Chapter VI: The Finding of Strange Coasts (1)

[Sidenote: The Discovery of America was a gradual process.]

But that era did not close with Columbus, nor did he live long enough to complete the Discovery of America. Our practice of affixing specific dates to great events is on many accounts indispensable, but it is sometimes misleading. Such an event as the discovery of a pair of vast continents does not take place within a single year. When we speak of America as discovered in 1492, we do not mean that the moment Columbus landed on two or three islands of the West Indies, a full outline map of the western hemisphere from Labrador and Alaska to Cape Horn suddenly sprang into existence--like Pallas from the forehead of Zeus--in the minds of European men. Yet people are perpetually using arguments which have neither force nor meaning save upon the tacit assumption that somehow or other some such sort of thing must have happened. This grotesque fallacy lies at the bottom of the tradition which has caused so many foolish things to be said about that gallant mariner, Americus Vespucius. In geographical discussions the tendency to overlook the fact that Columbus and his immediate successors did not sail with the latest edition of Black's General Atlas in their cabins is almost inveterate; it keeps revealing itself in all sorts of queer statements, and probably there is no cure for it except in familiarity with the long series of perplexed and struggling maps made in the sixteenth century. Properly regarded, the Discovery of America was not a single event, but a very gradual process. It was not like a case of special creation, for it was a case of evolution, and the voyage of 1492 was simply the most decisive and epoch-marking incident in that evolution. Columbus himself, after all his four eventful voyages across the Sea of Darkness, died in the belief that he had simply discovered the best and straightest route to the eastern shores of Asia. Yet from his first experiences in Cuba down to his latest voyage upon the coasts of Honduras and Veragua, he was more or less puzzled at finding things so different from what he had anticipated. If he had really known anything with accuracy about the eastern coast of Asia, he would doubtless soon have detected his fundamental error, but no European in his day had any such knowledge. In his four voyages Columbus was finding what he supposed to be parts of Asia, what we now know to have been parts of America, but what were really to him and his contemporaries neither more nor less than Strange Coasts. We have now to consider briefly his further experiences upon these strange coasts.

* * * * *

The second voyage of Columbus was begun in a very different mood and under very different auspices from either his former or his two subsequent voyages. On his first departure from Palos, in 1492, all save a few devoted friends regarded him as a madman rushing upon his doom; and outside the Spanish peninsula the expedition seems to have attracted no notice. But on the second start, in 1493, all hands supposed that they were going straight to golden Cathay and to boundless riches. It was not now with groans but with pæans that they flocked on board the ships; and the occasion was observed, with more or less interest, by some people in other countries of Europe,--as in Italy, and for the moment in France and England.

[Sidenote: The letter to Sanchez.]

At the same time with his letter to Santangel, the Admiral had despatched another account, substantially the same,[532] to Gabriel Sanchez,[533] another officer of the royal treasury. Several copies of a Latin translation of this letter were published at Rome, at Paris, and elsewhere, in the course of the year 1493.[534] The story which it contained was at once paraphrased in Italian verse by Giuliano Dati, one of the most popular poets of the age, and perhaps in the autumn of 1493 the amazing news that the Indies had been found by sailing west[535] was sung by street urchins in Florence. We are also informed, in an ill-vouched but not improbable clause in Ramusio, that not far from that same time the news was heard with admiration in London, where it was pronounced "a thing more divine than human to sail by the West unto the East, where spices grow, by a way that was never known before;"[536] and it seems altogether likely that it was this news that prompted the expedition of John Cabot hereafter to be mentioned.[537]

[Footnote 532: "Un duplicata de cette relation," Harrisse,
_Christophe Colomb_, tom i. p. 419.]

[Footnote 533: Often called Raphael Sanchez.]

[Footnote 534: The following epigram was added to the first
Latin edition of the latter by Corbaria, Bishop of
Monte-Peloso:--

_Ad Invictissimum Regem Hispaniarum_:

Iam nulla Hispanis tellus addenda triumphis,
Atque parum tantis viribus orbis erat.
Nunc longe eois regio deprensa sub undis,
Auctura est titulos Betice magne tuos.
Unde repertori inerita referenda Columbo
Gratia, sed summo est maior habenda deo,
Qui vincenda parat noua regna tibique sibique
Teque simul fortem prestat et esse pium.

These lines are thus paraphrased by M. Harrisse:--

_To the Invincible King of the Spains_:

Less wide the world than the renown of Spain,
To swell her triumphs no new lands remain.
Rejoice, Iberia! see thy fame increased!
Another world Columbus from the East
And the mid-ocean summons to thy sway!
Give thanks to him--but loftier homage pay
To God Supreme, who gives its realms to thee!
Greatest of monarchs, first of servants be!
_Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 13.

The following is a literal version:--"Already there is no land
to be added to the triumphs of Spain, and the earth was too
small for such great deeds. Now a far country under the eastern
waves has been discovered, and will be an addition to thy
titles, O great Bætica! wherefore thanks are due to the
illustrious discover Columbus; but greater thanks to the
supreme God, who is making ready new realms to be conquered for
thee and for Himself, and vouchsafes to thee to be at once
strong and pious." It will be observed that nothing is said
about "another world."

An elaborate account of these earliest and excessively rare
editions is given by M. Harrisse, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 535: Or, as Mr. Major carelessly puts it, "the
astounding news of the discovery of a new world." (_Select
Letters of Columbus_, p. vi.) Mr. Major knows very well that no
such "news" was possible for many a year after 1493; his remark
is, of course, a mere slip of the pen, but if we are ever going
to straighten out the tangle of misconceptions with which this
subject is commonly surrounded, we must be careful in our
choice of words.--As a fair specimen, of the chap-book style of
Dati's stanzas, we may cite the fourteenth:--

Hor vo tornar almio primo tractato
dellisole trovate incognite a te
in [~q]sto anno presente [~q]sto e stato
nel millequatrocento nov[=a]tatre,
uno che x[~p]ofan col[=o]bo chiamato,
che e stato in corte der prefecto Re
ha molte volte questa stimolato,
el Re ch'cerchi acrescere il suo stato.

M. Harrisse gives the following version:--

Back to my theme, O Listener, turn with me
And hear of islands all unknown to thee!
Islands whereof the grand discovery
Chanced in this year of fourteen ninety-three.
One Christopher Colombo, whose resort
Was ever in the King Fernando's court,
Bent himself still to rouse and stimulate
The King to swell the borders of his State.
_Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 29.

The entire poem of sixty-eight stanzas is given in Major, _op.
cit._ pp. lxxiii.-xc. It was published at Florence, Oct. 26,
1493, and was called "the story of the discovery [not of a new
world, but] of the new Indian islands of Canary!" (_Storia
della inventione delle nuove isole dicanaria indiane._)]

[Footnote 536: _Raccolta di Navigazioni_, etc., Venice, 1550,
tom. i. fol. 414.]

[Footnote 537: See below, vol. ii. pp. 2-15.]

[Sidenote: Earliest references to the discovery.]

[Sidenote: Earliest reference in English.]

The references to the discovery are very scanty, however, until after the year 1500, and extremely vague withal. For example, Bernardino de Carvajal, the Spanish ambassador at the papal court, delivered an oration in Rome on June 19, 1493, in which he said: "And Christ placed under their [Ferdinand and Isabella's] rule the Fortunate [Canary] islands, the fertility of which has been ascertained to be wonderful. And he has lately disclosed some other unknown ones towards the Indies which may be considered among the most precious things on earth; and it is believed that they will be gained over to Christ by the emissaries of the king."[538] Outside of the Romance countries we find one German version of the first letter of Columbus, published at Strasburg, in 1497,[539] and a brief allusion to the discovery in Sebastian Brandt's famous allegorical poem, "Das Narrenschiff," the first edition of which appeared in 1494.[540] The earliest distinct reference to Columbus in the English language is to be found in a translation of this poem, "The Shyppe of Fooles," by Henry Watson, published in London by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509. The purpose of Brandt's allegory was to satirize the follies committed by all sorts and conditions of men. In the chapter, "Of hym that wyll wryte and enquere of all regyons," it is said: "There was one that knewe that in y^{e} ysles of Spayne was enhabitantes. Wherefore he asked men of Kynge Ferdynandus & wente & founde them, the whiche lyved as beestes."[541] Until after the middle of the sixteenth century no English chronicler mentions either Columbus or the Cabots, nor is there anywhere an indication that the significance of the discoveries in the western ocean was at all understood.[542]

[Footnote 538: Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_,
p. 35.]

[Footnote 539: Id. p. 50.]

[Footnote 540:
Auch hat man sydt in Portigall
Und in Hyspanyen uberall
Golt-inseln funden, und nacket l[°u]t
Von den man vor wust sagen n[°u]t.
Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._; _Additions_, p. 4.

Or, in more modern German:--

Wie man auch jüngst von Portugal
Und Hispanien aus schier überall
Goldinseln fand und nakte Leute,
Von denen man erst weiss seit heute.
_Das Narrenschiff_, ed. Simrock, Berlin, 1872, p. 161.

In the Latin version of 1497, now in the National Library at
Paris, it goes somewhat differently:--

Antea que fuerat priscis incognita tellus:
Exposita est oculis & manifesta patet.
Hesperie occidue rex Ferdinandus: in alto
Aequore nunc gentes repperit innumeras.
Harrisse, _op. cit._; _Additions_, p. 7.

It will be observed that these foreign references are so
ungallant, and so incorrect, as to give all the credit to
Ferdinand, while poor Isabella is not mentioned!]

[Footnote 541: Harrisse, _op. cit._; _Additions_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 542: Harrisse, _Jean et Sebastien Cabot_, Paris,
1882, p. 15.]

[Sidenote: Portuguese claim to the Indies.]

North of the Alps and Pyrenees the interest in what was going on at the Spanish court in 1493 was probably confined to very few people. As for Venice and Genoa we have no adequate means of knowing how they felt about the matter,--a fact which in itself is significant. The interest was centred in Spain and Portugal. There it was intense and awakened fierce heart-burnings. Though John II. had not given his consent to the proposal for murdering Columbus, he appears to have seriously entertained the thought of sending a small fleet across the Atlantic as soon as possible, to take possession of some point in Cathay or Cipango and then dispute the claims of the Spaniards.[543] Such a summary proceeding might perhaps be defended on the ground that the grant from Pope Eugenius V. to the crown of Portugal expressly included "the Indies." In the treaty of 1479, moreover, Spain had promised not to interfere with the discoveries and possessions of the Portuguese.

[Footnote 543: Vasconcellos, _Vida del Rey Don Juan II._,
Madrid, 1639, lib. vi.]

[Sidenote: Bulls of Pope Alexander VI.]

But whatever King John may have intended, Ferdinand and Isabella were too quick for him. No sooner had Columbus arrived at Barcelona than an embassy was despatched to Rome, asking for a grant of the Indies just discovered by that navigator in the service of Castile. The notorious Rodrigo Borgia, who had lately been placed in the apostolic chair as Alexander VI., was a native of Valencia in the kingdom of Aragon, and would not be likely to refuse such a request through any excess of regard for Portugal. As between the two rival powers the pontiff's arrangement was made in a spirit of even-handed justice. On the 3d of May, 1493, he issued a bull conferring upon the Spanish sovereigns all lands already discovered or thereafter to be discovered in the western ocean, with jurisdiction and privileges in all respects similar to those formerly bestowed upon the crown of Portugal. This grant was made by the pope "out of our pure liberality, certain knowledge, and plenitude of apostolic power," and by virtue of "the authority of omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth."[544] It was a substantial reward for the monarchs who had completed the overthrow of Mahometan rule in Spain, and it afforded them opportunities for further good work in converting the heathen inhabitants of the islands and mainland of Asia.[545]

[Footnote 544: "De nostra mera liberalitate, et ex certa
scientia, ac de apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine." ...
"auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in beato Petro concessa, ac
vicariatus Jesu Christi qua fungimur in terris." The same
language is used in the second bull. Mr. Prescott (_Ferdinand
and Isabella_, part i. chap, vii.) translates _certa scientia_
"infallible knowledge," but in order to avoid any complications
with modern theories concerning papal infallibility, I prefer
to use a less technical word.]

[Footnote 545: A year or two later the sovereigns were further
rewarded with the decorative title of "Most Catholic." See
Zurita, _Historia del Rey Hernando_, Saragossa, 1580, lib. ii.
cap. xl.; Peter Martyr, _Epist._ clvii.]

[Sidenote: Treaty of Tordesillas.]

On the following day Alexander issued a second bull in order to prevent any occasion for quarrel between Spain and Portugal.[546] He decreed that all lands discovered or to be discovered to the west of a meridian one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde islands should belong to the Spaniards. Inasmuch as between the westernmost of the Azores and the easternmost of the Cape Verde group the difference in longitude is not far from ten degrees, this description must be allowed to be somewhat vague, especially in a document emanating from "certain knowledge;"[547] and it left open a source of future disputes which one would suppose the "plenitude of apostolic power" might have been worthily employed in closing. The meridian 25° W., however, would have satisfied the conditions, and the equitable intent of the arrangement is manifest. The Portuguese were left free to pursue their course of discovery and conquest along the routes which they had always preferred. King John, however, was not satisfied. He entertained vague hopes of finding spice islands, or something worth having, in the western waters; and he wished to have the Line of Demarcation carried farther to the west. After a year of diplomatic wrangling a treaty was signed at Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, in which Spain consented to the moving of the line to a distance of 370 leagues west from the Cape Verde islands.[548] It would thus on a modern map fall somewhere between the 41st and 44th meridians west of Greenwich. This amendment had important and curious consequences. It presently gave the Brazilian coast to the Portuguese, and thereupon played a leading part in the singular and complicated series of events that ended in giving the name of Americus Vespucius to that region, whence it was afterwards gradually extended to the whole western hemisphere.[549]

[Footnote 546: The complete text of this bull, with Richard
Eden's translation, is given at the end of this work; see
below, Appendix B. The official text is in _Magnum Bullarium
Romanum_, ed. Cherubini, Lyons, 1655, tom. i. p. 466. The
original document received by Ferdinand and Isabella is
preserved in the Archives of the Indies at Seville; it is
printed entire in Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. ii.
No. 18. Another copy, less complete, may be found in Raynaldus,
_Annales ecclesiastici_, Lucca, 1754, tom. xi. p. 214, No.
19-22; and another in Leibnitz, _Codex Diplomaticus_, tom. i.
pt. i. p. 471. It is often called the Bull "Inter Cetera," from
its opening words.

The origin of the pope's claim to apostolic authority for
giving away kingdoms is closely connected with the fictitious
"Donation of Constantine," an edict probably fabricated in Rome
about the middle of the eighth century. The title of the old
Latin text is _Edictum domini Constantini Imp._, apud
Pseudo-Isidorus, _Decretalia_. Constantine's transfer of the
seat of empire from the Tiber to the Bosphorus tended greatly
to increase the dignity and power of the papacy, and I presume
that the fabrication of this edict, four centuries afterward,
was the expression of a sincere belief that the first Christian
emperor _meant_ to leave the temporal supremacy over Italy in
the hands of the Roman see. The edict purported to be such a
donation from Constantine to Pope Sylvester I., but the extent
and character of the donation was stated with such vagueness as
to allow a wide latitude of interpretation. Its genuineness was
repeatedly called in question, but belief in it seems to have
grown in strength until after the thirteenth century. Leo IX.,
who was a strong believer in its genuineness, granted in 1054
to the Normans their conquests in Sicily and Calabria, to be
held as a fief of the Roman see. (Muratori, _Annali d' Italia_,
tom. vi. pt. ii. p. 245.) It was next used to sustain the papal
claim to suzerainty over the island of Corsica. A century later
John of Salisbury maintained the right of the pope to dispose
"of all _islands_ on which Christ, the Sun of righteousness,
hath shined," and in conformity with this opinion Pope Adrian
IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman) authorized in 1164
King Henry II. of England to invade and conquer Ireland. (See
Adrian IV., _Epist._ 76, apud Migne, _Patrologia_, tom.
clxxxviii.) Dr. Lanigan, in treating of this matter, is more an
Irishman than a papist, and derides "this nonsense of the
pope's being the head-owner of all Christian islands."
(_Ecclesiastical History of Ireland_, vol. iv. p.
159.)--Gregory VII., in working up to the doctrine that all
Christian kingdoms should be held as fiefs under St. Peter
(Baronius, _Annales_, tom. xvii. p. 430; cf. Villemain,
_Histoire de Grégoire VII._, Paris, 1873, tom. ii. pp. 59-61),
does not seem to have appealed to the Donation. Perhaps he was
shrewd enough to foresee the kind of objection afterwards
raised by the Albigensians, who pithily declared that if the
suzerainty of the popes was derived from the Donation, then
they were successors of Constantine and not of St. Peter.
(Moneta Cremonensis, _Adversus Catharos et Waldenses_, ed.
Ricchini, Rome, 1743, v. 2.) But Innocent IV. summarily
disposed of this argument at the Council of Lyons in 1245, when
he deposed the Emperor Frederick II. and King Sancho II. of
Portugal,--saying that Christ himself had bestowed temporal as
well as spiritual headship upon St. Peter and his successors,
so that Constantine only gave up to the Church what belonged to
it already. The opposite or Ghibelline theory was eloquently
set forth by Dante, in his treatise _De Monarchia_; he held
that inasmuch as the Empire existed before the Church, it could
not be derived from it. Dante elsewhere expressed his
abhorrence of the Donation:--

Ahi Constantin, di quanto mal fu matre,
Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!
_Inferno_, xix. 115.

Similar sentiments were expressed by many of the most popular
poets from the twelfth century to the sixteenth. Walther von
der Vogelweide was sure that if the first Christian emperor
could have foreseen the evils destined to flow from his
Donation, he would have withheld it:--

Solte ich den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min,
So spræche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din,
Ir zunge sünge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin,
Gedæhten daz ouch si dur Got wæren almuosenære.
Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin,
Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik wære,
So het er wol underkomen des riches swære,
Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete lære.
Hagen, _Minnesinger-Sammlung_, Leipsic, 1838,
bd. i. p. 270.

Ariosto, in a passage rollicking with satire, makes his
itinerant paladin find the "stinking" Donation in the course of
his journey upon the moon:--

Di varii fiori ad un gran monte passa,
Ch' ebber già buono odore, or puzzan forte,
Questo era il dono, se però dir lece,
Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.
_Orlando Furioso_, xxxiv. 80.

The Donation was finally proved to be a forgery by Laurentius
Valla in 1440, in his _De falso credita et ementita Constantini
donatione declamatio_ (afterward spread far and wide by Ulrich
von Hutten), and independently by the noble Reginald Pecock,
bishop of Chichester, in his _Repressor_, written about
1447.--During the preceding century the theory of Gregory VII.
and Innocent IV. had been carried to its uttermost extreme by
the Franciscan monk Alvaro Pelayo, in his _De Planctu
Ecclesiæ_, written at Avignon during the "Babylonish
Captivity," about 1350 (printed at Venice in 1560), and by
Agostino Trionfi, in his _Summa de potestate ecclesiastica_,
Augsburg, 1473, an excessively rare book, of which there is a
copy in the British Museum. These writers maintained that the
popes were suzerains of the whole earth and had absolute power
to dispose not only of all Christian kingdoms, but also of all
heathen lands and powers. It was upon this theory that Eugenius
IV. seems to have acted with reference to Portugal and
Alexander VI. with reference to Spain. Of course there was
never a time when such claims for the papacy were not denied by
a large party within the Church. The Spanish sovereigns in
appealing to Alexander VI. took care to hint that some of their
advisers regarded them as already entitled to enjoy the fruits
of their discoveries, even before obtaining the papal
permission, but they did not choose to act upon that opinion
(Herrera, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 4). The kings of Portugal
were less reserved in their submission. In _Valasci Ferdinandi
ad Innocentium octauum de obedientia oratio_, a small quarto
printed at Rome about 1488, John II. did homage to the pope for
the countries just discovered by Bartholomew Dias. His
successor Emanuel did the same after the voyages of Gama and
Vespucius. In a small quarto, _Obedientia potentissimi
Emanuelis Lusitaniæ regis &c. per clarissimum juris consultum
Dieghum Pacett[=u] oratorem ad Iuli[=u] Pont. Max._, Rome,
1505, all the newly found lands are laid at the feet of Julius
II. in a passage that ends with words worth noting: "Accipe
tandem orbem ipsum terrarum, Deus enim noster es," i. e.
"Accept in fine the earth itself, for thou art our God."
Similar homage was rendered to Leo X. in 1513, on account of
Albuquerque's conquests in Asia.--We may suspect that if the
papacy had retained, at the end of the fifteenth century,
anything like the overshadowing power which it possessed at the
end of the twelfth, the kings of Portugal would not have been
quite so unstinted in their homage. As it came to be less of a
reality and more of a flourish of words, it cost less to offer
it. Among some modern Catholics I have observed a disposition
to imagine that in the famous bull of partition Alexander VI.
acted not as supreme pontiff but merely as an arbiter, in the
modern sense, between the crowns of Spain and Portugal; but
such an interpretation is hardly compatible with Alexander's
own words. An arbiter, as such, does not make awards by virtue
of "the authority of Omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter,
and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon
the earth."

Since writing this note my attention has been called to Dr.
Ignaz von Döllinger's _Fables respecting the Popes of the
Middle Ages_, London, 1871; and I find in it a chapter on the
Donation of Constantine, in which the subject is treated with a
wealth of learning. Some of my brief references are there
discussed at considerable length. To the references to Dante
there is added a still more striking passage, where Constantine
is admitted into Heaven _in spite of_ his Donation (_Paradiso_,
xx. 55).]

[Footnote 547: The language of the bull is even more vague than
my version in the text. His Holiness describes the lands to be
given to the Spaniards as lying "to the west and south" (versus
occidentem et meridiem) of his dividing meridian. Land to the
south of a meridian would be in a queer position! Probably it
was meant to say that the Spaniards, once west of the papal
meridian, might go south as well as north. For the king of
Portugal had suggested that they ought to confine themselves to
northern waters.]

[Footnote 548: For the original Spanish text of the treaty of
Tordesillas, see Navarrete, tom. ii. pp. 116-130.]

[Footnote 549: See below, vol. ii. pp. 98-154.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca.]

Already in April, 1493, without waiting for the papal sanction, Ferdinand and Isabella bent all their energies to the work of fitting out an expedition for taking possession of "the Indies." First, a department of Indian affairs was created, and at its head was placed Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville: in Spain a man in high office was apt to be a clergyman. This Fonseca was all-powerful in Indian affairs for the next thirty years. He won and retained the confidence of the sovereigns by virtue of his executive ability. He was a man of coarse fibre, ambitious and domineering, cold-hearted and perfidious, with a cynical contempt--such as low-minded people are apt to call "smart"--for the higher human feelings. He was one of those ugly customers who crush, without a twinge of compunction, whatever comes in their way. The slightest opposition made him furious, and his vindictiveness was insatiable. This dexterous and pushing Fonseca held one after another the bishoprics of Badajoz, Cordova, Palencia, and Conde, the archbishopric of Rosano in Italy, together with the bishopric of Burgos, and he was also principal chaplain to Isabella and afterwards to Ferdinand. As Sir Arthur Helps observes, "the student of early American history will have a bad opinion of many Spanish bishops, if he does not discover that it is Bishop Fonseca who reappears under various designations."[550] Sir Arthur fitly calls him "the ungodly bishop."

[Footnote 550: _History of the Spanish Conquest_, vol. i. p.
487.]

[Sidenote: Friar Boyle.]

The headquarters of Fonseca and of the Indian department were established at Seville, and a special Indian custom-house was set up at Cadiz. There was to be another custom-house upon the island of Hispaniola (supposed to be Japan), and a minute registry was to be kept of all ships and their crews and cargoes, going out or coming in. Nobody was to be allowed to go to the Indies for any purpose whatever without a license formally obtained. Careful regulations were made for hampering trade and making everything as vexatious as possible for traders, according to the ordinary wisdom of governments in such matters. All expenses were to be borne and all profits received by the crown of Castile, saving the rights formerly guaranteed to Columbus. The cost of the present expedition was partly defrayed with stolen money, the plunder wrung from the worthy and industrious Jews who had been driven from their homes by the infernal edict of the year before. Extensive "requisitions" were also made; in other words, when the sovereigns wanted a ship or a barrel of gunpowder they seized it, and impressed it into the good work of converting the heathen. To superintend this missionary work, a Franciscan monk[551] was selected who had lately distinguished himself as a diplomatist in the dispute with France over the border province of Rousillon. This person was a native of Catalonia, and his name was Bernardo Boyle, which strongly suggests an Irish origin. Alexander VI. appointed him his apostolic vicar for the Indies,[552] and he seems to have been the first clergyman to perform mass on the western shores of the Atlantic. To assist the vicar, the six Indians brought over by Columbus were baptized at Barcelona, with the king and queen for their godfather and godmother. It was hoped that they would prove useful as missionaries, and when one of them presently died he was said to be the first Indian ever admitted to heaven.[553]

[Footnote 551: Irving calls him a Benedictine, but he is
addressed as "fratri ordinis Minorum" in the bull clothing him
with apostolic authority in the Indies, June 25, 1493. See
Raynaldus, _Annales ecclesiastici_, tom. xi. p. 216. I cannot
imagine what M. Harrisse means by calling him "religieux de
Saint-Vincent de Paule" (_Christophe Colomb_, tom. ii. p. 55).
Vincent de Paul was not born till 1576.]

[Footnote 552: Not for "the New World," as Irving carelessly
has it in his _Columbus_, vol. i. p. 346. No such phrase had
been thought of in 1493, or until long afterward.]

[Footnote 553: Herrera, _Hist. de las Indias_, decad. i. lib.
ii. cap. 5.]

The three summer months were occupied in fitting out the little fleet. There were fourteen caravels, and three larger store-ships known as carracks. Horses, mules, and other cattle were put on board,[554] as well as vines and sugar-canes, and the seeds of several European cereals, for it was intended to establish a permanent colony upon Hispaniola. In the course of this work some slight matters of disagreement came up between Columbus and Fonseca, and the question having been referred to the sovereigns, Fonseca was mildly snubbed and told that he must in all respects be guided by the Admiral's wishes. From that time forth this ungodly prelate nourished a deadly hatred toward Columbus, and never lost an opportunity for whispering evil things about him. The worst of the grievous afflictions that afterward beset the great discoverer must be ascribed to the secret machinations of this wretch.

[Footnote 554: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xliv.]

[Sidenote: Notable persons who embarked on the second voyage.]

At last the armament was ready. People were so eager to embark that it was felt necessary to restrain them. It was not intended to have more than 1,200, but about 1,500 in all contrived to go, so that some of the caravels must have been overcrowded. The character of the company was very different from that of the year before. Those who went in the first voyage were chiefly common sailors. Now there were many aristocratic young men, hot-blooded and feather-headed hidalgos whom the surrender of Granada had left without an occupation. Most distinguished among these was Alonso de Ojeda, a dare-devil of unrivalled muscular strength, full of energy and fanfaronade, and not without generous qualities, but with very little soundness of judgment or character. Other notable personages in this expedition were Columbus's youngest brother Giacomo (henceforth called Diego), who had come from Genoa at the first news of the Admiral's triumphant return; the monk Antonio de Marchena,[555] whom historians have so long confounded with the prior Juan Perez; an Aragonese gentleman named Pedro Margarite, a favourite of the king and destined to work sad mischief; Juan Ponce de Leon, who afterwards gave its name to Florida; Francisco de Las Casas, father of the great apostle and historian of the Indies; and, last but not least, the pilot Juan de La Cosa, now charged with the work of chart-making, in which he was an acknowledged master.[556]

[Footnote 555: He went as astronomer, from which we may perhaps
suppose that scientific considerations had made him one of the
earliest and most steadfast upholders of Columbus's views.]

[Footnote 556: See Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom. ii. pp.
55, 56; Las Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. p. 498;
Fabié, _Vida de Las Casas_, Madrid, 1879, tom. i. p. 11;
Oviedo, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. i. p. 467; Navarrete,
_Coleccion de viages_, tom. ii. pp. 143-149.]

[Sidenote: Cruise among the cannibal islands.]

The pomp and bustle of the departure from Cadiz, September 25, 1493, at which the Admiral's two sons, Diego and Ferdinand, were present, must have been one of the earliest recollections of the younger boy, then just five years of age.[557] Again Columbus stopped at the Canary islands, this time to take on board goats and sheep, pigs and fowls, for he had been struck by the absence of all such animals on the coasts which he had visited.[558] Seeds of melons, oranges, and lemons were also taken. On the 7th of October the ships weighed anchor, heading a trifle to the south of west, and after a pleasant and uneventful voyage they sighted land on the 3d of November.[559] It turned out to be a small mountainous island, and as it was discovered on Sunday they called it Dominica. In a fortnight's cruise in these Caribbean waters they discovered and named several islands, such as Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Antigua, and others, and at length reached Porto Rico. The inhabitants of these islands were ferocious cannibals, very different from the natives encountered on the former voyage. There were skirmishes in which a few Spaniards were killed with poisoned arrows. On Guadaloupe the natives lived in square houses made of saplings intertwined with reeds, and on the rude porticoes attached to these houses some of the wooden pieces were carved so as to look like serpents. In some of these houses human limbs were hanging from the roof, cured with smoke, like ham; and fresh pieces of human flesh were found stewing in earthen kettles, along with the flesh of parrots. Now at length, said Peter Martyr, was proved the truth of the stories of Polyphemus and the Læstrygonians, and the reader must look out lest his hair stand on end.[560] These western Læstrygonians were known as Caribbees, Caribales, or Canibales, and have thus furnished an epithet which we have since learned to apply to man-eaters the world over.

[Footnote 557: "E con questo preparamento il mercoledé ai 25
del mese di settembre dell' anno 1493 un' ora avanti il levar
del sole, essendovi io e mio fratel presenti, l' Ammiraglio
levò le ancore," etc. _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xliv.]

[Footnote 558: Eight sows were bought for 70 maravedis apiece,
and "destas ocho puercas se han multiplicado todos los puercos
que, hasta hoy, ha habido y hay en todas estas Indias," etc.
Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. ii. p. 3.]

[Footnote 559: The relation of this second voyage by Dr. Chanca
may be found in Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 198-241; an interesting
relation in Italian by Simone Verde, a Florentine merchant then
living in Valladolid, is published in Harrisse, _Christophe
Colomb_, tom. ii. pp. 68-78. The narrative of the curate of Los
Palacios is of especial value for this voyage.]

[Footnote 560: Martyr, _Epist._ cxlvii. _ad Pomponium Lætum_;
cf. _Odyssey_, x. 119; Thucyd. vi. 2.--Irving (vol. i. p. 385)
finds it hard to believe these stories, but the prevalence of
cannibalism, not only in these islands, but throughout a very
large part of aboriginal America, has been superabundantly
proved.]

[Sidenote: Fate of the colony at La Navidad.]

It was late at night on the 27th of November that Columbus arrived in the harbour of La Navidad and fired a salute to arouse the attention of the party that had been left there the year before. There was no reply and the silence seemed fraught with evil omen. On going ashore next morning and exploring the neighbourhood, the Spaniards came upon sights of dismal significance. The fortress was pulled to pieces and partly burnt, the chests of provisions were broken open and emptied, tools and fragments of European clothing were found in the houses of the natives, and finally eleven corpses, identifiable as those of white men, were found buried near the fort. Not one of the forty men who had been left behind in that place ever turned up to tell the tale. The little colony of La Navidad had been wiped out of existence. From the Indians, however, Columbus gathered bits of information that made a sufficiently probable story. It was a typical instance of the beginnings of colonization in wild countries. In such instances human nature has shown considerable uniformity. Insubordination and deadly feuds among themselves had combined with reckless outrages upon the natives to imperil the existence of this little party of rough sailors. The cause to which Horace ascribes so many direful wars, both before and since the days of fairest Helen, seems to have been the principal cause on this occasion. At length a fierce chieftain named Caonabo, from the region of Xaragua, had attacked the Spaniards in overwhelming force, knocked their blockhouse about their heads, and butchered all that were left of them.

[Sidenote: Building of Isabella.]

[Sidenote: Exploration of Cibao.]

This was a gloomy welcome to the land of promise. There was nothing to be done but to build new fortifications and found a town. The site chosen for this new settlement, which was named Isabella, was at a good harbour about thirty miles east of Monte Christi. It was chosen because Columbus understood from the natives that it was not far from there to the gold-bearing mountains of Cibao, a name which still seemed to signify Cipango. Quite a neat little town was presently built, with church, marketplace, public granary, and dwelling-houses, the whole encompassed with a stone wall. An exploring party led by Ojeda into the mountains of Cibao found gold dust and pieces of gold ore in the beds of the brooks, and returned elated with this discovery. Twelve of the ships were now sent back to Spain for further supplies and reinforcements, and specimens of the gold were sent as an earnest of what was likely to be found. At length, in March, 1494, Columbus set forth, with 400 armed men, to explore the Cibao country. The march was full of interest. It is upon this occasion that we first find mention of the frantic terror manifested by Indians at the sight of horses. At first they supposed the horse and his rider to be a kind of centaur, and when the rider dismounted this separation of one creature into two overwhelmed them with supernatural terror. Even when they had begun to get over this notion they were in dread of being eaten by the horses.[561] These natives lived in houses grouped into villages, and had carved wooden idols and rude estufas for their tutelar divinities. It was ascertained that different tribes tried to steal each other's idols and even fought for the possession of valuable objects of "medicine."[562] Columbus observed and reported the customs of these people with some minuteness. There was nothing that agreed with Marco Polo's descriptions of Cipango, but so far as concerned the discovery of gold mines, the indications were such as to leave little doubt of the success of this reconnaissance. The Admiral now arranged his forces so as to hold the inland regions just visited and gave the general command to Margarite, who was to continue the work of exploration. He left his brother, Diego Columbus, in charge of the colony, and taking three caravels set sail from Isabella on the 24th of April, on a cruise of discovery in these Asiatic waters.

[Footnote 561: For an instance of 400 hostile Indians fleeing
before a single armed horseman, see _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_,
cap. lii.; Las Casas, _Hist._ tom. ii. p. 46.]

[Footnote 562: Compare the Fisherman's story of Drogio, above,
pp. 246, 252.]

[Sidenote: Cape Alpha and Omega.]

A brief westward sail brought the little squadron into the Windward Passage and in sight of Cape Mayzi, which Columbus on his first voyage had named Cape Alpha and Omega as being the easternmost point on the Chinese coast. He believed that if he were to sail to the right of this cape he should have the continent on his port side for a thousand miles and more, as far as Quinsay and Cambaluc (Peking). If he had sailed in this direction and had succeeded in keeping to the east of Florida, he would have kept a continent on his port side, and a thousand miles would have taken him a long way toward that Vinland which our Scandinavian friends would fondly have us believe was his secret guiding-star, and the geographical position of which they suppose him to have known with such astounding accuracy. But on this as on other occasions, if the Admiral had ever received any information about Vinland, it must be owned that he treated it very cavalierly, for he chose the course to the left of Cape Mayzi. His decision is intelligible if we bear in mind that he had not yet circumnavigated Hayti and was not yet cured of his belief that its northern shore was the shore of the great Cipango. At the same time he had seen enough on his first voyage to convince him that the relative positions of Cipango and the mainland of Cathay were not correctly laid down upon the Toscanelli map. He had already inspected two or three hundred miles of the coast to the right of Cape Mayzi without finding traces of civilization; and whenever inquiries were made about gold or powerful kingdoms the natives invariably pointed to the south or southwest. Columbus, therefore, decided to try his luck in this direction. He passed to the left of Cape Mayzi and followed the southern coast of Cuba.

[Sidenote: Discovery of Jamaica.]

By the 3d of May the natives were pointing so persistently to the south and off to sea that he changed his course in that direction and soon came upon the northern coast of the island which we still know by its native name Jamaica. Here he found Indians more intelligent and more warlike than any he had as yet seen. He was especially struck with the elegance of their canoes, some of them nearly a hundred feet in length, carved and hollowed from the trunks of tall trees. We may already observe that different tribes of Indians comported themselves very differently at the first sight of white men. While the natives of some of the islands prostrated themselves in adoration of these sky-creatures, or behaved with a timorous politeness which the Spaniards mistook for gentleness of disposition, in other places the red men showed fight at once, acting upon the brute impulse to drive away strangers. In both cases, of course, dread of the unknown was the prompting impulse, though so differently manifested. As the Spaniards went ashore upon Jamaica, the Indians greeted them with a shower of javelins and for a few moments stood up against the deadly fire of the cross-bows, but when they turned to flee, a single bloodhound, let loose upon them, scattered them in wildest panic.[563]

[Footnote 563: Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. cxxv.
Domesticated dogs were found generally in aboriginal America,
but they were very paltry curs compared to these fierce hounds,
one of which could handle an unarmed man as easily as a terrier
handles a rat.]

[Sidenote: Coasting the south side of Cuba.]

Finding no evidences of civilization upon this beautiful island, Columbus turned northward and struck the Cuban coast again at the point which still bears the name he gave it, Cape Cruz. Between the general contour of this end of Cuba and that of the eastern extremity of Cathay upon the Toscanelli map there is a curious resemblance, save that the direction is in the one case more east and west and in the other more north and south. Columbus passed no cities like Zaiton, nor cities of any sort, but when he struck into the smiling archipelago which he called the Queen's Gardens, now known as Cayos de las Doce Leguas, he felt sure that he was among Marco Polo's seven thousand spice islands. On the 3d of June, at some point on the Cuban coast, probably near Trinidad, the crops of several doves were opened and spices found in them. None of the natives here had ever heard of an end to Cuba, and they believed it was endless.[564] The next country to the west of themselves was named Mangon, and it was inhabited by people with tails which they carefully hid by wearing loose robes of cloth. This information seemed decisive to Columbus. Evidently this Mangon was Mangi, the province in which was the city of Zaiton, the province just south of Cathay. And as for the tailed men, the book of Mandeville had a story of some naked savages in eastern Asia who spoke of their more civilized neighbours as wearing clothes in order to cover up some bodily peculiarity or defect. Could there be any doubt that the Spanish caravels had come at length to the coast of opulent Mangi?[565]

[Footnote 564: As a Greek would have said, [Greek: êpeiros], a
continent.]

[Footnote 565: Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. cxxvii, Mr.
Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could
not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something
strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting
such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of
his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a
prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia."
(_Life of Columbus_, vol. i. p. 493.) This lends a false colour
to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make
still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the
southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an
"ardent imagination." It was simply a plain common-sense
conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were
then accessible (i. e. the Toscanelli map, amended by
information such as was understood to be given by the natives);
it was more probable than any other theory of the situation
likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to
us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of
Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern
historians abound in unconscious turns of expression--as in
this quotation from Irving--which project modern knowledge back
into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I
shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the
reader must not suppose that this is any indication of
captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only
feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration.]

[Sidenote: The "people of Mangon."]

[Sidenote: The Golden Chersonese.]

Under the influence of this belief, when a few days later they landed in search of fresh water, and a certain archer, on the lookout for game, caught distant glimpses of a flock of tall white cranes feeding in an everglade, he fled to his comrades with the story that he had seen a party of men clad in long white tunics, and all agreed that these must be the people of Mangon.[566] Columbus sent a small company ashore to find them. It is needless to add that the search was fruitless, but footprints of alligators, interpreted as footprints of griffins guarding hoarded gold,[567] frightened the men back to their ships. From the natives, with whom the Spaniards could converse only by signs, they seemed to learn that they were going toward the realm of Prester John;[568] and in such wise did they creep along the coast to the point, some fifty miles west of Broa Bay, where it begins to trend decidedly to the southwest. Before they had reached Point Mangles, a hundred miles farther on, inasmuch as they found this southwesterly trend persistent, the proof that they were upon the coast of the Asiatic continent began to seem complete. Columbus thought that they had passed the point (lat. 23°, long. 145° on Toscanelli's map) where the coast of Asia began to trend steadily toward the southwest.[569] By pursuing this coast he felt sure that he would eventually reach the peninsula (Malacca) which Ptolemy, who knew of it only by vague hearsay, called the Golden Chersonese.[570] An immense idea now flitted through the mind of Columbus. If he could reach and double that peninsula he could then find his way to the mouth of the Ganges river; thence he might cross the Indian ocean, pass the Cape of Good Hope (for Dias had surely shown that the way was open), and return that way to Spain after circumnavigating the globe! But fate had reserved this achievement for another man of great heart and lofty thoughts, a quarter of a century later, who should indeed accomplish what Columbus dreamed, but only after crossing another Sea of Darkness, the most stupendous body of water on our globe, the mere existence of which until after Columbus had died no European ever suspected.[571] If Columbus had now sailed about a hundred miles farther, he would have found the end of Cuba, and might perhaps have skirted the northern shore of Yucatan and come upon the barbaric splendours of Uxmal and Campeche. The excitement which such news would have caused in Spain might perhaps have changed all the rest of his life and saved him from the worst of his troubles. But the crews were now unwilling to go farther, and the Admiral realized that it would be impossible to undertake such a voyage as he had in mind with no more than their present outfit. So it was decided to return to Hispaniola.

[Footnote 566: These tropical birds are called _soldados_, or
"soldiers," because their stately attitudes remind one of
sentinels on duty. The whole town of Angostura, in Venezuela,
was one day frightened out of its wits by the sudden appearance
of a flock of these cranes on the summit of a neighbouring
hill. They were mistaken for a war-party of Indians. Humboldt,
_Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent_, tom.
ii. p. 314.]

[Footnote 567: See above, p. 287, note.]

[Footnote 568: For these events, see Bernaldez, _Reyes
Católicos_, cap. cxxiii.; F. Columbus, _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_,
cap. lvi.; Muñoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_, lib. v. § 16;
Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. iv. pp. 237-263; Irving's
_Columbus_, vol. i. pp. 491-504.]

[Footnote 569: That is to say, he thought he had passed the
coast of Mangi (southern China) and reached the beginning of
the coast of Champa (Cochin China; see Yule's _Marco Polo_,
vol. ii. p. 213). The name Champa, coming to European writers
through an Italian source, was written Ciampa and Ciamba. See
its position on the Behaim and Toscanelli maps, and also on
Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. ii. p. 114. Peter Martyr says
that Columbus was sure that he had reached the coast of
Gangetic (i. e. what we call Farther) India: "Indiæ Gangetidis
continentem eam (Cubæ) plagam esse contendit Colonus." _Epist._
xciii. _ad Bernardinum_. Of course Columbus understood that
this region, while agreeing well enough with Toscanelli's
latitude, was far from agreeing with his longitude. But from
the moment when he turned eastward on his first voyage he seems
to have made up his mind that Toscanelli's longitudes needed
serious amendment. Indeed he had always used different
measurements from Toscanelli.]

[Footnote 570: For an account of Ptolemy's almost purely
hypothetical and curiously distorted notions about southeastern
Asia, see Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. ii.
pp. 604-608.]

[Footnote 571: See below, vol. ii. pp. 200-210.]

Upon consultation with La Cosa and others, it was unanimously agreed that they were upon the coast of the continent of Asia. The evidence seemed conclusive. From Cape Mayzi (Alpha and Omega) they had observed, upon their own reckoning, 335 leagues, or about 1,000 geographical miles, of continuous coast running steadily in nearly the same direction.[572] Clearly it was too long for the coast of an island; and then there was the name Mangon = Mangi. The only puzzling circumstance was that they did not find any of Marco Polo's cities. They kept getting scraps of information which seemed to refer to gorgeous kingdoms, but these were always in the dim distance. Still there was no doubt that they had discovered the coast of a continent, and of course such a continent could be nothing else but Asia!

[Footnote 572: The length of Cuba from Cape Mayzi to Cape San
Antonio is about 700 English miles. But in following the
sinuosities of the coast, and including tacks, the estimate of
these pilots was probably not far from correct.]

[Sidenote: A solemn expression of opinion.]