OFF AT LAST!
Oddly enough, the ships Columbus was to take on his voyage were,
according to royal command, to be supplied by that very seaport of Palos
by which he is supposed to have entered Spain. Palos, Huelva, and
Moguer, all thriving maritime cities in Columbus's day, are grouped at
the mouth of the Rio Tinto. _Tinto_ means deep-colored, like wine;
and as this river flows through the richest copper region in the whole
world, it is not surprising that its waters are reddish, nor that the
copper trade enriched the neighboring towns. How the now unimportant
Palos at the mouth of the Rio Tinto came to be chosen as the seaport
from which Columbus should embark is an amusing story.
Some time before, its inhabitants had, through disobedience or some
other offense, incurred the displeasure of their sovereigns. By way of
punishment, the Crown ordered that Palos should fit out two caravels at
its own expense and lend them to the government for a year whenever the
government should call for them. The royal intention was, no doubt, to
use the boats against Naples and Sicily, which they hoped to conquer
after finishing the Moorish war. But when they decided finally to help
Columbus, they remembered the punishment due Palos, and called upon it
to give the two caravels to "Cristobal Colon, our captain, going into
certain parts of the Ocean Sea on matters pertaining to our service."
Thus while Ferdinand and Isabella meant to punish the little town, they
instead conferred a great honor upon it. Little did Columbus dream, the
day on which he and his boy approached it so empty-handed five years
before, that he was to make it forever famous. Palos to-day is a
miserably poor, humble little place; but its people, especially the
Pinzon family who still live there, are very proud that it was the
starting-point of the momentous voyage of discovery; and hundreds of
tourists visit it who never know that the sovereigns had intended
punishing, instead of glorifying, the port.
In May, 1492, however, when Columbus returned from Granada, the Palos
inhabitants did not see any glory at all! They saw nothing but the heavy
penalty. Not only did this royal command mean that every citizen of
Palos must furnish money to buy the ships and pay the crew, it meant
that the ships and crew would never come back again from the "Sea of
Darkness"! An expedition through the well-known Mediterranean to Sicily
or Naples would have seemed like a pleasure trip compared with the
terrifying one now contemplated! They were handing over the equipment to
a madman! Poor little Palos was filled with misgiving, and we may be
sure that Columbus, as he passed through the streets, was looked upon as
the common enemy.
The royal decree ordered Palos to have its contribution ready in ten
days; meanwhile, a third caravel was to be bought; but so violently were
the people of Palos opposed to the enterprise that not a single ship-
owner would sell his vessel. Another difficulty was to get a crew of
experienced seamen. With very few exceptions, sailors were afraid to go
out on the unexplored Atlantic Ocean beyond the Azores. Spanish sailors
had not had the excellent schooling of those in Portugal, where, for
seventy years or more, expeditions had been going out to discover new
lands and coming back safely.
Columbus, therefore, found it difficult to induce the sea-going men of
Palos to share his enthusiasm. This difficulty of getting a crew
together must have been foreseen at court, for the royal secretary
issued an order intended to help Columbus, but which instead hurt his
cause and proved most unwise. The curious order in question was to the
effect that all criminals who would sign for the expedition would be
"privileged from arrest or further imprisonment for any offense or crime
committed by them up to this date, and during the time they might be on
the voyage, and for two months after their return from the voyage."
To criminals, apparently, being devoured by monsters rimming the western
Atlantic appeared a better fate than languishing in a cruel Spanish
prison, for the first men who enlisted were from this class. A more
unfortunate method of recruiting a crew could hardly be imagined. Such
men were undesirable, not only because of their lawless character, but
also because they had never before sailed on a ship; and the more this
class rallied to the front, the more the respectable sailors of Palos,
Moguer, Huelva, and other adjacent towns hung back. To go forth into the
unknown was bad enough; to go there in the society of malefactors was
even worse.
Here again Juan Perez, the good priest of La Rabida, and Pinzon, the
friendly navigator of Palos, came forward and helped. Friar Juan went
among the population exhorting them to have faith in Columbus as
_he_ had faith in him; he explained to them all that he understood
of geography, and how, according to his understanding, the Italian was
sure to succeed. As we know, a priest was often the only educated man in
an entire community, and was looked up to accordingly; and so Friar Juan
was able to persuade several respectable men to enter Columbus's
service. As for Pinzon, both his moral and his practical support were so
great that it is doubtful whether the expedition could have been
arranged without him. Long before, at the Rabida conference, he had
offered to go as captain; now he induced his two brothers to sign also.
Palos, seeing three members of its most important family ready to go,
took heart. Pinzon next helped to find the three vessels needed, and put
them in order. One of these ships belonged to Juan de la Cosa, a well-
known pilot, and Juan himself was prevailed upon to sail with it. (Later
this Juan became a great explorer and made the first map of the New
World.) Another and less fortunate purchase was of a vessel whose owners
regretted the sale the moment they had parted with her; so down they
went to where the calkers and painters were making her seaworthy for the
voyage, and tried to persuade them to do everything just as badly as it
could be done. One can readily see that these were hard days for
Christopher Columbus. The preparations that Queen Isabella expected
would take only ten days took ten long weeks.
[Illustration: THE THREE CARAVELS OF COLUMBUS.]
When finally ready, Columbus's little fleet consisted of three caravels
--the _Santa Maria_, the _Pinta_, and the _Nina_
(pronounced Neen'ya). A caravel was a small, roundish, stubby sort of
craft, galley-rigged, with a double tower at the stern and a single one
in the bow. It was much used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
for the herring fisheries which took men far from the coast; and when
the Portuguese tried to find far-off India, they too used the caravel
form of vessel.
The largest vessel of the "Discovery Fleet" was only sixty-five or
seventy feet long by about twenty feet in breadth, and of one hundred
tons' burden; Columbus having purposely chosen small ships because they
would be better adapted for going close to shore and up rivers. Only the
_Santa Maria_ was decked amidships, the others had their cabins at
either end. The cross was painted on all the sails. Columbus commanded
the _Santa Maria_, with Juan de la Cosa as pilot; Martin Alonzo
Pinzon took the _Pinta_, and his brother Vincente (pronounced Vin-
then'tay) took the _Nina_.
All told, one hundred men went forth on the famous voyage (although some
writers put it at one hundred and twenty) and a number of these had
never been to sea before. Among the hundred was a notary to draw up all
papers of ownership (when it came to dividing Columbus's tenth part of
the gold, precious stones, etc., that should be found); a historian, to
keep an official record of all that should occur; a metallurgist, to
examine ores; and an orientalist, learned in foreign tongues, who would
interpret what the western peoples might say to the newcomers who
claimed the heathen lands for Spain. Besides these, there were two other
learned men--a physician and a surgeon. Columbus himself was to act as
map-maker and chart-maker. Strange to say, there is no record of a
priest accompanying the expedition.
The great seriousness of the undertaking was felt more and more in Palos
as work on the little caravels progressed. People spoke of it in awed
tones and shook their heads dismally. Every day during the last week or
two all the crew went religiously and faithfully to church. Columbus,
being a religious man, no doubt approved of this; yet it surely would
have sent him forth in better spirits if his crew had looked upon his
venture more light-heartedly, and less as if they were foredoomed to
destruction.
Now that we know the sort of men and ships that were to take part in
this mighty enterprise, let us see the sort of charts and maps and
instruments our navigator carried along; for until one understands these
somewhat, one cannot realize the bravery it took to set out across the
Atlantic in 1492. First, as to maps. Now that this world of ours has
been so thoroughly explored that every bit of land and water is named
and accurately noted, it is difficult for us to understand how the
inaccurate, incomplete, fifteenth-century map could have been of any use
whatever to an explorer. But we must always remember that our Genoese
had a rich imagination. Our maps leave nothing to the imagination,
either of the man who makes them or of us who look at them. Fifteenth-
century maps, on the contrary, were a positive feast for the fifteenth-
century imagination! Their wild beasts and queer legends fascinated as
well as terrified. Their three distinct Indies, two in Asia and one in
Africa, offered every sailor who was intrepid enough a chance to reach
that region of wealth. The latest and most accurate map, marking the
Portuguese discoveries, would really have been helpful to any one who
had not the "Go West" idea so firmly fixed in his mind; but in that one
direction it marked no routes farther than the Madeiras and the Azores.
All beyond these islands was wholly imagination.
It was the same with the sea-charts; no soundings or currents were
marked. As to instruments, there were the lodestone and the compass,
which had been known and used for several centuries; and the astrolabe,
a recent improvement on the primitive quadrant for taking the altitude
of the sun. The hourglass was the time measurer. In short, in that
wonderful fifteenth century, when the surface of the world was doubled,
there was nothing scientific about navigation.
Beyond these slight aids, Christopher Columbus had to rely on an
imperfect knowledge of astronomy and on those practical observations of
wind and weather and water that he had made during his own voyages. Such
slender equipment, plus the tub-like little caravels, would not have
invited many men to try unknown waters, unless such men had
Christopher's blessed gifts of imagination and persistency.
At last the solemn hour has come to those quaking Palos souls. It is
early dawn of August 3, and a Friday at that! The _Santa Maria_ and
the _Pinta_ and the _Nina_ are moored out in the copper-
colored river, ready to go with the tide. Last night the last sack of
flour and the last barrel of wine came aboard; likewise, the last
straggler of the crew, for they must be ready for the early tide. It is
still quite dark, and on the shore all Palos appears to be running about
with lanterns. Friar Juan is there to wring the hands of the one-time
wanderer who came to his gate, and to assure him that one of the Rabida
monks will conduct Columbus's little son Diego safely to Cordova.
Columbus is rowed out to the largest ship. He gives the command and
those ashore hear the pulling up of anchors, the hoisting of sails, and
the cutting of moorings. Then the flags are raised--the Admiral's with a
great cross in the center--and down the murky Tinto go the three little
caravels with their unwilling, frightened, human freight. Those on shore
turn tearfully into church to pray; and those aboard watch the dim
outline of Palos fade away; by and by they notice that the reddish Tinto
has become the blue ocean sparkling in the early sunshine; but no
sparkle enters their timid souls. They can only keep looking longingly
backward till the last tawny rocks of Spain and Portugal are left
behind, and then there is nothing to do but sigh and mutter a dismal
prayer. But Christopher's prayer is one of thankfulness.