CopigtitN"- COFlfKIGHr DEPOSIT. THE New World Heroes OF DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST EXPLORATIONS OF THE NORSEMEN. COLUMBUS, VESl'UCIUS, BALBOA, THE CABOTS, MAGELLAN, CABRAL, CORTEZ, PIZARRO, DE SOTO, CARTIER, FROBISHER, DRAKE. DAVIS, HUDSON, BAFFIN, TASMAN, BEHRING, COOK AND MANY OTHER FAMOUS EXPLORERS. DARING PIONEER NAVIGATORS DESCRIBING THEIR BOLD VENTURES INTO UNKNOWN SEAS, ENCOUN- TERS WITH TERRIBLE STORMS AND SHIPWRECKS, DISCOVERIES OF STRANGE LANDS, CURIOUS PEOPLE AND RICH MINES; THEIR DESPERATE COMBATS WITH SAVAGES AND WILD BEASTS, STRUGGLES WITH MUTINIES, TERRIBLE HARDSHIPS, REMARKABLE ESCAPES; WANDERINGS IN SWAMPS AND FORESTS; UNVEILING THE GLORIES OF THE NEW WORLDS TO THE ASTONISHED GAZE OF ALL NATIONS, ETC. By D. M. KELSEY, The well known Historian Author of "Pioneer Heroes," "Stanley and the White Heroes in Africa," Etc. WITH AN INTRODUCTION By HON. MURAT HALSTEAD, the Famous Writer Embellished with 200 Historical Illustrations by the best English and American Artists. NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 239 SO. AMERICAN STREET PHILADELPHIA, PA. LIBRARY of CONQRESSJ Vwo Copies Hcceivea JAN 24 1905 Cupyrit;ni COPY tiiiry ma Noi V B. TO ACT OF CONORESe, I H. B. SCAMMELL ) ACT OF CONGRE66 D. Z. HOWELL !f ^ ' " /■ ■ '/' '' ' 1 p,/«f •41 ill s'Jr?^'.-f-, ■ .^'l CtlRlSTOPHEK COLUJIBUS. PREFACE. JX (he followiiic; pa»es it has been the aim of llie writer to give a liis- lor\ liC llic (lisei)very aiul earliest explorations of the New World, L\ means of a t'liain of biographies of the principal (liscoverer.5, reaehinu; iVom ihc lime of the Norsemen and Columbus to the laltei- part of the ei^hteenlh c'enliiry. .N'ot only does ihis chain extend lhrouii;h this lohLi; period of lime, Ijut il compasses the American continent, fi'om the coasl of (JreeidamI to Cape Horn, and thence to Ijehring Strait, and e\en reaches to Australia and the Archi})elagues of the South Pacific. All Ijelong to the era of New World discovery. In tliese biographies, as found in the original form, tliere is much that is of little interest to the general reader; and much of scientilic import- ance, that is ditiicuit to understand by those who liave not a close acquaint- ance with the mysteries of seamanship and astronomical observation. All these points have been condensed and written in such familiar language that no difficulty will be experienced, even by boys and girls who might, otherwise be repelled by the appearance of ditficulty. The original authorities have been consulted wherever practicable ; the collection of travels published by the Hakluyt Society being included in that term. A constant effort has been nuxdc to retain as much individual interest as possible; and reference to the authorities from which this work has been gathered would only encumber the book without adding to its value; for in many cases the materials for a single chapter have been collected from nuiuy and various sources, and woven laboriously into a single whole. In conclusion, the author has to thank many readers for their apprecia- tion of his previously published volumes, and ask that the present work may share their favor. D. M. Kf.lsev. .Hr)A'lH>I4 •p.'iii B 'tvi'j of T)>iivA 'xlt "in rni/! 'ii(t ii r.i( rj;iI ti ^ovfi'i ^)(iivnill('l oilt / £ Ohll 71^11*11 .aTJiaTMOO (loH 1o ,;l ,/,:,.-0 - :.:;-• I ■;i:t " AMERICA BEFORE COLmiBUS. riaii of Work— Divisions of History— Egyptian Knowledge of America— Other Legends — Carthagenian Discoveries — llecords Found — A Grecian Tomb in America — •Similarity of Picture AVriting — Chinese Discoveries — Difficulties of Maritime Enterprises — Invention of the Compass — Irish Claims^The AVcL-li Discovery — \Velsli-Speal\ing Indians — The Norse- men — Erik the Eed — Discovery of Greenland— The JIaiiiland — Leif's Voyage — The Round Tower — Vinland — The First Fight wit li, the Ii\4i^B§^The First White Native American — TTiie Dighton Rock — The Skeleton in rAijnipE.,;, ,»),„;(;{ ^ , . . . . . ri/. 1-^26 COLUMBUS' LIFE BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA."' Date and Place of His Birth^-A Poor Mijn'S'SoA— Edncation^Geographical Knowledge of the Time— Ideas of India— Marco P0I0--A HiJendid Banquet— The Sroflers Rebuked — "Lord Millions"'— The Story of his Travels — The Grand Khan — Cipango— Imprisoned Qt Gepoa — Influence on Youtlis of Genoa^— Columbus Sees Service — Deceiving a Mutinous Cr^w —Prince Henry of Portugal— Columbus at Lisbon— Marriage — An Honored Profession— Friends— Evidence of a World Beyond tli« Waters— Growth of his Great Idea — Toscanelli Consulted — Religious Character of Ctolumbus — Application to Genoa — To Venice^ Vd^ge to Iceland — Application to Portugal — A Scurvy Trick — Condition of European Countries— •&. Friend at Last — Disappointment— A Sketch of Spanish History — The War Against the ]\ft)6i4 — Effect upon the Project of Columbus — Friends at Court^Received by King Ferdinand^ The Great Council of Salamanca — The Folly of the Wise — The Arguments of Columbus^ Delayed Decision — A Wanderi^ig Court— Invitation to Portugal— Letter from England— Re- ligious Ardor Strengthened-r^The Council's Decision — Columbus Sets Out for France— At the Convent Gate— Friends atPalos— Appeal to the Queen— Demands of Columbus Rejectfed —A Courageous Courtier— Columbus Recalled — Isabella's Independence— Articles of Agtefe- WJ^^- • ■ •- r.r .,.f •,,;!..::,.• • ■ • . •' ■. . = . . . .' '40 v^' THE.Fffisr'VoyA,G^''iot /dOLtJiiB;^^^^ ^'ilew Difficulties — Reluctant Seamen— The Three Vessels- A Town of Mourning— Sets Sailfrom Palos— Alarms— The Double Reckoning— Variation of the Compass— The Grassy Sea —Renewed Doubts— Indications of Land — Mutiny of the Crew— Hope Renewed — Confidence in Columbus— Night-Watch of the Admiral— Light througU the Darkness— "LAND!"— The Landing of the Discoverer — Taking Possession — The NativeST— Cruisiivg — Self-Deception —Exploration of Cuba— Two Wonderful Tlants- Desertion of t^e, jPw(;(frr^"i>U Discovered- Visits froril'Native Chiefs— Guacanagari— The Santa Maria Wrecked— Assisted by Nativer— Tribute of Columbus to their Character-Tlie Indians' First Aquaintam-c \\'.:]i I'irc-Arms VI CONTKXTS. iMivialili' Indians — Colony Projeetpd — Kttbrls to Convert tlio Inili:ins — RnildingtliP Fortrcs:* — InslnicCions to Colonists — 1 )f|)!irtiire of Cohinibiis — ItcjoiiiiMl by the I'inla — Kxidanations — AriiiiMl Xativcs — Hostilities — Dilliciillii's of lU'turn VoyjiK"' — Storms — I'ioty of tlie tirw — Causes of the Admiral's Distress — Mis J'reeautions — Land Once More — Enmity of Port niruese • — Liberated Prisoners — r)ei)artiire — Storms Again — Oft" the Coast of Portugal — Heeeption in Portugal — 'I'lie King's Advisers — lleJoicMiig at Pales — Arrival of the J'iiitx — Pinzon's Treach- ery — His Death — lleeeption of Cohnnbiisat Court — T'niiaralleled Honors — Hoyal 'I'hanksgiv- ing — .Fealoiisy of Courtiers — ( olunibus and the Kgg — The Papal l!ull — Preparations for a Sec- ond \'oyage — \arious Arrangements — 'I'he tlolden Prime of Columbus. . . . T!) TIIK SKCOM) VOYAGE OF COLl'MBrS. The tireat Fleet — Precautions of Columbus- — The Ontwar''' AMERK'US VESPUCIUS. Is '"America" an Indian Word? — A City of Merchants — The Vespucci Family — Education — .V Family Misfortune — Americus in Spain — Connection with Colmubus — First Voyage of Aespucius — South America Discovered — An American Venice — Attacked by Xatives — An CONTENTS. VI 1 Inlariri Visit— Friendly Natives— Repairing the Vessels— A Mission of Vengeiincr— A Desper- ate Conflict— Return to Spuin—Uisputes about the Voyages of Vespucius— Marriage— \'isit to Court— Ojeda's Expedition— Second Voyage of Vespucius— Off the Coast of South America —Gentle Cannibals— Landing of tlie Spaniards Disputed— A Village of Giants— A Filthy Habit- Return to Spain-A Flattering Offer-His Third Voyage— A Stormy Passage-Land at Last— An Eartldy Paradise— An Invitation Accepted— Murdered by Cannibals— Revenge Forbidden— Vespucius becomes Commander— Off the Coast of Africa— Return to Portngal- The Fourth Voyage of Vespucius— Misfortunes— An Anxious Condition— South America Again— A Colony Planted— Return to I-isbon— To Spain— Preparations for New Expedition- Causes of Delay— Xew Taslvs Proposed— Appointed Chief Pilot of Spain— Visits Florence— HisDeath— His Family— Foundations ofhis Fame- Accusations— Original Application of tlie Name America SEBASTIAN C'AKOT, THE DISCOVERER UE NORTH AMERICA. John Cabot— Settle.s in England— His Sons— Residence in Venice— Return to England— The Cabot Boys' Interest in Columbus— Henry VII.— .John Cabot Goes to Court— A Patent Granted— Expedition Sails from England— Touclies at Iceland— Nova Scotia Discovered— The Sailors Insist on Returning— A Second Venture— Death of .Tohn Cabot— A Colony Pro- jjosed- Mutinous Sailors— Exploration— A King's Injustice— In Spain— Henry VIII.— Sebas- tian Cabot Summoned to Englaiul— To Spain Again— Grand Pilot— A Disappointment— Return to England— Voyage to America— Rebellious Followers— Summoned to Spain Again— Import- ance of the Moluccas— An Expedition Thither— Sealed Orders—Fault-Finding— Swift Retri- bution— La Plata— A Fort Built— Ascending the River— A Bloody Battle— Tracked Across the Ocean— A Polite Refusal— Pursued up tlie River— Cabot Defends Himself— Explorations- Innocent and Guilty Confused— The Fort Stormed— Return to Spain— Cabot's Reputation- Return to England— Grand Pilot of England— Variation of the Needle Explained by Cabot- Proposed Expedition to' the Northcast^The Stilyard— Sir Hugh Willoughby— Chancellor's Success— Willoughby's Death— Cabot's Commercial Importance— Accession and Marriage of Queen Mary— Cabot Resigns his Pension— A Lively Old Man— Pension Renewed— ■\Vortli- thington's Unfaithfulness — Death of Cabot ■--' BALBOA, THE DISCOVERER OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. Early Life— Voyage in a Cast;- Governor of Darien— "AVhere is your Comrade?"— Ex- ploring Expeditions— Golden Gifts— The Savage ChiefsPromise- Difficulties of the Governor —Aid from Hispaniola— " To the Land of Gold!"— A Toilsome March— Tlie First Sight of the Pacilic— A Splendid Vaunt— Return to Darien— Reception of News at Court— Balboa Superscdcd—'I'woPartics Formed— Pestilence and Famine— Balboa Appointed Adelantado of the SoutliSea Countries— Avila's Enmity— A Peacemaker— Avihi's Treachery— Balboa's Trial— Condemned— Executed— Removal of Colony. '-''■^ :MA(;ELLAX, the discoverer Or THE SOUTH rvcH'-ic. A Royal Page— Portuguese Mariners— Aibuinicnjue the Great— Royal Ingratitude— Mag- ellan goes to Spain— Westward to India-Reaches South America— Tbe Giant Patagonians— Travelers' Tales— Conspiracy against JIageUan— Punishment of the Plotters- The Straits of Mao-ellan— Entering the Pacific— Terrible Privations— The I'nfortiinate Islands— The Islands of Thieves— Retaliation— Friglitened into Friendliness- Trading for Gold— ^[issionary AVork —In Portuguese Waters— Conversion of Islanders— Persecuting tlie Heatlicn— The SimniardR Demand Tribute— The Natives Resist— Poisoned Arrows— Magellan Jlorlnlly Wonnded-A Determined Enemy— Flight of the Spaniards— At IJorneo- Attacked— Rrl iiin to Pliilippine Islands— To the Moluccas— Doubling theCape— Starvaliun— The First CiiviinnKnigation Ac- complished. . • .... -' - :. ■■ CABIIAL,.THP: DISCOVElliai ok BIi.\Zll,„^^,-,_,,, - ,T ■ Affidentnl DiscoveTlcs — Viis(iExrco. Settlements in the New World — ConcptestofCuba — Kxplorations of Continent — Youth and Tfiducation of Cortes— A Fortunate Fall— Sails for America — Plots against the Governor— K Seeks Sanctuary — Swinjming for Life — Reconciliation — Captain-General of Armada for Con- quest of Mexico — Vclesipicz Changes liis Mind — "Time Presses;" — Departure of Cortes — Recruiting inCiiba — His Forceand Arms — Embarkation for Yucatan — Preaching toNatives — The Long-Sought Captives — The Landing Disputed — The Battle of Lady-Day— Landing at Vera Cruz — In Montezuma's Roiilms — Tlie Emperor's Gifts — Progress Forbidden — Planting a Colony— Disse'nslons of Natives — Totonacs Rebel against Montezuma — Cortes Sends a Report to Spain— Destruction of the Ships — "To Mexico!" — The Tlascalans Resist their Passage — A Xight Attack — Cruelty to Messengers — Envoys from Montezuma — Cortes Reaches Cholula— Treachery of Choliilans — Its Piinishracnt — Ascent of Popocatapetl — Mont ezuma's Despair- Cortes Enters tlie Capital^Visits Exchanged — Dangerous Position of Cortes — His Desperate Purpose — Pretext for Seizing Montezuma — The Purpose Accomplished — The Imperial Prisoner — Montezuma in Irons — ShipRuildingon the Lake — Suprema(^y of Spain Acknowledged by the Aztecs — •'Honeyed Words"— Cortes Demands the Use of the Temples — Montezuma's Warn- ing — Cortes' Threat — ExpedifionofA'elasqnez — Winning over Enemies — Jlarch to tlie Coasts Submission of Vcli*flquez' Army to'Cortes — Return to Mexi.'o — Alvarado's Mismanagement- SpanishX'amp Assaulted — Montezuma Commands Peace — Taunted and AVounded — Attacking the Temple^-'lnhnnierahle Enemies — Preparing for Retreat — Death of Montezuma — The Re-' treat Begun— "The Melancholy Night" — Personal Feats of the Spaniards — Terrible LossoS-'J Hardshipsof the JMarch — Battle of Otumba — "There is our Mark!" — "Tlie True Miracle is the Conduct of Cortes" — At'J'lascala — Cortes Wounded — Reinforcements — Ship-Building — On the March Again — Desperate Resistance of Iztaplapan — Minor Cities Reduced — Cortes Cap- tiii'fed^ — lleroic Rescue — Conspiracy of Spaniards against Cortes — Siege of Jlexico — Spanish' Prisoners Sacriticed— Horrors of the Siege — Destruction of the City — The Siege Ended— Ex- plorations — Court Intrigues — Cortes Triumphant — The Conciueror's Authority Conlirined— I'^xpcdilion to Honduras — Estrada's Insults — Cortes Goes to Spain — Reception at Court— Re- wards — Return to New Spain — Exploring the Western Coast — To Spain Again — "Deserting too Greatly"— Last Illness and Death— His Burial. . '. ' . . . ". . '-^'SIB' FRAXCISCO PIZARRO, THE DISCOVEREB OF PERU. '' 2A Foundling — Lack of Education — To America — San Sebastian — Grim Determination — D^rien — First Expedition to Peru — Hunger — Attacked by Natives — Pizarro's Desperate Sit- uiUion — Return to Panama — Second Expedition toPeru — Exjiloring Party — Reinforcements — Dispute between Pizarro and Almagro— The Drover and the Butcher— Pizarro's Address to his J*Ien— On tlic Island of Gorgona— Wonderful Stories— Return to Panama— The Third Ex- pedition Planned— Pizarro (iocs to Spain— Arrested for Debt— Released— The Great Capitu- lation— Deceived Oflieials— Discontent of Almagro — Embarkation at Panama — The Land of Emeralds — Outrage upon (lie Natives— Dissensions among Peruvians- Disaster and Disap- IK)intment— Reconnoitcring and Exploring— San Miguel Founded— Into the Heart of Peru— CONTKNTS. ix Pizarro sends Malcontents Back — Envoy from the Inca — Crossing the Andes — An Embassy to the Inca — Seizure of Atahualpa Planned — The Inca Enters Caxamalca — A Call to the Uncon- verted — Atahualpa's Resentment — Slaughter of the Peruvians — Pizarro Defends Atahualpa — The Inca a Prisoner — He Offers Ransom — Immensity of the Treasure Promised — Atuhualpa's Rival Murdered — Silver Horse-Shoes — Reinforcements — Atahualpa Brought to Trial — His Ex- ecution — De Soto's Rebuke — Story of Pizarro's Resentment — To Cuzco — Challcuchinia's Re- bellion and Punishment — Manco's Submission — Spoil of Cuzco — Pizarro Assumes Title of Governor — He Builds Lima — A Messenger to Spain — New Recruits — Difficulties with Alraa- gro — Almagro Leaves for Chili — Manco Escapes — Battles with the Peruvians — Cuzco Be- sieged — Almagro's Disasters — Returns from Chill and Takes Cuzco — Agreement between Pizarro and Almagro — Capture, Trial, and Condemnation of Almagro — His Execution — A Mission to Spain — Investigation Ordered — Conspiracy of the Men of Chili — The Plot Betrayed —Pizarro Attacked — "Down with the Tyrant !" — Death of Pizarro — Burial. . . 375 FERDINAND DE SOTO, THE DISCOVERER OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Birth and Descent — Youth and Education — The Young Man's Love — A Stern Parent — A Treacherous P'oe — Dangerous Honors — De A vila Recalled — De Soto in Peru — Return to Spain — JIarriage — His Great Expedition — Ettbrts to Colonize North America — Ponce de Leon — Narvaez — An Unfriendly Reception — Difficulties of the Journey — A Disgusted Lieutenant — The Indian Princess — Tuscaloosa — The Fight at Mobile — Discovery of the Mississippi — Ad- vancing Westward — The Retreat — De Soto's Death — Burial in the Mississippi — Return of the Expedition — A Broken Heart 410 JACQUES CARTIER, THE DISCOVERER OF CANADA. St. Malo — Youth of Cartier — Verazzano's Voyage — The Fislieries — Cartier's First Ameri- can Voyage — Sighting Newfoundland — The Mainland — Taking Possession — Protest of Natives — Donacoiia's Friendship — His Sons Embark for France — Cartier Ascends the St. Lawrence — Returns Home — The Second Voyage — At the Mouth of the St. Lawrence — An Indian Drama — Visits Hochelaga — Curing Diseases — Returns to Ships — Fort Built — Tobacco and Scalps — Scurvy — Working and Praying — An Indian Remedy — Cartier Takes Possession of the Country Again — Donacona and his Sons Embark forP>ance — Arrival at St. Malo — A Cool Reception — Cartier's Third American Voyage — A Colony Attempted — Failure — Cartier Re- turns to France — Roberval's Effort — After Years 440 JUAN FERNANDEZ, THE DISCOVERER OF ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND. Settlement of Chili — Difficulty of Southward Voyage — Expedient of Fernandez — Accused before the Inquisition — Discovers the Island of Juan Fernandez — Settles on Islands — Returns to Mainland — Other Discoveries — Discovery of Southern T^and — A Mystery and some Expla- nations — Superstitions Regarding the Pacific — Alexander Selkirk — Robinson Crusoe. 454 THE THREE VOYAGES OF SIR MARTIN FROBISHER. Early Life — I'he Northwest Passage — Frobisher's Enterprise — The Expedition Sails Re- ''ported Lost — Reaches the American Coast — The Boat Lost — Living Proof— Return to Eng- land — The Black Stone — Gold — -The Second Voyage — The Faroe Islands — America — Conflict with Natives — Fire and Tempest — Mining — Captives — A Fort Built — A War Dance — Return to England — The Third Expedition — Misfortunes to the Ships — Surrounded by Ice — His Des- perate Resolution — Stone House Built — Ruins Found in 1^01 — Results of Voyage— FrobJs> 1 X CONTKN'IS. cr's Doiiicslic Kcliitiiiiis— Knifihlcd l)y Drake— T.cttcr from i^iiitii Kli/.ahclh— Krlicf nf I;rr-st — KrobisluM- Woiindpd — Uctiirri to Kngland — Death Iii- siR f''kanc;is dkakk, the p:lizabktiian navhiatoh. A Clergyman's Son — His Youth — Early Adventures — Sails under JIawkins — Attacked by the Si)aniar(ls — Heturn to Kiijrland — Various Knter]>rises — Voyage to America — Assault of Xombrc de Dios — Drake Wounded — Retreat to Ships — Overland to Panama — Drake's Vow — Partial Failure — Return to Vessels — Treasure Secured — Tlie Raft — Rei)risals — Return to Eng- land — A New Enterprise — Sails for the South Sea — Along the (Oasl of Africa — Off 15ra- zil — ThievingXatives — Skiruiisli — Plot Against Drake — Doughty Kxcculcd — On the Pacilic — Storms — Mistaken for Spaniards — Prizes — Homeward Jtound— New Alliion — Coast of North America — I.iniitof Exploration— Camping on Land — Intercourse with the Natives — Interest- ing Ceremonies — Takes Possession of Country — Across the Pacific — The T.adrones — Ternale — Doubling tlie Cape — Arrival in England — A Day Lost — Knighted by the (Jueen — A New Commission — To the West Indies and Virginia — Return to England — Tlie Spanish Armada — Surrendering to the Fortune of Drake — To Succor Portugal — Drake's Last Ex|)edition — The Spanish Main — Attacked by the Spaniards — War on the Coast Towns — Disappointments — Illness and Death of Drake -ISO JOHN I)A\ IS, Till-: SKCOM) (iRKAT A IK TIC NAVKiATOK. Character of Davis — Sails from England — Reaches Greenland — Among the Icebergs — The Land of Desolation — "Music hath Charms'" — Exchange of Presents — Exploring Davis Strait — Ks(|uiuiau Dogs — Return to England — Second Voyage — Friendly Intercourse with Green- landers — A Misunderstanding — Thieving — Hostilities — Coasting to Labrador — Return to En- gland — II is Third \'oyage — Kishingnnd Exploring — Northern Limit of Exjiloration — Terrible Condition of Davis — Arrival in England — Lack of Interest in Explorations — Reasons — Cav- endish's Two Voyages — Davis Sails with Him — Return — Other Voyages — His Death. ijlu FOUR YKARS I\ THE LIFE OF HENRY IITDSON. Voyage of Verazzano — Commissioned by Francis I. of France — The Coast of America — Contrast Between French and Indian Actions — Return to France— Hudson's First A'oyage— The Coast of Greenland — Return to England — Second Voyage — No Practicable Northeast Passage — Return — In the Service of Holland — Third Voyage — To tlie Northeast — Reasons for Changing Course — To America — Coast of Canada — Exploring the Coast of the United States — New York Bay — The Story from an Indian Standpoint — Meaning of the Name Man- hattan — New Use for Implements — An Old Trick — Ascending the IJiver — Mutinous Temper of Crew — Return — English Government Interferes — Weymouth's Voyage — Hudson's Last A'oyage — A Peculiar History — Hudson Strait — Hudson Bay — Trial of Juet for Mutiny — Frozen In — Quarrels Among the Crew — Their Food — An Exploring Expedition — Famine — Tlie Plots Conic to a Head — Persuading Prickett — The Plot — Hudson and his Comjianions Atiandoned to tlicir Fate — Hostile Natives— Return of the Conspirators to England — Impris- onment. . . .ril liAFFlN' A:m) arctic EXPLORATIONS. Tlie Parish Register Entries — Deductions — Beginning at the Foot of the Ladder — Danish Attempts to Explore Northern Waters — Ratlin's First Recorded Voyage — Oft' Greenland — Es- (|uiuiaiix Visitors — Hall Mortally Wounded — A Disajipointment — Return — Two Voyages to the Northeast — Exjiloring Spitzbergen — •'(liblions his Hole "—Second Voyage to America — OirGreenland Again — Measuring Icebergs — Exploring the Islands — Hudson Strait — R-turii CONTENTS. Xl to Englanil— Baffin's Opinion about the Northwest Passage — Third Voyage to America— Up Davis' Strait — In Baffin's Bay — Limit of Exploration — The Sick Cured — Return to England — Maps of Baffin's Bay — Ross' Testimony to Baffin's Merits — Baffin's New Scheme — Employed by East India Company — Arrival at Surat. — Exploration of the Red Sea — A Favored Em- ploye — Becomes Master of a Ship — Fight with Dutch and Portuguese in Persian Waters — A Drawn Battle — A Second Conflict — Return to Surat — To the Coast of Arabia^ Alliance with the Shah — Siege of Ormuz — Baffin Levels the Guns — Killed. ..... 548 TASMAN, THE GREAT DUTCH XA^'IGATOR. The Dutch East India Company — Its Monopoly of the Spice Trade — Settlements in the East Indies — Voyages of Discovery — Torres and Quiros — Tasman's First Voyage — Instruc- tions — Discovery of Tasmania — Taking Possession for Holland — New Zealand — Fight with the Nati%'es — Massacre Bay — Friendly Islands — Samoa — New Guinea — A Sudden Sl»irmisli — Making Knives for Trading — Return to Batavia — Second Voy.age — Results of Explora- tions. r)(>6 VITUS BEHRING, THE RUSSIAN NAVIGATOR. Peter the Great and Russian Civilization — Establishing a Navy — Behring Enters the Rus- sian Service — Exploration of Siberia — Siberian Knowledge of America— P^xpeditions East- ward — First Expedition under Behring — Difficulties — Exploration of Asiatic Coast — Passes through Behring Strait — Return to St. Petersburg — New Plans Proposed — A Second Expe- dition — Behring's Family — Personnel of the Expedition — Chirikof — Spanberg — Other Subor- dinates — Instructions — Preparations — Leaving St. Petersburg — Crossing Europe and Asia — Ship-Building — Delays, Difficulties, and Investigations — Sets Sail at Last — Doubts as to Course — Separation of Vessels — Chirikof reaches America — Returns to Siberia — Behring Dis- covers Mount St. Elias — A Discoverer without Enthusiasm — A Sudden Departure — Scurvy- Terrible Condition — -Land Sighted — A Desert Island — Landing the Sick — The Long and Cruel Winter — Behring's Heroic Patience — His Death — Plans of Survivors — A Singular Ques- tion — Building a Vessel — Return to Kamchatka. ... ... 574 CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, THE EXPLORER OF THE SOUTH SEA. Birth and Early Life — Contending with Difficulties — A Runaway Apprentice — Rises in the World — Enlists in the Navy — Distinguishes himself as a JIaritime Surveyor — Appointed Ma- rine Surveyor of Labrador and Newfoundland — Transit of Venus in ITilli — Cook's Expedi- tion — Previous Expeditions to the South Pacific — Byron — " Foul-AVeather .Tack " — Walli.s — Tahiti — Carteret — Bougainville — Chief Value of this Voyage — Cook Sets Sail — Doubling Cape Horn^Arrival at Tahiti — Observing the Transit — The Society Islands — Taking Pos- session — New Zealand — LTnfriendly Natives — Exploring Coast — Tasmania — Australia — A Se- rious Disaster — An Anxious Night and Day — Exhausting Labor — Land Reached — Camping on Shore — Summing up of Difficulties — Following Coast of Australia — Batavia — Doubling the Cape — Home Again — Another Expedition Planned — To Discover the Southern Conti- nent — Bouvet's Discovery — Cook's Instructions — Precautions against Sickness — In Antarctic Waters — Separation of Vessels — To New Guinea — Re-union of Ships, — Friendly Natives^ Proposed Route — Reach Tahiti — Trading — Presents — Hu — Rough Treatment of Whites — Cook's Islands — The Friendly Islands — Final Separation of Vessels — To the Far South Again— Easter Island— Tahiti— Tlie Friendly Islands — Whitsunday Island— An Offended Native — The New Hebrides — New Caledonia Explored — A Fortunate Discovery — Return Eastward — Staten Island Eeconnoitered — Hunting — Reaches Cape of Good Hope— Re- port or Furneaux — A New Zealand Massacre — Return to England — A Pleasant Post- Honors — A New Expedition Planned — Cook Volunteers — Instructions — In Australasia-^ Sandwich Islands Discovered — Heachcs American ('oust — Coasting Xorthward — To tbe Sand- wich Islands again — Strange Ceremonies — Explanation — A Change — ^A Tumult — A Serious Dispute — A Skirmish — Cook Seeks a Hostage— A Conllict — Cook Killed— Remains of Cook Recovered and Hurled — Ships Northward — Pass IJehring Strait — Return by Cape of Good Hope to England — \ows of Cook's Dcalli - llow Keceived — Honors to his Memory — Hit. Summarv of his Ow n Life 588 ILLUSTRATIONS. English and Spanish Contending for Supr('nia<'y < liristopher Cohimbus. Columbus Before Isabella and the Council. A Phoenician Vessel A Fleet of Kotnan Galleys in the Mediterranean. Discovery of Greenland by Norse Ships. . Kound Tower at Newport, Khode Island. Lief and His Men Find Tyrker The Skeleton in Armor. ..... Birthplace of Columbus Sea Bishop and Mermaids. .... The Phantoms of Fear Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan. Marco Polo's Single Galley Attacked by Seventy The Vears of Preparation Diaz on His Way to the Cape Isabella in Armor I olumbus in the Royal Presence. Columbus Before the Council Columbus and His Son at the Mona.stery Gate. Departure of Columbus from Palos, Spain. " Land! I^and !" The Mutiny Columbus U'atehing for Land Columbus Approaching San Salvador. Landing of Columbus at San Salvador. The Fight with the Iguana The Grateful Cacique. ..... The Colund)us Bronze Doors in the Capitol at \V The Return of Columbus Columbus' ^Icn Throwing Over the Casks. A Pilgrimage of Grace Columbus Before the Sovereigns of Portugal. . The Triumphal Progress Kcception of Columbus by Ferdinaiul and Isabell Columbus and the Egg Columbus lielating His Discoveries to His Friend P'.videnees of Cannibalism Sailing Among the Islands. .... Bartholomew Columbus Spaniards Setting Dogs on Indians. . An Aboriginal Race Working in Mines. Columbus Protecting the Indian Prisoners. " Gold in Bars " in the New Worl P.4GE. Full Page iv Full Page V Full Page vi • 27 28 3l> Full Page .58 Full Page ii:i Full Page Full Page Full Page Full Page Full Page t'ull Page i'ull Page ii(j 100 Full Page lOo 109 111 114 117 Full paare li'i) Full I'age IL'J I''ull Page 124 12(1 i:^o Full Page 137 144 150 Full Page 15;! Full Page 15(5 158 xni ii.i.i sri: Ai'iDNS. The Landing of Columbus at Trinidad. The Tidal Wave Kiiins of the House of Coluinlius at San Doinin Uiveting the Fctti-ra u|)on Columbus. Columbu.s Ketuniinj; to Spain in Chains. . Hooted by tlie Mob Ovando's Fleet Sliattored in a Storm. Columbus' Caravels Aground. Columbus and the Kclipse Death of Columbus Statue of ( 'olumbus on the I'ortioo of the ( 'apitol at Americus Ve.spucius Vespucius KxploriiiK the New ('ouiilr%. . Natives of the Amazon On tlie Orinoco l/isbon in tlie Sixteenth fiMilui-v. Sliipwrecked. .lohn Cabot Sebastian Cabot. Cabot at Labrador Cabot's Ueturn to England. Voyaging up the Kiver tireat Ship of Henry the Eighth. Sebastian Cabot and the CosmograplH'is. Wintering in the Arctic Kegion. • Iiaiucllor before the Czar. Ikilboa. . . • 'I'lic .Vtlouipted Escape Balboa Discovers tlie Pacific Ocean. . I'Vnlinaiid .Magellan , .\ll)ui|U(i(|ue Sends Tribute to the Shah of Per Tlir Savages' First Look Into a .Mirror. Magellan Punishes Mutiny. .Magellan's Vessels in the Straits. Magellan at the Ladrone Islands. Talooed South Sea Islander. Heroic Death of Magellan. The Visit of the King of Horneo. Vasco de Gaiiia . ( 'abral Before the Zamorin. Cabral Takes Po.ssession of Brazil. The Fleet Wrecked in a Storm. . Hernando Cortes. Mexican Indians Bringing Gifts to Cortes. < ortes Marching on the City of JIe.\ii-o. Ruins of Aztec Civilization. The Massacre at Cholula Montezuma. ...... Mexican Idol and Ruins Aztec ( hief The Spaniards Defending 'Vhemselves in the ( Montezuma Wounded by His Own People. Desperate Battle on the Causeway. . Cortes Fighting at Otuiuba. 'I'lie Torturing of Gualcmozin and His Minister Francisco I'izarro. I'izarro Exhorts His Men to Follow Him to the Pizarro Before the Emjieror Charles V. Pizarro and His .Men in IVru. .\tahualpa Taken Prisoner liy Pizarro. Tlie Kxccutidii of the Inca. PACK. IGO llil !«■> 171 'age 174 175 Full P Washington. Full Full Full r 17.S 185 ISM u:e 192 ii)r> lit- 203 20(; 2()S 21(j ige 21 H 'age 22G ::!() .Ige 232 234 245 Full fIiII Mexico. Full Full Conijuest. 25() 254 Page 257 200 264 Page 26U 272 27y 280 283 285 2.S8 28il 2!»1 •J!M ■J'.C 301 303 305 age 308 314 323 age 330 336 338 age 340 347 341) 'iige 3.>l 356 35il 361 36y 372 Full Page 456 4.59 461 463 468 472 475 47S 481 dl Page 482 484 Full Page 4.SG Full Page 490 492 401 49S Fi 501 502 nil Page .504 .")0(; 507 Page 508 Full Page 518 524 nil Page 526 529 532 534 536 539 'nil Page 542 544 547 552 5(if .581 584 589 .591 593 .595 ll.l.rsi'KATIOXS. l';ita);oni:in SavuK»'s Foaslin^ on Cai-rion. The Landing l)isp\aiMl Attarkeil liy a Jlalay Pirate Vessel. . Malting Their V'isitors Siiifr and Dance. . jMadanioisellc Uarre'.s Adventure. Tahitian Cliief Fed by Jlis Wives. Captain Cook lias a Fight witli the Natives. Cannibalisni Seen by Captain Cook at Tahiti. Tlie Natives Make Signs Native Festival and Dani'e in Cook's Honor. Discovering Keniains of < annibal Feast. . The Natives Worsliip Captain Cook as a God. A Toothsome Ollering Native MonumDnt on the Site of Death of Capt (UH) (iOl (>n:< (loi; ms CIO (>12 i;2() (12H (■.2H (-.31 (!83 (13,-) ^f,'?:>»^^^L->L A^^iv.^^ ^^ INTRODUCTION. ^^ HE first chapter of this volume is a charming compilation., of the legends of the discoveries of North America before the famous vo3'age of Columbus, in which the trade winds wafted his ships to the West Indies. The testimony seems so clear that it wovild be eccentric to declare strenuously against the conclusiou upon cir- cumstancial evidence, that the Northmen repeatedly visited Green- land and were acquainted with Newfoundland, Nantucket, Long Island, and perhaps Rhode Island. There are traditions in Iceland that corroborate the legendary stories of the adventurous Northmen, and they add that Columbus visited Iceland fourteen years before he immortalized himself as the discoverer of the "new world." It is a part of the story of Colum- bus in Iceland that he became intimately acquainted with the antique lore of that American island. It is worth while to remember that the westward capes of Iceland are less than three hundred miles from Greenland, while the eastern capes are between nine hundred and a thousand miles from Norway. It is a plain proposition that in the course of the centuries the capital of Iceland was settled in 874. The writer visited that island one thousand years later, with Cyrus Field, Dr. I. I. Hayes, Bayard Taylor, Professors Magnusson and Kneeland and Mr. Henry Glad- stone, who imported a pony to Hawarden. The founding of the city was five hundred and eighteen years before the Columbus discovery. If it be true that Colum' .is visited Iceland fourteen years before he found the West Indic^^ —the year of his visit was 1478 and Re3'k- javeek had then bee founded more than five hundred years, within easy sail in three or four days of Greenland. The people were largely competent navigators with sea-going craft, and the land westward could not have been unfamiliar to them. xviii INTRODUCTION. There was nothing strange or doubtful in using a fact made known freely that there was land in the West. It does not reduc. the splendor of the achievement of Columbus that he heard the story. He made use of it. He found in the presence of land in the West a corroboration of his dreams, that gave a footing to his fanc)\ The Icelandic tradition is that a Bishop was maintained for a long time in Iceland, and that a gorge of ice massed on the coast that lasted forty years, and then there was only desolate silence. After the " Decline and Fall " of the Roman Empire, Northern Ital}' was celebrated for commercial sxipi-emacy, glories in art and cities of special splendors and power ; and for immortal authors, artists in literature, sculpture, architecture and painting. Rome remained when the Empire crumbled into mighty fragments, '' The Eteriial City ; " and though there was an Eastern Empire and a rival capital — Constantinople — to divide the immense inheritance, the swarms of Asiatic conquerors came after the capture of the Oriental metropolis and converted the magnificent dominant church, St. Sophia, into a veritable and memorable mosque — a citadel of Moham- med in Christendom ; and the myriads of Mohammedans seeking Paradise swept over Southern Spain, first baffled at Vienna and at last beaten on the central plains of France, at Chalons. Unlike Alexander, when his legions marched to India and he grew weary of conquest and carousal, Rome encountered other uncon- quered worlds, and found material occupation in crusades and cathedrals and the marvelous organizations of the then new, now old Church of Rome. Naples survived the eruptions of Vesuvius, and the irruption of the barbarians from the heart of Europe, remained the Queen City of the Italian South, when Carthage, like Tyre, was buried in her own ruins. Rome and Greece, however, taught the new nations rising on the wings of stately ships, over the antiquities of Egypt, to open the road to India ; and opulent tradesmen, guided by those who lived in the shadows of the Alps, the lagoons of the Adriatic, the pleasant river Arno and the shores of the bright central waters of the Mediterranean, gave the sunny historic lands a larger life. When Rome was no longer the imperial throne of the world, the INTRODUCTION. xix camels, called cleverly the " ships of the deserts " in Africa, gave way to the fleets that represented world-wide sea powers, and gathered the golden harvest between the ends of the earth. The representative and commanding cities of the revival of civili- zation, when the sword of old Rome ceased to devour, and the later and fairer forms of progress became manifest, were four — Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Florence. Venice, the bride of the sea, was first in the illustrious capitals that became nations. Florence lacked the embrace of the sea to inspire her to be the home of wide dominion, and became the glorious city of the Beautiful, the star of the Appenines. Pisa was the rival of Genoa, as Genoa of Venice ; but was long lived and strong enough to be of the leaders of the Crusaders, and carried home from Palestine forty ship loads of the precious hills around Jerusalem, to heap her Campo Santo with sacred soil, and to this end disfigured, with the scars of excavation the landscapes over- looking Solomon's temple, the scene of the Cross of Christ ; and the sepulchre from the door of which the stone rolled away. When we remember the fleet of Pisa, laden with soil touched by the Saviour's feet to make holy a graveyard in Italy, we meet the thought that after all a higher intelligence could declare that skepticism of the " relics " ridiculed by unbelievers in mysteries, might reasonably be relaxed, in view of the stranger things we know have happened ; and that, as we see in these days, miracles of science we need not deny the existence of memorials of Christian- ity though obscured in detail by savagery in the gloom of the desolation that overtook the conquests, won in the sign of the cross, when the sword and torch of Mohammed prevailed and gave the memorials of Christians to graves and dust heaps. The Crusaders, the Greek Emperors, and the statelj^ Italian cities, gathered a harvest with their armies of historical relics in the Holy Lands. Christopher Columbus is not believed by the people of Genoa to have been born in that city. The testimony, so far as we may use the word, where enlightenment compels the existence of uncertainty, is that the great navigator was born in a village on the shores of the Gulf of Genoa, north of the city and near the sea, in the midst of quarries that yielded red stone. XX INTliODl'CTION. The exact locatiou of the house that is loosely called the birthplace of Columbus, is not known, but there is interesting truth. There is evidence that a house identified with the Columbus family was the propert}' of his father, and the home of the child who gave the name distinction. The house bears marks, not recent, that it has been changed since the boy Christopher was of the humble home household. It has been duly photographed, after the examination of records, proving it the habitation of the Columbus family. It is on the south side of a steep and narrow street, running from the harbor to the hills. On one side, when the writer found it, was a wine shop, and on the other a tobacco shop. The present appearances are that the original house has been reconstructed, so far as the front is concerned, into two houses. The one the father of Columbus, the discoverer, lived in, is that on the left of the building as presented in engravings. The form of the windows, and the narrowness of each of the structures as they .stand invite this theory. Legal documents exist proving the Columbus folk lived in this place for several generations, including the time of the birth of the man child of high destiny. There is a photograph of the house taken by an American consul, who investigated the neighborhood and also the official pigeon holes that seemed to speak of the receptacles of man}' secrets ; but the only fact discovered was that the " house of Columbus " was the property and home of the people of which, in that place, Christopher Columbus was one of the children, and that it was for several generations the dwelling place of those who derived title from the navigator's father. There was not, in or near the grim place, a good play ground for the j-oungsters, and it has the appearance of a promise that it will remain imchanged for the centuries to come, as during like periods in the past. When Cohimbus made the discovery identified with his name, the spirit of adventure was abroad in the world, and the art of navigation improving .so rapidly that evidently the appointed time was close at hand, for the revelation of the gigantic continents connected b}^ a narrow but rugged isthmus, awaiting cxj^lorers to be announced as the new world. INTRODUCTION. xxi Clearly, Columbus was a man of extraordinary breadth of informa- tion and strength of character. He had deep convictions that there was land in the West. He knew substantially the shape of the world, the fact that it sloped off toward the poles, and tliat the farther North one sailed, the narrower were the seas measured East and West, and the longer and colder the winters grew. He knew the Atlantic ocean broadened southward, and had read of the far East of Asia. Cipango and Cathay were Japan and China. The travels and writings of them by Marco Polo, kindled the imagination of the hardy Genoese sailor, destined to the delivery of the stroke of an enchanter's wand, that prepared the way for other and broader discoveries, among them the realization of the magnitude of the globe. Dreamer that he was, Columbus never dreamed that the earth was great as appeared when the impulse given by his voyages led in a few years comparatively to the completion of circumnavigation of the globe. The first ship that sailed around the earth was that carrying the flag of Magellan's squadron. The ship returned, the last of the fleet, with its captain, but the commander in chief of the squadron was slain in attempting to conquer a beautiful island of the subse- quently named Phillippine archipelago. He fought to force the inhabitants to become the subjects of a Christian king, and was killed in the fight. When the flag ship arrived on the return to Africa, through the straits of Magellan, a day had been lost in the reckoning, but the demonstration was made that the world was round. Columbus had letters for the Mikado of the age, the Great Kahn imperial house of Japan had then been in power more than two thousand years. The enormous error had been made by the Genoese navigator that the island of Cuba was Cipango. He sent forth mes- sengers with letters of introduction to the sovereign of Japan, and they discovered a people of nakedness and innocence, smoking a strange herb they called " tabac." The discoverer followed the coast of Cuba in two of his voyages, until convinced he had struck the mainland of Asia. On his last vo3^age, he saw the coast of South America, but did not land. In xxii INTRODUCTION. his calculations, believing the globe was round like an egg, he had omitted the Americas and the Pacific ocean. If he had lived to ascertain the bulk of the world, he would have been amazed at the prodigality of nature, in manufacturing worlds made of meteors. The West Indies, as the islands were named, Columbus actually discovered, turned out richer in natural resources than those of the East. It was the fortune of' the navigator to have a spell of fair weather assigned him in the discovery of a far greater land than India, an island surpassing Cipango, in extent, fruitfulness and beauty, if we may count the unlimited ages, to find a bigger and more bountiful Cathay in Asia. The letters of the discoverer in describing his islands are poems in fact, and glow with the rapture of a wonderful achievement. They are beautiful in poetry and piety, penetrated with a deep sense of duty to Christianity, with devotion to his Church, and he was radiant in his writings about the incomparable loveliness that environed him- — the colors of ihe fish in the rivers rivaling the bloom of the wilder- ness that was a majestic and opulent orchard of fruit trees. There was waiting for him, as he beheld the dazzling landscapes disclosed, an awful enemy native to the voluptuous airs, destined to destro}- navies, compared with which his caravels were as fi.shing boats, built to keep within view of hospitable shores. Columbus arrived in the West Indies in the cyclone season. The mouth of October in that clime especially experiences the terrible tempests that wreck the forests and rend the cities. It is the month of " the hurricane's eclip.se of the sun." The discoverer lingered in the enchanted air, hurricane haunted, hoping to find Cipango, until he reluctantly departed from his ow'u Paradise. There was peace while he waited. Everj'where he found surpassing beauties of sea and sky and shore. All the blandishments of the tropics were spread to banquet his senses to indulge the fascination of suspense and the fancies he painted of the coming time. The mighty whirlwinds that begin as bubbles of the languid atmosphere of the American Mediterranean and send forth their tornadoes like thunderbolts northward and north- westward, were stilled that sober October ; but storms overtook and INTRODUCTION. xxiii Bearly overwhelmed the Conquering Hero, when, on the waters the trade winds had beguiled him westward. Despairing at last of escap- ing from the aroused Atlantic, he wrote a brief story of his " find " in the West, placed the parchment in a cake of wax, and the wax in a keg, and so fixed the scroll to float when his ship went down. There was a change from stormy to fair, and he returned to Spain to receive great honors, and slights, jealousies and treacheries, through which he endured labor and sorrow to the end of his life, and died to be four times buried — in San Domingo once, Cuba once, and Spain first and last. Counting his crossing the Atlantic living and dead, his voyages over that stormy sea, from side to side, were ten. His longest repose was in the cathedral of Havana, where he had an un- finished monument, like "an empty glass turned down," as Spain lost her last island that Colon found for Isabella and Ferdinand. The new world in the West was not monopolized by the Spaniards, for Portugal was the finder of South America, the Cape of Good Hope doubled, and the waterway to India opened by the Dutch, and the ships of the desert were superseded by the ships that sailed the seas. Then the Italian cities slowly faded as the fleets on the Indian and Atlantic oceans succeeded the caravans in the golden trade in the treasures of India. The Dutch and the Portuguese were the only peoples who contested the universal commercial dominion that sud- denly appeared in the strong hands of the Spaniards, as the grandest field known for the propaganda of religion and the expansion of com- merce. Three great peoples, also three great nations, had geographical advantages in the early occupancy of the opportunities of the added hemisphere. We refer to the Spaniards, French and British, then in the highest form of their strength, spirit and enterprise, and more than all, their almost exhaustless vitalities. They were especially obeying the benign injunction to multiply and replenish the earth, and the colo- nial systems of Spain and her rivals became the passions of powers. The competing nations for the possessions across the Alantic, of the North Temperate zone, and the Arctic slope and Tropic belt of the globe, were of the western shore of Eiirope, and the great islands and peninsulas, the discoverer himself a native of Italy under the patronage of Spaiu ; aud the English and French, heedless of claims to incomparable continents, warred against the monopoly of the new world by the first of the sightseers. The second decline of Italy, from t.ie foremo.st and most lofty of the progressive people of the Middle Ages, and the days of the higher destin}' of the four superb history making cities had departed. The great powers — England, France and Spaiu — that wrought for and fought for the American acquisition were combating among themselves through generations. There were no people within range of conten- tion with this mighty triumvirate of states growing colonies, and for a time the developments of tlieir vast ambition were rather pacific and commercial than ])elligerent. They had no idea that the states- manship of arbitration existed. The fateful happening in locating the colonial pretensions of the respective enterprises undertaken for the foundations of New Spain, New France and New England, gave each great uation its choice almost without conscious volition, but there was no peace. The Americas involved Europe in tedious-wars. There was naturalness in the vSpanish liking for the sub-tropics, and so we trace them all around the American Mediterranean ; and as Portugal had the east side of South America conceded to her, the Spaniards sailed southward after they found the Pacific unoccupied ; aud as Cortez dealt with Monte- zuma and Gautomazen, Pizarro proceeded to the conquest of Peru and the spoil of the Incas. The greed for gold •rt'as the direct cause for the destruction of the child-like people of the islands discovered by Columbus. The Caribs were the fighting Indians of the Indies, aud they were desperadoes hard to overcome, but rapidly slaughtered as the Spaniards flocked to the scenes of riches and enchantment. The Caribs ate human flesh, and in war devoured the slain of their enemies. A wonderful devotion and enthusiasm was characteristic of many of the Spanish priests, but the}' could not protect the peaceable and credulous people the\' sought to convert. The natives perished rapidly from the tasks imposed and the hardships the genteel idlers had forced upon them. The introduction of negroes, that became so dire a problem, was because the blacks could undergo more privation INTRODUCTION. xxv than the primitive and tender natives, but the negroes fared no better as to longevity. It was said that for many years there was a fanc}' impressed upon the aborigines that the blacks were immortal creatures, " because all the dead ones they ever seen had been hanged." If a black man failed to work satisfactorily under the lash, he was turned over to the hangman. Arthur Help's " Spanish Conquest " is the standard history of the Spanish occupation of America, and gives this surprising but authen- tic account of the introduction of the Africans, because they were better laborers than the native Americans. The authority of Las Casas stands for the shocking story of Trini- dad. We quote : " There was a certain man named Juan Bono, and he was employed by the members of the aiidiejicia of St. Domingo to go and obtain Indians. He and his men, to the number of fifty or sixty, landed on the island of Trinidad. Now the Indians of Trinidad were a mild, credulous race, the enemies of tho'Caribs, who ate human flesh. ." On Juan Bono's landing, the Indians, armed with bows and arrows, went to meet the Spaniards, and to ask them who they were and what they wanted. Juan Bono replied that his crew were good and peace able people, who had come to live with the Indians ; upon which, as the commencement of good fellowship, the natives offered to build houses for the Spaniards. " The Spanish captain expressed a wish to have one large house built. The accommodating Indians set about building it. It was to be in the form of a bell, and to be large enough for a hundred persons to live in. On any great occasions it would hold many more. Every daj'^, while this house was being built, the Spaniards were fed with fish, bread and fruit by their good-natured hosts. Juan Bono was very anxious to see the roof on, and the Indians continued to work at the building with alacrity. At last it was completed, being two stories high, and so constructed that those within could not see those withoiit. " Upon a certain day Juan Bono collected the Indians together, men, women and children, in the building, to see, as he told them. xxvi INTIJODICTION. ' what was to be done.' Whether they thought they were coming to some festival, or that they were to do something more for the great house, does not appear. However, they were all there four hundred of them, looking with much delight on their own handiwork. " Meanwhile, Juan Bono brought his men round the building with drawn swords in their hands ; then, having thoroughly entrapped his Indian friends, he entered with a party of armed men and bade the Indians keep still or he would kill them. The}' did not listen to him, but rushed against the door. A horrible massacre ensued. Some of the Indians forced their way out ; but many of them, stupefied at what the}' saw, and losing heart, were captured and bound. A hun- dred, however, escaped, and snatching up their arms, assembled in one of their own houses and prepared to defend themselves. " Juan Bono summoned them to surrender ; they would not hear of it ; and then, as Las Casas says, ' He resolved to pay them com- pletely for their hospitality and kind treatment he had received,' and so, setting fire to the house, the whole hundred men, together with .some women and children, were bu^-ned alive.'' This is an example of the horrors of the Conquest, one of hun- dreds of chapters. Cortes entered the city of Tenochtitlan on the 8th of November, 1519, and was received by Montezuma, who was very hospitable toward the Spaniards, because he feared them. Cortes presently aroused the Mexicans, who rebelled against Montezuma and aided the Spaniards with swarms of warriors, who were with him when he seized the monarch and governed in his name. After many scenes of slaughter, the great city was taken and retaken. Cortes was aided by Spaniards fascinated by the splendors of the opulent city, who hastened to reinforce him, and the fighting became desperate. He was very haughty after putting down a rebellion by the Spaniards, and his enemies pressed him to desperation. He had reserved Montezuma as a last resource, and caused the captive king to be presented to the mob. They turned on him and gave him wounds from which he soon expired in the arms of his attendants. The Mexicans were not like the islanders. They lived in good houses, many of them stone. They were a mighty people, surrounded INTRODUCTION. xxvii by tributary states, easily induced to revolt, and eager for plunder. Cortes was a rude but very capable soldier, a marvel in deception, composed in battle and yet frantic in tbe midst of slaughter. He spared the monarch he made his slave no humiliation, using him against his own people until they killed him, though they adored him. Gautomazen, when put on coals to be tortured that he might dis- cover gold to reward murderers, and taunted in his torments, cried that he was " not on a bed of roses." The Pizarros in Peru pursued a masterful policy of treachery in the pursuit of treasury, and in all the Spanish colonies were like scenes of tragedy, and the native savages victims of more savage men — white men — who came across the ocean and inflicted upon the black and red slaves horrible tasks in working in deep mines carrying ore on their heads up dizzy ladders, sparing no horror in their bloody raids for riches. Pizarro played with the Inca of Peru a game quite like that of Cortes in Mexico. Atahuallpa, the Inca, was captured by stratagem and seized, used, abused, driven to despair and murdered when he gave a room full of gold, piled as high as he could reach, to be set free. This prince of Peru was held by his people to be a god ; and when he threw upon the ground the Spaniards' Bible, that was charged as one of his moral crimes. The Peruvian god, as he was worshipped, was enough converted to be spgj-ed burning to death. In his simplicity, he preferred glass to gold, because he could see him- self in mirrors. He was, at the end, much honored. The story of the murder of the Inca is this : " When the sentence was communicated to the Inca, loud were his protestations against the injustice, the tyranny, and the ill-faith of Pizarro ; but all these complaints availed him nothing ; and he prepared himself for death with that dignity which men who have long held high station, and have been accustomed to act before a large audience, are wont to show, as if they said to themselves, 'We play a great part in human life, and that part shall suffer no diminu- tion of its dignity in our hands.' When brought to the place of execution he said that he would be a Christian, the threat of burning xxviii INTRODrrXTOX. being found, as it often has been, a great enlightenment npon difficnlt points of doctrine. " Viuceute de Valverde baptized the Inca nnder the name of Don Juan Atahuallpa, and the new convert was then tied to a stake. Just before his death he recommended to the governor his little children, whom he desired to have near him, and with these last words he was suddenly strangled with a cross-bow string. That night his body was left in the great square, and in the morning he was buried with all pomp and honor in the church which the Spaniards had already built, all the principal lords and caciques who served him received much satisfaction, considering the great honor which had been done him, knowing that by reason of his having been made a Christian he was not burned alive, and that he was buried in the church as if he had been a Spaniard." This martyr was avenged by the Spaniards themselves, because his riches were celebrated, and there were many adventurers from Spain who fought for their share of the spoil, and they massacred each other in a Spanish civil war, in which the Pizarros perished. The heroism of the discoverers of the new world, in spite of all their deeds of glory, and the toil of good men to avert the doom for shedding the blood of the nations the incomparable land of promise was dishonored bj- robbery and murder, Spain declined in the midst of her conquests, and the blood of the innocent crj'ing fronj the ground did not cry in vain. The sword devoured according to the doom that they who take the sword perish bj^ it. Spain has lost her last colony in the American Hemisphere, and ceased to be one of the great nations. It was the fate of France to be assigned by events that uncontrolled, drifted to the snow}- rather than snnny lands, and her wonderful work in the colonies of Canada, by their hunters and missionaries of surpassing energy, faith and courage, made an impression that has endured more than a century, in the dominion of their conquerer, England. The French in the hrst place appeared to steer from the northern ports due West, and the thoughtful purpose, or obstinate habit, carried them on this side the Atlantic far to the North. Even j'et the people INTRODUCTION. xxix of North America are troubled to realize that England is in the latitude of Labrador, and France and Spain on the lines that drawn westward would strike Canada and New England. The French steamers to this day have an inclination to go further North, on the way to New York or Boston, than the English care to go ; and the maxim that governs much navigation is, that the nearer a European boat runs to Cape Race, the shorter the voyage. The fact that the liners bound for Europe from New York, have to run six hundred miles North in order to reach the English channel, seems to those not educated to an accurate understanding, unaccountable. On this side the sign that speaks of the North is the run through the fogs of the banks of Newfoundland. The Gulf Stream saves the British Islands from the climate of Labrador, as the Pacific currents bearing Northeast, soften our winters in Oregon and Washington, and extend the influences of the vast tropic seas to the Pacific Coast. It has turned out distinctly the better way for the people of the United States, that the English colonies did not clash with those of France in the North and Spain in the South, but were first placed on the bleak rocks of Massachusetts and the fertile banks of the broad tidal James river in Virginia. There were great differences between New England regions and the Potomac country where was mingled a happy medium between Massachusetts and Virginia, while New York, New Jersey and Dela- ware were plainly of the temperate zone, with the immeasurable, in the olden time, the background of the continent, for new States. The Carolinas and Georgia were the South land ; and it was well that generous Virginia was endowed by royal grants with the North- west. It was a shadowy kingly title she held, but she had in its shade the potentiality of a mighty nation. It reached the great lakes and Virginia was the first to fight the French and Indians for the Ohio country ; and the Mississippi was bovmd to the domain of the South Atlantic colonies by the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. The movers west were directed by the sunsets of summer days. When the Northwest passed from the colonial possession of Vir- ginia into the responsibilities of self government, the Virginian XXX INTRODUCTION. Presidential Dynasty added to the original States and Territories the Franco-Spanish possessions Napoleon had to sell. Then the future World Power gained her Pacific coast and Andrew Jackson's sword completed the conquest that Thomas Jefferson's pen prepared. The English speaking colonial people, instinctively moved by the logic of the history of the race, avoided extremes of heat and cold, and the heart of the continent was hers, with the Mississippi Valley to perpetuate with its magnificent unity and magnetic attraction, that in harmony secured the Union of States forever. It was fortunate that George Washington was the first President, and had in his Cabinet Jefferson and Hamilton, and that Adams should have been the successor of Washington, and Jefferson the successor of Adams. Then Virginian statesmanship and her mili- tar}'^ chieftainship also had great parts to play, and played them with the gifts the peoj^le gave. It ended with the expansion of the whole country, and Jackson and Polk, of Tennessee, established constitu- tional consolidation. There seemed to be wisdom for all in the American air, so great that the builders had an inspiration that gave them constructive art more than they knew, and they builded for their generation wiser than was known in their days or by themselves. We, even now, have not full}^ realized the value of the land north and south of our boundary lines ; and it is more and more true that the colder climes teem with surpassing treasures, in fruit and grain lands, and iron, copper and gold mines. If the English had discovered and settled the American Indies, they would, according to the forces of the people, have established, with their inventive eagerness and the favors of soil and climate, an empire including all the shores of the gulf, and the islands great and small ; and perhaps it would have been the seat of the greatest slave labor power that has been founded since the Tartars and Arabs subordinated Asia. The shores of our great central seas would not. if possessed all around by our people, have been a country dedicated to free labor. The list of new world heroes is long, beginning with Columbus and closing with Captain Cook. The maps showing routes, followed by discoveries of the new world, giving plainly all the routes of INTRODUCTION. xxxi Columbus from the African to the American islands ; also the routes of the Northmen and of Davis, Forbisher, Sebastian Cabot, Henry Hudson, Cartier and John Cabot. The heroes whose names are recorded worthy a place among the illustrious adventurers and heroes who extended the borders of knowl- edge are : Americus Vespucius, who made four voyages, Sebastian Cabot, the discoverer of North America ; Balboa, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean ; Magellan, discoverer of the South Pacific ; Cabral, discoverer of Brazil ; Fernando Cortez, conqueror of Mexico ; Fran- cisco Pizarro, the discoverer of Peru ; Ferdinand De Soto, discoverer of the Mississippi River ; Jacques Cartier, discoverer of Canada ; Juan Fernandez, discoverer of Robinson Crusoe's island ; Sir Martin Fro- bisher, hero of the Northwest Passage ; Sir Francis Drake, the Elizabethan navigator ; John Davis, the second Arctic navigator ; Henry Hudson, the great Dutch navigator ; Tasman Vitus Beh- ring, Russian navigator; Captain James Cook, the explorer of the South Sea. The heroes were not the captains only, but the men of action and labor, who were faithful to the cause in which they enlisted, and dared to do their duty against odds ; and the lesson is at the beginning of the Americanism that is a power that girdles the globe, that honor and fame belong to the brave and true, to the heroes in the ranks ; and it is their due alwaj's to have fair play to win their way. The Spaniards lost strength as a people in the excessive immigra- tion of the men who fought in Mexico and Peru, along the Missis- sippi, and in the Floridas, and the wars with the brigands of the gulf. Spanish life was lavished from Arkansas to the Amazon, and in the mines from the Peruvian Andes to California. The thunder of the navies of England, Spain and France, fighting for the new Indies, in their combats that decided the ownership of the treasure ships of the Spaniards. It was not until the French appeared at Yorktown to cut off the retreat of Coruwallis, and Rodney beat the French off Mar- tinique when the}'^ were on their way to Jamaica, and avenger Eng- lish defeat off the capes of Virginia. The closing scene of West Indian warfare was wUen tne fleet of England sailed away from New Orleans, bafiled by Kentucky rifles. xjcxii INTRODrCTloN. The last Spaiiisli squadrou passed away in a battle storm, fighting for the last American island belonging to Spain, in sight of Santiago along Cnba's sonthern shore, and there was added to the list of the heroic men of Spain, fighting in vain, the name of Cervera, who fought to the finish the last battle for his conntr\'. This book fills in better form and st)'le, with greater evidence of deep research and steadfast labor, than can be fonnd in the same space in the libraries that contain the records of the heroic men and the wondrons resources and scenery of the Americas ; and it surpasses all that has been presented to the public, of the stories of the careers of Columbus and his followers. There has been no chapter in the world's History exceeding the story of the New World that Colon gave to Castile and Leon, in combining the fascination of romance with the assurance of history, richer in the strife of human endeavor, rarer in the dramatic incidents of true tragedies, more instructive in the deeds of brave men in strange countries and uncommon situations, than is harvested here, and recorded in attractive form. It condenses the treasures of libraries, and sets forth with the excellence of simplicity the truthful tales of the ages of American discovery and adventure, that made possible the progress that is best described as American, gives the foremost of the heroic characters that which is due. the glorx' of his deeds, and the pathos of his suflferings that all appear in the lines school children know so well, and recite so often that all men and women know and cherish and give with their love to the children : Columbia, Columbia, To glory arise ; The Queen of the World. The child of the skie.s. Thy geuiu.s commands me, With rapture behold, While ages on ages Thy splendors imfokl. New World Heroes (IF Exploration, Discovery anu Conuuest. CHAPTER AMKIUCA l^.EFOKE t'OLUMiJUS. Plan of the Work — 1 )ivi>ic.iis nl' History — Eg_v]ili:iii Knowledge of America — (Jtlier JiCgciuls --Carthagi-niaii Discoveries — Records Found — A (Trecian Tomb in America— Similarity of Picture Writing — Chinese Discovei'ies — Difficulties of Mari'time Enterprises — Invention of the Compass — Welsh-Speaking Indians — The Norsemen — Erik the Red — Discovery of Green- land — Leif s Voyage — The Round Tower— The First Fight witli the Indians. IT is our j)urpose in tliis volume to trace the liistory of the 2;reut diseov- eries begiuniiiif in the memorable year 1492; to show liovv not only Columbus labored and waited until his <>;reat opportunity came, but the adventures and hardships through wliicli iiis contemporaries and successors souglit out the mysteries surrounding that Ne\v World. Before entering upon this task, however, it will be well to consider the stories told of various seamen who had sought and found the fiir-otf conti- nent, before Columbus. We sliallalso see what dim knowledge of a land beyond the great \vestern ocean was current among the peoples of antiquity. History is usually divided into three parts. Ancient history ends with tiie fall of Rome, in 476 A.D.; the History of the Middle Ages then begins, and extends over a period of about ten centuries ; since the end of which, the re- cord is call(;d Modern History. During the lirst period, there were certain traditions regarding a country Avhich was probably America ; during the second period there may have been some daring sailors who reached the Ne\v World ; the third period begins with the story of exploration, discovery and .settlement in America. Solon, one of tlie seven wise men of (xreece, who li\ ed in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., traveled into far countries, to learn all that the sages of other nations had to teach. When he reached Egypt, he thought to aston- ish the priests — -tiie learned men of the country — by telling them of the his- tory of Greece, and particularly of Athens, of which city he was a native. "Solon, Solon!" exclaimed one of the oldest of them; "the Greeks are nothing but children, and an aged Greek there is none." 125) 26 AMKRICA ItlJ'OKK COI.IMIUS. Much surprised at this, the li'avcler asked the priest wliat he meant ; and received in replj' suen saved from these terrible enemies. The sinking of this island, the jjricst added, hail so blocked up the ocean with mud as to make it forever afterward impassable. The date of its destruction he tixcd at a jidint about nine thousand years before his own time. Solon returned to Greece, bearing this information with iiim; but it does not seem to have been made public until the time of his descendant Plato, who lived about two hundred years later; and we have no means of knowing how much Plato added to the original story from the treasury of his own mind. It is from this source tiiat we derive the classic fables of IlieLost Atlantis. There were legends, too, of the (iardens of the Ilespcridcs, and of the Fortunate Islands, and, later, of St. I?randan"s Island and other favored places, far in the west; but whether these had any connection with a belief in land beyond the Atlantic, or whether this was simply considered a conven- ient situation for the scene of such stories, since nobody knew enough of this region to say the islands were not there, wc cannot pretend to say. It is possible that America was reached by the Phienician and Cartliagin- iaa sailors, tlie most adventurous of anticpiity. But the Phcenicians were early reduced to insignificance among the nations of the world, while the Carthaginians, whose city they had founded, rose into importance. But Carthage engaged in wars with Rome, and was tonally wholly destroyed by the armies of that gi'cat city; and all record of her colonies and discoveries was thus lost. It is certain that Carthaginian sailors discovered the Canary Islands, which were then uninhabited; and these islands were peopled from Carthage; yet, when they were re-discovered, the inhal)itants had lost all tradition of their ancestors having come from another country, and thought' themselves the only people in the world. Traditions which have survived the destruction of Carthage tell us that a vessel on the Mediterranean, which was sailing towards the Straits of Gib- raltar, the ancient Calpe, was driven by storms beyond it. and was heard of AMERICA BEFORE COLUMUl S. ll no more. Did it reach America? At a meeting of the Mexican Geographical Society, some few years since, it was stated that some brass tablets had been discovered in the northern part of Brazil, covered with PhaMiician inscrip- tions, which tell of the discovery of America five centuries before the begin- ning of the Christian efa. These are now in the museum at Rio Janeiro. They state that a Sidonian fleet sailed from a harbor in the Red Sea, and rounding the Cape of Good Hojje, was driven by the south-east trade-winds, and then by the north-east, across the Atlantic. The number of the vessels, the number of seamen, and many other particulars are there given. A Phcexician Vessel. In 1827, a farmer near Montevideo, in Uruguay, South America, is said to have discovered a flat stone which bore an inscription in a language un- known to him. Beneath it was a vault of masonry, in which was deposited two ancient swords, a helmet, and a shield. The stone which had covered the vault was taken to Montevideo, where it was found that the inscription was in most parts sufliciently legible to be deciphered. According to those learned men who examined it, it was in Greek, and read as follows: — "During the dominion of Alexander, the son of Philip, King of Macedon, in the sixty- third Olympiad, Ptolemais." On the handle of one of the swords was a man's portrait, supposed to be that of Alexander; the helmet was decorated with a fine sculpture represent- ing Achilles dragging the body of Hector around the walls of Troy. If this is indeed a relic of times before Columbus, it would indicate that during the reign of Alexander the Great, about 3;50 B. C, a party of Greeks had crossed the Atlantic. Why the arms should have been deposited in this vault we do not know ; it may have been that one of their number, Ptolemais, possibly their leader, died; it may be that they found it impossible to carry out the cus- toms of their nation, and reduce the body to ashes; and hence entombed it 2S A\li;i;i( A liKl'OKK COI.LMHUS. ill this vault, with tlie arms wliidi tlicir leader had used during his iJfeliaie. More than Iwo liiousaud years liad passed before it was opened; and in that time every trace of the body and its softer clothing had been destroyed, leav- ing only the imperishable metals. A I'l.KET OK Uo.MAN (J.VLLEV^ 'I rEKl!AN'B.\N'. These are the stories of ancient times in r(>L'ard to America. It will be no- ticed that while there are accounts of men wlio reached the western shores of the Atlantic, it would seem that there are none of whom it is said that they returned. Yet the fables of Atlantis shows that at some time the people of the eastern continent must have known something of the western. It is a curious fact, in this connection, that recent investigations have shown that the monuments of ISIc.xico and Central America are surprisingly similar to those of Egypt; and there is a still greater degree of similarity between the picture-writing of these two far-distant i)arts of the world. How much of the civilization of Mexico and Peru, which has long been the wonder of white men, came originally from Egypt, the mother of the arts and sciences known to Europe? At the very bcginiiiim <'t the Middle Ages, we find a claim of another dis- covery of America; but this time from l!ie other coast. In ITtU, Deguignes, AJIKKICA I'.KIOKI': COLUMBUS. 29 a French seliohu- whose iiaiiu- is now lUniost unknown, announced to the world that the Chinese discoNcrcd America in the tiftli century', A. D. lie derived this information from the official annals of the Chinese Empire, to which, he claimed, he had gained access. lie tells us that he found that in the year 499 A. D., a Chinese Buddhist priest returned to Singan, the cajjital of China, from Tahan, or Khamschatka, saying that he had been to a coun- try twenty thousand li, or about seven thousand miles, beyond Tahan. It is supposed by Deguignes from this statement of the distance, that lie haiL crossed Behring's Strait and journeyed southward to California, or jx'rhaps^ as far as Mexico. The explorer called this country Fusang, from the fact that the maguey, or American aloe, so plentiful in that part of North Amer- ica, resembles the plant M'hich the Chinese call fusang. Before considering at more length the stories of those navigators who are said to have preceded Columbus in the discovery of America, let us see what difficulties were in the way. In the first place, the vessels which served for coasting voyages were, in very many cases, small and ill-fitted for buffeting with the storms of the Atlantic. We shall see hereafter, however, that an experienced sailor did not consider certain ships as unfitted for his purpose because they were smaller than many of his day; and, perhaps, in comparing the ships of the two periods, we are apt to place too much stress on the fact that the vessels of to-day are large, and conclude that because of their size they are safer. Possibly the small craft in which the early navigators cross- ed the Atlantic were far safer and more manageable than larger vessels would have been, without the aid of steam to speed them on their way. A far greater difficulty lay in the ignorance of the sailors. Do we realize what it means to have no newspapers, no books except costly manuscripts, no schools excejit for those of high rank or who intended to enter the priest- hood? Can a modern sailor imagine what it would be to drift upon an un- known sea, without chart or compass? Yet that is what these early seamen did, when they ventured far to the west, in search of land of whose very ex- istence they were not sure. The mariner's compass was not known in. Europe until about the twelfth century; although it had been in use much earlier than this in China. A learned Florentine, who visited England in 1258, wrote home a letter describ- ing one wonderful thing which he had seen. He had been to the great Univer- sity of Oxford, which had had a European renown for hundreds of years even then, and had been admitted to the study of Friar Roger Bacon, a man so wise that most persons thought he must have sold himself to the devil to learn all that he knew. One of the wonderful things which he saw was the power which a piece of magnetic iron ore possessed over iron and steel ; and the great friar, putting a long, slender bit of such ore on a piece of light wood, and letting it float on some water, showed the astonished traveler how 30 AMKKICA BKl'()i;i'. (OI.I.MHI S. constantly one end of tlin rude needle pointed to the Xortii Stiir. It was too strange a jjower to ho wholly I'ight, thought tlie people of tliat time; it eoulil only be by Satanic direction that such i)Owers could be given to a bit of senseless iron; how could a piece of metal know more than a Christian? And good, devout Catholics, in stormy weather, were often puzzled to know in what direction to look for the North Star. So the sailors refused to go in any vessel whose master was known to carry this magical contrivance; and it was only when they found that exorcisms and blessings and signs of the cross did not take away this power of the magnet, tiiat they began tri believe it did not come from the devil after all. This foolisii prejudice against the mariner's compass once removed, a great difficulty in the way of oceanic ex- ploration was smoothed away. If we may believe the claims of several nations, iiowever, America was dis- covered more than once before the nuiriners compass was in use among European sailors. There are some claims that the Irish, at a periotl which is not tixed, had sailed westward and reached the farther shores of the Atlan- tic; and the people of the northern part of Europe told of a country which they called CJreat Ireland, in very much the same way as the peo})le of the soutiiern part, at a little earlier day, told of Atlantis. It must be reuiember- ed in reading of this Irish voyage, that in very early times Ireland was a much more highly civilized country than England. The schools of Ireland w"ere famous throughout Europe, Ijcfore those of Oxfoi-d and Cambridge ani'ortli Carolina. Ono claim or the other niu.st be fjiven up. "We come now to tiic account of tlic discovery of America l>v na^ iirators from another counti-y, whoso claims to having actually readied the shores of the western continent are clearer and better proved than any of those who wont before them. The discoveries of the Norsemen are recorded in their .• liiin to (Jreculand. They assented to this, though none of them had been in tlie " CireenUmd Ocean." Putting to sea, they had fair weather for three days; hut after that, fogs arose, and continued many days. Finally, they saw land. They wore doubtful, however, if this was Greenland ; and sailed closer before they could determine. Seeing that it was without mountains, but covered with wood, they decided that it could not l>c the country which they were seeking, and leaving it on the larboard side, sailed two days before they again saw land, 'i'his, again, did not answer the description, being a flat land cov- ered with wood. The sailors, howev«'r, were tired of seeking a land the location of wliich they did not know, and wished to go ashore here; pretending, when Bjarni objected, that they were in need of wood and water. lie stoutly refused to permit it, however, and at last they unwillingly turned the prow from the land. Sailing three days with a south-west wind, they saw another land, covered with mountains and ice-hills; but this did not appear inviting to Bjarni, and he forbade the sails to Ix- lowered. iVs they kept on their course, they saw that this was an island. Once more putting out to sea, they sailed four days, when they saw the fourth land. It seemed to Bjarni that this answered the description of (Jreenland, and putting about for shore, they chanced to land just at the point where Bjarni's father, Ilerjulf, had settled. AVhat were the three lands that he saw? If we carefully trace his course on the map, remembering that the Norsemen reckoned a day's sail at about thirty geographical miles, and keeping in mind what is said of the direction of the wind, we can but come to the conclusion that the tirst land seen was Connecticut or Long Island, while the great island was doubtless Newfound- land; the second land was some i)oint between the two. This is the lirst written record which we have of the discovery of the mainland of America. The voyage was made at some time in the late sum- mer or autumn of its.'); hut, as we lia\e seen, the Eurojieans did not attempt to land. Bjarni went back to Norway, where he boasted of his iliscovery; but the fact that he had refused to land became somewhat a matter of reproach to him. His experiences, however, caused much talk about voyages of dis- covery, and Leif, the son of thsit (juarrelsome Erik the Red, who had first settled Greenland, sailed away to the south-west with thirty-tive men. One of these is called in the saga a Southern; he was i)robably a Geruum. But we will (piote the simple old story itself: — "Now prepared they their ship, and sailed out into the sea when they were ready, and then found that land first which Bjarni had found last. There sailed they to the land, and cast anchor, and put off boats, and went AMKKICA BKFOKK C'oLr.MlUS 3.5 ashore, and found there no grass. * * * Then said Loif: -WeliuNc not done like Bjarni about this land, that we have not been up His Men Fixd Tvrkkr. " Tyrkcr now spoke first, for a long time, in (lermau, and rolled his eyes about to different sides, and twisted his mouth, l)nt they did not undt'rsland what he said. After a time he si)oko Norse : - " ' I have not been nmeh further off, but still I have something new to tell of; I found wine-wood and wine-berries.' AMKHICA HKIOKIC Ci >I.U.'MB1IS. •)( " 'But is that true, my fosterer?" stiid Leif. " ' Surely is it true,' replied he, ' for I was bred up iu a land where there is no want either of wine-wood or wine-berries.' "They slept now for the night, but iu the morning, Leif said to his sailors : " ' We will now set about two things, in that the one day we gather grapes, and the other day cut vines and fell trees, so from thence will be a loading i for my shij).' " And that was the counsel taken, and it is said their long boat was filled with grapes. Now was a cargo cut down for the ship, and when the spring came, they got ready and sailed away, and Lief gave the land a name after i its qualities, and called it Vinland." The next voyage was made by Thorvald, the younger brother of Leif. These voyagers made for the point where Leif and his companions had spent the winter, but were less fortunate than they had been. Leaving these houses behind them, they started upon a further journey of discovery; and here we find the story of the first encounter between Indians and Europeans. Hav- ing landed, Thorvald and his men saw three skin-boats drawn up on the sand; they approached them, and found that there were three men under each. Dividing, they surrounded the ^natives, and attacked them. One es- caped; eight were captured and put to death. Thus early did the wanton war upon the Indians begin. But the red man who had escaped had carried the tidings to his tribe; and that night, while Thorvald and his men were sleeping as peacefully as if they had not murdered their prisoners, were alarmed by the M'ar-cry of the sav- ages. They were repulsed, but one of the white men being wounded. That one was Thorvald; and the wound was evidently with a poisoned arrow, for he died, and was buried at the cape where he thought it best to dwell. The next voyage was made by a third brother, Thorstein, who took his wife Gudrid with him. He died shortly after they returned to Greenland, and (rudrid married Thorfinn, an able seaman and merchant. Thorfinn fitted out a vessel to explore Vinland, and again Gudrid went with her husband to the new country. Here a son was born to them, whom they named Snorre — the first child of European parentage born on the western continent. Thorwaldsen, the gi-eat sculptor, and many other eminent Norwegians, claimed descent from Snorre Thorfinnson, born in America iu 1007 A. D. Thorfinn and his party met the natives several times, but did not fight them, as the early explorers had done. They traded peaceably with them for awhile — cheating the Indians, of course — and thought there was no dan- ger from them. But the roaring of a bull which the strangers brought with them so frightened the natives that they fled at their utmost speed, and were not seen again for three weeks. Then they returned in force, attacking the :^x AMKUKA ISKKOItl'. COl.lMUrS. strauger.s, who were glad to witlidraw to tlic houses which they had built. Tlie Indians were repulsed, but the whites judged it wisest to leave a land where there was such danger from the natives. It must be remembered that these early Norsemen did not have the advantage of firearms, as those who came in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had. The Indians had knives and a.xes of stoue; the Norsemen had weapons of iron, and this was the sole advantage which they possessed. Hopelessly outnumbered, there was nothing for them to do but withdraw. According to some authorities, one hundred of them refused to follow their leader back to Greenland, but remained in the new country, the land of corn and wine, as it truly .seemed to these children of the frozen North. It is not certain, however, but what all of them went back to (jieenland. There were some minor voyages after this time; but during the century to which we have now come, a terrible jjlague swept over Norway, and so de- creased the population that there was no need for the people to seek new homes beyond the sea. Perhai)s the traditions of the terrible natives had something to do with this; or perhaps their energies were turned in other di- rections. Certainly, the voyages of the Norsemen to the coast of North America had ceased long before the time of ("oluml)us: and the reconls were stored away, to be brought to light again nearly a thousand years after the first of such journeys was made. We have already alluded to the Rounu Tower at Newport, which is sup- posed ])y many to be the work of the Norsemen; anti(juarians claiming that it resembles certain structures in the Old World, which are known to have been built by this people. Another cu- rious relic is found in what is called The Digli- ton Hock, which is situated about six and a half miles from Taunton, Massachusetts. This rock, which is about eleven and a half feet long at the base, and about five feet high, is covereil on one face with an inscription, which Norsemen claim is written in the Runic characters which their ancestors used. The name of Thorfinn and the number of his followers are about the only points which they have been able to make out. It is right to state here that their claim of its Norse origin is not undisputed. Schoolcraft, the best authority upon all matters relating to the American Indian, says it is an Indian picture-writing, and can be readily read by any one accjuainted with their mode of expression. ^lany Americans are ac(iuainted with Longfellow's i)oem of " The Skeleton in Armor." This skeleton was dug up in the vicinity of Fall Kiver; was it thebodv of Thorvald? We have no means of knowing. The Skki.kton in Ah.mor. AMERICA BKIOKK COLl .MBUS. 3!) of llu; early ili.scovery of \ tural. Evt'ii those heroes V It imist 1)0 remembered that, in all these stories Aiuorica there is much that is uncertain and conjectur! whose adventures are recorded in the sagas, have had their claims contested; for they knew so little of geography that they could not clearly describe the po- sition of the lands which they discovered. The difference between the] earlier and the later discoverers may be stated thus: Those persons who reached the shores of America before the middle of the fifteenth century, were wild adventurers, knowing nothing of any means of preserving the ri'cord of their exploits but the wild songs of their native minstrels; Colum- bus and many of his successors were men of science, capable of observing' and recording points which nuide j)atent to the world the facts of their; achievements. ) Thus ends the story of those who claimed to have discovered the western world before Columbus set out on his memorable voyage. We shall see, when we come to tell of his struggles to obtain recognition, M'hether he knew any- thing of what others had done before him by crossing the great Atlantico ./ '';);„;;L,i ;;, CHAPTER 11. COLUMBUy LIFE BEFORE THE DISCON'EKY OF AMERICA. Date and Place of His Birth — A Poor Man's Son — Education — Geographical Knowledge of the Time — Ideas of India — Marco Polo — A Splendid Banquet — The Scofters Rebuked — "Lord Millions" — The Story of His Travels — The Grand Khan— Cipango — Imprisoned at Genoa— Influence on Youths of Genoa — Columbus Sees Service — Deceiving a Mutinous Crew — Prince Henry of Portugal— Columbus at Lisbon — Marriage — An Honored Profession — Friends — Evidence of a World Beyond the Waters — Growth of His Great Idea — Toscanelli Consulted — Religious Character of Columbus — Application to Genoa — To Venice — Voyage to Iceland — Application to Portugal — A Scurvy Trick — Condition of European Countries — A Friend at Last — Disappointment — A Sketch of Spanish History — The War Against the Moors — Effect upon the Project of Columbus — Friends at Court — Received by King Ferdinand — The Great Council of Salamanca^The Folly of the Wise — The Arguments of Columbus — Delayed Decision — -A Wandering Court — Invitation to Portugal — Letter from England — The Council's Decision — Columbus Sets out for France — At the Convent Gate — Friends at Palos — Appeal to the (.iueen — Demands of Columbus Rejected — A Courageous Courtier — Columbus Hecalled — Isabella's Independence — Articles of Agreement. "AVING now renewed briefly tlie clainLs of those nations whicii are said to have discovered America before it was reached by the Geno- ese sailor with his Spanish followers, let us learn what we can of the early years of the great discoverer — not only of his birth, childhood and edu- cation, but of the weary wanderings from place to place, the long years of labor and waiting, before he found friends with minds sulHciently large, and purses sufficiently filled, to assist him in this great undertaking. He was the son of a wool-comber of Genoa, and the oldest of four chil- dren. Nothing is known of his sister, except that she married an obscure man named Savarello ; of his brothers, Bartlioloniew, and Diego or James, we shall hear more, particularly of the first-named. After Columbus grew famous, there were many efforts nuide to claim him as native of other places than Genoa ; as it was said of the great Greek poet, "Seven Grecian, cities strove for Homer dead, Through which the living' Homer begged bis bread." Had these places been as anxious to assist the struggling genius as they were to borrow some of his glory, there would be much less to tell about disap- pointments and long weary waiting. The claims of Genoa are proved by the wording of the will of Columbus himself: " I was born there, and came from thence." {41j 42 (in.r.Mius" 1,11 i: hkiokk iiik i)is((>\i;in oi' .\.mi;i;i( a. It i-; probahlc tluil, altliough lii.s father was an limnblc Iradesinau or nie- tliaiiic, the family had hocn one of some importaiKc. (ieiioa was a niercan- tilo city; and a wealthy family, reduced by misfortunes to poverty, would still retain friendship among those who were less unfortunate. W'e shall see. as we go on, thatColumhus had some such friends; but just how iiiiich tiny did for him, and how much he won for himself, we cannot tell. This much is certain: lie was a poor man's son, born and brought up in ;i city the people of which derived their daily bread from trading. Look at the map of Italy, and remember that in those days there were not only no rail- roads, but no other roads that were safe and well kept; and you will readily see what part the sea played in the life of every Genoese. The great salt- water highway was the only one for their commerce; and every Genoese boy learned something of seamanship as naturally as a duck learns to swim. His book education was supposed to be completed at the age of fourteen, lie had then ac([uired a knowledge of the rudiments, reading, writing and arithmetic; he knew something of Latin, no hard study for an Italian, and had learned to draw. Some time had also been spent at the University of Pavia, where he studied geograjihy, geometry, astronomy and navigation. When we remember what parts of the earth have been discovered and ex- l)lored since the middle of the fifteenth century, it does not .seem that there would be much geography for the boy Columbus to stutly. And there was not. Even the eastern continent was largely unknown to the geographers of that time. With the coast of Europe, from the northern point of p]urope to the Strait of Gibraltar, and thence along the Mediterranean, they were thorough- ly well acquainted; of Africa, they knew only the northern coast and a small part of the western, as far south as Cape Hojador, a name which means "The Outstretcher;" and of Asia they knew the Mediterranean coast, apart of the southern coast, and thought that they had reliable accounts of the jiart far- ther to the east. They were sure that the world was round, but thought it much smaller than it has since been proved to be. They reckoned that the known portions of the world covered about two hundred and twenty-five tlegrees of longitude, or about twice as great a })roportion as modern geographers allow for it. The world, or rather the land of the world, was wholly surrounded by tlie "Ocean Stream," beyond which lay, they thought, the path to the other world. The great salt sea to the south of Asia was probably no part of this, but was surrounded by land, the eastern coast of Africa turning to the east, and joining the south-eastern extremity of Asia; but opinions on this point varied, for some believed the Indian Sea, as it was called, to be a part of the ocean; and stoutly maintained that it would bo possible to reach India by sailing around Africa. As to investigating the boundaries of the ocean, that woulil be tlie ait of a madman; for countless dreadful and unknown dan- COLUMBUS LIFK BEFORK THK DISCOVERV OF AMERICA. 43 gers nuLst be faced, besides the absolute certainty that no one would ever be able to return. The earth is round, these wise men argued; and if one were to sail down from the summit, where we live, he would never be able to sail his ship up-hill, to reach home again. Sea Bishop and M?:umaios. Besides, in and a])out that sea, in the dim light of fading day, crawled, seethed, fluttered and swam all the monsters that terror could conjure up. The enormous nautilus, able with one stroke of its live oars to capsize a ship; the sea-serpent, fifty leagues long, with a comb like a cock's; the sy- rens of Homer, ceaselessly pursued by the cruel sea-monk, whi(-h was still be- lieved in as late as 1^>2(); and, finally, the dreadful bishop of the sea, with his phosphorescent mitre. Plarpics and wingetl chimeras skimmed this mo- I'lii. I'li.wTOMs or Fkah, COLUMBUS' LIFE BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 45 tionless sea iu pursuit of their prey; there were sea-elcphauts, lions, tigers and hippocampi, who grazed in vast fields of sea-weeds from which no ship could ever hope to extricate herself. Out of this chaotic sea arose a colossal hairy hand armed with claws — the hand of Satan, La Main Noire; its existence could not be doubted — it was pictured on all the maps of the time. From the bottom of the abyss there appeared also, from time to time, at regular intervals, the back of the kraken, like a new island, some said twice, others three times, as large as Sicily. This huge polypus, who, with one of its suckers — and it had as many as the cuttle-fish — could arrest a ship in full sail, was in the habit of rising to the surface every day. From its vent-holes issued two water-spouts six times as high as the Giralda of Seville. When it had squirted out the water, it would draw in a coi'responding supply of air, thereby creating a whirlwind in which a ship would have spun like a top. The kraken was not an evil-disposed monster; but it could not be denied that its enormous dimensions rendered it, to say the least, an unpleasant object. And even without the kraken, and supposing that the Black Hand of Satan did not dare to descend on a fleet whose royal ensign bore the im- age of Christ crucified, which had the ever-blessed Virgin for its patroness, how were they to escape from the two-headed eagle with its enormous wings, or from the formidable roc, which had seized and carried off in its talons, before the Arab traveler's eyes, a vessel equipped with a hundred and fifty men ? These were some of the things which the boy Columbus learned at the great and famous University of Padua; when he became a pupil in the Uni- versity of Hard Knocks, he acquired information that was cjuite different. But why was India considered of so much importance? For, we have seen that it was debated whether or not it would be possible to reach India by sea; and although we have not yet reached that point in telling the life of Columbus, there is not a reader of these pages but knows beforehand that he expected to reach India by sailing westward. For a long time the regions of the far east had been considered the home of luxury of every kind. Perhaps the stuffs which merchants brought from there had something to do with this belief; perhaps it was only because peo- ple wanted to tell themselves some kind of a marvelous story, and imagined these things. Some of these stories had come down from ancient times; others had been told by the Arabs and Moors, who had settled in Spain, and with whom there was more or less intercourse. What we know as European Turkey was not in the hands of the Turks when Columbus was a school- boy, if we accept 1435 as the date of his birth; so that nothing could have come from them. There were not wanting travelers' tales, to excite the popular curiosity re- 4t> " i.irK. iikiokk the mscovKRV or ami.kka. jrarding till' oast. In tin- year 12il.') there ai-rivod at ^'(•ni{■c three men, very bhabhily dressed in travel-stained garments. The ehh'st of these dechircd thatliis name was Nieholas Polo, and that his eompanions were his brt)ther Maffeo and his son Marco. But the relatives of the Polos, who had started upon a eommereial voyage to the cast some fort 3* years before, refused to recognize or invite these shabby strangers to their magnificent houses, for they were all rich and aristocratic. The Polos, however, managed to obtain [jossession of their own dwelling, and then invited all the proud relations to a banquet. Perhajis it was out of curiosity that all went; such curiosity was most abundantly gratified. The three hosts, whose worn and travel-stained garments had so offended the ideas of the diiinty Venetians, ha■ LU-K BEFOKE THE UlSCUN KKV OF AMERICA. 49 gold ; and the golden plates used for its inside adornment were, in some cases, two inches thick. The island also produces pearls of fabulous size in large quantities, as well as great numbers of precious stones. It is so rich, he added, that even the mighty Khan, a prince far richer than any in Europe, had tried many times to conquer it, but had failed to do so, since the inhabi- tants had a secret by which they were enabled to make themselves secure; against any kind of wound. The sea between Cathay aiul Cipango is studded with seven thousand four hundred and forty small islands, all of which produce perfumes and valua- ble woods most abundantly. The Great Khan, otherwise called Kublai Khan, was much pleased to re- ceive these strangers from the distant west. He prepared a feast for them, and asked, with much eagerness, for any information that they could give him of what was happening in Europe, requiring details of the government, of the various kings and emperors and their methods of making war. Maf- feo and Nicholas fortunately spoke the Tartar language fluently, so they could freely answer all the emperor's questions. This mighty prince of the East had also shown great interest in the doc- trines of Christianity, as taught by the Venetian merchants; and had re- quested them to take a message to the Pope, asking him to send at once a hundred learned men to instruct the wise men of Cathay in religion. All these statements were proved by the golden tablets with which the Khan had furnished them as passports, and by the magnificent jewels which they showed as his gifts to them. How much of these stories was true? The contemporaries of the Polos regarded them as grossly exaggerated; neither friends nor foes believed the half Mas true. It is said that when Marco Polo was on his death-bed, some of his friends, distressed at the idea of his dying with all these falsehoods on his soul, exhorted him to retract what he had published; or, at least, to dis- avow such parts as were fictitious. The dying man raised himself and glared fiercely at them, as he replied that it was all true; only, he had not told half of the wonders that he saw. So nmch for the ti-avels of Marco Polo. How did they affect Columbus? Venice and Genoa are now close neighbors, cities of the same kingdom, their language and their laws alike. It was different then; the few miles between them were multiplied by the dangers and difficulties of the way; they were under distinct governments, and occasionally at war with each other; how could the Genoese boy be influenced by the accounts given, a hundred and fifty years before, by the Venetian traveler? It came about in this way. Shortly after the return of the wanderers, a Genoese fleet threatened part of the Venetian territory; it was necessary for Venice to defend herself. Of the fleet which was sent to oppose the enemy, •1 ."id coi.lMlils' l.ll T. llKloltK llli; I)1S(IS(()VERV OF AMERICA. 51 at his father's trade ; but this could not last long. Soon he, too, followed (he example of so many of his countrymen, and engaged in a seafaring life. His first service was under the command of a relative, a Colombo who ha(i for some time past held the rank of an admiral. We cannof tell the de- gree of relationship; probably it was very distant; for, as we have seen, the father of the discoverer was a poor man, a mechanic. In the iifteenth cen- tury, a man who worked was thought very little of; quite below consider- ation, in fact; and perhaps the old admiral was not very proud of his poor relations. Thk Ykaks of Preparation. Cruising in the Mediterranean was then no child's play; for there was scarcely a part of the sea that was not beset with pirates; petty states were constantly at war, and frequently their vessels would seize those whose mas- 52 rOMMIUs' LIKK BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. ters were not engaged in war with any one. A merchant vessel liad to carry arms, and he ready to use them at very short notice. Columbus, however, was not engaged in the merchant service. A French prince, John of Anjou, asserted his^ightto the kingdom of Naples, a small state in the south of Italy. The republic of Genoa was an ally, and sent ships and men to his assistance; the war lasted for about four years, and ended in the defeat of John of Anjou and his father, King Keinier of Provence. Columbus was assigned to no snudl post in the fleet commanded by his rel- ative; boy as he was, he had dangerous work to do. lie tells us of his being sent to rescue a galley from the harbor of Tunis. " It happened to mc tiiat King Reinier — whom (Jod has taken to himself — sent me to Tunis, to capture the galley Fernandina, and when I arrived off the island of San Pedro, in Sardinia, I was informed that there were two ships and a carrack with the galley; by which intelligence my crew were so troubled that they determined to proceed no further, l)ut to return to Mar- seilles for another vessel and more people; as I could not by any means compel them, I assented apparently to their wishes, altering the point of the compass and spreading all sail. It was then evening, and next morning we were within the Caj)e of Carthagcna, wliile all were tirmly of opinion that they were sailing towai'tis Marseilles." What the sailors said when they found out that he had deceived them as to the direction in wliich they were sailing by thus altering the point of the compass, does not ajipear; nor are we told the result of the cruise into the harbor of Tunis; prol)ably the same bold and resolute spirit which had out- witted the crew gained a victory over the enemy. We shall see after awhile that he again deceived a crew, and again brought the voyage, l)y this de- ception, to a successful ending. Now and again we tind some traces of Columbus in the history of the time; but it is d()ul)tful whether the person meant was the old admiral under whom the discoverer sailed as a boy, or a nephew called Colombo el Mozo, the Young- er, or the youngest and finally by far the most famous of the three. Prob- ably most of the exploits recorded arc to be placed to the ac(?ount of the first or the second, for Christopher was not likely to have attracted so uuich at- tention in these years. It is probable that he was early attracted to the capital of Portugal as a suitable place for a man to live who was interested in adventures and ex- plorations by sea; for Lisbon was then the starting-point of many great ex- peditions. Prince Henry of Portugal was the first prominent person to en- gage in the work of carrying forward discovery; and during the first half of the fifteenth century, under his direction, Portuguese ships had ventured farther and farther along the coast of what is still the Dark Continent. Prince Henry diet! in 14fi3; but the work of discovery to which he had given COHTMBIS I, IKK UKFOKE THK DISCOVEKV OT AMKRICA. 53 strength still went forward; Diaz was seat to find, iii the interior of Africa, the king who has already lieeu mentioned, Prester John; he found, instead, the Cape of Good Hope. It is worthy of remark, that Bartholomew Colum- bus was one of the sailors who ventured on this long voyage. There is a story of the manner in which Christopher Columbus first came to Lisbon, which may here bo set down. While the story is not without foundation, it should be remembered that Columbus was a residepit of Lis- bon some time before this; so that he was but returning to a place where he \ad lived. Diaz on His Way 'lo iiir. Cu'e. He was in command of a vessel of the squadron under the leadership of Colombo el Mozo. This admiral was really little better than a pirate; and having heard that four richly laden galleons were on their way from Fland- ers, as the Low Countries were then called, to Venice, he gave orders to his captains to lie in wait for them off the coast of Portugal, between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent. There was a desperate battle ; the ships were lashed and grappled together; the sailors fought hand to hand, now on the deck of one, now of the other. The vessel commanded by Columbus was grappled with a huge galley of the Venetian tleet. the crew of which fought with even more .')4 COI.I ■:\IIU s I.IIK HKIOUK THK Dl^COVKUV OF AMF.KICA. fiiTccno.ss tliim their companions. A favoritf form of warfare in that time eonsi.stcd of throwing tiery c unloosed, and burned to the water's edge, -side by side, Venetian and (ie- noese. The crews had but one connnon hope of escape; each man threw himself into the sea, grasping whatever wood was within reach. Columlius chanced to secure an oar, and although they were fully six miles from shore, succeeded in swimming to land. Thence he made his way to Lisbon, where he found many of his countrymen living; jjcrhaps he found there his brother Hartholoniew, known for his bravery as a navigator since he had accom- panied Diaz in that perilous voyage far to the south, when the Cape of (rood Hoi)e had been discovered. Certainly he found such a welcome that he decided to remain there for some time to come. Columbus went to Portugal about the year 1470. Although at this time, if we accept the earliest date given for his birth, he was in the very prime of life, being liut thirty-tive years old, his hair was as white as that of a very old man. In person, he was tall, well-formed and muscular; and he had achieved a victory over a naturally (juick temper so completely as to mark his bear- ing with a grave and gentle dignity. Throughout his life, he had shown great regard for the church, strictly observing the fasts, vigils, and other forms of devotion prescribed by her priests; and this (juality seems to have had fuller op|)ortunity for development in the peaceful life at the Portu- guese capital than among the wild rovers of the sea. There is a cei'tain convent in Lisbon, styled the Convent of Ail Saints. where young ladies of rank and family were then, as now in similar institu- tions, received for instruction in all that a lady is supposed to learn at school. In addition to these inmates were some others, who boarded at the convent as a safe and proper shelter for women of their age and rank. One was a certain DonaFelipa de Perestrello, the daughter of a man who had won re- nown and reward as a leader of explorers in the time of Prince Henry; ami iiad, indeed, colonized the island of Porto Santo, of which he had held the office of governor. Hut this very office was the cause of his ruin. It was conferred upon him as a reward for his long-continued services, and seemed to be full payment. But the colonists took some rabbits with them to the i>land; and the little animals multiplied so rapidly that before long it was ' I. UK I'.Kioiu-: iiii: uistovicin of a.mkkua. to the presence of nobles and princes, that they should inquire about his work, and remark upon recent changes. Perhajjs they listened with interest to his accounts of his own voyafies; perhaps he now and then unfolded some plan by which new routes to India and Cathay miirht be found. Certainly the King looked so kindly upon him, and showed so much intei-est in the sub- ject which so absorbed the stranger's attention, that he entered into con- versation regarding indications of lands yet undiscovered, and showed Colum- l)us reeds as large as those which grow in India, which had been picked up on the coast of the Azores. Nor was this the only indication that there was a world beyond the waters. Many mariners had told of islands, seezi casually in the ocean; and the peo- ple of the C-anaries told of an island which was sometimes seen, in clear weather, to the westward of their islands; a vast stretch of earth, diversitied with lofty mountains and deep valleys. 80 persuaded were they of the real- ity of this island, that they asked and obtained the permission of the King of Portugal to discover it. Several exi)editions wei-e actually sent out, but not one succeeded in reaching the island; for it had been but a singular optical delusion. Then arose the story of St. Braiulan's Isle, an island which, it was said, was sometimes reached by those who set out for another port, but were ute than any which was then used? His purpose was founded upon the deeplj' religious character of his mind. AVe have seen that Kublai Khan re(piested the Pope to .send a hundred learned men to instruct his courtiers in the Christian religion ; this had never been done. Again, much wealth might be gained by trading with these countries; and while the many wars for the recovery 'of the Holy Land from the Mohammedans had faih>d, it might l)e that the country of Palestine could l)c bought from them, if a sufHciently large price were offered. This motive explains many tilings in the life of Columbus which otherwise would not be clear. This plan was complete in liis mind before 147r); and in that year he went to his native city and offered to conduct a fleet from Genoa across the^wesl- eru ocean to the land of Kublai Kh:in. But the world was not yet ready for the idea thus laid before it ; and the Councilors of Genoa, wrapping their furred mantles around them, replied with courteous dignity that their city had l)een too much impoverished by her numerous wars to undertake any such expensive enterprise. Disaj)pointed, but not disheartened, Columlius went to Venice, and made the same offer, only to meet with the same reception. He seems to have perceived, in this secoiul refusal, that it was useless for liim to talk more about it for the l)resent; so, after a short visit to his father at 8avf)na, he again went to sea. His voyage in this year 1477 was in a new direction — lo tiie far luulliwest. This is the record which he has left of his \isit to Iceland, of wiiich the Norsemen luive made much: — " In the year 1477, in February. I navigated one hundrcil leagues Ix-yond Thiile, the southern \r,\rt of which is seventy-three degrees distant from the roLr.Murs' i.ikk rkkokk tiik discovkrv ok amkhica. 59 equator, and not, sixty-tlircc, as sonit^ [jretend; neither is it sitiiatcil witliin the line which inchides the west of Ptoh-niy, but is much more westerly. The English, principally those of Bristol, go with their merchandise to this island, which is as large as England. When I was there the sea was not frozen, and the tides were so great as to rise and fall twenty-six fathoms." It is sometimes claimed that Columbus must have heard, during the course of this voyage, of the journeys of the Norsemen to Vinland and neighbor- ing countries. Even if he did, if he read all the sagas that tell of their ad- ventures, the knowledge thus gained only contirmed his theory, without de- tracting from the greatness of his discovery; he intended to tind a new route to India; these lands which had been discovered had nothing in com- mon with the thickly populated, wealthy and highly civilized domains of Kublai Khan. The Norsemen had never reached India. But while Columbus spoke several of the languages of the south of Eu- rope, we have no assurance that he was able to communicate with the Icelanders in their own tongue; and it is more than doubtful whetlier he ever heard of Vinland the Good. Upon his return to the south, he did not push his project for some time; perhaps he had already laid it before the King of Portugal and receivetl no encouraging answer; but of this we have no record. In 1481, the old King died, and was succeeded by his son, John II., a young man in his twenty-tifth year. Perhaps Columbus hoped from the adventurous daring of youth what he could not find in the prudence of the old King; at any rate, he laid his plans before the young ruler. There was another reason why Columbus should be bolder in pressing his desires than before; there was an invention recently perfected which en- abled the mariner to shape his course with more certainty, since by means of this instrument he could readily ascertain his distance from the equator. This was the astrolabe, which has since been discarded for the quadrant and sextant. It was intended to show the altitude of the sun, and by this means to fix the latitude. It must be remembered that for a hundred years Portugal had been fore- most in discovery and exploration; such had been the liberality of her re- wards for successful navigators, that men of all nations had been attracted to her service; learned men had been gathered from all quarters to pass upon the value of the information which might be brought back by the dar- ing sailors; and skilled cosmographers were busy at Lisbon making maps and charts which embodied this information. It might well be thought that this, of all others, was the country where Columbus, whose home had so long been within its borders, would meet with appreciation, and with that assistance which he sought. So Columbus hoped, as he patiently awaited the decision of the King, who (,() COM Mlil -- I. III'. I'.I'.I'OKK rill-; 1)|>(( )\ KIM i>|- AMKKK \. liiul listened lo liiiii witli llic closest attention, 'i'lie arjiunients of the navi- gator stiongly impressed the royal mind; but when it came to propo.^iin,!; term.'*, the monareh recoiled from the adventurer with surpri.'^e and i;k iiu: discovkkv ok ami;i!U\. i!,Vi?ut for any subji'ct In liolil: iicilnips lio foivsiiw wars afraiiisL liis sove- reigns, slioultl ho try to hold it ; sucli wealth was too great for any hut a sove- reign prineo. On the other hand, should Columbus fail, it would still be known at what ho had aimed; and the Duke of Medina Celi would be an objeet of suspieion forever to his King and Queen, as having as])ire(()\ KKV Ol Agjiiii, they quuk'd St. AiigustiiHi to pj-ovti tliat the ideas advanced by Colmnhus were in direct coiitradietion to the Scriptures. To maintain thai tiuMo are inhabited lands across the ocean is to suppose that there are men who arc not descenih'd from Adam; since tliese supposed Al)oriirines oouhl never have crossed the sea. Again, the Bible says that the heavens are sirctciicd about tlie j-arth lii dominions, raze their churches and convents, and utterly destroy the Holy Sc|)ulchre and all other places esteemed sacred by the Christians. It was impossible for the Spaniards to give up the war; for it had come to be a question of life and death Ix'tween the Moorish and the Christian king- doms; it was impossible for l)oth to conlinuc in .Spain. Isabella, howevt'r, rOLUMBUS' LIKE KICrORR TlIK DISCOVKRY OK AMERICA. 71 granted a perpetual annual gift of a thousand ducat.s in gold for liie main- tenance of the convent, and sent a veil embroidered by herself to be hung before the shrine; then, dismissing the friars, turned to the prosecution of the war again. But their coming, and tlie message which they brought, had a great effect upon tlie minds of many soldiers of high rank; and particularly was Colum- lius affected by it; it was a new and stronger proof than ever of the need of finding the rich rcgitnisof the east, and bringing home treasure enough to pur- chase the Holy Sepulchre from the heathen who so persecuted Christians. Again wo find a similar series of events filling the next year. Finally, in the spring of 14111, Columbus determined that he would wait no longer; he pressed for a reply to his suit. With some difficulty, the King was persuaded to tell Bishop Talavera that tiie learned men who had Ijcen so long in con- ference must render their decision. Their answer was ready, after some de- lay, and the King was gravely informed that the proposed scheme was vain and impossible, and that it did not become such great princes to engage in an enterprise of the kind on such weak grounds as had been advanced. Not all the members of the conference agreed in this report, however; there was what, in modern parlance, is called a minority report as well; and this, fortunately for Columbus, was rendered by Fray Diego de Deza, tutor to Prince Juan, who had access to the car of the King and Queen when others were denied. But the most favorable answer that even this suitor could ob- tain was a message that the expenses of the long war had been so great that the King and Queen could not now engage in any new enterprise demanding money and men. Disheartened at tliis message, Columbus repaired to court, to learn from Ferdinand ami Isabella themselves if this was really the answer they meant to give him, after keeping him waiting their pleasure for so many years. ^^'he^ he found that it was so, he thought that it was but a polite way of tell- ing him that they considered his schemes impracticable and visionary, and tliat they consequently had no intention of assisting him. lie accordingly re- solved that he would leave Spain at once, and seek in the court of France the aid which had been refused him by the Most Catholic King. Before he went, however — and a journey from Spain to France was some- thing of an undertaking then — he must see and talk with Don Pedro Correa, who, it will be remembered, had married one of the Perestrello sisters, and was therefore, by courtesy, brother-in-law to Columbus; and who had been one of those who connnunicatcd to the future discoverer what signs of land to the west of the ocean had been perceived, from time to time, by those ac- quainted with the western islands. He set out on foot; for his .stock of money, never large, must be carefully husbanded; he could not tell when he should liavo anv more. •h-'- - -f- -<'—-- COLU.MBUS' I,IFE BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 78 He was not alone on this journey; his son Diego, who was proljabl}' not more than fifteen years old, accompanied him; three-year-old Fernando, we may conjecture, I'emained in Cordova with his mother. We may easily imagine the picture — father and son toiling along the lonely road from Sev- ille to Huelva, near the little seaport of Palos de Moguer. Half a league outside the walls of the last-named town, there is still stand- ing an ancient convent of the Franciscan order, dedicated to Santa Maria dc Rabida. Before its gates, one day four hundred years ago, a stranger, lead- ing a boy by the hand, stopped, and asked for some bread and water for the child. There was nothing unusual in the request; for at that time there were no inns of any kind; and the traveler expected to find lodging and food in the castle or the convent. The request was granted as a matter of course; and while the child ate and drank, the prior of the convent, who chanced by, entered into a conversation with the father, whose plain garments did not conceal the evident distinction of the wearer. The prior had taken much interest in geographical and nautical science; for the seaport of Palos sent many enterprising navigators out to explore unknown paths upon the ocean; but the stranger opened a new line of thought to him. India could be reached by sailing westward across the ocean, and there were no insuperable difiiculties in the way — that was the wonderful idea which the stranger unfolded to the prior, Juan Perez de Mar- chena. But the wanderer had more to tell thau that he had conceived this idea. He told of long and patient waiting for help from the sovereigns of Spain, and their decision that the fulfillment of his hopes from them must be indefin- itely postponed; and he told the prior how, disappointed, but not wholly disheartened, sure that the truth which he alone saw would be apparent to others could be but point it out, he was now on his way to the court of France, to offer to Charles VHI. the wonderful things which Ferdinand and Isabella had refused to accept from him. The good prior was dismayed to find that these things were to be lost to Spain; it must be that the petition of Columbus had not been rightly pre- sented. He knew of a power which he himself possessed; he had once been confessor to Queen Isabella, and knew that he could reach her ear at any time. But before he ventured to appeal to her — and his caution shows why the appeal was listened to when it was made — he determined not to trust altogether to his own judgment, which might have been led astray by the Avonderful eloquence of the stranger. He accordingly detained Columbus and his son as his guests, and sent for his friend, Garcia Fernandez, a phy- sician of Palos. Fernandez came; and Columbus again explained his belief and aims. Like the prior, the physician was impressed by the boldness and originality of the 74 coi-rMms' mi-k hki-ohk Tin-, discovkhv ok a.mkhka. iiiarinor; aiul listeiuHl eagerly to all that lie liad to say. But other frieuds must be found for him; the question must bo submitted to the judgment of practical sailors, many of whom were to be found in Palos. Several veter- ans of the sea were invited to the convent, to talk with the mariner who had liitely COMIC fliere; one of these was Martin Aloiizo I'in/.oii, the head of a family of ricii and experienced seamen, who had made m;iiiy adventurous ex- peditions. Remembering how the Tortuguese had won fame ami wealth by voyages of discovery along the African coa.st, these cxijcrienced mariners saw no reason why, under the leadership of a man daring and original enough to plan and lead such an expedition, new worlds might not be opened up in an- other direction. "What had been to churchmen a stumbling-block, and to l)hilosophers foolishness, was to these practical, brave and generous sailors the highest wisdom. Pinzon, particularly, was so impressed with the genius of Columbus, that he offered to take part in such an expedition when it siiould be organized; and in the meantime, if Columbus would but renew his application to tlie Spanish court, to defray the expenses connected with doing so. The prior begged Columbus to remain in the convent until an answer could be received from the Queen; and dispatched a letter to her by a trusty messenger. It was not difficult to prevail upon Columbus to .stay; for he dreaded to be put off in France as he had already been in Spain. The Queen was at Santa Fe; and the messenger required only fourteen days for the journey of something like four hundred miles from Palos and return. Isabella had always been more favorably disposed toward Colum- l)us than the wary and cold Ferdinand; and she now wrote kindly, bidding Perez come to court, leaving Christopher Columbus in confident hope until he should hear further from her. The prior at once set out, late at night as it was when the messenger returned; and alone, riding his good mule, the steed which the ideas of the day assigned to churchmen, he traversed the conquered territory of Granada, and entered the presence of the Queen. The friar pleaded the cause of Columbus eloquently and fearlessly. Be- fore this time, it is probable that Isabella had never heard the case fully stated; for it is Ferdinand whom we find active in receiving the reply of the learned conference, and deciding upon the case. The Queen listened with ■su<'h interest that Perez felt great hopes of the result, even before she com- manded Columbus to return to court; and, with a true womanly attention to details, ordered that a sum equal, at the present day, to about three hundred dollars of United States money, be sent him for the expenses of the journey. The arrival of Columbus at the Spanish court was nuirked by what the men of that day considered one of the most im])ortant events in the history of Spain — the linal downfall of the Mohammedan power in that country, COLIJMUUS" LIFE BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. ( ■> and the surrender of the capital city of the Moors, Granada, to Ferdinand and Isabelhi. It was indeed an eventful time when Columbus arrived, for he came to offer still more extended empire, and nmltiplied wealth, to Spain; he came, bringing in his hands the gift of a New AVorld. We shall not dwell, as Irving does, upon the glittering magnificence of the scene of surrender at Granada; nor upon the rejoicings which followed it. Columbus obtained a hearing, and commissioners were appointed to consider the case. But his demands appeared to thcin exorbitant; this penniless for- eign adventurer demanded that he should be created admiral and viceroy of the provinces which he should discover, and receive one-tenth of all gains, either by trade or conquest. The proutl Spanish nobles looked coldly upon the man who sought to raise himself to their rank, and remarked that it was a shrewd arrangement which he wished to make; having nothing to lose, he demanded, in case of success, rank, honor and enormous wealth. Co- lumbus, nettled by the sneer, promptly offered to defray one-eighth of the cost of the expedition, if he might enjoy one-eighth of the profits. He had friends in Palos, he knew, who believed in him and his enterprise; and Mar- tin Alouzo Pinzon, if all others failed him, would bear him out in this proposition to the royal commissioners. By Talavera's advice, the Queen declined to accept his terms: and offered conditions which, while more moderate, were yet advantageous antl honor- able; but Columbus would not yield an inch; and mounting a nuile which he had bought for the journey from Palos to Santa Fe, he rode forth again, once more to seek the French court. But although Columbus had failed to convince Ferdinand and his more generous, enthusiastic wife, he had made many friends about the court who appreciated his powers of mind to the full. One of these was Luis de St. Angel, receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of Arragon. Like others of high rank and place, he was filled with dismay at seeing the great man de- part from Spain, to throw into the lap of another country what had been wantonly rejected by Arragon and Castile; and he had the courage to tell Isabella what he thought. He pictured not only the enormous addition to her revenue and dominions, as well as her fame among rulers; but he told, with impassioned fervor, of the religious aspect of the enterprise. He painted the millions in the realms of Kublai Khan, waiting eagerly to receive the gospel; and then prophesied of the honor in which they would hold the name of her who should carve out a path for the missionaries of the Cross to reach them. He showed what more this discovery might do for the exaltation of the Church ; how the boundless riches of Cathay would buy the Holy Sepulchre from the Mohammedans, and the most sacred spots on earth be forever free to the feet of the pilgrim. He told her how sound and practicable were the plans of Columbus; that they had received the endorse- 76 fdl.lMBls' LIFE BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OK AMKRH A. Miciit of V(li'i-:m iii:irincr.s; and that lie was no idle visionary, hut a man of wide scienlilio kno\vled}j;e and sound practical judgment. He told her that failure would l)ring no disgrace upon her; for it was the business of princes to investigate such great questions as this; and then informed her that flic expense of the expedition, of which so much had been said, would amount to no more than two vessels and about two thousand crowns. Isabella listened with renewed interest; but Ferdinand was at her side, ready to oppose any such unwise scheme. The war hail drained the treas- ury of the united kingdoms; they must wait until it had lieen rcjilenished. But Isabella was too deeply interested in the advancement of the Church: though she ^vas the wife of Ferdinand, she was also Queen-Regnant of Cas- tile and Leon, a kingdom equal in importance and wealth to Arragon. " I undertake the enterprise," she answered St. Angel, after a slioit in- terval of suspense, " for my own crown of Castile, and will pledge my jew- els to I'aise the money for it."' It is because of this speech on the part of tiicC^uccn thai tlic famous \ crsc reads: — " To Castile ami Leon Coliiinbiis ftave a new world." Ferdinand had neither part nor h)t in the enterprise. It is true that Isa- bella did not find it necessary to pledge her jewels to raise the necessary funds; that the sum re([uircd w:is taken from the treasuiw of Arragon; for that was not so emptied by the war as the King had implied: but the credit of the kingdom of Castile and Leon was pledged to repay tiiis debt, and it was afterward repaid in full. (■olwmbus had journeyed about two leagues — six miles — on his way back to Palos, thence to France, when this decision was reached. It was not known whether he had actually set out or not ; but when this was found to be the case, a courier was dispatched to summon him back to Santa Fe. He did not return without hesitation; for his hopes had been i-aised often be- fore this; but he was told that the (^ueen had now positively promised to undertake the enterprise; and his doubts thus removed, he turned his mule's head once again toward Santa Fe, and joyfully retraced his steps. The articles of agreement drawn up provided that Columbus should have for himself and his heirs, forever, the office of admiral, viceroy, and gov- ernor-general over all lands whi('h he might discover; that he should be en- titled to one-tenth of all revenues from these lands, in whatever way obtained; and that he .should, at any time, be entitled to contribute one- eighth of the expense of fitting out vessels, and receive one-eighth of the profits. In accordance with this last-named privilege, Colunibus, witii tiie aid of Pinztui, added a third vessel to the armament of two wliicli Isalx'Ua fui'iiish- COLCMBUS LIFE BKKORE THE DIsrO\ ERV OE AMEKUA. 77 cd. These articles were signed by Ferdinand and Isabella, April 17,1492; for although Isabella bore the whole expense, the expedition was under the patronage of the united sovereigns of Spain ; and the signatures stand side l)y side on this important document : " I, the King," "I, the Queen." A letter of privilege, or conunission, was granted to Columbus the last of the same month; confirming the ofKces mentioned to him and his heirs, and authorizing the use of the title Don by him and his descendants. A little later than tlii^, the Queen issued letters-patent; appointing his son Diego a |)age in the household of her son, Prince Juan. This Mas an honor usually shown only to boys of high rank; and was thus a nuirked compliment to the Genoese traveler. May 12, 14il2, Columbus set out for Palos, to make ready the vessels for his expedition. He was now in the fifty-sixth year of his age ; eighteen years had passed since the plan was matured in his own mind so far that he was ready to ask the advice of the learned Florentine; fully half of that time had been spent in waiting the convenience of the great ones of earth ; but at last he who was really great was to venture his all upon three small vessels, scarcely sea-worthy. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. New Difficulties — Reliutant Seamen — The Three Vessels — A Town of Mourning — Sets Sail from Palos — Alarms — The Double Reckoning — Variation of the Compass — the Grassy Sea — Renewed Doubts — Indications of Land — Mutiny of the Crew — Hope Renewed — Confidence in Columbus — Night- Watch of the Admiral — Light Through the Darkness — " LAND ! " — The Landing of the Discoverer — Taking Possession— The Natives— Cruising — Self-Deception — Exploration of Cuba — Two Wonderful Plants — Desertion of the Piiita—Uayti Discovered — Visits fnjiii Native Chiefs — Guacanagari — The i" <<>i,rMi'.i s. After tlic lUM'C'ssiirv ships wore socuiihI, aiul tin,' men engaged, theii- were many difiiciilties arising. The nicu employed to caulk the vessels, for in- stance, did their work so badly that they were ordered to do it over again; whereupon tiiey disappeared from Palos. Some of those who had volun- teered after the Pinzons had set the- example, repented of what the}' had Sa)i/a Marin was j)rcpared especially for the expedition, and was the only one of the vessels that was decked. It was commanded by Columbus himself. The Plnln was connnanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon, anti had his brother Francisco as pilot; the Xiiia was under the authority of \'icente Yauez Pinzon. There were three pilots besides Pinzon, a number of officers of the C'rown, inchuling a royal notary, who went along to take ofKcial notes of all transactions, a surgeon, some private adventurers, and ninety mariners — a total of one hundred and twenty j)ersons. Before setting sail, each one, from Columbus to the meanest sailor, ciiii- fessed himself and partook of the sacrament. Tiiey were looked upon \)\ their kinsmen and friends as doomed men; Palos was a town of mourning: for nearly every household had some member or friend engaged in this dreadful enterprise. Nor was this feeling confined to those who remained onshore; it was fully shai'ed by the sailors thems(?lves; and when, half an hour before sunrise on the morning of Friday, August 8, 14!l2, the little fleet sailed from the harbor of Palos, there was but one man on board who felt any certainty that they would ever see Si>ain again. Not three days had passed before Columbus had evidence of tiie ill-will of those who had furnished the expedition. On the third day out, the I'liita made signals of distress; and it was found that her rudder was broken. It was clearly due to the contrivance of her owners, who had thus tried to dis- able their vessel so that she might be left behind. Pinzon, who commanded the Pinla, secured the rudder with cords until the following day; when, the wind having lulled, the other ships lay to while the necessary temporary re- pairs were being made. But the vessel proved to be leaky; and Columbus decided that they should put in at the Canary Islands until- she should be repaired; return to Spain he was resolved that he would not. The pilots had asserted that the Can- aries were far distant from the ])oint where the injuries of the Phi/a were discovered; l)ut Columbus differed from them. The event proved that he was right ; and this added somewhat to their o])inion of his knowledge and abilities. This new confidence in him enabled him to pacify the sailors when they became alarmed at seeing the volcano of Teueriffc sending forth flame and TllK l-lKsr V(>V.\(iK OF COLl'-MlilS. SI smoke. He recalled the extiiiiplcs of Etna aud Vesuvius, which were well- known to them, and thus allayed their fears. But he himself became alarm- ed when he found that a Portuguese fleet had been seen hovering off the Canaries; he suspected the wily King of Portugal, Avho had thrown away his own chances of engaging in tiiis great work of discovery, of being anx- ious to revenge himself upon Columbus for having entered the service of Spain. The Admiral, as Columbus may now be called, accordingly gave hasty orders that his ships should be put to sea at once. It was the morning of Sei)tember 6 when they saw the heights of Ferro gradually fade into a dim blue line upon the horizon, and knew that an un- explored ocean lay before them. As the sun rose higher, their hearts sank lower, and all three ships were tilled with the complainings and lamentations of the sailors. Many of the most rugged were not ashamed to shed tears because of the land which, as they thought, they had left behind tliem for- ever. It required all the elocjucnce of Columbus to sooth them, even par- tially, with glowing word-pictures of the riches and magnificence of the countries to which he was conducting them. Columbus gave strict orders that, should the vessels b}' any mischance be separated, each should continue its course due westward; providing, that when they had gone seven hundred leagues, they should lay by from midnight until dawn, each night; for that was the distance at which he expected to lind land. It was now that he resorted to his stratagem of concealing from the crew the true distance from Europe; keeping two reckonings, one of which, intended for his own guidance, was correct; the other, published to the crews of the three vessels, considerably less than the truth. They had sailed five days after leaving the Canaries when they fell in with a spar, evidently part of the rigging of a vessel much larger than any of their own. Tliis did not tend to raise the spirits of the men, but was rather an indication of tlie fate which had befallen others, and which they might expect. Two days after this, Columbus noticed that the needle of the compass, hitherto considered an unfailing guide, no longer pointed exactlyto the north. This appears to have occasioned some alarm even to his courageous soul ; and he observed it attentively for three days, during which time the variation be- came greater and greater. At the end of that period, it was noticed by one of the pilots; and from him the alarm spread to his comrades, thence to the others. It was a foi'tunate thing that Columbus should have observed this so long before the others discovered it; for he had opportunity to consider the case, and reason out a theory to account for it. When the pilots, then, acquaint- ed him with their discovery, he assured them that the pole star is not a fixed point, but revolves around the pole like other stars; and thus the (liiiMlii^ W tiLiiiM loi Land. THE FIRST VOYA(iE OF CaHMHUS. 83 needle of the compass is subject to variations. Ignorant as they were, they had a high opinion of his ability as an astronomer, and accepted this explan- ation. Columbus seems to have been well pleased with it himself; and there is no reason to suppose that he ever held any other theory regarding the variation of the needle. The next day they saw what they believed to be certain indications of land. Two birds of different species, neither of which they supposed would bo found far from land, hovered about the ships. The next night, a great tlamc of tire, as Columbus describes it in his journal — presumably a meteor — fell from the sky about four or five leagues away. As they sailed along, borne by the trade-winds through a sea of glass, they saw the surface of the water flecked, here and there, with great patches of sea-weed. These increased in number and size as they advanced; and Columbus recalled the accounts of certain mariners who were said to have been driven far to the west of the Canaries, and found themselves in the mist of a sea covered with great patches of weeds, resembling sunken is- lands. Some of these weeds were yellow and withered, while others were quite fresh and green ; and on one patch a live crab was found. Up to the eighteenth of September this favoring weather continued; and the sea, to use the words of Columbus, was as calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville. Great enthusiasm prevailed among his followers, lately so filled with fear; each ship tried to keep in advance of the others, and each sailor hoped to deserve the pension of ten thousand viaravedis which had been promised to the fii'st who saw land. September 19, Martin Alonzo Pihzon, whose vessel was in the lead, hailed the tSan/a Maria, and informed Columbus that from the flight of a great number of birds and from the appearance of the sky, he thought there was land to the north. But Columbus refused to turn from the course which he had marked out; he knew that land was to be reached by sailing due west, and in no other direction would he go. Every sailor knows how deceptive are the clouds, particularly at sunset; and he felt sure that Pinzon was but the victim of such an illusion as often deceives those on the lookout for land. As the enthusiasm of the sailors began to die down, doubts of the Admiral took its place; and they thought that they should never see home again. It is true that there had been numy signs of laud; but these had now been observed for many days, and still there was no land to be seen. Even the favoring wind became a cause for alarm ; on a sea where the wind was forever from the east, how were they ever to sail away from the dreaded west? But the next day the wind veered, and there was a faint gleam of hope; small birds were also oliserved, singing, as if their si i-ength was not exhausted bv their flight from the land where they had nested. 84 THK FIRST VOVACiE OF COI.lMBrS. The uext day, there was no wind; but the ships were in the midst of fields of weeds, which covered the surface of the water, and impeded tlie progress which might have Iieen made had there been any wind. They began to recall some vague traditions which had reached even their untutored ears, about the lost Atlantis, and the sea made impassable by the submerged land. Their fears were not borne out, however, by the soundings; for a deep-sea line showed no bottom. Columl)us was kept busy arguing against their fears: for as fast as one was allayed, another would take its place. If there was wind, they feared a stoiin; if there was none, they were forever becalmed; if there were no signs of land, they knew that they should never return; if there were signs of land, they had been so often deceived that they could not trust again. One great source of alarm was the calnmess of the sea, even when there was wind; and Columbus could not convince them that this was due to the presence of a large body of land in the quarter whence the wind blew; which had not, therefore, sufficient space to raise gi'eat waves in the ocean. Finally, on Sunday, September 2.'), there was a great swell of the sea, without any wind; and the sailors were reassured by this phenomenon, as by something familiar to them of old. Columbus piously regarded it as a special mirach^ wrought to allay the rising clamors of his crew. But this was only temporary relief; the discontent among the crew contin- ued, and tluiy resolved that they would go no fartlier. They had now ad\anced far beyond the limit reached by other seamen, and would certainly be entitled to nuich respect from thcnr actiuaintanccs should they return at once. As for Columbus, he had few friends, for he was but a foreigner any- how; and even if they felt that they could not rely uiion the nuiuy persons of influence who had opposed this enterprise, and who would be glad to learn that it had failed, they could easily get rid of the Admiral. If they took back the story that he had fallen overboard one night, while busy with his instruments and the stars, who but those who threw him into the sea were to know that the tale was not true? The wind again became favorable, and the ships were enabled to keep so close together that a conversation could be maintained between the com- manders of the Scnita Maria and the J'iii/n. While this was the state of affairs, and Columbus was busily .studying a chart about which they had been talking, Martin Alonzo Pinzon suddenly cried out : — ■ "Land! Land! Senor, I claim my reward I" As he spoke, he pointed toward the southwest, where there was indeed an appearance of land. So strong were the indications, that even Columbus was deceived; and yielding to the insistence of the crews, gave orders that (he three vessels should sail in the direction indicate*! l)y Pinzon. Morning came, after a night of much excitement and hopeful pressage, and showed TWE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBl S. 85 that what Pinzon had beheld, was but "the baseless faln-ic of a vision," a sunset cloud which had passed away during the night. This occurred Sep- tember 25; and from this time forward, the sailors appear to have been some- what more hopeful; indeed, so frequently was the cry of "Land" uttered chat Columbus found it necessary to rule that if any one gave such notice, and land was not discovered within three days thereafter, he should forfeit all title to the reward, even should he afterward be the first to see land. By the first of October, according to the belief of the crew, they had reached a point five hundred and eighty-four leagues west of the Canary Islands; Columbus knew that they were in reality seven hundred and seven leagues from those islands, but he still kept this knowledge to himself. October 7, it was thought by those on L ,ard the j\'"iiia that land lay in the west; and that vessel crowded all sail to follow the indications; for no one dared give notice to the Admiral, for fear of losing the reward. Pressing forward, it was not long before a flag was hoisted at the masthead of the little ship, and a gun boomed over t'.e waters — the preconcerted signal that land had been seen. As before, Columbus fell upon his knees, and repeated the Gloria in Excelsis, in which he was joined by all his crew. But the end was not yet; as the Nina confidently advanced, to follow up the great discovery, with the other vessels close in her wake, it was seen that there was no cause for exultation. Again the fancied land was seen to be nothing but a cloud on the horizon; and the flag wiiich had been hoisted in such proud anticipation was slowly and regretfully hauled down. On the evening of this day, he determined to alter slightly the course to which he had held so rigidly, and proceed to the west-south-west. This was in accordance with the repeated solicitations of the Pinzons, and with his own recently conceived idea that there might have been some mistake in cal- culating the latitude of Cipango. The fleet kept this course for three days. It was the night of the tenth of October when the long repressed mutiny of the crew broke forth. Their fears were no longer to be controlled, and they demanded that the Admiral should at once return to Spain. It was in vain that he urged what signs of land appeared daily; they replied, surlily, that such had been seen a month before, and still the watery horizon was unbroken by anything but clouds. It is said that Columbus promised them that if land were not discovered within three days, he would consent to return; but there appears to be no good authority for this story, which was probably invented to satisfy those who love to hear of marvelous coinci- dences. Nor does it seem likely that Columbus, who had persevered for eighteen years in seeking help to fit out this armament, should have been willing, after a voyage of but little more than two months, to compromise matters in this way. The story rests upon the testimony of a single historian, \\ ho is accused of many inaccuracies in other respects. S() Tim iiusr \ovA(ii-, m- coi.hmiu's. Fimliiif; .siootliing words; and fnir promisos of no avail, Coliinihiis was obliged to use a more decided tone. Ho told them that the expedition had been sent by the King and Queen to seek the Indies; and that whatever might be the result, he was determined to persevere, until, by God's blessing, he should ha\ (> fuUilled tlieir commands. Ha/ing no auswer ready to oi)po,se to these resolute words, the men drew away /rom the leader. We nuiy imagine how they hung together in little knots, muttering deep curses against the folly of the man who had brought them hither, and almost wailing in tlieir grief I)eeause they wouhl never see their country again. IIow often (hiring that night the old sciuMne of throw- ing Columbus into the sea was brought up, how often they debated whether TIIK llltST ^OVA(iK OF COl.l'.AIlHS. 87 or not they might not keep him :i prisoner until Spain wa.s reached, how often they reckoned over their grievances and many causes for fear, no man knows. Morning found them sullen and despairing; their commander was still defiant. But as the day went on, those signs of land, which the sailors justly said had been seen so long as to be completely misleading, became more and more certain; fresh weeds, such as grow in rivers, were seen on the surface (if the water; then a branch of thorn with berries on it; and finally, a reed, a small board and a staff of carved wood. Their gloom and lebellious feel- ing gave place to hope; and they were eagerly on the watch throughout the day. At sunset, the crew, according to their custom, sang the SaJce Ttegina; after which Columbus addressed them again. He pointed out to them the goodness of God, who had given them, throughout their perilous voyage, favoring breezes and a summer sea; he reminded them that when they left t he Canaries, he had given orders that after proceeding seven hundred leagues to the west, they should not sail after midnight — a jn-oof, as he told them, that he had not gone farther than he had then thought it would be necessary, lie told them that he thought it probable, from the indications seen that day, that they would make land that very night; and he gave orders that a vigilant look-out should be kept from the forecastle of each vessel; and he promised, in addition to the pension given by the sovereigns, to give a velvet doublet to the first who should discover land. As the evening closed in, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin on the high poop of his vessel, and kept an unwearied watch for land. Throughout the number of followers, there was the same excite- ment, greater than had ever before prevailed, even over the false alarms given by the Pinzons; for now the Admiral himself, for the first time, was confident that they were approaching land. The very failui-es of the others gave strength to their trust in Columbus ; and they forgot their rebellious clamor of the previous night. It was about ten o'clock when Columbus first thought he saw a light glim- mering at a great distance — could it indeed be laud? Literally, he could not believe his own eyes; but fearing that his hopes deceived him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, a gentleman of the King's bedchamber, and askeil him if lie saw a light. The adventurer replied that he did; but still Columbus was not convinced. Eodrigo Sanchez was called, and the same question was asked him; he answered that he saw none; and both Columbus and Gutierrez saw that the light had disappeared. But in a moment more they saw it gleam forth again; and it continued to waver thus, as if it were a torch in a boat that was tossed on the waves or carried from one hut to another on shore. So uncertain was it, that the others were inclined to doubt its reality; COIT VOYAGE OK COLIMBUS. 5b hut Columbus, orce assured that it was not a fiction of his excited iniajrina- tiou, Considered these gleams of light as a certain sign that they were approaching an inhabited land. Contrary to the orders which he had given on leaving the Canaries, they did not pause during the night. It was two o'clock when a gun from the Pinta gave the signal that land was actually descried. It was about two leagues away, and had first been descried by a mariner named Rodrigo de Triana; but the pension was adjudged to Columbus himself, as having seen the light four hours before the signal was given from the smaller vessel. For more than three weary hours they lay to, the waves gently rocking the adventurous barks on the smooth warm waters. As day dawned, the dis- coverer saw befoi-e him a level island, well-wooded, and apparently several leagues in area. The supposition of Columbus that they were approaching inhabited land proved to be correct; for the dusky inhabitants thronged the shore and stood gazing in wonder at the ships. The vessels had come to anchor; and Columbus, attired in a rich suit of scarlet, befitting the dignity of the Admiral and Viceroy of India, entered this boat, while the two Pinzons entered those belonging to the vessels which they commanded. Each boat bore a banner on which was a green cross and the initials of the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella, surmounted by a crown imperial. What effect did this splendor of color and glitter of armor produce upon the natives? When they first saw the ships, so huge in comparison with their own slight canoes, they had been filled with wonder; as the day dawned, they beheld the vessels more plainly, and that' they were borne along, apparently ^yithout effort, while the great white sails seemed to them like wings. As the boats were launched, and came toward the shore, their astonishment was changed into terror of the strangers; and they fled into the woods. Meantime, ("oiuml)us had laiuled; and kneeling upon the earth, he kissed the soil of that new world which he had been first to discover, surrounded by his now devoted followers. Then he rose and drew his sword, and solemnly took possession of the newly discovered country in the name of the sovereigns of Castile. He then called upon all his followers to take the oath of allegiance to him, as Viceroy and Admiral, the representative of these sovereigns. As the natives witnessed these ceremonies from their hiding-places on the edge of the ^voods, they gradually regaiued confidence, and drew a little nearer the strange white men. When they saw that the new-comers seemed to have no intention of injuring them, they approached and made signs of friendship. These were responded to, and the natives came still nearer, and stroked the beards of the Spaniai-ds and examined their hands and faros, THE FIRST VOYAGE OK COLUMBUS. 91 evidently wondering at the whiteness of their skins. All these demonstra- tions were preceded and accompanied by frequent prostrations and other signs of adoration. To the simple-minded inhabitants of the island, it seemed that these men had come in their great M'inged vessels straight from the blue heaven which bent over their island, and touched the ocean all around them. As Colum])us supposed that he had reached India, it was natural that he and his followers should speak of the natives of the newly discovered country as Indians; a name which was so much used before it was fully ascertained that he had reached another continent, that reason has never been able to displace it. The Indians wore no clothing, but had their bodies painted with various colors. Their only arms were lances with beads of sharp flints or fish-bones, or hardened at the end by tire. They evidently had no knowledge of sharpened iron or steel, for one of them took hold of a sword by the edge and cut his hand. They received with eager gratitude the trifles which Columbus and his followers presented to them, offering in return balls of cotton yarn, tame parrots, and cassava bread. These, however, were not the articles of traffic which the Spaniards had come so far to procure; the small golden ornaments which some of the natives wore in their noses were of much greater interest than their twenty-pound bulls of cotton, and Columbus at once made inquiry regarding the source from which they were derived. He learned that these precious ornaments came from the southwest, where there dwelt a king who was always served in vessels of tine gold. Much more has the great discoverer set down of the same kind, but it is probable that he deceived himself in nmch of what he understood them to tell him by signs. He felt assured that he had now reached the outlying islands of Asia, and was near the counti-ies of falndous riches of which Marco Polo had written; and he readily believed that the gestures of these naked Indians indicated much more than the savages tried to express. The island, which Columbus thoroughly explored, was named San Salvador. Around it lay beautiful and fertile islands, so that he was at a loss which to choose as the next to be explored. He set sail two days after landing, taking with him seven of the natives, to whom he proposed to teach the Spanish language, that they might serve as interpreters. As these became better able to communicate with him by signs, and understood more clearly what information ho wished to obtain, he learned that he was in the midst of an archipelago, numbering more islands than the limited arithmetical skill of the savages could reckon. They enumerated more than a hundred, and gave him to understand that they were all well peopled, and that the inhabitants were frequently at war with each other. All this was in full accordance with what Columbus had heard of the islands about the eastern coast of Asia. Till-: KIKST VOYA(iK OK ( Ol.l M BUS. 93 Several islands were visited in succession, but without finding the vust stores of gold which they had understood from the natives Avei-e in the pos- session of their neighbors. They learned, however, that their coming was regarded as a wonderful event by the natives, as a single Indian in a canoe was taken into one of the sliips, and found to be a messenger dispatched to carry the news among tlie different islands. How many similar messengers were dispatched, the Spaniards did not know; but they were less pi'oud of their own courage in venturing across the ocean when they reflected that this naked savage had entered upon a voyage of such length and danger in his frail canoe without a single companion to assist him in storms or tell of his fate if he should perish. Wherever lie went, Columbus heard of an island of much greater extent than any that he had seen, caih-dCuba; and he determined that this must be the long-sought Cipango. He determined to set sail to this favored country; but his departure from the smaller islands was delayed for some days by calms and contrary winds. It was the 28tli of October before he finally reached the coast of the Queen of the Antilles. In his journal, Columbus seems never tired of expatiating upon the beauty of the islands which were now seen by Europeans for the first time; their mild climate, the smoothness of the waters in which these jewels of ocean were set, the majesty of the forests, the beauty of the birds, the magnificence of the flowers, even the glittering sparkle of the insects, are constantly the subjects of his praise. While coasting along Cuba, Martin Alonzo Pinzon learned fi-om some na- tives that there was a country in the interior called Cubanacan. Later re- searches have developed the fact that nacan is simply the native word mean- ing the interior, so that Cubanacan means only the interior part of Cuba; but the heated imagination of Pinzon connected this name with the word Khan, and the amazing discovery was communicated to Columbus. The discoverer at once concluded that he was mistaken in supposing Cuba to be Cipango, or Japan ; it was a part of the mainland, and he was now in the territories of the Great Khan. The Admiral settled it in his own mind that he was about a hundred leagues from the capital of this mighty potentate, and resolved to sentl embassadors to him at once. Two envoys were selected; one of them a converted Jew, who was acquainted with Hebrew and Chaldaic, and had some knowledge of Arabic, in which language, it was supposed, he would be able to communi- cate with some one in the court of the Khan. These embassadors were in- structed to inform the Khan that Columbus had been sent by the King and Queen of Spain, for the purpose of establishing friendly relations between the powers ; they were also to ascertain exactly the situation of certain ports, provinces, and rivers; and they were to find out if certain drugs and spices, of which they were provided with samples, were produced in that country. 'M TIIK FIRST VnVA(!K Ol' COLUMHUS. While awaiting the return of these embassadors, Columbus occupied liim- self in attending to the necessary repairs of his vessels. Having arranget! for this work, ho spent some time in the exploration of the interior; ami again received much remarkable information from the natives. We cannot help suspecting that tlio natives found Columbus such a willing listener that they indulged their imaginations considerably; for they gravely assured iiini that there were tribes at a distance, of men who had but one eye; that there were others who had the heads of dogs, and that there were still. others who were cannibals, killing their victims l)y cutting their throats and drinking their blood. jNIinglcd with these stoi-ies, weic acH-ountsof a place which they called Boliio, where they declared that the peoph' wore anklets and bracelets and necklaces of gold and pearls. While Columl)us was being thus al)ly entertained by the Indians of the coast of Cuba, his embassadors had penetrated to the interior in searchof the capital of Kublai Khan. They returned Nov. (>, having reached a point twelve leagues from the coast, and learned there that there was nothing of interest beyond it. The village which was the capital of Cubanacan contained about fifty huts, and at least a thousand inhabitants. The envoys had been treated with courtesy and hospitality, though, to their surprise, they found that Hebrew and Arabic were but gibberish to the natives, and were obliged to rely upon the services of an Indian who had occompanied them, and who had picked up a little smattering of Spanish. They saw no gold or precious stones; and when the white men displayed their samples of cinnamon, pep- per, and similar commodities, they were informed that such things grew far off to the southwest. During their absence, Coluniltus had become aciiiiainted with the proper- ties of a plant, which, one of his biographers justly observes, was destined to bo of more real value to the people of the eastern continent than all the precious metals that have been mined in the New World. This was the po- tato. The embassadors sent into the intei-ior saw in use a i)lant which lias not, indeed, the wide usefulness of the potato, but which has become necessary to the comfort of many of the while race. This was tobacco, the name of which is derived from the Indian word designating a sort of rude cigar; the term being applied by the Spaniards to the plant and its dried leaves. The strangers at tirst regarded this practice of smoking as singular and nauseous; but as it is said of vice that — "\Vr first endure, then pity, tlien embrace," so the white men were taught by curiosity to learn what the Indian found in tobacco that was pleasant, and speedily acquired the habit. Columbus was now convinced, l)y the report of his envoys, that he was not within such a short distance of the capital of the Khan. He still listened TirE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. 95 eagerly, however, to the talcs which the Indians had to tell of Babcqiin and Bohio, although he was not quite certain whether these terms applied to the same place or not. He decided to go in .search of Babeque, which he hoped to liud the name of some rich and populous island off the coast of Asia. Later researches into the language of the natives of these islands have not made it wholl.v clear what they intended to convey by these two words ; accord- ing to some authorities, they ai'c names applied to the coast of the mainland; others that bohio means house, or populousness. November 12, the little tlcct weighed anchor, and sailed eastward along the coast of Cuba. A storm obliged them to take refuge in a harbor to which Columbus gave the name of Puerto del Principe, and several days were spent in exploring that cluster of small and beautiful islands which have since been called El Jardin del Rey, " The Garden of the King." On the 19th, he again put to sea, and for two days made ineffectual efforts to reach an island which lay about twenty leagues to the eastward, supposing it to be Babeque. Find- ing this impossible, on the evening of the second day he put his ship about, and made signals for the others to (h) the same. The Pinta was considerably to the eastward of the Santa Maria and the JSfina, and, to the surprise of the Admiral, failed to answer the signals or comply with the commands which they indicated. He repeated the signals; butstillthe Finta paid no attention. Night came on; and hoisting signal lights at the masthead of the iSanfa Maria, so that the Pinta could easily follow through the darkness, he sailed on.ward. Morning came, but nothing was to be seen of the Pinta. Columbus was not a little disquieted by this action of Pinzon. The rich navigator of Palos, who had furnished a large part of the money required for the expedition, and without whose aid (.'olumbus would probably have beeii obliged to seek assistance at some other court than that of Spain, was fully aware of the importance of the services which he had rendered to the Gen- oese adventurer. Thoroughly familiar with the theories of Columbus, he had adopted them as his own, and probably came gradually to consider them as nuich his property as they were the foreigner's. Several times, during the voyage, there had been serious differences of opinion between Columbus and his chief subordinate; and when the Admiral saw that the P/?)^a had thus deserted the flag-ship, he suspected that Pinzon intended to return to Spain at once and claim all the honors due to the successful prosecutor of this great enterprise. But Columbus was not to be deterred from his purpose of discovering the rich and populous parts of the far east; he continued coasting along the northern line of Cuba until, Dec. 5, he reached the eastern extremity, to which he gave the name of Alpha and Omega, supposing it to be the eastern point of Asia. He was now undetermined what course to pursue. Return to Spain would be uuadvisable at this season of the year; and so far as the !>t; THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLIMBIS. Pinla was coucerncd, she was so much swifter sailer than the otiier vessels, aiul had the start of them by many hours, that it was useless.to think of chas- ing her across the Atlantic. If he kept along the coast, following its trend to the southwest, he might find the country of the Khan ; but then he could not liojjc to reach Babeque, which his Indian guides now assured him lay to the northeast. Thus undecided, he continued cruising aimlessly for some days in the waters around the eastern end of Cuba; and at last descried land to the southeast, which he decided to make. The natives protested against his seeking to do so, assuring him that the people were tierce and cruel cannibals. But these remonstrances were unheeded, and Columbus steered toward Hayti. He anchored in a harbor at the western end of the island, to which he gave the name wliich it still retains — St. Nicholas. As they explored the northern coast of the island, they caught many fish, several species of which were sim- ilar to those which the sailors had taken in Spanish waters; thej' heard from the wooded shore the notes of song-birds which reminded them of the night- ingale and other birds of Andalusia; and they fancied the}' saw, in the beauti- fully diversified country, sotno resemblance to the more beautiful parts of Spain. Accordingly, Columbus named the island Hispaniola, or little Spain. While exploring the island, Columbus found plants and birds of much different si)ecies and more abundant than those he had seen in p]urope. Animals were also less rare, more various, and of greater size; amongst others the iguana, a sort of gigantic lizard, whose likeness to the cro<-odile, or at least to the representations of it then extant, nuide some of the crew mistake it for one of those dreadful monsters. Glad to make use of his courage in reassuring his men, who were frightened at everything that was new, Columbus did not hesitate to attack this beast; he rushed at him with uplifted sword, and pursuing him into the waters of the lake, did not conu' out until, to the universal satisfaction, he had made an end of him. The skin which he carried back with him to Europe, measured seven feet in length, much more than the average length. Columbus must have smiled at the recollection of this exploit, when he found out that this terrible-looking beast, with its enormous crop, its long and powerful tail, its spine notched like a saw, its sharp claws, is as harm- less as our common lizard, and is even esteemed a great delicacy by the In- dians. The natives hail abandonetl their villages and fled into the interior at the approach of the vessels, leaving their cultivated fields aiul large village^-. Columbus sent well-armed parties in search of them, and one such party suc- ceeded in capturing a young woman, who was induced by presents of clothes, trifling ornaments, and trinkets, and by the kind treatment which she experi- enced, to act as embassador to her people. It was no difficult matter after THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. 97 this to secure the j^rcsence of large numbers of the natives, who were well disposed toward the strangers when they found that there need be no fear of them. The Fight with the Iguana. They were frequently visited by chiefs of various degrees of importance; and, Dec. 22, received a message from a chief named Guacanagari, borne by a number of natives, ,who filled one of the largest canoes that the Span- iards had as yet seen. This cacique, as the chiefs of these islands are called by Columbus, asked that the ships might be brought to a point opposite his village, which was a little farther east than the point where they then were. But the wind was not favorable, and Columbus had to content himself with sending a deputation to visit Guacanagari, by whom they were received with great state and honor. But, as before, the Spaniards learned from this chief 7 !t8 TIIK IIKST VOYAOE OF COH'MBIS. notliiiifi of tlie vant stores of treasure for which they weic >cekin^': mid although the eaeiquc and his followers freely gave them any of their few golden ornaments, it was evident that these were not drawn from any mine worked by (iuaeanagari and his tribe. The envoys returned, bearing the most friendly messages with them; am! as soon as the wind proved favoral)le, Columbus gave orders that the two vessels should sail toward the village of Guacanagari. His hopes had again been raised ])y the statements of various minor caciques who had visited him during the absence of his messengers, and who talked much of a place whicli they called Cibao, the cacique of which had banners of wrought gold. To the ears of the great discoverer this name was nearly enough like Cipango to mi.slead him completely; and he believed that at last he had come upon the traces of that nuxgnilicent prince mentioned by Marco Polo, whose wealth ex- ceeded even that of the ruler of Cathay. It was the morning of December 24 that the two vessels departed from their resting-place to proceed toward the residence of the cacique. The wind was so light as hardly to fill the sails, and they made but little progress. At eleven o'clock that Christmas eve, they were about four or five niiles from the harbor wlicrc tlie caci((ue's village was situated; the sea was calm and smooth, and tlic coast had been so explored by the party of mes- sengers that Columbus felt no fears regarding rocks or othi-r sources of danger. He according retired to the rest which he had earned by sleepless nights spent in watching the course of the vessels along an unknown coa.st. Scarcely had he fallen asleep, before the helmsman, in defiance of the com- mander's plain orders, gave the helm over to a boy, antl himself went to sleep. It was not long before the whole crew of the Santa Marin was locked in slumber; the only wakeful one being the boy at the helm. The currents along this coast are swiftand strong; and when the shij) was once in the power of one of them, she was swept rapidly along. To older or more heedful ears the sound of the breakers would have given warning of the danger: but the boy thought nothing of what he was doing. Silently and swiftly the current ]>ore the ship upon a sand-bank; suddenly the boy- helmsman felt the rudder strike, and heard the tumult of the rushing sea. Frightened, he called loudly for help; the Admiral, a light sleeper, and always feeling the responsibility which rested upon him, was the first upon deck, followed hastily liy the sailors who had been sleeping when they should have watched, and by those others who were not on duty. He cpiickly gave orders to carry an anchor astein, that by this means the vessel might be warped off The boat was launched, and the men detailed for the pur- pose entered it; but cither, insane from fright, they misunder.stood the order, or i)urposely disobeyed it , l)y seeking their own safety first, and at once rowed off toward the other vessel, which lay half a league to windward. TIIH FIRST VOVA(JE OF (OLUiMBlJS. 9^ The Snvta Maria had swung across the stream, and lay helpless, the water continually gaining upon her. The Admiral gave orders that the mast should be cutaway; hoping to lighten her so that she would be carried off the bar before anymore serious damage was done. The order was obeyed; ])ut the keel was too firndy bedded in the sand for this measure to prove effective. The shock had opened several seams, through which the water entered in large quantities. The breakers struck her with force again and again, until she lay over on her side. Had the weather been less calm, this vessel, the largest of the armament which a queen had fitted out for the dis- covery of a New World, would have gone to pieces on the shore of that far- away island. In the meantime, the boat had reached the caravel Nina and given information of the condition of the larger vessel. The commander of the caravel reproached the sailors for their desertion of the leader in such mis- fortunes, and immediately dispatched a boat to his relief. Columbus and iiis crew, took refuge on board the Nina until morning, and envoys were at once sent off to inform the cacique of what had happened. Guacanagari showed great distress at the misfortunes of his expected visitors; nor did he confine himself to mere words of sympathy and con- dolence, but showed himself active in measures for their relief. All the canoes that could be mustered were pressed into service, and all his people assisted in unloading the vessel. The lading was stored near the palace of the cacique, and an armed guard placed around it to prevent depredations; tlie cacique and his brothers having kept close watch while the work of unloading was going on, to prevent the helpers from being overcome by temptation to help themselves to these wonderful things. To Columbus and his companions, this course appeared unnecessai'y; so nuich sympathy with the shipwrecked sailors was shown by all who, at the command of the chief, were engaged in assisting them; and Columbus after- ward bore this testimony to their character, in his Journal : — "So loving, so tractable, so peaceable are these people that I swear to your majesties there is not in the world a better nation, nor a better land. They love their neighbors as themselves ; and their discourse is eter sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy." The day aftet Christmas, Columbus was visited on board the Nina by Guacanagari, who assured him again of his eagerness to render the Spaniards any assistance which lay in his power. The Admiral, who was at dinner when he came on board, observes in his journal with regard to this visit, that the cacique would not allow him when lie entered the cabin to rise or use any ceremony, and that, when invited to partake of any dish, he took just as much as was necessary for him not to L.o^ 100 THE FIKST VUYAliK OK COLUMBUS. appear impolite. Hedid the same if auytbing was giveu him to drink; he put it to his lips, merely tasted it, and sent it to his followers. His air and his movements were remarkably grave and dignified. TitK Grateful Cacique. His dignity and discretion, however, were not proof against all the attrac- tions that surrounded him. While, with the help of the Indians he had brought with him as interpreters from San Salvador, Columbus was enter- taining his royal guest, he noticed that the cacique turned his eyes again and again, as if in spite of himself, on the quilt that covered his bed. Columbus, seeing this, hastened to present him with the coveted object, together with a pair of red shoes and a necklace of amber beads. The gratitude of the cacique and his officers knew no bounds, and there is no doubt that these THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. 101 gifts did more to exalt the power and grandeur of Spain and her sovereigns iu their eyes than all the words of Columbus and his interpreters on that subject. While they were conversing, a canoe arrived from another part of the island, bringing bits of gold to be exchanged for small bells, such as were worn by the hawk used at that time in hunting. To the Indians, these appeared the most desirable articles which the Spaniards had to distribute among them ; they hung the bells on their arms and legs when preparing for the dances of which they were so fond, and which were performed to the cadence of certain songs. They had found that the Spaniards valued gold more than anything which their savage treasuries contained, and readily brought all that they had to exchange for the wonderful musical bells. Sailors mIio had been on shore, trading, informed Columbus that gold was easily obtained in trade with the natives; and this restored the dro(jping spirits of the Admiral to something of their normal state. The cacique saw the change in his countenance, and inquired what good news the sailors had brought. He was told how desirous the Admiral was of obtaining the yellow metal; and replied that there was a place not far off, among the mountains, where it could be obtained in large quantities. He promised to get as much as Columbus might desire, the metal being there in such abundance, he said, that it was not held as very valuable. This jjlace he called Cibao; and Columbus at once recognized this name, and again confounded it with Cipango. When Guacanagari had been entertained by Columbus, he insisted that the Admiral should be his guest on shore. The request was giUnted ; and the guest received such honor and sympathy as to make him admire the kindly yet dignified savage chieftain more than ever. In return for the cacique's efforts at entertaining him, he sent on board the ship for a skilled archer and his arms, and showed the assembled Indians the accuracy of such weapons. The people of Guacanagai-i were of so unwarlike a nature that they had no similar skill to display; but the cacique informed Columbus that the Caribs, who sometimes made forays upon them, had bows and arrows which they used with deadly precision. Columbus assured the chief that he had nothing more to fear from the Caribs, for the great monarchs of Spain had weapons far more terrible than these, which they would not hesitate to use in the de- fense of a people who had assisted their Admiral. To illustrate his words, he ordered an arquebus and a heavy cannon to be discharged. To the Indians, it seemed that a thunderbolt had fallen from a clear sky; and they fell prostrate on their faces in terror. When they had recovered a little, Columbus called their attention to the place where the cannon-ball had crashed through the trees, carrying away gi'eat branches; and they were filled with renewed dismay. But he assured them that these arms would not be used against them, but for their protection against the cruel and dreaded lO'J TIIK VIUST VOYACK OK COI.L'MRUS. Ciiribs; iiiiil secure in llie frieiidsliij) of these children of lifriit who were anned witli thunder from their nativi^ sUies, tlie sinipl<^ savages were more than content. The fame of the hawn-r-.-cns nad gone abi-oad, and there was not an Indian wlu) liad a golden ornament ^s'ho was not more than willing to trade it for one of these precnous articles. Las Casas, whose work is one of the chief authorities regarding tliis part of tiie life of Columbus, tells us that one In- dian offered a handful of gold-dust in exchange for one; and when the trade had l)een made, hurried off as fast as his feet would carry him, lest the Span- iards should regret that they had sold it so cheap. The Spaniards who had endured so many hardships and dangers became enamored of tiie easy, luxurious life which the Indians led; in a land where the earth produced, almost spontaneously, roots and fruits enough to feed more than the inhabitants, where there was evidently no winter to be feared, where shelter and clothing were looked upon as unnecessary, where the main part of the day was passed in indolent repose, and the main part of the night in dancing to the music of their songs or the beating of their rude drums, the Indians were indeed creatures to be envied. Gradually the sailors came to long to shai'e this life, so full of case and enjoyment, and Columbus formed the idea of establishing a colony of those who wished to renuiin; while he. with his one vessel and a small crew, would return to Spain to carry the news of his discovery — unless he had been anticipated by thecaptain of the Pinta — and to procure the needed supplies and reinforcements. Ilail the natives been less peaceable and friendly, such a course would have been the height of madness; but armed as the Spaniards were with cannon and smaller tire- arms, and surrounded by those whose chief wish seemed to be to minister to the white strangers, there ai)pearedto be no difficulty in the way. But he did not propose to take any unnecessary risks; the stranded vessel was to lie broken up to afford materials for a fortress; and it was to be armed with her guns. Provisions enough could be spared from the general stock to maintain a small garrison for a year; so that whatever change there might be in the feelings of the natives, the white men who were left behind would be entirely safe. He intended that they should occupy themselves with explor- ing the island and becoming acquainted with the location and extent of the gold mines on which they all laid such stress, and in trading with the natives for whatever of the precious metal they might possess. At the same time, they could learn the language of the countrj' more perfectly, so that com- munication would be easier and surer; and acquaintthemselves with tiie habits and customs of the people, so as to make future intercourse all the smoother. Columbus did not suppose that the fortress, except under very improbable circumstances, would be necessary for the defense of his followers from the natives; for the latter had too clearly proven their un warlike nature and their THE FIRST VOYACiE OF COLt;.MBUS. 103 friendly disposition; but he considered that some sort of niilitar}' organiza- tion and i-ound of required duties was necessary to keep the Spaniards in good order during the absence of a ruler specially appointed by the Crown, and to enable those who were disposed to do what was right by the natives to hold in check those who might otherwise have proved tyrannical, unprincipled, and cruel. For the discoverer, who was so enchanted with the beauty of nature and the character of the inhabitants in this New World, entertained fond hopes that all these people would speedily be converted to the Christian faith. AVlierever he had gone, he had found them of the same gentle, loving dispo- sition, ready to listen eagerly to whatever the strangers could make them un- derstand, and readily learning by rote such prayers asthe sailors taught them, and making the sign of the cross with becoming devoutness of aspect. This is not the place to discuss the good done by prayers which are not understood by those who utter them ; but it is a fact that these Spaniards of the fifteenth century thought they had done good when they taught an Indian the Latin words of a prayer, of the meaning of which the savage had not the slightest conception ; and which may have been rather hazy to the Spaniard. Columbus looked eagerly forward to the time when all these untaught savages should receive the rite of baptism, believing that that was all that was necessary to make them good Christians. Throughout the time that he had sought assist- ance in working out his theory, he had held fast to the idea of advancing the dominion of the Church; and this feeling was probably at the bottom of his reasons for seeking assistance from Spain. Isabella was known for a de- vout Catholic, and ardent in the cause of religion; hence, although the country was convulsed with civil war, he sought assistance from her, rather than from the cold and crafty men who sat on the thrones of France and England. The project of building a fortress and leaving a colony was broached to the natives, who were enrapture« Xavidad, or the Nativity, because tliey had been rescued from the wreck of the vessel on Christmas Day. Having concluded tiic account of the building of this tower, the devout Admiral points out the oaro which Providence had exercised over his voyage; so that even the shipwreck, which appeared at the time to be such a great misfortune, was the cause of his find- ing what riches lay hid in the island, where otherwise he would only have touched at the coast and gone farther on. As seen more clciirlybytiiose who have a knowledge of later events, the wreck of the >San(a Maria appears the misfortune which it seemed at first; since because of it Columbus devoted so much of his time and attention, in lateryears, to this very island, and suffered much because of his connection Avith it. "While they were engaged in building the fortress, some Indians brought word that a large vessel, like that of Columbus, had been seen in a harbor at the eastern end of the island. There could be but one explanation of this: it must be the 7*/n/a. Columbus at once sent a Spaniard, with a crew of natives in a native canoe, to take a letter to Pinzon, urging him to join com- pany at once, but making no complaint regarding his desertion, or saying a word that was not entirely friendly. A close search, however, by these mes- sengers, failed to disclose the presence of any such vessel; and they returned to the Admiral. Other rumors reached them of a ship like theirs, but Co- lumbus resolved to take no further steps toward searching for the lost vessel until something more definite should be heard. In the meantime, it was a subject of much anxiety to Columbus, how the voyage back to Spain would be accomplished. The Pinta, the swiftest of the ships, had deserted, and they knew nothing of her fate; she might have escaped across the ocean, or she might have been wrecked on the shore of some distant island, or she might have foundered at sea and gone down with all on board. The Santa Maria, the largest of his ships, had been wrecked and destroyed. There remained only the Nina, which really was fit onl}' for coasting. Indeed, it was not wholly because Columbus had feared to demand large ships that he had accepted snuxll ones; he had selected those which seemed to him best fitted for coasting and for tracing an intricate course in channels between islands. But the JVina was not the vessel in which any sane sailor would have wished to cross the Atlantic without a consort; much less was it one to which a man who had labored and waited for a score of years to secure the realization of his dreams would wish to entrust the fulfillment of those dreams. For, should the jVina be lost on tiie homeward voyage, what record would remain of Columbus? It would only be known that he maintained a theory which the most learned men of Spain condemned as impracticable; that he had sailed into the western ocean, and had been lost there, as they had predicted. TllE (JOLUMBUS BUOXZE DOOKS IX THE CaTITOL AT W ASHIXG TO.V . (105) lOii IIIK I'THSC NOVAtiK <)l' COIA'.M lil S. Return he must, liowi'vor; jiiid pi-opar:itioiis for the hoiiicwiinl voyage were begun about the same time as tlu- fortress. Thirty-nine persons were selected to remain behind at La Navidad, while the others, numbering a few more, sailed eastward again. Minute instructions were given the colonists, to treat the natives always with gentleness and justice, remembering how much they were indebted to Guacanag;iri; to keep together, for mutual safety, and not stray beyond the territories of the caciciue who had so befriended them; and to acquire a knowledge of the productions and mines of the island, to pro- cure as much gold and spice as possible by trading, and to seek a better situ- ation for a settlement, as this harbor was far from being a safe one. The boat of the Saitfa Maria was left with them, as well as a variety of seeds to sow, and a quantity of articles to be used in traffic. A commandant of the post was appointed in the name of the sovereigns, and two lieutenants, upon whom, su(^cessively, the command was to devolve in case of his death. Having made all arrangoments for the safety and well-being of the colony, as far as such arrangements could be made by any man, Columbus, on the 4th of January, 1493, sailed from Ilispaniola eastward across the broad ocean: five months and one day after he left Palos. Thestudent of idle superstitions may well remark the recurrence of a cei'- tain day of the week in the history of this first voyage of Columbus; it was on Friday that he set sail from Palos; it was on Friday that he first saw the shores of Guanahani, the first land of the New World on which his eyes rested; and it was on Friday that he left Ilispaniola on his return. Thesixth day of the week is far from being considered a day on which to begin great undertakings; but the, greatest event of modern times is thus associated with it. The first two days of the return voyage were without event; on the third, the lookout gave the cry that he saw the Pin/a at a distance. The report was an animating one; for there was not a man on board but fully realized the dangers of their long and lonely voyage. The J'iiifa hastened toward them as soon as the yina was descried by her lookout; and conversation proving impracticable l)y reason of the state of the weather, the two vessels, at the command of the leader of the expedition, put back to the bay a little west of what is now called Monte Christi. Here the Admiral and his chief subordinate lauded, and here was told the story of the 7^('»/a's adventures. According to Martin AlonzoPinzon's account, he had been compelled to part company by stress of weather, and had ever since been seeking to rejoin his companions. Columbus received this statement without contradiction, although he did not believe it from the first ; and made investigations afterward which brought the truth to his ears. One of the In- dians on board the Pinia had given information of a gold-bearingcountry to the eastward which had excited the imagination of the master; he had taken THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. 107 advantage of circumstances to sepai-ate from the others, and had sought to be tlie first to discover this rich country. For some days he sailed about among a group of small islands, unable to shape his course so as to avoid them; but the Indians had tinally conducted him to Hispaniola; the rumors that Colum- l)us had heard were not wholly false, altiiough unreliable, or perhaps misun- derstood, in their statements of localities. Pinzon had remained three weeks near the shore of this island, and had collected by trading no small amount of gold; half of this he had retained for himself, half had been divided among his crew, to insuretheir silence regarding the transaction. But Colum- bus, even though the treachery of Pinzon could be clearly proved, could as yet take no steps to punish him in any way, or even appear to disbelieve his assertions. Many of the sailors were I'elatives or townsmen of Pinzon, and a break with him, at this juncture, might have been fatal to Columbus. A supply of wood and water was procured for the voyage, and the twc ves- sels coasted a short distance along the shore which had been explored by Pinzon. Arrived at the mouth of a river which Columbus named Rio de Gracia, but which is now Porto Caballo, the Admiral received news that his lieutenant had, during the period of his desertion, carried off four men and two girls from amongthe Indians of that section. The complaint was inves- tigated, and it was found that the captives were on board the Pinta, and that it was the intention of that vessel's commander to take them to Spain and sell them as slaves. The Admiral at once gave orders that they should be released and returned to their own people; being clothed and given many presents as a kind of restitution for the temporary loss of their liberty. This proceeding was not conducted without protest from Pinzon, and we shall find, as we proceed, that Columbus learned to look with less horror upon the l)roject of selling Indians as slaves; but at this time he was careful to take none with him but those who voluntarily accompanied him. As they continued their course along the coast, they came to an arm of the sea extending so far into the laud that at first they supposed it to be a chan- nel separating the island of Hispaniola from some other near neighbor; but it proved to be only a gulf. On the farther side of this inlet, they found a people differing very much from those others with whom the discoverer was so much pleased. These were of a ferocious aspect, and hideously painted ; they were armed with war-clubs, or with bows as large as those used by English archers, the arrows being made of slender reeds and tipped with bone or with the tooth of a fish. They also had swords of palm-wood, the weight iind hardness of which excited the wonder of the Spaniards. Though ferocious in appearance, and thus armed, they did not seem hostile, but sold two of their bows to the Spaniards, and one of them was induced to go upon the Admiral's vessel. He was sent back with many presents, to induce his comrades to trade with 108 THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLU5IBUS. the Si):uiiar(ls. The men in the boat whieh conveyed him luiek to land were aUirnied at tlie ^^ight of ahoiit fifty fully armed warriors, who gathered on the shore; but at a word from the savage in the boat, they laid down their arms and eamc to meet the white men. Suddenly, in the midst of a peaceful con- ference, they rushed toward the spfit where they had left their arms, and returned with A quantity- of strong cord, as if to bind the strangers. The latter at once attacked them, wounding two. The others took to flight. The Spaniards would have pursued them, but the pilot who commanded the boat forbade it. Such was the first conflict between the natives and the people of southern Europe; if Ave I'cgard the fight of which the old saga tells as unworthy of credit, the first on the soil of America between Indians and white men. Columl)us had been so anxious to keep the peace with all the natives, that he was much troubled at the occurrence of this fight; but he consoled himself by thinking that the Indians had now had a taste of the superiority of the white men's weapons, and would be careful how they attacked theni in the future. lie was pleased to find that the enmity of the Indians had not been excited by this occurrence, as they returned the next day and api)eared more desirous than ever of being friends. They told him of the islands to the east in such terms that Columbus decided to stop there, and pi-evailed upon four of their young men to accompany him as guides. Following their guidance, Columbus at first steered to the northeast, then to the southeast; but he had gone but about fifty miles in all when there sprang up a breeze which, it seemed to him and his sailors, would waft them straight to Spain. Ho saw the discontent on their faces as they thought how far from the direct line of the homeward path they were diverging; he con- sidered how shaky was the allegiance of Pinzon; and how uncertain was the fate of either vessel, should it be exposed to even an ordinary storm among these many islands. lie considered that the whole fate of the path which he _ had marked out to India depended upon his safe arrival on the eastern shore of the Atlantic; and repressing all desire for further exploration of the islands which he ha