Chapter 4

Rev.Sabine Baring-Gould, vicar of Looe Trenchard, Devonshire, England. Born at Exeter, England, 1834. An antiquarian, archæological and historical writer, no mean poet, and a novelist. From his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages."

According to a Keltic legend, in former days there lived in Skerr a Druid of renown. He sat with his face to the west on the shore, his eye following the declining sun, and he blamed the careless billows which tumbled between him and the distant Isle of Green. One day, as he sat musing on a rock, a storm arose on the sea; a cloud, under whose squally skirts the foaming waters tossed, rushed suddenly into the bay, and from its dark womb emerged a boat with white sails bent to the wind and banks of gleaming oars on either side. But it was destitute of mariners, itself seeming to live and move. An unusual terror seized on the aged Druid; he heard a voice call, "Arise, and see the Green Isle of those who have passed away!" Then he entered the vessel. Immediately the wind shifted, the cloud enveloped him, and in the bosom of the vapor hesailed away. Seven days gleamed on him through the mist; on the eighth, the waves rolled violently, the vessel pitched, and darkness thickened around him, when suddenly he heard a cry, "The Isle! the Isle!" The clouds parted before him, the waves abated, the wind died away, and the vessel rushed into dazzling light. Before his eyes lay the Isle of the Departed, basking in golden light. Its hills sloped green and tufted with beauteous trees to the shore, the mountain tops were enveloped in bright and transparent clouds, from which gushed limpid streams, which, wandering down the steep hill-sides with pleasant harp-like murmur emptied themselves into the twinkling blue bays. The valleys were open and free to the ocean; trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were scattered on the green declivities and rising ground; all was calm and bright; the pure sun of autumn shone from his blue sky on the fields; he hastened not to the west for repose, nor was he seen to rise in the east, but hung as a golden lamp, ever illumining the Fortunate Isles.

There is a Phœnician legend that a large island was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, several days' sail from the coast of Africa. This island abounded in all manner of riches. The soil was exceedingly fertile; the scenery was diversified by rivers, mountains, and forests. It was the custom of the inhabitants to retire during the summer to magnificent country houses, which stood in the midst of beautiful gardens. Fish and game were found in great abundance, the climate was delicious, and the trees bore fruit at all seasons of the year.—Ibid.

Joel Barlow, American poet, patriot, and politician. Born at Reading, Conn., 1755; died near Cracow, in Poland, 1812. From the introduction to "Columbiad" (1807).

Every talent requisite for governing, soothing, and tempering the passions of men is conspicuous in the conduct of Columbus on the occasion of the mutiny of his crew. The dignity and affability of his manners, his surprising knowledge and experience in naval affairs, his unwearied and minute attention to the duties of his command, gave him a great ascendancy over the minds of his men, and inspired that degree of confidence which would have maintained his authority in almost any circumstances.

Long had the sage, the first who dared to braveThe unknown dangers of the western wave;Who taught mankind where future empires layIn these confines of descending day;With cares o'erwhelmed, in life's distressing gloom,Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb,While kings and nations, envious of his name,Enjoyed his toils and triumphed o'er his fame,And gave the chief, from promised empire hurl'd,Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.—Barlow, "Columbus" (1787).

Ages unborn shall bless the happy dayWhen thy bold streamers steer'd the trackless way.O'er these delightful realms thy sons shall tread,And following millions trace the path you led.Behold yon isles, where first the flag unfurledWaved peaceful triumph o'er the new-found world.Where, aw'd to silence, savage bands gave place,And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.—Barlow, "The Vision of Columbus,"a poem in nine books (1787).

Truth leaves the world and Isabella dies.—Ibid.

I sing the mariner who first unfurl'dAn eastern banner o'er the western world,And taught mankind where future empires layIn these fair confines of descending day;Who swayed a moment, with vicarious power,Iberia's scepter on the new-found shore;Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trodPursued by avarice and defiled with blood;The tribes he fostered with paternal toilSnatched from his hand and slaughtered for their spoil.Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,Enjoyed his labors and purloined his fame,And gave the viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd,Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.—Barlow, The "Columbiad," Book I; lines 1-14.

The bliss of unborn nations warm'd his breast,Repaid his toils, and sooth'd his soul to rest;Thus o'er thy subject wave shall thou beholdFar happier realms their future charms unfold,In nobler pomp another Pisgah rise,Beneath whose foot thy new-found Canaan lies.There, rapt in vision, hail my favorite climeAnd taste the blessings of remotest time.—Barlow, The "Columbiad," Book 1; lines 176-184.

He opened calm the universal causeTo give each realm its limit and its laws,Bid the last breath of tired contention cease,And bind all regions in the leagues of peace.To yon bright borders of Atlantic dayHis swelling pinions led the trackless way,And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,To trace new seas and happy nations rear;Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurledHave waved at last in union o'er the world.—Ibid.

J. J. Barry, M. D., "Life of Columbus."

The first object of the discovery, disengaged from every human consideration, was the glorification of the Redeemer and the extension of His Church.

The accumulations of his reverses exceed human proportions. His misfortunes almost surpass his glory. Still this man does not murmur. He accuses, he curses nobody; and does not regret that he was born. The people of ancient times would never have conceived this type of a hero. Christianity alone, whose creation he was, can comprehend him. * * * The example of Columbus shows that nobody can completely obtain here below the objectsof his desires. The man who doubled the known space of the earth was not able to attain his object; he proposed to himself much more than he realized.—Ibid.

The congregation of the little colored church at Haleyville, in Cumberland County, N. J., contributes an interesting historical relic to the World's Fair. It is the bell that has for years called them to church. In the year 1445, the bell, it is said, hung in one of the towers of the famous mosque at the Alhambra. After the siege of Granada, the bell was taken away by the Spanish soldiers and presented to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, presented it to Columbus, who brought it to America on his fourth voyage and presented it to a community of Spanish monks who placed it in the Cathedral of Carthagena, on the Island of New Granada. In 1697 buccaneers looted Carthagena, and carried the bell on board the French pirate ship La Rochelle, but the ship was wrecked on the Island of St. Andreas shortly afterward, and the wreckers secured the bell as part of their salvage. Capt. Newell of Bridgeton purchased it, brought it to this country, and presented it to the colored congregation of the Haleyville church. The bell weighs sixty-four pounds, and is of fine metal.

Geronimo Benzoniof Milan, Italy. Born about 1520. From his "History of the New World" (1565).

He was a man of a good, reasonable stature, with sound, strong limbs; of good judgment, high talent, and gentlemanlike aspect. His eyes were bright, his hair red, his nose aquiline, his mouth somewhat large; but above all he was a friend to justice, though rather passionate when angry.

The Right Rev.George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland. Born at Kilcrin, Kilkenny, March 12, 1684; died at Oxford, England, January 14, 1754. The author of the celebrated line, "Westward the course of Empire takes its way."

But all things of heavenly origin, like the glorious sun, move westward; and Truth and Art have their periods of shining and of night. Rejoice, then, O venerable Rome, in thy divine destiny! for, though darkness overshadow thy seats, and though thy mitred head must descend into the dust, thy spirit, immortal and undecayed, already spreads toward a new world.

The Hon.James Gillespie Blaine, one of America's leading statesmen. Born in Washington County, Pa., in 1830.

Columbus was no chance comer. The time was full. He was not premature; he was not late. He came in accordance with a scientifically formed if imperfect theory, whether his own or another's—a theory which had a logical foundation, and which projected logical sequences. * * * Had not Columbus discovered America in 1492, a hundred Columbuses would have discovered it in 1493.

Baron Bonnafoux, a French author. From "La Vie de Christophe Colombe" (1853).

He was as certain of the truth of his theory as if he had seen and trodden on the very ground which his imagination had called into existence. * * * There was an air of authority about him, and a dignity in his manner, that struck all who saw him. He considered himself, on principle, above envy and slander, and in calm and seriousdiscussion always had the superiority in argument on the subjects of his schemes. To refuse to assist him in his projects was one thing; but it was impossible to reply to his discourse in refutation of his arguments, and, above all, not to respect him.

From an editorial in the BostonJournal, July 13, 1892.

When John Bright, in Parliament, shortly after the successful laying of the Atlantic cable, called Cyrus W. Fieldthe Columbus of modern times, he made no inappropriate comparison. Mr. Field, in the early days of the great undertaking that has made his name immortal, had to contend against the same difficulties as the intrepid Genoese. The lineal descendants of the fifteenth century pundits, who vexed the soul of Columbus by insisting that the world was flat, were very sure that a cable could never be laid across the boisterous Atlantic; that sea monsters would bite it off and huge waves destroy it. Both men finally prevailed over a doubting world by sheer force of indomitable enthusiasm.

Many men in Mr. Field's place, having amassed a fortune comparatively early in life, would have devoted themselves to ease and recreation. But there was too much of the New England spirit of restless energy in Mr. Field to permit him to pass the best years of his life thus ingloriously. The great thought of his cable occurred to him, and he became a man of one fixed idea, and ended by becoming a popular hero. No private American citizen, probably, has received such distinguished honors as Mr. Field when his cable was laid in 1867, and the undertaking of his lifetime was successfully accomplished. And Mr. Field was honestly entitled to all the glory and to all the financial profitthat he reaped. His project was one that only a giant mind could conceive, and a giant mind and a giant will could carry on to execution.

As if to make the parallel with Columbus complete, Mr. Field passed his last few days under the heavy shadow of misfortune. His son's failure, and the sensational developments attending it, were probably the occasion of his fatal illness. It is a melancholy termination of a remarkable career to which the nations of the earth owe a vast debt of gratitude.

ChicagoTribune, July 13, 1892.

The story of the twelve years' struggle to lay an Atlantic cable from Ireland to Newfoundland is the story of one of the greatest battles with the fates that any one man was ever called on to wage. It was a fight not only against the ocean, jealous of its rights as a separator of the continents, and against natural obstacles which seemed absolutely unsurpassable, but a fight against stubborn Parliaments and Congresses, and all the stumbling blocks of human disbelief. But the courage of Cyrus W. Field was indomitable.His patience and zeal were inexhaustible, and so it came to pass, on July 27, 1866, that this man knelt down in his cabin, like a second Columbus, and gave thanks to God, for his labors were crowned with success at last.

He had lost his health. He had worn out his nervous forces by the tremendous strain, and he paid in excruciating suffering the debt he owed to nature. But he had won a fortune and a lasting fame.

In 1849 the Italian merchants of Boston, under the presidency of Mr. Iasigi, presented to the city a statue ofColumbus, which was placed inside the inclosure of Louisburg Square, at the Pinckney Street end of the square. The statue, which is of inferior merit, bears no inscription, and is at the present date forgotten, dilapidated, and fast falling into decay.

Flavius J. Brobstin an article on Westminster Abbey, in theMid-Continent Magazine, August, 1892.

Sublimest of all, the incomparable Earl of Chatham, whose prophetic ken foresaw the independence of the American nation even before the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill had been fought; and who, from the first, in Parliament, rose with his eagle beak, and raised his clarion voice with all the vehemence of his imperial soul in behalf of the American colonies, reaching once a climax of inspiration, when, in thunderous tones, he declared to the English nation, "You can not conquer America."

William C. Bryant, an eminent American poet. Born at Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794; died June 12, 1878. From his "History of the United States."

With a patience that nothing could wear out, and a perseverance that, was absolutely unconquerable, Columbus waited and labored for eighteen years, appealing to minds that wanted light and to ears that wanted hearing. His ideas of the possibilities of navigation were before his time. It was one thing to creep along the coast of Africa, where the hold upon the land need never be lost, another to steer out boldly into that wilderness of waters, over which mystery and darkness brooded.

J. W. Buel, a celebrated American author.

Oh, thou Santa Maria, thou famous remembrancer of the centuries! The names of none of those that sailed in search of the Golden Fleece are so well preserved among the eternities of history as is thine. No vessel of Rome, of Greece, of Carthage, of Egypt, that carried conquering Cæsar, triumphant Alexander, valiant Hannibal, or beauteous Cleopatra, shall be so well known to coming ages as thou art. No ship of the Spanish Armada, or of Lord Howard, who swept it from the sea; no looming monster; no Great Eastern or frowning ironclad of modern navies, shall be held like thee in perpetual remembrance by all the sons of men. For none ever bore such a hero on such a mission, that has glorified all nations by giving the greatest of all countries to the world.

John Burroughs, an American essayist and naturalist. Born at Roxbury, New York, April 3, 1837. From a letter in theSt. Nicholas Magazineof July, 1892. (Seepost,Nason.)

There are a great many species of the thorn distributed throughout the United States. All the Northern species, so far as I know, have white flowers. In the South they are more inclined to be pink or roseate. If Columbus picked up at sea a spray of the thorn, it was doubtless some Southern species. Let us believe it was the Washington thorn, which grows on the banks of streams from Virginia to the Gulf, and loads heavily with small red fruit.

The thorn belongs to the great family of trees that includes the apple, peach, pear, raspberry, strawberry, etc., namely, the rose family, orRosaceæ. Hence the apple, pear, and plum are often grafted on the white thorn.

A curious thing about the thorns is that they are suppressed or abortive branches. The ancestor of this tree must have been terribly abused sometime to have its branches turn to thorns.

I have an idea that persistent cultivation and good treatment would greatly mollify the sharp temper of the thorn, if not change it completely.

The flower of the thorn would become us well as a National flower. It belongs to such a hardy, spunky, unconquerable tree, and to such a numerous and useful family. Certainly, it would be vastly better than the merely delicate and pretty wild flowers that have been so generally named.

Richard E. Burton, in the Denver (Colo.)Times, 1892.

I see a galleon of Spanish make,That westward like a wingéd creature flies,Above a sea dawn-bright, and arched with skiesExpectant of the sun and morning-break.The sailors from the deck their land-thirst slakeWith peering o'er the waves, until their eyesDiscern a coast that faint and dream-like lies,The while they pray, weep, laugh, or madly takeTheir shipmates in their arms and speak no word.And then I see a figure, tall, removedA little from the others, as behooved,That since the dawn has neither spoke nor stirred;A noble form, the looming mast beside,Columbus, calm, his prescience verified.

Hezekiah Butterworth, American author. Born in Rhode Island, 1839. From an article, "The Sea of Discovery," inThe Youth's Companion, June 9, 1892.

The Bahama Sea is perhaps the most beautiful of allwaters. Columbus beheld it and its islands with a poet's eye.

"It only needed the singing of the nightingale," said the joyful mariner, "to make it like Andalusia in April;" and to his mind Andalusia was the loveliest place on earth. In sailing among these gardens of the seas in the serene and transparent autumn days after the great discovery, the soul of Columbus was at times overwhelmed and entranced by a sense of the beauty of everything in it and about it. Life seemed, as it were, a spiritual vision.

"I know not," said the discoverer, "where first to go; nor are my eyes ever weary of gazing on the beautiful verdure. The singing of the birds is such that it seems as if one would never desire to depart hence."

He speaks in a poet's phrases of the odorous trees, and of the clouds of parrots whose bright wings obscured the sun. His descriptions of the sea and its gardens are full of glowing and sympathetic colorings, and all things to him had a spiritual meaning.

"God," he said, on reviewing his first voyage over these western waters, "God made me the messenger of the new heavens and earth, and told me where to find them. Charts, maps, and mathematical knowledge had nothing to do with the case."

On announcing his discovery on his return, he breaks forth into the following highly poetic exhortation: "Let processions be formed, let festivals be held, let lauds be sung. Let Christ rejoice on earth."

Columbus was a student of the Greek and Latin poets, and of the poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures. The visions of Isaiah were familiar to him, and he thought that Isaiah himself at one time appeared to him in a vision. He loved nature. To him the outer world was a garment of the Invisible; and it was before his great soul had suffered disappointment that he saw the sun-flooded waters of the Bahama Sea and the purple splendors of the Antilles.

THE PASEO COLON (COLUMBUS PROMENADE), BARCELONA, SPAIN.THE PASEO COLON (COLUMBUS PROMENADE), BARCELONA, SPAIN.With the Columbus Monument in the background.See page81

There is scarcely an adjective in the picturesque report of Columbus in regard to this sea and these islands that is not now as appropriate and fitting as in the days when its glowing words delighted Isabella 400 years ago.

George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, one of England's famous poets. Born in London, January 22, 1788; died at Missolonghi, Greece, April 19, 1824.

Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?Ah! such, alas, the hero's amplest fate.When granite molders and when records fail,

Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate,See how the mighty shrink into a song.Can volume, pillar, pile, preserve thee great?Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue,When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong.

Sebastian Cabot, a navigator of great eminence. Born at Bristol, England, about 1477. Discovered the mainland of North America. Died about 1557.

When newes were brought that Don Christopher Colonus, the Genoese, had discovered the coasts of India, whereof was great talke in all the Court of King Henry the VII. who then raigned, * * * all men with great admiration affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane to saile by the West into the Easte, where the spices growe, by a chart that was never before knowen.

THE CAPITULATIONS OF SANTA FÉ—AGREEMENT OF COLUMBUS WITH FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.

SirArthur Helps. From "The Life of Columbus." [See other extracts,post,sub nomineHelps.]

1. Christopher Columbus wishes to be made Admiral of the seas and countries which he is about to discover. He desires to hold this dignity during his life, and that it should descend to his heirs.

This request is granted by the King and Queen.

2. Christopher Columbus wishes to be made Viceroy of all the continents and islands.

Granted by the King and Queen.

3. He wishes to have a share amounting to a tenth part of the profits of all merchandise—be it pearls, jewels, or any other thing—that may be found, gained, bought, or exported from the countries which he is to discover.

Granted by the King and Queen.

4. He wishes, in his quality of Admiral, to be made sole judge of all mercantile matters that may be the occasion of dispute in the countries which he is to discover.

Granted by the King and Queen, on condition that this jurisdiction should belong to the office of Admiral, as held by Don Enriques and other Admirals.

5. Christopher Columbus wishes to have the right to contribute the eighth part of the expenses of all ships which traffic with the new countries, and in return to earn the eighth part of the profits.

Granted by the King and Queen.

Santa Fé, in the Vega of Granada, April 17, 1492.

Thomas Carlyle, "the Sage of Chelsea," celebrated English philosophic writer. Born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, December 4, 1795; died at Cheyne walk, Chelsea, London, February 5, 1881. From "Past and Present."

Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king, Columbus, my hero, royalest Sea-king of all! it is no friendly environment this of thine, in the waste deep waters; around thee, mutinous, discouraged souls; behind thee, disgrace and ruin; before thee, the unpenetrated veil of Night. Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep basin—ten miles deep, I am told—are not entirely there on thy behalf! Meseems they have other work than floating thee forward; and the huge winds that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics and Equator, dancing their giant waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine. Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling, wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help in them; see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad southwester spend itself, saving thyself by dextrous science of defense the while; valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favoring east, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt entirely repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage; thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness of others and thyself. There shall be a depth of silence in thee deeper than this sea, which is but ten miles deep; a silence unsoundable, known to God only. Thou shalt be a great man. Yes, my World-soldier, thou wilt have to be greater than this tumultuous, unmeasured world herearound thee; thou, in thy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down, and make it bear thee on—to new Americas.

Bliss Carman, from a poem in theCentury Magazine, 1892.[30]

A lonely sail in the vast sea-room,I have put out for the port of gloom.The voyage is far on the trackless tide,The watch is long, and the seas are wide.The headlands, blue in the sinking day,Kiss me a hand on the outward way.The fading gulls, as they dip and veer,Lift me a voice that is good to hear.The great winds come, and the heaving sea,The restless mother, is calling me.The cry of her heart is lone and wild,Searching the night for her wandered child.Beautiful, weariless mother of mine,In the drift of doom I am here, I am thine.Beyond the fathom of hope or fear,From bourn to bourn of the dusk I steer.Swept on in the wake of the stars, in the streamOf a roving tide, from dream to dream.

Lope de Vega Carpio, a celebrated Spanish poet and dramatist. Born at Madrid, November 25, 1562; died, 1635.[31]

Lope puts into the mouth of Columbus, in a dialogue with Ferdinand, who earnestly invites the discoverer to ask of him the wherewithal to prosecute the discovery, the following verses:

Sire, give me gold, for gold is all in all;'Tis master, 'tis the goal and course alike,The way, the means, the handicraft, and power,The sure foundation and the truest friend.

Referring to the results of the great discovery, Lope beautifully says that it gave—

Al Rey infinitas terrasY á Dios infinitas almas.

(To the King boundless lands, and to God souls without number.)

E. H. Chapin, American author of the nineteenth century.

Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force; the world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to tread those shining coasts along which Newton dropped his plummet and Herschel sailed, a Columbus of the skies.

From ChicagoTribune, August, 1892. [See alsoante, BostonJournal.]

The suggestion has been made by Mr. John Boyd Thacher, commissioner from New York to the World's Fair, that a tribute be paid to the memory of Amerigo Vespucci by opening the Fair May 5, 1893, that being the anniversary of America's christening day. Mr. Thacher's suggestion is based upon the fact that May 5, 1507, therewas published at the College of Saint-Dié, in Lorraine, the "Cosmographic Introductio," by Waldseemuller, in which the name of America "for the fourth part of the world" (Europe, Asia, and Africa being the other three parts) was first advocated, in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. As Mr. Thacher's suggestion already has aroused considerable jealous opposition among the Italians of New York, who claim all the glory for Columbus, a statement of what was really discovered by the two great explorers will be of interest at the present time.

No writer of the present day has shed a clearer light upon this question than John Fiske, and it may be incidentally added, no student has done more than he to relieve Amerigo Vespucci from the reproach which has been fastened upon his reputation as an explorer, by critics, who, as Mr. Fiske clearly shows, have been misled by the sources of their authority and have judged him from erroneous standpoints. In making a statement of what the two explorers really discovered, theTribunefollows on the lines of Prof. Fiske's investigation as the clearest, most painstaking, and most authoritative that has yet been made.

Christopher Columbus made four voyages. On the first he sailed from Palos, Friday, August 3, 1492, and Friday, October 12th (new style, October 21st), discovered land in the West Indies. It was one of the islands of the Bahamas, called by the natives Guanahani, and named by him San Salvador; which name, after the seventeenth century, was applied to Cat Island, though which one of the islands is the true San Salvador is still a matter of dispute.

After spending ten days among the Bahamas Columbus (October 25th) steered south and reached the great Island of Cuba. He cruised around the east coast of the big island, and December 6th landed at Haiti, another immense island.A succession of disasters ended his voyage and he thereupon returned to Spain, arriving there March 15, 1493.

Columbus sailed on his second voyage September 25, 1493, and November 3d landed at Dominica in the Caribbean Sea. During a two-weeks' cruise he discovered the islands of Marigalante, Guadaloupe, and Antigua, and lastly the large Island of Puerto Rico. April 24th he set out on another cruise of discovery. He followed the south coast of Cuba and came to Jamaica, the third largest of the West Indies, thence returning to Cuba, and from there to Spain, where he arrived June 11, 1494. On his third voyage he sailed May 30, 1498. Following a more southerly course, he arrived at Trinidad, and in coasting along saw the delta of the Orinoco River of South America and went into the Gulf of Paria. Thence he followed the north coast of Venezuela and finally arrived at Santo Domingo.

The story of his arrest there is well known. He was taken in chains to Cadiz, Spain, arriving there in December, 1500.

On his fourth and last voyage he sailed May 11, 1502. On June 15th he was at Martinique. He touched at Santo Domingo, thence sailed across to Cape Honduras, doubled that cape, and skirted the coast of Nicaragua, where he heard of the Pacific Ocean, though the name had not its present meaning for him. It was during his attempt to find the Isthmus of Darien, which he thought was a strait of water, that he was shipwrecked on the coast of Jamaica. He remained there a year and then went back to Spain, reaching home November 7, 1504. It was the last voyage of the great navigator, and it will be observed that he never saw or stepped foot on the mainland ofNorthAmerica, though he saw South America in 1498, as stated. In 1506 he died in Spain.

Amerigo Vespucci, like Columbus, made four voyages,some of the details of which are known. His letter, written to his friend Piero Soderini, September 4, 1504, gives us information concerning his famous first voyage. Hitherto the only copy of this letter known was a Latin translation of it published at the College of Saint-Dié, April 25, 1507, but the primitive text from which the translation was made has been found, and by that text Americus' reputation has been saved from the discredit critics and biographers have cast upon it, and his true laurels have been restored to him. The mistake of changing one word, the Indian name "Lariab," in the original, to "Parias," in the Latin version, is accountable for it all. The scene of his explorations is now transferred from Parias, in South America, to Lariab, in North America, and his entire letter is freed from mystery or inconsistency with the claims which have been made for him.

It is now established beyond controversy that Americus sailed on the first voyage, not as commander, but as astronomer, of the expedition, May 10, 1497, and first ran to the Grand Canaries. Leaving there May 25th, the first landfall was on the northern coast of Honduras of North America. Thence he sailed around Yucatan and up the Mexican coast to Tampico ("Lariab," not "Parias"). After making some inland explorations he followed the coast line 870 leagues (2,610 miles), which would take him along our Southern gulf coast, around Florida, and north along the Atlantic coast until "they found themselves in a fine harbor." Was this Charleston harbor or Hampton Roads? In any event, when he started back to Spain he sailed from the Atlantic coast somewhere between Capes Charles and Canaveral. The outcome of this voyage was the first discovery of Honduras, parts of the Mexican and Florida coasts, the insularity of Cuba—which Columbus thought was part of the mainland of Asia—and 4,000 milesof the coast line of North America. The remaining three voyages have no bearing upon North American discovery. On the second, he explored the northern coast of Brazil to the Gulf of Maracaibo; on the third, he went again to the Brazilian coast and found the Island of South Georgia, and on the fourth returned to Brazil, but without making any discoveries of importance.

Mr. Fiske's luminous narrative lends significance to Mr. Thacher's suggestion, for Vespucci discovered a large portion of the mainland of the North American continent which Columbus had never seen. To this extent his first voyage gave a new meaning to Columbus' work, without diminishing, however, the glory of the latter's great achievement. Americus, indeed, had his predecessors, for John and Sebastian Cabot, sent out by Henry VII. of England a short time before his discovery, had set foot upon Labrador, and probably had visited Nova Scotia. And even before Cabot, the Northern Vikings, among them Leif Ericcson, had found their way to this continent and perhaps set up their Vineland in Massachusetts. And before the Vikings there may have been other migrants, and before the migrants the aborigines, who were the victims of all the explorers from the Vikings to the Puritans. But their achievements had no meaning and left no results. As Prof. Fiske says: "In no sense was any real contact established between the eastern and western halves of our planet until the great voyage of Columbus in 1492." It was that voyage which inspired the great voyage of Americus in 1497. He followed the path marked out by Columbus, and he invested the latter's discovery with a new significance. Upon the basis of merit and historical fact, therefore, Mr. Thacher's suggestion deserves consideration; and why should Italians be jealous, when Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and John Cabot were all of Italian birth?

Hyde Clarke, Vice-President Royal Historical Society of England, in his "Examination of the Legend of Atlantis," etc. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1886.

At the time when Columbus, as well as others, was discussing the subject of new lands to be discovered, literary resources had become available. The Latin writers could be examined; but, above all, the fall of Constantinople had driven numbers of Greeks into Italy. The Greek language was studied, and Greek books were eagerly bought by the Latin nations, as before they had been by the Arabs. Thus, all that had been written as to the four worlds was within the ken of Columbus.

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