Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery

leaves

oba, offered a sad picture to the few adherents whom he had left behind. They had grown to have his grasp of con

een re

hey immediately sought the Queen. In an audience the two advocates presented the case anew, appealing to the royal ambition, to the opportunity of spreading her holy religion, to the occasions of replenishing her treasure-chests, emptied by the war, and to every other impulse, whether of pride or patriotism. The trivial cost and risk were contrasted with the glowing possibilities. They repeated the offer o

thought of Ferdinand's aloofness. The warrior of Aragon, with new conquests to regulate, with a treasury drained almost to the last penny, would have little heart for an undertaking in which h

s broug

moment's hesitancy, as thoughts of cruelly protracted and suspended feelings in the past came over him. His decision, however, was not stayed. He turned h

him in relation to the demand for similar concessions made twenty years later by Ponce de Leon is to be believed. "Ah," said Ferdinand, to the discoverer of Florida, "it is one thing to give a stretch of power when no one anticipates the exercise of it; but we have l

een's

ed. As treasurer of the ecclesiastical revenues in Aragon, he was able to show that while Isabella was foremost in promoting the enterprise, Ferdinand could join her in a loan from these coffers; and so it was that the necessary funds were, in reality, paid in the end from the revenues of Aragon. This is the common story, enlarged by later writers upon the narrative in Las Casas; but Harrisse finds no wa

the ex

e world a

rone, but there was a noble condescension in giving Columbus a gracious letter to the Great Khan, and in hoping to seduce his subjects to the sway of a religion that allowed to the heathen no rights but conversion. There was at least a century and a half of such holy endeavors left for the ministrants of the church, as was believed, since the seven thousand years of the earth's duration was within one hundred and fifty-five years of its close, as the calculations of King Alonso

7. Agreement

preserved in Barcelona. On the same day the monarchs agreed to the conditions of a document which was drawn by the royal secretary, Juan de Coloma, and is preserved among the papers of

he office of Admiral in all the lands and continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean,

continents, with the privilege of nominating three candidates for the governme

tones, gold, silver, spices, and all other articles of merchandises, in whatever manner

isputes arising out of traffic between those countries and Spain, provid

eighth part of the expense in fitting out vessels to sail o

lummbus allowed to

sion which the sovereigns signed at Granada, in which it was furth

is domesti

ut it is said that he placed his boy Ferdinand, then but four years of age, at school in Cordoba near his mother. He left his lawfu

y. Reach

ct to Palos; stopping, however, on the way at Rabida, to exchange congratulations with its

desc

was the home of the Pinzons. The Moorish mosque, converted into St. George's church in Columbus's day, still stands on the hill, just outside the village,

fitt

be that two of the vessels of Columbus were not constructed by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, and later bought by the Queen, as Las Casas says; but, it happening that the town of Palos, in consequence of some offense to the royal

nzons

upposition, and it is of course sustained in the evidence adduced in the famous trial which was intended to magnify the service of the Pinzons. It was also directed that the seamen of the little fleet should receive the usual wages of those serving in armed vesse

Demands two

Vessels and c

Pinz

essary to report the obstacle to the Court, when a new peremptory order was issued on June 20 to impress the vessels and crews. Juan de Pe?alosa, an officer of the royal household, appeared in Palos to enforce this demand. Even such imperative measures availed little, and it was not till Martin Alonso Pinzon came forward, and either by an agreement to divide with Columbus the profits, or through some other understanding,-for the testimony on the point is doubtful, and Las Casas disbelieve

d behind Columbus in his share of the expenses, which are computed at 500,000 maravedis, while those of the Queen, arranged through Santangel, are reckoned at 1,140,000 of that money. The fleet consisted, as Peter Martyr tells us, of two open caravels, "Nina" and "Pinta"-the latter, with its crew, being pressed into the service,-decked only at the extremities, where high prows and poops gave quarters for the crews and their officers. A large-decked vessel of the register known as a carack, and renamed by Columbus the "

er of t

e by the scale of that time, and thinks she was sixty-three feet over all in len

cr

em felt were most desperate fortunes. Duro has of late published in his Colón y Pinzon what purports to be a list of their names. It shows in Tallerte de Lajes a native of England who has been thought to be one named in his vernacular Arthur Lake; and Guillemio Ires, called of Galway, has sometimes been fancied to have borne in his own land the name perhaps of Rice, Herries, or Harris. There was no lack of the formal assignments usual in such important undertakings. There was a notary to record the proceedings and a historian to array the story; an interpreter to be

ections fro

e than a striking manifestation of a certain kind of incredulity respecting what Columbus, after all, meant by sailing west. Indeed, there was necessarily more

irst to b

as the modern phrase goes, as a sort of base of operations. This hope rested on the belief, then common, that there w

nd Seneca had described them, and Columbus was inclined to believe that St. Brandan and the Seven Cities,

es could hardly fail to bring him in view of other regions or islands lying in the western ocean. Mu?

c arch

he Catalan map of 1374 had shown such islands in vast numbers, amounting to 7,548 in all; Marco Pol

m's g

those great cosmographical conceptions, which he was accustomed to hear discussed in the Atlantic seaports. Such views were exemplified in a large globe

S GLOBE

these cuts divide the Gl

S GLOBE

s Die Hilfsmittel der Sch

AVING OF BEHAIM'S

t si

VING OF BEHAIM'S GL

AVING OF BEHAIM'S

ht s

VING OF BEHAIM'S GL

n g

r, and the globe has come down to our day, preserved in the town hall at Nuremberg, one of the sights and honors of that city. It shares the credit, however, with another, called the Laon globe, as the only well-authenticated geographi

A IN RELATION TO

ce the atlas of Ptolemy, in A. D. 150. "He points out that it is the first which unreservedly adopts the existence of antipodes; the first which clearly shows that there is a passage from Euro

become familiar by ma

nelli

h its delineation of the interjacent and island-studded ocean, which washed alike the shores of Europe and Asia, and that i

t, added to all others which Columbus had gathered from the maps of Bianco and Benincasa-for it is not possible he could have seen the work of Behaim, unless indeed, in fragmentary preconceptions-must have served him better as laid down on a chart of his own drafting. T

st 3, Colu

stream and, spreading his sails, the vessels passed out of the little river roadstead of Palos, gazed after, perhaps, in

COLUMBU

's Arte de N

Fri

em power in Spain. We must resort to the books of such advocates, if we would enliven the picture with a multitude of rites and devotional feelings that they gather in the meshes of the story of the departure. They supply to the embarkation a variety of detail that their holy pu

P,

a jo

unt of the voyage by the west, "by which course," he says, "unto the present time, we do not know, for certain, that any one has passed." It was his purpo

Y ISL

urt's Canarian

nta" di

g gear now for some time in use, in place of the old lateral paddles,-was a trick of two men, her owners, Gomez Rascon and Christopher Quintero, to impede a voyage in which they had no

the Ca

is journal. It is to the corresponding passages of the Historie, that we owe the somewhat sensational stories of the terrors

mber 6, lea

Gomera on September 2. Here he fell in with some residents of Ferro, the westernmost of the group, who repeated the old stories of land occasionally seen from its heights, lying towards the setting sun. Having taking on board wood, water, and provisions, Columbus finally sailed from Gomera on the morning of Thursday, September 6. He seem

Septembe

s his re

at the voyage might prove too long for the constancy of his men. He accordingly determined to falsify his reckoning. This deceit was a large confession of his own timidity in d

OLUMBUS'S F

Blanchero's La Tavola d

'S TRACK

, he noted as forty-eight, so that the distance from home migh

ad rec

s, and his mile about three quarters of our present estimate for that distance. Navarrete says that Columbus reckoned in Italian miles, which are a quarter less than a Spanish mile. The Admiral had expected to make land aft

ging of his speed on the eye alone, basing his calculations on the passage of objects or bubbles

Septem

of no variatio

e of the

been known perhaps for three hundred years, when this new spirit of discovery awoke in the fifteenth century. The Indian Ocean and its traditions were to impart, perhaps through the Arabs, perhaps through the returning Crusaders, a knowledge of the magnet to the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean, and to the hardier mariners who pushed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, so that the new

IC LINE IN THE NORTH ATLAN

ates Coast Survey R

n of the

d by Peregrini as early as 1269, but that knowledge of it which rendered it greatly serviceable in voyages does not seem to be pl

OLARES

s Bilderbuch

the northeast more and more westerly; but it was a revelation when he came to a position where the

ception of the li

rvations of its help i

ivergences from it east and west might have a regularity which would be found to furnish a method of ascertaining longitude far easier and surer than tables or water clocks. We know that four years later he tried to sail his ship on observations of this kind. The same idea seems to have occurred to Sebastian Cabot,

tian Cabot had been the first to observe this variation, and had explained it to Edward VI., and that he had on a c

ous

ned to believe that mariners saw more in it than really existed and that they found it a convenient way to excuse their own blunders. Nonius was credited with saying that it simply meant that worn-out mag

TOR'S POLAR R

rcator's At

under

er parallel, nor straight, nor constant. The line of no variation which Columbus found near the Azores has moved westward with erratic inclinations, until to-day it is not far from a straight line from Carolina to Guiana. Science, beginning with its crude efforts at the hands of Alonzo de Santa Cruz, in 1530, has so mapped the surf

anges of temperature a

ember of 1492. The fancy of Columbus was easily excited, and notions of a change of climate, and even a

the calculations of modern astronomers have gauged the polar distance existing in 1492 at 3° 28′, as against the 1° 20′ of to-day. The confusion of

rotuberance

the earth, up which he ascended as he sailed westerly, and that this was the reason of the cooler weather which he ex

gnetic

finitely fixed the magnetic pole in the Arctic regions, transmitting his views to Cnoyen, the master of the later Mercator, i

Septem

embe

embe

asso

, followed by pleasant weather, which reminded Columbus of the nightingales, gladdening the climate of Andalusia in April. They found around the ships much green floatage of weeds, which led them to think some islands must be near. Navarrete thinks there was some truth in this, inasmuch as the charts of the early part of this century represent breakers as having been seen in 1802, near the spot

rtainly nothing of the overwhelming fear which, the Historie tells us, the sailors experienced when they found their

Septem

embe

really no variation, but only a shifting of the polar star! The weeds were now judged to be river weeds, and a live crab was found among them,-a sure sign of near land, as Columbus believed, or affected to believe. They killed a tunny and saw others. They again observed a water wagtail, "which does not s

Septem

d fathoms to be sure he was not approaching land; but no bottom was found. A drizzling rain also betokened land, which they could not stop to find, but would search for on

Septem

2. Changes

d w

embe

irds sleep on shore, and go to sea in the morning," the men encouraged themselves with the belief that they could not be far from land. The next day a whale could but be another indication of land; and the weeds covered the sea all about. On Saturday, they steered west by northwest, and got clear of the weeds. This change of course so far to the north, which had begun on the previous day, was occasioned by a head wind, and Columbus says that he welcomed it, be

ances

anges hi

embe

Septem

embe

obe

obe

obe

obe

urse to follo

to bathe in its amber glories. On Wednesday, they were undeceived, and found that the clouds had played them a trick. On the 27th their course lay more directly west. So they went on, and still remarked upon all the birds they saw and weed-drift which they pierced. Some of the fowl they thought to be such as were common at the Cape de Verde Islands, and were not supposed to go far to sea. On the 30th September, they still observed the needles of their compasses to vary, but the journal records that it was the pole star which moved, and not the needle. On October 1, Columbus says they were 707 leagues from Ferro; but he had made his crew believe they were only 584. As they went on, little new for the next few days is recorded in the

pa

e Pacific. How much beyond that island, in its supposed geographical position, Columbus expected to find the Asiatic main we can only conjecture from the restorations which modern scholars have made of Toscanelli's map, which makes the island about 10° east of Asia, and from Behaim's globe, which makes it 20°. It should be bor

inzon to the c

urge the direction to be changed to the southwest, because he had in the preceding evening observed a flight of parrots in that direction, which could have onl

thers. A day or two further on his westerly way, and the Gulf Stream would, perhaps, insensibly have borne the little fl

obe

ber

between 65° and 66°. On the next day the land birds flying along the course of the ships seemed to confirm their hopes. On the 10th the journal records that the men began t

of a m

d in three days. Most commentators, however, are inclined to think that this story of a mutinous revolt was merely engrafted from hearsay or other source by Oviedo upon the more genuine recital, and that the conspiracy to throw the Admiral into the sea has no substantial basis in

of Diego with the Crown in 1513 and 1515, afford no ground for any be

ells us,-and he may have got it directly from Columbus's lips,-the task was not an easy one to preserve subordination and to instill confidence. He re

Octo

to lift them out of their despondency. These were floating logs, or pieces of wood, one of them appar

ober 11.

s sees

him-a moving light, and pointing out the direction to Pero Gutierrez, this companion saw it too; but another, Rodrigo Sanchez, situated apparently on another part of the vessel, was not able to see it. It was not brought to the attention of any others. The Admiral says that the light seemed to be moving up and down, and he claimed to have g

ll-befitting a commander, pocketed a reward which belonged to another. If Oviedo, with his prejudices, is to be believed, Columbus was not even the first who claimed to have seen this dubious light. There is a common story that the poor sailor, who was

it on some small, outlying island, as has been suggested? Was it a torch carried from hut to hut, as Herrera avers? Was it on either of the other vessels? Was it on the low island on which, the next morning, he landed? There was no elevation on that island sufficient to show even a strong light at a distance of ten leagues. W

COLUMBUS, 1492

er 12, land

nah

and brimming hopes, perhaps fears of disappointment, must have accompanied that hour of wavering enchantment. It was Friday, October 12, of the old chronology, and the little fleet had been thirty-three days on its way from the Canaries, and we must add ten days more, to complete the period since they left Palos. The land before them was seen, as the day dawned, to be a small island, "called in the Indian tongue" Guanahani. Some naked natives were descried. The

BUS'S

A ISL

IO HE

6

ct Letters of Colu

A ISL

DE

ct Letters of Colu

nds and utt

er back than a collection of Tablas Chronologicas, got together at Valencia in 1689, by a Jesuit father, Claudio Clemente. Harrisse finds no author

ctured in his pages the grave impressiveness of the hour; the form of Columbus, with a crimson robe over his armor,

and des

d that it bore green trees, was watered by many streams, and produced divers fruits. In another place he

l as this description, are the best means we have of identifying the spot of this port

tion of th

ous. There is apparently no chance of finding geographical conditions that in every respect will agree with this record of Columbus, and we must content ourselves with what offers the fewest disagreements. An obvious method, if we could depend on Columbus's dead reckoning, would be to see for what island the actual distance from the Canaries would be nearest to his computed run; but currents and errors of the ey

Baha

dor, or C

r is

of ident

in I

e Grand Turk,-all of which have their advocates. The three methods of identification which have been followed are, first, by plotting the outward track; second, by plotting the track between the landfall and Cuba, both forward and backward; third, by applying the descriptions, particularly Columbus's, of the island first seen. In this last test, Harrisse prefers to apply the description of Las Casas, which is borrowed in part from that of the Historie, and he reconciles Columbus's apparent discrepancy when he says in one place that the island was "pre

Salv

ing. It is much larger than any of the other islands, and could hardly have been called by Columbus in any alternative way a "small" island, while it does not answer Columbus's description of being level, having on it an eminence of four hundred feet, and no interior lagoon, as his Guanahani

ng's

followed Navarrete in favoring the Grand Turk, again addressed himself to the problem in 1870, and fell into line with the adherents of Watling's. No other considerable advocacy of this island, if we except the testimony of Gerard Stein in 1883, in a book on voyages of discovery, appeared till Lieut. J. B. Murdoch, an officer of the American navy, made a very careful examination of the subject in the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute in 1884, which is accepted by Charles A. Schott in the Bulletin

ma

Turk I

arnhagen, in 1864, selected Mariguana, and defended his choice in a paper. This island fails to satisfy the physical conditions in being without interior water. Such a qualific

thod which has been later applied to the problem, but with quite different results from those reached by more recent investigators. He says, "By setting out from Nipe [which is the point