[1441-8.] For several years after the successful doubling of Cape Bojador, no new attempt of importance is recorded, but in 1441 the voyages were renewed, and in the next eight years the exploration was pushed one hundred leagues below Cape Verde. Prior to 1446 fifty-one vessels had traded on the African coast, nearly one thousand slaves had been taken to Portugal, and the discoveries in the Azores had been greatly extended. By these explorations Prince Henry had exploded the theory of a burning zone impassable to man, and of stormy seas impeding all navigation; his belief that Africa might be circumnavigated was confirmed; and he had obtained from the pope a grant to the crown of Portugal of lands he might discover beyond Cape Bojador to the Indies inclusive.

[1455-6.] According to Ramusio, Viaggi, tom. i. p. 105, Alvise Cadamosto, a Venetian, the first of his countrymen as he claims to sail down the new coast, made a voyage for Prince Henry to the Gambia River below Cape Verde. This expedition derives its importance not from the limit reached, where others had preceded him, but from his numerous landing points, careful observations, and the detailed account published by the voyager himself in La Prima Navigazione, etc., Vicenza, 1507; also in Ramusio, Viaggi, tom. i. pp. 104-15. This explorer touched at Porto Santo, Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Blanco, Senegal, Budomel, Cape Verde, and the Gambia River.

[1457.] Cadamosto claims, La seconda navigazione, in Ramusio, Viaggi, tom. i. pp. 116-20, to have made a second voyage, during which he discovered the Cape Verde Islands; but Major, Prince Henry, pp. 278-88, shows that such a voyage was not made in that year, if at all.

[1460.] Diogo Gomez discovered the Cape Verde Islands, and their colonization was effected during the following years. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 288-99, publishes the original account for the first time in English. Prince Henry died in November of this year. Major's Prince Henry, p. 303; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 19. Irving, Columbus, vol. i. p. 30, fixes this date 1473; and Galvano, Discov., p. 14, says 1463.

[1461.] The spirit of discovery and the thirst for African gold and slaves had become too strong to receive more than a temporary check in the death of its chief promoter. In the year following Prince Henry's death a fort was built on the African coast to protect the already extensive trade, and in 1461 or 1462 Pedro de Cintra reached a point in nearly 5° north, being over six hundred miles below the limit of Cadamosto's voyage. La Nauigation del Capitan Pietro di Sintra Portoghese, scritta per Meser Aluise da ca da Mosto, in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 119.

[1469-89.] In 1469 Fernam Gomez rented the African trade from the king of Portugal for a term of five years, and during that time pushed his explorations under Santarem and Escobar to Cape St Catherine in 2° south, first crossing the equator in 1471. Under João II., who succeeded Alfonso V. in 1481, the traffic continued, and in 1489 Diogo Cam reached a point in 22°, over two hundred leagues below the Congo River, planting there a cross which is said to be yet standing. Martin Behaim, the mathematician and cosmographer, accompanied Cam on this voyage, and an error or interpolation in Schedel, Registrum, etc., Nuremberg, 1493, gave rise to the unfounded report that they sailed west and discovered America. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 257, 283, 292, 309; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 325-38; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xl.; Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 40; Galvano's Discov., pp. 74-6; Otto, in Am. Phil. Soc., vol. ii., 1786.

We enter now the Columbian epoch proper, to which, as we have seen, the enterprises of Prince Henry and the Portuguese were precursory. About 1484, Christopher Columbus having proposed a new scheme of reaching India by sailing west, the king of Portugal surreptitiously sent a vessel to test his theory, which, after searching unsuccessfully for land westward, returned to the Cape Verde Islands. Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 53-4 et al. Columbus had resided in Portugal since 1470, and had made several trips in Portuguese ships down the African coast, in the course of which he is supposed to have first conceived his new project. Indignant at the conduct of the Portuguese king, Columbus left for Spain. Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, Hist. Prim., tom. i. pp. 9-10; translation in Pinkerton's Col. Voy., vol. xii. pp. 1-16; and in Kerr's Col. Voy., vol. iii. pp. 1-242.

In 1486 Bartolomeu Dias sailed round Cape Good Hope and continued his voyage to Great Fish River on the south-east coast, from which point he was compelled to return on account of the murmurs of his men. The cape, now for the first time doubled by Europeans, was seen and named by him on his return. In 1487 King João sent two priests, Covilham and Payva, to travel in the East, in the hope of gathering more definite information respecting Prester John and his famous Christian kingdom. Prester John they did not find, but Covilham in his wanderings reached Sofala on the east coast of Africa in about 20° south latitude, being the first of his countrymen to sail on the Indian Ocean. At Sofala he learned the practicability of the voyage which Dias had actually accomplished a little before, and a message to that effect was immediately sent to the king. Major's Prince Henry, pp. 339-42; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. xl-i; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 230 et seq.; Galvano's Discov., pp. 77-8.

From this time to the great discovery of 1492, few expeditions remain to be mentioned. It must not be forgotten, however, that by this time trading voyages were of ordinary occurrence all along the eastern Atlantic coast and its adjoining islands from Scandinavia to Guinea. A lively commerce was carried on throughout this century between Bristol and Iceland, and in the words of Kunstmann, substantiated by older authorities, "a bull of Nicolas IV. to the bishops of Iceland, proves that the pope in 1448 was intimately acquainted with matters in Greenland." It seems incredible that during all this intercourse with northern lands, no knowledge of America was gained by southern maritime nations, yet so far as we know there exists no proof of such knowledge.

[1476.] John of Kolno, or Szkolny, is reported to have made a voyage in the service of the king of Denmark in 1476, and to have touched on the coast of Labrador. The report rests on the authority of Wytfliet, Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ augmentum, Lovanii, 1598, fol. 188, supported by a single sentence, "Tambien han ydo alla hombres de Noruega con el Piloto Iuan Scolno," in Gomara, Hist. Gen. de las Indias, Anvers, 1554, cap. xxxvii. fol. 31; by a similar sentence in Herrera, Hist. Gen., Madrid, 1601, dec. i. lib. vi. cap. xvi., in which the name is changed to Juan Seduco; and by the inscription, Jac Scolvus Groetland, on a country west of Greenland on a map made by Michael Lok in 1582, fac-simile in Hakluyt Soc., Divers Voy., p. 55. According to Kohl, Hist. Discov., pp. 114-15, this voyage is considered apocryphal by Danish and Norwegian writers. Lelewel, Géog. du moyen âge, p. 106, regards the voyage as authentic, and Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 45-8, attaches to it great importance as the source of all the voyages to the north which followed. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 152-4, gives but little attention to the voyage, and confesses his inability to decide on its merits: "Je ne puis hasarder aucun jugement sur cette assertion de Wytfliet."

[1477.] In this year Columbus, whom we first find with the Portuguese traders on the African coast, sailed northward, probably with an English merchantman from Bristol, to a point one hundred leagues beyond Thule, in 73° north. Colon, Hist. del Almirante in Barcia, tom. i. p. 4; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 43-7; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 272. He probably visited Iceland, although he gives the latitude incorrectly, taking it very likely from ancient geography rather than his own observations.

[1482.] According to Kunstmann, the edition of Ptolemy this year, Ptolomæi Cosmographia, Ulmæ, 1482, lib. viii., contains a map that includes Greenland, and must have been compiled from northern sources.

[1488.] Desmarquets, Mémoires Chronologiques, etc., Dieppe, 1785, tom. i. pp. 92-8, states that one Cousin sailed from Dieppe early in 1488, stood off further from land than other voyagers had done, and after two months reached an unknown land and a great river, which he named the Maragnon. Was this the Marañon in South America? He then sailed south-eastward and discovered the southern point of Africa, returning to Dieppe in 1489. The discovery was kept secret, but Cousin made a second voyage round the cape and succeeded in reaching India. Major, besides pointing out some inconsistencies in this account, shows that M. Desmarquets "could commit himself to assertions of great moment which are demonstrably false." He is not good authority for so remarkable a discovery not elsewhere recorded.

Before striking out with Columbus in his bold venture to the west, let us sum up what we have learned thus far and see where we stand. First, the geographical knowledge of the ancients was restricted to a parallelogram extending north-west and south-east from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean, comprising one hundred and twenty degrees east and west by fifty degrees north and south; circumscribe this knowledge with legendary stories and hypothetical and traditional beliefs concerning the regions beyond; then add a true theory of the earth's sphericity, though mistaken as to its size. This is all they knew, and this knowledge they committed to the Dark Age, during which time it was preserved, and, indeed, little by little enlarged, as we have seen. During the latter part of the fifteenth century, particularly, a powerful impulse had been given to discovery, especially toward the south; so that now the limits of the ancients were moved eastward at least forty degrees, to the eastern coasts and islands of Asia, chiefly by the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville. Toward the south, the true form of Africa had been ascertained, and its coasts had been explored by the Portuguese, except a space of about fifteen degrees on the south-west. Northward the old limit had been advanced but slightly, but within this limit much information had been gained by actual navigation about regions only vaguely described by Ptolemy. Westward, in what was still a Sea of Darkness, great discoveries had been made by the Northmen, but their results were now practically lost; while toward the south, several important groups of islands had been added to the known world. See map on page 73, where the regions added during this period are lightly shaded. And now, within the old bound the world is much better known than at the beginning of the period, and many minor geographical errors of the ancients have been corrected by the Crusaders, and others who attempted on a smaller scale to extend the Catholic faith, as well as by commercial travellers in distant lands. Again, by the influx of Mahometans into Europe during five or six centuries, eastern luxuries had been introduced to an extent hitherto unknown, and had in fact become necessities in Christian courts, thus making the India trade the great field of commercial enterprise even by the tedious and uncertain overland routes where middle-men absorbed the profits, and rendering the opening of other and easier routes an object of primary importance. The almost exclusive possession of trade via the old routes by the Italians, furnished an additional motive to other European nations for explorations by sea. The art of printing, recently invented, facilitated the diffusion of learning, so that it was impossible for the world ever again to lapse into the old intellectual darkness. The astrolabe, the foundation of the modern quadrant, had been adapted by a meeting of cosmographers in Portugal to the observation of latitudes by the sun's altitude, and thus the chief obstacle to long sea-voyages was removed. The polarity of the magnet had long been known, but the practical adaptation of the magnetic needle to purposes of navigation occurred about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mariner's compass, however, only attained its highest purpose toward the close of the fifteenth century, when the Sea of Darkness was traversed. But before this, the greatest impediments to ocean navigation had been overcome by voyages actually made through the aid of the new inventions. Beside the coasts brought to light by these voyages, they had done much to dispel the old superstitions of burning zones, impassable capes, and unnavigable seas.

We have seen that, as a result either of the poetic fancy or of the actual discovery of the ancients, various islands were traditionally located in the Atlantic. Most of them undoubtedly owed their existence to the natural tendency of man to people unknown seas with fabulous lands and beings, "Il est si naturel à l'homme de rêver quelque chose au-delà de l'horizon visible," observes Humboldt. For a full account of the history and location of these islands, "dont la position est encore plus variable que le nom," and the important part played by them in ancient and middle-age geography, see Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 156-245, and Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 6 et seq., and 35-37. In the fifteenth century, with the revival of maritime enterprise, came a renewal and multiplication of the old fables. Monastic scholars, by their continued study of the old writers, by their attempts to reconcile ancient geography with fabulous events in the lives of the saints, and by their inevitable tendency to exaggeration, had contributed largely to their preservation. Still, throughout the preceding period, the belief in the existence of such islands had been vague and hypothetical; but when the actual existence of numerous islands in the western ocean was proved, and the Canary, Madeira, Azore, and Cape Verde groups were discovered and explored, the old ideas were naturally revived and confirmed, and with them rose a desire to rediscover all that had been known to the ancient voyagers. The reported wonders of the fabulous isles, having on them great and rich cities, were confidently sought in each newly found land, and not appearing in any of them, the islands themselves were successively located farther and farther to the west, out in the mysterious sea, to be surely brought to light by future explorations.

And of a truth, this wondrous western empire was subsequently brought to light; peoples and cities were found, but beyond the limits within which the wildest dreams of their discoverers had ever placed them. On this foundation not a few speculators build a theory that America was known to the ancients. The chief of the hypothetical isles were San Brandan, Antilia, and the Island of the Seven Cities; their existence was firmly believed in, and they were definitely located on maps of the period. San Brandan is said to have been visited by the saint whose name it bears in the sixth century. It was at first located far north and west of Ireland, but gradually moved southward until at the time of Columbus' first voyage it is found nearly in the latitude of Cape Verde. To the inflamed imagination mirage is solid earth, or sea, or a beautiful city; an island which was long supposed to be visible from Madeira and the Canaries had something to do with the location of this island of the saint, and of the others.

Antilia, and the Island of Seven Cities, according to Behaim's map, are identical. See page 93 this volume; also a reputed letter of Toscanelli, about the existence of which Humboldt thinks there may be some doubt. The only tangible point in the traditionary history is the migration of seven bishops, driven from the Peninsula by the Moorish invasion in the eighth century, who took refuge there and built the Seven Cities. The history and location of this Island of the Seven Cities in the fifteenth century are similar to those of San Brandan Island. Galvano says a Portuguese ship was there in 1447. Brazil, Bracie, or Berzil, was another of these wandering isles, whose name has been preserved and applied to a rock west of Ireland, to one of the Azore islands, and to a country in South America. This name has been the theme of much discussion, which, so far as I know, leads to no result beyond the fact that the name of a valuable dye-wood known to the ancients was afterward applied to lands known or conjectured to produce such woods. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 214-45; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 7-10, and 35 et seq. Kunstmann attaches greater geographical importance to the fabulous isles than Humboldt, connecting them in a manner apparently not quite clear to himself with the previous discoveries of the Northmen. Thus stood facts and fancies concerning the geography of the world, when the greatest of discoverers arose and achieved the greatest of discoveries.

Although in the chapters following I speak more at length of the deeds of the Genoese and his companions, yet in order to complete this Summary it is necessary to mention them here. I shall attempt no discussion concerning the country, family, date of birth, or early life of Christopher Columbus. For the differences of opinion on these points, with numerous references, see Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, New York, 1866, p. 2 et seq. Born somewhere in Italy, probably Genoa, about 1435, he received something more than a rudimentary education, went to sea at the early age of fourteen, and in 1470, which is about the date of his coming to Portugal, had already an extensive experience in the navigation of the Mediterranean, and was skilled in the theory as well as the practice of his profession. We have already seen him with the Portuguese on the African coast, and with the English in Iceland. In fact, before his first voyage westward in 1492, he was practically acquainted with all waters then navigated by Europeans.

The promptings which urged forward this navigator to the execution of his great enterprise may be stated as follows: The success of the Portuguese in long voyages down the African coast suggested to his mind, soon after 1470, that if they could sail so far south, another might sail west with the same facility and perhaps profit. Says his son: "Estando en Portugal, empeçó à congeturar, que del mismo modo que los Portugueses navegaron tan lejos al Mediodia, podria navegarse la buelta de Occidente, i hallar tierra en aquel viage." Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, tom. i. p. 4; edition of Venetia, 1709, pp. 22-3; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 12; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. lxxix; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. i. lib. i. cap. 1-7. His ardent imagination once seized with this idea, every nook and corner of geographical knowledge was searched for evidence to support his theory. By intercourse with other navigators he learned that at different times and places along the western coasts of Europe and Africa, objects apparently from unknown western lands had been washed ashore, suppositionally by the wind, really by the Gulf Stream or other oceanic currents. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. p. 249. Though well aware of existing rumors of islands seen at different times in the western ocean, it was not upon these, if any such there were, that he built his greatest anticipations of success. In the writings of the ancients he found another stimulant. Filled with fervent piety and superstitious credulity, he pored over every cosmographical work upon which he could lay his hands, as well the compilations of antiquated notions, such as the Imago Mundi of Pierre D'Ailly, or the more modern travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville. Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, tom. i. p. 4 et seq.; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 349, 352; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 46, 60; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 74-6.

The result of these studies was a complete acquaintance with the geographical knowledge of the day, with the greater part of what I have thus far epitomized, the doings of the Northmen excepted. From all this he knew of the earth's sphericity; he believed that the larger part of the world's surface was dry land; that the land known to Ptolemy extended over at least 180 degrees, or half the circumference of the globe, that is, from the Canaries to the Ganges; he knew that by later travels the eastern limit of geographical knowledge had been moved much farther east, even to Cathay; he believed that far out in the ocean lay the island of Zipangu; he knew that some eight or ten degrees had been added on the west by the discovery of the Azores; he believed that at most only one third of the circumference remained to be navigated; that this space might naturally contain some islands available as way stations in the voyage; that the explorations in the East were very indefinite, and consequently Asia might, and probably did, extend farther east than was supposed; that Ptolemy's figures were not undisputed—Marino making the distance from the Canaries to the Ganges 225 degrees instead of 180, while another geographer, Alfragano, by actual measurement, made each degree about one sixth smaller than Ptolemy, thus reducing the size of the earth, and with it the remaining distance to India; that several ancient writers—see quotations from Aristotle, Strabo, Seneca, et al., in Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 38, 61, 98 et seq.—had pronounced the distance to India very short, and had affirmed that it might be navigated in a few days; and finally that other scholars, as Toscanelli, had arrived at the same conclusions as himself, possibly before himself. Cartas de Pablo Toscanelli, Físico Florentin, á Cristobal Colon y al Canónigo Portugues Fernando Martinez, sobre el descubrimiento de las Indias, in Navarrete, tom. ii. pp. 1-4; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 48-9. See also, on Columbus' motives, Irving's Columbus, vol. i. pp. 42-51, and vol. ii. p. 148; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 45-7; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 324-9; Stevens' Notes, p. 28; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 347-52; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 74. Many of these conclusions were erroneous, being founded on an incorrect idea of longitude; but this reduction of the earth's size was an error most fortunate for discovery, inasmuch as with a correct idea of the distance to be traversed, and with no suspicion of an intervening continent, such an expedition as that of the Genoese would not have been undertaken at the time.

Such were the ideas and aspirations of Columbus before his undertakings; later in life a theologic mysticism took possession of his mind, and his success was simply a fulfillment of divine prophecy in which cosmographical realities went for nothing. See Cartas de Don Cristobal Colon, in Navarrete, tom. i. p. 330.

All attempts to diminish the glory of Columbus' achievement by proving a previous discovery whose results were known to him have signally failed. The reports of mysterious maps which have been claimed to have prompted his enterprise evidently amount to nothing in view of the fact that Columbus never suspected the existence of any new countries, yet that he saw maps of the world, including the Asiatic coasts, can not be doubted. The case of the pilot Sanchez, said to have died in the house of Columbus, and to have told him of lands he had seen toward the west, if true, is likewise of little moment as touching the honor due to Columbus, for many men were confident of having seen such lands from the Canaries and other islands, and several voyages had been made in search of them, all of which was certainly known to Columbus. The story of Sanchez was started by Oviedo, who gives no authority or date for the event; it was repeated generally with disapproval by other historians, until revived by Garcilaso de la Vega with date and details; but his date, 1484, is ten years after Columbus is known to have proposed his scheme to the Portuguese government. Columbus originated no new theory respecting the earth's form or size, though a popular idea has always prevailed, notwithstanding the statements of the best writers to the contrary, that he is entitled to the glory of the theory as well as to that of the execution of the project. He was not in advance of his age, entertained no new theories, believed no more than did Prince Henry, his predecessor, or Toscanelli, his contemporary; nor was he the first to conceive the possibility of reaching the east by sailing west. He was however the first to act in accordance with existing beliefs. The Northmen in their voyages had entertained no ideas of a New World, or of an Asia to the west. To knowledge of theoretical geography, Columbus added the skill of a practical navigator, and the iron will to overcome obstacles. He sailed west, reached Asia as he believed, and proved old theories correct.

There seem to be two undecided points in that matter, neither of which can ever be settled. First, did his experience in the Portuguese voyages, the perusal of some old author, or a hint from one of the few men acquainted with old traditions, first suggest to Columbus his project? In the absence of sustaining proof, the statement of the son Fernando that the father should be credited with the reconception of the great idea, goes for little. Second, to what extent did his voyage to the north influence his plan? There is no evidence, but a strong probability, that he heard in that voyage of the existence of land in the west. It is hardly possible that no tradition of Markland and Vinland remained in Iceland, when but little more than a hundred years had passed since the last ship had returned from those countries, and when many persons must have been living who had been in Greenland. If such traditions did exist, Columbus certainly must have made himself acquainted with them. Still his visit to the north was in 1477, several years after the first formation of his plan, and any information gained at the time could only have been confirmatory rather than suggestive. Both Humboldt and Kunstmann think that even if he ever heard of the discoveries of the Northmen—which is thought probable by the latter—this knowledge would not have agreed with, nor encouraged, his plans. Kohl, Hist. Discov., pp. 115-20, believes that such a knowledge would have been the strongest possible confirmation of his idea of the nearness of Asia and Europe, in which opinion I concur. The idea of Draper, Hist. Int. Develop., p. 446, that had Columbus known of the northern discoveries he would have steered farther to the north, seems of no weight, since he sought not the northern but the southern parts of India.

What Columbus had to contend with at this juncture was not, as I have said, old doctrines oppugnant to any new conception, but the ignorance of the masses, who held no doctrine beyond that of proximate sense, which spread out the earth's surface, so far as their dull conceptions could reach, in one universal flatness; and the knowledge of courts, whence alone the great discoverer could hope for support, was but little in advance of that of the people. Then the Church, with its usual firmness and conservatism, was against him. The monks, who were then the guardians of learning, knew, or might have known, all that Prince Henry, Columbus, and other earnest searchers had ascertained regarding the geography of the earth; but what were science and facts to them if they in any wise conflicted with the preconceived notions of the Fathers, or with Church dogmas? "II est vrai," says Humboldt, "que les scrupules théologiques de Lactance, de St. Chrysostôme et de quelques autres Pères de l'Eglise, contribuèrent à pousser l'esprit humain dans un mouvement rétrograde." And again, the African expeditions of the Portuguese had not on the whole been profitable or encouraging to other similar undertakings, and the financial condition of most European courts was not such as to warrant new expenses. Portugal, more advanced and in better condition to embark in new enterprises than any other nation, now regarded the opening of her route to India via the Cape of Good Hope an accomplished fact, and therefore looked coldly on any new venture. Nor were the extravagant demands of Columbus with respect to titles and authority over the new regions of Asia which he hoped to find, likely to inspire monarchs, jealous of their dignities, with favor toward a penniless, untitled adventurer. Passing as well the successive disappointments of Columbus in his weary efforts to obtain the assistance necessary to the accomplishment of his project, as his final success with Queen Isabella of Castile, let us resume our chronological summary.

[1492.] Shortly before the sailing of Columbus, the learned astronomer Martin Behaim, of Nuremberg, constructed a globe showing the whole surface of the earth as understood by the best geographers of the time. This globe has been preserved, and I present a fac-simile of the American hemisphere published in Ghillany, Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim, Nürnberg, 1853. The entire globe may be seen in Jomard, Les Monuments de la Géographie, no. xv., Paris, 1854. A section of the globe is given by Irving, Columbus, vol. i. p. 53 (see also Id., p. 135), by London Geog. Soc. Journal, 1848, vol. xviii. p. 76; and a copy from Ghillany, with some of the names omitted, may be found in Kohl's Hist. Discov., p. 147, map no. iv.

The chart by which the voyage of Columbus was made is supposed to have been a copy of Behaim's Globe, which indeed may be regarded as the exponent of geographical conceptions, those of Columbus as well as those of the learned men and practical navigators of the day. By an inscription on the original, the Asiatic coast is known to have been laid down from Marco Polo, and to the islands of Antilia and San Brandan are joined other inscriptions giving their history as I have before indicated. Sailing from Palos on the 3d of August, 1492, with one hundred and twenty men in three vessels commanded by himself and the two brothers Pinzon, Columbus was at last fairly launched on the Sea of Darkness. After a detention of three weeks at the Canaries, he sailed thence the 6th of September; marked, not without alarm, the variation of the needle on the 30th of September; and on the 12th of October discovered San Salvador, or Cat Island.

So far all was well; all was as the bold navigator had anticipated; all accorded with current opinions, his own among the number; he had sailed certain days, had accomplished a certain distance, and had reached triumphantly one of the numerous islands mentioned by Marco Polo, and, God willing, would soon find the larger island of Zipangu. Alas for mathematical calculations, for that other third of the earth's circumference; alas for the intervening continent and broad Pacific sea, which baffled the great discoverer to the day of his death!

Passing over the cruise through the Bahamas, or Marco Polo's archipelago of seven thousand islands, in which the discoverers touched successively at Concepcion, Exuma (Fernandina), and Isla Larga (Isabela), we find Columbus sailing from the last-mentioned island on the 24th of October for Zipangu, with the intention of proceeding thence to the main-land, and presenting his credentials to the great Khan.

Touching at the Mucaras group, Columbus arrived at Zipangu, which was none other than the island of Cuba, on the 28th of October, and gave to the island, in place of its barbarous appellation, the more Christian name of Juana. Cruising along the northern shore of Cuba, in frequent converse with the natives, he soon learned that this was not Zipangu, was not even an island, but was the veritable Asiatic continent itself, for so his fervid mind interpreted the strange language of this people. Unfortunately he could not find the Khan; after diligent search he could find no great city, nor any imperial court, nor other display of oriental opulence such as were described by Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville—only naked barbarians and thatched huts; so after advancing west beyond Savana la Mar, the discoverers returned to the eastern end of Cuba, visiting on the way the group El Jardin del Rey. Postponing the exploration of the coast toward the south-west, Columbus returned eastward and followed the northern coast of Española, turning off on his way to discover the Tortugas, and arriving at La Navidad, where he built a fort and left a colony of thirty-nine men. Now, Española, and not Cuba as he had at first supposed, was the true Zipangu; for the main-land of China could not by any possibility be the island of Japan; and in this belief Columbus sailed for Spain on the 16th of January, reaching the Azores on the 18th of February, and arriving at Palos the 15th of March, 1493. Primer viage de Colon, in Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 1-197; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. i. booke ii. pp. 10-13; Sammlung aller Reisebeschreibungen, tom. xiii. p. 10; Napione and De Conti, Biografia Colombo, pp. 305-36; Peter Martyr, dec. i. cap. i.; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i. pp. 21-31, 46-55; Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, tom. i. pp. 13-38; Irving's Columbus, vol. i. pp. 124-289; vol. iii. pp. 447-68; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 356-7; West-Indische Spieghel, p. 10; Cancellieri, Notizie di Colombo, pp. 66-76.

[1493.] Just before reaching the Azores, Columbus wrote on shipboard two letters describing his voyage, one under date of the 15th of February, and the other of the 14th of March. The manuscript of one, with copies printed in Spain probably during this same year, are yet preserved. Of the other, both the original manuscript and Spanish copies, if any were printed, are lost; but of a Latin translation, six editions are extant, supposed to have been printed in 1493, in France and in Italy, under the title Epistola Christofori Colom, or De Insulis Inventis, etc. A poetical paraphrase of the same letter appeared the same year as Dati, Questa e la Hystoria, etc., Florence, 1493, and four other works of this year contain slight allusions to Columbus. Seven or eight editions of Columbus' letters appeared in different forms during the next forty years. Both letters may be found with Spanish translations in the first volume of Navarrete's collection. For the bibliographical notices of this sketch I have depended chiefly on Harrisse, Bib. Am. Vet., as the latest and most complete essay on early American books, notwithstanding the few blunders that have subjected it to so much ridicule. I shall not consider it necessary to repeat the reference with each notice, as Harrisse's work is arranged chronologically.

As soon as Columbus had explained to Ferdinand and Isabella the nature of his important discovery, the Spanish sovereigns applied to the Pope for the same grants and privileges respecting lands discovered, and to be discovered, in the west, that had before been granted the Portuguese in the south and east. His Holiness, accepting the Spanish statements that the concessions demanded did not in any way conflict with previous grants to the Portuguese, by bull of May 2, 1493, ceded to Spain all lands which might be discovered by her west of a line drawn from pole to pole, one hundred leagues west of the Azores; the Portuguese to have all new lands east of the same line. It is obvious that his Holiness fixed this line arbitrarily, without a thought of the position or importance of the corresponding meridian at the antipodes. This opposite meridian, according to the idea of longitude entertained at the time, would fall in the vicinity of India proper; and the Portuguese, besides their natural jealousy of this new success of Spain, feared that the western hemisphere thus given to her rival might include portions of their Indian grants. Hence arose much trouble in the few following years between the two courts. See infra.

Amidst the enthusiasm following his success Columbus had no difficulty in fitting out another expedition. Embarking from Cádiz September 25, 1493, with seventeen vessels and over 1,200 men, among whom were Alonso de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa, el almirante, or the admiral, as Columbus was now called, touched at the Canaries, discovered Dominica the 3d of November, and Guadalupe a few days later; thence sailing north-west through the Caribbean Archipelago, he occasionally landed and gave names to islands. Resting two days at Puerto Rico, he reached the coast of Española on the 22d of November, and on the 27th anchored off the port of Navidad. The settlement established at this place in the previous voyage had totally disappeared; the colonists as is supposed falling victims to internal dissensions and general excesses. A new city called Isabela was then founded at another port of this island, and Ojeda was sent inland to explore the country. After a short absence he returned, reporting the country rich in gold. On the second of February, 1494, twelve vessels, with specimens of the people and products of the country, were despatched for Spain under Antonio de Torres. By this departure was also sent a request for immediate supplies. Recovering from a serious illness, Columbus checked a revolt among his people on the 24th of April, built a fort in the interior, and then sailed to explore the main coast of Asia—as he supposed, but in truth Cuba—south-westward from the point where he left it on his first voyage. Following the south coast of Cuba the admiral at length reached the vicinity of Philipina, or Cortés Bay, where the shore bends to the southward. This to him seemed conclusive proof that it was indeed the main-land of Asia which he was coasting. The statements of the natives who said that Cuba was in fact an island, but that it was so large that no one had ever reached its western extremity, confirmed him in his belief—since one might question the knowledge of a boundary which no one had ever reached and from which no one had ever come. The theory of the age was thus made good, and that was sufficient; so Columbus brought all his crew, officers and men, before the notary, and made them swear that the island of Cuba was the continent of Asia—an act significant of methods of conversion in those days. He even proposed to continue the voyage along the coast to the Red Sea, and thence home by way of the Mediterranean, or, better still, round the Cape of Good Hope, to meet and surprise the Portuguese; but his companions thought the supplies insufficient for so long a voyage, and the admiral was persuaded to postpone the attempt.

Returning therefore to Española, on the way back Columbus discovered and partially explored Jamaica, Isla de Pinos, and the small islands scattered to the southward of Cuba, arriving at Isabela on the 4th of September. There he found matters in a bad way. The colony, comprising a motley crew of lawless adventurers, ever ready to attribute success to themselves and ill-fortune to their governor, trumped up numerous complaints which caused the admiral no little trouble. Margarite, to whom had been given a command for an expedition inland, had revolted and sailed with several ships for Spain. Open war had been declared with the natives, and the colonists were hard pressed; but the admiral's presence and Ojeda's impetuous bravery soon secured order. Meanwhile two arrivals inspired the colonists with fresh courage; that of Bartolomé Colon, brother of the admiral, with three ships, and that of Torres, with four vessels laden with supplies. With the gold that had been accumulated, and specimens of fruits and plants, and five hundred natives as slaves, Torres was sent back to Spain, accompanied by Diego Colon, whose mission was to defend his brother's interests at court. The pacification of the natives was then completed, and heavy taxes were imposed upon them. In October, 1495, arrived Juan de Aguado, sent by the king to ascertain the facts concerning charges against the admiral. This man, in place of executing his commission fairly, only stirred up the accusers of Columbus to greater enmity—which quality of justice well accorded with the temper of his master Ferdinand. On account of these troubles, as well as from the discovery of a new gold mine, which proved beyond question that Española was the ancient Ophir of King Solomon, Columbus decided to return to Spain. So leaving his brother, Bartolomé, in command as adelantado, or lieutenant-governor, he sailed with Aguado, on the 10th of March, in two caravels, carrying 225 Spaniards and thirty natives. Touching at Marigalante, and Guadalupe, he arrived at Cádiz June 11, 1496. Segundo Viage de Cristobal Colon, in Navarrete, tom. i. pp. 198-241; Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, tom. i. pp. 42-73; Peter Martyr, dec. i. cap. 2-4; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i. pp. 31-5; Napione and De Conti, Biografia Colombo, pp. 331-50; Irving's Columbus, vol. i. pp. 338-497; vol. ii. pp. 1-87; Major's Prince Henry, p. 358; Humboldt's Exam. Crit., tom. iv. p. 217; Cancellieri, Notizie di Colombo, pp. 93-9. The letters which Columbus sent to Spain by Torres in February, 1494, if ever printed, are lost; but in Syllacio, ad Sapiẽtissimũ ... de insulis, etc., Pavia, 1494 or 1495, appeared certain letters from Spain to the author of this work, describing the second voyage of Columbus.

[1494.] Thus during the absence of Columbus on his second voyage we have seen the ocean route between Spain and Española six times navigated; first, by the fleet of twelve vessels sent back to Spain by the admiral under Antonio de Torres; second, by Bartolomé Colon, who followed his brother to Española with three ships; third, by Margarite, who revolted and left Española during the absence of Columbus in Cuba; fourth, by Torres in command of four vessels from Spain with supplies for the colony; fifth, by the return of the same four ships to Spain with gold and slaves; and sixth, by Juan de Aguado with four ships from Spain in August, 1495.

With the division of the world by Pope Alexander VI., Portugal was not satisfied. The world was thought to be not so large then as now, and one half of it was not enough for so small a kingdom which had boasted so great a navigator as Prince Henry. It was not their own side, but the other side, that troubled the Portuguese, fearing as they did that the opposite meridian threw into Spain's half a part or the whole of India. So Spain and Portugal fell to quarrelling over this partition by his Holiness; and the matter was referred to a commission, and finally settled by the treaty of Tordesillas in June, 1494, which moved the line 270 leagues farther west. About the location of this line of demarcation, and its effect on Brazil, and the Moluccas, much has been written, though little has been said as to the motive that prompted Portugal in making this change. The fact is, that at a time when the Spice Islands were but vaguely known, and the existence of Brazil not even suspected, it is impossible to conceive why Portugal desired to change the partition line from 100 leagues to 370 leagues west of the Azores; for the change could only diminish the possessions of Portugal in India by 270 leagues, as in truth it did, including the Moluccas in the loss, and gaining in return 270 leagues of open Atlantic sea! True, there proved to be an accidental gain of a part of Brazil, but there could have been no idea at the time that this partition line cut through any eastern portion of lands discovered by Columbus to the west. In whatever light we imagine them to have regarded it, there is still an unexplained mystery. The Pacific ocean was unknown; between the discoveries of Spain and Portugal, so far as known, all was land—India. By carrying the partition line westward, Portugal may have thought to find some western land; at all events, it is generally believed that the effect of the partition in the antipodes was not well considered; that the only point in question was the right of making discoveries in the western ocean, and that the treaty of Tordesillas was decided in favor of Spain—Portugal being forced to yield the main point, but insisting on the change of partition in order to give her more sea-room. On the other hand it may be claimed that the antipodes, of which they knew so little, were the avowed object of all the expeditions sent out by both parties. See the original bull and treaty in Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. ii. pp. 28, 130; also Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. pp. 173-83; Calvo, Recueil Complet des Traités, Paris, 1862, tom. i. pp. 1-36; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. i. booke ii. pp. 13-15; Curious and Ent. Voy., p. 20; Cancellieri, Notizie di Colombo, p. 183.

Italy, and especially Venice, as we have seen, was the first of the European states to display in any marked degree in mediæval times that commercial spirit so early and so well developed in the Phœnicians. Portugal caught the flame under John the Great, 1385-1433, and led the van of a more daring discovery and exploration by conquests on the north-west coast of Africa. Simultaneously Prince Henry was sending expeditions farther down the western coast of Africa, and among the islands of the Atlantic. His country reaped the reward in 1486, when the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope opened her a way by sea to Hindostan, and to the commerce of the Orient, and gave at the same time the death-blow to Venetian ascendancy in that market.

But Spain, as chance would have it, did not lag far behind her sister kingdom. The fact of the great navigators, Columbus and Vespucci, being Italians, and yet having to seek assistance of Spain, sufficiently indicates in what direction the swing of maritime power was tending. The astronomical schools of Córdova, Seville, and Granada had well prepared Spain for the application of astronomy to navigation, and the long internal wars had bred those bold and enduring spirits who alone are fitted to conduct with success great enterprises of certain danger and uncertain result.

It is claimed by some that John and Sebastian Cabot made their first voyage and discovered Newfoundland in 1494. The claim rests on a statement of the Spanish ambassador to England in a letter dated July 25, 1498, to the effect that during the past seven years several vessels had been sent each year from Bristol in search of Brasil and the Islands of the Seven Cities, and on an inscription on Sebastian Cabot's map of 1544, which states that land was first discovered by the Cabots on June 24, 1494. D'Avesac, Letter on the Voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot, in Kohl, pp. 506-7. But other authors consider the map—even if made by Cabot, which is extremely doubtful—insufficient authority to prove such a voyage.

[1495.] At the solicitation of the brothers Pinzon and other navigators, a license was granted April 10, 1495, permitting any native-born Spaniard to make private voyages for trade and discovery from Cádiz to the Western India; such expeditions to be under the inspection of government, one of whose officials was to accompany each vessel to ensure the payment to the crown of one tenth of the profit of the voyage. For this document in full, see Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. ii. p. 165. See also Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 356 et seq. Whether any one actually took advantage of this license before its repeal—which was on June 2, 1497, at the instigation of Columbus—is a disputed point of some importance in connection with certain doubtful expeditions to be considered hereafter.

[1496.] Pedro Alonso Niño sailed from Cádiz June 17, 1496, just after the return of Columbus, in command of three vessels laden with supplies for the colony at Española.