CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS.
[Æt. 0; 1436]
Christopher Columbus was born at more places and to a greater extent than any other eminent man known to history. He was born at frequent intervals from 1436 to 1446, and at Cogoletto, Genoa, Finale, Oneglia, Savona, Padrello, and Boggiasco. Learned historians have conclusively shown that he was born at each one of the places, and each historian has had him born at a different date from that fixed upon by a rival historian. To doubt their demonstrations would be to treat history and historians with gross irreverence, and would evince a singular lack of business tact on the part of one proposing to add another to the various histories of Columbus.
Perhaps the majority of people believe that Columbus was born exclusively at Cogoletto; but no one retains that belief after having once visited Cogoletto, and drank the painfully sour wine produced at that wretched little village. It is true that Mr. Tennyson, who remarks that he once
still believes that it was the birthplace of the great Admiral. But this fact simply shows that Mr. Tennyson drank out of his own flask. Few people who visit Cogoletto take this wise precaution, and the result is that, after drinking to the memory of Columbus, they go on their way firmly convinced that wherever else he was born, he certainly was not born at Cogoletto.
It was the opinion of the late Washington Irving that Genoa was the real birthplace of Columbus. This opinion was what might have been expected from a man of such unfailing good taste.
The production of infants is to this day one of the leading industries of Genoa, and as it is a large and beautiful city, we cannot do better than to adopt Mr. Irving’s opinion that it was Columbus’s favorite birthplace. At the same time we might as well select the year 1436 as the year of his birth, with the determination of adhering to it, for it adds much to the symmetry of a biography if the subject thereof is given a definite and fixed birthday.
At his birth Christopher Columbus was simply Cristoforo Colombo, and it was not until he arrived at manhood that he was translated into Latin, in which tongue he has been handed down to the present generation. At a still later period he translated himself into Spanish, becoming thereby Christoval Colon. We can not be too thankful that he was never translated into German, for we could scarcely take pride in a country discovered by one Kolompo.
[Æt. 1; 1442]
The father of Columbus was Domenico Colombo, a wool-comber by occupation. Whose wool he combed, and why he combed it, and whether wool-combing is preferable to wool-gathering as an intellectual pursuit, are questions that have never been satisfactorily decided.
Of Mrs. Colombo we simply know that her Christian name was Fontanarossa, or Red Fountain, a name more suitable to a Sioux Indian than a Christian woman, though perhaps, poor creature! it was not her fault.
Young Christopher was at an early age thoughtfully provided with two younger brothers—who were afterwards very useful to him—and a younger sister. The former were Giacomo, afterward known as Diego, and Bartolommeo, who has been translated into English as Bartholomew. The sister does not appear to have had any name, though her mother might have spared three or four syllables of her own name without feeling the loss of them. This anonymous sister married one Giacomo Bavarello, and promptly vanished into an obscurity that history cannot penetrate.
[Æt. 6; 1443]
From his earliest years Christopher was an unusual and remarkable boy. One day when he was about six years of age he was sent by his mother, early in the morning, to the store to purchase a pound of “blueing” for washing purposes. The morning grew to noon, and the afternoon waned until evening—processes which are not peculiar to the climate of Genoa—but the boy did not return, and his mother was unable to wash the family clothes. The truant had forgotten all about the “blueing,” and was spending the entire day in company with the McGinnis boys, watching a base-ball match in the City Hall Park between the Genoese Nine and the Red-legs of Turin. At dusk he returned, and his broken-hearted mother handed him over to his stern father, who invited him into the woodshed. As Christopher was removing his coat and loosening his other garments so as to satisfy his father that he had no shingles or school-atlases concealed about his person, he said:
“Father, I stayed to witness that base-ball match, not because of a childish curiosity, nor yet because I had any money on the game, but solely in order to study the flight of the ball, hoping thereby to obtain some hints as to the law of projectiles that would enable me to improve the science of gunnery, which is now by no means in an advanced state. If, in view of these circumstances, you still think me worthy of punishment, I will submit with all the fortitude I can summon.”
The father, deeply moved at this frank confession, wore out two apple-tree switches in connection with his son, and informed him that if he ever went with those McGinnis boys again he would “let him know.”
At another time, when Christopher was about eight years old, his father sent him to a news company’s office to get the last number of the Wool-Combers’ Trade Review; but, as before, the boy failed to return, and after a prolonged search was given up as lost, and his parents decided that he had been run over by the horse-cars. Late in the evening Christopher was detected in the act of trying to sneak into the house through the kitchen windows, and was warmly received by his father, who stood him up in the middle of the kitchen, and without releasing his ear, demanded to know what he had to say for himself.
Christopher, with a saddened expression of face, replied:
“Father, I find it a matter of extreme difficulty to depart from the truth, even at this trying moment. Candor compels me to admit that I have spent the day in company with Michael and Patrick McGinnis, in studying the meteorological laws which affect the flight of kites. With the aid of the last number of the Wool-Combers’ Trade Review and a few sticks, I made a beautiful kite, and I can confidently say that—”
Here the old gentleman, exclaiming, “That will do! Your explanation is worse than your other crime,” applied a rattan cane to the future explorer, and afterwards sent him to bed supperless.
[Æt. 8; 1449]
There is not a word of truth in these two anecdotes, but they are introduced in order to afford the reader a slight glimpse of the boyhood of Columbus. They probably compare favorably, in point of veracity, with the average anecdotes of the boyhood of great men, and they show us that even while Columbus was only six and eight years old he was interested in scientific pursuits, and already gave promise of great tediousness. Still, it would be unwise for any one to believe them, and we will pass on to the more prosaic but truthful facts of Columbus’s life.
Young Christopher early conceived a prejudice against wool-combing, although it was his father’s earnest desire that he should adopt that profession. Fernando Columbus, the son of the admiral, evidently felt ashamed of his noble father’s early wool-combing exploits, and says that Domenico Colombo, so far from desiring his son to comb wool, sent him at the age of thirteen to the University of Pavia to study navigation, with a view of ultimately sending him to sea. Now, although the United States Government does undertake to teach seamanship with the aid of textbooks to young men at the Annapolis Naval Academy, the idea that a young man could become a sailor without going to sea had never occurred to the Genoese, and old Domenico never could have been stupid enough to send his son to the Pavia University with the expectation that he would graduate with the marine degree of “A. B.” Undoubtedly Christopher went to Pavia, but it is conceded that he remained there a very short time. If we suppose that, instead of studying his Livy, his Anabasis, and his Loomis’s Algebra, he spent his time in reading Marryat’s sea stories, and dime novels illustrative of piracy, we can understand why his university course came to a sudden end, and why Domenico remarked to his friends that Christopher studied navigation while at Pavia.
[Æt. 14; 1459]
We are told that from his earliest years Christopher desired to be a sailor. We also know that at that period the Mediterranean swarmed with pirates. From these two facts any modern boy with sufficient reasoning powers to be able to put a dog, a string, and a tin can together, will deduce the conclusion that Christopher Columbus must have wanted to be a pirate. As to this there can be but little doubt. When he left Pavia and returned home to comb the paternal wool, he was doubtless fully determined to run away at the earliest opportunity, and become a Red Revenger of the seas.
With this clue, we can readily find in the conduct of the astute Domenico a wise determination to effect a compromise with his adventurous son. He did not want to be the father of a Red Revenger, but he knew that he could not compel his son to comb wool. He therefore induced him to consent to go to sea as a scourge and enemy of pirates; and accordingly in his fourteenth year young Christopher went to sea on board a vessel commanded by a distant relative, who was at one time an admiral in the Genoese service. In what capacity he shipped, whether as a first-class or a second-class boy, or as an acting third assistant cook, or an ordinary cabin-boy, we do not know. Fernando Columbus preserves a discreet silence as to this matter, and as to the first voyage of his father generally. Of course this silence means something, and perhaps Christopher had good reasons for never speaking of the voyage even to his son. Probably he was deathly sea-sick, and in that condition was severely kicked for not being able to lay his hand at a moment’s warning upon the starboard main-top-gallant-studding-sail tripping-line, or other abstruse rope. At all events, he always abstained from telling stories beginning, “I reck’lect on my first v’yge;” and we may be sure that he would never have put such an unseamanlike constraint upon his tongue unless he knew that the less he said about that voyage the better.
[Æt. 23; 1459–70]
He had been a sailor for some years when he joined a vessel forming part of an expedition fitted out in Genoa in 1459 by a certain Duke of Calabria named John of Anjou, who wanted to steal the kingdom of Naples in order to give it to his father, René, Count of Provence. So pious a son naturally commanded universal respect, and Genoa provided him with ships and lent him money. The expedition was very large, and the old Admiral Colombo, with whom Christopher sailed, probably commanded the Genoese contingent. The fleet cruised along the Neapolitan coast, and sailed in and out the Bay of Naples any number of times, but owing to a fear of the extortions of the Neapolitan hack-drivers and valets-de-place, there seems to have been no attempt made to land at Naples. For four years John of Anjou persevered in trying to conquer Naples, but in vain; and at the end of that time he must have had a tremendous bill to pay for his Genoese ships.
While engaged in this expedition, Christopher was sent in command of a vessel to Tunis, where he was expected to capture a hostile galley. Carefully reading up his “Midshipman Easy” and his “Blunt’s Coast Pilot,” he set sail; but on reaching the island of San Pedro, which can easily be found on any map where it is mentioned by name, he learned that there were also in the harbor of Tunis two ships and a carrick; whereupon his crew remarked that they did not propose to attack an unlimited quantity of vessels, but that if Columbus would put into Marseilles and lay in a few more ships to accompany them, they would gladly cut out all the vessels at Tunis. Columbus was determined not to go to Marseilles,—though he does not definitely say that he owed money to the keeper of a sailor boarding-house there,—but he was unable to shake the resolution of his crew. He therefore pretended to yield to their wishes and set sail again, ostensibly for Marseilles. The next morning, when the crew came on deck, they found themselves near the Cape of Carthagena, and perceived that their wily commander had deceived them.
[Æt. 23–34; 1459–70]
This story is told by Columbus himself, and it awakens in the mind of the intelligent reader some little doubt of the narrator’s veracity. In the first place, he admits that he deceived his sailors, and hence we have no certainty that he was not trying to deceive the public when telling the story of the alleged deception. In the second place, it is scarcely probable that all the crew promptly “turned in” at sunset, leaving Columbus himself at the wheel; but unless this was done, the compass or the stars must have told them that the ship was not laying the proper course for Marseilles. Finally, Columbus, in his exultation at having deceived his crew, does not so much as mention Tunis, or the hostile vessels which it was his duty to attack, nor does he tell us what business he had at the Cape of Carthagena. We are thus justified in assuming that the story is not entirely credible. Years afterward, on his first transatlantic voyage, Columbus deceived his men concerning the number of leagues they had sailed, and this exploit was so warmly commended by his admirers that he may have been tempted to remark that he always made a point of deceiving sailors, and may thereupon have invented this earlier instance as a case in point. Still, let us not lightly impugn his veracity. Perhaps he really did tell the truth and deceive his sailors; but whether he did or not, we should still remember that many of us are merely human, and that had we been in the place of Columbus we might have said and done a variety of different things.
What became of Columbus during several subsequent years, we have no trustworthy account. In all probability he continued to follow the sea, and perhaps caught up with it now and then. We know, however, that at one time he commanded a galley belonging to a squadron under the command of Colombo the Younger, a son of the Colombo with whom Christopher sailed in the Neapolitan expedition. This squadron, falling in with a Venetian fleet somewhere off the Portuguese coast, immediately attacked it, Venice and Genoa being at that time at war. In the course of the battle the galley of Columbus was set on fire, and as he had no available small-boats—a fact which must forever reflect disgrace upon the Genoese Navy Department—he was compelled to jump overboard with all his crew. He seems to have lost all interest in the battle after the loss of his galley, and he therefore decided to go ashore. He was six miles from land, but with the help of an oar which he put under his breast he swam ashore without difficulty, and when we consider that he was dressed in a complete suit of armor, it is evident that he must have been a very fine swimmer.
It should be mentioned that, although this story is told by Fernando Columbus, certain carping critics have refused to believe it, on the paltry pretext that, inasmuch as the naval fight in question took place several years after Columbus is known to have taken up his residence in Portugal, he could not have landed in that country for the first time immediately after the battle. This is mere trifling. If Columbus could swim six miles in a suit of heavy armor, and, in all probability, with his sword in one hand and his speaking-trumpet in the other, he could easily have performed the simpler feat of residing in Portugal several years before he reached that country. The truth is, that historians are perpetually casting doubt upon all legends of any real merit or interest. They have totally exploded the story of Washington and the cherry-tree, and they could not be expected to concede that Fernando Columbus knew more about his father than persons living and writing four hundred years later could know. As to Columbus’s great swimming feat, they have agreed to disbelieve the whole story, and of course the public agrees with them.