To suppose that Columbus, even had he got hold of the Saga of Eric the

Red and conned it from beginning to end, with a learned interpreter at

his elbow, could have gained from it a knowledge of the width of the

Atlantic ocean, is simply preposterous. It would be impossible to

extract any such knowledge from that document to-day without the aid of

our modern maps. The most diligent critical study of all the Icelandic

sources of information, with all the resources of modern scholarship,

enables us with some confidence to place Vinland somewhere between Cape

Breton and Point Judith, that is to say, somewhere between two points

distant from each other more than four degrees in latitude and more than

eleven degrees in longitude! When we have got thus far, knowing as we do

that the coast in question belongs to the same continental system as

the West Indies, we can look at our map and pick up our pair of

compasses and measure the width of the ocean at the twenty-eighth

parallel. But it is not the mediæval document, but our modern map that

guides us to this knowledge. And yet it is innocently assumed that

Columbus, without any knowledge or suspicion of the existence of

America, and from such vague data concerning voyages made five hundred

years before his time, by men who had no means of reckoning latitude and

longitude, could have obtained his figure of 2,500 miles for the voyage

from the Canaries to Japan![476] The fallacy here is that which

underlies the whole Scandinavian hypothesis and many other fanciful

geographical speculations. It is the fallacy of projecting our present

knowledge into the past.

[Footnote 476: The source of such a confusion of ideas is

probably the ridiculous map in Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanæ_,

upon which North America is represented in all the accuracy of

outline attainable by modern maps, and then the Icelandic names

are put on where Rafn thought they ought to go, i. e. Markland

upon Nova Scotia, Vinland upon New England, etc. Any person

using such a map is liable to forget that it cannot possibly

represent the crude notions of locality to which the reports of

the Norse voyages must have given rise in an ignorant age. (The

reader will find the map reproduced in Winsor, _Narr. and Crit.

Hist._, i. 95.) Rafn's fault was, however, no greater than that

committed by the modern makers of so-called "ancient

atlases"--still current and in use in schools--when, for

example, they take a correct modern map of Europe, with parts

of Africa and Asia, and upon countries so dimly known to the

ancients as Scandinavia and Hindustan, but now drawn with

perfect accuracy, they simply print the ancient names!! Nothing

but confusion can come from using such wretched maps. The only

safe way to study the history of geography is to reproduce the

ancient maps themselves, as I have done in the present work.

Many of the maps given below in the second volume will

illustrate the slow and painful growth of the knowledge of the

North American coast during the two centuries after Columbus.]

[Sidenote: If he had known and understood the Vinland story, he had the

strongest motives for proclaiming it and no motive for concealing it.]

We have next to inquire, if Columbus had heard of Vinland and

comprehended its relation to his own theory about land at the west, why

in the world should he have concealed this valuable knowledge? The

notion seems to be that he must have kept it secret through an unworthy

desire to claim a priority in discovery to which he knew that he was not

entitled.[477] This is projecting our present knowledge into the past

with a vengeance. Columbus never professed to have discovered America;

he died in the belief that what he had done was to reach the eastern

shores of Asia by a shorter route than the Portuguese. If he had reason

to suppose that the Northmen had once come down from the Arctic seas to

some unknown part of the Asiatic coast, he had no motive for concealing

such a fact, but the strongest of motives for proclaiming it, inasmuch

as it would have given him the kind of inductive argument which he

sorely needed. The chief obstacle for Columbus was that for want of

tangible evidence he was obliged to appeal to men's reason with

scientific arguments. When you show things to young children they are

not content with looking; they crave a more intimate acquaintance than

the eyes alone can give, and so they reach out and handle the things.

So when ideas are presented to grown-up men, they are apt to be

unwilling to trust to the eye of reason until it has been supplemented

by the eye of sense; and indeed in most affairs of life such caution is

wholesome. The difference between Columbus and many of the "practical"

men whom he sought to convince was that he could see with his mind's eye

solid land beyond the Sea of Darkness while they could not. To them the

ocean, like the sky, had nothing beyond, unless it might be the

supernatural world.[478] For while the argument from the earth's

rotundity was intelligible enough, there were few to whom, as to

Toscanelli, it was a living truth. Even of those who admitted, in

theory, that Cathay lay to the west of Europe, most deemed the distance

untraversable. Inductive proof of the existence of accessible land to

the west was thus what Columbus chiefly needed, and what he sought every

opportunity to find and produce; but it was not easy to find anything

more substantial than sailors' vague mention of driftwood of foreign

aspect or other outlandish jetsam washed up on the Portuguese

strand.[479] What a godsend it would have been for Columbus if he could

have had the Vinland business to hurl at the heads of his adversaries!

If he could have said, "Five hundred years ago some Icelanders coasted

westward in the polar regions, and then coasted southward until they

reached a country beyond the ocean and about opposite to France or

Portugal; therefore that country must be Asia, and I can reach it by

striking boldly across the ocean, which will obviously be shorter than

going down by Guinea,"--if he could have said this, he would have had

precisely the unanswerable argument for lack of which his case was

waiting and suffering. In persuading men to furnish hard cash, for his

commercial enterprise, as Colonel Higginson so neatly says, "an ounce of

Vinland would have been worth a pound of cosmography."[480] We may be

sure that the silence of Columbus about the Norse voyages proves that he

knew nothing about them or quite failed to see their bearings upon his

own undertaking. It seems to me absolutely decisive.

[Footnote 477: "The fault that we find with Columbus is, that

he was not honest and frank enough to tell where and how he had

obtained his previous information about the lands which he

pretended to discover." Anderson, _America not discovered by

Columbus_, p. 90.]

[Footnote 478: See below, p. 398, note.]

[Footnote 479: For example, the pilot Martin Vicenti told

Columbus that 1,200 miles west of Cape St. Vincent he had

picked up from the sea a piece of carved wood evidently not

carved with iron tools. Pedro Correa, who had married

Columbus's wife's sister, had seen upon Porto Santo a similar

piece of carving that had drifted from the west. Huge reeds

sometimes floated ashore upon those islands, and had not

Ptolemy mentioned enormous reeds as growing in eastern Asia?

Pine-trees of strange species were driven by west winds upon

the coast of Fayal, and two corpses of men of an unknown race

had been washed ashore upon the neighbouring island of Flores.

Certain sailors, on a voyage from the Azores to Ireland, had

caught glimpses of land on the west, and believed it to be the

coast of "Tartary;" etc., etc. See _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_,

cap. ix. Since he cited these sailors, why did he not cite the

Northmen also, if he knew what they had done?]

[Footnote 480: _Larger History of the United States_, p. 54.]

[Sidenote: No trace of a thought of Vinland appears in the voyages of

Columbus.]

Furthermore, this silence is in harmony with the fact that in none of

his four voyages across the Atlantic did Columbus betray any

consciousness that there was anything for him to gain by steering toward

the northwest. If he could correctly have conceived the position of

Vinland he surely would not have conceived it as south of the fortieth

parallel. On his first voyage he steered due west in latitude 28°

because Toscanelli placed Japan opposite the Canaries. When at length

some doubts began to arise and he altered his course, as we shall

hereafter see, the change was toward the southwest. His first two

voyages did not reveal to him the golden cities for which he was

looking, and when on his third and fourth voyages he tried a different

course it was farther toward the equator, not farther away from it, that

he turned his prows. Not the slightest trace of a thought of Vinland

appears in anything that he did.

[Sidenote: Why did not Norway or Iceland utter a protest in 1493?]

Finally it may be asked, if the memory of Vinland was such a living

thing in Iceland in 1477 that a visitor would be likely to be told about

it, why was it not sufficiently alive in 1493 to call forth a protest

from the North? When the pope, as we shall presently see, was

proclaiming to the world that the Spanish crown was entitled to all

heathen lands and islands already discovered or to be discovered in the

ocean west of the Azores, why did not some zealous Scandinavian at once

jump up and cry out, "Look here, old Columbus, _we_ discovered that

western route, you know! Stop thief!" Why was it necessary to wait more

than a hundred years longer before the affair of Vinland was mentioned

in this connection?

[Sidenote: The idea of Vinland was not associated with the idea of

America until the seventeenth century.]

Simply because it was not until the seventeenth century that the

knowledge of North American geography had reached such a stage of

completeness as to suggest to anybody the true significance of the old

voyages from Greenland. That significance could not have been understood

by Leif and Thorfinn themselves, or by the compilers of Hauks-bók and

Flateyar-bók, or by any human being, until about the time of Henry

Hudson. Not earlier than that time should we expect to find it

mentioned, and it is just then, in 1610, that we do find it mentioned by

Arngrim Jonsson, who calls Vinland "an island of _America_, in the

region of Greenland, perhaps the modern Estotilandia."[481] This is the

earliest glimmering of an association of the idea of Vinland with that

of America.

[Footnote 481: "Terram veró Landa Rolfoni quæsitam existimarem

esse Vinlandiam olim Islandis sic dictam; de qua alibi insulam

nempe Americæ e regione Gronlandiæ, quæ fortè hodie

Estotilandia," etc. _Crymogoea_, Hamburg, 1610, p. 120.

Abraham Ortelius in 1606 speaks of the Northmen coming to

America, but bases his opinion upon the Zeno narrative

(published in 1558) and upon the sound of the name _Norumbega_,

and apparently knows nothing of Vinland:--"Iosephus Acosta in

his book _De Natura noui orbis_ indeuors by many reasons to

proue, that this part of _America_ was originally inhabited by

certaine Indians, forced thither by tempestuous weather ouer

the South sea which now they call Mare del Zur. But to me it

seemes more probable, out of the historie of the two Zeni,

gentlemen of Venice, ... that this New World many ages past was

entred upon by some islanders of _Europe_, as namely of

_Groenland_, Island, and Frisland; being much neerer thereunto

than the Indians, nor disioyned thence ... by an Ocean so huge,

and to the Indians so vnnauigable. Also, what else may we

coniecture to be signified by this _Norumbega_ [the name of a

North region of _America_] but that from _Norway_, signifying a

North land, some Colonie in times past hath hither beene

transplanted?" _Theatre of the Whole World_, London, 1606, p.

5. These passages are quoted and discussed by Reeves, _The

Finding of Wineland the Good_, pp. 95, 96. The supposed

connection of _Norumbega_ with _Norway_ is very doubtful.

Possibly Stephanius, in his map of 1570 (Torfæus, _Gronlandia

antiqua_, 1706), may have had reference to Labrador or the

north of Newfoundland.]

[Sidenote: Résumé of the genesis of Columbus's scheme.]

[Sidenote: Martin Behaim's improved astrolabe.]

[Sidenote: Negotiations of Columbus with John II. of Portugal.]

[Sidenote: A shabby trick.]

[Sidenote: Columbus leaves Portugal,]

[Sidenote: and enters the service of the Spanish sovereigns, 1486.]

[Sidenote: The junto at Salamanca.]

The genesis of the grand scheme of Columbus has now been set forth, I

believe, with sufficient fulness. The cardinal facts are 1, that the

need for some such scheme was suggested in 1471, by the discovery that

the Guinea coast extended south of the equator; 2, that by 1474 advice

had been sought from Toscanelli by the king of Portugal, and not very

long after 1474 by Columbus; 3, that upon Toscanelli's letters and map,

amended by the Ptolemaic estimate of the earth's size and by the

authority of passages quoted in the book of Alliacus (one of which was a

verse from the Apocrypha), Columbus based his firm conviction of the

feasibleness of the western route. How or by whom the suggestion of that

route was first made--whether by Columbus himself or by Toscanelli or by

Fernando Martinez or, as Antonio Gallo declares, by Bartholomew

Columbus,[482] or by some person in Portugal whose name we know not--it

would be difficult to decide. Neither can we fix the date when Columbus

first sought aid for his scheme from the Portuguese government. There

seems to be no good reason why he should not have been talking about it

before 1474; but the affair did not come to any kind of a climax until

after his return from Guinea, some time after 1482 and certainly not

later than 1484. It was on some accounts a favourable time. The war with

Castile was out of the way, and Martin Behaim had just invented an

improved astrolabe which made it ever so much easier to find and keep

one's latitude at sea. It was in 1484 that Portuguese discoveries took a

fresh start after a ten years' lull, and Diego Cam, with the learned

Behaim and his bran-new astrolabe on board, was about to sail a thousand

miles farther south than white men had ever gone before. About this time

the scheme of Columbus was formally referred by King John II. to the

junto of learned cosmographers from whom the crown had been wont to seek

advice. The project was condemned as "visionary,"[483] as indeed it

was,--the outcome of vision that saw farther than those men could see.

But the king, who had some of his uncle Prince Henry's love for bold

enterprises, was more hospitably inclined toward the ideas of Columbus,

and he summoned a council of the most learned men in the kingdom to

discuss the question.[484] In this council the new scheme found some

defenders, while others correctly urged that Columbus must be wrong in

supposing Asia to extend so far to the east, and it must be a much

longer voyage than he supposed to Cipango and Cathay,[485] Others

argued that the late war had impoverished the country, and that the

enterprises on the African coast were all that the treasury could

afford. Here the demands of Columbus were of themselves an obstacle to

his success. He never at any time held himself cheap,[486] and the

rewards and honours for which he insisted on stipulating were greater

than the king of Portugal felt inclined to bestow upon a plain Genoese

mariner. It was felt that if the enterprise should prove a failure, as

very likely it would, the less heartily the government should have

committed itself to it beforehand, the less it would expose itself to

ridicule. King John was not in general disposed toward unfair and

dishonest dealings, but on this occasion, after much parley, he was

persuaded to sanction a proceeding quite unworthy of him. Having

obtained Columbus's sailing plans, he sent out a ship secretly, to carry

some goods to the Cape Verde islands, and then to try the experiment of

the westward voyage. If there should turn out to be anything profitable

in the scheme, this would be safer and more frugal than to meet the

exorbitant demands of this ambitious foreigner. So it was done; but the

pilots, having no grand idea to urge them forward, lost heart before the

stupendous expanse of waters that confronted them, and beat an

ignominious retreat to Lisbon; whereupon Columbus, having been informed

of the trick,[487] departed in high dudgeon, to lay his proposals before

the crown of Castile. He seems to have gone rather suddenly, leaving

his wife, who died shortly after, and one or two children who must also

have died, for he tells us that he never saw them again. But his son

Diego, aged perhaps four or five years, he took with him as far as the

town of Huelva, near the little port of Palos in Andalusia, where he

left him with one of his wife's sisters, who had married a man of that

town named Muliar.[488] This arrival in Spain was probably late in the

autumn of 1484, and Columbus seems to have entered into the service of

Ferdinand and Isabella January 20, 1486. What he was doing in the

interval of rather more than a year is not known. There is a very

doubtful tradition that he tried to interest the republic of Genoa in

his enterprise,[489] and a still more doubtful rumour that he afterwards

made proposals to the Venetian senate.[490] If these things ever

happened, there was time enough for them in this year, and they can

hardly be assigned to any later period. In 1486 we find Columbus at

Cordova, where the sovereigns were holding court. He was unable to

effect anything until he had gained the ear of Isabella's finance

minister Alonso de Quintanilla, who had a mind hospitable to large

ideas. The two sovereigns had scarcely time to attend to such things,

for there was a third king in Spain, the Moor at Granada, whom there now

seemed a fair prospect of driving to Africa, and thus ending the

struggle that had lasted with few intermissions for nearly eight

centuries. The final war with Granada had been going on since the end of

1481, and considering how it weighed upon the minds of Ferdinand and

Isabella it is rather remarkable that cosmography got any hearing at

all. The affair was referred to the queen's confessor Fernando de

Talavera, whose first impression was that if what Columbus said was

true, it was very strange that other geographers should have failed to

know all about it long ago. Ideas of evolution had not yet begun to

exist in those days, and it was thought that what the ancients did not

know was not worth knowing. Toward the end of 1486 the Spanish

sovereigns were at Salamanca, and Talavera referred the question to a

junto of learned men, including professors of the famous

university.[491] There was no lack of taunt and ridicule, and a whole

arsenal of texts from Scripture and the Fathers were discharged at

Columbus, but it is noticeable that quite a number were inclined to

think that his scheme might be worth trying, and that some of his most

firmly convinced supporters were priests. No decision had been reached

when the sovereigns started on the Malaga campaign in the spring of

1487.

[Footnote 482: Gallo, _De navigatione Columbi_, apud Muratori,

_Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, tom. xxiii. col. 302.]

[Footnote 483: Lafuente, _Historia de España_, tom. ix, p.

428.]

[Footnote 484: Vasconcellos, _Vida del rey Don Juan II._, lib.

iv.; La Clède, _Histoire de Portugal_, lib. xiii.]

[Footnote 485: The Portuguese have never been able to forgive

Columbus for discovering a new world for Spain, and their

chagrin sometimes vents itself in amusing ways. After all, says

Cordeiro, Columbus was no such great man as some people think,

for he did not discover what he promised to discover; and,

moreover, the Portuguese geographers were right in condemning

his scheme, because it really is not so far by sea from Lisbon

around Africa to Hindustan as from Lisbon by any practicable

route westward to Japan! See Luciano Cordeiro, _De la part

prise par les Portugais dans la découverte d'Amérique_, Lisbon,

1876, pp. 23, 24, 29, 30. Well, I don't know that there is any

answer to be made to this argument. Logic is logic, says the

wise Autocrat:--

"End of the wonderful one-hoss shay,

Logic is logic, that's all I say."

Cordeiro's book is elaborately criticised in the learned work

of Prospero Peragallo, _Cristoforo Colombo in Portogallo: studi

critici_, Genoa, 1882.]

[Footnote 486: "Perciocchè essendo l' Ammiraglio di generosi ed

alti pensieri, volle capitolare con suo grande onore e

vantaggio, per lasciar la memoria sua, e la grandezza della sua

casa, conforme alla grandezza delle sue opere e de' suoi

meriti." _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xi. The jealous

Portuguese historian speaks in a somewhat different tone from

the affectionate son:--"Veó requerer á el rey Dom João que le

desse algums navios pera ir á descobrir a ilha de Gypango

[_sic_] per esta mar occidental.... El rey, porque via ser este

Christovão Colom homem falador e glorioso em mostrar suas

habilidades, e mas fantastico et de imaginacão com sua ilha de

Cypango, que certo no que dezia: davalhe pouco credito."

Barros, _Decada primeira da Asia_, Lisbon, 1752, liv. iii. cap.

xi. fol. 56.]

[Footnote 487: It has been urged in the king's defence that

"such a proceeding was not an instance of bad faith or perfidy

(!) but rather of the policy customary at that time, which

consisted in distrusting everything that was foreign, and in

promoting by whatever means the national glory." Yes, indeed,

whether the means were fair or foul. Of course it was a common

enough policy, but it was lying and cheating all the same. "Não

foi sem duvida por mà fè ou perfidia que tacitamente se mandon

armar hum navio à cujo capitão se confiou o plano que Colombo

havia proposto, e cuja execuçao se lhe encarregou; mas sim por

seguir a politica naquelle tempo usada, que toda consistia em

olhar com desconfiança para tudo o que era estrangeiro, e en

promover por todos os modos a gloria nacional. O capitão

nomeado para a empreza, como não tivesse nem o espirito, nem a

convicção de Colombo, depois de huma curta viagem nos mares do

Oeste, fez-se na volta da terra: e arribou à Lisboa descontente

e desanimado." Campe, _Historia do descobrimento da America_,

Paris, 1836, tom. i. p. 13. The frightened sailors protested

that YOU MIGHT AS WELL EXPECT TO FIND LAND IN THE SKY AS IN

THAT WASTE OF WATERS! See Las Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_,

tom. i. p. 221. Las Casas calls the king's conduct by its right

name, _dobladura_, "trickery."]

[Footnote 488: It has generally been supposed, on the authority

of _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xi., that his wife had lately

died; but an autograph letter of Columbus, in the possession of

his lineal descendant and representative the present Duke of

Veraguas, proves that this is a mistake. In this letter

Columbus says expressly that when he left Portugal he left wife

and children, and never saw them again. (Navarrete,

_Coleccion_, tom. ii. doc. cxxxvii. p. 255.) As Las Casas, who

knew Diego so well, also supposed his mother to have died

before his father left Portugal, it is most likely that she

died soon afterwards. Ferdinand Columbus says that Diego was

left in charge of some friars at the convent of La Rábida near

Palos (_loc. cit._); Las Casas is not quite so sure; he thinks

Diego was left with some friend of his father at Palos, or

perhaps (_por ventura_) at La Rábida. (_Historia_, tom. i. p.

227.) These mistakes were easy to make, for both La Rábida and

Huelva were close by Palos, and we know that Diego's aunt

Muliar was living at Huelva. (Las Casas, _op. cit._ tom. i. p.

241; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 279, 356, 391; tom. ii. p. 229.) It

is pretty clear that Columbus never visited La Rábida before

the autumn of 1491 (see below, p. 412). My own notion is that

Columbus may have left his wife with an infant and perhaps one

older child, relieving her of the care of Diego by taking him

to his aunt, and intending as soon as practicable to reunite

the family. He clearly did not know at the outset whether he

should stay in Spain or not.]

[Footnote 489: It rests upon an improbable statement of

Ramusio, who places the event as early as 1470. The first

Genoese writer to allude to it is Casoni, _Annali della

Republica di Genova_, Genoa, 1708, pp. 26-31. Such testimony is

of small value.]

[Footnote 490: First mentioned in 1800 by Marin, _Storia del

commercio de Veneziani_, Venice, 1798-1808, tom. vii. p. 236.]

[Footnote 491: The description usually given of this conference

rests upon the authority of Remesal, _Historia de la prouincia

de Chyapa_, Madrid, 1619, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 52. Las Casas

merely says that the question was referred to certain persons

at the court, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. p. 228. It is

probably not true that the project of Columbus was officially

condemned by the university of Salamanca as a corporate body.

See Camara, _Religion y Ciencia_, Valladolid, 1880, p. 261.]

[Sidenote: Birth of Ferdinand Columbus, Aug. 15, 1488.]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew Columbus returns from the Cape of Good Hope, Dec,

1487.]

[Sidenote: Christopher visits Bartholomew at Lisbon, cir. Sept., 1488;]

[Sidenote: and sends him to England.]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew, after mishaps, reaches England cir. Feb., 1490;]

[Sidenote: and goes thence to France before 1492.]

After the surrender of Malaga in August, 1487, Columbus visited the

court in that city. For a year or more after that time silken chains

seem to have bound him to Cordova. He had formed a connection with a

lady of noble family, Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, who gave birth to his

son Ferdinand on the 15th of August, 1488.[492] Shortly after this

event, Columbus made a visit to Lisbon, in all probability for the

purpose of meeting his brother Bartholomew, who had returned in the last

week of December, 1487, in the Dias expedition, with the proud news of

the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,[493] which was rightly

believed to be the extremity of Africa; and we can well understand how

Christopher, on seeing the success of Prince Henry's method of reaching

the Indies so nearly vindicated, must have become more impatient than

ever to prove the superiority of his own method. It was probably not

long after Bartholomew's return that Christopher determined to go and

see him, for he applied to King John II. for a kind of safe-conduct,

which was duly granted March 20, 1488. This document[494] guarantees

Christopher against arrest or arraignment or detention on any charge

civil or criminal whatever, during his stay in Portugal, and commands

all magistrates in that kingdom to respect it. From this it would seem

probable that in the eagerness of his geographical speculations he had

neglected his business affairs and left debts behind him in Portugal for

which he was liable to be arrested. The king's readiness to grant the

desired privilege seems to indicate that he may have cherished a hope of

regaining the services of this accomplished chart-maker and mariner.

Christopher did not avail himself of the privilege until late in the

summer,[495] and it is only fair to suppose that he waited for the birth

of his child and some assurance of its mother's safety. On meeting

Bartholomew he evidently set him to work forthwith in making overtures

to the courts of England and France. It was natural enough that

Bartholomew should first set out for Bristol, where old shipmates and

acquaintances were sure to be found. It appears that on the way he was

captured by pirates, and thus some delay was occasioned before he

arrived in London and showed the king a map, probably similar to

Toscanelli's and embellished with quaint Latin verses. An entry on this

map informs us that it was made by Bartholomew Columbus in London,

February 10, 1488, which I think should be read 1489 or even 1490, so we

may suppose it to have been about that time or perhaps later that he

approached the throne.[496] Henry VII. was intelligent enough to see

the bearings of Bartholomew's arguments, and at the same time, as a good

man of business, he was likely to be cautious about investing money in

remote or doubtful enterprises. What arguments were used we do not know,

but the spring of 1492 had arrived before any decisive answer had been

given. Meanwhile Bartholomew had made his way to France, and found a

powerful protector in a certain Madame de Bourbon,[497] while he made

maps for people at the court and waited to see if there were any

chances of getting help from Charles VIII.

[Footnote 492: Some historians, unwilling to admit any

blemishes in the character of Columbus, have supposed that this

union was sanctioned by marriage, but this is not probable. He

seems to have been tenderly attached to Beatriz, who survived

him many years. See Harrisse, tom. ii. pp. 353-357.]

[Footnote 493: The authority for Bartholomew Columbus having

sailed to the Cape of Good Hope with Dias is a manuscript note

of his own in Christopher's copy of the _Imago Mundi_: "Nota

quod hoc anno de 88 [it should be 87] in mense decembri appulit

in Ulixbona Bartholomeus Didacus capitaneus trium carabelarum

quem miserat serenissimus rex Portugalie in Guineam ad

tentandum terrain. Et renunciavit ipse serenissimo regi prout

navigaverat ultra jam navigata leuchas 600, videlicet 450 ad

austrum et 150 ad aquilonem usque montem per ipsum nominatum

_Cabo de boa esperança_ quem in Agesimba estimamus. Qui quidem

in eo loco invenit se distare per astrolabium ultra lineam

equinoctialem gradus 35. Quem viagium pictavit et scripsit de

leucha in leucham in una carta navigationis ut oculi visum

ostenderet ipso serenissimo regi. In quibus omnibus interfui."

M. Varnhagen has examined this note and thinks it is in the

handwriting of Christopher Columbus (_Bulletin de Géographie_,

janvier, 1858, tom. xv. p. 71); and M. d'Avezac (_Canevas

chronologique_, p. 58), accepting this opinion, thinks that the

words _in quibus omnibus interfui_, "in all of which I took

part," only mean that Christopher was present in Lisbon when

the expedition returned, and heard the whole story! With all

possible respect for such great scholars as MM. d'Avezac and

Varnhagen, I submit that the opinion of Las Casas, who first

called attention to this note, must be much better than theirs

on such a point as the handwriting of the two brothers. When

Las Casas found the note he wondered whether it was meant for

Bartholomew or Christopher, i. e. wondered which of the two was

meant to be described as having "taken part;" but at all

events, says Las Casas, the handwriting is

Bartholomew's:--"Estas son palabras escritas de la mano de

Bartolomé Colon, no sé si las escribió de sí ó de su letra por

su hermano Cristóbal Colon." Under these circumstances it seems

idle to suppose that Las Casas could have been mistaken about

the handwriting; he evidently put his mind on that point, and

in the next breath he goes on to say, "la letra yo conozco ser

de Bartolomé Colon, porque tuve muchas suyas," i. e. "I know it

is Bartholomew's writing, for I have had many letters of his;"

and again "estas palabras ... de la misma letra y mano de

Bartolomé Colon, la cual muy bien conocí y agora tengo hartas

cartas y letras suyas, tratando deste viaje," i. e. "these

words ... from the very writing and hand of Bartholomew

Columbus, which I knew very well, and I have to-day many charts

and letters of his, treating of this voyage." (_Hist. de las

Indias_, tom. i. pp. 213, 214.) This last sentence makes Las

Casas an independent witness to Bartholomew's presence in the

expedition, a matter about which he was not likely to be

mistaken. What puzzled him was the question, not whether

Bartholomew went, but whether Christopher could have gone also,

"pudo ser tambien que se hallase Cristóbal Colon." Now

Christopher certainly did not go on that voyage. The expedition

started in August, 1486, and returned to Lisbon in December,

1487, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days,

"anendo dezaseis meses et dezasete dias que erão partidos

delle." (Barros, _Decada primeira da Asia_, Lisbon, 1752, tom.

i. fol. 42, 44.) The account-book of the treasury of Castile

shows that sums of money were paid to Christopher at Seville,

May 5, July 3, August 27, and October 15, 1487; so that he

could not have gone with Dias (see Harrisse, tom. ii. p. 191).

Neither could Christopher have been in Lisbon in December,

1487, when the little fleet returned, for his safe-conduct from

King John is dated March 20, 1488. It was not until the autumn

of 1488 that Columbus made this visit to Portugal, and M.

d'Avezac has got the return of the fleet a year too late.

Bartholomew's note followed a custom which made 1488 begin at

Christmas, 1487.

In reading a later chapter of Las Casas for another purpose

(tom. i. p. 227), I come again upon this point. He rightly

concludes that Christopher could not have gone with Dias, and

again declares most positively that the handwriting of the note

was Bartholomew's and not Christopher's.

This footnote affords a good illustration of the kind of

difficulties that surround such a subject as the life of

Columbus, and the ease with which an excess of ingenuity may

discover mare's nests.]

[Footnote 494: It may be found in Navarrete, _Coleccion de

viages_, tom. ii. pp. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 495: The account-book of the treasury shows that on

June 16 he was still in Spain. See Harrisse, tom. i. p. 355.]

[Footnote 496: The entry, as given by Las Casas, is "Pro

authore, seu pictore, || Gennua cui patria est, nomen cui

Bartolomeus || Columbus de terra rubea, opus edidit istud ||

Londonije: anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno

|| Atque insuper anno octavo: decimaque die mensis Februarii.

|| Laudes Christo cantentur abunde." _Historia_, tom. i. p.

225. Now since Bartholomew Columbus was a fairly educated man,

writing this note in England on a map made for the eyes of the

king of England, I suppose he used the old English style which

made the year begin at the vernal equinox instead of Christmas,

so that his February, 1488, means the next month but one after

December, 1488, i. e. what in our new style becomes February,

1489. Bartholomew returned to Lisbon from Africa in the last

week of December, 1487, and it is not likely that his plans

could have been matured and himself settled down in London in

less than seven weeks. The logical relation of the events, too,

shows plainly that Christopher's visit to Lisbon was for the

purpose of consulting his brother and getting first-hand

information about the greatest voyage the world had ever seen.

In the early weeks of 1488 Christopher sends his request for a

safe-conduct, gets it March 20, waits till his child is born,

August 15, and then presently goes. Bartholomew may have sailed

by the first of October for England, where (according to this

reading of his date) we actually find him four months later.

What happened to him in this interval? Here we come to the

story of the pirates. M. Harrisse, who never loses an

opportunity for throwing discredit upon the _Vita dell'

Ammiraglio_, has failed to make the correction of date which I

have here suggested. He puts Bartholomew in London in February,

1488, and is thus unable to assign any reason for Christopher's

visit to Lisbon. He also finds that in the forty-six days

between Christmas, 1487, and February, 10, 1488, there is

hardly room enough for any delay due to so grave a cause as

capture by pirates. (_Christophe Colomb_, vol. ii. p. 192.) He

therefore concludes that the statement in the _Vita dell'

Ammiraglio_, cap. xi., is unworthy of credit, and it is upon an

accumulation of small difficulties like this that he bases his

opinion that Ferdinand Columbus cannot have written that book.

But Las Casas also gives the story of the pirates, and adds the

information that they were "Easterlings," though he cannot say

of what nation, i. e. whether Dutch, German, or perhaps Danes.

He says that Bartholomew was stripped of his money and fell

sick, and after his recovery was obliged to earn money by

map-making before he could get to England. (_Historia_, tom. i.

p. 225.) Could all this have happened within the four months

which I have allowed between October, 1488, and February, 1489?

Voyages before the invention of steamboats were of very

uncertain duration. John Adams in 1784 was fifty-four days in

getting from London to Amsterdam (see my _Critical Period of

American History_, p. 156). But with favourable weather a

Portuguese caravel in 1488 ought to have run from Lisbon to

Bristol in fourteen days or less, so that in four months there

would be time enough for quite a chapter of accidents. Las

Casas, however, says it was _a long time_ before Bartholomew

was able to reach England:--"Esto fué causa que enfermase y

viniese á mucha pobreza, y estuviese mucho tempo sin poder

llegar á Inglaterra, hasta tanto que quiso Dies sanarle; y

reformado algo, por su industria y trabajos de sus manos,

haciendo cartas de marear, llegó á Inglaterra, y, pasados un

dia y otros, hobo de alcanzar que le oyese Enrique VII." It is

impossible, I think, to read this passage without feeling that

at least a year must have been consumed; and I do not think we

are entitled to disregard the words of Las Casas in such a

matter. But how shall we get the time?

Is it possible that Las Casas made a slight mistake in

deciphering the date on Bartholomew's map? Either that mariner

did not give the map to Henry VII., or the king gave it back,

or more likely it was made in duplicate. At any rate Las Casas

had it, along with his many other Columbus documents, and for

aught we know it may still be tumbling about somewhere in the

Spanish archives. It was so badly written (_de muy mala é

corrupta letra_), apparently in abbreviations (_sin

ortografía_), that Las Casas says he found extreme difficulty

in making it out. Now let us observe that date, which is given

in fantastic style, apparently because the inscription is in a

rude doggerel, and the writer seems to have wished to keep his

"verses" tolerably even. (They don't scan much better than Walt

Whitman's.) As it stands, the date reads _anno domini millesimo

quatercentessimo octiesque uno atque insuper anno octavo_, i.

e. "in the year of our Lord the thousandth, four hundredth, AND

EIGHT-TIMES-ONE, and thereafter the eighth year." What business

has this cardinal number _octiesque uno_ in a row of ordinals?

If it were translatable, which it is not, it would give us

1,000 + 400 + 8 + 8 = 1416, an absurd date. The most obvious

way to make the passage readable is to insert the ordinal

_octogesimo primo_ instead of the incongruous _octiesque uno_;

then it will read "in the year of our Lord the

one-thousand-four-hundred-and-eighty-first, and thereafter the

eighth year," that is to say 1489. Now translate old style into

new style, and February, 1489, becomes February, 1490, which I

believe to be the correct date. This allows sixteen months for

Bartholomew's mishaps; it justifies the statement in which Las

Casas confirms Ferdinand Columbus; and it harmonizes with the

statement of Lord Bacon: "For Christopherus Columbus, refused

by the king of Portugal (who would not embrace at once both

east and west), employed his brother Bartholomew Columbus unto

King Henry to negotiate for his discovery. And it so fortuned

that he was taken by pirates at sea; by which accidental

impediment he was long ere he came to the king; so long that

before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for his

brother the enterprise was achieved, and so the West Indies by

Providence were then reserved for the crown of Castilia."

_Historie of the Raygne of K. Henry the Seventh_, Bacon's

_Works_, Boston, 1860, vol. xi. p. 296. Lord Bacon may have

taken the statement from Ferdinand's biography; but it probably

agreed with English traditions, and ought not to be slighted in

this connection.]

[Footnote 497: One of the sisters of Charles VIII. See

Harrisse, tom. ii. p. 194.]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Medina-Celi proposes to furnish the ships for

Columbus,]

[Sidenote: but Isabella withholds her consent.]

[Sidenote: Columbus makes up his mind to get his family together and go

to France, Oct., 1491.]

As for Christopher Columbus, we find him back in Spain again, in May,

1489, attending court at Cordova. In the following autumn there was much

suffering in Spain from floods and famine,[498] and the sovereigns were

too busy with the Moorish war to give ear to Columbus. It was no time

for new undertakings, and the weary suitor began to think seriously of

going in person to the French court. First, however, he thought it worth

while to make an attempt to get private capital enlisted in his

enterprise, and in the Spain of that day such private capital meant a

largess from some wealthy grandee. Accordingly about Christmas of 1489,

after the Beza campaign in which Columbus is said to have fought with

distinguished valour,[499] he seems to have applied to the most powerful

nobleman in Spain, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, but without success. But

at the hands of Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medina-Celi, he met with more

encouragement than he had as yet found in any quarter. That nobleman

entertained Columbus most hospitably at his castle at Puerto de Santa

Maria for nearly two years, until the autumn of 1491. He became

convinced that the scheme of Columbus was feasible, and decided to fit

up two or three caravels at his own expense, if necessary, but first he

thought it proper to ask the queen's consent, and to offer her another

chance to take part in the enterprise.[500] Isabella was probably

unwilling to have the duke come in for a large share of the profits in

case the venture should prove successful. She refused the royal license,

saying that she had not quite made up her mind whether to take up the

affair or not, but if she should decide to do so she would be glad to

have the duke take part in it.[501] Meanwhile she referred the question

to Alonso de Quintanilla, comptroller of the treasury of Castile. This

was in the spring of 1491, when the whole country was in a buzz of

excitement with the preparations for the siege of Granada. The baffled

Columbus visited the sovereigns in camp, but could not get them to

attend to him, and early in the autumn, thoroughly disgusted and sick at

heart, he made up his mind to shake the dust of Castile from his feet

and see what could be done in France. In October or November he went to

Huelva, apparently to get his son Diego, who had been left there, in

charge of his aunt. It was probably his intention to take all the family

he had--Beatriz and her infant son Ferdinand, of whom he was extremely

fond, as well as Diego--and find a new home in either France or England,

besides ascertaining what had become of his brother Bartholomew, from

whom he had not heard a word since the latter left Portugal for

England.[502]

[Footnote 498: Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. xci.]

[Footnote 499: Zuñiga, _Anales de Sevilla_, lib. xii. p. 404.]

[Footnote 500: See the letter of March 19, 1493, from the Duke

of Medina-Celi to the Grand Cardinal of Spain (from the

archives of Simancas) in Navarrete _Coleccion de viages_, tom.

ii. p. 20.]

[Footnote 501: This promise was never fulfilled. When Columbus

returned in triumph, arriving March 6, 1493, at Lisbon, and

March 15 at Palos, the Duke of Medina-Celi wrote the letter

just cited, recalling the queen's promise and asking to be

allowed to send to the Indies once each year an expedition on

his own account; for, he says, if he had not kept Columbus with

him in 1490 and 1491 he would have gone to France, and Castile

would have lost the prize. There was some force in this, but

Isabella does not appear to have heeded the request.]

[Footnote 502: This theory of the situation is fully sustained

by Las Casas, tom. i. p. 241.]

[Sidenote: He stops at La Rábida, and meets the prior Juan Perez.]

[Sidenote: Perez writes to the queen,]

[Sidenote: and Columbus is summoned back to court.]

But now at length events took a favourable turn. Fate had grown tired of

fighting against such indomitable perseverance. For some years now the

stately figure of Columbus had been a familiar sight in the streets of

Seville and Cordova, and as he passed along, with his white hair

streaming in the breeze, and countenance aglow with intensity of purpose

or haggard with disappointment at some fresh rebuff, the ragged urchins

of the pavement tapped their foreheads and smiled with mingled wonder

and amusement at this madman. Seventeen years had elapsed since the

letter from Toscanelli to Martinez, and all that was mortal of the

Florentine astronomer had long since been laid in the grave. For

Columbus himself old age was not far away, yet he seemed no nearer the

fulfilment of his grand purpose than when he had first set it forth to

the king of Portugal. We can well imagine that when he started from

Huelva, with his little son Diego, now some eleven or twelve years old,

again to begin renewing his suit in a strange country, his thoughts must

have been sombre enough. For some reason or other--tradition says to ask

for some bread and water for his boy--he stopped at the Franciscan

monastery of La Rábida, about half a league from Palos. The prior, Juan

Perez, who had never seen Columbus before, became greatly interested in

him and listened with earnest attention to his story. This worthy monk,

who before 1478 had been Isabella's father-confessor, had a mind

hospitable to new ideas. He sent for Garcia Fernandez, a physician of

Palos, who was somewhat versed in cosmography, and for Martin Alonso

Pinzon, a well-to-do ship-owner and trained mariner of that town, and in

the quiet of the monastery a conference was held in which Columbus

carried conviction to the minds of these new friends. Pinzon declared

himself ready to embark in the enterprise in person. The venerable prior

forthwith sent a letter to the queen, and received a very prompt reply

summoning him to attend her in the camp before Granada. The result of

the interview was that within a few days Perez returned to the convent

with a purse of 20,000 maravedis (equivalent to about 1,180 dollars of

the present day), out of which Columbus bought a new suit of clothes and

a mule; and about the first of December he set out for the camp in

company with Juan Perez, leaving the boy Diego in charge of the priest

Martin Sanchez and a certain Rodriguez Cabejudo, upon whose sworn

testimony, together with that of the physician Garcia Fernandez, some

years afterward, several of these facts are related.[503]

[Footnote 503: My account of these proceedings at La Rábida

differs in some particulars from any heretofore given, and I

think gets the events into an order of sequence that is at once

more logical and more in harmony with the sources of

information than any other. The error of Ferdinand Columbus--a

very easy one to commit, and not in the least damaging to his

general character as biographer--lay in confusing his father's

two real visits (in 1484 and 1491) to Huelva with two visits

(one imaginary in 1484 and one real in 1491) to La Rábida,

which was close by, between Huelva and Palos. The visits were

all the more likely to get mixed up in recollection because in

each case their object was little Diego and in each case he was

left in charge of somebody in that neighbourhood. The confusion

has been helped by another for which Ferdinand is not

responsible, viz.: the friar Juan Perez has been confounded

with another friar Antonio de Marchena, who Columbus says was

the only person who from the time of his first arrival in Spain

had always befriended him and never mocked at him. These worthy

friars twain have been made into one (e. g. "the prior of the

convent, Juan Perez de Marchena," Irving's _Columbus_, vol. i.

p. 128), and it has often been supposed that Marchena's

acquaintance began with Columbus at La Rábida in 1484, and that

Diego was left at the convent at that time. But some modern

sources of information have served at first to bemuddle, and

then when more carefully sifted, to clear up the story. In 1508

Diego Columbus brought suit against the Spanish crown to

vindicate his claim to certain territories discovered by his

father, and there was a long investigation in which many

witnesses were summoned and past events were busily raked over

the coals. Among these witnesses were Rodriguez Cabejudo and

the physician Garcia Fernandez, who gave from personal

recollection a very lucid account of the affairs at La Rábida.

These proceedings are printed in Navarrete, _Coleccion de

viages_, tom. iii. pp. 238-591. More recently the publication

of the great book of Las Casas has furnished some very

significant clues, and the elaborate researches of M. Harrisse

have furnished others. (See Las Casas, lib. i. cap. xxix.,

xxxi.; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 341-372; tom. ii. pp. 237-231; cf.

Peragallo, _L' autenticità_, etc., pp. 117-134.)--It now seems

clear that Marchena, whom Columbus knew from his first arrival

in Spain, was not associated with La Rábida. At that time

Columbus left Diego, a mere infant, with his wife's sister at

Huelva. Seven years later, intending to leave Spain forever, he

went to Huelva and took Diego, then a small boy. On his way

from Huelva to the Seville road, and thence to Cordova (where

he would have been joined by Beatriz and Ferdinand), he

happened to pass by La Rábida, where up to that time he was

evidently unknown, and to attract the attention of the prior

Juan Perez, and the wheel of fortune suddenly and unexpectedly

turned. As Columbus's next start was not for France, but for

Granada, his boy was left in charge of two trustworthy persons.

On May 8, 1492, the little Diego was appointed page to Don

John, heir-apparent to the thrones of Castile and Aragon, with

a stipend of 9,400 maravedis. On February 19, 1498, after the

death of that young prince, Diego became page to Queen

Isabella.]

[Sidenote: The junto before Granada, Dec, 1491.]

At once upon the arrival of Columbus in the camp before Granada, his

case was argued then and there before an assembly of learned men and

was received more hospitably than formerly, at Salamanca. Several

eminent prelates had come to think favourably of his project or to deem

it at least worth a trial. Among these were the royal confessors, Deza

and Talavera, the latter having changed his mind, and especially

Mendoza, archbishop of Toledo, who now threw his vast influence

decisively in favour of Columbus.[504] The treasurers of the two

kingdoms, moreover, Quintanilla for Castile and Luis de Santangel for

Aragon, were among his most enthusiastic supporters; and the result of

the conference was the queen's promise to take up the matter in earnest

as soon as the Moor should have surrendered Granada.

[Footnote 504: In popular allusions to Columbus it is quite

common to assume or imply that he encountered nothing but

opposition from the clergy. For example the account in Draper's

_Conflict between Science and Religion_, p. 161, can hardly be

otherwise understood by the reader. But observe that Marchena

who never mocked at Columbus, Juan Perez who gave the

favourable turn to his affairs, the great prelates Deza and

Mendoza, and the two treasurers Santangel and Quintanilla, were

every one of them priests! Without cordial support from the

clergy no such enterprise as that of Columbus could have been

undertaken, in Spain at least. It is quite right that we should

be free-thinkers; and it is also desirable that we should have

some respect for facts.]

[Sidenote: Surrender of Granada, Jan. 2, 1492.]

[Sidenote: Columbus negotiates with the queen.]

[Sidenote: His terms are considered exorbitant.]

Columbus had not long to wait for that great event, which came on the 2d

of January, 1492, and was hailed with rejoicings throughout Europe as in

some sort a compensation for the loss of Constantinople. It must have

been with a manifold sense of triumph that Columbus saw the banner of

Spain unfurled to the breeze from the highest tower of the Alhambra. But

at this critical moment in his fortunes the same obstacle was

encountered that long before had broken off his negotiations with the

king of Portugal. With pride and self-confidence not an inch abated by

all these years of trial, he demanded such honours and substantial

rewards as seemed extravagant to the queen, and Talavera advised her not

to grant them. Columbus insisted upon being appointed admiral of the

ocean and viceroy of such heathen countries as he might discover,

besides having for his own use and behoof one eighth part of such

revenues and profits as might accrue from the expedition. In principle

this sort of remuneration did not differ from that which the crown of

Portugal had been wont to award to its eminent discoverers;[505] but in

amount it was liable to prove indefinitely great, enough perhaps to

raise to princely power and rank this foreign adventurer. Could he not

be satisfied with something less? But Columbus was as inexorable as the

Sibyl with her books, and would hear of no abatement in his price. For

this "great constancy and loftiness of soul,"[506] Las Casas warmly

commends his friend Columbus. A querulous critic might call it

unreasonable obstinacy. But in truth the good man seems to have

entertained another grand scheme of his own, to which he wished to make

his maritime venture contribute. It was natural that his feelings toward

Turks should have been no more amiable than those of Hannibal toward the

Romans. It was the Turks who had ruined the commerce of his native

Genoa, in his youth he had more than once crossed swords with their

corsairs, and now he looked forward to the time when he might play the

part of a second Godfrey de Bouillon and deliver Jerusalem from the

miscreant followers of Mahound.[507] Vast resources would be needed for

such work, and from Cipango with its gold-roofed temples, and the

nameless and numberless isles of spices that crowded the Cathayan seas,

he hoped to obtain them. Long brooding over his cherished projects, in

which chimeras were thus mixed with anticipations of scientific truth,

had imparted to his character a tinge of religious fanaticism. He had

come to regard himself as a man with a mission to fulfil, as God's

chosen instrument for enlarging the bounds of Christendom and achieving

triumphs of untold magnificence for its banners. In this mood he was apt

to address kings with an air of equality that ill comported with his

humble origin and slender means; and on the present occasion, if

Talavera felt his old doubts and suspicions reviving, and was more than

half inclined to set Columbus down as a mere vendor of crotchets, one

can hardly wonder.

[Footnote 505: Our Scandinavian friends are fond of pointing to

this demand of Columbus as an indication that he secretly

expected to "discover America," and not merely to find the way

to Asia. But how about Ferdinand and Isabella, who finally

granted what was demanded, and their ministers who drew up the

agreement, to say nothing of the clerks who engrossed it? What

did they all understand by "discovering islands and continents

in the ocean"? Were they all in this precious Vinland secret?

If so, it was pretty well kept. But in truth there was nothing

singular in these stipulations. Portugal paid for discovery in

just this way by granting governorships over islands like the

Azores, or long stretches of continent like Guinea, along with

a share of the revenues yielded by such places. See for example

the cases of Gonzalo Cabral, Fernando Gomez, and others in

Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, pp. 238, 321, and

elsewhere. In their search for the Indies the Portuguese were

continually finding new lands, and it was likely to be the same

with the western route, which was supposed (see Catalan,

Toscanelli, and Behaim maps) to lead among spice islands

innumerable, and to Asiatic kingdoms whose heathen people had

no rights of sovereignty that Christian monarchs felt bound to

respect.]

[Footnote 506: Las Casas, _op. cit._ tom i. p. 243.]

[Footnote 507: See his letter of February, 1502, to Pope

Alexander VI. in Navarrete, tom. ii. p. 280; and cf. Helps,

_Spanish Conquest in America_, vol. i. p. 96; Roselly de

Lorgues, _Christophe Colomb_, p. 394.]

[Sidenote: Interposition of Luis de Santangel.]

The negotiations were broken off, and the indomitable enthusiast once

more prepared to go to France. He had actually started on his mule one

fine winter day, when Luis de Santangel rushed into the queen's room and

spoke to her with all the passionate and somewhat reproachful energy of

one who felt that a golden opportunity was slipping away forever. His

arguments were warmly seconded by Quintanilla, who had followed him into

the room, as well as by the queen's bosom friend Beatriz de Bobadilla,

Marchioness of Moya, who happened to be sitting on the sofa and was a

devoted admirer of Columbus. An impulse seized Isabella. A courier was

sent on a fleet horse, and overtook Columbus as he was jogging quietly

over the bridge of Pinos, about six miles out from Granada. The matter

was reconsidered and an arrangement was soon made. It was agreed:--

[Sidenote: Agreement between Columbus and the sovereigns.]

"1. That Columbus should have, for himself, during his life, and for his

heirs and successors forever, the office of admiral in all the islands

and continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean, with

similar honours 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

and 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

and 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."[508]

[Footnote 508: I cite this version from Irving's _Columbus_,

vol. i. p. 142, making a slight amendment in the rendering; the

original text is in Navarrete, tom. ii. p. 7. A few days later

the title of "Don" was granted to Columbus and made hereditary

in his family along with the offices of viceroy and

governor-general.]

Columbus was not long in finding friends to advance or promise on his

account an eighth part of the sum immediately required. A considerable

amount was assessed upon the town of Palos in punishment for certain

misdeeds or delinquencies on the part of its people or some of them.

Castile assumed the rest of the burden, though Santangel may have

advanced a million maravedis out of the treasury of Aragon, or out of

the funds of the _Hermandad_,[509] or perhaps more likely on his own

account.[510] In any case it was a loan to the treasury of Castile

simply. It was always distinctly understood that Ferdinand as king of

Aragon had no share in the enterprise, and that the Spanish Indies were

an appurtenance to the crown of Castile. The agreement was signed April

17, 1492, and with tears of joy Columbus vowed to devote every maravedi

that should come to him to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre.

[Footnote 509: A police organization formed in 1476 for

suppressing highway robbery.]

[Footnote 510: It is not easy to give an accurate account of

the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history.

Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with

the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle

and mislead us. According to M. Harrisse 1,000,000 maravedis

would be equivalent to 295,175 francs, or about 59,000 gold

dollars of United States money at present values. Las Casas

(tom. i. p. 256) says that the eighth part, raised by Columbus,

was 500,000 maravedis (29,500 dollars). Account-books preserved

in the archives of Simancas show that the sums paid from the

treasury of Castile amounted to 1,140,000 maravedis (67,500

dollars). Assuming the statement of Las Casas to be correct,

the amounts contributed would perhaps have been as follows:--

Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury $67,500

" loan from Santangel 59,000

Columbus 29,500

Other sources, including contribution levied

upon the town of Palos 80,000

--------

Total $236,000

This total seems to me altogether too large for probability,

and so does the last item, which is simply put at the figure

necessary to make the total eight times 29,500. I am inclined

to suspect that Las Casas (with whom arithmetic was not always

a strong point) may have got his figures wrong. The amount of

Santangel's loan also depends upon the statement of Las Casas,

and we do not know whether he took it from a document or from

hearsay. Nor do we know whether it should be added to, or

included in, the first item. More likely, I think, the latter.

The only item that we know with documentary certainty is the

first, so that our statement becomes modified as follows:--

Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury $67,500

" loan from Santangel ?

Columbus ?

{ rent of two fully

Town of Palos { equipped caravels

{ for two months, etc.

----------------------

Total ?

(Cf. Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 391-404.) Unsatisfactory, but

certain as far as it goes. Alas, how often historical

statements are thus reduced to meagreness, after the

hypothetical or ill-supported part has been sifted out! The

story that the Pinzon brothers advanced to Columbus his portion

is told by Las Casas, but he very shrewdly doubts it. The

famous story that Isabella pledged her crown jewels (_Vita

dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xiv.) has also been doubted, but

perhaps on insufficient grounds, by M. Harrisse. It is

confirmed by Las Casas (tom. i. p. 249). According to one

account she pledged them to Santangel in security for his

loan,--which seems not altogether improbable. See Pizarro y

Orellana, _Varones ilustres del Nuevo Mundo_, Madrid, 1639, p.

16.]

[Sidenote: Dismay at Palos.]

[Sidenote: The three famous caravels; the Santa Maria.]

[Sidenote: The Pinta.]

[Sidenote: The Niña.]

When he reached Palos in May, with royal orders for ships and men, there

had like to have been a riot. Terrible dismay was felt at the prospect

of launching out for such a voyage upon the Sea of Darkness. Groans and

curses greeted the announcement of the forced contribution. But Martin

Pinzon and his brothers were active in supporting the crown officials,

and the work went on. To induce men to enlist, debts were forgiven and

civil actions suspended. Criminals were released from jail on condition

of serving. Three caravels were impressed into the service of the crown

for a time unlimited; and the rent and maintenance of two of these

vessels for two months was to be paid by the town. The largest caravel,

called the Santa Maria or Capitana, belonged to Juan de La Cosa, a

Biscayan mariner whose name was soon to become famous.[511] He now

commanded her, with another consummate sailor, Sancho Ruiz, for his

pilot. This single-decked craft, about ninety feet in length by twenty

feet breadth of beam, was the Admiral's flag-ship. The second caravel,

called the Pinta, a much swifter vessel, was commanded by Martin Pinzon.

She belonged to two citizens of Palos, Gomez Rascon and Cristobal

Quintero, who were now in her crew, sulky and ready for mischief. The

third and smallest caravel, the Niña ("Baby"), had for her commander

Vicente Yañez Pinzon, the youngest of the brothers, now about thirty

years of age. Neither the Pinta nor the Niña were decked amidships. On

board the three caravels were just ninety persons.[512] And so they set

sail from Palos on Friday, August 3, 1492, half an hour before sunrise,

and by sunset had run due south five and forty geographical miles, when

they shifted their course a couple of points to starboard and stood for

the Canaries.

[Footnote 511: Navarrete, _Biblioteca maritima_, tom. ii. pp.

208, 209.]

[Footnote 512: The accounts of the armament are well summed up

and discussed in Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 405-408. Eighty-seven

names, out of the ninety, have been recovered, and the list is

given below, Appendix C.]

[Sidenote: They go to the Canaries and are delayed there.]

No thought of Vinland is betrayed in these proceedings. Columbus was

aiming at the northern end of Cipango (Japan). Upon Toscanelli's map,

which he carried with him, the great island of Cipango extends from 5°

to about 28° north latitude. He evidently aimed at the northern end of

Cipango as being directly on the route to Zaiton (Chang-chow) and other

Chinese cities mentioned by Marco Polo. Accordingly he began by running

down to the Canaries, in order that he might sail thence due west on the

28th parallel without shifting his course by a single point until he

should see the coast of Japan looming up before him.[513] On this

preliminary run signs of mischief began already to show themselves. The

Pinta's rudder was broken and unshipped, and Columbus suspected her two

angry and chafing owners of having done it on purpose, in order that

they and their vessel might be left behind. The Canaries at this

juncture merited the name of Fortunate Islands; fortunately they, alone

among African islands, were Spanish, so that Columbus could stop there

and make repairs. While this was going on the sailors were scared out

of their wits by an eruption of Teneriffe, which they deemed an omen of

evil, and it was also reported that some Portuguese caravels were

hovering in those waters, with intent to capture Columbus and carry him

off to Lisbon.

[Footnote 513: "Para de allí tomar mi derrota, y navegar tanto

que yo llegase á las Indias," he says in his journal,

Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. i.p. 3.]

[Illustration: Martin Behaim's Globe, 1492,]

[Illustration: reduced to Mercator's projection.][514]

[Footnote 514: Martin Behaim was born at Nuremberg in 1436, and

is said to have been a pupil of the celebrated astronomer,

Regiomontanus, author of the first almanac published in Europe,

and of Ephemerides, of priceless value to navigators. He

visited Portugal about 1480, invented a new kind of astrolabe,

and sailed with it in 1484 as cosmographer in Diego Cam's

voyage to the Congo. On his return to Lisbon he was knighted,

and presently went to live on the island of Fayal, of which his

wife's father was governor. He was a friend of Columbus. Toward

1492 he visited Nuremberg, to look after some family affairs,

and while there "he gratified some of his townspeople by

embodying in a globe the geographical views which prevailed in

the maritime countries; and the globe was finished before

Columbus had yet accomplished his voyage. The next year (1493)

Behaim returned to Portugal; and after having been sent to the

Low Countries on a diplomatic mission, he was captured by

English cruisers and carried to England. Escaping finally, and

reaching the Continent, he passes from our view in 1494, and is

scarcely heard of again." (Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._, ii.

104.) He died in May, 1506. A ridiculous story that he

anticipated Columbus in the discovery of America originated in

the misunderstanding of an interpolated passage in the Latin

text of Schedel's _Registrum_, Nuremberg, 1498, p. 290 (the

so-called _Nuremberg Chronicle_). See Winsor, _op. cit._ ii.

34; Major's _Prince Henry_, p. 326; Humboldt, _Examen

critique_, tom. i.p. 256; Murr, _Diplomatische Geschichte des

Ritters Behaim_, Nuremberg, 1778; Cladera, _Investigaciones

históricas_, Madrid, 1794; Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana

Vetustissima_, pp. 37-43.--The globe made by Behaim may now be

seen in the city hall at Nuremberg. It "is made of

_papier-maché_, covered with gypsum, and over this a parchment

surface received the drawing; it is twenty inches in diameter."

(Winsor, _op. cit._ ii. 105.) The portion west of the 330th

meridian is evidently copied from Toscanelli's map. I give

below (p. 429) a sketch (from Winsor, after Ruge's _Geschichte

des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, p. 230) of Behaim's ocean,

with the outline of the American continent superimposed in the

proper place.]

[Sidenote: Columbus starts for Japan, Sept. 6, 1492.]

At length, on the 6th of September, they set sail from Gomera, but were

becalmed and had made only thirty miles by the night of the 8th. The

breeze then freshened, and when next day the shores of Ferro, the last

of the Canaries, sank from sight on the eastern horizon, many of the

sailors loudly lamented their unseemly fate, and cried and sobbed like

children. Columbus well understood the difficulty of dealing with these

men. He provided against one chief source of discontent by keeping two

different reckonings, a true one for himself and a false one for his

officers and crews. He was shrewd enough not to overdo it and awaken

distrust. Thus after a twenty-four hours' run of 180 miles on September

10, he reported it as 144 miles; next day the run was 120 miles and he

announced it as 108, and so on. But for this prudent if somewhat

questionable device, it is not unlikely that the first week of October

would have witnessed a mutiny in which Columbus would have been either

thrown overboard or forced to turn back.

[Sidenote: Deflection of the needle.]

The weather was delicious, and but for the bug-a-boos that worried those

poor sailors it would have been a most pleasant voyage. Chief among the

imaginary terrors were three which deserve especial mention. At

nightfall on September 13 the ships had crossed the magnetic line of no

variation, and Columbus was astonished to see that the compass-needle,

instead of pointing a little to the right of the pole-star, began to

sway toward the left, and next day this deviation increased. It was

impossible to hide such a fact from the sharp eyes of the pilots, and

all were seized with alarm at the suspicion that this witch instrument

was beginning to play them some foul trick in punishment of their

temerity; but Columbus was ready with an ingenious astronomical

explanation, and their faith in the profundity of his knowledge

prevailed over their terrors.

[Sidenote: The Sargasso Sea.]

The second alarm came on September 16, when they struck into vast

meadows of floating seaweeds and grasses, abounding in tunny fish and

crabs. They had now come more than 800 miles from Ferro and were

entering the wonderful Sargasso Sea, that region of the Atlantic six

times as large as France, where vast tangles of vegetation grow upon the

surface of water that is more than 2,000 fathoms deep, and furnish

sustenance for an untold wealth of fishy life.[515] To the eye of the

mariner the Sargasso Sea presents somewhat the appearance of an endless

green prairie, but modern ships plough through it with ease and so did

the caravels of Columbus at first. After two or three days, however, the

wind being light, their progress was somewhat impeded. It was not

strange that the crews were frightened at such a sight. It seemed

uncanny and weird, and revived ancient fancies about mysterious

impassable seas and overbold mariners whose ships had been stuck fast in

them. The more practical spirits were afraid of running aground upon

submerged shoals, but all were somewhat reassured on this point when it

was found that their longest plummet-lines failed to find bottom.

[Footnote 515: The situation of this Sargasso region in

mid-ocean seems to be determined by its character as a quiet

neutral ground between the great ocean-currents that flow past

it on every side. Sargasso plants are found elsewhere upon the

surface of the waves, but nowhere else do they congregate as

here. There are reasons for supposing that in ancient times

this region extended nearer to the African coast. Skylax

(_Periplus_, cap. 109) says that beyond Kerne, at the mouth of

Rio d' Ouro the sea cannot be navigated on account of the mud

and seaweed. Sataspes, on his return to Persia, B. C. 470, told

King Xerxes that his voyage failed because his ship stopped or

was stuck fast. (Herodotus, iv. 43.) Festus Avienus mentions

vast quantities of seaweed in the ocean west of the Pillars of

Hercules:--

Exsuperat autem gurgitem fucus frequens

Atque impeditur æstus ex uligine....

Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem,

Sic segnis humor æquoris pigri stupet.

Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites

Exstare fucum, et sæpe virgulti vice

Retinere puppim, etc.

Avienus, _Ora Maritima_, 108, 117.

See also Aristotle, _Meteorol._, ii. 1, 14; Pseudo-Aristotle,

_De Mirab. Auscult._, p. 106; Theophrastus, _Historia

plantarum_, iv. 7 Jornandes, _De rebus Geticis_, apud Muratori,

tom. i.p. 191; according to Strabo (iii. 2, § 7) tunny fish

were caught in abundance in the ocean west of Spain, and were

highly valued for the table on account of their fatness which

was due to submarine vegetables on which they fed. Possibly the

reports of these Sargasso meadows may have had some share in

suggesting to Plato his notion of a huge submerged island

Atlantis (_Timæus_, 25; _Kritias_, 108; cf. the notion of a

viscous sea in Plutarch, _De facie in Orbe Luna_, 26), Plato's

fancy has furnished a theme for much wild speculation. See, for

example, Bailly, _Lettres sur l'Atlantide de Platon_, Paris,

1779. The belief that there can ever have been such an island

in that part of the Atlantic is disposed of by the fact that

the ocean there is nowhere less than two miles in depth. See

the beautiful map of the Atlantic sea-bottom in Alexander

Agassiz's _Three Cruises of the Blake_, Boston, 1888, vol. i.p.

108, and compare chap. vi. of that noble work, on "The

Permanence of Continents and of Oceanic Basins;" see also

Wallace's _Island Life_, chap. vi. It was formerly supposed

that the Sargasso plants grow on the sea-bottom, and becoming

detached rise to the surface (Peter Martyr, _De rebus

oceanicis_, dec. iii. lib. v. p. 53; Humboldt, _Personal

Narrative_, book i. chap, i.); but it is now known that they

are simply rooted in the surface water itself. "L'accumulation

de ces plantes marines est l'exemple le plus frappant de

plantes congénères réunies sur le même point. Ni les forêts

colossales de l'Himalaya, ni les graminées qui s'étendent à

perte de vue dans les savanes américaines ou les steppes

sibériens ne rivalisent avec ces prairies océaniques. Jamais

sur un espace aussi étendu, ne se rencontrent de telles masses

de plantes semblables. Quand on a vu la mer des Sargasses, on

n'oublie point un pareil spectacle." Paul Gaffarel, "La Mer des

Sargasses," _Bulletin de Géographie_, Paris, 1872, 6e série,

tom. iv. p. 622.]

[Sidenote: The trade wind.]

On September 22 the journal reports "no more grass." They were in clear

water again, and more than 1,400 geographical miles from the Canaries.

A third source of alarm had already begun to disturb the sailors. They

were discovering much more than they had bargained for. They were in the

belt of the trade winds, and as the gentle but unfailing breeze wafted

them steadily westward, doubts began to arise as to whether it would

ever be possible to return. Fortunately soon after this question began

to be discussed, the wind, jealous of its character for capriciousness

even there, veered into the southwest.

[Sidenote: Impatience of the crews.]

By September 25 the Admiral's chief difficulty had come to be the

impatience of his crews at not finding land. On that day there was a

mirage, or some such illusion, which Columbus and all hands supposed to

be a coast in front of them, and hymns of praise were sung, but at dawn

next day they were cruelly undeceived. Flights of strange birds and

other signs of land kept raising hopes which were presently dashed

again, and the men passed through alternately hot and cold fits of

exultation and dejection. Such mockery seemed to show that they were

entering a realm of enchantment. Somebody, perhaps one of the released

jail-birds, hinted that if a stealthy thrust should happen some night to

push the Admiral overboard, it could be plausibly said that he had

slipped and fallen while star-gazing. His situation grew daily more

perilous, and the fact that he was an Italian commanding Spaniards did

not help him. Perhaps what saved him was their vague belief in his

superior knowledge; they may have felt that they should need him in

going back.

[Illustration: Martin Behaim's Atlantic Ocean (with outline of American

continent superimposed).]

[Sidenote: Change of course from W. to W. S. W.]

[Sidenote: Land ahead! Oct. 12 (N. S. 21), 1492.]

By October 4 there were ominous symptoms of mutiny, and the anxiety of

Columbus was evinced in the extent of his bold understatement of that

day's run,--138 miles instead of the true figure 189. For some days his

pilots had been begging him to change his course; perhaps they had

passed between islands. Anything for a change! On the 7th at sunrise,

they had come 2,724 geographical miles from the Canaries, which was

farther than the Admiral's estimate of the distance to Cipango; but

according to his false statement of the runs, it appeared that they had

come scarcely 2,200 miles. This leads one to suspect that in stating the

length of the voyage, as he had so often done, at 700 leagues, he may

have purposely made it out somewhat shorter than he really believed it

to be. But now after coming more than 2,500 miles he began to fear that

he might be sailing past Cipango on the north, and so he shifted his

course two points to larboard, or west-southwest. If a secret knowledge

of Vinland had been his guiding-star he surely would not have turned his

helm that way; but a glance at the Toscanelli map shows what was in his

mind. Numerous flights of small birds confirmed his belief that land at

the southwest was not far off. The change of direction was probably

fortunate. If he had persisted in keeping on the parallel, 720 miles

would have brought him to the coast of Florida, a little south of Cape

Malabar. After the change he had but 505 miles of water before him, and

the temper of the sailors was growing more dangerous with every

mile,[516]--until October 11, when the signs of land became

unmistakable, and the wildest excitement prevailed. A reward of 10,000

maravedis had been promised to the person who should first discover

land, and ninety pair of eyes were strained that night with looking.

About ten o'clock the Admiral, standing on the tower-like poop of his

vessel, saw a distant light moving as if somebody were running along

the shore with a torch. This interpretation was doubted, but a few

hours later a sailor on the Pinta saw land distinctly, and soon it was

visible to all, a long low coast about five miles distant. This was at

two in the morning of Friday, October 12,[517]--just ten weeks since

they had sailed from Palos, just thirty-three days since they had lost

sight of the coast of Ferro. The sails were now taken in, and the ships

lay to, awaiting the dawn.

[Footnote 516: The often-repeated story that a day or two

before the end of the voyage Columbus capitulated with his

crew, promising to turn back if land were not seen within three

days, rests upon the single and relatively inferior authority

of Oviedo. It is not mentioned by Las Casas or Bernaldez or

Peter Martyr or Ferdinand Columbus, and it is discredited by

the tone of the Admiral's journal, which shows as unconquerable

determination on the last day of the voyage as on any previous

day. Cf. Irving, vol. i. p. 187.]

[Footnote 517: Applying the Gregorian Calendar, or "new style,"

it becomes the 21st. The four hundredth anniversary will

properly fall on October 21, 1892.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The crews go ashore.]

At daybreak the boats were lowered and Columbus, with a large part of

his company, went ashore. Upon every side were trees of unknown kinds,

and the landscape seemed exceedingly beautiful. Confident that they must

have attained the object for which they had set sail, the crews were

wild with exultation. Their heads were dazed with fancies of princely

fortunes close at hand. The officers embraced Columbus or kissed his

hands, while the sailors threw themselves at his feet, craving pardon

and favour.

[Sidenote: The astonished natives.]

[Sidenote: Guanahani: where was it?]

These proceedings were watched with unutterable amazement and awe by a

multitude of men, women, and children of cinnamon hue, different from

any kind of people the Spaniards had ever seen. All were stark naked and

most of them were more or less greased and painted. They thought that

the ships were sea-monsters and the white men supernatural creatures

descended from the sky.[518] At first they fled in terror as these

formidable beings came ashore, but presently, as they found themselves

unmolested, curiosity began to overcome fear, and they slowly approached

the Spaniards, stopping at every few paces to prostrate themselves in

adoration. After a time, as the Spaniards received them with encouraging

nods and smiles, they waxed bold enough to come close to the visitors

and pass their hands over them, doubtless to make sure that all this

marvel was a reality and not a mere vision. Experiences in Africa had

revealed the eagerness of barbarians to trade off their possessions for

trinkets, and now the Spaniards began exchanging glass beads and hawks'

bells for cotton yarn, tame parrots, and small gold ornaments. Some sort

of conversation in dumb show went on, and Columbus naturally interpreted

everything in such wise as to fit his theories. Whether the natives

understood him or not when he asked them where they got their gold, at

any rate they pointed to the south, and thus confirmed Columbus in his

suspicion that he had come to some island a little to the north of the

opulent Cipango. He soon found that it was a small island, and he

understood the name of it to be Guanahani. He took formal possession of

it for Castile, just as the discoverers of the Cape Verde islands and

the Guinea coasts had taken possession of those places for Portugal;

and he gave it a Christian name, San Salvador. That name has since the

seventeenth century been given to Cat island, but perhaps in pursuance

of a false theory of map-makers; it is not proved that Cat island is the

Guanahani of Columbus. All that can positively be asserted of Guanahani

is that it was one of the Bahamas: there has been endless discussion as

to which one, and the question is not easy to settle. Perhaps the theory

of Captain Gustavus Fox, of the United States navy, is on the whole best

supported. Captain Fox maintains that the true Guanahani was the little

island now known as Samana or Atwood's Cay.[519] The problem well

illustrates the difficulty in identifying any route from even a good

description of landmarks, without the help of persistent proper names,

especially after the lapse of time has somewhat altered the landmarks.

From this point of view it is a very interesting problem and has its

lessons for us; otherwise it is of no importance.

[Footnote 518: This is a common notion among barbarians. "The

Polynesians imagine that the sky descends at the horizon and

encloses the earth. Hence they call foreigners _papalangi_, or

'heaven-bursters,' as having broken in from another world

outside." Max Müller, _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. ii.

p. 268.]

[Footnote 519: "An Attempt to solve the Problem of the First

Landing Place of Columbus in the New World," in _United States

Coast and Geodetic Survey--Report for 1880--Appendix 18_,

Washington, 1882.]

[Sidenote: Groping for Cipango and the route to Quinsay.]

A cruise of ten days among the Bahamas, with visits to four of the

islands, satisfied Columbus that he was in the ocean just east of

Cathay, for Marco Polo had described it as studded with thousands of

spice-bearing islands, and the Catalan map shows that some of these were

supposed to be inhabited by naked savages. To be sure, he could not find

any spices or valuable drugs, but the air was full of fragrance and the

trees and herbs were strange in aspect and might mean anything; so for a

while he was ready to take the spices on trust. Upon inquiries about

gold the natives always pointed to the south, apparently meaning

Cipango; and in that direction Columbus steered on the 25th of October,

intending to stay in that wealthy island long enough to obtain all

needful information concerning its arts and commerce. Thence a sail of

less than ten days would bring him to the Chinese coast, along which he

might comfortably cruise northwesterly as far as Quinsay and deliver to

the Great Khan a friendly letter with which Ferdinand and Isabella had

provided him. Alas, poor Columbus--unconscious prince of

discoverers--groping here in Cuban waters for the way to a city on the

other side of the globe and to a sovereign whose race had more than a

century since been driven from the throne and expelled from the very

soil of Cathay! Could anything be more pathetic, or better illustrate

the profound irony with which our universe seems to be governed?

[Sidenote: Columbus reaches Cuba, and sends envoys to find a certain

Asiatic prince.]

On reaching Cuba the Admiral was charmed with the marvellous beauty of

the landscape,--a point in which he seems to have been unusually

sensitive. He found pearl oysters along the shore, and although no

splendid cities as yet appeared, he did not doubt that he had reached

Cipango. But his attempts at talking with the amazed natives only served

to darken counsel. He understood them to say that Cuba was part of the

Asiatic continent, and that there was a king in the neighbourhood who

was at war with the Great Khan! So he sent two messengers to seek this

refractory potentate,--one of them a converted Jew acquainted with

Arabic, a language sometimes heard far eastward in Asia, as Columbus

must have known. These envoys found pleasant villages, with large

houses, surrounded with fields of such unknown vegetables as maize,

potatoes, and tobacco; they saw men and women smoking cigars,[520] and

little dreamed that in that fragrant and soothing herb there was a

richer source of revenue than the spices of the East. They passed acres

of growing cotton and saw in the houses piles of yarn waiting to be

woven into rude cloth or twisted into nets for hammocks. But they found

neither cities nor kings, neither gold nor spices, and after a tedious

quest returned, somewhat disappointed, to the coast.

[Footnote 520: The first recorded mention of tobacco is in

Columbus's diary for November 20, 1492:--"Hallaron los dos

cristianos por el camino mucha gente que atravesaba á sus

pueblos, mugeres y hombres con un tizon en la mano, yerbas para

tomar sus sahumerios que acostumbraban," i. e. "the two

Christians met on the road a great many people going to their

villages, men and women with brands in their hands, made of

herbs for taking their customary smoke." Navarrete, tom. i. p.

51.]

[Sidenote: Columbus turns eastward; Pinzon deserts him.]

Columbus seems now to have become perplexed, and to have vacillated

somewhat in his purposes. If this was the continent of Asia it was

nearer than he had supposed, and how far mistaken he had been in his

calculations no one could tell. But where was Cipango? He gathered from

the natives that there was a great island to the southeast, abounding

in gold, and so he turned his prows in that direction. On the 20th of

November he was deserted by Martin Pinzon, whose ship could always

outsail the others. It seems to have been Pinzon's design to get home in

advance with such a story as would enable him to claim for himself an

undue share of credit for the discovery of the Indies. This was the

earliest instance of a kind of treachery such as too often marred the

story of Spanish exploration and conquest in the New World.

[Sidenote: Columbus arrives at Hayti and thinks it must be Japan.]

[Sidenote: Wreck of the Santa Maria, Dec. 25, 1492.]

For a fortnight after Pinzon's desertion Columbus crept slowly eastward

along the coast of Cuba, now and then landing to examine the country and

its products; and it seemed to him that besides pearls and mastic and

aloes he found in the rivers indications of gold. When he reached the

cape at the end of the island he named it Alpha and Omega, as being the

extremity of Asia,--Omega from the Portuguese point of view, Alpha from

his own. On the 6th of December he landed upon the northwestern coast of

the island of Hayti, which he called Española, Hispaniola, or "Spanish

land."[521] Here, as the natives seemed to tell him of a region to the

southward and quite inland which abounded in gold, and which they called

Cibao, the Admiral at once caught upon the apparent similarity of sounds

and fancied that Cibao must be Cipango, and that at length he had

arrived upon that island of marvels. It was much nearer the Asiatic

mainland (i. e. Cuba) than he had supposed, but then, it was beginning

to appear that in any case somebody's geography must be wrong. Columbus

was enchanted with the scenery. "The land is elevated," he says, "with

many mountains and peaks ... most beautiful, of a thousand varied forms,

accessible, and full of trees of endless varieties, so tall that they

seem to touch the sky; and I have been told that they never lose their

foliage. The nightingale [i. e. some kind of thrush] and other small

birds of a thousand kinds were singing in the month of November

[December] when I was there."[522] Before he had done much toward

exploring this paradise, a sudden and grave mishap quite altered his

plans. On Christmas morning, between midnight and dawn, owing to

careless disobedience of orders on the part of the helmsman, the

flag-ship struck upon a sand-bank near the present site of Port au Paix.

All attempts to get her afloat were unavailing, and the waves soon beat

her to pieces.

[Footnote 521: Not "Little Spain," as the form of the word, so

much like a diminutive, might seem to indicate. It is simply

the feminine of _Español_, "Spanish," sc. _tierra_ or _isla_.

Columbus believed that the island was larger than Spain. See

his letter to Gabriel Sanchez, in Harrisse, tom. i. p. 428.]

[Footnote 522: Columbus to Santangel, February 15, 1493

(Navarrete, tom. i. p. 168).]

[Sidenote: Columbus decides to go back to Spain.]

This catastrophe brought home, with startling force, to the mind of

Columbus, the fact that the news of his discovery of land was not yet

known in Europe. As for the Pinta and her insubordinate commander, none

could say whether they would ever be seen again or whether their speedy

arrival in Spain might not portend more harm than good to Columbus. His

armament was now reduced to the little undecked Niña alone, such a craft

as we should deem about fit for a summer excursion on Long Island Sound.

What if his party should all perish, or be stranded helpless on these

strange coasts, before any news of their success should reach the ears

of friends in Europe! Then the name of Columbus would serve as a by-word

for foolhardiness, and his mysterious fate would simply deter other

expeditions from following in the same course. Obviously the first

necessity of the situation was to return to Spain immediately and report

what had already been done. Then it would be easy enough to get ships

and men for a second voyage.

[Sidenote: Building of the blockhouse, La Navidad.]

[Sidenote: Meeting with Pinzon.]

This decision led to the founding of an embryo colony upon Hispaniola.

There was not room enough for all the party to go in the Nina, and quite

a number begged to be left behind, because they found life upon the

island lazy and the natives, especially the women, seemed well-disposed

toward them. So a blockhouse was built out of the wrecked ship's timbers

and armed with her guns, and in commemoration of that eventful Christmas

it was called Fort Nativity (_La Navidad_). Here forty men were left

behind, with provisions enough for a whole year, and on January 4, 1493,

the rest of the party went on board the Niña and set sail for Spain. Two

days later in following the northern coast of Hispaniola they

encountered the Pinta, whose commander had been delayed by trading with

the natives and by finding some gold. Pinzon tried to explain his sudden

disappearance by alleging that stress of weather had parted him from

his comrades, but his excuses were felt to be lame and improbable.

However it may have been with his excuses, there was no doubt as to the

lameness of his foremast; it had been too badly sprung to carry much

sail, so that the Pinta could not again run away from her consort.

[Sidenote: Terrible storm in mid-ocean, Feb., 1493.]

On this return voyage the Admiral, finding the trade winds dead against

him, took a northeasterly course until he had passed the thirty-seventh

parallel and then headed straight toward Spain. On the 12th of February

a storm was brewing, and during the next four days it raged with such

terrific violence that it is a wonder how those two frail caravels ever

came out of it. They were separated this time not to meet again upon the

sea. Expecting in all likelihood to be engulfed in the waves with his

tiny craft, Columbus sealed and directed to Ferdinand and Isabella two

brief reports of his discovery, written upon parchment. Each of these he

wrapped in a cloth and inclosed in the middle of a large cake of wax,

which was then securely shut up in a barrel. One of the barrels was

flung into the sea, the other remained standing on the little

quarter-deck to await the fate of the caravel. The anxiety was not

lessened by the sight of land on the 15th, for it was impossible to

approach it so as to go ashore, and there was much danger of being

dashed to pieces.

[Sidenote: Cold reception at the Azores.]

At length on the 18th, the storm having abated, the ship's boat went

ashore and found that it was the island of St. Mary, one of the Azores.

It is worthy of note that such skilful sailors as the Nina's captain,

Vicente Yañez Pinzon, and the pilot Ruiz were so confused in their

reckoning as to suppose themselves near the Madeiras, whereas Columbus

had correctly maintained that they were approaching the Azores,--a good

instance of his consummate judgment in nautical questions.[523] From the

Portuguese governor of the island this Spanish company met with a very

ungracious reception. A party of sailors whom Columbus sent ashore to a

small chapel of the Virgin, to give thanks for their deliverance from

shipwreck, were seized and held as prisoners for five days. It

afterwards appeared that this was done in pursuance of general

instructions from the king of Portugal to the governors of his various

islands. If Columbus had gone ashore he would probably have been

arrested himself. As it was, he took such a high tone and threatened to

such good purpose that the governor of St. Mary was fain to give up his

prisoners for fear of bringing on another war between Portugal and

Castile.

[Footnote 523: Las Casas, tom. i. pp. 443, 449.]

[Sidenote: Columbus is driven ashore in Portugal, where the king is

advised to have him assassinated;]

[Sidenote: but to offend Spain so grossly would be dangerous.]

Having at length got away from this unfriendly island, as the Niña was

making her way toward Cape St. Vincent and within 400 miles of it, she

was seized by another fierce tempest and driven upon the coast of

Portugal, where Columbus and his crew were glad of a chance to run into

the river Tagus for shelter. The news of his voyage and his discoveries

aroused intense excitement in Lisbon. Astonishment was mingled with

chagrin at the thought that the opportunity for all this glory and

profit had first been offered to Portugal and foolishly lost. The king

even now tried to persuade himself that Columbus had somehow or other

been trespassing upon the vast and vague undiscovered dominions granted

to the Crown of Portugal by Pope Eugenius IV. Some of the king's

counsellors are said to have urged him to have Columbus assassinated; it

would be easy enough to provoke such a high-spirited man into a quarrel

and then run him through the body.[524] To clearer heads, however, the

imprudence of such a course was manifest. It was already impossible to

keep the news of the discovery from reaching Spain, and Portugal could

not afford to go to war with her stronger neighbour. In fact even had

John II. been base enough to resort to assassination, which seems quite

incompatible with the general character of Lope de Vega's "perfect

prince," Columbus was now too important a personage to be safely

interfered with. So he was invited to court and made much of. On the

13th of March he set sail again and arrived in the harbour of Palos at

noon of the 15th. His little caravel was promptly recognized by the

people, and as her story flew from mouth to mouth all the business of

the town was at an end for that day.[525]

[Footnote 524: This story rests upon the explicit statement of

a contemporary Portuguese historian of high authority, Garcia

de Resende, _Chronica del Rey Dom João II._, Lisbon, 1622, cap.

clxiv. (written about 1516); see also Vasconcellos, _Vida del

Rey Don Juan II._, Madrid, 1639, lib. vi.]

[Footnote 525: "When they learnt that she returned in triumph

from the discovery of a world, the whole community broke forth

into transports of joy." Irving's _Columbus_, vol. i. p. 318.

This is projecting our present knowledge into the past. We now

know that Columbus had discovered a new world. He did not so

much as suspect that he had done anything of the sort; neither

did the people of Palos.]

[Sidenote: Columbus and Pinzon at Palos; death of Pinzon.]

Towards evening, while the bells were ringing and the streets brilliant

with torches, another vessel entered the harbour and dropped anchor. She

was none other than the Pinta! The storm had driven her to Bayonne,

whence Martin Pinzon instantly despatched a message to Ferdinand and

Isabella, making great claims for himself and asking permission to wait

upon them with a full account of the discovery. As soon as practicable

he made his way to Palos, but when on arriving he saw the Niña already

anchored in the harbour his guilty heart failed him. He took advantage

of the general hub-bub to slink ashore as quickly and quietly as

possible, and did not dare to show himself until after the Admiral had

left for Seville. The news from Columbus reached the sovereigns before

they had time to reply to the message of Pinzon; so when their answer

came to him it was cold and stern and forbade him to appear in their

presence. Pinzon was worn out with the hardships of the homeward voyage,

and this crushing reproof was more than he could bear. His sudden death,

a few days afterward, was generally attributed to chagrin.[526]

[Sidenote: Columbus is received by the sovereigns at Barcelona, April,

1493.]

[Sidenote: General excitement at the news that a way to the Indies had

been found.]

From Seville the Admiral was summoned to attend court at Barcelona,

where he was received with triumphal honours. He was directed to seat

himself in the presence of the sovereigns, a courtesy usually reserved

for royal personages.[527] Intense interest was felt in his specimens of

stuffed birds and small mammals, his live parrots, his collection of

herbs which he supposed to have medicinal virtues, his few pearls and

trinkets of gold, and especially his six painted and bedizened

barbarians, the survivors of ten with whom he had started from

Hispaniola. Since in the vague terminology of that time the remote and

scarcely known parts of Asia were called the Indies, and since the

islands and coasts just discovered were Indies, of course these red men

must be Indians. So Columbus had already named them in his first letter

written from the Niña, off the Azores, sent by special messenger from

Palos, and now in April, 1493, printed at Barcelona, containing the

particulars of his discovery,--a letter appropriately addressed to the

worthy Santangel but for whose timely intervention he might have ridden

many a weary league on that mule of his to no good purpose.[528] It was

generally assumed without question that the Admiral's theory of his

discovery must be correct, that the coast of Cuba must be the eastern

extremity of China, that the coast of Hispaniola must be the northern

extremity of Cipango, and that a direct route--much shorter than that

which Portugal had so long been seeking--had now been found to those

lands of illimitable wealth described by Marco Polo.[529] To be sure

Columbus had not as yet seen the evidences of this Oriental splendour,

and had been puzzled at not finding them, but he felt confident that he

had come very near them and would come full upon them in a second

voyage. There was nobody who knew enough to refute these opinions,[530]

and really why should not this great geographer, who had accomplished so

much already which people had scouted as impossible,--why should he not

know what he was about? It was easy enough now to get men and money for

the second voyage. When the Admiral sailed from Cadiz on September 25,

1493, it was with seventeen ships carrying 1,500 men. Their dreams were

of the marble palaces of Quinsay, of isles of spices, and the treasures

of Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such

untold riches were vouchsafed them by the special decree of Heaven, as a

reward for having overcome the Moor at Granada and banished the Jews

from Spain.[531] Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as a

special instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow

to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, promising within the next seven years to

equip at his own expense a crusading army of 50,000 foot and 4,000

horse; within five years thereafter he would follow this with a second

army of like dimensions.

[Footnote 526: Charlevoix, _Histoire de l'isle Espagnole, ou de

St. Domingue_, Paris, 1730, liv. ii.; Muñoz, _Historia de las

Indias ó Nuevo Mundo_, Madrid, 1793, lib. iv. § 14.]

[Footnote 527: He was also allowed to quarter the royal arms

with his own, "which consisted of a group of golden islands

amid azure billows. To these were afterwards added five

anchors, with the celebrated motto, well known as being carved

on his sepulchre." Prescott's _Ferdinand and Isabella_, pt. i.

chap. vii. This statement about the motto is erroneous. See

below, p. 514. Considering the splendour of the reception given

to Columbus, and the great interest felt in his achievement,

Mr. Prescott is surprised at finding no mention of this

occasion in the local annals of Barcelona, or in the royal

archives of Aragon. He conjectures, with some probability, that

the cause of the omission may have been what an American would

call "sectional" jealousy. This Cathay and Cipango business was

an affair of Castile's, and, as such, quite beneath the notice

of patriotic Aragonese archivists! That is the way history has

too often been treated. With most people it is only a kind of

ancestor worship.]

[Footnote 528: The unique copy of this first edition of this

Spanish letter is a small folio of two leaves, or four pages.

It was announced for sale in Quaritch's Catalogue, April 16,

1891, No. 111, p. 47, for £1,750. Evidently most book-lovers

will have to content themselves with the facsimile published in

London, 1891, price two guineas. A unique copy of a Spanish

reprint in small quarto, made in 1493, is preserved in the

Ambrosian library at Milan. In 1889 Messrs. Ellis & Elvey, of

London, published a facsimile _alleged_ to have been made from

an edition of about the same date as the Ambrosian quarto; but

there are good reasons for believing that these highly

respectable publishers have been imposed upon. It is a time

just now when fictitious literary discoveries of this sort may

command a high price, and the dealer in early Americana must

keep his eyes open. See Quaritch's note, _op. cit._ p. 49; and

Justin Winsor's letter in _The Nation_, April 9, 1891, vol.

lii. p. 298.]

[Footnote 529: "The lands, therefore, which Columbus had

visited were called the West Indies; and as he seemed to have

entered upon a vast region of unexplored countries, existing in

a state of nature, the whole received the comprehensive

appellation of the New World." Irving's _Columbus_, vol. i. p.

333. These are very grave errors, again involving the

projection of our modern knowledge into the past. The lands

which Columbus had visited were called simply the Indies; it

was not until long after his death, and after the crossing of

the Pacific ocean, that they were distinguished from the East

Indies. The _New World_ was not at first a "comprehensive

appellation" for the countries discovered by Columbus; it was

at first applied to one particular region never visited by him,

viz. to that portion of the southeastern coast of South America

first explored by Vespucius. See vol. ii. pp. 129, 130.]

[Footnote 530: Peter Martyr, however, seems to have entertained

some vague doubts, inasmuch as this assumed nearness of the

China coast on the west implied a greater eastward extension of

the Asiatic continent than seemed to him probable:--"Insulas

reperit plures; has esse, de quibus fit apud cosmographos

mentio extra oceanum orientalem, adjacentes Indiæ arbitrantur.

Nec inficior ego penitus, _quamvis sphæræ magnitudo aliter

sentire videatur_; neque enim desunt qui parvo tractu a finibus

Hispaniæ distare littus Indicum putent." _Opus Epist._, No.

135. The italicizing is mine.]

[Footnote 531: This abominable piece of wickedness, driving

200,000 of Spain's best citizens from their homes and their

native land, was accomplished in pursuance of an edict signed

March 30, 1492. There is a brief account of it in Prescott's

_Ferdinand and Isabella_, pt. i. chap. vi.]

[Sidenote: This voyage was an event without any parallel in history.]

Thus nobody had the faintest suspicion of what had been done. In the

famous letter to Santangel there is of course not a word about a New

World. The grandeur of the achievement was quite beyond the ken of the

generation that witnessed it. For we have since come to learn that in

1492 the contact between the eastern and the western halves of our

planet was first really begun, and the two streams of human life which

had flowed on for countless ages apart were thenceforth to mingle

together. The first voyage of Columbus is thus a unique event in the

history of mankind. Nothing like it was ever done before, and nothing

like it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for a future Columbus

to conquer. The era of which this great Italian mariner was the most

illustrious representative has closed forever.