Chapter I: Columbus and His Discoveries (2)

There remains the claim for Martin Behaim, the Nuremberg cosmographer and navigator, which rests upon a passage in the Latin text of the so-called _Nuremberg Chronicle_[113] which states that Cam and Behaim, having passed south of the equator, turned west and (by implication) found land. The passage is not in the German edition of the same year, and on reference to the manuscript of the book (still preserved in Nuremberg) the passage is found to be an interpolation written in a different hand.[114] It seems likely to have been a perversion or misinterpretation of the voyage of Diego Cam down the African coast in 1489, in which he was accompanied by Behaim. That Behaim himself did not put the claim forward, at least in 1492, seems to be clear from the globe, which he made in that year, and which shows no indication of the alleged voyage. The allegation has had, however, some advocates; but the weight of authority is decidedly averse, and the claim can hardly be said to have significant support to-day.[115]

It is unquestionable that the success of the Portuguese in discovering the Atlantic islands and in pushing down the African coast, sustained Columbus in his hope of western discovery, if it had not instigated it.[116] The chance wafting of huge canes, unusual trunks of trees, and even sculptured wood and bodies of strange men, upon the shores of the outlying islands of the Azores and Madeira, were magnified as evidences in his mind.[117] When at a later day he found a tinned iron vessel in the hands of the natives of Guadeloupe, he felt that there had been European vessels driven along the equatorial current to the western world, which had never returned to report on their voyages.

Of the adventurous voyages of which record was known there were enough to inspire him; and of all the mysteries of the Sea of Darkness,[118] which stretched away illimitably to the west, there were stories more than enough. Sight of strange islands had been often reported; and the maps still existing had shown a belief in those of San Brandan[119] and Antillia,[120] and of the Seven Cities founded in the ocean waste by as many Spanish bishops, who had been driven to sea by the Moors.[121]

The Fortunate Islands[122] (Canaries) of the ancients—discovered, it is claimed, by the Carthaginians[123]—had been practically lost to Europe for thirteen hundred years, when, in the beginning of the fifteenth century (1402), Juan de Béthencourt led his colony to settle them.[124] They had not indeed been altogether forgotten, for Marino Sanuto in 1306 had delineated them on a map given by Camden, though this cartographer omitted them on later charts. Traders and pirates had also visited them since 1341, but such acquaintance had hardly caused them to be generally known.[125]

This is part of a map of the ancient world given in Lelewel’s _Die Entdeckung der Carthager und Griechen auf dem Atlantischen Ocean_, Berlin, 1831.]

The Canaries, however, as well as the Azores, appear in the well-known portolano of 1351,[126] which is preserved in the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence. A chart of the Brothers Pizigani, dated in 1367, gives islands which are also identified with the Canaries, Azores, and Madeira;[127] and the Canaries also appear on the well-known Catalan mappemonde of 1375.[128] These Atlantic islands are again shown in a portolano of a period not much later than 1400, which is among the Egerton manuscripts in the British Museum, and is ascribed to Juan da Napoli;[129] and in 1436 they are conspicuous on the detailed sea-chart of Andrea Bianco. This portolano has also two islands on the extreme western verge of the sheet,—“Antillia” and “De la man Satanaxio,” which some have claimed as indicating a knowledge of the two Americas.[130] It was a map brought in 1428 from Venice by Dom Pedro,—which, like the 1351 map, showed the Azores,—that induced Prince Henry in 1431 to despatch the expedition which rediscovered those islands; and they appear on the Catalan map, which Santarem (pl. 54) describes as “Carte de Gabriell de Valsequa, faite à Mallorcha en 1439.” It was in 1466 that the group was colonized, as Behaim’s globe shows.[131]

The Madeira group was first discovered by an Englishman,—Machin, or Macham,—in the reign of Edward III. (1327-1378). The narrative, put into shape for Prince Henry of Portugal by Francisco Alcaforado, one of his esquires, was known to Irving in a French translation published in 1671, which Irving epitomizes.[132] The story, somewhat changed, is given by Galvano, and was copied by Hakluyt;[133] but, on account of some strangeness and incongruities, it has not been always accepted, though Major says the main recital is confirmed by a document quoted from a German collection of voyages, 1507, by Dr. Schmeller, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Science at Munich, 1847, and which, secured for Major by Kunstmann, is examined by him in his _Prince Henry_.[134] The group was rediscovered by the Portuguese in 1418-1420.[135] Prince Henry had given the command of Porto Santo to Perestrello; and this captain, in 1419, observing from his island a cloud in the horizon, found, as he sailed to it, the island now called Madeira. It will be remembered that it was the daughter of Perestrello whom Columbus at a later day married.[136]

It was not till 1460[137] that the Cape De Verde Islands were found, lying as they do well outside of the route of Prince Henry’s vessels, which were now following down the African coast, and had been pursuing explorations in this direction since 1415.

There have been claims advanced by Margry in his _Les navigations Françaises et la révolution maritime du XIV^e au XVI^e siècle, d’après les documents inédits tirés de France, d’Angleterre, d’Espagne, et d’Italie_, pp. 13-70, Paris, 1867, and embraced in his first section on “Les marins de Normandie aux côtes de Guinée avant les Portugais,” in which he cites an old document, said to be in London, setting forth the voyage of a vessel from Dieppe to the coast of Africa in 1364. Estancelin had already, in 1832, in his _Navigateurs Normands en Afrique_, declared there were French establishments on the coast of Guinea in the fourteenth century,—a view D’Avezac says he would gladly accept if he could. Major, however, failed to find, by any direction which Margry could give him, the alleged London document, and has thrown—to say the least—discredit on the story of that document as presented by Margry.[138]

This follows a portrait in a contemporary manuscript chronicle, now in the National Library at Paris, which Major, who gives a colored fac-simile of it, calls the only authentic likeness, probably taken in 1449-1450, and representing him in mourning for the death of his brother Dom Pedro, who died in 1449. There is another engraving of it in Jules Verne’s _La Découverte de la Terre_, p. 112. Major calls the portrait in Gustave de Veer’s Life of Prince Henry, published at Dantzig, in 1864, a fancy one. The annexed autograph of the Prince is the equivalent of IFFANTE DOM ANRIQUE.

Illustration

Prince Henry, who was born March 4, 1394, died Nov 15, 1463. He was the third son of John I. of Portugal; his mother was a daughter of John of Gaunt, of England.]

The African explorations of the Portuguese are less visionary, and, as D’Avezac says, the Portuguese were the first to persevere and open the African route to India.[139]

The peninsular character of Africa—upon which success in this exploration depended—was contrary to the views of Aristotle, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy, which held to an enclosed Indian Ocean, formed by the meeting of Africa and Asia at the south.[140] The stories respecting the circumnavigation of Africa by the ancients are lacking in substantial proof; and it seems probable that Cape Non or Cape Bojador was the limit of their southern expeditions.[141] Still, this peninsular character was a deduction from imagined necessity rather than a conviction from fact. It found place on the earliest maps of the revival of geographical study in the Middle Ages. It is so represented in the map of Marino Sanuto in 1306, and in the Lorentian portolano of 1351. Major[142] doubts if the Catalan map of 1375 shows anything more than conjectural knowledge for the coasts beyond Bojador.

Of Prince Henry—the moving spirit in the African enterprise of the fifteenth century—we have the most satisfactory account in the _Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, and its Results ... from Authentic Contemporary Documents_, by Richard Henry Major, London, 1868,[143]—a work which, after the elimination of the controversial arguments, and after otherwise fitting it for the general reader, was reissued in 1877 as _The Discoveries of Prince Henry the Navigator_. These works are the guide for the brief sketch of these African discoveries now to be made, and which can be readily followed on the accompanying sketch-map.[144]

Cf. Heinrich Wuttke’s “Zur Geschichte der Erdkunde in der letzten hälfte des Mittelalters: Die Karten der Seefahrenden Völker süd Europas bis zum ersten Druck der Erdbeschreibung des Ptolemäus,” in the _Jahrbuch des Vereins für Erdkunde in Dresden_, 1870; J. Codine’s “Découverte de la côte d’Afrique par les Portugais pendant les années, 1484-1488,” in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris_, 1876; Vivien de Saint-Martin’s _Histoire de la géographie et des découvertes géographiques, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à nos jours_, p. 298, Paris, 1873; Ruge’s _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, p. 81; Clarke’s _Progress of Maritime Discovery_, p. 140; and G. T. Raynal’s _Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes_, Geneva, 1780; Paris, 1820. Paulitschke’s _Afrika-literatur in der Zeit von 1500 bis_ 1750, Vienna, 1882, notes the earliest accounts.]

Prince Henry had been with his father at the capture of Ceuta, opposite Gibraltar, in 1415, when the Portuguese got their first foothold in Africa. In 1418 he established a school of nautical observation at Sagres,[145] the southwestern promontory of his father’s kingdom, and placed the geographer, Jayme,[146] of Majorca, in charge of it. The Prince at once sent out his first expedition down the Barbary coast; but his vessel, being driven out of its course, discovered the Island of Porto Santo. Expedition after expedition reached, in successive years, the vicinity of Cape Bojador; but an inexpressible dread of the uncertainty beyond deferred the passage of it till 1434. Cape Blanco was reached in 1445; Cape Verde shortly after; and the River Gambia in 1447.

Cadamosto and his Venetians pushed still farther, and saw the Southern Cross for the first time.[147] Between 1460 and 1464 they went beyond Cape Mesurado. Prince Henry dying in 1463, King Alfonso, in 1469, farmed out the African commerce, and required five hundred miles to be added yearly to the limit of discovery southward. Not long after, Diego Cam reached the Congo coast, Behaim accompanying him. In 1487, after seventy years of gradual progress down six thousand miles of coast, southward from Cape Non, the Portuguese under Diaz reached the Stormy Cape,—later to be called the Cape of Good Hope. He but just rounded it in May, and in December he was in Portugal with the news. Bartholomew, the brother of Columbus, had made the voyage with him.[148] The rounding of the Cape was hardly a surprise; for the belief in it was firmly established long before. In 1457-1459, in the map of Fra Mauro, which had been constructed at Venice for Alonzo V., and in which Bianco assisted, the terminal cape had been fitly drawn.[149]

This map follows a copy in the Kohl Collection (no. 23), after the original, attached to a manuscript theological treatise in the British Museum. An inscription at the break in the African coast says that to this point the Portuguese had pushed their discoveries in 1489; and as it shows no indication of the voyages of Columbus and Da Gama, Kohl places it about 1490. It may be considered as representing the views current before these events, Asia following the Ptolemean drafts. The language of the map being partly Italian and partly Portuguese, Kohl conjectures that it was made by an Italian living in Lisbon; and he points out the close correspondence of the names on the western coast of Africa to the latest Portuguese discoveries, and that its contour is better than anything preceding.]

This follows the engravings in Ruge’s _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, p. 111, and in Stanley’s _Da Gama_, published by the Hakluyt Society. The original belongs to the Count de Lavradio. Another portrait, with a view of Calicut, is given in Lafitau’s _Découvertes des Portugais_, Paris, 1734, iii. 66.]

Such had been the progress of the Portuguese marine, in exemplification of the southerly quest called for by the theory of Pomponius Mela, when Columbus made his westerly voyage in 1492 and reached, as he supposed, the same coast which the Portuguese were seeking to touch by the opposite direction.[150] In this erroneous geographical belief Columbus remained as long as he lived,—a view in which Vespucius and the earlier navigators equally shared;[151] though some, like Peter Martyr,[152] accepted the belief cautiously. We shall show in another place how slowly the error was eradicated from the cartography of even the latter part of the sixteenth century.

During the interval when Columbus was in Spain, between his second and third voyages, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, July 8, 1497, to complete the project which had so long animated the endeavors of the rival kingdom. He doubled the Cape of Good Hope in Nov. 1497, and anchored at Calicut, May 20, 1498,—a few days before Columbus left San Lucar on his third voyage. In the following August, Da Gama started on his return; and after a year’s voyage he reached Lisbon in August, 1498.

This is the outline of the anonymous map of 1527, sometimes ascribed to Ferdinand Columbus, but held by Harrisse to be the work of Nuña Garcia de Toreno. It was an official map of the Spanish Hydrographical Office, and gives the Spanish view of the meridian on which the line of demarcation ran. It follows a copy in the Kohl Collection, no. 38. The line is similarly drawn on the Ribero map of 1529. The Portuguese view is shown in the Cantino map of 1502, and in what is known as the Portuguese chart of 1514-1520.]

The Portuguese had now accomplished their end. The _éclat_ with which it would have been received had not Columbus opened, as was supposed, a shorter route, was wanting; and Da Gama, following in the path marked for him, would have failed of much of his fame but for the auspicious applause which Camoens created for him in the _Lusiad_.[153]

This follows the cut in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, xxvii. 500, representing a bust in the Berlin Museum.]

Da Gama at Calicut and Columbus at Cuba gave the line of demarcation of Alexander VI. a significance that was not felt to be impending, five years earlier, on the 3d and 4th of May, 1493, when the Papal Bull was issued.[154] This had fixed the field of Spanish and Portuguese exploration respectively west and east of a line one hundred leagues[155] west of the Azores, following a meridian at a point where Columbus had supposed the magnetic needle[156] pointed to the north star.[157] The Portuguese thought that political grounds were of more consideration than physical, and were not satisfied with the magnet governing the limitation of their search. They desired a little more sea-room on the Atlantic side, and were not displeased to think that a meridian considerably farther west might give them a share of the new Indies south and north of the Spanish discoveries; so they entered their protest against the partition of the Bull, and the two Powers held a convention at Tordesillas, which resulted, in June, 1494, in the line being moved two hundred and seventy leagues westerly.[158] No one but vaguely suspected the complication yet to arise about this same meridian, now selected, when the voyage of Magellan should bring Spaniard and Portuguese face to face at the Antipodes. This aspect of the controversy will claim attention elsewhere.[159] From this date the absolute position of the line as theoretically determined, was a constant source of dispute, and the occasion of repeated negotiations.[160]

NOTES.

A. FIRST VOYAGE.—As regards the first voyage of Columbus there has come down to us a number of accounts, resolvable into two distinct narratives, as originally proceeding from the hand of Columbus himself,—his Journal, which is in part descriptive and in part log, according to the modern understanding of this last term; and his Letters announcing the success and results of his search. The fortunes and bibliographical history of both these sources need to be told:

JOURNAL.—Columbus himself refers to this in his letter to Pope Alexander VI. (1503) as being kept in the style of Cæsar’s _Commentaries_; and Irving speaks of it as being penned “from day to day with guileless simplicity.” In its original form it has not been found; but we know that Las Casas used it in his _Historia_, and that Ferdinand Columbus must have had it before him while writing what passes for his Life of his father. An abridgment of the Journal in the hand of Las Casas, was discovered by Navarrete, who printed it in the first volume of his _Coleccion_ in 1825; it is given in a French version in the Paris edition of the same (vol. ii.), and in Italian in Torre’s _Scritti di Colombo_, 1864. Las Casas says of his abstract, that he follows the very words of the Admiral for a while after recording the landfall; and these parts are translated by Mr. Thomas, of the State Department at Washington, in G. A. Fox’s paper on “The Landfall” in the _Report of the Coast Survey_ for 1880. The whole of the Las Casas text, however, was translated into English, at the instigation of George Ticknor, by Samuel Kettell, and published in Boston as _A Personal Narrative of the First Voyage_ in 1827;[161] and it has been given in part, in English, in Becher’s _Landfall of Columbus_. The original is thought to have served Herrera in his _Historia General_.[162]

LETTERS.—We know that on the 12th of February, 1493, about a week before reaching the Azores on his return voyage, and while his ship was laboring in a gale, Columbus prepared an account of his discovery, and incasing the parchment in wax, put it in a barrel, which he threw overboard. That is the last heard of it. He prepared another account, perhaps duplicate, and protecting it in a similar way, placed it on his poop, to be washed off in case his vessel foundered. We know nothing further of this account, unless it be the same, substantially, with the letters which he wrote just before making a harbor at the Azores. One of these letters, at least, is dated off the Canaries; and it is possible that it was written earlier on the voyage, and post-dated, in expectation of his making the Canaries; and when he found himself by stress of weather at the Azores, he neglected to change the place. The original of neither of these letters is known.

One of them was dated Feb. 15, 1493, with a postscript dated March 4 (or 14, copies vary, and the original is of course not to be reached; 4 would seem to be correct), and is written in Spanish, and addressed to the “Escribano de Racion,” Luis de Santangel, who, as Treasurer of Aragon, had advanced money for the voyage. Columbus calls this a second letter; by which he may mean that the one cast overboard was the first, or that another, addressed to Sanchez (later to be mentioned), preceded it. There was at Simancas, in 1818, an early manuscript copy of this letter, which Navarrete printed in his _Coleccion_, and Kettell translated into English in his book (p. 253) already referred to.[163]

In 1852 the Baron Pietro Custodi left his collection of books to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan; and among them was found a printed edition of this Santangel letter, never before known, and still remaining unique. It is of small quarto, four leaves, in semi-gothic type, bearing the date of 1493,[164] and was, as Harrisse and Lenox think, printed in Spain,—Major suggests Barcelona, but Gayangos thinks Lisbon. It was first reprinted at Milan in 1863, with a fac-simile, and edited by Cesare Correnti, in a volume, containing other letters of Columbus, entitled, _Lettere autografe edite ed inedite di Cristoforo Colombo_.[165] From this reprint Harrisse copied it, and gave an English translation in his _Notes on Columbus_, p. 89, drawing attention to the error of Correnti in making it appear on his titlepage that the letter was addressed to “Saxis,”[166] and testifying that, by collation, he had found but slight variation from the Navarrete text. Mr. R. H. Major also prints the Ambrosian text in his _Select Letters of Columbus_, with an English version appended, and judges the Cosco version could not have been made from it. Other English translations may be found in Becher’s _Landfall of Columbus_, p. 291, and in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida_, 2d series, ii. 145.

In 1866 a fac-simile edition (150 copies) of the Ambrosian copy was issued at Milan, edited by Gerolamo d’Adda, under the title of _Lettera in lingua Spagnuola diretta da Cristoforo Colombo a Luis de Santangel_.[167] Mr. James Lenox, of New York, had already described it, with a fac-simile of the beginning and end, in the _Historical Magazine_ (vol. viii. p. 289, September, 1864, April, 1865); and this paper was issued separately (100 copies) as a supplement to the Lenox edition of Scyllacius. Harrisse[168] indicates that there was once a version of this Santangel letter in the Catalan tongue, preserved in the Colombina Library at Seville.

A few years ago Bergenroth found at Simancas a letter of Columbus, dated at the Canaries, Feb. 15, 1493, with a postscript at Lisbon, March 14, addressed to a friend, giving still another early text, but adding nothing material to our previous knowledge. A full abstract is given in the _Calendar of State Papers relating to England and Spain_, p. 43.

A third Spanish text of a manuscript of the sixteenth century, said to have been found in the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca, was made known by Varnhagen, the Minister of Brazil to Portugal, who printed it at Valencia in 1858 as _Primera epistola del Almirante Don Christóbal Colon_, including an account “de una nueva copia de original manuscrito.” The editor assumed the name of Volafan, and printed one hundred copies, of which sixty were destroyed in Brazil.[169] This letter is addressed to Gabriel Sanchez, and dated “sobre la isla de Sa. Maria, 18 de Febrero;” and is without the postscript of the letters of Feb. 15. It is almost a verbatim repetition of the Simancas text. A reprint of the Cosco text makes a part of the volume; and it is the opinion of Varnhagen and Harrisse that the Volafan text is the original from which Cosco translated, as mentioned later.

Perhaps still another Spanish text is preserved and incorporated, as Muñoz believed, by the Cura de los Palacios, Andrés Bernaldez, in his _Historia de los reyes católicos_ (chap. cxviii). This book covers the period 1488-1513; has thirteen chapters on Columbus, who had been the guest of Bernaldez after his return from his second voyage, in 1496, and by whom Columbus is called “mercador de libros de estampa.” The manuscript of Bernaldez’s book long remained unprinted in the Royal Library at Madrid. Irving used a manuscript copy which belonged to Obadiah Rich.[170] Prescott’s copy of the manuscript is in Harvard College Library.[171] Humboldt[172] used it in manuscript. It was at last printed at Granada in 1856, in two volumes, under the editing of Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara.[173] It remains, of course, possible that Bernaldez may have incorporated a printed Spanish text, instead of the original or any early manuscript, though Columbus is known to have placed papers in his hands.

The text longest known to modern students is the poor Latin rendering of Cosco, already referred to. While but one edition of the original Spanish text appeared presumably in Spain (and none of Vespucius and Magellan), this Latin text, or translations of it, appeared in various editions and forms in Italy, France, and Germany, which Harrisse remarks[174] as indicating the greater popular impression which the discovery of America made beyond Spain than within the kingdom; and the monthly delivery of letters from Germany to Portugal and the Atlantic islands, at this time, placed these parts of Europe in prompter connection than we are apt to imagine.[175] News of the discovery was, it would seem, borne to Italy by the two Genoese ambassadors, Marchesi and Grimaldi, who are known to have left Spain a few days after the return of Columbus.[176] The Spanish text of this letter, addressed by Columbus to Gabriel or Raphael Sanchez, or Sanxis, as the name of the Crown treasurer is variously given, would seem to have fallen into the hands of one Aliander de Cosco, who turned it into Latin, completing his work on the 29th of April. Harrisse points out the error of Navarrete and Varnhagen in placing this completion on the 25th, and supposes the version was made in Spain. Tidings of the discovery must have reached Rome before this version could have got there; for the first Papal Bull concerning the event is dated May 3. Whatever the case, the first publication, in print, of the news was made in Rome in this Cosco version, and four editions of it were printed in that city in 1493. There is much disagreement among bibliographers as to the order of issue of the early editions. Their peculiarities, and the preference of several bibliographers as to such order, is indicated in the following enumeration, the student being referred for full titles to the authorities which are cited:—

I. _Epistola Christofori Colom_ [1493]. Small quarto, four leaves (one blank), gothic, 33 lines to a page. Addressed to Sanchis. Cosco is called Leander. Ferdinand and Isabella both named in the title. The printer is thought to be Plannck, from similarity of type to work known to be his.

Major calls this the _editio princeps_, and gives elaborate reasons for his opinion (_Select Letters of Columbus_, p. cxvi). J. R. Bartlett, in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, vol. i. no. 5, also puts it first; so does Ternaux. Varnhagen calls it the second edition. It is put the third in order by Brunet (vol. ii. col. 164) and Lenox (_Scyllacius_, p. xliv), and fourth by Harrisse (_Notes on Columbus_, p. 121; _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 4).

There are copies in the Lenox, Carter-Brown, and Huth (_Catalogue_, i. 336) libraries; in the Grenville (_Bibl. Gren._, p. 158) and King’s Collections in the British Museum; in the Royal Library at Munich; in the Collection of the Duc d’Aumale at Twickenham; and in the Commercial Library at Hamburg.[177] The copy cited by Harrisse was sold in the Court Collection (no. 72) at Paris in 1884.

II. _Epistola Christofori Colom, impressit Rome, Eucharius Argenteus_ [Silber], _anno dñi MCCCCXCIII_. Small quarto, three printed leaves, gothic type, 40 lines to the page. Addressed to Sanches. Cosco is called Leander. Ferdinand and Isabella both named.

Major, who makes this the second edition, says that its deviations from No. I. are all on the side of ignorance. Varnhagen calls it the _editio princeps_. Bartlett (_Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 6) puts it second. Lenox (_Scyllacius_, p. xlv) calls it the fourth edition. It is no. 3 of Harrisse (_Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 3; _Notes on Columbus_, p. 121). Graesse errs in saying the words “Indie supra Gangem” are omitted in the title.

There are copies in the Lenox, Carter-Brown, Huth (_Catalogue_, i. 336), and Grenville (_Bibl. Gren._, p. 158) Libraries. It has been recently priced at 5,000 francs. Cf. _Murphy Catalogue_, 629.

III. _Epistola Christofori Colom._ Small quarto, four leaves, 34 lines, gothic type. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliander. Ferdinand only named.

This is Major’s third edition. It is the _editio princeps_ of Harrisse, who presumes it to be printed by Stephanus Plannck at Rome (_Notes on Columbus_, p. 117; _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, vol. i.); and he enters upon a close examination to establish its priority. It is Lenox’s second edition (_Scyllacius_, p. xliii). Bartlett places it third.

There are copies in the Barlow (formerly the Aspinwall copy) Library in New York; in the General Collection and Grenville Library of the British Museum; and in the Royal Library at Munich. In 1875 Mr. S. L. M. Barlow printed (50 copies) a fac-simile of his copy, with a Preface, in which he joins in considering this the first edition with Harrisse, who (_Notes on Columbus_, p. 101) gives a careful reprint of it.

IV. _De insulis inventis_, etc. Small octavo, ten leaves, 26 and 27 lines, gothic type. The leaf before the title has the Spanish arms on the recto. There are eight woodcuts, one of which is a repetition. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliender. Ferdinand only named. The words “Indie supra Gangem” are omitted in the title.

This is Major’s fourth edition. Lenox makes it the _editio princeps_ (as does Brunet), and gives fac-similes of the woodcuts in his _Scyllacius_, p. xxxvi. Bossi supposed the cuts to have been a part of the original manuscript, and designed by Columbus.[178] Harrisse calls it the second in order, and thinks Johannes Besicken may have been the printer (_Bibl. Amer. Vet._, 2), though it is usually ascribed to Plannck, of Rome. It bears the arms of Granada; but there was no press at that time in that city, so far as known, though Brunet seems to imply it was printed there.

The only perfect copy known is one formerly the Libri copy, now in the Lenox Library, which has ten leaves. The Grenville copy (_Bibl. Gren._, p. 158), and the one which Bossi saw in the Brera at Milan, now lost, had only nine leaves.

Hain (_Repertorium_, no. 5,491) describes a copy which seems to lack the first and tenth leaves; and it was probably this copy (Royal Library, Munich) which was followed by Pilinski in his Paris fac-simile (20 copies in 1858), which does not reproduce these leaves, though it is stated by some that the defective British Museum copy was his guide. Bartlett seems in error in calling this fac-simile a copy of the Libri-Lenox copy.[179]

=V.= _Epistola de insulis de novo repertis_, etc. Small quarto, four leaves, gothic, 39 lines; woodcut on verso of first leaf. Printed by Guy Marchand in Paris, about 1494. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliander. Ferdinand only named.

This is Lenox’s (_Scyllacius_, p. xlv.), Major’s, and Harrisse’s fifth (_Notes on Columbus_, p. 122; _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, p. 5) edition.

The Ternaux copy, now in the Carter-Brown Library, was for some time supposed to be the only copy known; but Harrisse says the text reprinted by Rosny in Paris, in 1865, as from a copy in the National Library at Paris, corresponds to this. This reprint (125 copies) is entitled, _Lettre de Christophe Colomb sur la découverte du nouveau monde. Publiée d’après la rarissime version Latine conservée à la Bibliothèque Impériale. Traduite en Français, commentée_ [etc.] _par Lucien de Rosny_. Paris: J. Gay, 1865, 44 pages octavo. This edition was published under the auspices of the “Comité d’Archéologie Américaine.”[180]

=VI.= _Epistola de insulis noviter repertis_, etc. Small quarto, four leaves, gothic, 39 lines; woodcut on verso of first leaf. Guiot Marchant, of Paris, printer. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliander. Ferdinand only named.

This is Major’s sixth edition; Harrisse (_Notes on Columbus_, p. 122; _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 6) and Lenox (_Scyllacius_, p. xlvii) also place it sixth. There are fac-similes of the engraved title in Harrisse, Lenox, and Stevens’s _American Bibliographer_, p. 66.

There are copies in the Carter-Brown, Bodleian (Douce), and University of Göttingen libraries; one is also shown in the _Murphy Catalogue_, no. 630.

John Harris, Sen., made a fac-simile edition of five copies, one of which is in the British Museum.

=VII.= _Epistola Cristophori Colom_, etc. Small quarto, four leaves, gothic, 38 lines. Addressed to Sanxis. Th. Martens is thought to be the printer.

This edition has only recently been made known. Cf. Brunet, _Supplément_, col. 276. The only copy known is in the Bibliothèque Royale at Brussels.

The text of all these editions scarcely varies, except in the use of contracted letters. Lenox’s collation was reprinted, without the cuts, in the _Historical Magazine_, February, 1861. Other bibliographical accounts will be found in Graesse, _Trésor_; _Bibliotheca Grenvilliana_, i. 158; Sabin, _Dictionary_, iv. 274; and by J. H. Hessels in the _Bibliophile Belge_, vol. vi. The cuts are also in part reproduced in some editions of Irving’s _Life of Columbus_, and in the _Vita_, by Bossi.[181]

In 1494 this Cosco-Sanchez text was appended to a drama on the capture of Granada, which was printed at Basle, beginning _In laudem Serenissimi Ferdinandi_, and ascribed to Carolus Veradus. The “De insulis nuper inventis” is found at the thirtieth leaf (_Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 15; Lenox’s _Scyllacius_, p. xlviii; Major, no. 7; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 13). There are copies in the Carter-Brown, Harvard College, and Lenox libraries.[182]

By October, in the year of the first appearance (1493) of the Cosco-Sanchez text, it had been turned into _ottava rima_ by Guiliano Dati, a popular poet, to be sung about the streets, as is supposed; and two editions of this verse are now known. The earliest is in quarto, black letter, two columns, and was printed in Florence, and called _Questa e la Hystoria ... extracte duna Epistola Christofano Colombo_. It was in four leaves, of coarse type and paper; but the second and third leaves are lacking in the unique copy, now in the British Museum, which was procured in 1858 from the Costabile sale in Paris.[183]

The other edition, dated one day later (Oct. 26, 1493), printed also at Florence, and called _La Lettera dell’isole_, etc., is in Roman type, quarto, four leaves, two columns, with a woodcut title representing Ferdinand on the European, and Columbus on the New World shore of the ocean.[184] The copy in the British Museum was bought for 1,700 francs at the Libri sale in Paris; and the only other copy known is in the Trivulgio Library at Milan.

In 1497 a German translation, or adaptation, from Cosco’s Latin was printed by Bartlomesz Küsker at Strasburg, with the title _Eyn schön kübsch lesen von etlichen inszlen die do in kurtzen zyten funden synd durch dē künig von hispania, und sagt vō groszen wunderlichen dingen die in dē selbē inszlen synd_. It is a black-letter quarto of seven leaves, with one blank, the woodcut of the title being repeated on the verso of the seventh leaf.[185] There are copies in the Lenox (Libri copy) and Carter-Brown libraries; in the Grenville and Huth collections; and in the library at Munich.

The text of the Cosco-Sanchez letter, usually quoted by the early writers, is contained in the _Bellum Christianorum Principum_ of Robertus Monarchus, printed at Basle in 1533.[186]

B. LANDFALL.—It is a matter of controversy what was Guanahani, the first land seen by Columbus. The main, or rather the only, source for the decision of this question is the Journal of Columbus; and it is to be regretted that Las Casas did not leave unabridged the parts preceding the landfall, as he did those immediately following, down to October 29. Not a word outside of this Journal is helpful. The testimony of the early maps is rather misleading than reassuring, so conjectural was their geography.

It will be remembered that land was first seen two hours after midnight; and computations made for Fox show that the moon was near the third quarter, partly behind the observer, and would clearly illuminate the white sand of the shore, two leagues distant. From Columbus’s course there were in his way, as constituting the Bahama group,—taking the enumeration of to-day, and remembering that the sea may have made some changes,—36 islands, 687 cays, and 2,414 rocks. By the log, as included in the Journal, and reducing his distance sailed by dead reckoning—which then depended on observation by the eye alone, and there were also currents to misguide Columbus, running from nine to thirty miles a day, according to the force of the wind—to a course west, 2° 49′ south, Fox has shown that the discoverer had come 3,458 nautical miles. Applying this to the several islands claimed as the landfall, and knowing modern computed distances, we get the following table:—

┌────────────────┬────────────────┬────────┬────────┐
│ │ │ │ An │
│ Islands. │ Course. │ Miles. │ Excess │
│ │ │ │ of │
├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────┼────────┤
│ To Grand Turk │ W. 8° 1′ S. │ 2834 │ 624 │
│ Mariguana │ W. 6° 37′ S. │ 3032 │ 426 │
│ Watling │ W. 4° 38′ S. │ 3105 │ 353 │
│ Cat │ W. 4° 20′ S. │ 3141 │ 317 │
│ Samana │ W. 5° 37′ S. │ 3072 │ 387 │
└────────────────┴────────────────┴────────┴────────┘

Columbus speaks of the island as being “small,” and again as “pretty large” (_bien grande_). He calls it very level, with abundance of water, and a very large lagune in the middle; and it was in the last month of the rainy season, when the low parts of the islands are usually flooded.

Some of the features of the several islands already named will now be mentioned, together with a statement of the authorities in favor of each as the landfall.

SAN SALVADOR, OR CAT.—This island is forty-three miles long by about three broad, with an area of about one hundred and sixty square miles, rising to a height of four hundred feet, the loftiest land in the group, and with no interior water. It is usual in the maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to identify this island with the Guanahani of Columbus. It is so considered by Catesby in his _Natural History of Carolina_ (1731); by Knox in his _Collection of Voyages_ (1767); by De la Roquette in the French version of Navarrete, vol. ii. (1828); and by Baron de Montlezun in the _Nouvelles annales des voyages_, vols. x. and xii. (1828-1829). Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, of the United States Navy, worked out the problem for Irving; and this island is fixed upon in the latter’s _Life of Columbus_, app. xvi., editions of 1828 and 1848. Becher claims that the modern charts used by Irving were imperfect; and he calls “not worthy to be called a chart” the La Cosa map, which so much influenced Humboldt in following Irving, in his _Examen critique_ (1837), iii. 181, 186-222.

WATLING’S.—This is thirteen miles long by about six broad, containing sixty square miles, with a height of one hundred and forty feet, and having about one third its area of interior water. It was first suggested by Muñoz in 1793. Captain Becher, of the Royal Navy, elaborated the arguments in favor of this island in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, xxvi. 189, and _Proceedings_, i. 94, and in his _Landfall of Columbus on his First Voyage to America_, London, 1856. Peschel took the same ground in his _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_ (1858). R. H. Major’s later opinion is in support of the same views, as shown by him in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_ (1871), xvi. 193, and _Proceedings_, xv. 210. Cf. _New Quarterly Review_, October, 1856.

Lieut. J. B. Murdock, U. S. N., in a paper on “The Cruise of Columbus in the Bahamas, 1492,” published in the _Proceedings_ (April, 1884, p. 449) of the United States Naval Institute vol. x, furnishes a new translation of the passages in Columbus’ Journal bearing on the subject, and made by Professor Montaldo of the Naval Academy, and repeats the map of the modern survey of the Bahamas as given by Fox. Lieutenant Murdock follows and criticises the various theories afresh, and traces Columbus’ track backward from Cuba, till he makes the landfall to have been at Watling’s Island. He points out also various indications of the Journal which cannot be made to agree with any supposable landfall.

This map is sketched from the chart, made from the most recent surveys, in the United States Coast-Survey and given in Fox’s monograph, with the several routes marked down on it. Other cartographical illustrations of the subject will be found in Moreno’s maps, made for Navarrete’s _Coleccion_ in 1825 (also in the French version); in Becher’s paper in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, xxvi. 189, and in his _Landfall of Columbus_; in Varnhagen’s _Das wahre Guanahani_; in Major’s paper in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, 1871, and in his second edition of the _Select Letters_, where he gives a modern map, with Herrera’s map (1601) and a section of La Cosa’s; in G. B. Torre’s _Scritti di Colombo_, p. 214; and in the section, “Wo liegt Guanahani?” of Ruge’s _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, p. 248, giving all routes, except that offered by Fox. See further on the subject R. Pietschmann’s “Beiträge zur Guanahani-Frage,” in the _Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Geographie_ (1880), i. 7, 65, with map; and A. Breusing’s “Geschichte der Kartographie,” in Ibid., ii. 193.]

GRAND TURK.—Its size is five and one half by one and a quarter miles, with an area of seven square miles; its highest part seventy feet; and one third of its surface is interior water. Navarrete first advanced arguments in its favor in 1825, and Kettell adopted his views in the Boston edition of the _Personal Narrative of Columbus_. George Gibbs argued for it in the _New York Historical Society’s Proceedings_ (1846), p. 137, and in the _Historical Magazine_ (June, 1858), ii. 161. Major adopted such views in the first edition (1847) of his _Select Letters of Columbus_.

MARIGUANA.—It measures twenty-three and one half miles long by an average of four wide; contains ninety-six square miles; rises one hundred and one feet, and has no interior water. F. A. de Varnhagen published at St. Jago de Chile, in 1864, a treatise advocating this island as _La verdadera Guanahani_, which was reissued at Vienna, in 1869, as _Das wahre Guanahani des Columbus_.[187]

SAMANA, OR ATTWOOD’S CAY.—This is nine miles long by one and a half wide, covering eight and a half square miles, with the highest ridge of one hundred feet. It is now uninhabited; but arrow-heads and other signs of aboriginal occupation are found there. The Samana of the early maps was the group now known as Crooked Island. The present Samana has been recently selected for the landfall by Gustavus V. Fox, in the _United States Coast Survey Report_, 1880, app. xviii.,—“An attempt to solve the problem of the first landing-place of Columbus in the New World.” He epitomized this paper in the _Magazine of American History_ (April, 1883), p. 240.

=C.= EFFECT OF THE DISCOVERY IN EUROPE.—During the interval between the return of Columbus from his first voyage and his again treading the soil of Spain on his return from the second, 1494, we naturally look for the effect of this astounding revelation upon the intelligence of Europe. To the Portuguese, who had rejected his pleas, there may have been some chagrin. Faria y Sousa, in his _Europa Portuguesa_, intimates that Columbus’ purpose in putting in at the Tagus was to deepen the regret of the Portuguese at their rejection of his views; and other of their writers affirm his overbearing manner and conscious pride of success. The interview which he had with John II. is described in the _Lyuro das obras de Garcia de Resende_.[188] Of his reception by the Spanish monarchs at Barcelona,[189] we perhaps, in the stories of the historians, discern more embellishments than Oviedo, who was present, would have thought the ceremony called for. George Sumner (in 1844) naturally thought so signal an event would find some record in the “Anals consulars” of that city, which were formed to make note of the commonest daily events; but he could find in them no indication of the advent of the discoverer of new lands.[190] It is of far more importance for us that provision was soon made for future records in the establishment of what became finally the “Casa de la Contratacion de las Indias,” at this time put in charge of Juan de Fonseca, who controlled its affairs throughout the reign of Ferdinand.[191] We have seen how apparently an eager public curiosity prompted more frequent impressions of Columbus’ letter in other lands than in Spain itself; but there was a bustling reporter at the Spanish Court fond of letter-writing, having correspondents in distant parts, and to him we owe it, probably, that the news spread to some notable people. This was Peter Martyr d’Anghiera. He dated at Barcelona, on the ides of May, a letter mentioning the event, which he sent to Joseph Borromeo; and he repeated the story in later epistles, written in September, to Ascanio Sforza, Tendilla, and Talavera.[192] There is every reason to suppose that Martyr derived his information directly from Columbus himself. He was now probably about thirty-seven years old, and he had some years before acquired such a reputation for learning and eloquence that he had been invited from Italy (he was a native of the Duchy of Milan) to the Spanish Court. His letters, as they have come down to us, begin about five years before this,[193] and it is said that just at this time (1493) he began the composition of his Decades. Las Casas has borne testimony to the value of the Decades for a knowledge of Columbus, calling them the most worthy of credit of all the early writings, since Martyr got, as he says, his accounts directly from the Admiral, with whom he often talked. Similar testimony is given to their credibleness by Carbajal, Gomez, Vergara, and other contemporaries.[194] Beginning with Muñoz, there has been a tendency of late years to discredit Martyr, arising from the confusion and even negligence sometimes discernible in what he says. Navarrete was inclined to this derogatory estimate. Hallam[195] goes so far as to think him open to grave suspicion of negligent and palpable imposture, antedating his letters to appear prophetic. On the other hand, Prescott[196] contends for his veracity, and trusts his intimate familiarity with the scenes he describes. Helps interprets the disorder of his writings as a merit, because it is a reflection of his unconnected thoughts and feelings on the very day on which he recorded any transactions.[197]

What is thought to be the earliest mention in print of the new discoveries occurs in a book published at Seville in 1493.—_Los tratados del Doctor Alonso Ortiz_. The reference is brief, and is on the reverse of the 43d folio.[198] Not far from the same time the Bishop of Carthagena, Bernardin de Carvajal, then the Spanish ambassador to the Pope, delivered an oration in Rome, June 19, 1493, in which he made reference to the late discovery of unknown lands towards the Indies.[199] These references are all scant; and, so far as we know from the records preserved to us, the great event of the age made as yet no impression on the public mind demanding any considerable recognition.

=D.= SECOND VOYAGE (_Sept._ 25, 1493, _to June_ 11, 1496).—First among the authorities is the narrative of Dr. Chanca, the physician of the Expedition. The oldest record of it is a manuscript of the middle of the sixteenth century, in the Real Academia de la Historia at Madrid. From this Navarrete printed it for the first time,[200] under the title of “Segundo Viage de Cristobal Colon,” in his _Coleccion_, i. 198.

Not so directly cognizant of events, but getting his information at second hand from Guglielmo Coma,—a noble personage in Spain,—was Nicolas Scyllacius, of Pavia, who translated Coma’s letters into Latin, and published his narrative, _De insulis meridiani atque indici maris nuper inventis_, dedicating it to Ludovico Sforza, at Pavia (Brunet thinks Pisa), in 1594 or 1595. Of this little quarto there are three copies known. One is in the Lenox Library; and from this copy Mr. Lenox, in 1859, reprinted it sumptuously (one hundred and two copies[201]), with a translation by the Rev. John Mulligan. In Mr. Lenox’s Introduction it is said that his copy had originally belonged to M. Olivieri, of Parma, and then to the Marquis Rocca Saporiti, before it came into Mr. Lenox’s hands, and that the only other copy known was an inferior one in the library of the Marquis Trivulzio at Milan. This last copy is probably one of the two copies which Harrisse reports as being in the palace library at Madrid and in the Thottiana (Royal Library) at Copenhagen, respectively.[202] Scyllacius adds a few details, current at that time, which were not in Coma’s letters, and seems to have interpreted the account of his correspondent as implying that Columbus had reached the Indies by the Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope. Ronchini has conjectured that this blunder may have caused the cancelling of a large part of the edition, which renders the little book so scarce; but Lenox neatly replies that “almost all the contemporaneous accounts are equally rare.”

Another second-hand account—derived, however, most probably from the Admiral himself—is that given by Peter Martyr in his first Decade, published in 1511, and more at length in 1516.[203]

Accompanying Columbus on this voyage was Bernardus Buell, or Boil, a monk of St. Benoit, in Austria, who was sent by Pope Alexander VI as vicar-general of the new lands, to take charge of the measures for educating and converting the Indians.[204] It will be remembered he afterward became a caballer against the Admiral. What he did there, and a little of what Columbus did, one Franciscus Honorius Philoponus sought to tell in a very curious book, _Nova typis transacta navigatio novi orbis Indiæ occidentalis_,[205] which was not printed till 1621. It is dedicated to Casparus Plautius, and it is suspected that he is really the author of the book, while he assumed another name, more easily to laud himself. Harrisse describes the book as having “few details of an early date, mixed with much second-hand information of a perfectly worthless character.”

So far as we know, the only contemporary references in a printed book to the new discoveries during the progress of the second voyage, or in the interval previous to the undertaking of the third voyage, in the spring of 1498, are these: The _Das Narrenschiff_ (Ship of Fools) of Sebastian Brant, a satire on the follies of society, published at Basle in 1494,[206] and reprinted in Latin in 1497, 1498, and in French in 1497, 1498, and 1499,[207] has a brief mention of the land previously unknown, until Ferdinand discovered innumerable people in the great Spanish ocean. Zacharias Lilio, in his _De origine et laudibus scientiarum_, Florence, 1496,[208] has two allusions. In 1497 Fedia Inghirami, keeper of the Vatican Archives, delivered a funeral oration on Prince John, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and made a reference to the New World. The little book was probably printed in Rome. There is also a reference in the _Cosmographia_ of Antonius Nebrissensis, printed in 1498.[209]

Fac-simile of cut in Reusner’s _Icones_, Strasburg, 1590.]

=E.= THIRD VOYAGE (_May_ 30, 1498, _to Nov._ 20, 1500).—Our knowledge of this voyage is derived at first hand from two letters of Columbus himself, both of which are printed by Navarrete, and by Major, with a translation. The first is addressed to the sovereigns, and follows a copy in Las Casas’s hand, in the Archives of the Duque del Infantado. The other is addressed to the nurse of Prince John, and follows a copy in the Muñoz Collection in the Real Academia at Madrid, collated with a copy in the Columbus Collection at Genoa, printed by Spotorno.[210]

A reproduction of the map in Charton’s _Voyageurs_, iii. 179.]

A reproduction of the map in Charton’s _Voyageurs_, iii. 178.]

=F.= FOURTH VOYAGE (_May_ 9, 1502, _to Nov._ 7, 1504).—While at Jamaica Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella a wild, despondent letter,[211] suggestive of alienation of mind. It brings the story of the voyage down only to July 7, 1503, leaving four months unrecorded. Pinelo says it was printed in the Spanish, as he wrote it; but no such print is known.[212] Navarrete found in the King’s private library, at Madrid, a manuscript transcript of it, written, apparently, about the middle of the sixteenth century; and this he printed in his _Coleccion_.[213] It was translated into Italian by Costanzo Bayuera, of Brescia, and published at Venice, in 1505, as _Copia de la lettera per Colombo mandata_.[214] Cavaliere Morelli, the librarian of St. Mark’s, reprinted it, with comments, at Bassano, in 1810, as _Lettera rarissima di Cristoforo Colombo_.[215] Navarrete prints two other accounts of this voyage,—one by Diego Porras;[216] the other by Diego Mendez, given in his last will, preserved in the Archives of the Duke of Veraguas.[217]

While Columbus was absent on this voyage, as already mentioned, Bergomas had recorded the Admiral’s first discoveries.[218]