Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 39

[Sidenote: Cabot's charts.]

That John Cabot, on returning from his first voyage, produced a chart which he had made, and that on this and on a solid globe, also of his construction, he had laid down what he considered to be the region he had reached, now admit of no doubt. Foreign residents at the English court reported such facts to the courts of Italy and of Spain. In the map of La Cosa (1500), we find what is considered a reflex of this Cabot chart, in the words running along a stretch of the northeast coast of Asia, which announce the waters adjacent as those visited by the English, and a neighboring headland as the Cape of the English. Even La Cosa's use of the Cabot map was lost sight of before long, and this record of La Cosa remained unknown till Humboldt discovered the map in Paris, in 1832, in the library of Baron Walckenaer, whence it pa.s.sed in 1853 into the royal museum at Madrid. The views of Cabot respecting this region seem to have been soon obscured by the more current charts showing the voyages of the Cortereals, when the Cape of the English readily disappeared in the "Cabo de Portogesi," a forerunner, very likely, of what we know to-day as Cape Race.

[Sidenote: 1497-98. February. The second Cabot voyage.]

Such an appetizing tale as that of the first Cabot expedition was not likely to rest without a sequel. On the 3d of February, 1497-98, nearly four months before Columbus sailed on his third voyage, the English king granted a new patent to John Cabot, giving him the right to man six s.h.i.+ps if he could, and in May he was at sea. Though his sons were not mentioned in the patent, it is supposed that Sebastian Cabot accompanied his father. One vessel putting back to Ireland, five others went on, carrying John Cabot westward somewhere and to oblivion, for we never hear of him again. Stevens ventures the suggestion that John Cabot may have died on the voyage of 1498, whereby Sebastian came into command, and so into a prominence in his own recollections of the voyage, which may account for the obscuration of his father's partic.i.p.ancy in the enterprise. One of the s.h.i.+ps would seem to have been commanded by Lanslot Thirkill, of London.

What we know of this second voyage are mentions in later years, vague in character, and apparently traceable to what Sebastian had said of it, and not always clearly, for there is an evident commingling of events of this and of the earlier voyage. We get what we know mainly from Peter Martyr, who tells us that Cabot called the region Baccalaos, and from Ramusio, who reports at second hand Sebastian's account, made forty years after the event. From such indefinite sources we can make out that the little fleet steered northwesterly, and got into water packed with ice, and found itself in a lat.i.tude where there was little night. Thence turning south they ran down to 36 north lat.i.tude. The crews landed here and there, and saw people dressed in skins, who used copper implements.

When they reached England we do not know, but it was after October, 1498.

[Sidenote: Extent of this voyage.]

The question of this voyage having extended down the Atlantic seaboard of the present United States to the region of Florida, as has been urged, seems to be set at rest in Stevens's opinion, from the fact that, had Cabot gone so far, he would scarcely have acquiesced in the claims of Ponce de Leon, Ayllon, and Gomez to have first tracked parts of this coast, when Sebastian Cabot as pilot major of Spain (1518), and as president of the Congress of Badajoz (1524), had to adjudicate on such pretensions. There are some objections to this view, in that the results of _unofficial_ explorers as shown in the Portuguese map of Cantino--if that proposition is tenable--and the rival English discoverers, of whom Cabot had been one, might easily have been held to be beyond the Spanish jurisdiction. It is not difficult to demonstrate in these matters the Spanish constant unrecognition of other national explorations.

It has also sometimes been held that the wild character of the coast along which Cabot sailed must have convinced him that he was bordering some continental region intervening between him and the true coast of Asia; that with the "great displeasure" he had felt in finding the land running north, Cabot, in fact, must have comprehended the geographical problem of America long before it was comprehended by the Spaniards. The testimony of the La Cosa and Ruysch maps is not favorable to such a belief.

[Sidenote: England rests her claim on it.]

It seems pretty certain that the success of the Cabot voyage in any worldly gain was not sufficient to move the English again for a long period. Still, the political effect was to raise a claim for England to a region not then known to be a new continent, but of an appreciable acquisition, and England never afterwards failed to rest her rights upon this claim of discovery; and even her successors, the American people, have not been without cause to rest valuable privileges upon the same.

The geographical effect was seen in the earliest map which we possess of the new lands as discovered by Spain and England, the great oxhide map of Juan de la Cosa, the companion of Columbus on his second voyage, and the cartographer of his discoveries, which has already been mentioned, and of which a further description will be given later.

[Sidenote: Scant knowledge of the Cabot voyages.]

Why is it that we know no more of these voyages of the Cabots? There seems to be some ground for the suspicion that the "maps and discourses"

which Sebastian Cabot left behind him in the hands of William Worthington may have fallen, through the subornation by Spain of the latter, into the hands of the rivals of England at a period just after the publication (1582) of Hakluyt's _Divers Voyages_, wherein the possession of them by Worthington was made known; at least, Biddle has advanced such a theory, and it has some support in what may be conjectured of the history of the famous Cabot map of 1544, only brought to light three hundred years later.

[Sidenote: The Cabot mappemonde.]

Here was a map evidently based in part on such information as was known in Spain. It was engraved, as seems likely, though purporting to be the work of Cabot, in the Low Countries, and was issued without name of publisher or place, as if to elude responsibility. Notwithstanding it was an engraved map, implying many copies, it entirely disappeared, and would not have been known to exist except that there are references to such a map as having hung in the gallery at Whitehall, as used by Ortelius before 1570, and as noted by Sanuto in 1588. So thorough a suppression would seem to imply an effort on the part of the Spanish authorities to prevent the world's profiting by the publication of maritime knowledge which in some clandestine way had escaped from the Spanish hydrographical office. That this suppression was in effect nearly successful may be inferred from the fact that but a single copy of the map has come down to us, the one now in the great library at Paris, which was found in Germany by Von Martius in 1843.

[Sidenote: Writers on Cabot.]

There has been a good deal done of late years--beginning with Biddle's _Sebastian Cabot_ in 1831, a noteworthy book, showing how much the critical spirit can do to unravel confusion, and ending with the chapter on Cabot by the late Dr. Charles Deane in the _Narrative and Critical History of America_, and with the _Jean et Sebastien Cabot_ of Harrisse (Paris, 1882)--to clear up the great obscurity regarding the two voyages of John Cabot in 1497 and 1498, an obscurity so dense that for two hundred years after the events there was no suspicion among writers that there had been more than a single voyage. It would appear that this obscurity had mainly arisen from the way in which Sebastian Cabot himself spoke of his explorations, or rather from the way in which he is reported to have spoken.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE THIRD VOYAGE.

1498-1500.

[Sidenote: Sources. Columbus's letters and journal.]

In following the events of the third voyage, we have to depend mainly on two letters written by Columbus himself. One is addressed to the Spanish monarchs, and is preserved in a copy made by Las Casas. What Peter Martyr tells us seems to have been borrowed from this letter. The other is addressed to the "nurse" of Prince Juan, of which there are copies in the Columbus Custodia at Genoa, and in the Munoz collection of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid. They are both printed in Navarrete and elsewhere, and Major in his _Select Letters of Columbus_ gives English versions.

There are also some evidences that the account of this voyage given in the _Itinerarium Portugalensium_ was based on Columbus's journal, which Las Casas is known to have had, and to have used in his _Historia_, adding thereto some details which he got from a recital by Bernaldo de Ibarra, one of Columbus's companions,--indeed, his secretary. The map which accompanied these accounts by Columbus is lost. We only know its existence through the use of it made by Ojeda and others.

Las Casas interspersed among the details which he recorded from Columbus's journal some particulars which he got from Alonso de Vallejo.

One of the pilots, Hernan Perez Matheos, enabled Oviedo to add still something more to the other sources; and then we have additional light from the mouths of various witnesses in the Columbus lawsuit. There is a little at second hand, but of small importance, in a letter of Simon Verde printed by Harrisse.

[Sidenote: Columbus's son Diego.]

Before setting sail, Columbus prepared some directions for his son Diego, of which we have only recently had notes, such appearing in the bulletin of the Italian Geographical Society for December, 1889. He commands in these injunctions that Diego shall have an affectionate regard for the mother of his half-brother Ferdinand, adds some rules for the guidance of his bearing towards his sovereigns and his fellow-men, and recommends him to resort to Father Gaspar Gorricio whenever he might feel in need of advice.

[Sidenote: 1498. May 30. Columbus sails.]

[Sidenote: Rumors of a southern continent.]

Columbus lifted anchor in the port of San Lucar de Barrameda on May 30, 1498. He was physically far from being in a good condition for so adventurous an undertaking. He had hoped, he says to his sovereigns, "to find repose in Spain; whereas on the contrary I have experienced nothing but opposition and vexation." His six vessels stood off to the southwest, to avoid a French--some say a Portuguese--fleet which was said to be cruising near Cape St. Vincent. His plan was a definite one, to keep in a southerly course till he reached the equatorial regions, and then to proceed west. By this course, he hoped to strike in that direction the continental ma.s.s of which he had intimation both from the reports of the natives in Espanola and from the trend which he had found in his last voyage the Cuban coast to have. Herrera tells us that the Portuguese king professed to have some knowledge of a continent in this direction, and we may connect it, if we choose, with the stories respecting Behaim and others, who had already sailed thitherward, as some reports go; but it is hard to comprehend that any belief of that kind was other than a guess at a compensating scheme of geography beyond the Atlantic, to correspond with the balance of Africa against Europe in the eastern hemisphere. It is barely possible, though there is no positive evidence of it, that the reports from England of the Cabot discoveries at the north may have given a hint of like prolongation to the south. But a more impelling instinct was the prevalent one of his time, which accompanied what Michelet calls that terrible malady breaking out in this age of Europe, the hunger and thirst for gold and other precious things, and which a.s.sociated the possession of them with the warmer regions of the globe.

"To the south," said Peter Martyr. "He who would find riches must avoid the cold north!"

[Sidenote: Jayme Ferrer.]

Navarrete preserves a letter which was written to Columbus by Jayme Ferrer, a lapidary of distinction. This jeweler confirmed the prevalent notion, and said that in all his intercourse with distant marts, whence Europe derived its gold and jewels, he had learned from their vendors how such objects of commerce usually came in greatest abundance from near the equator, while black races were those that predominated near such sources. Therefore, as Ferrer told Columbus, steer south and find a black race, if you would get at such opulent abundance. The Admiral remembered he had heard in Espanola of blacks that had come from the south to that island in the past, and he had taken to Spain some of the metal which had been given to him as of the kind with which their javelins had been pointed. The Spanish a.s.sayers had found it a composition of gold, copper, and silver.

[Sidenote: Columbus steers southerly.]

[Sidenote: 1498. June 16. At Gomera.]

So it was with expectations like these that Columbus now worked his way south. He touched for wood and water at Porto Santo and Madeira, and thence proceeded to Gomera. Here, on June 16, he found a French cruiser with two Spanish prizes, but the three s.h.i.+ps eluded his grasp and got to sea. He sent three caravels in pursuit, and the Spanish prisoners rising on the crew of one of the prizes, she was easily captured and brought into port.

[Sidenote: Sends three s.h.i.+ps direct to Espanola.]

The Spanish fleet sailed again on June 21. The Admiral had detailed three of his s.h.i.+ps to proceed direct to Espanola to find the new port on its southern side near the mines of Hayna. Their respective captains were to command the little squadron successively a week at a time. These men were: Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, a man of good reputation; Pedro de Arona, a brother of Beatrix de Henriquez, who had borne Ferdinand to the Admiral; and Juan Antonio Colombo, a Genoese and distant kinsman of the Admiral.

[Sidenote: Columbus at the Cape de Verde Islands.]

Parting with these vessels off Ferro, Columbus, with the three others,--one of which, the flags.h.i.+p, being decked, of a hundred tons burthen, and requiring three fathoms of water,--steered for the Cape de Verde Islands. His stay here was not inspiring. A depressing climate of vapor and an arid landscape told upon his health and upon that of his crew. Encountering difficulties in getting fresh provisions and cattle, he sailed again on July 5, standing to the southwest.

[Sidenote: 1498. July 15.]

[Sidenote: Calms and torrid heats.]

[Sidenote: 1498. July 31. Trinidad seen.]

[Sidenote: August 1.]

Calms and the currents among the islands baffled him, however, and it was the 7th before the high peak of Del Fuego sank astern. By the 15th of July he had reached the lat.i.tude of 5 north. He was now within the verge of the equatorial calms. The air soon burned everything distressingly; the rigging oozed with the running tar; the seams of the vessels opened; provisions grew putrid, and the wine casks shrank and leaked. The fiery ordeal called for all the constancy of the crew, and the Admiral himself needed all the fort.i.tude he could command to bear a brave face amid the twinges of gout which were prostrating him. He changed his course to see if he could not run out of the intolerable heat, and after a tedious interval, with no cessation of the humid and enervating air, the s.h.i.+ps gradually drew into a fresher atmosphere. A breeze rippled the water, and the sun shone the more refres.h.i.+ng for its clearness. He now steered due west, hoping to find land before his water and provisions failed. He did not discover land as soon as he expected, and so bore away to the north, thinking to see some of the Carib Islands. On July 31 relief came, none too soon, for their water was nearly exhausted. A mariner, about midday, peering about from the masthead, saw three peaks just rising above the horizon. The cry of land was like a benison. The _Salve Regina_ was intoned in every part of the s.h.i.+p. Columbus now headed the fleet for the land. As the s.h.i.+ps went on and the three peaks grew into a triple mountain, he gave the island the name of Trinidad, a reminder in its peak of the Trinity, which he had determined at the start to commemorate by bestowing that appellation on the first land he saw. He coasted the sh.o.r.e of this island for some distance before he could find a harbor to careen his s.h.i.+ps and replenish his water casks. On August 1 he anch.o.r.ed to get water, and was surprised at the fresh luxuriance of the country. He could see habitations in the interior, but nowhere along the sh.o.r.e were any signs of occupation. His men, while filling the casks, discovered footprints and other traces of human life, but those who made them kept out of sight.

[Sidenote: First sees the South American coast.]

He was now on the southern side of the island, and in that channel which separates Trinidad from the low country about the mouths of the Orinoco.

Before long he could see the opposite coast stretching away for twenty leagues, but he did not suspect it to be other than an island, which he named La Isla Santa.

It was indeed strange but not surprising that Columbus found an island of a new continent, and supposed it the mainland of the Old World, as happened during his earlier voyages; and equally striking it was that now when he had actually seen the mainland of a new world he did not know it.