CHAPTER XIV.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.CHAPTER XIV.BIRTH OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS—HIS EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—HIS MARRIAGE—HIS MARITIME CONTEMPLATIONS—HE MAKES PROPOSALS TO THE SENATE OF GENOA, THE COURT OF VENICE, AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL—THE DUPLICITY OF THE LATTER—COLUMBUS VISITS SPAIN—JUAN DE MARCHENA—COLUMBUS REPAIRS TO CORDOVA—HIS SECOND MARRIAGE—HIS LETTER TO THE KING—THE JUNTO OF SALAMANCA—COLUMBUS RESOLVES TO SHAKE THE DUST OF SPAIN FROM HIS FEET—MARCHENA'S LETTER TO ISABELLA—THE QUEEN GIVES AUDIENCE TO COLUMBUS—THE CONDITIONS STIPULATED BY THE LATTER—ISABELLA ACCEPTS THE ENTERPRISE, WHILE FERDINAND REMAINS ALOOF.Cristofero Colombo (in Spanish Colon, in French Colomb, in Latin and English Columbus) was born in Genoa, inthe year 1435.[1]His father was a wool-comber, and Christopher followed, for a time, the same occupation. He was sent, however, at the age of ten years, to the University of Pavia, where he seems to have studied, though with little advantage, natural philosophy and astronomy, or, as it was then called, astrology. Returning to his father's bench, he worked at wool-combing, with his brother Bartholomew, till he was fourteen years of age. By this time the natural influence of the situation, the atmosphere, and the traditions of Genoa had awakened in him the tastes and the ambition of a sailor. The sea had long been the home and the life of the Genoese: it was the theatre of their glory, and their avenue to wealth. Christopher's great-uncle, Colombo, commanded a fleet intrusted to him by the king, and with which he carried on a predatory warfare against the Venetians and Neapolitans. His nephew joined his ship, and thus became acquainted with the whole extent of the Mediterranean, which was at that period ploughed by the pirates of the Archipelago and the corsairs of the Barbary States. As the vessel went armed to the teeth, the young sailor not only learned the art of navigation, but acquired those habits of discipline and subordination, of self-command and presence of mind, which afterwards served him in so good stead. This manner of life lasted for many years, till Columbus, at the age of thirty, was wrecked off the coast of Portugal, and reached, with some difficulty, the city of Lisbon. Here he found his brother Bartholomew settled, and occupying himself in drawing plans, charts, and maps for the use of navigators. Christopher joined him, and gained a sufficient livelihood by copying manuscripts and black-letter books, and aiding his brother in his avocations. He soon married an Italian lady named Felippa di Perestrello, whosefather, now dead, had been Governor of the island of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras. This union between the humble son of a wool-comber and the daughter of an Italian gentleman is deemed, by several of the biographers of Columbus, a strong proof of the nobility of his ancestry. After his marriage, he left for Porto Santo,—the sterile dowry of his wife,—where his first son, Diego, was born.We have already seen that the period was one of the greatest excitement and expectancy in regard to maritime discovery. Columbus had long reflected upon the existence of land in the west, upon the sphericity of the earth, and upon the possibility of crossing the Atlantic. He had already conceived the idea of reaching Asia by following the setting sun across the immensity of the waters. His mind, too, was kindled to religious enthusiasm by the allusions in the Bible to the universal diffusion of the gospel, and, in his dreams of nautical discovery, the belief that he was destined to be an apostle, sent to extend the dominion of the cross, predominated over more worldly aspirations. For years, while struggling with disappointment and harassed by poverty, he pursued this idea with the pertinacity of a monomaniac. When forty years old, and residing at Lisbon, he proposed to the Senate of Genoa to leave the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar and to proceed to the west, in the sea known as the Ocean, as far as the "lands where spices bloom," and thus circumnavigate the earth. The Genoese, whose maritime knowledge was confined to the Mediterranean, and who had no fancy for adventures upon the ocean, declined listening to the proposition, pretexting the penury of the treasury. It would also seem that overtures made by Columbus to the Council of Venice were similarly rejected. For a time, therefore, he abandoned all efforts to further his desires. In 1477, he made a voyage to Iceland, in order to discover whether it was inhabited, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it,—where, to his astonishment, he found the sea not frozen.Upon the accession of John II. to the throne of Portugal,—a sovereign whom we have already shown to be deeply interested in the progress of the art of navigation,—Columbus made known to him his opinions and his plans, assigning the extension of the gospel as the avowed and final object of the expedition. The subject was referred to a maritime junto and to a high council, by both of whom it was rejected as visionary and absurd. The king was induced, however, by one of his councillors, to equip a caravel and send it on a voyage of discovery upon the route traced out by Columbus, and thus obtain for himself the glory of the expedition, if successful. Columbus was invited to hand in to the Government his maps and charts, together with his written views upon the whole subject. This he did, supposing, in his simplicity, that another examination was to be made of the practicability of the venture. The king despatched a caravel, under the command of one of the ablest pilots of his marine, to follow the track indicated. The vessel left, but soon returned, her crew having been appalled at sight of the boundless horizon, and her captain having lost his courage in a storm. Columbus, indignant at this duplicity, secretly left Lisbon and returned home to Genoa. At this period he had the misfortune to lose his wife Felippa, who had shared his confidence in the existence of unknown lands, and whose encouragement had sustained him in his disappointments. This was in the year 1484. He renewed his proposal to the Senate of Genoa, which was again rejected. He now cast his eyes upon the other European powers, among whom the two sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, seemed to deserve the preference.Not far from Palos, upon the Spanish coast, and in sight of the ocean, stood, upon a promontory half hidden by pine-trees, a monastery—known as La Rabida—dedicated to the Virgin, and inhabited by Franciscan friars. The Superior, Juan Perez de Marchena, offered an example of fervent piety and of theological erudition, at the same time that he was a skilful mathematicianand an ardent practitioner of the exact sciences. He was at once an astronomer, a devotee, and a poet. During the hours of slumber, he often ascended to the summit of the abbey, and, looking out upon the ocean,—known as the Sea of Darkness,—would ask himself if beyond this expanse of waters there was no land yet unclaimed by Christianity. He rejected as fabulous the current idea that a vessel might sail three years to the west without reaching a hospitable shore. The ocean, formidable to others and intelligible to few, was to him the abode of secrets which man was invited to unfold.One day a traveller rang at the gate and asked for refreshment for himself and his son. Being interrogated as to the object of his journey, he replied that he was on his way to the court of Spain to communicate an important matter to the king and queen. The traveller was Christopher Columbus. How he came to pass by this obscure monastery—which lay altogether off his route—has never been explained. A providential guidance had brought him into the presence of the man the best calculated to comprehend his purpose, in a country where he was totally without friends and with whose language he was completely unacquainted. A common sympathy drew them together; and Columbus, accepting for a period the hospitality of Marchena, made him the confidant of his views. Thus, while the colleges and universities of Christendom still held the childish theory that the earth was flat, and that the sea was the path to utter and outer darkness, Columbus and Marchena, filled with a spontaneous and implicit faith, intuitively believed in the sphericity of the globe and the existence of a nameless continent beyond the ocean. In theory they had solved the great question whether the ship which should depart by the west would come back by the east.Marchena gave Columbus a letter of recommendation to the queen's confessor, and, during his absence, promised to educate and maintain his son Diego. Thus tranquillized in his affections,and aided in his schemes, Columbus departed for Cordova. Here he was destined to undergo another disappointment; for the queen's confessor, his expected patron, treated him as a dreaming speculator and needy adventurer. He soon became again isolated and forgotten. In the midst of his indigence, however, a noble lady, Beatrix Enriquez, young and beautiful, though not rich, noticed his manners and his language, so evidently above his condition, and detained him at Cordova long after his hopes were extinguished. He married her: she bore him a son, Fernando, who afterwards became his father's biographer and historian.Columbus now wrote to the king a brief and concise letter, setting forth his desires. It was never answered. After a multitude of similar deceptions and disappointments, Geraldini, the ambassador of the Pope, presented him to Mendoza, the Grand Cardinal, through whose influence Columbus obtained an audience of Ferdinand, who appointed a junto of wise men to examine and report upon his scheme. This junto, made up of theologians and not of navigators and geographers, and which sat at Salamanca, opposed Columbus on biblical grounds, declared the theory a dangerous if not heretical innovation, and finally reported unfavorably. This decision was quite in harmony with public opinion in Salamanca, where Columbus was spoken of as "a foreigner who asserted that the world was round like an orange, and that there were places where the people walked on their heads." Seven years were thus wasted in solicitation, suspense, and disappointment. From time to time Columbus had reason to hope that his proposals would be reconsidered; but in 1490 the siege of Baza, the last stronghold of the Moors, and in 1491 the marriage of Isabella, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, with Don Alonzo of Portugal, absorbed the attention of their majesties to the exclusion of all scientific pre-occupations. Finally, when the matter was reopened, and the junto was reassembled, its president, Fernando de Talavera, was instructedto say that the exhaustion of the treasury necessitated the postponement of the whole subject until the close of the war with Grenada. At last, Columbus, reflecting upon the delays, refusals, affronts, and suspicions of which he had been the object, the time he had wasted, and the antechambers in which he had waited the condescension of the great, resolved to shake the dust of Spain from his feet, and returned to the abbey of his friend Marchena. He arrived there bearing upon his person the impress of poverty, fatigue, and exhausted patience. Marchena was profoundly annoyed by the reflection that the glory of the future discoveries of Columbus would be thus taken from Spain and conferred upon some rival power. Fearing, however, that he had too readily lent his ear to theories which had been twice rejected as puerile by a competent junto, he sent for an eminent mathematician of Palos, Garcia Hernandez, a physician by profession. They then conferred together upon the subject and pronounced the execution of the project feasible. The assertion that the famous sailor Martin Alonzo Pinzon was a party to the conference would appear to be an error. Pinzon was at this period at Rome, and did not see Columbus for a year or more afterwards.Marchena at once wrote an eloquent letter to Queen Isabella, and intrusted it to a pilot whose relations with the court rendered him a safe and reliable messenger. He gave the missive into the hands of the queen, and returned to the monastery the bearer of an invitation to Marchena to repair at once to Santa Fe, where the court then was, engaged in investing Grenada. Columbus borrowed a mule for the friar, who left secretly at midnight and arrived safely at Santa Fe. That Isabella should, at such a moment, when engaged in war and harassed by financial embarrassments, listen to a proposition which had been twice condemned by a learned body of men, is a circumstance which entitles her in the highest degree to a share in the glory which her protégé Columbus was, through her, destined to obtain. She received Marchena graciously, and instructed him to summonColumbus, to whom she sent twenty thousand maravedis—seventy dollars, nearly—with which to purchase a horse and a proper dress in which to appear before her.Columbus arrived at Santa Fe just before the surrender of Grenada and the termination of the struggle between the Crescent and the Cross. He was present at the delivery of the keys of the city and the abandonment of the Alhambra to Isabella by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico. After the official rejoicings, the queen gave audience to Columbus. As she already believed in the practicability of the scheme, the only subjects to be discussed were the means of execution, and the recompense to be awarded to Columbus in case of success. A committee was appointed to consider this latter point. Columbus fixed his conditions as follows:He should receive the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean:He should be Viceroy and Governor-General of all islands and mainlands he might discover:He should levy a tax for his own benefit upon all productions—whether spices, fruits, perfumes, gold, silver, pearls, or diamonds—discovered in, or exported from, the lands under his authority:And his titles should be transmissible in his family, forever, by the laws of primogeniture.These conditions, being such as would place the threadbare solicitor above the noblest house in Spain, were treated with derision by the committee, and Columbus was regarded as an insolent braggart. He would not abate one tittle of his claims, though, after eighteen years of fruitless effort, he now saw all his hopes at the point of being again dashed to earth. He mounted his mule, and departed for Cordova before quitting Spain forever.Two friends of the queen now represented the departure of Columbus as an immense and irreparable loss, and, by their supplications and protestations, induced her once more to considerthe vast importance of the plans he proposed. Moved by their persuasions, she declared that she accepted the enterprise, not jointly, as the wife of the King of Spain, but independently, as Queen of Castile. As the treasury was depleted by the drains of war, she offered to defray the expenses with her own jewels. A messenger was despatched for Columbus, who was overtaken a few miles from Grenada. He at first hesitated to return; but, after reflecting upon the heroic determination of Isabella, who thus took the initiative in a perilous undertaking, against the report of the junto, the advice of her councillors, and in spite of the indifference of the king, he obeyed with alacrity, and returned to Santa Fe.He was received with distinction by the court and with affectionate consideration by the queen. Ferdinand remained a stranger to the expedition. He applied his signature to the stipulations, but caused it to be distinctly set down that the whole affair was undertaken by the Queen of Castile, at her own risk and peril,—thus excluding himself forever from lot or parcel in this transcendent enterprise.VIOLET ASTERIA.THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS.HEAD OF MERGONSER.CHAPTER XV.THE PORT OF PALOS—THE SUPERSTITION OF ITS MARINERS—THE HAND OF SATAN—A BIRD WHICH LIFTED VESSELS TO THE CLOUDS—THE PINTA AND THE NINA—THE SANTA MARIA—CAPACITY OF A SPANISH CARAVEL—THE THREE PINZONS—THE DEPARTURE—COLUMBUS' JOURNAL—THE HELM OF THE PINTA UNSHIPPED—THE VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE—THE APPEARANCE OF THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC—FLOATING VEGETATION—THE SARGASSO SEA—ALARM, AND THREATENED MUTINY, OF THE SAILORS—PERPLEXITIES OF COLUMBUS—LAND! LAND! A FALSE ALARM—INDICATIONS OF THE VICINITY OF LAND—MURMURS OF THE CREWS—OPEN REVOLT QUELLED BY COLUMBUS—FLOATING REEDS AND TUFTS OF GRASS—LAND AT LAST—THE VESSELS ANCHOR OVER-NIGHT.Columbus received his letters-patent, granting him all the privileges and titles he had demanded, on the 30th of April, 1492. His son Diego was made page to the prince-royal,—a favor only accorded to children of noble families. The harbor of Palos was chosen as the port of departure; and its inhabitants, whose annual taxes consisted in furnishing two caravels, armed and manned, to the Government, were instructed to place them, within ten days, at the orders of Columbus. Persons awaiting trial or condemnation were to have the privilege of escaping verdict and punishment by embarking upon this terrible and perhaps fatal voyage.The mariners of Palos received these tidings with dismay. Nothing was certainly in those days more calculated to strike with terror the cautious coaster than a voyage upon the boundless, endlessMare Tenebrosum, which, in the imagination not only of the ignorant, but even of the educated, was the homeof chaos, if not the seat of Erebus. Upon the maps of the world designed at this period, the words Mare Tenebrosum were surrounded with figures of imps and devils, compared to which the Cyclops, griffins, and centaurs of mythology were modest and benign creations. The Arabians, who were forbidden by the Koran to depict the forms of animals, gave, as they thought, a fitting character to the sea, by representing the hand of Satan upon their charts, ready to clutch and drag beneath the waves all who should be so rash as to brave the displeasure of Bahr-al-Talmet. Besides Satan, besides the Leviathan and Behemoth, and other similar submarine terrors, the adventurer upon the open sea would find adversaries in the air; and, if he escaped the blast and the thunderbolt, it would be to fall a victim to the roc, that gigantic bird which lifted ships into the air and crunched them in the clouds. This roc, from terrifying the companions of Columbus, has descended to amuse children in the nautical romance of Sinbad the Sailor.Time passed, and the authorities of Palos had yet furnished nothing towards the voyage. Owners of vessels hid them in distant creeks, and the port became gradually a desert. The court ordered stringent measures, and at last a caravel named the Pinta was seized and laid up for repairs. All the carpenters turned sick, and neither rope, wood, nor tar were to be found. In vain did Marchena, the zealous Franciscan of Palos, who was beloved by all its inhabitants, undertake a crusade among the seafaring population in favor of the project: the whole Andalusian coast considered it chimerical and a temptation of Providence.Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of three brothers, all seamen, and who had at this period lately returned from Rome, where the Pope's librarian had shown him a map bearing the representation of land in the Atlantic to the west, was introduced by Marchena to Columbus. The report soon became current that the brothers, whose credit and influence at Palos were very great,intended to risk the adventure on board of the caravel Nina, belonging to the younger of the three. The mariners took courage, and the city of Palos contributed its second caravel, the Gallega, making three in all. This Gallega, though old and heavy and unfit for the service, was stout and solid, and Columbus chose her for his flag-ship, rebaptizing her, however, the Santa Maria. Towards the end of July, the vessels were nearly ready for sea, and Columbus retired for a period to the monastery, where he passed his days in prayer and his nights in contemplation. On one occasion he left the convent and appeared among the workmen: he surprised the sailors, condemned by the city to accompany him to the west, engaged in putting the rudder of the Pinta together in such a manner that the first storm would unship it. Marchena redoubled his exhortations, and at last the expedition was ready.Popular belief has, in modern times, represented these vessels as much smaller than they probably really were. The termcaravel, of doubtful etymology, affords no indication of their tonnage or capacity. Caravels were used, however, to transport troops, provisions, and artillery, and even to fight upon the high seas. They were sent by Portugal to the coast of Africa. John II. had, as we have narrated, sent a vessel to the west in order to anticipate Columbus; and this vessel was a caravel. The smallest of the three—the Nina—subsequently, when at sea, took on board fifty-six men, in addition to her own crew, a number of cannon, and a portion of the rigging of the Santa Maria, without lowering her water-line; and Columbus once threatened a Portuguese officer to take one hundred of his men on board the Nina and carry them to Castile. Neither she, nor the other two caravels, were the "light barks" or "shallops" which historians have delighted to represent them. The importance of the subject requires that we describe the three vessels with all the minuteness which the late researches of which we have spoken will authorize.The Santa Maria measured about ninety feet at the keel. She had four masts, two of them square-rigged, and two furnished with the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. She had a deck extending from stem to stern, and a double deck at the poop, twenty-six feet long,—one-third, nearly, of her entire length. The double deck was pierced for cannon, the forward-deck being armed with smaller pieces, used for throwing stones and grape. From the journal of Columbus we know that he employed, in the manœuvres, quite a complicated system of ropes and pulleys. Eight anchors hung over her sides. She represented in her general characteristics a modern vessel of twenty guns. She was manned by sixty-six men, not one of whom was from Palos,—one of them being an Englishman, and one an Irishman,—and was commanded by Columbus.The Pinta and the Nina were decked only forward and aft, the space in the middle being entirely uncovered. Their armament was equal to that of sloops of sixteen and ten guns respectively. Alonzo Pinzon commanded the Pinta, whose total crew, including the officers, numbered thirty men. The youngest of the three Pinzons, Vincent Yanez, commanded the Nina, with twenty-three men. The provisions of the fleet consisted of smoked beef, salt pork, rice, dried peas and other vegetables, herrings, wine, oil, vinegar, &c., sufficient for a year.As the day approached and the danger grew more imminent, the apprehension increased, and the sailors expressed a desire to reconcile themselves with Heaven and obtain absolution for their sins. They went in procession to the monastery of La Rabida, with Columbus at their head, and received the Eucharist from the hands of the Franciscan Marchena. Columbus, while waiting for the land-breeze, retired for a last time to the convent, to meditate upon the duties before him and to peruse his favorite book, the Gospel of St. John. At three o'clock in the morning of the 3d of August he was awakened by the murmuring of the long wished for wind in the tops of the pine-trees which borderedhis cell. The coming day was Friday, a day inauspicious to sailors, but to him a day of good omen. He arose, summoned Marchena, from whom he received the communion, and then descended, on foot, the steep declivity which leads to Palos.The Santa Maria at once sent her boat to receive the admiral, and at the sound of the preparations and the orders of the pilots, the inhabitants awoke and opened wide their windows. Mothers, wives and sisters, fathers and brothers, ran in confusion to the shore, to bid a last farewell to those whom they might perhaps never see again. The royal standard, representing the Crucifixion, was hoisted at the main; and Columbus, standing upon the quarterdeck, gave the order to spread the sails in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus commenced the most memorable venture upon the ocean that man had then made or has made since,—the record of whose shortest day is more stored with incident than was the whole voyage of Jason, from the Whirling Rocks to the Golden Fleece.Columbus commenced his journal at once, and it is from the passages of this narrative which are still extant, that we shall derive an account of the voyage. He begins by declaring the object of the expedition to be to extend the blessings of the gospel to nations supposed to be without it. He adds, that he shall write at night the events of the day, and each morning the occurrences of the night. He will mark the lands he shall discover upon the chart, and will banish sleep from his eyelids in order to watch the progress of his vessel.All went well till Monday, when the helm of the Pinta fell to pieces,—this accident having been a second time prepared by her refractory owners. The fleet made the best of their way to the Canaries, where the Pinta was repaired. They sailed again on the 6th of September, narrowly escaping attack from three Portuguese caravels that King John had sent against Columbus, indignant that he should have transferred to another power the proposal he had once made to himself.Thus far the route had lain over the beaten track between the continent and the Canaries, along the coast of Africa. As they now launched into the open sea, and as the Peak of Teneriffe sank under the horizon behind them, the heart of Columbus beat high with joy, while the courage of his officers and men died away within them. The Admiral kept two logs, one for himself and one for the crew, the latter scoring a distance less than that which they had really made, and thus keeping them in ignorance of their actual distance from home. His course was to the southwest. The sky, the stars, the horizon, the water, changed visibly as they advanced. Familiar constellations disappeared, others took their place. On the 13th of September, Columbus observed a strange and fearful phenomenon. The needle, which till then had been infallible, swerved from the Polar star, and tremblingly diverged to the northwest. The next day, this variation was still more marked. Columbus took every precaution to conceal a discovery so discouraging from the fleet, and one which alarmed even him. The water now became more limpid, the climate more bland, and the sky more transparent. There was a delicate haze in the air, and a fragrance peculiar to the sea in the fresh breeze. Aquatic plants, apparently newly detached from the rocks or the bed of the ocean, floated upon the waves. For the first time in the history of the world, the tranquil beauties and the solemn splendors of the tropical Atlantic were passing before the gaze of human beings. According to the journal of Columbus, "nothing was wanting in the scene except the song of the nightingale to remind him of Andalusia in April."The proximity of land seemed often to be indicated by the odor with which the winds were laden, by the abundance of marine plants, and the presence of birds. Columbus would not alter his course, as he did not wish to abate the confidence of his men in his own belief that land was to be found by steering west. The floating vegetation now became so abundant that it retarded the passage of the vessels. The sailors became seriouslyalarmed. They thought themselves arrived at the limit of the world, where an element, too unstable to tread upon, too dense to sail through, admonished the rash stranger to take warning and return. They feared that the caravels would be involved beyond extrication, and that the monsters lying in wait beneath the floating herbage would make an easy meal of their defenceless crews. The trade-winds, then unknown, were another cause of anxiety; for, if they always blew to the westward, as they appeared to do, how could the ships ever return eastward to Europe? In the midst of the apprehensions excited by these causes, which nearly drove the terrified men to mutiny, a contrary wind sprang up, and the revolt was thus providentially quelled. Columbus wrote in his journal, "this opposing wind came very opportunely, for my crew was in great agitation, imagining that no wind ever blew in these regions by which they could return to Spain."But the terrors of the ignorant men soon broke out afresh. Seaweed and tropical marine plants reappeared in heavy masses, and seemed to shut in the ships among their stagnant growth. The breeze no longer formed billows upon the surface of the waters. The sailors declared that they were in those dismal quarters of the world where the winds lose their impulse and the waters their equilibrium, and that soon fierce aquatic monsters would seize hold of the keels of the ships and keep them prisoners amid the weeds. In the midst of the perplexities to which Columbus was thus exposed, the sea became suddenly agitated, though the wind did not increase. This revival of motion in the element they thought relapsed into sullen inactivity, again cheered the crew into a temporary tranquillity.[2]At sunset on the 25th, Alonzo Pinzon, rushing excitedly upon the quarterdeck of the Pinta, shouted, "Land! land! My lord, I was the first to see it!" The sailors of the Nina clambered joyfully into the tops, and Columbus fell upon his knees in thanksgiving. But the morn dissipated the illusion, and the ocean stretched forth its illimitable expanse as before. On the 1st of October, one of the lieutenants declared with anguish that they were seventeen hundred miles from the Canaries, intelligence which terribly alarmed the crew, though they had really made a much greater distance, being actually twenty-one hundred miles from Teneriffe, according to Columbus' private reckoning.The indications of the vicinity of land had been so often deceitful, that the crew no longer put faith in them, and fell from discouragement into taciturnity, and from taciturnity into insubordination. The discontent was general, and no efforts were made to conceal it. In their mutinous conversations, they spoke contemptuously of Columbus as "the Genoese," as a charlatan and a rogue. Was it just, they said, that one hundred and twenty men should perish by the caprice and obstinacy of one single man, and that man a foreigner and an impostor? If he persisted in proceeding "towards his everlasting west, which went on and on, and never came to an end," he ought to be thrown into the sea and left there. On their return they could easily say that he had fallen into the waves while gazing at the stars. A revolt was agreed upon between the crews of the three ships,who were on several occasions brought into communication by the sending of boats from the one to the other. The captains of the Pinta and the Nina were aware of what was transpiring, but for the time being maintained a cautious neutrality. The sea continued calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville, the air was laden with tropical fragrance, and in twenty-four hours the fleet, apparently at rest, glided imperceptibly over one hundred and eighty miles. This motionless rapidity, as it were, thoroughly terrified the crew, and, breaking out into open mutiny, they refused, on the 10th of October, to go any farther westward. The Nina and the Pinta rejoined the Santa Maria; the brothers Pinzon, followed by their men, leaped upon her deck, and commanded Columbus to put his ship about and return to Palos.At this most vital point of the narrative, our authorities are contradictory, while the journal of Columbus himself is silent. According to Oviedo,—a writer who obtained his information from an enemy of Columbus,—the latter yielded to his men so far as to propose a compromise, and to consent to return unless land was discovered in three days' sail. To say the least, such a submission to the menaces and behests of his infuriated subalterns was not an act compatible with the character of Columbus, with his well known self-reliance, and his openly expressed and constantly reiterated confidence in the Divine protection. The Catholic biography, which we have quoted, attributes the pacification of the revolt directly to the Divine interference, asserting that no human philosophy can explain this sudden and complete suspension of the prevailing exasperation and animosity. It is certain, at any rate, that the demonstration, which began at nightfall, had ceased long before the morning's dawn.And now pigeons flew in abundance about the ships, and green canes and reeds floated languidly by. A bush, its branches red with berries, was recovered from the water by the Nina. A tuft of grass and a piece of wood, which appeared to have been cut by some iron instrument, were picked up bythe Pinta. Such indications were sufficient to sustain the most dejected. Still the sun sank to rest in a horizon whose pure line was unbroken by land and unsullied by terrestrial vapor. The caravels were called together, and, after the usual prayer to the Virgin, Columbus announced to them that their trials were at an end, and that the morrow's light would bring with it the realization of all their hopes. The pilots were instructed to take in sail after midnight, and a velvet pourpoint was promised to him who should first see land. The crews which, two days before, considered Columbus as a trickster and a cheat, now received his word as they would a gospel from on high. The expectation and impatience which pervaded the three ships were indescribable. No eye was closed that night. The Pinta, being the most rapid sailer, was a long way in advance of the others. The Nina and the Santa Maria followed slowly, for sail had now been shortened, in her track. Suddenly a flash and a heavy report from the Pinta announced the joyful tidings. A Spaniard of Palos, named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, had seen the land and won the velvet pourpoint. Columbus fell upon his knees, and, raising his hands to heaven, sang the Te Deum Laudamus. The sails were then furled and the fleet lay to. Arms and holiday dresses were prepared, for they knew not what the day would bring forth, whether the land would offer hospitality or challenge to combat. The great mystery of the ocean was to be revealed on the morrow: in the meantime, the night and the darkness had in their keeping the mighty secret—whether the land was a savage desert or a spicy and blooming garden.THE NINA HOMEWARD BOUND.COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION OF GUANAHANI.CHAPTER XVI.DISCOVERY OF GUANAHANI—CEREMONIES OF TAKING POSSESSION—EXPLORATION OF THE NEIGHBORING ISLANDS—SEARCH FOR GOLD—CUBA SUPPOSED BY COLUMBUS TO BE JAPAN—THE CANNIBALS—HAITI—RETURN HOMEWARDS—A STORM—AN APPEAL TO THE VIRGIN—ARRIVAL AT THE AZORES—CONDUCT OF THE PORTUGUESE—COLUMBUS AT LISBON—AT PALOS—AT BARCELONA—COLUMBUS' SECOND VOYAGE—DISCOVERY OF GUADELOUPE, ANTIGOA, SANTA CRUZ, JAMAICA—ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE SPANIARDS AND THE SAVAGES—COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN—HIS RECEPTION BY THE QUEEN—HIS THIRD VOYAGE—THE REGION OF CALMS—DISCOVERY OF TRINIDAD AND OF THE MAIN LAND—ASSUMPCION AND MARGARITA—COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.On Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, the kindling dawn revealed to the wondering eyes of our adventurers the bright colors and early-morning beauties of an island clothed in verdure, and teeming with the fruits and vegetation of mid-autumn in the tropics. Its surface undulated gently, massive forests skirted the spots cleared for cultivation, and the sparkling water of a fresh lake glittered amid the luxuriant foliage which encircled it. An anchorage was easily found, and Columbus, dressed in official costume, and bearing the royal standard in his hand, landed upon the silent and deserted shore. He planted the standard, and, prostrating himself before it, kissed the earth hehad discovered; he then uttered the since famous prayer, the opening lines of which were, by order of the Spanish sovereigns, repeated by subsequent discoverers upon all similar occasions. He drew his sword, and, naming the land San Salvador, in memory of the Saviour, took possession of it for the Crown of Castile. The crews recognised Columbus as Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of the Indies. The most mutinous and outrageous thronged closely about him, and crouched at the feet of one who, in their eyes, had already wealth and honors in his gift.The island at which Columbus had landed was called by the natives Guanahani, and is now one of the archipelago of the Bahamas. The inhabitants had retreated to the woods at the arrival of the strangers; but, being gradually reassured, suffered their confidence to be won, and received from them fragments of glass and earthen-ware as presents possessing a supernatural virtue. Columbus took seven of them on board, being anxious to convey them to Spain and offer them to the king, promising however to return them. Then he weighed anchor and explored the wonderful region in which these lovely islands lie. New lands were constantly, as it were, rising from the waves; the eye could hardly number them, but the seven natives called over a hundred of them by name. He landed successively at Concepçion, la Fernandine, and Isabella; at all of which he was enchanted by the magnificence of the vegetation, the superb plumage of the birds, and the delicious fragrance with which the forests and the air were filled. He sought everywhere for traces of gold in the soil, for he hoped thus to interest Spain in a continuance of his explorations. Such was his desire to obtain a sight of the precious metal, that he passed rapidly from island to island, indifferent to every other subject. At last, the natives spoke of a large and marvellous land, called Cuba, where there were spices, gold, ships, and merchants. Supposing this to be the wonderful Cipango, described by Marco Polo, he set sail at once. It was now the 24th of October.On the 28th, at dawn, Columbus discovered an island, which, in its extent and in its general characteristics, reminded him strongly of Sicily, in the Mediterranean. As he approached, his senses underwent a species of confusion from the miraculous fertility and luxuriance of the vegetation. In his journal, he does not attempt to describe his emotions, but, preserving the silence of stupefaction, says simply that "he never saw any thing so magnificent." He no longer doubted that this beautiful spot was the real Cipango. He landed, gave to the island the name of Juana, and commenced a search for gold, which resulted in a complete disappointment. On leaving Cuba, he gave it a name which he thought more appropriate than Juana, styling its eastern extremity Alpha and Omega, being, as he thought, the region where the East Indies finished and where the West Indies began. This error of Columbus was the cause of the North American savages being called Indians—an error which has been perpetuated in spite of the progress of geographical discovery, and which will doubtless endure forever.On the 6th of December, he discovered an island, named Haiti by the natives, and which he called Hispaniola, as it reminded him of the fairest tracts of Spain. He found that the inhabitants had the reputation with their neighbors of devouring human flesh; they were calledCanibapeople, an epithet which, after the necessary modifications, has passed into all European languages. The Caribs were the nation meant. At this point, the captain of the Pinta deserted the fleet, in order to make discoveries on his own account. Soon after, the Santa Maria was wrecked upon the coast of Haiti, and Columbus, thinking that this accident was intended as an indication of the Divine will that he should establish a colony there, built a fort of live timber, in which he placed forty-two men. He weighed anchor in the Nina, on the 11th of January, 1493, and shortly after fell in with the Pinta. He pretended to believe and accept the falsehoods and contradictions which Pinzon alleged as thereasons for his abandonment of the fleet. The two vessels now turned their heads east, Columbus hoping to discover a cannibal island on his way, as he wished to carry a professor of the disgusting practice to Spain.No event of moment happened until the 12th of February, a month afterwards, when a terrible storm burst over the hitherto tranquil waters. Its violence increased to such a degree that nothing remained but a desperate appeal to "Mary, the Mother of God." A quantity of dried peas, equal in number to the number of men on board the Nina, were placed in a sailor's woollen cap, one of them being marked with a cross. He who should draw this pea, was to go on a pilgrimage to the church of Saint Mary at Guadeloupe, bearing a candle weighing five pounds, in case the ship were saved. Columbus was the first to draw, and he drew the marked pea. Other vows of this sort were made, and, finally, one to go in procession, and with bare feet, to the nearest cathedral of whatever land they should first reach. The admiral, fearing that his discovery would perish with him, withdrew to his cabin, during the fiercest period of the tumult, and wrote upon parchment two separate and concise narratives of his discoveries. He enclosed them both in wax, and, placing one in an empty barrel, threw it into the sea. The other, similarly enclosed, he attached to the poop of the Nina, intending to cut it loose at the moment of going down. Happily, the storm subsided; and, on the 17th, the shattered vessels arrived at the southernmost island of the Azores, belonging to the King of Portugal. Here half the crew went in procession to the chapel, to discharge their vow; and, while Columbus was waiting to go with the other half, the Portuguese made a sally, surrounded the first portion, and made them prisoners. After a useless protest, Columbus departed with the men that remained, having with him, in the Nina, but three able-bodied seamen. Another storm now threw him upon the coast of Portugal, at the mouth of the Tagus. Here he narrowly escaped shipwreck a second time, but, with the assistance of the wonder-stricken inhabitants, reached in safety the roads of Rostello. The king, though jealous of the maritime renown he was acquiring for Spain, received him with distinction and dismissed him with presents. Columbus arrived, in the Nina, at Palos on Friday, the 15th of March, seven months and twelve days after his departure. Alonzo Pinzon had already arrived in the Pinta, and, believing Columbus to have perished in the storm, had written to the court, narrating the discoveries made by the fleet, and claiming for himself the merit and the recompense.RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS BY FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.It is not our province to relate the history of the career of Columbus upon land, nor have we space so to do. We can only briefly allude to his discharge, by pilgrimages to holy shrines, of the vows, which, three times out of four, had, by lot, devolved upon him: to the week he spent with Marchena, and in the silence of the cloister, at la Rabida; to the princely honors he received in his progress to Barcelona, whither the court had gone; to his reception by the king and queen, in which Ferdinand and Isabella rose as he approached, raised him as he kneeled to kiss their hands, and ordered him to be seated in their presence.The Spanish sovereigns soon fitted out a new expedition; and, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus left the port of Cadiz with seventeen vessels, five hundred sailors, soldiers, citizens and servants, and one thousand colonists, three hundred of whom had smuggled themselves on board. He sailed directly for the Carib or Cannibal Islands, and on the 3d of November arrived in their midst. He named one of them Maria-Galanta, from his flag-ship; another, Guadeloupe, from one of the shrines of Spain where he had discharged a vow. He here found numerous and disgusting evidences of the truth of the story that these people lived on human flesh. The island which he named Montserrat, in honor of the famous sanctuary of that name, had been depopulated by the Caribs. He gave to thenext land the name of Santa Maria l'Antigoa; it is now known as Antigoa, simply. Another he called Santa Cruz, in honor of the cross. Returning to Hispaniola, he found the fort destroyed and the garrison massacred. Having founded the city of Isabella upon another part of the island, he sent back twelve of his ships to Spain, and with three of the remaining five, one of which was the famous Nina, started upon a voyage of discovery in the surrounding waters. He touched at Alpha and Omega, and inquired of the savages where he could find gold. They pointed to the south. Two days afterwards, Columbus descried lofty mountains, with blue summits, upon an island to which he gave the name of Jamaica, in honor of St. James. Then returning to Cuba, and following the southern coast a distance sufficient to convince the three crews that it was a continent and not an island, he took possession of it as such. He then wished to revisit the Caribbean Islands and destroy the boats of the inhabitants, that they might no longer prey upon their neighbors, but the direction of the winds would not permit him to sail to the west. Returning to Isabella, he met his brother Bartholomew, who had just arrived from Spain, bearing a letter from the queen. He also found, to his extreme regret, that the officers he had left in charge of the colony had transcended their authority and had abandoned their duties. Margarit, the commander, and Boil, the vicar, had departed in the ship that had brought Bartholomew. Overcome by the toils and privations he had undergone, and sick at heart at the sight of the disasters under which the colony was laboring, he fell into a deep lethargy, and for a long time it was doubtful whether he would ever awake again.He did awake, however, but only to a poignant consciousness of the miseries the Spanish invasion had brought upon the island. The Spaniards and Indians had become, through the treachery of the former, hostile during his absence, and battles, surprises, and murders were of daily occurrence. Seeing the necessity ofa vigorous effort in order to maintain his authority over the natives, he led his two hundred and twenty men against a furious throng of naked, painted savages, whose numbers were declared by the Spaniards to be no less than one hundred thousand. The Indians were defeated with great slaughter, and were subjected to the payment of tribute and to the indignity of taxation. At this period, an officer, named Juan Aguado, sent out by Ferdinand and Isabella upon the malicious representations of Margarit and Father Boil, to inquire into the state of the colony and the conduct of Columbus, arrived in the island. Columbus determined to return himself to Spain, to present in person a justification of his course. A violent storm having destroyed all the vessels except the Nina, Columbus took the command of her, Aguado building a caravel for himself from the wrecks of the others. They both left Isabella on the 10th of March, 1496, taking with them the sick and disappointed, to the number of two hundred and twenty-five, and thirty-two Indians, whom they forced to accompany them. They touched at Guadeloupe for wood and water, and, after repulsing an attack of Caribs, contrived to gain their confidence, and to obtain the articles of which they stood in need. They left again on the 20th of April. After a long and painful voyage, in the course of which it was proposed to throw the Indians overboard in order to lessen the consumption of food, they arrived, without material damage, at the port of Cadiz. Columbus wrote to the king and queen, and during the month that elapsed before their answer was received, allowed his beard to grow, and, disgusted with the world, assumed the garments and the badges of a Franciscan friar. He was soon summoned to Burgos, then the residence of the court, where Isabella, forgetting the calumnies of which he had been the object and the accusations his enemies had heaped upon him, loaded him with favors and kindness.Numerous circumstances prevented Columbus from requesting the immediate equipment of another expedition. It was nottill the 30th of May, 1498, that he sailed again for his discoveries in the West. He left San Lucar with six caravels, three laden with supplies and reinforcements for the colony at Isabella, and three intended to accompany himself upon a search for the mainland, which he believed to exist west of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica. On the 15th of July, in the latitude of Sierra Leone, they came into the region of calms, where the water seemed like molten silver beneath a tropical sun. Not a breath of air stirred, not a cloud intercepted the fiery rays which fell vertically upon them from the skies. The provisions decayed in the hold, the pitch and tar boiled upon the ropes. The barrels of wine and water opened in wide seams, and scattered their precious contents to waste. The grains of wheat were wrinkled and shrivelled as if roasting before the fire. For eight days this incandescence lasted, till an east wind sprang up and wafted them to a more temperate spot in the torrid zone.On the 31st of July land was discovered in the west,—three mountain peaks seeming to ascend from one and the same base. Columbus had made a vow to give the name of the Trinity to the first land he should discover, and this singular triune form of the land now before them was noticed as a wonderful coincidence by all on board. It was named, therefore, Trinidad; it lies off the northern coast of Venezuela, in the Continent of South America. The innumerable islands, formed by the forty mouths of the Orinoco, were next discovered, and shortly afterwards the continent to the north, which Columbus judged to be the mainland from the volume of water brought to the sea by the Orinoco. Columbus was not the first to set foot upon the New World he had discovered: being confined to his cabin by an attack of ophthalmia, he sent Pedro de Terreros to take possession in his stead. This discovery of the Southern portion of the Western Continent was, however, as we shall soon have occasion to show, subsequent to that of the Northern portion by John Cabot, who visited Labrador in 1497.The fleet was unable to remain in these seductive regions, owing to the scarcity of provisions and the increasing blindness of the admiral. He would have been glad to stay in a spot which, in his letter to his sovereigns, he describes as the Terrestrial Paradise, the Orinoco being one of the four streams flowing from it, as described in the Bible. The fact that this river throws from its forty issues fresh water enough to overcome the saltness of the sea to a great distance from the shore, was one of the circumstances which gave to this portion of the world the somewhat marvellous and fantastic character with which the imagination of Columbus invested it. He sailed at once from the continent to Hispaniola, discovering and naming the islands of Assumpcion and la Margarita. At Hispaniola he again found famine, distress, rebellion, and panic on every side. Malversation and mutiny had brought the colony to the very verge of ruin.We have not space to detail the manœuvres and machinations by which the mind of Ferdinand was prejudiced towards Columbus, and, in consequence of which, Francesco Bobadilla was sent by him in July, 1500, to investigate the charges brought against the admiral. Arrogant in his newly acquired honors, Bobadilla took the part of the malcontents, and, placing Columbus in chains, sent him back to Spain. He arrived at Cadiz on the 20th of November, after the most rapid passage yet made across the ocean. The general burst of indignation at the shocking spectacle of Columbus in fetters, compelled Ferdinand to disclaim all knowledge of the transaction. Isabella accorded him a private audience, in which she shed tears at the sufferings and indignities he had undergone. The king kept him waiting nine months, wasting his time in fruitless applications for redress, and finally appointed Nicholas Ovando Governor of Hispaniola in his place.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.CHAPTER XIV.BIRTH OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS—HIS EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—HIS MARRIAGE—HIS MARITIME CONTEMPLATIONS—HE MAKES PROPOSALS TO THE SENATE OF GENOA, THE COURT OF VENICE, AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL—THE DUPLICITY OF THE LATTER—COLUMBUS VISITS SPAIN—JUAN DE MARCHENA—COLUMBUS REPAIRS TO CORDOVA—HIS SECOND MARRIAGE—HIS LETTER TO THE KING—THE JUNTO OF SALAMANCA—COLUMBUS RESOLVES TO SHAKE THE DUST OF SPAIN FROM HIS FEET—MARCHENA'S LETTER TO ISABELLA—THE QUEEN GIVES AUDIENCE TO COLUMBUS—THE CONDITIONS STIPULATED BY THE LATTER—ISABELLA ACCEPTS THE ENTERPRISE, WHILE FERDINAND REMAINS ALOOF.Cristofero Colombo (in Spanish Colon, in French Colomb, in Latin and English Columbus) was born in Genoa, inthe year 1435.[1]His father was a wool-comber, and Christopher followed, for a time, the same occupation. He was sent, however, at the age of ten years, to the University of Pavia, where he seems to have studied, though with little advantage, natural philosophy and astronomy, or, as it was then called, astrology. Returning to his father's bench, he worked at wool-combing, with his brother Bartholomew, till he was fourteen years of age. By this time the natural influence of the situation, the atmosphere, and the traditions of Genoa had awakened in him the tastes and the ambition of a sailor. The sea had long been the home and the life of the Genoese: it was the theatre of their glory, and their avenue to wealth. Christopher's great-uncle, Colombo, commanded a fleet intrusted to him by the king, and with which he carried on a predatory warfare against the Venetians and Neapolitans. His nephew joined his ship, and thus became acquainted with the whole extent of the Mediterranean, which was at that period ploughed by the pirates of the Archipelago and the corsairs of the Barbary States. As the vessel went armed to the teeth, the young sailor not only learned the art of navigation, but acquired those habits of discipline and subordination, of self-command and presence of mind, which afterwards served him in so good stead. This manner of life lasted for many years, till Columbus, at the age of thirty, was wrecked off the coast of Portugal, and reached, with some difficulty, the city of Lisbon. Here he found his brother Bartholomew settled, and occupying himself in drawing plans, charts, and maps for the use of navigators. Christopher joined him, and gained a sufficient livelihood by copying manuscripts and black-letter books, and aiding his brother in his avocations. He soon married an Italian lady named Felippa di Perestrello, whosefather, now dead, had been Governor of the island of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras. This union between the humble son of a wool-comber and the daughter of an Italian gentleman is deemed, by several of the biographers of Columbus, a strong proof of the nobility of his ancestry. After his marriage, he left for Porto Santo,—the sterile dowry of his wife,—where his first son, Diego, was born.We have already seen that the period was one of the greatest excitement and expectancy in regard to maritime discovery. Columbus had long reflected upon the existence of land in the west, upon the sphericity of the earth, and upon the possibility of crossing the Atlantic. He had already conceived the idea of reaching Asia by following the setting sun across the immensity of the waters. His mind, too, was kindled to religious enthusiasm by the allusions in the Bible to the universal diffusion of the gospel, and, in his dreams of nautical discovery, the belief that he was destined to be an apostle, sent to extend the dominion of the cross, predominated over more worldly aspirations. For years, while struggling with disappointment and harassed by poverty, he pursued this idea with the pertinacity of a monomaniac. When forty years old, and residing at Lisbon, he proposed to the Senate of Genoa to leave the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar and to proceed to the west, in the sea known as the Ocean, as far as the "lands where spices bloom," and thus circumnavigate the earth. The Genoese, whose maritime knowledge was confined to the Mediterranean, and who had no fancy for adventures upon the ocean, declined listening to the proposition, pretexting the penury of the treasury. It would also seem that overtures made by Columbus to the Council of Venice were similarly rejected. For a time, therefore, he abandoned all efforts to further his desires. In 1477, he made a voyage to Iceland, in order to discover whether it was inhabited, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it,—where, to his astonishment, he found the sea not frozen.Upon the accession of John II. to the throne of Portugal,—a sovereign whom we have already shown to be deeply interested in the progress of the art of navigation,—Columbus made known to him his opinions and his plans, assigning the extension of the gospel as the avowed and final object of the expedition. The subject was referred to a maritime junto and to a high council, by both of whom it was rejected as visionary and absurd. The king was induced, however, by one of his councillors, to equip a caravel and send it on a voyage of discovery upon the route traced out by Columbus, and thus obtain for himself the glory of the expedition, if successful. Columbus was invited to hand in to the Government his maps and charts, together with his written views upon the whole subject. This he did, supposing, in his simplicity, that another examination was to be made of the practicability of the venture. The king despatched a caravel, under the command of one of the ablest pilots of his marine, to follow the track indicated. The vessel left, but soon returned, her crew having been appalled at sight of the boundless horizon, and her captain having lost his courage in a storm. Columbus, indignant at this duplicity, secretly left Lisbon and returned home to Genoa. At this period he had the misfortune to lose his wife Felippa, who had shared his confidence in the existence of unknown lands, and whose encouragement had sustained him in his disappointments. This was in the year 1484. He renewed his proposal to the Senate of Genoa, which was again rejected. He now cast his eyes upon the other European powers, among whom the two sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, seemed to deserve the preference.Not far from Palos, upon the Spanish coast, and in sight of the ocean, stood, upon a promontory half hidden by pine-trees, a monastery—known as La Rabida—dedicated to the Virgin, and inhabited by Franciscan friars. The Superior, Juan Perez de Marchena, offered an example of fervent piety and of theological erudition, at the same time that he was a skilful mathematicianand an ardent practitioner of the exact sciences. He was at once an astronomer, a devotee, and a poet. During the hours of slumber, he often ascended to the summit of the abbey, and, looking out upon the ocean,—known as the Sea of Darkness,—would ask himself if beyond this expanse of waters there was no land yet unclaimed by Christianity. He rejected as fabulous the current idea that a vessel might sail three years to the west without reaching a hospitable shore. The ocean, formidable to others and intelligible to few, was to him the abode of secrets which man was invited to unfold.One day a traveller rang at the gate and asked for refreshment for himself and his son. Being interrogated as to the object of his journey, he replied that he was on his way to the court of Spain to communicate an important matter to the king and queen. The traveller was Christopher Columbus. How he came to pass by this obscure monastery—which lay altogether off his route—has never been explained. A providential guidance had brought him into the presence of the man the best calculated to comprehend his purpose, in a country where he was totally without friends and with whose language he was completely unacquainted. A common sympathy drew them together; and Columbus, accepting for a period the hospitality of Marchena, made him the confidant of his views. Thus, while the colleges and universities of Christendom still held the childish theory that the earth was flat, and that the sea was the path to utter and outer darkness, Columbus and Marchena, filled with a spontaneous and implicit faith, intuitively believed in the sphericity of the globe and the existence of a nameless continent beyond the ocean. In theory they had solved the great question whether the ship which should depart by the west would come back by the east.Marchena gave Columbus a letter of recommendation to the queen's confessor, and, during his absence, promised to educate and maintain his son Diego. Thus tranquillized in his affections,and aided in his schemes, Columbus departed for Cordova. Here he was destined to undergo another disappointment; for the queen's confessor, his expected patron, treated him as a dreaming speculator and needy adventurer. He soon became again isolated and forgotten. In the midst of his indigence, however, a noble lady, Beatrix Enriquez, young and beautiful, though not rich, noticed his manners and his language, so evidently above his condition, and detained him at Cordova long after his hopes were extinguished. He married her: she bore him a son, Fernando, who afterwards became his father's biographer and historian.Columbus now wrote to the king a brief and concise letter, setting forth his desires. It was never answered. After a multitude of similar deceptions and disappointments, Geraldini, the ambassador of the Pope, presented him to Mendoza, the Grand Cardinal, through whose influence Columbus obtained an audience of Ferdinand, who appointed a junto of wise men to examine and report upon his scheme. This junto, made up of theologians and not of navigators and geographers, and which sat at Salamanca, opposed Columbus on biblical grounds, declared the theory a dangerous if not heretical innovation, and finally reported unfavorably. This decision was quite in harmony with public opinion in Salamanca, where Columbus was spoken of as "a foreigner who asserted that the world was round like an orange, and that there were places where the people walked on their heads." Seven years were thus wasted in solicitation, suspense, and disappointment. From time to time Columbus had reason to hope that his proposals would be reconsidered; but in 1490 the siege of Baza, the last stronghold of the Moors, and in 1491 the marriage of Isabella, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, with Don Alonzo of Portugal, absorbed the attention of their majesties to the exclusion of all scientific pre-occupations. Finally, when the matter was reopened, and the junto was reassembled, its president, Fernando de Talavera, was instructedto say that the exhaustion of the treasury necessitated the postponement of the whole subject until the close of the war with Grenada. At last, Columbus, reflecting upon the delays, refusals, affronts, and suspicions of which he had been the object, the time he had wasted, and the antechambers in which he had waited the condescension of the great, resolved to shake the dust of Spain from his feet, and returned to the abbey of his friend Marchena. He arrived there bearing upon his person the impress of poverty, fatigue, and exhausted patience. Marchena was profoundly annoyed by the reflection that the glory of the future discoveries of Columbus would be thus taken from Spain and conferred upon some rival power. Fearing, however, that he had too readily lent his ear to theories which had been twice rejected as puerile by a competent junto, he sent for an eminent mathematician of Palos, Garcia Hernandez, a physician by profession. They then conferred together upon the subject and pronounced the execution of the project feasible. The assertion that the famous sailor Martin Alonzo Pinzon was a party to the conference would appear to be an error. Pinzon was at this period at Rome, and did not see Columbus for a year or more afterwards.Marchena at once wrote an eloquent letter to Queen Isabella, and intrusted it to a pilot whose relations with the court rendered him a safe and reliable messenger. He gave the missive into the hands of the queen, and returned to the monastery the bearer of an invitation to Marchena to repair at once to Santa Fe, where the court then was, engaged in investing Grenada. Columbus borrowed a mule for the friar, who left secretly at midnight and arrived safely at Santa Fe. That Isabella should, at such a moment, when engaged in war and harassed by financial embarrassments, listen to a proposition which had been twice condemned by a learned body of men, is a circumstance which entitles her in the highest degree to a share in the glory which her protégé Columbus was, through her, destined to obtain. She received Marchena graciously, and instructed him to summonColumbus, to whom she sent twenty thousand maravedis—seventy dollars, nearly—with which to purchase a horse and a proper dress in which to appear before her.Columbus arrived at Santa Fe just before the surrender of Grenada and the termination of the struggle between the Crescent and the Cross. He was present at the delivery of the keys of the city and the abandonment of the Alhambra to Isabella by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico. After the official rejoicings, the queen gave audience to Columbus. As she already believed in the practicability of the scheme, the only subjects to be discussed were the means of execution, and the recompense to be awarded to Columbus in case of success. A committee was appointed to consider this latter point. Columbus fixed his conditions as follows:He should receive the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean:He should be Viceroy and Governor-General of all islands and mainlands he might discover:He should levy a tax for his own benefit upon all productions—whether spices, fruits, perfumes, gold, silver, pearls, or diamonds—discovered in, or exported from, the lands under his authority:And his titles should be transmissible in his family, forever, by the laws of primogeniture.These conditions, being such as would place the threadbare solicitor above the noblest house in Spain, were treated with derision by the committee, and Columbus was regarded as an insolent braggart. He would not abate one tittle of his claims, though, after eighteen years of fruitless effort, he now saw all his hopes at the point of being again dashed to earth. He mounted his mule, and departed for Cordova before quitting Spain forever.Two friends of the queen now represented the departure of Columbus as an immense and irreparable loss, and, by their supplications and protestations, induced her once more to considerthe vast importance of the plans he proposed. Moved by their persuasions, she declared that she accepted the enterprise, not jointly, as the wife of the King of Spain, but independently, as Queen of Castile. As the treasury was depleted by the drains of war, she offered to defray the expenses with her own jewels. A messenger was despatched for Columbus, who was overtaken a few miles from Grenada. He at first hesitated to return; but, after reflecting upon the heroic determination of Isabella, who thus took the initiative in a perilous undertaking, against the report of the junto, the advice of her councillors, and in spite of the indifference of the king, he obeyed with alacrity, and returned to Santa Fe.He was received with distinction by the court and with affectionate consideration by the queen. Ferdinand remained a stranger to the expedition. He applied his signature to the stipulations, but caused it to be distinctly set down that the whole affair was undertaken by the Queen of Castile, at her own risk and peril,—thus excluding himself forever from lot or parcel in this transcendent enterprise.VIOLET ASTERIA.THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

BIRTH OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS—HIS EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—HIS MARRIAGE—HIS MARITIME CONTEMPLATIONS—HE MAKES PROPOSALS TO THE SENATE OF GENOA, THE COURT OF VENICE, AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL—THE DUPLICITY OF THE LATTER—COLUMBUS VISITS SPAIN—JUAN DE MARCHENA—COLUMBUS REPAIRS TO CORDOVA—HIS SECOND MARRIAGE—HIS LETTER TO THE KING—THE JUNTO OF SALAMANCA—COLUMBUS RESOLVES TO SHAKE THE DUST OF SPAIN FROM HIS FEET—MARCHENA'S LETTER TO ISABELLA—THE QUEEN GIVES AUDIENCE TO COLUMBUS—THE CONDITIONS STIPULATED BY THE LATTER—ISABELLA ACCEPTS THE ENTERPRISE, WHILE FERDINAND REMAINS ALOOF.

Cristofero Colombo (in Spanish Colon, in French Colomb, in Latin and English Columbus) was born in Genoa, inthe year 1435.[1]His father was a wool-comber, and Christopher followed, for a time, the same occupation. He was sent, however, at the age of ten years, to the University of Pavia, where he seems to have studied, though with little advantage, natural philosophy and astronomy, or, as it was then called, astrology. Returning to his father's bench, he worked at wool-combing, with his brother Bartholomew, till he was fourteen years of age. By this time the natural influence of the situation, the atmosphere, and the traditions of Genoa had awakened in him the tastes and the ambition of a sailor. The sea had long been the home and the life of the Genoese: it was the theatre of their glory, and their avenue to wealth. Christopher's great-uncle, Colombo, commanded a fleet intrusted to him by the king, and with which he carried on a predatory warfare against the Venetians and Neapolitans. His nephew joined his ship, and thus became acquainted with the whole extent of the Mediterranean, which was at that period ploughed by the pirates of the Archipelago and the corsairs of the Barbary States. As the vessel went armed to the teeth, the young sailor not only learned the art of navigation, but acquired those habits of discipline and subordination, of self-command and presence of mind, which afterwards served him in so good stead. This manner of life lasted for many years, till Columbus, at the age of thirty, was wrecked off the coast of Portugal, and reached, with some difficulty, the city of Lisbon. Here he found his brother Bartholomew settled, and occupying himself in drawing plans, charts, and maps for the use of navigators. Christopher joined him, and gained a sufficient livelihood by copying manuscripts and black-letter books, and aiding his brother in his avocations. He soon married an Italian lady named Felippa di Perestrello, whosefather, now dead, had been Governor of the island of Porto Santo, one of the Madeiras. This union between the humble son of a wool-comber and the daughter of an Italian gentleman is deemed, by several of the biographers of Columbus, a strong proof of the nobility of his ancestry. After his marriage, he left for Porto Santo,—the sterile dowry of his wife,—where his first son, Diego, was born.

We have already seen that the period was one of the greatest excitement and expectancy in regard to maritime discovery. Columbus had long reflected upon the existence of land in the west, upon the sphericity of the earth, and upon the possibility of crossing the Atlantic. He had already conceived the idea of reaching Asia by following the setting sun across the immensity of the waters. His mind, too, was kindled to religious enthusiasm by the allusions in the Bible to the universal diffusion of the gospel, and, in his dreams of nautical discovery, the belief that he was destined to be an apostle, sent to extend the dominion of the cross, predominated over more worldly aspirations. For years, while struggling with disappointment and harassed by poverty, he pursued this idea with the pertinacity of a monomaniac. When forty years old, and residing at Lisbon, he proposed to the Senate of Genoa to leave the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar and to proceed to the west, in the sea known as the Ocean, as far as the "lands where spices bloom," and thus circumnavigate the earth. The Genoese, whose maritime knowledge was confined to the Mediterranean, and who had no fancy for adventures upon the ocean, declined listening to the proposition, pretexting the penury of the treasury. It would also seem that overtures made by Columbus to the Council of Venice were similarly rejected. For a time, therefore, he abandoned all efforts to further his desires. In 1477, he made a voyage to Iceland, in order to discover whether it was inhabited, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it,—where, to his astonishment, he found the sea not frozen.

Upon the accession of John II. to the throne of Portugal,—a sovereign whom we have already shown to be deeply interested in the progress of the art of navigation,—Columbus made known to him his opinions and his plans, assigning the extension of the gospel as the avowed and final object of the expedition. The subject was referred to a maritime junto and to a high council, by both of whom it was rejected as visionary and absurd. The king was induced, however, by one of his councillors, to equip a caravel and send it on a voyage of discovery upon the route traced out by Columbus, and thus obtain for himself the glory of the expedition, if successful. Columbus was invited to hand in to the Government his maps and charts, together with his written views upon the whole subject. This he did, supposing, in his simplicity, that another examination was to be made of the practicability of the venture. The king despatched a caravel, under the command of one of the ablest pilots of his marine, to follow the track indicated. The vessel left, but soon returned, her crew having been appalled at sight of the boundless horizon, and her captain having lost his courage in a storm. Columbus, indignant at this duplicity, secretly left Lisbon and returned home to Genoa. At this period he had the misfortune to lose his wife Felippa, who had shared his confidence in the existence of unknown lands, and whose encouragement had sustained him in his disappointments. This was in the year 1484. He renewed his proposal to the Senate of Genoa, which was again rejected. He now cast his eyes upon the other European powers, among whom the two sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, seemed to deserve the preference.

Not far from Palos, upon the Spanish coast, and in sight of the ocean, stood, upon a promontory half hidden by pine-trees, a monastery—known as La Rabida—dedicated to the Virgin, and inhabited by Franciscan friars. The Superior, Juan Perez de Marchena, offered an example of fervent piety and of theological erudition, at the same time that he was a skilful mathematicianand an ardent practitioner of the exact sciences. He was at once an astronomer, a devotee, and a poet. During the hours of slumber, he often ascended to the summit of the abbey, and, looking out upon the ocean,—known as the Sea of Darkness,—would ask himself if beyond this expanse of waters there was no land yet unclaimed by Christianity. He rejected as fabulous the current idea that a vessel might sail three years to the west without reaching a hospitable shore. The ocean, formidable to others and intelligible to few, was to him the abode of secrets which man was invited to unfold.

One day a traveller rang at the gate and asked for refreshment for himself and his son. Being interrogated as to the object of his journey, he replied that he was on his way to the court of Spain to communicate an important matter to the king and queen. The traveller was Christopher Columbus. How he came to pass by this obscure monastery—which lay altogether off his route—has never been explained. A providential guidance had brought him into the presence of the man the best calculated to comprehend his purpose, in a country where he was totally without friends and with whose language he was completely unacquainted. A common sympathy drew them together; and Columbus, accepting for a period the hospitality of Marchena, made him the confidant of his views. Thus, while the colleges and universities of Christendom still held the childish theory that the earth was flat, and that the sea was the path to utter and outer darkness, Columbus and Marchena, filled with a spontaneous and implicit faith, intuitively believed in the sphericity of the globe and the existence of a nameless continent beyond the ocean. In theory they had solved the great question whether the ship which should depart by the west would come back by the east.

Marchena gave Columbus a letter of recommendation to the queen's confessor, and, during his absence, promised to educate and maintain his son Diego. Thus tranquillized in his affections,and aided in his schemes, Columbus departed for Cordova. Here he was destined to undergo another disappointment; for the queen's confessor, his expected patron, treated him as a dreaming speculator and needy adventurer. He soon became again isolated and forgotten. In the midst of his indigence, however, a noble lady, Beatrix Enriquez, young and beautiful, though not rich, noticed his manners and his language, so evidently above his condition, and detained him at Cordova long after his hopes were extinguished. He married her: she bore him a son, Fernando, who afterwards became his father's biographer and historian.

Columbus now wrote to the king a brief and concise letter, setting forth his desires. It was never answered. After a multitude of similar deceptions and disappointments, Geraldini, the ambassador of the Pope, presented him to Mendoza, the Grand Cardinal, through whose influence Columbus obtained an audience of Ferdinand, who appointed a junto of wise men to examine and report upon his scheme. This junto, made up of theologians and not of navigators and geographers, and which sat at Salamanca, opposed Columbus on biblical grounds, declared the theory a dangerous if not heretical innovation, and finally reported unfavorably. This decision was quite in harmony with public opinion in Salamanca, where Columbus was spoken of as "a foreigner who asserted that the world was round like an orange, and that there were places where the people walked on their heads." Seven years were thus wasted in solicitation, suspense, and disappointment. From time to time Columbus had reason to hope that his proposals would be reconsidered; but in 1490 the siege of Baza, the last stronghold of the Moors, and in 1491 the marriage of Isabella, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, with Don Alonzo of Portugal, absorbed the attention of their majesties to the exclusion of all scientific pre-occupations. Finally, when the matter was reopened, and the junto was reassembled, its president, Fernando de Talavera, was instructedto say that the exhaustion of the treasury necessitated the postponement of the whole subject until the close of the war with Grenada. At last, Columbus, reflecting upon the delays, refusals, affronts, and suspicions of which he had been the object, the time he had wasted, and the antechambers in which he had waited the condescension of the great, resolved to shake the dust of Spain from his feet, and returned to the abbey of his friend Marchena. He arrived there bearing upon his person the impress of poverty, fatigue, and exhausted patience. Marchena was profoundly annoyed by the reflection that the glory of the future discoveries of Columbus would be thus taken from Spain and conferred upon some rival power. Fearing, however, that he had too readily lent his ear to theories which had been twice rejected as puerile by a competent junto, he sent for an eminent mathematician of Palos, Garcia Hernandez, a physician by profession. They then conferred together upon the subject and pronounced the execution of the project feasible. The assertion that the famous sailor Martin Alonzo Pinzon was a party to the conference would appear to be an error. Pinzon was at this period at Rome, and did not see Columbus for a year or more afterwards.

Marchena at once wrote an eloquent letter to Queen Isabella, and intrusted it to a pilot whose relations with the court rendered him a safe and reliable messenger. He gave the missive into the hands of the queen, and returned to the monastery the bearer of an invitation to Marchena to repair at once to Santa Fe, where the court then was, engaged in investing Grenada. Columbus borrowed a mule for the friar, who left secretly at midnight and arrived safely at Santa Fe. That Isabella should, at such a moment, when engaged in war and harassed by financial embarrassments, listen to a proposition which had been twice condemned by a learned body of men, is a circumstance which entitles her in the highest degree to a share in the glory which her protégé Columbus was, through her, destined to obtain. She received Marchena graciously, and instructed him to summonColumbus, to whom she sent twenty thousand maravedis—seventy dollars, nearly—with which to purchase a horse and a proper dress in which to appear before her.

Columbus arrived at Santa Fe just before the surrender of Grenada and the termination of the struggle between the Crescent and the Cross. He was present at the delivery of the keys of the city and the abandonment of the Alhambra to Isabella by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico. After the official rejoicings, the queen gave audience to Columbus. As she already believed in the practicability of the scheme, the only subjects to be discussed were the means of execution, and the recompense to be awarded to Columbus in case of success. A committee was appointed to consider this latter point. Columbus fixed his conditions as follows:

He should receive the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean:

He should be Viceroy and Governor-General of all islands and mainlands he might discover:

He should levy a tax for his own benefit upon all productions—whether spices, fruits, perfumes, gold, silver, pearls, or diamonds—discovered in, or exported from, the lands under his authority:

And his titles should be transmissible in his family, forever, by the laws of primogeniture.

These conditions, being such as would place the threadbare solicitor above the noblest house in Spain, were treated with derision by the committee, and Columbus was regarded as an insolent braggart. He would not abate one tittle of his claims, though, after eighteen years of fruitless effort, he now saw all his hopes at the point of being again dashed to earth. He mounted his mule, and departed for Cordova before quitting Spain forever.

Two friends of the queen now represented the departure of Columbus as an immense and irreparable loss, and, by their supplications and protestations, induced her once more to considerthe vast importance of the plans he proposed. Moved by their persuasions, she declared that she accepted the enterprise, not jointly, as the wife of the King of Spain, but independently, as Queen of Castile. As the treasury was depleted by the drains of war, she offered to defray the expenses with her own jewels. A messenger was despatched for Columbus, who was overtaken a few miles from Grenada. He at first hesitated to return; but, after reflecting upon the heroic determination of Isabella, who thus took the initiative in a perilous undertaking, against the report of the junto, the advice of her councillors, and in spite of the indifference of the king, he obeyed with alacrity, and returned to Santa Fe.

He was received with distinction by the court and with affectionate consideration by the queen. Ferdinand remained a stranger to the expedition. He applied his signature to the stipulations, but caused it to be distinctly set down that the whole affair was undertaken by the Queen of Castile, at her own risk and peril,—thus excluding himself forever from lot or parcel in this transcendent enterprise.

VIOLET ASTERIA.

VIOLET ASTERIA.

VIOLET ASTERIA.

THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS.

THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS.

THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS.

HEAD OF MERGONSER.CHAPTER XV.THE PORT OF PALOS—THE SUPERSTITION OF ITS MARINERS—THE HAND OF SATAN—A BIRD WHICH LIFTED VESSELS TO THE CLOUDS—THE PINTA AND THE NINA—THE SANTA MARIA—CAPACITY OF A SPANISH CARAVEL—THE THREE PINZONS—THE DEPARTURE—COLUMBUS' JOURNAL—THE HELM OF THE PINTA UNSHIPPED—THE VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE—THE APPEARANCE OF THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC—FLOATING VEGETATION—THE SARGASSO SEA—ALARM, AND THREATENED MUTINY, OF THE SAILORS—PERPLEXITIES OF COLUMBUS—LAND! LAND! A FALSE ALARM—INDICATIONS OF THE VICINITY OF LAND—MURMURS OF THE CREWS—OPEN REVOLT QUELLED BY COLUMBUS—FLOATING REEDS AND TUFTS OF GRASS—LAND AT LAST—THE VESSELS ANCHOR OVER-NIGHT.Columbus received his letters-patent, granting him all the privileges and titles he had demanded, on the 30th of April, 1492. His son Diego was made page to the prince-royal,—a favor only accorded to children of noble families. The harbor of Palos was chosen as the port of departure; and its inhabitants, whose annual taxes consisted in furnishing two caravels, armed and manned, to the Government, were instructed to place them, within ten days, at the orders of Columbus. Persons awaiting trial or condemnation were to have the privilege of escaping verdict and punishment by embarking upon this terrible and perhaps fatal voyage.The mariners of Palos received these tidings with dismay. Nothing was certainly in those days more calculated to strike with terror the cautious coaster than a voyage upon the boundless, endlessMare Tenebrosum, which, in the imagination not only of the ignorant, but even of the educated, was the homeof chaos, if not the seat of Erebus. Upon the maps of the world designed at this period, the words Mare Tenebrosum were surrounded with figures of imps and devils, compared to which the Cyclops, griffins, and centaurs of mythology were modest and benign creations. The Arabians, who were forbidden by the Koran to depict the forms of animals, gave, as they thought, a fitting character to the sea, by representing the hand of Satan upon their charts, ready to clutch and drag beneath the waves all who should be so rash as to brave the displeasure of Bahr-al-Talmet. Besides Satan, besides the Leviathan and Behemoth, and other similar submarine terrors, the adventurer upon the open sea would find adversaries in the air; and, if he escaped the blast and the thunderbolt, it would be to fall a victim to the roc, that gigantic bird which lifted ships into the air and crunched them in the clouds. This roc, from terrifying the companions of Columbus, has descended to amuse children in the nautical romance of Sinbad the Sailor.Time passed, and the authorities of Palos had yet furnished nothing towards the voyage. Owners of vessels hid them in distant creeks, and the port became gradually a desert. The court ordered stringent measures, and at last a caravel named the Pinta was seized and laid up for repairs. All the carpenters turned sick, and neither rope, wood, nor tar were to be found. In vain did Marchena, the zealous Franciscan of Palos, who was beloved by all its inhabitants, undertake a crusade among the seafaring population in favor of the project: the whole Andalusian coast considered it chimerical and a temptation of Providence.Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of three brothers, all seamen, and who had at this period lately returned from Rome, where the Pope's librarian had shown him a map bearing the representation of land in the Atlantic to the west, was introduced by Marchena to Columbus. The report soon became current that the brothers, whose credit and influence at Palos were very great,intended to risk the adventure on board of the caravel Nina, belonging to the younger of the three. The mariners took courage, and the city of Palos contributed its second caravel, the Gallega, making three in all. This Gallega, though old and heavy and unfit for the service, was stout and solid, and Columbus chose her for his flag-ship, rebaptizing her, however, the Santa Maria. Towards the end of July, the vessels were nearly ready for sea, and Columbus retired for a period to the monastery, where he passed his days in prayer and his nights in contemplation. On one occasion he left the convent and appeared among the workmen: he surprised the sailors, condemned by the city to accompany him to the west, engaged in putting the rudder of the Pinta together in such a manner that the first storm would unship it. Marchena redoubled his exhortations, and at last the expedition was ready.Popular belief has, in modern times, represented these vessels as much smaller than they probably really were. The termcaravel, of doubtful etymology, affords no indication of their tonnage or capacity. Caravels were used, however, to transport troops, provisions, and artillery, and even to fight upon the high seas. They were sent by Portugal to the coast of Africa. John II. had, as we have narrated, sent a vessel to the west in order to anticipate Columbus; and this vessel was a caravel. The smallest of the three—the Nina—subsequently, when at sea, took on board fifty-six men, in addition to her own crew, a number of cannon, and a portion of the rigging of the Santa Maria, without lowering her water-line; and Columbus once threatened a Portuguese officer to take one hundred of his men on board the Nina and carry them to Castile. Neither she, nor the other two caravels, were the "light barks" or "shallops" which historians have delighted to represent them. The importance of the subject requires that we describe the three vessels with all the minuteness which the late researches of which we have spoken will authorize.The Santa Maria measured about ninety feet at the keel. She had four masts, two of them square-rigged, and two furnished with the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. She had a deck extending from stem to stern, and a double deck at the poop, twenty-six feet long,—one-third, nearly, of her entire length. The double deck was pierced for cannon, the forward-deck being armed with smaller pieces, used for throwing stones and grape. From the journal of Columbus we know that he employed, in the manœuvres, quite a complicated system of ropes and pulleys. Eight anchors hung over her sides. She represented in her general characteristics a modern vessel of twenty guns. She was manned by sixty-six men, not one of whom was from Palos,—one of them being an Englishman, and one an Irishman,—and was commanded by Columbus.The Pinta and the Nina were decked only forward and aft, the space in the middle being entirely uncovered. Their armament was equal to that of sloops of sixteen and ten guns respectively. Alonzo Pinzon commanded the Pinta, whose total crew, including the officers, numbered thirty men. The youngest of the three Pinzons, Vincent Yanez, commanded the Nina, with twenty-three men. The provisions of the fleet consisted of smoked beef, salt pork, rice, dried peas and other vegetables, herrings, wine, oil, vinegar, &c., sufficient for a year.As the day approached and the danger grew more imminent, the apprehension increased, and the sailors expressed a desire to reconcile themselves with Heaven and obtain absolution for their sins. They went in procession to the monastery of La Rabida, with Columbus at their head, and received the Eucharist from the hands of the Franciscan Marchena. Columbus, while waiting for the land-breeze, retired for a last time to the convent, to meditate upon the duties before him and to peruse his favorite book, the Gospel of St. John. At three o'clock in the morning of the 3d of August he was awakened by the murmuring of the long wished for wind in the tops of the pine-trees which borderedhis cell. The coming day was Friday, a day inauspicious to sailors, but to him a day of good omen. He arose, summoned Marchena, from whom he received the communion, and then descended, on foot, the steep declivity which leads to Palos.The Santa Maria at once sent her boat to receive the admiral, and at the sound of the preparations and the orders of the pilots, the inhabitants awoke and opened wide their windows. Mothers, wives and sisters, fathers and brothers, ran in confusion to the shore, to bid a last farewell to those whom they might perhaps never see again. The royal standard, representing the Crucifixion, was hoisted at the main; and Columbus, standing upon the quarterdeck, gave the order to spread the sails in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus commenced the most memorable venture upon the ocean that man had then made or has made since,—the record of whose shortest day is more stored with incident than was the whole voyage of Jason, from the Whirling Rocks to the Golden Fleece.Columbus commenced his journal at once, and it is from the passages of this narrative which are still extant, that we shall derive an account of the voyage. He begins by declaring the object of the expedition to be to extend the blessings of the gospel to nations supposed to be without it. He adds, that he shall write at night the events of the day, and each morning the occurrences of the night. He will mark the lands he shall discover upon the chart, and will banish sleep from his eyelids in order to watch the progress of his vessel.All went well till Monday, when the helm of the Pinta fell to pieces,—this accident having been a second time prepared by her refractory owners. The fleet made the best of their way to the Canaries, where the Pinta was repaired. They sailed again on the 6th of September, narrowly escaping attack from three Portuguese caravels that King John had sent against Columbus, indignant that he should have transferred to another power the proposal he had once made to himself.Thus far the route had lain over the beaten track between the continent and the Canaries, along the coast of Africa. As they now launched into the open sea, and as the Peak of Teneriffe sank under the horizon behind them, the heart of Columbus beat high with joy, while the courage of his officers and men died away within them. The Admiral kept two logs, one for himself and one for the crew, the latter scoring a distance less than that which they had really made, and thus keeping them in ignorance of their actual distance from home. His course was to the southwest. The sky, the stars, the horizon, the water, changed visibly as they advanced. Familiar constellations disappeared, others took their place. On the 13th of September, Columbus observed a strange and fearful phenomenon. The needle, which till then had been infallible, swerved from the Polar star, and tremblingly diverged to the northwest. The next day, this variation was still more marked. Columbus took every precaution to conceal a discovery so discouraging from the fleet, and one which alarmed even him. The water now became more limpid, the climate more bland, and the sky more transparent. There was a delicate haze in the air, and a fragrance peculiar to the sea in the fresh breeze. Aquatic plants, apparently newly detached from the rocks or the bed of the ocean, floated upon the waves. For the first time in the history of the world, the tranquil beauties and the solemn splendors of the tropical Atlantic were passing before the gaze of human beings. According to the journal of Columbus, "nothing was wanting in the scene except the song of the nightingale to remind him of Andalusia in April."The proximity of land seemed often to be indicated by the odor with which the winds were laden, by the abundance of marine plants, and the presence of birds. Columbus would not alter his course, as he did not wish to abate the confidence of his men in his own belief that land was to be found by steering west. The floating vegetation now became so abundant that it retarded the passage of the vessels. The sailors became seriouslyalarmed. They thought themselves arrived at the limit of the world, where an element, too unstable to tread upon, too dense to sail through, admonished the rash stranger to take warning and return. They feared that the caravels would be involved beyond extrication, and that the monsters lying in wait beneath the floating herbage would make an easy meal of their defenceless crews. The trade-winds, then unknown, were another cause of anxiety; for, if they always blew to the westward, as they appeared to do, how could the ships ever return eastward to Europe? In the midst of the apprehensions excited by these causes, which nearly drove the terrified men to mutiny, a contrary wind sprang up, and the revolt was thus providentially quelled. Columbus wrote in his journal, "this opposing wind came very opportunely, for my crew was in great agitation, imagining that no wind ever blew in these regions by which they could return to Spain."But the terrors of the ignorant men soon broke out afresh. Seaweed and tropical marine plants reappeared in heavy masses, and seemed to shut in the ships among their stagnant growth. The breeze no longer formed billows upon the surface of the waters. The sailors declared that they were in those dismal quarters of the world where the winds lose their impulse and the waters their equilibrium, and that soon fierce aquatic monsters would seize hold of the keels of the ships and keep them prisoners amid the weeds. In the midst of the perplexities to which Columbus was thus exposed, the sea became suddenly agitated, though the wind did not increase. This revival of motion in the element they thought relapsed into sullen inactivity, again cheered the crew into a temporary tranquillity.[2]At sunset on the 25th, Alonzo Pinzon, rushing excitedly upon the quarterdeck of the Pinta, shouted, "Land! land! My lord, I was the first to see it!" The sailors of the Nina clambered joyfully into the tops, and Columbus fell upon his knees in thanksgiving. But the morn dissipated the illusion, and the ocean stretched forth its illimitable expanse as before. On the 1st of October, one of the lieutenants declared with anguish that they were seventeen hundred miles from the Canaries, intelligence which terribly alarmed the crew, though they had really made a much greater distance, being actually twenty-one hundred miles from Teneriffe, according to Columbus' private reckoning.The indications of the vicinity of land had been so often deceitful, that the crew no longer put faith in them, and fell from discouragement into taciturnity, and from taciturnity into insubordination. The discontent was general, and no efforts were made to conceal it. In their mutinous conversations, they spoke contemptuously of Columbus as "the Genoese," as a charlatan and a rogue. Was it just, they said, that one hundred and twenty men should perish by the caprice and obstinacy of one single man, and that man a foreigner and an impostor? If he persisted in proceeding "towards his everlasting west, which went on and on, and never came to an end," he ought to be thrown into the sea and left there. On their return they could easily say that he had fallen into the waves while gazing at the stars. A revolt was agreed upon between the crews of the three ships,who were on several occasions brought into communication by the sending of boats from the one to the other. The captains of the Pinta and the Nina were aware of what was transpiring, but for the time being maintained a cautious neutrality. The sea continued calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville, the air was laden with tropical fragrance, and in twenty-four hours the fleet, apparently at rest, glided imperceptibly over one hundred and eighty miles. This motionless rapidity, as it were, thoroughly terrified the crew, and, breaking out into open mutiny, they refused, on the 10th of October, to go any farther westward. The Nina and the Pinta rejoined the Santa Maria; the brothers Pinzon, followed by their men, leaped upon her deck, and commanded Columbus to put his ship about and return to Palos.At this most vital point of the narrative, our authorities are contradictory, while the journal of Columbus himself is silent. According to Oviedo,—a writer who obtained his information from an enemy of Columbus,—the latter yielded to his men so far as to propose a compromise, and to consent to return unless land was discovered in three days' sail. To say the least, such a submission to the menaces and behests of his infuriated subalterns was not an act compatible with the character of Columbus, with his well known self-reliance, and his openly expressed and constantly reiterated confidence in the Divine protection. The Catholic biography, which we have quoted, attributes the pacification of the revolt directly to the Divine interference, asserting that no human philosophy can explain this sudden and complete suspension of the prevailing exasperation and animosity. It is certain, at any rate, that the demonstration, which began at nightfall, had ceased long before the morning's dawn.And now pigeons flew in abundance about the ships, and green canes and reeds floated languidly by. A bush, its branches red with berries, was recovered from the water by the Nina. A tuft of grass and a piece of wood, which appeared to have been cut by some iron instrument, were picked up bythe Pinta. Such indications were sufficient to sustain the most dejected. Still the sun sank to rest in a horizon whose pure line was unbroken by land and unsullied by terrestrial vapor. The caravels were called together, and, after the usual prayer to the Virgin, Columbus announced to them that their trials were at an end, and that the morrow's light would bring with it the realization of all their hopes. The pilots were instructed to take in sail after midnight, and a velvet pourpoint was promised to him who should first see land. The crews which, two days before, considered Columbus as a trickster and a cheat, now received his word as they would a gospel from on high. The expectation and impatience which pervaded the three ships were indescribable. No eye was closed that night. The Pinta, being the most rapid sailer, was a long way in advance of the others. The Nina and the Santa Maria followed slowly, for sail had now been shortened, in her track. Suddenly a flash and a heavy report from the Pinta announced the joyful tidings. A Spaniard of Palos, named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, had seen the land and won the velvet pourpoint. Columbus fell upon his knees, and, raising his hands to heaven, sang the Te Deum Laudamus. The sails were then furled and the fleet lay to. Arms and holiday dresses were prepared, for they knew not what the day would bring forth, whether the land would offer hospitality or challenge to combat. The great mystery of the ocean was to be revealed on the morrow: in the meantime, the night and the darkness had in their keeping the mighty secret—whether the land was a savage desert or a spicy and blooming garden.THE NINA HOMEWARD BOUND.

HEAD OF MERGONSER.

HEAD OF MERGONSER.

HEAD OF MERGONSER.

THE PORT OF PALOS—THE SUPERSTITION OF ITS MARINERS—THE HAND OF SATAN—A BIRD WHICH LIFTED VESSELS TO THE CLOUDS—THE PINTA AND THE NINA—THE SANTA MARIA—CAPACITY OF A SPANISH CARAVEL—THE THREE PINZONS—THE DEPARTURE—COLUMBUS' JOURNAL—THE HELM OF THE PINTA UNSHIPPED—THE VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE—THE APPEARANCE OF THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC—FLOATING VEGETATION—THE SARGASSO SEA—ALARM, AND THREATENED MUTINY, OF THE SAILORS—PERPLEXITIES OF COLUMBUS—LAND! LAND! A FALSE ALARM—INDICATIONS OF THE VICINITY OF LAND—MURMURS OF THE CREWS—OPEN REVOLT QUELLED BY COLUMBUS—FLOATING REEDS AND TUFTS OF GRASS—LAND AT LAST—THE VESSELS ANCHOR OVER-NIGHT.

Columbus received his letters-patent, granting him all the privileges and titles he had demanded, on the 30th of April, 1492. His son Diego was made page to the prince-royal,—a favor only accorded to children of noble families. The harbor of Palos was chosen as the port of departure; and its inhabitants, whose annual taxes consisted in furnishing two caravels, armed and manned, to the Government, were instructed to place them, within ten days, at the orders of Columbus. Persons awaiting trial or condemnation were to have the privilege of escaping verdict and punishment by embarking upon this terrible and perhaps fatal voyage.

The mariners of Palos received these tidings with dismay. Nothing was certainly in those days more calculated to strike with terror the cautious coaster than a voyage upon the boundless, endlessMare Tenebrosum, which, in the imagination not only of the ignorant, but even of the educated, was the homeof chaos, if not the seat of Erebus. Upon the maps of the world designed at this period, the words Mare Tenebrosum were surrounded with figures of imps and devils, compared to which the Cyclops, griffins, and centaurs of mythology were modest and benign creations. The Arabians, who were forbidden by the Koran to depict the forms of animals, gave, as they thought, a fitting character to the sea, by representing the hand of Satan upon their charts, ready to clutch and drag beneath the waves all who should be so rash as to brave the displeasure of Bahr-al-Talmet. Besides Satan, besides the Leviathan and Behemoth, and other similar submarine terrors, the adventurer upon the open sea would find adversaries in the air; and, if he escaped the blast and the thunderbolt, it would be to fall a victim to the roc, that gigantic bird which lifted ships into the air and crunched them in the clouds. This roc, from terrifying the companions of Columbus, has descended to amuse children in the nautical romance of Sinbad the Sailor.

Time passed, and the authorities of Palos had yet furnished nothing towards the voyage. Owners of vessels hid them in distant creeks, and the port became gradually a desert. The court ordered stringent measures, and at last a caravel named the Pinta was seized and laid up for repairs. All the carpenters turned sick, and neither rope, wood, nor tar were to be found. In vain did Marchena, the zealous Franciscan of Palos, who was beloved by all its inhabitants, undertake a crusade among the seafaring population in favor of the project: the whole Andalusian coast considered it chimerical and a temptation of Providence.

Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of three brothers, all seamen, and who had at this period lately returned from Rome, where the Pope's librarian had shown him a map bearing the representation of land in the Atlantic to the west, was introduced by Marchena to Columbus. The report soon became current that the brothers, whose credit and influence at Palos were very great,intended to risk the adventure on board of the caravel Nina, belonging to the younger of the three. The mariners took courage, and the city of Palos contributed its second caravel, the Gallega, making three in all. This Gallega, though old and heavy and unfit for the service, was stout and solid, and Columbus chose her for his flag-ship, rebaptizing her, however, the Santa Maria. Towards the end of July, the vessels were nearly ready for sea, and Columbus retired for a period to the monastery, where he passed his days in prayer and his nights in contemplation. On one occasion he left the convent and appeared among the workmen: he surprised the sailors, condemned by the city to accompany him to the west, engaged in putting the rudder of the Pinta together in such a manner that the first storm would unship it. Marchena redoubled his exhortations, and at last the expedition was ready.

Popular belief has, in modern times, represented these vessels as much smaller than they probably really were. The termcaravel, of doubtful etymology, affords no indication of their tonnage or capacity. Caravels were used, however, to transport troops, provisions, and artillery, and even to fight upon the high seas. They were sent by Portugal to the coast of Africa. John II. had, as we have narrated, sent a vessel to the west in order to anticipate Columbus; and this vessel was a caravel. The smallest of the three—the Nina—subsequently, when at sea, took on board fifty-six men, in addition to her own crew, a number of cannon, and a portion of the rigging of the Santa Maria, without lowering her water-line; and Columbus once threatened a Portuguese officer to take one hundred of his men on board the Nina and carry them to Castile. Neither she, nor the other two caravels, were the "light barks" or "shallops" which historians have delighted to represent them. The importance of the subject requires that we describe the three vessels with all the minuteness which the late researches of which we have spoken will authorize.

The Santa Maria measured about ninety feet at the keel. She had four masts, two of them square-rigged, and two furnished with the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. She had a deck extending from stem to stern, and a double deck at the poop, twenty-six feet long,—one-third, nearly, of her entire length. The double deck was pierced for cannon, the forward-deck being armed with smaller pieces, used for throwing stones and grape. From the journal of Columbus we know that he employed, in the manœuvres, quite a complicated system of ropes and pulleys. Eight anchors hung over her sides. She represented in her general characteristics a modern vessel of twenty guns. She was manned by sixty-six men, not one of whom was from Palos,—one of them being an Englishman, and one an Irishman,—and was commanded by Columbus.

The Pinta and the Nina were decked only forward and aft, the space in the middle being entirely uncovered. Their armament was equal to that of sloops of sixteen and ten guns respectively. Alonzo Pinzon commanded the Pinta, whose total crew, including the officers, numbered thirty men. The youngest of the three Pinzons, Vincent Yanez, commanded the Nina, with twenty-three men. The provisions of the fleet consisted of smoked beef, salt pork, rice, dried peas and other vegetables, herrings, wine, oil, vinegar, &c., sufficient for a year.

As the day approached and the danger grew more imminent, the apprehension increased, and the sailors expressed a desire to reconcile themselves with Heaven and obtain absolution for their sins. They went in procession to the monastery of La Rabida, with Columbus at their head, and received the Eucharist from the hands of the Franciscan Marchena. Columbus, while waiting for the land-breeze, retired for a last time to the convent, to meditate upon the duties before him and to peruse his favorite book, the Gospel of St. John. At three o'clock in the morning of the 3d of August he was awakened by the murmuring of the long wished for wind in the tops of the pine-trees which borderedhis cell. The coming day was Friday, a day inauspicious to sailors, but to him a day of good omen. He arose, summoned Marchena, from whom he received the communion, and then descended, on foot, the steep declivity which leads to Palos.

The Santa Maria at once sent her boat to receive the admiral, and at the sound of the preparations and the orders of the pilots, the inhabitants awoke and opened wide their windows. Mothers, wives and sisters, fathers and brothers, ran in confusion to the shore, to bid a last farewell to those whom they might perhaps never see again. The royal standard, representing the Crucifixion, was hoisted at the main; and Columbus, standing upon the quarterdeck, gave the order to spread the sails in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus commenced the most memorable venture upon the ocean that man had then made or has made since,—the record of whose shortest day is more stored with incident than was the whole voyage of Jason, from the Whirling Rocks to the Golden Fleece.

Columbus commenced his journal at once, and it is from the passages of this narrative which are still extant, that we shall derive an account of the voyage. He begins by declaring the object of the expedition to be to extend the blessings of the gospel to nations supposed to be without it. He adds, that he shall write at night the events of the day, and each morning the occurrences of the night. He will mark the lands he shall discover upon the chart, and will banish sleep from his eyelids in order to watch the progress of his vessel.

All went well till Monday, when the helm of the Pinta fell to pieces,—this accident having been a second time prepared by her refractory owners. The fleet made the best of their way to the Canaries, where the Pinta was repaired. They sailed again on the 6th of September, narrowly escaping attack from three Portuguese caravels that King John had sent against Columbus, indignant that he should have transferred to another power the proposal he had once made to himself.

Thus far the route had lain over the beaten track between the continent and the Canaries, along the coast of Africa. As they now launched into the open sea, and as the Peak of Teneriffe sank under the horizon behind them, the heart of Columbus beat high with joy, while the courage of his officers and men died away within them. The Admiral kept two logs, one for himself and one for the crew, the latter scoring a distance less than that which they had really made, and thus keeping them in ignorance of their actual distance from home. His course was to the southwest. The sky, the stars, the horizon, the water, changed visibly as they advanced. Familiar constellations disappeared, others took their place. On the 13th of September, Columbus observed a strange and fearful phenomenon. The needle, which till then had been infallible, swerved from the Polar star, and tremblingly diverged to the northwest. The next day, this variation was still more marked. Columbus took every precaution to conceal a discovery so discouraging from the fleet, and one which alarmed even him. The water now became more limpid, the climate more bland, and the sky more transparent. There was a delicate haze in the air, and a fragrance peculiar to the sea in the fresh breeze. Aquatic plants, apparently newly detached from the rocks or the bed of the ocean, floated upon the waves. For the first time in the history of the world, the tranquil beauties and the solemn splendors of the tropical Atlantic were passing before the gaze of human beings. According to the journal of Columbus, "nothing was wanting in the scene except the song of the nightingale to remind him of Andalusia in April."

The proximity of land seemed often to be indicated by the odor with which the winds were laden, by the abundance of marine plants, and the presence of birds. Columbus would not alter his course, as he did not wish to abate the confidence of his men in his own belief that land was to be found by steering west. The floating vegetation now became so abundant that it retarded the passage of the vessels. The sailors became seriouslyalarmed. They thought themselves arrived at the limit of the world, where an element, too unstable to tread upon, too dense to sail through, admonished the rash stranger to take warning and return. They feared that the caravels would be involved beyond extrication, and that the monsters lying in wait beneath the floating herbage would make an easy meal of their defenceless crews. The trade-winds, then unknown, were another cause of anxiety; for, if they always blew to the westward, as they appeared to do, how could the ships ever return eastward to Europe? In the midst of the apprehensions excited by these causes, which nearly drove the terrified men to mutiny, a contrary wind sprang up, and the revolt was thus providentially quelled. Columbus wrote in his journal, "this opposing wind came very opportunely, for my crew was in great agitation, imagining that no wind ever blew in these regions by which they could return to Spain."

But the terrors of the ignorant men soon broke out afresh. Seaweed and tropical marine plants reappeared in heavy masses, and seemed to shut in the ships among their stagnant growth. The breeze no longer formed billows upon the surface of the waters. The sailors declared that they were in those dismal quarters of the world where the winds lose their impulse and the waters their equilibrium, and that soon fierce aquatic monsters would seize hold of the keels of the ships and keep them prisoners amid the weeds. In the midst of the perplexities to which Columbus was thus exposed, the sea became suddenly agitated, though the wind did not increase. This revival of motion in the element they thought relapsed into sullen inactivity, again cheered the crew into a temporary tranquillity.[2]

At sunset on the 25th, Alonzo Pinzon, rushing excitedly upon the quarterdeck of the Pinta, shouted, "Land! land! My lord, I was the first to see it!" The sailors of the Nina clambered joyfully into the tops, and Columbus fell upon his knees in thanksgiving. But the morn dissipated the illusion, and the ocean stretched forth its illimitable expanse as before. On the 1st of October, one of the lieutenants declared with anguish that they were seventeen hundred miles from the Canaries, intelligence which terribly alarmed the crew, though they had really made a much greater distance, being actually twenty-one hundred miles from Teneriffe, according to Columbus' private reckoning.

The indications of the vicinity of land had been so often deceitful, that the crew no longer put faith in them, and fell from discouragement into taciturnity, and from taciturnity into insubordination. The discontent was general, and no efforts were made to conceal it. In their mutinous conversations, they spoke contemptuously of Columbus as "the Genoese," as a charlatan and a rogue. Was it just, they said, that one hundred and twenty men should perish by the caprice and obstinacy of one single man, and that man a foreigner and an impostor? If he persisted in proceeding "towards his everlasting west, which went on and on, and never came to an end," he ought to be thrown into the sea and left there. On their return they could easily say that he had fallen into the waves while gazing at the stars. A revolt was agreed upon between the crews of the three ships,who were on several occasions brought into communication by the sending of boats from the one to the other. The captains of the Pinta and the Nina were aware of what was transpiring, but for the time being maintained a cautious neutrality. The sea continued calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville, the air was laden with tropical fragrance, and in twenty-four hours the fleet, apparently at rest, glided imperceptibly over one hundred and eighty miles. This motionless rapidity, as it were, thoroughly terrified the crew, and, breaking out into open mutiny, they refused, on the 10th of October, to go any farther westward. The Nina and the Pinta rejoined the Santa Maria; the brothers Pinzon, followed by their men, leaped upon her deck, and commanded Columbus to put his ship about and return to Palos.

At this most vital point of the narrative, our authorities are contradictory, while the journal of Columbus himself is silent. According to Oviedo,—a writer who obtained his information from an enemy of Columbus,—the latter yielded to his men so far as to propose a compromise, and to consent to return unless land was discovered in three days' sail. To say the least, such a submission to the menaces and behests of his infuriated subalterns was not an act compatible with the character of Columbus, with his well known self-reliance, and his openly expressed and constantly reiterated confidence in the Divine protection. The Catholic biography, which we have quoted, attributes the pacification of the revolt directly to the Divine interference, asserting that no human philosophy can explain this sudden and complete suspension of the prevailing exasperation and animosity. It is certain, at any rate, that the demonstration, which began at nightfall, had ceased long before the morning's dawn.

And now pigeons flew in abundance about the ships, and green canes and reeds floated languidly by. A bush, its branches red with berries, was recovered from the water by the Nina. A tuft of grass and a piece of wood, which appeared to have been cut by some iron instrument, were picked up bythe Pinta. Such indications were sufficient to sustain the most dejected. Still the sun sank to rest in a horizon whose pure line was unbroken by land and unsullied by terrestrial vapor. The caravels were called together, and, after the usual prayer to the Virgin, Columbus announced to them that their trials were at an end, and that the morrow's light would bring with it the realization of all their hopes. The pilots were instructed to take in sail after midnight, and a velvet pourpoint was promised to him who should first see land. The crews which, two days before, considered Columbus as a trickster and a cheat, now received his word as they would a gospel from on high. The expectation and impatience which pervaded the three ships were indescribable. No eye was closed that night. The Pinta, being the most rapid sailer, was a long way in advance of the others. The Nina and the Santa Maria followed slowly, for sail had now been shortened, in her track. Suddenly a flash and a heavy report from the Pinta announced the joyful tidings. A Spaniard of Palos, named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, had seen the land and won the velvet pourpoint. Columbus fell upon his knees, and, raising his hands to heaven, sang the Te Deum Laudamus. The sails were then furled and the fleet lay to. Arms and holiday dresses were prepared, for they knew not what the day would bring forth, whether the land would offer hospitality or challenge to combat. The great mystery of the ocean was to be revealed on the morrow: in the meantime, the night and the darkness had in their keeping the mighty secret—whether the land was a savage desert or a spicy and blooming garden.

THE NINA HOMEWARD BOUND.

THE NINA HOMEWARD BOUND.

THE NINA HOMEWARD BOUND.

COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION OF GUANAHANI.CHAPTER XVI.DISCOVERY OF GUANAHANI—CEREMONIES OF TAKING POSSESSION—EXPLORATION OF THE NEIGHBORING ISLANDS—SEARCH FOR GOLD—CUBA SUPPOSED BY COLUMBUS TO BE JAPAN—THE CANNIBALS—HAITI—RETURN HOMEWARDS—A STORM—AN APPEAL TO THE VIRGIN—ARRIVAL AT THE AZORES—CONDUCT OF THE PORTUGUESE—COLUMBUS AT LISBON—AT PALOS—AT BARCELONA—COLUMBUS' SECOND VOYAGE—DISCOVERY OF GUADELOUPE, ANTIGOA, SANTA CRUZ, JAMAICA—ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE SPANIARDS AND THE SAVAGES—COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN—HIS RECEPTION BY THE QUEEN—HIS THIRD VOYAGE—THE REGION OF CALMS—DISCOVERY OF TRINIDAD AND OF THE MAIN LAND—ASSUMPCION AND MARGARITA—COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.On Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, the kindling dawn revealed to the wondering eyes of our adventurers the bright colors and early-morning beauties of an island clothed in verdure, and teeming with the fruits and vegetation of mid-autumn in the tropics. Its surface undulated gently, massive forests skirted the spots cleared for cultivation, and the sparkling water of a fresh lake glittered amid the luxuriant foliage which encircled it. An anchorage was easily found, and Columbus, dressed in official costume, and bearing the royal standard in his hand, landed upon the silent and deserted shore. He planted the standard, and, prostrating himself before it, kissed the earth hehad discovered; he then uttered the since famous prayer, the opening lines of which were, by order of the Spanish sovereigns, repeated by subsequent discoverers upon all similar occasions. He drew his sword, and, naming the land San Salvador, in memory of the Saviour, took possession of it for the Crown of Castile. The crews recognised Columbus as Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of the Indies. The most mutinous and outrageous thronged closely about him, and crouched at the feet of one who, in their eyes, had already wealth and honors in his gift.The island at which Columbus had landed was called by the natives Guanahani, and is now one of the archipelago of the Bahamas. The inhabitants had retreated to the woods at the arrival of the strangers; but, being gradually reassured, suffered their confidence to be won, and received from them fragments of glass and earthen-ware as presents possessing a supernatural virtue. Columbus took seven of them on board, being anxious to convey them to Spain and offer them to the king, promising however to return them. Then he weighed anchor and explored the wonderful region in which these lovely islands lie. New lands were constantly, as it were, rising from the waves; the eye could hardly number them, but the seven natives called over a hundred of them by name. He landed successively at Concepçion, la Fernandine, and Isabella; at all of which he was enchanted by the magnificence of the vegetation, the superb plumage of the birds, and the delicious fragrance with which the forests and the air were filled. He sought everywhere for traces of gold in the soil, for he hoped thus to interest Spain in a continuance of his explorations. Such was his desire to obtain a sight of the precious metal, that he passed rapidly from island to island, indifferent to every other subject. At last, the natives spoke of a large and marvellous land, called Cuba, where there were spices, gold, ships, and merchants. Supposing this to be the wonderful Cipango, described by Marco Polo, he set sail at once. It was now the 24th of October.On the 28th, at dawn, Columbus discovered an island, which, in its extent and in its general characteristics, reminded him strongly of Sicily, in the Mediterranean. As he approached, his senses underwent a species of confusion from the miraculous fertility and luxuriance of the vegetation. In his journal, he does not attempt to describe his emotions, but, preserving the silence of stupefaction, says simply that "he never saw any thing so magnificent." He no longer doubted that this beautiful spot was the real Cipango. He landed, gave to the island the name of Juana, and commenced a search for gold, which resulted in a complete disappointment. On leaving Cuba, he gave it a name which he thought more appropriate than Juana, styling its eastern extremity Alpha and Omega, being, as he thought, the region where the East Indies finished and where the West Indies began. This error of Columbus was the cause of the North American savages being called Indians—an error which has been perpetuated in spite of the progress of geographical discovery, and which will doubtless endure forever.On the 6th of December, he discovered an island, named Haiti by the natives, and which he called Hispaniola, as it reminded him of the fairest tracts of Spain. He found that the inhabitants had the reputation with their neighbors of devouring human flesh; they were calledCanibapeople, an epithet which, after the necessary modifications, has passed into all European languages. The Caribs were the nation meant. At this point, the captain of the Pinta deserted the fleet, in order to make discoveries on his own account. Soon after, the Santa Maria was wrecked upon the coast of Haiti, and Columbus, thinking that this accident was intended as an indication of the Divine will that he should establish a colony there, built a fort of live timber, in which he placed forty-two men. He weighed anchor in the Nina, on the 11th of January, 1493, and shortly after fell in with the Pinta. He pretended to believe and accept the falsehoods and contradictions which Pinzon alleged as thereasons for his abandonment of the fleet. The two vessels now turned their heads east, Columbus hoping to discover a cannibal island on his way, as he wished to carry a professor of the disgusting practice to Spain.No event of moment happened until the 12th of February, a month afterwards, when a terrible storm burst over the hitherto tranquil waters. Its violence increased to such a degree that nothing remained but a desperate appeal to "Mary, the Mother of God." A quantity of dried peas, equal in number to the number of men on board the Nina, were placed in a sailor's woollen cap, one of them being marked with a cross. He who should draw this pea, was to go on a pilgrimage to the church of Saint Mary at Guadeloupe, bearing a candle weighing five pounds, in case the ship were saved. Columbus was the first to draw, and he drew the marked pea. Other vows of this sort were made, and, finally, one to go in procession, and with bare feet, to the nearest cathedral of whatever land they should first reach. The admiral, fearing that his discovery would perish with him, withdrew to his cabin, during the fiercest period of the tumult, and wrote upon parchment two separate and concise narratives of his discoveries. He enclosed them both in wax, and, placing one in an empty barrel, threw it into the sea. The other, similarly enclosed, he attached to the poop of the Nina, intending to cut it loose at the moment of going down. Happily, the storm subsided; and, on the 17th, the shattered vessels arrived at the southernmost island of the Azores, belonging to the King of Portugal. Here half the crew went in procession to the chapel, to discharge their vow; and, while Columbus was waiting to go with the other half, the Portuguese made a sally, surrounded the first portion, and made them prisoners. After a useless protest, Columbus departed with the men that remained, having with him, in the Nina, but three able-bodied seamen. Another storm now threw him upon the coast of Portugal, at the mouth of the Tagus. Here he narrowly escaped shipwreck a second time, but, with the assistance of the wonder-stricken inhabitants, reached in safety the roads of Rostello. The king, though jealous of the maritime renown he was acquiring for Spain, received him with distinction and dismissed him with presents. Columbus arrived, in the Nina, at Palos on Friday, the 15th of March, seven months and twelve days after his departure. Alonzo Pinzon had already arrived in the Pinta, and, believing Columbus to have perished in the storm, had written to the court, narrating the discoveries made by the fleet, and claiming for himself the merit and the recompense.RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS BY FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.It is not our province to relate the history of the career of Columbus upon land, nor have we space so to do. We can only briefly allude to his discharge, by pilgrimages to holy shrines, of the vows, which, three times out of four, had, by lot, devolved upon him: to the week he spent with Marchena, and in the silence of the cloister, at la Rabida; to the princely honors he received in his progress to Barcelona, whither the court had gone; to his reception by the king and queen, in which Ferdinand and Isabella rose as he approached, raised him as he kneeled to kiss their hands, and ordered him to be seated in their presence.The Spanish sovereigns soon fitted out a new expedition; and, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus left the port of Cadiz with seventeen vessels, five hundred sailors, soldiers, citizens and servants, and one thousand colonists, three hundred of whom had smuggled themselves on board. He sailed directly for the Carib or Cannibal Islands, and on the 3d of November arrived in their midst. He named one of them Maria-Galanta, from his flag-ship; another, Guadeloupe, from one of the shrines of Spain where he had discharged a vow. He here found numerous and disgusting evidences of the truth of the story that these people lived on human flesh. The island which he named Montserrat, in honor of the famous sanctuary of that name, had been depopulated by the Caribs. He gave to thenext land the name of Santa Maria l'Antigoa; it is now known as Antigoa, simply. Another he called Santa Cruz, in honor of the cross. Returning to Hispaniola, he found the fort destroyed and the garrison massacred. Having founded the city of Isabella upon another part of the island, he sent back twelve of his ships to Spain, and with three of the remaining five, one of which was the famous Nina, started upon a voyage of discovery in the surrounding waters. He touched at Alpha and Omega, and inquired of the savages where he could find gold. They pointed to the south. Two days afterwards, Columbus descried lofty mountains, with blue summits, upon an island to which he gave the name of Jamaica, in honor of St. James. Then returning to Cuba, and following the southern coast a distance sufficient to convince the three crews that it was a continent and not an island, he took possession of it as such. He then wished to revisit the Caribbean Islands and destroy the boats of the inhabitants, that they might no longer prey upon their neighbors, but the direction of the winds would not permit him to sail to the west. Returning to Isabella, he met his brother Bartholomew, who had just arrived from Spain, bearing a letter from the queen. He also found, to his extreme regret, that the officers he had left in charge of the colony had transcended their authority and had abandoned their duties. Margarit, the commander, and Boil, the vicar, had departed in the ship that had brought Bartholomew. Overcome by the toils and privations he had undergone, and sick at heart at the sight of the disasters under which the colony was laboring, he fell into a deep lethargy, and for a long time it was doubtful whether he would ever awake again.He did awake, however, but only to a poignant consciousness of the miseries the Spanish invasion had brought upon the island. The Spaniards and Indians had become, through the treachery of the former, hostile during his absence, and battles, surprises, and murders were of daily occurrence. Seeing the necessity ofa vigorous effort in order to maintain his authority over the natives, he led his two hundred and twenty men against a furious throng of naked, painted savages, whose numbers were declared by the Spaniards to be no less than one hundred thousand. The Indians were defeated with great slaughter, and were subjected to the payment of tribute and to the indignity of taxation. At this period, an officer, named Juan Aguado, sent out by Ferdinand and Isabella upon the malicious representations of Margarit and Father Boil, to inquire into the state of the colony and the conduct of Columbus, arrived in the island. Columbus determined to return himself to Spain, to present in person a justification of his course. A violent storm having destroyed all the vessels except the Nina, Columbus took the command of her, Aguado building a caravel for himself from the wrecks of the others. They both left Isabella on the 10th of March, 1496, taking with them the sick and disappointed, to the number of two hundred and twenty-five, and thirty-two Indians, whom they forced to accompany them. They touched at Guadeloupe for wood and water, and, after repulsing an attack of Caribs, contrived to gain their confidence, and to obtain the articles of which they stood in need. They left again on the 20th of April. After a long and painful voyage, in the course of which it was proposed to throw the Indians overboard in order to lessen the consumption of food, they arrived, without material damage, at the port of Cadiz. Columbus wrote to the king and queen, and during the month that elapsed before their answer was received, allowed his beard to grow, and, disgusted with the world, assumed the garments and the badges of a Franciscan friar. He was soon summoned to Burgos, then the residence of the court, where Isabella, forgetting the calumnies of which he had been the object and the accusations his enemies had heaped upon him, loaded him with favors and kindness.Numerous circumstances prevented Columbus from requesting the immediate equipment of another expedition. It was nottill the 30th of May, 1498, that he sailed again for his discoveries in the West. He left San Lucar with six caravels, three laden with supplies and reinforcements for the colony at Isabella, and three intended to accompany himself upon a search for the mainland, which he believed to exist west of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica. On the 15th of July, in the latitude of Sierra Leone, they came into the region of calms, where the water seemed like molten silver beneath a tropical sun. Not a breath of air stirred, not a cloud intercepted the fiery rays which fell vertically upon them from the skies. The provisions decayed in the hold, the pitch and tar boiled upon the ropes. The barrels of wine and water opened in wide seams, and scattered their precious contents to waste. The grains of wheat were wrinkled and shrivelled as if roasting before the fire. For eight days this incandescence lasted, till an east wind sprang up and wafted them to a more temperate spot in the torrid zone.On the 31st of July land was discovered in the west,—three mountain peaks seeming to ascend from one and the same base. Columbus had made a vow to give the name of the Trinity to the first land he should discover, and this singular triune form of the land now before them was noticed as a wonderful coincidence by all on board. It was named, therefore, Trinidad; it lies off the northern coast of Venezuela, in the Continent of South America. The innumerable islands, formed by the forty mouths of the Orinoco, were next discovered, and shortly afterwards the continent to the north, which Columbus judged to be the mainland from the volume of water brought to the sea by the Orinoco. Columbus was not the first to set foot upon the New World he had discovered: being confined to his cabin by an attack of ophthalmia, he sent Pedro de Terreros to take possession in his stead. This discovery of the Southern portion of the Western Continent was, however, as we shall soon have occasion to show, subsequent to that of the Northern portion by John Cabot, who visited Labrador in 1497.The fleet was unable to remain in these seductive regions, owing to the scarcity of provisions and the increasing blindness of the admiral. He would have been glad to stay in a spot which, in his letter to his sovereigns, he describes as the Terrestrial Paradise, the Orinoco being one of the four streams flowing from it, as described in the Bible. The fact that this river throws from its forty issues fresh water enough to overcome the saltness of the sea to a great distance from the shore, was one of the circumstances which gave to this portion of the world the somewhat marvellous and fantastic character with which the imagination of Columbus invested it. He sailed at once from the continent to Hispaniola, discovering and naming the islands of Assumpcion and la Margarita. At Hispaniola he again found famine, distress, rebellion, and panic on every side. Malversation and mutiny had brought the colony to the very verge of ruin.We have not space to detail the manœuvres and machinations by which the mind of Ferdinand was prejudiced towards Columbus, and, in consequence of which, Francesco Bobadilla was sent by him in July, 1500, to investigate the charges brought against the admiral. Arrogant in his newly acquired honors, Bobadilla took the part of the malcontents, and, placing Columbus in chains, sent him back to Spain. He arrived at Cadiz on the 20th of November, after the most rapid passage yet made across the ocean. The general burst of indignation at the shocking spectacle of Columbus in fetters, compelled Ferdinand to disclaim all knowledge of the transaction. Isabella accorded him a private audience, in which she shed tears at the sufferings and indignities he had undergone. The king kept him waiting nine months, wasting his time in fruitless applications for redress, and finally appointed Nicholas Ovando Governor of Hispaniola in his place.

COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION OF GUANAHANI.

COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION OF GUANAHANI.

COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION OF GUANAHANI.

DISCOVERY OF GUANAHANI—CEREMONIES OF TAKING POSSESSION—EXPLORATION OF THE NEIGHBORING ISLANDS—SEARCH FOR GOLD—CUBA SUPPOSED BY COLUMBUS TO BE JAPAN—THE CANNIBALS—HAITI—RETURN HOMEWARDS—A STORM—AN APPEAL TO THE VIRGIN—ARRIVAL AT THE AZORES—CONDUCT OF THE PORTUGUESE—COLUMBUS AT LISBON—AT PALOS—AT BARCELONA—COLUMBUS' SECOND VOYAGE—DISCOVERY OF GUADELOUPE, ANTIGOA, SANTA CRUZ, JAMAICA—ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE SPANIARDS AND THE SAVAGES—COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN—HIS RECEPTION BY THE QUEEN—HIS THIRD VOYAGE—THE REGION OF CALMS—DISCOVERY OF TRINIDAD AND OF THE MAIN LAND—ASSUMPCION AND MARGARITA—COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.

On Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, the kindling dawn revealed to the wondering eyes of our adventurers the bright colors and early-morning beauties of an island clothed in verdure, and teeming with the fruits and vegetation of mid-autumn in the tropics. Its surface undulated gently, massive forests skirted the spots cleared for cultivation, and the sparkling water of a fresh lake glittered amid the luxuriant foliage which encircled it. An anchorage was easily found, and Columbus, dressed in official costume, and bearing the royal standard in his hand, landed upon the silent and deserted shore. He planted the standard, and, prostrating himself before it, kissed the earth hehad discovered; he then uttered the since famous prayer, the opening lines of which were, by order of the Spanish sovereigns, repeated by subsequent discoverers upon all similar occasions. He drew his sword, and, naming the land San Salvador, in memory of the Saviour, took possession of it for the Crown of Castile. The crews recognised Columbus as Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of the Indies. The most mutinous and outrageous thronged closely about him, and crouched at the feet of one who, in their eyes, had already wealth and honors in his gift.

The island at which Columbus had landed was called by the natives Guanahani, and is now one of the archipelago of the Bahamas. The inhabitants had retreated to the woods at the arrival of the strangers; but, being gradually reassured, suffered their confidence to be won, and received from them fragments of glass and earthen-ware as presents possessing a supernatural virtue. Columbus took seven of them on board, being anxious to convey them to Spain and offer them to the king, promising however to return them. Then he weighed anchor and explored the wonderful region in which these lovely islands lie. New lands were constantly, as it were, rising from the waves; the eye could hardly number them, but the seven natives called over a hundred of them by name. He landed successively at Concepçion, la Fernandine, and Isabella; at all of which he was enchanted by the magnificence of the vegetation, the superb plumage of the birds, and the delicious fragrance with which the forests and the air were filled. He sought everywhere for traces of gold in the soil, for he hoped thus to interest Spain in a continuance of his explorations. Such was his desire to obtain a sight of the precious metal, that he passed rapidly from island to island, indifferent to every other subject. At last, the natives spoke of a large and marvellous land, called Cuba, where there were spices, gold, ships, and merchants. Supposing this to be the wonderful Cipango, described by Marco Polo, he set sail at once. It was now the 24th of October.

On the 28th, at dawn, Columbus discovered an island, which, in its extent and in its general characteristics, reminded him strongly of Sicily, in the Mediterranean. As he approached, his senses underwent a species of confusion from the miraculous fertility and luxuriance of the vegetation. In his journal, he does not attempt to describe his emotions, but, preserving the silence of stupefaction, says simply that "he never saw any thing so magnificent." He no longer doubted that this beautiful spot was the real Cipango. He landed, gave to the island the name of Juana, and commenced a search for gold, which resulted in a complete disappointment. On leaving Cuba, he gave it a name which he thought more appropriate than Juana, styling its eastern extremity Alpha and Omega, being, as he thought, the region where the East Indies finished and where the West Indies began. This error of Columbus was the cause of the North American savages being called Indians—an error which has been perpetuated in spite of the progress of geographical discovery, and which will doubtless endure forever.

On the 6th of December, he discovered an island, named Haiti by the natives, and which he called Hispaniola, as it reminded him of the fairest tracts of Spain. He found that the inhabitants had the reputation with their neighbors of devouring human flesh; they were calledCanibapeople, an epithet which, after the necessary modifications, has passed into all European languages. The Caribs were the nation meant. At this point, the captain of the Pinta deserted the fleet, in order to make discoveries on his own account. Soon after, the Santa Maria was wrecked upon the coast of Haiti, and Columbus, thinking that this accident was intended as an indication of the Divine will that he should establish a colony there, built a fort of live timber, in which he placed forty-two men. He weighed anchor in the Nina, on the 11th of January, 1493, and shortly after fell in with the Pinta. He pretended to believe and accept the falsehoods and contradictions which Pinzon alleged as thereasons for his abandonment of the fleet. The two vessels now turned their heads east, Columbus hoping to discover a cannibal island on his way, as he wished to carry a professor of the disgusting practice to Spain.

No event of moment happened until the 12th of February, a month afterwards, when a terrible storm burst over the hitherto tranquil waters. Its violence increased to such a degree that nothing remained but a desperate appeal to "Mary, the Mother of God." A quantity of dried peas, equal in number to the number of men on board the Nina, were placed in a sailor's woollen cap, one of them being marked with a cross. He who should draw this pea, was to go on a pilgrimage to the church of Saint Mary at Guadeloupe, bearing a candle weighing five pounds, in case the ship were saved. Columbus was the first to draw, and he drew the marked pea. Other vows of this sort were made, and, finally, one to go in procession, and with bare feet, to the nearest cathedral of whatever land they should first reach. The admiral, fearing that his discovery would perish with him, withdrew to his cabin, during the fiercest period of the tumult, and wrote upon parchment two separate and concise narratives of his discoveries. He enclosed them both in wax, and, placing one in an empty barrel, threw it into the sea. The other, similarly enclosed, he attached to the poop of the Nina, intending to cut it loose at the moment of going down. Happily, the storm subsided; and, on the 17th, the shattered vessels arrived at the southernmost island of the Azores, belonging to the King of Portugal. Here half the crew went in procession to the chapel, to discharge their vow; and, while Columbus was waiting to go with the other half, the Portuguese made a sally, surrounded the first portion, and made them prisoners. After a useless protest, Columbus departed with the men that remained, having with him, in the Nina, but three able-bodied seamen. Another storm now threw him upon the coast of Portugal, at the mouth of the Tagus. Here he narrowly escaped shipwreck a second time, but, with the assistance of the wonder-stricken inhabitants, reached in safety the roads of Rostello. The king, though jealous of the maritime renown he was acquiring for Spain, received him with distinction and dismissed him with presents. Columbus arrived, in the Nina, at Palos on Friday, the 15th of March, seven months and twelve days after his departure. Alonzo Pinzon had already arrived in the Pinta, and, believing Columbus to have perished in the storm, had written to the court, narrating the discoveries made by the fleet, and claiming for himself the merit and the recompense.

RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS BY FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.

RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS BY FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.

RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS BY FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.

It is not our province to relate the history of the career of Columbus upon land, nor have we space so to do. We can only briefly allude to his discharge, by pilgrimages to holy shrines, of the vows, which, three times out of four, had, by lot, devolved upon him: to the week he spent with Marchena, and in the silence of the cloister, at la Rabida; to the princely honors he received in his progress to Barcelona, whither the court had gone; to his reception by the king and queen, in which Ferdinand and Isabella rose as he approached, raised him as he kneeled to kiss their hands, and ordered him to be seated in their presence.

The Spanish sovereigns soon fitted out a new expedition; and, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus left the port of Cadiz with seventeen vessels, five hundred sailors, soldiers, citizens and servants, and one thousand colonists, three hundred of whom had smuggled themselves on board. He sailed directly for the Carib or Cannibal Islands, and on the 3d of November arrived in their midst. He named one of them Maria-Galanta, from his flag-ship; another, Guadeloupe, from one of the shrines of Spain where he had discharged a vow. He here found numerous and disgusting evidences of the truth of the story that these people lived on human flesh. The island which he named Montserrat, in honor of the famous sanctuary of that name, had been depopulated by the Caribs. He gave to thenext land the name of Santa Maria l'Antigoa; it is now known as Antigoa, simply. Another he called Santa Cruz, in honor of the cross. Returning to Hispaniola, he found the fort destroyed and the garrison massacred. Having founded the city of Isabella upon another part of the island, he sent back twelve of his ships to Spain, and with three of the remaining five, one of which was the famous Nina, started upon a voyage of discovery in the surrounding waters. He touched at Alpha and Omega, and inquired of the savages where he could find gold. They pointed to the south. Two days afterwards, Columbus descried lofty mountains, with blue summits, upon an island to which he gave the name of Jamaica, in honor of St. James. Then returning to Cuba, and following the southern coast a distance sufficient to convince the three crews that it was a continent and not an island, he took possession of it as such. He then wished to revisit the Caribbean Islands and destroy the boats of the inhabitants, that they might no longer prey upon their neighbors, but the direction of the winds would not permit him to sail to the west. Returning to Isabella, he met his brother Bartholomew, who had just arrived from Spain, bearing a letter from the queen. He also found, to his extreme regret, that the officers he had left in charge of the colony had transcended their authority and had abandoned their duties. Margarit, the commander, and Boil, the vicar, had departed in the ship that had brought Bartholomew. Overcome by the toils and privations he had undergone, and sick at heart at the sight of the disasters under which the colony was laboring, he fell into a deep lethargy, and for a long time it was doubtful whether he would ever awake again.

He did awake, however, but only to a poignant consciousness of the miseries the Spanish invasion had brought upon the island. The Spaniards and Indians had become, through the treachery of the former, hostile during his absence, and battles, surprises, and murders were of daily occurrence. Seeing the necessity ofa vigorous effort in order to maintain his authority over the natives, he led his two hundred and twenty men against a furious throng of naked, painted savages, whose numbers were declared by the Spaniards to be no less than one hundred thousand. The Indians were defeated with great slaughter, and were subjected to the payment of tribute and to the indignity of taxation. At this period, an officer, named Juan Aguado, sent out by Ferdinand and Isabella upon the malicious representations of Margarit and Father Boil, to inquire into the state of the colony and the conduct of Columbus, arrived in the island. Columbus determined to return himself to Spain, to present in person a justification of his course. A violent storm having destroyed all the vessels except the Nina, Columbus took the command of her, Aguado building a caravel for himself from the wrecks of the others. They both left Isabella on the 10th of March, 1496, taking with them the sick and disappointed, to the number of two hundred and twenty-five, and thirty-two Indians, whom they forced to accompany them. They touched at Guadeloupe for wood and water, and, after repulsing an attack of Caribs, contrived to gain their confidence, and to obtain the articles of which they stood in need. They left again on the 20th of April. After a long and painful voyage, in the course of which it was proposed to throw the Indians overboard in order to lessen the consumption of food, they arrived, without material damage, at the port of Cadiz. Columbus wrote to the king and queen, and during the month that elapsed before their answer was received, allowed his beard to grow, and, disgusted with the world, assumed the garments and the badges of a Franciscan friar. He was soon summoned to Burgos, then the residence of the court, where Isabella, forgetting the calumnies of which he had been the object and the accusations his enemies had heaped upon him, loaded him with favors and kindness.

Numerous circumstances prevented Columbus from requesting the immediate equipment of another expedition. It was nottill the 30th of May, 1498, that he sailed again for his discoveries in the West. He left San Lucar with six caravels, three laden with supplies and reinforcements for the colony at Isabella, and three intended to accompany himself upon a search for the mainland, which he believed to exist west of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica. On the 15th of July, in the latitude of Sierra Leone, they came into the region of calms, where the water seemed like molten silver beneath a tropical sun. Not a breath of air stirred, not a cloud intercepted the fiery rays which fell vertically upon them from the skies. The provisions decayed in the hold, the pitch and tar boiled upon the ropes. The barrels of wine and water opened in wide seams, and scattered their precious contents to waste. The grains of wheat were wrinkled and shrivelled as if roasting before the fire. For eight days this incandescence lasted, till an east wind sprang up and wafted them to a more temperate spot in the torrid zone.

On the 31st of July land was discovered in the west,—three mountain peaks seeming to ascend from one and the same base. Columbus had made a vow to give the name of the Trinity to the first land he should discover, and this singular triune form of the land now before them was noticed as a wonderful coincidence by all on board. It was named, therefore, Trinidad; it lies off the northern coast of Venezuela, in the Continent of South America. The innumerable islands, formed by the forty mouths of the Orinoco, were next discovered, and shortly afterwards the continent to the north, which Columbus judged to be the mainland from the volume of water brought to the sea by the Orinoco. Columbus was not the first to set foot upon the New World he had discovered: being confined to his cabin by an attack of ophthalmia, he sent Pedro de Terreros to take possession in his stead. This discovery of the Southern portion of the Western Continent was, however, as we shall soon have occasion to show, subsequent to that of the Northern portion by John Cabot, who visited Labrador in 1497.

The fleet was unable to remain in these seductive regions, owing to the scarcity of provisions and the increasing blindness of the admiral. He would have been glad to stay in a spot which, in his letter to his sovereigns, he describes as the Terrestrial Paradise, the Orinoco being one of the four streams flowing from it, as described in the Bible. The fact that this river throws from its forty issues fresh water enough to overcome the saltness of the sea to a great distance from the shore, was one of the circumstances which gave to this portion of the world the somewhat marvellous and fantastic character with which the imagination of Columbus invested it. He sailed at once from the continent to Hispaniola, discovering and naming the islands of Assumpcion and la Margarita. At Hispaniola he again found famine, distress, rebellion, and panic on every side. Malversation and mutiny had brought the colony to the very verge of ruin.

We have not space to detail the manœuvres and machinations by which the mind of Ferdinand was prejudiced towards Columbus, and, in consequence of which, Francesco Bobadilla was sent by him in July, 1500, to investigate the charges brought against the admiral. Arrogant in his newly acquired honors, Bobadilla took the part of the malcontents, and, placing Columbus in chains, sent him back to Spain. He arrived at Cadiz on the 20th of November, after the most rapid passage yet made across the ocean. The general burst of indignation at the shocking spectacle of Columbus in fetters, compelled Ferdinand to disclaim all knowledge of the transaction. Isabella accorded him a private audience, in which she shed tears at the sufferings and indignities he had undergone. The king kept him waiting nine months, wasting his time in fruitless applications for redress, and finally appointed Nicholas Ovando Governor of Hispaniola in his place.

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