[Sidenote: Terrible storm in mid-ocean, Feb., 1493.]

On this return voyage the Admiral, finding the trade winds dead against him, took a northeasterly course until he had passed the thirty-seventh parallel and then headed straight toward Spain. On the 12th of February a storm was brewing, and during the next four days it raged with such terrific violence that it is a wonder how those two frail caravels ever came out of it. They were separated this time not to meet again upon the sea. Expecting in all likelihood to be engulfed in the waves with his tiny craft, Columbus sealed and directed to Ferdinand and Isabella two brief reports of his discovery, written upon parchment. Each of these he wrapped in a cloth and inclosed in the middle of a large cake of wax, which was then securely shut up in a barrel. One of the barrels was flung into the sea, the other remained standing on the little quarter-deck to await the fate of the caravel. The anxiety was not lessened by the sight of land on the 15th, for it was impossible to approach it so as to go ashore, and there was much danger of being dashed to pieces.

[Sidenote: Cold reception at the Azores.]

At length on the 18th, the storm having abated, the ship's boat went ashore and found that it was the island of St. Mary, one of the Azores. It is worthy of note that such skilful sailors as the Nina's captain, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, and the pilot Ruiz were so confused in their reckoning as to suppose themselves near the Madeiras, whereas Columbus had correctly maintained that they were approaching the Azores,—a good instance of his consummate judgment in nautical questions.[523] From the Portuguese governor of the island this Spanish company met with a very ungracious reception. A party of sailors whom Columbus sent ashore to a small chapel of the Virgin, to give thanks for their deliverance from shipwreck, were seized and held as prisoners for five days. It afterwards appeared that this was done in pursuance of general instructions from the king of Portugal to the governors of his various islands. If Columbus had gone ashore he would probably have been arrested himself. As it was, he took such a high tone and threatened to such good purpose that the governor of St. Mary was fain to give up his prisoners for fear of bringing on another war between Portugal and Castile.

[Footnote 523: Las Casas, tom. i. pp. 443, 449.]

[Sidenote: Columbus is driven ashore in Portugal, where the king is advised to have him assassinated;]

[Sidenote: but to offend Spain so grossly would be dangerous.]

Having at length got away from this unfriendly island, as the Nina was making her way toward Cape St. Vincent and within 400 miles of it, she was seized by another fierce tempest and driven upon the coast of Portugal, where Columbus and his crew were glad of a chance to run into the river Tagus for shelter. The news of his voyage and his discoveries aroused intense excitement in Lisbon. Astonishment was mingled with chagrin at the thought that the opportunity for all this glory and profit had first been offered to Portugal and foolishly lost. The king even now tried to persuade himself that Columbus had somehow or other been trespassing upon the vast and vague undiscovered dominions granted to the Crown of Portugal by Pope Eugenius IV. Some of the king's counsellors are said to have urged him to have Columbus assassinated; it would be easy enough to provoke such a high-spirited man into a quarrel and then run him through the body.[524] To clearer heads, however, the imprudence of such a course was manifest. It was already impossible to keep the news of the discovery from reaching Spain, and Portugal could not afford to go to war with her stronger neighbour. In fact even had John II. been base enough to resort to assassination, which seems quite incompatible with the general character of Lope de Vega's "perfect prince," Columbus was now too important a personage to be safely interfered with. So he was invited to court and made much of. On the 13th of March he set sail again and arrived in the harbour of Palos at noon of the 15th. His little caravel was promptly recognized by the people, and as her story flew from mouth to mouth all the business of the town was at an end for that day.[525]

[Footnote 524: This story rests upon the explicit statement of a contemporary Portuguese historian of high authority, Garcia de Resende, Chronica del Rey Dom Joao II., Lisbon, 1622, cap. clxiv. (written about 1516); see also Vasconcellos, Vida del Rey Don Juan II., Madrid, 1639, lib. vi.]

[Footnote 525: "When they learnt that she returned in triumph from the discovery of a world, the whole community broke forth into transports of joy." Irving's Columbus, vol. i. p. 318. This is projecting our present knowledge into the past. We now know that Columbus had discovered a new world. He did not so much as suspect that he had done anything of the sort; neither did the people of Palos.]

[Sidenote: Columbus and Pinzon at Palos; death of Pinzon.]

Towards evening, while the bells were ringing and the streets brilliant with torches, another vessel entered the harbour and dropped anchor. She was none other than the Pinta! The storm had driven her to Bayonne, whence Martin Pinzon instantly despatched a message to Ferdinand and Isabella, making great claims for himself and asking permission to wait upon them with a full account of the discovery. As soon as practicable he made his way to Palos, but when on arriving he saw the Nina already anchored in the harbour his guilty heart failed him. He took advantage of the general hub-bub to slink ashore as quickly and quietly as possible, and did not dare to show himself until after the Admiral had left for Seville. The news from Columbus reached the sovereigns before they had time to reply to the message of Pinzon; so when their answer came to him it was cold and stern and forbade him to appear in their presence. Pinzon was worn out with the hardships of the homeward voyage, and this crushing reproof was more than he could bear. His sudden death, a few days afterward, was generally attributed to chagrin.[526]

[Sidenote: Columbus is received by the sovereigns at Barcelona, April, 1493.]

[Sidenote: General excitement at the news that a way to the Indies had been found.]

From Seville the Admiral was summoned to attend court at Barcelona, where he was received with triumphal honours. He was directed to seat himself in the presence of the sovereigns, a courtesy usually reserved for royal personages.[527] Intense interest was felt in his specimens of stuffed birds and small mammals, his live parrots, his collection of herbs which he supposed to have medicinal virtues, his few pearls and trinkets of gold, and especially his six painted and bedizened barbarians, the survivors of ten with whom he had started from Hispaniola. Since in the vague terminology of that time the remote and scarcely known parts of Asia were called the Indies, and since the islands and coasts just discovered were Indies, of course these red men must be Indians. So Columbus had already named them in his first letter written from the Nina, off the Azores, sent by special messenger from Palos, and now in April, 1493, printed at Barcelona, containing the particulars of his discovery,—a letter appropriately addressed to the worthy Santangel but for whose timely intervention he might have ridden many a weary league on that mule of his to no good purpose.[528] It was generally assumed without question that the Admiral's theory of his discovery must be correct, that the coast of Cuba must be the eastern extremity of China, that the coast of Hispaniola must be the northern extremity of Cipango, and that a direct route—much shorter than that which Portugal had so long been seeking—had now been found to those lands of illimitable wealth described by Marco Polo.[529] To be sure Columbus had not as yet seen the evidences of this Oriental splendour, and had been puzzled at not finding them, but he felt confident that he had come very near them and would come full upon them in a second voyage. There was nobody who knew enough to refute these opinions,[530] and really why should not this great geographer, who had accomplished so much already which people had scouted as impossible,—why should he not know what he was about? It was easy enough now to get men and money for the second voyage. When the Admiral sailed from Cadiz on September 25, 1493, it was with seventeen ships carrying 1,500 men. Their dreams were of the marble palaces of Quinsay, of isles of spices, and the treasures of Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such untold riches were vouchsafed them by the special decree of Heaven, as a reward for having overcome the Moor at Granada and banished the Jews from Spain.[531] Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as a special instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, promising within the next seven years to equip at his own expense a crusading army of 50,000 foot and 4,000 horse; within five years thereafter he would follow this with a second army of like dimensions.

[Footnote 526: Charlevoix, Histoire de l'isle Espagnole, ou de St. Domingue, Paris, 1730, liv. ii.; Munoz, Historia de las Indias o Nuevo Mundo, Madrid, 1793, lib. iv. Sec. 14.]

[Footnote 527: He was also allowed to quarter the royal arms with his own, "which consisted of a group of golden islands amid azure billows. To these were afterwards added five anchors, with the celebrated motto, well known as being carved on his sepulchre." Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, pt. i. chap. vii. This statement about the motto is erroneous. See below, p. 514. Considering the splendour of the reception given to Columbus, and the great interest felt in his achievement, Mr. Prescott is surprised at finding no mention of this occasion in the local annals of Barcelona, or in the royal archives of Aragon. He conjectures, with some probability, that the cause of the omission may have been what an American would call "sectional" jealousy. This Cathay and Cipango business was an affair of Castile's, and, as such, quite beneath the notice of patriotic Aragonese archivists! That is the way history has too often been treated. With most people it is only a kind of ancestor worship.]

[Footnote 528: The unique copy of this first edition of this Spanish letter is a small folio of two leaves, or four pages. It was announced for sale in Quaritch's Catalogue, April 16, 1891, No. 111, p. 47, for L1,750. Evidently most book-lovers will have to content themselves with the facsimile published in London, 1891, price two guineas. A unique copy of a Spanish reprint in small quarto, made in 1493, is preserved in the Ambrosian library at Milan. In 1889 Messrs. Ellis & Elvey, of London, published a facsimile alleged to have been made from an edition of about the same date as the Ambrosian quarto; but there are good reasons for believing that these highly respectable publishers have been imposed upon. It is a time just now when fictitious literary discoveries of this sort may command a high price, and the dealer in early Americana must keep his eyes open. See Quaritch's note, op. cit. p. 49; and Justin Winsor's letter in The Nation, April 9, 1891, vol. lii. p. 298.]

[Footnote 529: "The lands, therefore, which Columbus had visited were called the West Indies; and as he seemed to have entered upon a vast region of unexplored countries, existing in a state of nature, the whole received the comprehensive appellation of the New World." Irving's Columbus, vol. i. p. 333. These are very grave errors, again involving the projection of our modern knowledge into the past. The lands which Columbus had visited were called simply the Indies; it was not until long after his death, and after the crossing of the Pacific ocean, that they were distinguished from the East Indies. The New World was not at first a "comprehensive appellation" for the countries discovered by Columbus; it was at first applied to one particular region never visited by him, viz. to that portion of the southeastern coast of South America first explored by Vespucius. See vol. ii. pp. 129, 130.]

[Footnote 530: Peter Martyr, however, seems to have entertained some vague doubts, inasmuch as this assumed nearness of the China coast on the west implied a greater eastward extension of the Asiatic continent than seemed to him probable:—"Insulas reperit plures; has esse, de quibus fit apud cosmographos mentio extra oceanum orientalem, adjacentes Indiae arbitrantur. Nec inficior ego penitus, quamvis sphaerae magnitudo aliter sentire videatur; neque enim desunt qui parvo tractu a finibus Hispaniae distare littus Indicum putent." Opus Epist., No. 135. The italicizing is mine.]

[Footnote 531: This abominable piece of wickedness, driving 200,000 of Spain's best citizens from their homes and their native land, was accomplished in pursuance of an edict signed March 30, 1492. There is a brief account of it in Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, pt. i. chap. vi.]

[Sidenote: This voyage was an event without any parallel in history.]

Thus nobody had the faintest suspicion of what had been done. In the famous letter to Santangel there is of course not a word about a New World. The grandeur of the achievement was quite beyond the ken of the generation that witnessed it. For we have since come to learn that in 1492 the contact between the eastern and the western halves of our planet was first really begun, and the two streams of human life which had flowed on for countless ages apart were thenceforth to mingle together. The first voyage of Columbus is thus a unique event in the history of mankind. Nothing like it was ever done before, and nothing like it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for a future Columbus to conquer. The era of which this great Italian mariner was the most illustrious representative has closed forever.



CHAPTER VI.

THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

[Sidenote: The Discovery of America was a gradual process.]

But that era did not close with Columbus, nor did he live long enough to complete the Discovery of America. Our practice of affixing specific dates to great events is on many accounts indispensable, but it is sometimes misleading. Such an event as the discovery of a pair of vast continents does not take place within a single year. When we speak of America as discovered in 1492, we do not mean that the moment Columbus landed on two or three islands of the West Indies, a full outline map of the western hemisphere from Labrador and Alaska to Cape Horn suddenly sprang into existence—like Pallas from the forehead of Zeus—in the minds of European men. Yet people are perpetually using arguments which have neither force nor meaning save upon the tacit assumption that somehow or other some such sort of thing must have happened. This grotesque fallacy lies at the bottom of the tradition which has caused so many foolish things to be said about that gallant mariner, Americus Vespucius. In geographical discussions the tendency to overlook the fact that Columbus and his immediate successors did not sail with the latest edition of Black's General Atlas in their cabins is almost inveterate; it keeps revealing itself in all sorts of queer statements, and probably there is no cure for it except in familiarity with the long series of perplexed and struggling maps made in the sixteenth century. Properly regarded, the Discovery of America was not a single event, but a very gradual process. It was not like a case of special creation, for it was a case of evolution, and the voyage of 1492 was simply the most decisive and epoch-marking incident in that evolution. Columbus himself, after all his four eventful voyages across the Sea of Darkness, died in the belief that he had simply discovered the best and straightest route to the eastern shores of Asia. Yet from his first experiences in Cuba down to his latest voyage upon the coasts of Honduras and Veragua, he was more or less puzzled at finding things so different from what he had anticipated. If he had really known anything with accuracy about the eastern coast of Asia, he would doubtless soon have detected his fundamental error, but no European in his day had any such knowledge. In his four voyages Columbus was finding what he supposed to be parts of Asia, what we now know to have been parts of America, but what were really to him and his contemporaries neither more nor less than Strange Coasts. We have now to consider briefly his further experiences upon these strange coasts.

* * * * *

The second voyage of Columbus was begun in a very different mood and under very different auspices from either his former or his two subsequent voyages. On his first departure from Palos, in 1492, all save a few devoted friends regarded him as a madman rushing upon his doom; and outside the Spanish peninsula the expedition seems to have attracted no notice. But on the second start, in 1493, all hands supposed that they were going straight to golden Cathay and to boundless riches. It was not now with groans but with paeans that they flocked on board the ships; and the occasion was observed, with more or less interest, by some people in other countries of Europe,—as in Italy, and for the moment in France and England.

[Sidenote: The letter to Sanchez.]

At the same time with his letter to Santangel, the Admiral had despatched another account, substantially the same,[532] to Gabriel Sanchez,[533] another officer of the royal treasury. Several copies of a Latin translation of this letter were published at Rome, at Paris, and elsewhere, in the course of the year 1493.[534] The story which it contained was at once paraphrased in Italian verse by Giuliano Dati, one of the most popular poets of the age, and perhaps in the autumn of 1493 the amazing news that the Indies had been found by sailing west[535] was sung by street urchins in Florence. We are also informed, in an ill-vouched but not improbable clause in Ramusio, that not far from that same time the news was heard with admiration in London, where it was pronounced "a thing more divine than human to sail by the West unto the East, where spices grow, by a way that was never known before;"[536] and it seems altogether likely that it was this news that prompted the expedition of John Cabot hereafter to be mentioned.[537]

[Footnote 532: "Un duplicata de cette relation," Harrisse, Christophe Colomb, tom i. p. 419.]

[Footnote 533: Often called Raphael Sanchez.]

[Footnote 534: The following epigram was added to the first Latin edition of the latter by Corbaria, Bishop of Monte-Peloso:—

Ad Invictissimum Regem Hispaniarum:

Iam nulla Hispanis tellus addenda triumphis, Atque parum tantis viribus orbis erat. Nunc longe eois regio deprensa sub undis, Auctura est titulos Betice magne tuos. Unde repertori inerita referenda Columbo Gratia, sed summo est maior habenda deo, Qui vincenda parat noua regna tibique sibique Teque simul fortem prestat et esse pium.

These lines are thus paraphrased by M. Harrisse:—

To the Invincible King of the Spains:

Less wide the world than the renown of Spain, To swell her triumphs no new lands remain. Rejoice, Iberia! see thy fame increased! Another world Columbus from the East And the mid-ocean summons to thy sway! Give thanks to him—but loftier homage pay To God Supreme, who gives its realms to thee! Greatest of monarchs, first of servants be! Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 13.

The following is a literal version:—"Already there is no land to be added to the triumphs of Spain, and the earth was too small for such great deeds. Now a far country under the eastern waves has been discovered, and will be an addition to thy titles, O great Baetica! wherefore thanks are due to the illustrious discover Columbus; but greater thanks to the supreme God, who is making ready new realms to be conquered for thee and for Himself, and vouchsafes to thee to be at once strong and pious." It will be observed that nothing is said about "another world."

An elaborate account of these earliest and excessively rare editions is given by M. Harrisse, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 535: Or, as Mr. Major carelessly puts it, "the astounding news of the discovery of a new world." (Select Letters of Columbus, p. vi.) Mr. Major knows very well that no such "news" was possible for many a year after 1493; his remark is, of course, a mere slip of the pen, but if we are ever going to straighten out the tangle of misconceptions with which this subject is commonly surrounded, we must be careful in our choice of words.—As a fair specimen, of the chap-book style of Dati's stanzas, we may cite the fourteenth:—

Hor vo tornar almio primo tractato dellisole trovate incognite a te in qsto anno presente qsto e stato nel millequatrocento novātatre, uno che xpofan colōbo chiamato, che e stato in corte der prefecto Re ha molte volte questa stimolato, el Re ch'cerchi acrescere il suo stato.

M. Harrisse gives the following version:—

Back to my theme, O Listener, turn with me And hear of islands all unknown to thee! Islands whereof the grand discovery Chanced in this year of fourteen ninety-three. One Christopher Colombo, whose resort Was ever in the King Fernando's court, Bent himself still to rouse and stimulate The King to swell the borders of his State. Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 29.

The entire poem of sixty-eight stanzas is given in Major, op. cit. pp. lxxiii.-xc. It was published at Florence, Oct. 26, 1493, and was called "the story of the discovery [not of a new world, but] of the new Indian islands of Canary!" (Storia della inventione delle nuove isole dicanaria indiane.)]

[Footnote 536: Raccolta di Navigazioni, etc., Venice, 1550, tom. i. fol. 414.]

[Footnote 537: See below, vol. ii. pp. 2-15.]

[Sidenote: Earliest references to the discovery.]

[Sidenote: Earliest reference in English.]

The references to the discovery are very scanty, however, until after the year 1500, and extremely vague withal. For example, Bernardino de Carvajal, the Spanish ambassador at the papal court, delivered an oration in Rome on June 19, 1493, in which he said: "And Christ placed under their [Ferdinand and Isabella's] rule the Fortunate [Canary] islands, the fertility of which has been ascertained to be wonderful. And he has lately disclosed some other unknown ones towards the Indies which may be considered among the most precious things on earth; and it is believed that they will be gained over to Christ by the emissaries of the king."[538] Outside of the Romance countries we find one German version of the first letter of Columbus, published at Strasburg, in 1497,[539] and a brief allusion to the discovery in Sebastian Brandt's famous allegorical poem, "Das Narrenschiff," the first edition of which appeared in 1494.[540] The earliest distinct reference to Columbus in the English language is to be found in a translation of this poem, "The Shyppe of Fooles," by Henry Watson, published in London by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509. The purpose of Brandt's allegory was to satirize the follies committed by all sorts and conditions of men. In the chapter, "Of hym that wyll wryte and enquere of all regyons," it is said: "There was one that knewe that in y^{e} ysles of Spayne was enhabitantes. Wherefore he asked men of Kynge Ferdynandus & wente & founde them, the whiche lyved as beestes."[541] Until after the middle of the sixteenth century no English chronicler mentions either Columbus or the Cabots, nor is there anywhere an indication that the significance of the discoveries in the western ocean was at all understood.[542]

[Footnote 538: Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 35.]

[Footnote 539: Id. p. 50.]

[Footnote 540: Auch hat man sydt in Portigall Und in Hyspanyen uberall Golt-inseln funden, und nacket l[ deg.u]t Von den man vor wust sagen n[ deg.u]t. Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet.; Additions, p. 4.

Or, in more modern German:—

Wie man auch juengst von Portugal Und Hispanien aus schier ueberall Goldinseln fand und nakte Leute, Von denen man erst weiss seit heute. Das Narrenschiff, ed. Simrock, Berlin, 1872, p. 161.

In the Latin version of 1497, now in the National Library at Paris, it goes somewhat differently:—

Antea que fuerat priscis incognita tellus: Exposita est oculis & manifesta patet. Hesperie occidue rex Ferdinandus: in alto Aequore nunc gentes repperit innumeras. Harrisse, op. cit.; Additions, p. 7.

It will be observed that these foreign references are so ungallant, and so incorrect, as to give all the credit to Ferdinand, while poor Isabella is not mentioned!]

[Footnote 541: Harrisse, op. cit.; Additions, p. 45.]

[Footnote 542: Harrisse, Jean et Sebastien Cabot, Paris, 1882, p. 15.]

[Sidenote: Portuguese claim to the Indies.]

North of the Alps and Pyrenees the interest in what was going on at the Spanish court in 1493 was probably confined to very few people. As for Venice and Genoa we have no adequate means of knowing how they felt about the matter,—a fact which in itself is significant. The interest was centred in Spain and Portugal. There it was intense and awakened fierce heart-burnings. Though John II. had not given his consent to the proposal for murdering Columbus, he appears to have seriously entertained the thought of sending a small fleet across the Atlantic as soon as possible, to take possession of some point in Cathay or Cipango and then dispute the claims of the Spaniards.[543] Such a summary proceeding might perhaps be defended on the ground that the grant from Pope Eugenius V. to the crown of Portugal expressly included "the Indies." In the treaty of 1479, moreover, Spain had promised not to interfere with the discoveries and possessions of the Portuguese.

[Footnote 543: Vasconcellos, Vida del Rey Don Juan II., Madrid, 1639, lib. vi.]

[Sidenote: Bulls of Pope Alexander VI.]

But whatever King John may have intended, Ferdinand and Isabella were too quick for him. No sooner had Columbus arrived at Barcelona than an embassy was despatched to Rome, asking for a grant of the Indies just discovered by that navigator in the service of Castile. The notorious Rodrigo Borgia, who had lately been placed in the apostolic chair as Alexander VI., was a native of Valencia in the kingdom of Aragon, and would not be likely to refuse such a request through any excess of regard for Portugal. As between the two rival powers the pontiff's arrangement was made in a spirit of even-handed justice. On the 3d of May, 1493, he issued a bull conferring upon the Spanish sovereigns all lands already discovered or thereafter to be discovered in the western ocean, with jurisdiction and privileges in all respects similar to those formerly bestowed upon the crown of Portugal. This grant was made by the pope "out of our pure liberality, certain knowledge, and plenitude of apostolic power," and by virtue of "the authority of omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth."[544] It was a substantial reward for the monarchs who had completed the overthrow of Mahometan rule in Spain, and it afforded them opportunities for further good work in converting the heathen inhabitants of the islands and mainland of Asia.[545]

[Footnote 544: "De nostra mera liberalitate, et ex certa scientia, ac de apostolicae potestatis plenitudine." ... "auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in beato Petro concessa, ac vicariatus Jesu Christi qua fungimur in terris." The same language is used in the second bull. Mr. Prescott (Ferdinand and Isabella, part i. chap, vii.) translates certa scientia "infallible knowledge," but in order to avoid any complications with modern theories concerning papal infallibility, I prefer to use a less technical word.]

[Footnote 545: A year or two later the sovereigns were further rewarded with the decorative title of "Most Catholic." See Zurita, Historia del Rey Hernando, Saragossa, 1580, lib. ii. cap. xl.; Peter Martyr, Epist. clvii.]

[Sidenote: Treaty of Tordesillas.]

On the following day Alexander issued a second bull in order to prevent any occasion for quarrel between Spain and Portugal.[546] He decreed that all lands discovered or to be discovered to the west of a meridian one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde islands should belong to the Spaniards. Inasmuch as between the westernmost of the Azores and the easternmost of the Cape Verde group the difference in longitude is not far from ten degrees, this description must be allowed to be somewhat vague, especially in a document emanating from "certain knowledge;"[547] and it left open a source of future disputes which one would suppose the "plenitude of apostolic power" might have been worthily employed in closing. The meridian 25 deg. W., however, would have satisfied the conditions, and the equitable intent of the arrangement is manifest. The Portuguese were left free to pursue their course of discovery and conquest along the routes which they had always preferred. King John, however, was not satisfied. He entertained vague hopes of finding spice islands, or something worth having, in the western waters; and he wished to have the Line of Demarcation carried farther to the west. After a year of diplomatic wrangling a treaty was signed at Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, in which Spain consented to the moving of the line to a distance of 370 leagues west from the Cape Verde islands.[548] It would thus on a modern map fall somewhere between the 41st and 44th meridians west of Greenwich. This amendment had important and curious consequences. It presently gave the Brazilian coast to the Portuguese, and thereupon played a leading part in the singular and complicated series of events that ended in giving the name of Americus Vespucius to that region, whence it was afterwards gradually extended to the whole western hemisphere.[549]

[Footnote 546: The complete text of this bull, with Richard Eden's translation, is given at the end of this work; see below, Appendix B. The official text is in Magnum Bullarium Romanum, ed. Cherubini, Lyons, 1655, tom. i. p. 466. The original document received by Ferdinand and Isabella is preserved in the Archives of the Indies at Seville; it is printed entire in Navarrete, Coleccion de viages, tom. ii. No. 18. Another copy, less complete, may be found in Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, Lucca, 1754, tom. xi. p. 214, No. 19-22; and another in Leibnitz, Codex Diplomaticus, tom. i. pt. i. p. 471. It is often called the Bull "Inter Cetera," from its opening words.

The origin of the pope's claim to apostolic authority for giving away kingdoms is closely connected with the fictitious "Donation of Constantine," an edict probably fabricated in Rome about the middle of the eighth century. The title of the old Latin text is Edictum domini Constantini Imp., apud Pseudo-Isidorus, Decretalia. Constantine's transfer of the seat of empire from the Tiber to the Bosphorus tended greatly to increase the dignity and power of the papacy, and I presume that the fabrication of this edict, four centuries afterward, was the expression of a sincere belief that the first Christian emperor meant to leave the temporal supremacy over Italy in the hands of the Roman see. The edict purported to be such a donation from Constantine to Pope Sylvester I., but the extent and character of the donation was stated with such vagueness as to allow a wide latitude of interpretation. Its genuineness was repeatedly called in question, but belief in it seems to have grown in strength until after the thirteenth century. Leo IX., who was a strong believer in its genuineness, granted in 1054 to the Normans their conquests in Sicily and Calabria, to be held as a fief of the Roman see. (Muratori, Annali d' Italia, tom. vi. pt. ii. p. 245.) It was next used to sustain the papal claim to suzerainty over the island of Corsica. A century later John of Salisbury maintained the right of the pope to dispose "of all islands on which Christ, the Sun of righteousness, hath shined," and in conformity with this opinion Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman) authorized in 1164 King Henry II. of England to invade and conquer Ireland. (See Adrian IV., Epist. 76, apud Migne, Patrologia, tom. clxxxviii.) Dr. Lanigan, in treating of this matter, is more an Irishman than a papist, and derides "this nonsense of the pope's being the head-owner of all Christian islands." (Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, vol. iv. p. 159.)—Gregory VII., in working up to the doctrine that all Christian kingdoms should be held as fiefs under St. Peter (Baronius, Annales, tom. xvii. p. 430; cf. Villemain, Histoire de Gregoire VII., Paris, 1873, tom. ii. pp. 59-61), does not seem to have appealed to the Donation. Perhaps he was shrewd enough to foresee the kind of objection afterwards raised by the Albigensians, who pithily declared that if the suzerainty of the popes was derived from the Donation, then they were successors of Constantine and not of St. Peter. (Moneta Cremonensis, Adversus Catharos et Waldenses, ed. Ricchini, Rome, 1743, v. 2.) But Innocent IV. summarily disposed of this argument at the Council of Lyons in 1245, when he deposed the Emperor Frederick II. and King Sancho II. of Portugal,—saying that Christ himself had bestowed temporal as well as spiritual headship upon St. Peter and his successors, so that Constantine only gave up to the Church what belonged to it already. The opposite or Ghibelline theory was eloquently set forth by Dante, in his treatise De Monarchia; he held that inasmuch as the Empire existed before the Church, it could not be derived from it. Dante elsewhere expressed his abhorrence of the Donation:—

Ahi Constantin, di quanto mal fu matre, Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote Che da te prese il primo ricco patre! Inferno, xix. 115.

Similar sentiments were expressed by many of the most popular poets from the twelfth century to the sixteenth. Walther von der Vogelweide was sure that if the first Christian emperor could have foreseen the evils destined to flow from his Donation, he would have withheld it:—

Solte ich den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min, So spraeche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din, Ir zunge suenge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin, Gedaehten daz ouch si dur Got waeren almuosenaere. Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin, Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik waere, So het er wol underkomen des riches swaere, Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete laere. Hagen, Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, 1838, bd. i. p. 270.

Ariosto, in a passage rollicking with satire, makes his itinerant paladin find the "stinking" Donation in the course of his journey upon the moon:—

Di varii fiori ad un gran monte passa, Ch' ebber gia buono odore, or puzzan forte, Questo era il dono, se pero dir lece, Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Orlando Furioso, xxxiv. 80.

The Donation was finally proved to be a forgery by Laurentius Valla in 1440, in his De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio (afterward spread far and wide by Ulrich von Hutten), and independently by the noble Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, in his Repressor, written about 1447.—During the preceding century the theory of Gregory VII. and Innocent IV. had been carried to its uttermost extreme by the Franciscan monk Alvaro Pelayo, in his De Planctu Ecclesiae, written at Avignon during the "Babylonish Captivity," about 1350 (printed at Venice in 1560), and by Agostino Trionfi, in his Summa de potestate ecclesiastica, Augsburg, 1473, an excessively rare book, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. These writers maintained that the popes were suzerains of the whole earth and had absolute power to dispose not only of all Christian kingdoms, but also of all heathen lands and powers. It was upon this theory that Eugenius IV. seems to have acted with reference to Portugal and Alexander VI. with reference to Spain. Of course there was never a time when such claims for the papacy were not denied by a large party within the Church. The Spanish sovereigns in appealing to Alexander VI. took care to hint that some of their advisers regarded them as already entitled to enjoy the fruits of their discoveries, even before obtaining the papal permission, but they did not choose to act upon that opinion (Herrera, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 4). The kings of Portugal were less reserved in their submission. In Valasci Ferdinandi ad Innocentium octauum de obedientia oratio, a small quarto printed at Rome about 1488, John II. did homage to the pope for the countries just discovered by Bartholomew Dias. His successor Emanuel did the same after the voyages of Gama and Vespucius. In a small quarto, Obedientia potentissimi Emanuelis Lusitaniae regis &c. per clarissimum juris consultum Dieghum Pacettū oratorem ad Iuliū Pont. Max., Rome, 1505, all the newly found lands are laid at the feet of Julius II. in a passage that ends with words worth noting: "Accipe tandem orbem ipsum terrarum, Deus enim noster es," i. e. "Accept in fine the earth itself, for thou art our God." Similar homage was rendered to Leo X. in 1513, on account of Albuquerque's conquests in Asia.—We may suspect that if the papacy had retained, at the end of the fifteenth century, anything like the overshadowing power which it possessed at the end of the twelfth, the kings of Portugal would not have been quite so unstinted in their homage. As it came to be less of a reality and more of a flourish of words, it cost less to offer it. Among some modern Catholics I have observed a disposition to imagine that in the famous bull of partition Alexander VI. acted not as supreme pontiff but merely as an arbiter, in the modern sense, between the crowns of Spain and Portugal; but such an interpretation is hardly compatible with Alexander's own words. An arbiter, as such, does not make awards by virtue of "the authority of Omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth."

Since writing this note my attention has been called to Dr. Ignaz von Doellinger's Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, London, 1871; and I find in it a chapter on the Donation of Constantine, in which the subject is treated with a wealth of learning. Some of my brief references are there discussed at considerable length. To the references to Dante there is added a still more striking passage, where Constantine is admitted into Heaven in spite of his Donation (Paradiso, xx. 55).]

[Footnote 547: The language of the bull is even more vague than my version in the text. His Holiness describes the lands to be given to the Spaniards as lying "to the west and south" (versus occidentem et meridiem) of his dividing meridian. Land to the south of a meridian would be in a queer position! Probably it was meant to say that the Spaniards, once west of the papal meridian, might go south as well as north. For the king of Portugal had suggested that they ought to confine themselves to northern waters.]

[Footnote 548: For the original Spanish text of the treaty of Tordesillas, see Navarrete, tom. ii. pp. 116-130.]

[Footnote 549: See below, vol. ii. pp. 98-154.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca.]

Already in April, 1493, without waiting for the papal sanction, Ferdinand and Isabella bent all their energies to the work of fitting out an expedition for taking possession of "the Indies." First, a department of Indian affairs was created, and at its head was placed Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville: in Spain a man in high office was apt to be a clergyman. This Fonseca was all-powerful in Indian affairs for the next thirty years. He won and retained the confidence of the sovereigns by virtue of his executive ability. He was a man of coarse fibre, ambitious and domineering, cold-hearted and perfidious, with a cynical contempt—such as low-minded people are apt to call "smart"—for the higher human feelings. He was one of those ugly customers who crush, without a twinge of compunction, whatever comes in their way. The slightest opposition made him furious, and his vindictiveness was insatiable. This dexterous and pushing Fonseca held one after another the bishoprics of Badajoz, Cordova, Palencia, and Conde, the archbishopric of Rosano in Italy, together with the bishopric of Burgos, and he was also principal chaplain to Isabella and afterwards to Ferdinand. As Sir Arthur Helps observes, "the student of early American history will have a bad opinion of many Spanish bishops, if he does not discover that it is Bishop Fonseca who reappears under various designations."[550] Sir Arthur fitly calls him "the ungodly bishop."

[Footnote 550: History of the Spanish Conquest, vol. i. p. 487.]

[Sidenote: Friar Boyle.]

The headquarters of Fonseca and of the Indian department were established at Seville, and a special Indian custom-house was set up at Cadiz. There was to be another custom-house upon the island of Hispaniola (supposed to be Japan), and a minute registry was to be kept of all ships and their crews and cargoes, going out or coming in. Nobody was to be allowed to go to the Indies for any purpose whatever without a license formally obtained. Careful regulations were made for hampering trade and making everything as vexatious as possible for traders, according to the ordinary wisdom of governments in such matters. All expenses were to be borne and all profits received by the crown of Castile, saving the rights formerly guaranteed to Columbus. The cost of the present expedition was partly defrayed with stolen money, the plunder wrung from the worthy and industrious Jews who had been driven from their homes by the infernal edict of the year before. Extensive "requisitions" were also made; in other words, when the sovereigns wanted a ship or a barrel of gunpowder they seized it, and impressed it into the good work of converting the heathen. To superintend this missionary work, a Franciscan monk[551] was selected who had lately distinguished himself as a diplomatist in the dispute with France over the border province of Rousillon. This person was a native of Catalonia, and his name was Bernardo Boyle, which strongly suggests an Irish origin. Alexander VI. appointed him his apostolic vicar for the Indies,[552] and he seems to have been the first clergyman to perform mass on the western shores of the Atlantic. To assist the vicar, the six Indians brought over by Columbus were baptized at Barcelona, with the king and queen for their godfather and godmother. It was hoped that they would prove useful as missionaries, and when one of them presently died he was said to be the first Indian ever admitted to heaven.[553]

[Footnote 551: Irving calls him a Benedictine, but he is addressed as "fratri ordinis Minorum" in the bull clothing him with apostolic authority in the Indies, June 25, 1493. See Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, tom. xi. p. 216. I cannot imagine what M. Harrisse means by calling him "religieux de Saint-Vincent de Paule" (Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. p. 55). Vincent de Paul was not born till 1576.]

[Footnote 552: Not for "the New World," as Irving carelessly has it in his Columbus, vol. i. p. 346. No such phrase had been thought of in 1493, or until long afterward.]

[Footnote 553: Herrera, Hist. de las Indias, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 5.]

The three summer months were occupied in fitting out the little fleet. There were fourteen caravels, and three larger store-ships known as carracks. Horses, mules, and other cattle were put on board,[554] as well as vines and sugar-canes, and the seeds of several European cereals, for it was intended to establish a permanent colony upon Hispaniola. In the course of this work some slight matters of disagreement came up between Columbus and Fonseca, and the question having been referred to the sovereigns, Fonseca was mildly snubbed and told that he must in all respects be guided by the Admiral's wishes. From that time forth this ungodly prelate nourished a deadly hatred toward Columbus, and never lost an opportunity for whispering evil things about him. The worst of the grievous afflictions that afterward beset the great discoverer must be ascribed to the secret machinations of this wretch.

[Footnote 554: Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xliv.]

[Sidenote: Notable persons who embarked on the second voyage.]

At last the armament was ready. People were so eager to embark that it was felt necessary to restrain them. It was not intended to have more than 1,200, but about 1,500 in all contrived to go, so that some of the caravels must have been overcrowded. The character of the company was very different from that of the year before. Those who went in the first voyage were chiefly common sailors. Now there were many aristocratic young men, hot-blooded and feather-headed hidalgos whom the surrender of Granada had left without an occupation. Most distinguished among these was Alonso de Ojeda, a dare-devil of unrivalled muscular strength, full of energy and fanfaronade, and not without generous qualities, but with very little soundness of judgment or character. Other notable personages in this expedition were Columbus's youngest brother Giacomo (henceforth called Diego), who had come from Genoa at the first news of the Admiral's triumphant return; the monk Antonio de Marchena,[555] whom historians have so long confounded with the prior Juan Perez; an Aragonese gentleman named Pedro Margarite, a favourite of the king and destined to work sad mischief; Juan Ponce de Leon, who afterwards gave its name to Florida; Francisco de Las Casas, father of the great apostle and historian of the Indies; and, last but not least, the pilot Juan de La Cosa, now charged with the work of chart-making, in which he was an acknowledged master.[556]

[Footnote 555: He went as astronomer, from which we may perhaps suppose that scientific considerations had made him one of the earliest and most steadfast upholders of Columbus's views.]

[Footnote 556: See Harrisse, Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 55, 56; Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 498; Fabie, Vida de Las Casas, Madrid, 1879, tom. i. p. 11; Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, tom. i. p. 467; Navarrete, Coleccion de viages, tom. ii. pp. 143-149.]

[Sidenote: Cruise among the cannibal islands.]

The pomp and bustle of the departure from Cadiz, September 25, 1493, at which the Admiral's two sons, Diego and Ferdinand, were present, must have been one of the earliest recollections of the younger boy, then just five years of age.[557] Again Columbus stopped at the Canary islands, this time to take on board goats and sheep, pigs and fowls, for he had been struck by the absence of all such animals on the coasts which he had visited.[558] Seeds of melons, oranges, and lemons were also taken. On the 7th of October the ships weighed anchor, heading a trifle to the south of west, and after a pleasant and uneventful voyage they sighted land on the 3d of November.[559] It turned out to be a small mountainous island, and as it was discovered on Sunday they called it Dominica. In a fortnight's cruise in these Caribbean waters they discovered and named several islands, such as Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Antigua, and others, and at length reached Porto Rico. The inhabitants of these islands were ferocious cannibals, very different from the natives encountered on the former voyage. There were skirmishes in which a few Spaniards were killed with poisoned arrows. On Guadaloupe the natives lived in square houses made of saplings intertwined with reeds, and on the rude porticoes attached to these houses some of the wooden pieces were carved so as to look like serpents. In some of these houses human limbs were hanging from the roof, cured with smoke, like ham; and fresh pieces of human flesh were found stewing in earthen kettles, along with the flesh of parrots. Now at length, said Peter Martyr, was proved the truth of the stories of Polyphemus and the Laestrygonians, and the reader must look out lest his hair stand on end.[560] These western Laestrygonians were known as Caribbees, Caribales, or Canibales, and have thus furnished an epithet which we have since learned to apply to man-eaters the world over.

[Footnote 557: "E con questo preparamento il mercolede ai 25 del mese di settembre dell' anno 1493 un' ora avanti il levar del sole, essendovi io e mio fratel presenti, l' Ammiraglio levo le ancore," etc. Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xliv.]

[Footnote 558: Eight sows were bought for 70 maravedis apiece, and "destas ocho puercas se han multiplicado todos los puercos que, hasta hoy, ha habido y hay en todas estas Indias," etc. Las Casas, Historia, tom. ii. p. 3.]

[Footnote 559: The relation of this second voyage by Dr. Chanca may be found in Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 198-241; an interesting relation in Italian by Simone Verde, a Florentine merchant then living in Valladolid, is published in Harrisse, Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 68-78. The narrative of the curate of Los Palacios is of especial value for this voyage.]

[Footnote 560: Martyr, Epist. cxlvii. ad Pomponium Laetum; cf. Odyssey, x. 119; Thucyd. vi. 2.—Irving (vol. i. p. 385) finds it hard to believe these stories, but the prevalence of cannibalism, not only in these islands, but throughout a very large part of aboriginal America, has been superabundantly proved.]

[Sidenote: Fate of the colony at La Navidad.]

It was late at night on the 27th of November that Columbus arrived in the harbour of La Navidad and fired a salute to arouse the attention of the party that had been left there the year before. There was no reply and the silence seemed fraught with evil omen. On going ashore next morning and exploring the neighbourhood, the Spaniards came upon sights of dismal significance. The fortress was pulled to pieces and partly burnt, the chests of provisions were broken open and emptied, tools and fragments of European clothing were found in the houses of the natives, and finally eleven corpses, identifiable as those of white men, were found buried near the fort. Not one of the forty men who had been left behind in that place ever turned up to tell the tale. The little colony of La Navidad had been wiped out of existence. From the Indians, however, Columbus gathered bits of information that made a sufficiently probable story. It was a typical instance of the beginnings of colonization in wild countries. In such instances human nature has shown considerable uniformity. Insubordination and deadly feuds among themselves had combined with reckless outrages upon the natives to imperil the existence of this little party of rough sailors. The cause to which Horace ascribes so many direful wars, both before and since the days of fairest Helen, seems to have been the principal cause on this occasion. At length a fierce chieftain named Caonabo, from the region of Xaragua, had attacked the Spaniards in overwhelming force, knocked their blockhouse about their heads, and butchered all that were left of them.

[Sidenote: Building of Isabella.]

[Sidenote: Exploration of Cibao.]

This was a gloomy welcome to the land of promise. There was nothing to be done but to build new fortifications and found a town. The site chosen for this new settlement, which was named Isabella, was at a good harbour about thirty miles east of Monte Christi. It was chosen because Columbus understood from the natives that it was not far from there to the gold-bearing mountains of Cibao, a name which still seemed to signify Cipango. Quite a neat little town was presently built, with church, marketplace, public granary, and dwelling-houses, the whole encompassed with a stone wall. An exploring party led by Ojeda into the mountains of Cibao found gold dust and pieces of gold ore in the beds of the brooks, and returned elated with this discovery. Twelve of the ships were now sent back to Spain for further supplies and reinforcements, and specimens of the gold were sent as an earnest of what was likely to be found. At length, in March, 1494, Columbus set forth, with 400 armed men, to explore the Cibao country. The march was full of interest. It is upon this occasion that we first find mention of the frantic terror manifested by Indians at the sight of horses. At first they supposed the horse and his rider to be a kind of centaur, and when the rider dismounted this separation of one creature into two overwhelmed them with supernatural terror. Even when they had begun to get over this notion they were in dread of being eaten by the horses.[561] These natives lived in houses grouped into villages, and had carved wooden idols and rude estufas for their tutelar divinities. It was ascertained that different tribes tried to steal each other's idols and even fought for the possession of valuable objects of "medicine."[562] Columbus observed and reported the customs of these people with some minuteness. There was nothing that agreed with Marco Polo's descriptions of Cipango, but so far as concerned the discovery of gold mines, the indications were such as to leave little doubt of the success of this reconnaissance. The Admiral now arranged his forces so as to hold the inland regions just visited and gave the general command to Margarite, who was to continue the work of exploration. He left his brother, Diego Columbus, in charge of the colony, and taking three caravels set sail from Isabella on the 24th of April, on a cruise of discovery in these Asiatic waters.

[Footnote 561: For an instance of 400 hostile Indians fleeing before a single armed horseman, see Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lii.; Las Casas, Hist. tom. ii. p. 46.]

[Footnote 562: Compare the Fisherman's story of Drogio, above, pp. 246, 252.]



[Sidenote: Cape Alpha and Omega.]

A brief westward sail brought the little squadron into the Windward Passage and in sight of Cape Mayzi, which Columbus on his first voyage had named Cape Alpha and Omega as being the easternmost point on the Chinese coast. He believed that if he were to sail to the right of this cape he should have the continent on his port side for a thousand miles and more, as far as Quinsay and Cambaluc (Peking). If he had sailed in this direction and had succeeded in keeping to the east of Florida, he would have kept a continent on his port side, and a thousand miles would have taken him a long way toward that Vinland which our Scandinavian friends would fondly have us believe was his secret guiding-star, and the geographical position of which they suppose him to have known with such astounding accuracy. But on this as on other occasions, if the Admiral had ever received any information about Vinland, it must be owned that he treated it very cavalierly, for he chose the course to the left of Cape Mayzi. His decision is intelligible if we bear in mind that he had not yet circumnavigated Hayti and was not yet cured of his belief that its northern shore was the shore of the great Cipango. At the same time he had seen enough on his first voyage to convince him that the relative positions of Cipango and the mainland of Cathay were not correctly laid down upon the Toscanelli map. He had already inspected two or three hundred miles of the coast to the right of Cape Mayzi without finding traces of civilization; and whenever inquiries were made about gold or powerful kingdoms the natives invariably pointed to the south or southwest. Columbus, therefore, decided to try his luck in this direction. He passed to the left of Cape Mayzi and followed the southern coast of Cuba.

[Sidenote: Discovery of Jamaica.]

By the 3d of May the natives were pointing so persistently to the south and off to sea that he changed his course in that direction and soon came upon the northern coast of the island which we still know by its native name Jamaica. Here he found Indians more intelligent and more warlike than any he had as yet seen. He was especially struck with the elegance of their canoes, some of them nearly a hundred feet in length, carved and hollowed from the trunks of tall trees. We may already observe that different tribes of Indians comported themselves very differently at the first sight of white men. While the natives of some of the islands prostrated themselves in adoration of these sky-creatures, or behaved with a timorous politeness which the Spaniards mistook for gentleness of disposition, in other places the red men showed fight at once, acting upon the brute impulse to drive away strangers. In both cases, of course, dread of the unknown was the prompting impulse, though so differently manifested. As the Spaniards went ashore upon Jamaica, the Indians greeted them with a shower of javelins and for a few moments stood up against the deadly fire of the cross-bows, but when they turned to flee, a single bloodhound, let loose upon them, scattered them in wildest panic.[563]

[Footnote 563: Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, cap. cxxv. Domesticated dogs were found generally in aboriginal America, but they were very paltry curs compared to these fierce hounds, one of which could handle an unarmed man as easily as a terrier handles a rat.]

[Sidenote: Coasting the south side of Cuba.]

Finding no evidences of civilization upon this beautiful island, Columbus turned northward and struck the Cuban coast again at the point which still bears the name he gave it, Cape Cruz. Between the general contour of this end of Cuba and that of the eastern extremity of Cathay upon the Toscanelli map there is a curious resemblance, save that the direction is in the one case more east and west and in the other more north and south. Columbus passed no cities like Zaiton, nor cities of any sort, but when he struck into the smiling archipelago which he called the Queen's Gardens, now known as Cayos de las Doce Leguas, he felt sure that he was among Marco Polo's seven thousand spice islands. On the 3d of June, at some point on the Cuban coast, probably near Trinidad, the crops of several doves were opened and spices found in them. None of the natives here had ever heard of an end to Cuba, and they believed it was endless.[564] The next country to the west of themselves was named Mangon, and it was inhabited by people with tails which they carefully hid by wearing loose robes of cloth. This information seemed decisive to Columbus. Evidently this Mangon was Mangi, the province in which was the city of Zaiton, the province just south of Cathay. And as for the tailed men, the book of Mandeville had a story of some naked savages in eastern Asia who spoke of their more civilized neighbours as wearing clothes in order to cover up some bodily peculiarity or defect. Could there be any doubt that the Spanish caravels had come at length to the coast of opulent Mangi?[565]

[Footnote 564: As a Greek would have said, [Greek: epeiros], a continent.]

[Footnote 565: Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, cap. cxxvii, Mr. Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia." (Life of Columbus, vol. i. p. 493.) This lends a false colour to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an "ardent imagination." It was simply a plain common-sense conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were then accessible (i. e. the Toscanelli map, amended by information such as was understood to be given by the natives); it was more probable than any other theory of the situation likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern historians abound in unconscious turns of expression—as in this quotation from Irving—which project modern knowledge back into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the reader must not suppose that this is any indication of captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration.]

[Sidenote: The "people of Mangon."]

[Sidenote: The Golden Chersonese.]

Under the influence of this belief, when a few days later they landed in search of fresh water, and a certain archer, on the lookout for game, caught distant glimpses of a flock of tall white cranes feeding in an everglade, he fled to his comrades with the story that he had seen a party of men clad in long white tunics, and all agreed that these must be the people of Mangon.[566] Columbus sent a small company ashore to find them. It is needless to add that the search was fruitless, but footprints of alligators, interpreted as footprints of griffins guarding hoarded gold,[567] frightened the men back to their ships. From the natives, with whom the Spaniards could converse only by signs, they seemed to learn that they were going toward the realm of Prester John;[568] and in such wise did they creep along the coast to the point, some fifty miles west of Broa Bay, where it begins to trend decidedly to the southwest. Before they had reached Point Mangles, a hundred miles farther on, inasmuch as they found this southwesterly trend persistent, the proof that they were upon the coast of the Asiatic continent began to seem complete. Columbus thought that they had passed the point (lat. 23 deg., long. 145 deg. on Toscanelli's map) where the coast of Asia began to trend steadily toward the southwest.[569] By pursuing this coast he felt sure that he would eventually reach the peninsula (Malacca) which Ptolemy, who knew of it only by vague hearsay, called the Golden Chersonese.[570] An immense idea now flitted through the mind of Columbus. If he could reach and double that peninsula he could then find his way to the mouth of the Ganges river; thence he might cross the Indian ocean, pass the Cape of Good Hope (for Dias had surely shown that the way was open), and return that way to Spain after circumnavigating the globe! But fate had reserved this achievement for another man of great heart and lofty thoughts, a quarter of a century later, who should indeed accomplish what Columbus dreamed, but only after crossing another Sea of Darkness, the most stupendous body of water on our globe, the mere existence of which until after Columbus had died no European ever suspected.[571] If Columbus had now sailed about a hundred miles farther, he would have found the end of Cuba, and might perhaps have skirted the northern shore of Yucatan and come upon the barbaric splendours of Uxmal and Campeche. The excitement which such news would have caused in Spain might perhaps have changed all the rest of his life and saved him from the worst of his troubles. But the crews were now unwilling to go farther, and the Admiral realized that it would be impossible to undertake such a voyage as he had in mind with no more than their present outfit. So it was decided to return to Hispaniola.

[Footnote 566: These tropical birds are called soldados, or "soldiers," because their stately attitudes remind one of sentinels on duty. The whole town of Angostura, in Venezuela, was one day frightened out of its wits by the sudden appearance of a flock of these cranes on the summit of a neighbouring hill. They were mistaken for a war-party of Indians. Humboldt, Voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. p. 314.]

[Footnote 567: See above, p. 287, note.]

[Footnote 568: For these events, see Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, cap. cxxiii.; F. Columbus, Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. lvi.; Munoz, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, lib. v. Sec. 16; Humboldt, Examen critique, tom. iv. pp. 237-263; Irving's Columbus, vol. i. pp. 491-504.]

[Footnote 569: That is to say, he thought he had passed the coast of Mangi (southern China) and reached the beginning of the coast of Champa (Cochin China; see Yule's Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 213). The name Champa, coming to European writers through an Italian source, was written Ciampa and Ciamba. See its position on the Behaim and Toscanelli maps, and also on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. ii. p. 114. Peter Martyr says that Columbus was sure that he had reached the coast of Gangetic (i. e. what we call Farther) India: "Indiae Gangetidis continentem eam (Cubae) plagam esse contendit Colonus." Epist. xciii. ad Bernardinum. Of course Columbus understood that this region, while agreeing well enough with Toscanelli's latitude, was far from agreeing with his longitude. But from the moment when he turned eastward on his first voyage he seems to have made up his mind that Toscanelli's longitudes needed serious amendment. Indeed he had always used different measurements from Toscanelli.]

[Footnote 570: For an account of Ptolemy's almost purely hypothetical and curiously distorted notions about southeastern Asia, see Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography, vol. ii. pp. 604-608.]

[Footnote 571: See below, vol. ii. pp. 200-210.]

Upon consultation with La Cosa and others, it was unanimously agreed that they were upon the coast of the continent of Asia. The evidence seemed conclusive. From Cape Mayzi (Alpha and Omega) they had observed, upon their own reckoning, 335 leagues, or about 1,000 geographical miles, of continuous coast running steadily in nearly the same direction.[572] Clearly it was too long for the coast of an island; and then there was the name Mangon = Mangi. The only puzzling circumstance was that they did not find any of Marco Polo's cities. They kept getting scraps of information which seemed to refer to gorgeous kingdoms, but these were always in the dim distance. Still there was no doubt that they had discovered the coast of a continent, and of course such a continent could be nothing else but Asia!

[Footnote 572: The length of Cuba from Cape Mayzi to Cape San Antonio is about 700 English miles. But in following the sinuosities of the coast, and including tacks, the estimate of these pilots was probably not far from correct.]

[Sidenote: A solemn expression of opinion.]

Such unanimity of opinion might seem to leave nothing to be desired. But Columbus had already met with cavillers. Before he started on this cruise from Isabella, some impatient hidalgos, disgusted at finding much to do and little to get, had begun to hint that the Admiral was a humbug, and that his "Indies" were no such great affair after all. In order to silence these ill-natured critics, he sent his notary, accompanied by four witnesses, to every person in those three caravels, to get a sworn statement. If anybody had a grain of doubt about this coast being the coast of Asia, so that you could go ashore there and walk on dry land all the way to Spain if so disposed, let him declare his doubts once for all, so that they might now be duly considered. No one expressed any doubts. All declared, under oath, their firm belief. It was then agreed that if any of the number should thereafter deny or contradict this sworn statement, he should have his tongue slit;[573] and if an officer, he should be further punished with a fine of 10,000 maravedis, or if a sailor, with a hundred lashes. These proceedings were embodied in a formal document, dated June 12, 1494, which is still to be seen in the Archives of the Indies at Seville.[574]

[Footnote 573: "E cortada la lengua;" "y le cortarian la lengua." Irving understands it to mean cutting off the tongue. But in those days of symbolism slitting the tip of that unruly member was a recognized punishment for serious lying.]

[Footnote 574: It is printed in full in Navarrete, torn. ii. pp. 143-149.]

Having disposed of this solemn matter, the three caravels turned eastward, touching at the Isle of Pines and coasting back along the south side of Cuba. The headland where the Admiral first became convinced of the significance of the curvature of the coast, he named Cape of Good Hope,[575] believing it to be much nearer the goal which all were seeking than the other cape of that name, discovered by Dias seven years before.

[Footnote 575: It is given upon La Cosa's map; see below, vol. ii., frontispiece.]

[Sidenote: Vicissitudes of theory.]

It will be remembered that the Admiral, upon his first voyage, had carried home with him two theories,—first, that in the Cuban coast he had already discovered that of the continent of Asia, secondly that Hispaniola was Cipango. The first theory seemed to be confirmed by further experience; the second was now to receive a serious shock. Leaving Cape Cruz the caravels stood over to Jamaica, leisurely explored the southern side of that island, and as soon as adverse winds would let them, kept on eastward till land appeared on the port bow. Nobody recognized it until an Indian chief who had learned some Spanish hailed them from the shore and told them it was Hispaniola. They then followed that southern coast its whole length, discovering the tiny islands, Beata, Saona, and Mona. Here Columbus, overcome by long-sustained fatigue and excitement, suddenly fell into a death-like lethargy, and in this sad condition was carried all the way to Isabella, and to his own house, where he was put to bed. Hispaniola had thus been circumnavigated, and either it was not Cipango or else that wonderland must be a much smaller affair than Toscanelli and Martin Behaim had depicted it.[576] There was something truly mysterious about these Strange Coasts!

[Footnote 576: Hispaniola continued, however, for many years to be commonly identified with Cipango. See note D on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. ii. p. 114.]

[Sidenote: Arrival of Bartholomew Columbus.]

When Columbus, after many days, recovered consciousness, he found his brother Bartholomew standing by his bedside. It was six years since they had last parted company at Lisbon, whence the younger brother started for England, while the elder returned to Spain. The news of Christopher's return from his first voyage found Bartholomew in Paris, whence he started as soon as he could for Seville, but did not arrive there until just after the second expedition had started. Presently the sovereigns sent him with three ships to Hispaniola, to carry supplies to the colony; and there he arrived while the Admiral was exploring the coast of Cuba. The meeting of the two brothers was a great relief to both. The affection between them was very strong, and each was a support for the other. The Admiral at once proceeded to appoint Bartholomew to the office of Adelantado, which in this instance was equivalent to making him governor of Hispaniola under himself, the Viceroy of the Indies. In making this appointment Columbus seems to have exceeded the authority granted him by the second article of his agreement of April, 1492, with the sovereigns;[577] but they mended the matter in 1497 by themselves investing Bartholomew with the office and dignity of Adelantado.[578]

[Footnote 577: See above, p. 417.]

[Footnote 578: Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, tom. ii. p. 80.]

[Sidenote: Mutiny in Hispaniola; desertion of Boyle and Margarite.]

Columbus was in need of all the aid he could summon, for, during his absence, the island had become a pandemonium. His brother Diego, a man of refined and studious habits, who afterwards became a priest, was too mild in disposition to govern the hot-heads who had come to Hispaniola to get rich without labour. They would not submit to the rule of this foreigner. Instead of doing honest work they roamed about the island, abusing the Indians and slaying one another in silly quarrels. Chief among the offenders was King Ferdinand's favourite, the commander Margarite; and he was aided and abetted by Friar Boyle. Some time after Bartholomew's arrival, these two men of Aragon gathered about them a party of malcontents and, seizing the ships which had brought that mariner, sailed away to Spain. Making their way to court, they sought pardon for thus deserting the colony, saying that duty to their sovereigns demanded that they should bring home a report of what was going on in the Indies. They decried the value of Columbus's discoveries, and reminded the king that Hispaniola was taking money out of the treasury much faster than it was putting it in; an argument well calculated to influence Ferdinand that summer, for he was getting ready to go to war with France over the Naples affair. Then the two recreants poured forth a stream of accusations against the brothers Columbus, the general purport of which was that they were gross tyrants not fit to be trusted with the command of Spaniards.

[Sidenote: The government of Columbus was not tyrannical.]

No marked effect seems to have been produced by these first complaints, but when Margarite and Boyle were once within reach of Fonseca, we need not wonder that mischief was soon brewing. It was unfortunate for Columbus that his work of exploration was hampered by the necessity of founding a colony and governing a parcel of unruly men let loose in the wilderness, far away from the powerful restraints of civilized society. Such work required undivided attention and extraordinary talent for command. It does not appear that Columbus was lacking in such talent. On the contrary both he and his brother Bartholomew seem to have possessed it in a high degree. But the situation was desperately bad when the spirit of mutiny was fomented by deadly enemies at court. I do not find adequate justification for the charges of tyranny brought against Columbus. The veracity and fairness of the history of Las Casas are beyond question; in his divinely beautiful spirit one sees now and then a trace of tenderness even for Fonseca, whose conduct toward him was always as mean and malignant as toward Columbus. One gets from Las Casas the impression that the Admiral's high temper was usually kept under firm control, and that he showed far less severity than most men would have done under similar provocation. Bartholomew was made of sterner stuff, but his whole career presents no instance of wanton cruelty; toward both white men and Indians his conduct was distinguished by clemency and moderation. Under the government of these brothers a few scoundrels were hanged in Hispaniola. Many more ought to have been.

[Sidenote: Troubles with the Indians.]

Of the attempt of Columbus to collect tribute from the native population, and its consequences in developing the system of repartimientos out of which grew Indian slavery, I shall treat in a future chapter.[579] That attempt, which was ill-advised and ill-managed, was part of a plan for checking wanton depredations and regulating the relations between the Spaniards and the Indians. The colonists behaved so badly toward the red men that the chieftain Caonabo, who had destroyed La Navidad the year before, now formed a scheme[580] for a general alliance among the native tribes, hoping with sufficient numbers to overwhelm and exterminate the strangers, in spite of their solid-hoofed monsters and death-dealing thunderbolts. This scheme was revealed to Columbus, soon after his return from the coast of Cuba, by the chieftain Guacanagari, who was an enemy to Caonabo and courted the friendship of the Spaniards. Alonso de Ojeda, by a daring stratagem, captured Caonabo and brought him to Columbus, who treated him kindly but kept him a prisoner until it should be convenient to send him to Spain. But this chieftain's scheme was nevertheless put in operation through the influence of his principal wife Anacaona. An Indian war broke out; roaming bands of Spaniards were ambushed and massacred; and there was fighting in the field, where the natives—assailed by firearms and cross-bows, horses and bloodhounds—were wofully defeated.

[Footnote 579: See below, vol. ii. pp. 433, 434.]

[Footnote 580: The first of a series of such schemes in American history, including those of Sassacus, Philip, Pontiac, and to some extent Tecumseh.]

[Sidenote: Mission of Aguado.]

[Sidenote: Discovery of gold mines.]

[Sidenote: Speculations about Ophir.]

Thus in the difficult task of controlling mutinous white men and defending the colony against infuriated red men Columbus spent the first twelvemonth after his return from Cuba. In October, 1495, there arrived in the harbour of Isabella four caravels laden with welcome supplies. In one of these ships came Juan Aguado, sent by the sovereigns to gather information respecting the troubles of the colony. This appointment was doubtless made in a friendly spirit, for Columbus had formerly recommended Aguado to favour. But the arrival of such a person created a hope, which quickly grew into a belief, that the sovereigns were preparing to deprive Columbus of the government of the island; and, as Irving neatly says, "it was a time of jubilee for offenders; every culprit started up into an accuser." All the ills of the colony, many of them inevitable in such an enterprise, many of them due to the shiftlessness and folly, the cruelty and lust of idle swash-bucklers, were now laid at the door of Columbus. Aguado was presently won over by the malcontents, so that by the time he was ready to return to Spain, early in 1496, Columbus felt it desirable to go along with him and make his own explanations to the sovereigns. Fortunately for his purposes, just before he started, some rich gold mines were discovered on the south side of the island, in the neighbourhood of the Hayna and Ozema rivers. Moreover there were sundry pits in these mines, which looked like excavations and seemed to indicate that in former times there had been digging done.[581] This discovery confirmed the Admiral in a new theory, which he was beginning to form. If it should turn out that Hispaniola was not Cipango, as the last voyage seemed to suggest, perhaps it might prove to be Ophir![582] Probably these ancient excavations were made by King Solomon's men when they came here to get gold for the temple at Jerusalem! If so, one might expect to find silver, ivory, red sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks at no great distance. Just where Ophir was situated no one could exactly tell,[583] but the things that were carried thence to Jerusalem certainly came from "the Indies." Columbus conceived it as probably lying northeastward of the Golden Chersonese (Malacca) and as identical with the island of Hispaniola.

[Footnote 581: The Indians then living upon the island did not dig, but scraped up the small pieces of gold that were more or less abundant in the beds of shallow streams.]

[Footnote 582: Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, dec. i. lib. iv.]

[Footnote 583: The original Ophir may be inferred, from Genesis x. 29, to have been situated where, as Milton says,

"northeast winds blow Sabaean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest,"

but the name seems to have become applied indiscriminately to the remote countries reached by ships that sailed past that coast; chiefly no doubt, to Hindustan. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, bd. i. p. 538.]

[Sidenote: Founding of San Domingo, 1496.]

[Sidenote: The return voyage.]

The discovery of these mines led to the transfer of the headquarters of the colony to the mouth of the Ozema river, where, in the summer of 1496, Bartholomew Columbus made a settlement which became the city of San Domingo.[584] Meanwhile Aguado and the Admiral sailed for Spain early in March, in two caravels overloaded with more than two hundred homesick passengers. In choosing his course Columbus did not show so much sagacity as on his first return voyage. Instead of working northward till clear of the belt of trade-winds, he kept straight to the east, and so spent a month in beating and tacking before getting out of the Caribbean Sea. Scarcity of food was imminent, and it became necessary to stop at Guadaloupe and make a quantity of cassava bread.[585] It was well that this was done, for as the ships worked slowly across the Atlantic, struggling against perpetual head-winds, the provisions were at length exhausted, and by the first week in June the famine was such that Columbus had some difficulty in preventing the crews from eating their Indian captives, of whom there were thirty or more on board.[586]

[Footnote 584: Bartholomew's town was built on the left side of the river, and was called New Isabella. In 1504 it was destroyed by a hurricane, and rebuilt on the right bank in its present situation. It was then named San Domingo after the patron saint of Domenico, the father of Columbus.]

[Footnote 585: While the Spaniards were on this island they encountered a party of tall and powerful women armed with bows and arrows; so that Columbus supposed it must be the Asiatic island of Amazons mentioned by Marco Polo. See Yule's Marco Polo, vol. ii. pp. 338-340.]

[Footnote 586: Among them was Caonabo, who died on the voyage.]

[Sidenote: Edicts of 1495 and 1497.]

At length, on the 11th of June, the haggard and starving company arrived at Cadiz, and Columbus, while awaiting orders from the sovereigns, stayed at the house of his good friend Bernaldez, the curate of Los Palacios.[587] After a month he attended court at Burgos, and was kindly received. No allusion was made to the complaints against him, and the sovereigns promised to furnish ships for a third voyage of discovery. For the moment, however, other things interfered with this enterprise. One was the marriage of the son and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella to the daughter and son of the Emperor Maximilian. The war with France was at the same time fast draining the treasury. Indeed, for more than twenty years, Castile had been at war nearly all the time, first with Portugal, next with Granada, then with France; and the crown never found it easy to provide money for maritime enterprises. Accordingly, at the earnest solicitation of Vicente Yanez Pinzon and other enterprising mariners, the sovereigns had issued a proclamation, April 10, 1495, granting to all native Spaniards the privilege of making, at their own risk and expense, voyages of discovery or traffic to the newly found coasts. As the crown was to take a pretty heavy tariff out of the profits of these expeditions, while all losses were to be borne by the adventurers, a fairly certain source of revenue, be it great or small, seemed likely to be opened.[588] Columbus protested against this edict, inasmuch as he deemed himself entitled to a patent or monopoly in the work of conducting expeditions to Cathay. The sovereigns evaded the difficulty by an edict of June 2, 1497, declaring that it was never their intention "in any way to affect the rights of the said Don Christopher Columbus." This declaration was, doubtless, intended simply to pacify the Admiral. It did not prevent the authorization of voyages conducted by other persons a couple of years later; and, as I shall show in the next chapter, there are strong reasons for believing that on May 10, 1497, three weeks before this edict, an expedition sailed from Cadiz under the especial auspices of King Ferdinand, with Vicente Yanez Pinzon for its chief commander and Americus Vespucius for one of its pilots.

[Footnote 587: The curate thus heard the story of the second voyage from Columbus himself while it was fresh in his mind. Columbus also left with him written memoranda, so that for the events of this expedition the Historia de los Reyes Catolicos is of the highest authority.]

[Footnote 588: "All vessels were to sail exclusively from the port of Cadiz, and under the inspection of officers appointed by the crown. Those who embarked for Hispaniola without pay, and at their own expense, were to have lands assigned to them, and to be provisioned for one year, with a right to retain such lands and all houses they might erect upon them. Of all gold which they might collect, they were to retain one third for themselves, and pay two thirds to the crown. Of all other articles of merchandise, the produce of the island, they were to pay merely one tenth to the crown. Their purchases were to be made in the presence of officers appointed by the sovereigns, and the royal duties paid into the hands of the king's receiver. Each ship sailing on private enterprise was to take one or two persons named by the royal officers at Cadiz. One tenth of the tonnage of the ship was to be at the service of the crown, free of charge. One tenth of whatever such ships should procure in the newly-discovered countries was to be paid to the crown on their return. These regulations included private ships trading to Hispaniola with provisions. For every vessel thus fitted out on private adventure, Columbus, in consideration of his privilege of an eighth of tonnage, was to have the right to freight one on his own account." Irving's Columbus, vol. ii. p. 76.]

[Sidenote: Columbus loses his temper.]

It was not until late in the spring of 1498 that the ships were ready for Columbus. Everything that Fonseca could do to vex and delay him was done. One of the bishop's minions, a converted Moor or Jew named Ximeno Breviesca, behaved with such outrageous insolence that on the day of sailing the Admiral's indignation, so long restrained, at last broke out, and he drove away the fellow with kicks and cuffs.[589] This imprudent act gave Fonseca the opportunity to maintain that what the Admiral's accusers said about his tyrannical disposition must be true.

[Footnote 589: "Parece que uno debiera de, en estos reveses, y, por ventura, en palabras contra el y contra la negociacion destas Indias, mas que otro senalarse, y segun entendi, no debiera ser cristiano viejo, y creo que se llamaba Ximeno, contra el cual debio el Almirante gravemente sentirse y enojarse, y aguardo el dia que se hizo a la vela, y, o en la nao que entro, por ventura, el dicho oficial, o en tierra quando queria desembarcarse, arrebatolo el Almirante, y dale muchas coces o remesones, por manera que lo trato mal; y a mi parecer, por esta causa principalmente, sobre otras quejas que fueron de aca, y cosas que murmuraron del y contra el los que bien con el no estaban y le acumularon; los Reyes indignados proveyeron de quitarle la gobernacion." Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, tom. ii. p. 199.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The third voyage.]

The expedition started on May 30, 1498, from the little port of San Lucar de Barrameda. There were six ships, carrying about 200 men besides the sailors. On June 21, at the Isle of Ferro, the Admiral divided his fleet, sending three ships directly to Hispaniola, while with the other three he kept on to the Cape Verde islands, whence he steered southwest on the 4th of July. A week later, after a run of about 900 miles, his astrolabe seemed to show that he was within five degrees of the equator.[590] There were three reasons for going so far to the south:—1, the natives of the islands already visited always pointed in that direction when gold was mentioned; 2, a learned jeweller, who had travelled in the East, had assured Columbus that gold and gems, as well as spices and rare drugs, were to be found for the most part among black people near the equator; 3, if he should not find any rich islands on the way, a sufficiently long voyage would bring him to the coast of Champa (Cochin China) at a lower point than he had reached on the preceding voyage, and nearer to the Golden Chersonese (Malacca), by doubling which he could enter the Indian ocean. It will be remembered that he supposed the southwesterly curve in the Cuban coast, the farthest point reached in his second voyage, to be the beginning of the coast of Cochin China according to Marco Polo.

[Footnote 590: The figure given by Columbus is equivalent only to 360 geographical miles (Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. i. p. 246), but as Las Casas (Hist. tom. ii. p. 226) already noticed, there must be some mistake here, for on a S. W. course from the Cape Verde islands it would require a distance of 900 geographical miles to cut the fifth parallel. From the weather that followed, it is clear that Columbus stated his latitude pretty correctly; he had come into the belt of calms. Therefore his error must be in the distance run.]

[Sidenote: The belt of calms.]

Once more through ignorance of the atmospheric conditions of the regions within the tropics Columbus encountered needless perils and hardships. If he had steered from Ferro straight across the ocean a trifle south of west-southwest, he might have made a quick and comfortable voyage, with the trade-wind filling his sails, to the spot where he actually struck land.[591] As it was, however, he naturally followed the custom then so common, of first running to the parallel upon which he intended to sail. This long southerly run brought him into the belt of calms or neutral zone between the northern and southern trade-winds, a little north of the equator.[592] No words can describe what followed so well as those of Irving: "The wind suddenly fell, and a dead sultry calm commenced, which lasted for eight days. The air was like a furnace; the tar melted, the seams of the ship yawned; the salt meat became putrid; the wheat was parched as if with fire; the hoops shrank from the wine and water casks, some of which leaked and others burst, while the heat in the holds of the vessels was so suffocating that no one could remain below a sufficient time to prevent the damage that was taking place. The mariners lost all strength and spirits, and sank under the oppressive heat. It seemed as if the old fable of the torrid zone was about to be realized; and that they were approaching a fiery region where it would be impossible to exist."[593]

[Footnote 591: Humboldt in 1799 did just this thing, starting from Teneriffe and reaching Trinidad in nineteen days. See Bruhn's Life of Humboldt, vol. i. p. 263.]

[Footnote 592: "The strength of the trade-winds depends entirely upon the difference in temperature between the equator and the pole; the greater the difference, the stronger the wind. Now, at the present time, the south pole is much colder than the north pole, and the southern trades are consequently much stronger than the northern, so that the neutral zone in which they meet lies some five degrees north of the equator." Excursions of an Evolutionist, p. 64.]

[Footnote 593: Irving's Columbus, vol. ii. p. 137. One is reminded of a scene in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner:—

"All in a hot and copper sky The bloody sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon.

"Day after day, day after day, We stuck,—nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."]

Fortunately, they were in a region where the ocean is comparatively narrow. The longitude reached by Columbus on July 13, when the wind died away, must have been about 36 deg. or 37 deg. W., and a run of only 800 miles west from that point would have brought him to Cayenne. His course between the 13th and 21st of July must have intersected the thermal equator, or line of greatest mean annual heat on the globe,—an irregular curve which is here deflected as much as five degrees north of the equinoctial line. But although there was not a breath of wind, the powerful equatorial current was quietly driving the ships, much faster than the Admiral could have suspected, to the northwest and toward land. By the end of that stifling week they were in latitude 7 deg. N., and caught the trade-wind on the starboard quarter. Thence after a brisk run of ten days, in sorry plight, with ugly leaks and scarcely a cask of fresh water left, they arrived within sight of land. Three mountain peaks loomed up in the offing before them, and as they drew nearer it appeared that those peaks belonged to one great mountain; wherefore the pious Admiral named the island Trinidad.