< I CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD. CMMISTOFHIBR C0I.ITMB1US. Christopher Columbus AND THE DISCO\ERY OF THE NEW WORLD BV THE t/ MARQuf^'^DK BhLLOV Ti-anslated by R. .S^j&ww+e.v WITH SIX ETCHINGS AND FIFTY-ONE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD UESIGNHD and E\'GRA\1:1) BV Ll:OPOLD FlAMHXG ^m-^:--^--::'' / P H I L AI) H L P H I A Gebbie & Barrie, Publishers 1878 LEG ,5va. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year iSyj, by CEBB!E ^ BARRIL. in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. &€) GltANT, FAIHES rf RODGEIiS, EU-.ctrotypers aud PrhUfra, Philadelphia. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE PARENTAGE FAMILY EARLY ADVENTURES, 9 CHAPTER II. EDUCATION MARRIAGE LEAVES LISBON, 2$ CHAPTER III. REPEATED FAILURES FINAL SUCCESS, 43 CHAPTER IV. FIRST VOYAGE ITS INCIDENTS, 6$ CHAPTER V. OCCUPATION OF SAN SALVADOR AND OTHER ISLANDS, .... 89 CHAPTER VI. F-URTHER DISCOVERIES SAILS FOR SPAIN, II3 CHAPTER VII. TRIUMPHAL RECEPTION I 35 CHAPTER VIII. AMONG THE CARIES 155 CHAPTER IX. A PRISONER 177 CHAPTER X. LAST VOYAGE DEATH, 197 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. ETCHINGS. J PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS, FrolltlspiccC. 4 AT THE MONASTERY GATE, PAGE 47 i> BEFORE THE JUNTA, . 5 I . THE DEPARTURE FROM PALOS, 6j J^THE discoverer's WELCOME I45 X COLUMBUS PROTECTING HIS HOSTAGES, I74 WOOD. -^ GENOA, 9 - THE PROPHETIC VISION, I7 -THE SHIPWRECK OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT, 21 -- THE QUAY OF LISBON, 25 -> THE Y'EARS OF PREPARATION, 27 COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF STATE, 34 ■ FATHER AND SON, 37 THE PARTING BENEDICTION 4O THE GENIUS OF HISTORY 43 IN THE ROYAL PRESENCE, 46 JUAN PEREZ DE MARCHENA, . 48 ISABELLA AT THE SIEGE OF MALAGA 53 THE RETURN TO LA RABIDA, 57 6 ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD. PAGE ■~ THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY, 59 • WESTWARD HO ! 6l i EMBLEMS OF FAITH AND HOPE, 62 i THE SURRENDER OF GRENADA, 65 --THE PHANTOMS OF FEAR, . 7 1 -ITIIE SEA BISHOP AND THE MERMAIDS, 73 -^THE DECK OF THE SANTA MARIA, 78 - THE CONSPIRATORS, Si ■» TE DEUM, 85 A. MAKING READY TO LAND, 89 4 IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR THE CROWN OF CASTILE, 93 i PULLING BACK lOO -" FIGHTING THE IGUANA IO4 ■> A SAVAGE ARCADIA IO8 ■ ALONZO PINZON, • I 1 3 -^ THE FLOWER OF GOLD, . . . . . . • • • •117 ^ THE GRATEFUL CACIQUE, 119 i THE WRECKERS AND THEIR PREY, 125 , COLUMBUS BEFORE THE SOVEREIGNS OF PORTUGAL, 1 3O 4 THE JIEETING WITH FATHER MARCHENA, . . . . . . . I3I xTHE PRIEST AT HIS WINDOW, 1 35 ^ COLUMBUS AND JUAN PEREZ, , '4° .J THE PROGRESS THROUGH BARCELONA, 143 .FAREWELL TO HAPPINESS, '5 I .THE DEPARTURE FROM CADIZ '55 ^ A HORRIBLE DISCOVERY 160 THE SICK BED, '7° THE DEATH OF CAONABO, . . . ^73 THE CHAIN OF GOLD '^77 184 - BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS, THE TIDAL WAVE, 187 -columbus in fetters, '94 -hooted by the mob "97 ^ the welcome of the queen 202 the eclipse, . ^°9 the death of columbus " " alas! the chaplet, 2'7 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. fci^ A French author, who was perhaps too strong a '^ Frenchman, has tried to prove that the family of Christopher Columbus was of French descent. Such a patriotic as- sertion I have no wish to contradict; it even seems to me plausible; but I am bound to confess that no writer of authority has given it his support. However this may be, our hero's family had long been setded in the .State of Genoa at the time of his birth. He was the eldest 9 lo CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. son of Dominic Columbus, a manufacturer of silk goods; his mother's maiden name was Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three younger brothers, Bartholomew and James (Giacomo), who figure prominently in the history of his life, and Pellegrino, wlio followed his father's business, and died young. Columbus had also a sister, ot whom wc know nothing but that she married a dealer in potted meats {charailicr) named Giacomo Bavarello. Both the time and the place of Columbus' birth have given occa- sion to long and learned discussions. Whatever doubt may attach to the former, we must accept as to the latter the testimony of Co- lumbus himself in his will. In this authentic and carefully worded document, he solemnly declares himself born at Genoa, of Genoese parents. In spite of this formal declaration, a number of cities and villages, both in the Montferrat and Plaisantin districts, and in the Riviera of Genoa, still dispute for the honor of his birth. The mari- time village of Gogoleto or Cogoreto, a little way from Genoa, shows with pride the hovel where he first saw the light. But the best writers have finished, where they might better have begun, by agreeing with Columbus himself in fixing his birth in the city of Genoa, about the year 1436. The situation of his family was at this time neither so humble nor altogether so impoverished as might be inferred from some ot the preceding details. Though reduced in circumstances, they belonged to the noblesse. Of this there are many proofs. It is well known, moreover, that in most of the Italian Republics, republics at once mercantile and warlike, no labor, whether of brain, eye or hand, was regarded with the slightest disfavor, if only it were honest and skilful. Just as, at Florence, a gentleman could, without derogation from his rank, be a silk manufacturer, so at Genoa a cloth maker {tcxlor pan HJS PARENTAGE. n nontin) could, without exciting surprise, emblazon his coat of arms on his shop-front. We enter into these details once for all, because Columbus him- self attached some importance to them, even at a time ot his life when his noble birth could add nothing to his popularity and good fortune. In a letter to the nurse of the little Don Juan, he says in reference to Colon el Mozo, reputed to be his relation, "Let them call me what they will, I am not the first Admiral of my family. David the wise king kept sheep, and afterwards he was King of Jerusalem. I serve the same God who exalted David." Later, Ferdinand, in the life which he wrote of his illustrious father, was a little less positive. It was enough for him that Columbus was the greatest admiral -in the world; and while confessing that his rela- tionship with El Mozo had not been authentically proved, he added, "I think there is more glory for us in descending from the Admiral our father, than in inquiring whether our grandfather kept a shop." However this may be, Dominic owned two houses in Genoa, whose location is well known, and in one of which we have every reason to believe that his eldest son was born. He had also a litde landed patrimony in the valley of the Nura, and several small properties in the neighborhood of Ouinto. He was able, therefore, to give his sons a rudimentary education, without which the eldest could never have conceived the idea of his immortal enterprise, nor the two younger have rendered him such effectual assistance. Let us add here, for our readers' satisfaction, that the good father lived long enough to rejoice in the glorious result of these early years of training ; a result more magnificent, no doubt, than he had ever dreamed of, but due in great part to his judicious aftection. We must not suppose that the instruction received by the young ,2 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Columbus was more than rudimentary ; but by the variety of the ob- jects with which it dealt it gave rein to every strong predilection, and especially to that which early showed itself in him. Thus, in the city of his birth, he was taught, together with reading, writing and arithmetic, the first principles of drawing and painting, which served liim well in later life in the preparation of geographic charts. At the University of Pavia, to which he was sent at the age of nine, he learned the Latin tongue, one of the two great keys to knowledge; Aristode's physics, which then were taught as Natural Philosophy ; and under the name of Astrology, he was instructed in surveying, in all then known of Astronomy, and in the fanciful sciences of prog- nostication, of judicial astrology, and of the Cabala. To the same class of studies, over which he passed but slightly, belonged also Geometry. Columbus does not seem to have given to this important branch of mathematical science all the attention which it deserved. His powerful and active imagination, though united In him, as in most of his countrymen, with strong practical good sense, was still the ruling power of his youth ; and his^ scholastic pursuits were soon abandoned for the adventurous life of a sailor. An absorbing passion for the sea will often spring up in a boy's mind even when everything opposes his wishes ; we may judge, then, how It would take possession of a lad born and brought up In such a seaport as Genoa in the fifteenth century. Even In our own time, of all the maritime cities of Italy, Genoa, seen from the sea, still leaves upon the voyager's mind the most lively and lasting impression. Rising like an amphitheatre over one of the most beautiful bays In the world, between mountains of noble outline and soft coloring, clear-cut between the magic blue ol sea and sky, she emerges behind a forest of masts, lifting, story above GENOA. 13 story, her painted houses, her hanging gardens bright with fountains, her hght towers and fantastic belfries, and the glory of her marble palaces. Some part of this magnificence was wanting in Columbus' time. The gardens and the palaces belong to a later date. The city was more warlike and less luxurious than the Genoa of to-day; but the situation of the town, her marble houses, the splendor of her churches, her princely wealth, her renown in war and commerce, and the pride of her inhabitants, had already won for her the name of Genoa la Sziperba. She had played a great part in the Crusades ; she disputed suc- cessfully with Venice the commerce of the Indies ; she had long crushed her rival Pisa, and the young Columbus, before he went to Pavia, must often have passed before the doors of the Bank of St. George, where are still hung the chains of the port of Pisa, broken through by the Genoese fleet. In this same building, too, he must often have admired the Griffin of Genoa, grasping in his talons the imperial eagle of Frederic and the Pisan fox; and under this em- blematical group, have deciphered the motto : " Griphus ut has angit Sic hostes Genua frangit." "As the griffin tears these, so does Genoa break to pieces her enemies." Yet the day was approaching when the Republic of Genoa, abusing her liberty so often won and lost, should be delivered by the traitor Ludovico el Moro into the power of France. The senseless quarrels and strife of parties which were destined in after days to make her indifferent to her son's splendid offer of a new world, could ,4 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. not, Iiowever, affect the youth of the great discoverer. Perhaps they even attracted him, in contrast with the quiet university city of Pavia. But deepest of all was the impression made upon the young- Columbus by the intense maritime activity of Genoa, and by the glory of such naval Commanders and foreign traders as the Dorias, the Fieschi, the Balbi, the Brignole, the Grimaldi and the Durazzos. Among these imperishable names was that of a certain Francesco Columbus, a captain in the naval force of King Louis XI. of France, and surnamed the Arch-pirate. Another Columbus, distinguished from the first by the appellation of El Mozo (the young) had also won renown as a valiant admiral. He was in command of a little squadron equipped at his own expense ; and under the Genoese flag, but at his own risk, he sailed the sea as far as to Gibraltar, making war sometimes on the Barbary coast, sometimes on the Venetian rivals of Genoa. His expeditions, men said, had brought him great wealth. Such remembrances and such examples, kept alive as they were by correspondence with his family, and thrown into brilliant relief by his tranquil and studious life in Pavia, doubtless diverted the lad from his lessons ; and he had hardly acquired the elements of nauti- cal astronomy when he eagerly besought his father's consent to carry his knowledge into immediate practice. With this object he returned to Genoa, where for some months he partook with his brother Bar- tholomew the humble labors of Dominic. We may suppose that the opposition of the latter to the project of his sons (for Bartholomew shared in his brother's wishes) was overcome by the presence at Genoa of one of the illustrious naviga- tors named Columbus of whom we have made mention. At all events Christopher made his first voyage, at the age of fourteen, under the command of the elder Columbus: no small proof of the rela- EARLY ADVENTURES. 15 tionship which the descendants of the Arch-pirate and his nephew were one day to claim with such pertinacity. The ilkistrious Admiral would have been somewhat amazed, when he took the young Chris- topher on board, to hear that he would owe to this recruit the honor of being- known to posterity. Of their expedition together, and, indeed, of the life of Columbus about this time, we know hardly anything. Dates are utterly want- ing. We know that in one of his Mediterranean voyages, he received a wound so serious that he felt the effects of it even in his old aee. He refers to it in a letter dated July 7th, 1503. We know also from Columbus himself that he commanded the Genoese galleys off the Isle of Cyprus, in a war against Venice. He speaks, too, of a voy- age to Chio, in language which gives one a high idea of his powers of observation ; while another story shows him to us as crafty and adroit as Ulysses. An expedition had been sent to Tunis on behalf of King Rene of Anjou, when the Genoese, about 1460, tried to conquer Naples from the House of Aragon for their ally John of Calabria. " It was my fortune," writes Columbus, " to be sent to Tunis by King Rene, whom God hath taken to himself to capture the galley Fernandina ; and when I had arrived off the island of San Pietro in Sardinia, two ships of war and a carrack were with the galley ; which so alarmed my crew that they declared they would go no further, but would return to Marseilles for another ship and a larger force of men. As I had no means of compelling them, I affected to yield to their desires. I changed the points of compass, and hoisted all sail. This was the evening ; and on the morrow morning we were off Car- thagena, while they all believed themselves on the way to Marseilles." We know not in what year Columbus first passed the Straits of Gibraltar; but he tells us that before his first voyage of discovery 1 6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. he had seen Northern Europe and England, and that he had been several times from Lisbon to the Guinea coast. In his Prophecies {Profecias) he writes " From the tenderest age have I been upon the sea, and to this day have I continued to navigate. Whoever gives himself up to the practice of this art must desire to know the secrets of nature here below. Whatever voyages have been made by for- mer men, I too have made them." The longest of these voyages was to Iceland. We shall de- scribe this in its place ; but here we may note, in spite of incredulous historians, that no suggestion of the existence of a new world could have come to Columbus through his Northern expeditions. His true glory does not lie in a discovery whose importance and signifi- cance he died without clearly comprehending, but in the strength of character and of judgment which brought him upon this discovery while he was dreaming of another. It was the harmonious balance of his qualities, the union in him of all the elements of greatness, which has secured for Columbus his place in history. He was withal a man of singular humility. In the darkest hours of discouragement, he was convinced of ultimate success, and bore himself proudly before men ; but he always attributed the conception and the execution of his magnificent designs to the inspiration of Providence. . In his letters and writings are abundant proofs of his piety. Like the Maid of Orleans, the son of the Genoese artisan had visions and prophetic dreams ; like her he heard celestial voices calling him to a great work ; and as Joan, when she crowned Charles VII. in the Cathedral of Rheims, restored the unity of France, so did Columbus, when he bound together the Old World and the New, re- store the unity of mankind. His great discovery always presented itself to him as a religious THE PROPHETIC VISION HIS PORTRAITS. 19 mission. This we know both from his writings and from contemporary accounts. A cogent and picturesque proof is the sketch preserved in the Royal Palace at Genoa, and said to be from the pen of Co- lumbus himself This sketch of a painting or of a fresco represents in allegory the departure of Columbus for the new world. The hero is seated upon a car with great paddle-wheels, which beat against an angry sea. At his side, pointing out and opening the way, is Provi- dcnce ; Religion urges his chariot through the waves ; Ignorance and Envy strive to hold it back. Each figure has an explanatory inscrip- tion, and the sketch bears the emblematic mark which Columbus used as a signature, and in which the etymology of Christopher is made as striking as possible. So is it in the famous map of the New World drawn in 1 500 by Juan de la Cosa of Biscay, the companion of Columbus. At the top of this inestimable record the patron saint of Columbus is repre- sented, according to the legend, bearing the infant Jesus on his shoul- ders across the waters. A learned writer, to whom the history of Portugal, of Spain, and of the New World is deeply indebted, M. Ferdinand Denis, is inclined to think that the artist geographer has given to the saint the features of the illustrious navigator. This pre- sumption is at least plausible; and the likeness in question becomes the more interesting, since no other portrait of Columbus is absolutely authentic. In fact, these portraits are so unlike each other, that our artist, seeking to lose no trait of the original, has been compelled to rely chiefly upon the descriptions given by Oviedo, Gomera, Las Casas, and more especially by Ferdinand Columbus. The first of these says in so many words that " Columbus was a well-made man, strong of limb, of a fresh and ruddy complexion, spotted here and there with freckles." 20 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. It appears also from different passages in Gomera and Las Casas that " the Admiral " was tall, well made, robust and of noble bearing. He had a long face, neither full nor thin ; his complexion was lively, inclinino- to red, with a few freckles ; his nose was aquiline ; his cheek- bones rather prominent ; his blue-grey eyes kindled quickly. " In his youth," says Ferdinand Columbus, " my father had light hair ; but before he was thirty, it had become white." To these details we may add upon good authority that his fore- head was high, his lower lip slightly projecting and his chin dimpled. His eye and ear were exceedingly quick, and his sense of smell ex- quisitely keen. He loved perfumes ; and even on his campaigns, if we trust Oviedo, his linen and his gloves were scented with essences and dried flowers. But there his luxury ended. Sober by inclina- tion and by habit, Columbus may be added to the list of great men who lived chiefly upon vegetables, and preferred water to wine. We may add that his taste for simplicity, a taste too often in harmony with his straitened circumstances, was united with the most scrupulous care of his dress and person, even when he wore the cos- tume of an Associate of the Franciscan order. This detailed and consistent description is not reproduced in a single feature by the extant portraits of Columbus. None of these portraits, consequendy, is now regarded as authentic. It is only by examininof the original authorities that we can form an idea, and attempt to create a likeness of the great navigator. We have given in a condensed form all the facts which are cer- tainly known about this part of his life, dwelling especially upon what he has said himself in his writings. Unfortunately, the details which have been preserved to us concerning this period of his lite are few and disconnected. Many links in the chain are v^'anting, and dates THE SHIPWRECK. 21 are very rare. There is nothing, for instance, which enables us to fix the time of a military exploit too well authenticated and too interest- ing to be omitted here. THE SHIPWRECK OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. Columbus, according to the historian Bossi, commanded one of the ships of his namesake El Mozo in a cruise off the Portuouese 22 CHRISTOPHER COfJ'MIU'S. coast, when at tiic break of day, between Lisbon and Cape St. Vin- cent, appeared four Venetian galleys, returning to Flanders with a rich cargo. In spite of the disproportion of forces, Columbus did not hesitate to attack them ; and the engagement lasted till night-fall ; when the ship to which that of our hero was grappled took fire, and in a moment the conflagration became general. Every one escaped as best he could. Deserted alike by friend and enemy, Columbus sprang into the sea, and by the help of a floating oar which came within his reach, succeeded in swimming to shore, two leagues from the scene of the conflagration. Succored by charity until he had recovered his strength, he determined to go on to Lisbon, where he arrived in a state of utter destitution, but where he met his brother Bartholomew. For this adventure no credible date is assigned ; and we must be content to accept it upon the universal belief of con- temporaries, and its strong intrinsic probability. We know from authentic documents that he arrived at Lisbon in the year 1470. He was now thirty-five; and from this time the de- tails of his life become of historic certainty and importance. The great idea which had long taken entire possession of him, now regu- lated his every action ; and we can no longer separate the man from his work. We have been slow in reaching this point ; but it was necessary for us to become acquainted with the character of the great navigator, and especially with the moral qualities which constitute his true grandeur. "Not the suffering," says Tertullian, "but the cause, makes the martyr." In the discovery of the New World by Christo- pher Columbus we shall find at once the cause, the martyr and the crown. THE QUAV OF LISBON. CHAPTER II. In 1470, the year to wlilch we can refer with certainty the arri- val of Cokimbus at Lisbon, tliat city was frequented by a great number of Italians, tradesmen, mariners, adventurers and artisans of 25 26 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. every kind, some of whom had setded there for life. And not they only, but all the maritime nations of the Old World had their repre- sentatives at Lisbon, as actors or as spectators in the great drama of geographical discovery. The world saw, for the first time, nautical expeditions set forth under the guidance of scientific knowledge. The Portuguese coast, then the most enlightened region in Europe, was seething with a mental and material fermentation to which nothincr in our day presents any analogy. This throng from every nation was gathered together, with some undefined expectation, at a common rendezvous; and, like the Hebrews on the shores of the Red Sea, were waiting for a new Moses to give the signal of departure. It was the place of all others for Columbus. He was in high favor with his compatriots, among whom, as we have seen, he had found his brother Bartholomew. Their meeting was not fortuitous. Although Columbus was naturally attracted by the great maritime activity of which Portugal, under the impulse received from Don Henriquez, was then the centre, we may suppose that the presence of Bartholomew at Lisbon was one reason for his brother's journey thither, and certainly decided him to remain there for awhile. Other ties, yet dearer, were soon to bind him to Lisbon. Columbus, like his brother, was equally skilful as pilot and as draughtsman. To these arts he added that of transcribing and illuminating manuscripts. His industry and technical knowledge enabled him to dispose to advantage both of the originals and of his copies. He was thus enabled to eke out a scanty living. This pause between the two most active parts of his life enabled him to revive and greatly to increase his literary and scientific ac- quirements. The extent of these acquirements is indicated in one of his last writings. "The Lord," says he in his Prophecies, "hath THE YEARS OF PREPARATIOX 27 bestowed upon me an abundant knowledge of navigation; of the science of tlie stars He hath given me what suffices; so also of geome- °^^-'-^.v^ THE YEARS OF PREPARATION. try and of arithmetic. More than this, He hath granted me wisdom and dexterity to draw the spheres, and to put thereupon, in their proper places, cities, rivers and mountains." 28 CHRIS TOP HER COL CMB US. He adds finally, and this passage is especially noteworthy : " 1 have turned myself to all sorts of studies, to History, Chronicles, Philosophy, and other arts of which the Lord hath granted me understanding.'' In this he did not exaggerate. He had, for a man of his time, an immense knowledge of books ; but it was desultory and discon- nected. It appears in all his writings ; in the diffuseness of his style; in the naivete of his language, and in the abundance and wealth of his imagery. From the quotations scattered through his writings we may make out the inventory of his library. We take especial plea- sure in finding there the books which prepared and strengthened him for his search for those lands in the West, the tradition or the presentiment of which goes back to the first ages of history. In the Book of Job, he read of "a land hidden from the eyes of all living, even from the birds of the air, the way to which was known to God only." Esdras, after affirming that the ocean occupies only a small por- tion of the earth, adds in the true spirit of prophecy, " One day shall be broutrht to licfht a land which now is hidden." But among the sacred writings the prophecies of Isaiah w^ere fore- most in Columbus' thoughts. At length the prophet appeared to him in his dreams, and pointing with one hand to the West, confirmed his assurance of a great discovery. To these sacred authorities was united the tesdmony of nume- rous secular writers, poets and philosophers. In Plato the Genoese navigator found the story of Atlantis, and saw in it more than a philosophic romance or die dream of an old man. For him, the At- lantis of Plato, of Solon and of the Egyptian sages was a country separated from the Eastern world by a convulsion of Nature, and one day to be reunited to It by the genius of man. SONGS OF HIS MUSE. 39 Seneca, too, had sung in beautiful and inspired verse, "When the Ocean hath broken her bands in which the terrestrial world lies prisoned, then in future ages shall Thetis unveil to thee a great new land, and Thule shall be no longer the limit of the habitable world." Plutarch had seen this great unknown country reflected in the mirror of the moon ; long before Seneca's time the poetic tradition ran of a huge island lying beyond the Columns of Hercules. There, according to the myth of Theopompus, reigned an eternal spring. There Saturn slept in a deep cave, surrounded by the genii who had served him while yet he reigned over gods artd men; and these genii kept the register of the dreams of their slumberine master, whose visions were the thoughts of Jove. Not one of these details could be disputed, for a man of our world, a sage who had lived in this land of the Meropians, had revealed to Sylla what he had learned from the genii who guarded the sleep of Saturn. To these songs of the Muse who watched over the youth of Columbus, Science and Philosophy, by the mouths of Aristode, of Strabo and of Diodorus Siculus, added more precise information. The mighty Aristotle had said, or had been reported to say, " All these facts prove beyond doubt not only that the earth is round, but that its circumference is not very great. * * * The relation be- tween the islands known to us and the seas which environ them holds also between our continent and the Atlantic. * * * j,^ jj^g Ocean which extends beyond the Columns of Hercules the Cartha- ginians discovered, they say, a desert island covered with forests and pierced with navigable rivers." So Strabo, commenting upon Eratosthenes, had written : " The temperate zone comes back upon itself in the shape of a circle, so that, if the Adantic were not so broad, we could go by the Iberian 30 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. (or Spanish) sea to India, always keeping on the same parallel of latitude." To go by tlie Spanish sea to India ! This great problem, which it was the task of Columbus to solve, had been dealt with more or less by many authors. The breadth of the Atlantic, which had been such a scarecrow to Strabo, was so lightly regarded by the school of Aristotle that Seneca at a comparatively late date hail written in his Nafjiral Questions, " When man contemplates the universe, the majestic course of the stars, and of that celestial region through which Saturn rolls his thirty gears' orbit, he despises the narrow con- fines of his Mother Earth, How far is it from the further coasts of Spain to India? but a few days' journey, with a favoring wind." We are quoting only here and there from the testimony of an- tiquity, to which Columbus, in common with his age, attached immense importance. However great his erudition may have seemed accord- ing to the standard of the time, he did not always quote his autho- rities from the original. Bacon, Averroes, and Martyr d'Anghierra, even Nicolo de Lira, and especially Pierre d'Ailly, an ingenious com- piler, are the names which occur most frequently in his naive com- positions. There are two personages whom he has not quoted, but who must have inlluenced him strongly, the merchant-sailor Conti, and the famous Marco Polo, surnamed Messer Milioue, for his traveller's tales of the gold and jewels of China and Ceylon. The tales of these men consisted in part of facts which they had observed, and partly of marvels which they had taken on hearsay. Their Voyages were the common reading of the time, figuring in all contemporary me- moirs as the chief topics of conversation. Columbus must have read them; and if he did not believe in Polo's cities of gold, with twelve HIS MARRIAGE. ,j thousand bridges (whose number ContI gravely corrects to ten thousand), he might justly suppose that this Cathay, of whose opu- lence the discoverer had brought back golden proof, would at least pay the charges of a new crusade. And this was the real object of the poor Genoese pilot; to discover the shortest route from Europe to India, and to consecrate the treasures obtained by this discovery to the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. While he was sketching the outlines of his great design with a peculiar mixture of prudence and zeal, having, as he said later, "constant intercourse with men of letters, with ecclesiastics and lay- men, Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors," an unexpected circum- stance not only brought about a happy change in his private life, but furnished him with new means of study and of practical observa- tion. About the time of his arrival in Portugal, the little Italian colony attached to the country by the protection of Don Henriquez had just suffered a grievous loss. Barthelemy Mognis de Perestrello, a cele- brated naval commander in the service of the Infant, had just died, rumed by the very recompense awarded to his faithful services. He had been named Governor of Porto Santo, one of the Madeira Islands, and empowered to colonize it, with a grant of great posses- sions therein. But his capital was not sufficient for so great an enterprise ; and a curious disaster ruined the colony and his hopes. The first settlers had brought with them some rabbits. These litde animals multiplied with such rapidity that they devoured every green herb in the island, and rendered cultivation Impossible. In the reduced condition of the family, an offer of marriage from a man, poor like themselves, but of noble birth, was readily accepted. Columbus had become attached to Donna Felippa de Perestrello, and 32 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. had succeeded in recommending himself to her; and the wedding soon took place. It was not a marriage which would commend itself to a prudent matchmaker. The bride had vast possessions in a desert island ; the bridegroom had a world yet to be discovered. They lived under the same roof with the Perestrello family, and Columbus helped towards the common support by his map-drawing and bookselling; but the high social position of his new relations .secured for him the attention of great people, and finally brought him to the notice of the King, with whom he talked of his voyages, and probably of his schemes. In confirmation of his project, the King showed him one day sugar canes, as large as the cane of India, which had been picked up floating off the Azores. Columbus learned moreover that on these shores and those of the Madeira Islands had been driven by the Western winds sometimes huge pines of different species from those of the Old World, sometimes pieces of wood delicately carved in patterns unknown to Europe. Still more ; on the beach of the He des Fleurs had been found two corpses of men totally unlike any of the known races of mankind. This information, which only confirmed his convictions, Columbus received from a skilful and hardy naval commander, Don Pedro Correa, who had married the youngest sister of Donna Felippa, and succeeded to his father-in-law as Governor of Porto Santo. Columbus and his wife went with the new Governor to this island where their common interests now lay, and there was born to them a son, to whom they gave the Spanish name Diego. The hopes which drew Columbus to Porto Santo proved falla- cious; and he resumed his sailor's avocation. He saw the Guinea coast, and the mouth of the Golden River {Flcuve iV Or), and his mind was inflamed by the sight of the Portuguese discoveries in PERFECTION OF HIS PLANS ■ Africa. Many of these discoveries were due to Don Barthelemy de Perestrello, his father-in-law, and were recorded in Don Barthelemy's note-books and maps, which were now in the possession of Columbus. In 1473, he was in Salone, helping to support his aged father, who was still in the same pecuniary straits which had compelled him to leave Genoa. In 1474, a memorable date, he modestly submitted his completed projects to the famous Toscanelli, one of the lights of the New Geography, and found this illustrious savant in full accord with his hopes and belief. By the year 1476, his plans were so perfected in the minutest details that no further modification was ever found necessary. Ac- cordingly, he went back to Genoa, his native city, and from thence to Venice. He laid bare before either State in turn his schemes and expectations, and offered to either the gift of a new world. But his patriotic efforts failed to overcome the prejudices, the pride, and the proverbial economy of republics. He went once again to visit his father at Salone, and then, taking little thought of the adventurers who might profit by the publication of his plans, he resumed the sailor life which solaced him under every disappointment. For he was a true child of the Ocean ; sharing her profoundness of depth and her stormy impulses. His eyes shone with the blue and the fire of the Sea; and he turned from an unfriendly world to the bosom of his mother. We meet him next in Iceland, hundreds of miles from ungrate- ful Italy. There is not a trace, in his notes upon this voyage, of bitterness at his failure. "In the month of February of the year 1477, I sailed more than a hundred miles beyond Tille (Thule), whose southern portion is 34 CHRIS TO J' HER COL CMB US. seventj-three degrees above the Equator, and not sixty three, as some geographers pretend ; and Tille is without the Hne which terminates i ii^S^SSaSS? COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF STATE. the west of Ptolemy. The English, especially the men of Bristol, go with their merchandize to this island, which is as large as England, When I was there, the sea was not frozen, although the tides rise HIS GEOGRAPHICAL BIJ'IXATIO.VS. 35 and fall twent\--six fathoms. It is true that tlie Tille of which Ptolemy speaks lies where he has indicated, and is now called Friesland." In spite of errors of distance and of latitude which, in the present state of geographical science, would be apparent to a child, this passage bears witness to the writer's rare sagacity. He is the first among modern writers to distincruish between two islands of Thule, the smallest and southernmost of which is called Finland, and is the idtivia TJude of Ptolemy and Strabo. To use Humboldt's expres- sion, Columbus had divined what our researches into ancient oeoera- phy have rendered more and more probable. We may here note that Humboldt, in his remarks upon the passage quoted, refuses to admit that Columbus coukl have received in Iceland any information of a nature to encourage him in the pro- secution of his great enterprise. " He might have learned," sajs he, "that the Scandinavian colonists of Greenland had discovered \"in- land, and the Friesland fishermen had landed at an island called Drogeo; but all this news would have seemed to him to have no connection with his projects." The celebrated geographer, Adam of Bremen, no doubt knew of the existence of Vinland in the tenth century, and at a later date Ortelius referred the discovery of the American continent to the Normans of the ninth century; but the works of these authors were not published to the world, the former until long after the death of Columbus, and the latter only ten years before it. Moreover, if he had learned all these facts in Iceland, they would necessarily have influenced his plans, whereas we find him, after his return, submitting those plans to King John and his council just in the same shape in which they were laid before Tos- canelli in 1474. The intelligent successor of Alphonso \^ gave at first to these 36 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. overtures a bc-tter reception than the Senators of Genoa and Venice. Matters went so far that Columbus named his price in case of suc- cess. This price was deemed exorbitant, especially in consideration of his poverty and obscurity; but Columbus refused to abate a jot of it, and resumed his humble occupations with a calmness and in- dustry which still further commended him to the King. In spite of the contemptuous opposition of some of his house- hold, the monarch brought the matter before a Superior Council. It was discussed with much heat, and (a noteworthy sign of progress) was treated altogether as a question of expense. The King seemed willing to incur any sacrifice of men and money; and Columbus was asked to prepare a detailed account of his general and special pro- posals, with reasons and calculations to support them. He obeyed without suspicion, and waited patiently for the result of an examina- tion to which he was not admitted. This examination lasted long. It was still going on, and the litde that transpired concerning it seemed to Columbus to augur well for his hopes, when a rumor spread dirough Lisbon which made him suspend his judgment. A number of sailors, recently returned in sorry plight from some mysterious expedition, heaped ridicule upon the Genoese and his notions. At first in whispers, and afterwards, as they warmed with wine, openly and loutlly, they boasted that they had tried this famous project of Columbus, and had paid dear for their captain's confidence in that adventurer. Their tales were partly true : the commander of these braggarts, a sailor of some reputation, had been furnished with copies of the plans, maps, and notes of Columbus, and had been sent to sea, ostensibly bound for Cape Verde, to rob the confiding Genoese of . his just reward. But it was easier to appropriate the conception of FATHER AND SON. LEAVES LISBON. ^^ Columbus than his will and genius. A few days' navigation west- ward exhausted their courage. A great fear came upon them of the unknown latitudes into which they were steering. A favorin<'- wind seemed to them only to make their destruction more certain, and they blessed the storm which drove them back, and finally cast them again upon the shores of Portugal. No one, according to their captain's account, could possibly have succeeded where he had failed. The Ocean was impassably broad, and none but a fool would deny it. Columbus was firm in his be- lief, but the treachery with which he had been treated determined him to make no further offers to the Portuguese. The King saw his fault too late, and not unjustly cast the blame on his advisers. He offered Columbus all that had been in dispute between them, but in vain ; the great navigator was immovable. He went back to his work and to his studies; and at length, towards the end of 1484, having strong apprehensions that the mission which he had once been eager to undertake would now be forced upon him, he left Lisbon suddenly and quietly, taking with him his young son Diecro. He had lost, to his great grief, the loving companion who had helped him to sustain the burden and heat of the day. He lono-ed for his native air and for home faces; and he went first to Genoa. He found litde encouragement there, for his plans found no favor with the parsimonious ofificers of State ; but he saw his old father again, and settled him comfortably in his little house in the city limits. His duty fulfilled alike to his family and to his ungrateful coun- try, he suddenly determined, for some reason unknown to us, to go next into Spain. Like a bird of passage, which long circles undecided over the same space, and then suddenly shoots away like an arrow in a 40 c/iR/s ToriiiiR COT. UMn us. straic^ht unchaneine Ijath, so had Columbus turned at last to his dis- tant yoal. - iiCUBUC- HIS FATHER'S PARTING BENEDICTION CHAPTER To one who bears in mind the condition of Europe at the end of the fifteenth century, it will seem that Spain was, of all the States of Christendom, that from which Columbus could have hoped the least. True, the monarchs of that country were Ferdinanc Aragon and Isabella of Castile, noted for their piety and for their poverty, to both of which the enterprise of our hero made appeal. But Spain was at that moment engaged in a brilliant and successful 43 44 CUKISTOrUER COLUMBUS. war against the Moors, and was rescuing her soil foot by foot Irom the Moslem. Love of glory and love of gain alike urged her to finish this patriotic work before concerning herself with the conquest and conversion of a distant and unknown people. The Moors and the Arabs were nearer at hand and more redoubtable than the inhabitants of Cipangu and Cathay. The nation and the crown alike were im- poverished by the sacrifices demanded by the war, and had neither men nor means to spare for an expedition so uncertain as that of Columbus. We may suppose that these considerations had not escaped his mind. When he asked of warlike and impoverished Spain what had been refused to him by his native Genoa, by opulent Venice and adventurous Portugal, it was because of a ruler in whom Spain sur- passed them all. He found in Isabella the Catholic the destined le- ver through whom he could move the world. Isabella united in a wonderful degree the strength of a man with the grace and charm of a woman. She seemed chosen by Heaven for the double task of driving the Crescent from Spain and of bring- ing about the discovery of the New World. We must give her husband the credit of sometimes understand- ing her, and of leaving her judgment unfettered. He shared her power while they lived, antl her fame after death. They have gone down to posterity together as the Two Kings. The repulse of the Portuguese invasion, the reestablishment of order in the finances of the kingdom, the growth of national wealth, reform among the clergy and in the convents, the encouragement of Art, of Science and of the belles Ictlrcs; — these are the smallest achievements of their reign. What part of these was due to Fer- dinand we may judge from the history ot Columbus. Versed alike m war, in science and in letters, Isabella was only ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC. 45 the more eager to merit the commendation bestowed upon the Roman nation : Lanam fecit. No other hand than hers e\ er spun the hnen for her husband's use. Her modesty was as great as her intelHgence. At the council board her first desire was to be fully informed ; and once having taken her resolution, she expressed it with grace and dignity. One day, when respectfully blamed for her slowness in prosecuting the siege of Grenada, she plucked a pomegranate, the Spanish name of which is grenada, and, eating it slowly, kernel after kernel, " It is kernel by kernel," said she, " that Grenada must be eaten." Isabella is above all praise. M. de Montalembert proclaims her " the most noble creature who ever reigned over men." Among her contemporaries, Oviedo is lost in contemplating " that splendid soul, that sea of virtues." Others compare her to St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, to St. Theresa, to St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Peter Martyr wrote to one of the most illustrious Romans of the Renais- sance, " Take for a Sibylline leaf, Pomponius, what I am about to tell you. This woman is stronger than a strong man ; she is above humanity, the soul of modesty and honor." Ferdinand's chaplain declares himself unable to paint such charms and such virtues. All the grace, distinction and dignity of the King were present, he says, in a degree yet more conspicuous in his consort. And finally, the Franciscan cardinal Cisneros, celebrated both for his scientific and administrative ability, declares that the sun never shone upon her equal. Cisneros had been not only a member of her Council, but her private spiritual adviser. Before she knew him, however, she had found in the Franciscan brotherhood a Director who was to exert a decisive influence upon the most glorious act of her reigrn. 46 CUR IS TOPiir.R COL UMB us. Juan Perez de Marchena was a Franciscan friar, with notiiing to recommend him but a growing reputation for science and for piety, »x''f>Vj-v\ :'■.■ IN THE ROYAL PRESENCE. when Isabella chose him as her confessor. Like a loyal subject, he obeyed his Sovereign's bidding; but his heart was in the cloister, and he soon obtained the (.Queen's consent to a retirement which C5 m 1=1 ^ ==agt'wi'iii'aiii')iif..';:;;i't SANTA MARIA DE LA RABIDA. 47 suited well his turn for meditation and study. But Isabella was not willing wholly to lose his counsel ; and in his observatory at the monastery of Santa Maria de la Rabida, Juan Perez was often drawn from his researches and his exercises of devotion to answer the let- ters ot his Queen. A more favorable place for astronomical observation could hardly have been found. This convent, lately restored from a ruinous con- dition by a French prince, commands the view southward of a vast sweep of ocean, and northward of the great plain of the Guadalqui- vir and the Guadiana. The monastic community was poor, depend- ing for subsistence in great measure upon a garden, a few vines, and a grove ot huge cypresses, umbrella-pines, and palm trees. One of the latter is still standing, the only tree in the garden of La Rabida which the ravages of time and the ruthless hand of man have spared. At a little distance is Palos de Moguer, a small sea port, now as desolate and forsaken as the monastery which overlooks it and the country around; but in 14S5 it was a place of some import- ance ; and Father Juan de Marchena found at his service the expe- rience of pilots not a few, and even of some men of education, such as Garcia Hernandez, the physician of the comm.unity. One day when Hernandez hatl just made his regular visit to the convent, the Father Superior accompanied him to the gate. His at- tention was attracted to a group outside. A young lad with a fine, noble countenance, but pale and thin, and apparently overcome by fa- tigue, was eagerly devouring some food which the good porter had offered him. Opposite him stood a man, almost in rags and covered with dust, who watched his boy with the tender look of a father. Juan de Marchena, too, was a father, the father of a poor community. Moved by the sight, he came forward, and prayed the stranger to 48 CHR 1 S TOP HER CO L UMB US. take food and drink ; and after his guest had repaired his wasted strength, the good monk, who had recognized in his clear eyes the expression of a noble soul, began to question him concerning his past. REZ Dr/VlARCHEN/^ f--O[0(Ar£A^^ c^^ JUAN PEREZ DE MARCHENA. The stranger answered that he was a Genoese, as his accent had betrayed; that his name was Christopher Columbus: and that having COLUMBUS AT THE MONASTERY. 49 conceived and elaborated a plan for going to India by way of the Ocean Sea, he had come to offer to the Two Kin^s a share in the glory of the enterprise. This naive declaration, which would iiave moved the ridicule of many, excited no surprise in Father Marchena ; he replied that he shared the convictions of Columbus ; that he doubted not that the Two Kings (or at least one of them) would welcome his proposal with joy; but that circumstances were unfavorable for the present, and while waiting for the opportunity, Columbus, he hoped, would re- main with their little community. The offer was accepted in the spirit in which it had been made, and Diego and his father assumed the same day the Franciscan dress. The garb of a Franciscan was not new to Columbus ; from motives of piety and of poverty combined, he had often before assumed it. And here, however impatient I may feel to bring my hero to the execution of his great work, I must ask the reader to pause at this epoch of repose in a life which seems to have had no other time tor rest. Columbus remained for nearly a year at La Rabida ; but the delay in the execution of his plans was apparently borne without im- patience. He had his son with him ; he was surrounded by sympa- thizing and believing friends, and the noble Perez was using all his credit at court to bring his friend's project to a successful issue. At last the happy hour seemed to have come. The Moorish war had brought the Two Kings to Cordova, where they were to re- main a while and rest from their fatigues. Columbus set off for Cor- dova with a letter of recommendation for the Queen's confessor. But his proposals were not even listened to ; he was treated as a visionary, and had the mortification of seeing the Court leave Cor- dova without having obtained even a glimpse of Isabella. Juan Pe- 50 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. rez had been too modest ; he had not sent his friend direcdy to the Queen. While he remained at Cordova, CoUimbus took up again for a living liis art of map-drawing; all the while, however, enlisting par- tisans for his project, and making numerous and powerful friends. The merit of the man shone through his humble circumstances, and obtained for him the hand of a girl of noble birth, Beatriz Henri- quez, by whom he had a son named Fernando, or Ferdinand. This marriage is related to us by the Historiographer Royal of Spain, Antonio da Herrera. It encountered some opposition from the Hen- riquez family; but the extent of that opposition has been grossly exaggerated, for on his very first voyage, when his greatness was yet a question for the future to decide, Columbus took with him a nephew of Donna Beatriz ; and at a later date, a young brother of hers com- manded one of the ships of the third expedition. But the happiness of the newly married couple could not long endure. Columbus did not belong to himself, but to his work. For a while he might forget his task; but the hour of separation soon came, and Donna Beatriz resigned herself to her loneliness with a self-abnegation which showed her worthy of her husband. She de- voted herself to the education of her son, and of Diego, who was left under her charge ; she saw her husband only at long intervals ; and she lived a quiet, but noble and useful life near her family at Cordova. ^ Columbus had not been a year married, when the military court of the Two Kings went into summer quarters at Salamanca. To this city Columbus was summoned in haste by Gonzalez de Men- doza, Archbishop of Toledo and Graml Cardinal of Spain. The Car- dinal's interest had been invoked by friends in Cordova; and a I Q » IN THE ROYAL PRESENCE. 51 personal interview with Columbus removed all scruples and difficul- ties. The obscure Genoese pilot had the honor and the advantage of being presented to the two sovereigns by a personage whose in- fluence and credit were so great that he was called the Third Kine- But at that solemn interview, Columbus had no eyes for any potentate but Isabella. The emotion which the presence of this Queen, the protectress of the Christian faith, excited in the bosom of every fervent Catholic, was increased by her noble demeanor, by the beauty of her features, her abundant yellow hair and sea-gray eyes. The feelings of the great navigator can be left to our reader's imagination. The future was to be his; but the present lay still in the hand of the adversary. His reasoning, which had prevailed with the Queen and made even the King hesitate, produced little effect on an assemblage composed not of geographers, but of statesmen and theologians. Of this latter class, the Dominicans, alone, to the eternal glory of their order, recognized the probability of his theories and his own sincere piety. In their convent of St. Etienne, they offered Columbus the most generous hospitality. Conferences were held there which had, at least, the effect of raising Columbus in public opinion. The King and Queen were evidently favorable to him; and his judges, while they combated his arguments, declared that they could hardly resist the charm of his eloquence. Their opposition to him was founded upon the incoherent and obsolete prejudices of a by- gone day. Some of them declared it was absurd to suppose that a hemisphere could exist where men and animals would have to walk with their heads down and their feet in the air. Others admitted the spherical form of the earth, but saw in it an insurmountable obstacle to the return of the expedition. 52 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. It was easier for Columbus to refute such objections than to persuade the minds of judt^^es who were secretly biased by the sup- posed inopportuneness of his project. Operations against the Moors were soon recommenced, and this celebrated assembly, called together with such difficulty, broke up without reaching any conclusion. But the discussion had effectually confirmed the Two Kings in their favorable opinion; and their liking for Columbus was increased by his active service as soldier and as engineer in the war against the infidels. The siege of Malaga was his first affair. There he saw the heroic Isabella, in shining armor, brandishing the famous sword still preserved for our admiration in the Armeria Real of Madrid. On the blade is incrusted the name of the celebrated armorer Anto- nius. On one side of the hilt is inscribed "Always do I long for honor;" and on the other, "Now am I watching; with me there is peace." Malaga surrendered in 14S7; and Columbus, whose expenses during the war had been repaid to him, and who had been soothed with the most flattering promises, followed the Court to Saragossa, and thence to Valladolid. There he received from the King of Portugal a letter, couched in terms of entreaty, asking for a renewal of their relations, and accepting in advance all the conditions for which "his particular friend" had stipulated previous to the execution of his enterprise. It was now near the end of the year 1488; the war was dragging on its weary length; the Two Kings, no doubt, were well disposed to him, but Columbus felt that this favor did him no good with his adversaries. Under these circumstances, the offer of John 11. must have been peculiarly tempting; yet he answered by a respect- ful but decided refusal. He cherished no rancor against the King of Portugal for an affront for which he had amply atoned; but the ISABELLA AT THE SIEGE OF MALAGA. COLUMBUS DISHEARTENED. 55 chief reliance of the great navigator was on Isabella. The pious en- thusiasm of this Queen seemed to him the surest guarantee, not so much of the means for his enterprise, as of the realization of his ulti- mate designs. The discovery of a Western India was to him only a step toward the delivery of the Holy Land from Mahometan insolence. To the haughty challenge of the Sultan of Egypt, Isabella had answered that she would put Islam between two fires. She had charged, more- over, the two Franciscan monks who conveyed her threats, to announce to the Sultan the surrender of Boza, of which they had been witnesses, and the coming capture of Grenada. Meanwhile the junta, who had been assembled again at Sala- m.anca to pass upon the projects of Columbus, solemnly declared against them as impracticable both on practical and scientific grounds. This declaration, amusing enough in the light of the present day, had no influence on the Queen. She promised Columbus all that he asked; but the execution of her promises was always postponed till the end of the war; and the war seemed interminable. Days, months and years succeeded each other with heart-breaking slowness. There were marches and countermarches, battle and sieges, tedious even to read of, but serving as a measure of Columbus' heroic perseverance. In active warfare his time passed quicker; for he had the excitement of danger, and he exposed his life as freely as the meanest soldier. But the festivals and public rejoicings were out of keeping with his mood, with that hope deferred which made his heart sick. At length he determined to go back to the monastery, and find consolation with the Father Superior. Four years had passed since their separation. Again the kiss of peace was given, and the con- vent opened wide its gates to the troubled spirit of the great navi- 56 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. gator. We need not describe the sorrow of the good Father, who felt that he himself was partly responsible tor the fruitless efforts of his friend. But though Columbus found no fault with Isabella, in whom he had from the outset an implicit belief, and the embarrassments of whose position he understood, he saw that circumstances might long be adverse, and was inclined to repair either to England, where through his brother Bartholomew he had formed several connections, or to the court of Charles MIL King of France, who had lately given his proposal a favorable reception. Father Marchena did not hesitate to combat these projects. He reminded Columbus of the youth and fickleness of Charles VIII. and of his enmity to Italy; an enmity which even then was menacing the navigator's native country. In France, too, all his labors must be begun again. If a new Joan of Arc could be found for his protec- tion, he must remember that Joan of Arc had been burned at the stake, without an effort on her countrymen's part to save her. Nor was Father Marchena alone in pleading his country's cause. During the absence of Columbus, the powerful influence ot Juan Perez had raised him up friends and follow'ers as by a miracle. The physician Juan Hernandez not only avowed his belief in the project, but asked and obtained the favor of being on board on the first voyage. Not less zealous and useful was Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of the best navigators and richest owner of privateers in Palos, who offered to defray a large part of the expenses of the expedition. Such flattering assurances of help could not but soften the mood of Columbus. One day, seeing him disheartened, Juan Perez, who had taken it upon himself to write directly to the Queen, showed Columbus the THE RETURN TO LA RABIDA. 57 encouraging answer which he had just received, and by which he was summoned to court. Cohmibus allowed himself to yield ; and at his first sign of relenting, the Father Superior borrowed and saddled a mule, and set out at midnight, alone and without a guide. In this THE RETURN TO LA RABIDA. manner he traversed near a hundred leagues of a country recently conquered from the Moors; and arrived at last, exhausted indeed, but safe and sound, before Grenada, now beleaguered by the Two Kmgs. The good monk, too. had a siege to press. He was admit- 58 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. ted without delay to the presence of Isabella, and wrote to Columbus the same day, " I came, I saw, the Lord conquered." For Isabella not only renewed to Perez the assurances she had given to Columbus, but summoned the navigator to her presence in pressing terms of courtesy, and with the promise of paying ail the expenses of his journey and his stay. An event of still better augury was the fall of Grenada Columbus came just in time to see the Crescent pale before the Cross, and the keys of the city surrendered to the Spanish sovereigns by Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings. The triumphs of his religion, which he hoped to extend beyond the limits of the civilized world, filled Columbus' heart with joy ; but the lovely prospect proved again a 7nirage. The junta, again con- vened in haste, did not venture to treat the Queen's protege with dis- dain ; but, relying upon the more hesitating belief of the King, it rejected absolutely the conditions which Columbus had stipulated for himself in the event of success Like the minister of state, who, at the height of his favor, kept in a secret closet his shepherd's coat and crook, Columbus, even when appearances were brightest, had not parted with the faithful mule which had brought him to Court He made no complaint, and informed no one of his intention, but mounted sadly and rode away to Cordova, to make his preparations for departure, and to bid adieu to his family; he returned once again to Grenada, where nothing had changed for the better, and took the road to France, bidding in his heart an eternal farewell to Spain. His faith in Isabella was gone. He was wrong. He had not gone two leagues from Grenada, and was about engaging his saddle-horse for the journey upon the Pinos Bridge, when an officer of the royal guards, glittering with cm- broidery, galloped up at full speed, stopped before him, and, dis- THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY. 59 mounting, respectfully offered him, witli uncovered head, a packet sealed with the arms of Aragon and Castile. THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY. Columbus, ac- cording to the popu- lar version, refused at first even to ac- quaint himself with the contents of a missive which could no longer affect his resolve. But the name of Isabella constrained him He opened the packet, and found therein no empty promises, but the draught of Letters Patent, according to him all which he had asked. We shall soon hear him enumerating the honors and privileges conferred on him by the Queen ; for it was to her alone that he owed this simple ac- ceptance of the conditions on which he had so manfully insisted before the Junta. To whom was due this sudden and decisive intervention of the Queen ? We need hardly say it was to Juan Perez. The o-ood Father no sooner learned the Junta's decision, than 6o CHRISTOPHER COLUMJWS. without wasting words in a vain effort to alter the resoUition of Co- himbus, he went directly to Isabella. In her presence, supported by the faithful Ouintanella and the beautiful Duchess of Moya, whose name should be inscribed on these pages in letters of gold, the courageous Franciscan pleaded the cause of genius ; not against Isabella, who was already persuaded, but against Ferdinand, who placed his objections only on the score of an exhausted treasury. This had in truth been the real obstacle from the outset. But the Queen, by a happy inspiration, offered to pledge the jewels of her crown to defray the cost of the expedition. The King yielded gracefully to her will, but threw upon the crown of Castile all the risk and peril of the enterprise. Luiz de Sant-Angel did better. He was Receiver of the Ecclesiastical Dues of Aragon; he left the crown of Castile its diamonds, he refused the Queen's pledge, and engaged to advance all the necessary expenses. Meanwhile Juan Perez had set off for Palos, blessing the name of Him who holds in his hand the hearts of Kings and Queens. Scarcely a month after his return to the monastery, Columbus rejoined him. In his possession were Letters Patent authorizing his expedition, to- gether with gt " Letter of Privilege," raising him to the rank of Grand Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and conferring on him the title of Don. It was also provided that the port of Palos, from which were due to the crown two caravels, armed and fully manned, should be the place of embarkation, and the community of that city were allowed ten days to make ready. This latter clause was exceedingly unpopular; and the very sailors who, the evening before, would all have vouched for the success of Columbus, now, when they were asked to help him, showed a repug- nance almost amountinir to revolt. WESTWARD HO! 6i This last effort of the adversary, as Cohimbus called it, was greatly annoying to the newly created Admiral. But his better angel was in the ascendant. The authority and the persuasions of Juan Perez and his monks recalled the rebellious to their duty, and calmed their foolish terrors. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, whose friendly disposition WEST^AfARD HO! has already been noticed, was a most important ally. He and his two brothers finally decided to assist, with their means and by their personal example, in the manning of the caravels and' in their adven- turous cruise. From this time all went smooth. Difficulties vanished, murmurs ceased, friends and relations listened to reason. Officers and sailors put themselves in readiness; their business, their religious duties,— all, to use the nautical phrase, were cleared. It was now the early morn- ing of Friday, August 3d, 1492. Columbus, having kept his vigil of arms at the monastery, went down to the harbor through a tearful 62 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. and excited, but respectful throng. He hailed the Pinta; and standing erect on the poop-deck, his sonorous voice bade set all sail "in the name of Jesus Christ." The convent bell in the distance rang the morning mass. Juan Perez, from the summit of the cliff, sent a parting benediction to liis friend. The breeze blew fresh from the east. The three ships passed the bar of the Odiel, now often shown to wondering pilgrims; the sky and the sea were alike propitious. The last difficulty had been overcome. THE SURRENDER OF GRENADA. CHAPTER IV. "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Most noble, most Christian, most virtuous and potent princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the islands of the sea, our sovereign lords: In this present year of 1492, after your Highnesses had brought to a conclusion 65 66 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. the war against the Moors who bore rule in Europe, and had ter- minated that war in tlie great city of Grenada, '■' '^ '^ '=' where 1 saw tlie royal banners of your Highnesses floating^, by force of arms, over the towers ot the Alhambra, and where also I saw the Moorish king come down to the city gates to yield himself up and to kiss )our Highnesses' hands. * * * * Presently thereafter, in the month now instant, and after the tidings which I had given to your Highnesses of the countries of India '■' * ''' '•' you de- termined as Catholic Christians and as lovers and propagators of the holy Christian faith, to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said countries of India, to see the princes and the peoples thereof and the lands possessed by them, and the state of all things therein, and the means whereby might be worked their conversion to our holy religion. Your Highnesses commanded me not to go eastward by land, * * * •"'= but on the contrary to take the Western route, by which we know not positively to this day that any man hath passed. Therefore your Highnesses bade me set sail with a sufficient equipment of ships and men for the said countries, and upon this occasion, of your great grace, ennobled me, so that hence- forward I should call myself Don, and should be Grand' Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and Viceroy and Perpetual Governor of all the islands and countries discovered and conquered by me in the said Ocean Sea; and you decreed that my eldest son should succeed me, and that it should be thus from generation to generation forever. * '" '" * I came then to the town of Palos, which is a port of the sea, where I made ready three ships of a fitting size for such an enterprise, and sailed from the said port, well furnished with much provision for the voyage and with many sailors." Thus began the precious Memoirs of Columbus, which his friend. m Q ^ © THE SIZE OE THE FLEET. 67 the worthy but somewhat stupid Las Casas, unluckily abridged, giving us the original text only of a few parts, among others of the commencement. This latter fragment is the more valuable, as it confirms the sagacity of Columbus in two points. The first is liis careful enumeration and insistance upon the rights and tides accorded to him. The second relates to a point on which many well-intentioned historians have represented him as blindly venture- some. In fact, many writers seem to have thought that they would add to Columbus' glory by exaggerating the small size and bad con- dition of the ships in which he undertook his first voyage of discovery. The truth is now better known on this head, as it is on many others; and it appears that Columbus did nothing imprudent, considering his aim and the circumstances in which he was placed. It might, indeed, be foolish for an Admiral of our own time to undertake, with such scanty means, so hazardous an expedition; but a navigator of the fifteenth century could have demanded no better equipment. The Santa Maria, which Columbus commanded in person, and which he often wished of smaller burthen, was flush decked, with double deck, fore and alt. She was four-masted, with two sails square- rigged, and two lateen-rigged, and her keel was ninety feet long. She had a crew of sixty-six men, the most important of whom were Diego de Arana, a nephew of the Admiral's wife, who went as Grand Alguazil of the squadron, and four other royal functionaries, one of whom, Bernardin de Tapia, was a historiographer who tried in vain to be an historian. Next in rank came two lieutenants; Nino, a capital sailor and a man of great firmness; Juan Perez Matheos, whose head was as 68 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. bad as his heart; Roldan, as worthless as he, and destined to betray the Admiral; then several officers of lower grade, among whom was Juan de la Cosa, afterwards celebrated by his hydrographic under- takings; then an interpreter, who spoke all languages except those which he would have to interpret; and finally two enthusiastic friends of Columbus, who were serving as volunteers, or, as they would now be termed, amateurs. Several of the crew were Genoese ; two were Portuguese, one an Irishman, and one an Englishman. Not one was from Palos; either because of Columbus' remembrance of the opposition which he had encountered, at the last moment, from the inhabitants of that city, or because the townsmen preferred serving under the orders of the Pin- zons, their compatriots. The Pinta and the Nina were decked only fore and aft, like most caravels. The elder of the brothers Pinzon commanded the former, having as lieutenant his brother, Francis-Martin, and as sur- o^eon, our old friend Garcia Hernandez, the friend of Perez de Marchena, and one of Columbus' first and warmest disciples. The crew of the Pinta consisted of thirty men. That of the Nina was but twenty-four strong; but by Columbus' own showing, and as the event proved, she could carry four times as many. The Nina was commanded by Vincent Yanez Pinzon. Like the Pinta, she was at first lateen-rigged, but afterwards the sails were changed to square ones. All the ships were provided with artillery according to their size, and with a year's provisions. Their equipment was such that the Admiral had declared them, as we have heard, well-adapted for the enterprise in hand Concerning one of them, however, he had enter- tained fears which were justified on the third day out. On the si.xth AT SEA. 69 of August, when they were more than sixty leagues from Palos, a heavy surge struck the hehii of the P/n/a with such violence as to render it useless. This it is believed, was the fault of the ship- wrights, who hoped that this accident, which they foresaw must happen, would cause the abandonment of the expedition. The Ad- miral strongly suspected that the injury was not wholly due to the waves. He steered at once for the Canaries, by a reckoning opposed to that of the best sailors in the squadron, and dropped anchor off Teneriffe, after a rapid voyage. But though his superiority in nautical knowledge was now estab- lished, the inconvenience and danger of the stay were none the less great. The King of Portugal, who saw the honor of the enterprise passing to a rival monarch, had time to send out three caravels^ with orders to put every obstacle in the way of the voyage, and, if ne- cessary, to proceed to violence. The character of the Portuguese sovereign was well known to Columbus; but this new instance of his treachery was brought to light by one of those rencontres, so frequent in the history of the great discoverer, and in which he always recog- nized the manifest protection of Providence. The Piiita had been repaired, and the squadron amply furnished with fresh provisions, had set sail, in spite of the feeble and shifting breeze, when, opposite the island of Ferro, the Admiral learned from the Commander of a ship which had just left that island by what a danger he was threatened. The calm which kept him in the neigh- borhood of the enemy added to his peril. He was not a man to fear the shock of battle; but like all truly great men, he did not love danger for danger's sake; and the most glorious victory would in this case have so damaged his ships that they could not proceed on their enterprise. It was necessary at all hazards to avoid an engagement; 70 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. though his crew would probably have welcomed it as the alternative of the dreaded voyage of discovery. To the stagnant sea and slueffish breeze vvas now added, to increase their iorebodini/s, tiie sight of an eruption Ironi the Peak ot Teneriffe, which vomited cas- cades of flame and black whirlwinds of smoke. To calm their tears, Columbus recalled to his crew the harmless eruptions of Etna and Vesuvius, which some ol them had seen, and bade them not to lose heart on account of the calm, but to put their trust in Him who maketh the wind to blow where He will ; and in fact, upon the mornmg of the second day the wind set in from the north-east, and had soon borne the three caravels out of reach ot the burning mountain, and far away trom the treacherous island. As to the piratical barks sent by the King of Portugal, Columbus knew well by experience that they would not dare to pursue him in the direction in which he was now sailing. Between him and them were already whitening the first billows of those immense and track- less seas of whom all the world but himself stood in awe. He had reached the limit where the boldest stopped; and to him it was but a point of departure tor the unknown. Here the voyage of discovery was really to commence. Here opened that great book on every page of which the imagination of mankind had displayed alike its longing and its horror tor the un- known, in emblems of pleasure or of fear, of sublimity or grotcsqucnc, according to the spirit of each age and generation. Greece had drawn upon its leaves, in a few classic outlines, the half-effaced imprint of her genius and beauty. The Orient of the Caliphs spread out there the artful confusion of its arabesques, its dogmas and its tales. India and ancient Egypt portrayed their jmo cessions of brute-gods and fish-gods, and flower-goddesses floating on THE PHANTOMS OF FEAR. PHA N TO M FR A R S. 72, seas of milk and wine, from whence arose the fatal beautiful sphinx. Then came the Middle Age, and with its finger dipped in blood and ink, drew upon the pages myriads of spectres and demons ; and called its work, on all the charts of the time, the Sea of Darkness. On this sea. over which hung perpetual twilight, fading into dark- ness towards the West, wandered, swam, circled, or glided all the mon- strous children of Fear. The immense nautilus with mem- branous sails, which with one blow from its living oar could have capsized the Santa-Maria ; the sea-serpent with crest of cock, fifty leagues in lenofth: Homer's sirens, constantly pursued by the cruel water- THE SEA BISHOP AND THE MERMAIDS. monk {moine-maj-iii) in whom the Breton sailors still believe; and the fearful sea-bishop, with his phosphorescent mitre. Harpies and winged monsters skimmed the surface of this motionless sea, choosing their prey 74 CIJRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. from the troops of sea-lions and tigers, of sea-elephants and hippo- campi, who grazed among the vast meadows of aquatic herbs, from . which no ship could have extricated herself. And even this was comparatively nothing; with skill and boldness, and great good fortune, one might perchance escape unharmed; but after evading the famous sea-unicorn, which with its spiral lance could have pierced the three caravels at a blow, there remained to be con- fronted foes and dangers too great for the strength of man. From the midst of this chaotic ocean rose a colossal hand, covered with hair and armed with claws; the hand of Satan, the Black Hand. Of this there could be no doubt, as this hand was portrayed on all the maps of the time. From the bottom of the watery abyss rose at regular intervals the mountainous back of the kraken, like a gatherinor island; an island, some said twice, others thrice as large as Sicily. This immense polyp, furnished with innumerable suckers, any one of which could have stopped short the Pinta as she ran before the wind, rose to the surface every day, spouting from its nostrils two columns of water si.x times as high as the Giralda of Seville. Then by a tremen- dous inhalation of air, it created a wliirlwind in which the Ni7ia would have spun around like a top. But the poor kraken was not suffered to disport itself on the surface of the waters. A hand of iron, the Black Hand, plunged it again into the abyss, and the double movement of this living lungs of the globe caused the phenomena of the tides. The kraken was not malignant ; but it could not be denied that his enormous dimensions made him somewhat inconvenient for Colum- bus' three little ships to encounter. But if this danger could be avoided, and if the Arch-fiend did not dare to lay his Black Hand upon the squadron whose flag bore the holy emblem of our Saviour FEARS AND TRADIT/OXS. 75 on the Cross, and wliose patron saint was the Holy Virgin, what escape could there be from the terrible double-headed eaele. with wino-s of such enormous circumference; or from the formidable roc, whom an Arabian traveller had seen carrying in its claws a vessel manned by a hundred and fifty men ? " Nor was this traveller the only witness to the existence of this fearful bird. Two sailors on board of the Pinfa. who had long been prisoners in the hands of the infidels, had known at Samarcand the famous Sindbad, celebrated through all the east ; and had heard him swear that no reward could tempt him to essay the Sea of Darkness, the home of the monster, where it lay in wait for its human prey. These fables and others like them, for which the sailor of our day has substituted Mother Carey's chickens and the Phantom Ship, were not regarded by Columbus with the absolute disbelief of a modern. He was even surprised that the sailors, in spite of their superstition, had consented to a voyage through these regions of gloom. He was well nigh sure that the event would soon dissipate these illusions; and as he sailed westward, the sights and sounds of the voyage were assuredly the reverse of diabolic. Before any of his comrades had noted the difference between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Columbus, gifted with powers both of keen observation and just refiection, had felt that he was In a New World. A temperature less variable, and constantly refreshed by a light breeze; an atmosphere impregnated with the life-giving smells of the sea, and with a magnetic current whose power was soon to become manifest over the needle of the compass; waters salter, more crystal- line, and more phosphorescent ; skies more glowing by day, and revealing ever new stars by night: these were some of the phenomena 76 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. which gladdened his poet-heart. He hardly slept; but, sitting or standing on the poop-railing, his eyes on the astrolabe or the tiller, with the lead or the pen in his hand, throwing his soul into every detail, wondering, calculating, praying, working, writing, he kept his log-book with the punctuality of a professional pilot. Indeed, after the 9th of September, he kept two logs. One of them, full of e.xact and graphic detail, was reserved for his own eye. In the other, which was open to the officers and crew, their distance from the Old World was systematically understated. This precaution had become indispensable. The superstitious terrors so promptly banished by the smiling calm of sea and sky were succeeded by other forebodings, to which the imperfect science of that day could find no answer. Even the more enlightened members of the expedition, such as Garcia Hernandez, the brothers Pinzon and Juan de la Cosa, who had no fears of the difficulty of the homeward voyage, caused by the con- ve.xity of the globe, and who did not show the apprehensions of many theologians and some few among the sailors, that, on passing a cer- tain point, they would fall into the moon, by the displacement of their centre of gravity: — even these men had a lingering fear of hindrance from "that pear-shaped protuberance to the northwest of the Ocean Sea, at the summit of which was the Terrestrial Paradise." Columbus himself shared the belief on which this fear was based. An additional cause of apprehension was the steadiness of the wind from the East, which seemed to be characteristic of these lon- gitudes, and which would render the return exceedingly difficult. Moreover, of the many evil reports which had been spread con- cerning the Western Hemisphere, some might still be true ; that Grassy Sea, for instance, vaguely described by the ancients, might VARIATION OF THE COMPASS. jy not the banks of marine herbs along which they had already coasted be only an oudying district of it? Finally, the compass itself— that marvellous guide, recendy dis- covered, but already established as infallible— the compass itself had varied! How could they trust themselves henceforward, in countries where the laws of Nature ceased to operate? Fortunately, Columbus had an answer for everything. The vari- ation in the compass had taken him by surprise, and for a while he had kept it a secret; and by the time when he saw it discovered, his readiness had suggested to him a daring and plausible explana- tion. " It was not that the magnetic needle had lost its virtue, but that the polar star had altered its position in the heavens." It Columbus himself had been the dupe of his explanation^ we might be pardoned a smile ; but we find that in his note-book, he has stated, in a scientific manner, the knotty question which, before his crew, he cut like an Alexander, But, as we have already said, he is rather to be compared to the son of Laertes than to the son of Philip. Like the wise pro- tege of Minerva, he diligently practised the maxim : " Help thyself, and Heaven will help thee!' His explanation of the curious behaviour of the compass was equal to any of the artifices by which Nemo imposed on the stupid Polyphemus, and his device of a double log- book leaves far behind the most subtle stratagems of Ulysses. For the rest, like the wily Greek, he was in command of men so far his inferiors in courage and intellitjence that he was obliged to treat them like children. They would have become unmanageable, as it was, but for the strokes of good fortune which he had deserved by his self-reliance. All had gone well during the first days of the cruise, from the ■jd, CHRIS TOPIIIiR CO L UMB US. time of Icavint^ the Canaries. Terror had given place to an overvveenino: confidence, which exaggerated the proximity of the strange countries they hatl come to seek, and the ease of ap- ^ proaching them. From the 14th of September, the day following that on which had been noticed the deflection THE DECK OF THE SANTA-MARIA A RAY OF HOPE. 79 ot the needle, tlie atmosphere became so warm and balmy, and the mornings especially so soft and radiant, that Columbus compared them to Andalusian weather; nothing was wanting, he said, but the nightingale's song. The nights, too, were delicious. The stars shone clear, and there was a constant apparition of brilliant meteors. One of them, by its size and the unusual length of its vaporous wake, gave the sailors some affright ; but the Admiral saw in it a wondrous branch of fire, a celestial palm, the presage of an approaching triumph. Numerous indications seemed to confirm the omen. On one day, the sailors aboard the Nina would see a sea-swallow or a ring- tail flying past ; and it was well known that such birds never were met with more than twenty-five leagues from shore. The next day, birds of the same species would be seen flying westward ; and Martin Alonzo Pinzon would set all sail in the direction of their flight, hoping that the Pinta would be first to make that land which was still so far distant. The further they sailed, the more did the signs of land increase. Singing birds came to perch on the yards and in the rigging ot the masts, which they took for floating trees. Their twittering did not affect Columbus alone. The hearts of his crew opened to the pre- sence of smiling hope. The marine plants now were covered with living shell-fish. One morning, a number of boobies, flying towards the south-east, passed over the Santa Maria, and the Admiral, sharing the common illusion, called attention to the supposed fact that all the birds of this species sleep on land, and seek the sea at daybreak in search of iood ; there must, then, be land to the north-west; but in spite of these indications, and of the prayers of his followers that he would change his course in reliance upon them, he continued to pursue the route 8o CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. to India. In vain they insisted, in vain they pressed him: "The weather is fair," said he, " and, if it please God, we will see all this on the way home." As he pronounced these last words with the confidence which never deserted him, several sailors shook their heads in sign of doubt ; and among- them the lieutenant Matheos, whom Columbus had already learned to consider as the worst of the crew. To the Admiral's stern look he ventured to make answer that the persist- ence of these trade-winds, a phenomenon then so little known as not to have received a name, would certainly render their return impossible. Columbus, according to his custom, made no answer, except to repeat " with God's help." The lieutenant smiled ; but not long afterwards, he was put to shame by the arising of a strong breeze from the west. Soon, however, a new cause for apprehension arose. The ships had now entered into the region of those enormous banks of fucus, whose surface is seven times as large as the kingdom of Spain. Encumbered as they were by this stagnant ocean, they were still further embarrassed by a dead calm, which totally arrested their progress, and threatened them prospectively with all the horrors of famine. This trial of courage was doubly strenuous, for the fucus-banks had figured vaguely among the traditions of the Sea of Darkness. But, once again. Providence came to the help of the great navigator, against the lamenting, protesting, half-threatening Matheos ; while yet no breeze was blowing, of a sudden the sea was moved into billows, as if its sluggish depths were stirred by a submarine tempest. The first effect of this jjhenomenon was frightful enough ; for even Matheos, who believed not in God, believed in the devil ; he MATHEGS CONFUTED. gj believed not in the genius of Columbus, but he believed in the kra- ken, and trembled at the vision of the Black Hand outlined against the red sky of sunset. THE CONSPIRATORS. But soon the breeze began to blow from the north west ; the prows of the caravels broke their weedy chains ; the litde fleet was 82 C/IRIS TOP HER COL UMB US. sailing- through a clear expanse of ocean ; the crew hailed with joy new indications of the Promised Land ; the conspirator, Matheos, laughed at his fears ; and the Admiral wrote in his book these sim- ple words, fortunately preserved by Las Casas : " Thus hath the great ocean done me service in need ; a thing never before seen save in the times of the Jews, when the Egyptians set forth in pursuit of Moses, who delivered the children of Israel from bondage." But the Spaniards of Columbus, like God's people of old, were ungrateful and hard to guide, and prone to regret the flesh-pots of Egypt. No sooner were they delivered from the superstitious fears which had beset them since their departure, than their restless and suspicious minds turned to the protracted length of the voyage, and their fearful distance from home. And nevertheless, on the first of October, while they believed themselves but five hundred and eighty-four leagues from the Canary Islands, they were in reality seven hundred ami seven leagues away. Columbus had made more headway than he had expected at the outset; he believed that only one day's sail lay between him and India. His error arose from a false estimate of the diameter of the earth ; but a large portion of his associates suspected him already of wilful deception. Their high opinion of his intelligence forbade them to believe that he himself had been so widely astray in his computa- tions ; and they intimated that he had knowingly exaggerated the facility of his enterprise. Appearances were certainly against him ; and his coolness in face of the repeated disappointments which en- raged or discouraged the most valiant among the crew, lerrt counte- nance to the general suspicion. With less heroism, perhaps, he would have inspired more confidence; but greatness of heart is a quality CONSPIRACY. 83 difficult to conceal. The world was in arms ao^ainst this noble soul ; and the combat was one which, on a smaller scale, is waeed in the bosom of each of us. On one side was a hero, a eenius, the cham- pion of Faith, of Science, and of Light; one of those serene dragon- slayers of whom Mythology made gods, and Christianity arch-angels ; on the other was Matter, the eternal Typhon, with its blind, violent forces, which found recruits even in the camp of its adversary. And the most active recruiter was Matheos. Apart from the prejudices which have clustered around his name, impartial historians have testified to his perfidy: and we cannot doubt that he was the soul of the conspiracy against the Admiral. This conspiracy e.\isted in every one of the vessels, apparently with the connivance of the brothers Pinzon, who did nothing to crush it. It showed itself at first by the relaxation of discipline. The Ad- miral was still obeyed, though with visible repugnance; but his name was bandied with the grossest equivalents of the word impostor. He was openly murmured against; and they even went so far as to beg him to go no further in an enterprise which would lead to inevitable destruction. He resisted with his usual firmness ; and when the malcontents had given up all hope of shaking his resolution, they began to conspire his death. It was agreed that, at a day and hour fixed, he should be quietly [accortamente) cast into the sea. "This dreamer," they would say on their return, "fell into the water, like the astrologer of the fable, while he was watching the course of the stars." These details, unhappily, are authenticated ; but it does not appear that there was any open attempt to carry out the criminal design. The fact of the conspiracy is well established, but the story of an open 84 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. rebellion has been confuted: and with it must fall to the ground the legend of a compromise accepted, or rather asked by Columbus. Trois jours, leur tlit Colomb, et je vous doniie tin monde. "But three days," said Columbus to them, "and I will give you a world." Columbus never said anything of the kind, as any one will know who has had the honor of commanding a ship. Against this felicitous but improbable verse, we have the absence of contemporary testimony, and the silence of the Admiral, whose Memoirs barely mention the insubordination, but say not a word of any revolt. Yet it might well have come to this point, had not convincing tes- timony of their approach to land saved the expedition, and with it humanity, from the shame of a crime which would have long retarded the progress of the race. On Thursday, the i i th of October, there was found floating in the sea a branch with flowers and red fruit, antl, for still more cogent proof, a stick cut and curiously carved by the hand ot man. The day passed in joy and congratulation. Columbus declared that land would be in sight on the morrow. Night came at last, and through the thick darkness, the Admiral himself was the first to perceive in the west a light, to which he called the attention of a few in whom he trusted. Then he brought together the crew, and with feelings which may be imagined, he ordered the Salve Regiua to be sung. The caravels were sailing slowly and with great caution, except LAND! 85 the Pinta, which was still under full sail, when from her deck a cannon shot thundered across the profound silence. Land had been signalled by a sailor of the Pinta named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo. The Admiral fell upon his knees ; and with his hands raised to heaven, and tears streaming down his cheeks, his officers and sailors kneeling around him, he solemnly repeated the Te Dann. Then, having prayed, he rose to his feet ; while all the crew, still kneeling, with Matheos at their head, kissed the hands of the Admiral, the Grand Admiral, Don Christopher Columbus, Viceroy and Per- petual Governor of all the lands discovered in the West. TE DEUM. . -K-^- w ■■'-.¥p'^ i^v CHAPTER V. Jac!./: isiltn tjicC MAKING READY TO LAND. CHAPTER V. The rest of the night Avas passed on board of tlie three caravels In a manner which may be easily conceived. Few could sleep ; they were kept awake by the excitement and pleasure of the arrival. Some of our readers may remember the feeling with which, 89 90 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. after a Ion_f^ and perilous voyage, they greeted the shores of a foreign land ; antl these longitudes were for nine-tenths of the Admiral's companions a region as marvellous as the Milky Way. The ships, as a matter of precaution, were brought to. Each man was furbishing up his best. Uniforms more magnificent by far than any modern dress, were taken out of their chests ; arms were burnished and put in order, more for occupation than from any supposed necessity. The ships were put into fighting condition by the ready hands of men who cared little for the dangers against which discipline bade them prepare. Victorious over Nature and the power of the Adversary, they feared not what man could do. The very sailors whom imaginary fears had almost driven to a terrible crime would now have attacked the Grand Khan and all his armies, at the bidding of their Admiral. The first to sing his praises was Matheos, and all the crew joined in the chorus. With such a leader, they feared no enemy of flesh and blood. It must be said, in e.xculpation of these worthy sailors (excepting only Matheos), that we should not judge them either by the standard of their leader, or according to our modern ideas. They were no wiser than their time ; and they might well falter before the super- stitious phantoms which haunted even the learned men of the fifteenth century. Except by being the equals of Columbus, how could they have understood him, so long as his brow was not yet crowned by that aureole of success which to the herd is the only proof of a legiti mate royalty ? We need not, then, be less maenanimous than their leader, who pardoned them even before they asked his forgiveness. What struck them the most on that memorable night was his unchanging serenity. His jo)', indeed, was great, but with it was mmgled no surprise, and no DAYBREAK. 91 mean satisfaction in his personal safety. In trial and in triumph his comrades found him equal to himself To the mutineers he had been calm and severe; to the repentant and submissive, he was equally- calm, but benignant and paternal. At daybreak the fleet began to move. It glided before a light breeze over water so transparent that the snags which rose toward the surface were easily avoided. A road-stead, or rather a gently sloping coast, soon offered them a safer landing-place. The Admiral bade them steer towards it. He soon perceived a small island, so flat and narrow that a practised eye like his own could embrace almost its entire circumference. The surface details, at this early morning hour, were not so easy to perceive. A light mist still concealed the colors of objects and veiled their outlines. Great meadows, wet and shining with dew, encircled a lake shimmering with blue and rose-color, with pearly re- flections through the transparent veil of mist. Night and day min- gled their mysterious charm to give to this enscmb/e ot harmonious contrasts an ineffable serenity, the soft primitive aspect of Para- dise ! Harder hearts than theirs would have .been moved by such a sight, and by the expectation of the radiant scenes to be revealed by the rising sun. At length the Titan arose, inundating with his light the hemi- sphere where he was still worshipped as a god, and where the em- blem of Salvation, the sun of the Word, that light which lightens every man who cometh into this world, was soon to overturn the smoking altars, red with human blood. His first beams fell upon a solitude. Meadows, lagoons dotted here and there with islets of sand, tall clumps of beautiful trees, but 92 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. no animals, wild or tame, no human habitations, no trace of culti- vated soil or ot industry. Soon, however, on approaching nearer, the navigators distin- guished several of the inhabitants, totally naked, who, at the sight of the ships, retired cautiously into the thickets. They cast anchor, and let down the ship's boats. Columbus, fol- lowed by his chief of staff, like himself in the full insignia of rank, descended the ship's side, and, a few moments afterwards, was stand- ing on the long-sought land, which had for so many ages been waiting for his comins:. He knelt down and kissed the solid earth with tlie ardor of a lover. The voyage had lasted from the third of August, 149:2, to the twelfth of October of the same year; seventy days, of which about thirty-five were lost by the delay at the Canaries. Columbus did not forget, when he took possession of the New World, what he owed, first to Providence, and then to the Kingdom of Spain. He addressed his comrades with that impassioned elo- quence whose influence was confessed even by his enemies, and con- cluded by a prayer to the Almighty which has become, as it were, official, and has been repeated since on the occasion of every new discovery made by the Spaniards in the Old and the New World. Then he planted in the earth the standard of the cross, gave the island the name of San Salvador, and drawing his sword, declared that he took possession of it "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the crown of Castile." Instantly thereupon, all his assistants, with his chief of staff at their head, proclaimed him Grand Admiral, Viceroy and Governor- General, and solemnly pledged him their faithful .service, beseeching him to foroet their wrone-doina. IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR THE CROWN OF CASTILE. FRIDA V. 55 At that moment, having recovered from the fear into which they had been thrown by so extraordinary a spectacle, several natives approached ; the welcome which they received soon attracted others. There was mutual confidence and kindness between them and the crew; exchange of presents, eating together and talking together by signs, games, . dancing and visits aboard began, to cease only with nightfall. Thus finished in pleasure and festivity the day which, for the poor natives, was to be followed by so many years of misery and oppression. It was on a Friday that Columbus set sail from Palos : it was on a Friday also that he saw in the morning light the green shores of San Salvador unroll themselves to his longing eyes. Those who see in the discovery of America an event which brought misery on both worlds may therefore find a confirmation for their superstitious dislike of the day ; but to those who rejoice in the union of the hemispheres under a common civilization and a common Christianity, Friday must henceforth lose its terrors. Strange to say, this precursor of the New World, this land where civilization deposited the first germ of her bitter fruit, was first also to be neglected and forgotten. It was inaccurately designated even in the first map of the new discoveries, a map prepared by one of the companions of the great navigator. There is but one explanation for this curious fact, and that ex- planation is a sordid one ; San Salvador contained no gold. Long after its discovery, when there was an effort, in the inter- ests of science, to identify its precise position, some thought it one- of the Turks' Islands ; others the greater Inagua, others again the lesser Inagua, and most located it as Cat's Island ; for such is the noble name with which the English have rebaptized the island of San Salvador. 96 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Thus was it for centuries, so that in 1836 the author of Cosmos remarked: "History has carefully preserved the surnames and Chris- tian names of the sailors who lay claim to have been the first dis- coverers of a portion of the New World ; yet we are hardly able to identify the very lands with which their names are thus connected!" " Fortunately," he added, " I find myself able to remove these doubts." And thereupon he offered a version of the facts which the weight of authority justly attached to his name caused to be generally accepted, but which we are now able to supplement by the knowledge of this generation. The definitive solution of this problem has re- cently been given by M. Adolph de Varnhagen. The island whose aboriginal name of Guanahari was changed by Columbus to San Salvador is that which appears in our maps as Mayaguani. And thus has been fixed at last the geography of this wandering island. Like the floating Delos, the birthplace of Apollo and Diana, it has borne more than one name. And who knows whether the graceful myth of Latona is not a veil cast by a poet over the harsh doubts of some ante-historic critic? For, according to this poet, it was not science which went astray, but the island of Delos, Poetry is the Grasshopjaer, and Science the Ant ; and the miserly Ant has often received, without a word of thanks, such gifts from the Grasshopper. Not long ago the Grasshopper told me a story which I cannot refrain from introducing here ; trusting to the indulgence of my readers to believe that I shall fit it into my history. Last Summer, in the middle of July, I was lying under an olive tree in my native Provence, with no other company than some thou- sands of grasshoppers. They were singing together, and tlieir song A FABLE. 97 was, " Drive dull care away." Drunk with light and warmth, they sang to every passer-by the triumphal hymn of Summer. The tune awakened in me only soft thoughts and undefined images ; I saw Aurora and her roses, and her tears ot dew, and her old husband metamorphosed into a grasshopper, and I asked myself whether Science, which has taken from us so many fine and charming things, is worth the poetry which gave them. And this question I was about to answer to the disadvantage of the Ant, when a last doubt made me turn to the Grasshopper. The Grasshopper answered me in the language and after the manner of yEsop ; and this, without the rhythm or the charm of the original, this is what it sang : "When Jason had resolved on the conquest of the Golden Fleece, he set his comrades at work to build the ship which was to carry them to Colchis. Seeing that they put little heart into the labor, he promised them that, when the ship was ready to launch, Minerva would bestow on it the gift of speech ; that it would give them sage counsel on the voyage, and would charm away the long hours on ship-board by songs worthy of the Gods," " But when all the conditions seemed fulfilled ; when the ship, rigged, armed and manned, seemed ready for the launch, it remained motionless as a stone and mute as a fish; and the Argonauts mur- mured against their chief. Then Minerva appeared to them." "Jason did not deceive you," said she; "have you not forgotten some necessary equipment of your vessel ? " " Miperva is right," cried the crew with one voice ; " we have forgotten the sails ! " And the sails, which were on land at the maker's, were brought and made fast, and stretched to the breeze. 98 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. But the Argo spoke not a word ; and Minerva repeated her question, "Have you not forgotten something?" "Freshwater sailors that we are," cried the crew, "we have for- gotten the ballast ! " And when the ballast was brought and put in place, the ship began to flutter her pinions ; her prow swelled out like the silver breast of a swan ; and gliding lightly over the waters, she thrice cried, " Forward ! " The moral of this fable is that ballast is as necessary to a ship, and to a story-teller, as sails. One is the motive power, the other keeps us in the straight path of progress. Without the sails, or wings (for they are all one) my story of a hero who was at once ant and grasshopper, savant and poet, would never have risen aljove technical details ; but without these details, which serve so well as ballast, it would run on without substance or subject-matter, and the Ant would have good reason to mock at the Grasshopper. The history of Columbus and of the discovery of the New World is the histor)- of a theory confirmed by the facts ; the theory and the facts being alike scientific. Hence arises the impossibility of making of it a work of imagination, a poem ; and even did the subject per- mit, the Muse would recoil before the mass and the precise detail of the documents written by the hero's own hand. If Achilles, Ulysses and their comrades had left Memoirs as complete as those of Colum bus, of Las Casas, or of Ferdinand Columbus, not to mention the letters and manuscripts which fill the archives of Simancas, we should have neither Iliad nor Odyssey; a misfortune involved in the nature of things. HIS OWN NARRATIVE. 99 So that, even in my easy narrative, I feel sometimes reproached for introducing any touch of my own fancy, when I remember what a mine of wealth Columbus himself has left in the fresh and circum- stantial relation of his impressions, when, with the same hand which imprinted upon bronze, as we shall see hereafter, lamentations worthy of Job, he set down the smallest details of his arrival in the New World. In my opinion, the best history of Christopher Columbus would be his collected writings, accompanied by a commentary which one might read or pass over according to his pleasure. The few pages which follow will give an idea of what that his- tory would be. We shall find in them, in all its freshness, the sum total of the impression produced, each upon the other, by two branches of the human race separated by an infinite gulf of time. "Wishing above all things," says Columbus, "to win the friend- ship of the natives of diis island, and being certain upon seeing them that they would trust us more entirely, and would be better disposed to our holy religion, if we used towards them rather gentleness than force, I gave to some among them bonnets of divers colors, and strings of glass beads, from which they made for themselves necklaces. I added thereunto other trifles, which so excited their joy and grati- tude that we could not forbear wondering at them. When they saw us returned to our ships, they cast themselves into the water and swam to us, to offer us parroquets, balls of cotton thread, javelins and many other objects, in exchange for which we gave them glass beads, hawks'-bells and other things. They took what we gave them, and offered us all they had, which truly was very little. " The men and the women are naked as when they came from their mother's womb. They are well made, and with pleasant faces. Their hair is as coarse as horsehair and falls over the forehead to lOO CHR I S TO PHER C L UMB US. the eyebrows. They let it flow down behind in a long lock. * * * This hair is not curly. * =•= * These men arc truly of a noble PULI-ING BACK. race. Their foreheads and their heads are larger than those of the other natives whom I have been able to see in m\' voyages ; their eygs arc large and beautiful, their legs very straight, * ■"' '" their DESCRIPTION OF THE NATIVES. loi stature great, * * * their movements graceful. Some of them are painted of a dart: color, but by nature they are of the same hue as the natives of the Canary Islands. Many paint themselves white or red, or of some other color. Sometimes the whole body is painted, sometimes the face or the eyes, or even the nose only. They possess no arms resembling ours, and are even ignorant of their use. When I showed them our sabres, they took them by the blades, and cut their fingers. They possess no iron. Their javelins are sticks in which are inserted fish teeth, or some other hard and pointed bodies. " Observing that many had scars on their bodies, I asked them by signs how and by whom they had been wounded: they answered in the same way that the inhabitants of the neighboring islands often attacked them, for the purpose of carrying them away as captives, and that these wounds had been received in defending themselves. I doubted not that the inhabitants of the mainland tried to enslave them; for they were of a nature to prove faithful and devoted ser- vants. They repeat quickly and readily what they hear, and could, I believe, easily be converted to Christianity, for they belong to no especial sect. "At daybreak on Saturday, October T3th, we saw running along the shore many young men of good stature. * * * They ap- proached my ship in canoes made of a single tree-trunk, and fashioned in a manner truly surprising, considering the poverty of their means. Some of these canoes could hold from forty to forty-five men, others were of less size, and some so small as to contain but one man. They have for an oar a kind of baker's shovel, which they manage very skilfully. When one of these canoes upsets, they swim around it rio-ht it ao-ain, and bail out the water in it with calabashes, which I02 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. they carry slung- around their bodies for the purpose. * * * Ob- servingr that many were adprned with a httle pellet of gold, worn in a hole ni the nose, I succeeded in learning, always through signs, that by sailing to the south we should discover a country whose king possessed huge vases of gold and a great quantity of the pure metal. =!= V Having thereupon resolved to direct my voyage thither, on the morrow afternoon, I invited them to accompany me ; but they re- fused, and I understood that from this country, of which they were speaking, e.xpeditions often came to attack them. * * * The in- habitants of this island are friendly; it is true that, tempted by the strange things we showed them, and having nothing to offer in ex- change, they will steal them and jump overboard with them; but they willingly give all they have for the smallest trifles of ours, even for pieces of the ship or of broken glass ; I saw one of them give, in exchange for three of our smallest coins, nearly thirty pounds of cotton thread. =•' * * This is one of the products of this island ; as I did not wish to stay there long, I was not able to learn all of them. For the same reason, and because I desire to reach Cipango, time fails me to ascertain whence the inhabitants of this island have obtained the gold which they wear in their noses. But the night is come, and they are all gone back to land in their canoes." As he had resolved, Columbus undertook the next day to e.xplore the coasts of San Salvador. He found everywhere among the natives the same welcome and the same customs. In some few places, they possessed huts roughly constructed in the shape of tents, delicious orchards and vegetable gardens; and in these gardens, "the most beautiful which he had ever seen," copious springs of fresh water and, as he characteristically added, "stones fit to build churches with." The inhabitants, swimming or rowing out to the ships, pressed SANTA MARIA DE LA CONCEPTION. 103 him to land ; but the fear of hidden reefs made him keep to the channel, and he soon found himself surrounded by such a number of islands, that he knew not which of them to touch at ; " his eyes," he says, "were never weary of admiring the verdure, so beautiful and so different from ours, and such a sweet and pleasant smell came from the ground that it was the most agreeable thing in the world." He determined at last to land on the island which seemed the largest; and took possession after the accustomed form; as at San Salvador, he raised the standard of the cross and gave this second island the name of Santa Maria de la Conception. Finding there neither gold nor anything else which would keep him, he continued his explorations by landing on an island which, in honor of the Kincr of Aracjon, he named Ferdinanda. Here he found occasion for remarks in his usual piquant style : " In manners, in language and in every other respect," says he, " the inhabitants of Ferdinanda are like those of the other islands, except that they wear some clothing, and are less shy and more cunning. * * * They can drive a bargain better than the others. I found no trace of religion among them, and I believe that they would readily become Chrisdans, for they have great intelligence. "The fish in these islands are wonderfully different from ours. Some of them are shaped like cocks, and their colors the brightest conceivable, blue, yellow and red ; all so marvellous that there is no one alive but would take the greatest pleasure in the sight. * * * "This island is very green; its surface is level and fertile. I saw on it many trees, some like those of Furope, but most of them as different as day from night. Thus, for instance, on one of these trees, one branch would have leaves like those of the reed, and an- other like those of the mastic ; and these trees which combine five or I04 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. six different forms are not grafted, one tree upon another. On the contrary they grow and lloiirish, in tlie wild condition, on the moun- tains and in the forests." ^'•*:^%fMMy^^^^i> %k FTCHTING THE IGUANA. This last observation, which was of course a mistake, is readily explained b)- the nniUltude of climbing and parasitic plants peculiar THE ISLAND ISABELLA. 105 to the flora of the New World. We need not regret the ingenuous error, since it has given us a description of the opulent vegetation of the tropics not unworthy of a Chateaubriand, a Cooper or a Humboldt. A sight still more wonderful was soon presented to him by a new island, whose beauty induced him to name it Isabella. Its inhab- itants called it Saomcto. It was the most important he had yet touched at. He found in it large forests, spreading lakes, and birds of more brilliant color, more varied form, and sweeter sone. o Here also he met beasts of considerable size ; among them the iguana, a sort of gigantic lizard, whose resemblance to a crocodile, o; rather to the contemporary pictures of a crocodile, caused it to be mistaken for that animal. To encourage his men, who were always frightened by the unknown, Columbus attacked the creature without hesitation ; rushed on it, sword in hand, chased it to the lake and soon made an end of it. The skin, which was carried back to Europe, was seven feet long. The modern ig-uana does not attain such di- mensions. Columbus must have smiled more than once over this trophy, when he discovered that this fearful-looking monster, with its enor- mous goitre, its long and muscular tail, its spine serrated from end to end, and its sharp, fle.xile claws, is a saurian as gentle as our com- mon wall-lizard, and such a friend to men that he makes no objection to being eaten by them. But neither this easy victory, nor other more trying tests of courage, nor the encounter of a multitude of novel objects, which at every step gave new occupation to his mind and to his senses; nothing, in a word, which would have arrested or delayed an ordinary man, could make Columbus forget the practical object of his enter- prise, nor the promises which had obtained for him the protection of io6 CHRISTOPHER CO LV MB US. the Two Kings. The gold which had been their motive in under- taking such a scheme, which was to repay them for their cooperation, and to defray the cost of a crusade against the infidels ; this was his constant pursuit. The indications of its existence grew more and more encourag- ing. The natives wore larger bits of the precious metal, and one of them promised Columbus to point out to him either a vein or a con- siderable deposit. But on this occasion, the Admiral had his first experience of the tendency of the race to falsehood, or at least to an exaggeration which is with them less the result of calculation than of their lively imagination and defective means of expression. The man having failed to keep his word, Columbus set sail again, after a two days' delay; and so litde was he discouraged that he wrote to the Kings: "Soon — I am confident of it — soon shall I reach the very places where gold groivs." In fact, he was not very far from Mexico; but the bloody conquest of "the place where gold grows " was reserved for another. He did discover, however, on the twenty-eighth of October, the pearl of the seas, the Queen of the Antilles, the lovely island of Cuba; whose marvels made him forget in a moment the most charming natural scenes he had yet beheld. The superiority of Cuba was not only in the luxuriance of its vegetation and in its wonderful fiora ; what struck Columbus most forcibly were the vast dimensions of the natural features. Rivers, lakes, forests and mountains had an aspect of size, of force and of majesty which attracted and enchained the mind. Columbus con- fessed that he could hardly tear himself away from this world of surprise and enchantment. The names which he trave to die striking features of the island CUBA. 107 bore witness to his feelings of admiration. Most of these names have been changed, not always to advantage. He called the island itself yuana, a softer appellation than its present. His Puerto-Santo (Holy- Port) has become Baracoa; his Cape of Palms, Jlloon River, Ocean River have all been rebaptized. Upon his approach to the latter river, the Rio de los Ma7-es, the Indians whom he had on board informed him that not far off was a place named Bohio, where, according to their statement, gold, pearls and spices abounded. They spoke also of one-eyed men ; of a cer- tain island Mantinino, inhabited only by women ; of men with heads like those of does, who ate the flesh and drank the blood of other men. The first of these stories must be ranked with the legends of Herodotus. The second had some foundation, for there was an island in these regions inhabited by women only for certain months of the year. As to the dog-headed anthropophagi, the worst part of the tale was but too true. These monsters, whose practices dis- credited their human form, were the very cannibals dreaded by the Lucayan islanders, and called by them Caniba. Columbus, who all the while believed himself near the coast of Asia, did not doubt that the Caniba or Kaniba were the subjects of the Grand Khan ; and it may be said that many etymologists have drawn as great conclusions from like evidence. He sent into the in- terior an embassy to that sovereign, who reported on their return that they had found, instead of Ouinsay and the Grand Khan, a vil- lage of fifty huts, containing a savage but handsome tribe, who wel- comed the Spaniards, and like die Indians generally, regarded them as sfods descended from above. Some of them inhaled, through a double tube applied to the nostrils, a dried herb which they called tabago. To this peculiarity io8 CJIRJS TOP HER COL UMB US. Columbus paid but little attention ; he could not foresee that the use of this herb would one day spread over the whole world, and would prove a source of immense wealth for the inhabitants of the island.