Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles."
But now came the time when earth-ruling Rome called the whole civilised world her own, and her victorious eagles expanded their triumphant wings from the Red Sea to the coasts of the Northern Ocean. What discoveries might not have been expected from such a power, if the Romans had possessed but one tithe of the maritime spirit of conquered Carthage? But even this military empire contributed something to the enlargement of maritime knowledge. Under the reign of Augustus a Roman fleet sailed round the promontory of Skagen, discovered about sixteen years after the birth of Christ the Island of Fionia or Fünen, and is even supposed to have reached the entrance of the Gulf of Finland. In the year 84 A.C. Julius Agricola, the conqueror of Britain, sailed for the first time round Scotland, and discovered the Orcadian Isles.
In Pliny's time the real magnitude of the earth was still so imperfectly known that, according to the calculations of that great though rather over-credulous naturalist, Europe occupied the third part, Asia only the fourth, and Africa about the fifth, of its whole extent.
The geographer Ptolemy, who lived about the middle of the second century, under the reigns of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, describes the limits of the earth as far as they were known in his time. To the west, the coast of Africa had been explored as far as Cape Juby; and the Fortunate Islands or Hesperides, the present Canaries, rose from the ocean as the last lands towards the setting sun.
To the north discovery had reached as far as the Shetland Isles, and the promontory Perispa at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland; while on the east coast of Africa Cape Brava formed the ultimate boundary of the known world. Soon after Ptolemy's time the whole coast of Malacca (Aurea Chersonesus) and the Siamese Sea, as far as the Cape of Cambogia (Notium promontorium), was explored, and the Romans even appear to have had some knowledge of the great islands of the Indian archipelago, Java, Sumatra, and Borneo.
And yet, notwithstanding all this progress towards the East, it may well be asked whether the Phœnicians had not embraced a wider horizon than the Romans in the full zenith of their fortunes. Even though we reject the circumnavigation of Africa under Necho, and the discovery of America by Punic navigators, as not fully proved or fabulous, it is quite certain that they had explored the west coast of Africa to a much greater extent than the Romans, and extremely probable that they knew at least as much of the lands which bound the Indian Ocean. But, as from a narrow-minded mercantile policy they kept many of their discoveries profoundly secret, all knowledge of them perished with their ruin. In ancient times, when the defeat of a people too often led to its complete destruction, or at least to the extinction of its peculiar civilisation, and the difficulties of intercourse rendered the diffusion of knowledge extremely difficult and slow, it not unfrequently happened that useful discoveries were erased from the memory of mankind, a danger which, thanks to the printing-press and the steam-engine, is now no longer to be feared.
Thus a darkening or eclipse of intellectual life took place to a vast extent when the western Roman Empire succumbed to the barbarians of the North, and the bands which for centuries had united the cities of the east and west were violently sundered. Under that fatal blight Civilisation vanished from the lands which had so long been her chosen seat, only to dawn again after a long and obscure night. Commercial intercourse ceased between the sea-ports of the Mediterranean, all communication with distant countries was cut off, and the boundaries of the known earth became more and more narrow, as the ignorance of a barbarous age increased.
It is not before the beginning of the ninth century that we perceive the first glimpses of a better day in the rising fortunes of some Italian sea-ports, where favourable circumstances had given birth to liberal institutions. As early as the year 840 Amalfi possessed a considerable number of trading-vessels, and carried on a lucrative commerce with the Levant. The maritime code of this little republic regulated the commercial transactions of all the Mediterranean sea-ports; as in a later century the law-book of Wisby served as a guide to the merchants of the Baltic. A few years after its submission in 1131 to the arms of King Roger of Sicily, Amalfi was plundered by the Pisanese and almost entirely destroyed. The neglected harbour was gradually choked with sand, and the little town, which now numbers no more than 3000 inhabitants, has nothing to console it for its actual poverty but the remembrance of a glorious past. Along with Amalfi, Gaëta, Naples, and Pisa, rose to considerable eminence in commerce, though far from equalling the power and splendour of Genoa and Venice, the great republics of northern Italy.
As far back as the beginning of the sixth century, the city of the lagunes fits out a small fleet to purge the Adriatic of Istrian pirates. By a prudent course of policy she renders herself indispensable to the Byzantine court, and acquires great privileges in Constantinople. It is here she purchases the costly productions of the East, with which during the ninth and tenth centuries, she provides Northern Italy and a great part of Germany. About the beginning of the eleventh century her trade with Egypt and Syria begins to flourish, and soon raises her to the pinnacle of her power and wealth. In the year 1080 she extends her rule over Croatia and Dalmatia, and gains in 1204 considerable advantages by assisting the western crusaders in the conquest of Constantinople. Pera, numerous coast towns from the Hellespont to the Ionian Sea, a great part of the Morea, Corfu, and Candia fall to the winged lion's share, and requite the services of "blind old Dandolo." The silk manufacture is transported, as a valuable fruit of conquest, from the Morea to Venice, and becomes a new source of wealth to the Adriatic Tyre. The Euxine opens her ports to the Venetian seamen, treaties of commerce are concluded with Trebizond and Armenia, and a factory is established at Tana, at the mouth of the Don.
While thus the power of Venice rises more and more in the East, Genoa, which already in the tenth century carried on a flourishing trade, acquires by degrees the supremacy in the Western Mediterranean. The aid afforded by the republic to the Greek emperor Michael Palæologus contributes largely to the overthrow of the Latin throne of Constantinople, and opens the Bosphorus and the Black Sea to the enterprise of her merchants. The grandeur of Genoa now reaches its height; she holds fortified possession of Pera and Galata, and covers the coasts of the Crimea with her strong-holds and castles.
At a later period the Florentines appear on the scene, and assume the rank formerly held by Pisa in Mediterranean commerce. The acquisition of the sea-port of Leghorn (1421) opens the barriers of the ocean to the birthplace of Dante and Galileo.
After their deliverance from the Moorish yoke in the ninth century, a fresh and vigorous spirit begins also to animate the Catalans. They conclude treaties of commerce with Genoa and Pisa, and towards the end of the thirteenth century the ships of Barcelona are found visiting all the ports of the Mediterranean.
But in spite of the growth of trade and navigation in Italy and Spain, many years had yet to elapse after the fall of the Roman empire ere the gates of the Atlantic were once more opened to the navigators of the Mediterranean. It was not before the middle of the thirteenth century, after Seville and a great part of the Andalusian coast had been wrested from the Moors by Ferdinand of Castile, that the Italian and Catalonian seafarers, encouraged by privileges and remissions of duties, began to visit the port of Cadiz, where they met with merchants from Portugal and Biscay. Soon after, and most probably in consequence of the connexions thus formed, we find Italian ships visiting the ports of England and the Netherlands. About 1316, Genoese vessels began to carry goods to England; and somewhat later the Venetians, whose visits are not mentioned by the chroniclers before 1323.
Thus after a long interruption we see the seamen of the Mediterranean at length resuming the track to the Atlantic ports that had been struck out more than thirty centuries before by their predecessors the Phœnicians. But their voyages to the western ocean took place under circumstances much more favourable than those which had attended the men of Tyre and Carthage in their adventurous expeditions. Not only the better construction of their ships, but still more the use of the mariner's compass, for which Europe is probably indebted to the Arabs, who in their turn owed its knowledge to the Chinese, enabled them to steer more boldly into the open sea, and regardless of the bendings of the coasts to reach their journey's end by a less circuitous route. The period when the magnetic needle was first made use of by the Mediterranean navigators is not exactly known, but so much is certain that it did good service long before the time of Flavio Gioja (1302), to whom its discovery has been erroneously ascribed, though he may have introduced some improvement in the arrangement of the compass. Humboldt tells us in his "Cosmos," that in the satirical poem of Guyot de Provens, "La Bible" (1190), and in the description of Palestine by Jaques de Vitry, bishop of Ptolemais (1204-1215), the sea-compass is mentioned as a well-known instrument. Dante also speaks of the needle which points to the stars (Paradise, xii. 29); and in a nautical work by Raimundus Lullus of Majorca, written in the year 1286, we find another proof of a much earlier knowledge of the compass than before the beginning of the fourteenth century, since its use by the mariners of his time is expressly mentioned by that author.
Confidently following this unerring guide, the Catalonians sailed at an early period to the north coast of Scotland, and even preceded the Portuguese in their discoveries on the west coast of Africa, since Don Jayme Ferrer penetrated to the mouth of the Rio de Ouro as early as August 1346. About the same time the long-forgotten Canary Islands were rediscovered by the Spaniards; and at a later period (1402-1405) conquered and depopulated by some Norman adventurers, the Bethencourts.
While thus the South-European navigators unfurled their sails on the Atlantic, and gave the first impulse to the glorious discoveries that in the following century were destined to open up the ocean, and reveal its hitherto unknown greatness to mankind, the Indian Sea still remained closed to their enterprise; for though the Venetians by this time rivalled, if they did not surpass the ancient maritime greatness of the Tyrians in the Mediterranean, they did not, like them, directly fetch the rich produce of the South in their own ships from the East-African and Indian ports, but received them at second hand from the Arabian masters of Syria and Egypt.
But though no ship of theirs was ever seen in the Indian seas, through them the knowledge of the Arabian discoveries in those parts penetrated to Europe, and widely extended the knowledge of the ocean. For when the Arabs, fired by the prophetic ardour of Mahomet, suddenly emerged from the obscurity of pastoral life, and appeared as conquerors before the astonished world, the trade of the Indian Ocean fell into the hands of these new masters of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, who soon learnt to pursue it with an energy which the Romans and Persians had never known. The town of Bassora was founded by the caliph Omar on the western shore of the great stream formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, and soon emulated Alexandria herself in the greatness of its commerce. From Bassora the Arabs sailed far beyond the Siamese Gulf, which had formerly bounded European navigation. They visited the unknown ports of the Indian archipelago, and established so active a trade with Canton, that the Chinese emperor granted them the use of their own laws in that city.
This progress of the Arabs, and the vast treasures accruing to Venice from the overland Indian trade, could not fail to excite the envy of the other seafaring powers, and to call forth an increasing desire of discovering a new maritime route to the wealth-teeming regions of Southern Asia.
The wonderful narratives of the first travellers who wandered by land to the distant East likewise contributed in no small degree to foment the ardour of discovery. The most celebrated of these geographical pioneers was Marco Polo, a noble Venetian who had resided many years at the court of the Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, and visited the most remote regions of Asia. He was the first European that ever sailed along the western shores of the Pacific, the first that told his astonished countrymen of the magnificence of Cambalu or Peking, the capital of the great kingdom of Cathay, and of the splendour of Zipanga or Japan situated on the confines of a vast ocean extending to the east. He also made more than one sea-voyage in the Indian Ocean, and to him Europe owed her first knowledge of the Moluccas, the east coast of Africa, and the island of Madagascar.
This greatest of all the mediæval travellers, who without exaggeration may be said to have enlarged the boundaries of the known earth as much as Alexander the Great, was followed by Oderich of Portenau, who travelled as far as India and China (1320-1330); by Sir John Mandeville, who visited almost all the lands described by Marco Polo; by Schildberger of Munich, who accompanied the barbarous Tamerlane on his locust expeditions; and finally by Clavigo, sent in the year 1403 by the Spanish court on an embassy to Samarcand. The truths which these bold travellers communicated to their countrymen about the riches and the commerce of the nations they had visited, as well as the fables in which their credulity or their extravagant fancy indulged, made an enormous impression on the European mind, and raised to a feverish heat the longing after those sunny lands and isles which imagination adorned with all the charms of an earthly paradise.
CHAP. XXIV.
The reigning idea of a century finds always one or more eminent spirits, in whom and through whose agency the desires and hopes of thousands ripen into deeds, and are changed from dreams into realities. One of these rare and highly gifted men was Prince Henry of Portugal, a son of King John I., who made it the chief aim of his life to extend the boundaries of maritime discovery, and devoted with glowing ardour all the powers of his energetic mind, and all the influence of rank and riches to the attainment of this noble object. From the castle of Sagres near Cape St. Vincent, where, far from the court, he had fixed his residence in order to be less disturbed in his favourite studies, his eye glanced over the Atlantic, which constantly reminded him of the unknown lands which held out such brilliant prospects to the navigator who should venture to steer southwards along the African coast. The experienced seamen and learned geographers that surrounded him confirmed him in his hopes, and encouraged him to attempt the realisation of his generous ideas.
Fortunately all outward circumstances combined to favour the prince's projects. At that time Portugal was not plunged, as at present, in a state of slothful lethargy, but full of the bold and enterprising spirit which the expulsion of the Moors and long intestine wars had called to life. The geographical position of the country, bounded on every side by the dominions of a mightier neighbour, forbade all extension by land, and pointed to the ocean as the only field in which a comparatively small but spirited people could hope to reap a rich harvest of wealth and glory.
The first two ships which Prince Henry sent out on a voyage of discovery along the African coast (1412) did not reach farther than Cape Bojador, whose rocky cliffs stretching far out into the Atlantic intimidated their inexperienced commanders. Six years later (1418) Juan Gonsalez Zarco and Tristan Vaz Tejeira were intrusted with a new expedition, and sailed with express commands to double that ill-famed promontory; but a terrible gale drove them out to sea, and forced them to seek a refuge on an unknown island, to which they thankfully gave the name of Porto Santo. This discovery, though extremely unimportant in itself, served to confirm the prince in his projects, and encouraged him to send out in the following year a new expedition under the same commander, to take possession of the island.
This led to a more important discovery, for on landing on Porto Santo the attention of the Portuguese was struck by a black and prominent spot, rising above the southern horizon. To this they now directed their course, and were equally delighted and surprised to see it swell out as they approached to the ample proportions of a large island; to which, on account of the dense forests which at that time covered its verdant hill-slopes up to the very top, they gave the name of Madeira. Prince Henry immediately equipped a considerable fleet to carry a colony of his countrymen to the new land of promise, and furnished them with the vine of Cyprus, and the sugar-cane of Sicily, which throve so well on the Atlantic isle, that after a few years the produce of Madeira began to be of consequence in the trade of the mother country.
Thus the first undertakings of Prince Henry were not left unrewarded; but, besides the commercial advantages arising from the possession of Madeira, it encouraged the Portuguese navigators no longer servilely to creep along the coasts, but boldly to steer into the open sea. Thus Don Gilianez, by avoiding the shore-currents, succeeded at last in doubling the dreaded Cape Bojador (1433), and opening a new sphere to navigation. One discovery now rapidly followed another. Gonsalez and Nuño Tristan (1440-1442) penetrated as far as the Senegal; Cape de Verd was reached in 1446; and three years later, the limits of the known earth were extended as far as the islands of the same name and the Azores, those advanced sentinels in the bosom of the Atlantic. It may easily be imagined how much these successes contributed to encourage the universal ardour for discovery. Adventurers from all countries hastened to Portugal, hoping to gratify their ambition or avarice under the auspices of a prince who had already achieved so much; and even many Venetians and Genoese, who were at that time superior to all other nations in naval science, reckoned it as an honour to serve under a flag which might justly be considered as the high school of the seaman. Thus before Prince Henry closed his eyes (1463) the aim of his glorious life had been attained; for, though he did not live to see his countrymen penetrate into the Indian Ocean, yet he witnessed the mighty impulse which in a short time was to lead to that important result.
In the year 1471 the line was crossed for the first time, and the Portuguese thus detected the error of the ancients, who believed that the intolerable heat of a vertical sun rendered the equatorial regions uninhabitable by man.
Under John the Second a mighty fleet discovered the kingdoms of Benin and Congo (1484), followed the coast above 1500 miles beyond the equator, and revealed to Europe the constellations of another hemisphere.
The farther their ships penetrated to the south, the higher rose the flood tide of their hopes. As the African continent appeared sensibly to contract itself, and to bend towards the East as they proceeded, they no longer doubted that the way to the Indian Ocean would now soon be found, and give them the exclusive possession of a trade which had enriched Venice, and made that city the envy of the world. The ancient long-forgotten tale of the Phœnician circumnavigation of Africa now found belief, and Bartholomew Diaz sailed from Lisbon for the purpose of solving the important problem. The storms of an unknown ocean, the famine caused by the loss of his store-ship, and the frequent mutinies of a dispirited crew, could not stop the progress of this intrepid mariner, who, boldly advancing in the face of a thousand difficulties, at length discovered the high promontory which forms the southern extremity of Africa. But, as his weather-beaten ships were no longer able to confront the mountain-billows and furious gales foaming or roaring round that stormy headland, he was obliged, sore against his will, to give up the attempt to double the Cape of Tempests, Cabo tormentoso, as he called it, but to which the king gave the more inviting name of the Cape of Good Hope. Yet before Vasco de Gama set sail from Lisbon to accomplish the great work (1498) and win the prize to which so many navigators had gradually paved the way, the astounding intelligence had flashed through Europe that on the 12th of October, 1492, Columbus had discovered a new world in the west. The history of this most famous, and most important in its results, of all sea-voyages, is so well known that I may well refrain from entering into any details on the subject: at all events the reader will be much more interested by a short account of the intrepid navigators who, long before the great Genoese, found their way to the shores of the new continent.
While Tropical America is separated from Europe and Africa by a vast tract of intervening ocean, and even the advanced posts of the Azores and Cape de Verd Islands are far distant from the western shores of the Atlantic, Iceland and Greenland appear to us in the north as stations linking at comparatively easy distances the Old World and the New. It is, therefore, by no means surprising that the discovery of Iceland by the Norwegian Viking or pirate Nadod, and the somewhat later colonisation of the island by Ingolf, in the year 875, should in the following century have led the Norsemen to the discovery of America, particularly when we consider that no people ever equalled them in daring and romantic love of adventure:
Their barks the dragons of the wave."
Greenland, discovered by Günnbjorn in the year 876 or 877, was indeed not colonised by the Icelanders before 983; a delay excusable enough when we consider the uninviting climate of that dreary peninsula or island, but three years after the latter date, we already find Bjorne Herjulfson undertaking a cruise from the new settlement to the south-west, and successively discovering Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, though without making any attempts to land. Bjorne was followed about the year 1000 by Leif, a son of Erick the Red, the founder of the Greenland colony; who, sailing along the American coast as far as 41-1/2° north lat. discovered the good Winland, which received its name from the wild vines which Tyrker, a German who accompanied the expedition, found growing there in abundance. The fertility and mild climate of this coast, when compared with that of Labrador and Greenland, induced the discoverers to settle, and to found the first European colony on the American continent. Frequent wars with the Eskimos or Skrelingers (dwarfs), who at that time, as I have already mentioned in the fourth chapter, extended far more to the south than at present, soon however destroyed the colony; and the last account of Norman America we find in the old Scandinavian records is the mention of a ship which, in the year 1347, had sailed from Greenland to Markland (Nova Scotia) to gather wood, and was driven by a storm to Stamfjord on the west coast of Iceland. About this time also the colonies in Greenland, which until then had enjoyed a tolerable state of prosperity, decayed and ultimately perished under the blighting influence of commercial monopolies, of wars with the aborigines, and above all of the black death (1347-1351), that horrible plague of the fourteenth century, which, after having depopulated Europe, vented its fury even upon those remote wilds. Thus the knowledge of the Norman discovery of America gradually faded from the memory of man, and thus also it happened that the names and deeds of Leif and Bjorne Herjulfson remained totally unknown to the southern navigators, who at that time moreover, had little intercourse with the nations of Northern Europe.
Besides his well-authenticated Norman predecessors, Columbus may possibly have had others. Traces of early Irish and Welsh discoveries are pointed out by the Northern historians, and John Vaz Cortereal, a Portuguese navigator, is said to have visited the coasts of Newfoundland some time previous to the voyages of Columbus and Cabot.
If before the first voyage of the great Genoese navigator a mighty longing to penetrate to distant countries pervaded the public mind of Europe, it may be imagined to what a feverish glow this reigning idea of the century was excited, when the wonderful accounts of the gold and enchanting beauty of Haiti spread from land to land. As in former times, half Europe had thrown itself upon the Orient to liberate the tomb of our Saviour from the tyranny of the Moslem; so now one flood of adventurers followed another to the new land of promise, which held out such glittering prospects of wealth and enjoyment. Obeying the mighty impulse, England and France now entered upon the path on which Portugal and Spain had so gloriously preceded them, and, as the fruit of this general emulation, we see after a few years the whole western shore of the great Atlantic basin drawn into the circle of the known earth.
If Columbus was undoubtedly the first discoverer of the West Indian islands (the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, 1492; Lesser Antilles, 1493; Jamaica, 1494), the honour of having preceded him on the American continent belongs to John Cabot, a Venetian merchant settled in Bristol, and to the youthful energy of his son Sebastian, since they landed on the coast of Labrador (24th June, 1497) seventeen months before the continent of Tropical America, in the delta of the Orinoco, was discovered by Columbus on his third voyage.
Thus Genoa and Venice, the great Mediterranean rivals, divide the glory of having revealed a new world to mankind, but it was ordained that the laurels of their sons should bloom under a foreign flag, and the fruits of their endeavours be reaped by other nations. For as Columbus steered into the western ocean in the service of the Spanish monarch, the Cabots were sent by Henry the Seventh of England across the Atlantic to discover a north-western passage to India. This, of course, they did not accomplish, but the discovery of Newfoundland and of the coast of America from Labrador to Virginia rewarded their efforts, and laid the foundation of Britain's colonial greatness. Their voyage is also remarkable as having been the first expedition of the kind that ever left the shores of England, which at that time held a very inferior rank among the maritime nations, and gave but taint indications of her future naval supremacy. On this occasion it may not be uninteresting to cast a retrospective glance on the modest beginnings of British navigation. In the year 1217 the first treaty of commerce was concluded with Norway, and in the beginning of the fourteenth century Bergen was the most distant port to which English vessels resorted. Soon afterwards they ventured into the Baltic, and it was not before the middle of the following century that they began to frequent some of the Castilian and Portuguese ports. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the English flag was still a stranger to the Mediterranean, and direct intercourse with the Levant only began with the sixteenth. Edward the Second, preparing for his great Scottish war, was obliged to hire five galleys from Genoa, the same town whence a few years back our giant steamers transported a whole Sardinian army to the shores of the Crimea, where centuries before the Genoese had been established as lords and masters. Such are the changes in the relative position of nations that have been brought about by the power of time!
After this short digression I return to America, where, in 1499, Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci were the first to sail along the coast of Paria. The following year was uncommonly rich in voyages of discovery, as well in the south as in the north. In the western ocean the line was first crossed by Vincent Yañez Pinson, who doubled Cape Saint Augustin, discovered the mouths of the Amazon river, and thence sailed northwards along the coast as far as the island of Trinidad, which Columbus had discovered two years before. About the same time a Portuguese fleet, sailing under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to the Indian Ocean, was driven by adverse winds to the coast of the Brazils; so that, if the genius of Columbus had not evoked, as it were, America out of the waves, chance would have effected her discovery a few years later.
A third voyage, which renders the year 1500 remarkable in maritime annals, is that of Gaspar Cortereal, a son of John Vaz Cortereal whom I have already mentioned as one of the doubtful precursors of Columbus.
Hoping to realise the dream of a north-west passage to the riches of India, Gaspar appeared on the inhospitable shores of Labrador, and penetrated into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Storms and ice-drifts forced him to retreat, but firmly resolved to prosecute his design, he again set sail in the following year with two small vessels. It is supposed that on this second voyage he penetrated into Frobisher Bay, but here floating ice-masses and violent gales separated him from his companion ship, which returned alone to Portugal.
As in our times the uncertain fate of Franklin has called forth a series of heroic deeds, so the doubtful destiny of the Portuguese explorer allowed his brother Miguel no rest, whom in the following spring we find hastening with three ships on the traces of the lost Gaspar. But Miguel also disappeared for ever among the ice-fields of the north. A third brother of this high-minded family yet remained, who earnestly implored the king that he also might be allowed to go forth and seek for his missing kindred. But Emanuel steadfastly refused permission, saying that these deplorable enterprises had already cost him two of his most valuable servants, and he could afford to lose no more.
In the year 1501 Rodrigo de Bastidas sailed to the coast of Paria, and discovered the whole shore-line from Cape de Vela to the Gulf of Darien. In the year 1502 the aged Columbus, entering with youthful ardour upon his fourth and last voyage, set sail with four wretched vessels, the largest of which was only seventy tons burthen, and discovered the coast of the American continent from Cape Gracias á Dios to Porto-Bello. The east coast of Yucatan was explored in the year 1508 by Juan Diaz de Solis and Vincent Yañez Pinson, and the island of Cuba circumnavigated for the first time by Sebastian de Ocampo.
In 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon is led by his evil star to Florida, where, instead of finding as he hoped the fountain of eternal youth, he is doomed to a miserable end; and in 1517 the above-mentioned Solis sails along the coasts of the Brazils to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, where he is killed in a conflict with the Indians. In 1518 Cordova makes his countrymen acquainted with the north and west coasts of Yucatan, and in the same year Grijalva discovers the Mexican coast from Tabasco to San Juan de Ulloa. In 1518 he is followed by the great Cortez, who lands at Vera Cruz, overthrows the empire of Montezuma after a series of exploits unparalleled in history, and renders the whole coast of Mexico far to the north subject to the Spanish crown.
The voyages of Verazzani (1523) who sailed along the coast of the United States, and of Jacques Cartier (1524) who investigated the Bay of St. Lawrence, did not indeed widely extend geographical knowledge, as these navigators, who had been sent out by Francis I., did no more than examine more closely the previous discoveries of Cabot and Cortereal; their explorations however had the result of giving France possession of Canada, and of entitling her to a share in the fisheries of Newfoundland. Thus within half a century after the ever memorable day when Columbus first landed on Guanahani, we find almost the whole eastern coast of America rising into light from the deep darkness of an unknown past.
But while the western shores of the Atlantic were thus unrolling themselves before the wondering gaze of mankind, the Indian Ocean was the scene of no less remarkable events; for in the same year (1498) that Columbus first visited the American continent, Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, which thus fully justified its auspicious name, crossed the Eastern Ocean, and on the 22nd of May landed at Calicut on the coast of Malabar, ten months and two days after leaving the port of Lisbon.
And now, as if by magic, the great revolution in commerce took place which the Venetians long had feared and the Portuguese had no less anxiously hoped for; for the latter lost no time in reaping the golden fruits of the glorious discoveries of Gama and his predecessors. In less than twenty years their flag waved in all the harbours of the Indian Ocean, from the east coast of Africa to Canton; and over this whole immense expanse a row of fortified stations secured to them the dominion of the seas. Their settlements in Diu and Goa awed the whole coast of Malabar, and cut off the intercourse of Egypt with India by way of the Red Sea. They took possession of the small island of Ormus, which commands the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and rendered this important commercial highway likewise tributary to their power. In the centre of the East-Indian world rose their chief emporium, Malacca, and even in distant China Macao obeyed their laws. The discovery of the Molucca Islands gave them the monopoly of the lucrative spice trade, which was destined at a later period, and more permanently, to enrich the thrifty Dutchman.
What vast changes had taken place since Prince Henry's first expeditions to the coast of Africa! How had old Ocean enlarged his bounds! He who as a child had still known the earth with her old and narrow confines might, before his hair grew white, have seen the Atlantic assume a definite form; Africa project like an enormous peninsula into the boundless world of waters, and one single ocean bathe all the coasts from Canton to the West Indies.
Yet a few years and the Pacific opens its gates, and all the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco seem small when compared with the vast regions which Magellan reveals to man.
CHAP. XXV.
The riches which the Indian trade had poured into the lap of Venice, and which at a later period fell to the share of the Portuguese, formed the chief incitement to the great maritime discoveries which illustrated the end of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century.
The hope to discover a new road to India had not only animated the Portuguese navigators, but also led Columbus and Cabot across the Atlantic. It caused the unfortunate Cortereal to sail into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, induced Juan de Solis to penetrate into the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, and was finally the chief end and aim of the wondrous expedition of Magellan. The time is now come when the barriers of the Pacific are to fall, but before crossing its vast bosom with the illustrious navigator who first traversed it from end to end, I shall detain the reader a few moments on the shores of the Gulf of Darien, where the wretched remains of the colony of Santa Maria el Antigua, founded by Ojeda in 1509, had, after the departure of that unfortunate adventurer, freely elected Vasco Nuñez de Balboa to be their governor. This great man, who would have emulated the fame of a Cortez or Pizarro if his good fortune had been equal to his merit, omitted no opportunity of justifying the choice of his comrades by the unremitting zeal he displayed for their welfare. Making up for the scantiness of his resources by unceasing activity, he subdued the neighbouring caciques, and collected a great quantity of gold, which abounded more in that part of the continent than in the islands.
It happened during one of his frequent excursions that a young Cacique, witnessing a very angry dispute among the Spaniards about a few grains of gold, asked them in a contemptuous tone why they quarrelled about such a trifle; and added, that, if they set such an exorbitant value upon a metal comparatively worthless in his eyes, he could gratify their utmost wishes by pointing out to them a land where gold was so plentiful that even common utensils were made of it. And when Balboa eagerly asked where that happy country was situated, "Six days' journey to the south," was the answer, "will bring you to another ocean along whose coast it lies!"
This was the first time the Spaniards ever heard of the Pacific and of gold-teeming Peru, and the intelligence was well calculated to inflame the enterprising spirit of their leader. Balboa immediately concluded that this sea must be that which Columbus and so many other navigators had vainly sought for, and that its discovery would beyond all doubt open the way to India, which, according to the geographical error of the times, was supposed to be far less distant from America than it really is.
The most brilliant prospects rose before his fancy, and he would immediately have gone forth to realise them, if prudence had not warned him first to provide all the means necessary to insure success. He therefore endeavoured before all to gain the good-will of the neighbouring Indian chiefs, and sent some trustworthy agents to Hispaniola with a considerable quantity of gold, whereby many adventurers were induced to flock to his standard. Having thus reinforced himself, he thought he might now safely undertake his important expedition.
The Isthmus of Darien, over which he had to force his way, is not above sixty miles broad, but this short distance was rendered difficult, or rather impervious, by the innumerable obstacles of a tropical wilderness. The high mountains running along the neck of land were covered with dense forests, and the low grounds beneath filled with deep swamps, from which arose exhalations deadly to a European constitution. Wild torrents rushed down the ravines, and often forced them to retrace their steps. A march through a country like this, thinly peopled by a few savages, and without any other guides than some Indians of doubtful fidelity, was an enterprise worthy of all the energies of a Balboa.
On the 1st of September, 1513, after the end of the rainy season, he set out with a small but well chosen band of 190 Spaniards, accompanied by 1000 Indian carriers. As long as he remained on the territories of the friendly Caciques his progress was comparatively easy, but scarce had he penetrated into the interior, when, besides the almost invincible obstacles of nature—forests, swamps, and swollen torrents,—he had to encounter the deadly enmity of the Indians. As he approached, some of the Caciques fled to the mountains, after having destroyed or carried along with them all that might have been of use to the hated strangers; while others, of more determined hostility, opposed his progress by force of arms. Although the Spaniards had been led to expect that a six days' march would bring them to their journey's end, they had already spent no less than twenty-five days in forcing their way through the wilderness, amidst incessant attacks and hardships. The greater part of them were rapidly giving way under fatigues almost surpassing the limits of mortal endurance, and even the strongest felt that they could not hold out much longer. But Balboa, ever the foremost to face danger or difficulty, whose spirits no reverse could damp, and whose fiery eloquence painted in glowing colours the glorious reward of their present privations, knew how to inspire his men with his own unconquerable spirit, so that without a murmur they kept toiling on through swamp and forest. At length the Indian guides pointed out to them a mountain-crest from which they promised them the view of the longed-for ocean. Filled with new ardour they climbed up the steep ascent, but before they reached the summit Balboa ordered them to halt, that he might be the first to enjoy the glorious prospect. As soon as he saw the Pacific stretch out in endless majesty along the verge of the distant horizon, he fell on his knees and poured forth his rapturous thanks to heaven for having awarded him so grand a discovery. And now also his impatient companions hurried on, and soon the primeval forest—accustomed only to the howlings of the brute or the eagle's scream—resounded with the loud exclamations of their astonishment, gratitude, and joy.
It was from the small mountain-chain of Quarequa, on the 25th of September, 1513, that the Spaniards first saw the sea-horizon, but they had still several days to march before they reached the Gulf of San Miguel. Here Alonzo Martin de Don Benito was the first white man that ever floated in a canoe on the Eastern Pacific, even before Balboa, armed with sword and shield, descended into the water to take possession of the newly discovered ocean in the name of the king his master.
Although the subsequent fortunes of this great man are foreign to my subject, yet it may not be uninteresting to the reader to be informed how his important services were requited. Unfortunately the ingratitude of the Spanish court, which so scandalously embittered the declining years of Columbus and Cortez, reached its lowest depth in the case of Balboa. Those great men had at least in the beginning enjoyed some show of favour, but the discoverer of the Pacific was treated throughout with the basest indignity. The governorship of Darien, to which his splendid achievements had given him so undeniable a claim, was conferred upon a certain Pedrarias Davila, a wretch who, after having persecuted and thwarted the hero in every possible way, caused him at length to be beheaded, under a false accusation of high treason.
Six years after Balboa had first seen the Pacific, two years after his execution, Ferdinand of Magellan made his appearance in that great ocean. A Portuguese of noble birth, this eminent navigator had served with distinction under Albuquerque, the conqueror of Malacca. His plan of seeking a new road to India across the Atlantic being but coldly received in his native country, he transferred his services to Spain, where his distinguished merit found better judges in Cardinal Ximenes, and his youthful master, Charles V. With five ships, the largest of which did not carry more than 120 tons, and with a crew of 236 men, partly the sweepings of the jails, he sailed on the 20th of September, 1519, from the port of San Lucar, and spent the following summer (the winter of the southern hemisphere) on the dreary coast of Patagonia. In this uncomfortable station he lost one of his squadron; and the Spaniards suffered so much from the excessive rigour of the climate, that the crews of three of his ships, headed by their officers, rose in open mutiny, and insisted on relinquishing the visionary project of a desperate adventurer, and returning directly to Spain. This dangerous insurrection Magellan suppressed by an effort of courage no less prompt than intrepid, and inflicted exemplary punishment on the ringleaders.
He now continued his journey to the south, and reached, near 53° south lat., the celebrated straits which bear his name. Here again he had to exert his full authority to induce his reluctant followers to accompany him into the unknown channel that was to lead them to an equally unknown ocean. One of his ships immediately deserted him and returned to Europe, but the others remained true to their commander, and, after having spent twenty days in winding through those dangerous straits, they at last, on the 27th of November, 1521, emerged into the open ocean, the sight of which amply repaid Magellan for all the anxieties and troubles he had undergone. They now pursued their way across the wide expanse of waters, of whose enormous extent they had no conception, and soon had to endure all the miseries of hunger and disease. But the continuous beauty of the weather, and the steady easterly wind, which, swelling the sails of Magellan, drove him straight onwards to the goal, kept up his courage; and induced him to give to the ocean which greeted him with such a friendly welcome the name of the Pacific, which it still, though undeservedly, retains. During three months and twenty days he sailed to the north-west, and, by a singular mischance, without seeing any land in those isle-teeming seas, except only two uninhabited rocks which he called the "Desventuradas," or the "Wretched." At last, after the longest journey ever made by man through the deserts of the ocean, he discovered the small but fruitful group of the Ladrones (March 6, 1521), which afforded him refreshments in such abundance, that the vigour and health of his emaciated crew was soon reestablished. From these isles, to which his gratitude might have given a more friendly name, he proceeded on his voyage, and soon made the more important discovery of the islands now known as the Philippines. In one of these he got into an unfortunate quarrel with the natives, who attacked him in great numbers and well-armed; and, while he fought at the head of his men with his usual valour, he fell by the hands of those barbarians, together with several of his principal officers.
Thus Magellan lost the glory of accomplishing the first circumnavigation of the globe; the performance of which now fell to the share of his companion, Sebastian El Cano, who returned to San Lucar in the "Victoria" by the Cape of Good Hope, having sailed round the globe in the space of three years and twenty-eight days.
But although Magellan did not live fully to achieve his glorious undertaking, the astonishing perseverance and ability with which he performed the chief and most difficult part of his arduous task have secured him an immortal renown. Nor has posterity been unmindful of his services, having awarded his name an imperishable place in the memory of man, both in the straits, the portal of his grand discovery, and in the "Magellanic clouds," those dense clusters of stars and nebulæ which so beautifully stud the firmament of the southern hemisphere.
After Magellan, Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, shines as a discoverer in the South Sea. The history of his memorable feats by land does not belong to this narrative, but I may well accompany him on his adventurous navigation along the unknown coast of South America, and relate the hardships he had to endure before he was enabled to reap the rewards of victory.
Soon after the execution, or rather the murder, of Balboa, Pedrarias Davila obtained permission to transfer the colony of Darien to Panama, which, although equally unhealthy, yet from its situation on the Pacific afforded greater facilities for the prosecution of discovery on the south-west coast, to which now all the hopes and plans of the Spanish gold-seekers were directed. Several expeditions left the new colony in rapid succession, but all proved unsuccessful. Their timorous leaders, none of whom had ventured beyond the dreary coasts of Tierra firme, gave such dismal accounts of their hardships and the wretched aspect of the countries they had seen, that the ardour for discovery was considerably damped, and the opinion began to gain ground that Balboa must have founded chimerical hopes on the idle tales of an ignorant or deceitful savage.
But there were three men in Panama, Francisco Pizarro, Diego de Almagro, and Hernando Luque, who, far from sharing the general opinion, remained fully determined to seek the unknown gold-land. Pizarro and Almagro were soldiers, Luque was a priest. They formed an association approved of by the governor, each agreeing to devote all his energies to the common interest. Pizarro, the poorest of the three, took upon himself the greater part of the hardships and dangers of the enterprise, and volunteered to command the first expedition that should be fitted out; Almagro engaged to follow him with the necessary reinforcements; and Luque, the man of peace, promised to watch in Panama over the interests of the association.
On the 14th of November, 1524, Pizarro sailed from Panama with 112 men, closely packed together in one small vessel. Unfortunately he had chosen the worst season of the year for his departure, as the periodical winds raging at the time blew quite contrary to the course he intended to pursue, and thus it happened that after seventy days he had advanced no farther to the south-east than an experienced navigator will now traverse in as many hours. During this tedious journey he landed in different parts of the coast of Tierra firme, but, finding all the previous descriptions of its inhospitable nature fully confirmed, he saw himself obliged to await the promised reinforcements in Chuchama, opposite to the Pearl Islands. Here he was soon joined by Almagro, who had suffered similar hardships, and moreover lost an eye in a fight with the Indians. But, as he had advanced farther to the south, where the country and people wore a more favourable aspect, this slight glimpse of hope encouraged the adventurers to persevere in spite of all the miseries they had endured. Almagro returned to Panama, where with the greatest difficulty he could levy fourscore men, his sufferings and those of his companions having given his countrymen a very unfavourable idea of the service.
With this small reinforcement the associates did not hesitate to renew their enterprise, and at length, after a passage no less tedious than the first, reached the Bay of Saint Matthew on the coast of Quito (1526). In Tecumez, to the south of the Emerald River, they were delighted with the aspect of a fine well-cultivated country, inhabited by a people whose clothing and dwellings indicated a higher degree of civilisation and wealth. But, not venturing to attempt its conquest with a handful of men enfeebled by fatigue and disease, they retired to the small island of Gallo, where Pizarro waited, while Almagro once more returned to Panama, hoping that the better accounts he could give of their second journey would procure reinforcements large enough for the conquest of the newly discovered countries.
But the new governor of Panama, Pedro de los Rios, interdicted all further volunteering for an enterprise he considered chimerical, and even sent a vessel to the island of Gallo to bring back Pizarro and his companions. The associates, on the other hand, were less inclined than ever to give up their enterprise, now that better prospects had opened, so that Pizarro peremptorily refused to obey the governor's commands, and used all his eloquence in persuading his men not to abandon him. But the hardships they had endured, and the prospect of soon revisiting their families and friends, pleaded so strongly against him, that when he drew a line with his sword upon the sand, and told those that wished to leave him to pass over it, only thirteen of his veterans remained true to his fortunes.
With this select band of heroes Pizarro now retired to the desert island of Gorgona, where, as it lay further from the coast, he could await with greater security the reinforcements which he trusted the zeal of his associates would soon be able to procure. Nor was he deceived, for Almagro and Luque, by their repeated solicitations, at length prevailed upon the governor to send out a small vessel to his assistance, though without one landsman on board, that he might not be encouraged to any new enterprise. Meanwhile Pizarro and his faithful "thirteen" had spent five long months on their wretched island, their eyes constantly turned to the north, until, heart-sick and despairing from hope deferred, they resolved to intrust themselves to the inconstant waves upon a miserable raft, rather than remain any longer in that dreadful wilderness. But now at last the vessel from Panama appeared, and raised them so thoroughly from the deepest despondency to the most extravagant hopes, that Pizarro easily induced not only his old friends, but also the crew of the vessel, to sail farther to the south instead of returning at once to Panama.
This time the winds were favourable, and after a voyage of twenty days they at length reached the town of Tumbez on the coast of Peru, where the magnificent temple of the sun and the palace of the Incas, with its costly golden vases, exceeded their most sanguine expectations. But once more Pizarro, too weak to attempt invasion, was obliged to content himself with the view of the riches he one day hoped to possess, and returned to Panama after an absence of three years.
Amidst interminable delays and difficulties, which, although not to be compared to those he had endured, would still have totally discouraged a mind of a less iron mould, five years more elapsed before the matchless perseverance of Pizarro met with its reward. On the 14th of April, 1531, he landed in Peru for the second time, and in a few months the empire of the Incas lay prostrate at his feet. The poor adventurer of Gorgona was now one of the richest men on earth.
From this time the stream of conquest and discovery continuously rolled on to the south, so that after a few years the whole coast of Peru and Chili, as far as the wilds of Patagonia, was either known or subject to the Spaniards.
But while Pizarro and his comrades were thus opening the south-west coast of America to the knowledge of mankind, the conqueror of Mexico was no less anxious to add to his laurels the glory of discovery in the Northern Pacific, whose shores his warriors had reached in 1521, soon after the fall of the Aztec capital. Desirous of opening a new passage to the East Indies, he fitted out a fleet (1526), which, under the command of his kinsman Alvaro de Saavedra, was to sail to the Moluccas, and most likely discovered part of the Radack and Ralick Archipelago, visited and described three centuries later by Kotzebue and Chamisso.
In the year 1536 Cortez himself undertook a maritime expedition to the north, discovered the peninsula of California, and explored the greater part of the long and narrow bay which separates it from the mainland. After the return of this great man to Spain, where, loaded with ingratitude, he died in 1547, Rodriguez Cabrillo (1543) sailed as far as Monterey, and subsequently the pilot of the expedition, Bartholomew Ferreto, reached 43° N. lat., where Vancouver's Cape Oxford is situated.
In the year 1542 Villalobos made the first attempt to establish a colony on the Philippine Islands with settlers from Mexico, but, having failed, the colonisation did not take place before 1565. The intelligence of this success was brought to America by the pilot and monk, Fray Andreas Urdaneta, who sailed on the 1st of June from Manilla and arrived on the 3rd of October in the Mexican port of Acapulco. All previous attempts to sail from Asia to America had failed, on account of the opposing trade-winds; but Urdaneta sailed northward till he encountered the favourable west wind, which carried him to the New World across the wide bosom of the Pacific. The discovery of this new ocean route was of considerable importance to the Spaniards, and, to perpetuate the memory of Urdaneta's nautical ability, they continued to call the passage by his name.
About the same time another Spanish pilot, Juan Fernandez, discovered the proper sea route from Callao to Chili, by first sailing far out to sea, and thus avoiding the coast-currents from the south. He also discovered the island which still bears his name, and has become so celebrated by the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, and the immortal tale of Daniel Defoe.
In the year 1567 an expedition sailed from Callao under Alvaro Mendana, which discovered the Solomon Islands; and in 1595 the group of the Marquesas de Mendoza was first brought to light by the same navigator. Before the last expedition of Mendana, Drake, the first circumnavigator of the globe (1577-1580) after Magellan and El Cano, penetrated into the Pacific, by rounding Cape Horn, and subsequently discovered the coasts of New Albion as far as 48° N. lat.
After having thus rapidly followed the course of the discoveries which during the sixteenth century made Europe acquainted with the whole western coast of America, from Cape Pillares in Tierra del Fuego to the mouth of the Columbia River, I return to the Indian Ocean, where in the beginning of the century we left the Portuguese in the full bloom of their power, and, to judge by the progress already made, likely to add largely to the stock of geographical knowledge. But whether the masters of the Indian Ocean had no desire to extend still farther the circle of their conquests, or the fiery spirit of enterprise which had animated Vasco de Gama and Diaz was prematurely extinguished, the discoveries of the Portuguese in the Pacific by no means corresponded to the gigantic flight which in less than a quarter of a century had led them from Cape de Verde to the extremity of the Malayan Archipelago. New Guinea was indeed discovered by Don Jorge de Menezes (1526) and Alvaro de Saavedra (1528), and some old maps prove that before 1542 a part of the coast of New Holland was known to the Portuguese, who had penetrated to the north as far as Formosa and Japan, yet at the end of the sixteenth century the western boundaries of the Pacific were only known from 40° N. lat. to 10° S. lat., and all beyond was enveloped in darkness. As little was known of the innumerable South Sea islands, for although some of the groups had been seen or visited by the Spaniards, their existence was kept secret lest other seafaring nations should be tempted to explore the wastes of the Pacific.
I have already mentioned that the desire to find a shorter route to the wealth of India was the chief inducement which led to the discoveries of Vasco de Gama, Columbus, and Magellan; this same motive also called forth the first attempts of the Dutch and English to find a northern passage to the southern seas.
In the year 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby and Chancellor left England on their memorable voyage of Arctic discovery, and steered to the north-east. In a stormy night they parted company, never to meet again. For a long time nothing was heard of Willoughby, until some Russian sailors found on the dreary coast of Lapland two wrecks tenanted only by the dead. A note, dated January 1554, proved that then at least some of the unfortunate navigators were still alive; but this was the last and only memorial of the mysterious end of the first Britons that ever ventured into the frozen seas. Chancellor was more fortunate. After having for a long time been driven about by storms, he discovered the White Sea, and on landing heard for the first time of Russia and her sovereign the Czar Ivan Vasiliovitch, who resided in a great town called Moscow. This unknown potentate the indefatigable seaman resolved to visit in his capital, where he was graciously received, and obtained permission for his countrymen to frequent the port of Archangel. Soon after his return to England he was sent back to Russia by Queen Mary, for the purpose of settling the terms of a treaty of commerce between the two nations; and, having satisfactorily accomplished his mission, once more set sail from the White Sea, accompanied by a Muscovite ambassador. But this time the return voyage was extremely unfortunate; two of the ships, richly laden with Russian commodities, ran ashore on the coast of Norway, and Chancellor's own vessel was driven by a dreadful storm as far as Pitsligo in Scotland, in which bay it was wrecked. Chancellor endeavoured to save the ambassador and himself in a boat, but the small pinnace was upset, and, although the Russian reached the strand, the Englishman, after having escaped so many dangers in the Arctic Ocean, was doomed to an untimely end within sight of his native shores.
Twenty years afterwards, Martin Frobisher set sail with three small vessels of thirty-five, thirty, and ten tons, on no less an errand than the discovery of a north-west passage to Asia. With these wretched nut-shells he reached the coasts of Greenland and Labrador, but was prevented by the ice from effecting a landing.
This first voyage was little remarkable in itself, but its accidental results tended much to the advancement of northern research, for Frobisher brought home some glittering stones, the lustre of which was erroneously attributed to gold; a circumstance which, as may well be imagined, greatly contributed to pave the way for a second expedition to "Meta Incognita." This time Frobisher sailed with three ships, of a much larger size, that they might be able to hold more of the anticipated treasure; and, besides securing 200 tons of the imaginary gold, discovered the entrance of the strait which bears his name.
His geographical knowledge may be inferred from the fact that he firmly believed the land on one side of this channel to be Asia, and on the other America; and, though we may be tempted to smile at his ignorance, yet the lion-hearted seaman is not the less to be admired, who with such inadequate means ventured to brave the unknown terrors of the Frozen Ocean.
The gales and floating ice which greeted Frobisher as he endeavoured to force a passage through the strait put a stop to all farther progress to India; but, as the gold delusion still continued, the expedition was considered eminently successful. A large squadron of fifteen vessels was consequently fitted out for the summer of 1578, and commissioned not only to bring back an untold amount of treasure, but also to take out materials and men to establish a colony on those desolate shores.
But this grand expedition, which sailed forth with such extravagant hopes, was doomed to end in disappointment. One of the largest vessels was crushed by an iceberg at the entrance of the strait, and the others were so beaten about by storms and obstructed by fogs, that the whole summer elapsed, and they were fain to return to England without having done anything for the advancement of geographical knowledge.
The utter worthlessness of the glittering stones having meanwhile been discovered, Frobisher relinquished all further attempts to push his fortunes in the northern regions, and sought new laurels in a sunnier clime. He accompanied Drake to the West Indies, commanded subsequently one of the largest vessels opposed to the Spanish Armada, and ended his heroic life while attacking a small French fort on behalf of Henry IV., during the war with the League. He was one of those adventurous spirits always thirsting for action, and too uneasy ever to enjoy repose.
In the year 1585, John Davis, with the ships "Sunshine" and "Moonshine," carrying besides their more necessary equipments a band of music "to cheer and recreate the spirits of the natives," made his first voyage in quest of the north-west passage, and discovered the broad strait which leads into the icy deserts of Baffin's Bay. But neither in this attempt nor in his two following ones was he able to effect the object for which he strove; and these repeated failures cooled for a long time the national ardour for northern discovery.
In the year 1594 the Dutch appear upon the scene. This persevering and industrious people, which in the following century was destined to play so important a part in the politics of Europe, had just then succeeded in casting off the Spanish yoke, and was laudably endeavouring to gain by maritime enterprise a position among the neighbouring states, which the smallness of its territory seemed to deny to its ambition. All the known roads to the treasures of the south were at that time too well guarded by the jealous fleets of Spain and Portugal to admit of any rivalry; but, if fortune should favour them in finding the yet unexplored northern passage to India, they might still hope to secure a lion's share in that most lucrative of trades. Animated by the bold spirit of adventure which the dawn of independence always calls forth in a nation, a company of Amsterdam merchants fitted out an expedition of northern discovery, which it intrusted to the superintendence and pilotage of William Barentz, one of the most experienced seamen of the day.
Barentz left the Texel on the 6th of June, 1594, reached the northern extremity of Nova Zembla, and returned to Holland. Meanwhile his associate, penetrating through a strait to which he gave the very appropriate name of Waigats or "Wind-hole," battled against the floating ice of the Sea of Kara, until, rounding a promontory, he saw a blue and open sea extending before him, and the Russian coast trending away towards the south-east. He now no longer doubted that he had sailed round the famous cape "Tabis" of Pliny, an imaginary promontory which according to that erroneous guide formed the northern extremity of Asia, and whence the voyage was supposed to be short and easy to its eastern and southern shores. He had only reached the Gulf of Obi, and within the Arctic Circle the continent of Asia still stretched 120 degrees to the east; but this was then unknown, and the Dutchman, satisfied with the prospect of success, did not press onward to test its reality, but started in full sail for Holland, to rouse the sluggish fancy of his phlegmatic countrymen with chimerical hopes and golden visions.
On the receipt of this glad intelligence six large vessels were immediately fitted out, and richly laden with goods suited to the taste of the Indians. A small swift-sailing yacht was added to the squadron to bear it company as far as the imaginary promontory of Tabis, and thence to return with the good news that it had safely performed what was supposed to be the most perilous part of the voyage, and had been left steering with a favourable wind right off to India.
But, as may well be imagined, these sanguine hopes were destined to meet with a woeful disappointment, for the Wind-hole Strait, doing full justice to its name, did not allow them to pass; and, after many fruitless endeavours to force their way through the mighty ice-blocks that obstructed that inhospitable channel, they returned dejected and crest-fallen to the port whence they had sailed a few months before, elated with such brilliant expectations.
Although great disappointment was felt at this failure, the scheme however was not abandoned, and on the 16th of May, 1596, Heemskerk, Barentz, and Cornelis Ryp once more started for the north-east. Bear Island and Spitzbergen were discovered, whereupon the ships separated; Cornelis and Heemskerk returning to Holland, while Barentz, enclosed by the ice, was obliged to spend a long and dreary winter in the dreadful solitudes of Nova Zembla. Fortunately a quantity of drift-wood was found on the strand, which served the Dutchmen both for the construction of a small hut and for fuel. At the same time it raised their courage, as they now no longer doubted that Providence, which had sent them this unexpected succour in the wilderness, would guide them safely through all their difficulties. And indeed they stood in need of this consolatory belief, for as early as September the ground was frozen so hard that they tried in vain to dig a grave for a dead comrade, and their cramped fingers could hardly proceed with the building of the hut.
The attacks of the white bears also gave them great trouble. One day Barentz, from the deck of the vessel, seeing three bears stealthily approaching a party of his men who were labouring at the hut, shouted loudly to warn them of their peril, and the men, startled at the near approach of danger, sought safety in flight. One of the party, in his haste and perturbation, fell into a cleft in the ice; but the hungry animals fortunately overlooked him, and continued their pursuit of the main body. These gained the vessel and began to congratulate themselves on their safety, when, to their horror, they perceived that their foes, instead of retreating from a hopeless pursuit, were actually scaling the ship's sides, evidently determined to have their meal. Matters now became serious. One of the sailors was despatched for a light, but in his hurry and agitation could not get the match to take fire (Enfields and revolvers were then unknown), and the muskets being thus rendered useless, the sailors in despair kept their enemies off by pelting them with whatever articles came first to hand. This unequal conflict continued for some time, until a well-directed blow on the snout of the largest bear caused the barking[AB] monster to retire from the field followed by his two companions,