Part 2

Venice and Genoa, grown rich and powerful through trade with India and the nearer countries of the Orient, had for a space enjoyed a prosperity and revival of culture that were felt throughout Christendom. Then had come the conquest of Spain and domination of the Mediterranean by the Moors, and, afterward, the wars of the Crusades, which had checked the Saracen advance but interrupted all other commerce with the infidels. Meanwhile, as though to compensate for this loss, the great Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan had fulfilled his remarkable destiny and, instead of adopting measures to prevent it, invited western intercourse with the countries he had brought under his sway, and China, about which almost nothing was then generally known, was visited overland by traders, adventurers, and missionaries. Marco Polo, a Venetian, after spending more than twenty years in the far east, part of the time in the service of the Great Khan Kubilay, had returned by way of India and Persia, laden with jewels of enormous value, and had written a book descriptive of the countries he had seen and the wealth and customs of the people. In the fourteenth century, when the Mongolian dynasty was overthrown, the Asiatics had again turned hostile and the land route was closed.

But during this open season it had become known that Cathay was not the end of the world, as had been supposed—that there was an ocean beyond and the wonderful Island of Cipango (Japan) and other islands rich in spices and costly products; and Europe began to wonder, since the Tartars barred the route by land, whether these desirable places might not be accessible by water. “Between wondering and the attempt,” says Hawthorne, “there was a considerable interval, for the idea was too novel to be digested all at once. But it was an age of unbridled license of imagination and of desperate courage. The mere possibility of encountering perils never until then conceived of was allurement enough, as, even to-day, our young adventurers go forth to die on the ice fields of the north and south poles, or in the mysterious heart of savage Africa, or on the ghastly plateaux of Tibet. In addition, there were the fabulous rewards that success seemed to promise.”

At first, though, if the plan of sailing west was even thought of, it would seem to have been regarded as less feasible than that of rounding Africa. Prince Henry, a son of King John I of Portugal—for it was the Portuguese, not the Spanish, who were the pioneers in this series of discoveries—determined to devote his life to the work. Retiring from the splendors of the Lisbon court, he built an astronomical observatory on the promontory of Sagres (in southern Portugal), extended its hospitalities to all the wise men of the age and sent out expedition after expedition to the south. “Until then,” says Dawson, “nautical knowledge was very meager. The compass served only to indicate direction, not distance or position, and did not suffice for the systematic navigation of the open Atlantic. The Portuguese first made that possible by using astronomical observations and inventing the quadrant and astrolabe.”

This knowledge, once acquired, was promptly applied. Madeira was discovered in 1418, the Canaries in 1427, the Azores in 1432. To the west the Portuguese ventured no farther, but, continuing south, they reached Cape Blanco in 1441, Senegambia and Cape Verde in 1445, the Cape Verde Islands in 1460, and the Gulf of Guinea in 1469. In 1471 they were the first Europeans to cross the equator. The idea was then conceived that they had only to keep on and they could round the southern extremity of the continent and reach Abyssinia and India by sea—a hope that was realized in 1487 when Bartholomew Dias arrived at last at the Cape of Good Hope. A few miles beyond, however, he was compelled by the condition of his crew to return and it remained for his compatriot Vasco da Gama some years later to double the cape and complete the voyage up the eastern coast and across the Indian Ocean to Hindustan.

II

The significance of these early voyages of the Portuguese lies in the fact that thereby it was demonstrated that a shorter route was needed—that with the very small and badly equipped vessels of the period the trip around the Cape of Good Hope, at least for commercial purposes, was impracticable; also in the fact that with Dias had sailed the Genoese navigator Bartholomew Columbus, a brother of the discoverer of America.

Years before that first great achievement, Christopher Columbus—who had studied at the University of Pavia and had himself taken part in one or more of Prince Henry’s African expeditions, and even ventured to the northwest, probably as far as Iceland—had been converted to the theory that the world was round and that the oceans west of Europe and east of Cathay were the same. As a consequence, he had concluded, the East Indies (as India, China, Japan, and the other countries and islands east of the Indian Ocean were indiscriminately called) _could be reached from Europe by sailing west_. Eighteen years before he was finally enabled to put this theory to the test, he had written Toscanelli, one of the foremost astronomers of the time, asking his opinion as to this possibility. Toscanelli sent him a copy of a letter he had written shortly before to King Alfonso of Portugal on the same subject, in which he said:

“I have formerly spoken of a shorter route to the places of spices than you are pursuing by Guinea. Although I am well aware that this can be proved by the spherical shape of the earth, in order to make the point clearer I have decided to exhibit that route by means of a sailing chart, made by my own hands, whereon are laid down your coasts and the islands from which you must begin to shape your course steadily westward, the places at which you are bound to arrive and how far from the pole or equator you ought to keep away.” (Neither in the chart nor in the description was there indication of anything whatever resembling the continents of North and South America.) “From the city of Lisbon as far as the very great and splendid city of Quinsay” (Pekin), he continued, “are twenty-six spaces, each of 250 miles. This space is about a third of the whole sphere. But from the Island of Antilia, which you know, to the very splendid Island of Cipango” (Japan) “there are ten spaces. _So, through the unknown parts of the route, the stretches of sea are not great._”

In his letter to Columbus he congratulates him on having undertaken an enterprise—

“Fraught with honor, as it must be, and inestimable gain and most lofty fame among all Christian peoples. It will be a voyage to powerful kingdoms” (he prophetically added, though he had never even dreamed of the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas) “and to cities and provinces most wealthy and noble. It will also be advantageous to those kings and princes who are eager to have dealings and make alliances with the Christians of other countries. For these and many other reasons, I do not wonder that you, who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese nation, which has always had men distinguished in such enterprises, are now inflamed with a desire to make the voyage.”

Thus encouraged, Columbus began his efforts to secure patronage and money for the expedition. He tried in his birthplace, Genoa, and in Portugal and Spain, even in England, where he was accompanied by his brother Bartholomew after the latter’s return from the voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and suffered many refusals. Toscanelli had been dead eight years before he at last succeeded; and then, had he known that the distance from Lisbon to the coast of Asia was in fact some 13,000 miles, or twice that which the astronomer had estimated, and that, even so, the route straight across was barred by the Isthmus of Panama—had he known that Cathay did not, as his mentor believed, extend some thousands of miles farther east than it does, even such a man as Columbus might have abandoned the project as chimerical when the cockleshells then available for ocean travel were taken into consideration. Nor, if she too had not been misled by the same “valuable pieces of ignorance,” is it likely that his plea would have prevailed on the practical Isabella of Castile, however elated and invincible she may have felt over the taking of the last of the Saracen strongholds at Granada and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, for in that she was engaged when Columbus finally succeeded in securing her aid.

Fortunately, however, whatever might have happened if Toscanelli had not held the voyage to be practicable, Columbus was not only a man of indomitable spirit but possessed of a presence that inspired in others the confidence he felt in himself. A man of striking personality, he is said to have been about forty-five years of age at the time, tall, well formed, and dignified, with sharp gray eyes, alight with “that divine spark of enthusiasm which makes true genius,” and hair prematurely white. And so, in spite of his many disheartening failures, he did not abandon the project; so also was Queen Isabella sufficiently impressed by his learning and appearance to agree, in consideration of a fifth share in the profits, that he should have the rank of Admiral and govern, as Viceroy, all the lands that he might discover and bring under her dominion. With the great astronomer’s chart before him, therefore, and vowing to devote his share of the profits to the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher, he set out from Palos, Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492. His vessels, the _Niña_, _Pinta_ (well named the “Pint Cup”), and _Santa María_, bore a company of but ninety, including the crews.

After a voyage of ten weeks, filled with difficulties and hardships, even threats of mutiny, that taxed his courage and diplomacy to the utmost, he came to land on an island (now known as Watling’s) on the outward bow of the Bahamas, to which he gave the name of San Salvador. The wild beauty of the foliage, the tropical luxuriance, the clear, fresh-water streams, the soft climate and perfume-laden breezes, more than ever delightful to men who had given themselves up for lost, and the natives themselves, bedecked with gold ornaments and dusky-skinned as those of Cathay were said to be—all seemed what might have been expected in the outlying spice islands of the east. So, supposing this to be one of those islands of which they were in quest, the adventurers cruised about for ten days more and finally arrived at Cuba, which they assumed to be Cipango.

In his infatuation, Columbus now saw his journey’s end. He had, he thought, but to sail a few courses farther to reach the mainland of Cathay, exchange compliments with the Great Khan at Quinsay, and return in triumph with the wealth he was to amass and herald the news of his wonderful achievement to a skeptical Europe. _And all the while Cathay was ten thousand miles away—due west!_ Sailing across the strait to Hayti, he was directed south by the natives when questioned as to the source of their gold; but there, for the time being, his explorations were brought to an end. The flagship was wrecked on a sand bar and Pinzon, captain of one of the remaining two, stole treacherously away, to anticipate the Admiral in announcing the discoveries in Spain. Leaving a volunteer colony of about forty men to await his return with reinforcements, however, he at once set sail, overtook and captured the deserters, and, on the way back to Palos, was driven into the port of Lisbon by a gale.

“The news of his exploit set all Portugal afire,” says Hawthorne.

“The King was urged to have Columbus run through the body and to appropriate his discovery; but John II perceived that there was more peril than profit in such a scheme, and he invited him to court and made much of him instead. In due time he resumed his voyage and reached Palos on the 15th of March. This was Columbus’ apogee. He was called to Barcelona and welcomed in triumph; he was even allowed to sit down in the august presence of Ferdinand and Isabella. The half dozen Caribs he had brought with him were assumed to be East Indians and the Admiral’s interpretation of his discoveries was accepted without question. The little detail that nothing of oriental magnificence—no Great Khans, no mighty cities—had yet been revealed, was passed over. Land had been found and it could be nothing but Cipango and Cathay. The short route to the Indies had been discovered for Spain.”

This so completely overshadowed all that Portugal had accomplished that an intense rivalry sprang up between the two powers. The Pope, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, and accordingly the repository of the title to all lands still occupied by infidel peoples, was appealed to to confirm the discoveries to Spain. He issued a bull granting to His Most Catholic Majesty the lands then, and such as might thereafter be, discovered in the western sea, and to the Portuguese such as they might discover by way of the African route. This was supplemented by a second to the effect that only those lands lying west of a meridian of longitude a hundred miles west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands should belong to the Spaniards. Dissatisfied even with that division, the Portuguese demanded a line still farther west, and, by a treaty signed at Tordesillas in June, 1494, Spain agreed that it should be advanced in that direction 370 leagues. This resulted eventually in giving Portugal title to the then yet undiscovered country of Brazil.

Meanwhile, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus set out on his second expedition—this time with seventeen ships and fifteen hundred men, among them his brothers Bartholomew and Diego and many adventurers of noble rank, for there was no lack either of men or money now. “Their dreams,” Professor Fiske tell us, “were of the marble palaces of Quinsay, of islands of spices and the treasures of the mythical Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such untold riches were vouchsafed them as a reward for having overcome the Moor at Granada. Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as a special instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow to rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising within seven years to equip, at his own expense, a crusading army of fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse.” When the fleet arrived at Hayti and the company landed at the place where the little colony had been left, it was found that it had been annihilated. Not a whit dismayed by that, however, Columbus ordered a town to be built and the island, which he named Española (Little Spain), became the base of hundreds of exploring expeditions undertaken by the hordes of adventurers that followed in his wake and soon overran the neighboring islands.

Columbus himself made two other voyages, in the course of which he discovered Jamaica and the Island of Trinidad at the mouth of the Orinoco, reached the southern shores of Cuba, and, having heard rumors of another ocean to the west, coasted along the Central American mainland in search of a passage through. There he found stone houses and towns and what appeared to be a semi-civilized people, who wore clothes and knew how to weave cotton, embalm their dead, and carve ornaments on their tombs, and who had plenty of gold; and all this only confirmed his conviction that he was drawing nearer the countries of his quest. During this period, however, his fame was in turn overshadowed by that of Vasco da Gama, who had at last succeeded in discovering the African route to the Orient and had actually seen some of those spice islands and mighty cities that Columbus was still only searching for on the other side of the world so many thousands of miles away.

In 1506, soon after his return from his fourth expedition, he died at Valladolid, discredited and defrauded of his viceregal powers, a victim of treachery, jealousy, and intrigue, yet still believing that he had found the western route to the Indies. Even then “nobody had the faintest idea of what he had accomplished,” says Professor Fiske. “Nothing like it was ever done before and nothing like it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for future Columbuses to conquer. The era of which this great Italian was the most illustrious representative had closed forever.”

III

Having, in the interval between the second Columbian expedition and the discovery of the African route by Vasco da Gama, induced Spain to agree to the extension of the Papal meridian 370 leagues farther west, the Portuguese continued their activities with renewed ardor. In March, 1500, on his way to the Cape of Good Hope, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese nobleman in command of an expedition intended to resume the work begun by Da Gama, was blown across the Atlantic to the coasts of Brazil, where he touched at a point in the southern part of what is now the State of Bahia. Under the impression that it was an island, and assuming that it lay east of the Tordesillas treaty line, he landed and took possession in the name of his King. The news having reached Portugal in the Fall of the same year, no time was lost in asserting title and sending out a small fleet to ascertain the extent and resources of the region, also in the hope that a wealthy and civilized people like that of Hindustan would be found.

This expedition was placed under the command of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine astronomer and navigator, who had already made two voyages for Spain and skirted the coast of Yucatan and the northern continent, around Florida, as far north as the Chesapeake. Setting sail now to the south, he made a systematic examination of the Brazilian coast for two thousand miles. All he found that seemed to have any immediate commercial value were immense quantities of a dyewood known in Europe as “_brazil_” (the color of fire); it was from this, of course, that the country took its name. The Portuguese, being by that time, however, too engrossed in their African mines and sugar plantations and East Indian trade to think it worth while to found colonies in such a region, did nothing to develop it until thirty years had passed by and it became necessary for them to protect their rights, particularly from the French, who had been tempted by the great demand for the dyewood to engage in coastwise poaching on a large scale.

For this reason, to his contemporaries, the most interesting feature of Vespucci’s report was the conviction he expressed that this country south of the equator was neither Asia nor an island, _but a new continent_, or, as he himself called it, a “new world”—“for it transcends the ideas of the ancients,” he said in a letter to his friend Soderini, “since most of them declare that, beyond the equator to the south, there is no continent but only the sea which they call the Atlantic; but this last voyage of mine has proved that this opinion of theirs is erroneous, because in these southern regions I have found a continent more thickly inhabited by peoples and animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa, and, moreover, a climate more temperate and agreeable than any known to us.” In 1504 this letter was published under the title “_Mundus Novus_.” The term “new world” caught the popular fancy, and although, in 1497, Columbus first of all, and later Vespucci himself with Alonso de Ojeda, had cruised along and touched at points on its Caribbean coast, by virtue of his Brazilian explorations Vespucci was acclaimed the discoverer.

And therein was the source of the confusion that gave to South America, and eventually to the northern continent as well, the name they bear rather than one commemorative of Columbus. No one suspected that there were _two_ oceans instead of only the Atlantic between Europe and Asia; that the land Amerigo Vespucci had explored south of the equator was of a piece with that discovered by Columbus to the north. It was conceived to be entirely detached from and to the south of _Cathay_, which Columbus was still supposed to have reached, and to lie in a position somewhat similar to that which Australia was afterward found to occupy. Consequently, when in 1507 Mathias Ringmann published his “_Introductio Cosmographie_,” he proposed that this (as he estimated it) “fourth part of the globe” be called “_Amerigo_.” The following year Martinus Waldseemüller published his map, whereon for the first time the name “America” appeared. Investigation has made it clear that there was no attempt, as Vespucci’s maligners charged, to immortalize his name at the expense of Columbus. The southern continent was not named for Columbus simply because it was thought to be distinct from his discoveries; the northern, because it was thought already to have been named Cathay.

At last, when the existence across the Atlantic of a continuous stretch of land had been comprehended, and when, in the light of the Portuguese discoveries by way of the African route, it was realized that these strange coasts did not in the least coincide with the ideas formed of them by those who had assumed them to be Asiatic, the conviction grew that the fabulous treasure lands of the Orient had not been reached by this western route at all. _The whole stretch must be embraced in the new world_, it was concluded; _there must be another ocean than the Atlantic beyond_. “Rumors of it had been heard, or glimpses caught, perhaps, at one time or another,” says Hawthorne, “before the actual fact was understood. Meanwhile Spain was very anxious to get through or around this singular barrier of islands, or whatever it was that was keeping her from sharing the profits that Da Gama had brought to Portugal from Hindustan, and she sent out expeditions to accomplish it.” In 1505 Amerigo Vespucci (who had returned to the Spanish flag), with La Cosa, explored the Gulf of Darien and penetrated two hundred miles up the Atrato, thinking it might prove a strait leading to the Asiatic waters. Juan de Solis was trying to find it when he explored the Rio de la Plata and met his death at the hands of the natives. Jacques Cartier was seeking it when he explored the St. Lawrence, D’Ayllon when he tried the Chesapeake and James, and Hendrik Hudson when he ascended the river that bears his name.

In 1513, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, Governor of Darien, a valiant adventurer who had been prominent in the conquest and colonization of the Isthmus, undertook by means of an expedition by land to ascertain whether such an ocean did really exist. Starting with a company of about a hundred and ninety Spaniards and a few Indians, he skirted the coast of Panama to a point near Cape Tiburon, and there disembarked and headed inland. For twenty days his party persevered over forest-clad swamps, valleys, and mountains, fought a pitched battle with the natives, and finally cut its way through the dense undergrowth to the heights overlooking what is now known as the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific side, and thus resolved all doubt into certainty and completed an event which, declares Dawson, “was second in its far-reaching consequences only to Columbus’ first voyage.” Balboa dubbed it the Southern Sea, little thinking that it was a body of water more vast than the Atlantic that he had found to bar the way to Cathay. “So elated was he over his epoch-making discovery,” says Mozans, quoting from an early chronicler, that—