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[Illustration: _See page 125._
“THE SOLDIER’S LEAP”—GORGE IN THE ANDES, ACROSS WHICH ONE
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
THROUGH
SOUTH AMERICA
BY
HARRY WESTON VAN DYKE
WITH INTRODUCTION BY
JOHN BARRETT
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE PAN AMERICAN UNION
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY.
_Published October, 1912._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO
MY FRIEND
JOHN BARRETT
IN TOKEN OF MY ESTEEM AND MY APPRECIATION OF
HIS MANY KINDNESSES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION
BY HON. JOHN BARRETT, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE PAN AMERICAN UNION AND
FORMERLY UNITED STATES MINISTER TO ARGENTINA, PANAMA, AND
COLOMBIA
I have real pleasure in complying with the suggestion that I should
write an introduction to this interesting and instructive work by Mr.
Harry Weston Van Dyke. As it was through me that he was led to make his
studies and investigations which resulted in the preparing of this book,
I naturally find much gratification in the success with which he has
handled the responsibility. No one can read his travel story of South
America without being impressed with the importance of these countries,
the enjoyment and value of visiting them, and the advantage of the
development of closer relations between all of them and the United
States.
As the executive officer of the Pan American Union, an international
organization maintained in Washington by all the American republics,
twenty-one in number, including the United States, for the advancement
of commerce, friendship, and peace among them all, it is my lot to
realize, possibly better than any one else, the remarkable growth of
interest which is being manifested now, not only throughout the United
States but in all parts of the world, in the countries of the southern
portions of the American continent commonly classed as Latin America.
When the Pan American Union was reorganized about five years ago, and it
began an active propaganda for making the twenty Latin American
republics better known in the United States, and correspondingly, the
United States better known among them, there was little cause for
encouragement. The average newspaper editor, the man in public life, the
manufacturer, the exporter, the importer, the traveler, and the student
seemed to be largely absorbed in studying and watching the development
of our commercial relations with Europe and the Orient, and not with
Latin America. The persistent and continued effort, however, of the Pan
American Union in educating the world to the importance of the Latin
American countries and to an appreciation of the commercial
opportunities and moral responsibilities of the United States in its
relations with them, has now resulted in a complete change of conditions
which is indeed gratifying. To-day the manufacturers and merchants in
all parts of the world, the editors of American and European and even
Asiatic newspapers, special writers on foreign subjects, lecturers,
members of Congress, professors and students in universities and
colleges, librarians, professional and amateur travelers are
corresponding with the Pan American Union or visiting its headquarters
in order to gain accurate information about the Latin American
republics.
As an illustration of this growth of interest a few comparisons can be
made. Five years ago the total number of printed reports, pamphlets, and
other publications distributed by the Pan American Union was
approximately one hundred thousand. This year, the total will
approximate nearly one million. None of these have been sent broadcast
in a careless way. Five years ago there was little or no demand for the
“Monthly Bulletin” of the Pan American Union; now the demand for it is
greater than can be supplied. Then it was an uninteresting public
document; to-day it is an attractive and instructive illustrated
magazine, descriptive of the progress and development of the American
nations. Five years ago the Pan American Union was housed in a small
building, used formerly as a private dwelling, on the corner of
Lafayette Square and Pennsylvania Avenue; to-day it occupies a building
which a great French architect has described as combining beauty and
utility better than any other public building of its cost in the world.
The library of the Pan American Union, which is a practical collection
of books useful to all persons who wish to study those countries, has
been increased from twelve thousand to twenty-three thousand volumes,
while its collection of photographs has grown from one thousand to
eleven thousand.
During this same period the foreign commerce of Latin America has grown
from one billion seven hundred million dollars ($1,700,000,000) to two
billion three hundred million dollars ($2,300,000,000). Of this, the
share of the United States has increased from less than five hundred
million dollars ($500,000,000) to nearly seven hundred million dollars
($700,000,000).
The total annual contributions of all the American republics, including
the United States, for the maintenance of the Pan American Union in 1906
was $54,000; now the total of their quotas for support approximates
$125,000.
All these facts I mention, not to call attention to the Pan American
Union especially, but to emphasize with actual truth the evidences of
the growth of interest throughout the world in the countries which are
described in part by Mr. Van Dyke in this practical volume. If its
reading stimulates further interest in them, the Pan American Union will
be only too glad to furnish any information in its power.
While this book will perhaps be most appreciated by persons who are
contemplating a visit to Latin America, it should be read by all those
who wish to know more of what the American nations aside from the United
States are doing. What is their interesting history, what are their
resources, what are the characteristics of their peoples, what is the
progress being made by them in national and municipal government, in
education, and in solving social and economic problems? Most of the
people of the United States and even of Europe have been so absorbed in
their own histories, development, and general progress that they have
given little attention to the twenty republics of southern America.
After reading Mr. Van Dyke’s story they cannot fail to appreciate that
there are other important nations and peoples in the world than those of
northern America, Europe, and Asia.
Possibly a few general facts may be mentioned here which will enable the
reader better to appreciate what follows in the chapters of this book.
It must be remembered that the twenty republics lying south of the
United States in the Western Hemisphere occupy an area of nine million
square miles. This is three times greater than the connected area of the
United States. Their total population now exceeds seventy millions. This
is seven-ninths of the total population of the United States. Their
foreign trade—and commerce is often called the life blood of nations—now
exceeds two billion three hundred million dollars ($2,300,000,000) a
year, which in turn represents an increase of nearly one billion dollars
($1,000,000,000) during the last ten years. Nearly all of these
countries secured their independence under the leadership of generals
and patriots who were inspired by the example of George Washington.
Nearly all of them have written their constitutions with the
constitution of the United States as their example. All of them to-day
are watching the United States in its efforts to solve its endless
variety of social and economic problems, and they will profit by the
example which the United States sets them.
They are not to be classed as lands of revolution, because two-thirds of
all Latin America has known practically no revolution during the last
fifteen or twenty years. The revolutions which occurred should possibly
be called evolutions, and are efforts of their peoples, even though
sometimes crude, to improve their permanent conditions of prosperity and
progress. They are not by any means solely “tropical lands,” as is often
supposed or as may be judged from a glance at the map. The great
southern section of South America, including southern Brazil, Uruguay,
Argentina, Chile, and a large section of Bolivia, are in the South
Temperate Zone, where they have climatic conditions corresponding to
those of the United States. The countries, moreover, which are actually
under or near the equator have a mingling of high lands with low lands
which means much for their future development. There are high plateaux
ranging from three thousand to twelve thousand feet above the sea,
covering oftentimes individual areas as large as that of Connecticut or
Massachusetts, where the climate the year round is like that of New
England in June or September and where the white man can live in
corresponding climatic comfort.
Although, because of the slight seasonal changes, the average
temperature of the low-lying lands of the tropical sections is somewhat
trying to the resident of northern bringing up, yet under the influence
of modern methods of sanitation and practical methods of living, they
are being transformed into healthful sections of growing population,
commerce, and influence. The example which the United States has set at
Panama, and the demonstration which this government is giving there of
the possibility of white men thriving in the tropics, is having its
influence throughout the tropical belt of our sister republics and great
changes are resulting.
The approaching completion and opening of the Panama Canal gives a
special interest to this work of Mr. Van Dyke’s. Only the person who has
thoroughly studied what the Panama Canal means, its effect not only upon
the commerce of the world but upon the commerce and influence of the
United States, and what it will do for the Latin American countries, as
well as for the United States, can appreciate fully how important to the
future of the relations of North and South America is the completion of
this mighty waterway. Its opening should be followed not only by a great
development of the export trade of the United States to those countries
but of their export trade to this country. It should cause a remarkable
increase in the travel between North and South America. There is no
better influence for commerce and friendship than that of mutual
acquaintance of peoples of different countries. When the Canal is
completed there should be a great increase in the number of North
Americans going to South America and of South Americans coming to the
North.
When the shipping of the world goes through the Canal, it will have
direct access to a remarkable coast line which heretofore has been so
isolated that it could only be reached from the eastern part of the
United States and the western part of Europe by the long journey around
South America. The coast line which is made immediately accessible by
the Canal reaches for eight thousand miles from the California-Mexican
line south to Cape Horn, three thousand miles from Panama northwest to
San Diego in California and five thousand miles south from Panama to
Punta Arenas. This coast, without the Canal and in its isolated
position, conducts now an average foreign commerce valued at four
hundred million dollars ($400,000,000). With the opening of the Canal
this should be doubled or trebled in the next ten years. It is a safe
prediction that the Panama Canal will have the same influence upon the
western shore, comprising the following countries: Mexico, Salvador,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and
Chile, which the construction of the transcontinental railways had upon
the Pacific coast of the United States. The fact that their population
and their commercial and industrial development to-day is somewhat
limited is no argument against their possibilities in the future. There
was a time when the best experts and judges in the public and official
life of the United States declared that the Pacific coast of the United
States was not only of little value but never would be of great
consequence. There were, however, some wise men like Seward who
recognized the mighty potentialities of our Pacific coasts and of the
Pacific seas. There is every reason to believe that western or Pacific
Latin America, in view of its varieties of resources and climate, will,
under the influence of the Panama Canal, experience a development and
progress that will astonish the world.
In conclusion, a word can be added of personal appreciation of our
sister republics which I believe will be shared by all those who read
this book and later visit Latin America and study carefully its
possibilities and potentialities. It was my privilege, before being
elected by the vote of all these countries to the position of
Director-General of the Pan American Union five years ago, to have
served as Minister of the United States in such representative countries
of South America as Argentina, Panama, and Colombia. My association with
the officials and the rank and file of the peoples of these countries,
and my travels both in a public and private capacity throughout the
Latin American countries, have developed in me a regard for them that
approaches real affection. The more I have learned and seen of them, the
more I have admired them. They have their faults and weaknesses, as have
the government and the people of the United States; but they have a
great many virtues and numerous favorable features which are too often
overlooked by the critics who have not studied Latin America from a
sympathetic standpoint.
If we of the United States will remember that they are our sister
republics, that they gained their independence under our example, that
they have written their constitutions upon that of the United States,
and that they will learn to love or hate us according as our attitude is
that of sympathy and love or of selfishness and material concern, we
shall in turn gain their confidence and sympathy and they will join with
us in that spirit of Pan American unity and of solidarity which will
make the Western Hemisphere the world’s leader in civilization, in
business, and in enduring friendship among all nations.
JOHN BARRETT.
WASHINGTON, _June 1, 1912_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HISTORICAL SKETCH 1
II. BRAZIL 133
III. ARGENTINA 190
IV. URUGUAY 228
V. PARAGUAY 239
VI. BOLIVIA 257
VII. CHILE 275
VIII. PERU 314
IX. ECUADOR 352
X. COLOMBIA 375
XI. VENEZUELA 400
XII. THE GUIANAS 424
BIBLIOGRAPHY 429
INDEX 433
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
“The Soldier’s Leap” _Frontispiece_
OPPOSITE PAGE
Map of South America 1
Francisco Pizarro 38
Inca Burial Tower near Lake Titicaca 56
Cloisters of Dominican Monastery, Cuzco 56
Cathedral at Lima, built by Pizarro 76
Pizarro’s Palace, Lima—Now the Government Building 90
San Martín’s Passage of the Andes 126
Statue of Bolívar, in Lima 132
The City of Bahia 156
Botafogo Bay, Rio Harbor _between_ 162 _and_ 163
Bay and City of Rio de Janeiro 166
Avenue of Royal Palms, Rio Botanical Gardens 170
Avenida Central, Rio de Janeiro 170
Coffee Plantation, Brazil 184
Colón Theater, Buenos Aires 204
Federal Capitol, Buenos Aires 204
Jockey Club’s Grand Stand at Race Track 210
Prize Winners from “the Camp” 216
The Uspallata Pass 222
Iguazú Falls 226
Solis Theater, Montevideo 232
Cagancha Plaza, Montevideo 232
Government Palace, Asunción 242
View of Asunción and River Paraguay 242
Shrine of Our Lady of Capacabana 266
Town and Mountain of Potosí, Bolivia 266
Church of the Conservidas, La Paz 272
Old Spanish Residence, La Paz 272
Punta Arenas 312
Plaza Mayor, Lima 326
Scene on the Oroya Railway 330
Church of La Merced, Lima 350
Street Scene in Guayaquil 362
Condor of the Andes 362
Room in Old Palace at Quito 374
Overlooking Bogotá 386
A _Posada_ or Country Inn 392
Battlemented Wall, Cartagena 392
View of Maracaibo 404
A Coffee Plantation, Venezuela 414
[Illustration: SOUTH AMERICA]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Through South America_
I
HISTORICAL SKETCH
I
A little more than four hundred years ago, when Europe was emerging from
the darkness of the Middle Ages into the era of printed books, when the
Field of the Cloth of Gold had impressed the official stamp of culture
on her civilization, when gunpowder was changing the aspect of war—in an
age that produced such intellects as those of Machiavelli, Copernicus,
Lorenzo the Magnificent, Cardinal Wolsey, and John Werner—wise men were
still groping blindly for knowledge about the world in which they lived
that is regarded as elementary by the school children of our day. What
was its shape? What lay beyond the western horizon of the Atlantic, the
vast and stormy _Mare Tenebrosum_ of fabled terror to mariners? What was
south of the African countries bordering the Mediterranean? How far east
did Asia extend? No one knew.
In the year 150 A.D., the learned Alexandrian Claudius Ptolemy had made
a map of Europe and of those parts of Asia and Africa which were then
known, or supposed to exist; and on that map, for the first time in
history, the world was represented as a sphere—_though a stationary
one_. Therefore, speculated those who thought about it at all, assuming
Ptolemy’s theory to be correct, how could a mariner, even were he
successful in navigating his vessel down the awful declivity on one side
of the globe, hope to make it climb up again on the other? How could he
cross the equator, which Aristotle and Pliny had declared was an
uninhabitable zone, so torrid that the earth around was burnt up as with
fire and only marine salamanders, if such monsters existed, could live
in the super-heated waters? And, even if the equator were passable, how
could the frightful abysses into which the ocean was supposed to
discharge itself at the pole be escaped?
Some time in the sixth century a monk named Cosmas had attempted to
answer these questions by means of a theory evolved from a study of the
Bible and more consistent with its descriptions and metaphors. In the
map he made, the world was represented as a level rectangle, its sides
composed of blue walls, supporting a dome that separated the mortal
domain from the Paradise where dwelt the Creator and his angels; and,
fanciful as was this cosmos of Cosmas’ devising, his map was regarded as
the standard of geographical knowledge down to the time of Columbus.
Even after his time the famous astronomer Galileo was imprisoned as a
heretic partly for reasserting the theory of Ptolemy. No one but a few
scientists even imagined that the east could be reached by sailing west;
no one, not even they, yet knew that Africa could be circumnavigated and
the treasures of gorgeous Far Cathay (as China was then called) brought
to Europe’s doors by water. _Yet it was to accomplish that very object
that the series of voyages was begun that led eventually to the
discovery of America._
Venice and Genoa, grown rich and powerful through trade with India and
the nearer countries of the Orient, had for a space enjoyed a prosperity
and revival of culture that were felt throughout Christendom. Then had
come the conquest of Spain and domination of the Mediterranean by the
Moors, and, afterward, the wars of the Crusades, which had checked the
Saracen advance but interrupted all other commerce with the infidels.
Meanwhile, as though to compensate for this loss, the great Mongolian
conqueror Genghis Khan had fulfilled his remarkable destiny and, instead
of adopting measures to prevent it, invited western intercourse with the
countries he had brought under his sway, and China, about which almost
nothing was then generally known, was visited overland by traders,
adventurers, and missionaries. Marco Polo, a Venetian, after spending
more than twenty years in the far east, part of the time in the service
of the Great Khan Kubilay, had returned by way of India and Persia,
laden with jewels of enormous value, and had written a book descriptive
of the countries he had seen and the wealth and customs of the people.
In the fourteenth century, when the Mongolian dynasty was overthrown,
the Asiatics had again turned hostile and the land route was closed.
But during this open season it had become known that Cathay was not the
end of the world, as had been supposed—that there was an ocean beyond
and the wonderful Island of Cipango (Japan) and other islands rich in
spices and costly products; and Europe began to wonder, since the
Tartars barred the route by land, whether these desirable places might
not be accessible by water. “Between wondering and the attempt,” says
Hawthorne, “there was a considerable interval, for the idea was too
novel to be digested all at once. But it was an age of unbridled license
of imagination and of desperate courage. The mere possibility of
encountering perils never until then conceived of was allurement enough,
as, even to-day, our young adventurers go forth to die on the ice fields
of the north and south poles, or in the mysterious heart of savage
Africa, or on the ghastly plateaux of Tibet. In addition, there were the
fabulous rewards that success seemed to promise.”
At first, though, if the plan of sailing west was even thought of, it
would seem to have been regarded as less feasible than that of rounding
Africa. Prince Henry, a son of King John I of Portugal—for it was the
Portuguese, not the Spanish, who were the pioneers in this series of
discoveries—determined to devote his life to the work. Retiring from the
splendors of the Lisbon court, he built an astronomical observatory on
the promontory of Sagres (in southern Portugal), extended its
hospitalities to all the wise men of the age and sent out expedition
after expedition to the south. “Until then,” says Dawson, “nautical
knowledge was very meager. The compass served only to indicate
direction, not distance or position, and did not suffice for the
systematic navigation of the open Atlantic. The Portuguese first made
that possible by using astronomical observations and inventing the
quadrant and astrolabe.”
This knowledge, once acquired, was promptly applied. Madeira was
discovered in 1418, the Canaries in 1427, the Azores in 1432. To the
west the Portuguese ventured no farther, but, continuing south, they
reached Cape Blanco in 1441, Senegambia and Cape Verde in 1445, the Cape
Verde Islands in 1460, and the Gulf of Guinea in 1469. In 1471 they were
the first Europeans to cross the equator. The idea was then conceived
that they had only to keep on and they could round the southern
extremity of the continent and reach Abyssinia and India by sea—a hope
that was realized in 1487 when Bartholomew Dias arrived at last at the
Cape of Good Hope. A few miles beyond, however, he was compelled by the
condition of his crew to return and it remained for his compatriot Vasco
da Gama some years later to double the cape and complete the voyage up
the eastern coast and across the Indian Ocean to Hindustan.
II
The significance of these early voyages of the Portuguese lies in the
fact that thereby it was demonstrated that a shorter route was
needed—that with the very small and badly equipped vessels of the period
the trip around the Cape of Good Hope, at least for commercial purposes,
was impracticable; also in the fact that with Dias had sailed the
Genoese navigator Bartholomew Columbus, a brother of the discoverer of
America.
Years before that first great achievement, Christopher Columbus—who had
studied at the University of Pavia and had himself taken part in one or
more of Prince Henry’s African expeditions, and even ventured to the
northwest, probably as far as Iceland—had been converted to the theory
that the world was round and that the oceans west of Europe and east of
Cathay were the same. As a consequence, he had concluded, the East
Indies (as India, China, Japan, and the other countries and islands east
of the Indian Ocean were indiscriminately called) _could be reached from
Europe by sailing west_. Eighteen years before he was finally enabled to
put this theory to the test, he had written Toscanelli, one of the
foremost astronomers of the time, asking his opinion as to this
possibility. Toscanelli sent him a copy of a letter he had written
shortly before to King Alfonso of Portugal on the same subject, in which
he said:
“I have formerly spoken of a shorter route to the places of
spices than you are pursuing by Guinea. Although I am well aware
that this can be proved by the spherical shape of the earth, in
order to make the point clearer I have decided to exhibit that
route by means of a sailing chart, made by my own hands, whereon
are laid down your coasts and the islands from which you must
begin to shape your course steadily westward, the places at
which you are bound to arrive and how far from the pole or
equator you ought to keep away.” (Neither in the chart nor in
the description was there indication of anything whatever
resembling the continents of North and South America.) “From the
city of Lisbon as far as the very great and splendid city of
Quinsay” (Pekin), he continued, “are twenty-six spaces, each of
250 miles. This space is about a third of the whole sphere. But
from the Island of Antilia, which you know, to the very splendid
Island of Cipango” (Japan) “there are ten spaces. _So, through
the unknown parts of the route, the stretches of sea are not
great._”
In his letter to Columbus he congratulates him on having undertaken an
enterprise—
“Fraught with honor, as it must be, and inestimable gain and
most lofty fame among all Christian peoples. It will be a voyage
to powerful kingdoms” (he prophetically added, though he had
never even dreamed of the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas)
“and to cities and provinces most wealthy and noble. It will
also be advantageous to those kings and princes who are eager to
have dealings and make alliances with the Christians of other
countries. For these and many other reasons, I do not wonder
that you, who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese
nation, which has always had men distinguished in such
enterprises, are now inflamed with a desire to make the voyage.”
Thus encouraged, Columbus began his efforts to secure patronage and
money for the expedition. He tried in his birthplace, Genoa, and in
Portugal and Spain, even in England, where he was accompanied by his
brother Bartholomew after the latter’s return from the voyage to the
Cape of Good Hope, and suffered many refusals. Toscanelli had been dead
eight years before he at last succeeded; and then, had he known that the
distance from Lisbon to the coast of Asia was in fact some 13,000 miles,
or twice that which the astronomer had estimated, and that, even so, the
route straight across was barred by the Isthmus of Panama—had he known
that Cathay did not, as his mentor believed, extend some thousands of
miles farther east than it does, even such a man as Columbus might have
abandoned the project as chimerical when the cockleshells then available
for ocean travel were taken into consideration. Nor, if she too had not
been misled by the same “valuable pieces of ignorance,” is it likely
that his plea would have prevailed on the practical Isabella of Castile,
however elated and invincible she may have felt over the taking of the
last of the Saracen strongholds at Granada and the expulsion of the
Moors from Spain, for in that she was engaged when Columbus finally
succeeded in securing her aid.
Fortunately, however, whatever might have happened if Toscanelli had not
held the voyage to be practicable, Columbus was not only a man of
indomitable spirit but possessed of a presence that inspired in others
the confidence he felt in himself. A man of striking personality, he is
said to have been about forty-five years of age at the time, tall, well
formed, and dignified, with sharp gray eyes, alight with “that divine
spark of enthusiasm which makes true genius,” and hair prematurely
white. And so, in spite of his many disheartening failures, he did not
abandon the project; so also was Queen Isabella sufficiently impressed
by his learning and appearance to agree, in consideration of a fifth
share in the profits, that he should have the rank of Admiral and
govern, as Viceroy, all the lands that he might discover and bring under
her dominion. With the great astronomer’s chart before him, therefore,
and vowing to devote his share of the profits to the rescue of the Holy
Sepulcher, he set out from Palos, Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492. His
vessels, the _Niña_, _Pinta_ (well named the “Pint Cup”), and _Santa
María_, bore a company of but ninety, including the crews.
After a voyage of ten weeks, filled with difficulties and hardships,
even threats of mutiny, that taxed his courage and diplomacy to the
utmost, he came to land on an island (now known as Watling’s) on the
outward bow of the Bahamas, to which he gave the name of San Salvador.
The wild beauty of the foliage, the tropical luxuriance, the clear,
fresh-water streams, the soft climate and perfume-laden breezes, more
than ever delightful to men who had given themselves up for lost, and
the natives themselves, bedecked with gold ornaments and dusky-skinned
as those of Cathay were said to be—all seemed what might have been
expected in the outlying spice islands of the east. So, supposing this
to be one of those islands of which they were in quest, the adventurers
cruised about for ten days more and finally arrived at Cuba, which they
assumed to be Cipango.
In his infatuation, Columbus now saw his journey’s end. He had, he
thought, but to sail a few courses farther to reach the mainland of
Cathay, exchange compliments with the Great Khan at Quinsay, and return
in triumph with the wealth he was to amass and herald the news of his
wonderful achievement to a skeptical Europe. _And all the while Cathay
was ten thousand miles away—due west!_ Sailing across the strait to
Hayti, he was directed south by the natives when questioned as to the
source of their gold; but there, for the time being, his explorations
were brought to an end. The flagship was wrecked on a sand bar and
Pinzon, captain of one of the remaining two, stole treacherously away,
to anticipate the Admiral in announcing the discoveries in Spain.
Leaving a volunteer colony of about forty men to await his return with
reinforcements, however, he at once set sail, overtook and captured the
deserters, and, on the way back to Palos, was driven into the port of
Lisbon by a gale.
“The news of his exploit set all Portugal afire,” says Hawthorne.
“The King was urged to have Columbus run through the body and to
appropriate his discovery; but John II perceived that there was
more peril than profit in such a scheme, and he invited him to
court and made much of him instead. In due time he resumed his
voyage and reached Palos on the 15th of March. This was
Columbus’ apogee. He was called to Barcelona and welcomed in
triumph; he was even allowed to sit down in the august presence
of Ferdinand and Isabella. The half dozen Caribs he had brought
with him were assumed to be East Indians and the Admiral’s
interpretation of his discoveries was accepted without question.
The little detail that nothing of oriental magnificence—no Great
Khans, no mighty cities—had yet been revealed, was passed over.
Land had been found and it could be nothing but Cipango and
Cathay. The short route to the Indies had been discovered for
Spain.”
This so completely overshadowed all that Portugal had accomplished that
an intense rivalry sprang up between the two powers. The Pope, as the
Vicar of Christ on earth, and accordingly the repository of the title to
all lands still occupied by infidel peoples, was appealed to to confirm
the discoveries to Spain. He issued a bull granting to His Most Catholic
Majesty the lands then, and such as might thereafter be, discovered in
the western sea, and to the Portuguese such as they might discover by
way of the African route. This was supplemented by a second to the
effect that only those lands lying west of a meridian of longitude a
hundred miles west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands should belong to
the Spaniards. Dissatisfied even with that division, the Portuguese
demanded a line still farther west, and, by a treaty signed at
Tordesillas in June, 1494, Spain agreed that it should be advanced in
that direction 370 leagues. This resulted eventually in giving Portugal
title to the then yet undiscovered country of Brazil.
Meanwhile, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus set out on his
second expedition—this time with seventeen ships and fifteen hundred
men, among them his brothers Bartholomew and Diego and many adventurers
of noble rank, for there was no lack either of men or money now. “Their
dreams,” Professor Fiske tell us, “were of the marble palaces of
Quinsay, of islands of spices and the treasures of the mythical Prester
John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such untold
riches were vouchsafed them as a reward for having overcome the Moor at
Granada. Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as a special
instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow to
rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising within seven years to equip, at his
own expense, a crusading army of fifty thousand foot and four thousand
horse.” When the fleet arrived at Hayti and the company landed at the
place where the little colony had been left, it was found that it had
been annihilated. Not a whit dismayed by that, however, Columbus ordered
a town to be built and the island, which he named Española (Little
Spain), became the base of hundreds of exploring expeditions undertaken
by the hordes of adventurers that followed in his wake and soon overran
the neighboring islands.
Columbus himself made two other voyages, in the course of which he
discovered Jamaica and the Island of Trinidad at the mouth of the
Orinoco, reached the southern shores of Cuba, and, having heard rumors
of another ocean to the west, coasted along the Central American
mainland in search of a passage through. There he found stone houses and
towns and what appeared to be a semi-civilized people, who wore clothes
and knew how to weave cotton, embalm their dead, and carve ornaments on
their tombs, and who had plenty of gold; and all this only confirmed his
conviction that he was drawing nearer the countries of his quest. During
this period, however, his fame was in turn overshadowed by that of Vasco
da Gama, who had at last succeeded in discovering the African route to
the Orient and had actually seen some of those spice islands and mighty
cities that Columbus was still only searching for on the other side of
the world so many thousands of miles away.
In 1506, soon after his return from his fourth expedition, he died at
Valladolid, discredited and defrauded of his viceregal powers, a victim
of treachery, jealousy, and intrigue, yet still believing that he had
found the western route to the Indies. Even then “nobody had the
faintest idea of what he had accomplished,” says Professor Fiske.
“Nothing like it was ever done before and nothing like it can ever be
done again. No worlds are left for future Columbuses to conquer. The era
of which this great Italian was the most illustrious representative had
closed forever.”
III
Having, in the interval between the second Columbian expedition and the
discovery of the African route by Vasco da Gama, induced Spain to agree
to the extension of the Papal meridian 370 leagues farther west, the
Portuguese continued their activities with renewed ardor. In March,
1500, on his way to the Cape of Good Hope, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a
Portuguese nobleman in command of an expedition intended to resume the
work begun by Da Gama, was blown across the Atlantic to the coasts of
Brazil, where he touched at a point in the southern part of what is now
the State of Bahia. Under the impression that it was an island, and
assuming that it lay east of the Tordesillas treaty line, he landed and
took possession in the name of his King. The news having reached
Portugal in the Fall of the same year, no time was lost in asserting
title and sending out a small fleet to ascertain the extent and
resources of the region, also in the hope that a wealthy and civilized
people like that of Hindustan would be found.
This expedition was placed under the command of Amerigo Vespucci, a
Florentine astronomer and navigator, who had already made two voyages
for Spain and skirted the coast of Yucatan and the northern continent,
around Florida, as far north as the Chesapeake. Setting sail now to the
south, he made a systematic examination of the Brazilian coast for two
thousand miles. All he found that seemed to have any immediate
commercial value were immense quantities of a dyewood known in Europe as
“_brazil_” (the color of fire); it was from this, of course, that the
country took its name. The Portuguese, being by that time, however, too
engrossed in their African mines and sugar plantations and East Indian
trade to think it worth while to found colonies in such a region, did
nothing to develop it until thirty years had passed by and it became
necessary for them to protect their rights, particularly from the
French, who had been tempted by the great demand for the dyewood to
engage in coastwise poaching on a large scale.
For this reason, to his contemporaries, the most interesting feature of
Vespucci’s report was the conviction he expressed that this country
south of the equator was neither Asia nor an island, _but a new
continent_, or, as he himself called it, a “new world”—“for it
transcends the ideas of the ancients,” he said in a letter to his friend
Soderini, “since most of them declare that, beyond the equator to the
south, there is no continent but only the sea which they call the
Atlantic; but this last voyage of mine has proved that this opinion of
theirs is erroneous, because in these southern regions I have found a
continent more thickly inhabited by peoples and animals than our Europe
or Asia or Africa, and, moreover, a climate more temperate and agreeable
than any known to us.” In 1504 this letter was published under the title
“_Mundus Novus_.” The term “new world” caught the popular fancy, and
although, in 1497, Columbus first of all, and later Vespucci himself
with Alonso de Ojeda, had cruised along and touched at points on its
Caribbean coast, by virtue of his Brazilian explorations Vespucci was
acclaimed the discoverer.
And therein was the source of the confusion that gave to South America,
and eventually to the northern continent as well, the name they bear
rather than one commemorative of Columbus. No one suspected that there
were _two_ oceans instead of only the Atlantic between Europe and Asia;
that the land Amerigo Vespucci had explored south of the equator was of
a piece with that discovered by Columbus to the north. It was conceived
to be entirely detached from and to the south of _Cathay_, which
Columbus was still supposed to have reached, and to lie in a position
somewhat similar to that which Australia was afterward found to occupy.
Consequently, when in 1507 Mathias Ringmann published his “_Introductio
Cosmographie_,” he proposed that this (as he estimated it) “fourth part
of the globe” be called “_Amerigo_.” The following year Martinus
Waldseemüller published his map, whereon for the first time the name
“America” appeared. Investigation has made it clear that there was no
attempt, as Vespucci’s maligners charged, to immortalize his name at the
expense of Columbus. The southern continent was not named for Columbus
simply because it was thought to be distinct from his discoveries; the
northern, because it was thought already to have been named Cathay.
At last, when the existence across the Atlantic of a continuous stretch
of land had been comprehended, and when, in the light of the Portuguese
discoveries by way of the African route, it was realized that these
strange coasts did not in the least coincide with the ideas formed of
them by those who had assumed them to be Asiatic, the conviction grew
that the fabulous treasure lands of the Orient had not been reached by
this western route at all. _The whole stretch must be embraced in the
new world_, it was concluded; _there must be another ocean than the
Atlantic beyond_. “Rumors of it had been heard, or glimpses caught,
perhaps, at one time or another,” says Hawthorne, “before the actual
fact was understood. Meanwhile Spain was very anxious to get through or
around this singular barrier of islands, or whatever it was that was
keeping her from sharing the profits that Da Gama had brought to
Portugal from Hindustan, and she sent out expeditions to accomplish it.”
In 1505 Amerigo Vespucci (who had returned to the Spanish flag), with La
Cosa, explored the Gulf of Darien and penetrated two hundred miles up
the Atrato, thinking it might prove a strait leading to the Asiatic
waters. Juan de Solis was trying to find it when he explored the Rio de
la Plata and met his death at the hands of the natives. Jacques Cartier
was seeking it when he explored the St. Lawrence, D’Ayllon when he tried
the Chesapeake and James, and Hendrik Hudson when he ascended the river
that bears his name.
In 1513, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, Governor of Darien, a valiant adventurer
who had been prominent in the conquest and colonization of the Isthmus,
undertook by means of an expedition by land to ascertain whether such an
ocean did really exist. Starting with a company of about a hundred and
ninety Spaniards and a few Indians, he skirted the coast of Panama to a
point near Cape Tiburon, and there disembarked and headed inland. For
twenty days his party persevered over forest-clad swamps, valleys, and
mountains, fought a pitched battle with the natives, and finally cut its
way through the dense undergrowth to the heights overlooking what is now
known as the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific side, and thus resolved
all doubt into certainty and completed an event which, declares Dawson,
“was second in its far-reaching consequences only to Columbus’ first
voyage.” Balboa dubbed it the Southern Sea, little thinking that it was
a body of water more vast than the Atlantic that he had found to bar the
way to Cathay. “So elated was he over his epoch-making discovery,” says
Mozans, quoting from an early chronicler, that—
“With no lesse manlye courage than Hannibal of Carthage shewed
his souldiers Italye and the promontories of the Alps, he
exhorted his men to lyft up theyre hartes and to behoulde the
land even now under theyre feete and the sea before theyre eyes,
which shoulde bee unto them a full and juste reward of theyre
great laboures and trauayles now ouerpassed. When he had sayde
these woordes, he commanded them to raise certeine heapes of
stones in the steede of altars for a token of possession. Then,
descendynge from the toppes of the mountaynes, lest such as
might come after hym shoulde argu hym of lyinge and falshod, he
wrote the Kyng of Castelles his name here and there on the
barkes of the trees, both on the ryght hande and on the lefte,
and raysed heapes of stones all the way that he went untyll he
came to the region of the nexte Kynge towarde the south, whose
name was Chiapes.”
“The act of taking possession was so typical of similar formalities of
the Conquistadores,” continues Mozans, “that I transcribe from Oviedo
his account of the manner in which Balboa and his companions claimed for
his sovereign the Sea of the South, all islands in it and all lands
bordering on it, in what part of the world soever. Armed with his sword
and bearing aloft a banner on which were painted an image of the Blessed
Virgin and the Divine Child and the arms of Castile and Leon, Balboa,
followed by his associates, entered the water until it rose above his
knees, when in a loud voice he said:
“‘Long live the high and mighty monarchs, Don Ferdinand and Doña
Juana, Sovereigns of Castile, of Leon and of Aragon, in whose
name and for the royal crown of Castile, I take real and
corporal and actual possession of these seas and lands and
coasts and ports and islands of the south, and all thereunto
annexed, and of the kingdoms and provinces which do or may
appertain to them, in whatever manner or by whatever right or
title, ancient or modern, in times past, present or to come,
without any contradiction; and if other prince or captain,
Christian or infidel, or of any law, sect or condition
whatsoever, shall pretend any right to these islands and seas, I
am ready and prepared to maintain and defend them in the name of
the Castilian Sovereigns, present and future, whose is the
empire and dominion over these Indias, islands and _terra
firma_, northern and southern, with all their seas, both at the
arctic and antarctic poles, on either side of the equinoctial
line, whether within or without the tropics of Cancer and
Capricorn, both now and at all times so long as the world shall
endure and until the final judgment of all mankind.’ And then
the Notary, who always accompanied such expeditions, was ordered
to make on the spot an exact record of what had been said and
done, which was duly signed and authenticated by all present.”
It was to the Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand
Magellan in the English rendering of the name) that the honor finally
fell of being the first, not alone to find the passage through the new
continent that was being so eagerly sought, but to cross by the western
route to the East Indies and thereby blaze the way to making geography
an exact science. He had already been to the Moluccas by the African
route, and, disgusted by the failure of his King suitably to reward his
services, had transferred his allegiance to Spain and managed to secure
from the Emperor Charles V a commission and five ships, the largest of
but 120 tons’ burden. On the 20th of September, 1419, he sailed from the
Guadalquivir, with a crew numbering 280, all told, and, having entered
the Plata River and satisfied himself that it was not a strait, ran down
the Patagonian coast through many storms until he found shelter in the
harbor of St. Julian, where, on Easter Sunday, a mutiny broke out that
only a man of such remarkable courage and resourcefulness as Magellan
possessed could have suppressed. It had been a hard voyage, the chances
of finding the strait seemed slim, there was only the prospect that
there they must remain throughout the antarctic winter in idleness and
discomfort; it is small wonder that they wanted to desert.