Did you ever set out, in the dark, to walk with your little brother or
sister along a road you did not know much about or had never gone over
before? It was not an easy thing to do, was it? And how did your little
brother or sister feel when it was known that you were not just certain
whether you were right or not? Do you remember what the Bible says about
the blind leading the blind?
It was much the same with Columbus when he set out from Palos to sail
over an unknown sea to find the uncertain land of Cathay. He had his own
idea of the way there, but no one in all his company had ever sailed it,
and he himself was not sure about it. He was very much in the dark. And
the sailors in the three ships were worse than little children. They did
not even have the confidence in their leader that your little brother
or sister would probably have in you as you traveled that new road on a
dark night. It was almost another case of the blind leading the blind,
was it not?
Columbus first steered his ships to the south so as to reach the Canary
Islands and commence his real westward voyage from there. The Canary
Islands, as you will see by looking in your geography, are made up of
seven islands and lie off the northern corner of Africa, some sixty
miles or so west of Morocco. They were named Canaria by the Romans from
the Latin canis, a dog, "because of the multitude of dogs of great size"
that were found there. The canary birds that sing so sweetly in your
home come from these islands. They had been known to the Spaniards and
other European sailors of Columbus's day about a hundred years.
At the Canaries the troubles of Columbus commenced. And he did have a
lot of trouble before his voyage was over. While near the island called
the Grand Canary the rudder of the Pinta, in which Captain Alonso Pinzon
sailed, somehow got loose, then broke and finally came off. It was said
that two of the Pinta's crew, who were really the owners of the vessel,
broke the rudder on purpose, because they had become frightened at the
thoughts of the perilous voyage, and hoped by damaging their vessel to
be left behind.
But Columbus had no thought of doing any such thing. He sailed to the
island of Gomera, where he knew some people, and had the Pinta mended.
And while lying here with his fleet the great mountain on the island of
Teneriffe, twelve thousand feet high, suddenly began to spit out flame
and smoke. It was, as of course you know, a volcano; but the poor
frightened sailors did not know what set this mountain on fire, and they
were scared almost out of their wits' and begged the Admiral to go back
home. But Columbus would not. And as they sailed away from Gomera some
sailors told them that the king of Portugal was angry with Columbus
because he had got his ships from the king and queen of Spain, and that
he had sent out some of his war-ships to worry or capture Columbus.
But these, too, Columbus escaped, although not before his crews had
grown terribly nervous for fear of capture. At last they got away from
the Canaries, and on Sunday, the ninth of September, 1492, with a fresh
breeze filling their sails, the three caravels sailed away into the
West. And as the shores of Ferro, the very last of the Canary Islands,
faded out of sight, the sailors burst into sighs and murmurings and
tears, saying that now indeed they were sailing off--off--off--upon the
awful Sea of Darkness and would never see land any more.
When Columbus thought that he was sailing too slowly--he had now been
away from Palos a month and was only about a hundred miles out at
sea--and when he saw what babies his sailors were, he did something that
was not just right (for it is never right to do anything that is not
true) but which he felt he really must do. He made two records (or
reckonings as they are called) of his sailing. One of these records was
a true one; this he kept for himself. The other was a false one; this he
kept to show his sailors. So while they thought they were sailing slowly
and that the ocean was not so very wide, Columbus knew from his own true
record that they were getting miles and miles away from home.
Soon another thing happened to worry the sailors. The pilots were
steering by the compass. You know what that is--a sort of big
magnet-needle perfectly balanced and pointing always to the north. At
the time of Columbus the compass was a new thing and was only understood
by a few. On the thirteenth of September they had really got into the
middle of the ocean, and the line of the north changed. Of course this
made the needle in the compass change its position also. Now the sailors
had been taught to believe so fully in the compass that they thought it
could never change its position. And here it was playing a cruel trick
upon them. We are trapped! they cried. The goblins in this dreadful sea
are making our compass point wrong so as to drag us to destruction. Go
back; take us back! they demanded.
But Columbus, though he knew that his explanation was wrong, said the
compass was all right. The North Star, toward which the needle always
pointed, had, so he said, changed its position. This quieted the sailors
for a while.
When they had been about forty days out from Palos, the ship ran into
what is marked upon your maps as the Sargasso Sea. This is a vast meadow
of floating seaweed and seagrass in the middle of the Atlantic; it is
kept drifting about in the same place by the two great sea currents that
flow past it but not through it.
The sailors did not know this, of course, and when the ships began to
sail slower and slower because the seaweed was so thick and heavy and
because there was no current to carry them along, they were sure that
they were somewhere near to the jumping-off place, and that the horrible
monsters they had heard of were making ready to stop their ships, and
when they had got them all snarled up in this weed to drag them all down
to the bottom of the sea.
For nearly a week the ships sailed over these vast sea-meadows, and
when they were out of them they struck what we call the trade-winds--a
never-failing breeze that blew them ever westward. Then the sailors
cried out that they were in an enchanted land where there was but one
wind and never a breeze to blow the poor sailors home again. Were they
not fearfully "scarey?" But no doubt we should have been so, too, if we
had been with them and knew no more than they did.
And when they had been over fifty days from home on the twenty-fifth of
September, some one suddenly cried Land! Land! And all hands crowded
to the side. Sure enough, they all saw it, straight ahead of them--fair
green islands and lofty hills and a city with castles and temples and
palaces that glittered beautifully in the sun.
Then they all cried for joy and sang hymns of praise and shouted to each
other that their troubles were over. Cathay, it is Cathay! they cried;
and they steered straight for the shining city. But, worst of all their
troubles, even as they sailed toward the land they thought to be Cathay,
behold! it all disappeared--island and castle and palace and temple and
city, and nothing but the tossing sea lay all about them.
For this that they had seen was what is called a mirage--a trick of the
clouds and the sun and the sea that makes people imagine they see what
they would like to, but really do not. But after this Columbus had a
harder time than ever with his men, for they were sure he was leading
them all astray.
And so with frights and imaginings and mysteries like these, with
strange birds flying about the ships and floating things in the water
that told of land somewhere about them, with hopes again and again
disappointed, and with the sailors growing more and more restless and
discontented, and muttering threats against this Italian adventurer
who, was leading the ships and sailors of the Spanish king to sure
destruction, Columbus still sailed on, as full of patience and of faith,
as certain of success as he had ever been.
On the seventh of October, 1492, the true record that Columbus was
keeping showed that he had sailed twenty-seven hundred miles from the
Canaries; the false record that the sailors saw said they had sailed
twenty-two hundred miles. Had Columbus kept straight on, he would have
landed very soon upon the coast of Florida or South Carolina, and would
really have discovered the mainland of America. But Captain Alonso
Pinzon saw what looked like a flock of parrots flying south. This made
him think the land lay that way; so he begged the Admiral to change his
course to the southward as he was sure there was no land to the west.
Against his will, Columbus at last consented, and turning to the
southwest headed for Cuba.
But he thought he was steering for Cathay. The islands of Japan, were,
he thought, only a few leagues away to the west. They were really, as
you know, away across the United States and then across the Pacific
Ocean, thousands of miles farther west than Columbus could sail. But
according to his reckoning he hoped within a day or two to see the
cities and palaces of this wonderful land.
When they sailed from the Canaries a reward had been offered to
whomsoever should first see land. This reward was to be a silken jacket
and nearly five hundred dollars in money; so all the sailors were on the
watch.
At about ten o'clock on the evening of the eleventh of October,
Columbus, standing on the high raised stern of the Santa Maria, saw a
moving light, as if some one on the shore were running with a flaming
torch. At two o'clock the next morning--Friday, the twelfth of October,
1492 the sharp eyes of a watchful sailor on the Pinta (his name was
Rodrigo de Triana) caught sight of a long low coastline not far away. He
raised the joyful shout Land, ho! The ships ran in as near to the shore
as they dared, and just ten weeks after the anchors had been hauled up
in Palos Harbor they were dropped overboard, and the hips of Columbus
were anchored in the waters of a new world.
Where was it? What was it? Was it Cathay? Columbus was sure that it was.
He was certain that the morning sun would shine for him upon the marble
towers and golden roofs of the wonderful city of the kings of Cathay.