"LANDS IN THE WEST"
By moving from Genoa to Lisbon, Columbus found himself in a much better
atmosphere for developing into a discoverer. The genius of a discoverer
lies in the fact that he yearns for the unknown; and Portugal faced the
Atlantic Ocean, that immense unexplored "Sea of Darkness" as it was then
called. Italy, as we know, was the greater country, but it faced the
Mediterranean, and every nook and corner of the Mediterranean were known
and explored.
For any man thirsting to learn more about geography and exploration,
there was no more vital spot in Europe than Lisbon in the fifteenth
century. Why it was so is such an interesting story that it must be
told. We have read how zealously the Spaniards had been striving for
centuries to drive out the Moors, whom they considered the arch enemies
of Christian Europe. Portugal, being equally near to Africa, was also
overrun by Moors, and for ages the Portuguese had been at war with them,
finally vanquishing them early in Columbus's century. A wise Portuguese
prince then decided on a scheme for breaking their power utterly; and
that was to wrest from them their enormous trade with Arabia and India;
for their trade made their wealth and their wealth was their power.
This trade was known as the Indian trade, and was carried on by overland
caravans up through Asia and Northern Africa to the Mediterranean
coasts. The goods brought into Europe by this means--gold, pearls,
spices, rare woods--naturally set Europe to thinking that the lands
producing them must be the most favored part of the world, and "the
Indies" stood for wealth of all kinds. No one knew precisely where "the
Indies" lay; no one knew about the Indian Ocean or the shape of Southern
Africa; "the Indies" was simply an indefinite term for the rich and
mysterious regions from which the caravans came.
The old maps of the fifteenth century show three different countries of
this name--Far India, beyond the Ganges River; Middle India, between the
Ganges and the Indus; and Lesser India, including both sides of the Red
Sea. On the African side of the Red Sea was located the legendary
kingdom of a great monarch known as Prester John. _Prester_ is a
shortening of Presbyter, for this John was a Christian priest as well as
a king. Ever since the twelfth century there had been stories circulated
through Europe about the enormously wealthy monarch who ruled over a
vast number of Christians "in the Indies." At first Prester John's
domain was supposed to be in Asia; later the legends shifted it over to
Africa, Abyssinia probably; and it was with this division of "India"
that the Portuguese Prince Henry hoped to establish a trade; not, at
first, by rounding Africa and sailing up its east coast to Abyssinia,
but by merely cruising down the coast of Western Africa till Abyssinia's
Atlantic shores were reached; for so vague was the geography of that
far-away day that Abyssinia was supposed to stretch from Ethiopia to the
Atlantic. "If," reasoned Prince Henry, "my sailors can feel their way
down Africa till they come to Prester John's territory, not only could
our nation secure the rich trade which now goes to the Moors, but we
could form a treaty with the African Christians and ask them to come to
Europe and help us should the Moors ever again advance against us." This
plan was approved by Pope Nicholas V., who sanctioned Prince Henry's
enterprise in the hope of "bringing the people of India, who are reputed
to honor Christ, to the aid of European Christians against Saracens and
other enemies." This projected exploration of the African coast by
"Henry the Navigator" was the whole foundation for the _mistaken
statements that Christopher Columbus was trying to find "a sea route to
India_." Prince Henry was trying to find a sea route to an African
India which he supposed lay about where Guinea lies; and as for
Christopher, he never undertook to find either this African India, nor
the true Asiatic India; _he only promised the Spanish sovereigns that
he would find "lands in the west_."
Having straightened out the long-lived confusion about "the short route
to India," let us see how Prince Henry went to work. Northern or
Mediterranean Africa was well known to Europe, but not the Atlantic
coast. There was an ancient belief that ships could not enter tropic
seas because the intensely hot sun drew up all the water and left only
the slimy ooze of the bottom of the ocean. Cape Nun, of Morocco, was the
most southerly point of Africa yet reached; and about it there was a
discouraging saying,
"Who pass Cape Nun
Must turn again or else be gone."
Prince Henry, who was called the "Protector of Studies in Portugal," did
not believe that rhyme, and determined to show how foolish and untrue it
was. His first step was to establish an observatory and a school for
navigation at Cape St. Vincent, the most westerly point of Europe and
the most southwesterly point of Portugal. To this observatory the prince
invited the most learned astronomers, geographers, and instrument-makers
then living, that they might all work together with him; and from the
little fishing village of Sagres, close to his great observatory, he
sent out sailors who, according to an old writer, "were well taught in
all rules which sailors ought to know, and provided with the best
instruments for navigation."
These expeditions began fifty years before Columbus came to Lisbon. Most
of them sailed south; out there had always been legends of lands in the
west, so westward some of them sailed and found the Azores and the
Madeira Islands. These last had been known to English navigators more
than a century before, but as England sent no people to occupy and claim
them, Portugal took possession of them.
How the ownership of all newly-found portions of the globe came to be
determined is worth looking into. Ever since the time of the Crusades it
was recognized as right that any European Christian ruler might seize
the land and property of any Asiatic infidel. If two or three Christian
rulers united to seize Mohammedan territory and were victorious, the
Pope was to decide which one should own it. But the Crusades were
unsuccessful, and so the question of ownership of land outside of Europe
never came up until Prince Henry sent out his discoverers. Then, in
order to make Portugal's claim very sure to whatever she might find,
Pope Martin V. issued an order that all land which might be discovered
between Cape Bojador (on the most southerly point of the Morocco coast)
and the Indies should belong to Portugal, no matter what navigator
discovered it. This was in 1479. Naturally, when his turn came to
navigate, Columbus would not be interested in taking the Portuguese
path, since, by papal order, he would have to turn over to Portugal
whatever he might discover.
But to return to Prince Henry. His successes began in 1422 when a
Portuguese captain pushed past the high promontory of Cape Nun and did
not "turn again" till he had gone far enough to see that the Southern
Atlantic was as full of water as the Northern. After that these brave
people kept sailing farther and farther south, down past Guinea and the
mouth of the Congo, always asking for the India of Prester John; but the
savage blacks at whose coasts they touched had never heard of it.
Finally Bartholomew Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and proved that
the African India had no Atlantic coast; and he also proved that there
existed a southern hemisphere of great possibilities. Then the question
of reaching Asiatic India by sea loomed large in the Portuguese mind.
Vasco da Gama, following Dias around the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the
Indian Ocean and at last cast anchor in the dazzlingly rich city of
Calcutta, the real India.
This last did not happen, however, till 1498, six years after Columbus
discovered America. Long before this time the good Prince Henry had
died; and though he did not live to learn of this sea route to India, he
died knowing that the Madeiras and the Azores existed out in the open
sea, while Africa stretched far south of the Equator. His devotion to
navigation had imbued his countrymen with great enthusiasm, and placed
little Portugal at the head of European nations in maritime matters. Not
only did she discover how to sail to India, but to Siam, Java, China,
and Japan as well.
From Prince Henry's day, Lisbon became the city where all men interested
in the fascinating study of geography wished to dwell, in order that
they might exchange ideas with navigators and get employment under the
Crown. We can readily understand why Lisbon was a magnet to the
ambitious Christopher Columbus; and we may feel sure that had the brave,
intelligent "Protector of Studies in Portugal" been still alive when
Columbus formed his plan for discovery, the intrepid discoverer would
have been spared those weary years of waiting. He would have found
America ten years sooner, and it would have been the Portuguese, and not
the Spanish, flag that he would have carried westward to the New World.
Our young Genoese is supposed to have sailed to Iceland and even farther
into the Polar regions, probably after continuing that trip to Bristol
which the pirates interrupted off Cape St. Vincent. Many writers
consider that it was in Iceland where he heard rumors of "land in the
west." If the Iceland trip really was made, Christopher may indeed have
heard the story; for long before, Icelanders, and Norsemen also, had
discovered America.
These discoveries, as we now believe, took place in the far-away
eleventh century; but they made no impression on Europeans of that time,
because Iceland and Scandinavia were not in touch with other European
countries. Civilization then had the Mediterranean for its center, and
no one in Southern Europe ever heard of what the Icelanders or the
Norsemen were doing. But these northern peoples did not entirely lose
sight of their discoveries, for they sang about them from century to
century in quaint and beautiful ballads called sagas. It was not until
after Columbus revealed the west to European eyes that these sagas were
published; nevertheless, it is not improbable that, if Columbus landed
in Iceland, some inhabitant who knew the story of the far western
country told it to him. He never refers to it in his writings, however,
and one cannot help thinking that, if it really was true, he would have
mentioned it, at least to those whom he was trying to persuade to help
him. The only reference he ever made to the northern voyage is when
writing his journal in 1492, where he states,
"I have seen all the Levant (where the sun rises); and the Ponent (where
the sun sets); I have seen what is called The Northern Way, and England;
and I have sailed to Guinea."
Columbus's elder brother, Bartholomew, who was a map-maker and a serious
student of geography, also settled in Lisbon. The two either opened a
book-and-map shop, or at least they worked in one at odd times,
Christopher acting as a draftsman; for, as he himself quaintly expressed
it, "God had endowed me with ingenuity and manual skill in designing
spheres, and inscribing upon them in the proper places cities, rivers
and mountains, isles and ports." He appears to have tried to earn a
little money by commerce as well as by map-making. We have no exact
record of this, but it is thought that he borrowed capital for trading
purposes from rich Genoese merchants settled in Lisbon, and lost it.
This we conclude because, in his will, he ordered certain sums to be
paid to these merchants, without mentioning why. That he tried to add to
the small profits of map-making by trading with sea captains is not
surprising. We can only be sorry that he did not make a handsome profit
out of his ventures, enough for himself and for those who lent him
capital.
We have mentioned that all the men who had a scientific interest in
navigation tried to get to Lisbon. Among those whom Columbus may have
met there, was the great German cosmographer from Nuremburg, Martin
Behaim. Martin helped to improve the old-fashioned astrolabe, an
instrument for taking the altitude of the sun; more important still,
toward the end of 1492 he made the first globe, and indicated on it how
one might sail west and reach Asiatic India. This is the first record of
that idea which was later attributed to Columbus, but which Columbus
himself, until his return from his first voyage of discovery, never even
mentioned. Whether he and Martin Behaim talked together about the route
to India we shall never know. Probably they did not; for when
Christopher importuned later for ships, it was only for the purpose of
discovering "lands in the west" and not for finding a short route to
India. Columbus, though he knew how to draw maps and design spheres,
really possessed but little scientific knowledge. Intuition, plus
tenacity, always did more for him than science; and so it is likely that
he talked more with sailors than with scientists. While he may have
known the learned Behaim, certain it is that, from his earliest days in
Lisbon, he sought the society of men who had been out to the Azores or
to Madeira; men who told him the legends, plentiful enough on these
islands, of lands still farther out toward the setting sun, that no one
had yet ventured to visit.