Chapter I

COLUMBUS, HIS PREDECESSORS AND HIS IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS.

Illustration: (‡ Old sailing ship)

ALTHOUGH the discovery of America used to be dated from the voyage of Columbus to the West Indies in 1492, there can be little doubt that this great hero was by no means the first explorer of our era to visit the New World. The existence of land to the west of the Pillars of Hercules was even known to the ancients. Frequent mention is made by Greek and Roman authors of islands on the West, especially of the fair Atlantis, concerning which Plato gives many details, declaring it to have been of vast extent and great beauty, but to have been swallowed up by the sea in pre-historic times. Some modern authors are of opinion that the Canaries are the only existing remains of this Atlantis; others that the so-called island was in reality the mainland of America. Leaving this question to those now studying it with the aid of the recent discoveries in the New World, we pass on to find trustworthy accounts in the old sagas――of which the principal, recently discovered in an Icelandic monastery, are preserved in the Royal Library at Copenhagen――of the presence of Danish settlers in Greenland as early as 982 A.D. These were led thither by the great Eric the Red, who is supposed, however, merely to have acted on information left behind by an early settler of Iceland, named Gunnbiorn, a century before. Gunnbiorn was the true discoverer of Greenland, which he had sighted――though not visited――naming it Hvidsaerk, or the “White Shirt,” because of the perpetual covering of snow worn by its highlands.

Illustration: THE GLACIERS OF GREENLAND.

In a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, four years after the visit of Eric the Red to the latter country, a Danish navigator named Bjarni Herjulfson was driven far out of his course to the South, and saw land stretching away on the West; but he returned home without making any exploration of the new territories, for which, says tradition, “he was greatly blamed.” His reports, however, of what he had seen, led to the fitting out and heading of a far more important expedition by Leif the Lucky, who, making direct for the most southerly point gained by his predecessors, reached the modern Newfoundland, which he called Helluland, and, landing, found it to be “a country without grass, and covered with snow and ice.”

From Helluland, Leif sailed to the present Nova Scotia, which he named “Markland,” or woodland, because of its extensive forests; and thence he is said to have been driven by a contrary wind on to the coast of New England, but on what part of that coast there is no evidence to show, although it is generally agreed to have been in about N. lat. 41° 24′, a little to the north of Rhode Island. Excursions inland revealed the newly-discovered district to be rich in vines and timber; and loading his vessel with grapes and wood, Leif made haste to return home with his trophies, giving such glowing accounts of his adventures on his arrival, that a short time later his brother Thorvald started with a crew of thirty men for the land of promise.

Thorvald is supposed on this trip to have coasted along the shores of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island, and in the ensuing year, 1004, to have sailed as far north as Cape Cod (N. lat. 42° 5′, W. long. 70° 10′), where he was wrecked in a violent storm. His vessel was not, however, materially damaged, and having repaired it, he coasted along the present Massachusetts till he came to what is now the harbor of Boston. There he landed, and wandering to and fro in the beautiful scenery with his men, he for the first time came upon some natives, probably Esquimaux, who were resting peaceably beneath their quaint skin-boats.

With the cruelty characteristic of the wild sea-kings of the North, Thorvald at once gave the signal for attack. The poor Skrællings, as he dubbed the natives, were quickly overpowered. One only escaped, and the others were foully murdered. No wonder that this was the beginning of the end of Thorvald’s enterprise. That very night, as he and his followers were sleeping peacefully, untroubled by any remorse for their evil deeds, they were roused by the war-whoop of the Skrællings, come at the bidding of the one survivor to avenge his comrades.

The white men took refuge in their ship, and all escaped unhurt except Thorvald himself, who received a wound in the side, from which he shortly afterward died. He was buried within sight of the Atlantic, on what is now Massachusetts Bay, and his sorrowing followers returned home with the terrible tidings in the ensuing spring.

Undaunted by the fate of his brother, another son of Eric, Thorstein by name, set out for Vinland in 1005, but he failed to find it, and returned home, stricken with mortal sickness, in the same year. On his deathbed, however, he prophesied that his widow, Gudrid, would marry again, and hinted that a great career of discovery and conquest was before her future children. He was right in the first part at least of his speech, for two years later we find Gudrid, as the wife of a sturdy Icelander named Karlsefne, forming part of the largest expedition yet sent out from Greenland to Vinland――an expedition consisting of no less than three ships, and one hundred and forty men and women.

That an important colony was founded by the new adventurers there appears no reason to doubt, although it is impossible to fix its exact locality. Booths were erected, stores were laid in for the winter, and amicable relations were opened with the Skrællings, who came in great numbers, first to stare at the intruders, and then to trade with them, exchanging valuable furs for red cloth, etc.

A slight and almost ludicrous incident was the first thing to break up what had appeared to be the beginning of a long course of successful colonization. A bull belonging to one of the leaders of the expedition rushed suddenly among the buyers and sellers, so terrifying the natives, who had never before seen an animal of that description, that they fled to their kayaks, or skin-boats, in the greatest confusion, returning some weeks later in greatly increased numbers, and armed with bows and arrows, to revenge themselves for what they took to be an intentional insult.

Fierce indeed was the struggle in which they were now involved, and, overwhelmed by superior numbers, the colonists seemed likely to be exterminated, when the tide was turned by the courage of Freydis, a daughter of Eric the Red, who, imbued with the brave spirit of her father, suddenly faced the savages, and brandishing a sword which she had taken from a dead warrior of her own race, she invited the enemy to come and slay her if they would, even tearing open her dress to make clear her meaning.

The Skrællings, perhaps taking these strange gestures for the signs of superhuman agency, gazed for a moment in awe-struck silence at the lonely figure standing thus unprotected among the slain, and then, with cries as wild and weird in the ears of the Northmen as those of their champions to the natives, they one and all turned and fled.

The terrible slaughter among their men had, however, so disgusted the leaders of the colony, that they soon afterwards returned to Greenland; and, but for the ambition of Freydis, the history of the Scandinavian colonies in North America would have ended then and there. Unable to forget her triumph, and eager for yet further distinction, this remarkable woman did not rest until she had organized a new expedition, which, under the leadership of two brothers named Helgi and Finnbogi, set sail in 1011, and, landing in Vinland without molestation from the natives, took possession of the booths erected by their predecessors. All seemed likely to go well, when the overbearing conduct of Freydis, who was not one to shine in the peaceful work of colonization, led to dissensions among the explorers. By a crafty artifice she managed to pick a quarrel with the two brothers, and, with the co-operation of her husband, Thorvard――who, though naturally a mild and inoffensive man, appears to have been entirely under the control of his stronger-minded wife――she succeeded in effecting their massacre, and that of all who were inimical to her supremacy. The survivors, terror-struck by the fate of their companions, yielded without a struggle to the rule of Freydis, who, first binding them all by an oath never to tell of her conduct at home, set them at work to cut timber and collect the curiosities and valuables of the country. Then, when she had acquired enough to insure her wealth for the remainder of her life, she embarked for Greenland with the little remnant of the original party. The Icelandic sagas, already referred to, tell how the iniquity of Freydis gradually leaked out, and how, though she herself escaped unpunished, her sins were visited upon her children.

With her return home the attempts at American colonization by the Northmen appear to have ceased, but tradition tells of many a trip by contemporary adventurers of other nationalities; for, between the fitful excursions from Greenland――which, as we have seen, left no real or permanent impress on the people or districts visited――and the well-organized expedition of modern times, we hear of Arab sailors of the 12th century having sighted land in the unknown Western Ocean, graphically called, from its real and imaginary horrors, the Sea of Darkness; and of a voyage made in 1170 by Madoc, son of the Prince of North Wales, who, after sailing for many weeks away from his native land, came to a country, supposed to have been the modern Virginia, differing in every respect from any European land.

Certain travelers of the 17th century tell of white men speaking the Welsh tongue having been met with among the Indians far away in the West, lending some slight semblance of veracity to the tradition that a colony was indeed founded by the Welsh; but in the absence of all confirmatory documents, we are compelled to reserve judgment on the subject, passing on to the better authenticated story of the voyage of the brothers Zeni of Venice, who, between 1388 and 1404, are said to have visited Greenland and Nova Scotia, and to have long resided as the guest of its king in an island called Frisland, the position――indeed the very existence――of which has never been fully proved, although some authorities are of opinion that it was really only one of the Faroe Islands. However that maybe, many legends were long current in Venice of the intercourse with the unknown Frisland and islands further west, one of which, called Estotiland, is supposed to have been Newfoundland. Hints, too, are scattered up and down old chronicles, of wandering fishermen sailing southward from Estotiland having come to a country answering in the descriptions given of it to Mexico; the Chinese, Malays, and Polynesians are said to have reached the American coasts; and, to conclude our summary of lore relating to the oldest of the continents, Picigano’s map, which is dated 1367, gives indications of a western continent named Antilles, and a yet older map shows an island where Newfoundland ought to be.

Whether America was or was not visited from Europe or from Asia before the time of Columbus, however, the barbarism in which European society was sunk in medieval times prevented any recognition of the true significance of the details of adventures given by returned mariners; and their voyages thus fail to form any real link between the America of the middle ages and that of the present day. If, therefore, we would point out the true precursor of the first hero of discovery in the West, we shall find him, not in the wild Northmen bent on pillage and bloodshed, nor in the brothers Zeni of legend and romance, but in that grand central figure of the scientific annals of the 13th century, Marco Polo, whose book, revealing the existence of vast empires in the East, did much to stimulate the enthusiasm, not only of Columbus, but also of Bartholomew Diaz, Vasco da Gama, and other early heroes of travel, thus indirectly leading to the discovery alike of the Cape of Good Hope and of America.

Although Columbus never set foot on the Northern half of the American continent, with which alone we have, strictly speaking, now to do, no record of travel in any part of the New World would appear to us complete without some account of his first voyage, and of what led to that voyage. For there can be no doubt that, but for the noble steadfastness of purpose which resulted in the achievement of one discovery while its author was bent on another, the revelation of the existence of a quarter of the globe larger than Europe and Asia put together, and which was destined to be the scene of much of the most stirring history of modern times, would have been indefinitely postponed.

Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

Of the early life of Christopher Columbus little is known with any certainty. He is supposed, however, to have been born about 1435, and, as the son of a poor wool-comber of Genoa, to have enjoyed few educational advantages, although, fortunately for him, what little teaching he received seems to have tended to foster his peculiar genius. According to his own account, preserved in the _Historia del Amirante_, he began his maritime career at fourteen, after a brief sojourn at the University of Pavia, enduring great hardships as a sailor employed in the half-commercial, half-nautical cruises of the roving ships which, in the latter part of the 15th century, haunted the Mediterranean and the coasts beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.

In 1459 we hear of a certain “handy sea-captain” named Colombo taking part as a private adventurer in an expedition sent out by John of Genoa against Naples; and in 1470 we find the same sea-captain――now in the prime of life――settling in Lisbon, and by his marriage with the daughter of Palestrello, the discoverer of Porto Santo, coming into possession of many valuable charts and journals, the study of which is said to have first suggested to him the existence of land to the westward, which land, however, he from first to last erroneously supposed to be, not a new continent, but a continuation of the eastern shores of Asia.

Whether our hero drew his inspiration from one author or another, or, as appears more likely, was led up to the conception of his great design by the spirit of the age in which he lived, affects but little the historical fact that it was about 1474, when the enlightened efforts of Prince Henry of Portugal had ushered in a new era of geographical research, that Columbus first enunciated his belief that there was land in the western part of the ocean; that it could be reached; that it was fertile; and, lastly, that it was inhabited――a belief which was shortly afterward converted into a design for seeking a _western_ route to India, although eighteen long years elapsed before the first step was taken in the realization of a scheme so totally opposed to all the preconceived notions of cosmographers.

In voyage after voyage made by Columbus in the succeeding years to the Azores, the Canaries, and the coasts of Guinea, then the limits of navigation to the westward, the future discoverer became more and more fully convinced that, with the necessary time and means at his disposal, he might convert his dream into a waking reality; but, alas! all his attempts to obtain a hearing for his scheme from those who were in a position to forward it were met by scorn and ridicule.

The first ray of hope to break upon the despair of Columbus at this ill-success was the invention――or, to be more strictly accurate, the application to navigation――of the astrolabe, the precursor of the modern quadrant, by Martin Behaim, and by Roderigo and Joseph, physicians in the employ of John II. of Portugal. Armed with it and the mariner’s compass, as defensive weapons, the nautical explorer needed no longer to fear trusting himself on the trackless paths of the ocean; and, Columbus, full of new hope, asked for and obtained an interview with John II. in 1482 or 1483. We can imagine with what eagerness our hero pleaded his cause, and with what patience he explained every detail of his scheme, winning at last a consent, though but a reluctant one, that his proposition should be referred to a “learned junto, charged with all matters relating to maritime discovery,” to which title we may add the saving clause, “of which they were cognizant;” for the minds of king and council alike were set, not on the pushing of discovery westwards, but on further efforts to find a new route to India on the East, and to ascertain the locality of the empire of the fabulous monarch, Prester John.

The council to whose judgment the scheme of Columbus was submitted consisted of the Roderigo and Joseph already mentioned, and of the king’s confessor, Diego Ortiz de Cazadilla, Bishop of Ceuta, who condemned it without hesitation. The king, however, feeling perhaps not altogether convinced by the arguments adduced against it, privately sent out a vessel to test the route mapped out by Columbus, obtaining no result except that of driving the greatest man of the age away from his court, disgusted with the duplicity which, while openly discrediting their author, could thus seek to use his plans.

Illustration: COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL.

The ignorant pilots commissioned to work out the route conceived by the master-mind of the great mariner, returned to Lisbon without venturing beyond the beaten track; and in the ensuing year Columbus secretly left Lisbon, taking with him his young son Diego. We all know the story of his scornful reception at the court of Genoa, and of his arrival, after long wanderings to and fro, footsore, hungry and disheartened, at the gate of La Rabida, a Franciscan convent in Andalusia, to beg a little bread and water for his starving child.

This simple and pathetic request formed the turning-point of Columbus’s career. The prior of the convent, Don Juan Perez de Marchina, whose name deserves to be immortalized in every record of the discovery of the New World, was passing at the moment; and, struck by the manly and dignified bearing of the “beggar,” he approached, and asked whence he came and whither he was going.

Illustration: COLUMBUS AT A CONVENT DOOR.

Columbus, now used to rebuffs, was touched by the kindly interest shown in his forlorn condition, and soon told the whole story of his woes, his dreams of geographical discovery, his conviction that they would some day be realized, if not by himself, and so forth.

The prior, surprised at a reply of so unusual a character from a wayfarer in circumstances so reduced, invited Columbus to be his guest; and, anxious to obtain confirmation for his belief in the genius of his visitor, he sent for his friend, Garcia Fernandez, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the circumstances of this portion of our story.

Fernandez, having listened to all that Columbus had to say, was as completely won over as Marchina had been; and, after many conferences at the convent, our hero, no longer in rags, started for the Spanish court, armed with strong letters of recommendation to the then reigning Ferdinand and Isabella. This was in 1486, when the war with the Moors was absorbing alike the energies and the resources of the kingdom; and it is not much wonder that Columbus could at first obtain no encouragement for the prosecution of a scheme of maritime discovery. He was kindly received, however, and in the repeated absences of the sovereigns, who headed their armies in person, he won the ear first of one and then of another influential dignitary of the court, and in 1491, five long years after his first arrival, he obtained a promise from Ferdinand, that, as soon as the war was over, he and his queen “would have time and inclination to treat with him about what he had offered.”

A chilling message truly to one who had wasted the best years of his life “about what he had offered;” and Columbus, more truly disheartened by it than by the absolute silence of the sender, went back to his old friend at the convent of La Rabida, resolved to sever finally his connection with Spain. It is of this sad period of his history that the Laureate represents him as saying, long afterwards――

“No guess-work! I was certain of my goal;
Some thought it heresy, but that would not hold.
King David called the heavens a hide, a tent
Spread over earth, and so this earth was flat;
Some cited old Lactantius; could it be
That trees grew downward, rain fell upward, men
Walked like the fly on ceilings? and, besides,
The great Augustine wrote that none could breathe
Within the zone of heat; so might there be
Two Adams, two mankinds, and that was clean
Against God’s word: thus was I beaten back,
And chiefly to my sorrow by the Church,
And thought to turn my face from Spain, appeal
Once more to France or England.”

But once more Perez and Fernandez cheered his drooping spirits. They would not hear of his deserting their country; yet another effort should be made to secure to it the glory of sending out the great hero of the age on what they were convinced would be a brilliant and successful enterprise.

With a skill which came of a full heart and a mind not easily to be turned from its purpose, the aged monk pressed his plea, urging the soured Columbus to give Spain another chance; and, observing that his eyes were turning toward France, whose king had sent him a most cordial letter, the Father Guardian did not fail to remind him how that fickle country had forsaken, in the hour of direst need, one of the most daring and noble of her children, Joan of Arc.

Illustration: PEREZ ON HIS WAY TO SANTA FÉ.

Such arguments slowly made way――the more surely, that the Father quoted several proofs that men of influence were beginning to interest themselves in the undertaking of Columbus. The explorer, therefore, at last consented to wait the issue of a letter which was now sent by Don Perez to the Spanish court, addressed, not to the King, but to the Queen. The answer, which speedily arrived, was cheering beyond all expectation; and, as it contained an invitation to the writer of the epistle to visit her, the old Prior of the convent of La Rabida at once saddled his mule, and, strong in the faith of his mission, passed fearlessly through the country inhabited by the Moors, whence he soon reached Santa Fé, where Ferdinand and Isabella were.

Perez lost no time in presenting himself to the Queen, and the result of the interview was fitly expressed in the message, full of holy thankfulness, which he sent to Columbus the same day――“I came, I saw, God conquered.” The Queen graciously expressed her wish to see the hero himself, and she gave orders that he should be provided with funds sufficient to pay the expenses attendant upon his journey, and upon his appearing before her. In 1492, the would-be discoverer arrived at Grenada, and presented himself at court, being just in time to find himself a witness of the final overthrow of the Moorish power, and the humiliation of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings.

Silent and reserved among the rejoicing and shouting multitudes, sympathizing perhaps more keenly with the broken-hearted Boabdil than with his conquerors, Columbus still bided his time; and so soon as the excitement of victory had a little subsided, he was admitted to an audience with the sovereigns. It was now decided that Columbus should put his scheme to a practical test; but fresh difficulties arose in consequence of the “princely conditions” to which alone the humble and poorly-clad adventurer would agree. Not content with the tardy recognition given to the grandeur of his enterprise, he demanded that he should be “invested with the titles and privileges of Admiral and Viceroy over the countries he should discover, with one-tenth of all gains, either by trade or conquest.”

Once more the fate of the New World, which had been, so to speak, unconsciously waiting all this time for the arrival of its discoverer, hung in the balance. Courtiers clamored at the insolence of the sorry fellow who wished to be set above their illustrious heads; and the King looked coldly on, unwilling to break his word, yet anxious to get the matter settled or dropped, that he might give the attention so sorely needed to his kingdom, drained as were its resources by the long wars.

Illustration: ISABELLA.

But now Isabella, true to the renown she had won by a long course of noble and disinterested conduct, seemed to have been suddenly inspired with a belief in the great mission of Columbus. That hero had again determined to leave Spain, and, as the story goes, was already on the way to Cordova, whence he intended embarking for France, when, at a meeting of the junto discussing the scheme, the Queen exclaimed――“_I_ undertake the enterprise for my own crown of Castile, and will pledge my jewels to raise the necessary funds.”

Illustration: EMBARKATION OF COLUMBUS.

Columbus was at once recalled; and though the pledging of the Queen’s jewels was not found necessary, she aided him now with all the energy and enthusiasm of her character. On the 17th April, 1492, the stipulations granting full powers to Columbus, and conferring on him and his heirs the honors he had demanded, were signed at the city of Santa Fé, in the plain of Grenada: and on the 3rd August of the same year, eighteen years after he first conceived the idea of the voyage, our hero――all preliminary difficulties over――at last set sail from the bar of Saltos, near Palos (N. lat. 37° 11′, W. long. 6° 47′), in command of three vessels――the _Santa Maria_, the _Pinta_, and the _Niña_, only one of which, the first, and that on which the Admiral himself embarked, was decked. He was leader of one hundred and twenty men; but the motley character of his crews, enlisted on compulsion, and thoroughly imbued with all the superstitions of the age with regard to the perils of the deep, caused Columbus much embarrassment from the very first, and he was detained for three weeks at the Canaries by an “accident”――supposed to have been purposely brought about――to the rudder of the _Pinta_. It was not until the 6th September that the actual voyage of discovery can be said to have commenced. Setting sail that day from the island of Gomera he passed Ferro, the last of the Canaries, on the 9th.

As the last traces of land faded from the sight of the untutored mariners, their hearts failed them, and with tears and groans they entreated their leader to turn back while there was yet time. The passing of a portion of a wreck on the 11th still further aroused their fears, and it was all that Columbus could do to induce them to obey his orders.

On the 13th September a slight but deeply significant incident occurred. Columbus, watching with eager interest the little compass――which, surrounded as he was by timid, vacillating spirits, must have seemed to him his one steadfast, unchangeable friend――noticed a variation in the needle. To quote the words of Washington Irving, “he perceived about nightfall that the needle, instead of pointing to the north star, varied about half a point, or between five and six degrees, to the north-west, and still more on the following morning.”

Knowing how greatly this phenomenon would alarm his people, Columbus at first kept it to himself; but it was soon remarked by the pilots, and their report sent a fresh thrill of horror through the crews. They were entering a new world, where the very laws of nature were changing, and in which even inanimate objects were subject to weird, unearthly influences.

Calm amid the ever-increasing excitement, Columbus, with greater ingenuity than penetration, explained away the strange deviation――the cause of which has not yet been determined, though many great authorities attribute it to solar influence――by saying that it was due, not to any fault in the compass itself, but to the alteration of the position of the north star.

Thus, whether he himself did or did not believe this to be the true solution of the mystery, did our hero once more calm the terrors of his men, who were, a little later, further cheered by the sight of a heron and a water-wagtail, which, as birds supposed never to venture far out to sea, were looked upon as sure harbingers of land. Next were seen floating patches of herbs and weeds, which could only, it was thought, have been washed from river banks, or from rocks by the sea-shore; and, convinced that their perils were now over, the eager mariners crowded on deck, each anxious to be the first to catch a glimpse of the longed-for country; but as day after day passed on, and no further indications of the end of the voyage were perceived, all the old fears returned, the men broke out into open mutiny, and Columbus’s position became critical in the extreme. Even Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of the most important members of the squadron, now questioned the wisdom of the Admiral’s determined adherence to a western course; and our hero, though still full of the most intense belief in final success if that course were maintained, was beginning to doubt whether he should himself achieve more than martyrdom in the cause he had so much at heart. Matters were at this stage, when, on the night of the 11th October, 1492, as the weary leader was peering into the darkness of the horizon from the deck of his vessel, hoping against hope to make out some indication of land, no matter how vague, he fancied he saw a light.

Scarcely daring to trust his eyes, he called first one and then another of the companions of his venture, each of whom confirmed his opinion. A light of some kind was undoubtedly moving on the distant waters, but whether it proceeded from some fisherman’s bark, or from the long-sought land, it was impossible to determine.

Never was daylight more eagerly longed for than then; but, hours before it came, the suspense of the three watchers on the _Santa Maria_ was relieved by the booming of a gun from the _Pinta_, the signal that others also had seen the significant token of the approach to the promised haven. A little later, the dark outlines of the shores of an island, relieved against white breakers, were distinctly made out; and when the dawn of the 12th October, 1492, broke at last, “a level and beautiful island, several leagues in extent, of great freshness and verdure, and covered with trees like a continual orchard,” lay before the eyes of the astonished mariners. Naked natives were hurrying to and fro, expressing by their gestures their astonishment at the appearance of the ships; and at once ordering the boats to be manned. Columbus, scarcely able to restrain his emotion, started to take possession, in the name of the monarchs of Castile, of the newly-discovered territory.

No sooner did the hero set foot on shore, than he fell upon his knees, kissed the ground, and with tears of joy gave thanks to God for thus enabling him to complete his work. Then rising, his heart doubtless swelling with exultation, he drew his sword, unfurled the royal banner, named the island “San Salvador,” and solemnly declared it to be the property of Ferdinand and Isabella, “calling on all present to take the oath of obedience to him as Admiral and Viceroy representing the persons of the sovereigns.”

Although there is some little difference of opinion as to which of the West Indian islands was thus discovered by Columbus, it is generally supposed to have been that now called by the English Cat Island, one of the great Bahama group, and situated in N. lat. 24°, W. long. 74° 30′, of which the native name was Guanahamé. Imagining it to be situated at the extremity of India, the explorer called its people Indians, an appellation which has clung to the aborigines of the New World ever since.

Remaining at Guanahamé only long enough to ascertain the “Indians” to be a gentle, friendly, simple people, with well-formed figures, and pleasant, intelligent faces, Columbus again set sail on the 14th October, and, cruising hither and thither, he discovered several other islands, including the important Cuba and San Domingo, of all of which he took possession in the name of his patrons, planting a small colony on the last named, and meeting everywhere with a cordial welcome from the “savages,” though his own people gave him a good deal of trouble by their perpetual rivalries and jealousies.

Among these latter troubles, none perhaps affected the Admiral so painfully as the desertion of Don Alonzo Pinzon. Pinzon had, in the days of the discoverer’s despondency, stood toward him as a patron, and, Spanish patrician as he was, his countenance had been of no mean value. The very fact also that he consented to serve under Columbus must have seemed a token of his faithfulness; but they had not long been out at sea before he showed that subordination was galling to him, and at last, while Columbus was exploring Cuba, he made his escape with _La Pinta_, the second in size of the boats which formed the little fleet. The fact was, that news had come to them of rich lands to the North-west, and Pinzon, disappointed that his superior would not steer in that direction, resolved to steal away, and go in search of a golden empire for himself. But the North-west did as little for him as it did for many who came after him, and Columbus encountered him again on the return journey, without the gold of which he had dreamed, and with his vessel so disabled that it could only reach the shores of Spain with difficulty. Indeed, had it not been for the merciful treatment of Columbus, the craven Pinzon would probably have perished on the waters.

Satisfied with the results of his first trip, and anxious to obtain the necessary supplies for the further prosecution of his discoveries, Columbus set sail for Europe on the 4th January, 1493, arriving at the bar of Saltos on the 15th March of the same year. Among those who were on the shore to welcome the returning hero was Don Perez de Marchina, of whose eager waiting for his home-coming the Marquis de Belloy has drawn a touching picture in his charming _Life of Columbus_. We see him for long months spending his spare moments in his observatory, anxiously watching for the least shadow of a sail upon the horizon. At last he descries a little vessel making its way toward Saltos, and he rushes to the harbor, his sudden appearance giving to the people of the little town the signal that Columbus is at hand. Soon the discoverer is at the shore, and the arms of his “guide, philosopher and friend” are the first to embrace him. From Saltos Columbus made his way to Barcelona, then the residence of the court, where he was received with all the enthusiasm due to one who had added to the kingdom a new empire of undetermined extent and apparently boundless wealth.

More impatient of the delay caused by the rejoicings in his success than he had been of the impediments thrown in his way when he had been unable to obtain a hearing for his embryo scheme, Columbus lost no time in urging on the sovereigns the fitting out of a new expedition, and, six short months after his return home, we find him leaving Cadiz with seventeen ships and 1,500 men. This second voyage resulted in the discovery of the Caribbee Islands and Jamaica.

But in the midst of his work among the West Indian Islands, the Admiral was recalled home to answer terrible charges――of untruthfulness in his descriptions of the countries discovered, and of cruelty to the natives and colonists under his charge――brought against him by his enemies. Although he succeeded in clearing himself for a time, to the satisfaction of Ferdinand and Isabella, from the odious suspicions which had been cast upon him, the rest of his life was one long struggle with persecution and adversity. From his third voyage, in which he discovered Trinidad, and landed at Paria, on the coast of South America, he was sent home in chains. We only linger a moment by the manacled hero to quote once more from Tennyson’s “Columbus.”

“... You know
The flies at home that ever swarm about,
And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down
Truth in the distance――these outbuzzed me so,
That even our prudent king, our righteous queen――
I prayed them, being so calumniated,
They would commission one of weight and worth
To judge between my slandered self and me――
Fonseca, my main enemy at their court,
They send me out _his_ tool, Bovadilla, one
As ignorant and impolitic as a beast――
Blockish irreverence, brainless greed――who sack’d
My dwelling, seized upon my papers, loos’d
My captives, fee’d the rebels of the crown,
Sold the crown-farms for all but nothing, gave
All but free leave for all to work the mines,
Drove me and my good brothers home in chains;
And gathering ruthless gold――a single piece
Weighed nigh four thousand castillanos――so
They tell me――weigh’d him down into the abysm.
The hurricane of the latitude on him fell,
The seas of our discovering over-roll
Him and his gold; the frailer caravel,
With what was mine, came happily to the shore.
_There_ was a glimmering of God’s hand.”

Illustration: COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.

Soon after the conclusion of his fourth and last voyage, Columbus died at Valladolid in poverty and disgrace, leaving others――many of whom he had himself trained to be able navigators――to reap the fruits of his labors.

One of the first explorers to follow in the track of Columbus was Amerigo Vespucci, whose name, for some reason not very clearly made out, was bestowed on the land discovered by his great predecessor. The work of Amerigo was, however, almost entirely confined to the southern half of the vast continent called after him, although he is supposed to have sailed without landing as far north as Chesapeake Bay; and we therefore pass on to the Cabots, one of whom appears to have been the first European of modern times to set foot in North America.

Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI.

Illustration: CABOT BEFORE THE COSMOGRAPHERS.

In 1496, Henry VII. of England, intent on finding that short cut to India which it was so eagerly hoped would open to Europe the commerce of the East, appointed John Cabot to the command of five vessels, with orders thoroughly to explore the western portion of the Atlantic Ocean, and “find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they be, and in what part of the world soever they be, which before this time have been unknown to Christians”――a wide commission truly, which was carried out, so far as we can tell from the masses of conflicting evidence before us, by the sailing from Bristol, in 1497, of a single ship, the _Matthew_, with John Cabot as commander, and his three sons, Ludovico, Sebastiano, and Sanzio, among the subordinate members of the expedition.

Sailing due west, as the most direct mode of carrying out his instructions, John Cabot came in sight, on the 24th June, 1497, of the mainland of America; but whether the portion first seen was Cape Breton, Newfoundland, or Labrador, is undetermined. Without making any attempt to land, the navigators contented themselves with sailing along some three hundred leagues of the coast, and returned home to be received with as much enthusiasm as if they had fulfilled the whole of their mission, and to be rewarded for finding the “New Isle” with the munificent sum of £10.

A second and a third voyage appear to have been undertaken by John Cabot, with no better results than the first; but after his death ――about 1499――his son Sebastian, who had long been endeavoring to secure the co-operation of Ferdinand of Spain for an extensive scheme of exploration in the North, came to England, and was appointed by the reigning monarch to the command of an expedition to Labrador.

Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT.

On this trip Sebastian landed several times on different parts of the north-eastern coast of America, and penetrated as far north as 67½°, in his vain quest for that _ignis fatuus_ of his day――the North-west Passage to India; but at last, his provisions failing him, he was compelled to return to Bristol, bringing with him, as his only trophies, some of the natives of districts visited.

This undoubted discovery of the mainland of America, the date of which is variously given by different authorities, important as it in reality was, led to no very definite results. In 1500, a trip was made from Portugal to the North-east by a certain Gaspar Cortereal, who, though nominally in quest of the north-west passage, seems to have made the acquisition of slaves his main object. He penetrated as far north as 50°, and landed on the shores of what is now New Brunswick, naming it Terra de Labrador, or the “land of laborers,” a title subsequently transferred to a strip of the seaboard further north. Enticing some fifty-seven of the natives――who are described as “like gipsies in color, well-made, intelligent, and modest”――on board his vessels, he returned with them to Portugal, and, having sold them, started on a new trip shortly afterward, from which he never returned; but history is silent as to whether he fell a victim to the perils of the sea or to the vengeance of those he wronged.

In 1502, Miguel Cortereal, a younger brother of the inhuman Gaspar, started in search of the missing vessel, but he too disappeared, leaving no trace behind him; and when an expedition, sent out by the King of Portugal to ascertain the fate of the voyagers, returned with no tidings of either ship, it was resolved that the fatal latitudes should henceforth be avoided. For the next few years the north-east coasts of the western continent were visited by none but certain venturesome fishermen of Brittany, whose memory still lives in the name of Cape Breton, but who, thinking only of securing to themselves the harvest of the new-found seas, added next to nothing to our geographical knowledge; though John Denys of Honfleur is said to have explored the whole of the present Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Illustration: INDIAN BOATS.