Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia Part 5

THE RIDICULE WITH WHICH THE VIEWS OF COLUMBUS WERE RECEIVED.

JOHN J. ANDERSON, American historical writer. Born in New York, 1821. From his "History of the United States" (1887).

It is recorded that "Columbus had to beg his way from court to court to offer to princes the discovery of a world." Genoa was appealed to again, then the appeal was made to Venice. Not a word of encouragement came from either. Columbus next tried Spain. His theory was examined by a council of men who were supposed to be very wise about geography and navigation. The theory and its author were ridiculed. Said one of the wise men: "Is there any one so foolish as to believe that there are people living on the other side of the earth with their feet opposite to ours? people who walk with their heels upward and their heads hanging down?" His idea was that the earth was flat like a plate.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ANCIENTS.

From the third of a series of articles by the Hon. ELLIOTT ANTHONY, a.s.sociate Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Chicago, in the Chicago _Mail_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS ON THE BARCELONA MONUMENT.

(See page 81.)]

Bancroft, the historian, says that nearly three centuries before the Christian era, Aristotle, following the lessons of the Pythagoreans, had taught that the earth is a sphere and that the water which bounds Europe on the west washes the eastern sh.o.r.es of Asia. Instructed by him, the Spaniard, Seneca, believed that a s.h.i.+p, with a fair wind, could sail from Spain to the Indies in a few days. The opinion was revived in the Middle Ages by Averroes, the Arab commentator of Aristotle. Science and observation a.s.sisted to confirm it; and poets of ancient and of more recent times had foretold that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. The genial country of Dante and Buonarotti gave birth to Christopher Columbus, by whom these lessons were so received and weighed that he gained the glory of fulfilling the prophecy.

Accounts of the navigation from the eastern coast of Africa to Arabia had reached the western kingdoms of Europe, and adventurous Venetians, returning from travels beyond the Ganges, had filled the world with dazzling descriptions of the wealth of China, as well as marvelous reports of the outlying island empire of j.a.pan. It began to be believed that the continent of Asia stretched over far more than a hemisphere, and that the remaining distance around the globe was comparatively short. Yet from the early part of the fifteenth century the navigators of Portugal had directed their explorations to the coast of Africa; and when they had ascertained that the torrid zone is habitable, even under the equator, the discovery of the islands of Madeira and the Azores could not divert them from the purpose of turning the southern capes of that continent and steering past them to the land of spices, which promised untold wealth to the merchants of Europe, new dominions to its princes, and heathen nations to the religion of the cross. Before the year 1474, and perhaps as early as 1470, Columbus was attracted to Lisbon, which was then the great center of maritime adventure. He came to insist with immovable resoluteness that the shortest route to the Indies lay across the Atlantic. By the words of Aristotle, received through Averroes, and by letters from Toscanelli, the venerable cosmographer of Florence--who had drawn a map of the world, with Eastern Asia rising over against Europe--he was riveted in his faith and lived only in the idea of laying open the western path to the Indies.

After more than ten years of vain solicitations in Portugal, he left the banks of the Tagus to seek aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, rich in nautical experience, having watched the stars at sea from the lat.i.tude of Iceland to near the equator at Elmina. Though yet longer baffled by the skepticism which knew not how to comprehend the clearness of his conception, or the mystic trances which sustained his inflexibility of purpose, or the unfailing greatness of his soul, he lost nothing of his devotedness to the sublime office to which he held himself elected from his infancy by the promises of G.o.d. When, half resolved to withdraw from Spain, traveling on foot, he knocked at the gate of the monastery of La Rabida, at Palos, to crave the needed charity of food and shelter for himself and his little son, whom he led by the hand, the dest.i.tute and neglected seaman, in his naked poverty, was still the promiser of kingdoms, holding firmly in his grasp "the key of the ocean sea;"

claiming, as it were from Heaven, the Indies as his own, and "dividing them as he pleased." It was then that through the prior of the convent his holy confidence found support in Isabella, the Queen of Castille; and in 1492, with three poor vessels, of which the largest only was decked, embarking from Palos for the Indies by way of the west, Columbus gave a new world to Castille and Leon, "the like of which was never done by any man in ancient or in later times."

The jubilee of this great discovery is at hand, and now after the lapse of 400 years, as we look back over the vast ranges of human history, there is nothing in the order of Providence which can compare in interest with the condition of the American continent as it lay upon the surface of the globe, a hemisphere unknown to the rest of the world.

There stretched the iron chain of its mountain barriers, not yet the boundary of political communities; there rolled its mighty rivers unprofitably to the sea; there spread out the measureless, but as yet wasteful, fertility of its uncultivated fields; there towered the gloomy majesty of its unsubdued primeval forests; there glittered in the secret caves of the earth the priceless treasures of its unsunned gold, and, more than all that pertains to material wealth, there existed the undeveloped capacity of 100 embryo states of an imperial confederacy of republics, the future abode of intelligent millions, unrevealed as yet to the "earnest" but unconscious "expectation" of the elder families of man, darkly hidden by the impenetrable veil of waters. There is, to my mind, says Everett, an overwhelming sadness in this long insulation of America from the brotherhood of humanity, not inappropriately reflected in the melancholy expression of the native races.

The boldest keels of Phoenicia and Carthage had not approached its sh.o.r.es. From the footsteps of the ancient nations along the highways of time and fortune--the embattled millions of the old Asiatic despotisms, the iron phalanx of Macedonia, the living, crus.h.i.+ng machinery of the Roman legion which ground the world to powder, the heavy tramp of barbarous nations from "the populous north"--not the faintest echo had aroused the slumbering West in the cradle of her existence. Not a thrill of sympathy had shot across the Atlantic from the heroic adventure, the intellectual and artistic vitality, the convulsive struggles for freedom, the calamitous downfalls of empire, and the strange new regenerations which fill the pages of ancient and mediaeval history.

Alike when the oriental myriads, a.s.syrian, Chaldean, Median, Persian, Bactrian, from the snows of Syria to the Gulf of Ormus, from the Halys to the Indus, poured like a deluge upon Greece and beat themselves to idle foam on the sea-girt rock of Salamis and the lowly plain of Marathon; when all the kingdoms of the earth went down with her own liberties in Rome's imperial maelstrom of blood and fire, and when the banded powers of the west, beneath the ensign of the cross, as the pendulum of conquest swung backward, marched in scarcely intermitted procession for three centuries to the subjugation of Palestine, the American continent lay undiscovered, lonely and waste. That mighty action and reaction upon each other of Europe and America, the grand systole and diastole of the heart of nations, and which now const.i.tutes so much of the organized life of both, had not yet begun to pulsate.

The unconscious child and heir of the ages lay wrapped in the mantle of futurity upon the broad and nurturing bosom of divine Providence, and slumbered serenely like the infant Danae through the storms of fifty centuries.

THE DARK AGES BEFORE COLUMBUS.

From the writings of SAINT AUGUSTINE, the most noted of the Latin fathers. Born at Tagasta, Numidia, November 13, A. D. 354; died at Hippo, August 28, A. D. 430. (This pa.s.sage was relied on by the ecclesiastical opponents of Columbus to show the heterodoxy of his project.)

They do not see that even if the earth were round it would not follow that the part directly opposite is not covered with water. Besides, supposing it not to be so, what necessity is there that it should be inhabited, since the Scriptures, in the first place, the fulfilled prophecies of which attest the truth thereof for the past, can not be suspected of telling tales; and, in the second place, it is really too absurd to say that men could ever cross such an immense ocean to implant in those parts a sprig of the family of the first man.

THE LEGEND OF COLUMBUS.

JOANNA BAILLIE, a noted Scottish poetess. Born at Bothwell, Scotland, 1762; died at Hampstead, near London, February 23, 1851.

From "The Legend of Columbus."

Is there a man that, from some lofty steep, Views in his wide survey the boundless deep, When its vast waters, lined with sun and shade, Wave beyond wave, in serried distance, fade?

COLUMBUS THE CONQUEROR.

No kingly conqueror, since time began The long career of ages, hath to man A scope so ample given for trade's bold range Or caused on earth's wide stage such rapid, mighty change.--_Ibid._

THE EXAMPLE OF COLUMBUS.

Some ardent youth, perhaps, ere from his home He launch his venturous bark, will hither come, Read fondly o'er and o'er his graven name, With feelings keenly touched, with heart aflame; Till, wrapped in fancy's wild delusive dream, Times past and long forgotten, present seem.

To his charmed ear the east wind, rising shrill, Seems through the hero's shroud to whistle still.

The clock's deep pendulum swinging through the blast Sounds like the rocking of his lofty mast; While fitful gusts rave like his clam'rous band, Mixed with the accents of his high command.

Slowly the stripling quits the pensive scene, And burns and sighs and weeps to be what he has been.

Oh, who shall lightly say that fame Is nothing but an empty name?

Whilst in that sound there is a charm The nerves to brace, the heart to warm, As, thinking of the mighty dead, The young from slothful couch will start, And vow, with lifted hands outspread, Like them to act a n.o.ble part.

Oh, who shall lightly say that fame Is nothing but an empty name?

When but for those, our mighty dead, All ages past a blank would be, Sunk in oblivion's murky bed, A desert bare, a s.h.i.+pless sea!

They are the distant objects seen, The lofty marks of what hath been.--_Ibid._

PALOS--THE DEPARTURE.

On Palos' sh.o.r.e, whose crowded strand Bore priests and n.o.bles of the land, And rustic hinds and townsmen trim, And harnessed soldiers stern and grim, And lowly maids and dames of pride, And infants by their mother's side-- The boldest seaman stood that e'er Did bark or s.h.i.+p through tempest steer; And wise as bold, and good as wise; The magnet of a thousand eyes, That on his form and features cast, His n.o.ble mien and simple guise, In wonder seemed to look their last.

A form which conscious worth is gracing, A face where hope, the lines effacing Of thought and care, bestowed, in truth, To the quick eyes' imperfect tracing The look and air of youth.

The signal given, with hasty strides The sailors line their s.h.i.+ps' dark sides, Their anchors weighed, and from the sh.o.r.e Each stately vessel slowly bore.

High o'er the deep and shadowed flood, Upon his deck their leader stood, And turned him to departed land, And bowed his head and waved his hand.

And then, along the crowded strand, A sound of many sounds combined, That waxed and waved upon the wind, Burst like heaven's thunder, deep and grand; A lengthened peal, which paused, and then Renewed, like that which loathly parts, Oft on the ear returned again, The impulse of a thousand hearts.

But as the lengthened shouts subside, Distincter accents strike the ear, Wafting across the current wide Heart-uttered words of parting cheer: "Oh, shall we ever see again Those gallant souls across the main?

G.o.d keep the brave! G.o.d be their guide!

G.o.d bear them safe through storm and tide!

Their sails with favoring breezes swell!

O brave Columbus, fare thee well!"--_Ibid._

THE NAVIGATOR AND THE ISLANDS.

MATURIN MURRAY BALLOU, American author. Compiler of "Pearls of Thought" and similar works. Born in Boston, Ma.s.s., April 14, 1822.

From "Due South," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1887.

The name of Columbus flashes a bright ray over the mental darkness of the period in which he lived, for the world was then but just awakening from the dull sleep of the Middle Ages. The discovery of printing heralded the new birth of the republic of letters, and maritime enterprise received a vigorous impulse. The sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, thoroughly explored and developed, had endowed the Italian states with extraordinary wealth, and built up a very respectable mercantile marine.

The Portuguese mariners were venturing farther and farther from the peninsula, and traded with many distant ports on the extended coast of Africa.

To the west lay what men supposed to be an illimitable ocean, full of mystery, peril, and death. A vague conception that islands. .h.i.therto unknown might be met afar off on that strange wilderness of waters was entertained by some minds, but no one thought of venturing in search of them. Columbus alone, regarded merely as a brave and intelligent seaman and pilot, conceived the idea that the earth was spherical, and that the East Indies, the great El Dorado of the century, might be reached by circ.u.mnavigating the globe. If we picture to ourselves the mental condition of the age and the state of science, we shall find no difficulty in conceiving the scorn and incredulity with which the theory of Columbus was received. We shall not wonder that he was regarded as a madman or a fool; we are not surprised to remember that he encountered repulse upon repulse as he journeyed wearily from court to court, and pleaded in vain to the sovereigns of Europe for aid to prosecute his great design. The marvel is that when door after door was closed against him, when all ears were deaf to his earnest importunities, when day by day the opposition to his views increased, when, weary and footsore, he was forced to beg a bit of bread and a cup of water for his fainting and famis.h.i.+ng boy at the door of a Spanish convent, his reason did not give way, and his great heart did not break with disappointment.

THE FIRST AMERICAN MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS.

From an article in the Baltimore _American_.

To a patriotic Frenchman and to Baltimore belongs the credit of the erection of the first monument to the memory of Christopher Columbus.