THE QUEST OF 
 THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 FRANCIS ROLT WHEELER 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Alex •■■'. Brovm 
 
Cornell University Library 
 The quest ot the western world 
 
 ,. 3 1924 031 177 912 
 olin.anx 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031177912 
 
Bomance-History of America: II 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE 
 WESTERN WORLD 
 
 FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER 
 
By FRANCIS BOLT-WHEELER 
 
 Roimd the World with The Boy Journalists 
 Plotting in Pirate Seas 
 Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Anises 
 
 Rotncmce-History of Atnerica 
 
 In the Days Before CoI/Umbcs 
 The Quest op the Western World 
 
 NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DOR AN COMPANY 
 
A PRISONER OF Tin; COQUISTADORS 
 
 The Great Montezuma last Empeior of the Aztecs was seized liy Cortes and 
 held as a hostage in an endeavor to maintain the Spaniards in power over the 
 Aztec Nation. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE 
 WESTERN WORLD 
 
 BY 
 FRANCIS ^OLT-WHEELER 
 
 Author of "In the Days Before Columbus," "Plotting in 
 Pirate Seas," "Hunting Hidden Treasure in the 
 Andes," "The Boy with the TT. S. Cen- 
 sus," "The Aztec-Hunters," etc. 
 
 With a Frontispiece hy 
 
 C. A. FEDERER 
 
 And Many Illustrations 
 
 and Maps 
 
 NEW ^%Slr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COFYBIGHT, 1931, 
 SX GEOBGE H. DOEAX COMFAITY 
 
 PRIM-TED IN THE TTSTnED STATES OP AUEBICA 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Betokd the Sea of Darkness . . ,.-. ,,-, c« k 11 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Isles of the Blest «- w c.i 34« 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Men of the Dragon Ships . . .1 . :.■ ,. 64 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 When West Was East ...... w i., i. 98 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Days of Columbus' Glory . . . i.-. i.i . ISO 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Downfall of Columbus . . . i., ;.i », 156 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Discovery of South America . . ,. 1.. » 17^ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The New World Realized .,,.■„ i.> i.i 190 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Conquistador in North America . . . i. 215 
 
 V 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Paob 
 
 The Pacific Coast Explorations . i.; • ..i . 235 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 French Sailormen and Protestants ... • 257 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The English Privateers ..... :.i . . 284 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A Prisoxer of the Conquistadors. Montezuma the 
 
 Last Emperor of the Aztecs .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Known World in the Homeric Times ... 16 
 
 A Map of the World According to Pomponius 
 
 Mela 17 
 
 Part of the Pizigani Map of 1367 Showing the 
 
 Isles of the Blest 40 
 
 Lief Ericsson Makes the First Trans-Atlantic 
 
 Passage 72 
 
 Lief Ericsson Discovers the Coast of America . 73 
 
 The Landing of the Vikings 73 
 
 The Gokstad Ship 80 
 
 A Model of a Viking Ship 80 
 
 The Expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefni ... 81 
 
 Columbus Seeking Shelter at the Convent of La 
 
 RiBIDA 136 
 
 Columbus Ridiculed by the Council of Salamanca 160 
 
 Columbus Shows Proof of His Discoveries to Fer- 
 dinand AND Isabel 160 
 
 The Santa Maria. A Model from the Original 
 
 Records Preserved in Spain 161 
 
 The Replica of the Santa Maria Built in 1892 
 
 Under Sail 161 
 
 The Four Voyages of Columbus 184 
 
 vii 
 
viu ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FAOS 
 
 The Canting Chart Showing the Division of the 
 World Between the Spaniards and the Portu- 
 guese SOO 
 
 De Soto Discovers the Mississippi 224 
 
 The Explorations op Coronada, de Vaca and de 
 
 Soto 225 
 
 Magellan's Route op Circumnavigation , . . 240 
 
 The New World of 1587 288 
 
 A Spanish Treasure Ship 289 
 
 Sir Francis Drake Sets Out in the Goldeh Hind 304 
 
THE QUEST OF THE 
 [WESTERN WORLD 
 
THE QUEST OF THE 
 WESTERN WORLD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BEYOND THE SEA OF DARKNESS 
 
 Faith and fairy-tale, glory and gold. Such 
 were the Inres which led adventurers to seek that 
 strange land across the sea, about which so many 
 tales were told. 
 
 There were holy-hearted men, who sought to 
 preach the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the 
 earth ; there were men of imagination who sought 
 the Land of Faerie, where happiness is undying; 
 there were ambitious men, who strove to carve 
 for themselves or for their countries a new empire 
 in an unknown world; and there were av^-ricious 
 men, whose desire was lowest of all — Money. 
 
 The history of the discovery, settlement and col- 
 onization of America is less a mere record of 
 facts than a great Romance of Adventure. One 
 of the glories of America is that the continent was 
 settled by men with a vision, and, to this very day, 
 the character of the United States — and other 
 American nations — ^is determined by the ideals of 
 the men who founded it. 
 
 11 
 
12 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Long, long before Columbus set sail, the Quest 
 of a Western World bad begun. Tbe great Geno- 
 ese did not fare fortb to tbe Setting Sun without 
 fore-runners. He was not adventuring upon an 
 uncrossed sea. It was no creation of bis brain 
 tbat land lay to tbe westward. 
 
 Far from itl For centuries, fable, mytb and 
 legend bad buzzed of tbe Dark Land of tbe Pbce- 
 nicians, of tbe Atlantis of tbe Greeks, of tbe Isl- 
 ands of tbe Blest, of Greater Ireland, and of Vin- 
 land. True, Columbus went adventuring, but 
 ratber to prove or disprove tbese mytbs tban to 
 seek an unknown land. 
 
 Consider a moment bow widely spread all along 
 tbe coast of Europe was tbis belief in a western 
 world. In Scandinavia, in Iceland and the Heb- 
 rides, men spoke and sang tbe sagas which told 
 of Norse colonies in Greenland, in Newfoundland, 
 and, possibly, in Massachusetts. In Ireland, the 
 bards chanted of a "Greater Ireland" to the west 
 beyond tbe sea, and sang of the Voyage of Mael- 
 dune, of St. Brendan, and of those who had visited 
 the Blessed Islands. In Wales, the bards and his- 
 torians told of tbe two voyages of Prince Madoc, 
 the second with ten ships and three hundred men. 
 In Brittany, the fisher-folk recounted tbe tale of 
 Jean Cousin, who had been blown in a storm to 
 a great land across the sea. 
 
 Nor, in the two lands which Columbus knew 
 best — Italy, his birthplace, and Spain, the land of 
 his adoption — ^was there any lack of legend. Long 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 13 
 
 before, the Carthaginians and Phoenicians had 
 quarreled as to which should settle a great oceanic 
 land, already occupied by a semi-barbaric civiliza- 
 tion, and which had been discovered by wrecked 
 Phoenician mariners. Horace wrote of the 
 "golden isles beyond the circumambient ocean." 
 St. Jago of Aragon declared that the great ship 
 Pope Luzerne, the mythical giant ship of the 
 Popes, had touched on the shores of a land "where 
 the gold of the sunset had impregnated with gold 
 the earth beneath. " And Pulci, whose great epics 
 were written when Columbus was still a boy, de- 
 clared that the sun hurried westward "to glad 
 expectant nations with his light. ' ' 
 
 To these definite traditions must be added a 
 cluster of myths and fables which ever hung over 
 the Western Sea. It would not be difficult to name 
 a hundred such. The deeds of Columbus and the 
 navigators of his time are more easily under- 
 stood when the existence of these myths is remem- 
 bered. 
 
 Did Columbus know these legends? Some, at 
 least, he knew. It is more than probable that he 
 knew many of them. He and his family were car- 
 tographers by profession. As map-makers, it was 
 their business and their duty to search for every 
 possible scrap of information that dealt with is- 
 lands, shoals or shores. Their work brought them 
 in close contact with mariners from many lands. 
 They had access to all the maps which had been 
 made at that time. 
 
14 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 There is a strong prestunption that, if anyone 
 should have known these legends, Columbus would 
 have been that one. Were that the case, it does 
 not diminish his glory. At the same time, there is 
 no reason why his fame should be allowed to dim 
 the luster of earlier adventurers or to rob them 
 of the honor which to them truly belongs. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be just to ask — ^Who were 
 these first Adventurers? Historically, it were 
 more true to ask — ^What tales are told of these 
 first Adventurers? Thus regarded, myth and 
 legend are given their just due, and no more. If, 
 thereafter, the severer genius of History can show 
 therein a dear series of links back to the distant 
 past, so much the better, but, whether or no, the 
 interest and the glamor of the legends remain. 
 
 The earliest of these traditions is undoubtedly 
 that of the voyage of the ships of Hiram, King of 
 Tyre, in search of silver, which he had promised 
 to furnish King Solomon of Israel for the build- 
 ing of the Temple. Such discovery of America — 
 if, indeed, the Phoenician sailors achieved it — 
 was not a westerly, but an easterly adventure. 
 The legend has often been niisrepresented, in 
 such wise as to suggest that the men of Tyre and 
 of Jerusalem sailed from their Mediterranean 
 ports, through the Straits of Gibraltar, and across 
 the Atlantic Ocean. The tradition itself states, on 
 the contrary, that the Phoenicians sailed from a 
 port on the Red Sea and traveled by way of the 
 Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 15 
 
 In the Old Testament are two references to this 
 voyage : ' ' Then went Solomon to Ezion-geber, and 
 to Eloth, at the seaside in the land of Edom. And 
 Hiram sent him, by the hands of his servants, 
 ships and servants that had knowledge of the sea ; 
 and they went with the servants of Solomon to 
 Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty 
 talents of gold, and brought them to King Solo- 
 mon." (II Chronicles viii, 17-18.) And again: 
 ' * For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with 
 the navy of Hiram ; once in three years came the 
 navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, 
 ivory, and apes, and peacocks." (I Kings x, 22.) 
 
 Ezion-geber and Eloth are ports at the head of 
 the Gulf of Akabah, which is the eastern arm of 
 the Red Sea, and, therefore, the nearest ports to 
 Palestine leading into the Indian Ocean. Since 
 Solomon himself, with all his court, voyaged 
 thither to witness the embarkation, the occa- 
 sion mtist have been a momentous one. The voy- 
 age contemplated was regarded as of such length 
 and difficulty that seven large ships were built 
 especially for the purpose. The voyage occupied 
 three years and, of the cargo which was brought 
 back, the legend, which amplifies the Scriptural 
 account declares that ivory and apes were taken 
 aboard at India, peacocks at Java, and silver on 
 the South American coast. 
 
 There is a curious confirmation of the legend 
 in the South American Indian tradition of Votan. 
 Both in Mexico and Peru there are legends told 
 
16 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 of this Votan, who claimed to be descended from 
 Igh and Imox, who came from a country known 
 as the Land of Chivim where, at the time, a great 
 temple was in process of being built. Votaa's 
 date — a somewhat hazy one — is usually placed at 
 1050 B, c. Solomon's reign is usually placed 
 between 1000 b. c. and 1050 b. c. There is, thus, 
 an apparent correspondence of dates. 
 
 Moreover, "The Land of Chivim," a word ut- 
 terly unlike any other in American Indian tongues, 
 closely resembles "The Land of Chittim," which 
 was the Phoenician name for their land, during 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries before Christ. 
 Furthermore, all along the line of travel from 
 Arabia to South America there are similarities 
 to ancient Phoenician customs and words. For 
 example, the Areiois Grove worship of the Society 
 Islands resembles the old Astarte Grrove worship 
 of the Phoenicians. Samoa may have been named 
 after Samos, the naval base of the Phoenicians. 
 The Polynesian alphabet has but sixteen letters, 
 as had the Phoenician alphabet prior to its adop- 
 tion by Greece, many centuries later. The sym- 
 bols of the zodiac in the South Seas are mainly 
 Phoenician. The famous Calendar Stone found in 
 Mexico is strikingly Phoenician in resemblance. 
 
 The Votan tradition speaks of Igh and Imox 
 "crossing aja island-strewn lake at the end of 
 the world," a phrase which seems to suggest the 
 South Seas. The people found on the furthest 
 shore were barbarous. ' ' The stars moved to show 
 
THE KNOWN WORLD IN HOMERIC TIMES. 
 
 * 
 
 The earliest accounts of voyages of travel and discovery are lost in a maze of 
 myth and legend. The first traditions from which any degree of geographical 
 direction and information may be obtained are those of early Phoenician traders 
 and sailors. About the fifth century B. C. a Greek geographer and historian 
 named Hecatasus of Miletus travelled extensively throughout the classical world 
 gathering information for his book, the first systematic description of the world, 
 for which the above map was compiled, which shows the world as known to the 
 ancients before the fifth century B. C. 
 
. I 
 
 A MAP OF THE WORLD ACCORDING TO POMPONIUS MELA. 
 
 About the middle of the first century A. D. Pomponius Mela, a Roman eeoe- 
 '^^Mu T'*- f" ^"^ ^"?,™' °' "'^ *""«"' "o^ld in the Latin tongue He 
 added to, the information collected by Hecatseus and corrected and amolifieri'manv 
 
 corrected and amplified many 
 
 to Europe. Northern Africa-Tnd W«te™ AsiaTbi"t ^alue'hints^ega" [o T^pTar 
 of distant seas and lands and especially of the great ocean to the east 
 
 of his mistakes and inaccuracies. The known world was even then stTli" restricted 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS IT 
 
 the ships where to go," declares the Votan legend, 
 and it is known that the Phoenicians steered by 
 the stars. It is worthy of remark that purple dyes 
 were made from shell-fish in Peru in the same- 
 manner as the famous "Tyrian purple" was made 
 by the men of Tyre. The use of counting by knots 
 on colored strings, known as "quipu" and which 
 was peculiar to the Pacific Islanders and to Peru, 
 was known by Herodotus. 
 
 The tremendous maritime power of the Phoe- 
 nicians is not always recognized. Avowedly a na- 
 tion of merchants, not seeking territory and re- 
 fraining from conquest, they were allowed to trade 
 freely. They circumnavigated Africa in 611 b. c. 
 The Flag of Tyre waved on vessels simultaneously 
 in Britain and Ceylon. Phoenician ships were not 
 small. Many of them carried 300 men. 
 
 It is to be remembered, also, that the Phoeni- 
 cians were the first to use the magnet at sea. In 
 the Phoenician fragment of Sanchoniathon, pre- 
 served in a fragment tremslated into Greek by 
 Philo Herennius of Byblus, occurs the first refer- 
 ence to a magnet as "a god-dwelling stone, which 
 moves." The Chinese knowledge of the load- 
 stone may have been earlier, but they did not us© 
 it at sea until several hundred years later. 
 
 A further support is given to the Phoenician 
 passage of the South Seas by the large number 
 of Scythian names in Polynesian, Mioronesian 
 and Melanesian tongues. It is well known that the 
 Phoenician navies contained many Scythian sail- 
 
18 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ors. Thus Tahiti may be derived from Tahiti, the 
 Scythian queen of heaven, and Papeete from Pa- 
 peus, the Scythian king of heaven. It is difficult 
 to explain such marvellous stone-built wharves 
 and quays as exist in Ponaoe, with stones weigh- 
 ing several tons brought from a distant island, 
 unless some civilized race had dwelt or visited 
 there. Such traces by no means prove that Hi- 
 ram's sailors visited the South Seas and crossed 
 to the American coast, but they add interest to the 
 legend. 
 
 The next historical reference to a land beyond 
 the sea speaks of it as westerly. Homer, who 
 may have lived about 850 b. c, says in the Odys- 
 sey: "But he (Neptune) had gone to the Ethio- 
 pians who dwell afar off. The Ethiopians, who are 
 divided into two parts, are the most distant of 
 men, some living at the setting of the sun, some at 
 its rising." 
 
 Crates, the commentator of Homer, declared 
 that the epic bard spoke of: "Oceanus, which 
 separated the two great divisions of the Ethio- 
 pians, the eastern in Africa and the western in 
 the Hesperides." Pliny also located the Western 
 Ethiopians as beyond the western sea. 
 
 This is followed by the famous tradition of 
 "The Lost Atlantis." The report dates back to 
 605 B. c, when certain Egyptian priests recounted 
 to Solon, the great Athenian legislator, the history 
 of a land beyond the sea. Plato, writing in 398 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 19 
 
 B. c, in his "Timaeus," puts into the mouth of 
 Critias the following statement : 
 
 "A strange tale, but certainly true, as Solon 
 declared, which had come down in his family from 
 his ancestor Dropidas, a near relative of Solon. 
 When Solon was in Egypt, he fell into talk with an 
 aged priest of Sais, who said to him : 
 
 " 'Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children, 
 there is not one old (wise) man in Greece. You 
 have no traditions and know of but one deluge, 
 whereas there have been many destructions of 
 mankhid, both by flood and by fire. . . . 
 
 " 'More, you are ignorant of your own past. 
 For, long before Deucalion (the Greek Noah), 
 nine thousand years ( ?) ago, there was an Athens, 
 founded, like Sais, by Athena, a city rich in power 
 and wisdom, famed for mighty deeds. Of these 
 the greatest was this : 
 
 " 'At that time there lay an island fronting the 
 mouth which you, in your tongue, call "The Pil- 
 lars of Hercules" (Straits of Gibraltar). This 
 island was larger than Libya and Asia put to- 
 gether, and there was passage thence for the trav- 
 eler of that day to the rest of the islands, as well 
 as from those islands to the continent beyond. 
 The sea in front of the Pillars (straits) was in- 
 deed but a small harbor; that which lay beyond 
 the islands, however, was worthy of the name of 
 ocean, and the land which surrounded that greater 
 sea might truly be called a continent. 
 
 " 'In this Island of Atlantis had grown up a 
 
20 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 mighty power, whose kings were descended from 
 Poseidon (god of the sea) and had extended their 
 sway over many islands and over a portion of the 
 great continent. Even Libya (North Africa) np 
 to the gates of Egypt and Europe as far as Tyr- 
 rhenia (Etruria=Italy) submitted to their sway. 
 
 " 'Then, Solon! did the strength of your re- 
 public become dear to all men, by reason of her 
 courage and force. Foremost in the arts of war, 
 she met the invader at the head of Greece. Aban- 
 doned by her allies, she triumphed alone over the 
 western foe, delivering from the yoke all the na- 
 tions within the Pillars (straits). But, after- 
 wards, came a day and a night of great floods and 
 earthquakes. The earth engulfed all the Athen- 
 ians capable of bearing arms, and Atlantis disap- 
 'peared, swallowed up by the waves. Hence it is 
 that this sea (Atlantic Ocean) is no longer navi- 
 gable by reason of the vast mud-shoals left by this 
 vanished island. ' " 
 
 "Whether the Egyptian priest's tale referred to 
 the continent of America or no, it must be left for 
 the reader to judge. Geologists are agreed that 
 the bed of the Atlantic Ocean shows no signs of 
 any such submerged island. A narrow knife-like 
 ridge, known as "Dolphin Eidge," breaks the At- 
 lantic into two "deeps" and Dolphin Eidge is 
 far below the level where any land elevation is 
 likely to have brought it above the surface of 
 the sea. 
 
 The tale of the war between Atlantis and a for- 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 21 
 
 gotten Greece is evidently fabulous, bnt the state- 
 ment of a continent with a ring of islands pro- 
 truding, opposite the Straits of Gibraltar, is too 
 similar to the configuration of the continent of 
 America and the circle of the West Indies to pass 
 without heedful notice. 
 
 In a fragment of Anaxagoras, preserved by 
 Simplioimus, a century later than Solon, there is 
 a reference to a great division of the world be- 
 yond the ocean. 
 
 One hundred and fifty years later, Aelian 
 quotes from the historian Theopompus, the state- 
 ment that the Meropians (a mythical people of 
 divine origin) inhabited a large continent beyond 
 the ocean, compared to which the whole then- 
 known world was no larger than an island. 
 
 Aristotle carried on the tradition. In his 
 "Treatise on the World," in 335 b. c, he says: 
 
 "The whole habitable world consists of an is- 
 land surrounded by an ocean (called by him the 
 'Atlantic'). It is probable, however, that many 
 other lands exist opposite to this, across the ocean, 
 some less, some greater than this, but, all except 
 this, invisible to us." 
 
 In a work often attributed to Aristotle, but not 
 proved to be from his pen, though undoubtedly 
 by a contemporary, occurs another passage deal- 
 ing with this subject : 
 
 "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules, they say that 
 an uninhabited island was discovered by the Car- 
 thaginians, which abounds in forests and navi- 
 
22 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 gable rivers and fruits of all kinds, distant from 
 this continent many days' sail; and while the Car- 
 thaginians were engaged in making voyages to 
 this land, and some had even settled there on ao- 
 coimt of the fertility of the soil, the Senate de- 
 creed that no one thereafter, under penalty of 
 death, should voyage thither, and they caused 
 to be put to death all of the settlers lest they 
 should reveal its existence to other nations." 
 
 In much greater detail, and with considerable 
 variation in the story, Diodorus Siculus, in 21 
 B. c, gives a lengthy account of this island of the 
 Carthaginians. He describes it as: "that great 
 island in tbe vast ocean, many days' sail from 
 Libya, westward, where the climate was that of 
 perpetual spring, and where the land was a fit 
 habitation for gods rather than men." 
 
 The discovery, according to Diodorus Siculus, 
 was made by mariners from one of the Phoenician 
 trading colonies in Spain, and was due to an un- 
 seasonable east gale of many days ' duration. Then 
 he continues: 
 
 "Being the first who were acquainted with its 
 beauty and its fertility, they published them to 
 other nations. The Tuscans, when they were mas- 
 ters of the sea, designed to send a colony thither, 
 but the Carthaginians prevented them. On the 
 one hand they were afraid lest their own citizens, 
 tempted by the charms of that island, should pass 
 over thither in great numbers and desert their 
 own country; on the other hand, they looked on it 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 23 
 
 as a sure refuge for themselves if ever a disaster 
 should befall their republic." 
 
 "The soil is very fruitful," wrote Diodorus, "a 
 great part whereof is very mountainous, but with 
 much pasture. ... It is watered with several 
 navigable rivers, beautiful with many gardens of 
 pleasure, planted with divers sorts of trees and 
 abundance of orchards interlaced with currents of 
 sweet water. The towns are adorned with stately 
 buildings, and there are many banqueting houses 
 pleasantly situated in their gardens and 
 orchards. ' ' 
 
 As a historian, Diodorus was inclined to be gar- 
 rulous and inexact. There is every reason to be- 
 lieve that these orchards and banqueting houses 
 are a flight of fancy. It is possible, but improb- 
 able, that this refers to the irrigationists of Cen- 
 tral America, in the pre-Maya period. 
 
 A much more historical reference, which bears 
 upon it a most unexpected stamp of accuracy and 
 knowledge, is made by Statins Sebosus and quoted 
 by Pliny. In this it is said that the "two Hes- 
 perides" are forty-two days' sail to the west from 
 the coast of Africa. The two Hesperides are 
 "guarded by lesser islands," a fair description 
 of Cuba and- Haiti, ringed by the Bahama and An- 
 tilles groups of the West Indies. It is a remark- 
 able coincidence that it took Columbus exactly 
 forty-two days' sailing to the West Indies from 
 the port of Palos, Spain. 
 
S4 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 The great geographer Strabo, about the b&- 
 ginning of the Christian era, declared: 
 
 "It is quite possible that, in the temperate 
 zone, there may be two or even more habitable 
 earths, especially on the circle drawn through 
 Athens and the Atlantic Ocean." (Washington 
 is on nearly the same latitude as Athens.) 
 
 Of this possible land he says, elsewhere: 
 
 "It belongs to another science to give an exact 
 description of the whole earth and of the entire 
 vertebra of either zone, and as to whether the 
 vertebra in the opposite quarter of the earth is 
 inhabited by the same race of men as dwell with 
 us. Yet it must be regarded as another habitable 
 earth." 
 
 But what shall one say of a North American 
 Indian visiting Europe before the Christian Era ! 
 Does this seem extravagant! Hear the witness 
 of Q. Metellus Celer, as quoted by Cornelius 
 Nepos, an eminent Eoman historian, and cited by 
 Pomponius Mela, a geographer of the first cen- 
 tury after Christ. He says : 
 
 "When he, Metellus, was pro-consul in Gaul, 
 63 B. c, certain Indians (Asiatics) were sent to 
 him as a gift from the King of the Batavi (a tribe 
 inhabiting northern Flanders). Upon enquiring 
 from whence they had come, they answered that 
 they had been driven by storms from the coast 
 over the intervening oceans until they had landed 
 on the east of Belgioa (Belgium)." 
 
 With such evidence, it is not strange that Seneca 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 25 
 
 the Younger should refer to a western land. Like 
 his equally famous father, Seneca was a native of 
 Spain, and one of the great Eoman orators and 
 men of letters. Writing, in 50 a. d., in his trag- 
 edy "Medea," he prophesies of the discovery of 
 America. 
 
 In the chorus which closes the second act of his 
 tragedy, he begins by celebrating the daring of the 
 earliest voyagers who sailed into unknown seas 
 even before mariners had learned to steer their 
 courses by the stars. He tells how, when the Ar- 
 gonauts of Greek mythology had returned in tri- 
 umph, the ocean lost its terrors and men had no 
 need to ask Minerva (Athena) to build them an- 
 other Argo, since they could then build their own 
 ships and sail them whithersoever they would. 
 Then comes the famous phrase : 
 
 "In later years an age shall come, when the 
 ocean shall relax its bonds, a great continent shall 
 be laid open and new lands revealed. Then Thule 
 (the furthest known land, possibly the Shetland 
 or Orkney Islands) shall not be the remotest land 
 known on the earth." 
 
 The version of western exploration given by 
 Plutarch, in 100 a. d., is lengthy, confused and 
 full of fabulous references and heady imaginings. 
 Yet there is one feature of his trans-oceanic de- 
 scription which is worthy of the most careful con- 
 sideration. 
 
 In brief, Plutarch declares that there is an is- 
 land five days' sail westward from Britaia. Be- 
 
86 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 yond that, to the west, lie three other islands, with 
 about the same distance between them. Beyond 
 these, at a distance of five thousand stadia (over 
 575 miles), there lies a great continent bordering 
 all the ocean. Furthermore, visitors to that re- 
 gion observed that, for thirty days, the nocturnal 
 disappearance of the sun below the horizon had 
 lasted only one hour. 
 
 There are several points of importance in this 
 record. First of all, it is to be remembered that 
 the Romans did not possess the compass, and that 
 the "west" meant the place of the setting sun. In 
 summer, the sun sets several points to the north 
 of west. If the ships of which Plutarch wrote 
 went to the northwestward from "Thule" they 
 might pass the Faroe Islands, beyond them Ice- 
 land, and, further on, Greenland. Yet further, 
 comes the continental coast of Labrador, and 
 there, in summertime, the nights are but one 
 hour long. 
 
 It is, indeed, the latter point which gives cre- 
 dence to the tale. A night of one hour in length 
 is scarcely the sort of story to be invented at ran- 
 dom, and, when modem knowledge proves it to 
 be true, Plutarch's description can scarcely be 
 classed as anything other than a true, but dis- 
 torted, traveler's account. 
 
 Toward the end of that century the power of 
 Eome fell, after the murder of Gommodus. Then 
 came the century of the "barrack emperors," fol- 
 lowed by the division of the Roman Empire into 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 27 
 
 twin powers of east and west, with capitals both 
 at Eome and Constantinople. Internal troubles 
 weakened Eome and she fell a prey to the Bar- 
 barians. This was no time either for the schol- 
 arly geographer or the adventurous mariner. 
 
 Many, many centuries passed before Europe 
 again turned her eyes to the westward, and then, 
 as will be shown hereinafter, it was the glory of 
 the Celtic Eace to lead. 
 
 There is but one reference prior to that time, 
 wherein an unknown writer, in Arabic, tells of: 
 "a crew of Arabian sailors, who sailed out from 
 Lisbon into the Sea of Darkness. This was a 
 desperate venture, for the watery waste was a 
 vast and boundless ocean on which ships dare not 
 venture out of sight of land, for, even if they 
 knew the direction of the winds, they knew not 
 whither the wind would carry them. Strange 
 sights they saw and strange monsters they met, 
 and they told of a great land beyond, on which 
 they dared not set foot, for if the sea were so 
 fearful, what must the land be!" 
 
 Yet, though neither Phoenician galley or Eoman 
 trireme ploughed the western sea, legend goes on 
 to tell of other discoveries of America on its Pa- 
 cific shore. There are several of these. In the 
 main, many of them may be true, but they are so 
 nebulous in statement and so lacking in definite- 
 ness of date as to be of value only when consider- 
 ing the Asian immigration which, probably, firsi; 
 peopled the shores of this continent. 
 
28 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Very different from these vague legends — such 
 as the Quiche, Manabi, Cara and Chimu traditions 
 — is the circumstantial tale of the discovery of 
 the Land of Fu-Sang by the Buddhist monks in the 
 fifth century after Christ. It differs from all 
 other traditions in the two important facts that 
 the supposed voyager returned to his own country 
 with the news, and in that it was entered upon the 
 oflSoial annals of his country. 
 
 The report is found in the Liang-shu (Rec- 
 ords of the Liang Dynasty) and was written there- 
 in by Li Yen-shau, who lived at the beginning of 
 the seventh century. It forms a part of the Great 
 Annals of China, and these, as is well known, are 
 pedantically accurate, when it was possible for 
 them to be. Eight official translations, all differ- 
 ing in some degree, have been made of the text. 
 One of the latest is by E. P. Vining, and (with 
 some additions from the other translators) is as 
 follows : 
 
 "In the first year of the Ta'i Dynasty (499 
 A. D.) which year is known by the designation 
 Tung- Yuen (Everlasting Foundation) a Buddhist 
 priest, named Hwui-Shan, came to King-cheu 
 from a certain country, and narrated the follow- 
 ing account regarding that country of Fu-Sang. 
 
 "Fu-Sang is situated twice ten thousand 11 
 (nearly 6,000 miles) or more to the east of the 
 Great Han country. That land is also situated 
 at the end of the Middle Kingdom (China). That 
 region has many fu-sang trees and it is from these 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 29 
 
 trees that the country derives its name. The leaves 
 of the fu-sang resemble . . . (translators differ 
 as to the meaning). The first sprouts are like those 
 of the bamboo. The fruit (probably of the same 
 tree, but the Chinese text does not definitely say 
 so) is like a pear, but of a reddish color. They 
 (the inhabitants) spin thread from its bark, of 
 which they make clothing. They also manufacture 
 a finer silk-like fabric from it. 
 
 '- They make houses of planks. They have writ- 
 ing characters and make paper from the bark of 
 the fu-sang. They have no military weapons or 
 armor and they do not wage war in that kingdom, ' ' 
 
 Then follows a long account of the nature of 
 government and on the punishment of criminals 
 in the Land of Fu-Sang, none of which has the 
 slightest reference to any customs known, to have 
 existed in America. The account continues : 
 
 ' ' The king of the country, when he walks abroad, 
 is preceded and followed with drums and horns. 
 The color of his garments is changed according to 
 the mutations of the years. The first and second 
 years of a cycle they are blue; the third and 
 fourth, they are red; the fifth and sixth years^ 
 yellow; the seventh and eighth years, white; and 
 the ninth andJtenth years, black. 
 
 "They have burdened cattle horns which are 
 very long. (This sentence is obscure. Trans- 
 lators differ as to whether this refers to long- 
 homed cattle, or to cattle which carry burdens, or 
 to horns used as containers for grain, etc.) They 
 
30 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 have carts drawn by horses, cattle and deer. The 
 people of the country raise deer as cattle are 
 raised in the Middle Kingdom (China). From 
 milk they make koumiss (or butter). 
 
 ' ' The pears keep unspoiled throughout the year, 
 and they have . . , (translators differ, possibly 
 either grapes, apples, peaches or tomatoes). The 
 ground is destitute of iron, but they have copper. 
 Gold and silver (are so common that they) are 
 not valued. In their markets are no taxes nor 
 fixed prices." 
 
 Then follows a discussion on marriage and 
 mourning ceremonies, which are described as 
 being of a character greatly resembling those of 
 the Chinese. The account continues : 
 
 "Formerly they were ignorant and knew noth- 
 ing of the Buddhist religion, but, during the reign 
 of the Sung Dynasty, in the second year (458 
 A. D.) of the period called Ta-ming (Great Bright- 
 ness) from the country of Ea-pin (location un- 
 known) five mendicant Buddhist monks went by 
 a sea voyage to that country and made Buddha's 
 rules and his books and images known there. They 
 taught the people to leave their families (to take 
 up a monastic life) and finally reformed the rude- 
 ness of the customs of the people." 
 
 It would be difficult to find an account more puz- 
 zling and confusing than this one. The state- 
 ments which discredit it are almost equal to those 
 which give it a right to be considered seriously. 
 The principal features which tell against it are 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 31 
 
 the ten-year cycle, the use of horses and cattle, the 
 knowledge of wheeled carts, and the milking of 
 deer. None of these belonged in any part of 
 America at that time. 
 
 On the other hand, there is no continent but 
 America which lies to the east of China. The dis- 
 tance, nearly 6,000 miles, is not very far wrong. 
 To no other part of the world would it be neces- 
 sary for the Buddhist monks to make a sea voy- 
 age. The prickly pear does have a reddish fruit, 
 from it fibers are taken off two or three grades of 
 fineness and both paper and clothing were mad© 
 from it. In the north, the Haida lived in houses 
 made of planks, and they worked copper, though 
 they knew no iron. In Mexico, written characters 
 were used. In South America, gold and silver 
 were common. 
 
 A curious development lies in another part of 
 the account by the same writer, where he speaks 
 of a country of women warriors, east of the land 
 of the Fu-Sang. East of the western shores of 
 South America is the land of the Amazon River, 
 and it is well known that the Spaniards gave this 
 name to the stream because they believed that the 
 women warriors, the Amazons, lived there. 
 
 This Fu-Sang story is neither so strange nor so 
 improbable as it appears at first sight. It is known 
 that the Chinese traveled to various islands, far 
 from the Asian mainland. It is more than prob- 
 able that many boatloads of Asiatics became im- 
 migrants and settlers on American shores. It is 
 
32 THE QUEST OP THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 possible that some Buddhist monks may have 
 crossed the ocean. 
 
 It is more likely, however, that Buddhist monks 
 crossed from the Asiatic mainland to the islands. 
 They must have done so, for these islands are 
 Buddhistic. There they may have met islanders 
 who had, in some way, received news from earlier 
 immigrants. Such a situation would, indeed, give 
 the belief that there was a land across the sea, a 
 land already inhabited, but settled prior to the 
 spread of Buddhism. This was actually the case. 
 If the monks had not gone there themselves, noth- 
 ing would be more natural than, for them to string 
 together all the information they had received 
 from various sources and to present it as a con- 
 nected tale. 
 
 Legendary, indeed, this voyage of the Buddhist 
 monks across the Pacific Ocean may be, but fab- 
 ulous, it is not. It affirms definitely a Chinese 
 knowledge of a continent beyond the sea, east of 
 China, at a distance of nearly 6,000 mUes, where 
 the people were not Buddhists, but where they had 
 attained a certain rude civilization. This state- 
 ment, moreover, was inscribed in the official an- 
 nals of China eight centuries before Columbus. 
 Whether legend or tradition, the truths it contains 
 and the formality of its recording, demand a re- 
 spectful notice. 
 
 In the ancient and classic ages of the world's 
 history, therefore, Phoenicians, Egyptians, 
 Greeks, Carthaginians, Tuscans, Bomans, Arabi- 
 
THE SEA OF DARKNESS 33 
 
 ans and Chinese possessed traditions more or less 
 definite of a great continent across the seas, not 
 only populated, but semi-civilized. Yet these tra- 
 ditions were evidently very vague, so vague that 
 there is no positive assurance as to the origin of 
 them. 
 
 They give no certain clue. They show, only, that 
 in those long-ago days, which seem themselves so 
 mythical and remote, men's eyes were already 
 turned to the westward, and seers were prophesy- 
 ing of the time when, in the words of Seneca: 
 "the ocean shall relax its bonds, a great continent 
 shall be laid open, new lands revealed, and Thule 
 shall not then be the remotest land on earth." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ISLES OP THE BLEST 
 
 Celtic imagination and poesy color all the leg- 
 ends and traditions of the pre-Columbian discov- 
 ery of America which are recounted by the peo- 
 ples of the Orkneys and Shetlands, by the High- 
 land Scotch, by the Irish, by the British and Corn- 
 ish, and by the Breton. Moreover, since these 
 were Christian countries, and the people who 
 dwelt in them of great piety, almost all the leg- 
 ends thrill with religious fervor and with a belief 
 in miracle. They differ, utterly, from the char- 
 acter of classic myth and there is no reason to 
 suppose that the Celts knew of the writings and 
 writers of Pagan Eome. 
 
 In some form or another, all Celtic peoples 
 speak of a land beyond the Western Sea as an 
 abode of happiness and all delights. This is found 
 even in pre-Christian days. Perhaps the earliest 
 forms of this legend, are those of "Tir na n'Og," 
 the Land of Youth, or "Tir na m-Beo," the Land 
 of the Living. Angus Og, who corresponds to 
 Pan in Greek mythology, offers "to those who 
 live clean" a home "in the land where the sun 
 goes daily to renew his strength." 
 
 34 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 35 
 
 Most of the references to this Land of Promise, 
 speak of it as an island or a group of islands. 
 Thus, in the Scotch Hebrides, the legends tell of 
 "Mag Mon" the Plain of Sports, and ^'Mag 
 Mell" the Happy Plain, In Ireland, the tales 
 run of "Tir Taingiri" the Promised Land, of 
 "Im Chiuin" the Very Mild Land, and many 
 more. The Comishman and the Breton look with 
 longing eyes to "Hy Breasail" the Fortunate 
 Isles, and this latter name (as Hy Brasil) became 
 so thoroughly recognized as a definite place, that, 
 as late as the seventeenth century, it appears on 
 all the charts of the Atlantic Ocean, far to the 
 west of the Azores. 
 
 These earliest myths of the Celtic peoples read 
 like fairy tales. They could do nothing else. In 
 those early childhood times, the world itself was 
 most strange, and, immediately outside the region 
 of familiar experience, was but a shifting cloud- 
 land of fancy. Here, indeed, might dwell monsters 
 or mermaids ; devils or angels. Myth merged into 
 fable, and legend took toll of both. Almost aU 
 men believed that, toward the west and north, 
 sea, land and sky merged into a congealed mass 
 which was the realm of darkness, and beyond this, 
 gaped the immeasurable mouth of the abyss or 
 empty space. To the west and south lay the Gold- 
 en Isles, or the Isles of the Blest. 
 
 The first of these legendary tales which deals 
 with an actual voyage to a land across the Atlan- 
 tic is that of "The Pursuit of Gilla Backer and 
 
36 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 His Horse." It is one of the few pre-Christian 
 sagas, and therefore of enormous interest by rea^ 
 son of its antiquity. 
 
 The earliest race known in Ireland were the 
 Goidels, a Neolithic race, and the Formoriaus, a 
 race apparently kin to the Lapps, low-browed, 
 stunted and dark-skinned. Both these races seem 
 to have lived in earth-burrows, to have been utter- 
 ly savage hunters and fishermen, ignorant of 
 metal or pottery — possibly, even of the use of fire 
 — and to have used weapons and tools of stone. 
 The Nemedians were the next occupants, but of 
 them little is known. These were conquered by 
 the Firbolgs, a Belgic race. The latter, in turn — 
 at the famous prehistoric battle of Moytura — ^were 
 defeated by the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Tua- 
 tha-na-Danaan, who were in turn conquered by 
 the Milesians, who set up the High Kingdom at 
 Tara. 
 
 The tale of "The Pursuit of Gilla Backer and 
 His Horse" tells how, on the Celtic Feast of the 
 Sun-god, while Finn McCool (a legendary hero) 
 and his men were feasting after the hxmt, they 
 saw a Formorian of repulsive ugliness coming 
 towards them, leading by his halter a giant horse 
 even uglier than himself. The Formorian gave 
 his name as Gilla Backer and promised to serve 
 Finn McCool, providing that proper care be taken 
 of his horse. 
 
 The king accepted and the giant horse was let 
 loose in the pasture. At once it attacked the other 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 37 
 
 horses, kicking and biting until every animal was 
 killed. One of Finn's men seized the horse by the 
 halter, but it stood like a rock. The warrior 
 mounted the beast, and thirteen others also found 
 room on its back. They all flogged the giant 
 horse, but it did not stir. 
 
 Then Gilla Backer rose up angrily to depart, 
 because of the maltreatment of his steed, and the 
 horse followed him. "Then," says the tale, "all 
 at once changing his pace, he set out with long 
 strides, and if you know what the speed of a swal- 
 low is, or the fairy wind of a March day, then you 
 can understand Gilla Backer as he ran down the 
 hillside toward the southwest and into the sea. 
 Neither was the horse behindhand in the race, for, 
 though the fourteen warriors on his back formed 
 a heavy load, he galloped like the wind after his 
 master." 
 
 Finn and his men were compelled to foUow, in 
 order to rescue their companions. On the way 
 to the sea they met two youths in royal robes, one 
 of whom declared he had the magic art to con- 
 struct a ship by a charm, while the other claimed 
 to have the gift of tracking a ship over the sea. 
 Finn accepted them as of his company, and, in 
 the magic-made ship, they sailed westward after 
 Gilla Backer and his horse, on which the warriors 
 had disappeared. 
 
 After many days of sailing over unknown seas, 
 seeing many strange sights, the magic ship 
 stopped in front of an island with steep rocky 
 
38 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 clififs. There Dermot of the Bright Face, 
 learned in Druidical lore, climbed the cliff by en- 
 chantment, and found the summit flat and covered 
 with grass. On the meadow he found a well with 
 a tall pillar beside it, and, near by a drinking- 
 horn chased with gold. Dermot dipped some water 
 from the well and drank. An armed warrior 
 sprang from the well and fought with Dermot. 
 They fought all day, and at night the warrior 
 leaped into the well again. So the second day, 
 also. On the third day, at nightfall, Dermot 
 clasped the strange warrior by the waist and 
 leaped into the well. There he found himself in 
 " Tir-f a-ton, " the Land Below the Sea, and there 
 he rescued the fourteen heroes who had been car- 
 ried off by the horse. 
 
 Meanwhile, for a year and a day, Finn McCool 
 and his men explored the island "and the great 
 land beyond, and found it fair, with fruit giving 
 a red juice, the drink of which made men sleep. 
 There were trees there also, big enough for pirates 
 to make into ships." 
 
 When it is remembered that, a thousand years 
 later, the Norsemen found "Vineland" to be no- 
 table for its grapes and its trees, it seems not be- 
 yond the bounds of possibility that some knowl- 
 edge of a distant land had reached Ireland, even 
 in those early days. It is conjectured that some 
 of the Formorians may have fled over-seas from 
 their oppressors, and that this legend refers to 
 such a tradition. 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 39 
 
 The next great tale of a trans-Atlantic voyage, 
 which, in some ways, contains even more fabulous 
 material than that of Gilla Dacker, is the "Voy- 
 age of Maeldune." This hero was the son of 
 Ailill Molt, or Ailill of the battles, who was High 
 King of Ireland, 463-483 a. d. The voyage was 
 first a coasting journey, but, because Maeldune 's 
 foster-brothers insisted on joining the crew, thus 
 giving more men than a druid had bidden them 
 take, they were driven out to sea. 
 
 They passed, in turn, an island with ants as big 
 as foals; an island covered with birds, but in no 
 wise harmful; an island with a monstrous beast 
 like a horse, with long sharp nails, with which he 
 picked up stones and threw at the boat ; an island 
 with demon horsemen ; an island with a house of 
 plenty where no one lived, but where the voyagers 
 found tables set with food and drink; an island 
 with a whirling beast ; an island with cannibalistic 
 horses ; an island with fiery pigs ; an island with 
 a magic cat ; an island with huge calves ; an island 
 with a large mill on it, in which everything that 
 is begrudged is ground ; an island with four fences, 
 of gold, silver, brass and crystal ; an island with a 
 beautiful woman who vanished; an island which 
 was made of a small sod of Irish soil which a pil- 
 grim had taken in his boat and which grew larger 
 every year ; an island with a well which gave water 
 on weekdays, milk on Sundays, and beer or mead 
 on Saints ' days ; an island with giant blacksmiths ; 
 and thence Maeldune and his comrades came to 
 
40 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 a clear sea, and aftex^ard to a cold and cloudy 
 sea, and after that to a thin sea, in which the water 
 was hardly dense enough to float the boat. These 
 three seas took them many days ' rowing to cross. 
 
 At this point the narrative changes somewhat 
 in character, and becomes distinctly less fabulous 
 and more material. On the further side of these 
 three seas they found a large island, and on the 
 water around it were floating great nuts, with in- 
 sides white as snow (coco-nuts?). Thence they 
 passed to another island (or part of the land) 
 where there was a great bow of water (waterfall) 
 and very large salmon were falling from the 
 stream above to the ground of the island. Next 
 they passed through a silver-meshed net and so 
 on to a great land having a plain in it. 
 
 In this place they found seventeen young girls 
 preparing a feast for the seventeen men of Mael- 
 dune's company. Maeldune took the queen of 
 that country to wife and they stayed there aU the 
 winter. In the spring they tried to leave, but 
 were held by enchantment, for each time they 
 rowed from that shore the queen threw a ball of 
 thread, which one of the men could not resist 
 catching and by which she pulled the boat back 
 to land. But, at last, when this was repeated, 
 many times, one of the crew cut off the hand of 
 the comrade which held the thread and so they 
 went free. Then they came to an island with 
 trees on it that gave berries containing a red 
 juice. The drink of this made Maeldune drunk, 
 
PART OF THE PIZIGANI MAP OF 1367 SHOWING THE ISLES OF THE BLEST. 
 
 The navigators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries persistently retained a 
 belief in the ol^er legends of the -lands across the Sea of Darkness, and none of 
 the maos of that period but had some of these legendary lands or islands depicted 
 on them. 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 41 
 
 but when he woke from stupor, he bade his men 
 mix water with the juice and diink it freely "for 
 great is the good in it. " 
 
 Then comes a strange account of an island for- 
 ested with yew-trees and great oaks and, in the 
 midst, a little lake. There they found a church 
 and "an old gray priest in it, and he clothed en- 
 tirely in his own hair." And on that island they 
 saw a great wonder, an aged eagle, as big as a 
 doud, who dipped himself once in each of three 
 successive days in the water of the lake, and flew 
 away, his youth and strength renewed. Diuran, 
 one of the crew, decided to go into the lake to try 
 its virtues, and it is recorded that "it is young 
 and strong his eyes were after that, so long as he 
 was living, and he never lost tooth nor hair from 
 his head and he was never sick nor sorry from that 
 out." This is the Celtic version of the Fountain 
 of Youth which Ponce de Leon sought, more than 
 a thousand years after. 
 
 And thence, it seems, they turned the prows of 
 their little curracks or skin-boats for home. They 
 passed a fire-walled island, and an island whereon 
 had lived for many years a cook who was doing 
 penance for his covetousness, and an island on 
 which were birds like the birds of Ireland, and, 
 the day following, they came back to their own 
 land. 
 
 It is evident, at once, that the greater part of 
 this legend belongs to the domain of fable and en- 
 chantment. Yet the number of days of the jour- 
 
42 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ney is about the same that would be required to 
 cross the Atlantic, rowing in small skia boats; 
 the reference to coco-nuts and grapes is, to say 
 the least, extraordinary; and waterfalls and sal- 
 mon are common enough on the Newfoundland 
 coast. 
 
 Even so, the Voyage of Maeldxme could be rel- 
 egated to the realm of fairy tale, if it were not for 
 the Voyage of St. Brendan, which, according to 
 tradition, took place not fifty years after. Yet the 
 Voyage of Maeldune was deemed sufficiently 
 worthy of record to be told to the Chief Bard of 
 All Ireland, Aedh Finn, for his inclusion in the 
 official oral archives of Ireland. 
 
 St. Brendan or Brandon, son of Finnlogha, of 
 the race of Ciar, was born at Tralee, County 
 Kerry, in 484. When he was still a child, he 
 carved a tiny boat of wood, and his old nurse, a 
 "wise woman," said to him, oracularly, that he 
 "would one day build a boat of wood to find the 
 Land of Promise." This prophecy remained 
 with the lad. 
 
 As soon as he grew old enough, he was sent to 
 the monastery of Kerry, for study. At that time, 
 and for several centuries after, Ireland was the 
 center of learning for all Europe. It was while 
 Brendan was at the monastery that, one day, 
 standing on a hill by the sea, he saw "in a vision 
 a beautiful island with angels serving upon it. 
 And an angel of God came to him in his sleep and 
 said, 'I will be with you from this out through the 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 43 
 
 length, of your lifetime, and it is I will teach you 
 to find that island you have seen and have a mind 
 to come to. ' " 
 
 From the monastery, Brendan went to study in 
 St. Jar lath's College and he was ordained priest 
 while there. During this period, another Irish 
 monk, named Mermoke, set out in a small ship to 
 find some lonely island where he might set up a 
 solitary abode, for, ever since the days of the voy- 
 age of Maeldune "it was known that the western 
 sea was covered with fair and lovely islands as 
 well as places of great marvel, even to a great land 
 beyond." Mermoke returned after a voyage of 
 eight months reporting that he had been "in the 
 first dwelling place of Adam and Eve and that 
 there never came darkness there, and that the 
 name of it was the Earthly Paradise." 
 
 Hearing of this, Brendan came down and talked 
 with Mermoke and determined forthwith to go in 
 search of that land. He chose twelve of his 
 brother monks to accompany him but two others 
 came uninvited, though Brendan warned them 
 that one of the two would be sorry that he asked 
 to come. 
 
 "Then," says the saga, "he made a very large 
 ship having strong hides nailed over it, and pitch 
 over the hides so that water should not come in. 
 And he took his own twelve with him, and the two 
 others, and took leave of his brother monks and 
 bade them goodby. . . . Then they rowed out 
 into the great sea of the ocean in the name of Our 
 
44 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Lord and v^ere not daunted at all. And the wind 
 and the sea drove the ship at will, so that on the 
 morning of the morrow they were out of sight of 
 land. And so they went on through forty days, 
 and the wind driving them from the eastward. 
 
 "And at the last they saw to the north a very 
 large island, having hard rocks on every side, and 
 they sailed around it for three days before they 
 could come near any place of landing, but, at the 
 last, they found a little harbor, and landed every 
 one." 
 
 Whereupon the saga plunges at once into 
 marvels. A hound came to lead them to a great 
 hall where there was a feast and beds ready for 
 them. The next day, they went back to their ship 
 and again sailed many days before seeing land, 
 but at last came to an island with large white 
 sheep. There they met an old man who told them 
 to continue their journey till they came to the 
 Paradise of Birds, and there they should keep 
 Easter. But, on the way thither, they stopped at 
 a little island, and started to light a fire on it, when 
 it began to move and they found it was "the big- 
 gest of the fishes of the world, Jasoonye his name 
 is, and he is laboring night and day to put his tail 
 into his mouth, and cannot do it because of his 
 great bulk. 
 
 "They went on then to the westward through 
 the length of three days, and very downhearted 
 they were at seeing no land. But not long after, 
 by the will of God, they saw a beautiful island full 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 45 
 
 of flowers and herbs and trees, and they were glad 
 enough to see it and they went on land and gave 
 thanks to God. 
 
 "And they went a long way through that lovely 
 country, till they came to a very good well and a 
 tree beside it full of branches and on every branch 
 were beautiful white birds, so many of them there 
 were that not a leaf could hardly be seen. . . . and 
 the happy singing of the birds was like the noise 
 of Heaven." 
 
 Then one of the birds told that they were of the 
 lesser orders of angels who had fallen with Luci- 
 fer, but sinfce they understood so httle of the rebel- 
 lion against God, their sin was a small one and 
 they were punished only in being absent from 
 Heaven. "Then all the birds began to sing the 
 Vespers and there could be no merrier music if 
 God Himself were among them. And, after sup- 
 per, St. Brendan and his comrades went to bed, 
 and they rose up on the morning of the morrow, 
 and the birds sang the matins and said the verses 
 of the Psalms and sang all the Hours as is the 
 habit with Christian men. ' ' Brendan stayed there 
 eight weeks and then went back to the Island of 
 the Sheep. 
 
 "Then," the tale continues, "St. Brendan and 
 his people went out again into the ocean in the 
 name of God, and the winds hurled them up and 
 down, that they were in great danger and tired 
 of their lives. And they were tossed about 
 through the length of four months and they had 
 
46 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 nothing to be looking at but tbe sky and the 
 waves." 
 
 At last they came to an island on which stood 
 a monastery with twenty-four monks, whose food 
 came to them by miracle, and in whose chapel 
 burned tapers that had never been lighted and 
 that never went out. There St. Brendan spent 
 Christmas. He returned for Easter to the Island 
 of the Sheep and kept the Feast of the Eesurrec- 
 tion on the back of the great fish Jasconye. 
 
 The tale once more drops into monsters and 
 marvels, including "a great fish following their 
 ship and that was casting up such great spouts of 
 water out of his mouth that they had like to be 
 drowned," but which was blinded by one of the lit- 
 tle white birds. St. Brendan and his company 
 came, like Maeldune, to the island with red ber- 
 ries, which gave strength, and to the clear water 
 and the thin water. They passed an island where 
 the ghost of Judas Iscariot was allowed to cool 
 himself on the side of the sea on Sxmdays and 
 holy-days, and several islands on which were her- 
 mits and various holy men. Thence they returned 
 to spend the festival season on the Island of 
 Sheep, on the back of the great fish Jasconye, and 
 in the great Land of the Paradise of Birds, as 
 before. 
 
 "And, after that," goes on the tale, "they 
 took their ship and sailed through forty days from 
 the eastward. And at the end of the forty days 
 ^here came a great shower* of hail and then a dark 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 47 
 
 mist came about them, and they were in it for 
 a long time. Then their Helper (from the Island 
 of Sheep) appeared to them and said: 
 
 ' ' 'Let you be glad, now, and hearten yourselves, 
 for you are come to the Land of Promise ! ' 
 
 ' * Then they came out of the dark mist and they 
 saw the loveliest country that anyone could see. 
 Clear it was and lightsome, and there was enough 
 in it of joy, and the trees were full of fruit on 
 every bough, and the apples were as ripe as at 
 harvest time. And though they were going about 
 ia that country through forty days, and could see 
 no end to it, it was always day there and never 
 night, and the air neither hot nor cold but always 
 in the one way, and the delight that they found 
 there could never be told. 
 
 "Then they came to a river that they could not 
 cross, but they could see beyond it the country 
 that had no bounds to its beauty. Then there came 
 to them a young man, the comeliest that could 
 be, and he gave them all a welcome, and to St. 
 Brendan he showed great honor and took him by 
 the hand and said to him : 
 
 " 'Here is the country you have been in search 
 of, but it is Our Lord's will you should go back 
 again and make no delay, and he will show you 
 more of his hidden things when you will come 
 again into the great sea. . . . And this river you 
 see here is the mering (boundary) that divides the 
 worlds, for no man may come the other side of 
 it while he has life. ' 
 
48 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 "Then St. Brendan and his comrades did not 
 fast from the fruit of the country, but brought 
 away what they could of it, and precious stones, 
 and put them in their ship and went away home- 
 wards and sorry enough they were to go. And 
 they sailed home in their ship to Ireland, and it 
 is glad the brothers they had left behind them 
 were to see them come home out of such great 
 dangers." 
 
 To modem ideas, this Voyage of St. Brendan 
 seems to lack foundation, yet it exerted an 
 enormous influence on the world. St. Brendan's 
 Island appears on all the early maps of the At- 
 lantic. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
 it was usually marked as near Madeira, in the 
 sixteenth century it was placed some hundred 
 miles west of Ireland, and in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, between Bermudas and the West Indies. 
 Official voyages for the rediscovery of St. Bren- 
 dan's Island were sent forth in 1526, 1570, 1604, 
 1721, and 1759. It is not to be confused with 
 Hy Brasil, which also was marked upon early 
 maps, further to the north. 
 
 Columbus possessed a copy of a Latin manu- 
 script containing a part of the saga of St. 
 Brendan, and of it he wrote in one of his note- 
 books : 
 
 "The Land of St. Brendan is the Land of the 
 Blessed, towards the West, which no one can reach 
 except by the power of God." 
 
 Yet, keen cartographer as he was, the Genoese 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 4» 
 
 navigator was by no means sure that the island 
 was visionary, for, in his diary, under the dat© 
 of August 9, 1492, he soberly states that the in- 
 habitants of Hierro (Ferro, in Canary Islands) 
 Gomera (in Canary Islands) and Madeira, had 
 frequently seen the Island of St. Brendan in the, 
 west. 
 
 This is not all of the St. Brendan tale. In 
 other variations of the saga it is told how, after 
 resting at home a year, St. Brendan bethought 
 him of the promise of the comely young man in 
 the Land of Promise that he would be shown 
 more of the hidden marvels of Grod's world when 
 he went again into the great sea. 
 
 Accordingly, in 545, with sixty Irish monks, he 
 sailed from Kerry. He came again to the Isle 
 of the Sheep and the Paradise of Birds, but there 
 is no reference to the great fish Jasconye. Pass- 
 ing over the many marvels of this voyage, which 
 are largely repetitions of his former traverse of 
 the seas, or which seem reminiscent of the Voy- 
 age of Maeldune, one of these sagas tells : 
 
 "Then came Blessed Brendan to a large 
 island with great shore of sand, and behind it 
 bog, not good to tread upon. Thence turned he 
 the prow of his ship away from the land, by rea- 
 son of the great waves that rushed upon the sand.. 
 Then went he to the south, some days his brothers 
 did not work, nor did they use the sail, but the 
 water carried them. Then the water became warm 
 and they worked their oars towards the land 
 
50 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 lagain and entered a great harbor tip which they 
 worked their way for many days. 
 
 "It was a fair land, where they set foot, and 
 on the shore they built a church and gave God 
 praise. Then, passing ever from the eastward, 
 they went afoot through a mighty forest where 
 dwelt naked men with parti-colored skins. From 
 them they had no harm, this due, no doubt, to the 
 blessing of God in the psalms'^and canticles that 
 the brothers sang antiphonally (turn and turn 
 /about) to lighten the wearisomeness of the way. 
 
 "Seven Sundays thus they marched, refusing 
 to be faint-hearted when the Evil One set mighty 
 mountains in their way, and thus they came at last 
 to a mighty river, flowing in the way their feet 
 would go. But there a noble personage, robed 
 all in white, awaited them and said : 
 
 " 'Blessed Brendan, thou art well come. Yet 
 not well come at this time. Your Lord and mine 
 has wUled that the Gospel of His Son be given to 
 this land at a later time. Eetum to the Isle of 
 Saints, for there it is the will of God that you 
 shall die.'" 
 
 The return journey must have been even more 
 difficult, for the saga-man tells that it took eleven 
 Sundays before the travelers came back to the 
 ship and set sail again for Ireland. Whether all 
 the voyagers returned is a point on which the 
 various versions of the saga differ, some saying 
 that St. Brendan returned with his full comple- 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 51 
 
 ment of monks, other declaring that certain of 
 the brothers were left behind. 
 
 In 553, after his return, St. Brendan established 
 the great monastery of Clonfert. It is worthy of 
 note that, at this time, when the greater part of 
 Europe was little given to learning, Clonfert 
 Monastery, one of many such, accommodated 
 3,000 students. These were taught without fee. 
 Such food as was needed, over and beyond that 
 raised by the labor of the monks, was willingly 
 donated by outsiders. These thousands of stu- 
 dents, and many after them, spread all over Eu- 
 rope the story of the voyages of their beloved 
 master. The St. Brendan saga manuscripts are 
 numerous, written both in Latin and Graelic, and 
 the voyage to the Land of Promise was as well 
 known in the Middle Ages as was the Odyssey in 
 the time of the Greeks. 
 
 On this second voyage of St. Brendan, extended 
 commentary has been made. It is suggested that 
 "a sandy shore with a bog (or marsh) beyond" 
 is descriptive of any part of the American coast 
 from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras, but the larger 
 number of commentators assign the spot sighted 
 to be the shore of Long Island or New Jersey. 
 The current which led St. Brendan southwards is 
 held to have been the Labrador Current. The 
 warm water which was encountered further south 
 is suggestive of the Gulf Stream. The harbor 
 that St. Brendan and his monks are reputed to 
 have entered may have been Chesapeake Bay, and 
 
52 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the river across the mountains, flowing westward, 
 suggests the Ohio Eiver. 
 
 The "naked men with parti-colored skins" (a 
 dubious phrase, not appearing in early versions) 
 seems to describe Indians in war-paint. That St. 
 Brendan and his followers should not have been 
 molested would not be surprising, for unarmed 
 monks, marching in long brown robes and singing 
 continually as they went, might have seemed so 
 harmless and so strange to the watching Indians 
 that they let them pass unscathed. 
 
 If the saga, indeed, possess any measure of 
 truth, then would St. Brendan be the first Chris- 
 tian missionary to set foot on American shores. 
 But the whole tale is so colored with fable, so 
 distorted by naive report of miracle, and so remi- 
 niscent of an earlier Saga of Bran, the Son of 
 Febal, who was guided over-seas by a mermaid, 
 that it must be regarded, not as a historical ac- 
 count, but as a legend devoutly believed by all 
 Christendom up to and after Columbus' day. 
 
 Two centuries later, appears a dubious account 
 from the Orkneys that: "so numerous had the 
 people of Greater Ireland, across the seas, become, 
 that the Bishop of the Orkneys prayed that a 
 bishop be sent to them, and one was sent." 
 
 More circumstantial and more official is a state- 
 ment found in an old manuscript of undoubted 
 genuineness, which says : ' ' There are, it is said, 
 south from Greenland which is inhabited, des- 
 erts, uninhabited places, and icebergs, then the 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 53 
 
 Skrellings, then Mark-land, tlien Wine-land the 
 Good. Next, and farther behind, lies Albania, 
 which is White-men 's-land. Thither was sailing 
 formerly from Ireland. There Irishmen and Ice- 
 landers recognized Ari, the son of Mar and Katla 
 of Eejkaness, of whom nothing had been heard 
 for a long time and who had been made a chief 
 by the inhabitants. He was driven out of his 
 course at sea to White-men 's-land, which is called 
 by some persons Ireland the Great. It lies west- 
 ward in the sea, near Wine-land the Good. It is 
 said to be six half-days ' sail west of Ireland. Ari 
 could not depart thence and was baptized there." 
 
 The next important historical account, accepted 
 by many students as showing a Celtic settlement 
 of America, prior to the coming of the Norseinen, 
 is found in the saga of Eric 'the Ee^d. Of this 
 saga, much will be said in the next chapter. The 
 passage referring to earlier settlers than the 
 Vikings, is as follows : 
 
 "When they sailed away from Wine-land (1008 
 A. D.), they had a southerly wind, and so came 
 upon Mark-land, where they found five Skrellings 
 (either Beothuks, Indians or Eskimos) of whom 
 one was bearded, two were women and two were 
 children. Karlsefni and his people took the boys, 
 but the others escaped and these Skrellings sank 
 down into the earth. They (the Norsemen) bore 
 the lads away with them and taught them to 
 speak, and they were baptized. 
 
 ' ' They (the boys) said that their mother's name 
 
54 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 was Vaetilldi and fheir father's Uvaegi. They 
 said that kings governed the Skrelliags, one of 
 whom was called Avalldamon, and the other Vall- 
 didida. (The etymology of these names is uncer- 
 tain, nor can their spelling be depended upon, 
 but authorities are loath to trace them either to 
 Indian or Eskimo origin.) They stated that 
 there were no houses there, and that the people 
 lived in caves or holes. 
 
 ' ' They said that there was a land on the other 
 side over against their country, which was in- 
 habited by people who wore white garments, and 
 yelled loudly, and carried poles before them to 
 which rags were attached (processions of Chris- 
 tian priests, in white vestments, with banners, and 
 chanting?), and people believe that this must have 
 been Hvitramanna Land (White-men 's-land) or 
 Ireland the Great." 
 
 Since the Saga of Erie the Eed is an undis- 
 puted historical document, there seems no special 
 reason to deny the authenticity of these para- 
 graphs, while admitting the rest of the saga 
 True, "Ireland the Great" is quoted only on the 
 hearsayof a "Skrelling," but it is an historic quo- 
 tation none the less. Authorities dispute as to 
 whether the extinct race "Beothuk" on the New- 
 foundland coast, was North American Indian, 
 or no. 
 
 However vague the actual geographical evi- 
 dence may be, it is not denied that during a period 
 of five centuries the Celts believed that there was 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 55 
 
 a "Greater Ireland" across the sea, with a Chris- 
 tianized people dwelling there, and that in the 
 year 1008, Thorfinn Karsefni found an inhabitant 
 of the American mainland who spoke of a White 
 Man's Land where dwelt men garbed in white^ 
 who carried banners and sang. 
 
 Passing from Ireland to Great Britain, docu- 
 ments record that Geoffrey of Monmouth, writ- 
 ing in London about 1150, in his History of the 
 Britons, puts into the mouth of Diana the fol- 
 lowing prophecy: 
 
 "Brutus! Far to the west, in the ocean wide, 
 beyond the realm of Gaul, a»laud there lies. Sea- 
 girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old. Now void, 
 it fits thy people. Thither bend thy course. 
 There shalt thouifind ailasting seat. There to thy 
 sons another Troy shall rise and kings be bom. 
 of thee whose dreadful might shall awe the world 
 and conquer nations bold. ' ' 
 
 Yet it is from Wales, rather than from England,^ 
 as facing the western sea, that the earliest British 
 traditions come. The first of these is found in 
 Triad 10 in the Third Series of Myvyrian (Welsh) 
 Archeology, and a translation of it reads as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 ' ' The Three Vanished Losses of the Isle of Brit- 
 ain — ^First, Gavran, son of Aeddan, and his men, 
 who went to sea in search of the Green Isles of 
 Floods and never were heard of more; Second, 
 Merddin, the Bard of Aurelian Ambrosius, and 
 his Nine Bards of Knowledge, who went to sea in 
 
66 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the House of Glass and there has been no accoiint 
 whither they went; Third, Madoo, son of Owen 
 Gwynedd, who went to sea with his three hundred 
 men in ten ships, and it is not known to what 
 place they went." 
 
 There is some dispute among aroheologists as 
 to the date of this Triad, but it is certainly be- 
 tween the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. 
 Of Gavran, and of Merddia, little is known, and 
 that exceedingly obscure, but the Madoc tradi- 
 tion — ^whether it be accurate or no — ^is exceed- 
 ingly circximstantial. 
 
 The misty history of Madoo — ^for it comes 
 nearer to history than to legend — has suffered 
 because of the over-eagerness of Welshmen to 
 prove more than the story carries. Irishmen have 
 sinned equally in claiming historical certitude for 
 ' ' Greater Irela,nd. ' ' 
 
 Yet it would be unhistorical in the last degree 
 to ignore the reported voyage of Prince Madoo 
 to America, in 1170. The fact that romance and 
 legend enhalo the hero's person should not blind 
 the reader to the unquestioned fact of his exist- 
 ence as a character in Welsh history. 
 
 The universality of the Madoc tradition is not 
 denied. In the poems recited by the bards of 
 Wales — an official and dignified order— 4here are 
 numerous references to the departure of Madoc, 
 to his disappearance over-seas, and there is, at 
 least, one reference to his having taken posses- 
 sion of a reaJm beyond the sea. These bardic 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 57 
 
 poems date back to the thirteentli and f ourtee^ith 
 centuries, a hundred years aad more before Co- 
 lumbus was bom. 
 
 Aside from bardic references, the first careful 
 statement of the Madoo story was made by Hima- 
 phrey Llwyd, a painstaking Welsh historian of 
 the sixteenth century. He states : 
 
 "Madoo, another of Owen Gwneth's sons, left 
 the land in contention between his brethren, and 
 prepared certain ships with men and munition, 
 and sought adventure by seas, sailing West and 
 leaving the coast of Ireland so far north that he 
 came to a Land Unknown, where he saw many 
 strange things. 
 
 "This land," says Llwyd, "must needs be some 
 part of that country of which the Spaniards af- 
 firm themselves the first finders sLace Hanno's 
 time. (This reference shows that, in the six- 
 teenth century, the Spaniards believed America to 
 be the island at one time settled by the Cartha- 
 ginians.) For, by reason and order of Geog- 
 raphy, this land, to the which Madoc came, must 
 needs be some part of New Spain or Florida. 
 Whereupon it is manifest that this country was 
 by Britain discovered, long afore either Colum- 
 bus or Americus Vesputius led any Spaniards 
 thither. 
 
 "Of the voyage and return of this Madoc, there 
 be many fables told, as the common people do 
 tend in distance of place and length of time rather 
 
58 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 to augment tlian to diminish, but, sure it is, that 
 there he was. 
 
 "And, after he had returned home and declared 
 the pleasant and fruitful places that he had seen 
 without inhabitants, and, upon the contrary part, 
 for what barren and wild ground his brethren and 
 nephews did murder one another, he prepared a 
 number of ships, and got with him such men and 
 women as were desirous to live in quietness, and, 
 tating leave of his friends, took his journey thith- 
 erward again. 
 
 "Therefore it is to be presupposed that he and 
 his people inhabited part of those countries (New 
 Spain) for it appeareth by Francis Loues (Lopez 
 de Gomera, an early Spanish historian), that in 
 Acusanus (Yucatan) and other places, the people 
 honored the Cross, whereby it may be gathered 
 that Christians had been there, before the coming 
 of the Spaniards. But, because this people (the 
 Welsh) were not many, they followed the manners 
 of the land they came unto and used the language 
 they found there," 
 
 There are many other references to Madoc in 
 later Welsh literature, some of them exceedingly 
 detailed. However, as the riches of Mexico and 
 Peru were by that time well known, and as there 
 was a marked anxiety on the part of England to 
 claim prior right to so rich a country, these later 
 statements may be regarded with a moderate 
 amount of suspicion. 
 
 In itself, the Madoc story does little more than 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 59 
 
 state that the "Welsh prince found a fertile land 
 across the western ocean on his first voyage, and 
 took a colony of settlers there, on his second. But 
 the whole story is thrown into vivid light— 
 whether a true or a false one, the reader must 
 judge — ^by a statement made less than a century 
 after the first English settlement of North Amer- 
 ica to the effect that "Welsh Indians," who still 
 spoke "Welsh, had been discovered in the Caro- 
 linas. 
 
 The statement was made in all form in 1685, 
 and came from a man of no less importance than 
 the Eevd. Morgan Jones, chaplain of an expedi- 
 tion sent by Governor Berkeley of Virginia to 
 South Carolina, in 1660. The Revd. Mr. Jones' 
 statement was made on oath, exists in the official 
 archives of Virginia, and was as follows : 
 
 ' ' These presents may certify all persons what- 
 ever, that, in the year 1660, being an inhabitant 
 of Virginia, and chaplain to Major-General Ben- 
 net of Mansoman (Nansemond?) County, the said 
 Major Bennet and Sir "William Berkeley sent two 
 ships to Port Royal, now called South Carolina, 
 which is sixty leagues to the southward of Cape 
 Fair (Fear?) and I was sent therewith to be their 
 minister. 
 
 "Upon the 8th of April, we set out from Vir- 
 ginia and arrived at the harbor's mouth, the 19th 
 of the same month, where we waited for the rest 
 of the fleet that was to sail from Barbardoes (Bar- 
 
60 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WOltLD 
 
 badoes) and Bermuda, with one Mr. "West, wlio 
 was to be Deputy Governor of the same place. 
 
 "As soon as the Fleet came in, the smallest ves- 
 sels that were with us sailed up the river to a 
 place called the Oyster Point. There I continued 
 for about 8 months, all which time being most 
 starved for want of provisions. 
 
 "I, and five more, then, travelled through the 
 Wilderness, till we came to the Tuscarora Coun- 
 try. There the Tuscarora Indians took us pris- 
 oners because we told them we were bound for 
 Eoanoke. That night they carried us to their 
 town and shut us up close, to our no small dread. 
 
 "The next day they held a consultation about 
 us, after which it was over, their interpreter told 
 us that we must prepare to die the next morning. 
 Thereupon, being very much dejected, I spoke to 
 this effect in the British (Welsh) tongue : 
 
 " 'Have I escaped so many dangers, and now 
 must I be knocked on the head like a Dog!' 
 
 "Then presently came an Indian to me, which 
 afterwards appeared to be a War Captain of 
 the Doegs, whose original I find must needs be 
 from the Old Britons (Madocs) and took me by 
 the middle and told me in the British (Welsh) 
 tongue that I should not die, and thereupon went 
 to the Emperor of the Tuscarora and agreed for 
 my ransom and the men that were with me. 
 
 * ' They then made us welcome to their town and 
 entertained us very civilly and cordially four 
 months, during which time I had the opporhmity 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 61 
 
 of conversing with them familiarly in the Brit- 
 ish (Welsh) language, and did preach to them 
 three times a week in the same language, and they 
 would confer with me about anything that was dif- 
 ficult therein, and, at our departure, they abun- 
 dantly supplied us with whatever was necessary 
 to our support and well-being. They were settled 
 upon the Pontiago (Pamlico?) Eiyer, not far from 
 Cape Atros (Hatteras?) This is a brief recital 
 of my travels among the Doeg (Madoc) Indians." 
 MORGAN JONES, the son of John Jones 
 of Bassaleg, near Newport in the County 
 of Monmouth. 
 
 P. S. "I am ready to conduct any Welshman, 
 or others, to the country." 
 
 During the century and a half following, there 
 were put on record sixteen different statements 
 of Welsh-speaking travelers who either had con- 
 versed with Welsh-speaking Indians, or who de- 
 clared that they had heard others affirm that they 
 had done so. Lord Baltimore, writing in 1650, ten 
 years before the Berkeley expedition, speaks of 
 the Doages Indians, and there are several other 
 official references to the Doegs. This tribe has 
 beeif identified as the Nanticoke Indians, who 
 lived on the Pamlico River. 
 
 This identification of the name, however, must 
 not be taken as full confirmation of the Revd. Mr. 
 Jones ' sworn statement. There are other appar- 
 ently confirmatory points to be considered. Thus 
 the Nanticoke or Doeg were regarded by the 
 
62 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 neighboring tribes as differing greatly from them, 
 as being possessed of superior skill, and especially 
 of knowledge in witchcraft. They were known 
 also as the Otoyachgo, or bridge-people, because 
 of their skill in building bridges ; also as the Trap- 
 per-people, because no other Indian tribe showed 
 such ability in the making and setting of mechan- 
 ical traps. More striking still, in several treaties 
 with the whites, the name of the Nanticoke ap- 
 pears as the Scanehaderadeygroones, or the Se- 
 ganiateratiokrohnes, both of which words mean 
 the "beyond-the^sea-people." 
 
 Where all is so vague, later statements whidh 
 appear over-exact must be regarded with caution. 
 Thus, when the Madoc tale is further amplified 
 by a statement that neighboring Indian tribes 
 formed a coalition against the "Madocs" because 
 of their infusion of over-seas blood, one may well 
 pause. And when, further, this modem addition 
 goes on to say that the "Madoc tribe" was en- 
 tirely wiped out in a battle at the Falls of the 
 Ohio, there is ample room for the suspicion that 
 this addition has been built up to support a theory. 
 
 In any case, if indeed the "Madoc band" made 
 a permanent settlement on the shores of Amer- 
 ica, it did not leave any physical trace on the In- 
 dian races as known in settled times. Further- 
 more, linguistic and aroheological evidence is di- 
 rectly against the belief in the "Welsh Indians." 
 
 These Celtic legends — Scotch, Irish, British, 
 Cornish and Welsh — all halt on the further side 
 
THE ISLES OF THE BLEST 63 
 
 of definite history. It cannot be said that they 
 establish a fair claim to the priority of the Celts 
 as tihe first European settlers of America, but it 
 can justly bq affirmed that these beliefs stimulated 
 the spirit of adventure in Europe, and that later 
 voyagers did not regard themselves as plunging 
 forth upon an uncrossed sea. 
 
 The Land of the Fountain of Youth, Hy Brasil, 
 the vine-dad islands of Maeldune, the Blessed 
 Isles of St. Brendan, Greater Ireland and Madoc's 
 Land beckoned from beyond the sea. Shadowy 
 urgings these may have been, but the navigators 
 of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries believed 
 in them, and followed their beckoning across the 
 Western Ocean, to find, at last, the Land of 
 Promise. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MEN OF THE DRAGON" SHIPS 
 
 Skaal to the Norsemen I Hail to the Sea-Mngs 
 and the vessels of Dragon-prows ! Whatever his- 
 toric truth may He hehind classic myth and Celtic 
 legend, it looms shadowy and uncertain, but the 
 Norse occupation of America is a well-attested 
 historic truth. Not only did the Norsemen land 
 on the shores of America but, for over four hun- 
 dred years they maintained a prosperous colony 
 on an American island, and explored the main- 
 land certainly as far south as Massachusetts Bay, 
 and probably farther south still. 
 
 If it be objected that the center of Norse colo- 
 nization was in Grreenland, it must be replied that 
 Greenland is as unquestionably America as was 
 that outermost island of the West Indies where 
 Columbus first saw land. Not only that, but there 
 was a continuous three-year occupation of the 
 American mainland by the Norsemen, and, on the 
 soil of what is now the United States, Gudrid the 
 Fair, the first white American mother, gave birth 
 to Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first white American 
 child, from whom descended a mighty line of 
 bishops and noblemen. 
 
 64 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 65 
 
 The Greenland colony during its four hundred 
 years' life was well known to Europe. For cen- 
 turies, vessels traded regxdarly between Green- 
 land and Iceland, and Iceland was a regular point 
 of call for ships from Norway, Denmark, Limerick 
 in Ireland and Bristol in England. 
 
 In Italy and in Spain, the countries most closely 
 associated with Columbus, merchants were well 
 aware of Iceland and Greenland, and navigators 
 were familiar with the expeditions to Mark-land 
 and Wine-land. These regions were marked on 
 maps of that time. Adam of Bremen described 
 them. Gudrid the Fair, after the death of Thor- 
 finn Karlsefni, made a pilgrimage to Eome and 
 told to many her tale of Wine-land. Greenland 
 and Iceland sent tribute for the Crusades, and 
 many Icelandic pilgrims and soldiers of fortune 
 traveled through Etirope. The Church was kept 
 well informed of her faithful of the Far North. 
 A regular succession of bishops was sent thither, 
 one, indeed, being expressly appointed because 
 his predecessor had been lost in an episcopal ex- 
 pedition to Mark-land. 
 
 Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, of Venice, the first 
 in 1390 and the second in 1400, visited Greenland. 
 There is much confusion in their narrative, and 
 more in the manner in which it has been handed 
 down, but the bare fact is not denied. Nor is it 
 disputed that Antonio Zeno started on a voyage 
 from the Faroe Islands to "a land a thousand 
 
66 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 miles to the west," of v/hich. he had been informed 
 by deep-sea fishermen. 
 
 What is even more to the point is a recorded 
 letter of Columbus, preserved by his son and by 
 Las Casas, in which the great navigator says : 
 
 "In the month of February, 1477, I sailed a 
 hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule (Ice- 
 land) to an island of which the south part is in 
 latitude 73°, not 63° as some say. . . . And to 
 this island, which is as big as England (it is so, 
 very nearly), the English go with their wares, 
 especially from Bristol. When I was there, the 
 sea was not frozen. ..." 
 
 Why was Columbus in Iceland! Since, as wiU 
 be shown later, he had received in 1474 a letter 
 and sailing chart from Toscanelli, a Florentine 
 aistronomer, telUng him just how to sail on his 
 westward voyage, it seems clear that his visit to 
 Iceland in 1477 was for the purpose of gathering 
 further information about lands which the Ice- 
 landers had found on the further side of the west- 
 em ocean. 
 
 Amerigo Vespucci and Cabot, as well as many 
 others, knew of the Norse voyages. Cabot, who 
 was the first of the later navigators to touch the 
 shores of North America, deliberately sailed 
 northwestward to reach the lands of Norse de- 
 scription. It is clear, then, that the colonization 
 of Iceland and of Greenland were the first two 
 steps towards American discovery. 
 
 Iceland was first colonized by the Irish. The 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 67 
 
 date is not kno"wii. By the eightii century, how- 
 ever, at least two conmmnities of Cele De or Cul- 
 dees (God's Allies, monks of the Gallic Rule of 
 Chrodegang), were settled in Iceland. In the year 
 850 A. D., Iceland was rediscovered by the Scan- 
 dinavians. 
 
 This discovery was followed by three waves of 
 immigration. Between 870-890, four great noble- 
 men from Norway, with their men, settled in the 
 sonth-west. In 890-900, Queen Aud, widow of 
 Olaf the "White, King of Dublin, followed by many 
 of her kinsmen, settled in the west and north. In 
 900-930, a Norway and Orkney group of earls set- 
 tled the south and south-east. By the year 1100, 
 Iceland had a population of 50,000 souls, of whom 
 one-half were of Irish or Celtic blood. Gudrid 
 the Fair, for example, was half -Irish both on her 
 mother's and father's side. 
 
 In the year 876, two years after the Common- 
 wealth of Iceland was founded, one of the settlers, 
 Gunnbjom, son of Ulf the Crow, was driven west- 
 ward across the sea in foul and foggy weather. 
 He passed some volcanic rocky islets and was 
 driven to some desolate point on the coast of 
 Greenland. Here he and his crew contrived to 
 pass the winter, though hard pressed for food and 
 fuel, their ship being nipped in the ice. When 
 the spring thaw set the vessel free, Gunnbjom re- 
 turned to Iceland. His description of that bar- 
 ren land tempted no one thither. 
 
 This misadventure had a potent eifect on later 
 
68 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 discovery. Ninety years later, it was to be the 
 inspiration of that gallant old hero, Eric the Eed, 
 a true rover, a true fighter, a true adventurer, 
 and — on the supreme authority of Nans en — one 
 of the finest explorers of aU time. 
 
 Dashing and romantic was the career of Erie 
 the Eed. The saga of his deeds rings with the 
 clash of weapons on land and the shrieking of 
 cordage at sea. Let those who seek Adventure 
 and Eomance read the Saga of Eric of Eed! It 
 is the first epic of America. 
 
 The story opens with a duel. Eric the Eed, son 
 of Thorvald, was exiled from Jaederen, in Nor- 
 way, as the result of a feud. Father and son 
 settled in Iceland, where Eric married Thorhold, 
 daughter of one of the most powerful families in 
 the place. He took up a large stretch of land, 
 but soon came to blows with his neighbors. A 
 landslide on the farm of his neighbor Valthiof 
 was blamed on his thralls or slaves, and Eyiolf 
 the Foul slew the thralls. Eric promptly slew 
 Eyiolf. The Norsemen were an acutely law-abid- 
 ing people and Eric was banished from the re- 
 gion. 
 
 Twice exiled, Eric settled at Eyxney (Ox-Is- 
 land) near Breidafirth. Swords were soon out 
 again. This time the dispute arose concerning 
 some carved dais-boards which Eric had lent to 
 Thorgest, a neighbor. When Thorgest did not 
 return them as promptly as requested, Erio 
 stormed the place and took back his possessions. 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 69 
 
 Thorgest's household rallied and pursued. Weap- 
 ons were drawn and Eric cut down a man or two. 
 The quarrel developed first into a feud and then 
 into a small local civil war. Again came a for- 
 midable Norse lawsuit. The Thorsness "thing," 
 or parliament, found Eric guilty of starting the 
 broil, and, as he had twice been banished, this 
 time they condemned him to outlawry. 
 
 Friends of Erie concealed him from Thorgest, 
 and to these friends the outlawed man stated: 
 "that it was his intention to go in search of that 
 land which Gunnbjom, son of Ulf the Crow, saw 
 when he was driven out of his course, westward 
 across the main, and discovered Gunnbjorn's- 
 skerries. ' ' These islets disappeared in a violent 
 eruption in 1456. 
 
 Then, recounting the first colonizing of Green- 
 land, the Saga of Eric the Red continues : 
 
 "Eric sailed out to sea from Snaefells-jokul and 
 arrived at that point which is called Blacksark 
 (in Greenland). Thence h6 sailed to the south- 
 ward, that he might ascertain whether there was 
 habitable country in that direction. He passed 
 the first winter at Ericsey. ... In the following 
 spring he proceeded to Ericsfirth (Gardar) and 
 selected a site there for his homestead. That 
 summer he explored the western uninhabited re- 
 gion. . . . The second winter he spent at Erios- 
 hohns, beyond Hvarfsgnipa. The third summer 
 he sailed northward to Snaefell (on the western 
 coast of Greenland) and into Hrafnsfirth (Davis 
 
70 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Straits). . . . He turned back, then, and remained 
 the third winter at Eriosey." 
 
 These few words summarize three years of care- 
 ful and systematic exploration of the Coasts of 
 Desolation, on which Eric the Bed found the only 
 two fertile belts of shore, green with grass and 
 ablaze with flowers watered by streams from the 
 distant glaciers. Subsequent centuries have 
 proved the thoroughness of Eric's exploration and 
 the judiciousness of his choice. It must be re- 
 membered that for those three years he was cut 
 off from everyone, and in that land of frost, his 
 food, his home, his fuel, his clothing, his ship- 
 repairs, everything! must come from that deso- 
 late shore. 
 
 The saga then continues: 
 
 "The following summer he sailed to Iceland, 
 and landed in Breidafirth. ... In the spring he 
 and Thorgest fought together and Eric was de- 
 feated; after this there was a reconciliation be- 
 tween them. 
 
 ' ' That summer, Eric set out to colonize the land 
 which he had discovered and which he called 
 Greenland (the name applying to the settlement, 
 not the whole island) because, he said, men would 
 be more readily persuaded thither if the land had 
 a good name." 
 
 The Saga of the Story of Wine-land Voyages, 
 also known as the Flatey Book, and which is of 
 lesser authority than the Saga of Eric the Bed, 
 tells the same story and adds: 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 71 
 
 "Eric settled at BrattaMld (Igalico Inlet) in 
 Eriosfirtli and learned men say that, ia this same 
 smnmer, in wMoh Erie set out to settle Greenland, 
 thirty-five ships sailed out of Breidafirth and Bor- 
 garfirth (in Iceland). Fourteen of these arrived 
 safely, some were driven back and some were 
 lost." 
 
 As Eric the Bed was the explorer and first set- 
 tler of Greenland, so he became the chief man 
 and judge. A daring sea-king, a just judge, a 
 quick fighter, jovial and hospitable, his latter 
 years were full of dignity and honor, saddened 
 only when his newly converted Christian wife 
 turned against him for remaining pagan. 
 
 It is to him that must be assigned the credit 
 for making the American island of Greenland a 
 Norse colony. He gave to the world that Leif 
 the Lucky who is the first of definite record as 
 discovering the mainland of America. He sent 
 forth the expedition which bore Thorfinn Karl- 
 sefni and Gudrid the Fair to American shores, 
 gave Gudrid in marriage from his home, and saw 
 his son Thorvald sail off to death in their com- 
 pany. 
 
 He died, as he had lived, faithful to his pagan 
 gods, feared and respected. He stands as a 
 mighty and inspiring figure on the threshold of 
 American history. 
 
 Hardy sea-rovers though the Norsemen were, 
 yet, as has been shown, the restless Irish were 
 everywhere before them. Iceland was discovered 
 
72 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 by th.e Irish, and colonized by tbe Irisb and the 
 Norsemen. Greenland was settled by Icelanders 
 of that stock. Grudrid the Fair, the heroine of 
 early American exploration, was half -Irish, and 
 there are several references in Norse hterature 
 to Ari Marsson and others of "Greater Ireland." 
 
 The Eomanoe of American Discovery, however, 
 — so far as present knowledge goes — ^is not Irish 
 but Norse. The story proceeds from the islands 
 of America to the American mainland, and the 
 first of the two great heroes who figure ia it was 
 Leif, son of Eric the Eed, generally known as 
 Leif the Lucky. 
 
 In the Saga of Eric the Eed, as supported by 
 collateral evidence, Leif was the first among the 
 Norsemen to sight the American mainland. Ac- 
 cording to the less authoritative Saga of Wine- 
 land, Leif 's expedition was the result of a misad- 
 venture which happened to one Bjarni, son of that 
 Herjulf who had accompanied Eric the Eed in the 
 first settlement of Greenland. Since the voyage, 
 if authentic, was the first, it must be briefly stated. 
 
 Bjarni was captain of a vessel trading between 
 Norway and Iceland. On his return to Iceland 
 from such a voyage, late one summer, he found 
 that his father Herjulf had sailed to Greenland 
 with Eric the Eed that very spring. It was 
 Bj ami's custom always to spend Christmas with 
 his father and he successfully appealed to the 
 spirit of adventure in his crew that they should 
 try and find Greenland, though none among them 
 
Copyright 1921 by Twenty-five Broadway Corp. 
 
 LIEF ERICSSON MAKES THE FIRST TRANS-ATLANTIC PASSAGE 
 
 In the Saga of Eric the Red we read: — "Leif put to sea when his ship was 
 ready for the voyage. For a long time he was tossed upon the ocean and came 
 upon lands of which he had previously no knowledge." From a painting by 
 Ezra Winter in the Cunard Building, New York City. 
 
LIEF ERICSSON DISCOVERS THE COAST OF AMERICA. 
 
 THE LANDING OF THE VIKINGS. 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 73 
 
 had ever entered the Greenland Sea. Says the 
 saga: 
 
 "They sailed (from Eyrar, Iceland) for three 
 days until the land was hidden by water, and then 
 the fair wind died out, and north winds arose and 
 fogs, and they knew not whither they were drift- 
 ing and thus it lasted for many doegr (half-days). 
 When they saw the sun again, and were able to 
 determine the quarters of the heavens, they 
 hoisted sail and sailed through that doegr before 
 they saw land." 
 
 The saga then goes on to describe their coast- 
 ing adventures. The first land: "was level and 
 covered with woods and there were small hillocks 
 on it." This did not appear like the descriptions 
 which had been given to Bjami of Greenland, and 
 he would not go ashore. Eunning north for a day 
 or more they came to another land: "and saw 
 that it was a flat and wooded country." As the 
 fair wind failed and winter was coming on, the 
 crew wanted to land, but Bjami was bent on his 
 Christmas festivities and would not delay. 
 
 With south-west gales they sailed for two days 
 more and came to a third land: "this land was 
 high and mountainous, with ice mountains upon 
 it." Here again Bjami would not land, for, 
 though it resembled the reports of Greenland in 
 some ways, he saw "no attraction" in its barren 
 shores. 
 
 Continuiag, they saw that this land seemed to 
 be an island, and, having a fair wind, they sailed 
 
74. THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 for two days more and saw a fourth, land. Said 
 Bjami: "This is likest Greenland, according to 
 what has been reported to me concerning it, and 
 here we will steer to the land." They did so and 
 (very suspiciously) found that the very point 
 which they had struck was the cape on which, dwelt 
 Herjulf, Bjami 's father. It is to be presumed 
 that the Yuletide was a merry one. 
 
 The Saga of Wine-land goes on to say that 
 Bjami, on his next visit to Norway, saw Earl Eric 
 of Norway (1000-1015) and told of his travels. 
 It states, also, that some time after, when Bjami 
 had returned to Grreenland, Leif Ericsson went to 
 see him, learned the details of his voyages and 
 bought a ship from him. So Bjami drops out of 
 the story. In any case, even in the sole saga in 
 which Bjami appears, it is specifically stated that 
 he did not land at any of the points he sighted, 
 and therefore, whether the tale of his voyage be 
 true or no, the priority of landing and of settle- 
 ment belongs to Leif, 
 
 Erie the Eed had married Thorhild and had 
 three sons, Thorstein, Leif and Thorvald, and one 
 daughter, Freydis, who, according to the Wine- 
 land Saga, turned out to be an evil-minded woman. 
 All four of these played a part in the Mark-land 
 and Wine-land voyages. 
 
 Leif seems to have inherited his father's dar- 
 ing. When still a young man, he made the bold 
 attempt of sailing from Greenland to Norway 
 direct, without stopping at Iceland, apparently 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 75 
 
 the first voyage so made. It ended in his being 
 driven on the Hebrides, where he had a rather 
 unhappy love affair, which, however, plays no 
 part in the story of the discovery. Thence he 
 sailed to Norway, arriving there in the autunm 
 of the year 999. He went at once to the oonrt 
 of King Olaf Tryggvason, the famous warrior- 
 monarch who forced Norway into Christianity. 
 It proved an easy matter for King Olaf to con- 
 vert Leif, and he and all his shipmates were bap- 
 tized. Leif stayed with King Olaf that winter, 
 and, the summer following, the king sent him 
 back to Greenland to proclaim Christianity there. 
 
 Now let the Saga of Eric the Eed tell first of 
 his discoveries : 
 
 "Leif put to sea when his ship was ready for 
 the voyage. For a long time he was tossed about 
 upon the ocean, and came upon lands of which 
 he had previously no knowledge. There were 
 self-sown wheat-fields and vines growing there. 
 There were also those trees which are called 
 'mausur' (maple) and of all these they took speci- 
 mens. Some of the timbers were so large that 
 they were used in building. 
 
 "Leif found men upon a wreck and took them 
 home with him, and procured quarters for them 
 all during the winter. In this wise he showed his 
 nobleness and goodness, since he introduced 
 Christianity into the country and saved the men 
 from the wreck, and he was called Leif the Lucky 
 ever after. Leif landed in Eriosfirth and then 
 
76 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 went home to BrattaMld; he was well received 
 by everyone. He soon proclaimed Christianity 
 through the land and the Catholic faith, and an- 
 nounced King Olaf Tryggvason's messages to the 
 people, telling them how much excellence and how 
 great glory accompanied the faith." 
 
 The account of Leif 's voyage in the Saga of 
 Wine-land differs radically from this brief state- 
 ment. The Wine-land Saga permits Leif to go 
 home to Greenland first, to consult Bjarni, and 
 to buy a ship from him. It tells that Eric the 
 Eed, after some persuasion from Leif, accepted 
 the leadership of the expedition, but that, owing 
 to the stumbling of his horse, which he regarded 
 as an unfavorable omen, he stayed at home, and 
 Leif took the command. 
 
 The Wine-land Saga continues : 
 
 "Leif pursued his way to the ship with his com- 
 panions, thirty-five men ; one of the company was 
 a Grermau named Tyrker. . . . They found first 
 that land which Bjarni and his shipmates found 
 last. . . . They launched a boat and went ashore, 
 and saw no grass there ; great ice mountains lay 
 inland back from the sea, flat rock all the way from 
 the sea to the ice-mountains. Then said Leif: 
 'It has not come to pass with us in regard to this 
 land as with Bjarni, that we have not gone upon 
 it. To this country I will now give a neime, and 
 call it Hellu-land (flat-stone-land).' 
 
 * ' They returned to the ship, put out to sea and 
 found a second land. . . . They went ashore. 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 7T 
 
 This was a level wooded land, and there were 
 broad stretches of white sand, where they went, 
 and the land was level by the sea. Then said 
 Leif : 'This land shall have a name after its na- 
 ture, and we will call it Mark-land (wood-land).' 
 
 "They returned to the ship and sailed away 
 upon the main with north-east winds, two doegr 
 before they sighted land, and came to an island 
 which lay to the northward of this land. ' ' After 
 landing there, they "went aboard their ship again 
 and sailed into a certain sound which lay between 
 an islemd emd a cape, which jutted out from the 
 land on the north. ... At ebb-tide there were 
 broad reaches of shallow water there, and they 
 ran their ship aground there. ... As soon as the 
 tide rose beneath their ship, however, they took 
 their boat and rowed to the ship, which they con- 
 veyed up a river and so into a lake. There they 
 cast anchor and carried their hammocks ashore 
 from the ship and built booths (huts) there. They 
 afterwards determined to establish themselves for 
 the winter and they accordingly built a large 
 house. 
 
 "There was no lack of salmon there, either in 
 the river or in the lake, and larger sahnon than 
 they had ever seen before. The country there- 
 abouts seemed to be possessed of such good quali- 
 ties that cattle would need no fodder there dur- 
 ing the winters. . . . The days and nights there 
 were of more nearly equal length than in Green- 
 land or Iceland. On the shortest day of winter, 
 
78 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLI> 
 
 the sun was up between 'eyktarstad' and 'dag- 
 malastad,' a period of approximately nine hours." 
 
 This passage is famous ! Authorities have dis- 
 puted loud and long over this length of day. But 
 much of such dispute is fruitless. The Norsemen 
 did not possess chronometers, and a few minutes 
 more or less represents considerable difference in 
 latitude. All that can definitely be said is that 
 this must have been south of Newfoundland and. 
 may have been as far south as Cape Cod. 
 
 The saga tells how Leif organized exploration 
 parties, and how, one evening, late, Tyrker came 
 hqme alone. 
 
 ** 'I did not go much further than you,' he said,, 
 'and yet I have somethiag of novelty to relate. I 
 have found vines and grapes. ... Of a certainty 
 this is true, for I was bom where there is no lack 
 of either grapes or vines.' " 
 
 Whereupon they gathered grapes — ^to such an 
 extent that their afterboat was full of them — 
 and cut vine-roots and timber. "A cargo suffi- 
 cient for the ship was cut, and, when the spring 
 came . . . they sailed away, and from its prod- 
 ucts Leif gave the land a name and called it Wine- 
 land." 
 
 In many other places there is evidence that Leif 
 called the southernmost of his discoveries "Wine- 
 land" and "Wine-land the Good." He caQed it 
 so because grapes grew there, from which wine 
 might be made. And — ^be it well observed — ^thia 
 does not mean any berry flavoring or temperance 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 79 
 
 drink. The temptation is irresistible to quote 
 from W. H. Babcock, in ** Early Norse Visits to 
 North America," one of the most eminent authori- 
 ties on the subject, the book being issued by the 
 Smithsonian Institution. On this point of Wine- 
 land and wine, after attacking the people who 
 try to suggest that the Norsemen were content 
 with cranberry- juice, or the like, Babcock says : 
 
 "Every such name, for example, gooseberry 
 wine, testifies to the preexistence of real wine as 
 a standard, and to the fact of feeble imitation. 
 Are these the fruits from which the stout Danish 
 long declared 'the best of wine' could be made? 
 Can we imagine these Icelandic broadswordsmen 
 in armor growing ecstatic over the prospect of 
 herry decoctions?" 
 
 No! This will not do! One cannot picture a 
 Norse warrior quaffing fruit syrup, nor a Viking 
 drinking pop. 
 
 The news of this land, rich in timber and in 
 grapes, with mild winters and ample pasture, at- 
 tracted enormous interest. In both sagas there is 
 evidence that the Norsemen felt more exploration 
 needed to be done. There seems reason to be- 
 lieve that the next attempt was made by Thor- 
 stein Ericsson. The authoritative Saga of Erie 
 the Bed says of this voyage that Thorsteiu was 
 far from eager, "but did not say "nay' when his 
 friends besought him to go." The notice of the 
 voyage is brief : 
 
 "They were long tossed about upon the ocean. 
 
80 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 and could not lay the course they wished. They 
 came in sight of Iceland and likewise saw (land) 
 birds from the Irish coast. Their ship was, in 
 sooth, driven hither and thither over the sea. In 
 the autumn they turned back, worn out by toil 
 and exposure to the elements, and exhausted by 
 their labors, and arrived at Ericsfirth at the very 
 beginning of winter." Whereupon Eric the Eed, 
 gallant, courteous and hospitable, an explorer 
 who knew the hardships of faring forth on un- 
 known seas, made them aU welcome and held 
 Thorstein's crew as his guests the winter through. 
 
 The story then turns to Gudrid the Fair. She 
 was the daughter of Thorbjom, son of Vifil, and 
 her mother was HaUveig, of royal Irish descent 
 from Ketil Thistil. Thorbjorn, who had once 
 been rich and powerful, had been offended, while 
 living in Iceland, because a wealthy merchant who 
 was not of noble birth, had offered to marry Gud- 
 rid. Feeling that he would do better in a new 
 land, Thorbjom had sold all his possessions in 
 Iceland and had come to live in Greenland. The 
 autumn after Thorstein's unsuccessful voyage 
 (the Wine-land Saga says the autumn before), 
 Thorstein Ericsson married Gudrid the Fair. 
 But he was to enjoy his happiness only a few 
 weeks. An epidemic struck the settlement and 
 Thorstein was among the victims, though Gudrid 
 nursed him devotedly. 
 
 When, after many days of illness, he died, and 
 the worn-out young bride-widow went at last to 
 
Courtesy of The Smithsonian Institute. 
 
 THE GOKSTAD SUIP, STERN VIEW. 
 
 This Viking ship was Ijuilt in the period frum 700 to 1050 A. D. It was used 
 as a burial place for a X'iking and was unearthed in 1880 in very good condi- 
 tion, enahHng the correct and exact model, as helow, to be made. 
 
 A MODEL OF A VIKING SHIP. 
 
hlid ^horfmns point of depafture 
 and return^ 
 
 S 
 
 'johtmwest horn of cape 
 
 Iv -iBRETON ISLAND *. 
 
 W(Kjalarnesa- r\ 
 ^ afterward called Cornu 
 du Gallia) <, 
 
 TMEWONDERSTRANCSa 
 
 rstrondir) ». 
 
 V 
 
 I \. MAP 
 
 HoptBoy) ILLUSTRATING 
 THORFINN KARLSEFNIS EXPEDITION 
 ADOUT a 0' 1003 TO I0O6 
 
 -=- Thorfinns route from Brattahlid to Slraumdy 
 "■"-Thorfinns route around NovaScotiaand Cape 
 
 Breton Island to mouth of western f lowingriver 
 -«=«-Thorf inn's route to Hop (as conjectured) 
 
 Courtesy of The Smithsonian Institute, 
 
 THE EXPEDITION OF THORFINN KARLSEFNI. 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 81 
 
 lie down, she was suddenly awakened with the 
 gruesome message that her dead husband had 
 risen in his bed and summoned her. Though an 
 Icelandic woman and fearing the "soulless liv- 
 ing corpse" superstition, Gudrid was a Christian 
 and went bravely into the death chamber. The 
 dead man told her that the plague would be 
 stopped if the people would bum the body of 
 Gard, a pagan, who had died during the epidemic, 
 and promised for his widow a new husband and 
 a noble progeny, warning her that she should not 
 marry a Greenlander. 
 
 The next Wine-land voyage is recorded in the 
 Saga of Wine-land Voyages, and tells of the ad- 
 ventures of Thorvald Ericsson, the third son of 
 Eric the Red. It differs from the account in the 
 Saga of Eric the Red, in which Thorvald is de- 
 scribed as the hehnsman of a later expedition. 
 But there is internal evidence which supports it 
 as partly authentic, at least. The tale runs : 
 
 "Thorvald, with the advice of his brother Leif, 
 prepared to make the voyage with thirty men. , . . 
 There is no account of their voyage before their 
 arrival at Leif 's-booths in Wine-land. They laid 
 up their ships there, and remained there quietly 
 during the winter, supplying themselves with food 
 by. fishing. 
 
 "They explored thereabouts during the sum- 
 mer. They found it a fair, well-wooded country, 
 but a short distance from the woods to the sea, 
 and there were white sands as well as great num- 
 
«3 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 bers of islands and shallo-ws. They found neither 
 dwelling of man nor lair of beast, but, in one of 
 the westerly islands, they found a "wooden build- 
 ing for the shelter of grain. They found no other 
 trace of human handiwork, and arrived at Leif 's 
 booths in the autumn." 
 
 The following summer they explored to the 
 eastward. At a cape, which they called Keelness, 
 Ihey damaged the keel of their ship and were de- 
 tained while they repaired the vessel. Further 
 to the east they found a headland, projecting into 
 the sea and entirely covered with woods. " *It 
 is a fair region here,' said Thorvald, 'and here I 
 .should like to make my home.' 
 
 "They then returned to the ship and, on the 
 fiands beyond the headland, they discovered three 
 moimds ; they went up to these, and saw that they 
 were three skin canoes with three men under each. 
 . . . They killed eight men, but one escaped with 
 Tiis canoe. . . . Later, while they were asleep, a 
 countless number of skin-canoes advanced upon 
 them from the inner part of the first firth, where- 
 upon Thorvald exclaimed, 
 
 * ' 'We must put out the war-boards on both sides 
 of the ship, and defend ourselves to the best of 
 our ability, but offer little attack. ' 
 
 "This they did, and the Skrellings, after they 
 had shot at them for a time, fled precipitately, 
 each as best he could. 
 
 "Then said Thorvald, 
 
 " * I have been wounded in my armpit, an arrow 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 8a 
 
 flew in between the gunwale and the shield, below 
 my arm. Here is the shaft and it will bring me to 
 my end. I oonnsel you, now, to retrace your way 
 with the utmost speed, but me, ye shall convey to 
 that head-land which seemed to me to offer so 
 pleasant a dwelling-place. Thus it may be ful- 
 filled that the tnith sprang to my lips, when I ex- 
 pressed the wish to abide there for a time. Ye 
 shall bury me there, and place a cross at my head 
 and another at my feet, and call it Crossness for 
 ever after.' 
 
 ' ' Thorvald died, and when they had carried out 
 his injunction, they took their departure and re- 
 joined their companions and told each other of 
 the experience which had befallen them. They* 
 remained there during the winter and gathered 
 grapes and wood with which to freight the ship, 
 and, the following spring, they returned to Grreen- 
 land and arrived with their ship in Ericsfirth, 
 where they were able to recount great tidings 
 toLeif." 
 
 Now, soon after the death of Thorstein Erics- 
 son, his father-in-law, Thorbjom, died also. This 
 left Gudrid the Fair alone, heiress of her father's 
 and her husband's possessions. Eric the Eed 
 took his daughter-in-law Gudrid into his house and 
 administered her affairs with that justice for 
 which he was famous. 
 
 There follows, then, a gap of two or three years. 
 Then came to Greenland, probably in 1003, a suc- 
 cessful trader named Thorfinn Karlsefni, of noble 
 
84 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 lineage. He "was a descendant of Earl Thord, 
 and Fridgerd, daughter of Kiarval the King of 
 the Irish. He was accompanied by another ship, 
 commanded by Bjami Grimolfsson, each ship 
 having a crew of forty men. 
 
 Generosity and hospitality was shown on both 
 sides. Thorfinn and his fellow-traders offered to 
 Gudrid the Fair her free choice of whatever she 
 pleased from their cargoes. Eric the Red re- 
 turned this munificence by a generous offer of 
 hospitality for the entire winter to the princely 
 traders and their crews. 
 
 Gudrid was the fairest as well as the wisest 
 woman in Greenland, of noble birth and rich. 
 Thorfinn Karlsefni was a wise and valiant leader 
 of men, also of high lineage and wealthy. Great 
 was the feasting and wassail when Thorfinn was 
 betrothed to Gudrid, whose first marriage had 
 lasted but for a few weeks! This second mar- 
 riage seems to have been a most happy one. 
 
 Its first effect, and its most important one, was 
 that Gudrid the Fair persuaded her husband to 
 go in search and exploration of Wine-land the 
 Good. Three ships started out : one under Thor- 
 finn Karlsefni; one under Bjarni Grimolfsson 
 Thorfinn 's f ellow- trader ; and one under Thor- 
 vard the Wealthy, husband of Freydis, daughter 
 of Erie the Red. On this latter ship, so the Saga 
 of Eric the Red declares, sailed Thorvald Ericsson 
 and Thorhall the Huntsman. This ship belonged 
 to Gudrid the Fair, and in it she had come to 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 85 
 
 Greenland witli her father Thorbjom, some years 
 before. The Saga of Eric the Bed tells the tale : 
 
 "They sailed to the Western Settlement and 
 thence to Bear Island. Thence they bore away 
 to the southward two doegr. They saw land . . . 
 and explored it, and found there large flat stones. 
 There were many Arctic foxes there. They called 
 this country Hellu-land (flat-stone-land). 
 
 ' ' Then they sailed with north winds two doegr, 
 and land lay before them and upon it was a great 
 wood and many wild beasts. An island lay off 
 the land to the south-east. There they found a 
 bear and they called this Bjamey Island (Bear 
 Island) while the land where the wood was they 
 called Mark-land (wood-land). 
 
 "Thence they sailed southward along the land 
 for a long time and came to a cape; the land lay 
 upon the starboard, there were long strands and 
 sandy banks there. They rowed to the land and 
 found upon the cape there the keel of a ship, so 
 they called it Kialamess (Keelness). They also 
 called th6 strands Furdustrandis (Wonder- 
 strands), because they were so long to sail by. 
 Then the country became indented with bays and 
 they steered their ships into a bay. ..." 
 
 Then follows a less authentic passage telling of 
 an exploration of the inland made by two Gaels 
 (Irish) who were swift runners. After a day 
 and a half these returned, and one bore a bunch 
 of grapes and the other "an ear of new sown 
 wheat." The saga continues : 
 
86 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ' * They stood into a bay with their ships. There 
 was an island out at the month of the bay, about 
 which were strong currents, wherefore they called 
 it Straumey (Stream Isle). There were so many 
 birds (eider-ducks) there, that it was scarcely pos- 
 sible to step between the eggs. 
 
 "They sailed through the firth, and called it 
 Straumfjord (Streamfirth) and carried their car- 
 goes ashore from the ships and established them- 
 selves there. They had brought with them all 
 kinds of live-stock. It- was a fine country there. 
 There were mountains thereabouts. They occu- 
 pied themselves exclusively with the exploration 
 of the country. 
 
 "They remained there during the winter, and 
 they had taken no thought for this during the 
 summer. The fishing began to fail and they fell 
 short of food. . . . The weather, then, improved 
 and they could row out to fish ; thenceforward they 
 had no lack of provisions, for they could hunt 
 game on the land, gather eggs on the island and 
 catch fish from the sea." 
 
 During the winter a controversy had sprung up 
 between Karlsefni, who was a Christian, and 
 Thorhall the Huntsman, who was a pagan. Thor- 
 hall claimed that a whale which had been cast up 
 on the shore — and which had made them all ill — 
 had been food sent in answer to his pagan prayers. 
 The Christians blamed their illness on this 
 heathendom. So, in the spring, the two leaders 
 separated, and Thorhall with nine men left on a 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 87 
 
 new voyage, blaming Karlsefni for not having led 
 them to the land where wine could be found. Buty 
 so the saga tells, he encountered violent west galea 
 and was driven ashore in Ireland, where he and 
 his men were thrown into slavery and where he,^ 
 Thorhall the Huntsman, died. This left the ex- 
 pedition with but two ships. The saga takes up 
 the tale : 
 
 "It is now to be told of Karlsefni, that he and 
 Bjami Grimolfsson cruised southward off the 
 coast. They sailed for a long time and until they 
 came at last to a river, which flowed down from 
 the land into a lake and so into the sea. There 
 were great bars at the mouth of the river, so that 
 it could be entered only at the height of flood- 
 tide. Karlsefni and his men sailed into the mouth 
 of the river and called it there Hop (a small land- 
 locked bay). 
 
 ' ' They found self-sown wheat-fields on the land 
 there, wherever there were hollows, and wherever 
 there was hilly ground there were vines. Every 
 brook there was full of fish. They dug pits on 
 the shore where the tide rose highest, and, when 
 the tide fell, there were halibut in the pits. There 
 were great numbers of wild animals of all kinds 
 in the woods. They remained there half a month, 
 and enjoyed themselves, and kept no watch. 
 They had their live-stock with them. 
 
 "Now, one morning early, when they looked 
 about them, they saw a great number of skin- 
 canoes. (Some authorities claim that these may 
 
88 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 have been biroh-bark oanoes.) Staves were bran- 
 dished from the boats, with a noise like flails, 
 and they were waved in the direction of the course 
 of the sun." The Norsemen made a signal 
 of peace. "Whereupon the strangers rowed, 
 towards them, and went upon the land, marveling 
 at those whom they saw before them. They were 
 swarthy men (another version says 'small men') 
 and ill-looking, and the hair of their heads was 
 ugly. They had great eyes and were broad of 
 cheek." 
 
 Karlsefni stayed there that winter and traded 
 with the SkrelHngs, exchangLng red cloth for 
 skins. The Norsemen refused to sell weapons. 
 
 "No snow came there," says the record, "and 
 all of their live-stock lived by grazing." 
 
 Then comes a famous passage : 
 
 "It so happened, that a buU, which belonged to 
 Karlsefni and his people, ran out from the woods, 
 bellowing loudly. This so terrified the SkreUings 
 that they sped out to their canoes, and then rowed 
 away to the southward along the coast. For 
 three entire weeks nothing was seen of them. 
 
 "At the end of this time, however, a great mul- 
 titude of Skrelling boats was discovered approach- 
 ing from the south, as if a stream were pouring 
 down, and all their staves were waved in a direc- 
 tion contrary to the course of the sun, and the 
 SkreUings were all uttering loud cries. 
 
 "Thereupon Karlsefni and his men took red 
 shields and displayed them. The SkreUings sprang 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 89 
 
 from their boats, and they met them, and fought 
 together. There was a fierce shower of missiles, 
 for the Skrellings had war-slings. 
 
 "Karlsefni observed that the Skrellings raised 
 up on a pole a great ball-shaped body, almost the 
 size of a sheep's belly, and nearly black ia color, 
 and this they hurled from the pole up on the land 
 above Karlsefni's followers and it made a fright- 
 ful noise, where it fell. Whereat a great fear (of 
 witchcraft) seized upon Karlsefni and aU his men, 
 so that they could think of nought but flight, 
 . . . for it seemed to them that the troop of 
 SkreUings was rushing towards them from every 
 side, and they did not pause, until they came to 
 certain jutting crags, where they offered a stout 
 resistance. 
 
 "Freydis (daughter of Eric the Bed) came out, 
 and seeing that Karlsefni and his men were flee- 
 ing, she cried: 
 
 " 'Why do ye flee from these wretches, such 
 worthy men as ye, when, meseems, ye might 
 slaughter them like cattle ! Had I but a weapon, 
 methinks, I would fight better than any one of 
 you!' 
 
 "They gave no heed to her words. Freydis 
 sought to join them, but lagged behind for she 
 was 'not hale' (heavy with child). She followed 
 them, however, into the forest, while the Skrell- 
 ings pursued her. She found a dead Norseman in 
 front of her, his skull cleft by a flat stone; his 
 naked sword lay beside him. Freydis took it up 
 
90 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 and prepared to defend herself "with. it. The 
 Skrellings then approached her, whereupon she 
 loosed her gown and slapped her breast with the 
 naked sword. At this the Skrellings were terri- 
 fied (fearing madness or withcraft) and ran down 
 to their boats and rowed away." 
 
 During this winter, Gudrid the Fair gave birth 
 to her son, Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first white 
 child bom in America, and descended on both his 
 father's and his mother's side from Norse earls 
 and Irish kings. 
 
 Yet, despite this domestic tie, the strength of 
 their defensive position and the good houses they 
 had built: "it now seemed clear to Karlsefni and 
 his people, that although the country thereabouts 
 was attractive, their life would be one of constant 
 dread and turmoil by reason of the hostility of the 
 inhabitants of the country, so they forthwith de- 
 termined to return to their own country. , . They 
 sailed northward, passing a cape upon which there 
 was a great number of animals. . . . arrived again 
 at Streamfirth, . . . and stayed there that sum- 
 mer. 
 
 "Karlsefni set out with one ship, in search of 
 Thorhall the Huntsman, but the greater part of 
 the company remained behind. They sailed to 
 the northward around Keelness, and then bore to 
 the westward, having land to the larboard. The 
 countiy there was a wooded wilderness. ..." 
 
 Then follows a strange tale in which an "Ein- 
 faetingr" (a One-footer or Uniped) killed Thor- 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 91 
 
 vald Ericsson with an arrow. The Saga of "Wine- 
 land voyages also tells of this death, but in slightly- 
 different circumstances and as though it happened 
 on another voyage. This "one-footer" has given 
 rise to many curious conjectures, especially as, 
 many years afterwards, Cartier, in his Canadian 
 explorations, brought back reports of a one-legged 
 folk to the north. 
 
 After the death of Thorvald, Karlsefni returned 
 to Streamfirth and they stayed there the third 
 winter. In the spring they started again for home, 
 and, passing Mark-land, found some Skrellings, 
 of whom they captured two boys. These they bap- 
 tized and taught the Norse tongue, and it was from 
 these Skrelling boys that Karlsefni learned of 
 White-man 's-land and Greater Ireland, as told in 
 a preceding chapter. The ship under command of 
 Bjami Grimolf sson sank, as it had become spongy" 
 from the teredo-worm, and the tales vary as to 
 how many and whom among Bj ami's party 
 reached Ireland. Karlsefni with Gudrid the Fair, 
 his little son, and the rest of his party arrived in 
 Greenland in safety, and spent the winter with 
 Eric the Bed. 
 
 An enormous amount of research has been done 
 in connection with this circumstantial account of 
 the three years spent by Thorfinn Karlsefni and 
 Gudrid in the three great lands of Hellu-land, 
 Mark-land and Wine-land. Hundreds of books 
 have been written and dozens of theories con- 
 ceived, fanciful or otherwise. None of the sup- 
 
92 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 posed Norse remains on the American mainland 
 can be regarded as proved. The facts which seem 
 well substantiated are not many. They may be 
 simamarized as follows: 
 
 Hellu-land is Labrador, and the point first seen 
 by the Norsemen was part of the coast between 
 Hopedale and Nain. Mark-land is Newfoundland, 
 and was first touched probably either at Cape 
 Freels or Cape Bonavista. The "island" to the 
 south-east, where the bear was found, is the Avalon 
 Peninsula, which is almost an island and would 
 certainly appear so, unless an effort were made to 
 circumnavigate it. Keelness is the north cape of 
 Cape Breton Island. The Wonder-strands are the 
 long series of beaches which run the whole length 
 of Nova-Scotia. Streamfirth with its strong cur- 
 rents is the Bay of Fundy, which possesses the 
 strongest tide of any place in the world. Straumey 
 (Stream Isle), is Grand Manan Island off the coast 
 of Maine. Where the Norsemen settled for the 
 winter is Passamaquoddy Bay, one shore of which 
 is in Canada and one in the United States. Here 
 Gudrid the Fair lived, and here Snoni Thor- 
 finnsson was born. 
 
 But Karlsefni went further south stUl on the 
 expedition to Hop. The cape with many wild 
 animals (possibly seals) was one of the promon- 
 tories north of Casco Bay. The island and two 
 capes mentioned in corroborative accounts are 
 probably Mount Desert, Cape Ann and Cape Cod, 
 the sailing distances agreeing well with these. The 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 93 
 
 word Hop means a small and sheltered bay. In 
 Thorfinn's Hop there were two entrances, one by 
 which he came, and another, also to the south, by 
 which the * ' Skrellings ' ' came, rounding a cape as 
 they did so. Mount Hope Bay is the sole inlet 
 which corresponds with the requirements. The 
 configuration of the capes at the entrance agrees 
 with Thorfinn's description, and the crags he men- 
 tions are there. There are hills near by, and wild 
 rice (self-sown wheat) grows in the flats. 
 
 At least a dozen sites have been mentioned as 
 Thorfinn's Hop, but the evidence brought forward 
 by W. H. Babcock (Smithsonian Miscellaneous 
 Collections, Vol. 59, No. 19, pub. 1913) seems con- 
 clusive that Mount Hope Bay, Rhode Island, is the 
 place where Thorfinn had his battle with the 
 Skrellings and where he decided to abandon the 
 country. Ehode Island was, therefore, the south- 
 ernmost point reached by the Norsemen in their 
 explorations of the coast-line of America. 
 
 There remains only to be told the somewhat 
 apocryphal story — from the Wine-land Saga — of 
 a further voyage taken by Freydis, daughter of 
 Eric the Eed. She is said to have persuaded two 
 Icelanders, Helgi and Finnbogi, who were spend- 
 ing the winter at Greenland, to accompany her and 
 her husband, Thorvard the Wealthy, in a trip to 
 Wine-land for cargoes of timber and grapes. They 
 sailed, accordingly, and spent the winter at Leif 's- 
 booths. By lying statements, Freydis prevailed 
 upon her husband to kill Helgi and Finnbogi while 
 
94 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 they slept, and she herself brained the five women 
 of Helgi's party with an ax. Then they seized 
 Helgi's ship and returned, claiming both cargoes. 
 Leif heard of the crime, in spite of the hush-money 
 paid by Freydis, and the woman and all the mem- 
 bers of her company were punished by ostracism, 
 almost equivalent to outlawry, in an isolated com- 
 munity. 
 
 This is the last reference to Wine-land until 
 1121, when the official annals state that Bishop 
 Eric Grnupsson ' ' went in search of Vinland. ' ' The 
 last reference to Mark-land was ia 1347, when a 
 vessel, anchor-less and much battered by storms, 
 reached Iceland. "There were seventeen men on 
 board," says the Annals, "and they had sailed to 
 Mark-land, but had afterwards been driven hither 
 by storms at sea." 
 
 Of the Greenland colony there is little more to 
 be said. In 1448, Pope Nicholas V addressed a let- 
 ter to the Bishop of Skalholt and the Bishop of 
 Holar, in Iceland, bidding them enquire as to the 
 truth of a report that, in 1418, "a barbarous and 
 pagan fleet from neighboring shores invaded the 
 island (of Greenland) layiug waste the land with 
 fire and sword, and destroying the sacred temples. 
 Just nine parish churches were left standing." 
 
 In 1493 or 1494, Pope Alexander VI stated that 
 his predecessor, Pope Innocent VIII, had ordered 
 the consecration of Matthias, a Benedictine monk, 
 to be "Bishop of the Diocese of Gardar (Erics- 
 firth) in Greenland, situated at the confines of the 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 95 
 
 known world." There is no record that Matthias 
 ever reached his see, or, if he did so, he was never 
 able to send word, nor to return. 
 
 In 1579, King Frederick II of Denmark and Nor- 
 way, sent Mogens Heinesen to investigate the 
 Greenland colony, but the explorer failed to reach 
 the island. 
 
 In 1575, the English navigator, John Davis, vis- 
 ited the site of the Western Settlement, but found 
 no Europeans living. Thus the colonies of Wine- 
 land, Mark-land and Greenland passed out of ex- 
 istence. 
 
 These accounts of the several voyages, espe- 
 cially those of Leif the Lucky and of Thorfinn 
 Karlsefni and Gudrid the Fair may be summed up. 
 Their inherent truth appears at every point. The 
 descriptions of the lands seen are accurate. The 
 sailing directions agree with the distances. 
 Maples, wild grapes and a cereal known as "self- 
 sown wheat" (probably wild rice, a staple food of 
 the Indians) grow in the latitudes and in the parts 
 described. The wild life seen — ^Arctic foxes, bears, 
 and eider-ducks — are correctly placed. Here is 
 no fanciful tale of the imagination, but a clean-cut 
 record of voyages, made by professional naviga- 
 tors, famous for their trustworthiness. 
 
 Chiefest of all, the observations about the 
 Skrellings are noteworthy. ''Swarthy" and 
 "smaU" are two of the dfescriptive adjectives 
 used, and compared with the Norsemen, American 
 Indians are both. Their love of bright colors. 
 
96 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 improvidence in bargaining, and fear of Freydis' 
 apparent iasanity are all Indian characteristics. 
 Their ignorance of a steel ax and terror at the 
 bellowing of a bull, smack of truth. The weapons 
 of the SkrelUngs were bows and arrows, slings and 
 stone hatchets (which latter, John Fiske declares 
 to be tomahawks). 
 
 The "skin" canoes is more of a difficulty, but 
 the Norsemen had never thought of bark as a 
 canoe-covering, black biroh-bark closely resembles 
 skin, and there is no reference to Eskimo kayaks. 
 The big ball on the end of a pole has been corre- 
 lated with a somewhat similar device of the Algon- 
 quins known as "demon's head." There seems 
 little reason to doubt, from these, and other sagas, 
 that the Norsemen used the word "Skrelling" to 
 describe both the Eskimos and the Indians, in the 
 sense of " savages ' ', but the battles at Hop and in 
 Wine-land were undoubtedly with Indians. 
 
 The sagas, written in soberness and accuracy, 
 are confirmed by historical documents. The tales 
 of the voyages bear their own proof. There is not 
 the slightest room for a denial that the Norsemen 
 landed on the mainland of the continent of Amer- 
 ica, and that at least one company of men spent 
 three years continuously in residence here and in 
 an exploration of its shores. 
 
 Whosesoever may have been the eyes that first 
 saw America, the Norsemen were unquestionably 
 the first Europeans to build houses on the conti- 
 nent, to explore its coasts from a fixed base, and to 
 
THE DRAGON SHIPS 97 
 
 establish, trading voyages for grapes and timber. 
 Long, long before the caravels of Columbus had 
 their bows turned toward the "Indies", the beaks 
 of dragon-ships had been anchored in American 
 harbors. 
 
 One will need to search far to find more thrill- 
 ing American Romance than is told in the saga- 
 tales of Gunnbjom, of Eric the Eed, of Leif the 
 Lucky and of Thorfinn Karlsefni and Gudrid the 
 Fair. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHEN WEST WAS EAST 
 
 Not Wine-land nor Mark-land, but mysterious 
 China, the balmy Isles of Spice and gem-laden 
 India were the direct stepping-stones to America. 
 Very different men and very different motives 
 marked the next great movement westward. 
 
 Instead of the sturdy sea-rovers, seeking places 
 where virile men could hew homes out of the wil- 
 derness, there had come crafty merchants, seek- 
 ing to please rich clients by daiuties from far-off 
 lands. Luxury had become as driving a force as 
 Necessity had been. 
 
 Columbus did not sail in search of the Irish 
 "Blessed Isles of St. Brendan," nor of the Ara- 
 bian "Seven Cities of AntUia", nor of the Welsh 
 "Madoc's Land", nor of the Norse "Wine-land." 
 He sailed ia search of China, the Spice Islands 
 and India. Medieval Europe oould secure crude 
 food and manufacture rough clothing for herself, 
 but for every luxury, every refinement and every 
 delicacy, she looked to the East. 
 
 Little did the great Genoese navigator care 
 about fertile and timbered lands for colonization! 
 Less was he possessed of the spirit of adventure ! 
 The discovery of America was far from being a 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 99 
 
 triumpli to the navigators of the Fifteenth and 
 Sixteenth Centuries. On the contrary, it was a 
 bitter disappointment, for it revealed to them that 
 a great barrier lay between Europe and their de- 
 sired goal. 
 
 The prize which Columbus sought was an enor- 
 mous one, and America was but an obstacle in the 
 path. Much of the ingratitude shown by Spain in 
 the mal-treatment of Columbus during his later 
 years was due to the fact that the explorer in- 
 sisted that Cuba was Japan, and that Haiti was. 
 China, even after the Portuguese had discovered 
 Brazil and Cabot had rediscovered North America. 
 
 From the medieval point of view, Columbus 
 failed in 1492, because he did not reopen a trade 
 route to the Orient, while, in 1496-1499, Vasco de 
 Grama succeeded, because he sailed from Lisbon to 
 India around the Cape of Good Hope. Europe, at 
 that time, did not want lands — she wanted gold, 
 gems and spices, and nothing else would do. 
 
 The importance of these spices, which play sO' 
 large a part in medieval history, is rarely realized. 
 The monotonous diet and common food of medie- 
 val Europe needed to be highly flavored in order 
 to be palatable to the luxurious and epicurean 
 noble. Wines usually were spiced. 
 
 Pepper was almost as valuable as gold, and 
 came only from Malabar, in India. Nutmegs and 
 mace, cloves and all-spice, grew naturally only in. 
 one spot in the world — ^the Molucca or Spice Is- 
 lands. Cinnamon came only from Ceylon. Sugar 
 
100 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 was grown in the East and refined in Bagdad. 
 Spices were so highly esteemed as to be used as 
 gifts between kings and to be listed as royal 
 dowries. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, also, there was a far greater 
 demand for precious stones than now, not only 
 for personal adornment but for the enrichment of 
 shrines and the purposes of the Church. Dia- 
 monds came only from Goloonda, in India. Eubies 
 and sapphires were found in Ceylon, Further 
 India, Khorassan and Persia. Pearls came from 
 Ceylon and the Persian Gulf. 
 
 Drugs, perfumes-^most necessary in days when 
 there was little sanitation — dyes and fragrant 
 woods were equally desired, and came from the 
 same lands. Camphor was found only in Sumatra 
 and Borneo. Musk must be brought from China 
 and Thibet. Indigo was prepared in India. 
 Brazil-wood came from Siam. Sandal-wood grew 
 in Burmah. 
 
 The dress of the women — and of the men—of 
 the richer classes in the Middle Ages was far more 
 gorgeous than now ; none of it was factory-made. 
 Yet every yard of cotton and silk goods came from 
 the Far East by caravan journeys which con- 
 sumed a year's time, or more. Without the fab- 
 rics of the Orient, a woman of the noble class 
 would have had nothing but rough woollen home- 
 spun or coarse linen in which to dress. 
 
 Household luxuries were likewise products of 
 the East. Fine glass came from Damascus and 
 
JVHEN WEST WAS EAST 101 
 
 Samarcand, aad fine china from China. Oriental 
 rugs, most necessary on the cold stone floors of 
 little-heated medieval castles, were then, as now, 
 superior to any European product. 
 
 AU such goods, and many more — forming the 
 richest lines of commerce — reached Europe from 
 the East hy one of three routes, each of these 
 routes, of course, branching ia different directions 
 and iaterlocking one with the other. 
 
 The southernmost was the sea route. Chinese 
 and Japanese junks and Malay proas brought 
 spices to Malacca; Indian and Arabian traders 
 brought the goods as far as Calicut on the Malabar 
 coast, the next great distributing point; thence 
 some Arabian vessels went up the Persian Gulf 
 to Bozra, and by caravan through Bagdad and 
 Damascus to the Mediterranean, while other ves- 
 sels went up the Bed Sea, and so either by caravan 
 across Suez or down the Nile. 
 
 The Central route tapped the interior of India, 
 and may be said to have had Delhi as its first dis- 
 tributing point. Thence it followed the plains 
 south of the Himalaya Mountains through the 
 Afghanistan and Beluchistan passes to Teheran 
 and Tabriz, the northern capital of Persia, which 
 was the central distributing point for most of the 
 goods going to Europe via Trebizond or Asia 
 Minor from the Persian Gulf. The ports were 
 Smyrna, Adayah, Antioch, Laodicea and Jaffa. 
 
 The Overland route began at Quinsay (Hang- 
 chow), a Chinese port on the Pacific Ocean, passed 
 
103 THE QUEST OP THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 north to Pekin, thence west, followiiig the north 
 slopes of the Himalayas to Turkestan and Bok- 
 iara, and so, either north or south of the Caspian 
 Sea, into the Black Sea, "with a final distributing 
 point at Constantinople. 
 
 There were thus three outlets from the East to 
 Europe : Constantinople, Asia Minor, and the Nile- 
 The Discovery of America was primarily due to 
 the fact that, owing to wild and dramatic political 
 revolutions in the East, within a century prior to 
 Columbus, not only one, but all three of these 
 routes were closed. 
 
 Strange though it may seem, the prosperity of 
 the American cities of the Atlantic seaboard from 
 New York to Buenos Aires is largely due to for- 
 gotten battles by barbaric hordes capturing great 
 cities — ^whose very names are unfamiliar — ^many 
 centuries ago. The Romance of American History 
 possesses many wild and fantastic chapters in the 
 heart of Asia, without which the Voyages of 
 Columbus would never have come to pass. 
 
 Seven great factors contributed to the world- 
 knowledge of Columbus ' time and of which he was 
 able to make use. These were the Classic Myths, 
 the Irish Legends, the Norse Voyages, the knowl- 
 edge that the Earth is a sphere, the discovery of 
 the eastern shore of China, the sudden stoppage 
 of all overland trade routes to the East, and the 
 Portuguese voyages of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The Classic Myths had envisioned land across 
 the Western Ocean, and Columbus, in his Jour- 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST lOa 
 
 nals, quotes the Bible, Herodotus, Aristotle, and 
 Strabo as competent autborities. He believed both 
 in "Hy Brasil" and the "Blessed Isles of St. 
 Brendan" and cbarted tbem on Ms maps. He vis- 
 ited Iceland, presumably witb the intent of learn- 
 ing all be could about the Wine-land voyages. Yet 
 Marco Polo was bis principal inspiration. 
 
 Marco Polo bad learned that China was boimded 
 on the east by a great ocean. Tborfinn Karlsefni 
 bad learned that the ocean was bounded on the 
 west by a great land. Toscanelli, a skilled Floren- 
 tine astronomer, suggested to Columbus that the 
 eastern shore of China was the western shore of 
 the Sea of Darkness. It was not difficult, there- 
 fore, for Columbus, as a skilled cartographer, to 
 connect the statements of Marco Polo and Karl- 
 sefni, with the suggestions of Toscanelli. Karl- 
 sefni 's Wine-land was not the coast of Japan, as 
 Columbus may have thought, yet it was the belief 
 that China was where the United States is, that 
 brought about the rediscovery of America. 
 
 It is often wrongly assumed that people in the 
 Middle Ages did not know that the world was 
 round. On the contrary, the cartographers were 
 fully aware of it. Columbus not only carried Tos- 
 canelli 's spherical map and sailing directions with 
 him on his first voyage, but, in that very year, 
 Martin Behaim, a friend of Columbus, completed 
 the making of a globe, based on knowledge which, 
 he gained while on a trans-equatorial voyage with 
 Diego Cam in 1484. Since Columbus had already 
 
104. THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 made many voyages with Portuguese captains, 
 and had made charts for the Portuguese, it is not 
 to be supposed that Behaim's information was un- 
 known to him. 
 
 The sphericity of the earth was well understood 
 in Columbus' time. As early as the Fourth Cen- 
 tury before Christ, Aristotle suggested that the 
 way from Greece to India lay between the Pillars 
 of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar). In the next 
 century, Eratosthenes declared the world to be 
 round, and gave its circumference with approxi- 
 mate accuracy. Strabo, the great Latia geog- 
 rapher, who spoke of a land beyond the Atlantic, 
 also declared the rotundity of the Earth. 
 
 The Arabian scholars handed on the tradition. 
 Because of their researches, at the time of the 
 triumph of the Moors iu Spain, in 714 a. d., a 
 Spanish archbishop and six bishops sailed west- 
 ward into the ocean and were reported to have 
 discovered Antilia, the largest of the "Islands of 
 the Seven Cities." This island was marked on 
 ToscaneUi 's map. It is worthy of note that Ferdi- 
 nand Columbus, son of the great navigator, wrote 
 that his father was influenced by the works of 
 Arabian astronomers and by the writings of 
 Ptolemy and the ancients. In 1070, Adam of Bre- 
 men, who seems to assume the Earth as partly 
 spherical, at least, referred to the discoveries of 
 the Norsemen. 
 
 During the two or three centuries prior to 
 Columbus' famous voyage, this belief in the sphe* 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 105 
 
 ricity of the Earth became more and more gen- 
 erally recognized. In 1267, Eoger Bacon, the great 
 English philosopher and genius, afifirmed Aris- 
 totle 's belief that the distance by sea from Spain 
 to Africa could not be very great. In 1410, Bacon's 
 arguments were quoted in the "Imago Mundi" 
 by Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, a copy of 
 which book, with marginal notes in Columbus' 
 handwriting, is still extant, in the Columbus 
 Library, in Seville. 
 
 For a century and more, the Portuguese had 
 voyaged widely. They had explored all the coast 
 of Africa, and in many cases, had ventured far 
 into both the North Atlantic and South Atlantic 
 Oceans. They had found them to be free from 
 the supposed "mud-shoals" left by the mythical 
 "Lost Atlantis," They had not encountered the 
 "hand of Satan," the "Kraken" nor any of the 
 fearsome sea-monsters of fable. The Portuguese 
 had caused the "Sea of Darkness" to be regarded 
 as a navigable ocean, half-a-century before Colum- 
 bus. Moreover, in 1476, Skolno the Pole was re- 
 ported to have cruised along the coast of Labra- 
 dor. In 1488, Jean Cousin, a Breton fisherman, 
 had drifted to the coast of South America. The 
 Portuguese navigators were fully aware that the 
 Earth was a sphere. 
 
 Nor is it to be thought that this knowledge was 
 confined only to the learned. The poets — ^who 
 were the story-teUers and teachers of the medieval 
 unlettered classes — ^had made the idea familiar. In 
 
106 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the year 1300, Dante, in his immortal poem, had 
 written of the world as round. In 1350, Petrarch 
 wrote of the sun hastening on its westward jour- 
 ney: "with winged steps, perchance to gladden 
 the expectant eyes of far-off nations, in a world 
 remote. ' ' 
 
 It is Luigi Pulci, however, who, in his "Mor- 
 gante Maggiore," published in 1481, reveals what 
 was the general knowledge of his time. He puts 
 into the mouth of the Devil the following informa- 
 tion: 
 
 "Know that this theory (that the PiUars of 
 Hercules were the boundaries of the world) is 
 false. The daring mariner shall urge his bark far 
 over the western wave, which is a smooth and level 
 plain, albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel 
 (sphere). Man was, in ancient days, of giant 
 mould, and Hercules might blush to learn how far 
 the slowest vessel soon may wend her way beyond 
 the limits he had vainly set, when men shall see 
 another hemisphere. Since to one common centre 
 all things tend, so Earth, by curious mystery di- 
 vine, well balanced hangs amid the starry spheres. 
 At our antipodes are cities, states, and thronged 
 empires, never known of yore. And see, the sun 
 speeds on his western path to glad expectant 
 nations with his light." 
 
 In no sense, then, is Columbus to be portrayed 
 as a visionary who was the first to conceive the 
 noble idea of crossing the western ocean, and who 
 persuaded kings and princes of the sphericity of 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 107 
 
 the earth, and of the consequent possibility of his 
 dream. He is to be regarded, rather, as a student 
 of classic and fabulous geography and a learned 
 cartographer, who was the first to grasp the com- 
 mercial significance of all the discoveries which 
 had been made prior to his time, the first who 
 possessed sufficient knowledge and sufficient 
 weight to convince royalty of the soundness and 
 reasonableness of his plan, and the first to put the 
 great venture to the test. 
 
 Four centuries elapsed between Leif Ericsson's 
 discovery of Wine-land and Columbus' Discovery 
 of the West Indies. During this time, the whole 
 face of Europe had changed, and civilization had 
 swung into new channels. Portugal looked east- 
 ward, while the Norsemen had looked westward. 
 To understand Columbus' venture, therefore, it is 
 necessary to see what these changes were, and 
 why they occurred. 
 
 In the year 1000, when Greenland was first col- 
 onized, Europe was m a distressful condition. 
 Anglo-Saxon England was in its death-throes. 
 The new Kingdom of France, a tiny realm, was 
 battling for its life against the great duchies which 
 surrounded it. Germany meant nothing. The 
 papacy exerted little temporal power. In Spain, 
 the Christians were under the heel of the Moors. 
 
 In the year 1100, a mighty change had come over 
 the scene. England had become Norman, and was 
 in firm hands. Hildebrand or Pope Gregory VII 
 had become the strongest ruler in Europe. The 
 
108 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 French King had become a real king. Christianity 
 was marshalled under the banner of the First Cru- 
 sade. The Crusades, in turn, brought Western 
 Europe in touch with the two great civilizations 
 of those times — ^the Byzantine civilization at Con- 
 stantinople and the Saracenic civilization at 
 Bagdad. 
 
 In the year 1200, Europe was transformed. The 
 Century of Crusades had freed the nations of the 
 west from the plague of robber barons by the sum- 
 mary process of killing them off. The Holy Wars 
 had deepened religious fervor and strengthened 
 the Church. The soldiery, by travel and experi- 
 ence, had learned to think for themselves. The 
 w^omen, left at home to manage estates during the 
 absence of Crusader husbands, had become vigor- 
 ous-minded and competent. The peasants, or yeo- 
 men, learned their rights and used them. Magna 
 Charta was signed in 1215, and Magna Charta is, 
 today, as much a part of the basis of American 
 liberties as it is of English constitutional free- 
 dom. 
 
 In the year 1250, new forces had come into ac- 
 tion. The defeat of Constantinople by Venice, 
 and the alliance of Genoa with the Byzantine 
 power, brought Venice and Genoa to the fore as 
 the commercial centers of the civilized world. 
 There is no city in the world today which can 
 compare in luxury and learning with what Venice 
 was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This 
 development had been brought about by the as- 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 109 
 
 tounding development of Oriental trade. This, in 
 its turn, had resulted from the break-down of the 
 Saracenic empire by the sweeping conquest of the 
 Mongols under Genghis Khan. Says a well-known 
 authority, "Scarcely a dog might bark without 
 Mongol permission, from Poland to the Yellow 
 Sea." 
 
 Ere the date of 1260, moreover, one geograph- 
 ical fact of the highest importance had become 
 known. In 1245, Friar John of Piano Carpini was 
 sent by Pope Innocent IV on a missionary errand 
 to the Great Khan of the Mongols in his camp at 
 Karakorum, in Mongolia. In 1253, St. Louis, King 
 of France, sent Friar Willem de Eubruquis on a 
 similar errand. Both men returned with the in- 
 formation that Cathay (Khitai=China) bordered 
 upon an eastern ocean. 
 
 In 1260, only seven years after de Eubruquis' 
 journey, two brothers, Nioolo and Maffeo Polo, 
 started on a trading voyage to the Crimea. They 
 were members of one of the wealthiest Venetian 
 houses, and had a commercial branch in Constanti- 
 nople. From the Crimea, trading ventures led the 
 Polo brothers to the Volga, thence into Bokhara, 
 and finally to the court of the Great Khan. Kublai 
 Khan, grandson of the all-conquering Genghis 
 Khan, made them welcome, and they returned to 
 Europe with the Khan's request that Christian 
 missionaries should be sent to him to give instruc- 
 tion in Christianity and civilization. 
 
 In 1271, the Polo brothers voyaged again to the 
 
illO THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 court of the Great Khan, tMs time taking with 
 them Nicolo's son, Marco, then a boy but seven- 
 teen years old. They went by way of Acre, Bag- 
 dad, Hormuz, thence through Khorassan, Kash- 
 gar, Khotan, and across the desert of Gobi into 
 northwestern China, where, after four years of 
 continuous travel, they found the Great Khan at 
 Kaiping-fu. 
 
 Maroo Polo, who had been studying Asiatic lan- 
 guages, during his four years' journey, at once 
 became a member of the Khan's court. In 1277 
 he became a commissioner of the privy council, 
 and rose in official rank until, in 1292, he was prac- 
 tically the personal and commercial adviser of the 
 Great Khan. 
 
 His father and uncle continued their trading. 
 In 1292, the daughter of the Great Khan was sent 
 to be a bride of the Khan of Persia, and the three 
 Polos were appointed to command the escort of 
 the princess. They arrived in Persia in 1294, and, 
 a year later, returned to Venice, where, once recog- 
 nized, they were received in triumph. 
 
 While fighting for Venice against the Genoese, 
 in 1298, Marco Polo was taken prisoner, and, dur- 
 ing his year's seclusion, he dictated to a feUow- 
 prisoner an account of his adventures in the coun- 
 try of the Great Klhan. 
 
 Owing to his marked linguistic and commercial 
 talents, Maroo Polo had been engaged on impor- 
 tant missions for the Great Elhan all over the em- 
 pire. His book conveyed more accurate geograph- 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 111 
 
 ical information tlian any book ever written be- 
 fore or since. He described China, Thibet, Bur- 
 mah, Siam, Cochin China, and gave accurate in- 
 formation about Java, Sumatra and the East 
 Indies. He told of the failure of the Mongols to 
 conquer Japan in 1281. Siberia, as far north as 
 the Arctic Circle, was familiar to him, and he told 
 of dog-sledges and polar bears. Persia was well- 
 known, but it was to Marco Polo that Europe was 
 indebted for knowledge of Northern Eussia and 
 the Golden Horde. Moreover, from seamen he had 
 learned much of the trade and ports of the Indian 
 Ocean and told about Zanzibar, Madagascar and 
 the semi-Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. 
 
 Twenty years or so after Marco Polo's return, 
 and while the great explorer was stiU living. Friar 
 Odorio spent the years 1316-1330 in Hiadustani, 
 East Indies, China and Thibet. Other mission- 
 aries visited various parts of the Mongol empire. 
 In 1340, Pegolotti, a Florentiae merchant, issued 
 a guide-book for commercial travelers to China. 
 Giovanni MarignoHi spent the years between 1338 
 and 1353 as papal legate from Pope Benedict XI 
 to the Great Khan, and traveled widely. This was 
 the last journey to be taken by a European for 
 many centuries. In 1368, the Chinese people over- 
 threw the Mongols, placed a native emperor of the 
 Ming dynasty on the throne and closed China to 
 foreigners. 
 
 Then "Sir John Mandeville," whom Fiske calls 
 "that arrant old impostor," made up a so-called 
 
112 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 book of ' ' Travels. ' ' This consisted largely of quo- 
 tations filched bodily from the work of Friar 
 Odorie, but to these the compiler added passages 
 taken at mad random, borrowed from any and 
 every source, and set them forth as his own experi- 
 ences. The book was first printed in 1480 and was 
 generally accepted as true during the Middle 
 Ages. It possesses importance in the History of 
 America, because Columbus' knowledge of Cathay, 
 or China (which he believed Haiti to be), was 
 secured from these two books: "Travels of Sir 
 John Mandeville" and "The Book of Ser Marco 
 conoernuig the Kingdoms and Marvels of the 
 East." Of the latter book, published in 1485, a 
 copy annotated in the handwriting either of Chris- 
 topher Columbus, or of his brother Bartholomew, 
 is in the Columbus Library at Seville. 
 
 Had it not been for the downfall of the Mongols 
 at the hands of the Chiaese, it is more than prob- 
 able that the first European discovery of Amer- 
 ica would have been made across the Pacific Ocean, 
 instead of across the Atlantic. 
 
 Two race-movements prevented this. The first, 
 as has been said, was tbe defeat of the commerce- 
 loving Mongols by the commerce-hatiug Chinese 
 in 1368. The second was the conquest of the Bal- 
 kan States by the Turks in 1365 and the steady ad- 
 vance of that strangling power, culminating with 
 the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. This 
 closed the Northern Overland route and killed the 
 trade of Genoa, since Genoa had a monopoly of all 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 113 
 
 European commerce coming by tMs route. When, 
 some years later, the Turks secured control of 
 Asia Minor and Egypt, all the trade of Venice 
 crumbled, for Venice controlled the Syrian ports 
 and the Nile. 
 
 To add to these troubles, once the Turks had 
 established themselves on the Mediterranean, 
 Turkish corsairs and pirates harried every vessel 
 that sailed the inland sea. Venetian, Grenoese and 
 papal galleys dared not move, except under a 
 strong convoy. The Turks had closed the land- 
 routes. They also made the Mediterranean too 
 dangerous for travel. 
 
 Europe, now accustomed to luxuries, and de- 
 pendent for them on trade with the Orient, clam- 
 ored for the reopening of that trade, and, as the 
 supply diminished, the prices rose. The rich of- 
 fered fabulous sums. The world cried aloud for 
 daring men who would sail to unknown seas, or 
 who would cross hostile lands and bring back the 
 silks, the spices and the gems which Europe 
 craved, and for which it would pay any price. 
 
 Those who were the first to dare were the Portu- 
 guese, and the nation which dominated all Fif- 
 teenth Century navigation was neither Italy nor 
 Spain, but Portugal. The problem which con- 
 fronted the explorers of that time was how to 
 reach the Spice Islands by sea. Since the Indies 
 were to the east of Europe, the only hopes which 
 suggested themselves were either a passage north- 
 eastward around Europe, or else, south-eastward 
 
114 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 around Africa. In general, both of these routes 
 were considered impossible. 
 
 True, there was a tradition that in 600 b. c, a 
 Phoenician squadron had circumnavigated Africa, 
 but this was hardly more than a myth. It was 
 known that under Hanno, the Carthaginians, with 
 a fleet of 60 fifty-oared ships, had estabhshed col- 
 onies as far south as the Eio del Oro and had 
 reached Sierra Leone and Sherboro Island, where 
 he found ''wild men and women covered with 
 hair," which were called "gorillas" by the inter- 
 preters. The fact that the sailors were unable to 
 master three female goriUas whom they captured, 
 gives an air of truth to the story. But Hanno was 
 far from circumnavigating Africa. 
 
 The exploration must be done, little by little. 
 Madeira had been rediscovered either in 1351 by 
 Admiral Pessanha of Portugal, or in 1370, by Eob- 
 ert Machin, whose romantic tale adds interest to 
 the discovery. 
 
 Machin was the son of a wealthy merchant in 
 Bristol, England, who loved a lady of noble birth 
 and was promptly thrown into prison for his pre- 
 sumption. On his release from prison, he found 
 his lady-love married to a powerful baron, but he 
 persuaded her to elope with him and fly to France. 
 The ship was dismasted in a gale and blown south- 
 ward for thirteen days, then cast on an island, 
 the two lovers and a few sailors being the only 
 persons saved. 
 
 The island was uninhabited, but beautiful and 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 115 
 
 fertile and there the castaways lived very happily. 
 After some years the lady died, and Machin put 
 up a cross with an inscription asking that if Chris- 
 tians ever came to the island, they should build 
 a church over his loved one's grave. He died him- 
 self, a few days after, and was interred beside her. 
 
 The surviving sailors, lacking a leader, then 
 took the ship's boat, and started back for Europe, 
 but were captured by the Moors and sold for 
 slaves. One of the enslaved English sailors told 
 the story to a Spanish fellow-captive named 
 Morales. Morales, having been rescued after- 
 wards, told the tale to Prince Henry the Naviga- 
 tor in Portugal, and accompanied John Gonzalves 
 Zarco and Tristao Vaz, in their search for Ma- 
 deira, The island was rediscovered in 1420 and a 
 church was erected over the lovers ' graves, accord- 
 ing to Machiu's request. 
 
 Of this Prince Henry the Navigator there is 
 much to be said. He was the third son of John 
 the Great of Portugal, and Grand Master of the 
 Order of Christ. Possessing immense wealth and 
 an active mind, he established an observatory and 
 a school of navigation at Sagre "the Sacred Pro- 
 montory," and summoned men of science from 
 every country to work on geodesy, mechanics and 
 artificers of every degree to improve navigational 
 instruments, cartographers from all over the world 
 to collect and compare all known charts, ship- 
 builders from every port to design and build ves- 
 
116 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 sels, and daring captains and mariners of every 
 nation to sail the voyages he laid for them. 
 
 Prince Henry was born 1394, less than thirty 
 years after the Chinese had driven out the Mon- 
 gols and put an end to the overland trade i,o the 
 Flowery Kingdom. In 1396 Sultan Bazajet of the 
 Osmanii Turks defeated a picked army of Chris- 
 tian chivalry under King Sigismund of Hungary, 
 at Nioopohs. In 1400 Bazajet ordered Constanti- 
 nople to surrender. In 1402 Tamerlane the Mon- 
 gol defeated Bazajet, and eleven years later the 
 Turkish power was restored. In other words, dur- 
 ing all Prince Henry's childhood and youth, there 
 had occurred the slow but sure closing of the east- 
 em door of trade opportunity to the Christian 
 world. Three years after the restoration of the 
 Turkish power, in 1416, Prince Henry set up his 
 school of navigation and began his life-work of at- 
 tempting to solve the problem of reaching India, 
 the Spice Islands and China by an all-sea route. 
 
 In order to realize the terrific task before Prince 
 Henry, it is to be remembered that while the Earth 
 was conceived as a sphere, most of it was believed 
 to be uninhabitable. By far the larger number of 
 people regarded the Equator as a belt of flame, 
 which could not be passed. Navigators had sailed 
 to the north and, before they reached the North 
 Pole, had been stopped by ice. They had sailed to 
 the south, and, before reaching the equator, had 
 found the heat grown intense. Dante 's poem men- 
 tioned both flames and ice as the regions of Hell. 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 117 
 
 Few sailors could be foimd who would venture so 
 near the infernal regions. 
 
 At this time, too, there was a belief that the At- 
 lantic was full of treacherous mud-shoals left by 
 the sinking of the lost Atlantis; there was also 
 the Arabian tradition that the watery western 
 waste was the abode of wiad-genii; there was, 
 furthermore, the medieval dogma that, a day's 
 journey out of sight of land, the Hand of Satan, 
 four times as large as any ship, would appear 
 above the water and snatch the vessel below, seiz- 
 ing the crew for eternal torment. To enhance 
 these terrors must be added the Norse tales of the 
 Kraken and sea-serpents, and the Greek tales of 
 singing sirens that lured to destruction. The wan- 
 dering whirlpools of Phoenician report were cal- 
 culated to disturb the stoutest mariner. 
 
 Not less terrible were more recent accounts of 
 marine dangers. Thus the lurid tale of a sea 
 where the very sea-weed has snaky arms to clutch 
 and hold a ship is evidently a partial description 
 of the Sargasso Sea, which the Magrurin expedi- 
 tion encountered in sailing westward from Lisbon 
 in 1167, and, because of which, it sailed back in dis- 
 may. Likewise the description of a part of the 
 ocean as being inhabited by invisible demons who 
 pierced a ship's sides with gimlet holes refers to 
 the work of the teredo or boring-worm, which was 
 the greatest menace to mariners before the days 
 of copper sheathing on vessels. 
 
 True, the mariner's compass had become known. 
 
118 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 It had been brought to Europe by the Crusaders 
 who had sailed with Arabians or had been taken 
 captive by them and then ransomed or escaped. 
 The Arabians may have learned its use either di- 
 rectly from the Chinese, or else from their study 
 of Greek and Phcenioian records, for it is to be 
 remembered that, in the days of the Caliphates, 
 the Saracens were a highly cultured and learned 
 people. They, also, had brought the astrolabe to 
 high perfection. 
 
 Prince Henry and the scientists around him, 
 however, adapted both the compass and the astro- 
 labe to more efficient use and worked out solar and 
 stellar tables with great accuracy. The first quad- 
 rant was invented and used by a Portuguese. Not 
 only that, but every captain who sailed from Port- 
 ugal was thoroughly trained in aU the navigational 
 knowledge of the time. 
 
 In 1433, Giles Jones, a "Welshman sailing for 
 Prince Henry, under the name Gil Eannes, dou- 
 bled Cape Bojador (African coast, just s. of lat. 
 of Canary Islands) and, in 1435, sailed 200 miles 
 beyond it. In 1442, Antonio Gonzaives captured 
 some negro slaves near Eio del Oro (s. of C. Boja- 
 dor), and thus set up the begiiming of the lucrative 
 Portuguese slave trade. This was of the utmost 
 value, for Portugal was in need of slave labor, 
 and Prince Henry's efforts, which had been re- 
 garded as chimerical and visionary by the mer- 
 chants of the time, now seemed wise and full of 
 promise. 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 119 
 
 Though Prince Henry realized the value to his 
 country of slave labor, he was even more con- 
 cerned by the discovery of heathen nations to 
 whom the Gospel of Christ had not been preached. 
 Accordingly, he asked the Popes for a grant in 
 perpetuity of all heathen lands which might be 
 discovered in further voyages beyond Cape Boja- 
 dor, even as far as the Indies. This grant was 
 solemnly confirmed, and, as will be seen hereafter, 
 it had a most important effect on the colonization 
 of Amierica. 
 
 The slave trade, which had elements of good as 
 well as of evil in it, enriched Portugal. An even 
 greater gain resulted from the establishment of a 
 sea-route to the Gold Coast for gold. In 1445, 
 Dinis Fernandez passed Cape Verde (opposite the 
 Cape Verde Islands). In 1447, Lancarote discov- 
 ered the mouth of the Gambia, (N. of Guinea.) 
 In 1456, Luigi Cadamosto, a Venetian captain un- 
 der Prince Henry, went as far as the Eio Grande 
 (in Guinea) . In 1460, Diego Gomez discovered the 
 Cape Verde Islands. In 1462, Piedro de Cintra 
 reached Sierra Leone. In 1471, Joao de Santarem 
 and Pedro de Escobar sailed down the Gold 
 Coast and crossed the Equator. In 1474, Fer- 
 nando Po went still further, to the island that 
 bears his name. In 1484, Diego Cam reached the 
 mouth of the Congo, and, the year following, 
 passed beyond the zone of the forests to the land 
 of the Hottentots. In 1486, Bartholoiuew Diaz 
 rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and went 600 
 
120 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 miles further to the eastward. In 1497, Vasco de 
 Gama successfully circumnavigated Africa and 
 sailed from Lisbon to India. The Portuguese had 
 opened a sea-route to China and the Spice Islands 
 in less than fifty years after the Turks had cap- 
 tured Constantinople, 
 
 Aside from these great voykges, with their ulti- 
 mate success in the goal sought, there are three 
 other important voyages to be remembered. The 
 first of these was the discovery of the Azores, first 
 touched by Bartholomeu Perestrello in 1431, and 
 fully explored by Gonzalo Velho Cabral in 1432- 
 1444. The second was the attempt made to find a 
 way to India by sailing northwards round the 
 continent of Europe, when, in 1489, Martin Lopes 
 sailed past the North Cape into regions unex- 
 plored, discovered the White Sea and the great 
 island of Nova Zembla. The third great voyage 
 was in 1500, when Pedro Alvares Cabral discov- 
 ered Brazil, of which last, more is to be told here- 
 after. 
 
 There is, however, far more than this discovery 
 of Brazil to be ascribed to the Portuguese. With- 
 out the charts made by them, the improvements in 
 instruments for navigation made by them, the ad- 
 vances in ship-building made by them, and the ex- 
 plorations financed by them, the voyage of Chris- 
 topher Cokmbus would never have happened. 
 
 Although Columbus was bom in or near Genoa, 
 and although his western voyage was financed by 
 Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile, Columbus was 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 121" 
 
 trained in Portugal, sailed under Portuguese cap- 
 tains, lived ra the nautical atmospliere of Portu- 
 guese discovery, married the daughter of Pere- 
 streUo, "who had been the first to discover the 
 Azores, lived in those islands, and spent fourteen 
 years of his life either in making voyages with the 
 Portuguese or in drafting maps and charts of 
 Portuguese discoveries. The inspiration which 
 brought about the discovery of America belongs 
 less to Columbus than to Prince Henry the Navi- 
 gator. 
 
 Nor is to be forgotten a record still extant in 
 the Ancient City Chronicles of Genoa to the effect 
 that the Vivaldi brothers, in 1285, "undertook a 
 new and untried voyage, that to India by way of 
 the West. ' ' What this voyage was and where they 
 went is not known, but the words are significant 
 and memorable. In those days, it is to be remem- 
 bered, Grenoa was mistress of the seas. 
 
 It is often asserted that Columbus was the first 
 to suggest a westward voyage to China and the 
 Indies, but aside from the official pronouncement 
 of the venture of his townsmen, the Valdivia broth- 
 ers, such an assertion is highly improbable. The 
 claim that Columbus mentioned the matter in the 
 year 1470 or 1471 depends on a letter written by 
 him in 1505, in which he says that for fourteen 
 years (prior to 1485) he had not been able to per- 
 suade the King of Portugal to lend aid to his 
 scheme. A letter written by a disappointed man, 
 
122 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 thirty-five years after the event, is not good evi- 
 dence. 
 
 On the other hand, it is known that Paolo del 
 Pozzo dei Toscanelli, a Florentine astronomer, 
 was asked by Alfonso V of Portugal, in 1474, to 
 state whether it were possible that there could be a 
 shorter oceanic route to the Indies than that which 
 his captains were following by route of the Afri- 
 can coast. This letter, undoubtedly, was the out- 
 come of the disappointing discovery by Santarem 
 and Escobar, in 1472, that the easterly trend of 
 the African coast abruptly turned to the south- 
 ward beyond what is now known as the Bight of 
 Biafra, in the Gulf of Guinea. 
 
 The king's request was made to Ferdinand 
 Martinez, a member of the royal household, who 
 was a personal friend of Toscanelli. 
 
 The Florentine astronomer answered with a let- 
 ter which is, without any question, the most vital 
 document in the history of American discovery. 
 It was the letter of Toscanelli and the sailing 
 chart attached which sent Columbus on his west- 
 ward voyage. Columbus, in short, did nothing 
 more than what Toscanelli showed him how to do. 
 The letter is as follows : 
 
 "Paul, the physicist, to Fernando Martinez, 
 canon, at Lisbon, greeting. I was glad to hear of 
 your intimacy and favor with your most noble and 
 illustrious king. 
 
 "I have formerly spoken with you about a 
 shorter route to the places of Spices by ocean navi- 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 123 
 
 gation than that wMoli you are pursuing by 
 Guinea. 
 
 ' ' The most gracious king now desires from me 
 some statement, or rather an exhibition to the eye, 
 so that even slightly educated persons can grasp 
 and comprehend that route. Although I am well 
 aware that this can be proved from the spherical 
 shape of the earth, nevertheless, in order to make 
 the point clearer, and to facilitate the enterprise, I 
 have decided to exhibit that route by means of a 
 sailing chart. 
 
 "I therefore send to His Majesty a chart made' 
 by my own hands, upon which are laid down your 
 coasts, and the islands from which you must begin 
 to shape your course steadily westward, and the 
 places at which you are bound to arrive, and how 
 far from the Pole or the Equator you ought to 
 keep away, and through how much space or how 
 many miles you are to arrive at places most fer- 
 tile in all sorts of spices and gems; and do not 
 wonder at my calling west the parts where the 
 spices are, whereas they are commonly called east, 
 because to persons persistently sailing westward 
 those parts will be found by courses on the under 
 side of the Earth. For if you go by land and by 
 routes on this upper side, they will always be 
 found on the east. 
 
 "The straight lines drawn lengthwise upon the 
 map indicate distances from east to west, while 
 the transverse lines show distances from south to 
 north. 
 
124 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 "I have drawn upon the map various places 
 upon which you may come, for the better informa- 
 tion of the navigators in case of their arriving, 
 whether through accident of wind, or what not, at 
 some different place from what they had expected 
 
 Then follows a, long description of the ports of 
 Cathay, taken from Marco Polo. The letter ends : 
 
 "This for some sort of answer to his request, 
 so far as haste and my occupations have allowed, 
 ready in future to make further response to His 
 Eoyal Majesty as much as he may wish. Given 
 at Florence, 25th June, 1474." 
 
 Toscanelli, therefore, "formerly" or some time 
 prior to 1474, spoke to Martinez about crossing 
 to China and the Indies by the westward route. 
 He told Pulci, also. He seems to have told many 
 more. Martinez told the King of Portugal. 
 
 Now, after this letter had been received in Port- 
 ugal — mark that, after ! — Columbus wrote to Tos- 
 canelli for further details. He received the fol- 
 lowing response from the Florentine astronomer : 
 
 "Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus, 
 greeting. I perceive your great and noble desire 
 to go to the place where the spices grow, wherefore 
 in reply to a letter of yours, I send you a copy of 
 another letter which I wrote some time ago to a 
 friend of mine, a gentleman of the household of the 
 most gracious King of Portugal . . . and I send 
 you another sailing chart, similar to the one I sent 
 him, by which your demands will be satisfied. ' ' 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 125 
 
 Then follows a copy of the letter sent on June 
 25, 1474, and quoted above. After which Toscan- 
 elli continues : 
 
 "From the city of Lisbon, due west, there are 
 26 spaces marked on the map, each of which con- 
 tains 250 miles, as far as the very great and splen- 
 did city of Quinsay (Hang-Chow). . . . That city 
 is in the province of Mangi, or near the province 
 of Cathay, in which is the royal residence. 
 
 "But, from the island of Antilia, which you 
 know, to the very splendid island of Cipango 
 (Japan) there are ten spaces. . . . So, through 
 the unknown parts of the route, the stretches of 
 sea to be traversed are not great. 
 
 "Many things might perhaps have been stated 
 more clearly, but one who duly considers what I 
 have said will be able to work out the rest for him- 
 self. Farewell, most esteemed one. " 
 
 This map and these sailing directions formed 
 the basis for Columbus ' First Voyage. It is of im- 
 portance, then, to see what the map represented. 
 It showed Ireland, England, Portugal and Spain 
 and the coast of Africa, as the eastern coast-line. 
 West of Ireland, 250 miles, was the mythical is- 
 land of Hy Brasil. West of Spain, 1,250 miles, 
 were the Azores. West of the north coast of Af- 
 rica, 1,000 miles, were the Madeira and Canary 
 Islands. West of Cape Verde, at 1,250 miles, were 
 the Cape Verde Islands. 
 
 In the middle of the ocean, on the same latitude 
 as Madeira, was Antilia, the mythical center of the 
 
126 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Island of Seven Cities. (There is some reason for 
 supposing Antilia to be the Antilles. In 1435 
 Beccaria mapped four large islands very much in 
 the positions of Porto Eico, Cuba, Haiti and 
 Jamaica.) Also in mid-ocean, further west, and 
 just north of the Equator, was the Blessed Isle of 
 St. Brendan. 
 
 The further shore was curiously arranged. On 
 the same latitude as Portugal and the Azores, at 
 a distance of 4,250 miles from Lisbon, was a group 
 of islands located in what is called on the map the 
 "Ocean of the East Indies." Japan lay south 
 of these, and, further south, were Java and the 
 Spice Islands. Chiaa and part of the mainland 
 of Asia was fairly correctly designed, west of this 
 string of islands. 
 
 A glance at the map is proof, at once, that the 
 information on which Toscanelli based his map, 
 came from two distinct sources. Java and the 
 Spice Islands are not unreasonably wrongly 
 charted, considering the geography of the time, 
 though Japan should be much farther to the north. 
 This error in mapping Japan is comprehensible, 
 when it is remembered that the information had 
 come through a succession of hands from Malacca. 
 Japan was north of the Spice Islands, so much 
 was known, but how far north was not known. 
 
 It is the group of islands which is marked as 
 being north of Japan, however, which constitute 
 the prime interest in Toscanelli 's chart. These 
 were the islands for which Columbus was steering. 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 127 
 
 It has been suggested that this group of islands 
 may have been intended for the northern isles of 
 Japan, or even the Aleutian chain. This is an 
 obvious error, for Marco Polo knew nothing of the 
 Aleutian Islands, nor had any European traveler 
 journeyed there. The knowledge that there were 
 islands on the further side of the Western Sea, at 
 about the same latitude as Spain, must have come 
 from another source. 
 
 There seems no reason for supposing Toscan- 
 elli ignorant of the tales of the islands found by 
 the Irish and Welsh voyagers, a little south of 
 west from their own lands. It is probable that 
 the aged scientist — ^who lived in Italy — ^would have 
 known of the papal letters concerning Greenland, 
 and might have heard reports of Wine-land, where 
 there was little snow in winter, and where wild 
 grapes grew freely. As a skilled astronomer, he 
 would inevitably have charted such lands in the 
 zone where the winters were mild and where 
 grapes grew, namely, the Temperate Zone. 
 
 If, then, the islands charted by ToscaneUi were 
 intended for the West Indies, they are not ill 
 mapped. Toscanelli had an inkliag where the 
 West Indies were. He knew where the Spice Is- 
 lands were. Miscalculating the earth's circum- 
 ference, it seemed to him that they ought to be 
 about on the same longitude. He dropped Japan 
 southward so as to fit between them. 
 
 These islands were called the East Indies by 
 Toscanelli. Columbus sailed for them, and found 
 
128 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 them. He called them the East Indies, also, and 
 named their inhabitants "Indians." The misno- 
 mer "North American Indians" merely perpetu- 
 ates this error of Columbus and ToscaneUi. 
 Columbus died with the declared belief that the 
 West Indies were outlying parts of the continent 
 and the islands of Asia, 
 
 The East, then, as ToscaneUi had pointed out, 
 was West, but it was farther west than he had 
 thought. The aged astronomer had seen clearly 
 the principle that China could be reached by sail- 
 ing west. The Panama Canal, today, makes true 
 the vision of the Florentines astronomer. 
 
 In a second letter to Columbus, ToscaneUi ex- 
 pressed his confidence in the success of a westward 
 voyage, and prophesied great gain to the world 
 thereby. His letter said, in part : 
 
 "Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus, 
 greeting. I have received your letters, with the 
 things (charts?) you sent me, for which I thank 
 you very much. 
 
 "I regard as noble and grand your project of 
 sailing from east to west according to the indicar- 
 tions furnished by the map I sent you, and which 
 would appear stiU more plainly upon a sphere. I 
 am much pleased to see that I have been weU un- 
 derstood, and that the voyage has become not only 
 possible, but certain, fraught with honor as it must 
 be, and inestimable gsiin, and most lofty fame 
 among all Christian people. ..." 
 
 With this benediction did ToscaneUi, then 
 
WHEN WEST WAS EAST 129 
 
 nearly eighty years of age, send Columbus forth. 
 The Genoese navigator, indeed, was the first to 
 cross the Atlantic in search of the Indies, but it 
 was the finger of Toscanelli that pointed the way, 
 the hand of Toscanelli which measured the dis- 
 tances, and the spirit of Toscanelli which was the 
 first in the Middle Ages to leap the watery abyss. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE DAYS OF COLTTMBUS' GLOET 
 
 Not the greatness of Christoplier Columbus, but 
 the greatness of America, renders famous the 
 work of the Genoese navigator. No voyage in the 
 history of mankind can compare in magnitude of 
 result with that in which three smaU ships sailed 
 westward from Palos, Spain, on Aug. 3, 1492, 
 stopped at the Canary Islands, and sighted the 
 Bahama Islands off the American coast on October 
 11th or 12th of the same year. 
 
 Scarcely less important than the discovery it- 
 self were the conditions under which the discovery- 
 was made, and the most vital of these, in its effect 
 upon history, was the flag under which Columbus 
 sailed. The power of Spain, for two centuries 
 thereafter, depended absolutely upon the wealth 
 derived from the possessions which accrued to 
 that country because the flag of Castile flew over 
 the caravels of Columbus. 
 
 Portugal had dedined to listen to Columbus' 
 projects for three reasons. The first was that the 
 monarchs and navigators of Portugal were bend- 
 ing all energies to the circumnavigation of Africa 
 for the establishment of a trade route to India, 
 this goal being attained by Vasco de Gama in 
 
 130 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 131 
 
 1497-1499. The second was that the Bishop of 
 Ceuta and the Portuguese geographers, to whom 
 Columbus ' plans were referred, reported that the 
 navigator's projects were mainly based on infor- 
 mation taken from Marco Polo's Voyages, which 
 had occurred two centuries before, and that he 
 had made modem discoveries fit into the ancient 
 frame, instead of reading the old in the light of 
 the new; as afterwards appeared, this criticism 
 was amply justified. The third objection was that, 
 while Columbus was "an eloquent talker," he was 
 also "arrogant and very boastful." 
 
 The Genoese navigator, indeed, failed to con- 
 vince John II of Portugal, Henry VII of England, 
 Charles VIII of France, and Ferdinand V of Cas- 
 tile and Aragon, not because of the weakness of 
 his geographical arguments, but because he com- 
 bined them with a self-assertiveness which was 
 highly displeasing to his royal hearers. 
 
 The steps by which Columbus finally succeeded 
 in securing the support of Queen Isabella of Cas- 
 tile are sufficiently curious. Like her husband, 
 King Ferdinand, she had already dismissed the 
 Genoese as an over-confident zealot. It is not his- 
 torically true to depict Columbus as a visionary or 
 a dreamer. During the early part of his career he 
 was neither ; that phase of his character developed 
 after his disgrace. Nor was the idea of a west- 
 ward passage to the Indies an idea strange or 
 novel to the cosmographers of Europe. It had 
 beon discussed often. 
 
132 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Viewed coldly, the principal question which had 
 presented itself to the sovereigns of Portugal, 
 England, France and Castile had been — ^would 
 such a voyage pay? The main point of discussion 
 in each country had been whether the national 
 treasury possessed the money to spare on so prob- 
 lematic a hazard. All had agreed that they could 
 not afford to finance an expedition of the size and 
 cost that Columbus demanded. 
 
 Had the Genoese adventurer been content to set 
 forth as the Norsemen or the Portuguese had 
 done, in a single vessel, there would have been no 
 difficulty, any time during the twenty years pre- 
 vious to his sailing. But he had no intention of 
 setting forth as an explorer. His sole purpose 
 was to visit China, Japan and India as an ambas- 
 sador and a wealthy trader combined. 
 
 After many years of fruitless effort among the 
 sovereigns of Europe Columbus appealed to the 
 rich nobles. At first, he met with little success, 
 but, in 1491, he interested the Duke of Medina- 
 Celi. That nobleman agreed to fit up two or three 
 ships at his own expense, conditional on the con- 
 sent of Queen Isabella, since she had already been 
 approached. Isabella refused the royal license, 
 for she had no intention of allowing the nobles to 
 become more powerful than they were, though the 
 reason she gave was that she had not yet made up 
 her mind whether or no to act in the matter, her- 
 self, v^ 
 
 Columbus Heoided to abandon Spain — as he had 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 133 
 
 abandoned Portugal seven years before — and to 
 pursue his quest in France. Leaving Palos on 
 foot, he stopped at the Franciscan monastery of 
 La Rabida, near by, as tradition says, to beg for 
 food. The prior, Juan Perez, who had often heard 
 of Coliimbus but had never seen him before, 
 showed great interest in the navigator's story. He 
 sent for Garci^ Femaadez, a physician-geog- 
 rapher who lived near, and for Martin Alonzo 
 Pinzon, a wealthy ship-owner of Palos. 
 
 These three men were greatly impressed by 
 Columbus' plans, especially as he had the backing 
 of the Duke of Medina-Celi, and Pinzon announced 
 himself ready to finance the voyage, in person. 
 Perez, however, who formerly had been the father 
 confessor of Queen Isabella, felt that the Queen 
 should be informed. He wrote an enthusiastic let- 
 ter to her, and was immediately summoned to the 
 court. He returned a few days later with an invi- 
 tation to Columbus, and a purse of money. From 
 this sum, Columbus was able to buy sxmiptuous 
 clothing and a mule, in order to present a suitable 
 appearance before royalty. 
 
 In December, 1491, with Prior Perez as his 
 mentor, Columbus went to court. The venerable 
 prelate had mastered the navigator's arguments 
 and was a far more astute reasoner. He con- 
 vinced Friar Talaveras, the then father confessor 
 of the Queen, and also that dominating ecclesi- 
 astic, the Archbishop of Toledo. These, in turn, 
 converted to their opinion the two powerful nobles 
 
134 THE QUEST GF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 who were, respectively, the Ministers of Finance 
 of the two kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. 
 
 Success now seemed assured. Queen Isabella, 
 "the Catholic, " was more than a devoted daughter 
 of the Church, she was a fanatic. She was, also, 
 a remarkably keen business woman. When her 
 spiritual and her fiscal advisers showed them- 
 selves unanimously in support of Columbus ' ven- 
 ture, the Queen agreed to take up the matter in 
 earnest as soon as the Moors should have been 
 driven out of Granada. This world-shaking event 
 and Christian triumph occurred just three weeks 
 later. True to her promise. Queen Isabella agreed 
 to finance the plan. 
 
 Again, however, the self-importance of Colum- 
 bus nearly cost him his chance. He made such 
 sweeping claims for honors and regards that the 
 Queen turned against him, and even Friar Tala- 
 veras, her father confessor, advised her to with- 
 draw. But Columbus, sure of the support of the 
 Duke of Medina-Celi, of Pinzon, and — ^most im- 
 portant of all — of Don Luis de Santagel, treas- 
 urer of Aragon, refused to diminish his demands. 
 He insisted on being appointed Admiral, Viceroy 
 and Governor of all the islands and mainlands he 
 should discover, this title to be hereditary, with 
 the right of levying and collecting such taxes as 
 he might impose. He claimed, besides, one eighth 
 of all the profits which might result from the ex- 
 pedition. He would be prince and millionaire, or 
 he would not go at all I 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 135 
 
 All negotiations were broken off. Columbus, in 
 high dudgeon, made his preparations anew to leave 
 Spain and to go to France. Don Luis de Santagel, 
 however, heard of the break, and rushed to the 
 Queen, urging her to reconsider. The Treasurer 
 of Castile seconded his efforts, and, by happy 
 chance. Marchioness de Moya, the bosom friend of 
 the Queen, who was friendly to Columbus, hap- 
 pened to be in the room with Her Majesty, when 
 the two treasurers arrived. 
 
 • From later evidence it appears that the Queen 
 was persuaded by two lines of reasoning, one, that 
 the treasuries could afford the venture, now that 
 the Moorish War was over ; the other, that the re- 
 wards promised to Columbus were but paper. In 
 the event of his non-success, the titles and profits 
 would be nil; in the event of success, the gain to 
 the Crown would overbalance the outlay. 
 
 Moreover, it was pointed out to the Catholic 
 Queen that this was her opportunity to further the 
 spread of Christianity into heathen lands, should 
 Columbus discover any such. The Queen relented. 
 A courier was sent post-haste to intercept Colum- 
 bus, who had already left Granada and was several 
 miles along the road. 
 
 Tradition tells a pretty story that the Queen en- 
 thusiastically declared that she "would pawn her 
 jewels, if necessary," and Columbus, on his part, 
 offered to devote all his gains to the freeing of the 
 Holy Sepulchre from Turkish hands. In the light 
 of recent historical research, and with remem- 
 
136 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 brance of the characters of both, these two roman- 
 tic phrases must be accepted with caution. 
 
 The total cost of the expedition was large, for 
 Columbus had grandiose ideas. He carried official 
 letters from Ferdinand and Isabella to the Great 
 Khan (for more than a century a non-existent 
 potentate), to the Emperor of Cipango (Japan) 
 and to the rulers of the Spice Islands and India. 
 He carried a large store of articles for trading 
 and not a little treasure, for he expected to bring 
 back cargoes of gold, gems and spice. The outlay 
 was four million maravedis (about $100,000, but 
 representing a larger sum in those times), of 
 which Queen Isabella furnished one-third and the 
 friends of Columbus one-eighth. 
 
 There were three vessels in the fleet — a carrack, 
 known variously as the Capitcma, La Gallega, or 
 Santa Maria, which was the flagship, on which 
 Columbus sailed and of which Juan de la Cosa 
 was the sailing-master or captain; a caravel, the 
 Pinta, commanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon ; and 
 a smaller caravel, the Nina, commanded by Vi- 
 cente Yanez Pinzon. The three ships carried 
 ninety men, mostly Spaniards, but there was also 
 one converted Jew who spoke Arabic and who was 
 carried as an interpreter to the people of the In- 
 dies. One Englishman and one Irishman were 
 among the crew. 
 
 The start was made from Palos, at 8 o 'clock in 
 the morning, Friday, August 3, 1492, the course 
 being set for the Canary Islands, Spain's only pre- 
 
Courtesy of The School of American Research, 
 Santa Fe, jXew Mexico. 
 
 COLUMBUS SEEKING SHELTER AT THE CONVENT OF LA RABIDA. 
 
 Columbus, unsuccessful in his efforts to interest Queen Isabella, decided to 
 abandon Spain and seek for support in France. Leaving Palos on foot, he 
 stopped at the Franciscan monastery of La Kabida, near by, as tradition says, to 
 beg for food. 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 137 
 
 Columbian colony. On August 6 the rudder of the 
 Pmta became unshipped, and the vessel became 
 partly unmanageable, but temporary repairs were 
 made, and the Pinta reached one of the Canary 
 Islands on August 9. 
 
 Some time was spent at the Canaries until the 
 Pinta was repaired, but the fleet finally sailed 
 therefrom on September 6. The start was hurried, 
 as a report had come that three Portuguese cara- 
 vels were off the coast, seeking to stop the fleet, 
 on the ground that the Spanish expedition was 
 sailing to lands which already had been assigned 
 to Portugal by the Pope, in bulls granted to Prince 
 Henry the Navigator. 
 
 Each day of the voyage, a lesser number of miles 
 than had actually been sailed was announced to the 
 crew, so that the sailors might not become alarmed 
 at finding themselves so far from land. The voy- 
 age was easy throughout, with fair winds and a 
 smooth sea. A few notes, taken from Columbus' 
 Journal, will serve to show the daily progress of 
 the carrack and the two caravels on what has 
 proved to be the most momentous voyage ia the 
 history of the world : 
 
 Sept. 6. Departed that day. Calm that day 
 and night. 
 
 Sept. 7. Cahn continued. 
 
 Sept. 8. It began to blow from N E, and the 
 Admiral shaped a course to the West. We took 
 in much sea over the bows, which retarded prog- 
 ress. Made 9 leagues. 
 
138 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Sept. 9. Made 19 leagues. In the night 30 
 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 10 This day and night 60 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 11. Made 20 leagues or more. They saw 
 a large piece of mast, but were unable to get it. In 
 the night 20 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 12. Made 33 leagues during the day and 
 night. 
 
 Sept. 13. Day and night made 33 leagues. Cur- 
 rents against them. On this day, at the commence- 
 ment of the night, the needles turned a half -point 
 to the northwest, and in the morning they turned 
 somewhat more northwest. (This was the first 
 time this magnetic variation had been recorded.) 
 
 Sept. 14. Day and night 20 leagues. Those of 
 the caravel Nina reported land birds. 
 
 Sept. 15. That day and night 27 leagues and 
 rather more. In the early part of the night, there 
 fell from heaven into the sea a marvellous flame 
 of fire, at a distance of about 4 or 5 leagues from 
 them. 
 
 Sept. 16. Day and night 39 leagues. On that 
 day and ever afterwards they met with very tem- 
 perate breezes, so that there was great pleasure 
 in enjoying the mornings, nothing being wanted 
 but the song of nightingales. Here they began ta 
 see many tufts of grass which were very green, 
 and appeared to have been quite recently torn 
 from the land. 
 
 Sept. 17. Made over 50 leagues in the day and 
 night, aided by the current. They saw much very 
 fine grass and herbs from rocks, which came from 
 the west. They therefore considered that they 
 were near land. . . . Saw much more weed, in 
 which they found a live crab. The Admiral says. 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 139 
 
 these crabs are certain signs of land. The sea- 
 water was found to be less salt. 
 
 Sept. 18. This day and night over 55 leagues. 
 This day Martin Alonzo, with the Pinta, which was 
 a fast sailer, did not wait, for he said to the Ad- 
 miral, from his caravel, that he had seen a great 
 multitude of birds flying westward, that he hoped 
 to see land that night. A great cloud appeared in 
 the north, which is a sign of the proximity of land. 
 
 Sept. 19. During the day and night but 25 
 leagues, because it was calm. Some drizzling rain 
 without wind, which is a sure sign of land. The 
 Admiral did not wish to cause delay by beating 
 to windward to ascertain whether land was near, 
 but he considered it certain that there were islands 
 both to the south and north of his position. For 
 his desire was to press onwards to the Indies, the 
 weather being fine. 
 
 Sept. 20. This day the course was W by N and, 
 as her head was all round the compass owing to the 
 cahn that prevailed, the ship made 7 or 8 leagues. 
 Many land-birds. 
 
 Sept. 21. Cahn, and later, little wind. Not 
 more than 13 leag^ies. So much weed that the sea 
 seemed to be covered with it, and it came from the 
 west. The sea was very smooth, like a river. They 
 saw a whale, which is a sign that they were near 
 land. 
 
 Sept. 22. Course "WNW and made 30 leagues. 
 The Admiral says, "This contrary wind was very 
 necessary for me, because my people were much 
 excited at the thought that in these seas no wind 
 ever blew in the direction of Spain." 
 
 Sept, 23. Shaped a course N "W and at times 
 more northerly, made about 22 leagues. The sea 
 
140 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 being smooth, and calm the crew began to mur- 
 mur, saying that here was no great sea, and that 
 the wind would never blow so that tbey could re- 
 turn to Spain, Afterwards the sea rose very 
 much, without wind, which astonished them. 
 
 Sept. 24. West course all day and night, 
 making 14 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 25. Calm and then wind. Pinzon, cap- 
 tain of the Pmta, asked respecting a chart (Tos- 
 canelli's) sent to the caravel three days before, on 
 which it seems the Admiral had painted certain 
 islands. Martin Alonzo said that the ships were 
 in the position on which the islands were placed, 
 and the Admiral replied that so it seemed to him, 
 but it might be that they had not fallen in with 
 them owing to the currents which had always set 
 the ships to N E. That day the Nina mistakenly 
 reported land; Day and night 25 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 26. Course W and S W until what had 
 been said to be land was seen to be only clouds. 
 Day and night 31 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 27. Day and night 24 leagues. Many fish. 
 
 Sept. 28. Owing to calms, only 14 leagues. 
 
 Sept. 29. Made 24 leagues. Sea smooth as a 
 river. Much weed. 
 
 Sept. 30. Owing to calms, only 14 leagues 
 made. 
 
 Oct. 1. Grood 25 leagues made. Heavy rain. 
 Admiral's secret reckoning made it 707 leagues, 
 but 584 to the crew. 
 
 Oct. 2. Day and night 39 leagues. Sea always 
 smooth. "Many thanks be given to God," says the 
 Admiral, "that the weed is coming from east to 
 west, contrary to its usual course." 
 
 Oct. 3. Made 47 leagues. No birds. The Ad- 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 141 
 
 miral, therefore, thought they had left the islands 
 behind them which were depicted on the charts. 
 The Admiral here says that he did not wish to 
 keep the ships beating about . . . when there were 
 so many signs of land . . . his object being to 
 reach the Indies. (Under this date Las Casas 
 says: "Because he would not turn back to beat 
 up and down to find the islands which the pilots 
 believed to be there . . . they began to stir up 
 a mutiny." Ferdinand Columbus says: "For 
 this reason the crew began to be mutinous, perse- 
 vering in their complaints and plots.") 
 
 Oct. 4. Made 63 leagues, day and night. More 
 than forty sandpipers came to the ship in a flock. 
 
 Oct. 5. Day and night 57 leagues. Flying-fish 
 coming on the deck in numbers. 
 
 Oct. 6. Day and night 40 leagues. This night 
 Martin Alonzo said that it would be well to steer 
 "W by S. (Las Casas makes Martin Alonzo 's de- 
 sire as though he thought this was the course for 
 Cipango. Both men were figuring on the position 
 of Cipango in Toscanelli's chart.) 
 
 Oct. 7. Made 23 leagues. Again the Nina re- 
 ported land, at sunrise. No land seen during the 
 afternoon, but passed a great number of birds 
 flying from N to S W. The Admiral was aware 
 that most of the islands held by the Portuguese 
 were discovered by the flight of birds. For this 
 reason he resolved to give up the west course, 
 and to shape a course W S W for the two follow- 
 ing days. Made 28 leagues, day and night. (It 
 was thjs change of course, to follow the birds, 
 Tvhich prevented the discovery of the North Amer- 
 ican mainland by Columbus. He was heading di- 
 rectly for the coast of Florida, when he turned.) 
 
 Oct. 8. Only 12 leagues in day and night. Sea 
 
142 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 like a river. Weed very fresh. Many land-birds. 
 They caught one that was flying to the S W. 
 
 Oct. 9. Course S W and then after a change of 
 wind W by N. Day and night 31% leagues. 
 
 Oct. 10. Course W S W, day and night 59 
 leagues. Here the people could endure no longer. 
 They complained of the length of the voyage. But 
 the Admiral cheered them up in the best way he 
 could, giving them good hopes of the advantages 
 they might gain from it. He added that, however 
 much they might complain, he had to go to the 
 Indies, and that he would go on until he had found 
 them, with the help of Our Lord. (Oviedo teUs 
 the story of this mutiny with more details, say- 
 ing that at this point the captains declared that 
 they would go on three days more but not an- 
 other hour. It is nowhere stated that Columbus 
 agreed.) 
 
 Oct. 11. Course W S "W and there was more 
 sea than there had been during the whole of the 
 voyage. Those of the caravel Pinta saw a cane 
 and a pole, also another bit of cane, a land-plant 
 and a small board. The crew of the caravel Nina 
 also saw signs of land and a small branch cov- 
 ered with (rose) berries. The run until sunset 
 was 27 leagues. 
 
 After sunset the Admiral returned to his orig- 
 inal W course. Up to two hours after midnight 
 they had gone 90 miles. As the caravel Pinta was 
 a better sailer and went ahead of the Admiral she 
 found the land and made the signals ordered by 
 the Admiral. The land was first seen by a sailor 
 name Eodrigo de Triana. But the Admiral, at 
 10 'clock, being on the poop, saw a light, though 
 it was so uncertain that he could not affirm it was 
 land. (On this ground Columbus took the reward 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 143 
 
 of 10,000 maravedis for the first siglit of land, in- 
 stead of letting the sailor have it.) 
 
 Oct. 12. The vessels were hove to, waiting for 
 daylight. They arrived at a small island, called, 
 in the language of the Indians, Guanahani. (This 
 is now generally accepted to have been Watling 
 Island, though some authorities favor Cat Island 
 or Atwood's Cay, all in the Bahama Islands.) 
 
 That was a sunrise of rejoicing! Columbus 
 had, indeed, crossed the Western Ocean and had 
 reached an outer island of the Bahamas. "With 
 his captains he went ashore immediately to take 
 possession of the land in the name of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella of Castile. These islands were where 
 Toscanelli had marked the "Indies" on his map. 
 Ferdinand Columbus states that his father in- 
 tended to call "Indies" any land that he found. 
 It was as "the Indies" that Columbus took pos- 
 session, and "Indians" was the name he gave to 
 the inhabitants. 
 
 The natives of these islands are rightly de- 
 scribed by Columbus in terms descriptive of the 
 Arawaks, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Ba- 
 hamas and other of the "West India islands. They 
 were naked, painted and with coarse black hair. 
 Certaialy these were neither the cultured yellow 
 people of Cathay (China), nor the lighter-col- 
 ored inhabitants of Cipango (Japan), the peoples 
 of both which lands were garbed, according to re- 
 port, in gorgeous silken raiment. 
 
 For ten days Columbus cruised about the Ba- 
 
144. THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 hamas, passing Eum Cay, Cat Island, Long Island 
 and Crooked Island among others. From the 
 Arawaks, conversing in dumb show, he learned 
 of other islands on every side. On Oct. 21, he 
 stated in his Journal that he had learned of an- 
 other "much larger island, which I believe to be 
 Cipango, judging by the signs made by the Indians 
 I bring with me. They call it Colba (Cuba), and 
 they say there are ships and many skilftd sailors 
 there. Beyond this island there is another called 
 Bosio (Haiti) which they also say is very large. 
 ... I am still resolved to go to the mainland and 
 the city of Quinsay, and to deliver the letters of 
 Your Highnesses to the Grand Khan." 
 
 There is much contradiction in the Journal. In 
 one entry Columbus states that he was forced to 
 communicate with the Indians in dumb show; in 
 another entry he recounts many wonders told by 
 the Indians which could scarcely be expressed in 
 sign talk. One day he regrets his lack of botan- 
 ical knowledge, saying that he would not know 
 a spice tree if he saw one ; another day he speaks 
 in praise of an island as being covered with spice 
 trees, and announces that he has found cinnamon- 
 trees and spiceries. 
 
 On Oct. 28, Colmnbus reached Cuba, where the 
 Journal states : ' ' The Indians say that in this is- 
 land are gold mines and pearls." He cruised 
 along the north shore. In some unexplained way 
 Columbus "gathered there was a city, Cuba, and 
 that the land was a great continent trending far 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 145 
 
 to the north. The king of that country, he gath- 
 ered, was at war with the Grand Khan." On 
 Nov. 1, Columbus states that he knows for sure 
 that he is "in front of Zayto and Quinsay ("two 
 Chinese ports), a hundred leagues, a little more 
 or less, distant the one from the other. 
 
 On Nov. 4, Columbus states that the Indians told 
 him that, in neighboring islands, there were men 
 with one eye, and others with dog's noses who 
 were cannibals. The discoverer is here putting 
 upon his Indian informants fabulous stories taken 
 from that arrant liar. Sir John Mandeville. It 
 does not follow that these misleading statements 
 were made purposely. In all probability Colum- 
 bus' anxiety to prove to himself that he was on 
 the coast of Asia induced him to interpret the 
 sign-talk to mean everything he expected and 
 wanted to find. 
 
 On Nov. 6, the two envoys whom Columbus had 
 sent to the Arawak "king" came back with re- 
 ports that they had not found any such king, nor 
 yet any gold, or spices, or people clothed in silk, 
 but only villages of huts, with fields of potatoes 
 and corn. They brought back the first news of 
 tobacco by reporting that both men and women 
 smoked tubes (cigars) of roUed-up weed. 
 
 On Nov. 12, deciding that the north coast of 
 Cuba must soon turn to the northward, since he 
 was convinced that it was part of the continent of 
 Asia, Columbus stopped his westward course. He 
 turned abruptly to the southeast, retracing his 
 
146 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 tracks, in order to visit the island called Bosio 
 (Haiti) where — ^he understood the natives' signs 
 to mean — gold was so plentiful that it could be 
 picked up in large pieces on the beach. 
 
 There had already been much friction between 
 Columbus and Martin Alonzo Piuzon, and, on 
 Nov. 21, in defiance of the Admiral's orders, the 
 master of the Pinta broke company and sailed 
 away. He went in search of an island caUed 
 Babeque (Iguana Grande) where there was sup- 
 posed to be gold. Columbus sailed slowly down 
 the coast of Cuba, halting every night, until he 
 passed Cape Mayzi, the easternmost point of 
 Cuba. This he named Cape Alpha and Omega, 
 l)elieviag it to be the most easterly point of Asia. 
 
 On Deo. 6, the Santa Maria and the little Nina 
 found themselves off the coast of Haiti, and Co- 
 lumbus landed. The natives were found to be of 
 -the same race as those of Cuba. By the indefinite 
 mode of sign-talk, the Admiral gathered that this 
 Bosio or Haiti (called Hispaniola, afterwards), 
 was bounded on the south by a great land, but he 
 could not make out from the Indians whether 
 Bosio was an island bordering a continent, or 
 -whether it was a part of the mainland. Learn- 
 ing, however, that there was an inland region 
 known by the name of Cibao, Columbus was all 
 the more convinced that this must be Cipango 
 (Japan) but that he was on the northern shore, 
 while the civilized regions were far to the south. 
 
 The "king" of the natives came on board the 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 147 
 
 Scmta Maria on Dea 16, and Columbus received 
 him with much ceremony, giving many gifts. The 
 discoverer's treatment of the natives, on this first 
 voyage, had been generous and conciliatory. The 
 Arawaks, on every landing, had proved defence- 
 less, peaceable and teachable, and Columbus' Jour- 
 nal is full of assurances that they would be easily 
 made good Christians and good subjects. On 
 Dec. 18, an old man told Columbus, by signs, that 
 at a distance of a hundred leagues was an island 
 which was all of gold. In many other islands, he 
 said, gold was plentiful. 
 
 During the next week there were continuous 
 visits from Indian chiefs along the shore. Co- 
 lumbus gave gifts freely, and established amicable 
 relations among the coast-peoples. 
 
 Then came disaster ! 
 
 Shortly after midnight, early on Christmas 
 morning, the Santa Maria struck on a sand-bank, 
 not far from Port au Paix. The fault was that 
 of the helmsman, who, being tired, had left the 
 tiller in charge of one of the younger sailors. The 
 Admiral rushed on deck and gave urgent orders, 
 but the sailing-master of the ship disobeyed them. 
 The masts were cut away and everything done to 
 lighten the vessel, but she was a wreck. By day- 
 light the carrack was pounding heavily and all 
 her seams had opened. 
 
 This was serious in the extreme. The defection 
 of Martin Alonzo Pinzon in the Pinta had left 
 Columbus with but two ships. Now the largest, 
 
148 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the Santa Maria, was a wreck. The sole hope of 
 returning to Spain with news of the marvelous 
 discovery, with samples of gold, and with some 
 Arawak captives, lay in the little Nina. But the 
 tiny caravel could not take all the men of both 
 ships. Many, indeed, desired to remain. 
 
 Fortunately, though the Santa Maria was bat- 
 tered beyond repair, she had not gone to pieces 
 and every article aboard her, "even to a needle," 
 was salvaged. The Indians were friendly and 
 rendered every assistance possible. 
 
 Columbus gave orders to build a strong block- 
 house of trees and the ship's timbers, and forti- 
 fied it with the ship's guns. Food and wine for 
 over a year was stored in the blockhouse, together 
 with seeds for sowing and all things needful. The 
 ship's boat also was left with the settlers, who 
 were forty-three in number. Among them were 
 three high officials, Pedro Gutierrez, Rodrigo de 
 Escobedo and Diego de Arana. 
 
 Of their fate Columbus felt no fears. The na- 
 tives were thoroughly friendly, the climate was 
 ideal, the blockhouse was strong, food was ample, 
 and "he trusted in God, that when he returned 
 from Spain, according to his intention, he would 
 find a ton of gold collected by barter by those 
 he was to leave behind, and that they would have 
 found the gold mine, and spices in such quanti- 
 ties that the Sovereigns would, in three years, 
 be able to undertake and fit out an expedition to 
 go and conquer the Holy Sepulchre." The set- 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 149 
 
 tlement was called La Navidad (Fort Nativity), 
 since the wreck at that place had been on Christ- 
 mas Day. 
 
 On Jan. 4, 1493, Columbus set sail in the little 
 Nma for Spain. He had passed through and ex- 
 plored several of the Bahama Islands, had sailed 
 westward one-fourth of the distance along the 
 north shore of Cuba, then had doubled on his 
 tracks, and come to Haiti, passing by Tortugas 
 Isle. His last words, as he left Haiti, recorded 
 in his Journal, are : ' ' The Admiral concluded that 
 Cipango (Japan) was in that island, and that it 
 contained much gold, spices, mastic (a resinous 
 gum used in medicine and for making varnish) 
 and rhubarb." 
 
 Two days later, while coasting along the north 
 shore of Haiti, Columbus fell in with the Pmta. 
 Martin Alonzo Pinzon had obtained much gold 
 by barter, but had found no signs of a gold mine. 
 The men of the Pmta had heard that in an island 
 called Yamaye (Jamaica), gold was easily found 
 in grains the size of beans. On Jan. 8, the Ad- 
 miral sent the sailors ashore to get fresh water 
 for the ships and found the sand at the mouth of 
 a river, Eio de Santiago "full of very fine gold, 
 and in astonishing quantity. He found many 
 grains as large as lentils. When they went back 
 to the caravel they found small bits of gold stick- 
 ing to the hoops of the casks and of the barrel." 
 On Jan. 10, there was more trouble with Pinzon, 
 who had seized some natives by force, Columbus 
 
150 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 compelled the master of the Pinta to set the In- 
 dians ashore. The two vessels continued down 
 the coast, anchoring every night, and, on Jan. 15, 
 headed for home. The caravels were leaking 
 badly. 
 
 Fortunately for the cranky ships Columbus 
 bore to. the northward, and thus escaped much of 
 the head-winds he would have encountered had 
 he kept to the trade-wind zone. But, on Feb. 12, 
 a heayy gale broke, which, by the 14th, had become 
 a raging tempest. Vows of pilgrimages were 
 made and lots were drawn. The Pinta was lost 
 to sight in the tempest. Fearing that the little 
 Nina would sink Columbus prepared two mes- 
 sages telling briefly of his discovery "of the In- 
 dies," wrapped them in waxed paper and put 
 each in a keg. One was thrown overboard at 
 once, the other was kept at hand to be thrown into 
 the sea later, if the vessel should go down. 
 
 During the night of the 15th, the weather began 
 to clear and at sunrise they saw land. It proved 
 to be Santa Maria, one of the Azores, but the 
 weather was still so heavy that they dared not 
 approach the shore and could not drop anchor 
 until the 18th. In order to comply with the vows 
 taken during the storm, half the crew went ashore, 
 unarmed, to visit a local shrine, but they were 
 seized and imprisoned by the local Portuguese 
 authorities. 
 
 After some days a boat came off from the shore, 
 and some inquisitive officials demanded to see the 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 151 
 
 docTiments and ambassadorial letters which Co- 
 lumbus claimed he had been given by the Sover- 
 eigns of Castile and Aragon. As soon, however, 
 as these Portuguese envoys read the royal grant 
 appointing Columbus as Admiral, Viceroy and 
 Governor, they took a humbler tone. They real- 
 ized the validity of the Admiral's threat that in- 
 terference with his projects might bring on war 
 between Spain and Portugal. Hastily, and with 
 apologies, they released the sailors. On Feb. 24, 
 Columbus started anew for Spain. 
 
 Again, on March 3, a storm came up, and, in a 
 squall, the sails of the Nma were split. It was 
 necessary to run imder bare poles. The storm 
 grew worse, so bad, indeed, that the sailors of the 
 caravel had to hoist a little sail and run before 
 the gale. Morning found them on a lee shore near 
 Lisbon, but, by remarkable seamanship, they ran 
 safely into harbor. 
 
 Again the Portuguese authorities demanded 
 that Columbus come ashore to give an account of 
 himself. The navigator stood by his rights and 
 his honors. He denied that any one had the power 
 to command an Admiral of Spain except his Sov- 
 ereigns. 
 
 When the King of Portugal heard that Colum- 
 bus had returned, his reception of the discoverer 
 differed greatly from that of the port officials. 
 He sent a personal representative on board the 
 Nina, invited Columbus to court and treated him 
 royally, though taking occasion to prophesy that 
 
162 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the lands visited by Columbus would be found to 
 be Portuguese territory. 
 
 On March. 13, Columbus got xmder way again, 
 and, on Friday, March 15, the little Nina dropped 
 anchor in the port of Palos, which she had left 
 225 days before. 
 
 While the bells were still ringing the triumph 
 of Columbus, in came the Pinta and dropped an- 
 chor. Martin Alonzo Pinzon had added treachery 
 to insubordination. He had been driven by the 
 great storm to Bayonne, and thence had sent a 
 message to Ferdinand and Isabella, stating that 
 the Pinta had been the first to sight land, and 
 making great claims for himself. But, before the 
 letter had been answered, Columbus arrived. 
 Pinzon dared not show his face, but went to his 
 home secretly, and, a few days afterwards, was 
 found dead, either from chagrin or by suicide. 
 
 In Palos, indeed, and on the way to Barcelona, 
 the populace went wild to give Columbus a tri- 
 umphal progress. It was otherwise at court. 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, indeed, were more than 
 courteous, they were cordial. They received the 
 Admiral with marked honors. He basked in the 
 royal favor. Withal, there was a definite guard- 
 edness in their acceptation of Columbus' state- 
 ments. Queen Isabella was far from convinced, 
 and, in any case, she had mistrusted the Admiral 
 ever since he had forced her to bestow such titles 
 and honors on a foreigner. 
 
 It is well worthy of remark that the King and 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 153 
 
 Queen did not believe that the expedition had 
 reached the Indies. This is proved by the fact 
 that, while Ferdinand and Isabella wrote at once 
 to Pope Alexander VI, announcing the discovery, 
 they stated that Columbus had "discovered some 
 very remote islands not hitherto found, that gold, 
 silver and spices were produced in these islands, 
 and that their inhabitants seemed fitted for Chris- 
 tianity," They did not claim that these newly 
 disbovered islands were any part of the Indies. 
 
 In similar wise, Peter Martyr, after several de- 
 tailed interviews with Columbus, wrote, on Oct. 1, 
 1493, to the Archbishop of Dragai "while Colum- 
 bus himself believed that he had reached the In- 
 dies, the known size of the globe seemed to sug- 
 gest otherwise. ' ' Peter Martyr was frankly skep- 
 tical about the gold and about the identification 
 of Cuba and Haiti with China and Japan. John II 
 of Portugal also declared that the record of dis- 
 tances sailed proved that the newly discovered 
 islands could not be nearly as far as the Indies, 
 but that they must be, rather, islands lying some 
 distance off the coast of Africa, and therefore a 
 part of his possessions. 
 
 It is well to see what Columbus had, and had 
 not, accomplished. The principal gains were 
 three in number. He had proved the Western 
 Ocean to be navigable. He had found the trade- 
 winds blowing favorably, with fair weather and 
 a smooth sea nearly aU the way. He had discov- 
 ered many islands, large and small, which are now 
 
154 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 known as the West Indies. In short, he had 
 blazed a trail to American islands in such a way 
 as to render it certain that those who followed him 
 would inevitably come upon the North American 
 and the South American mainland. 
 
 Yet he had not accomplished what he set out 
 to do, and he was incorrect in what he declared 
 he had done. He had not found Cathay. He had 
 not visited Cipango. He had not landed on the 
 Spice Islands. He had not discovered the trade 
 route to India. The six live Indians, the stuffed 
 parrots, the few little scraps of gold, the handful 
 of pearls, the hanks of cotton thread and the pods 
 of capsicum were a paltry substitute for the great 
 cargoes of spices and of gems he had promised 
 to bring back. 
 
 To the people, however, Columbus was a hero. 
 The populace escorted him, procession-wise, 
 everywhere he rode. He was deluged with offers 
 from merchants who wished to send ships on trad- 
 ing ventures, from hidalgos who wished to be 
 among the first to visit the lands of gold, from 
 ecclesiastics who wished to convert the heathen, 
 from workers of every description, who, for one 
 reason or another, wanted to try their luck in the 
 new colonies. 
 
 It was the hey-day of his glory. Every day of 
 that summer was, for him, a fete-day. He was 
 constantly called upon to tell of his discoveries, 
 and, with each recital, his tales of the "Indies" 
 he had found grew more roseate and more ex- 
 
COLUMBUS' GLORY 165 
 
 travagant. Every ornate tale that had been told 
 of the Spice Islands and Cathay, he recounted 
 anew as tme of those savage West Indian isles 
 along the shores of which his caravels had coasted. 
 It was in this haze of a golden vision that Chris- 
 topher Columbns prepared for his second voyage. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DOWNFALL OF COLUMBUS 
 
 That wMoh. is founded upon error is fore- 
 doomed to fall. This, in a word, is the explana- 
 tion of tide tragedy of Columbus' later years. 
 
 The second great expedition, that of 1493, was 
 made imder false pretences. Neither by Colum- 
 bus, nor by those who accompanied him, was it re- 
 garded as a voyage to newly explored islands, still 
 less as a voyage to America. It was announced 
 and equipped as a voyage to Cathay. It was not 
 under the oommaud of an obscure Genoese navi- 
 gator with dubious titles, but under the recog- 
 nized Admiral and Viceroy of the Spanish "In- 
 dies. ' ' It went to establish ' ' three or four towns ' ' 
 with "mayors, clerks and treasurers," and elab- 
 orate arrangements had been designed for the 
 gathering, minting and trans-shipment of the 
 enormous quantities of gold which Columbus de- 
 clared he had found in the islands. 
 
 Never, in all the history of early colonization 
 did such an admirably equipped fleet leave Euro- 
 pean shores. Fifteen thousand ducats, equivalent 
 to half-a-million dollars of present money, were 
 appropriated by the State. The fleet consisted of 
 
 156 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 157 
 
 1,500 men, all save 200 being under royal pay. 
 Officials, soldiers, artisans, farmers and friars 
 made up the greater proportion of the settlers. 
 
 The money to finance this enormous project 
 "Was secured by foul and unjust means. Shortly 
 before, Queen Isabella "the Catholic" had per- 
 suaded her husband to join her in signing an 
 edict for the expulsion of the Jews. Most of 
 these Jews were of the Sephardim, of princely 
 Hebrew families, who had proved themselves 
 among the best citizens of Spain. Their lands 
 were confiscated, their fortunes seized and they 
 were thrust out into penury at a moment's notice. 
 It was a dastardly act of religious bigcltry, and 
 Spain paid for it sorely, centuries later. 
 
 One of the prime movers in this expulsion of 
 the Jews had been Juan Eodriguez de Fonseca, 
 archdeacon of Seville, a man of enormous execu- 
 tive talent, incredibly ambitious, and given to vio- 
 lent personal dislikes. In AprU, 1493, Fonseca 
 was put in charge of a department for the admin- 
 istration of the islands of the "Indies" and, for 
 thirty years, he was its sole directing head. The 
 preparation of the new fleet was intrusted to Co- 
 lumbus and Fonseca, jointly. 
 
 On Sept. 25, 1493, the new fleet set out. It 
 sailed from Cadiz in a blaze of splendor. No com- 
 parison could be more striking than Columbus' 
 start on his First and Second Voyages. Yet the 
 magnificence of the latter was its own undoing. 
 Among the elements of danger that it bore were 
 
158 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 a number of young bloods, spoiling for excite- 
 ment, now that the. wars with the Moors were 
 over. 
 
 Among the officials, moreover, were three men 
 who were to work havoc with Columbus' plans. 
 These were Don Pedro Margarite, a personal fa- 
 vorite of the king; Friar Bernardo Boyle, a per- 
 sonal representative of Fonseca, and who was 
 appointed by the Pope as "Apostolic Vicar for 
 the Indies," and Francis Eoldan, whom Colum- 
 bus chose to be Chief Justice of the colony. 
 
 Remembering that he had found the coast of 
 Haiti (hereafter to be called Hispaniola) to ex- 
 tend towards the south-east, and that he had gath- 
 ered from the natives that there were islands still 
 further in that direction, Columbus steered a 
 slightly more southerly course than on his first 
 voyage. The passage was short and pleasant. 
 Twenty days after leaving the island of Ferro 
 (Canary Islands), they sighted land. This 
 proved to be a new island and was named Do- 
 minica, since it was discovered on a Sunday. They 
 landed there and also at a small island which was 
 named Marigalante, after the name of the flag- 
 ship. 
 
 Thence they came to the important island of 
 Guadeloupe. They stayed there eight days, be- 
 cause a landing party was lost in the woods, and 
 this delay gave the members of the expedition 
 abundant opportunity to observe the natives. 
 These darker-hued and shock-haired savages were 
 
COLUMBUS* DOWNFALL 159 
 
 utterly different from the Arawaks met with on 
 Columbus' First Voyage, and were soon found 
 to be cannibals. They were, indeed, the ferocious 
 Caribs, of whom the peaceful Arawaks lived in 
 such constant fear. 
 
 Sailing from Guadeloupe, the fleet passed the 
 islands of Montserrat, St. Martin, and Santa Cruz, 
 and so came to Porto Eico. On Nov. 22, they 
 sighted Hispaniola or Haiti. On the 25th and 
 26th, they began to get hints of ill news concern- 
 ing the settlement. 
 
 On Nov. 27, anchoring at La Navidad, the first 
 Spanish settlement in American waters, cannons 
 were fired to announce to the Spaniards in the 
 blockhouse ashore, the welcome news of the re- 
 turn of the Admiral. 
 
 But not a gun replied. Not a sound was heard. 
 Not a light was shown. This was ominous. A 
 strict watch was kept aboard the ships. Tew 
 slept that night. 
 
 In the morning, a landing party found the block- 
 house burned to the ground, the goods looted and 
 every white man gone. Later they discovered 
 eleven bodies, and, a few days after, several more. 
 
 Piecing the story together, as best they could 
 from the contradictory reports given by the In- 
 dians — for they could now talk to the Arawaks 
 by interpreters, the Indians captured on the first 
 voyage having learned Spanish and returned with 
 them — ^it seemed that the Spaniards who had been 
 left at La Navidad had captured several Indian 
 
160 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 women. One, at least, was declared to have three 
 wives, another, four. The forty-three men had 
 quarreled violently among themselves, about the 
 women, about work, about the division of the pro- 
 visions. Moreover, instead of maintaining the 
 friendship of the Indians, they had rendered them 
 hostile. About two months before the arrival of 
 Columbus with the second expedition, two chiefs, 
 named Caonabo and Mayreni, had attacked the 
 blockhouse, burned it, and butchered every sur- 
 vivor among the Spaniards. 
 
 Chief Guaoamari, of the friendly tribe, claimed 
 to have fought on the side of the white men, and 
 to have been wounded in the affray, but a Span- 
 ish doctor, examiniag the chief's bandaged leg, 
 found no sign of a wound. Much of the loot, 
 moreover, was found in the huts near by. There 
 seemed little reason to doubt, therefore, that all 
 the Indians had banded together against the 
 strangers. Possibly the Arawak women, who had 
 been captured by violence, had opened the gates 
 of the fort to their savage kinsmen. 
 
 In order to find a more suitable site for the es- 
 tablishment of the good-sized town he planned 
 to build, Columbus sailed eastward again, against 
 head winds, and it was not until Deo. 17, 1493, 
 that the site for the "capital of the colony," named 
 Isabella, in honor of the Queen, was chosen. 
 
 Nearly three months had elapsed since the fleet 
 had left Spain. Nothing had been accomplished 
 but to find La Navidad destroyed and every Span- 
 
COLUMBUS RIDICULED BY THE COUNCIL OF SALAMANCA. 
 
 COLUMBUS SHOWS PROOF OF HIS DISCOVERIES TO FERDINAND AND 
 ISABELLA. 
 
THE SANTA MARIA. 
 
 The flagship of C('lunil)us, a model reconstructed fn; 
 records preserved in Spain. 
 
 the original plans and 
 
 Tirrc kRi'ijcA i)\-- tiiI''- san'ta mauia, 
 Buii/i- IN 1892. i.inih':k sail. 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 161 
 
 iard slain. The landsmen, sick of this long sea 
 voyage, were ready to revolt. The merchants 
 were disgusted, since there was no opportunity 
 for trade. The young hidalgos grew restive with 
 nothing else to do but stare at an unfriendly shore. 
 And, to cap all, Dr. Chanca, chief surgeon of the 
 expedition, admits that "privations were endured 
 at sea, which were more severe than ever were 
 suffered by man ... we were obliged to limit 
 ourselves most rigorously with regard to food, in 
 order that, at all events, we might at least have 
 the means of supporting life." 
 
 This was a poor beginning for the new colony. 
 However, with 1,500 men at hand, the town of 
 Isabella was well and sturdily built, fortified, and 
 encircled with a solid stone, wall. Captain Ho- 
 jeda led a reconnaissance party into the mountains 
 of Cibao near by and returned with gold dust, 
 found in the river sands, from which the Span- 
 iards argued that vast gold mines must be close 
 at hand. Columbus headed a second exploring 
 expedition, returning with even more sensational 
 reports of gold. He then appointed Margarite in 
 general command of the work of exploration, put 
 his brother Diego Columbus in charge of the af- 
 fairs of the town, and, with three caravels, set 
 out himself from Isabella on April 24, 1494, to 
 carry his letters to the Great Khan and to find 
 the Spice Islands and Japan. 
 
 In order to understand Columbus' route, it is 
 necessary to remember that, on his First Voyage, 
 
162 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 he had sailed some distance along the north shore 
 of Cuba, had become convinced that it was an out- 
 jutting point of the mainland of Asia, and that 
 Cape Alpha and Omega (now known as Cape 
 Maysi) was the easternmost point of China. He 
 also believed that Hispaniola or Haiti, on which 
 the town of Isabella had just been built, was 
 Japan. 
 
 On reaching Cape Maysi, then, on this Second 
 Voyage, Columbus turned to the southward, thus 
 passing through what is now known as the Wind- 
 ward Passage between Haiti and Cuba. Thus he 
 coasted the southern shore of Cuba, believing this 
 to be the shore of Asia facing the Indian Ocean. 
 On May 3, however, under repeated statements 
 from the natives that a gold-bearing island lay 
 off to the south, he changed course and soon came 
 to the north shore of Jamaica, 
 
 The natives there were warlike and resisted the 
 landing of the Spaniards. A large bloodhound, 
 however, put them to flight. They seemed dif- 
 ferent both from the Caribs of Guadeloupe and 
 the Arawaks of Hispaniola, but certainly they 
 were not either the long-sought people of China 
 or Japan. Columbus struck north again until he 
 reached Cape Cruz, Cuba, and continued his west- 
 ward coasting cruise. Here he found innumer- 
 able small islands, which he called "the Queen's 
 Gardens" and declared them to be the "seven 
 thousand Spice Islands" described by Marco Polo. 
 
 Then comes another weird story. Columbus 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 163 
 
 gathered from the Cuban natives the information 
 that the island was endless (therefore a conti- 
 nent), and that the region to the west was "called 
 Mangon, where the people had tails, which they 
 hid by wearing loose robes." This is, again, one 
 of Sir John de Mandeville 's fables, and one won- 
 ders what statement made by a Cuban Indian 
 could so have been misunderstood. 
 
 But when it is remembered that Columbus de- 
 voutly believed that medieval collection of lies, 
 and when Toscanelli's map showed much the same 
 configuration for the southern coast of Asia which 
 Columbus found on the southern coast of Cuba, 
 it is not surprising that he accepted this story 
 of tailed men as further proof that he was on the 
 coast of China and not far from the great port 
 of Zaiton. The footprints of alligators, reported 
 by landing parties, were explained as those of 
 dragons guarding treasure, and a flock of sol- 
 dierly-looking tall white cranes was described as 
 a band of men in white robes. 
 
 Trouble was brewing, however, despite these 
 fantastic assurances. Columbus was already six 
 weeks' sail from Isabella, he had found no rich 
 trading cities, and, according to Toscanelli's map, 
 he was now coming to a long stretch of uninhab- 
 ited coast. Food was becoming scant. The crews 
 began to murmur. Columbus decided to turn 
 back. First, however, he wanted to forestall any 
 possible criticism that this land was not Asia. 
 
 He adopted a strange method. He sent his 
 
164 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 notary, accompanied by four witnesses, to get a 
 sworn statement from eacli person on board the 
 oaravels that it was his firm belief that this coast 
 which lay to the north of them was the coast of 
 Asia. If, thereafter, anyone should deny his oath, 
 he should have his tongue slit; and, further, if 
 an officer, he should be fined 10,000 maravedis; 
 if a sailor, he should receive a hundred lashes. 
 This document is stiU extant, in the Archives at 
 Seville. The statement is nowhere made that 
 these signatures were secured by compulsion, but 
 the rigor of the oath shows that Columbus feared 
 disaffection. This done, he set sail for Isabella. 
 
 In this fear of attack, Columbus was justified. 
 Already, during the building of Isabella, he had 
 faced "the angry cries of impoverished and starv- 
 ing Spaniards accusing his spurious Indies of 
 being their ruin." Fernin Cedo, one of the royal 
 gold assayers, had announced that the few grains 
 of gold found in river sands was no proof of pay- 
 ing gold mines in the region. Bernal de Pisa, one 
 of the officials sent by the king, headed a plot to 
 seize some of the ships and return to Spain. Co- 
 lumbus had him put in chains. 
 
 Under Antonio de Torres, the Admiral had al- 
 ready dispatched twelve ships back to Spain, ask- 
 ing for more supplies, and suggesting that, since 
 it might be some time before the gold trade be- 
 came profitable, a rich slave-trade in Caribs might 
 be begun. When he had left on his cruising ex- 
 ploration, therefore, Columbus had left behind him 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 165 
 
 a colony seething with revolt and discontent, him- 
 ger and disease. Nor was the gentle-natnred 
 Diego Colnmbns the man to govern a group of 
 rebellious and prideful Spaniards to whom he was 
 a foreigner and an upstart. 
 
 On his way back to Isabella, Columbus explored 
 the southern shore of Jamaica, and then stood to 
 the eastward. After some days, land appeared on 
 the port bow, and the explorers learned from a 
 Spanish-speaking Indian on the beach that this 
 land was Hispaniola. The caravels coasted the 
 whole southern shore of that island, but they 
 sought in vain for the rich cities of Cipango. 
 
 To Columbus, this was a terrible blow, for it 
 seemed to dash to the ground his long-held belief 
 that Hispaniola was the northern coast of Japan. 
 Worn out by watching, by fatigue, and by this 
 crushing disappointment, the Admiral fell ill, and 
 lay in a coma for many days. He was uncon- 
 scious while the caravels rounded the easternmost 
 cape of Haiti and sailed westward along the north 
 shore of that island, back to Isabella. On his 
 arrival there, he was carried to his bed. 
 
 Matters in the colony had gone from bad ta 
 worse. The direction of a thousand or more un- 
 ruly men, under tropical skies, in a town without 
 a white woman in it, was a task requiring a dic- 
 tator of heroic mold, whose authority was unques- 
 tioned. Christopher Columbus, himself, might 
 have done it, but the conditions were too terribly 
 against the younger brother. Worst of all, there 
 
166 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 was treble-divided authority. While Diego Co- 
 lumbus was in charge of the civil affairs of the 
 town, Pedro Margarite, in charge of exploration, 
 controlled the soldiers, and Friar Boyle, the ec- 
 clesiastical head, possessed enormous influence. 
 
 Margarite and Boyle, acting together, led the 
 malcontents against Diego Columbus. In the 
 height of the trouble, Bartholomew Columbus, 
 another brother, arrived, and undertook to re- 
 store order. This added fuel to the flames, for 
 Bartholomew had no ofiicial position whatever. 
 He overrode Margarite, who not only had been 
 put in authority by the Admiral himself, but who 
 was also a personal favorite of the king. An 
 absolute disruption followed. 
 
 By virtue of his position with the soldiery, 
 Margarite seized the ships which had been 
 brought by Bartholomew Columbus, and, with 
 Friar Boyle, sailed for Spain. There, Margarite 
 got the ear of the king, and Boyle inflamed the 
 irascible but all-powerful Fonseca against the 
 three Columbus brothers. 
 
 In one sense of the word, this was treachery, 
 for Columbus, as Viceroy, was in absolute com- 
 mand. But, in another sense, both Margarite and 
 Boyle were justified in making their reports, one 
 to his king, the other to his ecclesiastical superior. 
 They were undoubtedly within their rights in tell- 
 ing the truth concerning the massacre of La Navi- 
 dad, concerning the suffering and sickness in Isa- 
 bella, and in explaining why it was that the so- 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 167 
 
 called "Indies" took far more money out of the 
 public treasury than they put in. Many of Co- 
 lumbus ' former backers remembered his fantastic 
 tales and came to believe them to be "moon- 
 shine." 
 
 When Christopher Columbus recovered from 
 his illness, he appointed Bartholomew "adelanto," 
 or military governor of Hispaniola, and the two 
 brothers set in operation the Admiral's plans for 
 raising money. One of these methods was the 
 establishment of the slave-trade in Caribs, se- 
 cured by raids on neighboring islands ; the other 
 was the collection of tribute from the peaceful 
 Arawaks. Persuasion, in the latter case, took the 
 form of fire-arms and man-hunting bloodhounds 
 who, says an eye-witness, "at the words — Take 
 him! — could kill a hundred Indians an hour." 
 
 Thus, under the administration of Columbus, 
 the Indians were either kidnapped to be sold as 
 slaves, or else were put under taxes so heavy that 
 they could not pay them, and were compelled to 
 work as serfs under compulsion. It is admitted 
 by Columbus' friends and admirers — even such 
 as Las Casas and Ferdinand Columbus — ^that, in 
 the three years of conquest, more than two-thirds 
 of the Indians of Hispaniola were slain, sold into 
 slavery or died under excessive toil. There is 
 no need to view these measures over-harshly, re- 
 membering the times. The Portuguese had made 
 the slave-trade a recognized traffic, the lives of 
 "heathens" were deemed of little account, and. 
 
168 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 above all, Hispaniola must be made to pay, or all 
 Columbus' work would go for naught. 
 
 The year 1495 had decisive effects on the col- 
 ony. On June 24 of that year, Columbus sent 
 five shiploads of Indians to Seville to be sold 
 as slaves. By this means he hoped to offset the 
 comparatively small returns in gold which he had 
 been able to screw out of the natives by extortion. 
 
 But, before these arrived in Spain, a new order 
 of affairs had begun. Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 disappointed in the results of Columbus' discov- 
 eries, threw the right of trading ventures open 
 to any Spanish subject, thus practically annulling 
 Columbus' monopoly. This royal edict had an 
 enormous effect on later discovery. 
 
 Then, in Oct., 1495, there arrived at Isabella 
 four caravels laden with supplies and medicines, 
 the latter even more welcome than the former, 
 for the climate was unhealthful and many of the 
 colonists were sick. These caravels, moreover, 
 were under the command of Don Juan Aguado, 
 sent by the king and queen to act in their names 
 as Judge Advocate, with intent to discover what 
 truth there was in the reports made against the 
 Columbus brothers by Margarite, Boyle and other 
 malcontents. 
 
 Alas, there was plenty of cause for discontent! 
 Columbus had done his best, and a noble best, 
 against disheartening conditions. But there was 
 no denying that the three years of occupation of 
 Hispaniola had cost hundreds of Spanish lives. 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 169 
 
 thousands of Spanisli ducats, and untold misery. 
 There was no refuting the charge that colonists 
 had been lured thither by false statements that 
 these islands contained the wealth of China and 
 Japan. Instead of riches, mere existence had 
 barely been possible, and that by toil under a 
 tropic sun. 
 
 Small injustices and hardships — inevitable 
 under pioneer conditions — appeared as tyrannies 
 to the homesick and disappointed settlers, and 
 Aguado heard the most violent complaints 
 against the Admiral on every side. Some of these 
 accusations were true, but many were distorted 
 and exaggerated. 
 
 On March 10, 1496, Aguado was ready to return 
 to Spain with his report, and Columbus realized 
 that his only hope of defense was to return with 
 Aguado and plead his own case. 
 
 Misfortune dogged him. He set his course 
 badly, intending to return by the route he had 
 taken on his Second Voyage, when Dominica and 
 Guadeloupe had been the first islands sighted. 
 This course took him into the Caribbean Sea and 
 he found himself fighting not only head-winds, 
 but also the strong Guiana current, which sweeps 
 at three and even four miles an hour through the 
 straits between the Antilles Islands. He was 
 finally forced to put in at Guadeloupe, to make 
 some of the native cassava bread to serve as a 
 ration across the ocean. 
 
 Even so, since the caravels were overloaded 
 
170 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 with 200 passengers who had refused to endure the 
 miseries of the colony any longer, the food supply 
 ran short, and it was with difficulty that some 
 of the passengers could be restrained from can- 
 nibalism. They demanded the right to eat the 
 Indian captives who were on board. Such a voy- 
 age was not calculated to impress Aguado more 
 favorably. 
 
 Not until June 11, after a terrible journey of 
 three months and a day, did the Nina creep into 
 the harbor of Cadiz. It is significant that Co- 
 lumbus landed, from this Second Voyage, not in 
 the pomp and glory of an Admiral of Spain, but 
 in the robe of a Franciscan monk, which he had 
 put on, in token of humility. 
 
 During the preceding winter, while Aguado had 
 been in the colony, Columbus had strained every 
 endeavor to collect gold and valuable gifts for 
 the King and Queen. These partly softened the 
 rigor of his reception at court. He was kindly 
 received, but no more. The complaints of Mar- 
 garite and Boyle were not brought up against 
 him, but promises of further aid were indeter- 
 minate and vague. When he protested against 
 the infringement of his monopoly, an edict was 
 issued to the effect that nothing should be re- 
 garded as minimizing the privileges of Columbus 
 — ^but the private ventures were allowed to go on. 
 
 When Columbus donned the robe of a Fran- 
 ciscan monk, merely as a symbolic act, it seemed 
 more than symbolic, it seemed prophetic. For, 
 
COLUMBUS' DOWNFALL 171 
 
 after his return from the Second Voyage, the 
 mystical strain which had been deeply rooted in 
 Columbus' character, and which had been over- 
 laid by his ambition, began to take the upper hand. 
 
 The geographers were turning their backs on 
 him. So be it! He, in turn, would scorn the 
 geographers. He would, hereafter, ignore the 
 newer sailing charts, he would take the apocry- 
 phal books of the Bible and the Lives of the Saints 
 for his treatises of navigation. 
 
 "When a navigator, he had coveted viceregal 
 and ambassadorial honors. Now that he was 
 Viceroy, he would fain be a Prophet ! 
 
 "God made me," he writes, "the messenger of 
 the new heaven and the new earth, of which He 
 spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John . . . and He 
 showed me where to find it. ' ' 
 
 Such an attitude did not help him with Bishop 
 Fonseca, to whom such utterances on the part 
 of a layman smacked of heresy. Furthermore, 
 Fonseca was furious that the department of the 
 "Indies," of which he had been put in charge, 
 should yield so little profit. 
 
 The Crown could not afford funds for a new 
 fleet, for the war with France took every mara- 
 vedi. Merchants and ship-owners looked askance 
 at the Admiral, for the 200 colonists who had re- 
 turned spread woeful tales. In commingled dis- 
 gust, despair and fanatic outpourings Columbus 
 spent the autumn of 1496 and the whole year of 
 1497, as much disregarded as he had formerly 
 been acclaimed. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Little by little, the sting of Columbus ' failure 
 began to be forgotten, and the continuing success 
 of Portugal urged Spain not to abandon the col- 
 ony of "New Spain" ■which had been begun. 
 Finally, Columbus succeeded in getting two ship- 
 loads of supplies sent to Hispaniola in January, 
 1498, and Queen Isabella's faith in the Admiral — 
 although shaken — sufficed to secure for him a new 
 expedition, which set forth on May 30, 1498. 
 
 A pitiful lot of colonists were these, whom Co- 
 lumbus took on his third voyage! In June, 1497, 
 a general order had been issued to the Spanish 
 officers of justice, authorizing the transportation 
 to Hispaniola of all criminals, except counter- 
 feiters, traitors and heretics. The last olassijB- 
 cation is worthy of remembrance, in the light of 
 later history. 
 
 On reaching the Canary Islands, Columbus di- 
 vided his fleet. He sent three ships to Hispaniola, 
 direct, in order to maintain reenforcements and 
 supplies, and, keeping three ships himself, he 
 steered due south. 
 
 Again, in order to follow Columbus' route, it 
 is necessary to remember that he was still seeking 
 China and Japan. On his westernmost point of 
 
 172 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 173 
 
 the second voyage, when he caused all the sailors 
 to take oath that they believed themselves to be 
 on the coast of Asia, he had become convinced 
 that the southern coast of Cuba would turn to 
 the southward and lead to Malacca Straits. The 
 Spice Islands, according to Toscanelli's map, were 
 due east of these straits. If then, Columbus rea- 
 soned, he went further to the south than he had 
 done on either of his earlier voyages, he might 
 first come to the Spice Islands, then on to these 
 Straits, and thus sail through to India. Could 
 he but do this, all the difficulties and disasters of 
 his earlier explorations woidd be justified. 
 
 It was a disastrous course! He ran south be- 
 yond the zone of the trade winds and into the dol- 
 drums, or belt of equatorial calms. * ' The air was 
 like a furnace," writes Irving, "the tar melted, 
 the seams of the ship yawned, the salt meat be- 
 came putrid, the wheat was parched as with fire, 
 the hoops shrank from the wine and the water 
 casks, some of which leaked and others burst, 
 while the heat in the holds of the vessels was so 
 suffocating that no one could remain below a suffi- 
 cient time to prevent the damage that was taking 
 place. The mariners lost all strength and spirits 
 and sank under the oppressive heat. It seemed 
 as if the old fable of the Torrid Zone was about to 
 be realized, and that they were approaching a fiery 
 region where it would be impossible to exist." 
 
 From a hideous death by famine and by thirst, 
 the Equatorial Current, alone, saved them. The 
 
174 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ships were two months out from Spain when land 
 was sighted. This proved to be the island of 
 Trinidad. Columbus sailed down the western 
 shore, round the southern point of the island and 
 through the Serpent's Mouth Strait into the Gulf 
 of Paria, where his caravel was nearly swamped 
 in the tremendous surge caused by the current 
 flowing from the several mouths of the mighty 
 Orinoco Eiver. Of all his dangers on the sea, 
 Columbus declared this passage of the Serpent's 
 Mouth to have given him the greatest fear. 
 
 He landed both on Trinidad and on the mainland 
 of South America, which he named the Isla de Gra- 
 cia, believing it to be an island, or rather, a succes- 
 sion of islands. He had some traffic with the In- 
 dians on both sides of the gulf. He reported these 
 Indians as light in color and partly clothed, and 
 further stated that they wore pieces of gold as large 
 as horseshoes round their necks ( !) and that one 
 Indian "had a grain of gold as big as an apple." 
 
 After two weeks of exploration, he prepared to 
 leave this extraordinary fresh-water gulf, which 
 was ever swirling in powerful and dangeJrous 
 cross-currents. Sailing northward across the 
 gulf, he arrived at the strait which he called the 
 Dragon's Mouth. 
 
 "There he found," in the words of Las Casas, 
 "a great struggle between the fresh water striv- 
 ing to go out to the sea, and the salt water of the 
 sea striving to enter the gulf, and it was so strong 
 and fearful that it raised a great swell like a very 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 175 
 
 high hill, and, with this, both waters made a noise 
 and a thundering, from east to west, very great 
 and fearful, with currents of water, and, after 
 one, oame four great waves one after another^ 
 which made contending currents; here they 
 thought to perish." 
 
 The caravels, however, while a clumsy craft 
 for sailing, were buoyant enough, and they passed 
 in safety into the Caribbean Sea. On that day 
 and the next Columbus continued along the Pearl 
 Coast (Venezuela) meditating deeply on this 
 strange gulf of fresh water. 
 
 He reached two conclusions, one true, the other 
 egregiously false. The first was that the land he 
 was skirting«must be the mainland of a continent, 
 for ttiat land must be immense in size which could 
 contain a basin large enpugh to produce a river 
 with so unimaginable a volume of water. Nothing 
 greater than the small European rivers was 
 known at that time. 
 
 So far, Columbus reasoned well. But, from 
 that point, he became Prophet, rather than Navi- 
 gator. That the ' ' Indies ' ' he had discovered were 
 a part of Asia was a fixed idea that nothing could 
 shake. Anything which interfered with that idea 
 must be wrong. Even such a fundamental prin- 
 ciple as that the world was round must be changed 
 rather than that he should seem in fault. Astron- 
 omy might err, but not Columbus. 
 
 Whereupon, he suggested that the earth was 
 
176 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 not round, but shaped like a pear, spherical on 
 the latitudes of Europe but coming to a blunt 
 point a little distance south of the equator, and 
 that this southern apex was land. Here was the 
 end of the world. To assign suflScient force to 
 the Orinoco he imagined it as rushing down a 
 tremendous hill. And whence? Why, from the 
 Earthly Paradise, the Garden which the Lord had 
 planted eastward in Eden. 
 
 The prophetic spell fell upon him and it was 
 almost in an ecstasy that he saw himself the dis- 
 coverer of that blest abode from which a Seraph 
 with a flaming sword had barred the way to man- 
 kind since the beginning of time. Thefe is no 
 doubt but that Columbus believed that, if he could 
 sail up the Orinoco, he would reach the Terrestrial 
 Paradise. 
 
 Amid such vaporings it is a little difficult to find 
 out how Columbus connected this new-found and 
 mystical continent with the commercial Orient, 
 but he seems to have believed that the Pearl 
 Coast (Venezuela) continued eastward until it 
 reached Java and Sumatra, and that the Malacca 
 Straits were, really, straits between the continent 
 of Asia and the continent he had just discovered. 
 
 By this time, howerver, his own strength was 
 beginning to fail. He was crippled with gout, 
 racked with fever, and exhausted with watching 
 and with strain. He set his course for Hispaa- 
 iola, and, on August 30, arrived at San Domingo, 
 the settlement on the southern side of the island 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED ITT 
 
 which had been built by his brother, Bartholomew. 
 
 Bad as had been the conditions which greeted 
 Columbus when he landed on Hispaniola, after his 
 First Voyage, worse as had been those when he 
 returned after his exploration during the Second 
 Voyage, the conditions which confronted him on 
 his Third Voyage were worse stiU. 
 
 Instead of returning immediately in triumph, 
 having cleared himself from the report of Aguado, 
 Columbus had been absent from HHspaniola for 
 two years and a half. To the malcontents in the 
 colony, this was a sure sign that the Admiral 
 was out of favor with Fonseca and with the king. 
 They decided that he was not coming back to the 
 island at all, and it seemed as if they were aban- 
 doned by Spain. 
 
 Under such conditions the temporary pacifica- 
 tion achieved by Aguado died away. Francis 
 Roldan, who had been appointed Chief Justice by 
 Columbus, quarreled violently with Bartholomew 
 Columbus, the governor. On the one hand, Bar- 
 tholomew insisted on maintaining the oppressive 
 tax measures and in keeping the Indians as serfs. 
 Roldan, on the other hand, held that since the 
 colonists were thus thrown on their own re- 
 sources, they ought to make friends with the In- 
 dians, marry Indian girls, and rear families who 
 should be brought up as Spanish subjects and 
 Christians. Eoldan had 'thus formed an alliance 
 with an Indian chief, against Bartholomew, and 
 the colony was in a state of civil war. 
 
178 THE QUEST OP THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Immediately upon his arrival, Columbus sent a 
 party of soldiers to arrest Eoldan. The soldiers 
 joined the party of the judge, or, as Columbus 
 worded it, of the rebel. 
 
 Eoldan, took a haughty stand, insisting that he 
 was a Spanish gentleman and not compelled to 
 take orders from an impeached foreigner of low 
 birth who had been nothing but a wool-comber in 
 his youth. 
 
 As the soldiers, many of the settlers, and the 
 friendly Indians were with Eoldan, Columbus was 
 not only compelled to come to terms with the 
 ringleader of the revolt, but even to restore him 
 to his position as Chief Justice. 
 
 Both parties appealed to the throne. In Octo- 
 ber, 1498, Columbus asked for reenforcements, 
 declared Eoldan 's men to be "abominable knaves 
 and villains, thieves and bandits, ruffians and 
 ravishers of women, false-perjured vagabonds, 
 and such as were either convicts or had fled for 
 fear of judgment, etc." Eoldan was not less 
 bitter. He accused the Admiral and his brother 
 of being "unjust men, cruel enemies and shedders 
 of Spanish blood," declaring that upon every 
 light occasion they "would rack them, hang them, 
 and behead them, and that they took pleasure 
 therein, and that they had departed from them as 
 from cruel tyrants and wild beasts rejoicing in 
 blood, etc." In Spain, meanwhile, the returned 
 colonists, who had never received their royal pay, 
 clamored at the gates of the palace and hooted the 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 179 
 
 name of Columbus as "The Admiral of Mosquito- 
 Land, who has found the territory of vanity and 
 delusion, the grave and misery of Castilian gentle- 
 men." 
 
 To make matters worse by comparison, Vasco 
 de Gama returned to Lisbon in 1499 in veritable 
 triumph, having rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 
 crossed the Indian Ocean, and visited Calicut in 
 Malabar. He brought back, in profuse quantities, 
 the gold, the gems and the spices of which Co- 
 lumbus had talked so much but never found. In 
 his cargo were damask robes with satin linings, 
 trumpets of carved ivory, necklaces of rubies and 
 emeralds, and a vast amount of exquisite fabrics, 
 which he had bought at an exceedingly low price, 
 since trade had so long been at a standstill. In 
 the great maritime contest for the trade-route to 
 India, Portugal had won and Spain had lost. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella could do no other than 
 they did. They appointed Don Francisco de Bo- 
 badilla, knight commander of one of the military 
 orders, as judge, with instructions to make ri^d 
 inquiry, and, if he saw reason, to assume the 
 office of governor and to order Columbus to sur- 
 render all fortresses and public property. This 
 appointment was made in 1499, but, owing to lack 
 of funds, Bobadilla did not sail until 1500. In 
 the meantime Vasco de Gama had arrived, and the 
 mockery of Portugal hurt the pride of Spain. 
 
 There is no doubt that Bobadilla was prejudiced 
 
180 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 against Columbus from the beginning. Yet be 
 seems to have intended honestly and well. On the 
 day of his arrival at Isabella, however, he found 
 seven Spaniards hanging on the gallows and was 
 informed that five more were to be executed on 
 the morrow. This may have been wholesome 
 discipline for the colony, but it was undoubtedly 
 an evil mischance for Columbus that Bobadilla 
 should have arrived on that very day. 
 
 The military examiner acted with military de- 
 cision. He ordered the prisoners released. Diego 
 Columbus refused to do so without an order from 
 his brother, the Viceroy. Bobadilla promptly 
 produced aud read the royal order appointing him 
 governor and ordered that the keys of the prison 
 be given him. Diego again refused, and was ar- 
 rested and put in irons. The prisoners were set 
 free. Without delay, Bobadilla proceeded to put 
 both Christopher Columbus and his brother Bar- 
 tholomew in irons and to confine them in different 
 prisons on the island. 
 
 This done, Bobadilla examined the charges 
 brought against the three brothers, and conceived 
 himself justified iu his violent actions. Even Las 
 Casas, gentlest and kindest of men, is compelled 
 to admit "that they (the Columbus brothers) did 
 not show the modesty and discretion in governing 
 Spaniards which they should have done, and that 
 they were much at fault, particularly in the se- 
 verity and parsimony with which they allotted 
 provisions, not distributing them according to 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 181 
 
 each one's need, when the monarchs designed 
 them for the support of all." 
 
 Because of his treatment of Columbus, Boba- 
 dilla is often presented in history as a ruthless 
 bully. The documents do not bear this out. The 
 Admiral had violent partisans as well as enemies 
 in the colony, and Bartholomew was always ready 
 for trouble. The new governor could only secure 
 order by swift repressive measures, and undoubt- 
 edly he had received stringent orders from Fon- 
 seca to humiliate Columbus. The Admiral was 
 shipped back to Spain, in irons. 
 
 Alonso Vallejo, captain of the caravel, offered 
 to remove- the fetters, but Columbus refused, say- 
 ing that he would wear them untU Their Majesties 
 ordered such removal, and that he would keep 
 them afterwards "as relics and memorials of the 
 reward of his services." 
 
 It was on this ship that Columbus wrote to a 
 friend of the Queen, the nurse of the royal child. 
 Prince John, who had recently died. This lady 
 was Juana de Torres, sister of Antonio de Torres, 
 who had been the Admiral's companion on his 
 Second Voyage. 
 
 His letter of pious complaint, while it fairly 
 recounts many of the just grievances of Columbus, 
 advances as his principal claim to honor that he 
 was the divinely appointed messenger "to show 
 the way to the new heaven and earth which Our 
 Lord made, when St. John was writing the Apoca- 
 lypse. ' ' He asserts, also, that God had promised 
 
182 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 him, in a vision, that an enormous quantity of 
 gold would be provided within seven years. He 
 further declared — ^with some extravagance of 
 statement — that, in Hispaniola, "there are eighty 
 leagues (320 miles) of land with gold mines at 
 every point thereof." 
 
 This letter, telling of Columbus' arrival in 
 chains, reached the court at Granada before Bo- 
 badilla's official report. The letter, and the news 
 of the public indignation at the humiliation of 
 Columbus, stirred Ferdinand and Isabella to re- 
 gret and anger that their envoy should have pro- 
 ceeded so peremptorily and roughly. A courier 
 was sent to Cadiz, ordering the immediate release 
 of the Admiral, inviting him to court, and convey- 
 ing a purse for expenses. 
 
 Queen Isabella met the Admiral, it is told, with 
 tears in her eyes. Bobadilla's charges were set 
 aside, and his actions repudiated. Yet it is easy 
 to overestimate the significance of the touching 
 scene recounted by the historian Herrera. Despite 
 the royal pardon, Columbus was never restored 
 to his viceroyalty and other dignities eind was 
 forbidden to visit Hispaniola again. 
 
 One other thing Bobadilla accomplished. He 
 convinced the King and Queen that a Spanish 
 colony should be administered by a Spaniard. 
 In 1502, Don Nicolas de Ovando, a military 
 ecclesiastical knight, was sent as governor, to 
 replace Bobadilla. He conmianded a fleet of thirty 
 ships, carrying 2,500 persons. Explorations by 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 183 
 
 other navigators had revealed to Spain the terri- 
 torial importance of Columbus' discoveries, and 
 the gold mines of Hispaniola had, at last, begun 
 to yield enough treasure to inflame popular ex- 
 citement. 
 
 Columbus, however, was not satisfied to rest 
 passive, shorn of all his powers. He believed, 
 still, that he could find China and the Spice Islands 
 by the westward route, but he believed still more 
 firmly that he was divinely chosen to reveal the 
 way between Asia and the continent of the 
 Earthly Paradise. 
 
 In this spirit he set forth on his Fourth Voyage. 
 On May 11, 1502, he sailed with four caravels, fol- 
 lowing the course which had proved so propitious 
 on the Second Voyage. He' reached Martinique 
 on June 15. One of the rigid conditions under 
 which Columbus had been permitted to set forth 
 was that he should not touch at Hispaniola. 
 
 One of his caravels became unmanageable, how- 
 ever, and, on July 1, in defiance of royal orders, 
 he put into Santo Domingo. To his experienced 
 eye a hurricane was brewing. Nevertheless 
 Ovando ordered him out of the port without com- 
 punction. Fearing the storm, the Admiral ran 
 into the small cove of Azua, near by, reaching 
 there July 3, but warning Ovando and the cap- 
 tains, most solemnly, to keep in port the large 
 fleet about to start for Spain. 
 
 Ovando paid no heed," and the fleet put out to 
 sea. Two days later, it received the full force 
 
184 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 of the hurricane. Bohadilla, Boldan and many of 
 Columbus' enemies were drowned. Twenty ships 
 went to the bottom,with all the treasure Bobadilla 
 had collected. Six caravels staggered back to 
 Santo Domingo. Only one vessel of the fleet 
 reached Spain, and the story goes that this lonely 
 vessel was the sole ship containing some gold 
 which belonged to Columbus. 
 
 Information concerning the rest of the Fourth 
 Voyage is taken largely from a letter written by 
 Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, on July 7, 
 1503^ a letter so confused and unintelligible that 
 Justin Winsor has called it "a sorrowful index 
 of his wandering reason," Only through the 
 critical researches in parallel narratives, made by 
 E. Graylord Bourne — ^to whom every student of 
 history must be grateful — can the sequence of 
 this voyage be traced. 
 
 When the hurricane had passed, Columbus set 
 forth anew and put in at Yaquimo (Jacmel) to 
 avoid another storm, leaving there July 14. He 
 passed south of Jamaica, but the northerly cur- 
 rent swept him into the "Queen's Gardens," the 
 small group of islands south of Cuba and east 
 of the Isle of Pines. Thence, two weeks later, 
 he sailed on a southerly course in order to reach 
 anew his "Garden of Eden continent," and, on 
 July 30, sighted the island of Guanaja, near Trux- 
 illo, Honduras. 
 
 More than three months after his departure 
 from Spain, on August 14, the Admiral landed 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 185 
 
 on the mainland, and, after a brief exploration, 
 sailed southward. Both wind and current were 
 in his teeth. Not until September 12 did he turn 
 that point of Honduras where the coast slopes a 
 little west of south. He called the point "Cape 
 Gracias a Dios." Thence he sailed down the Mos- 
 quito Coast of Nicaragua, His health was 
 wretched, and he had a small cabin built on deck, 
 whence he could lie on his bed and yet watch the 
 coast and direct the ship. 
 
 All the way along the coast he heard of gold- 
 mines, but always further and further to the 
 south. True reports of a civilization in the in- 
 terior began to reach him with such substantial 
 evidences as weapons of bronze and cotton cloth. 
 He was now actually within a couple of days' 
 march of the country of the semi-civilized 
 Quiches. But that his information was vague is 
 seen from the fact that he reported swords and 
 cuirasses of steel, and warriors on horseback, 
 though neither steel nor horses were known in 
 America prior to the coming of the Spaniards. 
 
 Then, had Columbus but realized it, came his 
 greatest piece of news. On October 27 he heard 
 of mines at Ciquare, a town facing an eastern sea. 
 This was the Pacific shore of Costa Rica, and, 
 had the wearied explorer but crossed the isthmus, 
 he would have seen the Pacific Ocean and solved 
 the mystery which had clouded all his life. But, 
 hearing that there was a river near to that place, 
 he recorded it as "the Eiver Ganges" in India, 
 
186 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 The prize was in his grasp, but torrential rains 
 poured down, day after day, making jungle ex- 
 ploration impossible. The anchorages for the 
 ships were not good, the stormy season imperilled 
 the vessels constantly, and so Columbus sailed on. 
 
 He coasted down Veragua (Panama) and ar- 
 rived at Puerto Bello, near Colon, on November 
 2, advanced a few leagues next day to Nombre a 
 Dios and stayed there for three weeks. Once 
 more he tried to force his way onward against 
 wind and current, but in vain, and he was driven 
 back to the Belem Eiver. There he anchored, but 
 violent storms arose and closed the river with a 
 bar of sand. Two of the ships were inside the 
 bar, two lay outside. 
 
 Again Columbus heard vagnie reports about the 
 Pacific Ocean, and again he prepared to explore, 
 but on that tropical shore, the rainy season for- 
 bids travel. He could not go. On February 6, 
 a small exploring party set out, but soon got into 
 trouble with the Indians. Fighting occurred and 
 many of the Spaniards were killed. Again Colum- 
 bus tried to continue his southward course, but the 
 elements forbade. His health was breaking and 
 natural obstacles took on a supernatural terror. 
 
 "For nine days my life was despaired of," he 
 writes; "never was the sea seen so high, so ter- 
 rific and so covered with foam. Not only did the 
 wind oppose our proceeding onward, but it also 
 rendered it highly dangerous to run in for any 
 headland, and kept me in that sea, which seemed 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 18T 
 
 to me as a sea of blood, seething like a cauldron 
 on a mighty fire. Never did the sky look more 
 fearful. During one day and one night it burned 
 Uke a furnace, and every instant I looked to see 
 if my masts and my sails were not destroyed. . . . 
 The men were at this time so crushed in spirit 
 that they longed for death as a deliverance from 
 so many martyrdoms." 
 
 Human nature could endure no longer. On 
 April 16, 1503, they left that coast of torment with 
 but two caravels, the ships leaking and full of 
 teredo holes, without boats or provisions. There 
 were barely enough mariners left from the four 
 crews to man the two vessels, and such men as 
 remained were emaciated with hunger, racked 
 with fever and full of a sullen hate for their com- 
 mander. They sailed eastward to the northern 
 cape of the Gulf of Darien and then, on May 1, 
 turned northward. Twelve days later Columbus 
 reached Cuba, which, in his letter, he calls "the 
 province of Mango which borders on Cathay" 
 (China). 
 
 Tempestuous weather continued, shattering the 
 sails of his vessels, wrenching them from their 
 anchorages, and demanding from officers and 
 sailors alike continual and sleepless toil merely 
 to keep afloat. The men were but gaunt specters, 
 the ships were rotten and spongy. "With three 
 pumps and the use of pots and kettles," Columbus 
 writes, "we could scarcely clear the water that 
 came into the ship. ' ' On June 23, the two leaking 
 
188 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 caravels were beached at Jamaica, mere wrecks 
 that had barely held together, never to float again. 
 
 It was there, while living as a castaway, with 
 his crews, that Columbus penned the Letter on 
 the Fourth Voyage, asking specifically for "the 
 restitution of my honor, the reparation of my 
 losses, and the punishment of those who have in- 
 flicted them, a similar punishment also to those 
 who plundered me of my pearls and who have 
 brought a disparagement upon the privileges of 
 my Admiralty. ' ' He writes of the incredible riches 
 of Veragua (Panama), but weakens his argument 
 by endeavoring to prove that they must be great 
 since "the mines of King Solomon are identical 
 with those of Veragua." He goes on to offer 
 passage and guidance to whomsoever wishes to 
 "rebuild Jerusalem and Mount Sion" on his con- 
 tinent of the Earthly Paradise. The letter closes 
 in a noble and lofty strain. 
 
 The condition of the castaways was pitiable. 
 Two men were sent over to Hispaniola, in a canoe, 
 to secure relief from Ovando, but the governor, 
 hostile to Columbus, delayed. Meantime, mutiny 
 broke out among the shipwrecked men, ending in 
 a pitched battle, in which Bartholomew was vic- 
 torious. The misery and wretchedness of their 
 plight continued. But at last, Ovando — ^whose 
 government roused Las Casas to a description 
 of atrocities such as the world has seldom read — 
 was compelled by public sentiment- to send two 
 ships to rescue Columbus and the few survivors 
 
SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED 189 
 
 of his crews. He had been deliberately neglected 
 and practically marooned by Ovando for a y6ar 
 and five days. 
 
 On June 28, 1504, Columbus was delivered from 
 his outcast state on Jamaica, and on September 
 12, left Hispaniola for Spain. He arrived in his 
 adopted land on November 17, 1504, an aged and 
 broken man. Queen Isabella was on her death- 
 bed, and soon breathed her last, leaving Columbus 
 without a protector and exposed to the malice of 
 Fonseca. He spent the remaining months of his 
 life in neglect, sickness and poverty, and died 
 May 20, 1506, at ValladoHd. 
 
 Peace to his memory! He was a great man. 
 He died, ignorant of the New World that he had 
 opened to Europe, stUl believing Cuba to be China 
 and South America to be the Earthly Paradise. 
 These errors were fatal to him, but not to his work. 
 He was over-ambitious in his early voyages, over- 
 visionary in his last. He made his task a thou- 
 sandfold harder than it need have been. 
 
 Yet no one can withhold admiration and esteem 
 for his courage, his endurance, his loyalty and his 
 ideals. Greater navigators than he were to sail 
 the seas he found, and better administrators to 
 govern the lands he settled, but of all who came 
 after none has shed a brighter light upon the 
 page of fame than the Grenoese sailor, scholar and 
 mystic whose caravels first showed the way to 
 countless millions across the western Ocean. No 
 man has a greater memorial than has Columbus, 
 for his memorial is — America I 
 
CHAPTER Vni 
 
 THE NEW WOELO EBAUZED 
 
 The splendid honors of high, adventure, during 
 the Fifteenth Century, had lain between Portugal 
 and Spain, The great navigators who faced the 
 terrors of unknown seas, who defied hurricanes 
 in tiny caravels, who fought cannibals and mas- 
 tered savages, wrought their mighty deeds, not 
 for their own profit, but for the glory of God and 
 the pride of their sovereigns. The question, 
 therefore, whether these newly discovered lands 
 should belong to Spain or to Portugal became a 
 burning one. 
 
 Portugal had the prior claim. As far back as 
 the days of Prince Henry the Navigator, the Pope 
 ^then the ruling force in Christendom — ^had de- 
 creed that all the territory south of Cape Bojador, 
 as far as India, should be Christianized by and 
 should belong to the Crown of Portugal. More- 
 over, by a treaty signed in 1480, Spain conceded 
 to Portugal all islands discovered or to be dis- 
 covered off the Guinea Coast, south of the Canary 
 Islands, 
 
 When Columbus returned from his First Voy- 
 ^ age, however, with his report of new islands and 
 
 190 
 
THE NEW WORLD 191 
 
 lands far to the westward, Spain saw her opportu- 
 nity. Already, while storm-bound at Lisbon, Co- 
 lumbus had been notified by John 11 that Portugal 
 would put in a claim to these lands. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella acted with exceeding 
 promptness. Within three days of Columbus' 
 arrival at Barcelona, an embassy was dispatched 
 to Eome, asking for a papal bull (edict) confirm- 
 ing the Spanish sovereigns in their possession of 
 the remote lands to the westward discovered by 
 Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) under 
 their fiag. 
 
 Pope Alexander VI, who was a native of Ara- 
 gon, responded without delay. On May 3, 1493, 
 seven weeks after the arrival of Columbus' ship 
 at Palos, he issued a bull conferring upon the 
 crown of Aragon and Castile: "such firm lands 
 and islands beyond the seas which hitherto no 
 man hath sailed, found by our well-beloved son, 
 Christopher Colonus. . . . And that, being au- 
 thorized by the privilege of Apostolical grace, you 
 may the more freely take upon you the enterprise 
 of so great a matter (the conversion of the 
 heathen in the new lands) we ... do give, grant 
 and assign to you ... all the firm lands and 
 islands found or to be foundj discovered or to 
 be discovered toward the West and South, draw- 
 ing a line from the Pole Arctic to the Pole Ant- 
 arctic . . . toward India or toward any other part 
 whatsoever it be, being distant from, or without 
 the aforesaid line, drawn a hundred leagues to- 
 
192 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 wards the West and South from any of the islands 
 commonly called Azores or Cape Verde." 
 
 This was an eminently fair and just award. 
 It gave the navigators of King John ample scope 
 in which to extend their discoveries and conquests 
 to the southward; it left a wide margin of sea 
 between Portuguese and Spanish holdings. 
 
 The decision satisfied Spain, but not Portugal. 
 John II rightly judged that Columbus had not 
 reached the Indies, and wrongly supposed that the 
 Admiral had sailed more to the south than the 
 west and so had discovered islands which lay off 
 the coast of Africa. As such, both by earlier 
 papal edicts and by treaty, they should belong to 
 Portugal. John II sent an embassy of protest 
 to the Pope. The ensuing diplomatic interchange 
 occupied more than a year. On June 7, 1494, the 
 Treaty of Tordesillas was signed, moving the 
 Papal Line of Demarcation to a distance of 370 
 leagues (1480 miles) west from the Cape Verde 
 Islands, 
 
 One marked historical effect followed. Owing 
 to the geographical fact that nearly all of South 
 America (even much of the western coast) lies 
 east of the eastern coastline of North America, 
 the coast of Brazil projected eastward beyond the 
 Papal Line and thus became Portuguese territory. 
 To this day the Portuguese language is spoken 
 in Brazil, while Spanish is the tongue of all the 
 other South American republics. 
 
 For a time, too, it was believed that Newfound- 
 
THE NEW WORLD 19S 
 
 land lay east of the Line. "When the Corte-reals 
 touched that coast, in 1501 and 1502, they so de- 
 clared it, and Newfoundland appears as Portu- 
 guese territory on the Great Map of Cantino in 
 1502. As a matter of modern knowledge, the 
 easternmost point of Newfoundland lies some ten 
 degrees west of that line. 
 
 After the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas, 
 defining the Papal Line, there occurred an event 
 which discouraged Portugal from attempting any 
 westward venture. This was the return of Co- 
 lumhus from his Second Voyage, in 1496, with 
 a record of disaster. 
 
 Portugal's discovery of Brazil happened other- 
 wise. In 1497, Vasco de Gama set out for India, 
 and, as has been related, rounded Africa, crossed 
 the Indian Ocean, visited the Malabar Coast, and 
 returned to Lisbon, in 1499, in triumph. Such 
 success must be followed up instantly. A large 
 trading fleet of twelve big ships and one caravel 
 was equipped with great attention to detail. It 
 was placed under the command of Pedro Alvarez 
 de Cabral, and sailed, on March 9, 1500, for India. 
 
 Cabral followed Vasco de Gama's course and 
 took his predecessor's advice to keep to the west 
 out of the zone of calms near the Guinea Coast. 
 But the fleet commander did not make sufl&cient 
 allowance for the westerly equatorial current, 
 and he was carried further to the west than he 
 had planned. On April 1, 1500, land was sighted. 
 
194 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 This proved to be the coast of Brazil, near where 
 Porto Seguro is now situated. 
 
 Since the fleet was on a trading voyage and not 
 designed for purposes of exploration, Cabral did 
 no more than land, erect an altar, have a mass 
 said, and take possession of the country in the 
 name of Portugal. He called the new land ' ' Santa 
 Cruz," and, after two weeks' stay, sent Gaspar de 
 Lemos back with the caravel to take the news of 
 the discovery to Lisbon. Cabral 's fleet proceeded 
 to India, and returned in safety with the richest 
 cargoes of spices and treasure that had ever 
 entered Europe. 
 
 The King of Portugal immediately communi- 
 cated this new discovery to Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella. Since the land of Santa Cruz was clearly 
 within the limits of the Papal Line he pointed 
 out that this harbor was very convenient and 
 necessary for the voyage to Lidia. Spain was 
 not prepared to accede to this, without discussion. 
 
 Yet Cabral had not been the first to visit South 
 America, nor even Brazil. He was preceded in the 
 first honor both by Columbus in 1498 and Ataaerigo 
 Vespucci in 1499 ; in the second both by Vicente 
 Yanez Pinzon, who sighted land near Cape St. 
 Augustine, on January 20, 1500, and by Diego de 
 Lepe, who reached a point even further south, in 
 March of the same year. 
 
 It is but just to point out, however, that Ca- 
 bral 's discovery of Brazil reveals the certainty 
 that America would have been rediscovered by 
 
THE NEW WORLD 1»5 
 
 the Portuguese, even if Columbus had never lived. 
 Cabral's find was the natural sequence of the 
 three-quarters of a century of Portuguese ex- 
 ploration in the South Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 This linking of the names of Columbus and 
 Amerigo Vespucci as explorers of the coast of 
 South America prior to Cabral may be regarded 
 as the first step in a very-curious series of errors 
 which led to the wrongful naming of "America," 
 
 On his Third Voyage, Columbus had touched 
 Trinidad, passed the mouths of the' Orinoco and 
 coasted for a little distance along Venezuela. In 
 the autumn of 1498 he had sent to Ferdinand and 
 Isabella a most extraordinary account of his Con- 
 tinent of the Earthly Paradise, and a map. These, 
 as a matter of course, were referred to Bishop 
 Fonseca, who was in charge of the Department 
 of the "Indies." 
 
 Fonseca, with characteristic energy, immedi- 
 ately summoned Alonso de Hojeda, who had led 
 Columbus' first exploring party in Hispaniola, 
 after the founding of the town of Isabella. Ho- 
 jeda was of the true "conquistador" breed, a 
 gallant adventurer who knew no fear. Though a 
 soldier rather than a sailor, he accepted Fonseca 's 
 offer of command, and, with added equipment 
 from some merchants of Seville, set out for the 
 "Pearl Coast" of the Continent of the Earthly 
 Paradise. 
 
 Hojeda's voyage bore results of vast impor- 
 tance, not so much because of the exploration 
 
196 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 accomplished, as because of two men who were 
 members of the expedition. The first of these 
 was Juan de la Cosa, the famous pUot who had 
 accompanied Columbus on his First and Second 
 Voyages. The second was Amerigo Vespucci, a 
 merchant of Florence with a taste for adventure 
 and a positive genius for geography. They sailed 
 in May, 1499, under the pilotage of Juan de la 
 Oosa, following the route taken by Columbus in 
 Ms Third Voyage, but keeping further to the 
 north, and thus retaining the benefit of the trade 
 winds. 
 
 They first touched the coast of South America 
 near where Paramaribo (Dutch Guiana) is now 
 situated, and coasted northwestward along 
 Guiana and Venezuela, The latter name was 
 given by Hojeda — on Vespucci's suggestion — be- 
 cause they found a small native village built on 
 piles in the water, hence Little Venice or Vene- 
 zuela. 
 
 After some months of cruising and pearl- 
 gathering, Hojeda turned north and spent eight 
 weeks in Hispaniola. Thence, on his way to 
 Spain, he raided two of the Lesser Antilles islands 
 and captured about 220 Indians to be sold as 
 slaves. These, with the small amount of gold and 
 the large number of pearls he had found on the 
 Venezuelan coast, formed a rich prize, and Hojeda 
 returned, wealthy and famous. 
 
 Even so, another had been more venturesome 
 than he. Alonso Nino, of Moguer, an expert pilot, 
 
THE NEW WORLD 197 
 
 who had accompanied Columbus on his Second 
 Voyage, set sail in June, 1499, with one small 
 caravel and thirty-three men, and reached the 
 Pearl Coast a few days after Hojeda. Hie lost no 
 time in exploring, hut gathered a cargo of pearls 
 and returned in late August or early September. 
 The quick profits of this trip stimulated private 
 adventuring to the "Indies." 
 
 Then, in November, 1499, Vicente Yanez Pin- 
 zon, probably the ablest navigator of his time, 
 who had been in command of the little Nina in 
 that great First Voyage of Columbus, secured a 
 royal permit to adventure. This was just after 
 Vasco de Gama had returned in trimnph, and 
 Ferdinand and Isabella were eager that a Span- 
 iard should achieve to the westward what a Por- 
 tuguese had done to the eastward. Strictly, Pin- 
 zon went to search for a strait to Asia westward 
 at a point south of the southernmost explorations 
 made by Columbus. 
 
 Leaving Palos, with three caravels, on Novem- 
 ber 18, 1499, Pinzon went south to the Cape Verde 
 Islands, and then, ignoring all maps, struck out 
 boldly across absolutely uncharted and unknown 
 waters, steering directly southwest. He crossed 
 the Equator in mid-ocean and, on January 20, 
 1500, saw land, near Cape St. Augustine. Thence, 
 turning northward, he followed the coast for over 
 2,000 miles, discovering the mouth of the Amazon. 
 On the return journey, a violent storm sank two 
 
198 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 of the caravela, but Pinzon reached home safely 
 on September 30, 1500. 
 
 Just as the expedition of Hojeda and Vespucci 
 had been anticipated on its return by a smaller 
 expedition, so Pinzon 's results were partly antici- 
 pated by Diego de Lepe, who started a few weeks 
 later, and who had Amerigo Vespucci in some 
 such capacity as assistant pilot. De Lepe re- 
 turned in June, 1500, three months before Pinzon, 
 but the latter had priority in discovery. 
 
 Kodrigo de Bastidas was the next to venture 
 forth. He sailed in October, 1500, took up the 
 exploration of the coast of South America from 
 the point where Hojeda and Vespucci had turned 
 to the northward, and carried on the plotting of 
 the coast as far as Nombre de Dios, on the 
 Isthmus. 
 
 It will not have been forgotten that Cabral had 
 sighted land on the coast of Brazil, which he had 
 named "Santa Cruz" and had sent back a caravel 
 under Gaspar de Lemos to bring this news to 
 Lisbon. The Portuguese promptly sent out three 
 caravels, under Nuno Manuel, in the summer of 
 1500, to explore this coast. Amerigo Vespucci 
 was a pilot on one of these vessels. 
 
 Striking southwest from Cape Verde they ran 
 into the "doldrums" or zone of equatorial calms 
 and rainfall. After sixty-seven days "of the 
 vilest weather ever seen by man" (to quote Ves- 
 pucci's words) they made the coast of Brazil, 
 south of the Equator, on August 10. As this was 
 
THE NEW WORLD 199 
 
 St. Eoque's Day, they named the point of land 
 "Cape San Roque," by which name it is still 
 known. 
 
 Thence they skirted the coast southward, pass- 
 ing Bahia and came to a marvellous harbor and 
 river in January, 1501. They called this "Bio de 
 Janeiro" (River of January) and continued 
 southwards. They landed occasionally, but the In- 
 dians they encountered were generally hostile. 
 One tribe used poisoned arrows, the Indians of an- 
 other tribe were cannibals. Many Portuguese in 
 the landing parties lost their lives in skirmishes 
 with the natives. 
 
 After following the coast as far south as where 
 Porto Alegre is now, they saw that the land 
 trended steadily to the westward, thus past the 
 Papal Line and no longer Portuguese territory. 
 So, after having provisioned the ships for six 
 months, they sheered out to sea, sailing boldly 
 south by east. They pressed on and on, towards 
 the dreary Antarctic, without sight of land. At 
 lastj on April 7, they saw through the icy mists, 
 South Georgia, one of the most appallingly deso- 
 late lands known to man. "In comparison with 
 this scarped and craggy island, covered do"wn to 
 the water's edge with glaciers," writes Fiske, 
 "the savage wastes of Tierra del Puego seem 
 hospitable. Struggling gusts lash the waves into 
 perpetual fury, and at intervals in the blinding 
 snow-flurries, alternated with freezing rain, one 
 
200 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 catches ominous glimpses of tumbling ice-floes 
 and deadly ledges of rock." 
 
 While near this frigid horror of a land, a 
 vicious Antarctic gale struck them, and no 
 greater testimony can be given to Amerigo Ves- 
 pucci as a pilot than that he worked the clumsy 
 caravels off that grim lee shore without loss of 
 ship or man. Thence he turned for home. Across 
 the wastes of the South Atlantic, where no ship 
 had ever been within a thousand miles, he steered 
 straight for Sierra Leone. There, one of the 
 caravels was abandoned, and, in the other two, 
 Vespucci and his men returned to Lisbon, arriv- 
 ing September 7, 1502. 
 
 This voyage of Amerigo Vespuod. (for he seems 
 to have been the moving force after the departure 
 from Porto Alegre), regarded either as a feat 
 of navigation, a voyage of adventure, or a geo- 
 graphical exploration, ranks second to none be- 
 fore his time. Not even the First Voyage of 
 Columbus can be considered greater. He had 
 sailed more than one-fourth of the circumference 
 of the globe, he had proved the enormous size and 
 westward trend of the continent of South 
 America, he had revealed an Antarctic zone, and, 
 truly, he had found himself in a New World. 
 
 The fourth voyage made by Amerigo Vespucci 
 was as a full pilot and captain of one of six ships 
 under the command of Gonzalo Coelho, sent by 
 Portugal to find out what relation this newly 
 discovered Brazilian coast bore to the Orient, and 
 
THE CANTING CHART SHOWING THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD BETWEEN THE 
 SPANIARDS AND THE PORTCGUESE. 
 
 This map summarizes the state of geographical knowledge at about the time of 
 the Death of Columbus, 1506. 
 
THE NEW WORLD 201 
 
 especially to the Malacca straits. The idea was 
 still general that, in some way, the new continent 
 must either be a part of Asia or a continent lying 
 southwest from and close to it, 
 
 Coelho left Lisbon June 10, 1503, and sailed to 
 Sierra Leone, against the advice of Vespucci who 
 wanted to strike straight across for Brazil. In 
 August, 1503, they discovered the smaU island 
 of Fernando de Noronha, and there one of the 
 ships, a carrack, struck a sunken rock and sank, 
 her crew being all picked up. 
 
 Vespucci was detached to find a harbor on the 
 island and found one half a day's sail distant. 
 But, on the way to join him, Coelho 's ship struck 
 a rock and sank. Two ships, sheering out to sea 
 to avoid the treacherous reefs, disappeared. One 
 ship joined Vespucci. They waited there two 
 months, living on sea-birds, and waiting in vain 
 for the other ships to reappear. Then Vespucci 
 took command and sailed to the coast of Brazil, 
 arriving near Cape Frio (close to Rio de Janeiro). 
 Finding a great quantity of Brazil-wood — of 
 great commercial value for dyes — ^Vespucci de- 
 cided to establish a colony there. He made peace 
 with the natives, built a blockhouse, provisioned 
 it thoroughly, left twelve cannon and plenty of 
 small arms, and returned to Lisbon, arriving 
 June 18, 1504. The two missing ships arrived 
 later, having been engaged in explorations around 
 the region of the Eiver La Plata. The Cape Frio' 
 colony endured for seven years. 
 
THE,^QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Thus before Columbus returned from his 
 Fourth Voyage, and indeed before he had started 
 it, the whole coast of South America had been 
 explored and mapped from the present southern 
 frontier of Brazil all around the thousands of 
 miles of coast to the Isthmus of Panama. Yet 
 Columbus ignoring these discoveries— though a 
 later letter from his pen to Vespucci shows that 
 he knew about them — still talked of the Continent 
 of the Earthly Paradise, and of the straits be- 
 yond. Columbus was still so certain that he would 
 outvie his competitors that, on his Fourth and 
 Last Voyage, he took three Arabic interpreters 
 to serve his needs after he had passed the yet 
 undiscovered straits to the Spice Islands and 
 India. 
 
 Vespucci had accomplished wonders, but it is 
 to be remembered that his first two voyages were 
 but the following out of the prior work of Co- 
 lumbus, and his last two voyages the extension 
 of the discoveries of Vasoo de Gama and Cabral. 
 A curious freak of fate was to give his name to 
 the New World in place of the great Genoese, who 
 first, since the days of the Norsemen, had set foot 
 on what is now American soil. 
 
 Since Amerigo Vespucci was but a passenger 
 on his first voyage, an assistant pilot on his seo- 
 ond, and a pilot-captain on the third and fourth, 
 always under some fleet commander, how came 
 it about that he gave his name to America? 
 
 The chain of circumstances is a strange one. 
 
THE NEW WORLD 
 
 It originated by a misstatement (whether a fraud 
 or an error is not known) in one of Vespucci's 
 letters, in which he mentions the date of his first 
 Toyage as having heen 1497 — and therefore 
 earlier than Columbus' Third Voyage — ^instead 
 of 1499 — and therefore after it. (John Fiske has 
 been led into error here. For what seems to the 
 author of this book to be conclusive evidence, see 
 E. Gaylord Bourne's "Spain in America" and the 
 bibliography of the controversy therein.) Modem 
 historical research shows the Vespucci voyages 
 to have occurred in the order and on the dates 
 mentioned above. It may be possible that Ves- 
 pucci also visited Florida and the Carolina coast, 
 as Fiske suggests and as early charts seem to 
 bear out, but the evidence is conjectural, rather 
 than definite. 
 
 The chain of circumstances which led to the 
 name "America" begins with Vespucci's state- 
 ment of "a" voyage in 1497. Yet even this early 
 date and its implication of prior discovery would 
 have had but little effect if it were not that Ves- 
 pucci had a facile pen and a gift of description. 
 In 1503, he wrote a letter, describing his third 
 voyage, to Lorenzo de Medici, of the princely 
 Florentine family. In 1504, he wrote a longer 
 letter, describing all four voyages, to an old 
 friend, Pietro Soderini, gonfalonier (ruling mag- 
 istrate) in the Eepublic of Florence. 
 
 The dates on which the letters were written, 
 however, are not of as great importance as are 
 
204 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the dates of th^ir publication, Vespucci's Letter 
 to Medici was translated into Latin (with some 
 changes in the text) and published in 1504. The 
 Letter to Soderini was published in 1505. They 
 created a furore of excitement, and, the printing 
 press having been invented by that time, thou- 
 sands of copies were struck off. By 1505 or 1506, 
 at the latest, all literary and scientific Europe 
 was aware of the Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci 
 (Americus Vesputius in its Latin form) in the 
 New World. ^ 
 
 Consider, for a moment, how different was the 
 case with Columbus. The first brief notice of 
 his Third Voyage appeared as a passage ia a 
 Venetian book of voyages in 1504, and not ia 
 Latin form until the appearance of the same quo- 
 tation (from Peter Martyr's unpublished MS) 
 in a larger collection in 1507. Neither of these 
 books had any wide circulation. 
 
 Columbus' discovery of South America cannot 
 really be said to have been made known until the 
 publication in 1511 of Peter Martyr's great book 
 "Ocean Decanus" (a decade — of discovery — in 
 the Ocean). Seven years before that time, Co- 
 lumbus had died discredited, his fame, for the 
 time, being obliterated by the brilliant accom- 
 plishments of Vasco de Gama, Cabral, Vespucci, 
 Pinzon, de Solis, Cabot and others. When at last 
 Columbus' ideas were made known, his statement 
 that the world was shaped like a pear and ended 
 just beyond the Equator, appeared ridiculous in 
 
THE NEW WORLD 205 
 
 the light of Vespucci's voyage to the Antarctic 
 regions. 
 
 Moreover, in strong contrast to Columbus' mys- 
 ticism, Vespucci's statements were clean-cut. 
 Mark the following quotation : 
 
 "These regions we found may well be called 
 a New World . . . For it goes beyond the ideas 
 of our ancients, most of whom said there was no 
 continent below the equator and towards the 
 South, or, if any of them said there was one, they 
 declared it must be uninhabited for many reasons. 
 But that this opinion is false and altogether con- 
 trary to the truth this last voyage of mine has 
 made known." Whereupon, the writer proceeds 
 to show, with a deft touch and with an eye to 
 detail, the continental discoveries. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that Amerigo 
 Vespucci intended to foist upon the world any 
 claim of his own. His two letters on the "New 
 World" were to private friends. He asked no 
 rewards from the monarchs of Spain or Portugal, 
 though he was made Pilot-Major for Spain in 
 1508, an ofl&ce he held until his death in 1512. 
 This appointment is sufficient evidence that he 
 was truly a navigator, and not merely a writer, 
 as some of his detractors have asserted. 
 
 Still less is Vespucci to be accused of imposing 
 his name upon the New World. This rank injus- 
 tice to Columbus was begun by two professors 
 in the College of St. Die in France. This college, 
 being the Alma Mater of Pierre d'Ailly, compiler 
 
206 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLl> 
 
 of the "Imago Mundi," was especially forward 
 in geography. Moreover, as it possessed a print- 
 ing press, it took a prominence greater than its. 
 small size would warrant, by reason of its publi- 
 cations. 
 
 At this time, Martin Waldseemiiller, Professor 
 of Greography, and Mathias Ringmann, Professor 
 of Latin, were engaged in preparing a new edition 
 of Ptolemy's Geography, adding all the newer 
 discoveries. While this was under preparation,, 
 the two professors issued in 1507 a small essay 
 entitled " Cosmographia Introductio" (Introduc- 
 tion to Cosmography) which essay was prefaced 
 by the Latin version of the Vespucci letters. In 
 his essay, Waldseemiiller, not being aware that 
 the date 1497 in the Letters was possibly an error,, 
 and not having seen the scrap of information 
 about Columbus in the little Venetian volume of 
 1504, declared: 
 
 "Another fourth part of the world has been 
 discovered by Americus Vesputius. ... I do not 
 see why anyone may justly prohibit it to be named 
 'Amerige,' that is, Americ ge or Americ's land,, 
 from Americus ... or else America, since both 
 Europe and Asia derived their names from 
 women." 
 
 It was thus that the name passed into current 
 use. True, after the publication of Peter Martyr's 
 book in 1511, Waldseemiiller saw his error, and, 
 when he made his Map of the World to accompany 
 the new edition of Ptolemy's Geography, he sub- 
 
THE NEW WORLD 207 
 
 stituted on the coast of South America the name 
 ' * Terra Incognita ' ' (Unknown Land) . Moreover, 
 he added : ' * This land discovered by Colnmhus, a 
 Genoese, under the authority of the King of 
 Castile." 
 
 There is further evidence that Vespucci had no 
 part in this false naming. In 1523, his nephew, 
 Giovanni Vespucci, put out a map, and, on this, 
 he named the coastlands explored by his famous 
 uncle, "New World." Neither Waldseemiiller's 
 correction nor Giovanni Vespucci's omission had 
 any effect. It was then too late. The name 
 ^'America" had become known. On Mercator's 
 great globe of 1541, the word appears spread over 
 both the northern and the southern continents. 
 The division into "North America" and "South 
 America" first appeared in the Seventeenth Cen- 
 tury, "Central America" not until the Eigh- 
 teenth. All later efforts to name the continent 
 "Columbana" or "Atlantis" failed. 
 
 The fate of the first Spanish settlements on the 
 mainland may be told in a few words. The in- 
 domitable Hojeda received a grant of the coast 
 of what is now Colombia, under the title "New 
 Andalusia". He started in NoVj 1509. With 
 him were the veteran Juan de la Cosa, and Fran- 
 cisco Pizarro, the future conqueror of Peru. On 
 the first foray into the interior, the colonists met 
 fierce resistance from Indians with poisoned 
 arrows. Juan de la Cosa was killed, and, a few 
 -days later, when the Indians actually attacked a 
 
208 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 fort built by the Spaniards, Hojeda was wounded. 
 By cauterizing tbe wound with white-hot iron 
 plates, he escaped death, but not for long. After 
 weeks of peril and suffering he reached Santo 
 Domingo, penniless and dying. 
 
 Diego de Nicuesa, a young planter who had be- 
 come rich in Hispaniola, received the Isthmus of 
 Panama as a grant. He set sail for Santo Do- 
 mingo in Deo. 1509. The expedition promised 
 well, but the fever-filled climate, the terrible heat 
 and lack of suitable food cost him 640 out of his 
 700 men in a few months. He tried to assume 
 authority over the remnant of Hojeda 's band, 
 now under the command of Vasco Nunez de Bal- 
 boa, who had emigrated northward to Panama. 
 But these men refused his leadership, set him 
 aboard a worm-eaten vessel and he was never 
 heard of again. 
 
 Balboa's record was sensational. Fleeing frodi 
 creditors in Spain, he had himself nailed in a 
 barrel and placed aboard Hojeda's ship, among 
 the provisions, until the ship should have cleared 
 harbor. When the settlers landed, Balboa showed 
 himself a natural-born leader, and, upon the de- 
 parture of the wounded Hojeda, Balboa took com- 
 mand. He married the daughter of a neighboring 
 chief, secured the alliance of another tribe, and 
 led both to war against their hereditary enemies, 
 winning the victory. For this he received gold 
 to the value of $12,000. While the Spaniards were 
 wrangling over the division of the spoil, one of 
 
THE NEW WORLD 209 
 
 the chiefs told Balboa that, to the southwest, there 
 lay "a region flowing with gold which may satisfy 
 your ravening appetites. . . . When you pass 
 over the mountains, you shall find another sea 
 where they sail with ships as big as yours." 
 
 In the summer of 1513, hearing that a new gov- 
 ernor was coming out from Spain to inquire as to. 
 Balboa's rights in Panama (he had none!) that 
 gallant adventurer, with 190 Spaniards and sev- 
 eral hundred Indian porters, set out to find tha 
 truth about this reported sea. 
 
 For eighteen days they waded malarial swamps„ 
 cut their way through thorny thickets, and climbed 
 steaming cliffs guarded by lianas and vines as 
 tough as wire. By heroic endeavor and grilling 
 toil, on Sept. 25, 1513, Balboa reached the ridge 
 and in his own words, "saw the great main sea,, 
 never seen before by any man coming out of our 
 world, and heretofore unknown to the inhabitants 
 of Europe, Asia and Africa." Four days later 
 he stood on the shore, and, when the tide came 
 rushing in, took possession of the Further Ocean 
 in the name of the King of Spain. 
 
 Had this news but reached Spain earlier, Bal- 
 boa might have become the greatest figure in Cen- 
 tral America, for not even Cortes was better fitted 
 for conquistador work. But his great discovery 
 profited him nothing. It even failed to save him 
 from the new governor, Pedro Arias de Avila, 
 who put him to death by treachery. 
 
 Though Columbus had died, still believing 
 
210 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Cuba to be the mainland of Asia, charts as early 
 as 1502 showed it to be an island. It had been 
 twice circumnavigated in 1508, moreover, once 
 by Vicente Yanez Pinzon and Juan Diaz de Solis, 
 and again by Sebastian de Ocampo. 
 
 With Cuba known to be an island, explorers 
 started to the northward. Ponce de Leon, who 
 had come with the first group of colonists on Co- 
 lumbus' Second Voyage, and had helped to build 
 Isabella, had been appointed governor of Eastern 
 Hispaniola by Ovando. In 1509 he had been 
 made governor of Boriquen, or Porto Eico. 
 
 In 1512 he secured a royal patent to discover 
 and explore Bimine, among the Bahama Islands, 
 where there was reported to be gold, and where 
 the fabled Fountain of Youth was supposed to 
 be. Cruising around the Bahamas, on April 2, 
 1512, Ponce de Leon discovered a coastland, 
 which he named Florida. In 1521, he undertook 
 to colonize Florida, but lost so many men in 
 Indian warfare and was so grievously wounded 
 that he returned to Cuba, where he died. 
 
 Further exploration along the Gulf Coast was 
 taken up by Francisco de Qaray, also one of the 
 colonists of Isabella, and who had become Gover- 
 nor of Jamaica. Garay sent Alonzo de Pineda with 
 four vessels, and Pineda sailed along the shore 
 from Florida to Vera Cruz, Mexico. On Pineda's 
 glowing report, Garay equipped a large expedi- 
 tion of eleven vessels, with 850 men and 144 horses, 
 to settle Mexico. Cortes, however, had already 
 
THE NEW WORLD 211 
 
 taken possession, and Garay threw in Ms lot with 
 the conqueror, his son becoming betrothed to 
 Cortes' daughter. Yet Garay, himself, was able 
 to do but little in the Conquest of Mexico, for he 
 died of pneumonia a few months after. 
 
 The coast-line to the north still called for ven- 
 ture. In 1521 Justice de Ayllon, of Santo Do- 
 mingo, sent Francisco Gordillo with a single 
 caravel. Gordillo met a slave-ship and the two 
 sailed north as far as Georgetown, South Carolina, 
 where they captured two shiploads of Indians. 
 On their return to Santo Domingo, Ayllon, who 
 sought exploration and not slaves, freed the 
 Indians. 
 
 Gordillo 's account of the voyage, however, re- 
 vealed a land suitable for settlement, and Ayllon 
 undertook to command the expedition himself. 
 He set out in 1526 with 600 men. They landed 
 near Cape Fear, and the settlement of San Miguel 
 de Guadeloupe was formed. But however kindly 
 a judge Ayllon might be, he was not a military 
 commander. The Indians were hostile, and the 
 climate unhealthful. Ayllon died of fever three 
 months later, no one was competent to take com- 
 mand, the men quarreled and fought among them- 
 selves, and less than 150 survivors reached His- 
 paniola. 
 
 Stephen Gomez, who had deserted from Magel- 
 lan's expedition, sailed from Spain early in 1525 
 with a single caravel, seeking for a route to 
 Cathay by a possible northwest passage. In this 
 
212 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 he was guided by the voyages of Cabot and the 
 Corte-Eeals, who explored Newfoundland in 1502 
 and 1503, the Portuguese navigator Fagundes, 
 who reported a deep gulf (the Grulf of St, Law- 
 rence?) in 1520, and Verrazano, who coasted along 
 the shore in 1524. Gomez made land either at 
 Newfoundland or Maine, and coasted southward 
 until he reached the northernmost point reached 
 by Ayllon's expeditions. 
 
 Thus, by the year 1525, Spanish and Portuguese 
 vessels had minutely examined and charted the 
 eastern coasts of South, Central and North Amer- 
 ica, from Magellan's Straits to Labrador, and, 
 since the charts of the Norsemen had been made 
 available, to Grreenland. That this coastline re- 
 vealed a continent of enormous extent as well as 
 length was evident from the volume of water 
 found in the Mississippi, Orinoco, Amazon and La 
 Plata rivers. Careful search had shown no straits 
 to Asia between Cape Breton and Tierra del 
 Fuego. Since Spain and Portugal were not seek- 
 ing colonies, but gold, their haphazard attempts at 
 settlement failed, and the first true colonization in 
 North America was left for the more northern 
 races of the British, French and Dutch. 
 
 It is occasionally suggested that it has been a 
 good thing for North America that the Spaniards 
 secured so light a hold on that continent, and 
 their administration of Mexico and Peru is cited 
 as proof. This is both unhistorical and unjust. 
 The conditions and climate of Central and South 
 
THE NEW WORLD 213 
 
 America must inevitably produce a different type 
 of government than would occur in North. Amer- 
 ica. Latin ideals differ from Celtic and Teuton 
 ideals. 
 
 The Spanish were not less devout than the 
 English Puritans, not less courageous than the 
 French fur-traders, not less able merchants than 
 the Dutch burghers. It would be difiScult to find 
 on the pages of all history a more gallant body of 
 men than the Spanish conquistadors. A Spanish 
 North America would have been different from 
 the United States and Canada, but no one is justi- 
 fied in taking the role of a prophet and saying that 
 it would have been worse, or better. 
 
 Before leaving this phase of the subject it must 
 be affirmed emphatically that the dealings of the 
 Spanish with the Indians were to the full as 
 humane, as careful for religious and secular edu- 
 cartion, as tolerant of alliances as were the deal- 
 ings of the English colonists. In the South Amer- 
 ican republics today — ^which hold a tenfold higher 
 place in the world than the average North Ameri- 
 can realizes or is willing to admit — ^the Indian 
 under Spanish influence has become a valuable 
 citizen. 
 
 AH honor to Spain and Portugal! They 
 achieved the apparently impossible. They lifted 
 a whole race, counting millions, into the sphere of 
 civilized thought, life and religion. They Chris- 
 tianized the heathen in the remote lands beyond 
 the sea. They developed them into peoples which 
 
214 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 were able to become self-governing republies. 
 And, in these republics, the highest honors have 
 at times been given to Spanish Indians. 
 
 Liberty is for all. Equality of opportunity 
 is the right of countries as well as individuals. 
 There is a democracy of nations as well as of 
 voters. He who, in the United States, does most 
 honor to the historic glories of Spain and Portu- 
 gal, and who most fraternally extends fellowship 
 to nations founded upon Spanish and Portuguese 
 ideals, thereby shows himself the best American. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CONQTJISTADOE IN NOETH AMERICA 
 
 Spanish carracks and caravels liad dared the 
 unknown Western Ocean, had explored hundreds 
 of miles of the North American shore and had 
 cast anchor in many a score of harbors. Between 
 the momentous years 1492 and 1525, the whole 
 coast had been charted. This was all the work of 
 the Spanish pilot and the Spanish mariner. The 
 Conquistador, strictly so-called, had not yet ap- 
 peared upon the scene. 
 
 The Conquistador, or Soldier of Conquest, was 
 three heroes rolled into one. He was, first of all, 
 a Crusader, who came to plant the Cross on Amer- 
 ican soil;, he was, secondly, a chiv9.1ric soldier 
 whose gallantry rings with a trumpet-peal across 
 the pages of American history; he was, thirdly, a 
 resourceful pioneer who could handle axe and 
 gun as well as Daniel Boone himself. The 
 churches, the forts, and the log-houses, fields and 
 flock-pastures of the Conquistadores were the first 
 European works in America since Thorfinn Karl- 
 sefni had erected his house in Wine-land to shelter 
 Gudrid the Fair, the first white American mother, 
 and Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first white American 
 child. 
 
 215 
 
me THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 They would have liked each other — those two, 
 Norseman and Conquistador! Mighty men of 
 war and mighty men of peace, the viking of the 
 North and the knight of the South were blood- 
 hrothers in courage, in resourcefulness and in 
 virility. No country ever could lay claim to a 
 more gallant and romantic ancestry than North 
 America. 
 
 In the preceding volume have been told the 
 stories of the two most famous Conquistadores of 
 History, Hernando Cortes, the Conqueror of 
 Mexico, and Francisco Pizarro, the Conqueror of 
 Peru. Yet they were not greater in themselves 
 than Panfilo de Narvaez, Hernando de Soto, Fray 
 Marcos and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, 
 whose ventures were on North American soil. 
 The latter are less known to fame only because 
 their spoils were scantier. 
 
 Although Ponce de Leon belongs rather to the 
 period of the navigators than to that of the Con- 
 quistadores, his fame attaches closely to the at- 
 tempt he made to found a colony in Florida, and 
 to his daring but hopeless search in the swampy 
 and barren lands of that region for the fabled 
 "Fountain of Youth," the water of which was so 
 healing that, if a man once drank of it he would 
 never grow old. In that romantic quest, most of 
 his men found their graves on American soil, and 
 their great leader received a wound from a stone- 
 tipped arrow, from which he died, soon after- 
 wards, in Cuba. 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 217 
 
 A man of a very different stripe was Panfilo 
 de Narvaez. The fire of tlie Conquistador had 
 bitten deep into his soul. Almost, he became the 
 Conqueror of Mexico. Diego Velasquez, who had 
 succeeded Ovando as governor, had sent Cortes 
 to follow up the discoveries in Yucatan made by 
 Cordova in 1517 and by Grijalva in 1518. But 
 he had repented of his choice of Cortes soon after 
 the expedition had started, and he had sent Nar- 
 vaez to supplant him. 
 
 Narvaez followed Cortes from Yucatan to the 
 town of Vera Cruz, which Cortes had founded on 
 the coast of Mexico, and whence the Conqueror 
 had begun his great march into the interior. By 
 the time Narvaez arrived, Cortes had already 
 penetrated to the City of Mexico, seized it, and 
 made a prisoner of Montezuma, the Aztec em- 
 peror. 
 
 Hearing of Narvaez' arrival, Cortes left Alva- 
 rado in charge in the City of Mexico, returned to 
 the coast by a marvellous series of forced marches, 
 attacked Narvaez by surprise, clapped him into 
 prison, and attached his rival's troops to his own 
 banner. 
 
 Two years in a Mexican prison convinced Nar- 
 vaez that the Land of the Aztecs held no oppor- 
 tunities for him, while Cortes lived. Upon his 
 release, he returned to Spain, determined to find 
 new realms to conquer. 
 
 Garay's exploring expeditions, which had com- 
 passed the coast from Florida to Mexico, had re- 
 
218 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ported fertile land near the "Rio Grande. ' ' This 
 stream may either have been the Mississippi or 
 the river still called the Eio Grande, on the 
 borders of the United States and Mexico. As 
 Cortes ' conquests lay far south of that region, 
 Narvaez determined to occupy this country for 
 himself. 
 
 The enormous wealth secured by the conquests 
 of Mexico and Peru held out hopes of similar 
 treasure-cities elsewhere. It was easy, therefore, 
 for Narvaez to secure ships, money and men from 
 Spain. He sailed in June, 1527, with five ships and 
 600 people, including a few women, wives of mem- 
 bers of the expedition. 
 
 At Santo Domingo, Narvaez met his first mis- 
 fortune. Over a hundred men deserted, prefer- 
 ring a competence in a colony to the chance of a 
 fortune on a venturesome quest. From Hispan- 
 iola the conquistador went to Cuba. Evil dogged 
 his heels, however, and in a West Indian hurri- 
 cane, two of his ships went to the bottom, carry- 
 ing to death sixty men and twenty horses. 
 
 With three ships left he sailed )north from 
 Cuba. Believing the ocean current to be west- 
 erly instead of easterly, he sailed N E in order 
 to strike land as soon as possible. This course 
 and the current led hkn, not to the Mississippi, 
 nor to the Rio Grande, but to a point of land north 
 of Tampa Bay, Florida. 
 
 One vessel was sent to Cuba for supplies. 
 The other two were bidden coast towards Mexico 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 219 
 
 and await Narvaez' arrival in a certain harbor. 
 Cabeza de Vaoa, treasurer and historian of the 
 expedition, opposed this separation of ships and 
 men, but the Captain-General was insistent. The 
 two vessels reached the appointed harbor, waited 
 in vain for Narvaez, sailed back, discovered 
 Tampa Bay, spent a year in a vain search for 
 their leader, and, at last, returned to Cuba. 
 
 With an army of 300 men, Narvaez set out, on 
 May 1, 1528, to follow the coast by land. After 
 two months of struggling through the abominable 
 swamps of the Florida coast, he heard from a 
 captured Indian that there was "a large town" 
 at Apalachee. Thinking this might be another 
 such mighty capital as the City of Mexico, burst- 
 ing with riches such as the Aztec capital pos- 
 sessed, Narvaez, with less than three days' rations 
 to a man, plunged into the scrub to conquer for 
 himself an empire. Cortes had done so, why 
 should not he? 
 
 A few days' march brought them to Apalachee. 
 Here was no seat of empire! The "large town" 
 was but a group of primitive huts. As the braves, 
 were away on a raid, the Spaniards conquered the 
 village without difficulty. But, when the war- 
 party of the Creeks returned, a bitter struggle 
 began. Narvaez had hurriedly fortified the vil- 
 lage, and, for a solid month, he fought night and 
 day to hold the post. The Indians poured down 
 in hordes and the Spaniards were compelled to 
 
220 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 abandon the point they had fought so desperately 
 to keep. 
 
 Nine days of marching through oak-thicket and 
 morass, harassed by bands of Indians in ambush 
 all the way, brought the Spaniards to the sea- 
 coast. Cabeza de Vaca, with a mounted advance 
 guard, went ahead to find a camp. This was lo- 
 cated a day's march further on, at what is now 
 Ocklockonee Bay, not far from Pensacola. They 
 called that place "Bahia de Caballos" because 
 there they were compelled to kill and eat their 
 horses. 
 
 The ships were gone. The miasmic coastlands 
 were unfit for marching. No game was to be 
 found save an occasional turtle on the beach or in 
 the swamps — ^poor subsistence for an army! 
 
 In dire extremity Narvaez and the Spaniards 
 determined to build themselves such boats as they 
 could. They hammered their spurs, stirrups and 
 every piece of metal they possessed — except their 
 weapons — into nails. They cut down trees and 
 hewed rough boards from them, naihng them with 
 their clumsy spikes and with wooden pins. They 
 caulked the gaping seams with palmetto fiber and 
 pine-tree resin. Where the holes were too big, 
 the hides of the dead horses were patched over. 
 The rigging was made of ropes roughly twisted 
 from the hair of the horses ' manes and tails. The 
 men's clothing served for sails. 
 
 Dried fish and turtle-flesh, with some maize 
 which had been carried from the Indian granaries 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 221 
 
 at Apalachee, formed their only food. The water, 
 tepid and marsh-tasting, was kept in raw-hide 
 buckets to which shreds of horse-flesh still clung. 
 
 Towards the end of September, 1528, the last 
 of the horse-flesh having been eaten, they put 
 aboard the boats their slender stock of provisions 
 and water. Then, hoisting their sails of clothing 
 with rigging of horse-hair, they pushed off the 
 shore in what were surely the most pitiful make- 
 shifts of boats on which gallant men ever trusted 
 their lives. 
 
 Yet these men, even in such desperate straits, 
 did not turn back to Cuba. They set their faces 
 ■onward. Soon their food came to an end. The 
 water bred worms and stank. The hot sun of the 
 Oulf of Mexico warped the green timbers of their 
 boats. Many days later, famished and thirst- 
 iortured, they passed a strong current of fresh 
 water pouring out into the ocean, so fresh that 
 ihey were able to drink from it. This was the 
 Mississippi. Adverse current and wind pre- 
 vented them from turning inland. 
 
 Bailing night and day, the boats crawled on. 
 "With water to their knees, and the boats sinking 
 under them, the men put to shore, from time to 
 time, to plug the yawning holes and make such 
 repairs as were possible. West of the mouth of 
 "the Mississippi a gust of off-shore wind carried 
 to sea the boat on which Narvaez sailed. In the 
 waters of the Gulf of Mexico he found his grave. 
 
 After two months of misery, eighty survivors, 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 in two boats which were barely more than floating 
 sieves, beached on Matagorda Island, off the coast 
 of Texas. They had neither food nor water, many 
 were too weak to stand upright. Only fifteen sur- 
 vived to see the spring. 
 
 Six years of dreadful silence followed. 
 
 One day, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, some 
 Spanish slave-catchers found on the beach a naked 
 white man, who spoke Spanish, It was Cabeza 
 de Vaca. Only three others of the Narvaez expe- 
 dition were still alive: two Spaniards, Dorantes 
 and Castillo, and a negro slave, named Estevanico. 
 Of the rest, some had died of hunger, others gone 
 mad from thirst, a few had been tortured to death 
 by Indians. 
 
 De Vaca and his three companions had under- 
 gone hardships unimaginable. During the six 
 years, they had roamed far north with the buffalo 
 hunters, and they had starved with the dirt-eaters 
 of the cactus plains. They had learned Indian 
 tongues and, towards the end of their wanderings, 
 secured such mighty reputations as wonder- 
 workers and medicine men that they "were fre- 
 quently accompanied by three or four thousand 
 persons, for each of whom we had to breathe upon 
 and sanctify the food and drink." This was in 
 1534. They then pushed westward to the junction 
 of the Eio Grande and Pecos rivers, along the 
 Rio Grande to the mouth of the Conchos and 
 across northern Mexico to the Gulf of California. 
 It was not until July, 1536, that the three Span- 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 
 
 iards and the negro slave reached the City of 
 Mexico. More than nine years had passed since 
 they left Spain. 
 
 Cabeza de Vaoa, while some of his statements 
 seem exaggerated, was careful to distinguish be- 
 tween what he had seen and what he had heard by 
 rumor. He told of houses which held hundreds 
 of people (pueblos) but declared only upon report 
 that in the lofty mountains to the north (the Eoeky 
 Mts.) emeralds could be found. Yet he told noth- 
 ing but the truth when he described "pasture- 
 prairies larger than all of Spain." Never, in the 
 wildest flights of a romancer's imagination, has 
 there been conceived a tale so strange and terrible 
 as the simple story written by Cabeza de Vaca 
 himself of the Narvaez expedition and his own 
 eight years of wild wandering. 
 
 By this time the vieeroyalty of *'New Spain" 
 had been formed, with four divisions — ^Mexico, 
 Hispaniola and the islands, New Galicia and Guat- 
 emala. Don Antonio de Mendoza, "the Good 
 Viceroy," held the important oflSce of Supreme 
 Governor when Cabeza de Vaca returned. The 
 Viceroy was at once besieged by adventurers who 
 wished to plunder the Seven Cities of which de 
 Vaca spoke so cautiously, and which popular opin- 
 ion at once supposed to be the fabled "Seven 
 Treasure Cities of Cibola." 
 
 Mendoza, however, knew how many Spanish 
 expeditions had gone to disaster from following 
 vague rumors. He sent Fray Marcos of Nice to 
 
224 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 make a reconnoissance. He knew that a Fran- 
 ciscan friar would not turn slave-catcher nor un- 
 necessarily inflame the natives. 
 
 Fray Marcos, "the Frenchman," was well fitted 
 for such an enterprise. He had courage of a high 
 order and vast experience. He had been with 
 Pizarro in Peru, had marched every foot of the 
 way from Guatemala to the City of Mexico, knew 
 half-a-dozen Indian tongues and had labored 
 mightily in the cause of the Indians. On Men- 
 doza's request he left New Spain in the spring of 
 1539, taking with him as a guide Estevanico, the 
 negro slave who had accompanied Cabeza de Vaca 
 and was one of the four survivors of the Narvaez 
 expedition. 
 
 In order to save time, and food Fray Marcos 
 sent the negro ahead with a flying squad of In- 
 dians to scout out the land. If the prospect was 
 poor, Estevanico was to send back by an Indian 
 runner a cross a couple of inches in length ; if the 
 prospects were fair, a large cross, and so on. 
 Four days later, an Indian messenger came into 
 Fray Marcos' camp with a cross five feet long, 
 and the Indian told of finding Seven Stone-Built 
 Cities. 
 
 Instead of waiting for his chief, however, the 
 negro pushed on, seeking treasure and importance 
 for himself. He was promptly killed by the pueblo 
 Indians. On receiving the report of his death 
 Fray Marcos advanced only far enough to see one 
 of the pueblos from a distance, and then "with 
 
From a painting by It'. H. Powell in the Capitol at Washington 
 
 DE SOTO DISCOVERS THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 Hernando de Soto was the second of the great Spanish explorers into the terri- 
 tory which is now the United States. He was appointed Governor of Cuba 
 and Adelanto of Florida, the latter title including a royal permit to conquer 
 and colonize the unknown land. He landed at Tampa Bay in May, 1539, with 
 620 men and 223 horses. He marched northward and westward and reached 
 the Mississippi in May, 1541. 
 
\'<^ /" 
 
 .O*^ 
 
 /^^^^° 
 
 •c(>'*> 
 
 •;5*^ 
 
 I ° 
 
 W>C1 
 
 THE EXPLORATIONS OF CORONADA, DE VACA AND DE SOTO. 
 
 Few areas of the world can show the routes of explorers where greater hard- 
 ship was faced and overcome than this section across the southern area of the 
 present United States. Every Spanish adventurer into this territory wrought 
 a tale of heroism acarcelly without peer in the annals of human adventure. 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 225 
 
 more fright than food," as he declared, retreated. 
 He knew that Mendoza wanted a report, not a 
 martyrdom. 
 
 The friar's report, like Cabeza de Vaca's state- 
 ment, consisted of a sober account of the things he 
 had seen, and a credulous account of the things 
 he had heard. In those days people were not 
 discriminating, and they accepted rumors for 
 facts. The Seven Cities were unquestionably 
 there, fable spoke of Seven Treasure Cities, there- 
 fore these pueblos must be those long-sought 
 haunts of gold, so they reasoned. Fray Marcos' 
 raport was destined to have a potent effect on 
 future exploration, but, before it could be acted 
 upon, another expedition had set forth, its im- 
 petus accelerated by the reports of Cabeza de 
 Vaca. 
 
 Hernando de Soto was the second of the great 
 Spanish explorers into the territory which is now 
 the United States. He was "adelanto" or mili- 
 tary governor of "Florida," a region which then 
 extended from the east coast to Mexico and ran 
 indefinitely northwards. De Soto was of the true 
 Conquistador type. Starting in life with no for- 
 tune but his sword, he went to the Isthmus, was 
 among the companions of Pizarro, secured for 
 himself a fair fortune during the Inca Conquest, 
 and returned to Spain. Soon after his return, he 
 was appointed Governor of Cuba and Adelanto 
 of Florida, the latter title including a royal permit 
 to conquer and colonize the unknown land. 
 
226 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 While De Soto was engaged in equipping the 
 expedition — ^largely with the fortune he had 
 amassed in Peru — Cabeza de Vaca arrived in 
 Spain. He also sought from the Crown the privi- 
 lege of conquering the lands through which he had 
 passed in such distress, but De Soto had the ad- 
 vantage of priority and riches. Caheza received 
 a commission to occupy the La Plata Eiver region, 
 south of Brazil, which had been proved to lie west 
 of the Papal Line and thus to belong to Spain. 
 The venture had but little success, and Cabeza 
 returned to a quiet life in Spain. 
 
 De Soto sailed in April, 1538. He spent a year 
 in Cuba, setting the affairs of the island in order 
 and getting further material ready for his planned 
 conquest. In May, 1539, he left Cuba with nine 
 ships, 620 men and 223 horses. De Soto, from his 
 experience with Pizarro in the Conquest of Peru, 
 knew well how to equip such an expedition. He 
 landed on May 30, in Tampa Bay. 
 
 The march northward was through the same 
 inhospitable area of alternating cypress swamp, 
 palmetto flat, and scrub-oak hiUocks that Narvaez 
 had encountered. A few days after landing, the 
 adventurers met a white man who barely saved 
 himself from death by crying out some Spanish 
 words and making the sign of the cross. He 
 proved to be a Spaniard named Juan Ortiz, who 
 had been on the ships of Narvaez, and who had 
 been captured by the Indians during the search 
 for the missing leaders. For twelve years he had 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 227 
 
 been a slave under the Indians and readily became 
 De Soto's interpreter. He added to his new 
 leader's cupidity by a statement that the Indians 
 spoke of a "Land of El Dorado" (the Gilded 
 Man) lying to the north. This seemed to support 
 Cabeza de Vaca's story of the Seven Cities, and 
 De Soto pushed on. He wintered near Apalachee, 
 whence Narvaez had been compelle,d to flee. 
 
 In March, 1540, having reinforced his Indian 
 bearers who had died during the winter with 
 slaves taken from near-by villages, De Soto struck 
 northeast across the present State of Georgia as 
 far as the Savannah Eiver. There he turned tO' 
 the westward, passed the lower undulations of the 
 Blue Mountains, and turned southwards towards 
 the sea, arriving at Mauvilla, near Mobile Bay, in 
 Oct. 1541. There a sharp battle with Indians oc- 
 curred, in which 18 Spaniards were slain and 150 
 wounded. Though his lieutenant was waiting for 
 him at Ochuse, not six days ' march away, De Soto 
 kept this fact of near-by help a secret from his 
 men, for he would "send no news of himself until 
 he had found some rich country," by which De 
 Soto meant an empire such as that which Pizarro 
 had found in Peru or Cortes in Mexico. 
 
 Few explorers and commanders have ever 
 shown themselves as able as De Soto. At this 
 time, he had been absent a year and three months,, 
 without a single return to a base of supplies, yet 
 he had lost less than a hundred men by sickness 
 or in the continual battles with the Indians. Hisi 
 
S28 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 troops were still well provisioned and the horses 
 in fair condition. Most important of all, the great 
 drove of pigs with which he traveled as a base of 
 provisions had thriven exceedingly. 
 
 From near Mobile Bay he marched northwest, 
 and wintered in Dec, 1541, at the Indian village 
 of Chickasaw on the Yazoo River. This was a 
 place of disaster. In March, 1542, a large war- 
 party attacked the village suddenly at nddnight 
 and set it on fire. Eleven Spaniards were killed, 
 most of the baggage was burned to ashes, and fifty 
 horses and several hundred pigs perished in the 
 flames. 
 
 Marching on, after this reverse, on May 8, 1541 
 De Soto secured the first sight of the Mississippi. 
 At this point it was two miles wide. A month was 
 spent in building flat-bottomed boats to cross the 
 stream, in making new lances, in repairing and 
 sharpening weapons, and in sewing complete out- 
 fits of clothing and shoes from skins. A few of 
 these were from animals which had been shot, but 
 most of the hides had been forcibly taken from 
 small Indian villages they passed. The Indian 
 women slaves did most of this work. 
 
 When at last the boats were ready, De Soto 
 crossed the "Father of Waters" some twenty 
 miles south of Memphis. Thence the army 
 marched north, into Arkansas, encountered buf- 
 falo-hunting Indians and secured a number of 
 buffalo robes, but found no gold. Nor, in a west- 
 ward march into the interior, did De Soto hear 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 229 
 
 anything further of El Dorado or the Seven Treas- 
 ure Cities of Cibola. He turned south again, re- 
 tracing his steps, and, in Nov. 1541, went into win- 
 ter quarters some thirty miles south of Fort 
 Smith, Ark. The explorer, far from abandoning 
 his project, sent therefrom a messenger to Cuba 
 to send further supplies, these to meet the expedi- 
 tion at the point where the Mississippi joins the 
 sea. 
 
 The winter in Arkansas proved a different story 
 from the preceding season in balmy Florida. It 
 was a severe winter and the snow kept them from 
 much hunting. During one severe spell, many 
 men might have been frozen had not De Soto him- 
 self, on horseback, trodden backwards and for- 
 wards a trail from the winter huts to the woods 
 a mile away, whence the men might carry fuel. 
 The list of dead had grown to 250 by the spring of 
 1542. 
 
 Toward the end of March, they started back 
 towards the Mississippi, and, with great difficulty, 
 for horses and men were weak, at last attained the 
 bank of the stream, and started southward. 
 Even De Soto 's marvelous skill as an explorer was 
 marshalled in vain against the twin foes of ex- 
 haustion and despair and the men declined fast. 
 His failure to find a great empire disappointed 
 and depressed De Soto much, but the dishearten- 
 ment of his men did more. Upon the shores of the 
 Mississippi he fell ill, and, after a few days' sick- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ness, died, naming Luis de Moscoso as his sncces- 
 sor. 
 
 So, on May 21, 1542, passed away Hernando de 
 Soto, Grovemor of Cuba and Adelanto of Florida, 
 one of the most intrepid explorers who ever set 
 foot on American shores. He was buried on the 
 shore, and then, Moscoso, fearing that the Indians 
 might desecrate the grave, exhumed his com- 
 mander's body, placed it in a canoe, paddled out 
 into the stream, and, with suitable prayers, low- 
 ered the remains of the great explorer "into the 
 middest of the Eiver." 
 
 The choice of Moscoso brought contentment to 
 the hohie-sick soldiers, for the new leader had de- 
 clared that "he had rather sleep poor on a bed in 
 Spain than govern a wilderness like Florida," 
 He struck straight for New Spain and reached as 
 far as Trinity Eiver, Texas, but the sage-brush 
 plains held no food, even for the drove of pigs, 
 and the Apaches and Comanches were hostile. 
 
 Back they turned to the Mississippi again, and 
 spent the winter of 1542 on the banks of the 
 stream, where, at least, there was game and fish. 
 During the winter, with the aid of their Indian 
 slaves, they built seven seaworthy boats. When 
 spring came, they killed all the pigs and dried the 
 flesh, and did the same to most of the horses. 
 They had collected also, during the early winter, 
 a quantity of wild rice. 
 
 At the end of June, when all was ready, Moscoso 
 liberated the Indian slaves — some 300 men and 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 231 
 
 200 women — ^but he took on the boats nearly a 
 hundred of their more faithful followers, most of 
 whom had grown to love their stern but paternal 
 captors. 
 
 On July 2, 1543, they embarked, meeting many 
 perils from hostile tribes of canoe-using Indians, 
 for the Spaniards no longer had powder for their 
 fire-arms, and they had used the metal of the 
 muskets in the construction of the boats. In six- 
 teen days they reached the sea, and coasted west- 
 wards towards Mexico for fifty-two days more. 
 
 At last they came to the Spanish settlements on 
 the Eiver Panuco, on Sept. 10, 1543, four years 
 and a quarter after the landing at Tampa Bay. 
 Three hundred and eleven men, or more than half, 
 survived, a notable achievement, as much to the 
 credit of the soldiers themselves as to the valorous 
 De Soto and his sagacious successor. 
 
 Meanwhile, during the years of De Soto's ex- 
 ploration, Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, 
 prepared to send an elaborately equipped military 
 expedition to the cities of which Cabeza de Vaca 
 had spoken and which Fray Marcos had seen in 
 the distance. This force was placed under the 
 command of Francisco de Coronado, governor of 
 New Galicia (Northern Mexico) and was sup- 
 ported by a sniall sea force under Hernando de 
 Alargon. The latter followed along the Pacific 
 Coast, sailed up the Gulf of California, and ex- 
 plored the Colorado Eiver by boats, as far as the 
 lower end of the Grand Canyon. 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Coronado's force consisted of 300 Spaniards 
 and 800 Indians, all the Spaniards being mounted 
 and a large band of extra horses being herded 
 along. Large droves of sheep and pigs accom- 
 panied the expedition. It set out in Feb. 1540. 
 At Culiacan, Coronado left the main force and 
 went ahead himself with fifty Spaniards and most 
 of the Indian allies. He crossed southwestern 
 Arizona without difficulty and found the long- 
 sought Seven Cities. Alas for dreams of treasure ! 
 These Seven Cities of Fray Marcos proved to be 
 but seven pueblos of the Zuni Indians. 
 
 A messenger was sent back to Melchior Diaz, in 
 command of the main force. Diaz explored the 
 region at the head of the Gulf of California, 
 crossed the Colorado Eiver, and made a survey to 
 the westward. A party sent to the eastward, un- 
 der Pedro de Tovar, explored Tusayan, and De 
 Cardenas discovered the Grand Canyon of the 
 Colorado. 
 
 The whole army wintered at Tiguex, on the Eio 
 Grande, in the middle of New Mexico. The Tigua 
 and Tewa Indians were hostile, but they found a 
 stem foe in Coronado, whose rigorous military 
 supervision permitted no surprise, and who pun- 
 ished without mercy. 
 
 In the spring of 1541, Coronado set out to find 
 the City of Quivira, of which town an Indian pris- 
 oner had told strange tales. With his main force, 
 the conquistador reached the borders of what is 
 now Oklahoma. There he established a base 
 
THE CONQUISTADOR 233 
 
 camp, and rode north, himself, with fifty men, only 
 to find Quivira to be a group of huts in the center 
 of what is now Kansas. (This is not to be con- 
 fused with the ruin, Gran Quivira, in Northern 
 Mexico.) Had Coronado but known it, he was 
 then but nine days' march from De Soto, in 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Coronado was a skilful observer as well as a 
 strict commander, and his commentaries on the 
 regions he visited were trustworthy and valuable. 
 He reported the Kansas prairies to be extraor- 
 dinaiily fertile, but declared that the sage-brush 
 plains and deserts which must be crossed, in order 
 to reach the prairies from New Spain (Mexico)' 
 rendered them too difficult of access for value in 
 permanent settlement. Had Coronado met De 
 Soto, and learned of the proximity of the prairies 
 to the Mississippi, the history of the United States 
 might have been very different. Coronado re- 
 turned to Mexico in the autumn of 1541, with the 
 loss of scarcely a man. 
 
 Thus, by the three great explorations, those of 
 Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca, of De Soto, and of 
 Coronado, a partial reconnaissance survey had 
 been made in the Gulf States, Georgia, Missis- 
 sippi, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, 
 Kansas, Colorado and California, truly a marvel- 
 lous record of skilful leadership and heroic endur- 
 ance. 
 
 It should never be forgotten that the first white 
 men to pass through the trackless lowlands of 
 
234 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the Southern States, to float down the Mississippi, 
 to march over the deserts and sage-brush plains 
 of the Southwest, and to ride centaur-like over the 
 western prairies, were those gallant gentlemen 
 and sturdy adventurers — the Spanish Conquista- 
 dores. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PACIFIC COAST EXPLOKATIONS 
 
 Balboa, in 1513, had taken possesion of the Fur- 
 ther Ocean, in the name of the King of Spain. 
 But what was this "main sea" to which, with a 
 flourish of the sword, he had laid claim? Was 
 it a narrow strait separating New Spain and 
 Asia, or, as seemed more probable, a gulf extend- 
 ing northward from the Indian Ocean? 
 
 The discovery of the extreme narrowness of 
 the Isthmus of Panama had brought further hopes 
 that the "New World" might prove to be a long 
 island, or, better still, a group of islands, between 
 which straits might be found to China, the Spice 
 Islands and India. The knowledge of an ocean 
 beyond so narrow a neck of land revived interest 
 in the westward route to Cathay. 
 
 The news of Balboa's discovery did not reach 
 Spain until April, 1514, but, as soon as it did so, 
 Ferdinand acted promptly. He sent a dispatch 
 to La Cosa, High Constable of the new province 
 of Castilla del Oro (Golden Castile=Southem 
 Panama) instructing him to colonize the Pacific 
 Coast and to build caravels with all haste for the 
 exploration of the Southern Sea. 
 
 235 
 
236 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Next, the king sent for Juan Diaz de Solis, wlio 
 had accompanied Pinzon in the great coasting 
 voyage from Honduras to Southern Brazil. 
 Since the retirement of Pinzon, who had succeeded 
 Amerigo Vespucci as Pilot-Major of Spain, de 
 Solis had come to he regarded as Spain's ablest 
 active navigator. "With three ships and three 
 years' provisions he was ordered to explore the 
 coast southwards from Panama "for a distance 
 of 1700 leagues, or more, if possible," without, 
 however, landing at any point on the eastern or 
 Portuguese side of the Papal Line. 
 
 It was a weary voyage, for the indentations of 
 the coast are numerous. After more than a year 
 spent in the laborious search, de Solis reached the 
 enormous estuary of the La Plata River, which 
 he called "the Fresh-water Sea." Eemembering 
 that Vespucci had met friendly natives, further 
 up the coast, de Solis landed with seven compan- 
 ions, to make gifts to the Indians, in the hope of 
 securing information. 
 
 Then, as Peter Martyr tells the story: "sud- 
 denly a great multitude of the inhabitants burst 
 forth upon them, and slew every man with clubs, 
 even 'in the sight of their fellows. . . . They cut 
 the slain men in pieces and made ready to roast 
 them. . . . Their companions, being stricken with 
 fear through this example, durst not come forth 
 of their ships, nor devise how to revenge the death 
 of their Captain and companions. They de- 
 parted, therefore, from these unfortunate coasts, 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 237 
 
 and, loading their ships with Brazil-wood (at 
 points further north along the coast), returned 
 home again with loss and heavy cheer. ' ' 
 
 Though de Solis' exploration had come to this 
 horrible ending, the plan to explore the Pacific 
 Coast from the further side of the Isthmus was 
 advancing apace. After one or two minor at- 
 tempts, the matter fell into the hands of Francisco 
 Pizarro, who had accompanied Balboa on the fa- 
 mous march on which the Pacific Ocean had been 
 first sighted. 
 
 The Governor of Castilla del Oro turned over 
 the direction of exploration to de Andagoya, In- 
 spector-General of the Isthmus. The latter, ill 
 with fever and unable to go himself, sent for Pi- 
 zarro, who, despite his humble origin, had shown 
 himself a leader of men. 
 
 Together with a fellow-soldier named Diego de 
 Ahnagro and a friar named Hemahdo de Luque, 
 Pizarro set forth from Dom Miguel on the Pacific 
 coast of Panama in 1524, but failed to find a suit- 
 able landing-place on the South American coast 
 before their provisions were exhausted. Setting 
 out again, in 1526, they had not proceeded many 
 days, when, to their unutterable amazement, they 
 saw a sail upon this unknown sea! It proved to 
 be a Peruvian craft, laden with treasure, and thus 
 the Conquistador first learned of the wealth and 
 power of the Incas. 
 
 Pizarro and a few men landed on the island of 
 Gallo, and sent Ahnagro back for supplies. For 
 
238 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 months the Conquistador was marooned, for the 
 jealous governor refused to send reinforcements. 
 At last, however, a small vessel was sent to res- 
 cue the half-abandoned men, and in this ship Pi- 
 zarro explored the coast as far south as the Bay 
 of Guayaquil, thus establishing the longitude and 
 revealing the enormous breadth of the continent. 
 
 From thence he proceeded to Tumbez, where he 
 landed. The Conquistador was most hospitably 
 received by Inca tribes, and saw ample evidence 
 of the enormous wealth of that civilization. He 
 realized, also, that the conquest of Peru could 
 not be made without a considerable Spanish force. 
 
 Eetuming to Panama, the three comrades sailed 
 for Spain, and, in 1529, succeeded in getting a 
 hearing from the king. Pizarro was appoiated 
 Adelanto, Almagro was made Marshal, and Luque 
 was named Bishop of Tumbez. With a small 
 force they set forth in 1530 and reached Panama 
 in the autumn of that year. The expedition 
 crossed the Isthmus on foot, and, by midwinter, 
 was ready to commence the conquest. 
 
 In January, 1531, Pizarro set out in a single 
 vessel, and sailed as far south as Puna, in the 
 Gulf of Guayaquil. There he was joined by two 
 ships under the command of Hernando de Soto, 
 afterwards the discoverer of the Mississippi. The 
 three vessels then sailed southwards and dropped 
 anchor before Tumbez. The Conquest of Peru, 
 thereafter, was by land forces alone. 
 
 North of Panama, along the Pacific coasts of 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 239 
 
 Guatemala, Mexico and New Galioia (Northern 
 Mexico) the shores had not only been explored, 
 but settled. In 1540, as has been told, Alargon 
 explored the Gulf of California, and showed that 
 what is now known as Lower California was not 
 an island but a peninsula eight hundred miles in 
 length. 
 
 In the summer of 1542, Mendoza, the Viceroy 
 of New Spain, sent Cabrillo to explore the north- 
 ern coastline. Cabrillo reached the westernmost 
 point of California, which he named Cape Men- 
 docino, in honor of the Viceroy. In this year, 
 then, the Pacific Coast of America, from North- 
 em California to Peru, had been as fully charted 
 as had the Atlantic Coast from Greenland to 
 Tierra del Fuego. Moreover, the vast land area 
 of both continents had become known. 
 
 The foregoing explorations, however, had not 
 answered the all-important question whether the 
 "Indies," "New Spain," "Florida," and "Bra- 
 zil" were, or were not, a part of the continent of 
 Asia. That question was answered by the great- 
 est of all ocean voyages, greater even than that 
 notable First Voyage of Columbus — the droum- 
 navigation of the world by Magellan and del Cano. 
 
 In those stirring days, every Spanish or Por- 
 tuguese yoxmg fellow with a taste for adventure 
 and the hardihood to face danger could be sure of 
 an opportunity. Femao de Maghalhaes (or Her- 
 nando de Magellan, to use the better-known form 
 of his name), was a Portuguese of noble birth. 
 
240 THE QUEST OP THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 He was bom in 1480 and had just entered the 
 king's service when Vasco de Gama returned in 
 triumph from the first sea-voyage to India. He 
 witnessed the sending forth of the great fleet of 
 Cabral and the return of Gaspar de Lemos with 
 news of the discovery of Brazil. He had, more- 
 over, ample opportunity to hear of the numerous 
 Portuguese expeditions of the next few years. 
 
 When Francisco d 'Almeida was appointed the 
 first Portuguese Viceroy of the East, and set 
 forth in 1505 with an immense fleet to the Por- 
 tuguese possessions in the East Indies, Magellan 
 enlisted as a volunteer. Despite his small stature 
 and apparent frailty, he soon won distinction. He 
 served for four years, being wounded at the Bat- 
 tle of Cannamore in 1506, and again at the Battle 
 of Diu in 1509. He joined the Sequiera expe- 
 dition to the Spice Islands and distinguished him- 
 self in a Malay affray at Malacca, shortly after- 
 wards being raised to the rank of Captain. 
 
 The central point in all the Portuguese con- 
 quests in the East was the siege and capture of 
 Malacca, the key of Bast Indian trade. This was 
 accomplished by d 'Albuquerque in 1511, in which 
 signal victory Magellan played a part. He was 
 next placed in command of one of the vessels sent 
 to explore and take possession of the Moluccas 
 or Spice Islands — those islands so ardently sought 
 by Columbus twenty years before. 
 
 Magellan returned to Portugal in 1512 and, the 
 following year, took part in an expedition in 
 

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 The Papal Line. 
 Magellan's Route. 
 
 MAGELLAN S ROUTE OF CIRCUMNAV TGAT ION. 
 
 Magellan was the first of the great navigators to realize that the American 
 Continent stood halfway between 'Spain and Asia. He argued that if South 
 America extended far to the west the spice islands extending from the Asiatic 
 continent eastward would be close up to the west side of South America. 
 He backed up his arguments by a globe he had drawn showing the whole world. 
 Above is a globe drawn in IS23, known as Schoner's globe, and showing the route 
 of Magellan's voyage which confirmed his theory and belief. 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 241 
 
 Morocco. Here lie was again wounded, and 
 lamed. An accusation that lie was trading with 
 the enemy was made against him, and though this 
 charge could never be proved, and was dropped, 
 he fell sufficiently in disfavor to retard his further 
 promotion, and to impede his efforts to interest 
 King Manuel in another search for straits to the 
 Spice Islands to the westward. 
 
 By this time Magellan had become as competent 
 a navigator as he was a soldier, and, from his 
 cruising in the Spice Islands, he was aware of their 
 enormous distance to the eastward from India. 
 He argued that if the New World (South Amer- 
 ica) contained such enormous rivers as the Ori- 
 noco, Amazon and La Plata, it must extend far 
 to the westward. In that case, the Spice Islands, 
 being so far to the eastward, must be close to the 
 western shore of the continent. 
 
 Finding Portugal deaf to his arguments and un- 
 grateful for his services, Magellan abandoned his 
 native land, went to Spain and naturalized as a 
 Spanish subject. This accomplished he got in 
 touch with Bishop Fonseoa, the directing head of 
 aU Spanish colonial affairs, Columbus' former 
 enemy, and one of the most vigorous colonial ad- 
 ministrators of aU time. 
 
 Magellan opened his argument by the statement 
 that the Spice Islands belonged to Spain, rather 
 than to Portugal, since, so he asserted, they were 
 "West of the Papal Line. They were, going west. 
 But they were equally East of the Papal Line, 
 
M2 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 sailing east. The Papal Bull, it will be remem- 
 bered, gave everything east of a certain line to 
 Portugal and everything west of that line to 
 Spain. This decision was entirely clear on a flat 
 map, but it was both indefinite and puzzling on a 
 ^lobe. 
 
 Fonseea arranged an interview with Emperor 
 Charles V and supported Magellan's arguments. 
 There might be conflict with Portugal over the 
 title, it was admitted, if these lands were reached 
 by sailing east ; but a strong claim could be made, 
 if they were attained by sailing west. Magellan 
 backed his statement by a globe on which the whole 
 world was drawn, but in which South America 
 appeared very narrow, while the Spice Islands 
 Tvere not far from its western shore. 
 
 The appeal succeeded. On March 22, 1518, the 
 emperor agreed to equip five ships with two years' 
 provisions, on the condition that the exploration 
 should be "within the limits which belong to us 
 in the ocean, within the bounds of our demarca- 
 tion." 
 
 Portugal immediately protested and undertook 
 to try and stop the voyage. Charles V, however, 
 was the most powerful monarch in Europe and 
 this opposition only increased his determination. 
 Magellan, on his part, was not disposed to heed 
 any objections from his ungrateful native land. 
 
 Five ships — none of them of the best — ^were pre- 
 pared for this voyage. They were the Scm An- 
 tonio, the Trinidad, the Concepcion, the Victoria, 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 and the Santiago. For such a voyage, promising 
 neither wealth nor a speedy return, it was hard to 
 get captains and crews. When finally the 270 
 hard-bitten men were gathered, there was scarcely 
 a sea-faring race which was not represented: 
 Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, French, Ger- 
 mans, Dutch, English, American Indians, Malays 
 and Negroes. Many of them had ugly records 
 and he would needs be a man of iron who could 
 handle such a crew. 
 
 On Sept. 20, 1519, the ships set sail. From the 
 start, Magellan had trouble with some of his Span- 
 ish captains, who resented being under the com- 
 " mand of a Portuguese soldier. They protested 
 ' ' at the course sailed, but Magellan had served in 
 the wars and understood discipline. 
 
 They first touched the coast of Brazil near 
 Pernambuco, and thence ran along the coast un- 
 til, on Jan. 11, 1520, they reached the Eiver La 
 Plata, where de Solis had been murdered and 
 eaten by cannibals. The five ships ran far up the 
 estuary, but found no strait. Thence they sailed 
 southward, going in and out of every inlet and 
 bay. It was wearying and disappointing work 
 and the captains growled openly. 
 
 With the end of March the Antarctic winter be- 
 gan to show its teeth. So, on the last day of that 
 month, Magellan went into winter quarters at 
 Port St. Julian, 49° S. It was a bleak and deso- 
 late coast. The captains raised a vehement pro- 
 test, declaring that they were already 15° further 
 
244. THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 south, than the Cape of Good Hope, had gone 
 further south on that coast than ever any man 
 had been before, that the winter in those latitudes 
 would surpass human endurance, and insisted that 
 a return to Spain be made. 
 
 Magellan replied that the worse the winter the 
 longer would be the days in the succeeding sum- 
 mer. With which, he crisply ordered the captains 
 back to their ships. 
 
 Next night, April 1, 1520, Captain Quesada of 
 the Concepcion boarded the 8cm Antonio, seized 
 Captain Mesquita, who was a cousin of Magellan, 
 and put him in irons. Captain Mendoza, of the 
 Victoria, had stood by Quesada, and with the mu- 
 tineers. 
 
 On the morning of April 2, therefore, a mes- 
 sage was sent from the Scm Antonio to tbe Trini- 
 dad, which was the flagship at the time, inform- 
 ing Magellan that three ships were in tbe hands 
 of the mutineers and that there was nothing for 
 him to do but to submit and return to Spain. 
 
 The crisis was urgent and immediate. Magellan 
 could not open fire on the mutineers' vessels, for 
 the odds against him were too great. Surrender 
 meant humiliation and defeat. Defiance meant 
 desertion and a fleet too incomplete to carry out 
 the project. 
 
 In this stress, Magellan sent the High Constable 
 of the expedition, Gronzalo Gomez de Espinosa, 
 accompanied by five men, with a peremptory writ- 
 ten order to Captain Mendoza, of the Victoria, to 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 245 
 
 come aboard the flagship and explain his conduct. 
 
 When Mendoza, as expected, refused to ohey 
 the order, Bspinosa leaped upon him and stabbed 
 him in the neck. At the signal the other five 
 members of the party drew their weapons, and 
 Mendoza fell to the deck, almost hacked to pieces. 
 At the same instant, the boat of the Trmidad, 
 which had come up silently with a picked body of 
 men, grappled the stern of the Victoria. The 
 loyal sailors clambered aboard with drawn cut- 
 lasses and the crew of the rebel vessel, seeing 
 their mutinous leader dead, surrendered without 
 a blow. 
 
 Barring the exit from the harbor, Magellan 
 prepared to handle the other two ships. That 
 night the 8cm Antonio, in the hands of Quesada 
 and the mutineers, bore down upon Magellan's 
 vessels. She was instantly grappled by both the 
 Trinidad and the Victoria. Magellan was in his 
 element when it came to savage sea-fighting. The 
 man who had faced hordes of Malays and who had 
 fought in the terrible siege of Malacca was not 
 to be checked by a handful of mutineers. The 
 San Antonio was iu his hands within five bloody 
 minutes. There was now no hope for Juan de 
 Cartagena, who had been left by Quesada as cap- 
 tain of the Concepcion, and he surrendered. 
 
 Forty of the mutineers were tried. All were 
 found guilty and condemned to death. Magellan, 
 however, knew the difference between weakness 
 and mercy. He had given them a taste of his 
 
246 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 fighting quality. Besides, he needed men. He 
 pardoned all but three of the ringleaders. Que- 
 sada was beheaded. Juan de Cartagena and Fray 
 Sanchez were put in irons. When the fleet left 
 port, the following spring, these two were ma- 
 rooned ashore. There was no doubt in the fleet 
 as to who was master. 
 
 On Aug. 24, 1520 (the Antarctic spring) a 
 southward start was made. They reached the 
 mouth of the Santa Cruz, but the weather was 
 stormy and cold and the shores strewn with 
 sunken rocks and treacherous reefs. Knowing that 
 the long days of the Antarctic summer were com- 
 ing Magellan decided to wait. He had already 
 gone much further south than he had dreamed it 
 would be necessary to do. 
 
 Seven weeks later, on October 18, the search 
 was resumed, and three days afterwards, they 
 found another little bay opening to the westward, 
 not unlike a score of others that they had ex- 
 plored before. 
 
 But this day, Oct. 21, the Feast of St. Ursula 
 and Her Virgins, was a great day in the world's 
 history. Rounding a point which is stiU known 
 as Cape Virgins, they sailed into the bay. The 
 leadsman reported deep water. Minute after 
 minute, hour after hour, they sailed steadily and 
 successfully on, and ever the cry "Deep Water!" 
 rang out, the merriest musio that had ever smit- 
 ten Magellan's ears. 
 
 Day after day passed by, and still they sailed 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 247 
 
 to the southwestward. In some places the strait 
 was several miles wide, in others, less than a half. 
 At first they ran between banks of moderately 
 level land, cut with deep embayments, each of 
 which had to be explored. Then the strait turned 
 northwestward into a welter of rocky bays, chan- 
 nels and fiords, bristling with hidden dangers. 
 Superb seamanship was shown by every captaia 
 and every helmsman in that perilous pass. 
 
 After they had wriggled in and out of these 
 narrow openings for twenty days, the scenery 
 grew more threatening. The cut passed through 
 the lower Andes. Huge walls of rock rose on 
 either side. Snow-capped peaks towered over- 
 head, sharp pinnacles of reefs lurked below. 
 Many a day was spent ia a long sail up some deep 
 black fiord, only to find a grim rock-wall beyond, 
 with scarcely room to turn. 
 
 Down knife-like ravines tempestuous squalls 
 came rushing, gusts fit to wreck a ship — and they 
 had no sea-room to run and barely time to an- 
 chor. Always Magellan went ahead to bear the 
 brunt of the danger. A careful navigator, he 
 sent the small boats ahead, but ever the leadsmen 
 reported the water deep and salt, and the convic- 
 tion grew that the strait was found- 
 
 A month of this nerve-rackiag succession of 
 terrors had passed and the ships were entering 
 the most awe-inspiring gorge that is to be found 
 in the Seven Seas. Again the pilots and captains 
 hesitated. The lesson of Quesada and Mendoza 
 
248 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 was fresh in their minds, but their fears were 
 fresher still, and they appealed to Magellan to 
 go back, for food was growing scant and this strait 
 seemed nnending. Surely, they said, the discov- 
 ery was enough ! 
 
 "We will go on," said Magellan, "if we have 
 to cut the leather from the ship's yards for food." 
 
 But, while the ringleaders of the mutiny had 
 been disposed of, many of the officers and men 
 were disaffected stiU. Most of these were on the 
 8cm Antonio, and they persuaded a pilot, Estevan 
 Gomez, to join their plot. While the San Antomo 
 was alone in a narrow strait, and out of sight of 
 the other ships, the mutineers once more seized 
 Captain Mesquita and put him in irons, turned 
 tail and fled back to Spain. They arrived safely 
 after a six months' voyage and hid their coward- 
 ice by saying that Magellan and all his ships were 
 lost and they, only, had survived. 
 
 Magellan sailed on. 
 
 Came at last a welcome hail from the boats lead- 
 ing, that they "had found the cape, and the sea 
 great and wide!" 
 
 Then, and not till then, did the iron calm of 
 Magellan break. He fell to the deck in prayer- 
 ful gratitude, and, with streaming eyes, named the 
 welcome point Cape Desiderate (Desired). The 
 great goal had been achieved. The South Amer- 
 ican straits had been found. 
 
 Supposing the San Antonio might have but 
 missed her way in the maze of fiords, Magellan 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 erected a cross on the top of a high hill to direct 
 the missing ship if she should come that way. 
 
 After the arduous sail through that grim and 
 awesome passage amid the ragged peaks of Tierra 
 de Fuego, the blue expanse of ocean, with a favor- 
 ing current and a fair wind, seemed a haven of 
 bliss to the weary maritiers. Magellan accordingly 
 gave to the sea on which he was the first to sail 
 the name of the Peaceful or Pacific Ocean, by 
 which it is known still. 
 
 Peaceful the ocean was, but not the most ex- 
 treme prophecy could have warned the wearied 
 mariners of its enormous width. Day after day, 
 week after week, month after month, they sailed 
 on and on. The men no longer grumbled, black 
 despair had their souls. One and all, the sailors 
 remembered the gloomy straits and believed that 
 they had passed through the gates of the world 
 and were doomed to travel on an endless ocean 
 to eternity. 
 
 From the journal of Antonio Pigafetta, an Ital- 
 ian knight who was a passenger, some sentences 
 may be taken, telling of this time. They are 
 quoted, here, from the earliest English version: 
 
 "And having by this time consumed all their 
 biscuit and other victuals, they fell into such ne- 
 cessity that they were compelled to eat the pow- 
 der that remained thereof, being full of worms. 
 . . . Their fresh water also was putrified and be- 
 came yellow. They did eat pieces of leather which 
 were folded about certain great ropes of the ship. 
 
250 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 » . . But these skins, being made very hard by 
 reason of the sun, rain and wind, they hung them 
 by a cord in the sea for the space of four or five 
 days to mollify them. . . , By reason of this in- 
 famous £ind unclean feeding, some of their gums 
 grew so over their teeth (from scurvy) that they 
 died miserably from hunger. . . . In three months 
 and twenty days, they sailed four thousand 
 leagues in one gulf . . . with no misfortune of 
 wind or of any tempest. ... So that, in fine, if 
 Grod of His mercy had not given them good 
 weather, it was necessary that in this so great a 
 sea they should all have died for hunger. Which 
 nevertheless they escaped so hardily that it may 
 be doubted whether the like voyage may be at- 
 tempted with so good success." 
 
 They came, after weary weeks, to a wooded 
 islet, which they called La Pablo and where they 
 got fresh water, but no game. A few days later 
 they sighted a desert island, without food or 
 water, which they called Tiburones, where they 
 caught sharks to eat. This was a welcome change 
 from the scraps of swollen leather, sawdust-soup 
 and rats which had been their only food. Eats, 
 indeed, sold at a high figure. All the leather belts 
 of the sailors had been eaten and tarred string 
 substituted. 
 
 At last, after ninety-eight days of famine, thirst 
 and scurvy, their eyes inflamed from constant 
 peering for the land which did not come, they 
 sighted the Ladrones (Bobbers) Islands, on 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 251 
 
 March 6, 1521. There they found friendly though 
 thievish savages, and also fresh vegetables, fruits 
 and meat. They stayed in those islands some 
 days. 
 
 Eefreshed and reprovisioned, they pushed on 
 westward and on March 16 came to the Philip- 
 pine Islands, where, to Magellan's supreme de- 
 light, his Malay interpreter was able to under- 
 stand a Sumatran trader who was there. Triumph 
 was his! He was on the meridian of longitude 
 of the Spice Islands, and a few days' sail could 
 bring about the complete achievement of his goal. 
 
 Alas for Magellan! On finding himself in 
 densely populated islands the cruseiding spirit 
 awoke. He made the Christianization of the peo- 
 ple of the Island of Cebu a condition of a trade 
 treaty. The King of Cebu agreed and was bap- 
 tized with all his people. The idols were burned 
 and a Cross erected in the market-place. 
 
 This was the king's opportunity. He claimed 
 tribute from kings on neighboring islands, who 
 were slow in paying. ' With the white men's God 
 and the white men's aid, he felt sure he could 
 bring these recalcitrants to terms. The worst of- 
 fender was the King of Matan, ruler of a neigh- 
 boring island, peopled by a warlike and cannibal 
 tribe. The King of Cebu demanded the tribute 
 and ordered the people of Matan to become Chris- 
 tians. They refused, whereupon the converted 
 native ruler called on the white men for assistance. 
 
 Magellan, with Christian zeal and a sense of 
 
252 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 the obligations of an alliance, crossed to tlie Island 
 of Matan, April 27, 1521. After a desperate figM, 
 the Spanish were compelled to take to the boats, 
 the intrepid commander himself covering their 
 retreat. As he was about to leap in the boat, the 
 last man to leave the shore, a stone knocked off his 
 helmet and his arm was disabled by a spear thrust. 
 He fell in the shallow water, and in a few seconds 
 a frantic group of savages surrounded him, 
 pierced him through, and beat him to death with 
 rusty scimitars, clubs and stones. 
 
 Such was the mangled death, on a barbarous 
 island, of the man who had achieved the greatest 
 ocean feat ia the history of the world. Hernando 
 de Magellan died, as he had lived, fighting for 
 Christian faith and knightly honor. 
 
 More trouble was to come. When the King of 
 Cebu found that the white men were not invin- 
 cible, he repented of his sudden conversion. To 
 make amends to his pagan gods, he invited thirty 
 of the leading Spaniards to a banquet, and there 
 massacred them to a man. Among the slain were 
 the two faithful captains, Barbosa and Serrano, 
 who had stood by Magellan throughout. The last 
 that the Spanish saw, as they sailed away in haste, 
 were the people of Cebu chopping down the Cross. 
 So little had Magellan's martyrdom effected! 
 
 Of the three ships remaining, the Concepdon 
 was unseaworthy and was dismantled and burned. 
 Espinosa, the Constable, was made captain of the 
 Victoria and Sebastian del Cano was elected cap- 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 253 
 
 tain-general, and took the flagship Trimdad. The 
 two ships sailed for Borneo, where they made a 
 stay of a couple of months and then proceeded to 
 the Spice Islands, where they cruised until De- 
 cember, 1521, trading. Shortly before they were 
 ready to sail for Spain, however, the Trmidad 
 sprang a leak and was found unseaworthy. 
 
 As the journey to Panama was undoubtedly 
 shorter than to Spain — ^though it had never been 
 attempted — ^it was decided that the Trmidad 
 should be thoroughly repaired and, when the semi- 
 annual Indian Ocean monsoon turned easterly, 
 should sail across the newly discovered ocean. Of 
 the 101 men surviving 54 were placed on board 
 the Trinidad, to the command of which Espinosa 
 was transferred, while del Cano, as Captain-Gen- 
 eral, now took the Victoria. 
 
 The Odyssey of the Trinidad was a sad one. 
 Starting on April 6, 1522, she sailed well and 
 easily while with the monsoon wind. But, as she 
 worked up into the North Pacific, the ill-fated ves- 
 sel struck the northeast trade-winds. Beating 
 against those was impossible, and to escape, Es- 
 pinosa ran far north into that lonely and stormy 
 stretch of ocean east of Japan, between the Mid- 
 way and Aleutian Islands. There, in a gale, the 
 Trinidad lost her mainmast, half of her men were 
 swept from her decks, and she turned back to the 
 Spice Islands, reaching there with 35 of her crew 
 dead. Yet, even so, disaster followed. The nine- 
 teen survivors were taken prisoners by the Por- 
 
254 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 tuguese, who bitterly resented tlie presence of a 
 Spanish ship in those waters, and whose treat- 
 ment of the captives was atrocious. Espinosa 
 and three sailors alone saw Spain again, aad that 
 not until years later. 
 
 The Victoria had not delayed, but had saUed 
 from the Spice Islands in December, 1521. She 
 was still staunch, but, soon after passing into the 
 Indian Ocean, the overstrained timbers began to 
 show the effect of the long, long voyage. Del 
 Cano dared not press on sail, and, being in Por- 
 tuguese waters, still less did he dare to put in at 
 any port for provisions. Scurvy broke out anew, 
 for the men had reached a point of enfeeblement 
 from which it would take them years to recover. 
 Not until May 10, 1522, with her f oretopmast gone 
 by the board in a terrific storm off Madagascar, 
 did the Victoria reach the Cape of Good Hope. 
 Crippled, but plucky, she rounded the dreaded 
 point, and was borne on a friendly current to the 
 Equator, which she crossed on June 6. 
 
 Dire extremity compelled her to put in at the 
 Cape Verde Islands and a boat with thirteen men 
 was sent ashore for supplies, with strict instruc- 
 tions to all the men that they must say they had 
 come from New Spain. One sailor, however, was 
 unable to resist a skinful of wine, and his loose 
 tongue told the secret of Magellan and the Spice 
 Islands. The thirteen men were clapped into 
 prison and an armed boat came out to the Vic- 
 toria and called on her to surrender. 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST 255 
 
 Del Cano, though with a crippled ship and -with- 
 out provisions, defied the Portuguese and stag- 
 gered out of the harbor with a famished and de- 
 pleted crew. This was on July 13. At long last, 
 on Sept. 6, 1522, the battered wreck of the Victoria 
 crept slowly into a Spanish port, with eighteen 
 gaunt and scurvy-eaten men to tell the story of 
 the greatest cruise in the history of the world. 
 
 The thirteen men arrested at Cape Verde were 
 released upon a peremptory demand from Charles 
 V. The four survivors of the Trinidad reached 
 Spain years later. Thus thirty-five men, in all, 
 survived that circumnavigation of the world 
 which first revealed the extent of that mighty 
 ocean that bathes America's western shore. 
 
 It was stiU believed, however, that America was 
 a part of the continent of Asia, joined at the north 
 to China. It was not until 1728, when Vitus 
 Bering sailed through the straits which bear his 
 name, that the world first knew that the great 
 twinned continent of America was an island. 
 
 The final word in American coast exploration 
 was written when, in 1903, Eoald Amundsen sailed 
 in the Gjoa from Norway, crossed the Atlantic, 
 entered Baffin's Bay, passed through Lancaster 
 Sound, Peel Sound, and Simpson Strait, winter- 
 ing on King William Island. The next summer 
 he entered Dease Strait and Coronation Grulf and 
 pushed along the coast of the Arctic Ocean to 
 Mackenzie Bay. He wintered on Herschel Island. 
 In the summer of 1906 he threaded a thousand 
 
256 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 miles of narrow waters and passed out through 
 Bering Straits. 
 
 Thus, after four centuries of endeavor, had been 
 accomplished, both to south and north, the west- 
 ward road from Europe to Asia. When the Pan- 
 ama Canal was opened, in 1914, the dream of 
 Columbus came true, accomplished by the most 
 powerful nation of that great continent to which 
 his caravels led their glorious way. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PBENCH SAIIiOEMEN AND PEOTESTANTS 
 
 CouEAGB and hardihood upon the sea were by 
 no means confined to the Portugniese and Spanish, 
 even in the Fifteenth Century. The sailormen 
 of France and of England stood second to none. 
 English and French mariners sailed both with 
 Columbus and with Magellan. An Englishman 
 and an Irishman were among those who perished 
 at La Navidad in that first West Indies colony 
 fatally established by Columbus; a Frenchman 
 was among the heroic eighteen who returned in 
 the Victoria after the circumnavigation of the 
 globe. 
 
 True, during the Fifteenth and the first half of 
 the Sixteenth centuries, the greatest navigators 
 were those who had been trained in the schools 
 established by Prince Henry the Navigator. Co- 
 lumbus, Vasco de Grama, Vespucci, de Solis and 
 Magellan were all Portuguese-trained. This was 
 but natural, since, by the Papal Bull, aU the world 
 open to colonial empire was divided between 
 Portugal and Spain. 
 
 French sailors belonged mainly to those two 
 indomitable seargoing races, the Breton and the 
 Basque, fishermen since the dawn of history. As 
 
 257 
 
258 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 early as 1508, and probably earlier, Breton fishers 
 went on annual expeditions to the ood-banks of 
 Newfoundland. Basque fishers thought nothing 
 of a run to the Azores. Traders from Normandy, 
 centuries before, had joined Bristol merchants in 
 voyages to Iceland. 
 
 The first colony attempted on the North Ameri- 
 can mainland, antedating that of Ponce de Leon 
 in Florida by three years, was a Breton fishing 
 settlement made by Lecy, of which but little is 
 known. It is generally admitted to have been on 
 Cape Breton Island, the very name of which is 
 indicative of its first settlers. 
 
 It is, however, with Giovanni Verrazano, a 
 Florentine captain in the French merchant serv- 
 ice, that the French exploration of North America 
 begins. The first historical notice of this expedi- 
 tion appears in a letter written by the Portu- 
 guese ambassador in Paris to his king, on April 
 23, 1524, warning of a French venture for the 
 discovery of Cathay (China) "to be commanded 
 by one Joao Verzano." 
 
 The details of the voyage are obscure, for Ver- 
 razano 's original letter to Francis I is lost, and 
 the Italian version is full of contradictions. 
 Ignoring the controverted points, it may safely be 
 said that, in the early summer of 1524, Verrazano 
 skirted the coast of New Jersey, entered New 
 York Bay and discovered the Hudson River, ex- 
 plored Narragansett Bay, passed through Nan- 
 tucket Sound, touched on the Cape Cod peninsula, 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 269 
 
 and struck north to Cape Breton Island and New- 
 foundland before returning to France. 
 
 From the point of view of geography this voy- 
 age produced some curious results. In two subse- 
 quent maps, those of Agnese in 1536 and of 
 Miiaster in 1540 (therefore prior to Cabrillo's 
 voyage of exploration along the California coast 
 in 1542) the western coast of North America is 
 depicted as sloping sharply to the northeast, 
 while the eastern coast runs more directly north- 
 erly. Somewhere between Cape Breton and 
 "Florida" (a region of vague and vast dimen- 
 sions) there was mapped a second isthmus, similar 
 to the Isthmus of Panama. On the further side 
 of this isthmus was a northern sea, washing the 
 shores of "Upper India." Near this isthmus, 
 Verrazano conjectured that there must be a 
 strait. 
 
 This geographical assumption is far more cor- 
 rect than it seems, save that the "Northern Sea" 
 is the Arctic Ocean, the strait thereto is north 
 of Labrador, and the northern coast of "Upper 
 India" is Siberia, which extends high into the 
 Arctic Circle. This strait was found and this sea 
 sailed by Amundsen, in the years 1903-1906. 
 
 Undoubtedly Francis I of France planned to 
 follow Verrazano 's exploration by the establish- 
 ment of a strong French colony. This plan was 
 frustrated by his crushing defeat at the hands of 
 Emperor Charles V at the Battle of Pavia. This 
 rendered the French king timorous of establishing 
 
260 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 a claim to lands on the Spanish side of the Papal 
 Line. A second difficulty was the king's own in- 
 decision on the question of religion, one of his 
 favorites leading him towards the new Protest- 
 antism, another holding him to the Catholic faith. 
 
 The Protestant Eeformation, which had just 
 hegun, was destined to wield an enormous influence 
 over American history. 
 
 Stated in the briefest possible words, the Eefor- 
 mation was originally designed to reform abuses 
 which had crept into certain administrative as- 
 pects of the Roman Catholic Church, not, in any 
 sense, to set up a new religion. Nor did it do so. 
 Protestantism and Catholicism, alike, are included 
 in the religion of Christianity. 
 
 Protestantism, however, established one cardi- 
 nal principle which was hostile to the Eoman 
 Catholic Church. This is the principle that the 
 Bible is the supreme authority in religious mat- 
 ters, and that every man — irrespective of his 
 scholarship and intelligence — ^has the right to 
 interpret the Bible for himself. The principle of 
 the Eoman Catholic Church is that the Church her- 
 self is the earthly authority in religious matters, 
 and that all interpretation inheres by divine right 
 in the hierarchy and clergy. 
 
 The Eoman Catholic Church declared the Prot- 
 estants to be "heretics," a word strictly meaning 
 "those who think other than" what the Church 
 believed to be eternal and unchanging Truth. As 
 such, it regarded Protestants as enemies to God, 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 261 
 
 enemies to truth and enemies to society. Perse- 
 cutions of the most violent order commenced. 
 Where Protestants controlled the civil power, 
 they persecuted Catholics, likewise. 
 
 The decade 1520-1530 changed the whole aspect 
 of the Reformation. The Protestants no longer 
 sought merely to protest against the Eoman Cath- 
 olic Church, nor did the Reformers seek only to 
 reform. They had seen, as they believed, a new 
 light. It became their first intention to establish 
 what they held to be a purified Christianity; their 
 second intention to overthrow what they believed 
 to be a corrupted Church. The issue was joined. 
 The battle was on. 
 
 Four centuries have passed since then, four 
 centuries of bitter strife. In some parts of the 
 world, peace has not been re-established even yet. 
 To this day, Protestant churches send mission- 
 aries to Roman Cathohe countries to "convert" 
 the Catholics; to this day, the Roman Catholic 
 Church holds missions in Protestant countries to 
 "bring Protestants back to the Faith." 
 
 Yet most of the bitterness has gone. It lingers 
 only among ignorant or bigoted people, and 
 in backward or isolated communities. The great 
 spirit of humanitarianism is a pride of both. 
 Hospitals, almshouses, orphanages and relief 
 work of every description are done as nobly by 
 one as by the other. In that simple American 
 phrase of consummate dignity — "In God we 
 trust" — there is no division in technicalities of 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 creed. The issues remain, but Charity covers all. 
 
 American history, however, cannot be under- 
 stood at all, unless this religious issue is kept 
 clear, and the character of the American people 
 has been moulded and determined by this inner 
 conflict. Let this one parallelism stand out — ^the 
 year that Magellan discovered the straits, Luther 
 defied Eome. During the very weeks when Magel- 
 lan was sailing through that terrible passage, 
 Luther was on his way to the Diet of Worms. 
 
 It is, then, with this realization that France was 
 passing through the first turmoil of the Reforma- 
 tion that the history of French American explora- 
 tion begins. Verrazano had been merely a fore- 
 runner. Cartier was the explorer. 
 
 Jacques Cartier was a Breton fisherman and 
 sailor, a native of St. Malo. Not less than a 
 dozen sailormen of St. Malo had taken part in 
 Portuguese expeditions to the East, or in Span- 
 ish voyages to New Spain. With their stories 
 Cartier seems to have been familiar. References 
 in his letters evince a familiarity with Portuguese 
 maps, and since in his later years he served as a 
 Portuguese interpreter, it is probable that he had 
 sailed on long ocean voyages before, under Portu- 
 guese auspices. In 1533, Cartier wrote to Phil- 
 lippe de Chabot, Sieur de Brion, High Admiral of 
 France, proposing a voyage to the American 
 coast, continuing the exploration of Verrazano in 
 1524. 
 
 At that time there had been some difficulty con- 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 263 
 
 cerning the trade witli Brazil, and Chabot recom- 
 mended to Francis I that the Breton captain be 
 supported in the enterprise. Accordingly, with 
 two vessels and a complement of 122 men, Cartier 
 set forth from the port of St. Malo, on April 20, 
 1534. 
 
 A run of twenty days brought them to Point 
 Bona Vista, Newfoundland, and thence they ran 
 up the northerly coast to Funk Island, where they 
 filled twelve barrels with the dried and salted 
 flesh of the Great Auk, a bird so tame that they 
 caught them by hand, but now utterly extinct. 
 
 A little further up the land they found "a, bear 
 come swimming there as great as any cow and 
 as white as any swan" (an adult polar bear) and, 
 three days later, "we met her by the way swim- 
 ming toward land as swiftly as we could sail. So 
 soon as we saw her, we pursued her with our 
 boats, and by main strength took her, whose flesh 
 was as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calf of 
 two years old." They sailed round the northern 
 point of Newfoundland which they called Cape 
 Degrad (now Quirpon), and, finding the Straits 
 of Belle Isle filled with ice, went into harbor near 
 by until June 9. 
 
 Passing through the straits, Cartier explored 
 both shores. While finding the harbors excellent, 
 he had little good to say about the land. "A 
 place of stones and wild crags," he calls it, "fit 
 for wild beasts. ... I did not see a cartload of 
 good earth. ... To be short, I believe that this 
 
264 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 was the laad Grod allotted to Cain." After whioli 
 he proceeds to describe accurately the nature 
 and customs of the Indians encountered. 
 
 Thence they sailed down the northwestern 
 coast of Newfoundland to "a bay full of round 
 islands like dove houses" (Bay of Islands). Off 
 Cape St. George he remarked: "there is the 
 greatest fishing of cod that possibly may be, in 
 less than an hour we took above a hundred of 
 them." 
 
 For six days, thereafter, they had "stormy 
 weather and wind against us, with darkness and 
 mists," ugly to handle in those narrow and rocky 
 seas. None the less, they passed Cape Anguille in 
 safety and came to the Bird Eocks. Of the islands 
 in the gulf of St. Lawrence he said they were 
 fertile lands, "all full of goodly trees, meadows, 
 fields full of wild com and peas in bloom, as thick 
 and rank and fair as any can be seen in Brittany. 
 There was also a great store of gooseberries, 
 strawberries, damask roses, parsley, with other 
 very sweet and pleasant herbs." 
 
 "About the said islands," he continued, "are 
 very great beasts as great as oxen, which had two 
 great teeth in their mouths like unto Elephants' 
 teeth and live also in the sea (the Arctic walrus). 
 There were also bears and wolves." 
 
 Then the navigator makes a shrewd guess, for 
 he suggests that there may be a strait from this 
 Gulf out to the sea, which is now known as Cabot 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 265 
 
 Strait, between Newfoundland and Cape Breton 
 Island. 
 
 From there they sailed on to Prince Edward 
 Island, "the fairest that may possibly be seen, 
 full of goodly meadows and trees," and there they 
 saw ''boats of wild men crossing a river." The 
 summer weather was hot and wild fruit plentiful.' 
 Beyondf North Cape, Prince Edward Island, they 
 saw the entrance of Northumberland Strait (which 
 Cartier supposed to be a bay) and so sailed north, 
 always seeking a strait that might lead to China, 
 until they passed Point Miscou, the northeastern 
 point of New Brunswick. The deep Bay of Chal- 
 eur, extending to the westward, gave them great 
 hope, and the "wild men" were friendly and 
 traded furs. 
 
 Then Cartier passed northward, being actually 
 in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, though 
 he did not know it, and discovered Anticosti 
 Island. There and on the further shore, the 
 Breton sailors erected a Cross, and, by signs, ex- 
 plained to the Indians that it was sacred. By 
 many gifts, especially of food and drink, Cartier 
 made the Indians understand that he was friendly, 
 and succeeded so well that two of the Indians 
 named Taignoagny and Domagnia voluntarily 
 agreed to accompany the white men to Prance 
 after "we had clothed them in shirts, and colored 
 coats, with red caps, and put about the neck of 
 each a copper chain, whereat they were greatly 
 contented." 
 
S66 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Cartier, thereupon, took consultation with our 
 "Captains, masters and mariners" — ^it is to be 
 observed that the sailors had a voice in the mat- 
 ter — and, remembering that the Straits of Belle 
 Isle had been frozen when they came, and that the 
 weather seemed to be turning stormy, it was de- 
 cided to return. Not knowing of Cabot straits 
 they worked all the way to the north of New- 
 foundland again, passed through Belle Isle straits 
 and arrived in St. Malo on Sept. 5, 1534. "New 
 France" was thus formally begun. 
 
 Cartier 's report, brief, sailor-like and to the 
 point, showing the discovery of fertile lands and 
 revealing a vast unoccupied country, raised the 
 enthusiasm of Francis I. On Oct. 30, 1534, he 
 appointed Cartier "Captain and Pilot of the 
 King," and, on May 19, 1535, with three ships and 
 fifteen months' provisions, Cartier set sail again 
 from St. Malo. 
 
 This time the voyage began with "storms and 
 tempests, the which with contrary winds and 
 darkness endured so that our ships suffered as 
 much as ships that ever went upon the sea. ' ' The 
 vessels were separated, but thanks to duplicate 
 charts that Cartier had made and to the seaman- 
 ship of the French captains, they met on July 26, 
 as appointed, at the Straits of Belle Isle. Explor- 
 ing steadily, they followed the coast of Quebec as 
 far as the mouth of the Saguenay River, in which 
 region, so the Indians declared, large quantities 
 of copper were to be found. 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 267 
 
 "They did also certify unto us," writes Cartier, 
 "that here was the way and the beginning of the 
 great river of Hochelaga (the St. Lawrence) a 
 ready way to Canada, which river , . . went so 
 far upwards that they had never heard of any 
 man who had gone to the head of it, though there 
 is no other passage but with small boats." 
 
 Such a stream could not be the strait leading to 
 China, so Cartier turned back for a brief recon- 
 noissance to make sure there was no northern 
 exit from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There is 
 none, though there is a short route into the Arctic 
 Ocean, up the Saguenay Eiver, by a twelve-mile 
 portage and down the Marten River, into Hudson 
 Bay, which the Indians had used for centuries and 
 which became a trade route of the Hudson Bay 
 Company. Hence Verrazano, Cartier, and those 
 who sought a northwest passage there, were not 
 so far astray. A very short canal would make it 
 true. 
 
 This reconnoissance finished, Cartier turned 
 back to the exploration of the St. Lawrence Eiver. 
 The Indians were friendly and the French ex- 
 plorer was received with elaborate ceremonies by 
 Chief Donnacona, whose village was situated on 
 the present site of the City of Quebec. The In- 
 dian chief urged Cartier not to go up the river, 
 and his persuasion took the form of dressing up 
 some of his men as "three counterfeit Devils, with 
 long horns on their heads, the middlemost making 
 an oration." Moreover, the medicine men. 
 
268 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 prophesied that there would be much ice and snow 
 up the river and that all the white men who went 
 thither would die. 
 
 Cartier was terrified neither by the "three 
 counterfeit Devils," nor by the prophecy. Leav- 
 ing his ships moored, he ascended the river in 
 small boats xmtil he came to the village of Hoch- 
 elaga, on the present site of Montreal. There the 
 Iroquois also were friendly and Cartier dis- 
 tributed gifts lavishly. Thence the boats pushed 
 on until they came to "the greatest and swiftest 
 fall of water that hath anywhere been seen," 
 which Cartier, in sad mockery, called the "Lachine 
 Eapids," for it effectually barred all hope of 
 reaching China that way. The boat parties re- 
 turned to their ships and prepared to winter 
 there. 
 
 The severity of the winter was terrible. Scurvy 
 broke out with such virulence that "there were not 
 above three sound men in the ships." Twenty- 
 five were already dead and the rest were dying 
 when one of the friendly Indians, who had been 
 grievously 01 of scurvy, ten days before, reap- 
 peared sound and well. Cartier at once asked for 
 the remedy 'to heal a servant of his," for he had 
 no intention of letting the Indians know how en- 
 feebled was his company. The Indian agreed, 
 and showed how to make a decoction of the leaves 
 and bark of the white pine. Large quantities of 
 this drink were hastily made, and in six days, 
 every one of the men regained his health. 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 269 
 
 In the spring Cartier persuaded Chief Donna- 
 cona to accompany him to France. Gifts were 
 again distributed, and the Indians gave great 
 stores of hides, furs, wampum and copper. On 
 May 16, 1536, the French hoisted their sails, com- 
 menced their slow journey back through Belle 
 Isle Straits, and reached Cape Malo, July 6, 1536, 
 •with the great Eiver St. Lawrence discovered and 
 taken in the name of France. 
 - On his return, Cartier found Francis I less en- 
 thusiastic over New France. The strait had not 
 been found, there had been no reports of gold, and 
 the privations of the winter had shown that region 
 to be one of seasonal cold and hardship. Besides, 
 France was invaded by the armies of Spain and 
 the Protestant Waldenses were causing civil dis- 
 sension. 
 
 Cartier 's discoveries toight have had no further 
 fruit, at that time, but that the Sieur Jean Fran- 
 cois de la Eooque de Roberval, realizing the com- 
 mercial value in the furs brought back by Cartier, 
 undertook to finance an expedition to New France 
 if he yere made "Lord of Norumbega, Viceroy 
 and Lieutenant-Greneral of Canada, Hochelaga, 
 Sagnenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, 
 Labrador, the Great Bay and Baccalaos." These 
 titles are of historic value, for they show the ex- 
 tent of information at that time. Norumbega, 
 refers to the Norse discoveries; Canada, Hoche- 
 laga and Saguenay, to Cartier 's discoveries; New- 
 
270 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 foundland, to those of Cabot; and Baccalaos was 
 believed to be the north-eastern corner of Asia. 
 
 Cartier prepared five ships with money partly 
 provided by the king, and waited for Eoberval to 
 come. When at last the Viceroy arrived, some 
 of his military stores were not ready and he bade 
 Cartier set sail and wait for him. Cartier set out 
 on May 23, 1540, but struck bad weather and did 
 not reach St. Croix, on the St. Lawrence, a short 
 distance above Quebec, where he had wintered 
 before, until Aug. 23. 
 
 Chief Donnacona had died in France, and the 
 new chief accepted this news without apparent 
 distress. None the less the settlers had trouble 
 with the Indians because of this fact. With small 
 boats Cartier reascended the river, portaged the 
 Lachine Rapids and explored the river above 
 Montreal, but, finding the winter settling in early, 
 the explorer returned to his ships, thoroughly 
 angered because Eoberval had not followed. 
 
 The following spring, at the end of May, 1542, 
 there being no sign of Eoberval, the provisions 
 growing low and the Indians unfriendly, Cartier 
 decided to return to France. On his way back, he 
 met Eoberval in the harbor of St. John's, New- 
 foundland, with three ships and 200 colonists — 
 many of whom were ex-convicts. Eoberval or- 
 dered Cartier to accompany him, but the King's 
 Pilot refused, declaring that Indian conditions 
 were such that an armed force was imperative 
 to hold the country, and sailed on to St. Malo. 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN S71 
 
 Boberval established his colony at CharlesboUfg' 
 Koyal, and sent two ships back to France for 
 Bupplies. After a winter of great suffering, in 
 which fifty of the colonists died, Eoberval forced 
 his way on in the spring, not to secure furs as 
 had been the original intention, but to explore a 
 mythical "Kingdom of Saguenay." He pushed 
 on toward the Great Lakes, but without result- 
 The colony at Charlesbourg Eoyal was then aban- 
 doned and Roberval returned with his empty vice- 
 regal honors. Thus ended the first colonization 
 of New France. 
 
 The religious situation in France, meanwhile, 
 was growing tense. The massacre of the Protes- 
 tant Waldenses by Francis I, La 1545, had defi- 
 nitely set the Eeformers against the Crown. 
 France was rent in sunder by two parties: the 
 Catholics, headed by the Dukes de Guise, and the 
 Protestants, led by the Prince de Conde and Ad- 
 miral de Coligny. Henry II, the successor of 
 Francis I, was even more aggressive in his de- 
 fence of Catholicism than his father, his favorite, 
 Diane de Poictiers, being an ally of the de Guises, 
 It was in his reign that the "Chambre Ardente" 
 (Burning Tribunal) for the questioning of Protes- 
 tants was established. His successor, young Fran- 
 -cis n, a tool of the de Guise, married Mary Stuart 
 (afterwards Queen of Scots), also an ardent 
 datholic. He had reigned but one year when a 
 Protestant plot for the kidnapping of the king 
 was discovered, which further incensed the Catho^ 
 
272 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 lio party. He died suddenly the same year. 
 Charles ISL his brother, aged ten years, succeeded 
 to the throne, under the regency of the Queen- 
 Mother, Catherine de Medicis, niece of Pope Clem- 
 ent VII, and known as one of the most unscrupu- 
 lous women in history. Under such circumstances 
 the French Protestants began to seek a land where 
 their form of religion would not be menaced, and 
 their eyes turned toward America. 
 
 Admiral de Coligny, leader of the French Prot- 
 estants or Huguenots, planned the establishment 
 of a colony in "Florida," which, at that time, 
 meant all of southeastern America. Even the 
 daring Coligny would not have tempted Spain 
 thus had not Emperor Charles V abdicated in 
 1558 and retired to a monastery. 
 
 In March, 1562, under the direction of Jean 
 Eibaut of Dieppe, a party of young Huguenot 
 nobles and soldiers sailed for the New World. 
 Eibaut was a good navigator and a good Protes- 
 tant, but he was not of the conquistador type, nor 
 were the nobles fitted to become pioneers. To 
 them "Florida" was a land of gold and pearls, 
 and the legend of the Seven Treasure Cities of 
 Cibola still lingered. 
 
 They made land, not far north of St. Augustine, 
 and, on May 1, came to the St. John's River, 
 which they called the River of May. Thence they 
 coasted northward, passing many rivers to which 
 they gave French names, now forgotten. So 
 promising seemed the land in its spring dress 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 273 
 
 that Kibaut determined to return to France- to 
 raise a sufficient force to hold it. A fort was 
 built near the present site of Beaufort, S. C, and 
 thirty eager volunteers were left behind to de- 
 fend it. 
 
 The old, old tragedy of Hi-prepared colonists 
 was re-enacted. Food supplies ran short. The 
 men, unwilling to face the compulsory discipline 
 of pioneer work^ mutinied and killed their leaders, 
 then quarreled among themselves, grew desper- 
 ate, threw together a rude vessel and sailed for 
 France. Not one of their number was a competent 
 navigator. Calms and head-winds delayed them. 
 With all the food gone, they made soup of their 
 shoes and leather jackets. They drew lots to de- 
 cide which one should serve as a cannibalistic 
 feast for his comrades, and one sailor was killed 
 and eaten. As the starving men were drawing 
 lots for the next victim, an English vessel hove in 
 sight and made them prisoners. 
 
 Yet so glowing had been the reports brought 
 back by Eibaut, who knew nothing of the fate of 
 the men he had left behind, that Admiral de Col- 
 igny prepared another expedition, with two ships. 
 These were placed under the command of Capt. 
 Rene de Laudonniere, who had been with Eibaut 
 on the first voyage. 
 
 They sailed in June, 1564, and made a quick 
 passage to the River of May. There they built a 
 fort which they named Fort Caroline. The ven- 
 ture was heinously ill-planned. On board were 
 
274 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 officers, soldiers, adventurers and men whose re- 
 ligious partisanship had made them "suspected" 
 in France.- There were no farmers, woodsmen 
 nor trappers among them. 
 
 At first, the Indians were friendly, but, un- 
 happily, in an exchange of gifts, one of the Indians 
 offered a small bar of silver. To the Huguenots, 
 this was proof positive of treasure near by. They 
 abandoned every effort at colonization, and began 
 a barren search for hidden treasure. 
 
 In this stress, Laudonniere fell ill, and three at- 
 tempts on his life were made, by stabbing, by 
 poison, and by a train of gunpowder laid under 
 his sick-bed. "When private grudges failed, 
 mutiny became open. Thirteen of the sailors 
 seized one of the vessels and started off as buc- 
 caneers. They were captured by Spaniards, and, 
 to save their lives, gave information about the 
 colony. Not long after, sixty-six others started 
 off likewise, intending to raid and plunder some 
 unsuspecting Spanish settlement. They came to 
 grief and returned to the fort with half their 
 number slain. 
 
 The fort fell into disrepsiir, and neither nobles 
 nor soldiers would turn a hand to restore the de- 
 fences. No crops had been sown. Though the 
 woods were full of game and the rivers of fish, the 
 Frenchmen starved. They would not hunt. They 
 would not fish. They ate wild roots dug in the 
 forests, and refuse from the Indian fish-heaps. 
 
 Neither would they fight. They had tried to 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 275 
 
 set one Indian tribe against anotlier in the hope 
 of getting treasure through a mock alliance^ 
 which they would not maintain with their swords 
 when asked by their Indian allies. As a result 
 botihL tribes became their enemies. The nobles 
 regarded this savage guerrilla warfare as being 
 beneath their dignity, thus leaving the soldiers 
 without leaders. Matters improved a little to- 
 wards the spring, when Laudonniere began to re- 
 cover his health, but by that time the whole colony 
 was out of control. 
 
 On August 3, 1565, five great ships stood into 
 the river. This was the fleet of the Englishman, 
 John HHwMns, on his way home from exchanging 
 cargo.es of negro slaves for Spanish gold. Need- 
 ing fresh water, he remembered the French Prot- 
 estant colony on the Eiver of May. 
 
 The bluff Englishman was aghast at the plight 
 of the colonists, and offered to take them all tO' 
 France, free of cost. Laudonniere declined on 
 the ground that it would be humiliating to France. 
 He bought from Hawkins one of his smaller ves- 
 sels and some food, for which he paid by giving 
 the heavy guns of the fort, 
 
 Hawkins, having fiUed his fresh-water barrels, 
 sailed at once, but while Laudonniere was prepar- 
 ing to go, Jean Eibaut suddenly appeared with 
 several vessels and 400 men, including laborers, 
 artisans and their families. Great was the joy of 
 the colonists, but Eibaut brought orders to Lau- 
 
276 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 donniere to resign his commission and to return 
 to France. 
 
 Then, six days later, into the Eiver of May- 
 sailed a Spanish fleet of nineteen vessels, their 
 decks cleared for action. This fleet was under the 
 command of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who, that 
 same year, had received a royal commission to 
 colonize Florida. On reaching Cuba, where the 
 thirteen French mutineers had been captured, he 
 received incisive orders "to exterminate that nest 
 of pestilential heretics. ' ' 
 
 As soon as the -Spanish fleet appeared, the 
 French ships, with Eibaut and only the 250 men 
 of the crews aboard, slipped their cables and fled, 
 leaving the 600 French colonists up the river to 
 defend themselves as best they could. In all 
 probability, it was Eibaut 's intention to tempt 
 Menendez to sail up the river to attack the fort 
 and then take him in the rear, thus putting the 
 Spaniards between two fires. 
 
 Menendez, however, with heavier and slower 
 craft, did not try to follow Eibaut. Nor, having 
 hundreds of Spanish colonists aboard, did he wish 
 to risk what might prove to be a desperate fight. 
 Both authority and superiority of forces were on 
 his side. He could afford to wait until he was 
 ready to strike a telling blow. He landed, fifty 
 miles away, and, on Sept. 6, 1565, founded the 
 settlement of St. Augustine, the oldest established 
 town in the United States. 
 
 Eibaut returned to the River of May, took 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 277 
 
 aboard the larger mimber of his fighting m^en, 
 leaving Laudonniere with a small band of sol- 
 diers and the colonists to defend the fort. There 
 were thus about 600 men now on Ribaut's ships, 
 and about 200 men and 50 women and children 
 in the Huguenot fort up the river. The French 
 leader undoubtedly supposed that Menendez was 
 on his way to the West Indies and hoped to catch 
 some of the Spanish vessels lagging behind or 
 separated, when, with his swifter ships, he could 
 render a good account of himself. 
 
 Instead, Menendez turned into the harbor of 
 St, Augustine, and began the work of disembarka- 
 tion. Ribaut could easUy have taken the Spanish 
 at a disadvantage, but he was a sailor and navi- 
 gator, not a military commander, and he lacked 
 the dash of a swift sea-fighter. Moreover, evil 
 weather was brooding, and he sheelred away. The 
 expected hurricane broke before Ribaut could win 
 back to the River of May. Caught too close to 
 land, the French ships were driven helter-skelter 
 before the hurricane squalls. Several went down. 
 Others, to save the crews, were beached on the 
 Florida sands. Only a few managed to beat their 
 way out to sea. 
 
 The French were thus divided into three widely 
 separated parties: those in the fort, those who 
 had been on board the vessels beached on the 
 shore, and those on board the two or three vessels 
 which had escaped to sea. Laudonniere was at the 
 fort. One of his lieutenants took command of the 
 
^78 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 stranded paxty. Eibaut, the abler sailor, was 
 with those who had worked their vessels out to 
 safety. 
 
 Then Menendez showed his conquistador strain. 
 There would be no mutiny where he ruled. WitH 
 iron and merciless discipline he pushed a power- 
 ful force overland, through fifty and more miles 
 of swamp and palmetto scrub. Men fell ex- 
 hausted and lay where they fell. Menendez held 
 relentlessly on. 
 
 The night of September 19 found the Spaniards 
 at the gate of the French fort, hollow-eyed with 
 fatigue, foul with sweat and marsh-water, stand- 
 ing in morass to their knees under a pouring 
 tropical rain, and waiting for the first streaks of 
 dawn to show. Then, Menendez at the head, they 
 stormed the carelessly made and haK-erumbling 
 fort. The garrison was taken by surprise. The 
 trumpeter sounded the alarm too late. The Span- 
 iards poured in. Laudonniere and fifty of the 
 men leaped from the walls of the fort, deserting 
 the women, the children and the sick, holding that 
 it was better that some should be saved than that 
 all should perish like rats in a trap. 
 
 Menendez carried out his grim orders of de- 
 struction. Before the sun rose, 130 Frenchmen 
 lay dead. Yet the implacable Spanish leader 
 showed sufficient consideration to direct that all 
 the women and all children under 15 years of age 
 should be spared. Of them Menendez wrote to 
 the Spanish king : ' ' There were, between women, 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 279 
 
 infants, and boys of fifteen years and under, some 
 fifty persons, whom it gives me the greater pain 
 to see in the company of my men, by reason of 
 their wicked sect, yet I have feared that Our Lord 
 would chastise me if I shall deal cruelly with 
 them, for eight or ten children were born here." 
 Later he admitted doubts whether he had done 
 wisely in showing mercy to any "members of this 
 evil Lutheran sect, who might poison the faith 
 of my men and wreak wicked and wrongful harm 
 among the Lidians in Your Majesty's Domin- 
 ions." 
 
 Twenty men, captured next day, were put to 
 death with no other questions asked than if they 
 were Catholics or Lutherans. Thus the party in 
 the fort was practically annihilated. 
 
 The second party, that under one of the lieu- 
 tenants of Laudonniere, of 150 men, was sur- 
 rounded by the Indians who were hostile to the 
 French and the news brought to the Spanish com- 
 mander, who sent an order to surrender. The 
 Huguenot leader replied by asking a safe conduct 
 to the fort. 
 
 Menendez answered curtly that he had taken 
 the fort, put every man there to the death, and 
 that, far from giving a safe conduct: "he was 
 determined to root out the wicked Lutherans with 
 fire and sword, and would pursue them by sea and 
 land until he had their lives." A further offer 
 on the part of Laudonniere 's lieutenant to sur- 
 render on condition that the lives of his men 
 
280 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 should be spared, received the blunt response 
 that, if they should deliver themselves up, Menen- 
 dez would "deal with them as the Lord shall com- 
 mand me. . . . Truce or friendship they cannot 
 have. ' ' 
 
 Laudonniere's lieutenant next offered fifty 
 thousand ducats — an enormous sum — as ransom, 
 Menendez replied: "that, although he was poor, 
 he would not show that weakness. When he 
 wanted to be liberal and merciful, he would be so 
 without self-interest." 
 
 The Frenchmen of this second party then sur- 
 rendered without conditions. Immediately aU 
 were slaughtered ia cold blood, except twelve 
 Breton sailors, who were Catholics, and who had 
 been kidnapped and brought by force on board the 
 Protestant ships. 
 
 Eibaut, with the rest of his men, a powerful 
 force numbering not less than 350 men, was re- 
 ported as nearing the vicinity on October 10. 
 Menendez went out into the scrub with a picked 
 force of one-half the number of Ribaut's men, and 
 prepared to give battle. Ribaut asked for per- 
 sonal parley, which was granted. He would not 
 believe the annihilation of the fort and of his 
 men until he was shown the bodies on the sand. 
 Then Ribaut offered the huge sum of 300,000 
 ducats as ransom. Menendez replied that "it was 
 hard for him to lose such a sum, as he was des- 
 perately in need of it for his colony, but he could 
 not trifle with his conscience." 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 281 
 
 Two hundred of the men, sick and famished, 
 agreed to surrender without terms, Eibaut among 
 them. They were taken to the beach, and the 
 question put to them whether they were Catholics 
 or Lutherans. Eibaut replied with dignity and 
 firmness that all were of the new religion. The 
 Huguenots asked time for prayer and to repeat 
 a psalm, which was accorded them. Then all 
 save five were put to the knife. Ribaut was 
 among the slain. , 
 
 The remaining 150 men of Eibaut 's party, who 
 had refused to surrender, had fled to the beach 
 while this massacre was going on. They reached 
 a place where two ships had been cast up on the 
 shore. ' With the timbers of one of these they 
 constructed a rough but strong fort, provisioned 
 and armed it with food and guns taken from the 
 ships and began feverishly to repair the other 
 less damaged vessel. 
 
 Menendez marched against them with 300 men. 
 Seeing that the survivors were desperate and 
 held a strong position, Menendez offered to spare 
 the lives of the remaining Huguenots if they sur- 
 rendered, and gave their promise "to speak of 
 their accursed ideas to none but their own men." 
 All save twenty accepted, and Menendez proved 
 that he was a man of his word in mercy as in 
 harshness. The prisoners were well treated and, 
 in course of time, returned to their own land. 
 The twenty who were still obdurate fled into the 
 woods and never were heard of more. These, 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 with the 150 drowned during the hurricane, com- 
 pleted the death or capture of the more than 850 
 colonists. 
 
 Thus ended the French Protestant colony of 
 the Eiver of May, Under a different commander 
 the story might have been very different, for the 
 French held a strong position and sufficient num- 
 bers to defend it. Two grave military errors 
 produced the disaster. The first of these was the 
 failure of Laudonniere, at the fort, to set out 
 pickets when he knew that the enemy had been 
 sighted in the vicinity, which neglect permitted 
 the fort to be taken by surprise. The other was 
 Ribaut's error in dividing his armed forces in 
 two, for the purpose of attacking a Spanish fleet 
 practically in its own waters. Had all the colonists 
 been held together and set to work to make strong 
 defences both from sea and from land, the River 
 of May might have been made impregnable, and 
 "New France" might have been established in 
 Florida and the Carolinas instead of in Canada. 
 
 The affair almost caused a new breach between 
 Spain and France, but Menendez was so clearly 
 in his right, and de Coligny was so absolutely 
 in the wrong that redress could not be secured. 
 A private adventurer named Dominic de Gour- 
 gues, so the story runs, in 1567 set out on a mis- 
 sion of revenge and recaptured Fort Caroline. 
 Those Spaniards who escaped the sword were 
 hanged, with this inscription above them: "Not 
 as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers and mur- 
 
FRENCH SAILORMEN 283 
 
 derers." The tale possesses poetic justice, but 
 lacks historical confirmation. 
 
 Menendez usually appears in history much mis- 
 represented. He slew the French Protestants on 
 the accusation that they were "enemies, invaders, 
 corsairs and heretics." The assertion was per- 
 fectly true. They had invaded territory to which 
 Spain had an xmquestioned right and thus were 
 enemies as well as invaders. Two groups of 
 Huguenots, at least, had started out as corsairs. 
 They declared themselves to be "heretics." Men- 
 endez was the representative of the Spanish king 
 in Florida and had received orders to root out 
 the "pestilential nest." It was a terrible and 
 bloody deed, but, viewed from the aspect of those 
 times, it is difficult to see how a crusading Con- 
 quistador could have acted otherwise. 
 
 Never again did the Huguenots attempt to found 
 a powerful colony of their own in America. The 
 "Puritans of the South" failed because of their 
 desperate folly in planting themselves at the very 
 tWeshold of Spain. It was a sad loss to America, 
 for Huguenot blood showed nobly in the cen- 
 turies to come. The blood-drenched sands of 
 the Eiver of May saw the last attempt of French 
 colonization on the southern mainland until the 
 power of Spain had been humbled, centuries later. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE ENGLISH PRIVATEEES 
 
 England came late upon the scene of American 
 exploration and colonization. Spain and France 
 both, had preceded her. When she did send col- 
 onists across the sea it was with a different spirit 
 and a different goal, and the success which re- 
 sulted was not so much because of what the Eng- 
 lishmen did as because of what they strove 
 to do. But it must not be forgotten that England 's 
 first ventures into American waters were not for 
 colonization. They were privateering ventures 
 and bordered closely upon sea-robbery and piracy. 
 
 "Withal, England had a territorial claim. True, 
 she had lost a golden opportunity when Henry 
 VII refused to listen to Christopher Columbus, 
 though she almost recovered it when at last — a 
 few weeks too late — Bartholomew Columbus se- 
 cured an English promise to equip an expedition. 
 But, in the voyages of John Cabot in 1497 and 
 1498, England secured a title to North America 
 second only to the Icelandic claims inhering in 
 Leif the Lucky and Thorfinn Karlsefni, which 
 claims were never pressed. 
 
 The voyages of John Cabot were for several 
 
 284 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 286 
 
 centuries a historical puzzle. This was due to 
 the fact that the first discoverer of America un- 
 der the flag of England was not a writer, and that 
 the accounts of his voyages were penned by his 
 son, who, with unfilial shamelessness, filched his 
 father's fame. Sebastian Cabot, the son, claimed 
 all the credit for voyages "on which," so careful 
 a modem historian as Bourne says frankly, 
 "there is no direct evidence to show that he even 
 participated." It is one of the meanest thefts 
 in history. 
 
 The facts which recent research have elicited 
 are few but definite. John Cabot was a Genoese, 
 a f eUow-townsman of Columbus, and bom at about 
 the same time. He became a citizen of Venice 
 and there conceived the idea of a westward voy- 
 age to the Spice Islands, either before or at the 
 same time as Columbus, Cabot came to London 
 in 1484 to interest the Bristol merchants in his 
 plan. He found them most enthusiastic. One ex- 
 pedition had set forth in 1480 to find "the island 
 of Brasylle" (Hy Brasil) but Cabot's plans were 
 more ambitious. Between 1480 and 1490 (ante- 
 dating Columbus, therefore) three English expe- 
 ditions set forth. These, however, did not have 
 the singular good fortune to strike the north-east 
 trade-winds and none of these can be proved to 
 have reached land. The success of Columbus, ia 
 1492, gave a new impetus to British adventure. 
 
 In March, 1496, John Cabot received a patent 
 from Henry VII, authorizing him to make discov- 
 
386 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 eries "in the eastern, -western and northern seas," 
 the omission of the southern seas being obviously 
 an acceptance of the rightful claim, of Spain and 
 Portugal to the southward. 
 
 Accordingly, in May, 1497, John Cabot set sail 
 from Bristol with one small ship and eighteen 
 men. After fifty-two days at sea, on June 24, 
 he reached what he reported to be "the mainland 
 of the Great Khan," and which has been variously 
 adjudged to be either Labrador, Newfoundland 
 or Cape Breton Island. He coasted for some dis- 
 tance ("three hundred leagues," according to 
 one account) and returned to Bristol after having 
 landed once or twice, and having formally taken 
 possession of the country in the name of the Eng- 
 lish king. 
 
 Cabot's second voyage, that of 1498, is still 
 more indefinite. In February 3 of that year he se- 
 cured a patent authorizing him to take six ships 
 and as many men as would volunteer. He set sail 
 in the spring to visit his former discoveries and 
 to seek a strait to the Spice Islands. He explored 
 the coast-line southwards, and, since maps of 1502 
 show this region charted, and no other expedition 
 had been along the coast, cartographers gener- 
 ally have acknowledged that the shore from Long 
 Island to Carolina was discovered by Cabot. 
 
 A traxjt by Robert Thome, telling of an Eng- 
 lish voyage made at this time — ^possibly Cabot's 
 second voyage — suggests that the navigator 
 planned to search further and states that "if tiie 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 287 
 
 mariners would have been ruled and f oUowed their 
 pilot's mind, the lands of the "West Indies, from 
 whence all the gold cometh, would have heen 
 ours." Therein Thome was wrong, for Colum- 
 bus and others had been to the West Indies first. 
 It is probable but not provable that Cabot toudied 
 the mainland of America either in 1497 or the 
 early summer of 1498, and it is certain that Co- 
 lumbus did not touch any part of the mainland 
 until the late summer of 1498. 
 
 The discovery of the American mainland, there- 
 fore, in honor of priority shows Leif the Lucky, 
 first; Cabot, second; and Columbus, third. Yet 
 Cabot's rediscovery was based on the success of 
 Columbus' first voyage. Aside from the Papal 
 Bull (which granted Spain all territory as far 
 north as the Pole), England's claim to the orig- 
 inal discovery of North America was indisputable 
 if the Icelandic Norsemen did not put in a pro- 
 test. During the century following, this issue at- 
 tained enormous diplomatic importance. 
 
 Eeferenoe has been made to the voyage of the 
 Corte-Eeals in 1501 and 1502, and it is interesting 
 to recall that, on their return from the first voy- 
 age, the survivors of the expedition brought with 
 them Eskimo captives and "a broken sword and 
 ear-rings evidently manufactured in Italy." 
 These were, in all probability, relics of the Cabot 
 expedition. 
 
 During the next twenty years, British fishing 
 vessels joined the French fishing vessels in New- 
 
288 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 foundland waters. Jacques Cartier reported see- 
 ing many ships in the waters off Newfoundland 
 and the early records of English fishing towns 
 show many sales of "Newfoundlande fishe. ' ' The 
 voyage of Del Prado to Newfoundland, in 1527, 
 added nothing to the lore of exploration or set- 
 tlement. 
 
 In April, 1536, "One Master Hore of London, a 
 man given to the study of Cosmography" set out 
 with two ships and 120 men to explore Newfound- 
 land. They were two months at sea and reached 
 Cape Breton. Thence they sailed north as far as 
 Grreenland, reaching a barren coast. They were 
 utterly famished, and no game was to be found. 
 The men began to disappear mysteriously, but it 
 was some time before the Captain found that they 
 were slaying and eating their fellows while sup- 
 posed to be hunting for the still unripe berries 
 in the scrubby woods. With one ship, they stag- 
 gered along the Labrador shore to Newfoundland. 
 A French fishing vessel arriving, the Englishmen 
 attacked the crew, seized the ship and sailed away, 
 reaching England in October. Soon after, the 
 French fishers made a formal complaint to Henry 
 Vin, who, having heard Here's story and filled 
 with pity for the unhappy members of the expe- 
 dition who had suffered so sorely, "out of his own 
 purse made fuU and royal recompense unto the 
 French." This was the first landing in Green- 
 land since the disappearance of the Norse colony. 
 
 It is, however, in connection with the slave trade 
 
THE NEW WORLD OF 1587. 
 
 As a result of nearly one hundred years of exploration the geographers of the 
 time of Queen Elizabeth began to understand quite clearly the relation of the 
 American Hemisphere to the Old World. The shaded portion of the coast of 
 North and South America were the spheres of Spanish exploration, and it was 
 generally along these, coasts that the English seamen, Hawkms and Drake, and 
 many others sought their opponents. 
 
A SPANISH TREASURE SHIP. 
 
 The great Spanish galleons that conveyed the treasure of gold and silver and 
 precious stones were large, slow sailing, but heavily armed, ships. They were 
 no match, however, for the smaller and speedier vessels of the English or French 
 adventurers, as the record of their many encounters show. 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 289 
 
 and with, privateering that England's relation to 
 America rightly begins. 
 
 Trading in negro slaves is as old as antiquity. 
 Since the dawn of civilization there have always 
 been slaves. All the great civilizations : Babylon, 
 Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Eome, Byzantine and 
 Saracen were built upon slave labor. France and 
 England in feudal times had an enslaved peas- 
 antry. More than half the history of the United 
 States, since 1776, deals with a period when many 
 of the States supported negro slavery. 
 
 Labor-saving machinery and bumanitariauism 
 have changed matters, and it is a question whether 
 the former was not as potent a liberating force 
 as the latter. Certainly, no one with the historical 
 sense will blame the Middle Ages for possessing 
 slaves any more than they will blame them for not 
 possessing spinning machinery and agricultural 
 tractors. The work had to be done, and since all 
 was hand labor, the necessity for hands was im- 
 perative. 
 
 When William Hawkins was a slave-trader from 
 Guinea and Brazil, and was at the same time an 
 English Member of Parliament, the combination 
 struck no one as strange. George Washington 
 had slaves, and his letters concerning them make 
 curious reading, but that fact diminished neither 
 his position nor his glory. 
 
 Sir John Hawkins, son of the Bristol shipowner 
 and Member of Parliament, and the first slave- 
 runner to American waters, learned the lore of the 
 
290 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 sea in his youth. He became the greatest seaman 
 of his day, and played a notable part in American 
 history in that he was a prime factor in checking 
 the spread of Spanish colonization in North Amer- 
 ica and laying the foundation for the English col- 
 onies to follow. 
 
 When John Hawkins first set forth upon the sea, 
 trading in slaves from the Guinea Coast was as 
 well-recognized and as legitimate a business as 
 trading in fish from Newfoundland or in pepper 
 from the Spice Islands. It was, of course, prac- 
 tically a Portuguese monopoly, since Portugal 
 owned the Guinea Coast. Slaves were in such 
 great demand in Spain that there was a Spanish 
 law forbidding the importation of negroes into 
 "New Spain," although the great missionary, the 
 saintly Las Casas, had urged that negro slavery 
 be established in the West Indies to aid the over- 
 driven and fast disappearing Indians. Hawkins, 
 not being bound by any Spanish law, and knowing 
 that the planters in "New Spain" would pay a 
 handsome price for Guinea plantation hands, un- 
 dertook slave-ruiming there. 
 
 In 1562, he made his first slave voyage and vis- 
 ited Guinea with two ships and two cargo ships or 
 hulks. Believing himself within his trading rights, 
 as a foreigner, he sent the hulks and their cargoes 
 for sale to Spain and crossed the ocean with his 
 own two ships. At Hispaniola he sold the slaves 
 at a good profit and returned with much treasure. 
 But the Spaniards confiscated the hulks and their 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 291 
 
 cargoes and detained tiie Englisli crews. This 
 made Hawkins an enemy to Spain, and a danger- 
 ous one. 
 
 His second voyage, in 1564-1565, was more 
 thorny. The authorities in Hispaniola had re- 
 ceived peremptory orders from Spain not to trade 
 with foreigners. The port authorities interpreted 
 this to mean that they could tax Hawkins when he 
 arrived. They demanded thirty ducats. The bur- 
 ly Englishman, who regarded this as exorbitant, 
 adopted the summary expedient of landing the 
 negroes willy-nilly and sending a hundred of his. 
 men, fully armed, into the market-place. Where- 
 upon, he naively remarks, "all things were speed- 
 ily arranged to my content." This was bullying, 
 pure and simple, and Hawkins was to suffer for 
 it later. 
 
 Thence prevented by head-winds from getting- 
 to Cuba, where he planned to take on provisions 
 and fresh water, Hawkins bore up the Florida 
 coast, exploring it thoroughly and making shrewd 
 observations upon it, and so came to the Eiver of 
 May, where was the French Protestant colony, 
 whose desperate plight he recounted, and wher& 
 he offered to take the suffering colonists home. 
 
 Then, owing to contrary winds which did not 
 justify him in setting out across the ocean, Haw- 
 kins coasted northward clear to Newfoundland,, 
 being thus the first explorer to coast along the 
 whole of the North American shore, since Cabot 
 had not been south of Carolina. At Newfoundland 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Hawkins reprovisioned witli fisli and made a safe 
 return to England. For these two slave-trading 
 voyages, and for his information concerning the 
 vulnerability of the Spanish possessions, he was 
 knighted by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 By the time that Hawkins was ready to go on 
 his third voyage, matters had become very tense 
 between England and Spain. The issue was, in 
 part, a religious one. Henry VIII had been com- 
 pelled, in his youth, to marry Catherine of Aragon, 
 daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, his 
 brother's widow, a marriage which was forbidden 
 by church law and for which a papal dispensation 
 had been required. When, after many years, 
 Catherine gave no male heir to the throne, Henry 
 demanded a divorce on the ground that the mar- 
 riage never had been legal 
 
 Years of wrangling ensued, resulting, finally, in 
 the Pope's refusal to grant a divorce. Henry's 
 advisers suggested that since the English Catholic 
 Church had never formally yielded allegiance to 
 Rome, English ecclesiastical authorities were com- 
 petent to pass on the case, and these granted the 
 king the divorce he sought. England declared her- 
 self as outside the supremacy of Rome, and Eome 
 disavowed England. 
 
 Yet the English Church, neither then nor since, 
 ceased to be a Catholic Church. Like the Greek 
 Orthodox CathoUp, the Russian Orthodox Cath- 
 olic, the Armenian Catholic, the Coptic Church and 
 others, she remained in the body of the Catholio 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 293 
 
 commuiuon, while denying allegiance to Rome. 
 Sh.e was not, and is not, a Protestant Church, 
 either of the Lutheran or Calvinistic type. This 
 fact is of supreme importance in the understand- 
 ing of American history, for on it the histories 
 of the Pilgruns, of the Puritans, of the Virginia 
 churchmen, of the Maryland Eoman Catholics, of 
 the Pennsylvania Quakers, and many related mat- 
 ters depend. 
 
 Briefly, the independence and yet the Catholicity 
 of the English Church -was set forth in the crucial 
 year 1534 by two official pronoimcements, one hy 
 Convocation, which is the religious law of Eng- 
 land, the other by the civil law. Convocation 
 (1534) stated: "The Eoman Pontiff has no 
 greater jurisdiction in this realm of England, con- 
 ferred upon him by Grod in Holy Scripture, than 
 another foreign bishop. ' ' The civil law (25 Henry 
 Vm, 0. 21) states: "Nothing in this Act . . . 
 shall be hereafter interpreted that your grace, 
 your nobles and subjects, intend by the same to 
 decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's 
 Church in any things concerning the very articles 
 of the Catholic faith of Christendom, etc." 
 
 Edward VI, who succeeded Henry VIII, had 
 been brought up under the influence of the Prot- 
 estant Reformation, and when he came to the 
 throne, the development of English formularies 
 proceeded apace. Yet, even in his reign, a repeti- 
 tion of England's catholicity was made. During 
 the reign of Mary, the Eoman Catholic supremacy 
 
.S94 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 was formally accepted by the throne, but denied 
 "by Church and people. When, in 1558, Elizabeth 
 succeeded to the throne, there was a revulsion to a 
 more strongly Protestant tendency than in the 
 reign of Edward VI, Yet, in 1559, the Pope agreed 
 to accept the English Church Book of Common 
 Prayer if it were received from his hands and by 
 his authority. As this was equivalent to resign- 
 ing Anglican independence, Elizabeth refused and 
 was excommunicated. 
 
 Thus the Catholic character of the Church of 
 England was compromised in the eyes of Cath- 
 olics by the Protestantism of some of her formu- 
 laries — such as the Thirty-Nine Articles — ^and by 
 her schism from Eome ; while the Protestant char- 
 acter of the Church of England was overlaid, in 
 the eyes of Protestants, by her insistence on Apos- 
 tolic Succession and Holy orders, and by the sacra- 
 mental aspect of the Holy Communion. 
 
 These ecclesiastical and doctrinal antagonisms 
 were the causes of the formation of the different 
 and differing English colonies in America. They 
 became a dominant factor of dispersal during the 
 hundred and fifty years of America's history dur- 
 ing the colonial era, they determined the types 
 and variances of the Thirteen Original States, and 
 they are reflected in the Constitution of the United 
 States and in her whole history to the present 
 <3ay. 
 
 Although Elizabeth was excommunicated in 
 1559, it was not until 1564 that the breach was re- 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 295 
 
 garded as final. In 1565, the long hostility be- 
 tween Spain and England resulted in what might 
 be considered concealed warfare, especially since 
 it was known that Philip 11 of Spain, husband of 
 Queen Mary of England, laid claim to the English 
 throne and was secretly preparing to make good 
 his claim. 
 
 From this date, then, sea-issues changed their 
 character. When Hawkins had made his first two 
 voyages, he had not actually been engaged in any- 
 thing more than a risky slave-running to the pos- 
 sessions of an unfriendly country. Afterwards, 
 Spanish waters became hostile waters and then, 
 enemy waters. There is no reason to doubt that 
 Elizabeth knighted Hawkins, not because of his 
 success as a slave-trader, but because he had dared 
 the Spanish in their own West Indian dty and 
 come away safely. As a piece of naval strategy, 
 every privateering act which required Spain ta 
 keep an ever-increasing fleet in West Indian 
 waters weakened the Spanish fleet in home waters. 
 
 It was 1567 before Hawkins was ready to set out 
 again. This time he took nine ships and went with 
 the personal knowledge of Elizabeth. Since h© 
 had no written commission, and war had not been 
 declared, he was not exactly a privateer ; nor, since 
 he was engaged in pursuing a lawful trade — 
 though in defiance of foreign regulations — ^with 
 the royal consent of his own country, he cannot 
 exactly be called a pirate. But, of a truth, he was 
 not far from both. 
 
296 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 This time, Hawkins did not attempt to buy 
 slaves in Guinea. He set out to capture them for 
 himself. Near Cape Verde, he sent ashore a party 
 of his men "hoping to obtain some negro^es, where 
 we got but few, and those with great hurt and 
 damage to our men, which chiefly proceeded of 
 their envenomed arrows. Although in the begin- 
 ning they seemed to be but small hurts, yet the 
 men died ia a strange sort with their mouths 
 shut for ten days before they died and their 
 wounds healed (lockjaw)." 
 
 Hawkins then searched the rivers along the 
 coast till he came to Sierra Leone. There, at the 
 request of one negro chief, he attacked the head- 
 quarters of a neighboring tribe, a negro town of 
 8,000 population "strongly impaled and fenced 
 after their manner." In the first attack the Eng- 
 lish failed and had 6 killed and 40 wounded. 
 Whereupon Hawkins brought reinforcements, 
 leading them himself, and captured 250 slaves, 
 which, with the 150 or more h© had captured on 
 various small raids, gave him a suflficient cargo. 
 
 On March 28, 1568, he reached Dominica, south- 
 ernmost of the West Indies, and sold some slaves 
 there. "From thence," he writes, "we coasted 
 from place to place, making our traffic with the 
 Spaniards somewhat hardly because the king had 
 straightly commanded his governors in those 
 parts by no means to suffer any trade to be made 
 with us. ' ' Notwithstanding which, Hawkins sailed 
 along the coast of Colombia, trading as he went. 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 29T 
 
 A violent tempest all but wreaked the flagship, so 
 that she could barely keep afloat and two other 
 vessels of the fleet were in an unseaworthy condi- 
 tion. In this stress, Hawkins ran into the port 
 of Vera Cruz, Mexico, to buy provisions and re- 
 pair his ships. It is, practically, the only natural 
 harbor on the coast. 
 
 That very evening of their arrival, there ap- 
 peared at the entrance to the harbor thirteen great 
 heavily armed galleons, bringing the new Viceroy. 
 Whereupon Hawkins, although he was in a Span- 
 ish port, and only there by courtesy of the port 
 authorities, calmly informed the Spanish Viceroy 
 and Admiral that he would not let the Spanish 
 fleet enter unless they agreed that the English 
 might buy victuals, might repair their ships in 
 peace, and might hold ia their sole and absolute 
 possession the island of San Juan de UUoa, guard- 
 ing the port on which the Enghsh ships were ca- 
 reened. This was bullying again, but HawMns 
 felt himself justified by the critical situation in 
 which he found himself. 
 
 The Viceroy, according to Hawkins' official ac- 
 count, agreed, ten hostages on either side being 
 exchanged and ' ' a writing from the Viceroy signed 
 with his hand and sealed with his seal." The 
 negotiations took three days, and then the hand- 
 ful of Englishmen allowed the huge Spanish fleet 
 to pass, "saluting each other as the manner of the 
 sea doth require." 
 
 Three days later, large numbers of armed men 
 
298 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 being seen coining on board the Spanisb ships, 
 Hawkins suspected a breach of faith and sent a 
 message to the Viceroy, who — the English assert — 
 pledged his word that no harm was intended. Two 
 hours later a trumpet was blown and the Span- 
 iards attacked. The fight is worth the telling in 
 Hawkins' own words: 
 
 ' ' The Spaniards, being before provided, landed 
 in multitudes from their ships and slew all our 
 men without mercy; only a few escaped aboard 
 the Jesus (Hawkins' flagship). The great ship (a 
 galleon moored nearby) which had by the estima- 
 tion 300 men placed aboard her secretly, immedi- 
 ately fell aboard the Minion (Hawkins' second 
 ship), but, by God's appointment, in the time of 
 the suspicion we had, which was only one-half 
 hour, the Minion was made ready to avoid, and so 
 was gotten out. . , . 
 
 "The Mimion being passed out, they came 
 aboard the Jesus, which also with much ado and 
 the loss of many of our men, defended and kept 
 out. Then there were also two other ships that 
 assaulted the Jesus at the same instant, so that 
 she had hard work getting loose. Now when the 
 Jesus and the Minion were about two ships' length 
 from the Spanish fleet, the fight began so hot on 
 all sides that within one hour their Admiral was 
 supposed to be sunk, their vice-Admiral burned 
 and one other of their principal ships supposed to 
 be sunk, so that the ships were little able to 
 annoy us. 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 299 
 
 "All the Ordnance upon the island was now in 
 Spanish hands, which did us so great annoyance 
 that it cut all the masts and yards of the Jesvs ia 
 such sort that thefe was no hope to carry her 
 away, also it sunk our small ships, whereupon we 
 determined to place the Jesus on that side of the 
 Minion that she might abide all the battery from 
 the land, and so b6 a defence to the Minion till 
 night, and then to take such a relief of victuals and 
 other necessaries from the Jesus as the time would 
 suffer us, and to leave her. 
 
 "As we were thus determining and had placed 
 the Minion guarded from the shot of the land, sud- 
 denly the Spaniards fired two great ships (of com- 
 bustibles) which were corjiiug directly upon us, 
 and having no means to avoid the fire, it bred 
 among our men a marvellous fear . . . and so 
 without either consent of the Captain or Master 
 they cut (loosed) their sails so that very hardly 
 I was received into the Minion. 
 
 ' ' The most part of the men that were left alive 
 in the Jesus made shift and followed the Minion in 
 a small boat. The rest, which the little boat was 
 not able to receive, were forced to abide the mercy 
 of the Spaniards, which I doubt was very little. 
 (There Hawkins prophesied truly, for most of 
 them were put to death by torture.) So with the 
 Minion only and the Judith (commanded by Fran- 
 cis Drake, a cousin of Hawkins), a small bark of 
 50 tons, we escaped, which bark forsook us the 
 same night in our misery. ' ' 
 
300 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 The Minion set out, despite lier battered eondi- 
 tion and lack of stores, and for fourteen days the 
 half-starved men, many of whom were wounded, 
 wandered in the Gulf of Mexico, the ship all but 
 sinking imder them. Land at last was sighted and 
 they put ashore to see if game could be caught and 
 fresh water found, and to make some repairs. 
 Of the 214 men surviving, 114 wished to be set 
 ashore to take their chance on land, 100 were 
 willing to risk the journey home on the battered 
 Minion. Incredible as it may seem, one party of 
 43 men set out to cross the whole width of the 
 United States and Canada, and three survived to 
 reach Cape Breton, where a French vessel took 
 them home. Seventy-one others marched west- 
 ward into Mexico. Of this party, three were 
 burned to death and the rest suffered torture and 
 imprisonment in the galleys. 
 
 The hundred who started on their homeward 
 journey fared but little better. With but little 
 food, with half the fresh-water barrels pierced 
 with shot, with the masts and rigging too weak to 
 stand press of sail, and leaking badly, the Minion 
 struck head winds and violent weather. Hawkins 
 did not reach Europe for 68 days, when, in des- 
 peration, he put into a small Spanish port, where 
 "our men with excess of fresh meat grew into mis- 
 erable diseases, and died a great part of them." 
 Finding that they were on the point of berug be- 
 trayed to Spanish ships of war near by they 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 301 
 
 patched up the Minion and set sail January 20, 
 1569, arriving in England five days later. 
 
 Hawkins, in his Journal, referred to the escape 
 of the Judith on the night after th.e terrible battle 
 at San Juan de Ulloa in terms which suggest that 
 he felt the small bark should have stood by the 
 Minion. Yet he did not hesitate to express his ad- 
 miration of the way in which Drake, in his little 
 ship, and without help from any other crew, had 
 repelled Spanish boarders of five times the num- 
 ber of his men and fought his way out of the har- 
 bor in the teeth of the Spanish guns. Moreover 
 when, a year later, Drake suggested that he would 
 go back and secure revenge, Hawkins, at his own 
 cost, equipped an expedition. 
 
 Hawkins had been an armed smuggler with a 
 verbal admission that if he acted as a privateer he 
 could count on English support. Drake seems to 
 have received "letters of marque" in 1570, which 
 Elizabeth had no right to give, since England was 
 not at war with Spain. Drake, therefore, was a 
 privateer, according to English permission; he 
 was a pirate, according to international law. It is 
 to be remembered that privateering was a univer- 
 sally recognized form of warfare as late as 1856. 
 Among some nations — ^the United States included 
 — it is still permissible. 
 
 In 1570, and again in 1571, Draie sallied out to 
 harry Spanish ships. From both voyages he re- 
 turned unscathed, with considerable treasure. 
 This did not tend to diminish the bad blood be- 
 
302 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 tween England and Spain. Another crisis, how- 
 ever, developed early in 1572, which gave to 
 Drake's next privateering venture an inter- 
 national character. This grew out of England's 
 secret sheltering of the Dutch Sea-Beggars. 
 
 A word on the relations between Spain and Hol- 
 land is necessary in order to explain the attitude 
 of England therein, and to show that complicated 
 course of events which led, a little later, to the 
 effort of Holland to displace England as the rul- 
 ing maritime power. Had she succeeded, it was 
 Holland's ambition to uproot the English colonies 
 in America and to substitute the flag of Holland 
 for the flag of England, from Florida to Labrador. 
 
 Charles, the son of Philip, Duke of Burgundy 
 and Count of Flanders, whose mother was Joanna, 
 daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, was 
 born in Ghent in the Netherlands (the old name for 
 Belgium and Holland) . All his life he was more a 
 Fleming than a Spaniard. Charles succeeded 
 Ferdinand as Charles I of Spain, and, later, be- 
 came Emperor Charles V of the Holy Eoman Em- 
 pire, an aggregation of European countries includ- 
 ing Austria, Germany, Italy and Burgundy, which 
 derived its name from the fact that this empire 
 was a fief of the Pope and its emperors crowned at 
 Home. Charles V thus became the most powerful 
 monarch of Europe, and, by his inheritance, he 
 added the Netherlands to his possessions. 
 Towards the end of his reign, however, the mighty 
 successes of his youth began to slip from his 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 303 
 
 hands. He abdicated all his crowns in 1555, and 
 returned to a monastery, leaving the succession of 
 Spain and the Netherlands (and other minor terri- 
 tories) to Philip II of Spain. 
 
 Mudi of the latter part of the reign of Charles 
 V had been given to battling against Protestant 
 princes, for it had been during his reign that the 
 Eeformation occurred and rose to its first power. 
 Philip n inherited this conflict. But, unlike his 
 father, he was not a Fleming. Nor was he a man 
 of broad vision such as his father. He spoke no 
 tongue but Spanish and he firmly believed that 
 Protestantism was a danger to the world. To ex- 
 tinguish it in the Netherlands, he established the 
 Holy Inquisition there, though he found it neces- 
 sary to do so at the point of the sword. The Span- 
 ish army was commanded by the Duke de Alva, a 
 military genius and a man of unparalleled sever- 
 ity. The Netherlands revolted, the patriots taking 
 the name of "Beggars," which had been forced on 
 them in derision. They rebelled against the yoke 
 of Spain and set up a government of their own 
 under the Prince of Orange. 
 
 In the early spring of 1572, a fleet of twenty-four 
 vessels, tmder command of the freebooter, William 
 de la Marck, harried the Spanish settlements on 
 the Netherlands coast. They asked England for 
 leave to provision their vessels and to use an Eng- 
 lish port as shelter. Elizabeth formally refused, 
 but privately made it known that none of her sub- 
 jects would be punished for giving aid to the Sea- 
 
THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Beggars. The Duke de Alva protested, Philip II 
 endorsed his protest, and Elizabeth replied 
 haughtily. England, in thus siding with the Prot- 
 estants of the Netherlands, had added fuel to the 
 flames. Philip II of Spain now had a religious 
 cause of quarrel against England, in addition to 
 the dynastic cause resulting from his marriage to 
 Queen Mary. 
 
 When, therefore, in 1572, Drake planned the des- 
 perate venture of sailing the Caribbean Sea and 
 attacking Spanish towns for revenge and for 
 treasure, he did so with the knowledge that what 
 he was doing would meet Elizabeth's favor. He 
 set out with three small vessels, sailed through the 
 Caribbean, captured and plundered the town of 
 Nombre de Dios. Then, with a strong land force, 
 he marched across th^ Isthmus and destroyed 
 Spanish shipping. When he first caught sight of 
 the Pacific he formed an ardent determination to 
 "be the first to sail an English ship in those 
 waters." He returned to his vessels, laden with 
 loot, and set sail for England, arriving in Ply- 
 mouth, August 9, 1573. 
 
 Drake's division of the prize-money was gener- 
 ous, and his scrupulous honesty and care of his 
 men ensured him ease in getting crews afterwards. 
 Moreover, with the plunder which belonged to him, 
 he fitted up three frigates at his own expense, put 
 them at the service of the Earl of Essex and of- 
 fered his services as a volunteer to aid in quelling 
 a rebellion in Ireland, for Ireland, then, as later, 
 
Copyright 1921 by Twenty-five Broadway Corp. 
 
 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE SETS OUT IN THE GOLDEN IirND. 
 
 Drake set sail December the 13th, 1 577, and returned to Plymouth in 1 580. 
 He was thus not only the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world but he 
 was also the first commander to return from such a world-encircling: vo\age. 
 From a painting by Ezra Winter in the Cunard Building, New York City. 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 305 
 
 was striving to secure relief from English over- 
 lordship. 
 
 In addition to being a seaman and navigator of 
 marked skill, Drake was the peer of the fighting 
 sea-dog breed and an adventurer withal. He real- 
 ized that, once he had shown the way, many others 
 would follow him and harass the plate-fleets of 
 Spain on their way from the Spanish Main. He 
 would do more than his fellows. He conceived the 
 daring project of sailing through Magellan's 
 Straits and harrying the cities of Peru and west- 
 ern Mexico, which were left in an undefended 
 state, since there was no fear of attack from the 
 Pacific. 
 
 Drake was introduced to the Queen, and Eliza- 
 beth, who had heard of his deeds, received him 
 graciously. Nothing stirred her more than naval 
 daring. She readily agreed to furnish the bold ad- 
 venturer with five small vessels and there was no 
 difficulty in getting crews to volunteer. Drake, 
 both then and later, was a great believer in the 
 small ship, and the Pelican, afterwards renamed 
 the Golden Hmd, and her four consorts, carried 
 among them all only 162 men and boys. 
 
 With the status of an unofficial privateer, Drake 
 set sail December 13, 1577, stopped on the coast of 
 Morocco and again at the Cape Verde Islands, and 
 thence sailed to the coast of Brazil, which he 
 touched first on April 6, 1578. Thence he coasted 
 along the shore of South America, until he reached 
 the River La Plata. There he parted company 
 
806 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 with two of Ms ships, but having recovered them, 
 and finding them slow sailers and growing unsea- 
 worthy, he took the provisions and crews on board 
 his other three vessels and set the smaller craft 
 adrift. 
 
 On June 19, 1578, he entered Port St. Julian, 
 where Magellan had wintered, and there he had 
 almost the same experience of mutiny, one of his 
 officers, Thomas Doughty, conspiring against him. 
 Doughty was hanged at the yard-arm. On August 
 17, Seeing that the Antarctic spring was ap- 
 proaching, Drake set sail again, and, three days 
 later, entered the Straits of Magellan. The pas- 
 sage of the straits took him but sixteen days, less 
 than half the time spent by Magellan, for he had 
 the advantage of his great predecessor's knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean, however, was not as kind to 
 him as it had been to Magellan. A few days out 
 from the straits, he encountered a violent east 
 gale, which menaced him against the cruel lee 
 shore of Southern Chile. There Drake's belief in 
 small ships was put to the test, but all three of the 
 gallant little English vessels tacked to weather 
 and staunchly held up against a storm which would 
 have ground them to pieces upon the jagged rocks 
 of the South Chilean coast. 
 
 Drake had arranged with the other vessels of his 
 fleet, in case they became separated, to meet him at 
 the mouth of the strait. But Magelljin's Straits 
 have several mouths, though Drake did not know 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 307 
 
 it, and Ms Vice-Admiral, Captain Wynter, failed 
 to find the place appointed. After waiting some 
 weeks, neither knowing whether the other had been 
 wrecked or no, Wynter sailed with his two ships 
 for England, and Drake struck northwards up the 
 coast, bent on plunder. 
 
 This voyage, therefore, was the first exploration 
 of the southern part of the Pacific Coast of South 
 America, Drake's exploration in 1578 joining on to 
 that of Pizarro fifty years earlier, and the subse- 
 quent Spanish cruises to Chile. On November 25 
 he reached Mocha Island, off the coast of Chile, 
 not far from the present city of Concepcion. 
 
 The record of the next few months is one long 
 history of plunder. With his single little ship he 
 sailed boldly into the port of Valparaiso, and 
 secured "a certain quantity of the most fine gold 
 of Baldivia." At Tarapaca, going ashore for 
 water, a landing party found a Spaniard lying 
 asleep and beside him thirteen bars of silver. 
 "We took the silver and left the' man," says 
 Drake. Still sailing north they learned that the 
 Cacafuego, the treasure-ship of those waters, a 
 good-sized galleon, had started fourteen days be- 
 fore from Lima for Panama with an immense 
 quantity of treasure aboard. Fourteen days was 
 a long start, but if the Golden Hind could only 
 catch her! 
 
 The little English vessels, built for staunchness 
 and speed, could outsail a Spanish galleon two to 
 one — as the story of the Great Armada showed. 
 
308 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 ten years after — and in March, 1579, when the 
 Cacafuego was within a oonple of days' sail of her 
 home port, the Golden Hind ranged up alongside. 
 The attack was swift and sudden, and, it may be 
 assumed, without mercy, for Drake was not a 
 gentle fighter. Men of his, who had been captured 
 at San Juan de UUoa, had been tortured to death 
 and Drake never forgot nor forgave the Spaniards. 
 
 The amount of treasure taken from the Caca- 
 fuego was known only to three people, her captain, 
 Drake and Queen Elizabeth. There were, how- 
 ever, at least eighty pounds in weight of gold, 
 twenty-six tons of silver ingots, plate and precious 
 stones to a large amount. It took a week to trans- 
 fer the cargo, with the Englishmen on the alert for 
 any sign of a Spanish revolt. "Sufficiently satis- 
 fied and revenged, and supposing that Her Maj- 
 esty, at his return, would rest satisfied with this 
 service," Drake sailed on. It was unsafe to halt 
 at any port in New Spain, but, none the less, at the 
 small port of Guatalco, in Guatemala, the Golden 
 Hmd put in for provisions, water and repairs. 
 
 Drake's next venture was to seek for a strait to 
 the eastward. Others had sought in vain from the 
 eastern shore, he would try from the western. He 
 sailed as far north as the coast of Washington 
 (48° N.), reaching there under conditions of "such 
 extreme and nipping cold . . . that the very ropes 
 of the ship were stiff and the rain which fell was 
 an unnatural, congealed and frozen substance, so 
 that we seemed rather to be in the Frozen Zone 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 309 
 
 than any way so near the unto the sun. . . . Our 
 meat, as soon as it was removed from the fire, 
 would presently in a manner be frozen up. ' ' They 
 turned southward, therefore, and found the land 
 "to be but low and reasonable plain, every hill — 
 whereof we saw many, but none very high — 
 though it were June and the sun in his nearest 
 approach to them, being covered with snow." 
 
 Such weather seems extraordinary in such lati- 
 tudes, but Drake is careful to mention that it was 
 an unprecedented season, "for the natural inhabi- 
 tants of the place . . , used to come shivering to 
 us in their warm furs, crowding closely body to 
 body to receive heat of one another. " The "thick 
 mists and stinking fogs" of which Drake speaks 
 are natural enough to those coasts. 
 
 Under such conditions it was not surprising that 
 Drake should conjecture "that either there is no 
 passage at all through these Northern coasts^ — 
 which is most likely — or, if there be, that it is un- 
 navigable. . . . Nor does the land so much as at 
 any one point trend towards the East, but rather 
 running on continually northwest as if it went 
 directly to meet with Asia," a remarkably ac- 
 curate guess of the formation of Alaska. 
 
 The Golden Rind found a safe harbor at Drake's 
 Bay, thirty miles north of the present San Fran- 
 cisco, but, despite the cold, the English careened 
 and cleaned the vessel and put her in thorough re- 
 pair. The sailors put up tents on the beach, and 
 made gifts to the Indians, signing them to put 
 
310 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 away their bows and arrows. By careful dealing 
 the natural friendliness of the Indians was sus- 
 tained, though Drake saw to it that a strong stone 
 wall was built as a defence around the tents. 
 
 During the weeks they stayed there, the chiefs 
 of neighboring tribes came to visit them, and 
 treated the English sailors to a ceremonial dance, 
 in which "with fury and outrage they did scratch 
 and cut and tore their flesh. We groaned in 
 spirit," writes Drake, "to see the power of Satan 
 so far prevail in seducing these harmless souls 
 . . . directing them, — ^by our eyes and hands lift 
 up to Heaven — ^to the living God whom they ought 
 to serve." When this failed, they sang psalms, so 
 that the Indians "whensoever they resorted to us, 
 their first request was they entreated that we 
 would sing. ' ' 
 
 All expeditions in those days carried healing 
 medicines, ointments and the like, and with these, 
 Drake and his men were able to relieve not a little 
 suffering. The Indians ' offerings of thankfulness 
 were so great that they starved themselves to 
 make them, "so that our General was fain to per- 
 form the office of a father to them, relieving them 
 with such victual as we had provided for our- 
 selves, ' ' a pleasing picture of the hearty good-fel- 
 lowship and occasional tenderness of the rough old 
 Elizabethan sea-dogs. 
 
 "This country," the Journal continues, "our 
 General named Albion, and that for two causes, the 
 one in respect of the white banks and cliffs, which 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 311 
 
 lie toward tlie sea, the other that it might have 
 some affinity, even in name also, with our own 
 country, which was sometimes so called. 
 
 "Before we went from thence, our General 
 caused to be set up a monument of our being there, 
 as also of Her Majesty's right and title to that 
 kingdom, namely a plate of brass, fast nailed to a 
 great and firm post, wherein is engraved Her 
 Grace's name, the day and year of our arrival 
 there, , . . The Spaniards never had any dealing, 
 or so much as set a foot in this country, the utmost 
 of their discoveries reaching only to many degrees 
 southwards of this place." 
 
 Thus, by right of discovery, of exploration and 
 of possession, did Drake secure for England a 
 prior claim in the territory lying between San 
 Francisco and the Canadian border. 
 
 Then, on July 23, 1579, Drake left the coast of 
 California, and, in his single ship, set out home- 
 ward by the route that Magellan and Del Cano 
 had followed in the circumnavigation of the world. 
 
 The English adventurer's explorations in the 
 South Seas were wide and important. He stayed 
 at the Philippines, where Magellan had been 
 slain, and set on thence to the Spice Islands, arriv- 
 ing there November 4, 1579, where he bought a 
 cargo of pepper with the Spanish gold that he had 
 seized. 
 
 On December 10, the Golden Hind struck lightly 
 on a rock at Celebes, but Drake, losing not a min- 
 ute, sacrificed the greater part of his cargo of 
 
312 THE QUEST OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 pepper, got the vessel off without serious damage, 
 and promptly went ashore to make repairs. He 
 was too good a sailorman to leave anything to 
 chance. On March 11, 1580, he reached Java, and, 
 on June 15, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, with 
 57 men on board. On July 16, he reached the coast 
 of Guinea, where he got provisions and water, and 
 reached Plymouth either in September or Novem- 
 ber, 1580. 
 
 Drake arrived to find two countries seething 
 with his deeds. The Spaniards, rightfully pointing 
 out that their countries were not at war, dubbed 
 Drake a pirate, insisted that all the spoil which had 
 been taken from the Cacafuego was but stolen 
 property, and demanded that it be returned forth- 
 with. 
 
 Elizabeth appeared willing to compromise the 
 matter, and ordered the treasure taken to the 
 Tower of London for further consideration as to 
 its disposal. This done, she rewarded Drake and 
 his men lavishly out of the same treasure (which 
 never was returned to Spain), and, actually her- 
 self going on board the Golden Hind, knighted 
 Drake on the quarter-deck of his ship. 
 
 Thus was Drake not only the first Englishman 
 to circumnavigate the globe, but he was also the 
 first commander to return from such a worldren- 
 circling voyage. Viewed as one of the explorers 
 of America, he was the first to sail northward from 
 Magellan's Straits to the southern border of Span- 
 ish exploration in Chile, and also the first to sail 
 
ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 313 
 
 from Cape Mendocino, California, almost to the 
 Straits of Vancouver. More important still, he 
 established prior possession in the State of Wash- 
 ington and Northern California, in the name of 
 England. 
 
 Eight years were yet to elapse before the defeat 
 of the Spanish Armada, and in these eight years 
 several voyages and colonizing expeditions were 
 made — especially under Gilbert and Ealeigh — 
 none of which, however, proved successful. These, 
 both in their authors and in their character, apper- 
 tain definitely to the colonization period, and wUl 
 be treated therein. 
 
 There was thus, in the year 1580, only one colony 
 existing on the soil of North America. That was 
 the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, Florida. It 
 has maintained an imbroken history since that 
 time. 
 
 The history of the ninety years since the First 
 Voyage of Columbus had brought about many 
 changes. French and English claims conflicted in 
 Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. French 
 rights, through Cartier, were established in Can- 
 ada. Cabot, for England, had explored as far 
 south as Carolina. Drake had coasted the region 
 from Cabot's discoveries to Key West, Florida. 
 The Spaniards had explored the whole coast of the 
 GuM of Mexico. On the Pacific Coast, Cabrillo had 
 explored from the Mexican border to Cape Men- 
 docino, California, and Drake, thence almost to the 
 Canadian border. 
 
314 THE QUEST OP THE WESTERN WORLD 
 
 Suoh were the conflicfting rights of discovery and 
 possession when Spain set all her force against 
 the strength of England — and lost. A new Power 
 was to become Mistress of the Seas, and, by that 
 maritime Mistress-ship, was to become the domi- 
 nating influence in the History of North America. 
 
 THE Bin)