Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia Part 10

_Granted by the King and Queen._

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

COLUMBUS, THE SEA-KING.

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

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

There shall be a depth of silence in thee deeper than this sea, which is but ten miles deep; a silence unsoundable, known to G.o.d only. Thou shalt be a great man. Yes, my World-soldier, thou wilt have to be greater than this tumultuous, unmeasured world here around thee; thou, in thy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down, and make it bear thee on--to new Americas.

OUTBOUND.

BLISS CARMAN, from a poem in the _Century Magazine_, 1892.[30]

A lonely sail in the vast sea-room, I have put out for the port of gloom.

The voyage is far on the trackless tide, The watch is long, and the seas are wide.

The headlands, blue in the sinking day, Kiss me a hand on the outward way.

The fading gulls, as they dip and veer, Lift me a voice that is good to hear.

The great winds come, and the heaving sea, The restless mother, is calling me.

The cry of her heart is lone and wild, Searching the night for her wandered child.

Beautiful, weariless mother of mine, In the drift of doom I am here, I am thine.

Beyond the fathom of hope or fear, From bourn to bourn of the dusk I steer.

Swept on in the wake of the stars, in the stream Of a roving tide, from dream to dream.

THE TRIBUTES OF THE PHOENIX OF THE AGES.

LOPE DE VEGA CARPIO, a celebrated Spanish poet and dramatist. Born at Madrid, November 25, 1562; died, 1635.[31]

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

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

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

_Al Rey infinitas terras Y a Dios infinitas almas._

(To the King boundless lands, and to G.o.d souls without number.)

HERSCHEL, THE COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES.

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

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

THE DISCOVERIES OF COLUMBUS AND AMERICUS.

From Chicago _Tribune_, August, 1892. [See also _ante_, Boston _Journal_.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Fiske's luminous narrative lends significance to Mr. Thacher's suggestion, for Vespucci discovered a large portion of the mainland of the North American continent which Columbus had never seen. To this extent his first voyage gave a new meaning to Columbus' work, without diminis.h.i.+ng, however, the glory of the latter's great achievement.

Americus, indeed, had his predecessors, for John and Sebastian Cabot, sent out by Henry VII. of England a short time before his discovery, had set foot upon Labrador, and probably had visited Nova Scotia. And even before Cabot, the Northern Vikings, among them Leif Ericcson, had found their way to this continent and perhaps set up their Vineland in Ma.s.sachusetts. And before the Vikings there may have been other migrants, and before the migrants the aborigines, who were the victims of all the explorers from the Vikings to the Puritans. But their achievements had no meaning and left no results. As Prof. Fiske says: "In no sense was any real contact established between the eastern and western halves of our planet until the great voyage of Columbus in 1492." It was that voyage which inspired the great voyage of Americus in 1497. He followed the path marked out by Columbus, and he invested the latter's discovery with a new significance. Upon the basis of merit and historical fact, therefore, Mr. Thacher's suggestion deserves consideration; and why should Italians be jealous, when Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and John Cabot were all of Italian birth?

ALL WITHIN THE KEN OF COLUMBUS.

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

At the time when Columbus, as well as others, was discussing the subject of new lands to be discovered, literary resources had become available.

The Latin writers could be examined; but, above all, the fall of Constantinople had driven numbers of Greeks into Italy. The Greek language was studied, and Greek books were eagerly bought by the Latin nations, as before they had been by the Arabs. Thus, all that had been written as to the four worlds was within the ken of Columbus.

COLUMBUS A HERETIC AND A VISIONARY TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, an American writer and Unitarian minister.

Born at Hanover, N. H., in 1810; died at Jamaica Plain, June 8, 1888.[32]

We think of Columbus as the great discoverer of America; we do not remember that his actual life was one of disappointment and failure.