Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 29

The Pope, to further all methods for the extension of the faith, had commissioned (June 24) a Benedictine monk, Bernardo Buil (Boyle), of Catalonia, to be his apostolic vicar in the new world, and this priest was to be accompanied by eleven brothers of the order. The Queen intrusted to them the sacred vessels and vestments from her own altar.

The instructions which Columbus received were to deal lovingly with the poor natives. We shall see how faithful he was to the behest.

Isabella's musings were not, however, all so piously confined. She wrote to Columbus from Segovia in August, requiring him to make provisions for bringing back to Spain specimens of the peculiar birds of the new regions, as indications of untried climates and seasons.

[Sidenote: Astronomy and navigation.]

Again, in writing to Columbus, September 5, she urged him not to rely wholly on his own great knowledge, but to take such a skillful astronomer on his voyage as Fray Antonio de Marchena,--the same whom Columbus later spoke of as being one of the two persons who had never made him a laughing-stock. Munoz says the office of astronomer was not filled.

Dealing with the question of longitude was a matter in which there was at this time little insight, and no general agreement. Columbus, as we have seen, suspected the variation of the needle might afford the basis of a system; but he grew to apprehend, as he tells us in the narrative of his fourth voyage, that the astronomical method was the only infallible one, but whether his preference was for the opposition of planets, the occultations of stars, the changes in the moon's declination, or the comparisons of Jupiter's alt.i.tude with the lunar position,--all of which were in some form in vogue,--does not appear.

The method by conveyance of time, so well known now in the use of chronometers, seems to have later been suggested by Alonso de Santa Cruz,--too late for the recognition of Columbus; but the instrumentality of water-clocks, sand-clocks, and other crude devices, like the timing of burning wicks, was too uncertain to obtain even transient sanction.

[Sidenote: Astrolabe.]

The astrolabe, for all the improvements of Behaim, was still an awkward instrument for ascertaining lat.i.tude, especially on a rolling or pitching s.h.i.+p, and we know that Vasco da Gama went on sh.o.r.e at the Cape de Verde Islands to take observations when the motion of the sea balked him on s.h.i.+pboard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CLOCK-MAKER.

[From Jost Amman's _Beschreibung_, Frankfort.]]

[Sidenote: Cross-staff and Jackstaff.]

Whether the cross-staff or Jackstaff, a seaboard implement somewhat more convenient than the astrolabe, was known to Columbus is not very clear,--probably it was not; but the navigators that soon followed him found it more manageable on rolling s.h.i.+ps than the older instruments. It was simply a stick, along which, after one end of it was placed at the eye, a scaled crossbar was pushed until its two ends touched, the lower, the horizon, and the upper, the heavenly body whose alt.i.tude was to be taken. A scale on the stick then showed, at the point where the bar was left, the degree of lat.i.tude.

[Sidenote: Errors in lat.i.tude.]

The best of such aids, however, did not conduce to great accuracy, and the early maps, in comparison with modern, show sometimes several degrees of error in scaling from the equator. An error once committed was readily copied, and different cartographical records put in service by the professional map makers came sometimes by a process of averages to show some surprising diversities, with positive errors of considerable extent. The island of Cuba, for instance, early found place in the charts seven and eight degrees too far north, with dependent islands in equally wrong positions.

[Sidenote: Seventeen vessels ready.]

As the preparations went on, a fleet of seventeen vessels, large and small, three of which were called transports, had, according to the best estimates, finally been put in readiness. Scillacio tells us that some of the smallest had been constructed of light draft, especially for exploring service. Horses and domestic animals of all kinds were at last gathered on board. Every kind of seed and agricultural implement, stores of commodities for barter with the Indians, and all the appurtenances of active life were acc.u.mulated. Munoz remarks that it is evident that sugar cane, rice, and vines had not been discovered or noted by Columbus on his first voyage, or we would not have found them among the commodities provided for the second.

[Sidenote: Ojeda.]

[Sidenote: Their companies.]

In making up the company of the adventurers, there was little need of active measures to induce recruits. Many an Hidalgo and cavalier took service at their own cost. Galvano, who must have received the reports by tradition, says that such was the "desire of travel that the men were ready to leap into the sea to swim, if it had been possible, into these new found parts." Traffic, adventure, luxury, feats of arms,--all were inducements that lured one individual or another. Some there were to make names for themselves in their new fields. Such was Alonso de Ojeda, a daring youth, expert in all activities, who had served his ambition in the Moorish wars, and had been particularly favored by the Duke of Medina-Celi, the friend of Columbus.

[Sidenote: Las Casas, Ponce de Leon, La Cosa, etc.]

We find others whose names we shall again encounter. The younger brother of Columbus, Diego Colon, had come to Spain, attracted by the success of Christopher. The father and uncle of Las Casas, from whose conversations with the Admiral that historian could profit in the future, Juan Ponce de Leon, the later discoverer of Florida, Juan de la Cosa, whose map is the first we have of the New World, and Dr. Chanca, a physician of Seville, who was pensioned by the Crown, and to whom we owe one of the narratives of the voyage, were also of the company.

[Sidenote: 1,500 souls embark.]

The thousand persons to which the expedition had at first been limited became, under the pressure of eager cavaliers, nearer 1,200, and this number was eventually increased by stowaways and other hangers-on, till the number embarked was not much short of 1,500. This is Oviedo's statement. Bernaldez and Peter Martyr make the number 1,200, or thereabouts. Perhaps these were the ordinary hands, and the 300 more were officers and the like, for the statements do not render it certain how the enumerations are made. So far as we know their names, but a single companion of Columbus in his first voyage was now with him. The twenty hors.e.m.e.n, already mentioned are supposed to be the only mounted soldiers that embarked. Columbus says, in a letter addressed to their majesties, that "the number of colonists who desire to go thither amounts to two thousand," which would indicate that a large number were denied. The letter is undated, and may not be of a date near the sailing; if it is, it probably indicates to some degree the number of persons who were denied embarkation. As the day approached for the departure there was some uneasiness over a report of a Portuguese caravel sailing westward from Madeira, and it was proposed to send some of the fleet in advance to overtake the vessel; but after some diplomatic fence between Ferdinand and Joo, the disquiet ended, or at least nothing was done on either side.

At one time Columbus had hoped to embark on the 15th of August; but it was six weeks later before everything was ready.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SECOND VOYAGE.

1493-1494.

[Sidenote: The embarkation.]

The last day in port was a season of solemnity and gratulation. Coma, a Spaniard, who, if not an eyewitness, got his description from observers, thus describes the scene in a letter to Scillacio in Pavia: "The religious rites usual on such occasions were performed by the sailors; the last embraces were given; the s.h.i.+ps were hung with brilliant cloths; streamers were wound in the rigging; and the royal standard flapped everywhere at the sterns of the vessels. The pipers and harpers held in mute astonishment the Nereids and even the Sirens with their sweet modulations. The sh.o.r.es reechoed the clang of trumpets and the braying of clarions. The discharge of cannon rolled over the water. Some Venetian galleys chancing to enter the harbor joined in the jubilation, and the cheers of united nations went up with prayers for blessings on the venturing crews."

[Sidenote: 1493. September 25. The fleet sails.]

Night followed, calm or broken, restful or wearisome, as the case might be, for one or another, and when the day dawned (September 25, 1493) the note of preparation was everywhere heard. It was the same on the three great caracks, on the lesser caravels, and on the light craft, which had been especially fitted for exploration. The eager and curious ma.s.s of beings which crowded their decks were certainly a motley show. There were cavalier and priest, hidalgo and artisan, soldier and sailor. The ambitious thoughts which animated them were as various as their habits.

There were those of the adventurer, with no purpose whatever but pastime, be it easy or severe. There was the greed of the speculator, counting the values of trinkets against stores of gold.

[Sidenote: Columbus's character.]

There was the brooding of the administrators, with unsolved problems of new communities in their heads. There were ears that already caught the songs of salvation from native throats. There was Columbus himself, combining all ambitions in one, looking around this harbor of Cadiz studded with his lordly fleet, spreading its creaking sails, lifting its dripping anchors. It was his to contrast it with the scene at Palos a little over a year before. This needy Genoese vested with the viceroyalty of a new world was more of an adventurer than any. He was a speculator who overstepped them all in audacious visions and golden expectancies. He was an administrator over a new government, untried and undivined. To his ears the hymns of the Church soared with a militant warning, dooming the heathen of the Indies, and appalling the Moslem hordes that imperiled the Holy Sepulchre.

[Sidenote: 1493. October 1. Canaries.]

Under the eye of this one commanding spirit, the vessels fell into a common course, and were wafted out upon the great ocean under the lead of the escorting galleys of the Venetians. The responsibility of the captain-general of the great armament had begun. He had been instructed to steer widely clear of the Portuguese coast, and he bore away in the lead directly to the southwest. On the seventh day (October 1) they reached the Gran Canaria, where they tarried to repair a leaky s.h.i.+p. On the 5th they anch.o.r.ed at Gomera. Two days were required here to complete some parts of their equipment, for the islands had already become the centre of great industries and produced largely. "They have enterprising merchants who carry their commerce to many sh.o.r.es," wrote Coma to Scillacio.

There were wood and water to be taken on board. A variety of domestic animals, calves, goats, sheep, and swine; some fowls, and the seed of many orchard and garden fruits, oranges, lemons, melons, and the like, were gathered from the inhabitants and stowed away in the remaining s.p.a.ces of the s.h.i.+ps.

[Sidenote: 1493. October 13. At sea.]

On the 7th the fleet sailed, but it was not till the 13th that the gentle winds had taken them beyond Ferro and the unbounded sea was about the great Admiral. He bore away much more southerly than in his first voyage, so as to strike, if he could, the islands that were so constantly spoken of, the previous year, as lying southeasterly from Espanola.

[Sidenote: St. Elmo's light.]

His ultimate port was, of course, the harbor of La Navidad, and he had issued sealed instructions to all his commanders, to guide any one who should part company with the fleet. The winds were favorable, but the dull sailing of the Admiral's s.h.i.+p restrained the rest. In ten days they had overshot the longitude of the Sargossa Sea without seeing it, leaving its floating weeds to the north. In a few days more they experienced heavy tempests. They gathered confidence from an old belief, when they saw St. Elmo waving his lambent flames about the upper rigging, while they greeted his presence with their prayers and songs.

"The fact is certain," says Coma, "that two lights shone through the darkness of the night on the topmast of the Admiral's s.h.i.+p. Forthwith the tempest began to abate, the sea to remit its fury, the waves their violence, and the surface of the waves became as smooth as polished marble." This sudden gale of four hours' duration came on St. Simon's eve.

The same authority represents that the protracted voyage had caused their water to run low, for the Admiral, confident of his nearness to land, and partly to rea.s.sure the timid, had caused it to be served unstintingly. "You might compare him to Moses," adds Coma, "encouraging the thirsty armies of the Israelites in the dry wastes of the wilderness."

[Sidenote: 1493. November 2.]

[Sidenote: November 3.]

[Sidenote: Dominica Island.]

[Sidenote: Marigalante.]