Chapter 7

triumphal march by chorus, band, and orchestra forms an accompaniment to a procession and the final reception."

STRANGE AND COLOSSAL MAN.

From an introduction to "The Story of Columbus," in the New York _Herald_, 1892.

What manner of man was this Columbus, this admiral of the seas and lord of the Indies, who gave to Castille and Leon a new world?

Was he the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer of the skeptic biographer, who weighed all men by the sum of ages and not by the age in which they lived, or the religious hero who carried a flaming cross into the darkness of the unknown West, as his reverential historians have painted him?

There have been over six hundred biographers of this strange and colossal man, advancing all degrees of criticism, from filial affection to religious and fanatical hate, yet those who dwell in the lands he discovered know him only by his achievements, caring nothing about the trivial weaknesses of his private life.

One of his fairest critics has said he was the conspicuous developer of a great world movement, the embodiment of the ripened aspirations of his time.

His life is enveloped in an almost impenetrable veil of obscurity; in fact, the date and the place of his birth are in dispute. There are no authentic portraits of him, though hundreds have been printed.

There are in existence many documents written by Columbus about his discoveries. When he set sail on his first voyage he endeavored to keep a log similar to the commentaries of Cæsar. It is from this log that much of our present knowledge has been obtained, but it is a lamentable fact that, while Columbus was an extraordinary executive officer, his administrative ability was particularly poor, and in all matters of detail he was so careless as to be untrustworthy. Therefore, there are many statements in the log open to violent controversy.

TALES OF THE EAST.

It is probable that the letters of Toscanelli made a greater impression on the mind of Columbus than any other information he possessed. The aged Florentine entertained the brightest vision of the marvelous worth of the Asiatic region. He spoke of two hundred towns whose bridges spanned a single river, and whose commerce would excite the cupidity of the world.

These were tales to stir circles of listeners wherever wandering mongers of caravels came and went. All sorts of visionary discoveries were made in those days. Islands were placed in the Atlantic that never existed, and wonderful tales were told of the great Island of Antilla, or the Seven Cities.

The sphericity of the earth was becoming a favorite belief, though it must be borne in mind that education in those days was confined to the cloister, and any departure from old founded tenets was regarded as heresy. It was this peculiar doctrine that caused Columbus much embarrassment in subsequent years. His greatest enemies were the narrow minds that regarded religion as the _Ultima Thule_ of intellectual endeavor. In spite of these facts, however, it was becoming more and more the popular belief that the world was not flat. One of the arguments used against Columbus was, that if the earth was not flat, and was round, he might sail down to the Indies, but he could certainly not sail up. Thus it was that fallacy after fallacy was thrown in argumentative form in his way, and the character of the man grows more wonderful as we see the obstacles over which he fought.

From utter obscurity, from poverty, derision, and treachery, this unflinching spirit fought his way to a most courageous end, and in all the vicissitudes of his wonderful life he never compromised one iota of that dignity which he regarded as consonant with his lofty aspirations.--_Ibid._

A PROTEST AGAINST IGNORANCE.

New York _Tribune_, 1892.

The voyage of Columbus was a protest against the ignorance of the mediæval age. The discovery of the New World was the first sign of the real renaissance of the Old World. It created new heavens and a new earth, broadened immeasurably the horizon of men and nations, and transformed the whole order of European thought. Columbus was the greatest educator who ever lived, for he emancipated mankind from the narrowness of its own ignorance, and taught the great lesson that human destiny, like divine mercy, arches over the whole world. If a perspective of four centuries of progress could have floated like a mirage before the eyes of the great discoverer as he was sighting San Salvador, the American school-house would have loomed up as the greatest institution of the New World's future. Behind him he had left mediæval ignorance, encumbered with superstition, and paralyzed by an ecclesiastical pedantry which passed for learning. Before him lay a new world with the promise of the potency of civil and religious liberty, free education, and popular enlightenment. Because the school-house, like his own voyage, has been a protest against popular ignorance, and has done more than anything else to make our free America what it is, it would have towered above everything else in the mirage-like vision of the world's progress.

THE EARTH'S ROTUNDITY.

The Rev. Father NUGENT of Iowa. From an address printed in the Denver _Republican_, 1892.

The theory of the rotundity of the earth was not born with Columbus. It had been announced centuries before Christ, but the law of gravitation had not been discovered and the world found it impossible to think of another hemisphere in which trees would grow downward into the air and men walk with their heads suspended from their feet. The theologians and scholars who scoffed at Columbus' theory had better grounds for opposing him, according to the received knowledge of the time, than he for upholding his ideal. They were scientifically wrong and he was unscientifically correct.

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA.

The President responds to a message from the Alcalde of Palos.

The following cable messages were exchanged this day:

LA RÁBIDA, August 3d. The President: To-day, 400 years ago, Columbus sailed from Palos, discovering America. The United States flag is being hoisted this moment in front of the Convent La Rábida, along with banners of all the American States. Batteries and ships saluting, accompanied by enthusiastic acclamations of the people, army, and navy. God bless America.

PRIETO, _Alcalde of Palos_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., August 3, 1892. Señor Prieto, Alcalde de Palos, La Rábida, Spain: The President of the United States directs me to cordially acknowledge your message of greeting. On this memorable day, thus fittingly celebrated, the people of the new western world, in grateful reverence to the name and fame of Columbus, join hands with the sons of the brave sailors of Palos and Huelva who manned the discoverer's caravels.

FOSTER, _Secretary of State_.

THE PAN-AMERICAN TRIBUTE.

The nations of North, South, and Central America in conference assembled, at Washington, D. C., from October 2, 1889, to April 19, 1890.

_Resolved_, That in homage to the memory of the immortal discoverer of America, and in gratitude for the unparalleled service rendered by him to civilization and humanity, the International Conference hereby offers its hearty co-operation in the manifestations to be made in his honor on the occasion of the fourth centennial anniversary of the discovery of America.[50]

THE GIFT OF SPAIN.

THEODORE PARKER, a distinguished American clergyman and scholar. Born at Lexington, Mass., August 24, 1810; died in Florence, Italy, May 10, 1860. From "New Assault upon Freedom in America."

To Columbus, adventurous Italy's most venturous son, Spain gave, grudgingly, three miserable ships, wherewith that daring genius sailed through the classic and mediæval darkness which covered the great Atlantic deep, opening to mankind a new world, and new destination therein. No queen ever wore a diadem so precious as those pearls which Isabella dropped into the western sea, a bridal gift, whereby the Old World, well endowed with art and science, and the hoarded wealth of experience, wed America, rich only in her gifts from Nature and her hopes in time. The most valuable contribution Spain has made to mankind is three scant ships furnished to the Genoese navigator, whom the world's instinct pushed westward in quest of continents.

COLUMBUS THE BOLDEST NAVIGATOR.

Capt. WILLIAM H. PARKER, an American naval officer of the nineteenth century. From "Familiar Talks on Astronomy."[51]

Let us turn our attention to Christopher Columbus, the boldest navigator of his day; indeed, according to my view, the boldest man of whom we have any account in history. While all the other seamen of the known world were creeping along the shore, he heroically sailed forth on the broad ocean.

* * * * *

When I look back upon my own voyages and recall the many anxious moments I have passed when looking for a port at night, and when I compare my own situation, supplied with accurate charts, perfect instruments, good sailing directions, everything, in short, that science can supply, and then think of Columbus in his little bark, his only instruments an imperfect compass and a rude astrolabe, _sailing forth upon an unknown sea_, I must award to him the credit of being the boldest seaman that ever "sailed the salt ocean."

* * * * *

Columbus, then, had made three discoveries before he discovered land--the trade-winds, the Sargasso Sea, and the variation of the compass.

COLUMBUS THE PATRON SAINT OF REAL-ESTATE DEALERS.

At a banquet in Chicago of the real-estate brokers, a waggish orator remarked that Columbus, with his cry of "Land! Land!" was clearly the patron saint of American real-estate dealers.

THE MUTINY.

HORATIO J. PERRY, an American author. From "Reminiscences."

When those Spanish mutineers leaped upon their Admiral's deck and advanced upon him sword in hand, every man of them was aware that according to all ordinary rules the safety of his own head depended on their going clean through and finishing their work. No compromise that should leave Columbus alive could possibly have suited them then. Nevertheless, at the bottom of it all, the moving impulse of those men was terror. They were banded for that work by a common fear and a common superstition, and it was only when they looked in the clear face of one wholly free from the influences which enslaved themselves, when they felt in their marrow that supreme expression of Columbus at the point of a miserable death--only then the revulsion of confidence in him suddenly relieved their own terrors. It was instinctive. This man knows! He does not deceive us! We fools are compromising the safety of all by quenching this light. He alone can get us through this business--that was the human instinct which responded to the look and bearing of Columbus at the moment when he was wholly lost, and when his life's work, his great voyage almost accomplished, was also to all appearance lost. The instinct was sure, the response was certain, from the instinct that its motive was also there sure and certain; but no other man in that age could have provoked it, no other but Columbus could be sure of what he was then doing.

The mutineers went back to their work, and the ships went on. For three days previous, the Admiral, following some indications he had noted from the flight of birds, had steered southwest. Through that night of the 10th and through the day of the 11th he still kept that course; but just at evening of the 11th he ordered the helm again to be put due west. The squadron had made eighty-two miles that day, and his practiced senses now taught him that land was indeed near. Without any hesitation he called together his chief officers, and announced to them that the end of their voyage was at hand; and he ordered the ships to sail well together, and to keep a sharp lookout through the night, as he expected land before the morning. Also, they had strict orders to shorten sail at midnight, and not to advance beyond half speed. Then he promised a velvet doublet of his own as a present to the man who should first make out the land. These details are well known, and they are authentic; and it is true also that these dispositions of the Admiral spread life throughout the squadron. Nobody slept that night. It was only twenty-four hours since they were ready to throw him overboard; but they now believed in him and bitterly accused one another.

THE TRACK OF COLUMBUS.

From a paper in _New England Magazine_, 1892, taken originally from a volume of "Reminiscences" left by HORATIO J. PERRY, who made a voyage from Spain to New Orleans in 1847.

A fortnight out at sea! We are upon the track of Christopher Columbus. Only three centuries and a half ago the keels of his caravels plowed for the first time these very waters, bearing the greatest heart and wisest head of his time, and one of the grandest figures in all history.

To conceive Columbus at his true value requires some effort in our age, when the earth has been girdled and measured, when the sun has been weighed and the planets brought into the relation of neighbors over the way, into whose windows we are constantly peeping in spite of the social gulf which keeps us from visiting either Mars or Venus. It is not easy to put ourselves back into the fifteenth century and limit ourselves as those men were limited.

I found it an aid to my comprehension of Columbus, this chance which sent me sailing over the very route of his great voyage. It is not, even now, a frequented route. The bold Spanish and Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are no longer found upon it. The trade of the Indies has passed into other hands, and this is not the road from England to the West Indies or to America.

Thus you may still sail for weeks in these seas without ever meeting a ship. Leaving Madeira or the Canaries, you may even reach those western lands he reached without having seen or felt any other sign or incident except precisely such as were noted by him.

DEATH WAS COLUMBUS' FRIEND.

OSKAR FERDINAND PESCHEL, a noted German geographer. Born at Dresden, March 17, 1826; died, August 31, 1875.

Death saved Columbus the infliction of a blow which he probably would have felt more than Bobadilla's fetters. He was allowed to carry to the grave the glorious illusion that Cuba was a province of the Chinese Empire, that Hispaniola was the Island Zipangu, and that only a narrow strip of land, instead of a hemisphere covered by water, intervened between the Caribbean Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

The discoverer of America died without suspecting that he had found a new continent. He regarded the distance between Spain and Jamaica as a third part of the circumference of the globe, and announced, "The earth is by no means as large as is popularly supposed."

The extension of the world by a new continent had no place in his conceptions, and the greatness of his achievement would have been lessened in his eyes if he had been permitted to discover a second vast ocean beyond that which he had traversed, for he would have seen that he had but half accomplished his object, the connection of Europe with the East.

PETRARCH'S TRIBUTE.

FRANCESCO PETRARCH, Italian poet. Born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, July 20, 1304; died at Arquá, near Padua, July 19, 1374.

The daylight hastening with wingéd steps, Perchance to gladden the expectant eyes Of far-off nations in a world remote.

COLUMBUS A VOLUMINOUS WRITER.

BARNET PHILLIPS, in _Harper's Weekly_, June 25, 1892, on "The Columbus Festival at Genoa."[52]

It can not be questioned but that Christopher Columbus was a voluminous writer. Mr. Justin Winsor, who has made careful researches, says that "ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by the hand of Columbus either exist or are known to have existed. Of such, whether memoirs, relations, or letters, sixty-four are preserved in their entirety." Columbus seems to have written all his letters in Spanish. Genoa is fortunate in possessing a number of authentic letters, and these are preserved in a marble custodia, surmounted by a head of Columbus. In the pillar which forms the pedestal there is a bronze door, and the precious Columbus documents have been placed there. (See p. 54, _ante_.)

HIS LIFE WAS A PATH OF THORNS.

ROBERT POLLOK, a Scottish poet of some note. Born at Muirhouse, Renfrewshire, 1798; died near Southampton, September, 1827.

Oh, who can tell what days, what nights, he spent, Of tideless, waveless, sailless, shoreless woe! And who can tell how many glorious once, To him, of brilliant promise full--wasted, And pined, and vanished from the earth!

UNWEPT, UNHONORED, AND UNSUNG.

W. F. POOLE, LL. D., Librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago. From "Christopher Columbus," in _The Dial_ for April, 1892. Published by _The Dial_ Company, Chicago.

It had been well for the reputation of Columbus if he had died in 1493, when he returned from his first voyage. He had found a pathway to a land beyond the western ocean; and although he had no conception of what he had discovered, it was the most important event in the history of the fifteenth century. There was nothing left for him to do to increase his renown. A coat-of-arms had been assigned him, and he rode on horseback through the streets of Barcelona, with the King on one side of him and Prince Juan on the other. His enormous claims for honors and emoluments had been granted. His first letter of February, 1493, printed in several languages, had been read in the courts of Europe with wonder and amazement. "What delicious food for an ingenious mind!" wrote Peter Martyr. In England, it was termed "a thing more divine than human." No other man ever rose to such a pinnacle of fame so suddenly; and no other man from such a height ever dropped out of sight so quickly. His three later voyages were miserable failures; a pitiful record of misfortunes, blunders, cruelties, moral delinquencies, quarrels, and impotent complainings. They added nothing to the fund of human knowledge, or to his own. On the fourth voyage he was groping about to find the River Ganges, the great Khan of China, and the earthly paradise. His two subsequent years of disappointment and sickness and poverty were wretchedness personified. Other and more competent men took up the work of discovery, and in thirteen years after the finding of a western route to India had been announced, the name and personality of Columbus had almost passed from the memory of men. He died at Valladolid, May 20, 1506; and outside of a small circle of relatives, his body was committed to the earth with as little notice and ceremony as that of an unknown beggar on its way to the potter's field. Yet the Spanish court was in the town at the time. Peter Martyr was there, writing long letters of news and gossip; and in five that are still extant there is no mention of the sickness and death of Columbus. Four weeks later an official document had the brief mention that "the Admiral is dead." Two Italian authors, making, one and two years later, some corrections pertaining to his early voyages, had not heard of his death.

NEW STAMPS FOR WORLD'S FAIR YEAR.

From the New York _Commercial Advertiser_.

Third Assistant Postmaster-General Hazen is preparing the designs for a set of "Jubilee" stamps, to be issued by the Postoffice Department in honor of the quadri-centennial. That is, he is getting together material which will suggest to him the most appropriate subjects to be illustrated on these stamps. He has called on the Bureau of American Republics for some of the Columbian pictures with which it is overflowing, and he recently took a big portfolio of them down into the country to examine at his leisure.

One of the scenes to be illustrated, undoubtedly, will be the landing of Columbus. The Convent of La Rábida, where Columbus is supposed to have been housed just before his departure from Spain on his voyage of discovery, will probably be the chief figure of another. The head of Columbus will decorate one of the stamps--probably the popular 2-cent stamp. Gen. Hazen resents the suggestion that the 5-cent, or foreign, stamp be made the most ornate in the collection. He thinks that the American public is entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of the most beautiful of the new stamps.

Besides, the stamps will be of chief value to the Exposition, as they advertise it among the people of America. The Jubilee stamps will be one of the best advertisements the World's Fair will have. It would not be unfair if the Postoffice Department should demand that the managers of the World's Fair pay the additional expense of getting out the new issue. But the stamp collectors will save the department the necessity of doing that.

It may be that the issue of the current stamps will not be suspended when the Jubilee stamps come in; but it is altogether likely that the issue will be suspended for a year, and that at the end of that time the dies and plates for the Jubilee stamps will be destroyed and the old dies and plates will be brought out and delivered to the contractor again. These dies and plates are always subject to the order of the Postmaster-general. He can call for them at any time, and the contractor must deliver them into his charge.

While they are in use they are under the constant supervision of a government agent, and the contractor is held responsible for any plate that might be made from his dies and for any stamps that might be printed surreptitiously from such plates.

An oddity in the new series will be the absence of the faces of Washington and Franklin. The first stamps issued by the Postoffice Department were the 5 and 10 cent stamps of 1847. One of these bore the head of Washington and the other that of Franklin. From that day to this these heads have appeared on some two of the stamps of the United States. In the Jubilee issue they will be missing, unless Mr. Wanamaker or Mr. Hazen changes the present plan. It is intended now that only one portrait shall appear on any of the stamps, and that one will be of Columbus.

It will take some time to prepare the designs for the new stamps, after the selection of the subjects, but Gen. Hazen expects to have them on sale the 1st of January next. The subjects will be sent to the American Bank Note Company, which will prepare the designs and submit them for approval. When they are approved, the dies will be prepared and proofs sent to the department. Five engravings were made before an acceptable portrait of Gen. Grant was obtained for use on the current 5-cent stamp. Gen. Grant, by the way, was the only living American whose portrait during his lifetime was under consideration in getting up stamp designs.

THE CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, an eminent American historian. Born at Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796; died January 28, 1859. From "Ferdinand and Isabella."

There are some men in whom rare virtues have been closely allied, if not to positive vice, to degrading weakness. Columbus' character presented no such humiliating incongruity. Whether we contemplate it in its public or private relations, in all its features it wears the same noble aspect. It was in perfect harmony with the grandeur of his plans and their results, more stupendous than those which heaven has permitted any other mortal to achieve.

FROM PALOS TO BARCELONA--HIS TRIUMPH.

The bells sent forth a joyous peal in honor of his arrival; but the Admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before the sovereigns to protract his stay long at Palos. His progress through Seville was an ovation. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Barcelona. The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him, and escorted him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were seated with their son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival. On his approach they rose from their seats, and, extending their hands to him to salute, caused him to be seated before them. These were unprecedented marks of condescension to a person of Columbus' rank in the haughty and ceremonious court of Castille. It was, indeed, the proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, sneer, skepticism, and contempt. After a brief interval the sovereigns requested from Columbus a recital of his adventures; and when he had done so, the King and Queen, together with all present, prostrated themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgivings, while the solemn strains of the _Te Deum_ were poured forth by the choir of the royal chapel, as in commemoration of some glorious victory.--_Ibid._

THE CLAIM OF THE NORSEMEN.

From an editorial in _Public Opinion_, Washington.

Modern historians are pretty generally agreed that America was actually first made known to the Eastern world by the indefatigable Norsemen. Yet, in spite of this fact, Columbus has been, and still continues to be, revered as the one man to whose genius and courage the discovery of the New World is due. Miss Brown, in her "Icelandic Discoverers," justly says it should be altogether foreign to American institutions and ideas of liberty and honor to countenance longer the worship of a false idol. The author first proceeds to set forth the evidence upon which the claims of the Norsemen rest. The author charges that the heads of the Roman Catholic church were early cognizant of this discovery of the Norsemen, but that they suppressed this information. The motives for this concealment are charged to their well-known reluctance to allow any credit to non-Catholic believers, under which head, at that time, the Norsemen were included. They preferred that the New World should first be made known to Southern Europe by adherents to the Roman Catholic faith. Most damaging evidence against Columbus' having originated, unaided, the idea of a western world or route to India is furnished by the fact that he visited Iceland in person in the spring of 1477, when he must have heard rumors of the early voyages. He is known to have visited the harbor at Hvalfjord, on the south coast of Iceland, at a time when that harbor was most frequented, and also at the same time when Bishop Magnus is known to have been there. They must have met, and, as they had means of communicating through the Latin language, would naturally have spoken of these distant countries. We have no hint of the object of this visit of Columbus, for he scrupulously avoids subsequent mention of it; but the author pleases to consider it as a secret mission, instigated by the Church for the purpose of obtaining all available information concerning the Norse discoveries. Certain it is that soon after his return to Spain we find him petitioning the King and Queen for a grant of ships and men to further the enterprise; and he was willing to wait for more than fourteen years before he obtained them. His extravagant demands of the King and Queen concerning the rights, titles, and percentage of all derived from the countries "he was about to discover," can hardly be viewed in any other light than that of positive knowledge concerning their existence.

PULCI'S PROPHECY.

LUIGI PULCI, an Italian poet. Born at Florence in 1431; died about 1487.

Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common center all things tend; So earth, by curious mystery divine, Well balanced hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires ne'er divined of yore.

CHRISTOPHER, THE CHRIST-BEARER.

GEORGE PAYNE QUACKENBOS, an American teacher and educational writer. Born in New York, 1826; died December 24, 1881.

Full of religious enthusiasm, he regarded this voyage to the western seas as his peculiar mission, and himself--as his name, CHRISTOPHER, imports--the appointed _Christ-bearer_, or _gospel-bearer_, to the natives of the new lands he felt that he was destined to discover.

PLEADING WITH KINGS FOR A NEW WORLD.

The Rev. MYRON REED, a celebrated American clergyman of the present day.

Here is Columbus. Somehow I think he is more of a man while he is begging for ships and a crew, when he is in mid-ocean sailing to discover America, than when he found it.

LAST DAYS OF THE VOYAGE.

The last days of the voyage of Columbus were lonesome days. He had to depend on his own vision. I do not know what he had been--probably a buccaneer. We know that he was to be a trader in slaves. But in spite of what he had been and was to become, once he was great.--_Ibid._

ROLL OF THE CREWS OF THE THREE CARAVELS.

CREW OF THE SANTA MARIA.--_Admiral_, Cristoval Colon; _Master and owner_, Juan de la Cosa of Santoña; _Pilot_, Sancho Ruiz; _Boatswain_, Maestre Diego; _Surgeon_, Maestre Alonzo of Moguer; _Assistant Surgeon_, Maestre Juan; _Overseer_, Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia; _Secretary_, *Rodrigo de Escobedo[53]; _Master at Arms_, *Diego de Arana of Cordova; _Volunteer_, *Pedro Gutierrez, (A gentleman of the King's bedchamber); _Volunteer_, *Bachiller Bernardo de Tapia of Ledesma; _Steward_, Pedro Terreros; _Admiral's Servant_, Diego de Salcedo; _Page_, Pedro de Acevedo; _Interpreter_, Luis de Torres, (A converted Jew); _Seamen_, Rodrigo de Jerez, Garcia Ruiz of Santoña, Pedro de Villa of Santoña, Rodrigo Escobar, Francisco of Huelva, Ruy Fernandez of Huelva, Pedro Bilbao of Larrabezua, *Alonzo Velez of Seville, *Alonzo Perez Osorio; _Assayer and Silversmith_, *Castillo of Seville; _Seamen of the Santa Maria_, *Antonio of Jaen, *Alvaro Perez Osorio, *Cristoval de Alamo of Niebla, *Diego Garcia of Jerez, *Diego de Tordoya of Cabeza de Vaca, *Diego de Capilla of Almeden, *Diego of Mambles, *Diego de Mendoza, *Diego de Montalvan of Jaen, *Domingo de Bermeo, *Francisco de Godoy of Seville, *Francisco de Vergara of Seville, *Francisco of Aranda, *Francisco Henao of Avila, *Francisco Jimenes of Seville, *Gabriel Baraona of Belmonte, *Gonzalo Fernandez of Segovia, *Gonzalo Fernandez of Leon, *Guillermo Ires of Galway, *Jorge Gonzalez of Trigueros, *Juan de Cueva, *Juan Patiño of La Serena, *Juan del Barco of Avila, *Pedro Carbacho of Caceres, *Pedro of Talavera, *Sebastian of Majorca, *Tallarte de Lajes (Ingles).

THE CREW OF THE PINTA.--_Captain of the Pinta_, Martin Alonzo Pinzon; _Master_, Francisco Martin Pinzon; _Pilot of the vessel_, Cristoval Garcia Sarmiento; _Boatswain_, Bartolomè Garcia; _Surgeon_, Garci Hernandez; _Purser_, Juan de Jerez; _Caulker_, Juan Perez; _Seamen_, Rodrigo Bermudez de Triana of Alcala de la Guadaira, Juan Rodriguez Bermejo of Molinos, Juan de Sevilla, Garcia Alonzo, Gomez Rascon (owner), Cristoval Quintero (owner), Diego Bermudez, Juan Bermudez, Francisco Garcia Gallegos of Moguer, Francisco Garcia Vallejo, Pedro de Arcos.

CREW OF THE NIÑA.--_Captain of the Niña_, Vicente Yañez Pinzon; _Master and part owner of the vessel_, Juan Niño; _Pilots_, Pero Alonzo Niño, Bartolomè Roldan; _Seamen_ _of the Niña_, Francisco Niño, Gutierrez Perez, Juan Ortiz, Alonso Gutierrez Querido, *Diego de Torpa[54], *Francisco Fernandez, *Hernando de Porcuna, *Juan de Urniga, *Juan Morcillo, *Juan del Villar, *Juan de Mendoza, *Martin de Logrosan, *Pedro de Foronda, *Tristan de San Jorge.

COLUMBUS A THEORETICAL CIRCUMNAVIGATOR.

JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL. D., an American author and educator. Born in Putnam County, Indiana, April 26, 1840. From "History of United States," 1874.

Sir John Mandeville had declared in the very first English book that ever was written (A. D. 1356) that the world is a sphere, and that it was both possible and practicable for a man to sail around the world and return to the place of starting; but neither Sir John himself nor any other seaman of his times was bold enough to undertake so hazardous an enterprise. Columbus was, no doubt, the first _practical_ believer in the theory of circumnavigation, and although he never sailed around the world himself, he demonstrated the possibility of doing so.

The great mistake with Columbus and others who shared his opinions was not concerning the figure of the earth, but in regard to its size. He believed the world to be no more than 10,000 or 12,000 miles in circumference. He therefore confidently expected that after sailing about 3,000 miles to the westward he should arrive at the East Indies, and to do that was the one great purpose of his life.

AN IMPORTANT FIND OF MSS.

JUAN F. RIAÑO. "Review of Continental Literature," July, 1891, to July, 1892. From "_The Athenæum_" (England), July 2, 1892.

The excitement about Columbus has rather been heightened by the accidental discovery of three large holograph volumes, in quarto, of Fr. Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapa, who, as is well known, accompanied the navigator in his fourth voyage to the West Indies. The volumes were deposited by Las Casas in San Gregorio de Valladolid, where he passed the last years of his life in retirement. There they remained until 1836, when, owing to the suppression of the monastic orders, the books of the convent were dispersed, and the volumes of the Apostle of the Indies, as he is still called, fell into the hands of a collector of the name of Acosta, from whom a grandson named Arcos inherited them. Though written in the bishop's own hand, they are not of great value, as they only contain his well-known "Historia Apologetica de las Indias," of which no fewer than three different copies, dating from the sixteenth century, are to be found here at Madrid, and the whole was published some years ago in the "Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España."

The enthusiasm for Columbus and his companions has not in the least damped the ardor of my countrymen for every sort of information respecting their former colonies, in America or their possessions in the Indian Archipelago and on the northern coast of Africa. Respecting the former I may mention the second volume of the "Historia del Nuevo Mundo," by Cobo, 1645; the third and fourth volume of the "Origen de los Indios del Peru, Mexico, Santa Féy Chile," by Diego Andrés Rocha; "De las Gentes del Peru," forming part of the "Historia Apologetica," by Bartolomé de las Casas, though not found in his three holograph volumes recently discovered.

CHILDREN OF THE SUN.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON (usually styled Principal ROBERTSON), a celebrated Scottish historian. Born at Bosthwick, Mid-Lothian, September 19, 1721; died June, 1793.

Columbus was the first European who set foot in the New World which he had discovered. He landed in a rich dress, and with a naked sword in his hand. His men followed, and, kneeling down, they all kissed the ground which they had long desired to see. They next erected a crucifix, and prostrating themselves before it returned thanks to God for conducting their voyage to such a happy issue.

The Spaniards while thus employed were surrounded by many of the natives, who gazed in silent admiration upon actions which they could not comprehend, and of which they could not foresee the consequences. The dress of the Spaniards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards, their arms, appeared strange and surprising. The vast machines in which the Spaniards had traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the water with wings, and uttered a dreadful sound, resembling thunder, accompanied with lightning and smoke, struck the natives with such terror that they began to respect their new guests as a superior order of beings, and concluded that they were children of the sun, who had descended to visit the earth.

* * * * *

To all the kingdoms of Europe, Christopher Columbus, by an effort of genius and of intrepidity the boldest and most successful that is recorded in the annals of mankind, added a new world.--_Ibid._

THE BRONZE DOOR AT WASHINGTON.

This is the main central door of the Capitol at Washington, D. C., and on it is a pictured history of events connected with the life of Columbus and the discovery of America.

The door weighs 20,000 pounds; is seventeen feet high and nine feet wide; it is folding or double, and stands sunk back inside of a bronze casing, which projects about a foot forward from the leaves or valves. On this casing are four figures at the top and bottom, representing Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. A border, emblematic of conquest and navigation, runs along the casing between them.

The door has eight panels besides the semicircular one at the top. In each panel is a picture in _alto-relievo_.

It was designed by Randolph Rogers, an American, and modeled by him in Rome, in 1858; and was cast by F. Von Muller, at Munich, 1861.

The story the door tells is the history of Columbus and the discovery of America.

The panel containing the earliest event in the life of the discoverer is the lowest one on the south side, and represents "Columbus undergoing an examination before the Council of Salamanca."

The panel above it contains "Columbus' departure from the Convent of Santa Maria de la Rábida," near Palos. He is just setting out to visit the Spanish court.

The one above it is his "audience at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella."

The next panel is the top one of this half of the door, and represents the "starting of Columbus from Palos on his first voyage."

The transom panel occupies the semicircular sweep over the whole door. The extended picture here is the "first landing of the Spaniards at San Salvador."

The top panel on the other leaf of the door represents the "first encounter of the discoverers with the natives." In it one of the sailors is seen bringing an Indian girl on his shoulders a prisoner. The transaction aroused the stern indignation of Columbus.

The panel next below this one has in it "the triumphal entry of Columbus into Barcelona."

The panel below this represents a very different scene, and is "Columbus in chains."

In the next and last panel is the "death scene." Columbus lies in bed; the last rites of the Catholic church have been administered; friends and attendants are around him; and a priest holds up a crucifix for him to kiss, and upon it bids him fix his dying eyes.

On the door, on the sides and between the panels, are sixteen small statues, set in niches, of eminent contemporaries of Columbus. Their names are marked on the door, and beginning at the bottom, on the side from which we started in numbering the panels, we find the figure in the lowest niche is Juan Perez de la Marchena, prior of La Rábida; then above him is Hernando Cortez; and again, standing over him, is Alonzo de Ojeda.

Amerigo Vespucci occupies the next niche on the door.

Then, opposite in line, across the door, standing in two niches, side by side, are Cardinal Mendoza and Pope Alexander VI.

Then below them stand Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain; beneath them stands the Lady Beatrice Enriquez de Bobadilla; beside her is Charles VIII., King of France.

The first figure of the lowest pair on the door is Henry VII. of England; beside him stands John II., King of Portugal.

Then, in the same line with them, across the panel, is Alonzo Pinzon.

In the niche above Alonzo Pinzon stands Bartolomeo Columbus, the brother of the great navigator.

Then comes Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, and in the niche above, again at the top of the door, stands the figure of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru.

Between the panels and at top and bottom of the valves of the door are ten projecting heads. Those between the panels are historians who have written Columbus' voyages from his own time down to the present day, ending with Washington Irving and William Hickling Prescott.

The two heads at the tops of the valves are female heads, while the two next the floor possess Indian characteristics.

Above, over the transom arch, looks down, over all, the serene grand head of Columbus. Beneath it, the American eagle spreads out his widely extended wings.

Mr. Rogers[55] received $8,000 for his models, and Mr. Von Muller was paid $17,000 in gold for casting the door. To a large portion of this latter sum must be added the high premium on exchange which ruled during the war, the cost of storage and transportation, and the expense of the erection of the door in the Capitol after its arrival. These items would, added together, far exceed $30,000 in the then national currency.

SANTA MARIA RÁBIDA, THE CONVENT--RÁBIDA.

SAMUEL ROGERS, the English banker-poet. Born near London, July 30, 1763; died December, 1855. Translated from a Castilian MS., and printed as an introduction to his poem, "The Voyage of Columbus." It is stated that he spent $50,000 in the illustrations of this volume of his poems.

In Rábida's monastic fane I can not ask, and ask in vain; The language of Castille I speak, 'Mid many an Arab, many a Greek, Old in the days of Charlemagne, When minstrel-music wandered round, And science, waking, blessed the sound.

No earthly thought has here a place, The cowl let down on every face; Yet here, in consecrated dust, Here would I sleep, if sleep I must. From Genoa, when Columbus came (At once her glory and her shame), 'T was here he caught the holy flame; 'T was here the generous vow he made; His banners on the altar laid.

Here, tempest-worn and desolate, A pilot journeying through the wild Stopped to solicit at the gate A pittance for his child.

'T was here, unknowing and unknown, He stood upon the threshold stone. But hope was his, a faith sublime, That triumphs over place and time; And here, his mighty labor done, And here, his course of glory run, Awhile as more than man he stood, So large the debt of gratitude.

* * * * *

Who the great secret of the deep possessed, And, issuing through the portals of the West, Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurled, Planted his standard on the unknown world.

--_Ibid._

GENOA.

Thy brave mariners, They had fought so often by thy side, Staining the mountain billows.

--_Ibid._

LAUNCHED OUT INTO THE DEEP.

WILLIAM RUSSELL, American author and educationist. Born in Scotland, 1798; died, 1873. From his "Modern History."

Transcendent genius and superlative courage experience almost equal difficulty in carrying their designs into execution when they depend on the assistance of others. Columbus possessed both--he exerted both; and the concurrence of other heads and other hearts was necessary to give success to either; he had indolence and cowardice to encounter, as well as ignorance and prejudice. He had formerly been ridiculed as a visionary, he was now pitied as a desperado. The Portuguese navigators, in accomplishing their first discoveries, had always some reference to the coast; cape had pointed them to cape; but Columbus, with no landmark but the heavens, nor any guide but the compass, boldly launched into the ocean, without knowing what shore should receive him or where he could find rest for the sole of his foot.

STATUARY AT SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

One of the principal features in the State capitol at Sacramento is a beautiful and artistic group of statuary, cut from a solid block of purest white marble. It represents Columbus pleading the cause of his project before Queen Isabella of Spain. The Spanish sovereign is seated; at her left hand kneels the First Admiral, while an attendant page on the right watches with wonder the nobly generous action of the Queen. Columbus, with a globe in his hand, contends that the world is round, and pleads for assistance to fit out an expedition to discover the New World. The royal reply is, "I will assume the undertaking for my own crown of Castille, and am ready to pledge my jewels to defray its expense, if the funds in the treasury shall be found inadequate," The group, which is said to be a masterpiece of work, the only piece of its kind in the United States, was executed in Florence, Italy, by Larkin G. Mead of Vermont, an American artist of known reputation. Costing $60,000, it was presented to the State of California, in 1883, by Mr. D. O. Mills.

A MONUMENT NEAR SALAMANCA.

At Valcuebo, a country farm once belonging to the Dominicans of Salamanca, Columbus was entertained by Diego de Deza--prior of the great Dominican convent of San Esteban and professor of theology at Salamanca--while the Junta [committee] of Spanish ecclesiastics considered his prospects. His residence there was a peaceful oasis in the stormy life of the great discoverer. The little grange still stands at a distance of about three miles west of Salamanca, and the country people have a tradition that on the crest of a small hill near the house, now called "Teso de Colon" (i. e., Columbus' Peak), the future discoverer used to pass long hours conferring with his visitors or reading in solitude. The present owner, Don Martin de Solis, has erected a monument on this hill, consisting of a stone pyramid surmounted by a globe; it commemorates the spot where the storm-tossed hero enjoyed a brief interval of peace and rest.

HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE.

MANOEL FRANCISCO DE BARROS Y SOUZA, VISCOUNT SANTAREM, a noted Portuguese diplomatist and writer. Born at Lisbon, 1790; died, 1856.

If Columbus was not the first to discover America, he was, at least, the man who _re_discovered it, and in a positive and definite shape communicated the knowledge of it. For, if he verified what the Egyptian priest indicated to Solon, the Athenian, as is related by Plato in the Timoeus respecting the Island of Atlantis; if he realized the hypothesis of Actian; if he accomplished the prophecy of Seneca in the Medea; if he demonstrated that the story of the mysterious Carthaginian vessel, related by Aristotle and Theophrastus, was not a dream; if he established by deeds that there was nothing visionary in what St. Gregory pointed at in one of his letters to St. Clement; if, in a word, Columbus proved by his discovery the existence of the land which Madoc had visited before him, as Hakluyt and Powell pretended; and ascertained for a certainty that which for the ancients had always been so uncertain, problematical, and mysterious--his glory becomes only the more splendid, and more an object to command admiration.

THE SANTIAGO BUST.

At Santiago, Chili, a marble bust of Columbus is to be found, with a face modeled after the De Bry portrait, an illustration of which latter appears in these pages. The bust has a Dutch cap and garments.

THE ST. LOUIS STATUE.

In the city of St. Louis, Mo., a statue of Columbus has been erected as the gift of Mr. Henry D. Shaw. It consists of a heroic-sized figure of Columbus in gilt bronze, upon a granite pedestal, which has four bronze _basso relievos_ of the principal events in his career. The face of the statue follows the Genoa model, and the statue was cast at Munich.

SOUTHERN AMERICA'S TRIBUTE.

At Lima, Peru, a fine group of statuary was erected in 1850, representing Columbus in the act of raising an Indian girl from the ground. Upon the front of the marble pedestal is the simple dedication: "Á Cristoval Colon" (To Christopher Columbus), and upon the other three faces are appropriate nautical designs.

THE STATUE IN BOSTON.

In addition to the Iasigi statue, Boston boasts of one of the most artistic statues to Columbus, and will shortly possess a third. "The First Inspiration of the Boy Columbus" is a beautiful example of the work of Signor G. Monteverde, a celebrated Italian sculptor. It was made in Rome, in 1871, and, winning the first prize of a gold medal at Parma, in that year, was presented to the city of Boston by Mr. A. P. Chamberlain of Concord, Mass. It represents Columbus as a youth, seated upon the capstan of a vessel, with an open book in his hand, his foot carelessly swinging in an iron ring. In addition to this statue, a _replica_ of the Old Isabella statue (described on page 171, _ante_), is, it is understood, to be presented to the city.

STATUE AT GENOA.

In the Red Palace, Genoa, a statue of Columbus has been erected representing him standing on the deck of the Santa Maria, behind a padre with a cross. The pedestal of the statue is ornamented with prows of caravels, and on each side a mythological figure represents Discovery and Industry.

THE STATUE AT PALOS.

Now in course of erection to commemorate the discovery, and under the auspices of the Spanish government, is a noble statue at Palos, Spain. It consists of a fluted column of the Corinthian order of architecture, capped by a crown, supporting an orb, surmounted by a cross. The orb bears two bands, one about its equator and the other representing the zodiac. On the column are the names of the Pinzon brothers, Martin and Vicente Yañez; and under the prows of the caravels, "Colon," with a list of the persons who accompanied him. The column rests upon a prismatic support, from which protrude four prows, and the pedestal of the whole is in the shape of a tomb, with an Egyptian-like appearance.

THE STATUE IN PHILADELPHIA.

In Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa., there is placed a statue of Columbus, which, originally exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, at Philadelphia, in 1876, was presented to the Centennial Commission by the combined Italian societies of Philadelphia.

THE STEBBINS STATUE.

In Central Park, New York City, is located an artistic statue, the gift of Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts, and the work of Miss Emma Stebbins. The figure of Columbus is seven feet high, and represents him as a sailor with a mantle thrown over his shoulder. The face is copied from accepted portraits of the Giovian type.

SANTO DOMINGOAN CANNON.

When Columbus was made a prisoner in Santo Domingo, the governor, who arrested him, feared there might be an attempt at rescue, so he trained a big gun on the entrance of the citadel, or castle, in which Columbus was confined. That cannon laid in the same place until Mr. Ober, a World's Fair representative, recovered it, and, with the permission of the Governor of Santo Domingo, brought it to the United States. It is on exhibition at the World's Fair.

THE SANTA MARIA CARAVEL.

A very novel feature of the historical exhibit at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition will be a fac-simile reproduction of the little ship Santa Maria, in which Columbus sailed. Lieut. McCarty Little of the United States navy was detailed to go to Spain to superintend the construction of the ship by the Spanish government at the Carraca yard at Cadiz. The keel was laid on March 1, 1892. The caravel's dimensions are: Length at keel, 62 feet 4 inches; length between perpendiculars, 75 feet 5 inches; beam, 22 feet; draught, 14 feet 8 inches. Great care is being taken with details. It is manned by Spanish sailors in the costume of the time of Columbus, and is rigged as Columbus rigged his ship. There are on board copies of the charts that Columbus used, and fac-similes of his nautical instruments. The crew are of the same number, and included in it are an Englishman and an Irishman, for it is a well-founded historical fact that William Harris, an Englishman, and Arthur Lake, an Irishman, were both members of Columbus' crew. In fact, the reproduction is as exact as possible in every detail. The little ship, in company with her sisters, the Pinta and the Niña, which were reproduced by American capital, will make its first appearance at the naval review in New York, where the trio will be saluted by the great cruisers and war-ships of modern invention from all of the navies of the world. They will then be presented by the government of Spain to the President of the United States, and towed through the lakes to Chicago, being moored at the Exposition. It is proposed that the vessels be taken to Washington after the Exposition, and there anchored in the park of the White House.

The Spanish committee having the matter in charge have made careful examinations of all obtainable data to insure that the vessels shall be, in every detail which can be definitely determined, exact copies of the original Columbus vessels. In connection with this subject, _La Ilustracion National_ of Madrid, to whom we are indebted for our first-page illustration, says:

"A great deal of data of very varied character has been obtained, but nothing that would give the exact details sought, because, doubtless, the vessels of that time varied greatly, not only in the form of their hulls, but also in their rigging, as will be seen by an examination of the engravings and paintings of the fifteenth century; and as there was no ship that could bear the generic name of 'caravel,' great confusion was caused when the attempt was made to state, with a scientific certainty, what the caravels were. The word 'caravel' comes from the Italian _cara bella_, and with this etymology it is safe to suppose that the name was applied to those vessels on account of the grace and beauty of their form, and finally was applied to the light vessels which went ahead of the ships as dispatch boats. Nevertheless, we think we have very authentic data, perhaps all that is reliable, in the letter of Juan de la Cosa, Christopher Columbus' pilot. Juan de la Cosa used many illustrations, and with his important hydrographic letter, which is in the Naval Museum, we can appreciate his ability in drawing both landscapes and figures. As he was both draughtsman and mariner, we feel safe in affirming that the caravels drawn in said letter of the illustrious mariner form the most authentic document in regard to the vessels of his time that is in existence. From these drawings and the descriptions of the days' runs in the part marked 'incidents' of Columbus' log, it is ascertained that these vessels had two sets of sails, lateens for sailing with bowlines hauled, and with lines for sailing before the wind.

"The same lateens serve for this double object, unbending the sails half way and hoisting them like yards by means of top ropes. Instead of having the points now used for reefing, these sails had bands of canvas called bowlines, which were unfastened when it was unnecessary to diminish the sails."

AT PALOS.

From the _Saturday Review_, August 6, 1892.

It was a happy notion, and creditable to the ingenuity of the Spaniards, to celebrate the auspicious event, which made Palos famous four hundred years ago, by a little dramatic representation. The caravel Maria, manned by appropriately dressed sailors, must be a sight better than many eloquent speeches. She has, we are told, been built in careful imitation of the flagship of Columbus' little squadron. If the fidelity of the builders has been thorough, if she has not been coppered, has no inner skin, and has to trust mainly to her caulking to keep out the water, we hope that she will have unbroken good weather on her way to New York. The voyage to Havana across the "Ladies' Sea" is a simple business; but the coast of the United States in early autumn will be trying to a vessel which will be buoyant enough as long as she is water-tight, but is not to be trusted to remain so under a severe strain. She will not escape the strain wholly by being towed. We are not told whether the Maria is to make the landfall of Columbus as well as take his departure. The disputes of the learned as to the exact spot might make it difficult to decide for which of the Bahamas the captain ought to steer. On the other hand, if it were left to luck, to the wind, and the currents, the result might throw some light on a vexed question. It might be interesting to see whether the Maria touched at Turk Island, Watling's Island, or Mariguana, or at none of the three.

The event which the Spaniards are celebrating with natural pride is peculiarly fitted to give an excuse for a centenary feast. The complaints justly made as to the artificial character of the excuses often chosen for these gatherings and their eloquence do not apply here. Beyond all doubt, when Columbus sailed from Palos on August 3, 1492, he did something by which the history of the world was profoundly influenced. Every schoolboy of course knows that if Columbus had never lived America would have been discovered all the same, when Pedro Alvarez Cabral, the Portuguese admiral, was carried by the trade-winds over to the coast of Brazil in 1500. But in that case it would not have been discovered by Spain, and the whole course of the inevitable European settlement on the continent must have been modified.

When that can be said of any particular event there can be no question as to its importance. There is a kind of historical critic, rather conspicuous in these latter days, who finds a peculiar satisfaction in pointing out that Columbus discovered America without knowing it--which is true. That he believed, and died in the belief, that he had reached Asia is certain. It is not less sure that Amerigo Vespucci, from whom the continent was named, by a series of flukes, misprints, and misunderstandings, went to his grave in the same faith. He thought that he had found an island of uncertain size to the south of the equator, and that what Columbus had found to the north was the eastern extremity of Asia. But the world which knows that Columbus did, as a matter of fact, do it the service of finding America, and is aware that without him the voyage from Palos would never have been undertaken, has refused to belittle him because he did not know beforehand what was only found out through his exertions.

The learned who have written very largely about Columbus have their serious doubts as to the truth of the stories told of his connection with Palos. Not that there is any question as to whether he sailed from there. The dispute is as to the number and circumstances of his visits to the Convent of Santa Maria Rábida, and the exact nature of his relations to the Prior Juan Perez de Marchena. There has, in fact, been a considerable accumulation of what that very rude man, Mr. Carlyle, called the marine stores of history about the life of Columbus, as about most great transactions. He certainly had been at La Rábida, and the prior was his friend. But, with or without Juan Perez, Columbus as a seafaring man would naturally have been in Palos. It lies right in the middle of the coast, which has always been open to attack from Africa and has been the starting point for attack on Africa. It is in the way of trade for the same reason that it is in the way of war. What are now fishing villages were brisk little trading towns in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Palos did not only send out Columbus. It received Cortez when he came back from the conquest of Mexico. Palos does very well to remember its glories. And Spain does equally well to remember that she sent out Columbus. In spite of the platitudes talked by painfully thoughtful persons as to the ruinous consequences of the discovery to herself, it was, take it altogether, the greatest thing she has done in the world. She owes to it her unparalleled position in the sixteenth century, and the opportunity to become "a mother of nations." The rest of the world has to thank her for the few magnificent and picturesque passages which enliven the commonly rather colorless, not to say Philistine, history of America.

A REMINISCENCE OF COLUMBUS.

RANDALL N. SAUNDERS, Claverack, N. Y., in the _School Journal_.

* * * What boy has not felt a thrill of pride, for the sex, at the dogged persistence with which Columbus clung to his purpose and to Isabella after Ferdinand had flung to him but stony replies.

* * * * *

Methinks I am starting from Palos. I see the pale, earnest face set in its steadfast resolution from prophetic knowledge. I see the stern lines of care, deeper from the contrast of the hair, a silver mantle refined by the worry; the "midnight oil" that burned in the fiery furnace of his ambition. I see the flush of pleasure at setting out to battle with the perilous sea toward the consummation of life's grand desire. I feel the waverings between hope and despair as the journey lengthens, with but faint promise of reward, and with those around who would push us into the overwhelming waves of defeat and remorse. Amid all discouragements, amid the darkest gloom, I am inspired by his words, "Sail on, sail on"; and sailing on with the grand old Genoese, I yet hope to know and feel his glorious success, and with him to return thanks on the golden strand of the San Salvador of life's success.

THE DENSE IGNORANCE OF THOSE DAYS.

The Reverend MINOT JUDSON SAVAGE, an American clergyman. Born at Norridgewock, Maine, June 10, 1841. Pastor of Unity Church, Boston. From his lecture, "The Religious Growth of Three Hundred Years."

Stand beside Columbus a moment, and consider how much and how little there was known. It was commonly believed that the earth was flat and was flowed round by the ocean stream. Jerusalem was the center. With the exception of a little of Europe, a part of Asia, and a strip of North Africa, the earth was unknown country. In these unknown parts dwelt monsters of every conceivable description. Columbus indeed cherished the daring dream that he might reach the eastern coast of Asia by sailing west; but most of those who knew his dreams regarded him as crazy. And it is now known that even he was largely impelled by his confident expectation that he would be able to discover the Garden of Eden. The motive of his voyage was chiefly a religious one. And, as a hint of the kind of world in which people then lived, the famous Ponce de Leon searched Florida in the hope of discovering the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. At this time Copernicus and his system were unheard of. The universe was a little three-story affair. Heaven, with God on his throne and his celestial court about him, was only a little way overhead--just beyond the blue dome. Hell was underneath the surface of the earth. Volcanoes and mysterious caverns were vent-holes or gate-ways of the pit; and devils came and went at will. Even after it was conceded that the earth revolved, there were found writers who accounted for the diurnal revolution by attributing it to the movements of damned souls confined within, like restless squirrels in a revolving cage. On the earth's surface, between heaven and hell, was man, the common battleground of celestial and infernal hosts. At this time, of course, there was none of our modern knowledge of the heavens, nor of the age or structure of the earth.

SENECA'S PROPHECY.

LUCIUS ANNÆUS SENECA, an eminent Roman stoic, philosopher, and moralist. Born at Corduba, Spain, about 5 B. C.; committed suicide 65 A. D.

_Venient annis Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens Pateat teilus, Tethysque novos Detegat orbes, nec sit terris Ultima Thule._

THE TOMB IN SEVILLE.

The following inscription is placed on the tomb of Hernando Columbus in the pavement of the Cathedral of Seville, Spain:

Aqui yaze el. M. Magnifico S. D. Hernando Colon, el qual aplicó y gastó toda su vida y hazienda en aumento de las letras, y juntar y perpetuar en esta ciudad todas sus libros de todas las ciencias, que en su tiempo halló y en reducirlo a quatro libros.

Falleció en esta ciudad a 12 de Julio de 1539 de edad de 50 años 9 meses y 14 dias, fue hijo del valeroso y memoráble S. D. Christ. Colon primero Almirante que descubrió las Yndias y nuevo mundo en vida de los Cat. R. D. Fernando, y. D. Ysabel de gloriosa memoria a. 11 de Oct. de 1492, con tres galeras y 90 personas, y partió del puerto de Palos a descubrirlas á 3 de Agosto antés, y Bolvió a Castilla con victoria á 7 de Maio del Año Siguente y tornó despues otras dos veces á poblar lo que descubrió. Falleció en Valladolid á 20 de Agosto de 1506 anos--[56]

Rogad á Dios por ellos.

(_In English._) Here rests the most magnificent Señor Don Hernando Colon, who applied and spent all his life and estate in adding to the letters, and collecting and perpetuating in this city all his books, of all the sciences which he found in his time, and in reducing them to four books. He died in this city on the 12th of July, 1539, at the age of 50 years, 9 months, and 14 days. He was son of the valiant and memorable Señor Don Christopher Colon, the First Admiral, who discovered the Indies and the New World, in the lifetime of their Catholic Majesties Don Fernando and Doña Isabel of glorious memory, on the 11th of October, 1492, with three galleys and ninety people, having sailed from the port of Palos on his discovery on the 3d of August previous, and returned to Castille, with victory, on the 7th of May of the following year. He returned afterward twice to people that which he had discovered. He died in Valladolid on the 20th of August, 1506, aged ----.

Entreat the Lord for them.

Beneath this is described, in a circle, a globe, presenting the western and part of the eastern hemispheres, surmounted by a pair of compasses. Within the border of the circle is inscribed:

_Á Castillo, y á Leon Mundo nuevo dió Colon._

(To Castille and Leon, Columbus gave a new world.)

ONWARD! PRESS ON!

JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER, one of Germany's greatest poets. Born at Marbach (about eight miles from Stuttgart), November 11, 1759; died, May 9, 1805, at Weimar.

COLUMBUS.

(1795.)

Steure, muthiger Segler! Es mag der Witz dich verhöhen Und der Schiffer am Steur senken die lässige Hand. Immer, immer nach West! Dort muss die Küste sich zeigen, Liegt sie doch deutlich und liegt schimmernd vor deinen Verstand. Traue dem leitenden Gott und folge dem schweigenden Weltmeer! War sie noch nicht, sie stieg' jetzt aus dem Fluten empor. Mit dem Genius steht die Natur in ewigem Bunde Was der Eine verspricht leistet die Andre gewiss.

Metrically translated (1843) by SIR EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON, BULWER-LYTTON, Baronet (afterward first Lord Lytton. Born at Heydon Hall, Norfolk, May 25, 1803; died, January 18, 1873), in the following noble lines:

COLUMBUS.

STEER on, bold sailor! Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land, And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand, YET EVER, EVER TO THE WEST, for there the coast must lie, And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye; Yea, trust the guiding God--and go along the floating grave, Though hid till now--yet now, behold the New World o'er the wave. With Genius Nature ever stands in solemn union still, And ever what the one foretells the other shall fulfill.

Señor EMILIO CASTELAR, the talented Spanish orator and statesman, in the fourth of a series of most erudite and interesting articles upon Christopher Columbus, in the _Century Magazine_ for August, 1892, thus masterly refers to the above passages:

He who pens these words, on reading the lines of the great poet Schiller upon Columbus, found therein a philosophical thought, as original as profound, calling upon the discoverer to press ever onward, for a new world will surely arise for him, inasmuch as whatever is promised by Genius is always fulfilled by Nature. To cross the seas of Life, naught suffices save the bark of Faith. In that bark the undoubting Columbus set sail, and at his journey's end found a new world. Had that world not then existed, God would have created it in the solitude of the Atlantic, if to no other end than to reward the faith and constancy of that great man. America was discovered because Columbus possessed a living faith in his ideal, in himself, and in his God.

THE NORSEMAN'S CLAIM TO PRIORITY.

Mrs. JOHN B. SHIPLEY'S "Leif Erikson."

Father Bodfish, of the cathedral in Boston, in his paper, read a year ago before the Bostonian Society, on the discovery of America by the Northmen, is reported to have quoted, "as corroborative authority, the account given in standard history of the Catholic Church of the establishment of a bishopric in Greenland in 1112 A. D., and he added the interesting suggestion that as it is the duty of a bishop so placed at a distance to report from time to time to the Pope, not only on ecclesiastical matters, but of the geography of the country and character of the people, it is probable that Columbus had the benefit of the knowledge possessed. It is [he said] stated in different biographies of Columbus that when the voyage was first proposed by him he found difficulty in getting Spanish sailors to go with him in so doubtful an undertaking. After Columbus returned from a visit to Rome with information there obtained, these sailors, or enough of them, appear to have had their doubts or fears removed, and no difficulty in enlistment was experienced."

COLUMBUS BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA.

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY, an American poet and miscellaneous writer. Born at Norwich, Conn., September 1, 1791; died, June 10, 1865.

St. Stephen's cloistered hall was proud In learning's pomp that day, For there a robed and stately crowd Pressed on in long array. A mariner with simple chart Confronts that conclave high, While strong ambition stirs his heart, And burning thoughts of wonder part From lip and sparkling eye.

What hath he said? With frowning face, In whispered tones they speak; And lines upon their tablet's trace Which flush each ashen cheek. The Inquisition's mystic doom Sits on their brows severe, And bursting forth in visioned gloom, Sad heresy from burning tomb Groans on the startled ear.

Courage, thou Genoese! Old Time Thy splendid dream shall crown. Yon western hemisphere sublime, Where unshorn forests frown; The awful Andes' cloud-rapt brow, The Indian hunter's bow. Bold streams untamed by helm or prow, And rocks of gold and diamonds thou To thankless Spain shalt show.

Courage, world-finder, thou hast need. In Fate's unfolding scroll, Dark woes and ingrate wrongs I read, That rack the noble soul. On, on! Creation's secrets probe. Then drink thy cup of scorn, And wrapped in fallen Cæsar's robe, Sleep like that master of the globe, All glorious, yet forlorn.

COLUMBUS A MARTYR.

SAMUEL SMILES, the celebrated British biographer. Born at Haddington, Scotland, about 1815. From his volume, "Duty."

Even Columbus may be regarded in the light of a martyr. He sacrificed his life to the discovery of a new world. The poor wool-carder's son of Genoa had long to struggle unsuccessfully with the petty conditions necessary for the realization of his idea. He dared to believe, on grounds sufficing to his reason, that which the world disbelieved, and scoffed and scorned at. He believed that the earth was round, while the world believed that it was flat as a plate. He believed that the whole circle of the earth, outside the known world, could not be wholly occupied by sea; but that the probability was that continents of land might be contained within it. It was certainly a Probability; But the Noblest Qualities of the Soul Are Often Brought Forth by the Strength of Probabilities That Appear Slight To Less Daring Spirits. In the Eyes of His Countrymen, Few Things Were More Improbable Than That Columbus Should Survive the Dangers of Unknown Seas, and Land On The Shores of a New Hemisphere.

DIFFICULTIES BY THE WAY.

ROYALL BASCOM SMITHEY, in an article. "The Voyage of Columbus," in _St. Nicholas_, July, 1892.

So the voyage progressed without further incident worthy of remark till the 13th of September, when the magnetic needle, which was then believed always to point to the pole-star, stood some five degrees to the northwest. At this the pilots lost courage. "How," they thought, "was navigation possible in seas where the compass, that unerring guide, had lost its virtue?" When they carried the matter to Columbus, he at once gave them an explanation which, though not the correct one, was yet very ingenious, and shows the philosophic turn of his mind. The needle, he said, pointed not to the north star, but to a fixed place in the heavens. The north star had a motion around the pole, and in following its course had moved from the point to which the needle was always directed.

Hardly had the alarm caused by the variation of the needle passed away, when two days later, after nightfall, the darkness that hung over the water was lighted up by a great meteor, which shot down from the sky into the sea. Signs in the heavens have always been a source of terror to the uneducated; and this "flame of fire," as Columbus called it, rendered his men uneasy and apprehensive. Their vague fears were much increased when, on the 16th of September, they reached the Sargasso Sea, in which floating weeds were so densely matted that they impeded the progress of the ships. Whispered tales now passed from one sailor to another of legends they had heard of seas full of shoals and treacherous quicksands upon which ships had been found stranded with their sails flapping idly in the wind, and manned by skeleton crews. Columbus, ever cheerful and even-tempered, answered these idle tales by sounding the ocean and showing that no bottom could be reached.

DESIGN FOR THE SOUVENIR COINS.[57]

A decision has been reached by the World's Fair management in relation to the designs for the souvenir coins authorized by Congress at its last session, and a radical change has been determined upon regarding these coins. Several days ago Secretary Leach of the United States Mint sent to the Fair officials a copy of the medal struck recently at Madrid, Spain, in commemoration of Columbus' discovery of America. This medal was illustrated in a Spanish-American paper of July, 1892, and showed a remarkably fine profile head of the great explorer. It was deemed superior to the Lotto portrait previously submitted for the obverse of the coin, and the Fair directors have concluded that the Madrid medal furnishes the best head obtainable, and have accordingly adopted it. For the reverse of the coin a change has also been decided upon by the substitution of a representation of the western continent instead of a fac-simile of the Government building at Jackson Park, as originally intended. It was suggested by experts, artists, and designers at the Philadelphia mint that the representation of a building would not make a very good showing on a coin, and in consequence of these expressions of opinion it was decided to make the change proposed. Now that the Director of the Mint knows what the Fair management wishes for a souvenir coin, he will inaugurate the preparations of the dies and plates as promptly as possible. Just as soon as the designs are finished, work will be begun on the coins, which can be struck at the rate of 60,000 daily, and it is quite likely that the deliveries of the souvenir coins will be completed early in the spring.

The announcement that the Director of the Mint has decided upon the Madrid portrait of Columbus for the obverse side of the souvenir coin, with this hemisphere on the reverse, was a surprise to many interested in the designs. When the design was first presented, C. F. Gunther's portrait, by Moro, and James W. Ellsworth's, by Lotto, were also presented. Then a controversy opened between the owners of the two last-named portraits, and, rather than extend this, Mr. Ellsworth withdrew his portrait, with the suggestion that whatever design was decided upon should first be submitted to the artists at the World's Fair grounds. This was done, and they severely criticised the Madrid picture. Notwithstanding this, the design was approved and sent to Washington to be engraved. While Mr. Ellsworth, who is a director of the Fair, will not push his portrait to the front in this matter, he regrets that the Madrid portrait was selected. He said, "I think that the opinion of the World's Fair artists should have had some weight in this matter and that a portrait of authenticity should have been selected."

THE DARKNESS BEFORE DISCOVERY.

CHARLES SUMNER, an American lawyer and senator. Born in Boston, Mass., January 6, 1811; died, March 11, 1874. From his "Prophetic Voices Concerning America." By permission of Messrs. Lee & Shepard, Publishers, Boston.

Before the voyage of Columbus in 1492, nothing of America was really known. Scanty scraps from antiquity, vague rumors from the resounding ocean, and the hesitating speculations of science were all that the inspired navigator found to guide him.

GREATEST EVENT.

The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is the greatest event of secular history. Besides the potato, the turkey, and maize, which it introduced at once for the nourishment and comfort of the Old World, and also tobacco--which only blind passion for the weed could place in the beneficent group--this discovery opened the door to influences infinite in extent and beneficence. Measure them, describe them, picture them, you can not. While yet unknown, imagination invested this continent with proverbial magnificence. It was the Orient, and the land of Cathay. When, afterward, it took a place in geography, imagination found another field in trying to portray its future history. If the golden age is before, and not behind, as is now happily the prevailing faith, then indeed must America share, at least, if it does not monopolize, the promised good.--_Ibid._

THE DOUBTS OF COLUMBUS.

Prof. DAVID SWING, a celebrated American preacher. Born in Cincinnati in 1830; graduated at Miami University in 1852; was for twelve years Professor of Languages at this university. In 1866 he became pastor of a Presbyterian church in Chicago. He was tried for heresy in 1874, was acquitted, and then withdrew from the Presbyterian church, being now independent of denominational relations.

Columbus was not a little troubled all through his early life lest there might be over the sea some land greater than Spain, a land unused; a garden where flowers came and went unseen for ages, and where gold sparkled in the sand.

THE ERROR OF COLUMBUS.

From a sermon by Prof. SWING, printed in Chicago _Inter Ocean_,1892.

The present rejoices in the remembrance that Columbus was a student, a thinker; that he loved maps and charts; that he was a dreamer about new continents; but after enumerating all these attractive forms of mental activity, it comes with pain upon the thought that he was also a kind of modified pirate. His thoughts and feelings went away from his charts and compasses and touched upon vice and crime. Immorality ruins man's thought. Let the name be Columbus, or Aaron Burr, or Byron, a touch of immorality is the death of thought. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are beautiful, whatsoever things are of good report," these seek, say, and do, but when the man who would discover a continent robs a merchant ship or steals a cargo of slaves, or when a poet teaches gross vulgarity, then the thinker is hemmed and degraded by criminality. It is the glory of our age that it is washing white much of old thought. What is the emancipation of woman but the filtration of old thought? Did not Columbus study and read and think, and then go out and load his ship with slaves? Did not the entire man--man the thinker, the philosopher, the theologian--cover himself with intellectual glory and then load his ship with enslaved womanhood? Was not the scholar Columbus part pirate? What was in that atmosphere of the fifteenth century which could have given peculiar thoughts to Columbus alone? Was he alone in his piracy? It is much more certain that the chains that held the negro held also all womanhood. All old thought thus awaited the electric process that should weed ideas from crime. Our later years are active in disentangling thought from injustice and vulgarity.

THE TRIBUTE OF TASSO.

TORQUATO TASSO, a celebrated Italian epic poet. Born at Sorrento March 11, 1544; died in Rome, April, 1595.

Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo polo Lontane sì le fortunate antenne, Ch'a pena seguirà con gli occhi il volo La Fama ch' hà mille occhi e mille penne Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco, e di te solo Basti a i posteri tuoi ch' alquanto accenne; Chè quel poco darà, lunga memoria Di poema degnissima e d'istoria.[58]

--Gerusalemme Liberata, canto XV

KNOWLEDGE OF ICELANDIC VOYAGES.

BAYARD TAYLOR, a distinguished American traveler, writer, and poet. Born in Chester County, Pa., in 1825; died at Berlin, December 19, 1878. From a description of Iceland.

It is impossible that the knowledge of these voyages should not have been current in Iceland in 1477, when Columbus, sailing in a ship from Bristol, England, visited the island. As he was able to converse with the priests and learned men in Latin, he undoubtedly learned of the existence of another continent to the west and south; and this knowledge, not the mere fanaticism of a vague belief, supported him during many years of disappointment.

GLORY TO GOD.

The Rev. GEORGE L. TAYLOR, an American clergyman of the present century. From "The Atlantic Telegraph."

Glory to God above, The Lord of life and love! Who makes His curtains clouds and waters dark; Who spreads His chambers on the deep, While all its armies silence keep; Whose hand of old, world-rescuing, steered the ark; Who led Troy's bands exiled, And Genoa's god-like child, And Mayflower, grandly wild, And _now_ has guided safe a grander bark; Who, from her iron loins, Has spun the thread that joins Two yearning worlds made one with lightning spark.

TENNYSON'S TRIBUTE.

ALFRED TENNYSON, Baron Tennyson D'Eyncourt of Aldworth, the poet laureate of England. Born, 1809, at Somerby, Lincolnshire; raised to the peerage in 1883.[59] From his poem, "Columbus."

There was a glimmering of God's hand. And God Hath more than glimmer'd on me. O my lord, I swear to you I heard his voice between The thunders in the black Veragua nights, "O soul of little faith, slow to believe, Have I not been about thee from thy birth? Given thee the keys of the great ocean-sea? Set thee in light till time shall be no more? Is it I who have deceived thee or the world? Endure! Thou hast done so well for men, that men Cry out against thee; was it otherwise With mine own son?" And more than once in days Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope Sank all but out of sight, I heard his voice, "Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand, Fear not." And I shall hear his voice again-- I know that he has led me all my life, I am not yet too old to work His will-- His voice again.

Sir, in that flight of ages which are God's Own voice to justify the dead--perchance Spain, once the most chivalric race on earth, Spain, then the mightiest, wealthiest realm on earth, So made by me, may seek to unbury me, To lay me in some shrine of this old Spain, Or in that vaster Spain I leave to Spain. Then some one standing by my grave will say, "Behold the bones of Christopher Colòn, "Ay, but the chains, what do _they_ mean--the chains?" I sorrow for that kindly child of Spain Who then will have to answer, "These same chains Bound these same bones back thro' the Atlantic sea, Which he unchain'd for all the world to come."

The golden guess is morning star to the full round of truth.--_Ibid._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: Copyright 1892 and by permission of the author.]

[Footnote 31: Lope de Vega has been variously termed the "Center of Fame," the "Darling of Fortune," and the "Phoenix of the Ages," by his admiring compatriots. His was a most fertile brain; his a most fecund pen. A single day sufficed to compose a versified drama.]

[Footnote 32: By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.]

[Footnote 33: For the above particulars and inscription the compiler desires to acknowledge his obligation to the Hon. Thomas Adamson, U. S. Consul General at Panama, and Mr. George W. Clamman, the able clerk of the U. S. Consulate in the city of Colon.]

[Footnote 34: Copernicus has also been so styled.]

[Footnote 35: Señor Emilio Castelar, the celebrated Spanish author and statesman, in his most able series of articles on Columbus in the _Century Magazine_, derides the fact of an actual mutiny as a convenient fable which authors and dramatists have clothed with much choice diction.]

[Footnote 36: Galileo, the great Italian natural philosopher, is here referred to by the author.]

[Footnote 37: By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.]

[Footnote 38: By permission of Messrs. Ginn & Co., Publishers.]

[Footnote 39: The Rock of Gibraltar is referred to.]

[Footnote 40: The location of the church at Old Isabella has been exactly determined, and a noble monument (fully described in these pages) has been erected there under the auspices of the _Sacred Heart Review_ of Boston.]

[Footnote 41: Since changed to a life-size statue of Columbus.]

[Footnote 42: A replica is erected in Boston.]

[Footnote 43: Copyright, 1892, by permission of the publishers.]

[Footnote 44: Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.]

[Footnote 45: Copyright, and by permission of Chas. Scribner's Sons, Publishers, New York.]

[Footnote 46: Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.]

[Footnote 47: Docuit quae maximus Atlas. Hic canit errantem Lernam, Solisque labores. _Virgil, Æneid_, I, 741.]

[Footnote 48: Navarrete thought that Turk Island was the island, the most southern of the Bahama group, because he erroneously assumed that Columbus always shaped a westerly course in sailing from island to island; and Turk Island, being farthest east, would give most room for such a course. This island has large lagoons, and is surrounded by a reef. So far it resembles Guanahani. But the second island, according to Navarrete, is Caicos, bearing W. N. W., while the second island of Columbus bore S. W. from the first. The third island of Columbus was in sight from the second. Inagua Chica (Little Inagua), Navarrete's third island, is not in sight from Caicos. The third island of Columbus was 60 miles long. Inagua Chica is only 12 miles long. The fourth island of Columbus bore east from the third. Inagua Grande (Great Inagua), Navarrete's fourth island, bears southwest from Inagua Chica.

Cat Island was the landfall advocated by Washington Irving and Humboldt, mainly on the ground that it was called San Salvador on the West India map in Blaeu's Dutch atlas of 1635. But this was done for no known reason but the caprice of the draughtsman. D'Anville copied from Blaeu in 1746, and so the name got into some later atlases. Cat Island does not meet a single one of the requirements of the case. Guanahani had a reef round it, and a large lagoon in the center. Cat Island has no reef and no lagoon. Guanahani was low; Cat Island is the loftiest of the Bahamas. The two islands could not be more different. Of course, in conducting Columbus from Cat Island to Cuba, Washington Irving is obliged to disregard all the bearings and distances given in the journal.]

[Footnote 49: The cross-staff had not then come into use, and it was never of much service in low latitudes.]

[Footnote 50: It was also resolved to establish in the city of Washington a Latin-American Memorial Library, wherein should be collected all the historical, geographical, and literary works, maps, and manuscripts, and official documents relating to the history and civilization of America, _such library to be solemnly dedicated on the day on which the United States celebrates the fourth centennial of the discovery of America_.]

[Footnote 51: Published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.]

[Footnote 52: Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.]

[Footnote 53: NOTE.--Those marked * were left behind, in the fort, at La Navidad, and perished there.]

[Footnote 54: NOTE.--The names of the crew are on the Madrid monument.]

[Footnote 55: Randolph Rogers, an American sculptor of eminence, was born in Waterloo, N. Y., in 1825; died at Rome, in the same State, aged sixty-seven, January 14, 1892.]

[Footnote 56: Mr. George Sumner, a painstaking investigator, states that after diligent search he is unable to find any other inscription to the memory of Columbus in the whole of Spain.

At Valladolid, where he died, and where his body lay for some years, there is none, so far as he could discover; neither is there any trace of any at the Cartuja, near Seville, to which his body was afterward transferred, and in which his brother was buried. It is (he writes in 1871) a striking confirmation of the reproach of negligence, in regard to the memory of this great man, that, in this solitary inscription in old Spain, the date of his death should be inaccurately given.--Major's "Letters of Columbus," 1871.

(The Madrid and Barcelona statues were erected in 1885 and 1888 respectively.)--S. C. W.]

[Footnote 57: Since writing this the Lotto portrait has been selected.]

[Footnote 58: For an English metrical translation, see _post_, WIFFEN.]

[Footnote 59: Died at Aldworth October 6, 1892.]

NEW YORK CELEBRATED THE TERCENTENARY.

The managers of the World's Columbian Exposition have prided themselves upon being the first to celebrate any anniversary of the Columbian discovery, but this credit really belongs to the Tammany Society of New York, and the second place of honor belongs to the Massachusetts Historical Society of Boston. The Tammany Society met in the great wigwam on the 12th day of October, 1792 (old style), and exhibited a monumental obelisk, and an animated oration was delivered by J. B. Johnson, Esq.

The Massachusetts Historical Society met at the house of the Rev. Dr. Peter Thacher, in Boston, the 23d day of October, 1792, and, forming in procession, proceeded to the meeting-house in Brattle Street, where a discourse was delivered by the Rev. Jeremy Belknap upon the subject of the "Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus." He gave a concise and comprehensive narrative of the most material circumstances which led to, attended, or were consequent on the discovery of America. The celebration commenced with an anthem. Mr. Thacher made an excellent prayer. Part of a psalm was then sung, and then Mr. Belknap delivered his discourse, which was succeeded by a prayer from Mr. Eliot. Mr. Thacher then read an ode composed for the occasion by Mr. Belknap, which was sung by the choir. This finished the ceremony.

The facts were brought to light by World's Fair Commissioner John Boyd Thacher, New York. The account is taken from "a journal of a gentleman visiting Boston in 1792." The writer is said to have been Nathaniel Cutting, a native of Brookline, Mass., and who, in the following year, was appointed by Washington, upon the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, on a mission to the Dey of Algiers.

It is interesting to note that the Massachusetts Historical Society, in assuming to correct the old style date, October 12th, was guilty of the error of dropping two unnecessary days. It dropped eleven days from the calendar instead of nine, and at a subsequent meeting it determined to correct the date to October 21st, "and that thereafter all celebrations of the Columbian discovery should fall on the 21st day of October."

The proclamation of the President establishing October 21st as the day of general observance of the anniversary of the Columbian discovery, and the passage of Senator Hill's bill fixing the date for the dedication of the buildings at Chicago, it is believed will forevermore fix October 21st as the Columbian day.

COLUMBUS' SUPREME SUSPENSE.

MAURICE THOMPSON, an American poet and novelist. Born at Fairfield, Ind., September 9, 1844. From his "Byways and Bird-notes."

What a thrill is dashed through a moment of expectancy, a point of supreme suspense, when by some time of preparation the source of sensation is ready for a consummation --a catastrophe! At such a time one's soul is isolated so perfectly that it feels not the remotest influence from any other of all the universe. The moment preceding the old patriarch's first glimpse of the promised land; that point of time between certainty and uncertainty, between pursuit and capture, whereinto are crowded all the hopes of a lifetime, as when the brave old sailor from Genoa first heard the man up in the rigging utter the shout of discovery; the moment of awful hope, like that when Napoleon watched the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, is not to be described. There is but one such crisis for any man. It is the yes or no of destiny. It comes, he lives a lifetime in its span; it goes, and he never can pass that point again.

GREAT WEST.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, an American author and naturalist. Born in Concord, Mass., in 1817; died, 1862. From his "Excursions," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as far as that into which the sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays. The Island of Atlantis, and the islands and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables?

Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and found a new world for Castille and Leon. The herd of men in those days scented fresh pastures from afar.

And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropped into the western bay; At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue; To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

THE ROUTE TO THE SPICE INDIES.

PAOLO DEL POZZO TOSCANELLI, a celebrated Italian astronomer. Born at Florence, 1397; died, 1482. From a letter to Columbus in 1474.

I praise your desire to navigate toward the west; the expedition you wish to undertake is not easy, but the route from the west coasts of Europe to the spice Indies is certain if the tracks I have marked be followed.

A VISIT TO PALOS.

GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND. In a letter to the Philadelphia _Times_.

From one of the hillocks behind the hotel at Huelva you can see in the distance East Rábida, Palos, Moguer, San Juan del Porto, and the sea, where the three birds of good omen went skimming past in the vague morning light 400 years ago, lest they might be seen by the Portuguese. Columbus means dove, and the arms of Columbus contained three doves. From Huelva I sailed to Rábida first. Rábida is on the last point of the promontory, nearest the sea, and Palos is inland from it three miles north, and is near half a mile from the Tinto. Passing down the oozy Odiel, we soon saw a watering place on the beach outside just where Columbus put to sea. We could also see the scaffolding around the Columbus monument they were building by Rábida.

After inspecting the convent at Rábida, I bade my skipper wait for flood tide to sail round to Palos, while I proceeded by land.

They brought me at Palos an old man who was extremely polite, but not one word could we understand of each other, until finally I took him by the arm and walked him in the direction of the church, whereupon suppressed exclamations of delight broke forth; the American savage had guessed the old man out. In point of fact, this old man was waiting all the time to take me to the church, and was the father of the boy behind whom I had ridden. Between the church and the beach rose a high hillock covered with grass, and as high as the church tower. In old times this was a mosque of military work, and it had not very long been Christian when Columbus came here; possibly it had been Christian in his day 150 years. It stands quite alone, is of rude construction, and has at the back of it some few graves--perhaps of priests. In the back part is a very good Moorish arch, which they still show with admiration. The front proper has a big door, barred strongly, as if the church might have been in piratical times a place of refuge for the population up in the hills. To the right of the entrance is the tower, which is buttressed, and its spire is made of blue and colored tiles, which have thoroughly kept their colors. A bell in this tower may have rung the inhabitants to church when Columbus announced that he meant to impress the Palos people to assist him in his voyage. I entered the church, which was all whitewashed, and felt, as I did at Rábida, that it was a better monument than I had reason to expect.

Its walls were one yard thick, its floors of tiles laid in an L form. As I measured the floor it seemed to me to be sixty-six feet wide and sixty-six feet long, but to the length must be added the altar chapel, bringing it up to ninety feet, and to the width must be added the side chapels, making the total width about eighty feet. The nave has a sharper arched top than the two aisles, which have round arches. The height of the roof is about thirty-five feet. The big door by which I entered the church is fifteen feet high by eight feet wide. Some very odd settees which I coveted were in the nave. The chief feature, however, is the pulpit, which stands at the cross of the church, so that persons gathered in the transepts, nave, or aisles can hear the preacher. It has an iron pulpit of a round form springing from one stem and railed in, and steps lead up to it which are inclosed. It looks old, and worn by human hands, and is supposed to be the identical pulpit from which the notary announced that, as a punishment of their offenses, the Queen's subjects must start with this unknown man upon his unknown venture. Those were high times in Palos, and it took Columbus a long while to get his expedition ready, and special threats as of high treason had to be made against the heads of families and women. But when Columbus returned, and the same day Pinzon came back after their separation of weeks, Palos church was full of triumph and hosannas. The wild man had been successful, and Spain found another world than the apostle knew of.

The grown boy, as he showed the building, went into an old lumber room, or dark closet, at one corner of the church, and when I was about to enter he motioned me back with his palm, as if I might not enter there with my heretic feet. He then brought out an image of wood from four to five feet high, or, I might say, the full size of a young woman. It was plain that she had once been the Virgin worshiped here, but age and moisture had taken most of the color from her, and washed the gilt from her crown, and now we could only see that in her arm she bore a child, and this child held in its hand a dove or pigeon. The back of the female was hollow, and in there were driven hooks by which she had once been suspended at some height. This was the image, I clearly understood, which Columbus' men had knelt to when they were about to go forth upon the high seas.

Strangely enough, the church is named St. George, and St. George was the patron saint of Genoa, where Columbus was born; and the Genoese who took the Crusaders to Jaffa had the satisfaction of seeing England annex their patron saint.

BIBLE.

The Rev. LUTHER TRACY TOWNSEND, D. D., an American divine. Born at Orono, Maine, September 27, 1838. From "The Bible and the Nineteenth Century."

When Luther in the sixteenth century brought the truths of the Bible from the convent of Erfurth, and gave them to the people, he roused to mental and moral life not only the slumbering German nationality, but gave inspiration to every other country in Europe. "Gutenburg with his printing press, Columbus with his compass, Galileo with his telescope, Shakspere with his dramas, and almost every other man of note figuring during those times, are grouped, not around some distinguished man of science, or man of letters, or man of mechanical genius, or man famous in war; but around that monk of Wittenberg, who stood with an unchained Bible in his hand."

TESTIMONY OF A CONTEMPORARY AS TO THE TREATMENT OF COLUMBUS.

From a letter of ANGELO TRIVIGIANO, of Granada, Spain, dated August 1, 1501.

I have seen so much of Columbus that we are now on a footing of great friendship. He is experiencing at present a streak of bad luck, being deprived of the King's favor, and with but little money.

THE VALPARAISO STATUE.

At Valparaiso, Chili, a bronze statue of Columbus has been erected on a marble pedestal. The figure, which is of heroic size, stands in an advancing attitude, holding a cross in the right hand.

COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.

Dr. P. H. VAN DER WEYDE. In an article in the _Scientific American_, June, 1892.

The stupid anecdote of the egg was a mere trifling invention, in fact a trick, and it is surprising that intelligent men have for so many years thoughtlessly been believing and repeating such nonsense. For my part, I can not believe that Columbus did ever lower himself so far as to compare the grand discovery to a trick. Surely it was no trick by which he discovered a new world, but it was the result of his earnest philosophical convictions that our earth is a globe, floating in space, and it could be circumnavigated by sailing westward, which most likely would lead to the discovery of new lands in the utterly unknown hemisphere beyond the western expanse of the great and boisterous Atlantic Ocean; while thus far no navigator ever had the courage to sail toward its then utterly unknown, apparently limitless, western expanse.

THE MAN OF THE CHURCH.

Padre GIOCCHINO VENTURA, an eloquent Italian preacher and theologian. Born at Palermo, 1792; died at Versailles, August, 1861.

Columbus is the man of the Church.

ATTENDANT FAME SHALL BLESS.

The Venerable GEORGE WADDINGTON, Dean of Durham, an English divine and writer. Died, July 20, 1869. From a poem read in Cambridge in 1813.

And when in happier days one chain shall bind, One pliant fetter shall unite mankind; When war, when slav'ry's iron days are o'er, When discords cease and av'rice is no more, And with one voice remotest lands conspire, To hail our pure religion's seraph fire; Then fame attendant on the march of time, Fed by the incense of each favored clime, Shall bless the man whose heav'n-directed soul Form'd the vast chain which binds the mighty whole.

* * * * *

Columbus continued till death eager to extend his discoveries, and by so doing to promote the glory of his persecutors.

VANDERLYN'S PICTURE AT WASHINGTON.

The first of the eight pictures in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, D. C., and the first in point of event, is the "Landing of Columbus at San Salvador in 1492," by John Vanderlyn; its cost was $12,000. This picture represents the scene Washington Irving so admirably describes in his "Voyages of Columbus," occurring the morning the boats brought the little Spanish band from the ships to the shore of Guanahani. "Columbus first threw himself upon his knees; then, rising, drew his sword, displayed the royal standard, and, assembling around him the two captains, with Rodrigo de Escobedo, notary of the armament; Rodrigo Sanchez (the royal inspector), and the rest who had landed, he took solemn possession of the island in the name of the Castilian sovereigns." The picture contains the picture of Columbus, the two Pinzons, Escobedo, all bearing standards; Sanchez, inspector; Diego de Arana, with an old-fashioned arquebus on his shoulder; a cabin-boy kneeling, a mutineer in a suppliant attitude, a sailor in an attitude of veneration for Columbus, a soldier whose attention is diverted by the appearance of the natives, and a friar bearing a crucifix.

COLUMBUS STATUE AT WASHINGTON, D. C.

The Columbus statue stands at the east-central portico of the Capitol, at Washington, D. C., above the south end of the steps, on an elevated block. It consists of a marble group, by Signor Persico, called "The Discovery," on which he worked five years, and is composed of two figures: Columbus holding the globe in his hand, triumphant, while beside him, wondering, almost terror-stricken, is a female figure, symbolizing the Indian race. The suit of armor worn by Columbus is said to be a faithful copy of one he actually wore. The group cost $24,000.

THE WATLING'S ISLAND MONUMENT RAISED BY THE CHICAGO "HERALD."

With true Chicago enterprise, the wideawake Chicago _Herald_ dispatched an expedition to the West Indies in 1891 to search out the landing place of Columbus. The members of the party, after careful search and inquiry, erected a monument fifteen feet high on Watling's Island bearing the following inscription:

ON THIS SPOT CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FIRST SET FOOT ON THE SOIL OF THE NEW WORLD.

* * *

Erected by The Chicago _Herald_, June 15, 1891.

* * *

COLUMBUS. FOR THE FESTIVAL AT HUELVA.

_Á Castillo, y á Leon Nuevo Mundo dió Colon._

THEODORE WATTS, in the _Athenæum_ (England).

To Christ he cried to quell Death's deafening measure, Sung by the storm to Death's own chartless sea; To Christ he cried for glimpse of grass or tree When, hovering o'er the calm, Death watch'd at leisure; And when he showed the men, now dazed with pleasure, Faith's new world glittering star-like on the lee, "I trust that by the help of Christ," said he, "I presently shall light on golden treasure."

What treasure found he? Chains and pains and sorrow. Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find Whose footfalls mark the music of mankind. 'Twas his to lend a life; 'twas man's to borrow; 'Twas his to make, but not to share, the morrow, Who in love's memory lives this morn enshrined.

WEST INDIAN STATUES.

CARDENAS, CUBA.--At Cardenas, Cuba, a statue by Piguer of Madrid has been erected by a Cuban lady, an authoress, and wife of a former governor.

CATHEDRAL OF HAVANA, CUBA.--In the Cathedral of Havana there is a plain marble bas-relief, about four feet high, representing in a medallion a very apocryphal portrait of Columbus, with an inscription as follows:

_O restos é Ymajen del grande Colon! Mil siglos durad guardados en la urna Y en la remembranza de nuestra Nacion._

(O remains and image of the great Columbus! For a thousand ages endure guarded within this urn And in the remembrance of our nation.)

PROPOSED TOMB--HAVANA CATHEDRAL.--In February, 1891, by royal decree, all Spanish artists were invited to compete for a design for a sepulcher in which to preserve the Havana remains of Columbus; several were submitted to a jury, who awarded the first prize to Arthur Melida, with a premium of $5,000.

The sepulcher is now being erected in the cathedral. The design represents a bier covered with a heavily embroidered pall, borne upon the shoulders of four heralds, in garments richly carved to resemble lace and embroidered work. The two front figures bear scepters surmounted by images of the Madonna and St. James, the patron saint of Spain. On the front of their garments are the arms of Castille and Leon.

The two bearers represent Aragon and Navarre, the former being indicated by four red staffs on a gold field, and the fourth has gold-linked chains on a red field. The group is supported on a pedestal ornamented about its edge with a Greek fret.

HAVANA, CUBA.--In the court-yard of the Captain-General's palace, in Havana, is a full-length figure of Columbus, the face modeled after accepted portraits at Madrid.

HAVANA, CUBA.--In the inclosure of the "Templete," the little chapel on the site of which the first mass was celebrated in Cuba, there is a bust of Columbus which has the solitary merit of being totally unlike all others.

NASSAU.--At Nassau, in the Bahamas, a statue of Christopher Columbus stands in front of Government House. The statue, which is nine feet high, is placed upon a pedestal six feet in altitude, on the north or seaward face of which is inscribed:

COLUMBUS, 1492.

It was presented to the colony by Sir James Carmichael Smyth, Governor of the Bahamas, 1829-1833, was modeled in London in 1831, is made of metal and painted white, and was erected May, 1832.

SANTO DOMINGO CATHEDRAL.--Above the _boveda_, or vault, in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, from which the remains of Columbus were taken in 1877, is a marble slab with the following:

_Reposaron en este sitio los restos de Don Cristobal Colon el célebre descrubridor del Nuevo Mundo, desde el año de 1536, en que fueron trasladados de España, hasta el 10 de Setiembre 1877, en que se desenterraron para constatar su autenticidad. Y á posteridad la dedica el Presbitero Billini._

(There reposed in this place the remains of Christopher Columbus, the celebrated discoverer of the New World, from the year 1536, in which they were transferred from Spain, until the 10th September, 1877, in which year they were disinterred for the purpose of identification. Dedicated to posterity by Padre Billini) (curate in charge when the vault was opened.)

In the cathedral there is also preserved a large cross of mahogany, rough and uneven, as though hewn with an adze out of a log, and then left in the rough. This, it is claimed, is the cross made by Columbus and erected on the opposite bank of the Ozama River, where the first settlement in the West Indies was made. In a little room by itself they keep a leaden casket, which Santo Domingoans claim contains the bones of Christopher Columbus, and, in another, those of his brother.

PLAZA OF SANTO DOMINGO.--Humboldt once wrote that America could boast of no worthy monument to its discoverer, but since his time many memorials have been erected, not only in the New World, but the Old. In the plaza in front of the cathedral, in the city of Santo Domingo, stands a statue, heroic, in bronze, representing Columbus pointing to the westward. Crouched at his feet is the figure of a female Indian, supposed to be the unfortunate Anacaona, the caciquess of Xaragua, tracing an inscription:

_Yllustre y Esclarecido Varon Don Cristoval Colon._

The statue was cast in France, a few years ago, and stands in the center of the plaza, in front of the cathedral.

COLUMBUS LORD NORTH'S "BÊTE NOIR."

EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE, a distinguished American critic and essayist. Born at Gloucester, Mass., 1819; died, June 16, 1886.

Lord North more than once humorously execrated the memory of Columbus for discovering a continent which gave him and his ministry so much trouble.

HARDY MARINERS HAVE BECOME GREAT HEROES.

DANIEL APPLETON WHITE, a distinguished American jurist and scholar. Born at Lawrence, Mass., June 7, 1776; died, March 30, 1861.

Hardy seamen, too, who have spent their days in conflict with the storms of the ocean, have found means to make themselves distinguished in science and literature, as well as by achievements in their profession. The life of Columbus gloriously attests this fact.

TASSO'S TRIBUTE IN ENGLISH SPENSERIAN STANZA.

JEREMIAH HOLMES WIFFEN, an English writer and translator. Born at Woburn, 1792. Many years librarian and private secretary to the Duke of Bedford. Died, 1836. From his translation of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" (1830). (See _ante_, TASSO.)