Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

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

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

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

Discoveries made by Columbus in his first and second voyages.

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

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

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

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

Discoveries made by Columbus in his third and fourth voyages.

As Columbus still held to the opinion that by keeping to the west from that point he should soon reach the coast of Relation of the "Eden continent" to "Cochin China." Cochin China, his conception of the position of Eden is thus pretty clearly indicated. He imagined it as situated about on the equator, upon a continental mass till then unknown, but evidently closely connected with the continent of Asia if not a part of it. If he had lived long enough to hear of Quito and its immense elevation, I should suppose that might very well have suited his idea of the position of Eden. The coast of this continent, upon which he had now arrived, was either continuous with the coast of Cochin China (Cuba) and Malacca, or would be found to be divided from it by a strait through which one might pass directly into the Indian ocean.

It took some little time for this theory to come to maturity in the mind of Columbus. Not expecting to find any mainland in that The Pearl Coast. quarter, he began by calling different points of the coast different islands. Coming out through the passage which he named Dragon's Mouth, he caught distant glimpses of Tobago and Grenada to starboard, and turning westward followed the Pearl Coast as far as the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. The fine pearls which he found there in abundance confirmed him in the good opinion he had formed of that country. By this time, the 15th of August, he had so far put facts together as to become convinced of the continental character of that coast, and would have been glad to pursue it westward. But now his strength gave out. During most of the voyage he had suffered acute torments with gout, his temperature had been very feverish, and his eyes were at length so exhausted with perpetual watching that he could no longer make observations. So he left the coast a little beyond Cubagua, and steered straight for Hispaniola, aiming at Arrival at San Domingo. San Domingo, but hitting the island of Beata because he did not make allowance for the westerly flow of the currents. He arrived at San Domingo on the 30th of August, and found his brother Bartholomew, whom he intended to send at once on a further cruise along the Pearl Coast, while he himself should be resting and recovering strength.

How far the sovereigns should be held responsible for the behaviour of their agent is not altogether easy to determine. The appointment of such a creature as Bobadilla was a sad blunder, but one such as is liable to be made under any government. How far were the sovereigns responsible for Bobadilla? Fonseca was very powerful at court, and Bobadilla never would have dared to proceed as he did if he had not known that the bishop would support him. Indeed, from the indecent haste with which he went about his work, without even the pretence of a judicial inquiry, it is probable that he started with private instructions from that quarter. But, while Fonseca had some of the wisdom along with the venom of the serpent, Bobadilla was simply a jackass, and behaved so that in common decency the sovereigns were obliged to disown him. They took no formal or public notice of his written charges against the Admiral, and they assured the latter that he should be reimbursed for his losses and restored to his viceroyalty and other dignities.

Columbus shipwrecked.

It was a terrible year that Columbus spent upon the wild coast of Jamaica. A year of misery. To all the horrors inseparable from such a situation there was added the horror of mutiny. The year did not end until there had been a pitched battle, in which the doughty Bartholomew was, as usual, victorious. The ringleader was captured, and of the other mutineers such as were not slain in the fight were humbled and pardoned. At length Ovando's conduct began to arouse indignation in San Domingo, and was openly condemned from the pulpit; so that, late in June, 1504, he sent over to Jamaica a couple of ships which brought away the Admiral and his starving party. Ovando greeted the brothers Columbus with his customary hypocritical courtesy, which they well understood. During the past year the island of Hispaniola had been the scene of atrocities such as have scarcely been surpassed in history. I shall give a brief account of them in a future chapter. Columbus was not cheered by what he saw and heard, and lost no time in starting for Spain. On the 7th of November, 1504, after a tempestuous voyage and narrow escape from shipwreck, he landed at San Lucar de Barrameda and made his way to Seville. Last return to Spain. Queen Isabella was then on her death-bed, and breathed her last just nineteen days later.

There is a tradition that Ferdinand and Isabella, at some date unspecified, had granted to Columbus, as a legend for his coat-of-arms, the noble motto:—

Á Castilla y á Leon Nuevo mundo dió Colon,

Por Castilla y por Leon Nuevo mundo halló Colon,

i. e. "For Castile-and-Leon Columbus found a New World." But the other form is no doubt the better, for Ferdinand Columbus, at some time not later than 1537, had adopted it, and it may be read to-day upon his tomb in the cathedral at Seville. The time-honoured tradition has evidently transferred to the father the legend adopted, if not originally devised, by his son.

But why is this mere question of heraldry a matter of importance for the historian? Simply because it furnishes one of the most striking among many illustrations of the fact that at no time during the life of Columbus, nor for some years after his death, did anybody use the phrase "New World" with conscious reference to his discoveries. At the time of his death their true significance had not yet begun to dawn upon the mind of any voyager or any writer. It was supposed that he had found a new route to the Indies by sailing west, and that in the course of this achievement he had discovered some new islands and a bit or bits of Terra Firma of more or less doubtful commercial value. To group these items of discovery into an organic whole, and to ascertain that they belonged to a whole quite distinct from the Old World, required the work of many other discoverers, companions and successors to Columbus. In the following chapter I shall endeavour to show how the conception of the New World was thus originated and at length became developed into the form with which we are now familiar.[Back to Contents]

Sketch of Toscanelli's map, sent to Portugal in 1474, and used by Columbus in his first voyage across the Atlantic.

Claudius Ptolemy's world, cir. A. D. 150.

The best books on the Eskimos are those of Dr. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, Edinburgh, 1875; Danish Greenland, London, 1877; The Eskimo Tribes, their Distribution and Characteristics, especially in regard to Language, Copenhagen, 1887. See also Franz Boas, "The Central Eskimo," Sixth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1888, pp. 399-669; W. H. Dall. Alaska and its Resources, 1870; Markham, "Origin and Migrations of the Greenland Esquimaux," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1865; Cranz, Historie von Groenland, Leipsic, 1765; Petitot, Traditions indiennes du Canada nord-ouest, Paris, 1886; Pilling's Bibliography of the Eskimo Language, Washington, 1887; Wells and Kelly, English-Eskimo and Eskimo-English Vocabularies, with Ethnographical Memoranda concerning the Arctic Eskimos in Alaska and Siberia, Washington, 1890; Carstensen's Two Summers in Greenland, London, 1890.[Back to Main Text]

τοῖς δ' ἦν χαλκεα μεν τευχεα, χαλκεοι δε τε οἶκοι, χαλκῷ δ' ειργαζοντο· μελας δ' οὐκ ἔσκε σιδηρος. Hesiod, Opp. Di. 134.

Arma antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt Et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami, Et flamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum. Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta. Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, etc. Lucretius, v. 1283.

Perhaps, as Munro suggests, Lucretius was thinking of Hesiod; but it does not seem improbable that in both cases there may have been a genuine tradition that their ancestors used bronze tools and weapons before iron, since the change was comparatively recent, and sundry religious observances tended to perpetuate the memory of it.[Back to Main Text]

In truth the question as to comparative cruelty is not so much one of race as of occupation, except in so far as race is moulded by long occupation. The "old Adam," i. e. the inheritance from our brute ancestors, is very strong in the human race. Callousness to the suffering of others than self is part of this brute-inheritance, and under the influence of certain habits and occupations this germ of callousness may be developed to almost any height of devilish cruelty. In the lower stages of culture the lack of political aggregation on a large scale is attended with incessant warfare in the shape in which it comes home to everybody's door. This state of things keeps alive the passion of revenge and stimulates cruelty to the highest degree. As long as such a state of things endures, as it did in Europe to a limited extent throughout the Middle Ages, there is sure to be a dreadful amount of cruelty. The change in the conditions of modern warfare has been a very important factor in the rapidly increasing mildness and humanity of modern times. See my Beginnings of New England, pp. 226-229. Something more will be said hereafter with reference to the special causes concerned in the cruelty and brutality of the Spaniards in America. Meanwhile it may be observed in the present connection, that the Spanish taskmasters who mutilated and burned their slaves were not representative types of their own race to anything like the same extent as the Indians who tortured Brébeuf or Crawford. If the fiendish Pedrarias was a Spaniard, so too was the saintly Las Casas. The latter type would be as impossible among barbarians as an Aristotle or a Beethoven. Indeed, though there are writers who would like to prove the contrary, it may be doubted whether that type has ever attained to perfection except under the influence of Christianity.[Back to Main Text]

Ἀλλ' ἄγε μοι τόδε εἰπὲ καὶ ἀτρεκέως κατάλεξον, εἰ δὴ ἐξ αὐτοῖο τόσος παῖς εἶς Ὀδυσῆος. αἰνῶς γὰρ κεφαλήν τε καὶ ὄμματα καλὰ ἔοικας κείνῳ, ἐπεὶ θαμὰ τοῖον ἐμισγόμεθ' ἀλλήλοισιν, πρίν γε τὸν ἐς Τροίην ἀναβήμεναι, ἔνθα περ ἄλλοι Ἀργείων οἱ ἄριστοι ἔβαν κοίλῃς ἐπὶ νηυσίν· ἐκ τοῦ δ' οὔτ' Ὀδυσῆα ἐγὼν ἴδον οὔτ' ἐμὲ κεῖνος.

Τὴν δ' αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι, ξεῖνε, μάλ' ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω. μήτηρ μέν τ' ἐμέ φησι τοῦ ἔμμεναι, αὐτὰρ ἔγωγε οὐκ οἶδ'· οὐ γάρ πώ τις ἑὸν γόνον αὐτὸς ἀνέγνω. Odyssey, i. 206.[Back to Main Text]

κρῖν' ἄνδρας κατὰ φῦλα, κατὰ φρήτρας, Ἀγάμεμνον, ὡς φρήτρη φρήτρηφιν ἀρήγῃ, φῦλα δὲ φῦλοις. Iliad, ii. 362.

But the phratry seems never to have reached so high a development among the Greeks as among the Romans and the early English.[Back to Main Text]

Half a century ago Mr. Stephens wrote in truly prophetic vein, "the convents are rich in manuscripts and documents written by the early fathers, caciques, and Indians, who very soon acquired the knowledge of Spanish and the art of writing. These have never been examined with the slightest reference to this subject; and I cannot help thinking that some precious memorial is now mouldering in the library of a neighbouring convent, which would determine the history of some one of these ruined cities." Vol. ii. p. 456. The italicizing, of course, is mine.[Back to Main Text]

Χαῖρε καὶ ἐν νεφέλαισι καὶ ἐν νιφάδεσσι βαρείαις Καὶ πυρὶ καὶ σεισμοῖς νῆσε σαλευομένη· Ἐνθάδε γὰρ βασιλῆος ὑπέρβιον ὕβριν ἀλύξας Δῆμος Ὑπερβορέων, κόσμου ἐπ' ἐσχατιῇ, Αὐτάρκη βίοτον θείων τ' ἐρεθίσματα Μουσῶν Καὶ θεσμοὺς ἁγνῆς εὗρεν ἐλευθερίας.

These verses are thus rendered by Sir Edmund Head (Viga Glums Saga, p. v.):—

"Hail, Isle! with mist and snowstorms girt around, Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground,— Here once o'er furthest ocean's icy path The Northmen fled a tyrant monarch's wrath: Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free, And held unscathed their laws and liberty."

Laing (Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 57) couples Iceland and New England as the two modern colonies most distinctly "founded on principle and peopled at first from higher motives than want or gain."[Back to Main Text]

The Icelanders of the present day retain the Old Norse language, while on the Continent it has been modified into Swedish and Norwegian-Danish. They are a well-educated people, and, in proportion to their numbers, publish many books.[Back to Main Text]

The first modern writer to call attention to the Icelandic voyages to Greenland and Vinland was Arngrim Jónsson, in his Crymogœa, Hamburg, 1610, and more explicitly in his Specimen Islandiæ historicum, Amsterdam, 1643. The voyages are also mentioned by Campanius, in his Kort beskrifning om provincien Nya Swerige uti America, Stockholm, 1702. The first, however, to bring the subject prominently before European readers was that judicious scholar Thormodus Torfæus, in his two books Historia Vinlandiæ antiquæ, and Historia Gronlandiæ antiquæ, Copenhagen, 1705 and 1706. Later writers have until very recently added but little that is important to the work of Torfæus. In the voluminous literature of the subject the discussions chiefly worthy of mention are Forster's Geschichte der Entdeckungen und Schiffahrten im Norden, Frankfort, 1784, pp. 44-88; and Humboldt, Examen critique, etc., Paris, 1837, tom. i. pp. 84-104; see, also, Major, Select Letters of Columbus, London, 1847 (Hakluyt Soc.) pp. xii.-xxi. The fifth chapter of Samuel Laing's preliminary dissertation to the Heimskringla, which is devoted to this subject, is full of good sense; for the most part the shrewd Orkneyman gets at the core of the thing, though now and then a little closer knowledge of America would have been useful to him. The latest critical discussion of the sources, marking a very decided advance since Rafn's time, is the paper by Gustav Storm, professor of history in the University of Christiania, "Studier over Vinlandsreiserne," in Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 293-372.

Since this chapter was written I have seen an English translation of the valuable paper just mentioned, "Studies on the Vineland Voyages," in Mémoires de la société royale des antiquaires du Nord, Copenhagen, 1888, pp. 307-370. I have therefore in most cases altered my footnote references below, making the page-numbers refer to the English version (in which, by the way, some parts of the Norwegian original are, for no very obvious reason, omitted). By an odd coincidence there comes to me at the same time a book fresh from the press, whose rare beauty of mechanical workmanship is fully equalled by its intrinsic merit, The Finding of Wineland the Good—the History of the Icelandic Discovery of America, edited and translated from the earliest records by Arthur Middleton Reeves, London, 1890. This beautiful quarto contains phototype plates of the original Icelandic vellums in the Hauks-bók, the MS. AM. 557, and the Flateyar-bók, together with the texts carefully edited, an admirable English translation, and several chapters of critical discussion decidedly better than anything that has gone before it. On reading it carefully through, it seems to me the best book we have on the subject in English, or perhaps in any language.

Since the above was written, the news has come of the sudden and dreadful death of Mr. Reeves, in the railroad disaster at Hagerstown, Indiana, February 25, 1891. Mr. Reeves was an American scholar of most brilliant promise, only in his thirty-fifth year.[Back to Main Text]

"Svâ er sagt at eptirbátr theirra var fylldr af vinberjurn."

So it-is-said that afterboat their was filled of vine-berries.

Rafn, p. 36.[Back to Main Text]

"Sjálfsána hveitiakra" Rafn, p. 147.[Back to Main Text]

Self-sown wheat-acres

"After I had given the above account, the President smiled and said he believed the learned gentlemen whom I had mentioned were mistaken; and added that in the younger part of his life his business called him to be very much in the wilderness of Virginia, which gave him an opportunity to become acquainted with many of the customs and practices of the Indians. The Indians, he said, had a way of writing and recording their transactions, either in war or hunting. When they wished to make any such record, or leave an account of their exploits to any who might come after them, they scraped off the outer bark of a tree, and with a vegetable ink, or a little paint which they carried with them, on the smooth surface they wrote in a way that was generally understood by the people of their respective tribes. As he had so often examined the rude way of writing practised by the Indians of Virginia, and observed many of the characters on the inscription then before him so nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was made long ago by some natives of America." Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. x. p. 115. This pleasant anecdote shows in a new light Washington's accuracy of observation and unfailing common-sense. Such inscriptions have been found by the thousand, scattered over all parts of the United States; for a learned study of them see Garrick Mallery, "Pictographs of the North American Indians," Reports of Bureau of Ethnology, iv. 13-256. "The voluminous discussion upon the Dighton rock inscription," says Colonel Mallery, "renders it impossible wholly to neglect it.... It is merely a type of Algonquin rock-carving, not so interesting as many others.... It is of purely Indian origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic character of the Kekeewin," p. 20. The characters observed by Washington in the Virginia forests would very probably have been of the same type. Judge Davis, to whom Dr. Lathrop's letter was addressed, published in 1809 a paper maintaining the Indian origin of the Dighton inscription.

A popular error, once started on its career, is as hard to kill as a cat. Otherwise it would be surprising to find, in so meritorious a book as Oscar Peschel's Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, Stuttgart, 1877, p. 82, an unsuspecting reliance upon Rafn's ridiculous interpretation of this Algonquin pictograph. In an American writer as well equipped as Peschel, this particular kind of blunder would of course be impossible; and one is reminded of Humboldt's remark, "Il est des recherches qui ne peuvent s'exécuter que près des sources mêmes." Examen critique, etc., tom. ii. p. 102.

In old times, I may add, such vagaries were usually saddled upon the Phœnicians, until since Rafn's time the Northmen have taken their place as the pack-horses for all sorts of antiquarian "conjecture."[Back to Main Text]

With regard to the first of these conclusions, it is perhaps as likely that Leif's booths were within the present limits of Cambridge as in any of the numerous places which different writers have confidently assigned for them, all the way from Point Judith to Cape Breton. A judicious scholar will object not so much to the conclusion as to the character of the arguments by which it is reached. Too much weight is attached to hypothetical etymologies.

With regard to the Norse colony alleged to have flourished for three centuries, it is pertinent to ask, what became of its cattle and horses? Why do we find no vestiges of the burial-places of these Europeans? or of iron tools and weapons of mediæval workmanship? Why is there no documentary mention, in Scandinavia or elsewhere in Europe, of this transatlantic trade? etc., etc. Until such points as these are disposed of, any further consideration of the hypothesis may properly be postponed.[Back to Main Text]

It is interesting to see how thoroughly words can be disguised by an unfamiliar phonetic spelling. I have seen people hopelessly puzzled by the following bill, supposed to have been made out by an illiterate stable-keeper somewhere in England:—

Osafada 7s 6d

Takinonimome 4d

—————

7s 10d

Some years ago Professor Huxley told me of a letter from France which came to the London post-office thus addressed:—

Sromfrédévi, Piqué du lait, Londres, Angleterre.

This letter, after exciting at first helpless bewilderment and then busy speculation, was at length delivered to the right person, Sir Humphry Davy, in his rooms at the Royal Institution on Albemarle street, just off from Piccadilly![Back to Main Text]

Jam Tartessiaco quos solverat æquore Titan In noctem diffusus equos, jungebat Eoïs Littoribus, primique novo Phaethonte retecti Seres lanigeris repetebant vellera lucis. Silius Italicus, lib. vi. ad init. [Back to Main Text]

"But for to speake of riches and of stones, And men and horse, I trow the large wones Of Prestir John, ne all his tresorie, Might not unneth have boght the tenth partie." Chaucer, The Flower and the Leaf, 200.

The fabulous kingdom of Prester John is ably treated in Yule's Cathay, vol. i. pp. 174-182; Marco Polo, vol. i. p. 204-216. Colonel Yule suspects that its prototype may have been the semi-Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. This is very likely. As for its range, shifted hither and thither as it was, all the way from the upper Nile to the Thian-Shan mountains, we can easily understand this if we remember how an ignorant mind conceives all points distant from its own position as near to one another; i. e. if you are about to start from New York for Arizona, your housemaid will perhaps ask you to deliver a message to her brother in Manitoba. Nowhere more than in the history of geography do we need to keep before us, at every step, the limitations of the untutored mind and its feebleness in grasping the space-relations of remote regions.[Back to Main Text]

ὀξυστόμους γὰρ Ζηνὸς ἀκραγεῖς κύνας γρῦπας φύλαξαι, τόν τε μουνῶπα στρατὸν Ἀριμασπὸν ἱπποβάμον', οἳ χρυσόῤῥυτον οἰκοῦσιν ἀμφὶ νᾶμα Πλούτωνος πόρου· τούτοις σὺ μὴ πέλαζε. Prometheus, 802.

Thence it passed on to Pausanias, i. 24; Pomponius Mela, ii. 1; Pliny, Hist. Nat., vii. 2; Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 280; and so on to Milton:—

"As when a gryphon through the wilderness, With winged course o'er hill or moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold." Paradise Lost, ii. 944. [Back to Main Text]

Ἀλλά σ' ἐς Ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πείρατα γαίης ἀθάνατοι πέμψουσιν, ὅθι ξανθὸς Ῥαδάμανθυς, τῆπερ ῥηΐστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν· οὐ νιφετὸς, οὔτ' ἂρ χειμὼν πολὺς οὔτε ποτ' ὄμβρος, ἀλλ' αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντας ἀήτας Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους. Odyssey, iv. 563.

Since Horace's time (Epod. vi. 41-66) the Canary islands have been a favourite theme for poets. It was here that Tasso placed the loves of Rinaldo and Armida, in the delicious garden where

Vezzosi augelli infra le verde fronde Temprano a prova lascivette note. Mormora l' aura, e fa le foglie e l' onde Garrir, che variamente ella percote. Gerusalemme Liberata, xvi. 12.[Back to Main Text]

Arma quidem ultra Littora Invernæ promovimus, et modo captas Orcadas, ac minima contentos nocte Britannos. Juvenal, ii. 159.

See also Pliny, Hist. Nat., iv. 30; Martianus Capella, vi. 595; Achilles Tatius, XXXV.[Back to Main Text]

The Roman conception of the situation of these "Hyperboreans" and of the Rhipæan mountains may be seen in the map of Mela's world.[Back to Main Text]

Quinque tenent cœlum zonæ; quarum una corusco Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni; Quam circum extremæ dextra lævaque trahuntur, Cærulea glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris. Has inter mediamque, duæ mortalibus ægris Munere concessæ Divûm; et via secta per ambas, Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.[Back to Main Text]

Mundus, ut ad Scythiam Rhipæasque arduus arces Consurgit, premitur Libyæ devexus in austros. Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum Sub pedibus Styx atra videt Manesque profundi. Georg., i. 240.

For an account of the deference paid to Virgil in the Middle Ages, as well as the grotesque fancies about him, see Tunison's Master Virgil, 2d ed., Cincinnati, 1890.[Back to Main Text]

Sire, se vos fustes Sauvages Viers moi, je n'i pris mie garde, etc.,

the reference is plainly to degenerate civilized men frequenting the forests, such as bandits or outlaws, not to what we call savages.

Mediæval writers certainly had some idea of savages, but it was not based upon any actual acquaintance with such people, but upon imperfectly apprehended statements of ancient writers. At the famous ball at the Hotel de Saint Pol in Paris, in 1393, King Charles VI. and five noblemen were dressed in close-fitting suits of linen, thickly covered from head to foot with tow or flax, the colour of hair, so as to look like "savages." In this attire nobody recognized them, and the Duke of Orleans, in his eagerness to make out who they were, brought a torch too near, so that the flax took fire, and four of the noblemen were burned to death. See Froissart's Chronicles, tr. Johnes, London, 1806, vol. xi. pp. 69-76. The point of the story is that savages were supposed to be men covered with hair, like beasts, and Froissart, in relating it, evidently knew no better. Whence came this notion of hairy men? Probably from Hanno's gorillas (see above, p. 301), through Pliny, whose huge farrago of facts and fancies was a sort of household Peter Parley in mediæval monasteries. Pliny speaks repeatedly of men covered with hair from head to foot, and scatters them about according to his fancy, in Carmania and other distant places (Hist. Nat., vi. 28, 36, vii. 2).

Greek and Roman writers seem to have had some slight knowledge of savagery and the lower status of barbarism as prevailing in remote places ("Ptolomée dit que es extremités de la terre habitable sont gens sauvages," Oresme, Les Éthiques d'Aristote, Paris, 1488), but their remarks are usually vague. Seldom do we get such a clean-cut statement as that of Tacitus about the Finns, that they have neither horses nor houses, sleep on the ground, are clothed in skins, live by the chase, and for want of iron use bone-tipped arrows (Germania, cap. 46). More often we have unconscionable yarns about men without noses, or with only one eye, tailed men, solid-hoofed men, Amazons, and parthenogenesis. The Troglodytes, or Cave-dwellers, on the Nubian coast of the Red Sea seem to have been in the middle status of barbarism (Diodorus, iii. 32; Agatharchides, 61-63), and the Ichthyophagi, or Fish-eaters, whom Nearchus found on the shores of Gedrosia (Arrian, Indica, cap. 29), were probably in a lower stage, perhaps true savages. It is exceedingly curious that Mela puts a race of pygmies at the headwaters of the Nile (see map above, p. 304). Is this only an echo from Iliad, iii. 6, or can any ancient traveller have penetrated far enough inland toward the equator to have heard reports of the dwarfish race lately visited by Stanley (In Darkest Africa, vol. ii. pp. 100-104, 164)? Strabo had no real knowledge of savagery in Africa (cf. Bunbury, Hist. Ancient Geog., ii. 331). Sataspes may have seen barbarians of low type, possibly on one of the Canary isles (see description of Canarians in Major's Prince Henry, p. 212). Ptolemy had heard of an island of cannibals in the Indian ocean, perhaps one of the Andaman group, visited A. D. 1293 by Marco Polo. The people of these islands rank among the lowest savages on the earth, and Marco was disgusted and horrified; their beastly faces, with huge prognathous jaws and projecting canine teeth, he tried to describe by calling them a dog-headed people. Sir Henry Yule suggests that the mention of Cynocephali, or Dog-heads, in ancient writers may have had an analogous origin (Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 252). This visit of the Venetian traveller to Andaman was one of very few real glimpses of savagery vouchsafed to Europeans before the fifteenth century; and a general review of the subject brings out in a strong light the truthfulness and authenticity of the description of American Indians in Eric the Red's Saga, as shown above, pp. 185-192.[Back to Main Text]

Eu sou aquelle occulto e grande Cabo, A quem chamais vós outros Tormentorio, Que nunca á Ptolomeo, Pomponio, Estrabo, Plinio, e quantos passaram, fui notorio: Aqui toda a Africana costa acabo Neste meu nunca vista promontorio, Que para o polo Antarctico se estende, A quem vossa ousadia tanto offende. Camoens, Os Lusiadas, v. 50.[Back to Main Text]

Con generoso ardir dall' Arca all' onde Ubbidiente il vol Colomba prende, Corre, s' aggira, terren scopre, e fronde D' olivo in segno, al gran Noè ne rende. L' imita in ciò Colombo, ne' s' asconde, E da sua patria il mar solcando fende; Terreno al fin scoprendo diede fondo, Offerendo all' Ispano un Nuovo Mondo.

This house is or has been mentioned in Baedeker's Northern Italy as the probable birthplace, along with Peschel's absurd date 1456. It is pretty certain that Columbus was not born in that house or in Cogoleto. See Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 148-155.[Back to Main Text]

In the town archives of Savona we find Christopher Columbus witnessing a document March 20, 1472, endorsing a kind of promissory note for his father August 26, 1472, and joining with his mother and his next brother Giovanni, August 7, 1473, in relinquishing all claims to the house in Genoa sold by his father Domenico by deed of that date. It will be remembered that Domenico had moved from Genoa to Savona in 1471. From these documents (which are all printed in his Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 419, 420, 424-426) M. Harrisse concludes that Christopher cannot have gone to Portugal until after August 7, 1473. Probably not, so far as to be domiciled there; but inasmuch as he had long been a sailor, why should he not have been in Portugal, or upon the African coast in a Portuguese ship, in 1470 and 1471, and nevertheless have been with his parents in Savona in 1472 and part of 1473? His own statement "fourteen years" is not to be set aside on such slight grounds as this. Furthermore, from the fact that Bartholomew's name is not signed to the deed of August 7, 1473, M. Harrisse infers that he was then a minor; i. e. under five and twenty. But it seems to me more likely that Bartholomew was already domiciled at Lisbon, since we are expressly told by two good contemporary authorities—both of them Genoese writers withal—that he moved to Lisbon and began making maps there at an earlier date than Christopher. See Antonio Gallo, De navigatione Columbi per inaccessum antea Oceanum Commentariolus, apud Muratori, tom. xxiii. col. 301-304; Giustiniani, Psalterium, Milan, 1516 (annotation to Psalm xix.); Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, No. 88. To these statements M. Harrisse objects that he finds (in Belloro, Notizie, p. 8) mention of a document dated Savona, June 16, 1480, in which Domenico Colombo gives a power of attorney to his son Bartholomew to act for him in some matter. The document itself, however, is not forthcoming, and the notice cited by M. Harrisse really affords no ground for the assumption that Bartholomew was in 1480 domiciled at Savona or at Genoa.[Back to Main Text]

Sappi che questa opinione è vana Perchè più oltre navicar si puote, Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana, Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote; Era più grossa allor la gente umana, Tal che potrebbe arrossirne le gote Ercule ancor, d' aver posti que' segni, Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni. E puossi andar giù nell' altro emisperio, Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime: Sicchè la terra per divin misterio Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime, E laggiù son città, castella, e imperio; Ma nol cognobbon quelle gente prime. Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta, Dove io dico che laggiù s' aspetta. Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxv. 229, 230.

This prophecy of western discovery combines with the astronomical knowledge here shown, to remind us that the Florentine Pulci was a fellow-townsman and most likely an acquaintance of Toscanelli.[Back to Main Text]

On account of the vast importance of the Toscanelli letters, and because the early texts are found in books which the reader is not likely to have at hand, I have given them entire in the Appendix at the end of this work.[Back to Main Text]

Venient annis sæcula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule. Seneca, Medea, 376.

In the copy of Seneca's tragedies, published at Venice in 1510, bought at Valladolid by Ferdinand Columbus in March, 1518, for 4 reals (plus 2 reals for binding), and now to be seen at the Biblioteca Colombina, there is a marginal note attached to these verses: "hæc prophetia expleta ē per patrē meuʒ cristoforū col almirātē anno 1492."[Back to Main Text]

I give here in parallel columns the passage from Bacon and the one from Alliacus upon which Columbus placed so much reliance. In the Middle Ages there was a generous tolerance of much that we have since learned to stigmatize as plagiarism.

From Roger Bacon, Opus From Petrus Alliacus, De

Majus (A. D. 1267), London, imagine Mundi (A. D. 1410),

1733, ed. Jebb, p. 183:—"Sed Paris, cir. 1490, cap. viii. fol.

Aristoteles vult in fine secundi 13 b:—"Summus Aristoteles

Cœli et Mundi quod plus [terræ] dicit quod mare parvum est inter

habitetur quam quarta pars. Et finem Hispaniæ a parte occidentis

Averroes hoc confirmat. Dicit et inter principium Indiæ

Aristoteles quod mare parvum a parte orientis, et vult quod

est inter finem Hispaniæ a parte plus habitetur quam quarta

occidentis et inter principium pars, et Averroes hoc confirmat.

Indiæ a parte orientis. Et Seneca, Insuper Seneca libro

libro quinto Naturalium, quinto Naturalium, dicit quod

dicit quod mare hoc est navigabile mare est navigabile in paucis

in paucissimis diebus si diebus si ventus sit conveniens.

ventus sit conveniens. Et Plinius Et Plinius docet in Naturalibus,

docet in Naturalibus quod libro secundo, quod navigatum

navigatum est a sinu Arabico est a sinu Arabico usque ad

usque ad Gades: unde refert Gades Herculis non multum

quendam fugisse a rego suo magno tempore,

præ timore et intravit sinum

Maris Rubri ... qui circiter

spatium navigationis annualis

distat a Mari Indico: ... ex

quo patet principium Indiæ in

oriente multum a nobis distare

et ab Hispania, postquam tantum

distat a principio Arabiæ

versus Indiam. A fine Hispaniæ unde concludunt

sub terra tam parvum mare est aliqui, quod mare non est

quod non potest cooperire tres tantum quod possit cooperire

quartas terræ. Et hoc per tres quartas terræ. Accedit ad

auctoritatem alterius considerationis hoc auctoritas Esdræ libro suo

probatur. Nam Esdras quarto, dicentis quod sex partes

dicit quarto libro, quod sex

partes terræ sunt habitatæ et terrae sunt habitatæ et septima

septima est cooperta aquis. Et est cooperta aquis,

ne aliquis impediat hanc auctoritatem,

dicens quod liber ille

est apocryphus et ignotæ auctoritatis,

dicendum est quod cujus libri auctoritatem sancti

sancti habuerunt illum librum habuerunt in reverentia."

in usu et confirmant veritates

sacras per illum librum."

Columbus must either have carried the book of Alliacus with him on his voyages, or else have read his favourite passages until he knew them by heart, as may be seen from the following passage of a letter, written from Hispaniola in 1498 to Ferdinand and Isabella (Navarrete, tom i. p. 261):—"El Aristotel dice que este mundo es pequeño y es el agua muy poca, y que facilmente se puede pasar de España à las Indias, y esto confirma el Avenryz [Averroes], y le alega el cardenal Pedro de Aliaco, autorizando este decir y aquel de Seneca, el qual conforma con estos.... À esto trac una autoridad de Esdras del tercero libro suyo, adonde dice que de siete partes del mundo las seis son descubiertas y la una es cubierta de agua, la cual autoridad es aprobada por Santos, los cuales dan autoridad al 3^o é 4^o libro de Esdras, ansí come es S. Agustin é S. Ambrosio en su exámeron," etc.—"Singular period," exclaims Humboldt, "when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and Averroes, Esdras and Seneca, on the small extent of the ocean compared with the magnitude of continental land, afforded to monarchs guarantees for the safety and expediency of costly enterprises!" Cosmos, tr. Sabine, vol. ii. p. 250. The passages cited in this note may be found in Humboldt, Examen critique, tom. i. pp. 65-69. Another interesting passage from Imago Mundi, cap. xv., is quoted on p. 78 of the same work.[Back to Main Text]

Abraham Ortelius in 1606 speaks of the Northmen coming to America, but bases his opinion upon the Zeno narrative (published in 1558) and upon the sound of the name Norumbega, and apparently knows nothing of Vinland:—"Iosephus Acosta in his book De Natura noui orbis indeuors by many reasons to proue, that this part of America was originally inhabited by certaine Indians, forced thither by tempestuous weather ouer the South sea which now they call Mare del Zur. But to me it seemes more probable, out of the historie of the two Zeni, gentlemen of Venice, ... that this New World many ages past was entred upon by some islanders of Europe, as namely of Grœnland, Island, and Frisland; being much neerer thereunto than the Indians, nor disioyned thence ... by an Ocean so huge, and to the Indians so vnnauigable. Also, what else may we coniecture to be signified by this Norumbega [the name of a North region of America] but that from Norway, signifying a North land, some Colonie in times past hath hither beene transplanted?" Theatre of the Whole World, London, 1606, p. 5. These passages are quoted and discussed by Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good, pp. 95, 96. The supposed connection of Norumbega with Norway is very doubtful. Possibly Stephanius, in his map of 1570 (Torfæus, Gronlandia antiqua, 1706), may have had reference to Labrador or the north of Newfoundland.[Back to Main Text]

"End of the wonderful one-hoss shay, Logic is logic, that's all I say."

Cordeiro's book is elaborately criticised in the learned work of Prospero Peragallo, Cristoforo Colombo in Portogallo: studi critici, Genoa, 1882.[Back to Main Text]

In reading a later chapter of Las Casas for another purpose (tom. i. p. 227), I come again upon this point. He rightly concludes that Christopher could not have gone with Dias, and again declares most positively that the handwriting of the note was Bartholomew's and not Christopher's.

This footnote affords a good illustration of the kind of difficulties that surround such a subject as the life of Columbus, and the ease with which an excess of ingenuity may discover mare's nests.[Back to Main Text]

Is it possible that Las Casas made a slight mistake in deciphering the date on Bartholomew's map? Either that mariner did not give the map to Henry VII., or the king gave it back, or more likely it was made in duplicate. At any rate Las Casas had it, along with his many other Columbus documents, and for aught we know it may still be tumbling about somewhere in the Spanish archives. It was so badly written (de muy mala é corrupta letra), apparently in abbreviations (sin ortografía), that Las Casas says he found extreme difficulty in making it out. Now let us observe that date, which is given in fantastic style, apparently because the inscription is in a rude doggerel, and the writer seems to have wished to keep his "verses" tolerably even. (They don't scan much better than Walt Whitman's.) As it stands, the date reads anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno atque insuper anno octavo, i. e. "in the year of our Lord the thousandth, four hundredth, AND EIGHT-TIMES-ONE, and thereafter the eighth year." What business has this cardinal number octiesque uno in a row of ordinals? If it were translatable, which it is not, it would give us 1,000 + 400 + 8 + 8 = 1416, an absurd date. The most obvious way to make the passage readable is to insert the ordinal octogesimo primo instead of the incongruous octiesque uno; then it will read "in the year of our Lord the one-thousand-four-hundred-and-eighty-first, and thereafter the eighth year," that is to say 1489. Now translate old style into new style, and February, 1489, becomes February, 1490, which I believe to be the correct date. This allows sixteen months for Bartholomew's mishaps; it justifies the statement in which Las Casas confirms Ferdinand Columbus; and it harmonizes with the statement of Lord Bacon: "For Christopherus Columbus, refused by the king of Portugal (who would not embrace at once both east and west), employed his brother Bartholomew Columbus unto King Henry to negotiate for his discovery. And it so fortuned that he was taken by pirates at sea; by which accidental impediment he was long ere he came to the king; so long that before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for his brother the enterprise was achieved, and so the West Indies by Providence were then reserved for the crown of Castilia." Historie of the Raygne of K. Henry the Seventh, Bacon's Works, Boston, 1860, vol. xi. p. 296. Lord Bacon may have taken the statement from Ferdinand's biography; but it probably agreed with English traditions, and ought not to be slighted in this connection.[Back to Main Text]

Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury $67,500

"loan from Santangel 59,000

Columbus 29,500

Other sources, including contribution levied upon the town of Palos 80,000

—————

Total $236,000

This total seems to me altogether too large for probability, and so does the last item, which is simply put at the figure necessary to make the total eight times 29,500. I am inclined to suspect that Las Casas (with whom arithmetic was not always a strong point) may have got his figures wrong. The amount of Santangel's loan also depends upon the statement of Las Casas, and we do not know whether he took it from a document or from hearsay. Nor do we know whether it should be added to, or included in, the first item. More likely, I think, the latter. The only item that we know with documentary certainty is the first, so that our statement becomes modified as follows:—

Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury $67,500

"loan from Santangel ?

Columbus ?

Town of Palos rent of two fully equipped caravels for two months, etc.

—————

Total ?

(Cf. Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 391-404.) Unsatisfactory, but certain as far as it goes. Alas, how often historical statements are thus reduced to meagreness, after the hypothetical or ill-supported part has been sifted out! The story that the Pinzon brothers advanced to Columbus his portion is told by Las Casas, but he very shrewdly doubts it. The famous story that Isabella pledged her crown jewels (Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xiv.) has also been doubted, but perhaps on insufficient grounds, by M. Harrisse. It is confirmed by Las Casas (tom. i. p. 249). According to one account she pledged them to Santangel in security for his loan,—which seems not altogether improbable. See Pizarro y Orellana, Varones ilustres del Nuevo Mundo, Madrid, 1639, p. 16.[Back to Main Text]

Exsuperat autem gurgitem fucus frequens Atque impeditur æstus ex uligine.... Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem, Sic segnis humor æquoris pigri stupet. Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites Exstare fucum, et sæpe virgulti vice Retinere puppim, etc. Avienus, Ora Maritima, 108, 117.

See also Aristotle, Meteorol., ii. 1, 14; Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mirab. Auscult., p. 106; Theophrastus, Historia plantarum, iv. 7 Jornandes, De rebus Geticis, apud Muratori, tom. i.p. 191; according to Strabo (iii. 2, § 7) tunny fish were caught in abundance in the ocean west of Spain, and were highly valued for the table on account of their fatness which was due to submarine vegetables on which they fed. Possibly the reports of these Sargasso meadows may have had some share in suggesting to Plato his notion of a huge submerged island Atlantis (Timæus, 25; Kritias, 108; cf. the notion of a viscous sea in Plutarch, De facie in Orbe Luna, 26), Plato's fancy has furnished a theme for much wild speculation. See, for example, Bailly, Lettres sur l'Atlantide de Platon, Paris, 1779. The belief that there can ever have been such an island in that part of the Atlantic is disposed of by the fact that the ocean there is nowhere less than two miles in depth. See the beautiful map of the Atlantic sea-bottom in Alexander Agassiz's Three Cruises of the Blake, Boston, 1888, vol. i.p. 108, and compare chap. vi. of that noble work, on "The Permanence of Continents and of Oceanic Basins;" see also Wallace's Island Life, chap. vi. It was formerly supposed that the Sargasso plants grow on the sea-bottom, and becoming detached rise to the surface (Peter Martyr, De rebus oceanicis, dec. iii. lib. v. p. 53; Humboldt, Personal Narrative, book i. chap, i.); but it is now known that they are simply rooted in the surface water itself. "L'accumulation de ces plantes marines est l'exemple le plus frappant de plantes congénères réunies sur le même point. Ni les forêts colossales de l'Himalaya, ni les graminées qui s'étendent à perte de vue dans les savanes américaines ou les steppes sibériens ne rivalisent avec ces prairies océaniques. Jamais sur un espace aussi étendu, ne se rencontrent de telles masses de plantes semblables. Quand on a vu la mer des Sargasses, on n'oublie point un pareil spectacle." Paul Gaffarel, "La Mer des Sargasses," Bulletin de Géographie, Paris, 1872, 6^e série, tom. iv. p. 622.[Back to Main Text]

Ad Invictissimum Regem Hispaniarum:

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

These lines are thus paraphrased by M. Harrisse:—

To the Invincible King of the Spains:

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

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

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

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

M. Harrisse gives the following version:—

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

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

Auch hat man sydt in Portigall Und in Hyspanyen uberall Golt-inseln funden, und nacket lůt Von den man vor wust sagen nůt. Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet.; Additions, p. 4.

Or, in more modern German:—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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