and where the fame of Columbus is still preserved in the Bahia del -Almirante, the explorers soon found the coast trending once more towards -the east. They were tracking what is now known as the shore of Costa -Rica. They soon entered the large and island-studded Caribaro Bay. Here -the Spaniards were delighted to find the natives wearing plates of gold -as ornaments. They tried to traffic for them, but the Indians were loath -to part with their treasures. The natives intimated that there was much -more of this metal farther on at a place called Veragua. So the ships -sailed on, October 17, and reached that coast. The Spaniards came to a -river; but the natives sent defiance to them in the blasts of their -conch-shells, while they shook at them their lances. Entering the tide, -they splashed the water towards their enemies, in token of contempt. -Columbus's Indian guides soon pacified them, and a round of barter -followed, by which seventeen of their gold disks were secured for three -hawks' bells. The intercourse ended, however, in a little hostile bout, -during which the Spanish crossbows and lombards soon brought the savages -to obedience. - -[Illustration: BELLINI'S VERAGUA.] - -[Sidenote: Ciguare.] - -[Sidenote: At the isthmus.] - -Still the caravels went on. The same scene of startled natives, in -defiant attitude, soon soothed by the trinkets was repeated everywhere. -In one place the Spaniards found what they had never seen before, a wall -laid of stone and lime, and Columbus began to think of the civilized -East again. Coast peoples are always barbarous, as he says; but it is -the inland people who are rich. As he passed along this coast of -Veragua, as the name has got to be written, though his notary at the -time caught the Indian pronunciation as Cobraba, his interpreters -pointed out its villages, and the chief one of all; and when they had -passed on a little farther they told him he was sailing beyond the gold -country. Columbus was not sure but they were trying to induce him to -open communication again with the shore, to offer chances for their -escape. The seeker of the strait could not stop for gold. His vision led -him on to that marvelous land of Ciguare, of which these successive -native tribes told him, situated ten days inland, and where the people -reveled in gold, sailed in ships, and conducted commerce in spices and -other precious commodities. The women there were decked, so they said, -with corals and pearls. "I should be content," he says, "if a tithe of -this which I hear is true." He even fancied, from all he could -understand of their signs and language, that these Ciguare people were -as terrible in war as the Spaniards, and rode on beasts. "They also say -that the sea surrounds Ciguare, and that ten days' journey from thence -is the river Ganges." Humboldt seems to think that in all this Columbus -got a conception of that great western ocean which was lying so much -nearer to him than he supposed. It may be doubted if it was quite so -clear to Columbus as Humboldt thinks; but there is good reason to -believe that Columbus imagined this wonderful region of Ciguare was -half-way to the Ganges. If, as his canonizers fondly suppose, he had not -mistaken in his visions an isthmus for a strait, he might have been -prompted to cross the slender barrier which now separated him from his -goal. - -[Sidenote: 1502. November 2.] - -[Sidenote: Porto Bello.] - -[Sidenote: Nombre de Dios.] - -On the 2d of November, the ships again anchored in a spacious harbor, so -beautiful in its groves and fruits, and with such deep water close to -the shore, that Columbus gave it the name of Puerto Bello (Porto -Bello),--an appellation which has never left it. It rained for seven -days while they lay here, doing nothing but trading a little with the -natives for provisions. The Indians offered no gold, and hardly any was -seen. Starting once more, the Spaniards came in sight of the cape known -since as Nombre de Dios, but they were thwarted for a while in their -attempts to pass it. They soon found a harbor, where they stayed till -November 23; then going on again, they secured anchorage in a basin so -small that the caravels were placed almost beside the shore. Columbus -was kept here by the weather for nine days. The basking alligators -reminded him of the crocodiles of the Nile. The natives were uncommonly -gentle and gracious, and provisions were plenty. The ease with which the -seamen could steal ashore at night began to be demoralizing, leading to -indignities at the native houses. The savage temper was at last aroused, -and the Spanish revelries were brought to an end by an attack on the -ships. It ceased, as usual, after a few discharges of the ships' guns. - -[Sidenote: Bastidas's exploration of this coast.] - -Columbus had not yet found any deflection of that current which sweeps -in this region towards the Gulf of Mexico. He had struggled against its -powerful flow in every stage of his progress along the coast. Whether -this had brought him to believe that his vision of a strait was delusive -does not appear. Whether he really knew that he had actually joined his -own explorations, going east, to those which Bastidas had made from the -west is equally unknown, though it is possible he may have got an -intimation of celestial and winged monsters from the natives. If he -comprehended it, he saw that there could be no strait, this way at -least. Bastidas, as we have seen, was on board Bobadilla's fleet when -Columbus lay off Santo Domingo. There is a chance that Columbus's -messenger who went ashore may have seen him and his charts, and may have -communicated some notes of the maps to the Admiral. Some of the -companions of Bastidas on his voyage had reached Spain before Columbus -sailed, and there may have been some knowledge imparted in that way. If -Columbus knew the truth, he did not disclose it. - -Porras, possibly at a later day, seems to have been better informed, or -at least he imparts more in his narrative than Columbus does. He says he -saw in the people of these parts many of the traits of those of the -pearl coast at Paria, and that the maps, which they possessed, showed -that it was to this point that the explorations of Ojeda and Bastidas -had been pushed. - -[Sidenote: Columbus turns back.] - -[Sidenote: 1502. December 5.] - -[Sidenote: A gale.] - -There were other things that might readily have made him turn back, as -well as this despair of finding a strait. His crew were dissatisfied -with leaving the gold of Veragua. His ships were badly bored by the -worms, and they had become, from this cause and by reason of the heavy -weather which had so mercilessly followed them, more and more -unseaworthy. So on December 5, 1502, when he passed out of the little -harbor of El Retrete, he began a backward course. Pretty soon the wind, -which had all along faced him from the east, blew strongly from the -west, checking him as much going backward as it had in his onward -course. It seemed as if the elements were turned against him. The gale -was making sport of him, as it veered in all directions. It was indeed a -Coast of Contrasts (La Costa de los Contrastes), as Columbus called it. -The lightning streaked the skies continually. The thunder was appalling. -For nine days the little ships, strained at every seam, leaking at every -point where the tropical sea worm had pierced them, writhed in a -struggle of death. At one time a gigantic waterspout formed within -sight. The sea surged around its base. The clouds stooped to give it -force. It came staggering and lunging towards the fragile barks. The -crews exorcised the watery spirit by repeating the Gospel of St. John -the Evangelist, and the crazy column passed on the other side of them. - -Added to their peril through it all were the horrors of an impending -famine. Their biscuit were revolting because of the worms. They caught -sharks for food. - -[Sidenote: 1502. December 17.] - -[Sidenote: Bethlehem River.] - -[Sidenote: 1503. January 24.] - -[Sidenote: Bartholomew seeks the mines.] - -At last, on December 17, the fleet reunited,--for they had, during the -gales, lost sight of each other,--and entered a harbor, where they found -the native cabins built in the tree tops, to be out of the way of -griffins, or some other beasts. After further buffeting of the tempests, -they finally made a harbor on the coast of Veragua, in a river which -Columbus named Santa Maria de Belen (Bethlehem), it being Epiphany Day; -and here at last they anchored two of the caravels on January 9, and the -other two on the 10th (1503). Columbus had been nearly a month in -passing thirty leagues of coast. The Indians were at first quieted in -the usual way, and some gold was obtained by barter. The Spaniards had -not been here long, however, when they found themselves (January 24, -1503) in as much danger by the sudden swelling of the river as they had -been at sea. It was evidently occasioned by continued falls of rain in -distant mountains, which they could see. The caravels were knocked about -like cockboats. The Admiral's ship snapped a mast. "It rained without -ceasing," says the Admiral, recording his miseries, "until the 14th of -February;" and during the continuance of the storm the Adelantado was -sent on a boat expedition to ascend the Veragua River, three miles along -the coast, where he was to search for mines. The party proceeded on -February 6 as far as they could in the boats, and then, leaving part of -the men for a guard, and taking guides, which the Quibian--that being -the name, as he says, which they gave to the lord of the country--had -provided, they reached a country where the soil to their eyes seemed -full of particles of gold. Columbus says that he afterwards learned that -it was a device of the crafty Quibian to conduct them to the mines of a -rival chief, while his own were richer and nearer, all of which, -nevertheless, did not escape the keen Spanish scent for gold. -Bartholomew made other excursions along the coast; but nowhere did it -seem to him that gold was as plenty as at Veragua. - -[Sidenote: Mines of Aurea.] - -Columbus now reverted to his old fancies. He remembered that Josephus -has described the getting of gold for the Temple of Jerusalem from the -Golden Chersonesus, and was not this the very spot? "Josephus thinks -that this gold of the Chronicles and the Book of Kings was found in the -Aurea," he says. "If it were so, I contend that these mines of the Aurea -are identical with those of Veragua. David in his will left 3,000 -quintals of Indian gold to Solomon, to assist in building the Temple, -and according to Josephus it came from these lands." He had seen, as he -says, more promise of gold here in two days than in Española in four -years. It was very easy now to dwarf his Ophir at Hayna! Those other -riches were left to those who had wronged him. The pearls of the Paria -coast might be the game of the common adventurer. Here was the princely -domain of the divinely led discoverer, who was rewarded at last! - -[Sidenote: Columbus seeks to make a settlement.] - -A plan was soon made of founding a settlement to hold the region and -gain information, while Columbus returned to Spain for supplies. Eighty -men were to stay. They began to build houses. They divided the stock of -provisions and munitions, and transferred that intended for the colony -to one of the caravels, which was to be left with them. Particular pains -were taken to propitiate the natives by presents, and the Quibian was -regaled with delicacies and gifts. When this was done, it was found that -a dry season had come on, and there was not water enough on the bar to -float the returning caravels. - -[Sidenote: Diego Mendez's exploits.] - -[Sidenote: The Quibian taken,] - -[Sidenote: but escapes.] - -Meanwhile the Quibian had formed a league to exterminate the intruders. -Columbus sent a brave fellow, Diego Mendez, to see what he could learn. -He found a force of savages advancing to the attack; but this single -Spaniard disconcerted them, and they put off the plan. Again, with but a -single companion, one Rodrigo de Escobar, Mendez boldly went into the -Quibian's village, and came back alive to tell the Admiral of all the -preparations for war which he had seen, or which were inferred at least. -The news excited the quick spirits of the Adelantado, and, following a -plan of Mendez, he at once started (March 30) with an armed force. He -came with such celerity to the cacique's village that the savages were -not prepared for their intrusion, and by a rapid artifice he surrounded -the lodge of the Quibian, and captured him with fifty of his followers. -The Adelantado sent him, bound hand and foot, and under escort, down the -river, in charge of Juan Sanchez, who rather resented any intimation of -the Adelantado to be careful of his prisoner. As the boat neared the -mouth of the river, her commander yielded to the Quibian's importunities -to loosen his bonds, when the chief, watching his opportunity, slipped -overboard and dove to the bottom. The night was dark, and he was not -seen when he came to the surface, and was not pursued. The other -prisoners were delivered to the Admiral. The Adelantado meanwhile had -sacked the cacique's cabin, and brought away its golden treasures. - -[Sidenote: 1503. April 6.] - -[Sidenote: The settlement attacked.] - -Columbus, confident that the Quibian had been drowned, and that the -chastisement which had been given his tribe was a wholesome lesson, -began again to arrange for his departure. As the river had risen a -little, he succeeded in getting his lightened caravels over the bar, and -anchored them outside, where their lading was again put on board. To -offer some last injunctions and to get water, Columbus, on April 6, sent -a boat, in command of Diego Tristan, to the Adelantado, who was to be -left in command. When the boat got in, Tristan found the settlement in -great peril. The Quibian, who had reached the shore in safety after his -adventure, had quickly organized an attacking party, and had fallen upon -the settlement. The savages were fast getting their revenge, for the -unequal contest had lasted nearly three hours, when the Adelantado and -Mendez, rallying a small force, rushed so impetuously upon them that, -with the aid of a fierce bloodhound, the native host was scattered in a -trice. Only one Spaniard had been killed and eight wounded, including -the Adelantado; but the rout of the Indians was complete. - -[Sidenote: Tristan murdered.] - -It was while these scenes were going on that Tristan arrived in his boat -opposite the settlement. He dallied till the affair was ended, and then -proceeded up the river to get some water. Those on shore warned him of -the danger of ambuscade; but he persisted. When he had got well beyond -the support of the settlement, his boat was beset with a shower of -javelins from the overhanging banks on both sides, while a cloud of -canoes attacked him front and rear. But a single Spaniard escaped by -diving, and brought the tale of disaster to his countrymen. - -The condition of the settlement was now alarming. The Indians, -encouraged by their success in overcoming the boat, once more gathered -to attack the little group of "encroaching Spaniards," as Columbus could -but call them. The houses which sheltered them were so near the thick -forest that the savages approached them on all sides under shelter. The -woods rang with their yells and with the blasts of their conch-shells. -The Spaniards got, in their panic, beyond the control of the Adelantado. -They prepared to take the caravel and leave the river; but it was found -she would not float over the bar. They then sought to send a boat to the -Admiral, lying outside, to prevent his sailing without them; but -the current and tide commingling made such a commotion on the bar that -no boat could live in the sea. The bodies of Tristan and his men came -floating down stream, with carrion crows perched upon them at their -ghastly feast. It seemed as if nature visited them with premonitions. At -last the Adelantado brought a sufficient number of men into such a -steady mood that they finally constructed out of whatever they could get -some sort of a breastwork near the shore, where the ground was open. -Here they could use their matchlocks and have a clear sweep about them. -They placed behind this bulwark two small falconets, and prepared to -defend themselves. They were in this condition for four days. Their -provisions, however, began to run short, and every Spaniard who dared to -forage was sure to be cut off. Their ammunition, too, was not abundant. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus at anchor outside the bar.] - -Meanwhile Columbus was in a similar state of anxiety. "The Admiral was -suffering from a severe fever," he says, "and worn with fatigue." His -ships were lying at anchor outside the bar, with the risk of being -obliged to put to sea at any moment, to work off a lee shore. Tristan's -prolonged absence harassed him. Another incident was not less ominous. -The companions of the Quibian were confined on board in the forecastle; -and it was the intention to take them to Spain as hostages, as it was -felt they would be, for the colony left behind. Those in charge of them -had become careless about securing the hatchway, and one night they -failed to chain it, trusting probably to the watchfulness of certain -sailors who slept upon the hatch. The savages, finding a footing upon -some ballast which they piled up beneath, suddenly threw off the cover, -casting the sleeping sailors violently aside, and before the guard could -be called the greater part of the prisoners had jumped into the sea and -escaped. Such as were secured were thrust back, but the next morning it -was found that they all had strangled themselves. - -[Sidenote: Ledesma's exploit.] - -After such manifestations of ferocious determination, Columbus began to -be further alarmed for the safety of his brother's companions and of -Tristan's. For days a tossing surf had made an impassable barrier -between him and the shore. He had but one boat, and he did not dare to -risk it in an attempt to land. Finally, his Sevillian pilot, Pedro -Ledesma, offered to brave the dangers by swimming, if the boat would -take him close to the surf. The trial was made; the man committed -himself to the surf, and by his strength and skill so surmounted wave -after wave that he at length reached stiller water, and was seen to -mount the shore. In due time he was again seen on the beach, and -plunging in once more, was equally successful in passing the raging -waters, and was picked up by the boat. He had a sad tale to tell the -Admiral. It was a story of insubordination, a powerless Adelantado, and -a frantic eagerness to escape somehow. Ledesma said that the men were -preparing canoes to come off to the ships, since their caravel was -unable to pass the bar. - -[Sidenote: Resolve to abandon the region.] - -There was long consideration in these hours of disheartenment; but the -end of it was a decision to rescue the colony and abandon the coast. The -winds never ceased to be high, and Columbus's ships, in their weakened -condition, were only kept afloat by care and vigilance. The loss of the -boat's crew threw greater burdens and strains upon those who were left. -It was impossible while the surf lasted to send in his only boat, and -quite as impossible for the fragile canoes of his colony to brave the -dangers of the bar in coming out. There was nothing for Columbus to do -but to hold to his anchor as long as he could, and wait. - -[Sidenote: Columbus in delirium hears a voice.] - -Our pity for the man is sometimes likely to unfit us to judge his own -record. Let us try to believe what he says of himself, and watch him in -his delirium. "Groaning with exhaustion," he says, "I fell asleep in the -highest part of the ship, and heard a compassionate voice address me." -It bade him be of good cheer, and take courage in the service of God! -What the God of all had done for Moses and David would be done for him! -As we read the long report of this divine utterance, as Columbus is -careful to record it, we learn that the Creator was aware of his -servant's name resounding marvelously throughout the earth. We find, -however, that the divine belief curiously reflected the confidence of -Columbus that it was India, and not America, that had been revealed. -"Remember David," said the Voice, "how he was a shepherd, and was made a -king. Remember Abraham, how he was a hundred when he begat Isaac, and -that there is youth still for the aged." Columbus adds that when the -Voice chided him he wept for his errors, and that he heard it all as in -a trance. - -The obvious interpretation of all this is either that by the record -Columbus intended a fable to impress the sovereigns, for whom he was -writing, or that he was so moved to hallucinations that he believed what -he wrote. The hero worship of Irving decides the question easily. "Such -an idea," says Irving, referring to the argument of deceit, and -forgetting the Admiral's partiality for such practices, "is inconsistent -with the character of Columbus. In recalling a dream, one is -unconsciously apt to give it a little coherency." Irving's plea is that -it was a mere dream, which was mistaken by Columbus, in his feverish -excitement, for a revelation. "The artless manner," adds that -biographer, "in which he mingles the rhapsodies and dreams of his -imagination with simple facts and sound practical observations, pouring -them forth with a kind of Scriptural solemnity and poetry of language, -is one of the most striking illustrations of a character richly -compounded of extraordinary and apparently contradictory elements." We -may perhaps ask, Was Irving's hero a deceiver, or was he mad? The -chances seem to be that the whole vision was simply the product of one -of those fits of aberration which in these later years were no strangers -to Columbus's existence. His mind was not infrequently, amid -disappointments and distractions, in no fit condition to ward off -hallucination. - -Humboldt speaks of Columbus's letter describing this vision as showing -the disordered mind of a proud soul weighed down with dead hopes. He has -no fear that the strange mixture of force and weakness, of pride and -touching humility, which accompanies these secret contortions will ever -impress the world with other feelings than those of commiseration. - -It is a hard thing for any one, seeking to do justice to the agonies of -such spirits, to measure them in the calmness of better days. "Let those -who are accustomed to slander and aspersion ask, while they sit in -security at home, Why dost thou not do so and so under such -circumstances?" says Columbus himself. It is far easier to let one's -self loose into the vortex and be tossed with sympathy. But if four -centuries have done anything for us, they ought to have cleared the air -of its mirages. What is pitiable may not be noble. - -[Sidenote: The colony embark.] - -The Voice was, of course, associated in Columbus's mind with the good -weather which followed. During this a raft was made of two canoes lashed -together beneath a platform, and, using this for ferrying, all the -stores were floated off safely to the ships, so that in the end nothing -was left behind but the decaying and stranded caravel. This labor was -done under the direction of Diego Mendez, whom the Admiral rewarded by -kissing him on the cheek, and by giving him command of Tristan's -caravel, which was the Admiral's flagship. - -[Sidenote: 1503. April, Columbus sails away.] - -It is a strange commentary on the career and fame of Columbus that the -name of this disastrous coast should represent him to this day in the -title of his descendant, the Duke of Veragua. Never a man turned the -prow of his ship from scenes which he would sooner forget, with more -sorrow and relief, than Columbus, in the latter days of April, 1503, -with his enfeebled crews and his crazy hulks, stood away, as he thought, -for Española. And yet three months later, and almost in the same breath -with which he had rehearsed these miseries, with that obliviousness -which so often caught his errant mind, he wrote to his sovereigns that -"there is not in the world a country, whose inhabitants are more timid; -added to which there is a good harbor, a beautiful river, and the whole -place is capable of being easily put into a state of defense. Your -people that may come here, if they should wish to become masters of the -products of other lands, will have to take them by force, or retire -empty-handed. In this country they will simply have to trust their -persons in the hands of a savage." The man was mad. - -It was easterly that Columbus steered when his ships swung round to -their destined course. It was not without fear and even indignation that -his crews saw what they thought a purpose to sail directly for Spain in -the sorry plight of the ships. Mendez, indeed, who commanded the -Admiral's own ship, says "they thought to reach Spain." The Admiral, -however, seems to have had two purposes. He intended to run eastward far -enough to allow for the currents, when he should finally head for Santo -Domingo. He intended also to disguise as much as he could the route -back, for fear that others would avail themselves of his crew's -knowledge to rediscover these golden coasts. He remembered how the -companions of his Paria voyage had led other expeditions to that region -of pearls. He is said also to have taken from his crew all their -memoranda of the voyage, so that there would be no such aid available to -guide others. "None of them can explain whither I went, nor whence I -came," he says. "They do not know the way to return thither." - -[Sidenote: At Puerto Bello.] - -[Sidenote: At the Gulf of Darien.] - -[Sidenote: 1503. May 10.] - -[Sidenote: May 30. On the Cuban coast.] - -[Sidenote: 1503. June 23. Reaches Jamaica.] - -By the time he reached Puerto Bello, one of his caravels had become so -weakened by the boring worms that he had to abandon her and crowd his -men into the two remaining vessels. His crews became clamorous when he -reached the Gulf of Darien, where he thought it prudent to abandon his -easterly course and steer to the north. It was now May 1. He hugged the -wind to overcome the currents, but when he sighted some islands to the -westward of Española, on the 10th, it was evident that the currents had -been bearing him westerly all the while. They were still drifting him -westerly, when he found himself, on May 30, among the islands on the -Cuban coast which he had called The Gardens. "I had reached," he says in -his old delusion, "the province of Mago, which is contiguous to that of -Cathay." Here the ships anchored to give the men refreshment. The labor -of keeping the vessels free from water had been excessive, and in a -secure roadstead it could now be carried on with some respite of toil, -if the weather would only hold good. This was not to be, however. A gale -ensued in which they lost their anchors. The two caravels, moreover, -sustained serious damage by collision. All the anchors of the Admiral's -ship had gone but one, and though that held, the cable nearly wore -asunder. After six days of this stormy weather, he dared at last to -crawl along the coast. Fortunately, he got some native provisions at one -place, which enabled him to feed his famished men. The currents and -adverse winds, however, proved too much for the power of his ships to -work to windward. They were all the while in danger of foundering. "With -three pumps and the use of pots and kettles," he says, "we could -scarcely clear the water that came into the ship, there being no remedy -but this for the mischief done by the ship worm." He reluctantly, -therefore, bore away for Jamaica, where, on June 23, he put into Puerto -Buono (Dry Harbor). - -[Sidenote: 1503. July, August. His ships stranded]. - -Finding neither water nor food here, he went on the next day to Port San -Gloria, known in later days as Don Christopher's Cove. Here he found it -necessary, a little later (July 23 and August 12), to run his sinking -ships, one after the other, aground, but he managed to place them side -by side, so that they could be lashed together. They soon filled with -the tide. Cabins were built on the forecastles and sterns to live in, -and bulwarks of defense were reared as best they could be along the -vessels' waists. Columbus now took the strictest precautions to prevent -his men wandering ashore, for it was of the utmost importance that no -indignity should be offered the natives while they were in such -hazardous and almost defenseless straits. - -It became at once a serious question how to feed his men. Whatever scant -provisions remained on board the stranded caravels were spoiled. His -immediate savage neighbors supplied them with cassava bread and other -food for a while, but they had no reserved stores to draw upon, and -these sources were soon exhausted. - -[Sidenote: Mendez seeks food for the company.] - -Diego Mendez now offered, with three men, carrying goods to barter, to -make a circuit of the island, so that he could reach different caciques, -with whom he could bargain for the preparation and carriage of food to -the Spaniards. As he concluded his successive impromptu agreements with -cacique after cacique, he sent a man back loaded with what he could -carry, to acquaint the Admiral, and let him prepare for a further -exchange of trinkets. Finally, Mendez, left without a companion, still -went on, getting some Indian porters to help him from place to place. In -this way he reached the eastern end of the island, where he ingratiated -himself with a powerful cacique, and was soon on excellent terms with -him. From this chieftain he got a canoe with natives to paddle, and -loading it with provisions, he skirted westerly along the coast, until -he reached the Spaniards' harbor. His mission bade fair to have -accomplished its purpose, and provisions came in plentifully for a while -under the arrangements which he had made. - -[Sidenote: Mendez prepares to go to Española.] - -Columbus's next thought was to get word, if possible, to Ovando, at -Española, so that the governor could send a vessel to rescue them. -Columbus proposed to Mendez that he should attempt the passage with the -canoe in which he had returned from his expedition. Mendez pictured the -risks of going forty leagues in these treacherous seas in a frail canoe, -and intimated that the Admiral had better make trial of the courage of -the whole company first. He said that if no one else offered to go he -would shame them by his courage, as he had more than once done before. -So the company were assembled, and Columbus made public the proposition. -Every one hung back from the hazards, and Mendez won his new triumph, as -he had supposed he would. He then set to work fitting the canoe for the -voyage. He put a keel to her. He built up her sides so that she could -better ward off the seas, and rigged a mast and sail. She was soon -loaded with the necessary provisions for himself, one other Spaniard, -and the six Indians who were to ply the paddles. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1503. July 7. Letter of Columbus to the sovereigns.] - -The Admiral, while the preparations were making, drew up a letter to his -sovereigns, which it was intended that Mendez, after arranging with -Ovando for the rescue, should bear himself to Spain by the first -opportunity. At least it is the reasonable assumption of Humboldt that -this is the letter which has come down to us dated July 7, 1503. - -[Sidenote: _Lettera rarissima._] - -It is not known that this epistle was printed at the time, though -manuscript copies seem to have circulated. An Italian version of it was, -however, printed at Venice a year before Columbus died. The original -Spanish text was not known to scholars till Navarrete, having discovered -in the king's library at Madrid an early transcript of it, printed it in -the first volume of his _Coleccion_. It is the document usually referred -to, from the title of Morelli's reprint (1810) of the Italian text, as -the _Lettera rarissima di Cristoforo Colombo_. This letter is even more -than his treatise on the prophets a sorrowful index of his wandering -reason. In parts it is the merest jumble of hurrying thoughts, with no -plan or steady purpose in view. It is in places well calculated to -arouse the deepest pity. It was, of course, avowedly written at a -venture, inasmuch as the chance of its reaching the hands of his -sovereigns was a very small one. "I send this letter," he says, "by -means of and by the hands of Indians; it will be a miracle if it reaches -its destination." - -He not only goes back over the adventures of the present expedition, in -a recital which has been not infrequently quoted in previous pages, but -he reverts gloomily to the more distant past. He lingers on the -discouragements of his first years in Spain. "Every one to whom the -enterprise was mentioned," he says of those days, "treated it as -ridiculous, but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who -does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer." He remembers the -neglect which followed upon the first flush of indignation when he -returned to Spain in chains. "The twenty years' service through which I -have passed with so much toil and danger have profited me nothing, and -at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my -own. If I wish to eat or sleep I have nowhere to go but to a low tavern, -and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill. Another anxiety wrings my -very heartstrings, when I think of my son Diego, whom I have left an -orphan in Spain, stripped of the house and property which is due to him -on my account, although I had looked upon it as a certainty that your -Majesties, as just and grateful princes, would restore it to him in all -respects with increase." - -"I was twenty-eight years old," he says again, "when I came into your -Highnesses' services, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not -gray, my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my -brother, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to -my great dishonor." - -And then, referring to his present condition, he adds: "Solitary in my -trouble, sick, and in daily expectation of death, I am surrounded by -millions of hostile savages, full of cruelty. Weep for me, whoever has -charity, truth, and justice!" - -He next works over in his mind the old geographical problems. He recalls -his calculation of an eclipse in 1494, when he supposed, in his error, -that he had "sailed twenty-four degrees westward in nine hours." He -recalls the stories that he had heard on the Veragua coast, and thinks -that he had known it all before from books. Marinus had come near the -truth, he gives out, and the Portuguese have proved that the Indies in -Ethiopia is, as Marinus had said, four and twenty degrees from the -equinoctial line. "The world is but small," he sums up; "out of seven -divisions of it, the dry part occupies six, and the seventh is entirely -covered by water. I say that the world is not so large as vulgar -opinion makes it, and that one degree from the equinoctial line measures -fifty-six miles and two thirds, and this may be proved to a nicety." - -[Sidenote: Columbus on gold.] - -And then, in his thoughts, he turns back to his quest for gold, just as -he had done in action at Darien, when in despair he gave up the search -for a strait. It was gold, to his mind, that could draw souls from -purgatory. He exclaims: "Gold is the most precious of all commodities. -Gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in -this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and -restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise." - -Then his hopes swell with the vision of that wealth which he thought he -had found, and would yet return to. He alone had the clues to it, which -he had concealed from others. "I can safely assert that to my mind my -people returning to Spain are the bearers of the best news that ever was -carried to Spain.... I had certainly foreseen how things would be. I -think more of this opening for commerce than of all that has been done -in the Indies. This is not a child to be left to the care of a -stepmother." - -These were some of the thoughts, in large part tumultuous, incoherent, -dispirited, harrowing, weakening, and sad, penned within sound of the -noise of Mendez's preparations, and disclosing an exultant and -bewildered being, singularly compounded. - -This script was committed to Mendez, beside one addressed to Ovando, and -another to his friend in Spain, Father Gorricio, to whom he imparts some -of the same frantic expectations. "If my voyage will turn out as -favorable to my health," he says, "and to the tranquillity of my house, -as it is likely to be for the glory of my royal masters, I shall live -long." - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Mendez starts.] - -Mendez started bravely. He worked along the coast of the island towards -its eastern end; not without peril, however, both from the sea and from -the Indians. Finally, his party fell captives to a startled cacique; but -while the savages were disputing over a division of the spoils, Mendez -succeeded in slipping back to the canoe, and, putting off alone, paddled -it back to the stranded ships. - -[Sidenote: Mendez starts again.] - -Another trial was made at once, with larger preparation. A second canoe -was added to the expedition, and the charge of this was given to -Bartholomew Fiesco, a Genoese, who had commanded one of the caravels. -The daring adventurers started again with an armed party under the -Adelantado following them along the shore. - -The land and boat forces reached the end of the island without -molestation, and then, bidding each other farewell, the canoes headed -boldly away from land, and were soon lost to the sight of the Adelantado -in the deepening twilight. The land party returned to the Admiral -without adventure. There was little now for the poor company to do but -to await the return of Fiesco, who had been directed to come back at -once and satisfy the Admiral that Mendez had safely accomplished his -mission. - -[Sidenote: The revolt of Porras.] - -Many days passed, and straining eyes were directed along the shore to -catch a glimpse of Fiesco's canoe; but it came not. There was not much -left to allay fear or stifle disheartenment. The cramped quarters of the -tenements on the hulks, the bad food which the men were forced to depend -upon, and the vain watchings soon produced murmurs of discontent, which -it needed but the captious spirit of a leader to convert into the -turmoil of revolt. Such a gatherer of sedition soon appeared. There were -in the company two brothers, Francisco de Porras, who had commanded one -of the vessels, and Diego de Porras, who had, as we have seen, been -joined to the expedition to check off the Admiral's accounts of -treasures acquired. The very espionage of his office was an offense to -the Admiral. It was through the caballing of these two men that the -alien spirits of the colony found in one of them at last a determined -actor. It is not easy to discover how far the accusations against the -Admiral, which these men now began to dwell upon, were generally -believed. It served the leaders' purposes to have it appear that -Columbus was in reality banished from Spain, and had no intention of -returning thither till Mendez and Fiesco had succeeded in making favor -for him at Court; and that it was upon such a mission that these -lieutenants had been sent. It was therefore necessary, if those who were -thus cruelly confined in Jamaica wished to escape a lingering death, to -put on a bold front, and demand to be led away to Española in such -canoes as could be got of the Indians. - -[Sidenote: 1504. January 2. Demands of Porras.] - -[Sidenote: The flotilla of Porras sails.] - -It was on the 2d of January, 1504, that, with a crowd of sympathizers -watching within easy call, Francisco de Porras suddenly presented -himself in the cabin of the weary and bedridden Admiral. An altercation -ensued, in which the Admiral, propped in his couch, endeavored to -assuage the bursting violence of his accuser, and to bring him to a -sense of the patient duty which the conditions demanded. It was one of -the times when desperate straits seemed to restore the manhood of -Columbus. It was, however, of little use. The crisis was not one that, -in the present temper of the mutineers, could be avoided. Porras, -finding that the Admiral could not be swayed, called out in a loud -voice, "I am for Castile! Those who will may come with me!" This signal -was expected, and a shout rang in the air among those who were awaiting -it. It aroused Columbus from his couch, and he staggered into sight; but -his presence caused no cessation of the tumult. Some of his loyal -companions, fearing violence, took him back to his bed. The Adelantado -braced himself with his lance for an encounter, and was pacified only by -the persuasions of the Admiral's friends. They loyally said, "Let the -mutineers go. We will remain." The angry faction seized ten canoes, -which the Admiral had secured from the Indians, and putting in them what -they could get, they embarked for their perilous voyage. Some others who -had not joined in their plot being allured by the flattering hope of -release, there were forty-eight in all, and the little flotilla, amid -the mingled execrations and murmurs of despair among the weak and the -downcast who stayed behind, paddled out of that fateful harbor. - -The greater part of all who were vigorous had now gone. There were a few -strong souls, with some vitality left in them, among the small company -which remained to the Admiral; but the most of them were sorry objects, -with dejected minds and bodies more or less prostrate from disease and -privation. The conviction soon settled upon this deserted community that -nothing could save them but a brotherly and confident determination to -help one another, and to arouse to the utmost whatever of cheer and good -will was latent in their spirits. They could hardly have met an attack -of the natives, and they knew it. This made them more considerate in -their treatment of their neighbors, and the supply of provisions which -they could get from those who visited the ship was plentiful for a -while. But the habits of the savages were not to accumulate much beyond -present needs, and when the baubles which the Spaniards could distribute -began to lose their strange attractiveness, the incentive was gone to -induce exertion, and supplies were brought in less and less frequently. -It was soon found that hawks' bells had diminished in value. It took -several to appease the native cupidity where one had formerly done it. - -[Sidenote: Porras's men still on the island.] - -There was another difficulty. There were failures on the part of the -more distant villages to send in their customary contributions, and it -soon came to be known that Porras and his crew, instead of having left -the island, were wandering about, exacting provisions and committing -indignities against the inhabitants wherever they went. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: His voyage a failure.] - -It seems that the ten canoes had followed the coast to the nearest point -to Española, at the eastern end of the island, and here, waiting for a -calm sea, and securing some Indians to paddle, the mutineers had finally -pushed off for their voyage. The boats had scarcely gone four leagues -from land, when the wind rose and the sea began to alarm them. So they -turned back. The men were little used to the management of the canoes, -and they soon found themselves in great peril. It seemed necessary to -lighten the canoes, which were now taking in water to a dangerous -extent. They threw over much of their provisions; but this was not -enough. They then sacrificed one after another the natives. If these -resisted, a swoop of the sword ended their miseries. Once in the water, -the poor Indians began to seize the gunwales; but the sword chopped off -their hands. So all but a few of them, who were absolutely necessary to -manage the canoes, were thrown into the sea. Such were the perils -through which the mutineers passed in reaching the land. - -A long month was now passed waiting for another calm sea; but when they -tempted it once more, it rose as before, and they again sought the land. -All hope of success was now abandoned. From that time Porras and his -band gave themselves up to a lawless, wandering life, during which they -created new jealousies among the tribes. As we have seen, by their -exactions they began at last to tap the distant sources of supplies for -the Admiral and his loyal adherents. - -[Sidenote: 1504. February 29. Eclipse of the moon.] - -Columbus now resorted to an expedient characteristic of the ingenious -fertility of his mind. His astronomical tables enabled him to expect the -approach of a lunar eclipse (February 29, 1504), and finding it close at -hand he hastily summoned some of the neighboring caciques. He told them -that the God of the Spaniards was displeased at their neglect to feed -his people, and that He was about to manifest that displeasure by -withdrawing the moon and leaving them to such baleful influences as they -had provoked. When night fell and the shadow began to steal over the -moon, a long howl of horror arose, and promises of supplies were made by -the stricken caciques. They hurled themselves for protection at the feet -of the Admiral. Columbus retired for an ostensible communion with this -potent Spirit, and just as the hour came for the shadow to withdraw he -appeared, and announced that their contrition had appeased the Deity, -and a sign would be given of his content. Gradually the moon passed out -of the shadow, and when in the clear heavens the luminary was again -swimming unobstructed in her light, the work of astonishment had been -done. After that, Columbus was never much in fear of famine. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The canoe voyage of Mendez.] - -[Sidenote: At Navasa Island.] - -It is time now to see how much more successful Mendez and Fiesco had -been than Porras and his crew. They had accomplished the voyage to -Española, it is true, but under such perils and sufferings that Fiesco -could not induce a crew sufficient to man the canoe to return with him -to the Admiral. The passage had been made under the most violent -conditions of tropical heat and unprotected endurance. Their supply of -water had given out, and the tortures of thirst came on. They looked out -for the little island of Navasa, which lay in their track, where they -thought that in the crevices of the rocks they might find some water. -They looked in vain. The day when they had hoped to see it passed, and -night came on. One of the Indians died, and was dropped overboard. -Others lay panting and exhausted in the bottom of the canoes. Mendez sat -watching a glimmer of light in the eastern horizon that betokened the -coming of the moon. - -[Sidenote: They see Española.] - -[Sidenote: Mendez lands at Española.] - -Presently a faint glisten of the real orb grew into a segment. He could -see the water line as the illumination increased. There was a black -stretch of something jagging the lower edge of the segment. It was land! -Navasa had been found. By morning they had reached the island. Water was -discovered among the rocks; but some drank too freely, and paid the -penalty of their lives. Mussels were picked up along the shore; they -built a fire and boiled them. All day long they gazed longingly on the -distant mountains of Española, which were in full sight. Refreshed by -the day's rest, they embarked again at nightfall, and on the following -day arrived at Cape Tiburon, the southwestern peninsula of Española, -having been four days on the voyage from Jamaica. They landed among -hospitable natives, and having waited two days to recuperate, Mendez -took some savages in a canoe, and started to go along the coast to Santo -Domingo, one hundred and thirty leagues distant. He had gone nearly two -thirds of the distance when, communicating with the shore, he learned -that Ovando was not in Santo Domingo, but at Xaragua. So Mendez -abandoned his canoe, and started alone through the forests to seek the -governor. - -[Sidenote: Ovando delays sending relief to Columbus.] - -Ovando received him cordially, but made excuses for not sending relief -to Columbus at once. He was himself occupied with the wars which he was -conducting against the natives. There was no ship in Santo Domingo of -sufficient burden to be dispatched for such a rescue. So excuse after -excuse, and promises of attention unfulfilled, kept Mendez in the camp -of Ovando for seven months. The governor always had reasons for denying -him permission to go to Santo Domingo, where Mendez had hopes of -procuring a vessel. This procrastinating conduct has naturally given -rise to the suspicion that Ovando was not over-anxious to deliver -Columbus from his perils; and there can be little question that for the -Admiral to have sunk into oblivion and leave no trace would have -relieved both the governor and his royal master of some embarrassments. - -At length Ovando consented to the departure of Mendez to Santo Domingo. -There was a fleet of caravels expected there, and Mendez was anxious to -see if he could not procure one of them on the Admiral's own account to -undertake the voyage of rescue. His importunities became so pressing -that Ovando at last consented to his starting for that port, seventy -leagues distant. - -[Sidenote: Ovando sends Escobar to observe Columbus.] - -No sooner was Mendez gone than Ovando determined to ascertain the -condition of the party at Jamaica without helping them, and so he -dispatched a caravel to reconnoitre. He purposely sent a small craft, -that there might be no excuse for attempting to bring off the company; -and to prevent seizure of the vessel by Columbus, her commander was -instructed to lie off the harbor, and only send in a boat, to -communicate with no one but Columbus; and he was particularly enjoined -to avoid being enticed on board the stranded caravels. The command of -this little craft of espionage was given to one of Columbus's enemies, -Diego de Escobar, who had been active as Roldan's lieutenant in his -revolt. - -When the vessel appeared off the harbor where Columbus was, eight months -had passed since Mendez and Fiesco had departed. All hopes of hearing of -them had been abandoned. A rumor had come in from the natives that a -vessel, bottom upwards, had been seen near the island, drifting with the -current. It is said to have been a story started by Porras that its -effect might be distressing to Columbus's adherents. It seems to have -had the effect to hasten further discontent in that stricken band, and a -new revolt was almost ready to make itself known when Escobar's tiny -caravel was descried standing in towards shore. - -The vessel was seen to lie to, when a boat soon left her side. As it -came within hailing, the figure of Escobar was recognized. Columbus knew -that he had once condemned the man to death. Bobadilla had pardoned him. -The boat bumped against the side of one of the stranded caravels; the -crew brought it sidewise against the hulk, when a letter for the Admiral -was handed up. Columbus's men made ready to receive a cask of wine and -side of bacon, which Escobar's companions lifted on board. All at once a -quick motion pushed the boat from the hulks, and Escobar stopped her -when she had got out of reach. He now addressed Columbus, and gave him -the assurances of Ovando's regret that he had no suitable vessel to send -to him, but that he hoped before long to have such. He added that if -Columbus desired to reply to Ovando's letter, he would wait a brief -interval for him to prepare an answer. - -The Admiral hastily made his reply in as courteous terms as possible, -commending the purposes of Mendez and Fiesco to the governor's kind -attention, and closed with saying that he reposed full confidence in -Ovando's expressed intention to rescue his people, and that he would -stay on the wrecks in patience till the ships came. Escobar received the -letter, and returned to his caravel, which at once disappeared in the -falling gloom of night. - -Columbus was not without apprehension that Escobar had come simply to -make sure that the Admiral and his company still survived, and Las -Casas, who was then at Santo Domingo, seems to have been of the opinion -that Ovando had at this time no purpose to do more. The selection of -Escobar to carry a kindly message gave certainly a dubious ostentation -to all expressions of friendly interest. The transaction may possibly -admit of other interpretations. Ovando may reasonably have desired that -Columbus and his faithful adherents should not abide long in Española, -as in the absence of vessels returning to Spain the Admiral might be -obliged to do. There were rumors that Columbus, indignant at the wrongs -which he felt he had received at the hands of his sovereigns, had -determined to hold his new discoveries for Genoa, and the Admiral had -referred to such reports in his recent letter to the Spanish monarchs. -Such reports easily put Ovando on his guard, and he may have desired -time to get instructions from Spain. At all events, it was very palpable -that Ovando was cautious and perhaps inhuman, and Columbus was to be -left till Escobar's report should decide what action was best. - -[Sidenote: Columbus communicates with Porras.] - -Columbus endeavored to make use of the letter which Escobar had brought -from Ovando to win Porras and his vagabonds back to loyalty and duty. He -dispatched messengers to their camp to say that Ovando had notified him -of his purpose to send a vessel to take them off the island. The Admiral -was ready to promise forgiveness and forgetfulness, if the mutineers -would come in and submit to the requirements of the orderly life of his -people. He accompanied the message with a part of the bacon which -Escobar had delivered as a present from the governor. The lure, however, -was not effective. Porras met the ambassadors, and declined the -proffers. He said his followers were quite content with the freedom of -the island. The fact seemed to be that the mutineers were not quite sure -of the Admiral's sincerity, and feared to put themselves in his power. -They were ready to come in when the vessels came, if transportation -would be allowed them so that their band should not be divided; and -until then they would cause the Admiral's party no trouble, unless -Columbus refused to share with them his stores and trinkets, which they -must have, peacefully or forcibly, since they had lost all their -supplies in the gales which had driven them back. - -It was evident that Porras and his company were not reduced to such -straits that they could be reasoned with, and the messengers returned. - -[Sidenote: Bartholomew and his men confront the Porras mutineers.] - -The author of the _Historie_, and others who follow his statements, -represent that the body of the mutineers was far from being as arrogant -as their leaders, was much more tractable in spirit, and was inclined to -catch at the chance of rescue. The leaders labored with the men to keep -them steady in their revolt. Porras and his abettors did what they could -to picture the cruelties of the Admiral, and even accused him of -necromancy in summoning the ghost of a caravel by which to make his -people believe that Escobar had really been there. Then, to give some -activity to their courage, the whole body of the mutineers was led -towards the harbor on pretense of capturing stores. The Adelantado went -out to meet them with fifty armed followers, the best he could collect -from the wearied companions of the Admiral. Porras refused all offers of -conference, and led his band to the attack. There was a plan laid among -them that six of the stoutest should attack the Adelantado -simultaneously, thinking that if their leader should be overpowered the -rest would flee. The Adelantado's courage rose with the exigency, as it -was wont to do. He swung his sword with vigor, and one after another the -assailants fell. At last Porras struck him such a blow that the -Adelantado's buckler was cleft and his hand wounded. The blow was too -powerful for the giver of it. His sword remained wedged in the buckler, -affording his enemy a chance to close, while an attempt was made to -extricate the weapon. Others came to the loyal leader's assistance, and -Porras was secured and bound. - -[Sidenote: Porras taken.] - -[Sidenote: Sanchez killed.] - -[Sidenote: Ledesma wounded.] - -This turned the current of the fight. The rebels, seeing their leader a -prisoner, fled in confusion, leaving the field to the party of the -Adelantado. The fight had been a fierce one. They found among the rebel -dead Juan Sanchez, who had let slip the captured Quibian, and among the -wounded Pedro Ledesma, who had braved the breakers at Veragua. Las -Casas, who knew the latter at a later day, deriving some help from him -in telling the story of these eventful months, speaks of the many and -fearful wounds which he bore in evidence of his rebellion and courage, -and of the sturdy activity of his assailants. We owe also to Ledesma and -to some of his companions, who, with himself, were witnesses in the -later lawsuit of Diego Colon with the Crown, certain details which the -principal narrators fail to give us. - -A charm had seemed throughout the conflict to protect the Admiral's -friends. None were killed outright, and but one other beside their -leader was wounded. This man, the Admiral's steward, subsequently died. - -[Sidenote: 1504. March 20. The rebels propose to submit.] - -The victors returned to the ships with their prisoners; and in the midst -of the gratulations which followed on the next day, March 20, 1504, the -fugitives sent in an address to the Admiral, begging to be pardoned and -received back to his care and fortunes. They acknowledged their errors -in the most abject professions, and called upon Heaven to show no mercy, -and upon man to know no sympathy, in dealing retribution, if they failed -in their fidelity thereafter. The proposition of surrender was not -without embarrassment. The Admiral was fearful of the trial of their -constancy when they might gather about him with all the chances of -further cabaling. He also knew that his provisions were fast running -out. Accordingly, in accepting their surrender, he placed them under -officers whom he could trust, and supplying them with articles of -barter, he let them wander about the island under suitable discipline, -hoping that they would find food where they could. He promised, however, -to recall them when the expected ships arrived. - -[Sidenote: Ships come to rescue them.] - -It was not long they had to wait. One day two ships were seen standing -in towards the harbor. One of them proved to be a caravel which Mendez -had bought on the Admiral's account, out of a fleet of three, just then -arrived from Spain, and had victualed for the occasion. Having seen it -depart from Santo Domingo, Mendez, in the other ships of this opportune -fleet, sailed directly for Spain, to carry out the further instructions -of the Admiral. - -The other of the approaching ships was in command of Diego de Salcedo, -the Admiral's factor, and had been dispatched by Ovando. Las Casas tells -us that the governor was really forced to this action by public -sentiment, which had grown in consequence of the stories of the trials -of Columbus which Mendez had told. It is said that even the priests did -not hesitate to point a moral in their pulpits with the governor's -dilatory sympathy. - -[Sidenote: 1504. June 28. Columbus leaves Jamaica.] - -Finally, on June 28, everything was ready for departure, and Columbus -turned away from the scene of so much trouble. "Columbus informed me -afterwards, in Spain," says Mendez, recording the events, "that in no -part of his life did he ever experience so joyful a day, for he had -never hoped to have left that place alive." Four years later, under -authority from the Admiral's son Diego, the town of Sevilla Nueva, later -known as Sevilla d'Oro, was founded on the very spot. - -[Sidenote: Events at Española during the absence of Columbus.] - -[Sidenote: Ovando's rule.] - -The Admiral now committed himself once more to the treacherous currents -and adverse winds of these seas. We have seen that Mendez urged his -canoe across the gap between Jamaica and the nearest point of Española -in four days; but it took the ships of Columbus about seven weeks to -reach the haven of Santo Domingo. There was much time during this long -and vexatious voyage for Columbus to learn from Salcedo the direful -history of the colony which had been wrested from him, and which even -under the enlarged powers of Ovando had not been without manifold -tribulations. We must rehearse rapidly the occurrences, as Columbus -heard of them. He could have got but the scantiest inkling of what had -happened during the earliest months of Ovando's rule, when he applied by -messenger, in vain, for admission to the harbor, now more than two years -ago. The historian of this period must depend mainly upon Las Casas, who -had come out with Ovando, and we must sketch an outline of the tale, as -Columbus heard it, from that writer's _Historia_. It was the old sad -story of misguided aspirants for wealth in their first experiences with -the hazards and toils of mining,--much labor, disappointed hopes, -failing provisions, no gold, sickness, disgust, and a desponding return -of the toilers from the scene of their infatuation. It took but eight -days for the crowds from Ovando's fleet, who trudged off manfully to the -mountains on their landing, to come trooping back, dispirited and -diseased. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and slavery.] - -[Sidenote: 1503. December 20. Forced labor of the natives.] - -Columbus could hardly have listened to what was said of suffering among -the natives during these two years of his absence without a vivid -consciousness of the baleful system which he had introduced when he -assigned crowds of the poor Indians to be put to inhuman tasks by -Roldan's crew. The institution of this kind of distribution of labor had -grown naturally, but it had become so appalling under Bobadilla that, -when Ovando was sent out, he was instructed to put an end to it. It was -not long before the governor had to confront the exasperated throngs -coming back from the mines, dejected and empty-handed. It was apparent -that nothing of the expected revenue to the Crown was likely to be -produced from half the yield of metal when there was no yield at all. -So, to induce greater industry, Ovando reduced the share of the Crown to -a third, and next to a fifth, but without success. It was too apparent -that the Spaniards would not persist in labors which brought them so -little. At a period when Columbus was flattering himself that he was -laying claim to far richer gold fields at Veragua, Ovando was devising a -renewal of the Admiral's old slave-driving methods to make the mines of -Hayna yield what they could. He sent messages to the sovereigns -informing them that their kindness to the natives was really -inconsiderate; that the poor creatures, released from labor, were giving -themselves up to mischief; and that, to make good Christians of them, -there was needed the appetizing effect of healthful work upon the native -soul. The appeal and the frugal returns to the treasury were quite -sufficient to gain the sovereigns to Ovando's views; and while bewailing -any cruelty to the poor natives, and expressing hopes for their -spiritual relief, their Majesties were not averse, as they said -(December 20, 1503), to these Indians being made to labor as much as was -needful to their health. This was sufficient. The fatal system of -Columbus was revived with increased enormities. Six or eight months of -unremitting labor, with insufficient food, were cruelly exacted of every -native. They were torn from their families, carried to distant parts of -the island, kept to their work by the lash, and, if they dared to -escape, almost surely recaptured, to work out their period under the -burden of chains. At last, when they were dismissed till their labor was -again required, Las Casas tells us that the passage through the island -of these miserable creatures could be traced by their fallen and -decaying bodies. This was a story that, if Columbus possessed any of the -tendernesses that glowed in the heart of Las Casas, could not have been -a pleasant one for his contemplation. - -[Sidenote: Anacaona treacherously treated.] - -[Sidenote: The Indians slaughtered.] - -There was another story to which Columbus may have listened. It is very -likely that Salcedo may have got all the particulars from Diego Mendez, -who was a witness of the foul deeds which had indeed occurred during -those seven months when Ovando, then on an expedition in Xaragua, kept -that messenger of Columbus waiting his pleasure. Anacaona, the sister of -Behechio, had succeeded to that cacique in the rule of Xaragua. The -licentious conduct and the capricious demands of the Spaniards settled -in this region had increased the natural distrust and indignation of the -Indians, and some signs of discontent which they manifested had been -recounted to Ovando as indications of a revolt which it was necessary to -nip in the bud. So the governor had marched into the country with three -hundred foot and seventy horse. The chieftainess, Anacaona, came forth -to meet him with much native parade, and gave all the honor which her -savage ceremonials could signify to her distinguished guest. She lodged -him as well as she could, and caused many games to be played for his -divertisement. In return, Ovando prepared a tournament calculated to -raise the expectation of his simple hosts, and horseman and foot came to -the lists in full armor and adornment for the heralded show. On a signal -from Ovando, the innocent parade was converted in an instant into a -fanatical onslaught. The assembled caciques were hedged about with armed -men, and all were burned in their cabins. The general populace were -transfixed and trampled by the charging mounted spearmen, and only those -who could elude the obstinate and headlong dashes of the cavalry -escaped. Anacaona was seized and conveyed in chains to Santo Domingo, -where, with the merest pretense of a trial for conspiracy, she was soon -hanged. - -[Sidenote: Xaragua and Higuey over-run.] - -[Sidenote: Esquibel's campaign.] - -And this was the pacification of Xaragua. That of Higuey, the most -eastern of the provinces, and which had not yet acknowledged the sway of -the Spaniards, followed, with the same resorts to cruelty. A cacique of -this region had been slain by a fierce Spanish dog which had been set -upon him. This impelled some of the natives living on the coast to seize -a canoe having eight Spaniards in it, and to slaughter them; whereupon -Juan de Esquibel was sent with four hundred men on a campaign against -Cotabanama, the chief cacique of Higuey. The invaders met more heroism -in the defenders of this country than they had been accustomed to, but -the Spanish armor and weapons enabled Esquibel to raid through the land -with almost constant success. The Indians at last sued for peace, and -agreed to furnish a tribute of provisions. Esquibel built a small -fortress, and putting some men in it, he returned to Santo Domingo; not, -however, until he had received Cotabanama in his camp. The Spanish -leader brought back to Ovando a story of the splendid physical power of -this native chief, whose stature, proportions, and strength excited the -admiration of the Spaniards. - -[Sidenote: New revolt in Higuey.] - -The peace was not of long duration. The reckless habits of the garrison -had once more aroused the courage of the Indians, and some of the latest -occurrences which Salcedo could tell of as having been reported at Santo -Domingo just before his sailing for Jamaica were the events of a new -revolt in Higuey. - -[Sidenote: 1504. August 3. Columbus at Beata.] - -[Sidenote: 1504. August 15. At Santo Domingo.] - -Such were the stories which Columbus may have listened to during the -tedious voyage which was now, on August 3, approaching an end. On that -day his ships sailed under the lea of the little island of Beata, which -lies midway of the southern coast of Española. Here he landed a -messenger, and ordered him to convey a letter to Ovando, warning the -governor of his approach. Salcedo had told Columbus that the governor -was not without apprehension that his coming might raise some factious -disturbances among the people, and in this letter the Admiral sought to -disabuse Ovando's mind of such suspicions, and to express his own -purpose to avoid every act of irritation which might possibly embarrass -the administration of the island. The letter dispatched, Columbus again -set sail, and on August 15 his ship entered the harbor of Santo Domingo. -Ovando received him with every outward token of respect, and lodged him -in his own house. Columbus, however, never believed that this officious -kindness was other than a cloak to Ovando's dislike, if not hatred. -There was no little popular sympathy for the misfortunes which Columbus -had experienced, but his relations with the governor were not such as to -lighten the anxieties of his sojourn. It is known that Cortes was at -this time only recently arrived at Santo Domingo; but we can only -conjecture what may have been his interest in Columbus's recitals. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Ovando.] - -There soon arose questions of jurisdiction. Ovando ordered the release -of Porras, and arranged for sending him to Spain for trial. The governor -also attempted to interfere with the Admiral's control of his own crew, -on the ground that his commission gave him command over all the regions -of the new islands and the main. Columbus cited the instructions, which -gave him power to rule and judge his own followers. Ovando did not push -his claims to extremities, but the irritation never subsided; and -Columbus seems to have lost no opportunity, if we may judge from his -later letters, to pick up every scandalous story and tale of -maladministration of which he could learn, and which could be charged -against Ovando in later appeals to the sovereigns for a restitution of -his own rights. The Admiral also inquired into his pecuniary interests -in the island, and found, as he thought, that Ovando had obstructed his -factor in the gathering of his share. Indeed, there may have been some -truth in this; for Carvajal, Columbus's first factor, had complained of -such acts to the sovereigns, which elicited an admonishment from them to -Ovando. - -[Sidenote: 1504. September 12. Columbus sails for Spain.] - -[Sidenote: 1504. November 7. Reaches San Lucar.] - -Such money as Columbus could now collect he used in refitting the ship -which had brought him from Jamaica, and he put her under the order of -the Adelantado. Securing also another caravel for his own conveyance, he -embarked on her with his son, and on September 12 both ships started on -their homeward voyage. They were scarcely at sea, when the ship which -bore the Admiral lost her mast in a gale. He transferred himself and his -immediate dependents to the other vessel, and sent the disabled caravel -back to Santo Domingo. His solitary vessel now went forward, amid all -the adversities that seemed to cling inevitably to this last of -Columbus's expeditions. Tempest after tempest pursued him. The masts -were sprung, and again sprung; and in a forlorn and disabled condition -the little hapless bark finally entered the port of San Lucar on -November 7, 1504. He had been absent from Spain for two years and a -half. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -COLUMBUS'S LAST YEARS.--DEATH AND CHARACTER. - -1504-1506. - - -[Sidenote: Columbus in Seville till May, 1505.] - -[Sidenote: Letters to his son.] - -From San Lucar, Columbus, a sick man in search of quiet and rest, was -conveyed to Seville. Unhappily, there was neither repose nor peace of -mind in store for him. He remained in that city till May, 1505, broken -in spirits and almost helpless of limb. Fortunately, we can trace his -varying mental moods during these few months in a series of letters, -most of which are addressed by him to his son Diego, then closely -attached to the Court. These writings have fortunately come down to us, -and they constitute the only series of Columbus's letters which we have, -showing the habits of his mind consecutively for a confined period, so -that we get a close watch upon his thoughts. They are the wails of a -neglected soul, and the cries of one whose hope is cruelly deferred. -They have in their entirety a good deal of that haphazard jerkiness -tiresome to read, and not easily made evident in abstract. They are, -however, not so deficient in mental equipoise as, for instance, the -letter sent from Jamaica. This is perhaps owing to the one absorbing -burden of them, his hope of recovering possession of his suspended -authority. - -[Sidenote: 1504. November 21.] - -He writes on November 21, 1504, a fortnight after his landing at San -Lucar, telling his son how he has engaged his old friend, the Dominican -Deza, now the Bishop of Palencia, to intercede with the sovereigns, that -justice may be done to him with respect to his income, the payment of -which Ovando had all along, as he contends, obstructed at Española. He -tries to argue that if their Highnesses but knew it, they would, in -ordering restitution to him, increase their own share. He hopes they -have no doubt that his zeal for their interests has been quite as much -as he could manifest if he had paradise to gain, and hopes they -will remember, respecting any errors he may have committed, that the -Lord of all judges such things by the intention rather than by the -outcome. He seems to have a suspicion that Porras, now at liberty and -about the Court, might be insidiously at work to his old commander's -disadvantage, and he represents that neither Porras nor his brother had -been suitable persons for their offices, and that what had been done -respecting them would be approved on inquiry. "Their revolt," he says, -"surprised me, considering all that I had done for them, as much as the -sun would have alarmed me if it had shot shadows instead of light." He -complains of Ovando's taking the prisoners, who had been companions of -Porras, from his hands, and that, made free, they had even dared to -present themselves at Court. "I have written," he adds, "to their -Highnesses about it, and I have told them that it can't be possible that -they would tolerate such an offense." He says further that he has -written to the royal treasurer, begging him to come to no decision of -the representations of such detractors until the other side could be -heard, and he adds that he has sent to the treasurer a copy of the oath -which the mutineers sent in after Porras had been taken. "Recall to all -these people," he writes to his son, "my infirmities, and the recompense -due to me for my services." - -Diego was naturally, from his residence at Court, a convenient medium to -bring all Columbus's wishes to the notice of those about the sovereigns. -The Admiral writes to Diego again that he hopes their Highnesses will -see to the paying of his men who had come home. "They are poor, and have -been gone three years," he says. "They bring home evidences of the -greatest of expectations in the new gold fields of Veragua;" and then he -advises his son to bring this fact to the attention of all who are -concerned, and to urge the colonizing of the new country as the best way -to profit from its gold mines. For a while he harbored the hope that he -might at once go on to the Court, and a litter which had served in the -obsequies of Cardinal Mendoza was put at his disposal; but this plan was -soon given up. - -[Sidenote: 1504. November 28.] - -A week later, having in the interim received a letter of the 15th, from -Diego, Columbus writes again, under date of November 28. In this epistle -he speaks of the severity of his disease, which keeps him in Seville, -from which, however, he hopes to depart the coming week, and of his -disappointment that the sovereigns had not replied to his inquiries. He -sends his love to Diego Mendez, hoping that his friend's zeal and love -of truth will enable him to overcome the deceits and intrigues of -Porras. - -[Sidenote: 1504. November 26. Queen Isabella dies.] - -[Sidenote: Isabella's character.] - -Columbus was not at this time aware that the impending death of the -Queen had something to do with the delays in his own affairs at Court. -Two days (November 26) before the Admiral wrote this note, Isabella had -died, worn out by her labors, and depressed by the afflictions which she -had experienced in her domestic circle. She was an unlovely woman at the -best, an obstructor of Christian charity, but in her wiles she had -allured Columbus to a belief in her countenance of him. The conventional -estimate of her character, which is enforced in the rather cloying -descriptions of Prescott, is such as her flatterers drew in her own -times; but the revelations of historical research hardly confirm it. It -was with her much as with Columbus,--she was too largely a creature of -her own age to be solely judged by the criteria of all ages, as lofty -characters can be. - -The loss of her influence on the king removed, as it proved, even the -chance of a flattering delusiveness in the hopes of Columbus. As the -compiler of the _Historie_ expresses it, "Columbus had always enjoyed -her favor and protection, while the King had always been indifferent, or -rather inimical." She had indeed, during the Admiral's absence on his -last voyage, manifested some new appreciation of his services, which -cost her little, however, when she made his eldest son one of her -bodyguard and naturalized his brother Diego, to fit him for -ecclesiastical preferment. - -[Sidenote: 1504. December 1.] - -On December 1, ignorant of the sad occurrences at Court, Columbus writes -again, chiding Diego that he had not in his dutifulness written to his -poor father. "You ought to know," he says, "that I have no pleasure now -but in a letter from you." Columbus by this time had become, by the -constant arrival of couriers, aware of the anxiety at Court over the -Queen's health, and he prays that the Holy Trinity will restore her to -health, to the end that all that has been begun may be happily finished. -He reiterates what he had previously written about the increasing -severity of his malady, his inability to travel, his want of money, and -how he had used all he could get in Española to bring home his poor -companions. He commends anew to Diego his brother Ferdinand, and speaks -of this younger son's character as beyond his years. "Ten brothers would -not be too many for you," he adds; "in good as in bad fortune, I have -never found better friends than my brothers." - -Nothing troubles him more than the delays in hearing from Court. A rumor -had reached him that it was intended to send some bishops to the Indies, -and that the Bishop of Palencia was charged with the matter. He begs -Diego to say to the bishop that it was worth while, in the interests of -all, to confer with the Admiral first. In explaining why he does not -write to Diego Mendez, he says that he is obliged to write by night, -since by day his hands are weak and painful. He adds that the vessel -which put back to Santo Domingo had arrived, bringing the papers in -Porras's case, the result of the inquest which had been taken at -Jamaica, so that he could now be able to present an indictment to the -Council of the Indies. His indignation is aroused at the mention of it. -"What can be so foul and brutal! If their Highnesses pass it by, who is -going again to lead men upon their service!" - -[Sidenote: 1504. December 3.] - -Two days later (December 3), he writes again to Diego about the neglect -which he is experiencing from him and from others at Court. "Everybody -except myself is receiving letters," he says. He incloses a memoir -expressing what he thought it was necessary to do in the present -conjunction of his affairs. This document opens with calling upon Diego -zealously to pray to God for the soul of the Queen. "One must believe -she is now clothed with a sainted glory, no longer regretting the -bitterness and weariness of this life." The King, he adds, "deserves all -our sympathy and devotion." He then informs Diego that he has directed -his brother, his uncle, and Carvajal to add all their importunities to -his son's, and to the written prayers which he himself has sent, that -consideration should be given to the affairs of the Indies. Nothing, he -says, can be more urgent than to remedy the abuses there. In all this he -curiously takes on the tone of his own accusers a few years before. He -represents that pecuniary returns from Española are delayed; that the -governor is detested by all; that a suitable person sent there could -restore harmony in less than three months; and that other fortresses, -which are much needed, should be built, "all of which I can do in his -Highness's service," he exclaims, "and any other, not having my personal -interests at stake, could not do it so well!" Then he repeats how, -immediately after his arrival at San Lucar, he had written to the King a -very long letter, advising action in the matter, to which no reply had -been returned. - -[Sidenote: 1503. January 20. The _Casa de Contratacion_ established.] - -It was during Columbus's absence on this last voyage that, by an -ordinance made at Alcalá, January 20, 1503, the famous _Casa de -Contratacion_ was established, with authority over the affairs of the -Indies, having the power to grant licenses, to dispatch fleets, to -dispose of the results of trade or exploration, and to exercise certain -judicial prerogatives. This council was to consist of a treasurer, a -factor, and a comptroller, to whom two persons learned in the law were -given as advisers. Alexander VI. had already, by a bull of November 16, -1501, authorized the payment to the constituted Spanish officials of all -the tithes of the colonies, which went a long way in giving Spain -ecclesiastical supremacy in the Indies, in addition to her political -control. - -It was to this council that Columbus refers, when he says he had told -the gentlemen of the _Contratacion_ that they ought to abide by the -verbal and written orders which the King had given, and that, above all, -they should watch lest people should sail to the Indies without -permission. He reminded them of the sorry character of the people -already in the New World, and of the way in which treasure was stored -there without protection. - -[Sidenote: 1504. December 13.] - -Ten days later (December 13), he writes again to Diego, recurring to his -bitter memories of Ovando, charging him with diverting the revenues, and -with bearing himself so haughtily that no one dared remonstrate. -"Everybody says that I have as much as 11,000 or 12,000 castellanos in -Española, and I have not received a quarter. Since I came away he must -have received 5,000." He then urges Diego to sue the King for a -mandatory letter to be sent to Ovando, forcing immediate payment. -"Carvajal knows very well that this ought to be done. Show him this -letter," he adds. Then referring to his denied rights, and to the -best way to make the King sensible of his earlier promises, he next -advises Diego to lessen his expenses; to treat his uncle with the -respect which is due to him; and to bear himself towards his younger -brother as an older brother should. "You have no other brother," he -says; "and thank God this one is all you could desire. He was born with -a good nature." Then he reverts to the Queen's death. "People tell me," -he writes, "that on her death-bed she expressed a wish that my -possession of the Indies should be restored to me." - -[Sidenote: 1504. December 21.] - -A week later (December 21), he once more bewails the way in which he is -left without tidings. He recounts the exertions he had made to send -money to his advocates at Court, and tells Diego how he must somehow -continue to get on as best he can till their Highnesses are content to -give them back their power. He repeats that to bring his companions home -from Santo Domingo he had spent twelve hundred castellanos, and that he -had represented to the King the royal indebtedness for this, but it -produced no reimbursement. He asks Diego to find out if the Queen, "now -with God, no doubt," had spoken of him in her will; and perhaps the -Bishop of Palencia, "who was the cause of their Majesties' acquiring the -Indies, and of my returning to the Court when I had departed," or the -chamberlain of the King could find this out. Columbus may have lived to -learn that the only item of the Queen's will in which he could possibly -have been in mind was the one in which she showed that she was aroused -to the enormities which Columbus had imposed on the Indians, and which -had come to such results that, as Las Casas says, it had been endeavored -to keep the knowledge of it from the Queen's ears. She earnestly -enjoined upon her successors a change of attitude towards the poor -Indians. - -[Sidenote: Columbus writes to the Pope.] - -Columbus further says that the Pope had complained that no account of -his voyage had been sent to Rome, and that accordingly he had prepared -one, and he desired Diego to read it, and to let the King and the bishop -also peruse it before it was forwarded to Rome. It is possible that the -Adelantado was dispatched with the letter. The canonizers say that the -mission to Rome had also a secret purpose, which was to counteract the -schemes of Fonseca to create bishoprics in Española, and that the -advice of Columbus in the end prevailed over the "cunning of diplomacy." - -[Sidenote: 1505. February 23. Columbus allowed to ride a mule.] - -There had been some time before, owing to the difficulty which had been -experienced in mounting the royal cavalry, an order promulgated -forbidding the use of mules in travel, since it was thought that the -preference for this animal had brought about the deterioration and -scarcity of horses. It was to this injunction that Columbus now referred -when he asked Diego to get a dispensation from the King to allow him to -enjoy the easier seat of a mule when he should venture on his journey -towards the Court, which, with this help, he hoped to be able to begin -within a few weeks. Such an order was in due time issued on February 23, -1505. - -[Sidenote: 1504. December 29.] - -On December 29, Columbus wrote again. The letter was full of the same -pitiful suspense. He had received no letters. He could but repeat the -old story of the letters of credit which he had sent and which had not -been acknowledged. No one of his people had been paid, he said, neither -the faithful nor the mutineers. "They are all poor. They are going to -Court," he adds, "to press their claims. Aid them in it." He excepts, -however, from the kind interest of his friends two fellows who had been -with him on his last voyage, one Camacho and Master Bernal, the latter -the physician of the flagship. Bernal was the instigator of the revolt -of Porras, he says, "and I pardoned him at the prayer of my brother." - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the Bank of St. George.] - -It will be remembered that, previous to starting on his last voyage, -Columbus had written to the Bank of St. George in Genoa, proposing a -gift of a tenth of his income for the benefit of his native town. The -letter was long in reaching its destination, but a reply was duly sent -through his son Diego. It never reached Columbus, and this apparent -spurning of his gift by Genoa caused not a small part of his present -disgust with the world. - -[Sidenote: 1504. December 27.] - -On December 27, 1504, he wrote to Nicolo Oderigo, reminding him of the -letter, and complaining that while he had expected to be met on his -return by some confidential agent of the bank, he had not even had a -letter in response. "It was uncourteous in these gentlemen of St. George -not to have favored me with an answer." The intention was, in fact, far -from being unappreciated, and at a later day the promise became so far -magnified as to be regarded as an actual gift, in which the Genoese were -not without pride. The purpose never, however, had a fulfillment. - -[Sidenote: 1505. January 4.] - -On January 4, 1505, the Admiral wrote to his friend Father Gorricio, -telling him that Diego Mendez had arrived from the Court, and asking the -friar to encase in wax the documentary privileges of the Admiral which -had been intrusted to him, and to send them to him. "My disease grows -better day by day," he adds. - -[Sidenote: 1505. January 18.] - -On January 18, 1505, he again wrote. The epistle was in some small -degree cheery. He had heard at last from Diego. "Zamora the courier has -arrived, and I have looked with great delight upon thy letter, thy -uncle's, thy brother's, and Carvajal's." Diego Mendez, he says, sets out -in three or four days with an order for payment. He refers with some -playfulness, even, to Fonseca, who had just been raised to the bishopric -of Placentia, and had not yet returned from Flanders to take possession -of the seat. "If the Bishop of Placentia has arrived, or when he comes, -tell him how much pleased I am at his elevation; and that when I come to -Court I shall depend on lodging with his Grace, whether he wishes it or -not, that we may renew our old fraternal bonds." His biographers have -been in some little uncertainty whether he really meant here Fonseca or -his old friend Deza, who had just left that bishopric vacant for the -higher post of Archbishop of Seville. A strict application of dates -makes the reference to Fonseca. One may imagine, however, that Columbus -was not accurately informed. It is indeed hard to understand the -pleasantry, if Fonseca was the bitter enemy of Columbus that he is -pictured by Irving. - -Some ships from Española had put into the Tagus. "They have not arrived -here from Lisbon," he adds. "They bring much gold, but none for me." - -[Sidenote: Conference with Vespucius.] - -[Sidenote: Vespucius's account of his voyage.] - -We next find Columbus in close communion with a contemporary with whose -fame his own is sadly conjoined. Some account of the events of the -voyage which Vespucius had made along the coast of South America with -Coelho, from which he had returned to Lisbon in September, 1502, has -been given on an earlier page. Those events and his descriptions had -already brought the name of Vespucius into prominence throughout -Europe, but hardly before he had started on another voyage in the -spring or early summer of 1503, just at the time when Columbus was -endeavoring to work his way from the Veragua coast to Española. The -authorities are not quite agreed whether it was on May 10, 1503, or -a month later, on June 10, that the little Portuguese fleet in which -Vespucius sailed left the Tagus, to find a way, if possible, to the -Moluccas somewhere along the same great coast. This expedition had -started under the command of Coelho, but meeting with mishaps, by -which the fleet was separated, Vespucius, with his own vessel, joined -later by another with which he fell in, proceeded to Bahia, where a -factory for storing Brazil-wood was erected; thence, after a stay -there, they sailed for Lisbon, arriving there after an absence of -seventy-seven days, on June 18, 1504. It was later, on September 4, -that Vespucius wrote, or rather dated, that account of his voyage -which was to work such marvels, as we shall see, in the reputation of -himself and of Columbus. There is no reason to suppose that Columbus -ever knew of this letter of September 4, so subversive as it turned -out of his just fame; nor, judging from the account of their interview - which Columbus records, is there any reason to suppose that Vespucius -himself had any conception of the work which that fateful letter was -already accomplishing, and to which reference will be made later. - -[Sidenote: 1505. February 5.] - -On February 5, 1505, Columbus wrote to Diego: "Within two days I have -talked with Americus Vespucius, who will bear this to you, and who is -summoned to Court on matters of navigation. He has always manifested a -disposition to be friendly to me. Fortune has not always favored him, -and in this he is not different from many others. His ventures have not -always been as successful as he would wish. He left me full of the -kindliest purposes towards me, and will do anything for me which is in -his power. I hardly knew what to tell him would be helpful in him to do -for me, because I did not know what purpose there was in calling him to -Court. Find out what he can do, and he will do it; only let it be so -managed that he will not be suspected of rendering me aid. I have told -him all that it is possible to tell him as to my own affairs, including -what I have done and what recompense I have had. Show this letter to -the Adelantado, so that he may advise how Vespucius can be made -serviceable to us." - -[Sidenote: 1505. April 24. Vespucius naturalized.] - -We soon after this find Vespucius installed as an agent of the Spanish -government, naturalized on April 24 as a Castilian, and occupied at the -seaports in superintending the fitting out of ships for the Indies, with -an annual salary of thirty thousand maravedis. We can find no trace of -any assistance that he afforded the cause of Columbus. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's effects sold.] - -Meanwhile events were taking place which Columbus might well perhaps -have arrested, could he have got the royal ear. An order had been sent -in February to Española to sell the effects of Columbus, and in April -other property of the Admiral had been seized to satisfy his creditors. - -[Sidenote: 1505. May. Columbus goes to Segovia.] - -[Sidenote: August 25. Attests his will.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Ferdinand.] - -In May, 1505, Columbus, with the friendly care of his brother -Bartholomew, set out on his journey to Segovia, where the Court then -was. This is the statement of Las Casas, but Harrisse can find no -evidence of his being near the Court till August, when, on the 25th, he -attested, as will appear, his will before a notary. The change bringing -him into the presence of his royal master only made his mortification -more poignant. His personal suit to the King was quite as ineffective as -his letters had been. The sovereign was outwardly beneficent, and -inwardly uncompliant. The Admiral's recitals respecting his last voyage, -both of promised wealth and of saddened toil, made little impression. -Las Casas suspects that the insinuations of Porras had preoccupied the -royal mind. To rid himself of the importunities of Columbus, the King -proposed an arbiter, and readily consented to the choice which Columbus -made of his old friend Deza, now Archbishop of Seville; but Columbus was -too immovably fixed upon his own rights to consent that more than the -question of revenue should be considered by such an arbiter. His -recorded privileges and the pledged word of the sovereign were not -matters to be reconsidered. Such was not, however, the opinion of the -King. He evaded the point in his talk with bland countenance, and did -nothing in his acts beyond referring the question anew to a body of -counselors convened to determine the fulfillment of the Queen's will. -They did nothing quite as easily as the King. Las Casas tells us that -the King was only restrained by motives of outward decency from a -public rejection of all the binding obligations towards the Admiral into -which he had entered jointly with the Queen. - -[Sidenote: 1505. August 25. His will.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus pleads for his son.] - -[Sidenote: Rejects offers of estates.] - -Columbus found in all this nothing to comfort a sick and desponding man, -and sank in despair upon his couch. He roused enough to have a will -drafted August 25, which confirmed a testament made in 1502, before -starting on his last voyage. His disease renewed its attacks. An old -wound had reopened. From a bed of pain he began again his written -appeals. He now gave up all hopes for himself, but he pleaded for his -son, that upon him the honors which he himself had so laboriously won -should be bestowed. Diego at the same time, in seconding the petition, -promised, if the reinstatement took place, that he would count those -among his counselors whom the royal will should designate. Nothing of -protest or appeal came opportunely to the determined King. "The more he -was petitioned," says Las Casas, "the more bland he was in avoiding any -conclusion." He hoped by exhausting the patience of the Admiral to -induce him to accept some estates in Castile in lieu of such powers in -the Indies. Columbus rejected all such intimations with indignation. He -would have nothing but his bonded rights. "I have done all that I can -do," he said in a pitiful, despairing letter to Deza. "I must leave the -issue to God. He has always sustained me in extremities." - -"It argued," says Prescott, in commenting on this, "less knowledge of -character than the King usually showed, that he should have thought the -man who had broken off all negotiations on the threshold of a dubious -enterprise, rather than abate one tittle of his demands, would consent -to such abatement, when the success of that enterprise was so gloriously -established." - -[Sidenote: Columbus at Salamanca.] - -[Sidenote: Mendez and Columbus.] - -The Admiral was, during this part of his suit, apparently at Salamanca, -for Mendez speaks of him as being there confined to his bed with the -gout, while he himself was doing all he could to press his master's -claims to have Diego recognized in his rights. In return for this -service, Mendez asked to be appointed principal Alguazil of Española for -life, and he says the Admiral acknowledged that such an appointment -was but a trifling remuneration for his great services, but the requital -never came. - -[Sidenote: Columbus unable to leave Valladolid to greet Philip and -Juana.] - -There broke a glimmer of hope. The death of the Queen had left the -throne of Castile to her daughter Juana, the wife of Philip of Austria, -and they had arrived from Flanders to be installed in their inheritance. -Columbus, who had followed the Court from Segovia to Salamanca, thence -to Valladolid, was now unable to move further in his decrepitude, and -sent the Adelantado to propitiate the daughter of Isabella, with the -trust that something of her mother's sympathy might be vouchsafed to his -entreaties. Bartholomew never saw his brother again, and was not -privileged to communicate to him the gracious hopes which the benignity -of his reception raised. - -[Sidenote: Negroes sent to Española.] - -A year had passed since the Admiral had come to the neighborhood of the -Court, wherever it was, and nothing had been accomplished in respect to -his personal interests. Indeed, little touching the Indies at all seems -to have been done. There had been trial made of sending negro slaves to -Española as indicating that the native bondage needed reinforcement; but -Ovando had reported that the experiment was a failure, since the negroes -only mixed with the Indians and taught them bad habits. Ferdinando cared -little for this, and at Segovia, September 15, 1505, he notified Ovando -that he should send some more negroes. Whether Columbus was aware of -this change in the methods of extracting gold from the soil we cannot -find. - -[Sidenote: 1506. May 4. Codicil to his will.] - -As soon as Bartholomew had started on his mission the malady of Columbus -increased. He became conscious that the time had come to make his final -dispositions. It was on May 4, 1506, according to the common story, that -he signed a codicil to his will on a blank page in a breviary which had -been given to him, as he says, by Alexander VI., and which had -"comforted him in his battles, his captivities, and his misfortunes." -This document has been accepted by some of the commentators as genuine; -Harrisse and others are convinced of its apocryphal character. It was -not found till 1779. It is a strange document, if authentic. - -[Sidenote: Thought to be spurious.] - -Itholds that such dignities as were his under the Spanish Crown, -acknowledged or not, were his of right to alienate from the Spanish -throne. It was, if anything, a mere act of bravado, as if to flout at -the authority which could dare deprive him of his possessions. He -provides for the descent of his honors in the male line, and that -failing, he bequeaths them to the republic of Genoa! It was a gauge of -hostile demands on Spain which no one but a madman would imagine that -Genoa would accept if she could. He bestowed on his native city, in the -same reckless way, the means to erect a hospital, and designated that -such resources should come from his Italian estates, whatever they were. -Certainly the easiest way to dispose of the paper is to consider it a -fraud. If such, it was devised by some one who entered into the spirit -of the Admiral's madness, and made the most of rumors that had been -afloat respecting Columbus's purposes to benefit Genoa at the expense of -Spain. - -[Sidenote: 1506. May 19. Ratified his will.] - -About a fortnight later (May 19), he ratified an undoubted will, which -had been drafted by his own hand the year before at Segovia, and -executed it with the customary formalities. Its testamentary provisions -were not unnatural. He made Diego his heir, and his entailed property -was, in default of heirs to Diego, to pass to his illegitimate son -Ferdinand, and from him, in like default, to his own brother, the -Adelantado, and his male descendants; and all such failing, to the -female lines in a similar succession. He enjoined upon his -representatives, of whatever generation, to serve the Spanish King with -fidelity. Upon Diego, and upon later heads of the family, he imposed the -duty of relieving all distressed relatives and others in poverty. He -imposed on his lawful son the appointment of some one of his lineage to -live constantly in Genoa, to maintain the family dignity. He directed -him to grant due allowances to his brother and uncle; and when the -estates yielded the means, to erect a chapel in the Vega of Española, -where masses might be said daily for the repose of the souls of himself -and of his nearest relatives. He made the furthering of the crusade to -recover the Holy Sepulchre equally contingent upon the increase of his -income. He also directed Diego to provide for the maintenance of Donna -Beatrix Enriquez, the mother of Ferdinand, as "a person to whom I am -under great obligations," and "let this be done for the discharge of my -conscience, for it weighs heavy on my soul,--the reasons for which I -am not here permitted to give;" and this was a behest that Diego, in his -own will, acknowledges his failure to observe during the last years of -the lady's life. Then, in a codicil, Columbus enumerates sundry little -bequests to other persons to whom he was indebted, and whose kindness he -wished to remember. He was honest enough to add that his bequests were -imaginary unless his rights were acknowledged. "Hitherto I neither have -had, nor have I now, any positive income." He failed to express any wish -respecting the spot of his interment. The documents were committed at -once to a notary, from whose archives a copy was obtained in 1524 by his -son Diego, and this copy exists to-day among the family papers in the -hands of the Duke of Veragua. - -[Sidenote: 1506. May 20. Columbus dies.] - -This making of a will was almost his last act. On the next day he -partook of the sacrament, and uttering, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I -commit my spirit," he gasped his last. It was on the 20th of May, -1506,--by some circumstances we might rather say May 21,--in the city of -Valladolid, that this singular, hopeful, despondent, melancholy life -came to its end. He died at the house No. 7 Calle de Colon, which is -still shown to travelers. - -[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE COLUMBUS DIED. - -[From Ruge's _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_.]] - -[Sidenote: His death unnoticed.] - -There was a small circle of relatives and friends who mourned. The tale -of his departure came like a sough of wind to a few others, who had seen -no way to alleviate a misery that merited their sympathy. The King could -have but found it a relief from the indiscretion of his early promises. -The world at large thought no more of the mournful procession which bore -that wayworn body to the grave than it did of any poor creature -journeying on his bier to the potter's field. - -It is hard to conceive how the fame of a man over whose acts in 1493 -learned men cried for joy, and by whose deeds the adventurous spirit had -been stirred in every seaport of western Europe, should have so -completely passed into oblivion that a professed chronicler like Peter -Martyr, busy tattler as he was, should take no notice of his illness and -death. There have come down to us five long letters full of news and -gossip, which Martyr wrote from Valladolid at this very time, with not a -word in them of the man he had so often commemorated. Fracanzio da -Montalboddo, publishing in 1507 some correction of his early voyages, -had not heard of Columbus's death; nor had Madrignano in dating his -Latin rendering of the same book in 1508. It was not till twenty-seven -days after the death-bed scene that the briefest notice was made in -passing, in an official document of the town, to the effect that "the -said Admiral is dead!" - -[Sidenote: His burial.] - -[Sidenote: His coffin carried to Seville.] - -It is not even certain where the body was first placed, though it is -usually affirmed to have been deposited in the Franciscan convent in -Valladolid. Nor is there any evidence to support another equally -prevalent story that King Ferdinand had ordered the removal of the -remains to Seville seven years later, when a monument was built bearing -the often-quoted distich,-- - - À CASTILLA Y À LEON - NUEVO MUNDO DIÓ COLON,-- - -it being pretty evident that such an inscription was never thought of -till Castellanos suggested it in his _Elegias_ in 1588. If Diego's will -in 1509 can be interpreted on this matter, it seems pretty sure that -within three years (1509) after the death of Columbus, instead of seven, -his coffin had been conveyed to Seville and placed inside the convent of -Las Cuevas, in the vault of the Carthusians, where the bodies of his -son Diego and brother Bartholomew were in due time to rest beside his -own. Here the remains were undisturbed till 1536, when the records of -the convent affirm that they were given up for transportation, though -the royal order is given as of June 2, 1537. From that date till 1549 -there is room for conjecture as to their abiding-place. - -[Sidenote: 1541. Removed to Santo Domingo.] - -[Sidenote: Remains removed to Havana.] - -It was during this interval that his family were seeking to carry out -what was supposed to be the wish of the Admiral to rest finally in the -island of Española. From 1537 to 1540 the government are known to have -issued three different orders respecting the removal of the remains, and -it is conjectured the transference was actually made in 1541, shortly -after the completion of the cathedral at Santo Domingo. If any record -was made at the time to designate the spot of the reëntombment in that -edifice, it is not now known, and it was not till 1676 that somebody -placed an entry in its records that the burial had been made on the -right of the altar. A few years later (1683), the recollections of aged -people are quoted to substantiate such a statement. We find no other -notice till a century afterwards, when, on the occasion of some repairs, -a stone vault, supposed in the traditions to be that which held the -remains, was found on "the gospel side" of the chancel, while another on -"the epistle side" was thought to contain the remains of Bartholomew -Columbus. This was the suspected situation of the graves when the treaty -of Basle, in 1795, gave the Santo Domingo end of the island to France, -and the Spanish authorities, acting in concert with the Duke of Veragua, -as the representative of the family of Columbus, determined on the -removal of the remains to Havana. It is a question which has been raised -since 1877 whether the body of Columbus was the one then removed, and -over which so much parade was made during the transportation and -reinterment in Cuba. There has been a controversy on the point, in which -the Bishop of Santo Domingo and his adherents have claimed that the -remains of Columbus are still in their charge, while it was those of his -son Diego which had been removed. The Academy of History at Madrid have -denied this, and in a long report to the Spanish government have -asserted that there was no mistake in the transfer, and that the -additional casket found was that of Christopher Colon, the grandson. - -[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AT SANTO DOMINGO.] - -[Sidenote: Question of the identity of his remains.] - -It was represented, moreover, that those features of the inscription on -the lately found leaden box which seemed to indicate it as the casket of -the first Admiral of the Indies had been fraudulently added or altered. -The question has probably been thrown into the category of doubt, though -the case as presented in favor of Santo Domingo has some recognizably -weak points, which the advocates of the other side have made the most -of, and to the satisfaction perhaps of the more careful inquirers. The -controversial literature on the subject is considerable. The repairs of -1877 in the Santo Domingo cathedral revealed the empty vault from which -the transported body had been taken; but they showed also the occupied -vault of the grandson Luis, and another in which was a leaden case which -bore the inscriptions which are in dispute. - -[Sidenote: Alleged burial of his chains with him.] - -It is the statement of the _Historie_ that Columbus preserved the chains -in which he had come home from his third voyage, and that he had them -buried with him, or intended to do so. The story is often repeated, but -it has no other authority than the somewhat dubious one of that book; -and it finds no confirmation in Las Casas, Peter Martyr, Bernaldez, or -Oviedo. - -Humboldt says that he made futile inquiry of those who had assisted in -the reinterment at Havana, if there were any trace of these fetters or -of oxide of iron in the coffin. In the accounts of the recent discovery -of remains at Santo Domingo, it is said that there was equally no trace -of fetters in the casket. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The age of Columbus.] - -The age of Columbus is almost without a parallel, presenting perhaps the -most striking appearances since the star shone upon Bethlehem. It saw -Martin Luther burn the Pope's bull, and assert a new kind of -independence. It added Erasmus to the broadeners of life. Ancient art -was revivified in the discovery of its most significant remains. Modern -art stood confessed in Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Titian, Raphael, -Holbein, and Dürer. Copernicus found in the skies a wonderful -development without great telescopic help. The route of the Portuguese -by the African cape and the voyage of Columbus opened new worlds to -thought and commerce. They made the earth seem to man, north and south, -east and west, as man never before had imagined it. It looked as if -mercantile endeavor was to be constrained by no bounds. Articles of -trade were multiplied amazingly. Every movement was not only new and -broad, but it was rapid beyond conception. It was more like the -remodeling of Japan, which we have seen in our day, than anything that -had been earlier known. - -[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS AT SANTO DOMINGO.] - -The long sway of the Moors was disintegrating. The Arab domination in -science and seamanship was yielding to the Western genius. The Turks had -in the boyhood (1453) of Columbus consummated their last great triumph -in the capture of Constantinople, thus placing a barrier to Christian -commerce with the East. This conquest drove out the learned Christians -of the East, who had drunk of the Arab erudition, and they fled with -their stores of learning to the western lands, coming back to the heirs -of the Romans with the spirit which Rome in the past had sent to the -East. - -But what Christian Europe was losing in the East Portugal and Prince -Henry were gaining for her in the great and forbidding western waste of -waters and along its African shores. As the hot tide of Mahometan -invasion rolled over the Bosphorus, the burning equatorial zone was -pierced from the north along the coasts of the Black Continent. - -[Sidenote: Italian discoverers.] - -[Sidenote: His growing belief in the western passage.] - -Italy, seeing her maritime power drop away as the naval supremacy of the -Atlantic seaboard rose, was forced to send her experienced navigators to -the oceanic ports, to maintain the supremacy of her name and genius in -Cadamosto, Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, and Verrazano. Those -cosmographical views which had come down the ages, at times obscured, -then for a while patent, and of which the traces had lurked in the minds -of learned men by an almost continuous sequence for many centuries, at -last possessed by inheritance the mind of Columbus. By reading, by -conference with others, by noting phenomena, and by reasoning, in the -light of all these, upon the problem of a western passage to India, -obvious as it was if once the sphericity of the earth be acknowledged, -he gradually grew to be confident in himself and trustful in his agency -with others. He was far from being alone in his beliefs, nor was his age -anything more than a reflection of long periods of like belief. - -[Sidenote: Deficiencies of character.] - -There was simply needed a man with courage and constancy in his -convictions, so that the theory could be demonstrated. This age produced -him. Enthusiasm and the contagion of palpable though shadowy truths gave -Columbus, after much tribulation, the countenance in high quarters that -enabled him to reach success, deceptive though it was. It would have -been well for his memory if he had died when his master work was done. -With his great aim certified by its results, though they were far from -being what he thought, he was unfortunately left in the end to be laid -bare on trial, a common mortal after all, the creature of buffeting -circumstances, and a weakling in every element of command. His -imagination had availed him in his upward course when a serene habit in -his waiting days could obscure his defects. Later, the problems he -encountered were those that required an eye to command, with tact to -persuade and skill to coerce, and he had none of them. - -[Sidenote: Roger Bacon and Columbus.] - -[Sidenote: Pierre d'Ailly's _Imago Mundi_.] - -The man who becomes the conspicuous developer of any great -world-movement is usually the embodiment of the ripened aspirations of -his time. Such was Columbus. It is the forerunner, the man who has -little countenance in his age, who points the way for some hazardous -after-soul to pursue. Such was Roger Bacon, the English Franciscan. It -was Bacon's lot to direct into proper channels the new surging of the -experimental sciences which was induced by the revived study of -Aristotle, and was carrying dismay into the strongholds of Platonism. -Standing out from the background of Arab regenerating learning, the name -of Roger Bacon, linked often with that of Albertus Magnus, stood for the -best knowledge and insight of the thirteenth century. Bacon it was who -gave that tendency to thought which, seized by Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, -and incorporated by him in his _Imago Mundi_ (1410), became the link -between Bacon and Columbus. Humboldt has indeed expressed his belief -that this encyclopædic Survey of the World exercised a more important -influence upon the discovery of America than even the prompting which -Columbus got from his correspondence with Toscanelli. How well Columbus -pored over the pages of the _Imago Mundi_ we know from the annotations -of his own copy, which is still preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina. -It seems likely that Columbus got directly from this book most that he -knew of those passages in Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca which speak of -the Asiatic shores as lying opposite to Hispania. There is some evidence -that this book was his companion even on his voyages, and Humboldt -points out how he translates a passage from it, word for word, when in -1498 he embodied it in a letter which he wrote to his sovereigns from -Española. - -[Sidenote: His acquaintance with the elder writers.] - -If we take the pains, as Humboldt did, to examine the writings of -Columbus, to ascertain the sources which he cited, we find what appears -to be a broad acquaintance with books. It is to be remembered, however, -that the Admiral quoted usually at second hand, and that he got his -acquaintance with classic authors, at least, mainly through this _Imago -Mundi_ of Pierre d'Ailly. Humboldt, in making his list of Columbus's -authors, omits the references to the Scriptures and to the Church -fathers, "in whom," as he says, "Columbus was singularly versed," and -then gives the following catalogue:-- - -Aristotle; Julius Cæsar; Strabo; Seneca; Pliny; Ptolemy; Solinus; Julius -Capitolinus; Alfrazano; Avenruyz; Rabbi Samuel de Israel; Isidore, -Bishop of Seville; the Venerable Bede; Strabus, Abbé of Reichenau; Duns -Scotus; François Mayronis; Abbé Joachim de Calabre; Sacrobosco, being in -fact the English mathematician Holywood; Nicholas de Lyra, the Norman -Franciscan; King Alfonso the Wise, and his Moorish scribes; Cardinal -Pierre d'Ailly; Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris; Pope Pius -II., otherwise known as Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini; Regiomontanus, as the -Latinized name of Johann Müller of Königsberg is given, though Columbus -does not really name him; Paolo Toscanelli, the Florentine physician; -and Nicolas de Conti, of whom he had heard through Toscanelli, perhaps. - -Humboldt can find no evidence that Columbus had read the travels of -Marco Polo, and does not discover why Navarrete holds that he had, -though Polo's stories must have permeated much that Columbus read; nor -does he understand why Irving says that Columbus took Marco Polo's book -on his first voyage. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Toscanelli.] - -We see often in the world's history a simultaneousness in the -regeneration of thought. Here and there a seer works on in ignorance of -some obscure brother elsewhere. Rumor and circulating manuscripts bring -them into sympathy. They grow by the correlation. It is just this -correspondence that confronts us in Columbus and Toscanelli, and it is -not quite, but almost, perceptible that this wise Florentine doctor was -the first, despite Humboldt's theory, to plant in the mind of Columbus -his aspirations for the truths of geography. It is meet that Columbus -should not be mentioned without the accompanying name of Toscanelli. It -was the Genoese's different fortune that he could attempt as a seaman a -practical demonstration of his fellow Italian's views. - -Many a twin movement of the world's groping spirit thus seeks the light. -Progress naturally pushes on parallel lines. Commerce thrusts her -intercourse to remotest regions, while the Church yearns for new souls -to convert, and peers longingly into the dim spaces that skirt the -world's geography. Navigators improve their methods, and learned men in -the arts supply them with exacter instruments. The widespread -manifestations of all this new life at last crystallize, and Gama and -Columbus appear, the reflex of every development. - -[Sidenote: Opportuneness of his discoveries.] - -Thus the discovery of Columbus came in the ripeness of time. No one of -the anterior accidents, suggesting a western land, granting that there -was some measure of fact in all of them, had come to a world prepared to -think on their developments. Vinland was practically forgotten, wherever -it may have been. The tales of Fousang had never a listener in Europe. -Madoc was as unknown as Elidacthon. While the new Indies were not in -their turn to be forgotten, their discoverer was to bury himself in a -world of conjecture. The superlatives of Columbus soon spent their -influence. The pioneer was lost sight of in the new currents of thought -which he had started. Not of least interest among them was the -cognizance of new races of men, and new revelations in the animal and -physical kingdoms, while the question of their origins pressed very soon -on the theological and scientific sense of the age. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Not above his age.] - -[Sidenote: Claims for palliation.] - -No man craves more than Columbus to be judged with all the palliations -demanded of a difference of his own age and ours. No child of any age -ever did less to improve his contemporaries, and few ever did more to -prepare the way for such improvements. The age created him and the age -left him. There is no more conspicuous example in history of a man -showing the path and losing it. - -It is by no means sure, with all our boast of benevolent progress, that -atrocities not much short of those which we ascribe to Columbus and his -compeers may not at any time disgrace the coming as they have blackened -the past years of the nineteenth century. This fact gives us the right -to judge the infirmities of man in any age from the high vantage-ground -of the best emotions of all the centuries. In the application of such -perennial justice Columbus must inevitably suffer. The degradation of -the times ceases to be an excuse when the man to be judged stands on the -pinnacle of the ages. The biographer cannot forget, indeed, that -Columbus is a portrait set in the surroundings of his times; but it is -equally his duty at the same time to judge the paths which he trod by -the scale of an eternal nobleness. - -[Sidenote: Test of his character.] - -[Sidenote: Not a creator of ideas.] - -The very domination of this man in the history of two hemispheres -warrants us in estimating him by an austere sense of occasions lost and -of opportunities embraced. The really great man is superior to his age, -and anticipates its future; not as a sudden apparition, but as the -embodiment of a long growth of ideas of which he is the inheritor and -the capable exemplar. Humboldt makes this personal domination of two -kinds. The one comes from the direct influence of character; the other -from the creation of an idea, which, freed from personality, works its -controlling mission by changing the face of things. It is of this last -description that Humboldt makes the domination of Columbus. It is -extremely doubtful if any instance can be found of a great idea changing -the world's history, which has been created by any single man. None such -was created by Columbus. There are always forerunners whose agency is -postponed because the times are not propitious. A masterful thought has -often a long pedigree, starting from a remote antiquity, but it will be -dormant till it is environed by the circumstances suited to fructify it. -This was just the destiny of the intuition which began with Aristotle -and came down to Columbus. To make his first voyage partook of -foolhardiness, as many a looker-on reasonably declared. It was none the -less foolhardy when it was done. If he had reached the opulent and -powerful kings of the Orient, his little cockboats and their brave souls -might have fared hard for their intrusion. His blunder in geography very -likely saved him from annihilation. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: His character differently drawn.] - -[Sidenote: Prescott.] - -[Sidenote: Irving.] - -The character of Columbus has been variously drawn, almost always with a -violent projection of the limner's own personality. We find Prescott -contending that "whatever the defects of Columbus's mental constitution, -the finger of the historian will find it difficult to point to a single -blemish in his moral character." It is certainly difficult to point to a -more flagrant disregard of truth than when we find Prescott further -saying, "Whether we contemplate his character in its public or private -relations, in all its features it wears the same noble aspects. It was -in perfect harmony with the grandeur of his plans, and with results more -stupendous than those which Heaven has permitted any other mortal to -achieve." It is very striking to find Prescott, after thus speaking of -his private as well as public character, and forgetting the remorse of -Columbus for the social wrongs he had committed, append in a footnote to -this very passage a reference to his "illegitimate" son. It seems to -mark an obdurate purpose to disguise the truth. This is also nowhere -more patent than in the palliating hero-worship of Irving, with his -constant effort to save a world's exemplar for the world's admiration, -and more for the world's sake than for Columbus's. - -Irving at one time berates the biographer who lets "pernicious -erudition" destroy a world's exemplar; and at another time he does not -know that he is criticising himself when he says that "he who paints a -great man merely in great and heroic traits, though he may produce a -fine picture, will never present a faithful portrait." The commendation -which he bestows upon Herrera is for precisely what militates against -the highest aims of history, since he praises that Spanish historian's -disregard of judicial fairness. - -In the being which Irving makes stand for the historic Columbus, his -skill in softened expression induced Humboldt to suppose that Irving's -avoidance of exaggeration gave a force to his eulogy, but there was -little need to exaggerate merits, if defects were blurred. - -[Sidenote: Humboldt.] - -The learned German adds, in the opening of the third volume of his -_Examen Critique_, his own sense of the impressiveness of Columbus. That -impressiveness stands confessed; but it is like a gyrating storm that -knows no law but the vagrancy of destruction. - -One need not look long to discover the secret of Humboldt's estimate of -Columbus. Without having that grasp of the picturesque which appeals so -effectively to the popular mind in the letters of Vespucius, the Admiral -was certainly not destitute of keen observation of nature, but -unfortunately this quality was not infrequently prostituted to ignoble -purposes. To a student of Humboldt's proclivities, these traits of -observation touched closely his sympathy. He speaks in his _Cosmos_ of -the development of this exact scrutiny in manifold directions, -notwithstanding Columbus's previous ignorance of natural history, and -tells us that this capacity for noting natural phenomena arose from his -contact with such. It would have been better for the fame of Columbus if -he had kept this scientific survey in its purity. It was simply, for -instance, a vitiated desire to astound that made him mingle theological -and physical theories about the land of Paradise. Such jugglery was -promptly weighed in Spain and Italy by Peter Martyr and others as the -wild, disjointed effusions of an overwrought mind, and "the reflex of a -false erudition," as Humboldt expresses it. It was palpably by another -effort, of a like kind, that he seized upon the views of the fathers of -the Church that the earthly Paradise lay in the extreme Orient, and he -was quite as audacious when he exacted the oath on the Cuban coast, to -make it appear by it that he had really reached the outermost parts of -Asia. - -[Sidenote: Observations of nature.] - -Humboldt seeks to explain this errant habit by calling it "the sudden -movement of his ardent and passionate soul; the disarrangement of ideas -which were the effect of an incoherent method and of the extreme -rapidity of his reading; while all was increased by his misfortunes and -religious mysticism." Such an explanation hardly relieves the subject of -it from blunter imputations. This urgency for some responsive wonderment -at every experience appears constantly in the journal of Columbus's -first voyage, as, for instance, when he makes every harbor exceed in -beauty the last he had seen. This was the commonplace exaggeration -which in our day is confined to the calls of speculating land companies. -The fact was that Humboldt transferred to his hero something of the -superlative love of nature that he himself had experienced in the same -regions; but there was all the difference between him and Columbus that -there is between a genuine love of nature and a commercial use of it. -Whenever Columbus could divert his mind from a purpose to make the -Indies a paying investment, we find some signs of an insight that shows -either observation of his own or the garnering of it from others, as, -for example, when he remarks on the decrease of rain in the Canaries and -the Azores which followed upon the felling of trees, and when he -conjectures that the elongated shape of the islands of the Antilles on -the lines of the parallels was due to the strength of the equatorial -current. - -[Sidenote: Roselly de Lorgues and his school.] - -[Sidenote: Harrisse.] - -Since Irving, Prescott, and Humboldt did their work, there has sprung up -the unreasoning and ecstatic French school under the lead of Roselly de -Lorgues, who seek to ascribe to Columbus all the virtues of a saint. -"Columbus had no defect of character and no worldly quality," they say. -The antiquarian and searching spirit of Harrisse, and of those writers -who have mainly been led into the closest study of the events of the -life of Columbus, has not done so much to mould opinion as regards the -estimate in which the Admiral should be held as to eliminate confusing -statements and put in order corroborating facts. The reaction from the -laudation of the canonizers has not produced any writer of consideration -to array such derogatory estimates as effectually as a plain recital of -established facts would do it. Hubert Bancroft, in the incidental -mention which he makes of Columbus, has touched his character not -inaptly, and with a consistent recognition of its infirmities. Even -Prescott, who verges constantly on the ecstatic elements of the -adulatory biographer, is forced to entertain at times "a suspicion of a -temporary alienation of mind," and in regard to the letter which -Columbus wrote from Jamaica to the sovereigns, is obliged to recognize -"sober narrative and sound reasoning strangely blended with crazy dreams -and doleful lamentations." - -[Sidenote: Aaron Goodrich.] - -"Vagaries like these," he adds, "which came occasionally like clouds -over his soul to shut out the light of reason, cannot fail to fill the -mind of the reader, as they doubtless did those of the sovereigns, with -mingled sentiments of wonder and compassion." An unstinted denunciatory -purpose, much weakened by an inconsiderate rush of disdain, -characterizes an American writer, Aaron Goodrich, in his _Life of the -so-called Christopher Columbus_ (New York, 1875); but the critic's -temper is too peevish and his opinions are too unreservedly biased to -make his results of any value. - -[Sidenote: Humboldt.] - -The mental hallucinations of Columbus, so patent in his last years, were -not beyond recognition at a much earlier age, and those who would get -the true import of his character must trace these sorrowful -manifestations to their beginnings, and distinguish accurately between -Columbus when his purpose was lofty and unselfish and himself again when -he became mercenary and erratic. So much does the verdict of history -lodge occasionally more in the narrator of events than in the character -of them that, in Humboldt's balancing of the baser with the nobler -symptoms of Columbus's nature, he does not find even the most degraded -of his actions other than powerful in will, and sometimes, at least, -clear in intelligence. There were certainly curiously transparent, but -transient gleams of wisdom to the last. Humboldt further says that the -faith of Columbus soothed his dreary and weary adversities by the charm -of ascetic reveries. So a handsome euphuism tries to save his fame from -harsher epithets. - -It was a faith, says the same delineator, which justified at need, under -the pretext of a religious object, the employment of deceit and the -excess of a despotic power; a tenderer form, doubtless, of the vulgar -expression that the end sanctifies the means. It is not, however, within -the practice of the better historical criticism of our day to let such -elegant wariness beguile the reader's mind. If the different, not to say -more advanced, condition of the critical mind is to be of avail to a new -age through the advantage gained from all the ages, it is in precisely -this emancipation from the trammels of traditionary bondage that the -historian asserts his own, and dispels the glamour of a conventionalized -hero-worship. - -[Sidenote: Dr. J. G. Shea.] - -Dr. Shea, our most distinguished Catholic scholar, who has dealt with -the character of Columbus, says: "He accomplished less than some -adventurers with poor equipped vessels. He seems to have succeeded in -attaching but few men to him who adhered loyally to his cause. Those -under him were constantly rebellious and mutinous; those over him found -him impracticable. To array all these as enemies, inspired by a satanic -hostility to a great servant of God, is to ask too much for our belief;" -and yet this is precisely what Irving by constant modifications, and De -Lorgues in a monstrous degree, feel themselves justified in doing. - -[Sidenote: The French canonizers.] - -There is nothing in Columbus's career that these French canonizers do -not find convertible to their purpose, whether it be his wild vow to -raise 4,000 horse and 50,000 foot in seven years, wherewith to snatch -the Holy Sepulchre from the infidel, or the most commonplace of his -canting ejaculations. That Columbus was a devout Catholic, according to -the Catholicism of his epoch, does not admit of question, but when tried -by any test that finds the perennial in holy acts, Columbus fails to -bear the examination. He had nothing of the generous and noble spirit of -a conjoint lover of man and of God, as the higher spirits of all times -have developed it. There was no all-loving Deity in his conception. His -Lord was one in whose name it was convenient to practice enormities. He -shared this subterfuge with Isabella and the rest. We need to think on -what Las Casas could be among his contemporaries, if we hesitate to -apply the conceptions of an everlasting humanity. - -[Sidenote: Converts and slaves.] - -The mines which Columbus went to seek were hard to find. The people he -went to save to Christ were easy to exterminate. He mourned bitterly -that his own efforts were ill requited. He had no pity for the misery of -others, except they be his dependents and co-sharers of his purposes. He -found a policy worth commemorating in slitting the noses and tearing off -the ears of a naked heathen. He vindicates his excess by impressing upon -the world that a man setting out to conquer the Indies must not be -judged by the amenities of life which belong to a quiet rule in -established countries. Yet, with a chance to establish a humane life -among peoples ready to be moulded to good purposes, he sought from the -very first to organize among them the inherited evils of "established -countries." He talked a great deal about making converts of the poor -souls, while the very first sight which he had of them prompted him to -consign them to the slave-mart, just as if the first step to -Christianize was the step which unmans. - -The first vicar apostolic sent to teach the faith in Santo Domingo -returned to Spain, no longer able to remain, powerless, in sight of the -cruelties practiced by Columbus. Isabella prevented the selling of the -natives as slaves in Spain, when Columbus had dispatched thither five -shiploads. Las Casas tells us that in 1494-96 Columbus was generally -hated in Española for his odiousness and injustice, and that the -Admiral's policy with the natives killed a third of them in those two -years. The Franciscans, when they arrived at the island, found the -colonists exuberant that they had been relieved of the rule which -Columbus had instituted; and the Benedictines and Dominicans added their -testimony to the same effect. - -[Sidenote: He urges enslaving the natives from the first.] - -The very first words, as has been said, that he used, in conveying to -expectant Europe the wonders of his discovery, suggested a scheme of -enslaving the strange people. He had already made the voyage that of a -kidnapper, by entrapping nine of the unsuspecting natives. - -On his second voyage he sent home a vessel-load of slaves, on the -pretense of converting them, but his sovereigns intimated to him that it -would cost less to convert them in their own homes. Then he thought of -the righteous alternative of sending some to Spain to be sold to buy -provisions to support those who would convert others in their homes. The -monarchs were perhaps dazed at this sophistry; and Columbus again sent -home four vessels laden with reeking cargoes of flesh. When he returned -to Spain, in 1496, to circumvent his enemies, he once more sought in his -turn, and by his reasoning, to cheat the devil of heathen souls by -sending other cargoes. At last the line was drawn. It was not to save -their souls, but to punish them for daring to war against the Spaniards, -that they should be made to endure such horrors. - -It is to Columbus, also, that we trace the beginning of that monstrous -guilt which Spanish law sanctioned under the name of _repartimientos_, -and by which to every colonist, and even to the vilest, absolute power -was given over as many natives as his means and rank entitled him to -hold. Las Casas tells us that Ferdinand could hardly have had a -conception of the enormities of the system. If so, it was because he -winked out of sight the testimony of observers, while he listened to -the tales prompted of greed, rapine, and cruelty. The value of the -system to force heathen out of hell, and at the same time to replenish -his treasury, was the side of it presented to Ferdinand's mind by such -as had access to his person. In 1501, we find the Dominicans entering -their protest, and by this Ferdinand was moved to take the counsel of -men learned in the law and in what passed in those days for Christian -ethics. This court of appeal approved these necessary efforts, as was -claimed, to increase those who were new to the faith, and to reward -those who supported it. - -Peter Martyr expressed the comforting sentiments of the age: "National -right and that of the Church concede personal liberty to man. State -policy, however, demurs. Custom repels the idea. Long experience shows -that slavery is necessary to prevent those returning to their idolatry -and error whom the Church has once gained." All professed servants of -the Church, with a few exceptions like Las Casas, ranged themselves with -Columbus on the side of such specious thoughts; and Las Casas, in -recognizing this fact, asks what we could expect of an old sailor and -fighter like Columbus, when the wisest and most respectable of the -priesthood backed him in his views. It was indeed the misery of Columbus -to miss the opportunity of being wiser than his fellows, the occasion -always sought by a commanding spirit, and it was offered to him almost -as to no other. - -[Sidenote: Progress of slavery in the West Indies.] - -There was no restraining the evil. The cupidity of the colonists -overcame all obstacles. The Queen was beguiled into giving equivocal -instructions to Ovando, who succeeded to Bobadilla, and out of them by -interpretation grew an increase of the monstrous evil. In 1503, every -atrocity had reached a legal recognition. Labor was forced; the slaves -were carried whither the colonists willed; and for eight months at least -in every year, families were at pleasure disrupted without mercy. One -feels some satisfaction in seeing Columbus himself at last, in a letter -to Diego, December 1, 1504, shudder at the atrocities of Ovando. When -one sees the utter annihilation of the whole race of the Antilles, a -thing clearly assured at the date of the death of Columbus, one wishes -that that dismal death-bed in Valladolid could have had its gloom -illumined by a consciousness that the hand which lifted the banner of -Spain and of Christ at San Salvador had done something to stay the -misery which cupidity and perverted piety had put in course. When a man -seeks to find and parades reasons for committing a crime, it is to -stifle his conscience. Columbus passed years in doing it. - -[Sidenote: Talavera.] - -[Sidenote: The Franciscans.] - -Back of Isabella in this spasmodic interest in the Indians was the -celebrated Archbishop of Granada, Fernando de Talavera, whom we have -earlier known as the prior of Prado. He had been since 1478 the -confessor of the Queen, and when the time came for sending missionaries -to the Antilles it was natural that they were of the order of St. -Jerome, of which Talavera was himself a member. Columbus, through a -policy which induced him to make as apparent as possible his mingling of -interests with the Church, had before this adopted the garb of the -Franciscans, and this order was the second in time to be seen in -Española in 1502. They were the least tolerant of the leading orders, -and had already shown a disposition to harass the Indians, and were -known to treat haughtily the Queen's intercessions for the poor souls. -It was not till after the death of Columbus that the Dominicans, coming -in 1510, reinforced the kindly spirit of the priests of St. Jerome. -Still later they too abandoned their humanity. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Columbus's mercenary impulses.] - -[Sidenote: His praise of gold.] - -The downfall of Columbus began when he wrested from the reluctant -monarchs what he called his privileges, and when he insisted upon riches -as the accompaniment of such state and consequence as those privileges -might entail. The terms were granted, so far as the King was concerned, -simply to put a stop to importunities, for he never anticipated being -called upon to confirm them. The insistency of Columbus in this respect -is in strange contrast to the satisfaction which the captains of Prince -Henry, Da Gama and the rest, were content to find in the unpolluted -triumphs of science. The mercenary Columbus was forced to the utterance -of Solomon: "I looked upon the labor that I had labored to do, and -behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit." The Preacher never had a -better example. Columbus was wont to say that gold gave the soul its -flight to paradise. Perhaps he referred to the masses which could be -bought, or to the alms which could propitiate Heaven. He might better -have remembered the words of warning given to Baruch: "Seekest thou -great things for thyself? Seek them not. For, saith the Lord, thy life -will I give unto them for a prey in all places whither thou goest." And -a prey in all places he became. - -Humboldt seeks to palliate this cupidity by making him the conscious -inheritor of the pecuniary chances which every free son of Genoa -expected to find within his grasp by commercial enterprise. Such -prominence was sought because it carried with it power and influence in -the republic. - -If Columbus had found riches in the New World as easily as he -anticipated, it is possible that such affluence would have moulded his -character in other ways for good or for evil. He soon found himself -confronting a difficult task, to satisfy with insufficient means a -craving which his exaggerations had established. This led him to spare -no device, at whatever sacrifice of the natives, to produce the coveted -gold, and it was an ingenious mockery that induced him to deck his -captives with golden chains and parade them through the Spanish towns. - -[Sidenote: Nicolas de Conti.] - -[Sidenote: The world's disgust.] - -After Da Gama had opened the route to Cathay by the Cape of Good Hope, -and Columbus had, as he supposed, touched the eastern confines of the -same country, the wonderful stories of Asiatic glories told by Nicolas -de Conti were translated, by order of King Emanuel (in 1500), into -Portuguese. It is no wonder that the interest in the development of 1492 -soon waned when the world began to compare the descriptions of the -region beyond the Ganges, as made known by Marco Polo, and so recently -by Conti, and the apparent confirmation of them established by the -Portuguese, with the meagre resources which Columbus had associated with -the same country, in all that he could say about the Antilles or bring -from them. An adventurous voyage across the Sea of Darkness begat little -satisfaction, if all there was to show for it consisted of men with -tails or a single eye, or races of Amazons and cannibals. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's lack of generosity.] - -When we view the character of Columbus in its influence upon the minds -of men, we find some strange anomalies. Before his passion was tainted -with the ambition of wealth and its consequence, and while he was urging -the acceptance of his views for their own sake, it is very evident that -he impressed others in a way that never happened after he had secured -his privileges. It is after this turning-point of his life that we begin -to see his falsities and indiscretions, or at least to find record of -them. The incident of the moving light in the night before his first -landfall is a striking instance of his daring disregard of all the -qualities that help a commander in his dominance over his men. It needs -little discrimination to discern the utter deceitfulness of that -pretense. A noble desire to win the loftiest honors of the discovery did -not satisfy a mean, insatiable greed. He blunted every sentiment of -generosity when he deprived a poor sailor of his pecuniary reward. That -there was no actual light to be seen is apparent from the distance that -the discoverers sailed before they saw land, since if the light had been -ahead they would not have gone on, and if it had been abeam they would -not have left it. The evidence is that of himself and a thrall, and he -kept it secret at the time. The author of the _Historie_ sees the -difficulty, and attempts to vaporize the whole story by saying that the -light was spiritual, and not physical. Navarrete passes it by as a thing -necessary, for the fame of Columbus, to be ignored. - -[Sidenote: His enforced oath at Cuba.] - -A second instance of Columbus's luckless impotence, at a time when an -honorable man would have relied upon his character, was the attempt to -make it appear that he had reached the coast of Asia by imposing an oath -on his men to that effect, in penalty of having their tongues wrenched -out if they recanted. One can hardly conceive a more debasing exercise -of power. - -[Sidenote: His ambition of territorial power.] - -His insistence upon territorial power was the serious mistake of his -life. He thought, in making an agreement with his sovereigns to become a -viceroy, that he was securing an honor; he was in truth pledging his -happiness and beggaring his life. He sought to attain that which the -fates had unfitted him for, and the Spanish monarchs, in an evil day, -which was in due time their regret, submitted to his hallucinated -dictation. No man ever evinced less capacity for ruling a colony. - -[Sidenote: His professed inspiration.] - -The most sorrowful of all the phases of Columbus's character is that -hapless collapse, when he abandoned all faith in the natural world, and -his premonitions of it, and threw himself headlong into the vortex of -what he called inspiration. - -Everything in his scientific argument had been logical. It produced the -reliance which comes of wisdom. It was a manly show of an incisive -reason. If he had rested here his claims for honor, he would have ranked -with the great seers of the universe, with Copernicus and the rest. His -successful suit with the Spanish sovereigns turned his head, and his -degradation began when he debased a noble purpose to the level of -mercenary claims. He relied, during his first voyage, more on chicanery -in controlling his crew than upon the dignity of his aim and the natural -command inherent in a lofty spirit. This deceit was the beginning of his -decadence, which ended in a sad self-aggrandizement, when he felt -himself no longer an instrument of intuition to probe the secrets of the -earth, but a possessor of miraculous inspiration. The man who had been -self-contained became a thrall to a fevered hallucination. - -The earnest mental study which had sustained his inquisitive spirit -through long years of dealings with the great physical problems of the -earth was forgotten. He hopelessly began to accredit to Divinity the -measure of his own fallibility. "God made me," he says, "the messenger -of the new heaven and the new earth, of which He spoke in the Apocalypse -by St. John, after having spoken of it by the mouth of Isaiah, and He -showed me the spot where to find it." He no longer thought it the views -of Aristotle which guided him. The Greek might be pardoned for his -ignorance of the intervening America. It was mere sacrilege to impute -such ignorance to the Divine wisdom. - -[Sidenote: Lost his friends.] - -There is no excuse but the plea of insanity. He naturally lost his -friends with losing his manly devotion to a cause. I do not find the -beginning of this surrender of his manhood earlier than in the will -which he signed February 22, 1498, when he credits the Holy Trinity with -having inspired him with the idea that one could go to the Indies by -passing westward. - -In his letter to the nurse of Don Juan, he says that the prophecy of -Isaiah in the Apocalypse had found its interpreter in him, the messenger -to disclose a new part of the world. "Human reason," he wrote in the -_Proficias_, "mathematics, and maps have served me in no wise. What I -have accomplished is simply the fulfillment of the prophecy of David." - -[Sidenote: His pitiable death.] - -We have seen a pitiable man meet a pitiable death. Hardly a name in -profane history is more august than his. Hardly another character in the -world's record has made so little of its opportunities. His discovery -was a blunder; his blunder was a new world; the New World is his -monument! Its discoverer might have been its father; he proved to be its -despoiler. He might have given its young days such a benignity as the -world likes to associate with a maker; he left it a legacy of -devastation and crime. He might have been an unselfish promoter of -geographical science; he proved a rabid seeker for gold and a -viceroyalty. He might have won converts to the fold of Christ by the -kindness of his spirit; he gained the execrations of the good angels. He -might, like Las Casas, have rebuked the fiendishness of his -contemporaries; he set them an example of perverted belief. The triumph -of Barcelona led down to the ignominy of Valladolid, with every step in -the degradation palpable and resultant. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -THE DESCENT OF COLUMBUS'S HONORS. - - -[Sidenote: His kinsfolk.] - -Columbus had left behind him, as the natural guardians of his name and -honors, the following relatives: his brother Bartholomew, who in -December, 1508, had issue of an illegitimate daughter, his only child so -far as known; his brother Diego, who, as a priest, was precluded from -having lawful issue; his son Diego, now become the first inheritor of -his honors; his natural son, Ferdinand, the most considerable in -intellectual habit of all Columbus's immediate kin. - -[Sidenote: His son Diego.] - -The descent of his titles depended in the first instance on such a -marriage as Diego might contract. Within a year or two Diego had had by -different women two bastard children, Francisco and Cristoval, shut off -from heirship by the manner of their birth. Diego was at this time not -far from four and twenty years of age. - -Ten or twelve days after Diego succeeded to his inheritance, Philip the -Handsome, now sharing the throne of Castile as husband of Juana, -daughter of Isabella, ordered that what was due to Columbus should be -paid to his successor. This order reached Española in June, 1506, but -was not obeyed promptly; and when Ferdinand of Aragon returned from -Italy in August, 1507, and succeeded to the Castilian throne, he -repeated the order on August 24. - -[Sidenote: Diego's income.] - -[Sidenote: Diego presses for a restitution of Columbus's honors.] - -It would seem that in due time Diego was in receipt of 450,000 ounces of -gold annually from the four foundries in Española. This, with whatever -else there may have been, was by no means satisfactory to the young -aspirant, and he began to press Ferdinand for a restitution of his -inherited honors and powers with all the pertinacity which had -characterized his father's urgency. - -[Sidenote: 1508. Suit against the Crown.] - -Upon the return of Ferdinand from Naples, Diego determined to push the -matter to an issue, but Ferdinand still evaded it. Diego now asked, -according to Las Casas and Herrera, to be allowed to bring a suit -against the Crown before the Council of the Indies, and the King yielded -to the request, confident, very likely, in his ability to control the -verdict in the public interests. The suit at once began (1508), and -continued for several years before all was accomplished, and in December -of that same year (1508), we find Diego empowering an attorney of the -Duke of Alva to represent his case. - -The defense of the Crown was that a transmission of the viceroyalty to -the Admiral's son was against public policy, and at variance with a law -of 1480, which forbade any judicial office under the Crown being held in -perpetuity. It was further argued in the Crown's behalf that Columbus -had not been the chief instrument of the first discovery and had not -discovered the mainland, but that other voyagers had anticipated him. In -response to all allegations, Diego rested his case on the contracts of -the Crown with his father, which assured him the powers he asked for. -Further than this, the Crown had already recognized, he claimed, a part -of the contract in its orders of June 2, 1506, and August 24, 1507, -whereby the revenues due under the contracts had been restored to him. -It was also charged by the defense that Columbus had been relieved of -his powers because he had abused them, and the answer to this was that -the sovereigns' letter of 1502 had acknowledged that Bobadilla acted -without authority. A number of navigators in the western seas were put -on the stand to rebut the allegation of existing knowledge of the coast -before the voyages of Columbus, particularly in substantiating the -priority of the voyage of Columbus to the coast of Paria, and the -evidence was sufficient to show that all the alleged claims were simply -perverted notions of the really later voyage of Ojeda in 1499. It is -from the testimony at this time, as given in Navarrete, that the -biographers of Columbus derive considerable information, not otherwise -attainable, respecting the voyages of Columbus,--testimony, however, -which the historian is obliged to weigh with caution in many respects. - -[Sidenote: Diego wins.] - -The case was promptly disposed of in Diego's favor, but not without -suspicions of the Crown's influence to that end. The suit is, indeed, -one of the puzzles in the history of Columbus and his fame. If it was a -suit to secure a verdict against the Crown in order to protect the -Crown's rights under the bull of demarcation, we can understand why much -that would have helped the position of the fiscal was not brought -forward. If it was what it purported to be, an effort to relieve the -Crown of obligations fastened upon it under misconceptions or deceits, -we may well marvel at such omission of evidence. - -[Sidenote: Diego marries Maria de Toledo.] - -[Sidenote: Diego waives his right to the title of Viceroy.] - -It was left for the King to act on the decision for restitution. This -might have been by his studied procrastination indefinitely delayed but -for a shrewd movement on the part of Diego, who opportunely aspired to -the hand of Doña Maria de Toledo, the daughter of Fernando de Toledo. -This nobleman was brother of the Duke of Alva, one of the proudest -grandees of Spain, and he was also cousin of Ferdinand, the King. The -alliance, soon effected, brought the young suitor a powerful friend in -his uncle, and the bride's family were not averse to a connection with -the heir to the viceroyalty of the Indies, now that it was confirmed by -the Council of the Indies. Harrisse cannot find that the promised dower -ever came with the wife; but, on the contrary, Diego seems to have -become the financial agent of his wife's family. A demand for the royal -acquiescence in the orders of the Council could now be more easily made, -and Ferdinand readily conceded all but the title of Viceroy. Diego -waived that for the time, and he was accordingly accredited as governor -of Española, in the place of Ovando. - -[Sidenote: Ovando recalled.] - -Isabella had indeed, while on her death-bed, importuned the King to -recall Ovando, because of the appalling stories of his cruelty to the -Indians. Ferdinand had found that the governor's vigilance conduced to -heavy remittances of gold, and had shown no eagerness to carry out the -Queen's wishes. He had even ordered Ovando to begin that transference of -the poor Lucayan Indians from their own islands to work in the Española -mines which soon resulted in the depopulation of the Bahamas. Now that -he was forced to withdraw Ovando he made it as agreeable for him as -possible, and in the end there was no lack of commendation of his -administration. Indeed, as Spaniards went in those days, Ovando was good -enough to gain the love of Las Casas, "except for some errors of moral -blindness." - -[Sidenote: 1509. June 9. Diego sails for Española.] - -It was on May 3, 1509, that Ferdinand gave Diego his instructions; and -on June 9, the new governor with his noble wife sailed from San Lucar. -There went with Diego, beside a large number of noble Spaniards who -introduced, as Oviedo says, an infusion of the best Spanish blood into -the colony, his brother Ferdinand, who was specially charged, as Oviedo -further tells us, to found monasteries and churches. His two uncles also -accompanied him. Bartholomew had gone to Rome after Columbus's death, -with the intention of inducing Pope Julius II. to urge upon the King a -new voyage of discovery; and Harrisse thinks that this is proved by some -memoranda attached to an account of the coasts of Veragua, which it is -supposed that Bartholomew gave at this time to a canon of the Lateran, -which is now preserved in the Megliavecchian library, and has been -printed by Harrisse in his _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_. It was -perhaps on this visit that the Adelantado took to Rome that map of -Columbus's voyage to those coasts which it is usually said was carried -there in 1505, when he may possibly have borne thither the letter of -Columbus to the Pope. - -[Sidenote: Bartholomew Columbus, and Diego Mendez.] - -The position which Bartholomew now went with Diego to assume, that of -the Chief Alguazil of Santo Domingo, caused much complaint from Diego -Mendez, who claimed the credit of bringing about the restitution of -Diego's power, and who had, as he says, been promised both by Columbus -and by his son this office as recompense for his many services. - -[Sidenote: 1509. July 10. Diego reaches his government.] - -The fleet arrived at its destination July 10, 1509. The wife of the -governor had taken a retinue, which for splendor had never before been -equaled in the New World, and it enabled her to maintain a kind of -viceregal state in the little capital. It all helped Diego to begin his -rule with no inconsiderable consequence. There was needed something of -such attraction to beguile the spirits of the settlers, for, as Benzoni -learned years afterwards, when he visited the region, the coming of the -son of Columbus had not failed to engender jealousies, which attached to -the imposition of another foreigner upon the colony. - -[Sidenote: Ojeda and Nicuessa.] - -The King was determined that Diego's rule should be confined to -Española, and, much to the governor's annoyance, he parceled out the -coasts which Columbus had tracked near the Isthmus of Panama into two -governments, and installed Ojeda in command of the eastern one, which -was called New Andalusia, while the one beyond the Gulf of Uraba, which -included Veragua, he gave to Diego de Nicuessa, and called it Castilla -del Oro. - -[Illustration: POPE JULIUS II.] - -[Sidenote: Porto Rico.] - -[Sidenote: Faction of Passamonte.] - -[Sidenote: 1511. October 5. _Audiencia._] - -This action of the King, as well as his effort to put Porto Rico under -an independent governor, incited new expostulations from Diego, and -served to make his rule in the island quite as uncomfortable as its -management had been to his father. There also grew up the same -discouragement from faction. The King's treasurer, Miguel Passamonte, -became the head of the rebellious party, not without suspicion that he -was prompted to much denunciations in his confidential communications -with the King. Reports of Diego's misdeeds and ambitions, threatening -the royal power even, were assiduously conveyed to the King. The -sovereign devised a sort of corrective, as he thought, of this, by -instituting later, October 5, 1511, a court of appeals, or _Audiencia_, -to which the aggrieved colonists could go in their defense against -oppression or extortion. Its natural effect was to undermine the -governor's authority and to weaken his influence. He found himself -thwarted in all efforts to relieve the Indians of their burdens, as -nothing of that sort could be done without disturbing the revenues of -leading colonists. There was no great inducement to undo measures by -which no one profited in receipts more than himself, and the cruel -devastation of the native population ran on as it had done. He certainly -did not show himself averse to continuing the system of _repartimientos_ -for the benefit of himself and his friends. - -Diego, who had been for a while in Spain, returned in 1512 to Española, -and later new orders were sent out by the King, and these included -commands to reduce the labor of the Indians one third, to import negro -slaves from Guinea as a measure of further relief to the natives, and to -brand Carib slaves, so as to protect other Indians from harsh treatment -intended for the Caribs alone. - -[Sidenote: Bartholomew Columbus died.] - -Diego was again in Spain in 1513, and the attempts of Ojeda and Nicuessa -having failed, later orders in 1514 so far reinstated Diego in his -viceregal power as to permit him to send his uncle Bartholomew to take -possession of the Veragua coast. But the life of the Adelantado was -drawing to a close, and his death soon occurring nothing was done. - -[Sidenote: 1515. Diego in Spain.] - -Affairs had come to such a pass that Diego again felt it necessary to -repair to Court to counteract his enemies' intrigues, and once more -getting permission from the King, he sailed for Spain, April 9, 1515, -leaving the Vice-Queen with a council in authority. - -Diego found the King open and kindly, and not averse to acknowledging -the merits of his government. He again pressed his bonded -rights with the old fervency. "I would bestow them willingly on you," -said the King; "but I cannot do so without intrusting them also to your -son and to his successors." "Is it just," said Diego, "that I should -suffer for a son which I may never have?" Las Casas tells us that Diego -repeated this colloquy to him. - -[Illustration: CHARLES THE FIFTH.] - -[Sidenote: 1516. January 23. Ferdinand died.] - -The King found it reasonable to question if Columbus had really sailed -along all the coasts in which Diego claimed a share, and ordered an -examination of the matter to be made. While these claims were in -abeyance, the King died, January 23, 1516. - -[Sidenote: Diego again in Española.] - -[Sidenote: 1520. Diego in Spain.] - -[Sidenote: Diego partially reinstated.] - -This event much retarded the settlement of the difficulties. Cardinal -Ximenes, who held power for a while, was not willing to act, and nothing -was done for four years, during part of which period Diego was certainly -in Española. We know also that he was present at the convocation of -Barcelona, presided over by the Emperor, when Las Casas made his urgent -appeals for the Indians and pictured their hardships. Finally, in 1520, -when Charles V. was about to embark for Flanders, Diego was in a -position to advance to the Emperor so large a sum as ten thousand -ducats, which was, as it appears, about a fifth of his annual income -from Española at this time. This financial succor seemed to open the way -for the Emperor to dismiss all charges against Diego, and to reinstate -him in qualified authority as Viceroy over the Indies. - -[Sidenote: 1520. September. Diego returns to Española.] - -This seeming restitution was not without a disagreeable accompaniment in -the appointment of a supervisor to reside at his viceregal court and -report on the Viceroy's doings. In September, 1520, Diego sailed once -more for his government, and on November 14 we find him in Santo -Domingo, and shortly afterwards engaged in the construction of a lordly -palace, which he was to occupy, and which is seen there to-day. The -substantialness of its structure gave rise to rumors that he was -preparing a fortress for ulterior aims. - -[Sidenote: Negro slaves increase.] - -Diego soon found that various administrative measures had not gone well -in his absence. Commanders of some of the provinces had exceeded their -powers, and it became necessary to supersede them. This made them -enemies as a matter of course. The raising of sugar-cane had rapidly -developed under the imported African labor, and the revenues now came -for the most part from the plantations rather than from the mines. The -negroes so increased that it was not long before some of them dared to -rise in revolt, but the mischief was stopped by a rapid swoop of armed -horsemen. - -[Illustration: RUINS OF DIEGO COLON'S HOUSE.] - -[Sidenote: 1523. Diego in Spain.] - -[Sidenote: 1526. February 23. Diego dies.] - -The jealousies and revengeful accusations of Diego's enemies were not so -easily quelled, and before long he was summoned to Spain to render an -account of his doings, for Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon had presented charges -against him. On September 16, 1523, Diego embarked, and landed at St. -Lucar November 5. He presented himself before the Emperor at Vittoria in -January, 1524, and reviewed his conduct. This he succeeded in doing in a -manner to disarm his foes; and this success encouraged him to press anew -for his inherited rights. The demand ended in the questions in dispute -being referred to a board; and Diego for two years followed the Court in -its migrations, to be in attendance on the sessions of this commission. -His health gave way under the strain, so that, with everything still -unsettled, he died at Montalvan, February 23, 1526, having survived his -father for twenty troublous years. His remains were laid in the -monastery of Las Cuevas by the side of Columbus. Being later conveyed to -the cathedral at Santo Domingo, they were, if one may credit the quite -unproved statements of the priests of the cathedral, mistaken for those -of his father, and taken to Havana in 1795. - -[Sidenote: His family.] - -[Sidenote: Luis Colon succeeds.] - -The Vice-Queen and her family were still in Santo Domingo, and her -children were seven in number, four daughters and three sons. The -descent of the honors came eventually to the descendants of one of these -daughters, Isabel, who married George of Portugal, Count of Gelves. Of -the three sons, Luis succeeded his father, who was in turn succeeded by -Diego, a son of Luis's brother Cristoval. - -The Vice-Queen, after making an ineffectual attempt to colonize Veragua, -in which she was thwarted by the royal _Audiencia_ at Española, returned -to Spain in 1529. Her son Luis, the heir, was still a child, having been -born in 1521 or 1522. For fourteen years his mother pressed his claims -upon the Emperor, Charles V., and she was during a part of the time in -such distress that she borrowed money of Ferdinand Columbus and pledged -her jewels. She lived till 1549, and died at Santo Domingo. - -[Sidenote: 1536. The Crown's compromise with Luis.] - -[Sidenote: Duke of Veragua.] - -[Sidenote: 1540. Luis in Española.] - -Early in 1536 the Cardinal Garcia de Loyasa, in behalf of the Council of -the Indies, rendered a decision in which he and Ferdinand Columbus had -acted as arbiters, which was confirmed by the Emperor in September of -the same year. This was that, upon the abandonment by Luis of all claims -upon the revenues of the Indies, of the title of Viceroy, and of the -right to appoint the officers of the New World, he should be given the -island of Jamaica in fief, a perpetual annuity of ten thousand ducats, -and the title of Duke of Veragua, with an estate twenty-five leagues -square in that province, to support the title and functions of Admiral -of the Indies. In 1540 Luis returned to Española with the title of -Captain-General, and in 1542 married at Santo Domingo, much against his -mother's wish, Maria de Orozco, who later lived in Honduras and married -another. While she was still living, Luis again espoused at Santo -Domingo Maria de Mosquera. In 1551 he returned to Spain. - -[Sidenote: Columbus's privileges gradually abridged.] - -[Sidenote: 1556. All Columbus's territorial rights abandoned.] - -Whatever remained of the rights which Columbus had sought to transmit to -his heirs had already been modified to their detriment by Charles, under -decrees in 1540, 1541, and 1542; and when Charles was succeeded by -Philip II., early in 1556, one of the first acts of the latter was to -force Luis to abandon his fief of Veragua and to throw up his power as -Admiral. The Council of the Indies took cognizance of the case in July, -1556, and on September 28 following, Philip II., at Ghent, recompensed -the grandson of Columbus, for his submission to the inevitable, by -decreeing to Luis the honorary title of Admiral of the Indies and Duke -of Veragua, with an income of seven thousand ducats. So in fifty years -the dreams of Columbus for territorial magnificence came to naught, and -the confident injunctions of his will were dissipated in the air. - -[Sidenote: Luis a polygamist.] - -[Sidenote: 1572. Luis dies.] - -Immediately after this, Luis furtively married, while his other wives -were still living, Ana de Castro Ossorio. The authorities found in these -polygamous acts a convenient opportunity to get another troublesome -Colon out of the way, and arrested Luis in 1559. He was held in prison -for nearly five years, and when in 1563 judgment was got against him, he -was sentenced to ten years of exile, half of which was to be passed in -Oran, in Africa. While his appeal was pending, his scandalous life added -crime to crime, and finally, in November, 1565, his sentence being -confirmed, he was conducted to Oran, and there he died February 3, -1572. - - - - -THE COLUMBUS PEDIGREE. - - -NOTE. Dotted lines mark illegitimate descents; the dash-and-dot lines -mark pretended descents. The heavy face numerals show the successful -holders of the honors of Columbus. The lines _a a_, _b b_, and _c c_ -join respectively. - - - _Fadrique Enriquez_, - Adm. of Castile. - | - +-----+------+ - | | - Alvarez = Maria. Juana = Juan II. - de | |of Aragon. - _Toledo_ | | +----------------------_a_ - +-----+------+ +----+----+ | - | | |Ferdinand| = Isabella of Filipe = CRISTOFORO = Beatrix - Duke of Fernando. |of Aragon| Castile. Moniz | =1= ¦ Henriquez, - _Alba_. | +---------+ | ¦ living in 1513. - | +-----------------------------------+ ¦ - | | Fernando, - Maria de = DIEGO, b. 1488, - Toledo | =2= d. 1526. d. 1539. - | - +---------+-----------------+---------------+-----------------------+-------------------------_b_ - | | | | | - Felipa, Maria Juana Isabel Luisa de = LUIS = Maria de - nun. = Sancho = Luis de = Jorge de Carvajal ¦ =3= | Mosquira. - | de Cardona, | la Cueva. Portogallo. ¦ | - | Adm. of | | ¦ +------------+ - | Aragon. | | ¦ | | - +----------+-------+ | | ¦ | | - | | | Maria, =Alvaro.= Cristoval. Maria, Filipa, _c_ - =Cristoval=, Luis, Maria = Carlos de | of the d. 1577. - d.s.p. d.s.p. = Fr. | Arellano, | Convent - 1583. de Mendoza| d. bef. 1600. +-------+------+ of San - d. 1605. | | | Quirce. - | | Jorge NUÑO DE =5= - | | Alberti, PORTOGALLO, - | | d. 1581. established in - | | 1608. - Maria Juana | - d.s.p. = Fr. Pacheco, | - | d. 1605. ALVARO =6= - +---------+ | JACINTO. - |James II.| = Arabella Carlos. | - |England. | ¦ Churchill. | | - +---------+ ¦ | PEDRO NUÑO. =7= - ¦ | | - Duke of Various | - Berwick. lines. | - | PEDRO MANUEL. =8= - | | - | +----------------------------+---+ - | | | - James STUART, = Catarina PEDRO NUÑO, =9= - Duke of Liria, | Ventura, d. 1753, - d. 1738. | d. 1740. without legitimate - | issue. - JACOBO EDUARDO. - | =10= - | - CARLOS FERNANDO. - | =11= - | - JACOBO FILIPE, =12= - dispossessed - in 1790; - the decree of - 1664 reversed. - | - | - Continued to - our day. - - - Dominico - Susanna Colombo, of - DOMENICO = Fontanarosa. _Cuccaro_. - | | - _a_---------------+-------------+------------+-------------+ ¦ - | | | | | - Bartolomeo. Giovanni Giacomo Blanchinetta ¦ - ¦ | Pelegrino, or Diego, = Giacomo | - ¦ ¦ d. s. p. priest. Paravello. ¦ - ¦ | | - Maria, ¦ ¦ - nun, | | - b. 1508. .----.----.----.----.----.----. ¦ - | | - _b_---------------+--------------------+ ¦ ¦ - | | | | - Ana = Cristoval = Magdalena Diego ¦ ¦ - de | | de = Isabel | | - Pravia | | Guzman. Justenian. ¦ ¦ - | | | | - +------+-----+ +---------+ ¦ ¦ - | | | | | - _c_ = DIEGO, Francesca Maria ¦ ¦ - =4= d.s.p. = Diego = Luis de | | - 1578. | Ortegon. Avila. ¦ ¦ - | | | | - | | ¦ ¦ - Josefa | Bernardo Balthazar - = De Paz de la _Luis de_ Colombo, Colombo, - | Serra. AVILA, of Cogoleto. of Cuccaro. - | d. 1633. - | - Josefa = Martín de - | LARREATEGUI. - | - Diego. - | - | - Francisco. - | - | - Pedro Isidoro. - | - | - MANIANO(1790). =13= - | - | - PEDRO. =14= - | - | - CRISTOVAL. =15= - | - | - Son b. - 1878. - - -[Sidenote: His heirs.] - -[Sidenote: His daughter marries her cousin Diego, the male heir.] - -[Sidenote: Columbus's male line extinct.] - -Luis left two illegitimate children, one a son; but his lawful heirs -were adjudged to be the children of Maria de Mosquera, two daughters, -one a nun and the other Filipa. This last presented a claim for the -titles in opposition to the demands of Diego, the nephew of her father. -She declared this cousin to be the natural, and not the lawful, son of -Luis's brother. It was easy enough to forget such imputations in coming -to the final conclusion, when Filipa and Diego took each other in -marriage (May 15, 1573) to compose their differences, the husband -becoming Duke of Veragua. Filipa died in November, 1577, and her husband -January 27, 1578. As they had no children, the male line of Columbus -became extinct seventy years after his death. - -[Sidenote: The long lawsuit and its many contestants.] - -The lawsuit which followed for the settlement of the succession was a -famous one. It lasted thirty years. The claimants were at first eight in -number, but they were reduced to five by deaths during the progress of -the trials. - -The first was Francesca, own sister of Diego, the late Duke. Her claim -was rejected; but five generations later the dignities returned to her -descendants. - -The second was the representative of Maria, the daughter of Luis, and -sister-in-law of Diego. The claim made by her heir, the convent of San -Quirce, was discarded. - -The third was Cristoval, the bastard son of Luis, who claimed to be the -fruit of a marriage of Luis, concluded while he was in prison accused of -polygamy. Cristoval died in 1601, before the cause was decided. - -The fourth was Alvaro de Portogallo, Count of Gelves, a son of Isabel, -the sister of Luis. He had unsuccessfully claimed the titles when Luis -died, in 1572, and again put forth his claims in 1578, when Diego died, -but he himself died, pending a decision, in 1581. His son, Jorge -Alberto, inherited his rights, but died in 1589, before a decision was -reached, when his younger brother, Nuño de Portogallo, became the -claimant, and his rights were established by the tribunal in 1608, when -he became Duke of Veragua. His enjoyment of the title was not without -unrest, but the attempts to dispossess him failed. - -The fifth was Cristoval de Cardona, Admiral of Aragon, son of Maria, -elder sister of Luis. This claimant died in 1583, while his claim, -having once been allowed, was held in abeyance by an appeal of his -rivals. His sister, Maria, was then adjudged inheritor of the honors, -but she died in 1605, before the final decree. - -The sixth was Maria de la Cueva, daughter of Juana, sister of Luis, who -died before December, 1600, while her daughter died in 1605, leaving -Carlos Pacheco a claimant, whose rights were disallowed. - -The seventh was Balthazar Colombo, a descendant of a Domenico Colombo, -who was, according to the claim, the same Domenico who was the father of -Columbus. His genealogical record was not accepted. - -The eighth was Bernardo Colombo, who claimed to be a descendant of -Bartholomew Columbus, the Adelantado, a claim not made good. - -These last two contestants rested their title in part on the fact that -their ancestors had always borne the name of Colombo, and this was -required by Columbus to belong to the inheritors of his honors. The -lineal ancestors of the other claimants had borne the names of Cardona, -Portogallo, or Avila. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Nuño de Portogallo succeeds, and the line later changes.] - -From Nuño de Portogallo the titles descended to his son Alvaro Jacinto, -and then to the latter's son, Pedro Nuño. His rights were contested by -Luis de Avila (grandson of Cristoval, brother of Luis Colon), who tried -in 1620 to reverse the verdict of 1608, and it was not till 1664 that -Pedro Nuño defeated his adversaries. He was succeeded by his son, Pedro -Manuel, and he by his son, Pedro Nuño, who died in 1733, when this male -line became extinct. - -The titles were now illegally assumed by Pedro Nuño's sister, Catarina -Ventura, who by marriage gave them to her husband, James Fitz-James -Stuart, son of the famous Duke of Berwick, and by inheritance in his own -right, Duke of Liria. When he died, in 1738, the titles passed to his -son, Jacobo Eduardo; thence to the latter's son, Carlos Fernando, who -transmitted them to his son, Jacobo Filipe. This last was obliged, by a -verdict in 1790, which reversed the decree of 1664, to yield the titles -to the line of Francesca, sister of Diego, the fourth holder of them. -This Francesca married Diego Ortegon, and their grandchild, Josefa, -married Martin Larreategui, whose great-great-grandson, Mariano (by -decrees 1790-96), became Duke of Veragua, from whom the title descended -to his son, Pedro, and then to his grandson, Cristoval, the present -Duke, born in 1837, whose heir, the next Duke, was born in 1878. The -value of the titles is said to-day to represent about eight or ten -thousand dollars, and this income is chargeable upon the revenues of -Cuba and Porto Rico. - -In concluding this rapid sketch of the descent of the blood and honors -of Columbus, two striking thoughts are presented. The Larreateguis are a -Basque family. The blood of Columbus, the Genoese, now mingles with that -of the hardiest race of navigators of western Europe, and of whom it may -be expected that if ever earlier contact of Europe with the New World is -proved, these Basques will be found the forerunners of Columbus. The -blood of the supposed discoverer of the western passage to Asia flows -with that of the earliest stock which is left to us of that Oriental -wave of population which inundated Europe, in the far-away times when -the races which make our modern Christian histories were being disposed -in valleys and on the coasts of what was then the Western World. - - - - -APPENDIX. - -THE GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS. - - -[Sidenote: Progress of discovery.] - -There was a struggling effort of the geographical sense of the world for -thirty years and more after the death of Columbus, before the fact began -to be grasped that a great continent was interposed as a substantial and -independent barrier in the track to India. It took nearly a half century -more before men generally recognized that fact, and then in most cases -it was accepted with the reservation of a possible Asiatic connection at -the extreme north. It was something more than two hundred and twenty -years from the death of Columbus before that severance at the north was -incontestably established by the voyage of Bering, and a hundred and -thirty years longer before at last the contour of the northern coast of -the continent was established by the proof of the long-sought northwest -passage in 1850. We must now, to complete the story of the influence of -Columbus, rehearse somewhat concisely the narrative of this progressive -outcome of that wonderful voyage of 1492. The spirit of western -discovery, which Columbus imparted, was of long continuance. - -[Sidenote: The influence of Ptolemy and his career.] - -"If we wish to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted," says Dr. Kohl, -"with the history of discovery in the New World, we must not only follow -the navigators on their ships, but we must look into the cabinets of -princes and into the counting-houses of merchants, and likewise watch -the scholars in their speculative studies." There was no rallying point -for the scholar of cosmography in those early days of discovery like the -text and influence of Ptolemy. - -We know little of this ancient geographer beyond the fact of his living -in the early portion of the second century, and mainly at Alexandria, -the fittest home of a geographer at that time, since this Egyptian city -was peerless for commerce and learning. Here he could do best what he -advises all geographers to do, consult the journals of travelers, and -get information of eclipses, as the same phenomena were observed at -different places; such, for instance, as that of the moon noted at -Arbela in the fifth, and seen at Carthage in the second hour. - -[Sidenote: Portolanos.] - -The precision of Ptolemy was covered out of sight by graphic fancies -among the cosmographers of succeeding ages, till about the beginning of -the fourteenth century Italy and the western Mediterranean islands began -to produce those atlases of sea-charts, which have come down to us under -the name of "portolanos;" and still later a new impetus was given to -geographical study by the manuscripts of Ptolemy, with his maps, which -began to be common in western Europe in the beginning of the fifteenth -century, largely through the influence of communications with the -Byzantine peoples. - -[Illustration: PTOLEMY. - - [From Reusner's _Icones_.]] - -The portolanos, however, never lost their importance. Nordenskiöld says -that, from the great number of them still extant in Italy, we may deduce -that they had a greater circulation during the sixteenth century than -printed cartographical works. About five hundred of these sea-charts are -known in Italian libraries, and the greater proportion of them are of -Italian origin. - -[Sidenote: Latin text of Ptolemy.] - -[Sidenote: The Donis maps.] - -It is a composite Latin text, brought into final shape by Jacobus -Angelus not far from 1400-1410, which was the basis of the early printed -editions of Ptolemy. This version was for a while circulated in -manuscript, sometimes with copies of the maps of the Old World having a -Latinized nomenclature; and the public libraries of Europe contain here -and there specimens of these early copies, one of which it is thought -was known to Pierre d'Ailly. It is a question if Angelus supplied the -maps which accompanied these early manuscripts, and which got into the -Bologna edition of 1462 (wrongly dated for 1472), and into the metrical -version of Berlingièri. These maps, whether always the same in the early -manuscripts or not, were later superseded by a new set of maps made by a -German cartographer, Nicolaus Donis, which he added to a revision of -Angelus's Latin text. These later maps were close copies of the original -Greek maps, and were accompanied by others of a similar workmanship, -which represented better knowledge than the Greeks had. In 1478 these -Donis maps were first engraved on copper, and were used in the later -editions of 1490, and slightly corrected in those of 1507 and 1508. The -engravers were Schweinheim and Buckinck, and their work, following -copies of it in the edition of 1490, has been admirably reproduced in -_The Facsimile Atlas_ of Nordenskiöld (Stockholm, 1889). - -[Illustration: DONIS, 1482.] - -[Sidenote: Greenland in maps.] - -Meanwhile, editions of the text of Angelus had been issued at Ulm in -1482, and giving additions in 1486, with woodcut maps, the same in both -issues on a different projection, assigned to Dominus Nicolaus Germanus, -who had, according to Nordenskiöld, completed the manuscript fifteen -years earlier. It is significant, perhaps, of the slowness with which -the bruit of Portuguese discoveries to the south had traveled that there -is in the maps of Africa no extension of Ptolemy's knowledge. But if -they are deficient in the south, they are remarkable in the north for -showing the coming America in a delineation of Greenland, which, as we -have already pointed out, was no new object in the manuscript -portolanos, even as far back as the early part of the same century. - -[Illustration: RUYSCH, 1508.] - -Two years after the death of Columbus, we find in the edition of 1508, -and sometimes in the edition of 1507,--there is no difference between -the two issues except in the title-page,--the first engraved map which -has particular reference to the new geographical developments of the -age. - -[Sidenote: 1507-8. The Ruysch map.] - -This Ruysch map shows the African coast discoveries of the Portuguese, -with the discoveries of Marco Polo towards the east. In connection with -the latter, the same material which Behaim had used in his globe seems -to have been equally accessible to Ruysch. The latter's map has a legend -on the sea between Iceland and Greenland, saying that an island situated -there was burnt up in 1456. This statement has been connected by some -with another contained in the Sagas, that from an island in this channel -both Greenland and Iceland could be seen. - -We also learn from another legend that Portuguese vessels had pushed -down the South American coast to 50° south latitude, and the historians -of these early voyages have been unable to say who the pioneers were who -have left us so early a description of Brazil. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and the Ruysch map.] - -It is inferred from a reference of Beneventanus, in his Ptolemy, -respecting this map, that some aid had been derived from a map made by -one of the Columbuses, and a statement that Bartholomew Columbus, in -Rome in 1505, gave a map of the new discoveries to a canon of San -Giovanni di Laterano has been thought to refer to such a map, which -would, if it could be established, closely connect the Ruysch map with -Columbus. It is also supposed to have some relation to Cabot, since a -voyage which Ruysch made to the new regions westward from England may -have been, and probably was, with that navigator. In this case, the -reference to that part of the coast of Asia which the English discovered -may record Ruysch's personal experiences. If these things can be -considered as reasonably established, it gives great interest to this -map of Ruysch, and connects Columbus not only with the earliest -manuscript map, La Cosa of 1500, but also with the earliest engraved map -of the New World, as Ruysch's map was. - -[Sidenote: Sources of the Ruysch map.] - -In speaking of the Ruysch map, Henry Stevens thinks that the -cartographer laid down the central archipelago of America from the -printed letter of Columbus, because it was the only account in print in -1507; but why restrict the sources of information to those in print, -when La Cosa's map might have been copied, or the material which La Cosa -employed might have been used by others, and when the Cantino map is a -familiar copy of Portuguese originals, all of which might well have been -known in the varied circles with which Ruysch is seen by his map to have -been familiar? - -[Sidenote: Portuguese geography and maps.] - -While it is a fact that central and northern Europe got its -cartographical knowledge of the New World almost wholly from Portugal, -owing, perhaps, to the exertions of Spain to preserve their explorers' -secrets, we do not, at the same time, find a single engraved Portuguese -map of the early years of this period of discovery. - -[Sidenote: Portuguese portolano.] - -[Sidenote: Pedro Reinel.] - -A large map, to show the Portuguese discoveries during years then -recent, was probably made for King Emanuel, and it has come down to us, -being preserved now at Munich. This chart wholly omits the Spanish work -of exploration, and records only the coasts coursed by Cabral in the -south, and by the Cortereals in the north. We have a further and similar -record in the chart of Pedro Reinel, which could not have been made far -from the same time, and which introduces to us the same prominent cape -which in La Cosa's map had been called the English cape as "Cavo Razo," -a name preserved to us to-day in the Cape Race of Newfoundland. - -[Illustration: THE SO-CALLED ADMIRAL'S MAP.] - -[Sidenote: Spain and Portugal conceal their geographical secrets.] - -There is abundant evidence of the non-communicative policy of Spain. -This secretiveness was understood at the time Robert Thorne, in 1527, -complained, as well as Sir Humphrey Gilbert in his _Discoverie_, that a -similar injunction was later laid by Portugal. In Veitia Linage's -_Norte_ we read of the cabinets in which these maps were preserved, and -how the Spanish pilot major and royal cosmographer alone kept the keys. -There exists a document by which one of the companions of Magellan was -put under a penalty of two thousand ducats not to disclose the route he -traversed in that famous voyage. We know how Columbus endeavored to -conceal the route of his final voyage, in which he reached the coast of -Veragua. - -[Illustration: MÜNSTER, 1532.] - - -[Illustration: GLOBUS MUNDI.] - -[Sidenote: A strait to India.] - -In the two maps of nearly equal date, being the earliest engraved charts -which we have, the Ruysch map of 1508 and the so-called Admiral's map of -1507 (1513), the question of a strait leading to the Asiatic seas, which -Columbus had spent so much energy in trying to find during his last -voyage, is treated differently. We have seen that La Cosa confessed his -uncertain knowledge by covering the place with a vignette. In the Ruysch -map there is left the possibility of such a passage; in the other there -is none, for the main shore is that of Asia itself, whose coast line -uninterruptedly connects with that of South America. The belief in such -a strait in due time was fixed, and lingered even beyond the time when -Cortes showed there was no ground for it. We find it in Schöner's -globes, in the Tross gores, and even so late as 1532, in the belated map -of Münster. - -[Illustration: EDEN.] - -[Sidenote: Earliest map to show America made north of the Alps.] - -The map of the _Globus Mundi_ (Strassburg, 1509) has some significance -as being the earliest issued north of the Alps, recording both the -Portuguese and Spanish discoveries; though it merely gives the -projecting angle of the South American coast as representing the -developments of the west. - - -[Sidenote: English references to America.] - -[Sidenote: Richard Eden.] - -It is doubtful if any reference to the new discoveries had appeared in -English literature before Alexander Barclay produced in 1509 a -translation of Brant's _Ship of Fools_, and for a few years there were -only chance references which made no impression on the literary -instincts of the time. It was not till after the middle of the century, -in 1553, that Richard Eden, translating a section of Sebastian Münster's -_Cosmographia_, published it in London as a _Treatyse of the newe -India_, and English-reading people first saw a considerable account of -what the rest of Europe had been doing in contrast with the English -maritime apathy. Two years later (1555), Eden, drawing this time upon -Peter Martyr, did much in his _Decades of the Newe World_ to enlarge the -English conceptions. - -[Sidenote: The naming of America.] - -But the most striking and significant of all the literary movements -which grew out of the new oceanic developments was that which gave a -name to the New World, and has left a continent, which Columbus -unwittingly found, the monument of another's fame. - -[Sidenote: 1504. September. Letter of Vespucius.] - -It was in September, 1504, that Vespucius, remembering an old schoolmate -in Florence, Piero Soderini, who was then the perpetual Gonfalonière of -that city, took what it is supposed he had written out at length -concerning his experiences in the New World, and made an abstract of it -in Italian. Dating this on the 4th of that month, he dispatched it to -Italy. It is a question whether the original of this abridged text of -Vespucius is now known, though Varnhagen, with a confidence few scholars -have shared, has claimed such authenticity for a text which he has -printed. - -[Sidenote: St. Dié.] - -[Sidenote: Duke René.] - -It concerns us chiefly to know that somehow a copy of this condensed -narrative of Vespucius came into the hands of his fellow-townsman, Fra -Giovanni Giocondo, then in Paris at work as an architect constructing a -bridge over the Seine. It is to be allowed that R. H. Major, in tracing -the origin of the French text, assumes something to complete his story, -and that this precise genesis of the narrative which was received by -Duke René of Lorraine is open to some question. The supposition that a -young Alsatian, then in Paris, Mathias Ringmann, had been a friend of -Giocondo, and had been the bearer of this new version to René, is -likewise a conjecture. Whether Ringmann was such a messenger or not -matters little, but the time was fast approaching when this young man -was to be associated with a proposition made in the little village of -St. Dié, in the Vosges, which was one of those obscure but far-reaching -mental premonitions so often affecting the world's history, without the -backing of great names or great events. This almost unknown place was -within the domain of this same Duke René, a wise man, who liked -scholars and scholarly tomes. His patronage had fostered there a small -college and a printing-press. There had been grouped around these -agencies a number of learned men, or those ambitious of knowledge. -Scholars in other parts of Europe, when they heard of this little -coterie, wondered how its members had congregated there. One Walter Lud, -or Gualterus Ludovicus, as they liked to Latinize his name, a dependent -and secretary of Duke René, was now a man not much under sixty, and he -had been the grouper and manager of this body of scholars. There had -lately been brought to join them this same Mathias Ringmann, who came -from Paris with all the learning that he had tried to imbibe under the -tutoring of Dr. John Faber. If we believe the story as Major has worked -it out, Ringmann had come to this sparse community with all the fervor -for the exploits of Vespucius which he got in the French capital from -associating with that Florentine's admirer, the architect Giocondo. - -[Illustration: VESPUCIUS.] - -Coming to St. Dié, Ringmann had been made a professor of Latin, and with -the usual nominal alternation had become known as Philesius; and as such -he appears a little later in connection with a Latin version of the -French of Giocondo, which was soon made by another of the St. Dié -scholars, a canon of the cathedral there, Jean Bassin de Sandacourt. -Still another young man, Walter Waldseemüller, had not long before been -made a teacher of geography in the college, and his name, as was the -wont, had been classicized into Hylacomylus. - -There have now been brought before the reader all the actors in this -little St. Dié drama, upon which we, as Americans, must gaze back -through the centuries as upon the baptismal scene of a continent. - -[Sidenote: Waldseemüller.] - -[Sidenote: _Cosmographiæ Introductio._] - -The Duke had emphasized the cosmographical studies of the age by this -appointment of an energetic young student of geography, who seems to -have had a deft hand at map-making. Waldseemüller had some hand, at -least, in fashioning a map of the new discoveries at the west, and the -Duke had caused the map to be engraved, and we find a stray note of -sales of it singly as early as 1507, though it was not till 1513 that it -fairly got before the world in the Ptolemy of that year. Waldseemüller -had also developed out of these studies a little cosmographical -treatise, which the college press was set to work upon, and to swell it -to the dignity of a book, thin as it still was, the diminutive quarto -was made to include Bassin's Latin version of the Vespucius narrative, -set out with some Latin verses by Ringmann. The little book called -_Cosmographiæ Introductio_ was brought out at this obscure college press -in St. Dié, in April and August, 1507. There were some varieties in each -of these issues, while that part which constituted the Vespucius -narrative was further issued in a separate publication. - - -[Illustration: TITLE OF THE COSMOGRAPHIÆ INTRODUCTIO.] - -It was in this form that Vespucius's narrative was for the first time, -unless Varnhagen's judgment to the contrary is superior to all others, -brought before the world. The most significant quality of the little -book, however, was the proposition which Waldseemüller, with his -anonymous views on cosmography, advanced in the introductory parts. It -is assumed by writers on the subject that it was not Waldseemüller alone -who was responsible for the plan there given to name that part of the -New World which Americus Vespucius had described after the voyager who -had so graphically told his experiences on its shores. The plan, it is -supposed, met with the approval of, or was the outcome of the counsels -of, this little band of St. Dié scholars collectively. It is not the -belief of students generally that this coterie, any more than Vespucius -himself, ever imagined that the new regions were really disjoined from -the Asiatic main, though Varnhagen contends that Vespucius knew they -were. - -[Sidenote:_Mundus Novus._] - -One thing is certainly true: that there wasno intention to apply the -name which was now proposed to anything more than the continental mass -of the Brazilian shore which Vespucius had coasted, and which was looked -upon as a distinct region from the islands which Columbus had traversed. -It had come to be believed that the archipelago of Columbus was far from -the paradise of luxury and wealth that his extravagant terms called for, -and which the descriptions of Marco Polo had led the world to expect, -supposing the regions of the overland and oceanic discoverers to be the -same. Further than this, a new expectation had been aroused by the -reports which had come to Europe of the vaster proportions and of the -brilliant paroquets--for such trivial aspects gave emphasis--of the more -southern regions. It was an instance of the eagerness with which deluded -minds, to atone for their first disappointment, grasp at the chances of -a newer satisfaction. This was the hope which was entertained of this -_Mundus Novus_ of Vespucius,--not a new world in the sense of a new -continent. - -The Española and its neighboring regions of Columbus, and the Baccalaos -of Cabot and Cortereal, clothed in imagination with the descriptions of -Marco Polo, were nothing but the Old World approached from the east -instead of from the west. It was different with the _Mundus Novus_ of -Vespucius. Here was in reality a new life and habitation, doubtless -connected, but how it was not known, with the great eastern world of the -merchants. It corresponded with nothing, so far as understood, in the -Asiatic chorography. It was ready for a new name, and it was alone -associated with the man who had, in the autumn of 1502, so described it, -and from no one else could its name be so acceptably taken. Europe and -Asia were geographically contiguous, and so might be Asia and the new -"America." - -[Sidenote: Eclipse of Columbus's name.] - -The sudden eclipse which the name of Columbus underwent, as the fame of -Vespucius ran through the popular mind, was no unusual thing in the -vicissitudes of reputations. Factitious prominence is gained without -great difficulty by one or for one, if popular issues of the press are -worked in his interest, and if a great variety of favoring circumstances -unite in giving currency to rumors and reports which tend to invest him -with exclusive interest. The curious public willingly lends itself to -any end that taxes nothing but its credulity and good nature. - -[Sidenote: Fame of Vespucius.] - -We have associated with Vespucius just the elements of such a success, -while the fame of Columbus was waning to the death, namely: a stretch of -continental coast, promising something more than the scattered trifles -of an insalubrious archipelago; a new southern heavens, offering other -glimpses of immensity; descriptions that were calculated to replace in -new variety and mystery the stale stories of Cipango and Cathay: the -busy yearnings of a group of young and ardent spirits, having all the -apparatus of a press to apply to the making of a public sentiment; and -the enthusiasm of narrators who sought to season their marvels of -discovery with new delights and honors. - -The hold which Vespucius had seized upon the imagination of Europe, and -which doubtless served to give him prominence in the popular -appreciation, as it has served many a ready and picturesque writer -since, was that glowing redundancy of description, both of the earth and -the southern constellations, which forms so conspicuous a feature of his -narratives. It was the later voyage of Vespucius, and not his alleged -voyage of 1497, which raised, as Humboldt has pointed out, the great -interest which his name suggested. - -[Sidenote: Columbus and Vespucius.] - -Just what the notion prevailing at the time was of the respective -exploits of Columbus and Vespucius is easily gathered from a letter -dated May 20, 1506, which appears in a _Dyalogus Johannis Stamler de -diversarum gencium sectis, et mundi regionibus_, published in 1508. In -this treatise a reference is made to the letters of Columbus (1493) and -Vespucius (1503) as concerning an insular and continental space -respectively. It speaks of "Cristofer Colom, the discoverer of _new -islands_, and of Albericus Vespucius concerning the new discovered -_world_, to both of whom our age is most largely indebted." It will be -remembered that an early misnaming of Vespucius by calling him Albericus -instead of Americus, which took place in one of the early editions of -his narrative, remained for some time to confuse the copiers of them. - -[Sidenote: Vespucius on gravitation.] - -If we may judge from a diagram which Vespucius gives of a globe with two -standing men on it ninety degrees apart, each dropping a line to the -centre of the earth, this navigator had grasped, together with the idea -of the sphericity of the globe, the essential conditions of gravitation. -There could be no up-hill sailing when the zenith was always overhead. -Curiously enough, the supposition of Columbus, when as he sailed on his -third voyage he found the air grow colder, was that he was actually -sailing up-hill, ascending a protuberance of the earth which was like -the stem end of a pear, with the crowning region of the earthly paradise -atop of all! Such contrasts show the lesser navigator to be the greater -physicist, and they go not a small way in accounting for the levelness -of head which gained the suffrages of the wise. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: PART OF MAP IN THE PTOLEMY OF 1513.] - -[Illustration: PART OF MAP IN THE PTOLEMY OF 1513.] - -[Sidenote: 1508. Duke René died.] - -[Sidenote: 1509. _Globus Mundi._] - -When Duke René, upon whom so much had depended in the little community -at St. Dié, died, in 1508, the geographical printing schemes of -Waldseemüller and his fellows received a severe reverse, and for a few -years we hear nothing more of the edition of Ptolemy which had been -planned. The next year (1509), Waldseemüller, now putting his name to -his little treatise, was forced, because of the failure of the college -press, to go to Strassburg to have a new edition of it printed (1509). -The proposals for naming the continental discoveries of Vespucius seem -not in the interim to have excited any question, and so they are -repeated. We look in vain in the copy of this edition which Ferdinand -Columbus bought at Venice in July, 1521, and which is preserved at -Seville, for any marginal protest. The author of the _Historie_, how far -soever Ferdinand may have been responsible for that book, is equally -reticent. There was indeed no reason why he should take any exception. -The fitness of the appellation was accepted as in no way invalidating -the claim of Columbus to discoveries farther to the north; and in -another little tract, printed at the same time at Grüniger's Strassburg -press, the anonymous _Globus Mundi_, the name "America" is adopted in -the text, though the small bit of the new coast shown in its map is -called by a translation of Vespucius's own designation merely "_Newe -Welt_." - -[Sidenote: 1513. The Strassburg Ptolemy.] - -The Ptolemy scheme bore fruit at last, and at Strassburg, also, for here -the edition whose maps are associated with the name of Waldseemüller, -and whose text shows some of the influence of a Greek manuscript of the -old geographer which Ringmann had earlier brought from Italy, came out -in 1513. Here was a chance, in a book far more sure to have influence -than the little anonymous tract of 1507, to impress the new name America -upon the world of scholars and observers, and the opportunity was not -seized. It is not easy to divine the cause of such an omission. The -edition has two maps which show this Vespucian continent in precisely -the same way, though but one of them shows also to its full extent the -region of Columbus's explorations. On one of these maps the southern -regions have no designation whatever, and on the other, the "Admiral's -map," there is a legend stretched across it, assigning the discovery of -the region to Columbus. - -We do not know, in all the contemporary literature which has come down -to us, that up to 1513 there had been any rebuke at the ignorance or -temerity which appeared in its large bearing to be depriving Columbus of -a rightful honor. That in 1509 Waldseemüller should have enforced the -credit given to Vespucius, and in 1513 revoked it in favor of Columbus, -seems to indicate qualms of conscience of which we have no other trace. -Perhaps, indeed, this reversion of sympathy is of itself an evidence -that Waldseemüller had less to do with the edition than has been -supposed. It is too much to assert that Waldseemüller repented of his -haste, but the facts in one light would indicate it. - -[Sidenote: The name America begins to be accepted.] - -[Illustration: THE TROSS GORES.] - -Like many such headlong projects, however, the purpose had passed beyond -the control of its promoters. The euphony, if not the fitness, of the -name America had attracted attention, and there are several printed and -manuscript globes and maps in existence which at an early date adopted -that designation for the southern continent. Nordenskiöld (_Facsimile -Atlas_, p. 42) quotes from the commentaries of the German Coclæus, -contained in the _Meteorologia Aristotelis_ of Jacobus Faber (Nuremberg, -1512) a passage referring to the "Nova Americi terra." - -[Sidenote: 1516-17. First in a map.] - -To complicate matters still more, within a few years after this an -undated edition of Waldseemüller's tract appeared at Lyons,--perhaps -without his participation,--which was always found, down to 1881, -without a map, though the copies known were very few; but in that year a -copy with a map was discovered, now owned by an American collector, in -which the proposition of the text is enforced with the name America on -the representation of South America. A section of this map is here given -as the Tross Gores. In the present condition of our knowledge of the -matter, it was thus at a date somewhere about 1516-17 that the name -appeared first in any printed map, unless, indeed, we allow a somewhat -earlier date to two globes in the Hauslab collection at Vienna. On the -date of these last objects there is, however, much difference of -opinion, and one of them has been depicted and discussed in the -_Mittheilungen_ of the Geographische Gesellschaft (1886, p. 364) of -Vienna. Here, as in the descriptive texts, it must be clearly kept in -mind, however, that no one at this date thought of applying the name to -more than the land which Vespucius had found stretching south beyond the -equator on the east side of South America, and which Balboa had shown to -have a similar trend on the west. The islands and region to the north, -which Columbus and Cabot had been the pioneers in discovering, still -remained a mystery in their relations to Asia, and there was yet a long -time to elapse before the truth should be manifest to all, that a -similar expanse of ocean lay westerly at the north, as was shown by -Balboa to extend in the same direction at the south. - -[Illustration: THE HAUSLAB GLOBE.] - -This Vespucian baptism of South America now easily worked its way to -general recognition. It is found in a contemporary set of gores which -Nordenskiöld has of late brought to light, and was soon adopted by the -Nuremberg globe-maker, Schöner (1515, etc.); by Vadianus at Vienna, when -editing Pomponius Mela (1515); by Apian on a map used in an edition of -Solinus, edited by Camers (1520); and by Lorenz Friess, who had been of -Duke René's coterie and a correspondent of Vespucius, on a map -introduced into the Grüniger Ptolemy, published at Strassburg (1522), -which also reproduced the Waldseemüller map of 1513. This is the -earliest of the Ptolemies in which we find the name accepted on its -maps. - -[Sidenote: 1522. The name first in a Ptolemy.] - -[Illustration: THE NORDENSKIÖLD GORES.] - -[Illustration: APIANUS, 1520.] - -[Illustration: SCHÖNER GLOBE, 1515.] - -[Illustration: FRIESS (_Frisius_), IN THE PTOLEMY OF 1522.] - -There is one significant fact concerning the conflict of the Crown with -the heirs of Columbus, which followed upon the Admiral's death, and in -which the advocates of the government sought to prove that the claim of -Columbus to have discovered the continental shore about the Gulf of -Paria in 1498 was not to be sustained in view of visits by others at an -earlier date. This significant fact is that Vespucius is not once -mentioned during the litigation. It is of course possible, and perhaps -probable, that it was for the interests of both parties to keep out of -view a servant of Portugal trenching upon what was believed to be -Spanish territories. The same impulse could hardly have influenced -Ferdinand Columbus in the silent acquiescence which, as a contemporary -informs us, was his attitude towards the action of the St. Dié -professors. There seems little doubt of his acceptance of a view, then -undoubtedly common, that there was no conflict of the claims of the -respective navigators, because their different fields of exploration had -not brought such claims in juxtaposition. - -[Sidenote: Who first landed on the southern main?] - -[Sidenote: Vespucius's maps.] - -[Sidenote: Vespucius not privy to the naming.] - -Following, however, upon the assertion of Waldseemüller, that Vespucius -had "found" this continental tract needing a name, there grew up a -belief in some quarters, and deducible from the very obscure chronology -of his narrative, which formulated itself in a statement that Vespucius -had really been the first to set foot on any part of this extended main. -It was here that very soon the jealousy of those who had the good name -of Columbus in their keeping began to manifest itself, and some time -after 1527,--if we accept that year as the date of his beginning work on -the _Historie_,--Las Casas, who had had some intimate relations with -Columbus, tells us that the report was rife of Vespucius himself being -privy to such pretensions. Unless Las Casas, or the reporters to whom he -referred, had material of which no one now has knowledge, it is certain -that there is no evidence connecting Vespucius with the St. Dié -proposition, and it is equally certain that evidence fails to establish -beyond doubt the publication of any map bearing the name America while -Vespucius lived. He had been made pilot major of Spain March 22, 1508, -and had died February 22, 1512. We have no chart made by Vespucius -himself, though it is known that in 1518 such a chart was in the -possession of Ferdinand, brother of Charles the Fifth. The recovery of -this chart would doubtless render a signal service in illuminating this -and other questions of early American cartography. It might show us how -far, if at all, Vespucius "sinfully failed towards the Admiral," as Las -Casas reports of him, and adds: "If Vespucius purposely gave currency to -this belief of his first setting foot on the main, it was a great -wickedness; and if it was not done intentionally, it looks like it." -With all this predisposition, however, towards an implication of -Vespucius, Las Casas was cautious enough to consider that, after all, it -may have been the St. Dié coterie who were alone responsible for -starting the rumor. - -[Sidenote: "America" not used in Spain.] - -[Sidenote: 1541. Mercator first applied the name to both North and South -America.] - -It is very clear that in Spain there had been no recognition of the name -"America," nor was it ever officially recognized by the Spanish -government. Las Casas understood that it had been applied by -"foreigners," who had, as he says, "called America what ought to be -called Columba." Just what date should attach to this protest of Las -Casas is not determinable. If it was later than the gore-map of Mercator -in 1541, which was the first, so far as is known, to apply the name to -both North and South America, there is certainly good reason for the -disquietude of Las Casas. If it was before that, it was because, with -the progress of discovery, it had become more and more clear that all -parts of the new regions were component parts of an absolutely new -continent, upon which the name of the first discoverer of any part of -it, main or insular, ought to have been bestowed. That it should be left -to "foreign writers," as Las Casas said, to give a name representing a -rival interest to a world that Spanish enterprise had made known was no -less an indignity to Spain than to her great though adopted Admiral. - -[Sidenote: Spread of the name in central Europe.] - -It happens that the suggestion which sprang up in the Vosges worked -steadily onward through the whole of central Europe. That it had so -successful a propagation is owing, beyond a doubt, as much to the -exclusive spirit of the Spanish government in keeping to itself its -hydrographical progress as to any other cause. We have seen how the name -spread through Germany and Austria. It was taken up by Stobnicza in -Poland in 1512, in a Cracow introduction to Ptolemy; and many other of -the geographical writers of central and southern Europe adopted the -designation. The _New Interlude_, published in England in 1519, had used -it, and towards the middle of the century the fame of Vespucius had -occupied England, so far as Sir Thomas More and William Cunningham -represent it, to the almost total obscuration of Columbus. - -It was but a question of time when Vespucius would be charged with -promoting his own glory by borrowing the plumes of Columbus. Whether Las -Casas, in what has been quoted, initiated such accusations or not, the -account of that writer was in manuscript and could have had but small -currency. - -[Sidenote: 1533. Schöner accuses Vespucius of participation in the -injustice.] - -The first accusation in print, so far as has been discovered, came from -the German geographer, Johann Schöner, who, having already in his -earlier globes adopted the name America, now in a tract called -_Opusculum Geographicum_, which he printed at Nuremberg in 1533, openly -charged Vespucius with attaching his own name to a region of India -Superior. Two years later, Servetus, while he repeated in his Ptolemy of -1535 the earlier maps bearing the name America, entered in his text a -protest against its use by alleging distinctly that Columbus was earlier -than Vespucius in finding the new main. - -Within a little more than a year from the death of Vespucius, and while -the maps assigned to Waldseemüller were pressed on the attention of -scholars, the integralness of the great southern continent, to which a -name commemorating Americus had been given, was made manifest, or at -least probable, by the discovery of Balboa. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: A barrier suspected.] - -Let us now see how the course of discovery was finding record during -these early years of the sixteenth century in respect to the great but -unsuspected barrier which actually interposed in the way of those who -sought Asia over against Spain. - -[Sidenote: Discoveries in the north.] - -[Sidenote: 1504. Normans and Bretons.] - -In the north, the discoveries of the English under Cabot, and of the -Portuguese under the Cortereals, soon led the Normans and Bretons from -Dieppe and Saint Malo to follow in the wake of such predecessors. As -early as 1504 the fishermen of these latter peoples seem to have been on -the northern coasts, and we owe to them the name of Cape Breton, which -is thought to be the oldest French name in our American geography. It is -the "Gran Capitano" of Ramusio who credits the Bretons with these early -visits at the north, though we get no positive cartographical record of -such visits till 1520, in a map which is given by Kunstmann in his -_Atlas_. - -[Sidenote: 1505. Portuguese.] - -Again, in 1505, some Portuguese appear to have been on the Newfoundland -coast under the royal patronage of Henry VII. of England, and by 1506 -the Portuguese fishermen were regular frequenters of the Newfoundland -banks. We find in the old maps Portuguese names somewhat widely -scattered on the neighboring coast lines, for the frequenting of the -region by the fishermen of that nation continued well towards the close -of the century. - -[Sidenote: 1506. Spaniards.] - -There are also stories of one Velasco, a Spaniard, visiting the St. -Lawrence in 1506, and Juan de Agramonte in 1511 entered into an -agreement with the Spanish King to pursue discovery in these parts more -actively, but we have no definite knowledge of results. - -[Sidenote: 1517. Sebastian Cabot.] - -[Sidenote: 1521. Portuguese.] - -The death of Ferdinand, January 23, 1516, would seem to have put a stop -to a voyage which had already been planned for Spain by Sebastian Cabot, -to find a northwest passage; but the next year (1517) Cabot, in behalf -of England, had sailed to Hudson's Strait, and thence north to 67° 30', -finding "no night there," and observing extraordinary variations of the -compass. Somewhat later there are the very doubtful claims of the -Portuguese to explorations under Fagundes about the Gulf of St. Lawrence -in 1521. - -[Sidenote: 1506. Ango's captains.] - -[Sidenote: Denys's map.] - -[Sidenote: 1518. Léry.] - -By 1506 also there is something like certainty respecting the Normans, -and under the influence of a notable Dieppese, Jean Ango, we soon meet a -class of adventurous mariners tempting distant and marvelous seas. We -read of Pierre Crignon, and Thomas Aubert, both of Dieppe, Jean Denys of -Honfleur, and Jean Parmentier, all of whom have come down to us through -the pages of Ramusio. It is of Jean Denys in 1506, and of Thomas Aubert -a little later, that we find the fullest recitals. To Denys there has -been ascribed a mysterious chart of the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but if the -copy which is preserved represents it, there can be no hesitation in -discarding it as a much later cartographical record. The original is -said to have been found in the archives of the ministry of war in Paris -so late as 1854, but no such map is found there now. The copy which was -made for the Canadian archives is at Ottawa, and I have been favored by -the authorities there with a tracing of it. No one of authority will be -inclined to dispute the judgment of Harrisse that it is apocryphal. We -are accordingly left in uncertainty just how far at this time the -contour of the Golfo Quadrago, as the Gulf of St. Lawrence was called, -was made out. Aubert is said to have brought to France seven of the -natives of the region in 1509. Ten years or more later (1519, etc.), the -Baron de Léry is thought to have attempted a French settlement -thereabouts, of which perhaps the only traces were some European cattle, -the descendants of his small herd landed there in 1528, which were found -on Sable Island many years later. - -[Sidenote: 1526. Nicholas Don.] - -We know from Herrera that in 1526 Nicholas Don, a Breton, was fishing -off Baccalaos, and Rut tells us that in 1527 Norman and Breton vessels -were pulling fish on the shores of Newfoundland. Such mentions mark the -early French knowledge of these northern coasts, but there is little in -it all to show any contribution to geographical developments. - -[Illustration: PETER MARTYR, 1511.] - -[Illustration: PONCE DE LEON. - -[From Barcia's _Herrera_.]] - -[Sidenote: Attempts to connect the northern discoveries with those of -the Spanish.] - -[Sidenote: 1511. Peter Martyr's map.] - -[Sidenote: 1512. Ponce de Leon.] - -[Sidenote: 1513. March.] - -[Sidenote: Florida.] - -Before this, however, the first serious attempt of which we have -incontrovertible evidence was made to connect these discoveries in the -north with those of the Spanish in the Antilles. As early as 1511 the -map given by Peter Martyr had shown that, from the native reports or -otherwise, a notion had arisen of lands lying north of Cuba. In 1512 -Ponce de Leon was seeking a commission to authorize him to go and see -what this reported land was like, with its fountain of youth. He got it -February 23, 1512, when Ferdinand commissioned him "to find and settle -the island of Bimini," if none had already been there, or if Portugal -had not already acquired possession in any part that he sought. Delays -in preparation postponed the actual departure of his expedition from -Porto Rico till March, 1513. On the 23d of that month, Easter Sunday, he -struck the mainland somewhere opposite the Bahamas, and named the -country Florida, from the day of the calendar. He tracked the coast -northward to a little above 30° north latitude. Then he retraced his -way, and rounding the southern cape, went well up the western side of -the peninsula. Whether any stray explorers had been before along this -shore may be a question. Private Spanish or Portuguese adventurers, or -even Englishmen, had not been unknown in neighboring waters some years -earlier, as we have evidence. We find certainly in this voyage of Ponce -de Leon for the first time an unmistakable official undertaking, which -we might expect would soon have produced its cartographical record. The -interdicts of the Council of the Indies were, however, too powerful, and -the old lines of the Cantino map still lingered in the maps for some -years, though by 1520 the Floridian peninsula began to take recognizable -shape in certain Spanish maps. - -[Illustration: PONCE DE LEON'S TRACK.] - -[Sidenote: Bimini.] - -Just what stood for Bimini in the reports of this expedition is not -clear; but there seems to have been a vague notion of its not being the -same as Florida, for when Ponce de Leon got a new patent in September, -1514, he was authorized to settle both "islands," Bimini and Florida, -and Diego Colon as viceroy was directed to help on the expedition. Seven -years, however, passed in delays, so that it was not till 1521 that he -attempted to make a settlement, but just at what point is not known. -Sickness and loss in encounters with the Indians soon discouraged him, -and he returned to Cuba to die of an arrow wound received in one of the -forays of the natives. - -[Sidenote: 1519. Pineda.] - -It was still a question if Florida connected with any adjacent lands. -Several minor expeditions had added something to the stretch of coast, -but the main problem still stood unsolved. In 1519 Pineda had made the -circuit of the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and at the river -Panuco he had been challenged by Cortes as trenching on his government. -Turning again eastward, Pineda found the mouth of the river named by him -Del Espiritu Santo, which passes with many modern students as the first -indication in history of the great Mississippi, while others trace the -first signs of that river to Cabeça de Vaca in 1528, or to the passage -higher up its current by De Soto in 1541. Believing it at first the -long-looked-for strait to pass to the Indies, Pineda entered it, only to -be satisfied that it must gather the watershed of a continent, which in -this part was now named Amichel. It seemed accordingly certain that no -passage to the west was to be found in this part of the gulf, and that -Florida must be more than an island. - -[Sidenote: 1520. Ayllon.] - -[Sidenote: Spaniards in Virginia.] - -While these explorations were going on in the gulf, others were -conducted on the Atlantic side of Florida. If the Pompey Stone which has -been found in New York State, to the confusion of historical students, -be accepted as genuine, it is evidence that the Spaniard had in 1520 -penetrated from some point on the coast to that region. In 1520 we get -demonstrable proof, when Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon sent a caravel under -Gordillo, which joined company on the way with another vessel bound on a -slave-hunting expedition, and the two, proceeding northward, sighted the -main coast at a river which they found to be in thirty-three and a half -degrees of north latitude, on the South Carolina coast. They returned -without further exploration. Ayllon, without great success, attempted -further explorations in 1525; but in 1526 he went again with greater -preparations, and made his landfall a little farther north, near the -mouth of the Wateree River, which he called the Jordan, and sailed on to -the Chesapeake, where, with the help of negro slaves, then first -introduced into this region, he began the building of a town at or near -the spot where the English in the next century founded Jamestown; or at -least this is the conjecture of Dr. Shea. Here Ayllon died of a -pestilential fever October 18, 1526, when the disheartened colonists, -one hundred and fifty out of the original five hundred, returned to -Santo Domingo. - -[Illustration: THE AYLLON MAP.] - -[Sidenote: 1524. Gomez.] - -[Sidenote: Chaves's map.] - -[Sidenote: 1529. Ribero's map.] - -While these unfortunate experiences were in progress, Estevan Gomez, -sent by the Spanish government, after the close of the conference at -Badajos, to make sure that there was no passage to the Moluccas anywhere -along this Atlantic coast, started in the autumn of 1524, if the data we -have admit of that conclusion as to the time, from Corunna, in the north -of Spain. He proceeded at once, as Charles V. had directed him, to the -Baccalaos region, striking the mainland possibly at Labrador, and then -turned south, carefully examining all inlets. We have no authoritative -narrative sanctioned by his name, or by that of any one accompanying the -expedition; nor has the map which Alonso Chaves made to conform to what -was reported by Gomez been preserved, but the essential features of the -exploration are apparently embodied in the great map of Ribero (1529), -and we have sundry stray references in the later chroniclers. From all -this it would seem that Gomez followed the coast southward to the point -of Florida, and made it certain to most minds that no such passage to -India existed, though there was a lingering suspicion that the Gulf of -St. Lawrence had not been sufficiently explored. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Shores of the Caribbean Sea.] - -[Sidenote: Ojeda and Nicuessa.] - -Let us turn now to the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea. New efforts -at colonizing here were undertaken in 1508-9. By this time the coast had -been pretty carefully made out as far as Honduras, largely through the -explorations of Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa. The scheme was a dual one, -and introduces us to two new designations of the regions separated by -that indentation of the coast known as the Gulf of Uraba. Here Ojeda and -Nicuessa were sent to organize governments, and rule their respective -provinces of Nueva Andalusia and Castilla del Oro for the period of four -years. Mention has already been made of this in the preceding chapter. -They delayed getting to their governments, quarreled for a while about -their bounds on each other, fought the natives with desperation but not -with much profit, lost La Cosa in one of the encounters, and were -thwarted in their purpose of holding Jamaica as a granary and in getting -settlers from Española by the alertness of Diego Colon, who preferred to -be tributary to no one. - -All this had driven Ojeda to great stress in the little colony of San -Sebastian which he had founded. He attempted to return for aid to -Española, and was wrecked on the voyage. This caused him to miss his -lieutenant Enciso, who was on his way to him with recruits. So Ojeda -passes out of history, except so far as he tells his story in the -testimony he gave in the suit of the heirs of Columbus in 1513-15. - -[Sidenote: Pizarro.] - -[Illustration: BALBOA. - -[From Barcia's _Herrera_.]] - -New heroes were coming on. A certain Pizarro had been left in command by -Ojeda,--not many years afterwards to be heard of. One Vasco Nuñez de -Balboa, a poor and debt-burdened fugitive, was on board of Enciso's -ship, and had wit enough to suggest that a region like San Sebastian, -inhabited by tribes which used poisoned arrows, was not the place for a -colony struggling for existence and dependent on foraging. So they -removed the remnants of the colony, which Enciso had turned back as they -were escaping, to the other side of the bay, and in this way the new -settlement came within the jurisdiction of Nicuessa, whom a combination -soon deposed and shipped to sea, never to be heard of. It was in these -commotions that Vasco Nuñez de Balboa brought himself into a prominence -that ended in his being commissioned by Diego Colon as governor of the -new colony. He had, meanwhile, got more knowledge of a great sea at the -westward than Columbus had acquired on the coast of Veragua in 1503. -Balboa rightly divined that its discovery, if he could effect it, would -serve him a good purpose in quieting any jealousies of his rule, of -which he was beginning to observe symptoms. - -[Sidenote: 1513. Balboa and the South Sea.] - -So on the 1st of September, 1513, he set out in the direction which the -natives hadindicated, and by the 24th he had reached a mountain from the -topof which his guides told him he would behold the sea. On the 25th his -party ascended, himself in front, and it was not long before he stood -gazing upon the distant ocean, the first of Europeans to discern the -long-coveted sea. Down the other slope the Spaniards went. The path was -a difficult one, and it was three days before one of his advanced squads -reached the beach. Not till the next day, the 29th, did Vasco Nuñez -himself join those in advance, when, striding into the tide, he took -possession of the sea and its bordering lands in the name of his -sovereigns. It was on Saint Miguel's Day, and the Bay of Saint Miguel -marks the spot to-day. Towards the end of January, 1514, he was again -with the colony at Antigua del Darien. Thence, in March, he dispatched a -messenger to Spain with news of the great discovery. - -[Sidenote: Pedrarias.] - -[Sidenote: 1517. Balboa executed.] - -This courier did not reach Europe till after a new expedition had been -dispatched under Pedrarias, and with him went a number of followers, who -did in due time their part in thridding and designating these new paths -of exploration. We recognize among them Hernando de Soto, Bernal Diaz, -the chronicler of the exploits of Cortes, and Oviedo, the historian. It -was from April till June, 1514, that Pedrarias was on his way, and it -was not long before the new governor with his imposing array of strength -brought the recusant Balboa to trial, out of which he emerged burdened -with heavy fines. The new governor planned at once to reap the fruits of -Balboa's discovery. An expedition was sent along his track, which -embarked on the new sea and gathered spoils where it could. Pedrarias -soon grew jealous of Balboa, for it was not without justice that the -state of the augmented colony was held to compare unfavorably with the -conditions which Balboa had maintained during his rule. But constancy -was never of much prevalence in these days, and Balboa's chains, lately -imposed, were stricken off to give him charge of an exploration of the -sea which he had discovered. Once here, Balboa planned new conquests and -a new independency. Pedrarias, hearing of it through a false friend of -Balboa, enticed the latter into his neighborhood, and a trial was soon -set on foot, which ended in the execution of Balboa and his abettors. -This was in 1517. - -It was not long before Pedrarias removed his capital to Panama, and in -1519 and during the few following years his captains pushed their -explorations northerly along the shores of the South Sea, as the new -ocean had been at once called. - -[Sidenote: 1515. Biru.] - -[Sidenote: 1519. Panama founded.] - -As early as 1515 Pizarro and Morales had wandered down the coast -southward to a region called Biru by the natives, and this was as far as -adventure had carried any Spaniard, during the ten years since Balboa's -discovery. They had learned here of a rich region farther on, and it got -to be spoken of by the same name, or by a perversion of it, as Peru. In -this interval the town of Panama had been founded (1519), and Pizarro -and Almagro, with the priest Luque, were among those to whom allotments -were made. - -[Sidenote: Peru.] - -[Sidenote: Chili.] - -[Sidenote: Chiloe.] - -It was by these three associates, in 1524 and 1526, that the expeditions -were organized which led to the exploration of the coasts of Peru and -the conquest of the region. The equator was crossed in 1526; in 1527 -they reached 9° south. It was not till 1535 that, in the progress of -events, a knowledge of the coast was extended south to the neighborhood -of Lima, which was founded in that year. In the autumn of 1535, Almagro -started south to make conquest of Chili, and the bay of Valparaiso was -occupied in September, 1536. Eight years later, in 1544, explorations -were pushed south to 41°. It was only in 1557 that expeditions reached -the archipelago of Chiloe, and the whole coast of South America on the -Pacific was made out with some detail down to the region which Magellan -had skirted, as will be shortly shown. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1508. Ocampo and Cuba.] - -It will be remembered that in 1503 Columbus had struck the coast of -Honduras west of Cape Gracias à Dios. He learned then of lands to the -northwest from some Indians whom he met in a canoe, but his eagerness to -find the strait of his dreams led him south. It was fourteen years -before the promise of that canoe was revealed. In 1508 Ocampo had found -the western extremity of Cuba, and made the oath of Columbus ridiculous. - -[Sidenote: 1517. Yucatan.] - -In 1517 a slave-hunting expedition, having steered towards the west from -Cuba, discovered the shores of Yucatan; and the next year (1518) the -real exploration of that region began when Juan de Grijalva, a nephew of -the governor of Cuba, led thither an expedition which explored the coast -of Yucatan and Mexico. - -[Sidenote: 1518. Cortes.] - -[Sidenote: 1519.] - -When Grijalva returned to Cuba in 1518, it was to find an expedition -already planned to follow up his discoveries, and Hernando Cortes, who -had been in the New World since 1504, had been chosen to lead it, with -instructions to make further explorations of the coast,--a purpose very -soon to become obscured in other objects. He sailed on the 17th of -November, and stopped along the coast of Cuba for recruits, so it was -not till February 18, 1519, that he sunk the shores of Cuba behind him, -and in March he was skirting the Yucatan shore and sailed on to San Juan -de Uloa. In due time, forgetting his instructions, and caring for other -conquests than those of discovery, he began his march inland. The story -of the conquest of Mexico does not help us in the aim now in view, and -we leave it untold. - -[Illustration: GRIJALVA. - -[From Barcia's _Herrera_.]] - -[Sidenote: Quinsay.] - -It was not long after this conquest before belated apostles of the -belief of Columbus appeared, urging that the capital of Montezuma was in -reality the Quinsay of Marco Polo, with its great commercial interests, -as was maintained by Schöner in his _Opusculum Geographicum_ in 1533. - -[Illustration: GLOBE GIVEN IN SCHÖNER'S _OPUSCULUM GEOGRAPHICUM_, 1533.] - -[Sidenote: 1520. Garay.] - -[Sidenote: Gulf of Mexico.] - -[Sidenote: 1524. Cortes's Gulf of Mexico.] - -[Sidenote: Yucatan as an island.] - -We have seen how Pineda's expedition to the northern parts of the Gulf -of Mexico in 1519 had improved the knowledge of that shore, and we have -a map embodying these explorations, which was sent to Spain in 1520 by -Garay, then governor of Jamaica. It was now pretty clear that the blank -spaces of earlier maps, leaving it uncertain if there was a passage -westerly somewhere in the northwest corner of the gulf, should be filled -compactly. Still, a belief that such a passage existed somewhere in the -western contour of the gulf was not readily abandoned. Cortes, when he -sent to Spain his sketch of the gulf, which was published there in 1524, -was dwelling on the hope that some such channel existed near Yucatan, -and his insular delineation of that peninsula, with a shadowy strait at -its base, was eagerly grasped by the cartographers. Such a severance -finds a place in the map of Maiollo of 1527, which is preserved in the -Ambrosian library at Milan. Grijalva, some years earlier, had been sent, -as we have seen, to sail round Yucatan; and though there are various -theories about the origin of that name, it seems likely enough that the -tendency to give it an insular form arose from a misconception of the -Indian appellation. At all events, the island of Yucatan lingered long -in the early maps. - -[Illustration: GULF OF MEXICO, 1520.] - -[Sidenote: 1523. Cortes.] - -In 1523 Cortes had sent expeditions up the Pacific, and one up the -Atlantic side of North America, to find the wished-for passage; but in -vain. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Spanish and Portuguese rivalries.] - -Meanwhile, important movements were making by the Portuguese beyond that -great sea of the south which Balboa had discovered. These movements were -little suspected by the Spaniards till the development of them brought -into contact these two great oceanic rivals. - -[Illustration: GULF OF MEXICO, BY CORTES.] - -[Sidenote: 1511. Moluccas.] - -[Sidenote: A western passage sought at the south.] - -The Portuguese, year after year, had extended farther and farther their -conquests by the African route. Arabia, India, Malacca, Sumatra, fell -under their sway, and their course was still eastward, until in 1511 the -coveted land of spices, the clove and the nutmeg, was reached in the -Molucca Islands. This progress of the Portuguese had been watched with a -jealous eye by Spain. It was a question if, in passing to these islands, -the Portuguese had not crossed the line of demarcation as carried to the -antipodes. If they had, territory neighboring to the Spanish American -discoveries had been appropriated by that rival power wholly -unconfronted. This was simply because the Spanish navigators had not as -yet succeeded in finding a passage through the opposing barrier of what -they were beginning to suspect was after all an intervening land. -Meanwhile, Columbus and all since his day having failed to find such a -passage by way of the Caribbean Sea, and no one yet discovering any at -the north, nothing was left but to seek it at the south. This was the -only chance of contesting with the Portuguese the rights which -occupation was establishing for them at the Moluccas. - -[Sidenote: 1508. Pinzon and Solis.] - -On the 29th of June, 1508, a new expedition left San Lucar under Pinzon -and Solis. They made their landfall near Cape St. Augustine, and, -passing south along the coast of what had now come to be commonly called -Brazil, they traversed the opening of the broad estuary of the La Plata -without knowing it, and went five degrees beyond (40° south latitude) -without finding the sought-for passage. - -[Illustration: MAIOLLO MAP, 1527.] - -[Sidenote: 1511. Portuguese at Rio de Janeiro.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand Columbus and the western passage.] - -There is some reason to suppose that as early as 1511 the Portuguese had -become in some degree familiar with the coast about Rio de Janeiro, and -there is a story of one Juan de Braza settling near this striking bay at -this early day. It was during the same year (1511) that Ferdinand -Columbus prepared his _Colon de Concordia_, and in this he maintained -the theory of a passage to be found somewhere beyond the point towards -the south which the explorers had thus far reached. - -[Illustration: DE COSTA'S DRAWING FROM THE LENOX GLOBE.] - -[Sidenote: 1516. Solis.] - -[Illustration: SCHÖNER'S GLOBE, 1520.] - -[Illustration: MAGELLAN.] - -[Sidenote: 1519. Magellan.] - -A few years later (1516) the Spanish King sent Juan Diaz de Solis to -search anew for a passage. He found the La Plata, and for a while hoped -he had discovered the looked-for strait. Magellan, who had taken some -umbrage during his Portuguese service, came finally to the Spanish King, -and, on the plea that the Moluccas fell within the Spanish range under -the line of demarcation, suggested an expedition to occupy them. He -professed to be able to reach them by a strait which he could find -somewhere to the south of the La Plata. It has long been a question if -Magellan's anticipation was based simply on a conjecture that, as Africa -had been found to end in a southern point, America would likewise be -discovered to have a similar southern cape. It has also been a question -if Magellan actually had any tidings from earlier voyages to afford a -ground for believing in such a geographical fact. It is possible that -other early discoverers had been less careful than Solis, and had been -misled by the broad estuary of the La Plata to think that it was really -an interoceanic passage. Some such intelligence would seem to have -instigated the conditions portrayed in one early map, but the general -notion of cartographers at the time terminates the known coast at Cape -Frio, near Rio de Janeiro, as is seen to be the case in the Ptolemy map -of 1513. There is a story, originating with Pigafetta, his historian, -that Magellan had seen a map of Martin Behaim, showing a southern cape; -but if this map existed, it revealed probably nothing more than a -conjectural termination, as shown in the Lenox and earliest Schöner -globes of 1515 and 1520. Still, Wieser and Nordenskiöld are far from -being confident that some definite knowledge of such a cape had not been -attained, probably, as it is thought, from private commercial voyage of -which we may have a record in the _Newe Zeitung_ and in the -_Luculentissima Descriptio_. It is to be feared that the fact, whatever -it may have been, must remain shadowy. - -Magellan's fleet was ready in August, 1519. His preparation had been -watched with jealousy by Portugal, and it was even hinted that if the -expedition sailed a matrimonial alliance of Spain and Portugal which was -contemplated must be broken off. Magellan was appealed to by the -Portuguese ambassador to abandon his purpose, as one likely to embroil -the two countries. The stubborn navigator was not to be persuaded, and -the Spanish King made him governor of all countries he might discover on -the "back side" of the New World. - -In the late days of 1519, Magellan touched the coast at Rio de Janeiro, -where, remaining awhile, he enjoyed the fruits of its equable climate. -Then, passing on, he crossed the mouth of the La Plata, and soon found -that he had reached a colder climate and was sailing along a different -coast. The verdure which had followed the warm currents from the -equatorial north gave way to the concomitants of an icy flow from the -Antarctic regions which made the landscape sterile. So on he went along -this inhospitable region, seeking the expected strait. His search in -every inlet was so faithful that he neared the southern goal but slowly. -The sternness of winter caught his little barks in a harbor near 50° -south latitude, and his Spanish crews, restless under the command of a -Portuguese, revolted. The rebels were soon more numerous than the -faithful. The position was more threatening than any Columbus had -encountered, but the Portuguese had a hardy courage and majesty of -command that the Genoese never could summon. Magellan confronted the -rebels so boldly that they soon quailed. He was in unquestioned command -of his own vessels from that time forward. The fate of the conquered -rioters, Juan de Carthagena and Sanchez de la Reina, cast on the -inhospitable shore of Patagonia in expiation of their offense, is in -strong contrast to the easy victory which Columbus too often yielded, to -those who questioned his authority. The story of Magellan's pushing his -fleet southward and through the strait with a reluctant crew is that of -one of the royally courageous acts of the age of discovery. - -[Sidenote: 1520. October. Magellan enters the strait.] - -On October 21, 1520, the ships entered the longed-for strait, and on the -28th of November they sailed into the new sea; then stretching their -course nearly north, keeping well in sight of the coast till the Chiloe -Archipelago was passed, the ships steered west of Juan Fernandez without -seeing it, and subsequently gradually turned their prows towards the -west. - -[Illustration: MAGELLAN'S STRAITS BY PIZAFETTA. - -[The north is at the bottom.]] - -[Sidenote: The western way discovered.] - -It is not necessary for our present purpose to follow the incidents of -the rest of this wondrous voyage,--the reaching the Ladrones and the -Asiatic islands, Magellan's own life sacrificed, all his ships but one -abandoned or lost, the passing of the Cape of Good Hope by the -"Victoria," and her arrival on September 6, 1522, under Del Cano, at the -Spanish harbor from which the fleet had sailed. The Emperor bestowed on -this lucky first of circumnavigators the proud motto, inscribed on a -globe, "Primus circumdedisti me." The Spaniards' western way to the -Moluccas was now disclosed. - -[Illustration: MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.] - -[Sidenote: Pacific Ocean.] - -The South Sea of Balboa, as soon as Magellan had established its -extension farther south, took from Magellan's company the name Pacific, -though the original name which Balboa had applied to it did not entirely -go out of vogue for a long time in those portions contiguous to the -waters bounding the isthmus and its adjacent lands. - -[Sidenote: North America and Asia held to be one.] - -For a long time after it was known that South America was severed, as -Magellan proved, from Asia, the belief was still commonly held that -North America and Asia were one and continuous. While no one ventures to -suspect that Columbus had any prescience of these later developments, -there are those like Varnhagen who claim a distinct insight for -Vespucius; but it is by no means clear, in the passages which are cited, -that Vespucius thought the continental mass of South America more -distinct from Asia than Columbus did, when the volume of water poured -out by the Orinoco convinced the Admiral that he was skirting a -continent, and not an island. That Columbus thought to place there the -region of the Biblical paradise shows that its continental features did -not dissociate it from Asia. The New World of Vespucius was established -by his own testimony as hardly more than a new part of Asia. - -[Sidenote: 1525. Loyasa.] - -[Sidenote: De Hoces discovers Cape Horn.] - -In 1525 Loyasa was sent to make further examination of Magellan's -Strait. It was at this time that one of his ships, commanded by -Francisco de Hoces, was driven south in February, 1526, and discovered -Cape Horn, rendering the insular character of Tierra del Fuego all but -certain. The fact was kept secret, and the map makers were not generally -made aware of this terminal cape till Drake saw it, fifty-two years -later. It was not till 1615-17 that Schouten and Lemaire made clear the -eastern limits of Tierra del Fuego when they discovered the passage -between that island and Staten Island, and during the same interval -Schouten doubled Cape Horn for the first time. It was in 1618-19 that -the observations of Nodal first gave the easterly bend to the southern -extremity of the continent. - -[Sidenote: 1535. Chili.] - -The last stretch of the main coast of South America to be made out was -that on the Pacific side from the point where Magellan turned away from -it up to the bounds of Peru, where Pizarro and his followers had mapped -it. This trend of the coast began to be understood about 1535; but it -was some years before its details got into maps. The final definition of -it came from Camargo's voyage in 1540, and was first embodied with -something like accuracy in Juan Freire's map of 1546, and was later -helped by explorations from the north. But this proximate precision gave -way in 1569 to a protuberant angle of the Chili coast, as drawn by -Mercator, which in turn lingered on the chart till the next century. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Cartographical views.] - -We need now to turn from these records of the voyagers to see what -impression their discoveries had been making upon the cartographers and -geographers of Europe. - -[Sidenote: Sylvanus's Ptolemy. 1511.] - -Bernardus Sylvanus Ebolensis, in a new edition of Ptolemy which was -issued at Venice in 1511, paid great attention to the changes necessary -to make Ptolemy's descriptions correspond to later explorations in the -Old World, but less attention to the more important developments of the -New World. Nordenskiöld thinks that this condition of Sylvanus's mind -shows how little had been the impression yet made at Venice by the -discoveries of Columbus and Da Gama. The maps of this Ptolemy are -woodcuts, with type let in for the names, which are printed in red, in -contrast with the black impressed from the block. - -[Sidenote: Nordenskiöld gores.] - -Sylvanus's map is the second engraved map showing the new discoveries, -and the earliest of the heart-shaped projections. It has in "Regalis -Domus" the earliest allusion to the Cortereal voyage in a printed map. -Sylvanus follows Ruysch in making Greenland a part of Asia. The rude map -gores of about the same date which Nordenskiöld has brought to the -attention of scholars, and which he considers to have been made at -Ingolstadt, agree mainly with this map of Sylvanus, and in respect to -the western world both of these maps, as well as the Schöner globe of -1515, seem to have been based on much the same material. - -[Illustration: FREIRE'S MAP, 1546.] - - -[Illustration: SYLVANUS'S PTOLEMY OF 1511.] - -[Illustration: STOBNICZA'S MAP.] - -[Sidenote: 1512. Stobnicza map.] - -We find in 1512, where we might least expect it, one of the most -remarkable of the early maps, which was made for an introduction to -Ptolemy, published at this date at Cracow, in Poland, by Stobnicza. This -cartographer was the earliest to introduce into the plane delineation of -the globe the now palpable division of its surface into an eastern and -western hemisphere. His map, for some reason, is rarely found in the -book to which it belongs. Nordenskiöld says he has examined many copies -of the book in the libraries of Scandinavia, Russia, and Poland, without -finding a copy with it; but it is found in other copies in the great -libraries at Vienna and Munich. He thinks the map may have been excluded -from most of the editions because of its rudeness, or "on account of its -being contrary to the old doctrines of the Church." Its importance in -the growth of the ideas respecting the new discoveries in the western -hemisphere is, however, very great, since for the first time it gives a -north and south continent connected by an isthmus, and represents as -never before in an engraved map the western hemisphere as an entirety. -This is remarkable, as it was published a year before Balboa made his -discovery of the Pacific Ocean. It is not difficult to see the truth of -Nordenskiöld's statement that the map divides the waters of the globe -into two almost equal oceans, "communicating only in the extreme south -and in the extreme north," but the south communication which is -unmistakable is by the Cape of Good Hope. The extremity of South America -is not reached because of the marginal scale, and because of the same -scale it is not apparent that there is any connection between the -Pacific and Indian oceans, and for similar reasons connection is not -always clear at the north. There must have been information at hand to -the maker of this map of which modern scholars can find no other trace, -or else there was a wild speculative spirit which directed the pencil in -some singular though crude correspondence to actual fact. This is -apparent in its straight conjectural lines on the west coast of South -America, which prefigure the discoveries following upon the enterprise -of Balboa and the voyage of Magellan. - -[Sidenote: The Lenox globe.] - -[Sidenote: Da Vinci globe.] - -If Stobnicza, apparently, had not dared to carry the southern extremity -of South America to a point, there had been no such hesitancy in the -makers of two globes of about the same date,--the little copper sphere -picked up by Richard M. Hunt, the architect, in an old shop in Paris, -and now in the Lenox Library in New York, and the rude sketch, giving -quartered hemispheres separated on the line of the equator, which is -preserved in the cabinet of Queen Victoria, at Windsor, among the papers -of Leonardo da Vinci. This little draft has a singular interest both -from its association with so great a name as Da Vinci's, and because it -bears at what is, perhaps, the earliest date to be connected with such -cartographical use the name America lettered on the South American -continent. Major has contended for its being the work of Da Vinci -himself, but Nordenskiöld demurs. This Swedish geographer is rather -inclined to think it the work of a not very well informed copier working -on some Portuguese prototype. - -[Sidenote: 1507-13. Admiral's map.] - -[Sidenote: 1515. Reisch's map.] - -It is worthy of remark that, in the same year with the discovery of the -South Sea by Balboa, an edition of Ptolemy made popular a map which had -indeed been cut in its first state as early as 1507, but which still -preserved the contiguity of the Antilles to the region of the Ganges and -its three mouths. This was the well-known "Admiral's map," usually -associated with the name of Waldseemüller, and if this same -cartographer, as Franz Wieser conjectures, is responsible for the map in -Reisch's _Margarita philosophica_ (1515), a sort of cyclopædia, he had -in the interim awaked to the significance of the discovery of Balboa, -for the Ganges has disappeared, and Cipango is made to lie in an ocean -beyond the continental Zoana Mela (America), which has an undefined -western limit, as it had already been depicted in the Stobnicza map of -1512. - -[Illustration: THE ALLEGED DA VINCI SKETCH. - -[_Combination._]] - -[Sidenote: First modern atlas.] - -It was in this Strassburg Ptolemy of 1513 that Ringmann, who had been -concerned in inventing the name of America, revised the Latin of -Angelus, using a Greek manuscript of Ptolemy for the purpose. -Nordenskiöld speaks of this edition as the first modern atlas of the -world, extended so as to give in two of its maps--that known as the -"Admiral's map," and another of Africa--the results following upon the -discoveries of Columbus and Da Gama. This "Admiral's map," which has -been so often associated with Columbus, is hardly a fair representation -of the knowledge that Columbus had attained, and seems rather to be the -embodiment of the discoveries of many, as the description of it, indeed, -would leave us to infer; while the other American chart of the volume -is clearly of Portuguese rather than of Spanish origin, as may be -inferred by the lavish display of the coast connected with the -descriptions by Vespucius. On the other hand, nothing but the islands of -Española and Cuba stand in it for the explorations of Columbus. Both of -these maps are given elsewhere in this Appendix. - -[Illustration: REISCH, 1515.] - -[Illustration: THE WORLD OF POMPONIUS MELA. - -[From Bunbury's _Ancient Geography_.]] - -[Sidenote: Asiatic connection of North America.] - -We could hardly expect, indeed, to find in these maps of the Ptolemy of -1513 the results of Balboa's discovery at the isthmus; but that the maps -were left to do service in the edition of 1520 indicates that the -discovery of the South Sea had by no means unsettled the public mind as -to the Asiatic connection of the regions both north and south of the -Antilles. Within the next few years several maps indicate the enduring -strength of this conviction. A Portuguese portolano of 1516-20, in the -Royal Library at Munich, shows Moslem flags on the coasts of Venezuela -and Nicaragua. A map of Ayllon's discoveries on the Atlantic coast in -1520, preserved in the British Museum, has a Chinaman and an elephant -delineated on the empty spaces of the continent. Still, geographical -opinions had become divided, and the independent continental masses of -Stobnicza were having some ready advocates. - -[Illustration: VADIANUS.] - -[Illustration: APIANUS. - -[From Reusner's _Icones_.]] - -[Sidenote: Vienna geographers.] - -[Sidenote: Pomponius Mela.] - -[Sidenote: Solinus.] - -[Sidenote: Vadianus.] - -[Sidenote: 1520. Apianus.] - -There was at this time a circle of geographers working at Vienna, -reëditing the ancient cosmographers, and bringing them into relations -with the new results of discovery. Two of these early writers thus -attracting attention were Pomponius Mela, whose _Cosmographia_ dated -back to the first century, and Solinus, whose _Polyhistor_ was of the -third. The Mela fell to the care of Johann Camers, who published it as -_De Situ Orbis_ at Vienna in 1512, at the press of Singrein; and this -was followed in 1518 by another issue, taken in hand by Joachim Watt, -better known under the Latinized name of Vadianus, who had been born in -Switzerland, and who was one of the earlier helpers in popularizing the -name of America. The Solinus, the care of which was undertaken by -Camers, the teacher of Watt, was produced under these new auspices at -the same time. Two years later (1520) both of these old writers attained -new currency while issued together and accompanied by a map of -Apianus,--as the German Bienewitz classicized his name,--in which -further iteration was given to the name of America by attaching it to -the southern continent of the west. - -[Sidenote: A strait at the Isthmus of Panama.] - -[Sidenote: 1515. Schöner.] - -[Sidenote: Antarctic continent.] - -In this map Apianus, in 1520, was combining views of the western -hemisphere, which had within the few antecedent years found advocacy -among a new school of cartographers. These students represented the -northern and southern continents as independent entities, disconnected -at the isthmus, where Columbus had hoped to find his strait. This is -shown in the earliest of the Schöner globes, the three copies of which -known to us are preserved, one at Frankfort and two at Weimar. It is in -the _Luculentissima Descriptio_, which was written to accompany this -Schöner globe of 1515, where we find that statement already referred to, -which chronicles, as Wieser thinks, an earlier voyage than Magellan's to -the southern strait, which separated the "America" of Vespucius from -that great Antarctic continent which did not entirely disappear from our -maps till after the voyage of Cook. - -[Sidenote: 1515. Reisch.] - -[Sidenote: Brazil.] - -It is a striking instance of careless contemporary observation, which -the student of this early cartography has often to confront, that while -Reisch, in his popular cyclopædia of the _Margarita Philosophica_ which -he published first in 1503, gave not the slightest intimation of the -discoveries of Columbus, he did not much improve matters in 1515, when -he ignored the discoveries of Balboa, and reproduced in the main the -so-called "Admiral's map" of the Ptolemy of 1513. It is to be observed, -however, that Reisch was in this reproduced map of 1515 the first of -map makers to offer in the word "Prisilia" on the coast of Vespucius the -prototype of the modern Brazil. It will be remembered that Cabral had -supposed it an island, and had named it the Isla de Santa Cruz. The -change of name induced a pious Portuguese to believe it an instigation -of the devil to supplant the remembrance of the holy and sacred wood of -the great martyr by the worldly wood, which was commonly used to give a -red color to cloth! - -[Sidenote: Theories of seamanship.] - -In 1519, in the _Suma de Geographia_ of Fernandez d'Enciso, published -later at Seville, in 1530, we have the experience of one of Ojeda's -companions in 1509. This little folio, now a scarce book, is of interest -as first formulating for practical use some of the new theories of -seamanship as developed under the long voyages at this time becoming -common. It has also a marked interest as being the earliest book of the -Spanish press which had given consideration at any length to the new -possessions of Spain. - -[Sidenote: 1522. Frisius.] - -We again find a similar indisposition to keep abreast of discovery, so -perplexing to later scholars, in the new-cast edition of Ptolemy in -1522, which contains the well-known map of Laurentius Frisius. It is -called by Nordenskiöld, in subjecting it to analysis in his _Facsimile -Atlas_, "an original work, but bad beyond all criticism, as well from a -geographical as from a xylographical point of view." One sees, indeed, -in the maps of this edition, no knowledge of the increase of -geographical knowledge during later years. We observe, too, that they go -back to Behaim's interpretation of Marco Polo's India, for the eastern -shores of Asia. The publisher, Thomas Ancuparius, seems never to have -heard of Columbus, or at least fails to mention him, while he awards the -discovery of the New World to Vespucius. The maps, reduced in the main -from those of the edition of 1513, were repeated in those of 1525, 1535, -and 1541, without change and from the same blocks. - -[Illustration: SCHÖNER.] - -The results of the voyage of Magellan and Del Cano promptly attained a -more authentic record than usually fell to the lot of these early ocean -experiences. - -[Sidenote: 1523. Magellan's voyage described.] - -The company which reached Spain in the "Victoria" went at once to -Valladolid to report to the Emperor, and while there a pupil and -secretary of Peter Martyr, then at Court, Maximilianus Transylvanus by -name, got from these men the particulars of their discoveries, and, -writing them out in Latin, he sent the missive to his father, the -Archbishop of Salzburg,--the young man was a natural son of this -prelate,--and in some way the narrative got into print at Cologne and -Rome in 1523. - -[Sidenote: 1523. Schöner.] - -[Sidenote: Rosenthal gores.] - -Schöner printed in 1523 a little tract, _De nuper ... repertis insulis -ac regionibus_ to elucidate a globe which he had at that time -constructed. It was published at Timiripæ, as the imprint reads, which -has been identified by Coote as the Grecized form of the name of a small -village not far from Bamberg, where Schöner was at that time a parochial -vicar. When a new set of engraved gores were first brought to light by -Ludwig Rosenthal, in Munich, in 1885, they were considered by Wieser, -who published an account of them in 1888, as the lost globe of Schöner. -Stevens, in a posthumous book on _Johann Schöner_, expressed a similar -belief. This was a view which Stevens's editor, C. H. Coote, accepted. -The opinion, however, is open to question, and Nordenskiöld finds that -the Rosenthal gores have nothing to do with the lost globe of Schöner, -and puts them much later, as having been printed at Nuremberg about -1540. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Political aspects of Magellan's voyage.] - -[Sidenote: Gomez.] - -The voyage of Magellan had reopened the controversy of Spain with -Portugal, stayed but not settled by the treaty of Tordesillas. Estevan -Gomez, a recusant captain of Magellan's fleet, who had deserted him just -as he was entering the straits, had arrived in Spain May 6, 1521, and -had his own way for some time in making representation of the -foolhardiness of Magellan's undertaking. - -On March 27, 1523, Gomez received a concession from the Emperor to go on -a small armed vessel for a year's cruise in the northwest, to make -farther search for a passage, but he was not to trespass on any -Portuguese possession. The disputes between Portugal and Spain -intensifying, Gomez's voyage was in the mean time put off for a while. - - -[Sidenote: Dispute over the Moluccas.] - -[Sidenote: Congress at Badajos.] - -[Illustration: ROSENTHAL OR NUREMBERG GORES.] - -Gomara tells us that, in the opinion of his time, the Spaniards had -gained the Moluccas, at the conference at Tordesillas, by yielding to -the demands of the Portuguese, so that what Portugal gained in Brazil -and Newfoundland she lost in Asia and adjacent parts. The Portuguese -historian, Osorius, viewed it differently; he counted in the American -gain for his country, but he denied the Spanish rights at the antipodes. -So the longitude of the Moluccas became a sharp political dispute, which -there was an attempt to settle in 1524 in a congress of the two nations -that was convened alternately at Badajos and Elvas, situated on opposite -sides of the Caya, a stream which separates the two countries. - -[Sidenote: Council of the Indies.] - -Ferdinand Columbus, by a decree of February 19, 1524, had been made one -of the arbiters. After two months of wrangling, each side stood stiff in -its own opinions, and it was found best to break up the congress. -Following upon the dissolution of this body, the Spanish government was -impelled to make the management of the Indies more effective than it had -been under the commissions which had existed, and on August 18, 1524, -the Council of the Indies was reorganized in more permanent form. - -[Sidenote: Gomez's voyage.] - -An immediate result of the interchange of views at Badajos was a renewal -of the Gomez project, to examine more carefully the eastern coast of -what is now the United States, in the hopes of yet discovering a western -passage. Of that voyage, which is first mentioned in the _Sumario_ of -Oviedo in 1526, and of the failure of its chief aim, enough has already -been said in the early part of this appendix. - -It has been supposed by Harrisse that the results of this voyage were -embodied in the earliest printed Spanish map which we have showing lines -of latitude and longitude,--that found in a joint edition of Martyr and -Oviedo (1534), and which is only known in a copy now in the Lenox -Library. - -The purpose which followed upon the congress of Badajos, to penetrate -the Atlantic coast line and find a passage to the western sea, was -communicated to Cortes, then in Mexico, some time before the date of his -fourth letter, October 15, 1524. The news found him already convinced of -the desirableness of establishing a port on the great sea of the west, -and he selected Zucatula as a station for the fleets which he undertook -to build. - -[Sidenote: 1526. Cortes sends ships to the Moluccas.] - -[Sidenote: The Moluccas sold to Portugal.] - -Other projects delayed the preparations which were planned, and it was -not till September 3, 1526, that Cortes signified to the Emperor his -readiness to send his ships to the Moluccas. After a brief experimental -trip up the coast from Zucatula, three of his vessels were finally -dispatched, in October, 1527, on a disastrous voyage to those islands, -where the purpose was to confront the Portuguese pretensions. It so -happened, meanwhile, that Charles V. needed money for his projects in -Italy, and he called Ferdinand Columbus to Court to consult with him -about a sale of his rights in the Moluccas to Portugal. Ferdinand made a -report, which has not come down to us, but a decision to sell was -reached, and the Portuguese King agreed to the price of purchase on June -20, 1530. Thus the Moluccas, which had been so long the goal of Spanish -ambition, pass out of view in connection with American discovery. - -There is some ground for the suspicion, if not belief, that the -Portuguese from the Moluccas had before this pushed eastward across the -Pacific, and had even struck the western verge of that continent which -separated them from the Spanish explorers on the Atlantic side. - -[Illustration: MARTYR-OVIEDO] - -[Illustration: MAP, 1534.] - -[Sidenote: North America, east coast.] - -[Sidenote: Verrazano.] - -We come next to some further developments on the eastern coast of North -America. A certain French corsair, known from his Florentine birth as -Juan Florin, had become a terror by preying on the Spanish commerce in -the Indies. In January, 1524, he was on his way, under the name of -Verrazano, in the expedition which has given him fame, and has supplied -not a little ground for contention, and even for total distrust of the -voyage as a fact. He struck the coast of North Carolina, turned south, -but, finding no harbor, retraced his course, and, making several -landings farther north, finally entered, as it would seem from his -description, the harbor of New York. The only point that he names is a -triangular island which he saw as he went still farther to the east, and -which has been supposed to be Block Island, or possibly Martha's -Vineyard. At all events, the name Luisa which he gave to it after the -mother of Francis I. clung to an island in this neighborhood in the maps -for some time longer. So he went on, and, if his landings have been -rightly identified, he touched at Newport, then at some place evidently -near Portsmouth in New Hampshire, and then, skirting the islands of the -Maine coast, he reached the country which he recognized as that where -the Bretons had been. He now ended what he considered the exploration of -seven hundred leagues of an unknown land, and bore away for France, -reaching Dieppe in July, whence, on the 9th, he wrote the letter to the -King which is the source of our information. Attempts have been made, -especially by the late Henry C. Murphy, to prove this letter a forgery, -but in the opinion of most scholars without success. - -[Illustration: THE VERRAZANO MAP.] - -[Illustration: AGNESE, 1536.] - -[Sidenote: The Verrazano map.] - -Fortunately for the student, Hieronimo da Verrazano made, in 1529, a -map, still preserved in the college of the Propaganda at Rome, in which -the discoveries of his brother, Giovanni, are laid down. In this the -name of Nova Gallia supplants that of Francesca, which had been used in -the map of Maiollo (1527), supposed, also, to have some relation to the -Verrazano voyage. - -[Illustration: MÜNSTER, 1540.] - -The most distinguishing feature of the Verrazano map is a great inland -expanse of water, which was taken to be a part of some western ocean, -and which remained for a long while in some form or other in the maps. -It was made to approach so near the Atlantic that at one point there was -nothing but a slender isthmus connecting the discoveries of the north -with the country of Ponce de Leon and Ayllon at the south. - -[Illustration: MÜNSTER, 1540.] - -[Sidenote: The sea of Verrazano.] - -It is in the _Sumario_ (1526) of Oviedo that we get the first idea of -this sea of Verrazano, as Brevoort contends, and we see it in the -Maiollo map of the next year, called "Mare Indicum," as if it were an -indentation of the great western ocean of Balboa. It was a favorite -fancy of Baptista Agnese, in the series of portolanos associated with -his name during the middle of the century, and in which he usually -indicated supposable ocean routes to Asia. As time went on, the idea was -so far modified that this indentation took the shape of a loop of the -Arctic seas, or of that stretch of water which at the north connected -the Atlantic and Pacific, as shown in the Münster map in the Ptolemy of -1540,--a map apparently based on the portolanos of Agnese,--though the -older form of the sea seems to be adopted in the globe of Ulpius (1542). -This idea of a Carolinian isthmus prevailed for some years, and may have -grown out of a misconception of the Carolina sounds, though it is -sometimes carried far enough north, as in the Lok map of 1582, to seem -as if Buzzard's Bay were in some way thought to stretch westerly into -its depths. The last trace of this mysterious inner ocean, so far as I -have discovered, is in a map made by one of Ralegh's colonists in 1585, -and preserved among the drawings of John White in the De Bry collection -of the British Museum, and brought to light by Dr. Edward Eggleston. -This drawing makes for the only time that I have observed it, an actual -channel at "Port Royal," leading to this oceanic expanse, which was -later interpreted as an inland lake. Thus it was that this geographical -blunder lived more or less constantly in a succession of maps for about -sixty years, until sometimes it vanished in a large lake in Carolina, or -in the north it dwindled until it began to take a new lease of life in -an incipient Hudson's Bay, as in the great Lake of Tadenac, figured in -the Molineaux map of 1600, and in the Lago Dagolesme in the Botero map -of 1603. - -[Illustration: MICHAEL LOK, 1582.] - -[Illustration: JOHN WHITE'S MAP. - -[Communicated by Dr. Edward Eggleston.]] - -[Sidenote: Norumbega.] - -It was apparently during the voyage of Verrazano that an Indian name -which was understood as "Aranbega" was picked up along the northern -coasts as designating the region, and which a little later was reported -by others as "Norumbega," and so passed into the mysterious and fabled -nomenclature of the coast with a good deal of the unstableness that -attended the fabulous islands of the Atlantic in the fancy of the -geographers of the Middle Ages. As a definition of territory it -gradually grew to have a more and more restricted application, coming -down mainly after a while to the limits of the later New England, and at -last finding, as Dr. Dee (1580), Molineaux (1600), and Champlain (1604) -understood it, a home on the Penobscot. Still the region it represented -contracted and expanded in people's notions, and on maps the name seemed -to have a license to wander. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: ROBERT THORNE, 1527.] - -[Sidenote: The English on the coast.] - -[Sidenote: William Hawkins.] - -During this period the English also were up and down the coast, but they -contributed little to our geographical knowledge. Slave-catching on the -coast of Guinea, and lucrative sales of the human plunder in the Spanish -West Indies and neighboring regions, seem to have taken William Hawkins -and others of his countrymen to these coasts not infrequently between -1525 and 1540. - -[Sidenote: John Rut.] - -There is some reason to believe that John Rut, an Englishman, may have -explored the northeast coasts of the present United States in 1527, a -proposition, however, open to argument, as the counter reasonings of Dr. -Kohl and Dr. De Costa show. It is certain that at this time Robert -Thorne, an English merchant living in Seville, was gaining what -knowledge he could to promote English enterprise in the north, and there -has come down to us the map which in 1527 he gave to the English -ambassador in Spain, Edward Leigh, to be transmitted to Henry VIII. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Progress of maritime art.] - -It was in 1526 when the Spanish authorities thought that the time was -fitting for making a sort of register of the progress of discovery and -of the attendant cartographical advances. Nordenskiöld says that "from -the beginning of the printing of maps the graduations of latitude and -longitude were marked down in most printed maps, at least in the -margin;" the most conspicuous example of omitting these being, perhaps, -in the work of Sebastian Münster, at a period a little later than the -one we have now reached. - -[Sidenote: Latitude and longitude.] - -In 1503 Reisch for the first time settled upon something like the modern -methods of indicating latitude and longitude in the map which he annexed -to his _Margarita philosophica_ at Freiburg, though so far as climatic -lines could stand for latitudinal notions, Pierre d'Ailly had set an -example of scaling the zones from the equator in his map of 1410. The -Spaniards, however, did not fall into the method of Reisch, so far as -published maps are concerned, till long afterwards (1534). - -[Sidenote: Italian maps.] - -Up to the time when the Strassburg Ptolemy was issued, in 1513, the -chief activity in map-making had been in Italy. The cartographers of -that country got what they could from Spain, but the main dependence -was on Portuguese sources, though the rivals of Spain were not always -free in imparting the knowledge of their hydrographical offices, since -we find Robert Thorne, in 1527, charging the Portuguese with having -falsified their records. It is worthy of remark that no official map of -the Indies was published in Spain till 1790. - -[Illustration: SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER. - -[From Reusner's _Icones_, 1590.]] - -[Sidenote: Cartographical activity north of the Alps.] - -[Sidenote: Map projections.] - -After 1513, and so on to the middle of the century, it was to the north -of the Alps that the cosmographical students turned for the latest light -upon all oceanic movements. The question of longitude was the serious -one which both navigators and map makers encountered. The cartographers -were trying all sorts of experiments in representing the converging -meridians on a plane surface, so as not to distort the geography, and in -order to afford some manifest method for the guidance of ships. - -[Sidenote: Lunar observations.] - -[Sidenote: Chronometers.] - -These experiments resulted, as Nordenskiöld counts, in something like -twenty different projections being devised before 1600. For the seaman -the difficulty was no less burdensome in trying to place his ship at -sea, or to map the contours of the coasts he was following. The -navigator's main dependence was the course he was steering and an -estimate of his progress. He made such allowance as he could for his -drift in the currents. We have seen how the imperfection of his -instruments and the defects of his lunar tables misled Columbus -egregiously in the attempts which he made to define the longitude of the -Antilles. He placed Española at 70° west of Seville, and La Cosa came -near him in counting it about 68°, so far as one can interpret his map. -The Dutch at this time were beginning to grasp the idea of a -chronometer, which was the device finally to prove the most satisfactory -in these efforts. - -[Sidenote: Earliest sea-atlas.] - -Reinerus Gemma of Friesland, known better as Gemma Frisius, began to -make the Dutch nautical views better known when he suggested, a few -years later, the carrying of time in running off the longitudes, and -something of his impress on the epoch was shown in the stand which a -pupil, Mercator, took in geographical science. The _Spieghel der -Zeevaardt_ of Lucas Wagenaer, in 1584 (Leyden), was the first sea-atlas -ever printed, and showed again the Dutch advance. - -There were also other requirements of sea service that were not -forgotten, among which was a knowledge of prevalent winds and ocean -currents, and this was so satisfactorily acquired that the return voyage -from the Antilles came, within thirty years after Columbus, to be made -with remarkable ease. Oviedo tells us that in 1525 two caravels were but -twenty-five days in passing from San Domingo to the river of Seville. - -Two of the duties imposed by the Spanish government upon the Casa de la -Contratacion, soon after the discovery of the New World, were to -patronize invention to the end of discovering a process for making fresh -water out of salt, and to improve ships' pumps,--the last a conception -not to take effective shape till Ribero, the royal cosmographer, secured -a royal pension for such an invention in 1526. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Congress of pilots at Seville.] - -It was in the midst of these developments, both of the practical parts -of seamanship and of the progress of oceanic discovery, that in 1526 -there was held at Seville a convention of pilots and cosmographers, -called by royal order, to consolidate and correlate all the -cartographical data which had accumulated up to that time respecting the -new discoveries. - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand Columbus.] - -Ferdinand Columbus was at this time in Seville, engaged in completing a -house and library for himself, and in planting the park about them with -trees brought from the New World, a single one of which, a West Indian -sapodilla, was still standing in 1871. It was in this house that the -convention sat, and Ferdinand Columbus presided over it, while the -examinations of the pilots were conducted by Diego Ribero and Alonso de -Chaves. - -[Illustration: HOUSE AND LIBRARY OF FERDINAND COLUMBUS.] - -[Sidenote: 1527-29. Maps.] - -There have come down to us two monumental maps, the outgrowth of this -convention. One of these is dated at Seville, in 1527, purporting to be -the work of the royal cosmographer, and has been usually known by the -name of Ferdinand Columbus; and the other, dated 1529, is known to have -been made by Diego Ribero, also a royal cosmographer. These maps closely -resemble each other. - -[Illustration: SPANISH MAP, 1527. - -[After sketch in E. Mayer's _Die Entwicklung der Seekarten_ (Wien, -1877).]] - -The Weimar chart of 1527, which Kohl, Stevens, and others have assigned -to Ferdinand Columbus, has been ascribed by Harrisse to Nuño Garcia de -Toreno, but by Coote, in editing Stevens on _Schöner_, it is assigned to -Ribero, as a precursor of his undoubted production of 1529. - -[Sidenote: Idea of a new continent spreading.] - -We have seen how, succeeding to the belief of Columbus that the new -regions were Asia, there had grown up, a few years after his death, in -spite of his audacious notarial act at Cuba, a strong presumption among -geographical students that a new continent had been found. We have seen -this conception taking form with more or less uncertainty as to its -western confines immediately upon, and even anticipating, the discovery -of the actual South Sea by Balboa, and can follow it down in the maps or -globes of Stobnicza and Da Vinci, in that known as the Lenox globe, in -those called the Tross and Nordenskiöld gores, the Schöner and Hauslab -globes, the Ptolemy map of 1513, and in those of Reisch, Apianus, -Laurentius Frisius, Maiollo, Bordone, Homem, and Münster,--not to name -some others. In twenty years it had come to be a prevalent belief, and -men's minds were turned to a consideration of the possibility of this -revealed continent having been, after all, known to the ancients, as -Glareanus, quoting Virgil, was the earliest to assert in 1527. - -[Illustration: THE NANCY GLOBE.] - -[Sidenote: Reaction in the monk Franciscus.] - -About 1525 there came a partial reaction, as if the discovery of Balboa -had been pushed too far in its supposed results. We find this taking -form in 1526, in an identification of North America with eastern Asia in -a map ascribed to the monk Franciscus, while South America is laid down -as a continental island, separated from India by a strait only. The -strait is soon succeeded by an isthmus, and in this way we get a -solution of the problem which had some currency for half a century or -more. - -[Sidenote: Orontius Finæus.] - -Orontius Finæus was one of these later compromisers in cartography, in a -map which he is supposed to have made in 1531, but which appeared the -next year in the _Novus Orbis_ (1532) of Simon Grynæus, and was used in -some later publications also. We find in this map, about the Gulf of -Mexico, the names which Cortes had applied in his map of 1520 mingled -with those of the Asiatic coast of Marco Polo. We annex a sketch of this -map as reduced by Brevoort to Mercator's projection. A map very similar -to this and of about the same date is preserved in the British Museum -among the Sloane manuscripts, and the same bold solution of the -difficulty is found in the Nancy globe of about 1540, and in the globe -of Gaspar Vopel of 1543. - -[Illustration: THE NANCY GLOBE.] - -[Sidenote: Johann Schöner.] - -There is a good instance of the instability of geographical knowledge at -this time in the conversion of Johann Schöner from a belief in an -insular North America, to which he had clung in his globes of 1515 and -1520, to a position which he took in 1533, in his _Opusculum -Geographicum_, where he maintains that the city of Mexico is the Quinsay -of Marco Polo. - -[Illustration: ORONTIUS FINÆUS, 1532. - -[After Cimelinus's Copperplate of 1566.]] - -[Illustration: ORONTIUS FINÆUS, 1531. - -[Reduced by Brevoort to Mercator's projection.]] - -[Sidenote: The Pacific explored.] - -[Sidenote: California.] - -[Illustration: CORTES.] - -Previous to Cortes's departure for Spain in 1528, he had, as we have -seen, dispatched vessels from Tehuantepec to the Moluccas, but nothing -was done to explore the Pacific coast northward till his return to -Mexico. In the spring or early summer of 1532 he sent Hurtado de Mendoza -up the coast; but little success attending the exploration, Cortes -himself proceeded to Tehuantepec and constructed other vessels, which -sailed in October, 1533. A gale drove them to the west, and when they -succeeded in working back and making the coast, they found themselves -well up what proved to be the California peninsula. They now coasted -south and developed its shape, which was further brought out in detail -by an expedition led by Cortes himself in 1535, and by a later one sent -by him under Francisco de Ulloa in 1539. Cortes had supposed the -peninsula an island, but this expedition of 1539 demonstrated the fact -that no passage to the outer sea existed at the head of the gulf, which -these earliest navigators had called the Sea of Cortes. The conqueror of -Mexico had now made his last expedition on the Pacific, and his name was -not destined to be long connected with this new field of discovery, -unless, indeed, it was a prompting of Cortes--hardly proved, -however--which attached to this peninsular region the euphonious name of -California, and which, after an interval when the gulf was called the -Red Sea, was applied to that water also. The views of Ulloa were -confirmed in part, at least, by Castillo in 1540, who has left us a map -of the gulf. - -[Illustration: CASTILLO'S CALIFORNIA.] - -The outer coast of the peninsula as far north as 28° 30' had been -established in 1533. It was ten years later, in 1543, that Cabrillo, -making his landfall in the neighborhood of 33°, just within the southern -bounds of the present State of California, coasted up to Cape -Mendocino, and perhaps to 44°, or nearly, to that spot, in the present -State of Oregon. If Cabrillo, who had died January 3, 1543, did not -himself go so high, the credit belongs to Ferrelo, his chief pilot. - -Late in 1542 Mendoza sent an expedition under Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, -across the Pacific, and if a map of Juan Freire, made in 1546, is an -indication of his route, he seems to have gone higher up the coast than -any previous explorer. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The Atlantic coast of North America.] - -While this development of the northwest coast of North America was going -on, there were other discoverers still endeavoring on the Atlantic side -to connect the waters of the two oceans. - -[Sidenote: 1534. Cartier.] - -In April, 1534, Jacques Cartier, a jovial and roistering fellow, as -Father Jouon des Longrais, his latest biographer, makes him out -(_Jacques Cartier_, Paris, 1888), and who had led the roving life of a -corsair in the recent wars of France, was now turning his energy to -solve the great problem of this western passage. He sailed from St. -Malo, and for the first time laid open, by an official examination, the -inner spaces of the St. Lawrence Gulf, which might have been, indeed, -and probably were, known earlier to the hardy Breton and Norman -fishermen. We are deficient in a knowledge of the early frequenting of -these coasts because the charts of such fishermen, and of those who -visited the region for trade in peltries, have not come down to us, -though Kohl thinks there is some likelihood of such records being -preserved in a portolano of the British Museum. - -The track of Cartier about the Gulf of St. Lawrence has caused some -discussion and difference of opinion in the publications of Kohl, De -Costa, Laverdière, and W. F. Ganong, the latter writer claiming, in a -careful paper in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society of Canada for -1889, that in the correct interpretation of Cartier's first voyage we -find a key to the cartography of the gulf for almost a century. - -The Rotz map of 1542 seems to be the earliest map which we know to show -a knowledge of Cartier's first voyage. The Henri II. map of 1542 still -more develops his work of exploration. - -The chance of further discovery in this direction induced the French -king once more to commission Cartier, October 30, 1534, and early in -1535 his little fleet sailed, and by August, after some discouragements, -not lessened when he found the water freshening, he began to ascend the -St. Lawrence River, reaching the site of Montreal. No map by Cartier -himself is preserved, though it is known that he made such. -Thenceforward the cartography of this northeastern region showed the St. -Lawrence Gulf in a better development of the earlier so-called Square -Gulf and of the great river of Canada. It is of record that Francis I., -in commissioning Cartier, considered that he was dispatching him to -ascend an Asiatic river, and the name of Lachine even to-day is -preserved as evidence of the belief which Cartier entertained that he -was within the bounds of China. - -[Illustration: SKETCH FROM A PORTOLANO IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.] - -[Sidenote: John Rotz's map.] - -John Rotz's _Boke of Idiography_--a manuscript of 1542, preserved in the -British Museum--shows, in his drawing of the region about the Gulf of -St. Lawrence, certain signs, as Kohl thinks, of having had access to the -charts of Cartier, and Harrisse traces in them the combined influence of -the Portuguese and Dieppe navigators. - -The Cartier voyages seem to have made little impression outside of -France, and we find for some years few traces of his discoveries in the -portolanos of Italy and in the maps of the rest of Europe. It was only -when the expedition of Roberval, in 1540-41, excited attention that the -rest of Europe seemed to recognize these French efforts. - -[Illustration: HOMEM, 1558.] - -[Illustration: ZIEGLER'S SCHONDIA.] - -[Sidenote: Cartier's later voyages.] - -[Sidenote: Allefonsce.] - -The later voyages of Cartier, in 1541 and 1543, revealed nothing more of -general geographical interest. Indeed, the hope of a western passage in -this direction had been abandoned in effect after Cartier's second -voyage, although the pilot Allefonsce, who accompanied a later -expedition, had been detailed to explore the Labrador coast to that end, -and had been turned back by ice. After this he seems to have gone south -into a great bay, under 42°, the end of which he did not reach. This may -have been the large expanse partly shut in by Cape Sable (Nova Scotia) -and Cape Cod, now called in the coast survey charts the Gulf of Maine; -or perhaps it may conform, taking into account his registered latitude, -to the inner bight of it called Massachusetts Bay. At all events, -Allefonsce believed himself on coasts contiguous to Tartary, through -which he had hopes to find access to the more hospitable orient -(occident) farther south. He apparently had something of the same notion -regarding the westerly stretch of water which he found below Cape Cod, -extending he knew not where, along the inclosure of the present Long -Island Sound. - -In the years both before and after the middle of the century, French -vessels were on this coast in considerable numbers for purposes of trade -or for protecting French interests, but we know nothing of any -accessions to geographical knowledge which they made. - -[Illustration: RUSCELLI, 1544.] - -Allefonsce speaks of the Saguenay as widening, when he went up, till it -seemed to be an arm of the sea, and "I think the same," he adds, "runs -into the Sea of Cathay;" and so he draws it on one of his maps,--an idea -made more general in the map of Homem in 1558, where the St. Lawrence -really becomes a channel, locked by islands, bordering an Arctic Sea. -Ramusio, in 1553, has inferred from such reports as he could get of -Cartier's explorations, that his track had lain in channels bounded by -islands, and a similar view had already been expressed in a portolano of -1536, preserved in the Bodleian, which Kohl associates with Homem or -Agnese. The oceanic expansion of the Saguenay is preserved as late as -the Molineaux map of 1600. - -[Sidenote: River of Norumbega.] - -It is to the work of Allefonsce that we probably owe another confusion -of this northern cartography in the sixteenth century. What we now know -as Penobscot Bay and River was called by him the River of Norumbega, and -he seems to have given some ground for believing that this river -connected the waters of the Atlantic with the great river of Canada, -just as we find it later shown upon Gastaldi's map in Ramusio, by -Ruscelli in 1561, by Martines in 1578, by Lok in 1582, and by Jacques de -Vaulx in 1584. - -[Sidenote: Greenland connects Europe and America.] - -While this idea of the north was developing, there came in another that -made the peninsular Greenland of the ante-Columbian maps grow into a -link of land connecting Europe with the Americo-Asiatic main, so that -one might in truth perambulate the globe dryshod. We find this -conception in the maps of the Bavarian Ziegler (1532), and in the -Italians Ruscelli (1544) and Gastaldi (1548),--the last two represented -in the Ptolemies of those years published in Italy. But these Italian -cosmographers were by no means constant in their belief, as Ruscelli -showed in his Ptolemy of 1561, and Gastaldi in his Ramusio map of 1550. - -[Illustration: CARTA MARINA, 1548.] - -[Sidenote: Asia and America joined in the higher latitudes.] - -[Illustration: MYRITIUS, 1590.] - -As the Pacific explorations were stretched northward from Mexico, and -the peninsula of California was brought into prominence, there remained -for some time a suspicion that the western ocean made a great northerly -bend, so as to sever North America from Asia except along the higher -latitudes. We find this northerly extension of the Pacific in a map of -copper preserved in the Carter-Brown library, which seems to have been -the work of a Florentine goldsmith somewhere about 1535; in the Carta -Marina of Gastaldi in 1548; and it even exists in maps of a later date, -like that of Paolo de Furlani (1560) and that of Myritius (1587). - -[Illustration: ZALTIÈRE, 1566.] - -[Sidenote: Entanglement of the American and Asiatic coasts.] - -[Sidenote: 1728. Bering.] - -This map of Myritius, which appeared in his _Opusculum Geographicum_, -published at Ingolstadt in 1590, is the work of, perhaps, the last of -the geographers who did not leave more or less doubt about the -connection of North America with Asia. So it took about a full century -for the entanglement of the coasts of Asia and America, which Columbus -had imagined, to be practically eradicated from the maps. Not that there -were not doubters, even very early, but the faith in a new continent -grew slowly and had many set-backs; nor did the Asiatic connection fade -entirely out, as among the possibilities of geography, for considerably -more than a century yet to come. The uncertainties of the higher -latitudes kept knowledge in suspense, and even the English settlers on -the northerly coasts of the United States were not quite sure. Thomas -Morton, the chronicler of a colony on the Massachusetts shores, felt it -necessary, so late as 1636, to make a reservation that possibly the -mainland of America bordered on the land of the Tartars. Indeed, no one -could say positively, though much was conjectured, that there was not a -terrestrial connection in the extreme northwest, under arctic latitudes, -till Bering in 1728, two hundred and thirty-six years after Columbus -offered his prayer at San Salvador, passed from the Pacific into the -polar waters. This became the solution of the fabled straits of Anian, -an inheritance from the very earliest days of northern exploration, -which, after the middle of the sixteenth century, was revived in the -maps of Martines, Zaltière, Mercator, Porcacchi, Furlani, and Wytfliet, -prefiguring the channel which Bering passed. Much in the same way as the -southern apex of South America was a vision in men's minds long before -Magellan found his way to the Pacific. - -[Illustration: PORCACCHI, 1572.] - -[Sidenote: 1536. Chaves.] - -[Sidenote: 1538. Mercator.] - -[Sidenote: 1540. Hartmann gores.] - -But we have anticipated a little. Coincident with the efforts of Cartier -to discover this northern passage we mark other navigators working at -the same problem. The Spaniard Alonso de Chaves made a chart of this -eastern coast in 1536; but we only know of its existence from the -description of it written by Oviedo in 1537. In the earliest map which -we have from the hand of Gerard Mercator, and of which the only copy -known was discovered some years ago by the late James Carson Brevoort, -of New York, we find the northern passage well defined in 1538, and a -broad channel separating the western coast of America from a parallel -coast of Asia,--a kind of delineation which is followed in some -globe-gores of about 1540, which Nordenskiöld thinks may have been the -work of George Hartmann, of Nuremberg. This map is evidently based on -Portuguese information, and that Swedish scholar finds no ground for -associating it with the lost globe of Schöner, as Stevens has done. A -facsimile of part of it has already been given. - -[Sidenote: 1540-45. Münster.] - -Sebastian Münster, in his maps in the Ptolemy of 1540-45, makes a clear -seaway to the Moluccas somewhere in the latitude of the Strait of Belle -Isle. Münster was in many ways antiquated in his notions. He often -resorted to the old device of the Middle Ages by supplying the place of -geographical details with figures of savages and monsters. - - * * * * * - -We come now to two significant maps in the early history of American -cartography. - -[Illustration: MERCATOR'S GLOBE OF 1538.] - -Columbus had been dead five and thirty years when a natural result grew -out of those circumstances which conspired to name the largest part of -the new discoveries after a secondary pathfinder. We have seen that -there seemed at first no injustice in the name of America being applied -to a region in the main external to the range of Columbus's own -explorations, and how it took nearly a half century before public -opinion, as expressed in the protest of Schöner in 1533, recognized the -injustice of using another's name. - -[Sidenote: 1541. Mercator.] - -Whether that protest was prompted by a tendency, already shown, to give -the name to the whole western hemisphere is not clear; but certainly -within eight years such a general application was publicly made, when -Mercator, in drafting in 1541 some gores for a globe, divided the name -AME--RICA so that it covered both North and South America, and qualified -its application by a legend which says that the continent is "called -to-day by many, New India." Thus a name that in the beginning was given -to a part in distinction merely and without any reference to the entire -field of the new explorations, was now become, by implication, an -injustice to the great first discoverer of all. The mischief, aided by -accident and by a not unaccountable evolution, was not to be undone, -and, in the singular mutations of fate, a people inhabiting a region of -which neither Columbus nor Vespucius had any conception are now -distinctively known in the world's history as Americans. - -[Illustration: MERCATOR'S GLOBE OF 1538.] - -These 1541 gores of Mercator were first made known to scholars a few -years ago, when the Belgian government issued a facsimile edition of the -only copy then known, which the Royal Library at Brussels had just -acquired; but since there have been two other copies brought to -light,--one at St. Nicholas in Belgium, and the other in the Imperial -library at Vienna. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Henry II. map.] - -[Sidenote: 1544. Cabot map.] - -There are some indications on Spanish globes of about 1540, and in the -Desceliers or Henry II. map of 1546, that the Spanish government had -sent explorers to the region of Canada not long after Cartier's earliest -explorations, and it is significant that the earliest published map to -show these Cartier discoveries is the other of the two maps already -referred to, namely, the Cabot mappemonde of 1544, which has been -supposed a Spanish cartographical waif. Early publications of southern -and middle Europe showed little recognition of the same knowledge. - -[Illustration: MÜNSTER, 1545.] - -The Cabot map has been an enigma to scholars ever since it was -discovered in Germany, in 1843, by Von Martius. It was deposited the -next year in the great library at Paris. It is a large elliptical -world-map, struck from an engraved plate, and it bears sundry -elucidating inscriptions, some of which must needs have come from -Sebastian Cabot, others seem hardly to merit his authorship, and one -acknowledges him as the maker of the map. There is, accordingly, a -composite character to the production, not easily to be analyzed so as -to show the credible and the incredible by clear lines of demarcation. -We learn from it how it proclaimed for the first time the real agency of -John Cabot in the discovery of North America, confirmed when Hakluyt, in -1582, printed the patent from Henry VII. There is an unaccountable year -given for that discovery, namely, 1494, but we seem to get the true date -when Michael Lok, in 1582, puts down "J. Cabot. 1497," against Cape -Breton in his map of that year. As this last map appeared in Hakluyt's -_Divers Voyages_, and as Hakluyt tells us of the existence of Cabot's -maps and of his seeing them, we may presume that we have in this date of -1497 an authoritative statement. We learn also from this map of 1544 -that the land first seen was the point of the island now called Cape -Breton. Without the aid of this map, Biddle, who wrote before its -discovery, had contended for Labrador as the landfall. - -[Illustration: MERCATOR, 1541. - -[Sketched from his gores.]] - -[Illustration: FROM THE SEBASTIAN CABOT MAPPEMONDE. 1514.] - -[Sidenote: Scarcity of Spanish printed maps.] - -We know, on the testimony of Robert Thorne in 1527, if from no other -source, that it was a settled policy of the Spanish government to allow -no one but proper cartographical designers to make its maps, "for that -peradventure it would not sound well to them that a stranger should know -or discover their secrets." This doubtless accounts for the fact that, -in the two hundred maps mentioned by Ortelius in 1570 as used by him in -compiling his atlas, not one was published in Spain; and every -bibliographer knows that not a single edition of Ptolemy, the best known -channel of communicating geographical knowledge in this age of -discovery, bears a Spanish imprint. The two general maps of America -during the sixteenth century, which Dr. Kohl could trace to Spanish -presses, were that of Medina in 1545 and that of Gomara in 1554, and -these were not of a scale to be of any service in navigating. - -[Sidenote: Cabot's connection with the map of 1544.] - -There seem to be insuperable objections to considering that Sebastian -Cabot had direct influence in the production of the map now under -consideration. It is full of a lack of knowledge which it is not -possible to ascribe to him. That it is based upon some drafts of Cabot -is most probably true; but they are clearly drafts, confused and in some -ways perverted, and eked out by whatever could be picked up from other -sources. - -That the Cabot map was issued in more than one edition is inferred -partly from the fact that the legends which Chytræus quotes from it -differ somewhat from those now in the copy preserved in Paris; and -indeed Harrisse finds reason to suppose that there may have been four -different editions. That in some form or other it was better known in -England than elsewhere is deduced from certain relations sustained with -that country on the part of those who have mentioned the map,--Livio -Sanuto, Ortelius, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Richard Willes, Hakluyt, and -Purchas. - -Whoever its author and whatever its minor defects, this so-called Cabot -map of 1544 may reasonably be accepted as the earliest really honest, -unimaginative exhibition of the American continent which had been made. -There was in it no attempt to fancy a northwest passage; no confidence -in the marine or terrestrial actuality of the region now known to be -covered by the north Pacific; no certainty about the entire western -coast line of South America, though this might have been decided upon if -the maker of the map had been posted to date for that region. The maker -of it further showed nothing of that presumption, which soon became -prevalent, of making Tierra del Fuego merely but one of the various -promontories of an immense Antarctic continent, which later stood in the -planispheres of Ortelius and Wytfliet. - -[Illustration: MEDINA, 1544.] - -[Sidenote: Geographical study transferred to Italy.] - -This map of Cabot was the last of the principal cartographical monuments -made north of the Alps in this early half of the sixteenth century. The -centre of geographical study was now transferred to Italy, where it had -begun with the opening of the interest in oceanic discovery. For the -next score years and more we must look mainly to Venice for the newer -development. - -[Illustration: MEDINA, 1544.] - -[Sidenote: 1548, Gastaldi.] - -In the Venice Ptolemy of 1548, we have for the first time a _series_ of -maps of the New World by Gastaldi, which were simply enlarged by -Ruscelli in the edition of 1561, except in a few instances, where new -details were added, like the making of Yucatan a peninsula instead of -the island which Gastaldi had drawn. They were repeated in the edition -of 1562. - -[Sidenote: Sea manuals.] - -Meanwhile the most popular sea manuals of this period were Spanish; but -they studiously avoided throwing much light on the new geography. - -[Illustration: WYTFLIET, 1597.] - -That of Martin Cortes was the first to suggest a magnetic pole as -distinct from the terrestrial pole. Its rival, the _Arte de Navegar_ of -Pedro de Medina, published at Valladolid in 1545, never reached the same -degree of popularity, nor did it deserve to, for his notions were in -some respects erratic. - -The English in their theories of navigation had long depended on the -teachings of the Spaniards, and Eden had translated the chief Spanish -manual in his _Arte of Navigation_ of 1561. - -[Illustration: WYTFLIET, 1597.] - -[Sidenote: Ship's log.] - -A great advance was possible now, for a new principle had been devised, -and an estimate of the progress of a ship was no longer dependent on -visual observation. The log had made it possible to put dead reckoning -on a pretty firm basis. This was the great new feature of the _Regiment -of the Sea_, which the Englishman, William Bourne, published in 1573; -and sixteen years later, in 1589, another Englishman, Blunderville, made -popularly known the new instrument for taking meridian altitudes at sea, -the cross-staff, which had very early superseded the astrolabe on -shipboard. - -The inclination or dip of the needle, showing by its increase an -approach to a magnetic pole, was not scaled till 1576, when Robert -Norman made his observations, and it is not without some service to-day -in that combination of phenomena of which Columbus noted the earliest -traces in his first voyage of 1492. - -[Illustration: THE CROSS-STAFF.] - -[Sidenote: Italian discoverers.] - -[Sidenote: English discoverers.] - -It is significant how large a part in the cardinal discoveries of the -fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was taken by Italian navigators, -seamen, shipwrights, mathematicians, and merchants, whether in Portugal -or Spain, France or England. It is curious, too, to observe how, when -the theoretical work and confirmatory explorations were finished, and -the commercial spirit succeeded to that of science, England embarked -with her adventurous spirit. The death of Queen Mary in 1558 was the -signal for English exertion, and that exertion became ominous to all -Europe in the reign of Elizabeth, accompanied by an intellectual -movement, typified in Bacon and Shakespeare, similar to that which -stirred the age of Columbus and the Italian renaissance. - -[Sidenote: John Hawkins.] - -John Hawkins and African marauders of his English kind were selling -negro slaves in Española in 1562 and subsequent years, and from them we -get our first English accounts of the Florida coast, which on their -return voyages they skirted. - -[Sidenote: New France.] - -[Sidenote: Spanish settlements fail at the north.] - -America had at this time been abandoned for a long while to Spain and -France, and the latter power had only entered into competition with -Charles V., when Francis I., as we have seen, had sent out Verrazano in -1521 to take possession of the north Atlantic coasts. Out of this grew -upon the maps the designation of New France, which was attached to the -main portion of the North American continent. And this French claim is -recognized in the maps, painted about 1562, on the walls of the -geographical gallery in the Vatican. So the French stole upon the -possession of Spain in the West Indies; and the English followed in -their wake, when the death of Mary rendered it easier for the English to -smother their inherited antipathy to France. This done, the English in -due time joined the French in efforts to gain an ascendency over Spain -in the Indies, to compensate for the loss of such power in Italy. The -Spaniards, though they had attempted to make settlements along the -Chesapeake at different times between 1566 and 1573, never succeeded in -making any impression on the history of this northern region. - - * * * * * - -The cartography of the north was at this period subject to two new -influences; and both of them make large demands upon the credulity of -scholarship in these latter days. - -[Sidenote: André Thevet.] - -Attempts have been made to trace some portion of the development of the -coasts of the northeastern parts of the United States to the -publications of a mendacious monk, André Thevet. He had been sent out to -the French colony of Rio de Janeiro in 1555, where he remained -prostrated with illness till he was able to reëmbark for France, January -31, 1556. In 1558 he published his _Singularitez de la France -Antarctique_, a descriptive and conglomerate work, patched together from -all such sources as he could pillage, professing to follow more or less -his experiences on this voyage. He says nothing in it of his tracking -along the east coast of the present United States. Seeking notoriety and -prestige for his country, he pretends, however, in his _Cosmographie_ -published in 1575, to recount the experiences of the same voyage, and -now he professes to have followed this same eastern coast to the region -of Norumbega. Well-equipped scholars find no occasion to believe that -these later statements were other than boldly conceived falsehoods, -which he had endeavored to make plausible by the commingling of what he -could filch from the narratives of others. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The Zeni story.] - -[Illustration: THE ZENI MAP.] - -It was at this time also (1558) that there was published at Venice the -strange and riddle-like narrative which purports to give the experiences -of the brothers Zeni in the north Atlantic waters in the fourteenth -century. The publication came at a time when, with the transfer of -cartographical interest from over the Alps to the home of its earliest -growth, the countrymen of Columbus were seeking to reinstate their -credit as explorers, which during the fifteenth century and the early -part of the sixteenth they had lost to the peoples of the Iberian -peninsula. Anything, therefore, which could emphasize their claims was a -welcome solace. This accounts both for the bringing forward at this time -of the long-concealed Zeni narrative,--granting its genuineness,--and -for the influence which its accompanying map had upon contemporary -cartography. This map professed to be based upon the discoveries made by -the Zeni brothers, and upon the knowledge acquired by them at the north -in the fourteenth century. It accordingly indicated the existence of -countries called Estotiland and Drogeo, lying to the west, which it was -now easy to identify with the Baccalaos of the Cabots, and with the New -France of the later French. - -[Sidenote: The Zeni map.] - -"If this remarkable map," says Nordenskiöld, "had not received extensive -circulation under the sanction of Ptolemy's name," for it was copied in -the edition of 1561 of that geographer, "it would probably have been -soon forgotten. During nearly a whole century it had exercised an -influence on the mapping of the northern countries to which there are -few parallels to be found in the history of cartography." It is -Nordenskiöld's further opinion that the Zeni map was drawn from an old -map of the north made in the thirteenth century, from which the map -found in the Warsaw Codex of Ptolemy of 1467 was also drawn. He further -infers that some changes and additions were imposed to make it -correspond with the text of the Zeni narrative. - -[Illustration: THE ZENI MAP.] - - * * * * * - -The year 1569 is marked by a stride in cartographical science, of which -we have not yet outgrown the necessity. - -[Illustration: THE WARSAW CODEX, 1467; after Nordenskiöld.] - -[Sidenote: 1569. Mercator's projection.] - -The plotting of courses and distances, as practiced by the early -explorers, was subject to all the errors which necessarily accompany the -lack of well-established principles, in representing the curved surface -of the globe on a plane chart. Cumbrous and rude globes were made to do -duty as best they could; but they were ill adapted to use at sea. -Nordenskiöld (_Facsimile Atlas_, p. 22) has pointed out that -Pirckheimer, in the Ptolemy of 1525, had seemingly anticipated the -theory which Mercator now with some sort of prevision developed into a -principle, which was applied in his great plane chart of 1569. The -principle, however, was not definite enough in his mind for the clear -exposition of formulæ, and he seems not to have attempted to do more -than rough-hew the idea. The hint was a good one, and it was left for -the Englishman Edward Wright to put its principles into a formulated -problem in 1599, a century and more after Columbus had dared to track -the ocean by following latitudinal lines in the simplest manner. - -[Illustration: THE WARSAW CODEX, 1467; after Nordenskiöld.] - -It has been supposed that Wright had the fashioning of the large map -which, on this same Mercator projection, Hakluyt had included in his -_Principall Navigations_ in 1599. Hondius had also adopted a like method -in his _mappemonde_ of the same year. - -[Sidenote: 1570. The _Theatrum_ of Ortelius.] - -[Sidenote: Decline of Ptolemy.] - -[Illustration: MERCATOR, 1569.] - -In 1570 the publication of the great atlas of Abraham Ortelius showed -that the centre of map-making had again passed from Italy, and had found -a lodgment in the Netherlands. The _Theatrum_ of Ortelius was the signal -for the downfall of the Ptolemy series as the leading exemplar of -geographical ideas. The editions of that old cartographer, with their -newer revisions, never again attained the influence with which they had -been invested since the invention of printing. This influence had been -so great that Nordenskiöld finds that between 1520 and 1550 the Ptolemy -maps had been five times as numerous as any other. They had now passed -away; and it is curious to observe that Ortelius seems to have been -ignorant of some of the typical maps anterior to his time, and which we -now look to in tracing the history of American cartography, like those -of Ruysch, Stobnicza, Agnese, Apianus, Vadianus, and Girava. - -[Sidenote: Ortelius.] - -It has already been mentioned that when Ortelius published his -_Theatrum_, and gave a list of ninety-nine makers of maps whom he had -consulted, not a solitary one of Spanish make was to be found among -them. It shows how effectually the Council of the Indies had concealed -the cartographical records of their office. - -[Illustration: MERCATOR.] - -[Sidenote: 1577. English explorations.] - -[Sidenote: 1548. Sebastian Cabot.] - -It was eighty years since the English under John Cabot had undertaken a -voyage of discovery in the New World. The interval passed not without -preparation for new efforts, which had for a time, however, been -extended to the northwest rather than to the northeast. In 1548 -Sebastian Cabot had returned to his native land to assume the first -place in her maritime world. His influence in directing, and that of -Richard Eden in informing, the English mind prepared the way for the -advent of Frobisher, the younger Hawkins, and Drake. - -[Sidenote: 1576. Frobisher.] - -[Illustration: ORTELIUS.] - -[Sidenote: 1577-78. Frobisher.] - -Frobisher's voyage of 1576 was the true beginning of the arctic search -for a northwest passage, all earlier efforts having been in lower -latitudes. He had sought, by leaving Greenland on the right, to pass -north of the great American barrier, and thus reach the land of spices. -He congratulated himself on having found the long-desired strait, when, -naming it for himself, he returned to England. Frobisher attempted to -add to these earlier discoveries by a voyage the next year, 1577, but he -made exploration secondary to mining for gold, and not much was done. A -third voyage in 1578 brought him into Hudson's Straits, which he entered -with the hope of finding it the channel to Cathay. But in all his -voyages Frobisher only crossed the threshold of the arctic north. - -[Illustration: ORTELIUS, 1570.] - -[Sidenote: The Zeni influence.] - -[Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT.] - -It was one of the results of Frobisher's voyages that they served to -implant in the minds of the cartographers of the northern waters the -notions of the Zeni geography, and aided to give those notions a new -lease of favor. It is conjectured that Frobisher had the Zeni map with -him, or its counterpart in one of the recent Ptolemies. This map had -placed the point of Greenland under 66° instead of 61°, and under the -last latitude this map had shown the southern coast of its insular -Frisland. Therefore, when Frobisher saw land under 61°, which was in -fact Greenland, he supposed it to be Frisland, and thus the maps after -him became confused. A like mischance befell Davis, a little later. When -this navigator found Greenland in 61°, he supposed it an island south of -Greenland, which he called "Desolation," and the fancy grew up that -Frobisher's route must have gone north of this island and between it and -Greenland, and so we have in later maps this other misplacement of -discoveries. - -[Illustration: FROBISHER.] - -[Sidenote: 1577. Francis Drake.] - -While Frobisher was absent, Drake developed his great scheme of -following in the southerly track of Magellan. - -[Sidenote: Drake sees Cape Horn.] - -Four years before (1573), being at Panama, he had seen from a treetop -the great Pacific, and had resolved to be the first of the English to -furrow its depths. In 1577, starting on his great voyage of -circumnavigation, he soon added a new stretch of the Pacific coast to -the better knowledge of the world. When he returned to England, he -proved to be the first commander who had taken his ship, the "Pelican," -later called the "Golden Hind" wholly round the globe, for Magellan had -died on the way. Passing through Magellan's Strait and entering the -Pacific, Drake's ship was separated from its companions and driven -south. It was then he saw the Cape Horn of a later Dutch navigator, and -proved the non-existence of that neighboring antarctic continent, which -was still persistently to cling to the maps. Bereft of his other ships, -which the storm had driven apart, Drake, during the early months of -1579, made havoc among the Spanish galleons which were on the South -American coasts. - -[Illustration: FROBISHER, 1578.] - -In March, 1579, surfeited with plunder, he started north from the coast -of Mexico, to find a passage to the Atlantic in the upper latitudes. - -[Sidenote: In the north Pacific.] - -In June he had reached 42° north, though some have supposed that he went -several degrees higher. He had met, however, a rigorous season, and his -ropes crackled with the ice. The change was such a contrast to the -allurements of his experiences farther to the south that he gave up his -search for the strait that would carry him, as he had hoped, to the -Atlantic, and, turning south, he reached a bay somewhere in the -neighborhood of San Francisco, where he tarried for a while. Having -placed the name of New Albion on the upper California coast, and fearing -to run the hazards of the southern seas, where his plundering had made -the Spaniards alert, he sailed westerly, and, rounding the Cape of Good -Hope, reached England in due time, and was acknowledged to be the -earliest of English circumnavigators. - -[Illustration: FRANCIS DRAKE.] - -It is one of the results of Drake's explorations in 1579-80 that we get -in subsequent maps a more northerly trend to the California coast. - -[Sidenote: Confusion in the Pacific coast cartography.] - -Shortly after this, a great confusion in the maps of this Pacific region -came in. From what it arose is not very apparent, except that absence of -direct knowledge in geography opens a wide field for discursiveness. The -Michael Lok map of 1582 indicates this uncertainty. It seemed to be the -notion that the Arctic Sea was one and the same with that of Verrazano; -also, that it came down to about the latitude of Puget Sound, and that -the Gulf of California stretched nearly up to meet it. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Francisco Gali.] - -[Sidenote: Proves the great width of the Pacific.] - -Francisco Gali, a Spanish commander, returning to Acapulco from China in -1583, tried the experiment of steering northward to about 38°, when he -turned west and sighted the American coast in that latitude. At this -point he steered south, and showed the practicability of following this -circuitous route with less time than was required to buffet the easterly -trades by a direct eastern passage. His experiment established one other -fact, namely, the great width of water separating the two continents in -those upper latitudes; for he had found it to be 1200 leagues across -instead of there being a narrow strait, as the theorizing geographers -had supposed. Gali seems also to have shown that the distance south from -Cape Mendocino to the point of the California peninsula was not more -than half as great as the maps had made it. His voyage was a significant -source of enlightenment to the cartographers. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Eastern coast of North America.] - -[Sidenote: 1579. The English on the coast.] - -To return to the eastern coasts, an English vessel under Simon -Ferdinando spent a short season in 1579 somewhere about the Gulf of -Maine, and was followed the next year by another under John Walker, and -in 1593 by still a third under Richard Strong. - -[Sidenote: Sir Humphrey Gilbert.] - -For eighty years England might have rested her claim to North America on -the discoveries of the Cabots; but Queen Elizabeth first gave prominence -to these pretensions when she granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1578 -the right to make a settlement somewhere in these more northerly -regions. Gilbert's first voyage accomplished nothing, and there was an -interdict to prevent a second, since England might have use for daring -seamen nearer home. "First," says Robert Hues, "Sir Humphrey Gilbert, -with great courage and forces, attempted to make discovery of those -parts of America which were yet unknown to the Spaniards; but the -success was not answerable." The effort was not renewed till 1583, when -Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland and attempted to make -settlements farther south; but disaster followed him, and his ship -foundered off the Azores on his return voyage. - -[Illustration: GILBERT'S MAP, 1576.] - -[Sidenote: Sir Walter Ralegh.] - -It was at this time that Sir Walter Ralegh came into prominence in -pushing English colonization in America. He had been associated with his -half-brother, Gilbert, in the earlier movements, but now he was alone. -In 1584 he got his new charter, partly by reason of the urgency of -Hakluyt in his _Westerne Planting_. Ralegh had his eye upon a more -southern coast than Gilbert had aimed for,--upon one better fitted to -develop self-dependent colonization. He knew that north of what was -called Florida the Spaniards had but scantily tracked the country, and -that they probably maintained no settlements. Therefore to reach a -region somewhere south of the Chesapeake was the aim of the first -company sent out under Ralegh's inspiration. These adventurers made -their landfall where they could find no good inlet, and so sailed north, -searching, until at last they reached the sounds on the North Carolina -coast, and tarried awhile. Satisfied with the quality of the country, -they returned to England; and their recitals so pleased Ralegh and the -Queen that the country was named Virginia, and preparations were made to -dispatch a colony. It went the next year, but its history is of no -farther importance to our present purpose than that it marks the -commencement of English colonization, disastrous though it was, on the -North American continent, and the beginning of detailed English -cartography of its coast, in the map, already referred to, which seems -to open a passage, somewhere near Port Royal, to an interior sea. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1585-86. John Davis.] - -In 1585-86 John Davis had been buffeting among the icebergs of Greenland -and the north in hopes to find a passage by the northwest; on June 30, -1587, he reached 72° 12' on the Greenland coast, and discovered the -strait known by his name, and in 1595 when he published his _World's -Hydrographical Description_, he maintained that he had touched the -threshold of the northwest passage. He tells us that the globe of -Molineaux shows how far he went. - -[Sidenote: English seamanship.] - -Seamanship owes more to Davis than to any other Englishman. In 1590, or -thereabout, he improved the cross-staff, and giving somewhat more of -complexity to it, he produced the back-staff. This instrument gave the -observer the opportunity of avoiding the glare of the sun, since it was -used with his back to that luminary; and when Flamsteed, the first -astronomer royal at Greenwich, used a glass lens to throw reflected -light, the first approach to the great principle of taking angles by -reflection was made, which was later, in 1731, to be carried to a -practical result in Hadley's quadrant. - -[Illustration: BACK-STAFF.] - -The art of finding longitude was still in an uncertain state. Gemma -Frisius, as we have noted, had as early as 1530 divined the method of -carrying time by a watch; but it was not till 1726 that anything really -practicable came of it, in a timekeeper constructed by Harrison. This -watch was continually improved by him up to 1761, when the method of -ascertaining longitude by chronometer became well established; and a few -years later (1767) the first nautical almanac was published, affording a -reasonably good guide in lunar distances, as a means in the computations -of longitude. - -[Sidenote: 1676.] - -In 1676 the Greenwich observatory had been founded to attempt the -rectification of lunar tables, then so erroneous that the calculations -for longitude were still uncertain. In 1701 Edmund Halley had published -his great variation charts. These dates will fix in the reader's mind -the advance of scientific skill as applied to navigation and discovery. -It will be well also to remember that in 1594 Davis published his -_Seaman's Secrets_, the first manual in the English tongue, written by a -practical sailor, in which the principles of great circle sailing were -explained. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: 1583-84. Earliest marine atlas.] - -[Sidenote: 1592. Dutch West India Company.] - -[Sidenote: 1598.] - -The first marine atlas had been printed at Leyden in 1583-84; but the -Dutch had not at that time taken any active part in the development of -discovery in the New World. Their longing for a share in it, mated with -a certain hostile intention towards the Spaniards, instigated the -formation of the West India Company, which had first been conceived in -the mind of William Usselinx in 1592, though it was not put into -execution till twenty-five years later. It was claimed by the Dutch that -in 1598 the ships of their Greenland Company had discovered the Hudson -River, though there can be little doubt that the French, Spanish, and -perhaps English had been there much earlier. It is also claimed that the -straits shown in Lok's map in 1582 had instigated Heinrich Hudson to his -later search. But the truth in all these questions which involve -national rights is very much perplexed with claim and counter-claim, -invention and perversion, in which historical data are at the beck of -political objects. - -[Sidenote: 1598. The Dutch on the North American coasts.] - -[Sidenote: The English.] - -By the end of the sixteenth century the Dutch began to appear on the -coasts of the Middle and New England States, and the cartography of -those regions developed rapidly under their observation; but it was -through the boating explorations of Captain John Smith in 1614 that it -took a shape nearer the truth. It is to him that the northerly parts owe -the name of New England, which Prince Charles confirmed for it. The -reports from Hudson, May, and others instigated a plan marked out in -1618, but not directly ordered by the States General till 1621, which -led to the Dutch occupation of Manhattan and the neighboring regions, -introducing more strongly than before a Dutch element into the maps. - -[Sidenote: The English leaders in maritime discovery.] - -[Sidenote: Richard Hakluyt.] - -When the seventeenth century opened, the English had come well to the -front in maritime explorations. A large-minded and patriotic man, Sir -Thomas Smith, did much in his capacity as governor of the "merchants -trading into the East Indies" to direct contemporary knowledge into -better channels. Dr. Thomas Hood gave public lectures in London on the -improvements in methods of navigation. Richard Hakluyt, the -historiographer of the new company, had already shown that he had -inherited the spirit of helpful patronage which had characterized the -labors of Eden. - -[Sidenote: 1600.] - -[Sidenote: The search for a western passage at the north.] - -[Sidenote: 1601. George Waymouth.] - -We find the peninsula made by the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic -insularized from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the -transverse channel being now on the line of the Hudson, then of the -Penobscot, then of the St. Croix, and when the seventeenth century came -in, it was not wholly determined that the longed-for western passage -might not yet be found somewhere in this region. On July 24, 1601, -George Waymouth, a navigator, as he was called, applied to the London -East India Company to be assisted in making an attempt to discover a -northwest passage to India, and the company agreed to his proposition. -The Muscovy Company protested in vain against such an infringement of -its own rights; but it found a way to smother its grief and join with -its rival in the enterprise. Through such joint action Waymouth was sent -by the northwest "towards Cataya or China, or the back side of America," -bearing with him a letter from Queen Elizabeth to the Emperor of "China -or Kathia." The attempt failed, and Waymouth returned almost -ignominiously. - -[Sidenote: Hudson at the north.] - -In 1602, under instructions from the East India Company, he again -sailed, and now pushed a little farther into Hudson's Strait than any -one had been before. In 1609 Hudson had made some explorations, defining -a little more clearly the northern coasts of the present United States; -and in 1610 he sailed again from England to attempt the discovery of the -northwest passage, in a small craft of fifty-five tons, with -twenty-three souls on board. Following the tracks of Davis and Waymouth, -he went farther than they, and revealed to the world the great inland -sea which is known by his name, and in which he probably perished. - -[Sidenote: Hudson's Bay.] - -[Sidenote: 1615. Baffin's Bay.] - -In 1612-13 Sir Thomas Button developed more exactly the outline in part -of this great bay, and in 1614 the _Discovery_, under Robert Bylot and -William Baffin, passed along the coasts of Hudson's Strait, making most -careful observation, and Baffin took for the first time at sea a lunar -observation for longitude, according to a method which had been -suggested as early as 1514. It was on a voyage undertaken in the next -year, 1615, that Baffin, exceeding the northing of Davis, found lying -before him the great expanse of Baffin's Bay, through which he proceeded -till he found a northern exit in Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, under 78°. -Baffin did all this with an accuracy which surprised Sir John Ross, who -was the next to enter the bay, two centuries later. It was in these -years of Hudson and Baffin that Napier invented logarithms and -simplified the processes of nautical calculations. - -[Illustration: LUKE FOX, 1635.] - -[Sidenote: 1631. Luke Fox.] - -[Sidenote: Thomas James.] - -The voyage of Luke Fox in 1631 developed some portions of the western -shores of Hudson's Bay, and he returned confident, from his observation -of the tides farther north, that they indicated a western passage; and -in the same year Thomas James searched the more southern limits of the -great bay with no more success. These voyages put a stay for more than a -hundred years to efforts in this direction to find the passage so long -sought. - -[Sidenote: 1602. Gosnold.] - -Up to 1602 the explorations of our northern coasts seem to have been -ordinarily made either by a sweep northerly from Europe, striking -Newfoundland and then proceeding south, or by a southerly sweep -following the Spanish tracks and coasting north from Florida. In this -year, 1602, the Englishman Gosnold, without any earlier example that we -know of since the time of Verrazano, stood directly to the New England -coast, and in the accounts of his voyage we begin to find some -particular knowledge of the contour of this coast, which opens the way -to identifications of landmarks. The explorations of Pring (1603), -Champlain (1604), Waymouth (1605), Popham (1607), Hudson (1609), Smith -(1614), Dermer (1619), and others which followed are of no more -importance in our present survey than as marking further stages of -detailed geography. Even Dermer was dreaming of a western passage yet to -be found in this region. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: Discoveries on the Pacific coast.] - -We must now turn to follow the development during the seventeenth -century of the discoveries on the Pacific coast. - -[Sidenote: 1602. Viscaino.] - -Sebastian Viscaino, in his voyage up the coast from Acapulco in 1602, -sought the hidden straits as high as 42°, and one of his captains -reporting the coast to trend easterly at 43°, his story confused the -geography of this region for many years. This supposed trend was held to -indicate another passage to the Gulf of California, making the peninsula -of that name an island, and so it long remained on the maps, after once -getting possession, some years later (1622), of the cartographical -fancy. - -[Sidenote: 1643. De Vries.] - -Some explorations of the Dutch under De Vries, in 1643, were the source -of a notion later prevailing, that there was an interjacent land in the -north Pacific, which they called "Jesso," and which was supposed to be -separated by passages both from America and from Asia; and for half a -century or more the supposition, connected more or less with a land seen -by João da Gama, was accepted in some quarters. Indeed, this notion may -be said to have not wholly disappeared till the maps of Cook's voyage -came out in 1777-78, when the Aleutian Islands got something like their -proper delineation. - -[Sidenote: Confused geographical notions of a western sea.] - -In fact, so vague was the conception of what might be the easterly -extension of the northern sea in the latitudinal forties that the notion -of a sea something like the old one of Verrazano was even thought in -1625 by Briggs in Purchas, and again in 1651 in Farrer's map of -Virginia, to bathe the western slope of the Alleghanies. - -[Sidenote: 1700.] - -[Sidenote: Maldonado, Da Fuca, De Fonte.] - -Early in the eighteenth century, even the best cartographers ran wild in -their delineations of the Pacific coast. A series of multifarious -notions, arising from more or less faith in the alleged explorations of -Maldonado, Da Fuca, and De Fonte, some of them assumed to have been made -more than a century earlier, filled the maps with seas and straits, -identified sometimes with the old strait of Anian, and converting the -northwestern parts of North America into a network of surmises, that -look strangely to our present eyes. Some of these wild configurations -prevailed even after the middle of the century, but they were finally -eliminated from the maps by the expedition of that James Cook who first -saw the light in a Yorkshire cabin in 1728. - -[Illustration: JESSO. - -[After Hennepin.]] - -[Sidenote: 1724. Bering.] - -[Sidenote: 1728.] - -In 1724 Peter the Great equipped Vitus Bering's first expedition, and in -December, 1724, five weeks before his death, the Czar gave the -commanding officer his instruction to coast northward and find if the -Asiatic and American coasts were continuous, as they were supposed to -be. There were, however, among the Siberians, some reports of the -dividing waters and of a great land beyond, and these rumors had been -prevailing since 1711. Peter the Great died January 28, 1725 (old -style), just as Bering was beginning his journey, and not till March, -1728, did that navigator reach the neighborhood of the sea. In July he -spread his sails on a vessel which he had built. - -[Illustration: DOMINA FARRER'S MAP, 1651.] - -[Illustration: DOMINA FARRER'S MAP, 1651.] - -[Illustration: BUACHE'S THEORY, 1752.] - -[Illustration: BERING'S STRAITS.] - -[Sidenote: 1732.] - -[Sidenote: 1741. Bering.] - -By the middle of August he had passed beyond the easternmost point of -Asia, and was standing out into the Arctic Ocean, when he turned on his -track and sailed south. Neither in going nor in returning did he see -land to the east, the mists being too thick. He had thus established the -limits of the Russian Empire, but he had not as yet learned of the close -proximity of the American shores. His discoveries did not get any -cartographical record till Kiriloff made his map of Russia in 1734, -using the map which Bering had made in Moscow in 1731. The following -year (1732), Gvosdjeff espied the opposite coast; but it was not till -1741 that Bering sailed once more from the Asiatic side to seek the -American coast. He steered southeast, and soon found that the land seen -by Da Gama, and which the Delisles had so long kept on their maps, did -not exist there. - -[Sidenote: Aleutian Islands.] - -Thence sailing northward, Bering sighted the coast in July and had Mount -St. Elias before him, then named by him from that saint's day in the -calendar. On his return route some vague conception of the Aleutian -Islands was gained, the beginning of a better cartography, in which was -also embodied the stretch of coast which Bering's associate, Chirikoff, -discovered farther east and south. - -[Sidenote: Northern Pacific.] - -In 1757 Venegas, uninformed as to these Russian discoveries, confessed -in his _California_ that nothing was really known of the coast line in -the higher latitudes,--an ignorance that was the source of a great -variety of conjectures, including a large inland sea of the west -connecting with the Pacific, which was not wholly discarded till near -the end of the century, as has already been mentioned. - - * * * * * - -[Sidenote: The search for the northwest passage.] - -The search for the northwest passage to Asia, as it had been begun by -the English under Cabot in 1497, was also the last of all the endeavors -to isolate the continent. The creation of the Hudson Bay Company in 1670 -was ostensibly to promote "the discovery of a new passage into the South -Sea," but the world knows how for two centuries that organization -obstinately neglected, or as far as they dared, the leading purpose for -which they pretended to ask a charter. They gave their well-directed -energies to the amassing of fortunes with as much persistency as the -Spaniards did at the south, but with this difference: that the wisdom in -their employment of the aborigines was as eminent as with the Southrons -it was lacking. It was left for other agencies of the British government -successfully to accomplish, with the aid of the votaries of geographical -science, what the pecuniary speculators of Fen Church Street hardly -dared to contemplate. - -[Sidenote: 1779. James Cook.] - -The spirit of the old navigators was revived in James Cook, when in 1779 -he endeavored to pass eastward by Bering's Straits; but it was not till -forty years later that a series of arctic explorations was begun, in -which the English races of both continents have shown so conspicuous a -skill and fortitude. - -[Sidenote: Kendrick in the "Columbia."] - -While the English, French, and Spaniards were dodging one another in -their exploring efforts along this upper coast, a Boston ship, the -"Columbia," under Captain Kendrick, entered the Columbia River, then -named; and to these American explorations, as well as to the -contemporary ones of Vancouver, the geographical confusion finally -yielded place to something like an intelligible idea. - -[Sidenote: 1790-95. Vancouver.] - -It had also been the aim of Vancouver in 1790-95 "to ascertain the -existence of any navigable communication between the North Pacific and -the North Atlantic Oceans," and the correspondence of the British -government leading to this expedition has only been lately printed in -the _Report_ of the Dominion archivist, Douglas Brymner, for 1889. - -[Illustration: THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.] - -[Sidenote: Arctic explorers.] - -[Sidenote: 1850. McClure finds the northwest passage.] - -The names of Barrow, Ross, Parry, and Franklin, not to mention others of -a later period, make the story of the final severance of the continent -in the arctic seas one of conspicuous interest in the history of -maritime exploration. Captain Robert L. McClure, in the "Investigator," -late in 1850 passed into Bering's Straits, and before September closed -his ship was bound in the ice. In October McClure made a sledge journey -easterly over a frozen channel and reached the open sea, which thirty -years before Parry had passed into from the Atlantic side. The northwest -passage was at last discovered. - -We have seen that within thirty years from the death of Columbus the -outline of South America was defined, while it had taken nearly two -centuries and a quarter to free the coast lines of the New World from an -entanglement in men's minds with the outlines of eastern Asia, and -another century and a quarter were required to complete the arctic -contour of America, so that the New World at last should stand a wholly -revealed and separate continent. - -Nor had all this labor been done by governments alone. The private -merchant and the individual adventurer, equipping ships and sailing -without national help, had done no small part of it. Dr. Kohl strikingly -says, "The extreme northern limit of America, the desolate peninsula -Boothia, is named after the English merchant who fitted out the arctic -expedition of Sir John Ross; and the southernmost strait, beyond -Patagonia, preserves the name of Le Maire, the merchant at whose charge -it was disclosed to the world!" - - - - -INDEX. - - - Acklin Island, 215. - - Adam of Bremen, 147. - - Adda, G. d', 12. - - Admiral's map, 534, 546, 581. _See_ Waldseemüller. - - Africa, circumnavigations of, 91; - discoveries along its coast, 91, 151; - early maps, 133; - Ptolemy's map of its southern part, 335. - - Agnese Baptista, his maps, 595, 597. - - Aguado, Juan, sent to Española, 317; - his conduct, 319. - - Ailly, Pierre d', _De Imagine Mundi_, 7, 8, 121, 180, 497; - his map (1410), 601. - - Albertus Magnus, 497; portrait, 120. - - Aleutian Islands, 652, 658. - - Alexander VI., letter to, from Columbus, 9; - pope, 252; - his bull of demarcation, 252; - his bust, 253. - - Alfonso V. (Portugal), 108. - - Aliacus. _See_ Ailly. - - Allefonsce, 614. - - Allegetto degli Allegetti, _Ephemerides_, 32. - - Almagro, 565. - - Alto Velo, 390. - - Alva, Duke of, 514, 515. - - Amazons, 235, 237. - - America, mainland first seen by Columbus, 351; - gradually developed as a continent, 529, 606, 619, 660; - history of its name, 538, 621; - earliest maps bearing the name, 547-552; - the name never recognized in Spain, 554; - earliest on maps, 581; - was it known to the ancients? 606. - _See_ North _and_ South America. - - Anacaona, 305; - entertains Bartholomew Columbus, 361; - captured, 473. - - Ancuparius, 588. - - Angelus, Jacobus. 531. - - Ango, Jean, 556. - - Anian, Straits of, 418, 620. - - Antarctic continent, 628, 644. - - Antillia, belief in, 111, 112, 128. - - Apianus, his map (1520), 550, 587; - portrait, 586. - - Archipelago on the Asiatic coast, 190. - - Arctic explorations, 640, 658, 659, 660. - - Asia, as known to Marco Polo, etc., map, 113, 114. - - Aspa, Ant. de, his documents, 29. - - Astrolabe, 94-96, 132, 150, 260, 632. - - Atlantic Ocean, early cartography of, 86, 88; - floating islands in, 185; - its archipelago, 185; - as defined by Behaim compared with its actual condition, 190; - early voyages on, 603. - - Atlantis, story of, 126. - - Aubert, Thomas, 556. - - Audiencia, 518. - - Avila, Luis de, 527. - - Ayala, Pedro de, 343. - - Ayllon, Lucas Vasquez de, 561; - and Diego Colon, 522; - his map, 561, 584; - settlement on the Potomac, 561. - - Azores discovered, 86, 88. - - - Babeque, 225, 230, 231. - - Baccalaos, 344. - - Back-staff, 648. - - Bacon, Roger, _Opus majus_, 121, 497. - - Badajos, congress at, 590. - - Baffin, Wm., 650. - - Baffin's Bay, 651. - - Bahamas, Herrera's map, 212; - modern map, 213; - character of, 215; - their peoples, 218; - depopulated, 515. - - Balboa, 562; - portrait, 563; - discovers the South Sea, 564, 606; - executed, 564. - - Ballester, Miguel, 366, 372. - - Bancroft, H. H., on Columbus, 59, 503. - - Bank of St. George, and its records, 21, 70. - - Barclay, Alex., translates Brant, 537. - - Barlow, S. L. M., his library, 17. - - Barrentes, Garcia de, 372. - - Barros, João de. _Decada_, 33, 149, 241. - - Bastidas, Rodrigo de, on the South American coast, 426, 528. - - Basques on the Atlantic, 128; - fishermen, 340. - - Baza, siege of, 169. - - Behaim, Martin, in Lisbon, 132; - improves the astrolabe, 132; - at sea, 134; - portrait, 134; - and Columbus, 150; - his globe, 185-188, 533. - - Behechio, 305, 361. - - Belknap, Dr. Jeremy, on Columbus, 55. - - Belloy, Marquis de, life of Columbus, 54. - - Beneventanus, 533. - - Benincasa, maps, 81. - - Benzoni, 32, 51. - - Beradi, Juonato, 258, 317. - - Bergenroth, _Calendar_, 13, 23. - - Bergomas, his chronicle, 32. - - Bering's Straits, 418, 657. - - Bering, his discoveries, 529, 620, 653. - - Bernaldez, Andrès, friend of Columbus, 13, 331; _Historia_, 13, 18, - 37. - - Berwick, Duke of, 527. - - Béthencourt, Jean de, 86. - - Bianco, Andrea, his map, 88, 89; helps Fra Mauro, 100. - - Bienewitz. _See_ Apianus. - - Bimini, 422, 558, 560. - - Birds, flight of, 88. - - Blanco, Cape, passed, 98. - - Bloodhounds, 312. - - Blunderville, 632. - - Bobadilla, Francisco de, sent to Santo Domingo, 390; - his character, 395; - his instructions, 396, 397; - reaches Española, 398; - his acts, 398; - their effect upon Columbus, 400; - arrests Bastidas, 426; - his rule in Santo Domingo, 428; - superseded, 429; - to return to Spain, 440; - lost, 440. - - Bohio, 228. - - Bojador, Cape, passed, 97. - - Bordone, map, 142. - - Bossi, L., on Columbus, 32. - - Bourne, Wm., _The Regiment of the Sea_, 631. - - Boyle. _See_ Buil. - - Brandt, _Shyppe of Fools_, 14. - - Brazil coast visited by Cabral, 378; - early explorers, 533. - - Brazil, island of, 112, 139. - - Breton explorations, 555, 556. - - Breviesca, Ximeno de, 333. - - Brevoort, J. C., 597, 607, 621. - - Briggs in Purchas, 652. - - Bristol, England, and its maritime expeditions, 342. - - Brocken, Baron van, _Colomb_, 55. - - Brymner, Douglas, 660. - - Buache, his map, 656. - - Büdinger, Max, _Acten zur Columbus Geschichte_, 46; - _Zur Columbus Literatur_, 46. - - Buet, C., _Colomb_, 54. - - Buil, Bernardo, sent to the New World, 259. - - Bull of demarcation, 22, 252, 339. - - Bull of extension, 305. - - Button, Sir Thomas, 650. - - Bylot, Robert, 650. - - - Cabot, John, in England, 167, 340; - sails on a voyage of discovery, 340; - earliest engraved map of his discoveries, 341; - great circle sailing, 341; - discovers land, 341; - question of his landfall, 341; - returns to Bristol, 342; - question of his going to Seville, 343; - his second voyage, 344; - its extent, 344; - lack of knowledge respecting these voyages, 345; - authorities on, 346; - was his voyage known to Columbus? 386; - and the Ruysch map, 533; his explorations, 624. - - Cabot, Sebastian, his observation of the line of no variation, 201; - on Columbus's discovery, 248; - his participancy in his father's voyages, 344; - his papers, 345; - alleged voyage, 427; - voyages, 555; - his mappemonde, 341, 345, 624, 626, 627; - returns to England, 639; - portrait, 642. - - Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, on the South American coast, 377. - - Cabrero, Juan, 161. - - Cabrillo, 611. - - Cacique, 231. - - Cadamosto, his voyage, 98. - - Cado, Fermin, 285. - - California, peninsula of, 610; - its name, 611; - map, 611; - mapped as an island, 652; - Drake on the coast, 644, 645. - - Cam, Diogo, 134. - - Camargo on the coast of Chili, 577. - - Camers, Johann, 585. - - Canaries, their history, 86; map of, 194. - - Cannibals, 225, 227, 230, 268, 270, 281. - - Canoes, 219. - - Cantino, Alberto, 417; - Cantino map, 387; - sketched, 419; - its traits examined, 420; - its relation with Columbus, 421. - - Caonabo, 305; - attacks La Navidad, 273, 275; - attacks St. Thomas, 308; - forms a league, 308; - captured, 313; - dies, 323. - - Cape Blanco, 98. - - Cape Bojador, 97. - - Cape Breton, 627. - - Cape of Good Hope discovered, 151. - - Cape Horn discovered, 577; - seen by Drake, 644. - - Cape Race, 534. - - Cape Verde Island discovered, 199. - - Cardenas, Alonso de, 161. - - Cardona, Cristoval de, Admiral of Aragon, 524, 526, 527. - - Caribs, 236, 271, 323. - - Carpini, Plano, 90. - - Carthaginians as voyagers, 127. - - Cartier, Jacques, his explorations, 612, 624. - - Carvajal, Alonso Sanchez de, factor of Columbus, 430. - - Carvajal, Bernardin de, 248. - - Casa de Contratacion, 481. - - Casaneuve. _See_ Colombo the Corsair. - - Casanove, 71. - - Casoni, F., annals of Genoa, 32, 154. - - Casteñeda, Juan de, 238. - - Castellanos, _Elegias_, 491. - - Castillo, 611. - - Catalan seamanship, 94. - - Catalina, Doña, 9, 276. - - Cathay, 224, 457; - early name of China, 90; - map of, 113, 114; - as found by the Portuguese, 509. - - Cazadilla, 150. - - Chanca, Dr., his narrative, 29; - goes to the new world, 262, 282. - - Charles V., portrait, 519. - - Chaves, Alonso, his map, 561, 621; - at the Seville Conference, 604. - - Chesapeake Bay, Spaniards in the, 633. - - Chili discovered, 565, 577. - - China, early known, 90. _See_ Cathay. - - Chronica Delphinea, 9, 11. - - Chronometers, 260, 603. - - Chytræus, 627. - - Cibao, 232; - its mines visited by Ojeda, 279. - - Ciguare, 447. - - Cipango, 125; map, 113. - - Circourt, Count, 46. - - Clavus, Claudius, 140, 141. - - Clemente, Claudio, _Tablas_, 214. - - Climatic lines, 601. - - Codex Flatoyensis, 146. - - Coelho's voyage, 410. - - Colombo, Balthazar, 525, 527. - - Colombo, Bernardo, 525, 527. - - Colombo, Corsair, 71, 72, 83, 84. - - Colon, Cristoval (bastard son of Luis, grandson of Columbus), 526. - - Colon, Diego (brother of Columbus), born, 77; - in Spain and in Columbus's second expedition, 262; - his character, 285; - placed by Columbus in command at Isabella, 290; - goes to Spain, 311; - quarrels with Fonseca, 318. - - Colon, Diego (son of Columbus), 106; - page to the Queen, 181; - at Court, 478, 479; - receives letter from Columbus, 478; - his illegitimate children, 513; - receives what was due to his father, 513; - urges the King to restore his father's privileges, 513; - his suit against the Crown, 514, 553; - wins, 515; - marriage, 515; - denied the title of Viceroy, 515; - Governor of Española, 515, 516; - in Spain, 519; - lends money to Charles V., 520; - his income, 520; - Viceroy, 520; - builds a palace, 520; - its ruins, 520; - in Spain pressing his claims, 522; - dies, 522; - his children, 522. - - Colon, Diego (great-grandson of Columbus), marries and becomes - Duke of Veragua, 525, 526; - his connection with the _Historie_ of 1571, 44. - - Colon, Luis (grandson of Columbus), succeeds his father, 522; - makes compromise with the Crown, 522; - holds Jamaica, 523; - made Duke of Veragua, 523; - governs Española, 523; - his marriages, 523; - imprisoned and dies, 523; - his children, 526. - - Colon. _See_ Columbus. - - Columbia River, 658. - - Columbus, Bartholomew (brother of Columbus), born, 77; - in Portugal, 104; - affects Columbus's views, 117; - with Diaz on the African coast, 151, 303; - sent to England, 167, 303, 339; - in France, 168, 303; - reaches Española, 303; - made Adelantado, 304; - left in command by Columbus, 323; - confirmed by the Crown as Adelantado, 328; - portrait, 329; - attacks the Quibian, 451; - sees Columbus for the last time, 488; - survives him, 513; - goes to Rome, 516; - takes a map, 516, 533; - goes to Española, 516; - dies, 518; - reputed descendant, 527. - - COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER, sources of information, 1; - biographers, 30; - his prolixity and confusion, 1; - his writings, 1; - _Libro de las Proficias_, 1; - facsimile of his handwriting, 2; - his private papers, 2; - letters, 2, 5; - written in Spanish, 2; - his privileges, 3; - _Codex Diplomaticus_, 3; - the Custodia at Genoa, 4, 5; - Bank of St. George, 5; - marginalia, 7; - _Declaracion de Tabla navigatoria_, 7, 32; - _Cinco Zonas_, 7; - lost manuscripts, 8; - MS. annotations, 8; - missing letters, 9, 18, 19; - missing commentary, 9; - journal of his first voyage, 9, 193; - printed in English, 10; - letters on his discovery, 10; - printed editions, 12; - Catalan text, 13; - Latin text, 14; - his transient fame, 14; - in England, 14; - autographs, 14; - edition of the Latin first letter, 15; - facsimile of a page, 16; - libraries possessing copies, 17; - bibliography of first letter, 17; - other accounts of first voyage, 17; - lawsuits of heirs, 18, 26, 514; - account of his second voyage, 18, 264; - _Libro del Segundo Viage_, 18, 264; - letters owned by the Duke de Veragua, 18; - accounts of his third voyage, 18, 347; - of his fourth voyage, 19; - _Lettera rarissima_, 19; - _Libros de memorias_, 19; - work on the Arctic Pole, 19; - his maps, 29; - _Memorial del Pleyto_, 26; - Italian accounts of, 30; - influenced by his Spanish life, 33; - Portuguese accounts, 33; - Spanish accounts, 33; - documents preserved by Las Casas, 47; - canonization, 52; - English accounts, 55; - life by Irving, 56; - bibliography, 59; - his portraits, 61-70; - his person, 61; - tomb at Havana, 69; - his promise to the Bank of St. George, 5, 70; - ancestry, 71; - early home, 71; - name of Colombo, 71; - the French family, 71; - professes he was not the first admiral of his name, 72; - spurious genealogies, 73, 74; - prevalence of the name Colombo, 73; - his grandfather, 74; - his father, 74; - life at Savona, 75; - Genoa, 75; - his birth, 76; - disputed date, 76; - his mother, 77; - her offspring, 77; - place of his birth, 77; - many claimants, 78; - uncertainties of his early life, 79; - his early education, 79; - his penmanship and drawing, 79; - specimen of it, 80; - said to have been at Pavia, 79; - at Genoa, 81; - in Anjou's expedition, 83; - his youth at sea, 83; - drawn to Portugal, 86, 102; - living there, 103; - alleged swimming with an oar, 103; - marries, 105; - supposed interview with a sailor who had sailed west, 107; - knew Marco Polo's book, 116; - Mandeville's book, 116; - the ground of his belief in a western passage, 117; - inherits his views of the sphericity of the earth, 119; - of its size, 123; - his ignorance of the Atlantis story, etc., 126, 148; - learns of western lands, 129; - in Portugal, 131; - in Iceland, 135; - _Tratado de las Cinco Zonas_, 137; - and the Sagas, 146; - his first gratuity in Spain, 149; - difficulty in following his movements, 149; - interviews the Portuguese king, 150; - abandons Portugal, 149, 153; - did he lay his project before the authorities of Genoa? 153; - did he propose to those of Venice? 154; - did he leave a wife in Portugal? 154; - enters Spain, 154, 157, 169; - at Rabida, 154, 173; - calls himself Colon, 157; - receives gratuities, 157, 168; - sells books and maps, 158; - writes out his proofs of a new world, 158; - interview with Ferdinand of Spain, 159; - his monument at Genoa, 163; - at Malaga, 165; - connection with Beatrix Enriquez, 166; - his son Ferdinand born, 166; - his views in England, 167; - invited back to Portugal, 168; - lived in Spain with the Duke of Medina-Celi, 169; - at Cordova, 169; - at Baza, 169; - his views again rejected, 170; - at Santa Fé, 176; - his arrogant demands, 177; - starts for France, 177; - recalled and agreed with, 179; - his passport, 180; - the capitulations, 181; - allowed to use Don, 181; - at Palos, 181; - his fleet fitted out, 182; - expenses of the first voyage, 183; - his flag-ship, 183; - her size, 184; - hopes to find mid-ocean islands, 185; - sails, 191; - keeps a journal, 193; - the "Pinta" disabled, 195; - sees Teneriffe, 195; - at the Canaries, 195; - falsifies his reckoning, 195; - map of the routes of his four voyages, 196; - of the first voyage, 197; - his dead reckoning, 198; - his judgment of his speed, 198; - observes no variation of his needle, 198; - watches the stars, 203; - believed the earth pear-shaped, 203; - meets a west wind, 205; - thinks he sees land, 206; - follows the flight of birds, 206; - pacifies his crew, 207; - alleged mutiny, 208; - claims to see a light, 208; - receives a reward for first seeing land, 209, 249; - map of the landfall, 210; - land actually seen, 211; - land taken possession of, 211; - his armor, 211; - question of his landfall, 214; - trades with the natives, 218, 220; - first intimates his intention to enslave them, 220; - finds other islands, 220; - eager to find gold, 221; - reaches Cuba, 223; - mentions pearls for the first time, 223; - thought himself on the coast of Cathay, 224; - takes an observation, 224; - meets with tobacco, 225; - with potatoes, 225; - hears of cannibals, 225; - seeks Babeque, 225; - difficult communication with the natives, 226, 227; - in the King's Garden, 226; - deserted by Pinzon, 226; - at Española, 228; - takes his latitude, 229; - entertains a cacique, 231; - meets with a new language, 232; - seeks gold, 232; - shipwrecked, 232; - builds a fort, 233; - names it La Navidad, 235; - hears of Jamaica, 235; - of Amazons, 235; - fears the Pinzons, 235; - sees mermaids, 236; - sails for Spain, 236; - meets a gale, 237; - separates from the "Pinta," 237; - throws overboard an account of his discoveries, 238; - makes land at the Azores, 238; - gets provisions, 238; - his men captured on shore, 239; - again at sea, 240; - enters the Tagus, 240; - reason for using the name Indies, 240; - goes to the Portuguese Court, 241; - leaves the Tagus, having sent a letter to the Spanish Court, 242; - reaches Palos, 242; - the "Pinta" arrives the same day, 242, 244; - his Indians, 244, 259, 272; - summoned to Court, 244; - at Barcelona, 245; - reception, 245; - his life there, 246, 247, 249, 256; - his first letter, 248; - scant impression made by the announcement, 248; - the egg story, 249; - receives a coat-of-arms, 249, 550; - his family arms, 251; - his motto, 251; - receives the royal seal, 256; - leaves the Court, 256; - in Seville, 256; - relations with Fonseca begin, 256; - fits out the second expedition, 257, 258, 261; - embarks, 263; - sails, 264; - his character, 265; - at the Canaries, 265; - at Dominica, 266; - at Marigalante, 266; - at Guadaloupe, 268; - fights the Caribs at Santa Cruz, 271; - reaches Española, 272; - arrives at La Navidad, 273; - finds it destroyed and abandons it, 275, 277; - disembarks at another harbor, 278; - founds Isabella, 278; - grows ill, 279; - expeditions to seek gold, 279, 280; - writes to the sovereigns, 280; - the fleet leaves him, 282; - harassed by factions, 284; - leads an expedition inland, 285; - builds Fort St. Thomas, 287; - returns to Isabella, 288; - sends Ojeda to St. Thomas, 289; - sails to explore Cuba, 290; - discovers Jamaica, 291; - returns to Cuba, 293; - imagines his approach to the Golden Chersonesus, 295; - exacts an oath from his men that they were in Asia, 296; - doubts as to his own belief, 297; - return voyage, 299; - on the Jamaica coast, 300; - calculates his longitude on the Española coast, 301; - falls into a stupor, 302; - reaches Isabella, 302; - finds his brother Bartholomew there, 303; - learns what had happened in his absence, 304; - receives supplies, 309; - sends the fleet back, 310; - sends Diego to Spain, 311; - sends natives as slaves, 311; - battle of the Vega Real, 312; - oppresses the natives, 315; - his enemies in Spain, 318; - receives a royal letter by Aguado, 319; - the fleet wrecked, 321; - thinks the mines of Hayna the Ophir of Solomon, 322; - sails for Spain, 323; - reaches Cadiz, 324; - lands in the garb of a Franciscan, 325; - proceeds to Court, 326; - asks for a new fleet, 326; - delays, 327; - his rights reaffirmed, 328; - new proportion of profits, 328; - his will, 330; - his signature, 330; - lives with Andres Bernaldez, 331; - his character drawn by Bernaldez, 331; - enlists criminals, 332; - his altercation with Fonseca's agent, 333; - had authorized voyages, 336; - the third voyage and its sources, 347; - leaves directions for his son Diego, 348; - sails from San Lucar, 348; - his course, 348; - letter to him from Jayme Ferrer, 349; - captures a French prize, 349; - at the Cape de Verde Islands, 349; - at Trinidad, 350; - first sees mainland, 351; - touches the Gulf Stream, 352; - grows ill, 355, 356; - his geographical delusions, 356; - compared with Vespucius, 358; - observations of nature, 359; - meets the Adelantado, 359; - reaches Santo Domingo, 365; - his experience with convict settlers, 366, 392, 396, 434; - sends letters to Spain, 367; - treats with Roldan, 368, 370; - institutes repartimientos, 371; - sends other ships to Spain, 371; - his prerogatives as Admiral infringed, 372; - sends Roldan against Ojeda, 374; - did he know of Cabot's voyage? 386; - his wrongs from furtive voyagers, 372-387; - opposition to his rule in the Antilles, 388; - his new relations with Roldan, 389; - quells Moxica's plot, 390; - Bobadilla arrives, 390; - charges against the Admiral, 392, 402, 404; - his deceiving the Crown, 393; - receives copies of Bobadilla's instructions, 400; - reaches Santo Domingo, 401; - imprisoned and fettered, 401; - sent to Spain in chains, 403; - his letter to Prince Juan's nurse, 404, 405, 407; - his alienation of mind, 405; - reaches Cadiz, 407; - his reception, 408, 409; - suspended from power, 409; - his connection with the Cantino map, 420, 421; - his destitution, 420; his vested rights invaded, 428; - his demands unheeded, 428; - sends a factor to Española, 430; - _Libros de las Proficias_, 431; - his projected conquest of the Holy Land, 431; - defeated by Satan, 431; - dreams on a hidden channel through the new world, 432; - still seeking the Great Khan, 433; - his purposed gift to Genoa, 434; - writes to the Bank of St. George, 435; - his fourth voyage, 437; - his mental and physical condition, 437; - at Martinico, 438; - touches at the forbidden Santo Domingo, 438; - but is denied the port, 439; - his ships ride out a gale, 441; - on the Honduras coast, 441; - meets a large canoe, 442; - says mass on the land, 442; - on the Veragua coast, 445; - touches the region tracked by Bastidas, 448; - sees a waterspout, 449; - returns to Veragua, 450; - finds the gold mines of Solomon, 450; - plans settlement at Veragua, 451; - dangers, 451; - has a fever, 453; - hears a voice, 454; - the colony rescued, 456; - sails away, 456; - abandons one caravel, 457; - on the Cuban coast, 457; - goes to Jamaica, 457; - strands his ships, 458; - sends Mendez to Ovando, 458, 461; - writes a letter to his sovereigns, 459; - _Lettera rarissima_, 459; - his worship of gold, 461; - the revolt of Porras, 462; - Porras sails away, 464; - but returns to the island and wanders about, 464; - predicts an eclipse of the moon, 465; - Escobar arrives, 467; - and leaves, 468; - negotiations with Porras, 468; - fight between the rebels and the Adelantado, 469; - Porras captured, 469; - the rebels surrender, 470; - Mendez sends to rescue him, 470; - leaves Jamaica, 471; - learns of events in Española during his absence, 472; - reaches Santo Domingo, 475; - relations with Ovando, 475; - sails for Spain, 475; - arrives, 476; in Seville, 477; - his letters at this time, 477; - his appeals, 477; - fears Porras, 478, 479; - appeals to Mendez, 479; - his increasing malady, 480; - sends a narrative to Rome, 482; - suffered to ride on a mule, 483; - relations with the Bank of St. George in Genoa, 483; - his privileges, 484; - doubtful reference to Fonseca, 484; - later relations with Vespucius, 484; - his property sold, 486; goes to Segovia, 486; - Deza asked to arbitrate, 486; - makes a will, 487; - at Salamanca, 487; - at Valladolid, 488; - seeks to propitiate Juana, 488; - makes a codicil to his will, 488; - its doubtful character, 488; - ratifies his will, 489; - its provisions, 489; - dies, 490; - his death unnoticed, 491; - later distich proposed for his tomb, 491; - successive places of interment, 491; - his bones removed to Santo Domingo, 492; - to Havana, 492; - controversy over their present position, 492; - his chains, 494; - the age of Columbus, 494; - statue at Santo Domingo, 495; - his character, his dependence on the _Imago Mundi_, 497; - on other authors, 498; - relations with Toscanelli, 499; - different delineations of his character, 501; - his observations of nature, 502; - his overwrought mind, 502; - hallucinations, 503, 504; - arguments for his canonization, 505; - purpose to gain the Holy Sepulchre, 505; - his Catholicism, 505; his urgency to enslave the Indians, 505, 506; - his scheme of repartimientos 506; - adopts garb of the Franciscans, 508; - mercenary, 508, 509; - the moving light of his first voyage, 510; - insistence on territorial power, 510; - claims inspiration, 511; - his heirs, 513; his discoveries denied after his death, 514, 520; - his territorial power lost by his descendants, 523; - table of his descendants, 524, 525; - his male line becomes extinct, 526; - lawsuit to establish the succession, 526; - female line through the Portogallos fails, 527; - now represented by the Larreategui family, 528; - present value of the estates, 528; - the geographical results of his discoveries, 529; - connection with early maps, 533, 534; - his errors in longitude, 603; - his observations of magnetic influence, 632. - - Columbus, Ferdinand (bastard son of Columbus), 480, 482; - his _Historie_, 39; - doubts respecting it, 39; - his career, 40; - his income, 40; - his library, 40; - its catalogue, 42; - English editions of the _Historie_, 55; - his birth, 166; - at school, 181; - made page of the Queen, 331; - his ability, 513; - goes with Diego to Española, 515; - aids his brother's widow, 522; - an arbiter, 522; - owns Ptolemy (1513), 545; - his disregard of the claims urged for Vespucius, 553; - his _Colon de Concordia_, 571; - arbiter at the Congress of Badajos, 591; - advises the King, 591; - his house at Seville, 603; - at the Seville Conference, 604; - map inscribed to him, 605. - - Coma, Guglielmo, 282. - - Conti, Nicolo di, 116, 509. - - Cook, James, voyage, 633, 658. - - Cordova, Cathedral of, 172. - - Coronel, Pedro Fernandez, 332, 364. - - Correa da Cunha, Pedro, 106, 131. - - Correnti, C., 12. - - Corsairs, 71. - - Corsica, claim for Columbus's birth in, 77. - - Cortereal discoveries, 577. - - Cortereal, Gaspar, manuscript, facsimile, 414; - his voyage to Labrador, 415. - - Cortereal, João Vaz, 129. - - Cortereal, Miguel, his handwriting, facsimile, 416; - his voyages, 417. - - Cortes, Hernando, in Santo Domingo, 475; - sails for Mexico, 565; - his map of the Gulf of Mexico, 567, 569, 607; - his exploring expeditions, 568; - planning to explore the Pacific, 591; - his Pacific explorations, 610; - his portrait, 610. - - Cortes, Martin, 630. - - Cosa, Juan de la, 426; - goes to the new world, 262; - his charts, 343, 345, 380-382; - with Ojeda, 373. - - Cosco, Leander de, 15. - - Costa Rica, map, 443. - - Cotabanama, 305, 474. - - Coulomp, 71. - - Cousin, Jean, on the Brazil coast, 174. - - Crignon, Pierre, 556. - - Criminals enlisted by Columbus, 332. - - Crossbows, 258. - - Cross-staff, 261, 632, 648. _See_ Back-staff. - - Cuba, reached by Columbus, 223; - believed to be Asia, 226; - named Juana, 228; - its southern coast explored, 291; - insularity of, 384; - Wytfliet's map, 384-85; - its cartography, 424; - Columbus's views, 425; - circumnavigated, 565. - - Cubagua, 355. - - Cushing, Caleb, on the Everett MS., 4; - on Navarrete, 28; - on Columbus's landfall, 217. - - - Darien, isthmus, map, 446. - - Dati, versifies Columbus's first letter, 15. - - D'Avezac on the _Historie_, 45. - - Davis, John, in the north, 643, 648; - his _Seaman's Secrets_, 649. - - Dead reckoning, 94. - - De Bry, 51; - his engraving of Columbus, 66, 68. - - Degree, length of, 124. - - Del Cano, 576. - - Demarcation. _See_ Bull of. - - Demersey, A., on the Muñoz MSS., 27. - - Denys, Jean, 556. - - Desceliers (or Henri II.) map, 612, 624. - - Deza, Diego de, 161, 164, 170; - asked to arbitrate between Columbus and the King, 486. - - Diaz, Bart., on the African coast, 151. - - Diaz, Miguel, 322, 399. - - Diaz de Pisa, Bernal, 284. - - Dogs used against the natives, 292, 312. - - Dominica, 266. - - Dominicans in Española, 508. - - Don, Nicholas, 556. - - Donis, Nicholas, his map, 140, 531. - - Drake, Francis, sees Cape Horn, 577; - his voyages, 643; - portrait, 645, 654. - - Drogeo, 635. - - Duro, C. F., _Colon_, etc., 54. - - Dutch, the, their American explorations, 649. - - - Earth, sphericity of, 118; - size of, 121; - how far known before Columbus, 122. - - East India Company, 650. - - Eden, R., _Treatyse of the Newe India_, 537, 538; - _Decades_, 538; - _Arte of Navigation_, 631; - influence in England, 639. - - Eden (paradise), situation of, 357. - - Eggleston, Edward, 597, 599. - - Enciso, Fernandes d', _Geographia_, 587. - - Encomiendas, 314. - - England, reception of Columbus's news in, 167; - earliest mention of the Spanish discoveries, 537; - sea-manuals in, 631; - effects on discovery of her commercial spirit, 632; - her explorations, 639; - beginning of her colonization, 648; - her later explorations, 650; - her seamen in the Caribbean Sea, 373, 426, 427; - on the eastern coast of North America, 601. - - Enriquez, Beatrix, connection with Columbus, 166; - noticed in Columbus's will, 489. - - Equator, crossed by the Portuguese, 134; - first crossed on the American side, 376. - - Eric the Red, 139, 140, 144, 146. - - Escobar, Diego de, sent to Jamaica by Ovando, 467. - - Escobar, Roderigo de, 451. - - Escoveda, Rodrigo de, 235. - - Española, discovered and named, 228, 229; - its divisions, 305; - Charlevoix's map, 306; - Ramusio's map of, 369; - Ovando recalled, 515; - Diego Colon governor, 515; - sugar cane raised, 520. - - Esquibel, Juan de, 474. - - Estotiland, 635. - - Evangelista, 297. - - Everett, A. H., on Irving's Columbus, 56. - - Everett, Edward, possessed a copy of Columbus's privileges, 3. - - - Faber, Jacobus, _Meteorologia_, 546. - - Faber, Dr. John, 540. - - Fagundes, 566. - - Faria y Sousa, _Europa Portuguesa_, 241. - - Farrer, Domina, her map, 652, 654, 655. - - Ferdinand of Spain, his character, 159; - his unwillingness to embark in Columbus's plans, 178; - his appearance, 245; - grows apathetic, 327; - his portrait, 328; - his distrust of Columbus, 393, 427, 479, 486; - sends Bobadilla to Santo Domingo, 394; - dies 520, 555. - - Ferdinando, Simon, 646. - - Fernandina, 221. - - Ferrelo, 612. - - Ferrer, Jayme, letter to Columbus, 349. - - Fieschi, G. L., 9. - - Fiesco, B., 462. - - Finæus, Orontius, his map, 607-609. - - Flamsteed, 648. - - Floating islands, 190. - - Flores discovered, 88. - - Florida coast early known, 424; - discovered, 558; - English on the coast, 632. - - Fonseca, Juan Rodriguez de, relations with Columbus begin, 256; - his character, 256, 257, 316; - quarrel with Diego Colon, 318; - allowed to grant licenses, 329; - lukewarm towards the third voyage of Columbus, 333; - made bishop of Placentia, 484. - - Fontanarossa, G. de, 77. - - Fonte, de, 653. - - Fort Concepcion, 309. - - Fox, G. A., on Columbus's landfall, 214, 216. - - Fox, Luke, his map, 651. - - France, her share in American explorations, 633. - - Franciscus, monk, his map, 606. - - Franciscans in Española, 508. - - Freire, Juan, his map, 577, 578, 612. - - Friess. _See_ Frisius. - - Frisius, Laurentius, his map (1522), 552, 588. - - Frisland, 137, 145. - - Frobisher, his voyages, 640; - portrait, 643; - his map, 644. - - Fuca, Da, 653. - - Fulgoso, B., _Collectanea_, 32. - - Furlani, Paolo de, 619. - - Fuster, _Bibl. Valenciana_, 27. - - - Gali, Francisco, 646. - - Gallo, Ant., on Columbus, 30. - - Gama, João da, 652. - - Gama, Vasco da, portrait, 334; - his voyage, 334. - - Ganong, W. F., 612. - - Garay, 566; his map, 568. - - Gastaldi, his map, 616-618, 629. - - Gelcich, E., on the _Historie_, 46. - - Gemma Frisius, nautical improvements, 603, 648. - - Genoa, records, 21; - Columbus's early life in, 75, 77; - citizens of, in Spain, 158; - Columbus's monument, 163; - favored in Columbus's will, 330; - Bank of St. George, 435, 483; - her citizens in Portugal, 86; - on the Atlantic, 128. - - Geraldini, Antonio, 158. - - Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, his voyages, 646; - his map, 647. - - Giocondo, 538. - - Giovio. _See_ Jovius. - - Giustiniani, his Psalter, 30, 83; - his Annals of Genoa, 30. - - Glareanus on the ancients' knowledge of America, 606. - - Glassberger, Nicholas, 400. - - _Globus Mundi_, 536, 537, 546. - - Gold mines, 232; - scant returns, 332. - - Gomara, the historian, 39. - - Gomera (Canaries), 195. - - Gomez, Estevan, on the Atlantic coast, 561, 589, 591; - cartographical results, 591-593. - - Gonzales, keeper of the Spanish archives, 28. - - Goodrich, Aaron, _Columbus_, 59, 60, 504. - - Gorricio, Gaspar, 433, 484; - friend of Columbus, 18; - adviser of Diego Colon, 348. - - Gorvalan, 280. - - Gosnold on the New England coast, 652 - - Granada, siege of, 175. - - Grand Turk Island, 216. - - Great circle sailing, 341, 649. - - Great Khan, letter to, 180. - - Greenland, 139, 140; - held to be a part of Europe, 140, 145, 152; - part of Asia, 143; - a link between Europe and Asia, 616; - delineated on maps (Zeni), 634, 643; - (1467), 636; - (1482), 531, 532; - (1508), 532; - (1511), 577; - (1513), 544; - (1527), 600; - (1576), 647; - (1582), 598. - - Grenada, 355. - - Grimaldi, G. A., 21. - - Grijalva, 565; portrait, 566. - - Grönlandia, 145. _See_ Greenland. - - Grothe, H., _Da Vinci_, 117. - - Grynæus, Simon. _Novus Orbis_, 607. - - Guacanagari, the savage king, 234, 273, 275, 277; - faithful, 309; - maltreated, 316. - - Guadaloupe, 268, 323. - - Guanahani, seen by Columbus, 211. - - Guarionex, 305, 309; - his conspiracy, 362, 364; - embarked for Spain, 440; - lost, 440. - - Guelves, Count of, 524, 526. - - Guerra, Luis, 375. - - Guevara, Fernand de, watched by Roldan, 389. - - Gulf Stream, 131, 352, 433. - - Gutierrez, Pedro, 208. - - - Hadley's quadrant, 648. - - Hakluyt, Richard, _Principall Navigations_, 637; - _Western Planting_, 647; - his interest in explorations, 650. - - Hall, Edw., _Chronicle_, 14. - - Halley, Edmund, his variation charts, 649. - - Hammocks, 219, 222. - - Hanno, the Carthaginian, 97. - - Harrison's chronometer, 649. - - Harrisse, Henry, his works on Columbus, 7, 51, 52; - on the Biblioteca Colombina, 41; - attacks the character of the _Historie_ of 1571, 44; - his _Fernando Colon_, 45; - _Les Colombo_, 71; - _Bank of St. George_, 73. - - Hartmann, George, his gores, 621. - - Hauslab globes, 547, 548. - - Hawkins, John, 632. - - Hawkins, Wm., 601. - - Hayna mines, 322. - - Hayna country, 360. - - Hayti. _See_ Española. - - Heimskringla, 140, 147. - - Helleland, 145. - - Helps, Arthur, on the Spanish Conquest and Columbus, 58. - - Henry the Navigator, Prince, death, 82, 100; - his navigators, 88, 97; - his relations to African discovery, 91; - his school, 92; - his portrait, 93; - his character, 97; - his tomb, 101; - his statue, 102. - - Henri II., map. _See_ Desceliers. - - Herrera, the historian, 50; - map of Bahamas, 212. - - Higuay, 305; conquered, 474. - - Hispaniola. _See_ Española. - - Hoces, F. de, discovers Cape Horn. 576. - - Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, 169; - Columbus's purpose to rescue it, 170, 180. - - Holywood. John, _Sphera Mundi_, 93. - - Homem's map, 614, 616. - - Hondius, 637. - - Honduras, early voyages to, 337, 339; map, 443; - coast explored, 562. - - Hood, Dr. Thomas, 650. - - Hudson's Bay, 650. - - Hudson Bay Company, 658. - - Hudson River, 649. - - Hudson, Heinrich, his voyages, 649, 650. - - Hues, Robert, _Tractatus_, 191, 201, 301. - - Humboldt, Alex. von, _Exam. Critique_, 51; - on Columbus, 502, 504. - - - Ibarra, Bernaldo de, 347. - - Iceland, Columbus at, 135; early map, 136. - - India, African route to, 90; - strait to, sought, 535, 555, 567, 569, 587, 591; - discovered at the south, 576. - - Indies, name why used, 240. - - Irving, W., _Columbus_, 55, 60; - his historical habit, 233, 234; - on Columbus, 501, 505. - - Isabella of Spain, her character, 159, 479; - yields to Columbus's views, 178; - her appearance, 245; - her interest in Columbus's second voyage, 258; - her faith in Columbus shaken, 393, 396, 409; - dies, 479; - her will about the Indians, 482. - - Isabella (island), 222. - - Isabella (town) founded, 278. - - Italy, her relations to American discovery, 33; - her conspicuous mariners, 104, 632; - and the new age, 496; - cartographers of, 601, 628. - - - Jack-staff, 261. - - Jacquet Island, 111. - - Jamaica, possibly Babeque, 230; - called Yamaye, 235; - discovered by Columbus, 291; - again visited, 300; - Columbus at, during his last voyage, 457. - - Januarius, Hanibal, 22. - - Japan, supposed position, 207. _See_ Cipango. - - Jayme, 92. - - Jesso, 652, 653. - - John of Anjou, 82, 84. - - Jorrin, J. S., _Varios Autografos_, 7. - - Jovius (Giovio) Paulus, his biography, 32; - his picture of Columbus, 61, 63; - _Elogia_, 64. - - Juana. _See_ Cuba. - - Julius II., Pope, portrait, 517. - - - Kettell, Samuel, 10. - - Khan, the Great, 90, 224. - - King's Garden, 226. - - Kolno (Skolno), 138. - - Kublai Khan, 90, 224. - - - Labrador coast, Normans on, 413; - Portuguese on, 415. - - Lachine, 613. - - Lafuente y Alcántara, 13. - - Lake, Arthur, 184. - - Lamartine on Columbus, 75. - - La mina (Gold coast), 101. - - Laon globe, 123, 190. - - Larreategui family, representatives of Columbus, 528. - - Las Casas, B., his abridgment of Columbus's journal, 10; - his papers of Columbus, 19, 47; - his _Historia_, 45, 46; - his career, 47; - his portrait, 48; - his pity for the Indians, 50; - his father goes to the new world, 262; - at Santo Domingo, 429; - appeals for the Indians, 520; - on the respective merits of Columbus and Vespucius, 553. - - Latitude, errors in observing, 261. - - Latitude and longitude on maps, 601, 602. - - Laurentian portolano (1351), 87. - - Ledesma, Pedro, 454, 470. - - Leibnitz, _Codex_, 71. - - Leigh, Edward, 601. - - Lemoyne, G. B., _Colombo_, 33. - - Lenox globe, 571. - - Lepe, Diego de, on the South American coast, 377. - - Léry, Baron de, 556. - - Liria, Duke of, 527. - - Lisbon, naval battle near, 103; Genoese in, 104. - - Loadstone, its history. 93. _See_ Magnet. - - Log, ship's, 95, 96, 631. - - Lok, Michael, map (1582), 597, 598, 616, 624, 646. - - Long Island Sound, 616. - - Longitude, methods of ascertaining, 259; - difficulties in computing, 602, 648, 650. _See_ Latitude. - - Longrais, Jouon des, _Cartier_, 612. - - Lorgues, Roselly de, on Columbus, 53, 60, 503, 505. - - Loyasa, 576. - - Luca, the Florentine engineer, 22. - - Lucayans, 218, 219, 271; destroyed, 219, 515. - - Lud, Walter, 439. - - Lully, Raymond, _Arte de Navegar_, 93. - - Luxan, Juan de, 288. - - Machin, Robert, at Madeira, 87. - - McClure, R. L., 660. - - Madeira discovered, 86, 88. - - Madoc, 138. - - Magellan's voyage, 571, 589; his portrait, 572; - compared with Columbus, 574; - maps of his straits, 575, 576. - - Magnet, its history, 93; - use of, 198; - needle, 632; - pole, 203, 630. _See_ Needle. - - Magnus, Bishop, 139. - - Maguana, 305. - - Maine, Gulf of, 616, 646. - - Maiollo map (1527), 570, 595, 597. - - Major, R. H., on Columbus, 58; - on the naming of America, 538. - - Malaga, Columbus at the siege of, 165. - - Maldonado, Melchior, 277, 653. - - Mandeville, Sir John, his travels, 116. - - Mangon, 224, 294. - - Manhattan, 649. - - Manicaotex, 312. - - Manilius, 107. - - Mappemonde, Portuguese (1490), 152. - - Maps, fifteenth century, 128; - projections of, 603. _See_ Portolano. - - Marchena, Antonio de, 259. - - Marchena, Juan Perez de, 155; - portrait, 155; - intercedes for Columbus, - 175. - - Marchesio, F., 21. - - Margarita, 355. - - Margarite, Pedro, at St. Thomas, 288; - his career, 307. - - Mariéjol, J. H., _Peter Martyr_, 35. - - Marien, 305. - - Marigalante, 266. - - Mariguana, 216. - - Marin, on Venetian commerce, 9. - - Marine atlases, 649. - - Markham, Clements R., his _Hues_, 191. - - Markland, 145. - - Martens, T., printer, 16. - - Martines, his map, 616. - - Martinez, Fernando, 108. - - Martyr, Peter, has letters from Columbus, 19; - account of, 34; - knew Columbus, 35; - his letters, 34; - _De Orbe Novo_, or _Decades_, 35; - on Isabella, 160; - on Columbus's discovery, 247; - his map, (1511), 422, 556, 557; - fails to notice the death of Columbus, 491. - - Massachusetts Bay, 616. - - Mastic, 225. - - Matheos, Hernan Perez, 347. - - Mayobanex, 364. - - Mauro, Fra, his world map, 99, 101, 116. - - Medina, Pedro de, _Arte de Navegar_, 630; - map, 628, 629. - - Medina-Celi, Duke of, 173; - entertains Columbus, 169. - - Medina-Sidonia, Duke of, 173. - - Mela, Pomponius, 107; - his world-map, 584; - _Cosmographia_, 585. - - Mendez, Diego, his exploits, 451, 452, 456, 458; - sails from Jamaica for Española, 461; - arrives, 466; - sends to rescue Columbus, 470; - goes to Spain, 471; - appealed to by Columbus, 479, 487; - denied office by Diego Colon, 516. - - Mendoza, Hurtado de, 610, 612. - - Mendoza, Pedro Gonzales de, 159, 176. - - Mercator, Gerard, pupil of Gemma, 603; - his earliest map, 621-623; - his globe of 1541, 554, 621, 625; - his projection, 636; - his map (1569), 638; - portrait, 639. - - Mercator, R., his map of the polar regions, 202. - - Mermaids, 236. - - Meropes, 126. - - Mississippi River discovered, 560. - - Molineaux, his map, 616, 648. - - Moluccas occupied by the Portuguese, 569; - dispute over their longitude, 590; - sold by Spain to Portugal, 591. - - Moniz, Felipa, wife of Columbus, 105; - her family, 106. - - Monte Peloso, Bishop of, 15. - - Moon, eclipse of, 465. - - Morton, Thos., _New English Canaan_, 620. - - Mosquito coast, 444. - - Moxica, Adrian de, 389. - - Moya, Marchioness of, 175, 178. - - Müller, Johannes, 94. - - Muñoz, J. B., his labors, 27; - his _Historia_, 27. - - Münster, Seb., his maps, 621, 624 (1532); - 535, 537 (1540); - 596, 597; - portrait, 602. - - Muratori, his collection, 30. - - Murphy, Henry C., 595; - his library, 17. - - Muscovy Company, 650. - - Myritius, his map, 618. - - - Nancy globe, 606, 607. - - Napier, logarithms, 651. - - Nautical almanac, 649. - - Navasa, island, 465. - - Navarrete, M. F. de, his _Coleccion_, 27; - the French edition, 28; - criticised by Caleb Cushing, 28. - - Navidad, La, destroyed, 273. - - Navigation, art of, 131; - Columbus's method, 237, 260. - - Needle, no variation of the, 198, 254; - its change of position, 199, 206, 254. _See_ Magnet. - - Negroes, first seen as slaves in Europe, 98; - early introduced in Española, 429, 488. - - New Albion, 645. - - New England, named, 649. - - Newfoundland banks, early visits, 129, 340. - - Newfoundland, visited by Gilbert, 646. - - New France, 633. - - Nicaragua, map of, 443. - - Nicuessa, Diego de, in Castilla del Oro, 517, 562. - - Niño, Pedro Alonso, 325; - on the pearl coast, 375. - - Nombre de Dios, Cape, 448. - - Nordenskiöld on Columbus's discovery, 248; - his _Facsimile Atlas_, 531, 532, 546, 548, 573, 577, 578, 581, 582, - 588, 589, 635, 636, 638; - map gores discovered by him, 549. - - Norman seamanship, 94; - explorations, 555, 556. - - Norman, Robt., 632. - - North America held to be continuous with Asia, 576, 584. - _See_ America. - - Northwest passage, the search for, 529, 640, 648, 650-652, 658; - mapped, 659. - - Norumbega, 599, 616, 633. - - Notarial records in Italy, 20; - in Spain, 25; - in Portugal, 26. - - Nuremberg, Behaim's globe at, 191. - - - Ocampo, 565. - - Oceanic currents, 130, 603. - - Odericus Vitalis, 147. - - Oderigo, Nicolo, 483. - - Ojeda, Alonso de, in Columbus's second expedition, 262, 270; - at St. Thomas, 289; - attacked by Caonabo, 308; - captures Caonabo, 313; - fired by Columbus's experiences in Paria, 372; - is permitted by Fonseca to sail thither, 372; - reaches Venezuela, 373; - at Española, 373; - returns to Spain, 375; - voyage (1499), 514; - his (1502) voyage, 427; - in New Andalusia, 517, 562. - - Oliva, Perez de, on Columbus, 43, 45. - - Ophir of Solomon, 322. - - Orient, European notions of, 90, 109. - - Ortegon, Diego, 528. - - Ortelius, his _Theatrum_, 627, 638; - portrait, 640; - his map of America, 641. - - Ortis, Alonso, _Los Tratados_, 248. - - Ovando, Nicholas de, sent to Santo Domingo, 429; - receives Mendez, 466; - his rule in Española, 466, 471; - sends a caraval to Jamaica to observe Columbus, 467; - sends to rescue him, 471; - receives him at Santo Domingo, 475; - recalled from Española, 515. - - Oviedo, on the first voyage, 17; - as a writer, 38; - his career, 38; - _Historia_, 39; - on Isabella, 160; - on the arms of Columbus, 251; - on his motto, 251. - - Oysters, 354. - - - Pacheco, his _Coleccion_, 29. - - Pacheco, Carlos, 527. - - Pacific Ocean named, 576; - explorations, 618; - Drake in the, 644; - sees Cape Horn, 644; - Gali's explorations, 646; - discoveries, 652; - wild theories about its coast, 652, 656, 658. - - _Paesi novamente retrovati_, 417. - - Palos, 182. - - Panama founded, 565. - - Papal authority to discover new lands, 252. - - Paria, Gulf of, map, 353; - land of, 354. - - Parmentier, Jean, 556. - - Passamonte, Miguel, 518. - - Pavia, university at, 80. - - Pearls, 354. - - Pedrarias, 564. - - Peragallo, Prospero, _Historie di F. Colombo_, 46. - - Perestrello, Bart., 88. - - Perestrello family, 105. - - Peringskiöld, 147. - - Peru discovered, 564, 565. - - Pesaro, F., 9. - - Peschel, Oscar, on the _Historie_, 46. - - Peter the Great, 653. - - Pezagno, the Genoese, 86. - - Phoenicians as explorers, 127. - - Philip II., of Spain, 523. - - Philip the Handsome, 513. - - Pineda, 560. - - Pinelo, Francisco, 257. - - Pinilla, T. R., _Colon en España_, 51. - - Pinzon, Martin Alonso, at Rabida, 174; - engages with Columbus, 183; - deserts Columbus, 226; - returns, 235; - reaches Palos and dies, 242. - - Pinzon, Vicente Yañez, with Columbus, 183; - his voyage (1494) across the equator, 376; - sees Cape St. Augustine, 376; - at Española, 377. - - Pinzon and Solis's expedition, 570. - - Piracy, 81. - - Pirckheimer, 636. - - Pizarro, 562, 564. - - Plaanck, the printer, 15. - - Plato and Atlantis, 126. - - Plutarch's Saturnian Continent, 126. - - Polar regions, map of, 202. - - Polo, Marco, 90, 498; - annotations of Columbus in, 7; - in Cathay, 114; - his narrative _Milione_, 114; - his portrait, 115; - known to Columbus, 115. - - Pompey stone, 560. - - Ponce de Leon, Juan, 179, 556; - goes to the New World, 262; - portrait, 558; - his track, 559. - - Porcacchi, his map, 620. - - Porras, François de, 437; - his revolt, 462; - ended, 470; - at court, 478. - - Porto Bello, 448. - - Porto Rico, 236, 272, 517. - - Porto Santo discovered, 88, 105, 106. - - Portolanos, 530. _See_ Maps. - - Potatoes, 225. - - Portogallo, Alonso de, Count of Guelves, 526. - - Portogallo, Nuño de, becomes Duke of Veragua, 524, 526. - - Portugal, archives, 25; - attractions for Columbus, 85; - spirit of exploration in, 86; - her expert seamen, 86, 92; - Genoese in her service, 86; - discovers Madeira, 86; - and the Azores, 86; - Columbus in, 103, 149; - the King sends an expedition to anticipate Columbus's discovery, - 153; - Columbus's second visit, 168; - the bull of demarcation, 254; - negotiations with Spain, 255; - her pursuit of African discovery, 334; - establishes claims in South America, through the voyage of Cabral, - 377; - sends out Coelho (1501), 410; - settlements on the Labrador coast, 415; - maps in, falsified, 417; - the spread of cartographical ideas, 423; - earliest maps, 533, 534; - denies them to other nations, 534; - her seamen on the Newfoundland coast, 555, 556; - push the African route to the Moluccas, 569; - on the coast of Brazil, 570; - on the Pacific coast, 592; - cartographical progress in, 602. - - Prado, prior of, 508. - - Prescott's, W. H., _Ferdinand and Isabella_, 57; on Columbus, 501, - 503. - - Ptolemy, influence of, 91, 529, 638; - portrait, 530; - maps in, 530, 531, 627; - editions, 108; - (1511), 577; - (1513), 544, 545, 546, 582, 584; - (Stobnicza), 578; - (1522), 588; - (1525), 588; - (1535), 555, 588; - (1541), 588. - - - Queen's Gardens, 293, 299. - - Quibian, 450; - his attacks, 451; - captured, 451; - escapes, 451. - - Quinsay, 121, 124, 566, 607. - - Quintanilla, Alonzo de, 158, 165, 176, 178. - - - Rabida, Convent of, 154; - at what date was Columbus there? 155, 173. - - Rae, J. E. S., 12. - - Ralegh, Sir Walter, his American projects, 647. - - Ramusio on Columbus, 37. - - Regiomontanus, 94, 301; - his astrolabe, 95, 96; - _Ephemerides_, 131. - - Reinel, Pedro, his map, 534. - - Reisch, _Margarita Phil._, 582, 587, 601; - map, 583, 587. - - Remesal's _Chyapa_, 161. - - Rene, Duke of Provence, 82, 538, 543. - - Repartimientos, 314, 506, 507, 518. - - Resende, Garcia de, _Choronica_, 33. - - Ribero, map of the Antilles, 383; - map (1529), 562, 605; - invents a ship's pump, 603; - at the Seville conference, 604. - - Ringmann, M., 538. - - Rink, Henrik, 146. - - Riquelme, Pedro, 389, 390. - - Robertson, Wm., _America_, 55. - - Robertus Monarchus, _Bellum Christianorum Principum_, 17. - - Roberval, 614. - - Rodriguez, Sebastian, 175. - - Roldan revolts, 362, 366; - reinstated, 370; - sent to confront Ojeda, 374; - watched by Moxica, 389; - sails for Spain, 440; - lost, 440. - - Romans on the Atlantic, 127. - - Roselly de Lorgues, his efforts to effect canonization of - Columbus, 53, 60, 503, 505. - - Ross, Sir John, 651. - - Rotz, map, 612; - _Boke of Idiography_, 613. - - Roxo, Cape, passed, 99. - - Rubruquis, 90, 121. - - Ruscelli, his map, 616, 617. - - Rut, John, 601. - - Ruy de Pina, archivist of Portugal, 33, 149. - - Ruysch, map, 143, 532; - _Ptolemy_, 341. - - - Sabellicus, 103. - - Sacrobosco. _See_ Holywood. - - Sagas, 146. - - Saguenay River, 616. - - St. Brandan's Island, 112. - - St. Dié, college at, 538. - - St. Jerome, monks of, 508. - - St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 612. - - St. Thomas (fort), 287. - - St. Thomas (island), 231. - - Saints' days, suggest geographical names, 229. - - Salamanca, council of, 161, 164; - University, 162. - - Salcedo, Diego de, goes to Jamaica, 471. - - Samaot, 221. - - San Jorge da Mina, 134. - - San Salvador, 211, 215. - - Sanarega, Bart., 21, 30. - - Sanchez, Gabriel, letter to, 11. - - Sanchez, Juan, 451; - killed, 470. - - Sanchez, Rodrigo, 209. - - Sandacourt, J. B. de, 540. - - Santa Cruz, Alonso de, 203. - - Santa Cruz (island), 271. - - Santa Maria de la Concepcion, 220. - - Santa Maria de las Cuevas, 25. - - Santangel, Luis de, 11, 175, 178. - - Santo Domingo, archives, 26; - founded, 360; - cathedral at, 492, 493. - - Sanuto, Livio, _Geographia_, 201. - - Sanuto, Marino, his diary, 421; - cartographer, 86. - - Sargasso Sea, 204. - - Savona, records of, 20; - the Colombos of, 74. - - Saxo Grammaticus, 147. - - Schöner, Johann, his globe, 551, 572; - his charges against Vespucius, 554; - _Opusculum geographicum_, 555, 567, 607; - _Luculentissima descriptio_, 587; - portrait, 588; - _De insulis_, 589; - his alleged globe, 589, 590; - his variable beliefs, 607. - - Schouten defines Tierra del Fuego, 577. - - Sea-atlases, 603. - - Sea of Darkness, 86, 243; - fantastic islands of, 111. - - Sea-manuals, 630. - - Seamanship, early, 92. - - Seneca, his _Medea_, 118. - - Servetus, his _Ptolemy_, 555. - - Seven Cities, Island of. _See_ Antillia. - - Sevilla d'Oro, 471. - - Seville, archives at, 23; - cathedral of, 171; - cartographical conference at, 603. - - Shea, J. G., on the _Historie_, 46; - on the canonization of Columbus, 54; - onColumbus, 504. - - Ships (fifteenth century), 82; - speed of, 94; - of Columbus's time, 192, 193. - - Sierra Leone discovered, 101. - - Silber, Franck, the printer, 15. - - Simancas, archives, 22, 23; - view of the building, 24. - - Skralingeland, 145. - - Slavery, efforts of Columbus to place the Indians in, 220, 230, 281, - 282, 311, 314, 318, 327, 331, 360, 367, 371, 394, 402, 403, 429, - 437, 472, 482, 505, 506; - after Columbus's time, 518, 520. - - Smith, Captain John, his explorations, 649. - - Smith, Sir Thomas, 630. - - Solinus, 107. - - Soria, Juan de, 257. - - Sousa, A. C. de, _Hist. Geneal._, 27. - - South America, earliest picture of the natives, 336; - earliest seen, 352; - its coast nomenclature, 412; - supposed southern cape, 573. _See_ America. - - Southern cross first seen, 99, 376. - - Spain, archives of, 22; - publication of, 28, 29; - _Cartas de Indias_, 29; - Columbus in, 154; - the Genoese in, 157; - map of (1482), 165; - powerful grandees, 172; - the bull of demarcation, 254; - suspicious of Portugal, 254; - council for the Indies, 257; - plans expedition to the north, 413; - her authority in the Indies, 481; - the Crown's suit with Diego Colon, 514, 553; - King Ferdinand dies, 520; - Charles V., 523; - Philip II., 523; - her secretiveness about maps, 534, 554, 560, 627, 639; - earliest accounts of America, 587; - her seamen in the St. Lawrence region, 555; - on the Atlantic coast, 560; - council of the Indies instituted, 591; - failure to publish map in, 602; - Casa de la Contratacion, 603; - her sea-manuals, 630. - - Spotorno, Father, _Codice diplom. Colom. Americano_, 4; - _La Tavola di Bronzo_, 5. - - Square Gulf, 613. - - Staglieno, the Genoese antiquary, 21, 75. - - Stamler, Johannis, 543. - - Stephanius, Sigurd, his map, 144, 145. - - Stevens, Henry, 533; - on the _Historie_, 45; - on La Cosa's map, 385; - his _Schöner_, 424. - - Stevens, edition of Herrera, 55. - - Stimmer, Tobias, 64. - - Stobnicza's introduction to Ptolemy, 578; - his map, 580, 581, 585. - - Stockfish, 128, 340. - - Strabo, 107. - - Straits of Hercules, voyages beyond, 81. - - Strong, Richard, 646. - - Sumner, George, 246. - - Sylvanus, his edition of Ptolemy first gave maps of the Cortereal - discoveries, 419; - edits Ptolemy, 577; - his map, 579. - - Sylvius, Æneas, _Historia_, 7. - - - Talavera, Fernando de, 156, 508; - and Columbus's projects, 161, 176. - - Teneriffe, 195. - - Terra Verde, 416, 420. - - Thevet, André, his stories, 633. - - Thorne, Robt., map (1527), 600-602. - - Thyle, 135. - - Ticknor, George, 10. - - Tobacco, 225. - - Tobago, 355. - - Tordesillas, treaty of, 310. - - Torre do Tombo, archives, 25. - - Torres, Antonio de, returns to Spain in command of fleet, 282, 317. - - Tortuga, 228, 229. - - Toscanelli, Paolo, 499; his letters, 7, 107-109; - his map, 49, 109, 110, 191; - dies, 117. - - Triana, Rodrigo de, 211. - - Trinidad, 350. - - Tristan, Diego, his fate, 452, 453. - - Tritemius, _Epistolarum libri_, 412. - - Trivigiano, A., translates Peter Martyr, 35; - _Libretto_, 36; - his letters, 420. - - Tross gores, 547. - - - Ulloa, Francisco de, 610. - - Ullua, Alfonso de, 44. - - Ulpius globe, 597. - - Usselinx, W., 20, 649. - - - Vadianus, portrait, 585. - - Vallejo, Alonso de, 347. - - Valsequa's map, 88. - - Vancouver, 658. - - Variation. _See_ Needle. - - Varnhagen on the first letter of Columbus, 14; - and the early cartography, 382, 386. - - Vasconcellos, 149. - - Vatican archives, 22; - maps, 633. - - Vaulx, 616. - - Velasco, Pedro de, 156. - - Vega Real, 286; - its natives, 288. - - Venegas, _California_, 658. - - Venezuela, named by Ojeda, 373. - - Venice, cartographers of, 629. - - Veradus, 17. - - Veragua, map, 446; - characteristics of its coast, 447; - its abortive settlement, 456; - Duke of, title given to Columbus's grandson, 523. - - Verde, Simone, 283, 347. - - Verde, Cape, reached, 98. - - Verrazano on the Atlantic coast, 592, 593; - map, 594; - his voyage disputed, 595; - his so-called sea, 596, 646; - discoveries, 633. - - Verzellino, G. V., his memoirs, 21. - - Vespucius, Americus, and the naming of America, 30; - engaged in fitting out the second expedition of Columbus, 258; - supposed voyage (1497), 336; - controversy over, 338; - his character as a writer, 359; - his first voyage, 373; - in Coelho's fleet, 410; - his _Mundus Novus_, 410, 411, 542; - relations to the early cartography, 412; - his name bestowed on the New World, 36, 412, 538-555; - personal relations with Columbus, 484; - his narrative, 485; - writes an account of his voyage, 538; - portrait, 539; - his narrative published, 540; - his discoveries compared with those of Columbus, 542, 543; - miscalled Albericus, 543; - suspects gravitation, 543; - not called in the Columbus lawsuit, 553; - charged with being privy to the naming of America, 553, 554; - pilot major, 553; - dies, 553; - his map, 553; - his fame in England, 554. - - Vienna, geographers at, 585. - - Villalobos, 612. - - Vinci, Leonardo da, his map, 581, 582. - - Vinland, 144, 146. - - Virginia, named, 648; map, 654, 655. - - Viscaino, Sebastian, 652. - - Vopel, Gaspar, his globe, 607. - - Volterra, Maffei de, 32. - - Vries, De, 652. - - - Wagenaer, Lucas, his _Spieghel_, 603. - - Waldseemüller, his career, 540; - _Cosmographiæ Introductio_, 540; - its title, 541; - edits Ptolemy, 546, 582; - his map, 412. - - Walker, John, 646. - - Warsaw codex (Ptolemy), map, 635-637. - - Watling's Island, 216. - - Watt, Joachim. _See_ Vadianus. - - Waymouth, George, 650. - - West India Company, 649. - - White, John, his map, 597, 599. - - Winsor, Justin, _America_, 59. - - Wright, Edw., improves Mercator's projection, 637. - - Wytfliet, his maps, 630, 631. - - - Xaragua, 305; made subject, 361, 473. - - Ximenes in power, 520. - - - Yucatan, 629; discovered, 565, 567. - - - Zarco, 87. - - Zeni, the, 138, 634; - their map, 634, 635; - their influence, 642. - - Ziegler, _Schondia_ and its map, 615, 617. - - Zoana mela, 582, 583. - - Zorzi _or_ Montalboddo, _Paesi novamente retrovati_, 36. - - Zuñiga, Diego Ortiz de, on Seville, 169. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Christopher Columbus and How He -Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery, by Justin Winsor - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS *** - -***** This file should be named 42059-8.txt or 42059-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/0/5/42059/ - -Produced by Julia Miller, Matthias Grammel and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from scans of public domain material -produced by Microsoft for their Live Search Books site.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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