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down from antiquity, and others revealed by recent discoveries, are confused with popular fables and extravagant conjectures. At such a period, when the passion for maritime discovery was seeking every aid to facilitate its enterprises, the knowledge and skill of an able cosmographer like Columbus would be properly appreciated, and the superior correctness of his maps and charts would give him notoriety among men of science.* We accordingly find him, at an early period of his residence in Lisbon, in correspondence with Paulo Toscanelli, of Florence, one of the most scientific men of the day, whose communications had great influence in inspiriting him to his subsequent undertakings.

While his geographical labors thus elevated him to a communion with the learned, they were peculiarly calculated to foster a train of thoughts favorable to nautical enterprise. From constantly comparing maps and charts, and noting the progress and direction of discovery, he was led to perceive how much of the world remained unknown, and to meditate on the means of exploring it. His domestic concerns, and the connections he had formed by marriage, were all in unison with this vein of speculation. He resided for some time at the recently discovered island of Porto Santo, where his wife had inherited some property, and during his residence there she bore him a son, whom he named Diego. This residence brought him, as it were, on the very frontier of discovery. His wife's sister was married to Pedro Correo, à navigator of note, who had at one time been governor of Porto Santo. Being frequently together in the familiar intercourse of domestic life, their conversation naturally turned upon the discoveries prosecuting in their vicinity along the African coasts; upon the long sought for route to India; and upon the possibility of some unknown lands existing in the west.

In their island residence, too, they must have been frequently visited by the voyagers going to and from Guinea. Living thus, surrounded by the stir and bustle of discovery, communing with persons who had risen by it to fortune and honor, and voyaging in the very tracks of its recent triumphs, the ardent mind of Columbus kindled up to enthusiasm in the cause. It was a period of general excitement to all who were connected with maritime life, or who resided in the vicinity of the ocean. The recent discoveries had inflamed their imaginations, and had filled them with visions of other islands, of greater wealth and beauty, yet to be discovered in the boundless wastes of the Atlantic. The opinions and fancies of the an

* The importance which began to be attached to cosmographical knowledge is evident from the distinction which Mauro, an Italian friar, obtained from having projected an universal map, esteemed the most accurate of the time. A fac-simile of this map, upon the same scale as the original, is now deposited in the British Museum, and it has been published, with a geographical commentary, by the learned Zurla. The Venetians struck a medal in honor of him, on which they denominated him Cosmographus incomparabilis (Colline del Bussol. Naut. p. 2, c. 5). Yet Ramusio, who had seen this map in the monastery of San Michele de Murano, considers it merely an improved copy of a map brought from Cathay by Marco Polo (Ramusio, t. ii. p. 17, Ed. Venet. 1606). We are told that Americus Vespucius paid one hundred and thirty ducats (equivalent to five hundred and fifty-five dollars in our time) for a map of sea and land, made at Mallorca, in 1439, by Gabriel de Valseca (Barros, D. L. i. c. 15. Derroto por Tofino, Introd. p. 25).

cients on the subject were again put in circulation. The story of Antilla, a great island in the ocean, discovered by the Carthaginians, was frequently cited, and Plato's imaginary Atalantis once more found firm believers. Many thought that the Canaries and Azores were but wrecks which had survived its submersion, and that other and larger fragments of that drowned land might yet exist, in remoter parts of the Atlantic.

One of the strongest symptoms of the excited state of the popular mind at this eventful era, was the prevalence of rumors respecting unknown islands casually seen in the ocean. Many of these were mere fables, fabricated to feed the predominant humor of the public; many had their origin in the heated imaginations of voyagers, beholding islands in those summer clouds which lie along the horizon, and often beguile the sailor with the idea of distant lands.

On such airy basis, most probably, was founded the story told to Columbus by one Antonio Leone, an inhabitant of Madeira, who affirmed that sailing thence westward one hundred leagues, he had seen three islands at a distance. But the tales of the kind most positively advanced and zealously maintained, were those related by the people of the Canaries, who were long under a singular optical delusion. They imagined that, from time to time, they beheld a vast island to the westward, with lofty mountains and deep valleys. Nor was it seen in cloudy and dubious weather, but in those clear days common to tropical climates, and with all the distinctness with which distant objects may be discerned in their pure, transparent atmosphere. The island, it is true, was only seen at intervals; while at other times, and in the clearest weather, not a vestige of it was to be descried. When it did appear, however, it was always in the same place, and under the same form. So persuaded were the inhabitants of the Canaries of its reality, that application was made to the King of Portugal for permission to discover and take possession of it; and it actually became the object of several expeditions. The island, however, was never to be found, though it still continued occasionally to cheat the eye. were all kinds of wild and fantastic notions concerning this imaginary land. Some supposed it to be the Antilla mentioned by Aristotle; others, the Island of Seven Cities, so called from an ancient legend of seven bishops, who, with a multitude of followers, fled from Spain at the time of its conquest by the Moors, and, guided by Heaven to some unknown island in the ocean, founded on it seven splendid cities. While some considered it another legendary island, on which, it was said, a Scottish priest of the name of St. Brandan had landed, in the sixth century. This last legend

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passed into current belief. The fancied island was called by the name of St. Brandan, or St. Borondon, and long continued to be actually laid down in maps far to the west of the Canaries.* The same was done with the fabulous island of Antilla; and these erroneous maps and phantom islands have given rise at various times to assertions that the New World had been known prior to the period of its generally reputed discovery.

Columbus, however, considers all these appearances of land as mere illusions. He supposes that they may have been caused by rocks lying in the ocean, which, seen at a distance, under certain atmospherical influences, may have assumed the appearance of islands; or that they may have

* See illustrations, article “ Island of St. Brandan."

been floating islands, such as are mentioned by Pliny and Seneca and others, formed of twisted roots, or of a light and porous stone, and covered with trees, and which may have been driven about the ocean by the winds.

The islands of St. Brandan, of Antilla, and of the Seven Cities, have long since proved to be fabulous tales or atmospherical delusions. Yet the rumors concerning them derive interest, from showing the state of public thought with respect to the Atlantic, while its western regions were yet unknown. They were all noted down with curious care by Columbus, and may have had some influence over his imagination. Still, though of a visionary spirit, his penetrating genius sought in deeper sources for the aliment of its meditations. Aroused by the impulse of passing events, he turned anew, says his son Fernando, to study the geographical authors which he had read before, and to consider the astronomical reasons which might corroborate the theory gradually forming in his mind. He made himself acquainted with all that had been written by the ancients, or discovered by the moderns, relative to geography. His own voyages enabled him to correct many of their errors, and appreciate many of their theories. His genius having thus taken its decided bent, it is interesting to notice from what a mass of acknowledged facts, rational hypotheses, fanciful narrations, and popular rumors, his grand project of discovery was wrought out by the strong workings of his vigorous mind.

CHAPTER V.

HIS

GROUNDS ON WHICH COLUMBUS FOUNDED BELIEF OF THE EXISTENCE OF UNDISCOVERED LANDS IN THE WEST.

IT has been attempted, in the preceding chapters, to show how Columbus was gradually kindled up to his grand design by the spirit and events of the times in which he lived. His son Fernando, however, undertakes to furnish the precise data on which his father's plan of discovery was founded.* He does this," he observes, "to show from what slender argument so great a scheme was fabricated and brought to light; and for the purpose of satisfying those who may desire to know distinctly the circumstances and motives which led his father to undertake this enterprise.'

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As this statement was formed from notes and documents found among his father's papers, it is too curious and interesting not to deserve particular mention. In this memorandum he arranged the foundation of his father's theory under three heads: 1. The nature of things. 2. The authority of learned writers. 3. The reports of navigators. Under the first head he set down as a fundamental principle that the earth was a terraqueous sphere or globe, which might be travelled round from east to west, and that men stood foot to foot when on opposite points. The circumference from east to west, at the equator, Columbus divided, according to Ptolemy, into twenty-four hours of fifteen degrees each, making three hundred and sixty degrees. Of these he imagined, comparing the globe of Ptolemy with the earlier map of Marinus of Tyre, that fifteen hours had been known to the ancients, extending from the Straits of Gibraltar, or rather from the Canary Islands, to the city of Thine in Asia, a place set

Hist. del Almirante, cap. 6, 7, 8.

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| down as at the eastern limits of the known world. The Portuguese had advanced the western frontier one hour more by the discovery of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands. There remained, then, according to the estimation of Columbus, eight hours, or one third of the circumference of the earth, unknown and unexplored. This space might, in a great measure, be filled up by the eastern regions of Asia, which might extend so far as nearly to surround the globe, and to approach the western shores of Europe and Africa. The tract of ocean intervening between these countries, he observes, would be less than might at first be supposed, if the opinion of Alfraganus, the Arabian, were admitted, who, by diminishing the size of the degrees, gave to the earth a smaller circumference than did other cosmographers; a theory to which Columbus seems at times to have given faith. Granting these premises, it manifest that, by pursuing a direct course from east to west, a navigator would arrive at the extremity of Asia, and discover any intervening land.

Under the second head are named the authors whose writings had weight in convincing him that the intervening ocean could be but of moderate expanse, and easy to be traversed. Among these, he cites the opinion of Aristotle, Seneca, and Pliny, that one might pass from Cadiz to the Indies in a few days; of Strabo, also, who observes, that the ocean surrounds the earth, bathing on the east the shores of India; on the west, the coasts of Spain and Mauritania; so that it is easy to navigate from one to the other on the same parallel.*

In corroboration of the idea that Asia, or, as he always terms it, India, stretched far to the east, so as to occupy the greater part of the unexplored space, the narratives are cited of Marco Polo and John Mandeville. These travellers had visited, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the remote parts of Asia, far beyond the regions laid down by Ptolemy; and their accounts of the extent of that continent to the eastward had a great effect in convincing Columbus that a voyage to the west, of no long duration, would bring him to its shores, or to the extensive and wealthy islands which lie adjacent. The information concerning Marco Polo is probably derived from Paulo Toscanelli, a celebrated doctor of Florence, already mentioned, with whom Columbus corresponded in 1474, and who transmitted to him a copy of a letter which he had previously written to Fernando Martinez, a learned canon of Lisbon. This letter maintains the facility of arriving at India by a western course, asserting the distance to be but four thousand miles, in a direct line from Lisbon to the province of Mangi, near Cathay, since determined to be the northern coast of China. Of this country he gives a magnificent description, drawn from the work of Marco Polo. He adds, that in the route lay the islands of Antilla and Cipango, distant from each other only two hundred and twenty-five leagues, abounding in riches, and offering convenient places for ships to touch at, and obtain supplies on the voyage.

Under the third head are enumerated various indications of land in the west, which had floated to the shores of the known world. It is curious to observe, how, when once the mind of Columbus had become heated in the inquiry, it attracted to it every corroborating circumstance, however vague and trivial. He appears to have been par

*Strab. Cos. lib. i. ii.

ticularly attentive to the gleams of information derived from veteran mariners, who had been employed in the recent voyages to the African coasts; and also from the inhabitants of lately discovered islands, placed, in a manner, on the frontier posts of geographical knowledge. All these are carefully noted down among his memorandums, to be collocated with the facts and opinions already stored up in his mind.

Such, for instance, is the circumstance related to him by Martin Vicenti, a pilot in the service of the king of Portugal; that, after sailing four hundred and fifty leagues to the west of Cape St. Vincent, he had taken from the water a piece of carved wood, which evidently had not been labored with an iron instrument. As the winds had drifted it from the west, it might have come from some unknown land in that direction.

Pedro Correo, brother-in-law of Columbus, is likewise cited, as having seen, on the island of Porto Santo, a similar piece of wood, which had drifted from the same quarter. He had heard also from the king of Portugal, that reeds of an immense size had floated to some of those islands from the west, in the description of which, Columbus thought he recognized the immense reeds said by Ptolemy to grow in India.

Information is likewise noted, given him by the inhabitants of the Azores, of trunks of huge pine trees, of a kind that did not grow upon any of the islands, wafted to their shores by the westerly winds; but especially of the bodies of two dead men, cast upon the island of Flores, whose features differed from those of any known race of people.

To these is added the report of a mariner of the port of St. Mary, who asserted that, in the course of a voyage to Ireland, he had seen land to the west, which the ship's company took for some extreme part of Tartary. Other stories, of a similar kind, are noted, as well as rumors concerning the fancied islands of St. Brandan, and of the Seven Cities, to which, as has already been observed, Columbus gave but little faith.

Such is an abstract of the grounds, on which, according to Fernando, his father proceeded from one position to another until he came to the conclusion, that there was undiscovered land in the western part of the ocean; that it was attainable; that it was fertile; and finally, that it was inhabited.

It is evident that several of the facts herein enumerated must have become known to Columbus after he had formed his opinion, and merely served to strengthen it; still, everything that throws any light upon the process of thought, which led to so great an event, is of the highest interest; and the chain of deductions here furnished, though not perhaps the most logical in its concatenation, yet, being extracted from the papers of Columbus himself, remains one of the most interesting documents in the history of the human mind.

On considering this statement attentively, it is apparent that the grand argument which induced Columbus to his enterprise was that placed under the first head, namely, that the most eastern part of Asia known to the ancients could not be separated from the Azores by more than a third of the circumference of the globe; that the intervening space must, in a great measure, be filled up by the unknown residue of Asia; and that, if the circumference of the world was, as he believed, less han was generally supposed, the Asiatic shores could easily be attained by a moderate voyage to the west.

It is singular how much the success of this great undertaking depended upon two happy errors, the imaginary extent of Asia to the east, and the supposed smallness of the earth; both errors of the most learned and profound philosophers, but without which Columbus would hardly have ventured upon his enterprise. As to the idea of finding land by sailing directly to the west, it is at present so familiar to our minds, as in some measure to diminish the merits of the first conception, and the hardihood of the first attempt; but in those days, as has well been observed, the circumference of the earth was yet unknown; no one could tell whether the ocean were not of immense extent, impossible to be traversed; nor were the laws of specific gravity and of central gravitation ascertained, by which, granting the rotundity of the earth, the possibility of making the tour of it would be manifest.* The practicability, therefore, of finding land by sailing to the west, was one of those mysteries of nature which are considered incredible while matters of mere speculation, but the simplest things imaginable when they have once been ascertained.

When Columbus had formed his theory, it became fixed in his mind with singular firmness, and influenced his entire character and conduct. He never spoke in doubt or hesitation, but with as much certainty as if his eyes had beheld the promised land. No trial nor disappointment could divert him from the steady pursuit of his object. A deep religious sentiment mingled with his meditations, and gave them at times a tinge of superstition, but it was of a sublime and lofty kind; he looked upon himself as standing in the hand of Heaven, chosen from among men for the accomplishment of its high purpose; he read, as he supposed, his contemplated discovery foretold in Holy Writ, and shadowed forth darkly in the mystic revelations of the prophets. The ends of the earth were to be brought together, and all nations and tongues and languages united under the banners of the Redeemer. This was to be the triumphant consummation of his enterprise, bringing the remote and unknown regions of the earth into communion with Christian Europe; carrying the light of the true faith into benighted and pagan lands, and gathering their countless nations under the holy dominion of the church.

The enthusiastic nature of his conceptions gave an elevation to his spirit, and a dignity and loftiness to his whole demeanor. He conferred with sovereigns almost with a feeling of equality. His views were princely and unbounded; his proposed discovery was of empires; his conditions were proportionally magnificent; nor would he ever, even after long delays, repeated disappointments, and under the pressure of actual penury, abate what appeared to be extravagant demands for a mere possible discovery.

Those who could not conceive how an ardent and comprehensive genius could arrive, by presumptive evidence, at so firm a conviction, sought for other modes of accounting for it. When the glorious result had established the correctness of the opinion of Columbus, attempts were made to prove that he had obtained previous information of the lands which he pretended to discover. Among these, was an idle tale of a tempest-tossed pilot, said to have died in his house, bequeathing him written accounts of an unknown land in the west, upon which he had been driven by adverse

* Malte-Brun, Géographie Universelle, tom. xiv, Note sur le Découverte de l'Amérique.

winds. This story, according to Fernando Columbus, had no other foundation than one of the popular tales about the shadowy island of St. Brandan, which a Portuguese captain, returning from Guinea, fancied he had beheld beyond Madeira. It circulated for a time in idle rumor, altered and shaped to suit their purposes, by such as sought to tarnish the glory of Columbus. At length it found its way into print, and has been echoed by various historians, varying with every narration, and full of contradictions and improbabilities.*

An assertion has also been made, that Columbus was preceded in his discoveries by Martin Behem, a contemporary cosmographer, who, it was said, had landed accidentally on the coast of South America, in the course of an African expedition; and that it was with the assistance of a map or globe, projected by Behem, on which was laid down the newly-discovered country, that Columbus made his voyage. This rumor originated in an absurd misconstruction of a Latin manuscript, and was unsupported by any documents; yet it has had its circulation, and has even been revived not many years since, with more zeal than discretion; but is now completely refuted and put to rest. The land visited by Behem was the coast of Africa beyond the equator; the globe he projected was finished in 1492, while Columbus was absent on his first voyage: it contains no trace of the New World, and thus furnishes conclusive proof that its existence was yet unknown to Behem.+

There is a certain meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned research, goes prying about the traces of history, casting down is monuments, and marring and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to vindicate great names from such pernicious erudition. It defeats one of the most salutary purposes of history, that of furnishing examples of what human genius and laudable enterprise may accomplish. For this purpose some pains have been taken in the preceding chapters to trace the rise and progress of this grand idea in the mind of Columbus; to show that it was the conception of his genius, quickened by the impulse of the age, and aided by those scattered gleams of knowledge which fell ineffectually upon ordinary minds.

CHAPTER VI.

CORRESPONDENCE OF COLUMBUS WITH PAULO

He

the west. To demonstrate more clearly the facility of arriving at India in that direction, he sent him a map, projected partly according to Ptolemy, and partly according to the descriptions of Marco Polo, the Venetian. The eastern coast of Asia was depicted in front of the western coasts of Africa and Europe, with a moderate space of ocean between them, in which were placed at convenient distances Cipango, Antilla, and the other islands.* Columbus was greatly animated by the letter and chart of Toscanelli, who was considered one of the ablest cosmographers of the day. He appears to have procured the work of Marco Polo, which had been translated into various languages, and existed in manuscript in most libraries. This author gives marvellous accounts of the riches of the realms of Cathay and Mangi, or Mangu, since ascertained to be Northern and Southern China, on the coast of which, according to the map of Toscanelli, a voyager sailing directly west would be sure to arrive. describes in unmeasured terms the power and grandeur of the sovereign of these countries, the Great Khan of Tartary, and the splendor and magnitude of his capitals of Cambalu and Quinsai, and the wonders of the island of Cipango or Zipangi, supposed to be Japan. This island he places opposite Cathay, five hundred leagues in the ocean. He represents it as abounding in gold, precious stones, and other choice objects of commerce, with a monarch whose palace was roofed with plates of gold instead of lead. The narrations of this traveller were by many consid ered fabulous; but though full of what appear to be splendid exaggerations, they have since been found substantially correct. They are thus particularly noted, from the influence they had over the imagination of Columbus. The work of Marco Polo is a key to many parts of his history. his applications to the various courts, he represented the countries he expected to discover as those regions of inexhaustible wealth which the Venetian had described. The territories of the Grand Khan were the objects of inquiry in all his voyages; and in his cruisings among the Antilles he was continually flattering himself with the hopes of arriving at the opulent island of Cipango, and the coasts of Mangi and Cathay.†

In

While the design of attempting the discovery in the west was maturing in the mind of Columbus, he made a voyage to the north of Europe. Of this we have no other memorial than the following passage, extracted by his son from one of his letters : In the year 1477, in February, I navi

TOSCANELLI EVENTS IN PORTUGAL RELATIVE gated one hundred leagues beyond Thule, the

TO DISCOVERIES-PROPOSITION OF COLUMBUS TO THE PORTUGUESE COURT-DEPARTURE FROM PORTUGAL.

IT is impossible to determine the precise time when Columbus first conceived the design of seeking a western route to India. It is certain, how- | ever, that he meditated it as early as the year 1474, though as yet it lay crude and unmatured in his mind. This fact, which is of some importance, is sufficiently established by the correspondence already mentioned with the learned Toscanelli of Florence, which took place in the summer of that year. The letter of Toscanelli is in reply to one from Columbus, and applauds the design which he had expressed of making a voyage to

See illustrations, article "Rumor concerning the Pilot who died in the House of Columbus." See illustrations, article " Behem."

southern part of which is seventy-three degrees distant from the equator, and not sixty-three, as some pretend; neither is it situated within the line which includes the west of Ptolemy, but is much more westerly. The English, principally those of Bristol, go with their merchandise to this island, which is as large as England. When I was there the sea was not frozen, and the tides so great as to rise and fall twenty-six

were

fathom."‡

*This map, by which Columbus sailed on his first voyage of discovery, Las Casas (lib. i. cap. 12) says

he had in his possession at the time of writing his his tory. It is greatly to be regretted that so interesting a document should be lost. It may yet exist among the chaotic lumber of the Spanish archives. Few documents of mere curiosity would be more precious.

A more particular account of Marco Polo and his writings is given among the illustrations. Hist. del Almirante, cap. 4.

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PART OF A TERRESTRIAL GLOBE MADE AT NUREMBERG IN THE YEAR 1492 BY MARTIN BEHEM.

The terrestrial globe, of which a segment is given above, was made at Nuremberg in the year 1492, the very year on which .Columbus departed on his first voyage of discovery. Martin Behem, the inventor, was one of the most learned cosmographers of the time, and, having resided at Lisbon in the employ of the king of Portugal, he had probably seen the map of Toscanelli, and the documents submitted by Columbus to the consideration of the Portuguese government. His globe may, therefore, be presumed illustrative of the idea entertained by Columbus of the islands in the ocean near the extremity of Asia, at the time he undertook his discovery.

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