_The Convent of la Rábida_ — _Old Books and Charts_ —
_Paintings_ — _A Fortunate Glimpse of the “Santa Maria”_ —
_Portraits of Columbus_ — _The Cliff-Dwellers_ — _Cheap
Souvenirs_ — _World’s Fairs in General._
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT CARAVEL.]
As has been said, Harry and Mr. Douglass set out for the Convent of
Santa Maria de la Rábida, which means “Blessed Mary of the Frontier,”
according to the wise men who write guide-books. Appropriately built
upon a point of land, it was surrounded by green turf to the shore,
where pointed rocks made an irregular wall. Even to one coming through
the Court of Honor—an architectural display unequaled—the quiet little
convent presented an aspect of quaint simplicity that was full of
dignified repose. Its plain walls and low-pitched roof were relieved
only by two features that broke the sky-line, a tower and a belfry.
Probably its designers thought little or nothing of architectural
beauty, and had attained their object when they had made an inclosed
court surrounded by small rooms, with one or two large enough for a
refectory and chapel.
Entering a narrow doorway at the back, Mr. Douglass and Harry found
themselves in a large hall, which was no doubt the chapel of the
original building. To their right was the place where the altar had
stood, but in the model this inclosure contained pictures on the
walls. They were very old, no doubt; but when a Columbian guard told
an inquirer that they were “more than a thousand years, I guess,” Mr.
Douglass and Harry concluded that the guard’s uniform was no guaranty
of his knowledge.
[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL CONVENT OF LA RÁBIDA, IN SPAIN.]
In the front of this chancel was an easel sustaining a frame that
protected the commission authorizing Christopher Columbus to go and
see what he could find. A placard requested “gentlemen to remove their
hats,” as Philip had said; but the American public had made up its mind
to disregard this inscription. Mr. Douglass said to Harry, in a low
tone, “I can see no reason for removing one’s hat to a piece of paper
with ink on it. One can show a proper respect and appreciation for a
relic without flunkeyism.” And Harry quite agreed with him.
The commission was a bit of brown parchment written in a crabbed hand,
probably by some court copyist; and not even the signatures were
intelligible. Moving onward through the crush of people, they came next
to the west wall, where there was a glass case containing the rarest
ancient treatises upon geographical matters. There were twenty or
thirty in the case, some ornamented with woodcuts; but though Harry had
come with the best of intentions to study the exhibits carefully, he
could do nothing but gaze wonderingly at the type, saying to himself,
“This is an old, old book. Columbus may have read it. Here’s another.
What a queer picture!” At length he said to Mr. Douglass:
“What do you make of them, Mr. Douglass?”
“Very little, I must confess,” said the tutor. “One has to read such
books to learn how much wheat there is amid the chaff of fable, folly,
and guesswork. Even if I could read all the languages, I could get
little from the two pages which are all they can show. All you can
do now, Harry, is to get a good idea of what these old books and
charts are like. Perhaps we can buy a catalogue which will give us
translations of some parts of the books and of the letters that are
also shown here.”
“What can one learn from these old books?” asked Harry. “Surely there
is nothing in them that we don’t know about.”
[Illustration: THE CONVENT OF LA RÁBIDA AT THE FAIR.]
“No, of course there isn’t,” said the tutor. “We can only take an
interest in them as showing the beginning of events that have resulted
so wonderfully. It is also true that now and then we find a sentence
throwing light upon how men did things in old times. But it is rather
as a matter of curiosity than of learning that these relics are
studied.”
Upon the west wall was a very large painting showing the “Landing.” It
represented Columbus, just after he had stepped ashore, raising his
eyes upward in thanksgiving for his success. The men in the boat seemed
to show curiosity and enjoyment rather than piety. The painting was not
remarkable except that the expression upon the discoverer’s face was
well rendered.
At the left of the picture the original anchor of the wrecked “Santa
Maria” leaned against the wall. Both flukes were gone. Mr. Douglass
felt a little doubtful of the genuineness of this relic, but was
willing to be convinced. There seemed to be no proof that the anchor
belonged to the old caravel; but, on the other hand, it was found where
her anchor might have been, and it was pleasant to believe that it
might be the very piece of iron upon which the hand of the discoverer
had often rested.
[Illustration: CELL OF THE PRIOR MARCHENA IN THE ORIGINAL CONVENT,—THE
“COLUMBUS ROOM” IN THE MODEL AT THE FAIR.]
Mr. Douglass asked a young man who was selling catalogues whether he
hadn’t one telling just what letters and papers were in the building;
but, to the tutor’s disappointment, the catalogues of the old
manuscripts were all sold. There were a number of old paintings around
the walls, but after examining a few, Mr. Douglass advised Harry not to
waste much time over them, as their connection with Columbus was rather
remote.
Going up the narrow stairway, they came out upon a corridor that looked
upon the open court through graceful arches; and from this corridor
opened small square rooms—originally the monks’ cells. The doors were
as plain as possible, and each had a latch lifted by a string coming
out through a hole in the door; the windows were small and square,
embrasured, or sunk, into the thick walls.
[Illustration: HOUSE IN GENOA SAID TO BE THE BIRTHPLACE OF COLUMBUS.]
Various relics were hung at every point, either along the corridor or
in the cells. Many of them were queer drawings or paintings, meant to
show the manners and customs of the Indians; others were charts and
maps, some earlier than Columbus and others later.
At one place Harry suddenly stopped and pointed delightedly out of the
little window.
“See!” he cried. “Isn’t that just right?”
Mr. Douglass turned, and gazing through the little opening saw the
“Santa Maria” lying near the wharf opposite.
“It makes one feel as if he were back four hundred years,” said the
tutor, quite as much delighted with this fortunate view as Harry was.
“Looking through this little window, we see nothing of the crowd, and
are all alone with the convent and the caravel.”
They were most interested in the “Columbus Room,” which occupied the
place of the cell where lodged the monk who became interested in the
man with a theory. There were dozens of portraits of Columbus, and they
certainly gave one plenty of choice. Broad-faced, narrow-faced, round,
oval, bearded, or smooth, the great discoverer might well have been
puzzled to know which was his likeness. People’s remarks were droll
enough.
One young woman who had been critically scrutinizing the array of
“Columbuses, various,” finally stopped delightedly before a large
portrait and exclaimed:
“Oh!—_that’s_ more like him!”
Harry longed to ask how she knew that, but concluded it would get him
into trouble. Harry himself had no choice. He felt just as another
critical visitor did. This was a young man in a broad felt hat, who
sailed around the room, and left with the parting remark:
“There isn’t one of them that looks alike!”
Mr. Douglass and Harry spent a long morning in the convent, but Harry
wearied of it. He tried to be interested, for he wished to please his
father; but he couldn’t find anything to take hold of in making a
beginning. Still, by sitting quietly in the rooms and corridors, the
boy, without realizing it, carried away a perfectly clear idea of the
old convent, its arrangement, how Columbus must have been lodged and
entertained, what the old documents were like, and how much modern
maps differed from the rude charts of the Middle Ages.
He told Mr. Douglass that he couldn’t make much of it; but the tutor
consoled him.
“You never know how much you have learned until long after you’ve
studied and gone past a subject,” said Mr. Douglass. “Some day you’ll
read more about this old building and its documents, and then you’ll
find a peg to hang the knowledge upon. Have you ever seen a negro
minstrel try to hang his hat on a wall where there is no hook?”
Harry laughed, and said he had.
“That is what people must do who have no general ideas to hang
particular bits of information upon. Now, in this case you would be
surprised to see how much you know about Columbus compared with what
you knew before you came to this Fair. I won’t bother you now to review
it; but some day, when we are studying again, I’ll let you note down
the facts about Columbus that you learned at the World’s Fair.”
“Thank you,” said Harry, smiling.
“You’ll like to do it,” said Mr. Douglass. “You’ll see. Now let us take
something a little simpler. I hear that the Cliff-Dwellers exhibit is
really good. Suppose we go over there?”
Harry was very glad to agree, and they walked still further southward
past the Anthropological Hall and the Forestry Building,—a most
interesting place, where none of them had yet been,—and came to
the curious imitation of a great cliff which gave room to the
Cliff-Dwellers museum and models.
Here they found that there were guides to go about and explain the
different parts of the show. They followed one of them for a while, but
found that he talked so fast and paused so short a time in any place
that they could hear and see little.
Starting out upon their own account, they looked first at models built
into the sides of the imitation rock,—for they were inside a great
structure dimly lighted, and looking like a great cavern,—showing that
the “villages” were really a collection of rooms made by erecting
walls from floor to roof of a cleft in the cliff.
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS ON HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA. (IN THE
CONVENT OF LA RÁBIDA.)]
Then they went into the museum, and saw relics of the strange people
of whom little is known. Some believe there are no remnants of these
Indian tribes of the Southwest. Others think the Pueblos are the same
or a closely connected people.
[Illustration: A LAMP.]
There were in the cases bits of sandals woven of cord, cloth remnants,
some as finely woven as canvas; bits of bones, scooped out into spoons
or sharpened and faced for needles; bits of straw hats, large stone
mortars for grinding corn, the corn itself in jars and corn-cobs, and
even skeletons, skulls, and mummies in a fair state of preservation.
The skulls were finely developed in front, but nearly all flattened at
the back. The skull of a Cree Indian was set in the case, in order to
show how much finer were the foreheads of the Cliff-Dwellers. Harry was
especially pleased to find a little bear made out of pottery,—a tiny
little thing that was probably a toy. He made a sketch of it.
[Illustration]
Going into another part of the cavern-like structure, they saw some
oil-paintings of the original rocks and dwellings from which these
relics were taken. In yet another compartment were some of the donkeys
used by the exploring party, and young girls and children took rides
upon their backs.
Harry was standing just at the heels of one of these little gray beasts
of burden when a gentleman of an inquiring turn of mind asked, “Does he
kick?” at the same time pinching the donkey to see. Luckily for Harry,
the donkey didn’t kick, or there might have been a new mummy added to
the collection in the museum.
[Illustration: HARRY’S RESTORATION OF A CLIFF-DWELLER.]
Another place was set apart for full-size models of the houses, and it
was curious to see how the walls surrounded a sort of fireplace. The
Cliff-Dwellers apparently slept in stone bunks cut in the rock, for
there were several of these mineral sofas around the walls.
A path here and there led up out of the interior to the surface of the
imitation cliff, and many people went clambering up and down these
strange highways, clinging to ropes that had been fastened along the
sides.
Now and then the lecturing guide would come near enough to let Mr.
Douglass and Harry hear part of his explanation. He spoke of the deep
wells that supplied the dwellers with water; of the narrow trails that
made the settlements inaccessible to the hostile tribes that drove this
people from the fertile plains up into these rocky forts; of the lamps
and the cooking-utensils: but all at such lightning-express speed
that Harry could find out nearly as much by examining the objects for
himself.
When they came out, Harry was amused to see that even the turnstile was
made of rough logs, to be in keeping with its surroundings.
[Illustration: THE CLIFF-DWELLERS’ MOUND.]
As Mr. Douglass intended to go out to see a procession of boats in the
evening, they went home early. On their way they passed the Alaskan
totem-pole settlement, but concluded not to make their way through the
press in order to get into the hut where souvenirs were on sale. At the
Indian village they did succeed in making their way within doors, but
found nothing to repay them for their trouble—merely the regular array
of baskets, bows and arrows, and similar trifles.
Some North African booths, kept by people of the French colonies,
offered for sale all sorts of little trinkets in brass and silver
filigree or cheap enamel; but in spite of the continued cry, “Sheep,
sheep; everyt’ing werry sheep!” the party kept on toward the outlet.
Reaching home, they found that Philip was already there. He was at the
window, much amused over the doings of some of the negro waiters who,
sitting around in the sunshine, were musically singing or talking over
their experiences.
Philip displayed his photographs, and Harry showed the sketches he had
made. But the party had ceased to be very talkative over the Fair.
“What I should like to see,” said Mr. Douglass, “is a fair from which
all the ordinary, commonplace exhibits are excluded. Cans and boxes of
ordinary merchandise, even if piled up in ornamental forms, are better
suited to an agricultural county fair than to a World’s Exposition. A
small, choice exposition, where every exhibit was unique of its kind,
would be more manageable and much better worth seeing. This Chicago
World’s Fair has in it the very best material the world can produce.
But it would take two years to see it thoroughly, and no one man could
understand it then.”
“I’ll tell you what I should like to see,” said Harry; “and that is a
grand procession where people of the same States should be in ranks
together. Then we should see how they differed.”
“And my idea,” added Philip, “is to have a Children’s Fair, where
everything that is interesting to boys and girls should be on
exhibition. That would be something like!”
[Illustration: VIEW LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE TOP OF THE WOMAN’S
BUILDING—BY MOONLIGHT.]