W. L. Alden

“ The compass was a handy thing to have on board a ship, since it gave to the sailors the comfortable feeling which an ignorant man always has in the presence of any piece of mechanism which he fancies is of assistance to him; but for all practical purposes the sun and the stars were as useful to Columbus as was his compass with its unintelligible freaks of variation. So, too, the astrolabe must have impressed the sailors as a sort of powerful and beneficent fetish, but the log-book of Columbus would have testified that the astrolabe was more ornamental than useful. ”

“ It is at Lisbon that we are able for the first time to put our finger decisively upon Columbus. The stray glimpses which we catch of him before that time, whether at Genoa, Pavia, Naples, or Cape Carthagena, are fleeting and unsatisfactory; his trustworthy biography begins with his residence at Lisbon. He reached there, we do not know by what route, in the year 1470, having no money and no visible means of support. ”

“ Columbus was greatly grieved at this, not only because he feared that injudicious explorers would discover unhealthy islands, and would thus bring exploration into disrepute, but because it was a distinct breach of faith on the part of the King and Queen. As for the gracious permission which they gave him to freight a vessel to trade with the New World whenever any other explorer should freight one for the like purpose, he evidently did not trust himself to express his opinion of such a hollow mockery of his rights. ”

“ It is one of the limitations of biography that the writer must always assume the existence of the subject of his sketch. There are, however, grave reasons for doubting whether Christopher Columbus ever lived. There is the matter of his birthplace. Is it credible that he was born in seven distinct places? Nobody claims that George Washington was born in all our prominent cities, or that Robinson Crusoe, who was perhaps the most absolutely real person to be found in the whole range of biography, was born anywhere except at York. ”

“ It is our solemn duty, as Americans, to take a warm interest in Christopher Columbus, for the reason that he had the good taste and judgment to discover our beloved country. Efforts have frequently been made to deprive him of that honor. It has been urged that he was not the first man who crossed the Atlantic, that he never saw the continent of North America, and that he was not the original discoverer of South America. Most of this is undoubtedly true. It is now generally conceded the Norwegians landed on the coast of New England about six hundred years before Columbus was born ”

“ Columbus was no longer, in public estimation, the tedious foreigner who ought to be sent out of the country at any cost; he was one of the most remarkable men in Spain, who deserved all sorts of honors. There were any number of men who now recollected that they had always said he was a great man and would certainly discover a first-class continent, and there were very few persons in all Palos who were not confident that the encouragement which they had given to Columbus had been one of the chief causes of his success. ”

“ If Columbus could swim six miles in a suit of heavy armor, and, in all probability, with his sword in one hand and his speaking-trumpet in the other, he could easily have performed the simpler feat of residing in Portugal several years before he reached that country. The truth is, that historians are perpetually casting doubt upon all legends of any real merit or interest. ”

“ The news of the return of Columbus filled every European monarch with the conviction that the discovery of new continents was the only proper occupation for a monarch of spirit, and with the determination to make discoveries first and to call on the lawyers to find flaws in the Pope’s bull afterward. ”

“ In the evening Columbus fancied that he saw a light, which he assumed to be a lantern in the hands of some one on land. He called the attention of a sailor to it, who of course agreed with his commander that the light was a shore light. At about two o’clock on the following morning—the 12th of October—a sailor on board the Pinta, named Rodrigo de Triana, positively saw land—this time without any postponement.
Most of us have been taught to believe that the discovery of the New World was signalized by the joyful cry of “Land ho! from the Pinta.” ”

“ Had Columbus asked for an appropriation, the Genoese politicians would have denounced the folly and wickedness of squandering the people’s money on scientific junketing expeditions, and would have maintained that a free and enlightened republic ought not to concern itself with the effete and monarchical countries of Asia, to which Columbus was anxious to open a new route. ”

“ When a man has nothing to do but to think of what he is to have for dinner, and then never has it, he is reasonably sure to exhibit a fretful spirit. This was the condition of the Spaniards at Port Santa Gloria. They were living on board the wrecked vessels because they did not care to tempt the appetites of the natives by living on shore; and as the Admiral was confined to his cabin with the gout, and could not overhear them, they naturally relieved their minds by constantly abusing him, one to another. ”

“ Although many learned men believed that the earth was round, the circumference of the globe was then unknown; and as every one had therefore a right to call it what he chose, Columbus assumed that it was comparatively small, and that the distance from the Cape Verde Islands eastward to the western part of Asia was fully two thirds of the entire circumference. He also assumed that the remaining third consisted in great part of the eastern portion of Asia, and that hence the distance across the Atlantic, from Portugal to Asia, was by no means great. ”

“ The merchants very justly said that, much as they might desire to have Columbus drowned, they did not care to furnish ships at their own expense for an enterprise in the interest of all classes of the community. The sailors declared that they were ready to ship for any voyage which might be mentioned, but that it was a little too much to ask them to go to sea with Columbus as their captain, since he would undoubtedly use his authority to compel them to listen to a daily lecture on “Other Continents than Ours,” thus rendering their situation far worse than that of ordinary slaves. ”

“ Guacanagari, in his last interview with Columbus, had advised him not to plant a new colony at La Navidad. He said that, while he was extremely anxious to have the Spaniards as neighbors, duty compelled him to admit that the locality was an unhealthy one, and that foreigners settling there were sure to contract chills and fever. Columbus shared the opinion that it was an unhealthy place, but he thought that colonists would be more apt to contract bloodthirsty native chiefs than peaceful malarious fever. ”

“ With a small force Ojeda marched across the mountain range that lay back of Isabella, and descended into a delightful plain, where every prospect pleased him, and the natives were less than usually vile. Gold was found to be really plentiful, and when Ojeda returned Columbus saw his way clear to writing a brilliant report, and the colonists’ spirits revived.
Twelve of the ships were immediately got ready for sea and loaded with specimens of plants for the Agricultural Bureau, gold for the Spanish monarchs, and Caribs for the church. ”

“ There could be no doubt now that land was near at last, and the mutinous sailors became cheerful once more.
It was certainly rather odd that those branches, boards, and sticks happened to come in sight just at the moment when they were needed to revive the spirits of the men, and that during the entire voyage, whenever a bird, a whale, a meteor, or other sign of land was wanted, it always promptly appeared. Columbus expresses in his journal the opinion that this was providential, and evidently thought that,86 on the whole, it was a handsome recognition of his transcendent merits. ”

“ The natives fled into the interior as usual, but a canoe-load of Indians made its appearance a little later, and, on being chased by one of the Spanish boats, shot showers of poisoned arrows at the pursuers. After a lively battle, in which a Spaniard was fatally wounded and one of the Indians was killed, the canoe was sunk and the survivors captured. They were so fierce and ugly in appearance that they were instantly judged to be cannibals of the deepest dye, and were loaded with chains and afterward sent to Spain as curiosities. ”

“ An objectionable young man who was present, and who undoubtedly had taken more champagne than was good for his fellow-diners, asked the Admiral if he did not think that if he had not discovered the New World some one else would very shortly have discovered it. He was unquestionably an impertinent young man, but he was undoubtedly right in assuming that sooner or later the Atlantic would have been crossed, even if Columbus had never been born. Historians tell us that Columbus, in reply, asked the young man if he could stand an egg on its little end ”

“ Gradually the natives overcame their fears, and came to meet Columbus. They told a story which was intrinsically probable, and doubtless true. The colonists had conducted themselves as sailors left to themselves in a tropical climate, among gentle savages, might have been expected to. They refused to work, they adopted polygamy as their chief occupation, and, not content with quarrelling among themselves, they insulted and outraged the natives until the latter began to feel seriously provoked. ”

“ The astute monarchs had perceived that the larger the colony might be the more numerous and contradictory would be the complaints which the colonists would make, and hence they resolved to limit the complaint-producing capacity of the colony, and to render it impossible for more than five hundred distinct accounts of the infamy of Columbus and the climate to be brought to their royal ears. ”

“ A force was therefore landed to convince the natives that their conduct was impolite; and after many of them had been shot and the rest driven into the woods in terror, with a savage dog in hot pursuit, they were convinced of their error. The local cacique sent envoys and negotiated a treaty, after which the Spaniards were permitted to repair their vessels and take in water in peace. Columbus explored the coast for some little distance to the westward, but finding no signs of gold, or of the rum for which it afterward became famous, returned to Cuba and resumed his search for China. ”