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THE

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

_WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT AMERICA AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST_

BY

JOHN FISKE

_IN TWO VOLUMES_

VOL. I. 

 Then I unbar the doors; my paths lead out The exodus of nations; I disperse Men to all shores that front the hoary main. I too have arts and sorceries; Illusion dwells forever with the wave. I make some coast alluring, some lone isle To distant men, who must go there or die. EMERSON

[Illustration: Editor's arm. ]

 BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1897

Copyright, 1892, By JOHN FISKE. 

_All rights reserved. _

SIXTEENTH THOUSAND. 

 _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. , U. S. A. _ Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 

 TO

 EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, A SCHOLAR WHO INHERITS THE GIFT OF MIDAS, AND TURNS INTO GOLD WHATEVER SUBJECT HE TOUCHES, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WITH GRATITUDE FOR ALL THAT HE HAS TAUGHT ME

PREFACE. 

The present work is the outcome of two lines of study pursued, with moreor less interruption from other studies, for about thirty years. It willbe observed that the book has two themes, as different in character asthe themes for voice and piano in Schubert's "Frühlingsglaube, " and yetso closely related that the one is needful for an adequate comprehensionof the other. In order to view in their true perspective the series ofevents comprised in the Discovery of America, one needs to form a mentalpicture of that strange world of savagery and barbarism to whichcivilized Europeans were for the first time introduced in the course ofthe fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in their voyages along theAfrican coast, into the Indian and Pacific oceans, and across theAtlantic. Nothing that Europeans discovered during that stirring periodwas so remarkable as these antique phases of human society, the mereexistence of which had scarcely been suspected, and the real characterof which it has been left for the present generation to begin tounderstand. Nowhere was this ancient society so full of instructivelessons as in aboriginal America, which had pursued its own course ofdevelopment, cut off and isolated from the Old World, for probably morethan fifty thousand years. The imperishable interest of those episodesin the Discovery of America known as the conquests of Mexico and Peruconsists chiefly in the glimpses they afford us of this primitive world. It was not an uninhabited continent that the Spaniards found, and inorder to comprehend the course of events it is necessary to knowsomething about those social features that formed a large part of theburden of the letters of Columbus and Vespucius, and excited even moreintense and general interest in Europe than the purely geographicalquestions suggested by the voyages of those great sailors. Thedescriptions of ancient America, therefore, which form a kind ofbackground to the present work, need no apology. 

It was the study of prehistoric Europe and of early Aryan institutionsthat led me by a natural sequence to the study of aboriginal America. In1869, after sketching the plan of a book on our Aryan forefathers, I wasturned aside for five years by writing "Cosmic Philosophy. " During thatinterval I also wrote "Myths and Myth-Makers" as a side-work to theprojected book on the Aryans, and as soon as the excursion into thefield of general philosophy was ended, in 1874, the work on that bookwas resumed. Fortunately it was not then carried to completion, for itwould have been sadly antiquated by this time. The revolution in theoryconcerning the Aryans has been as remarkable as the revolution inchemical theory which some years ago introduced the New Chemistry. It isbecoming eminently probable that the centre of diffusion of Aryan speechwas much nearer to Lithuania than to any part of Central Asia, and ithas for some time been quite clear that the state of society revealed inHomer and the Vedas is not at all like primitive society, but very farfrom it. By 1876 I had become convinced that there was no use in goingon without widening the field of study. The conclusions of the Aryanschool needed to be supplemented, and often seriously modified, by thestudy of the barbaric world, and it soon became manifest that for thestudy of barbarism there is no other field that for fruitfulness can becompared with aboriginal America. 

This is because the progress of society was much slower in the westernhemisphere than in the eastern, and in the days of Columbus and Cortesit had nowhere "caught up" to the points reached by the Egyptians of theOld Empire or by the builders of Mycenæ and Tiryns. In aboriginalAmerica we therefore find states of society preserved in stages ofdevelopment similar to those of our ancestral societies in the Old Worldlong ages before Homer and the Vedas. Many of the social phenomena ofancient Europe are also found in aboriginal America, but always in amore primitive condition. The clan, phratry, and tribe among theIroquois help us in many respects to get back to the originalconceptions of the gens, curia, and tribe among the Romans. We canbetter understand the growth of kingship of the Agamemnon type when wehave studied the less developed type in Montezuma. The house-communitiesof the southern Slavs are full of interest for the student of the earlyphases of social evolution, but the Mandan round-house and the Zuñipueblo carry us much deeper into the past. Aboriginal Americaninstitutions thus afford one of the richest fields in the world for theapplication of the comparative method, and the red Indian, viewed inthis light, becomes one of the most interesting of men; for in studyinghim intelligently, one gets down into the stone age of human thought. Notime should be lost in gathering whatever can be learned of his ideasand institutions, before their character has been wholly lost under theinfluence of white men. Under that influence many Indians have beenquite transformed, while others have been as yet but little affected. Some extremely ancient types of society, still preserved on thiscontinent in something like purity, are among the most instructivemonuments of the past that can now be found in the world. Such a typeis that of the Moquis of northeastern Arizona. I have heard a rumour, which it is to be hoped is ill-founded, that there are persons who wishthe United States government to interfere with this peaceful andself-respecting people, break up their pueblo life, scatter them infarmsteads, and otherwise compel them, against their own wishes, tochange their habits and customs. If such a cruel and stupid thing wereever to be done, we might justly be said to have equalled or surpassedthe folly of those Spaniards who used to make bonfires of Mexicanhieroglyphics. It is hoped that the present book, in which of course itis impossible to do more than sketch the outlines and indicate thebearings of so vast a subject, will serve to awaken readers to theinterest and importance of American archæology for the general study ofthe evolution of human society. 

So much for the first and subsidiary theme. As for my principal theme, the Discovery of America, I was first drawn to it through its closerelations with a subject which for some time chiefly occupied my mind, the history of the contact between the Aryan and Semitic worlds, andmore particularly between Christians and Mussulmans about the shores ofthe Mediterranean. It is also interesting as part of the history ofscience, and furthermore as connected with the beginnings of one of themost momentous events in the career of mankind, the colonization of thebarbaric world by Europeans. Moreover, the discovery of America has itsfull share of the romantic fascination that belongs to most of the workof the Renaissance period. I have sought to exhibit these differentaspects of the subject. 

The present book is in all its parts written from the original sourcesof information. The work of modern scholars has of course been freelyused, but never without full acknowledgment in text or notes, and seldomwithout independent verification from the original sources. Acknowledgments are chiefly due to Humboldt, Morgan, Bandelier, Major, Varnhagen, Markham, Helps, and Harrisse. To the last-named scholar I owean especial debt of gratitude, in common with all who have studied thissubject since his arduous researches were begun. Some of the mostvaluable parts of his work have consisted in the discovery, reproduction, and collation of documents; and to some extent his pagesare practically equivalent to the original sources inspected by him inthe course of years of search through European archives, public andprivate. In the present book I must have expressed dissent from hisconclusions at least as often as agreement with them, but whether oneagrees with him or not, one always finds him helpful and stimulating. Though he has in some sort made himself a Frenchman in the course ofhis labours, it is pleasant to recall the fact that M. Harrisse is bybirth our fellow-countryman; and there are surely few Americans of ourtime whom students of history have more reason for holding in honour. 

I have not seen Mr. Winsor's "Christopher Columbus" in time to make anyuse of it. Within the last few days, while my final chapter is going topress, I have received the sheets of it, a few days in advance ofpublication. I do not find in it any references to sources ofinformation which I have not already fully considered, so that ourdifferences of opinion on sundry points may serve to show what diverseconclusions may be drawn from the same data. The most conspicuousdifference is that which concerns the personal character of Columbus. Mr. Winsor writes in a spirit of energetic (not to say violent) reactionagainst the absurdities of Roselly de Lorgues and others who have triedto make a saint of Columbus; and under the influence of this reaction heoffers us a picture of the great navigator that serves to raise apertinent question. No one can deny that Las Casas was a keen judge ofmen, or that his standard of right and wrong was quite as lofty as anyone has reached in our own time. He had a much more intimate knowledgeof Columbus than any modern historian can ever hope to acquire, and healways speaks of him with warm admiration and respect. But how couldLas Casas ever have respected the feeble, mean-spirited driveller whoseportrait Mr. Winsor asks us to accept as that of the Discoverer ofAmerica?

If, however, instead of his biographical estimate of Columbus, weconsider Mr. Winsor's contributions toward a correct statement of thedifficult geographical questions connected with the subject, werecognize at once the work of an acknowledged master in his chosenfield. It is work, too, of the first order of importance. It would behard to mention a subject on which so many reams of direful nonsensehave been written as on the discovery of America; and the prolificsource of so much folly has generally been what Mr. Freeman fitly calls"bondage to the modern map. " In order to understand what the greatmariners of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were trying to do, andwhat people supposed them to have done, one must begin by resolutelybanishing the modern map from one's mind. The ancient map must take itsplace, but this must not be the ridiculous "Orbis Veteribus Notus, " tobe found in the ordinary classical atlas, _which simply copies theoutlines of countries with modern accuracy from the modern map, and thenscatters ancient names over them!_ Such maps are worse than useless. Indealing with the discovery of America one must steadily keep beforeone's mind the quaint notions of ancient geographers, especiallyPtolemy and Mela, as portrayed upon such maps as are reproduced in thepresent volume. It was just these distorted and hazy notions that swayedthe minds and guided the movements of the great discoverers, and went onreproducing themselves upon newly-made maps for a century or more afterthe time of Columbus. Without constant reference to these old maps onecannot begin to understand the circumstances of the discovery ofAmerica. 

In no way can one get at the heart of the matter more completely than bythreading the labyrinth of causes and effects through which the westernhemisphere came slowly and gradually to be known by the name AMERICA. The reader will not fail to observe the pains which I have taken toelucidate this subject, not from any peculiar regard for AmericusVespucius, but because the quintessence of the whole geographicalproblem of the discovery of the New World is in one way or anotherinvolved in the discussion. I can think of no finer instance of thequeer complications that can come to surround and mystify an increase ofknowledge too great and rapid to be comprehended by a single generationof men. 

In the solution of the problem as to the first Vespucius voyage I followthe lead of Varnhagen, but always independently and with the documentaryevidence fully in sight. For some years I vainly tried to pursueHumboldt's clues to some intelligible conclusion, and felt inhospitablyinclined toward Varnhagen's views as altogether too plausible; he seemedto settle too many difficulties at once. But after becoming convinced ofthe spuriousness of the Bandini letter (see below, vol. Ii. P. 94); andobserving how the air at once was cleared in some directions, it seemedthat further work in textual criticism would be well bestowed. I made acareful study of the diction of the letter from Vespucius to Soderini inits two principal texts:--1. The Latin version of 1507, the original ofwhich is in the library of Harvard University, appended toWaldseemüller's "Cosmographiæ Introductio"; 2. The Italian textreproduced severally by Bandini, Canovai, and Varnhagen, from theexcessively rare original, of which only five copies are now known to bein existence. It is this text that Varnhagen regards as the originalfrom which the Latin version of 1507 was made, through an intermediateFrench version now lost. In this opinion Varnhagen does not stand alone, as Mr. Winsor seems to think ("Christopher Columbus, " p. 540, line 5from bottom), for Harrisse and Avezac have expressed themselves plainlyto the same effect (see below, vol. Ii. P. 42). A minute study of thistext, with all its quaint interpolations of Spanish and Portugueseidioms and seafaring phrases into the Italian ground-work of itsdiction, long ago convinced me that it never was a _translation_ fromanything in heaven or earth or the waters under the earth. Nobody wouldever have translated a document _into_ such an extremely peculiar andindividual jargon. It is most assuredly an original text, and its authorwas either Vespucius or the Old Nick. It was by starting from this textas primitive that Varnhagen started correctly in his interpretation ofthe statements in the letter, and it was for that reason that he wasable to dispose of so many difficulties at one blow. When he showed thatthe landfall of Vespucius on his first voyage was near Cape Honduras andhad nothing whatever to do with the Pearl Coast, he began to follow theright trail, and so the facts which had puzzled everybody began at onceto fall into the right places. This is all made clear in the seventhchapter of the present work, where the general argument of Varnhagen isin many points strongly reinforced. The evidence here set forth inconnection with the Cantino map is especially significant. 

It is interesting on many accounts to see the first voyage of Vespuciusthus elucidated, though it had no connection with the application of hisname by Waldseemüller to an entirely different region from any that wasvisited upon that voyage. The real significance of the third voyage ofVespucius, in connection with the naming of America, is now set forth, Ibelieve, for the first time in the light thrown upon the subject by theopinions of Ptolemy and Mela. Neither Humboldt nor Major nor Harrissenor Varnhagen seems to have had a firm grasp of what was inWaldseemüller's mind when he wrote the passage photographed below invol. Ii. P. 136 of this work. It is only when we keep the Greek andRoman theories in the foreground and unflinchingly bar out thatintrusive modern atlas, that we realize what the Freiburg geographermeant and why Ferdinand Columbus was not in the least shocked orsurprised. 

 * * * * *

I have at various times given lectures on the discovery of America andquestions connected therewith, more especially at University College, London, in 1879, at the Philosophical Institution in Edinburgh, in 1880, at the Lowell Institute in Boston, in 1890, and in the course of my workas professor in the Washington University at St. Louis; but the presentwork is in no sense whatever a reproduction of such lectures. 

Acknowledgments are due to Mr. Winsor for his cordial permission to makeuse of a number of reproductions of old maps and facsimiles already usedby him in the "Narrative and Critical History of America;" they arementioned in the lists of illustrations. I have also to thank Dr. Brinton for allowing me to reproduce a page of old Mexican music, andthe Hakluyt Society for permission to use the Zeno and Catalan maps andthe view of Kakortok church. Dr. Fewkes has very kindly favoured me witha sight of proof-sheets of some recent monographs by Bandelier. And forcourteous assistance at various libraries I have most particularly tothank Mr. Kiernan of Harvard University, Mr. Appleton Griffin of theBoston Public Library, and Mr. Uhler of the Peabody Institute inBaltimore. 

 * * * * *

There is one thing which I feel obliged, though with extreme hesitationand reluctance, to say to my readers in this place, because the time hascome when something ought to be said, and there seems to be no otherplace available for saying it. For many years letters--often in a highdegree interesting and pleasant to receive--have been coming to me frompersons with whom I am not acquainted, and I have always done my best toanswer them. It is a long time since such letters came to form thelarger part of a voluminous mass of correspondence. The physical facthas assumed dimensions with which it is no longer possible to cope. If Iwere to answer all the letters which arrive by every mail, I shouldnever be able to do another day's work. It is becoming impossible evento _read_ them all; and there is scarcely time for giving due attentionto one in ten. Kind friends and readers will thus understand that iftheir queries seem to be neglected, it is by no means from any want ofgood will, but simply from the lamentable fact that the day containsonly four-and-twenty hours. 

CAMBRIDGE, _October 25, 1891. _

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

ANCIENT AMERICA. 

 PAGE The American aborigines 1

 Question as to their origin 2, 3

 Antiquity of man in America 4

 Shell-mounds, or middens 4, 5

 The Glacial Period 6, 7

 Discoveries in the Trenton gravel 8

 Discoveries in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota 9

 Mr. Cresson's discovery at Claymont, Delaware 10

 The Calaveras skull 11

 Pleistocene men and mammals 12, 13

 Elevation and subsidence 13, 14

 Waves of migration 15

 The Cave men of Europe in the Glacial Period 16

 The Eskimos are probably a remnant of the Cave men 17-19

 There was probably no connection or intercourse by water between ancient America and the Old World 20

 There is one great American red race 21

 Different senses in which the word "race" is used 21-23

 No necessary connection between differences in culture and differences in race 23

 Mr. Lewis Morgan's classification of grades of culture 24-32

 Distinction between Savagery and Barbarism 25

 Origin of pottery 25

 Lower, middle, and upper status of savagery 26

 Lower status of barbarism; it ended differently in the two hemispheres; in ancient America there was no pastoral stage of development 27

 Importance of Indian corn 28

 Tillage with irrigation 29

 Use of adobe-brick and stone in building 29

 Middle status of barbarism 29, 30

 Stone and copper tools 30

 Working of metals; smelting of iron 30

 Upper status of barbarism 31

 The alphabet and the beginnings of civilization 32

 So-called "civilizations" of Mexico and Peru 33, 34

 Loose use of the words "savagery" and "civilization" 35

 Value and importance of the term "barbarism" 35, 36

 The status of barbarism is most completely exemplified in ancient America 36, 37

 Survival of bygone epochs of culture; work of the Bureau of Ethnology 37, 38

 Tribal society and multiplicity of languages in aboriginal America 38, 39

 Tribes in the upper status of savagery; Athabaskans, Apaches, Shoshones, etc. 39

 Tribes in the lower status of barbarism; the Dakota group or family 40

 The Minnitarees and Mandans 41

 The Pawnee and Arickaree group 42

 The Maskoki group 42

 The Algonquin group 43

 The Huron-Iroquois group 44

 The Five Nations 45-47

 Distinction between horticulture and field agriculture 48

 Perpetual intertribal warfare, with torture and cannibalism 49-51

 Myths and folk-lore 51

 Ancient law 52, 53

 The patriarchal family not primitive 53

 "Mother-right" 54

 Primitive marriage 55

 The system of reckoning kinship through females only 56

 Original reason for the system 57

 The primeval human horde 58, 59

 Earliest family-group; the clan 60

 "Exogamy" 60

 Phratry and tribe 61

 Effect of pastoral life upon property and upon the family 61-63

 The exogamous clan in ancient America 64

 Intimate connection of aboriginal architecture with social life 65

 The long houses of the Iroquois 66, 67

 Summary divorce 68

 Hospitality 68

 Structure of the clan 69, 70

 Origin and structure of the phratry 70, 71

 Structure of the tribe 72

 Cross-relationships between clans and tribes; the Iroquois Confederacy 72-74

 Structure of the confederacy 75, 76

 The "Long House" 76

 Symmetrical development of institutions in ancient America 77, 78

 Circular houses of the Mandans 79-81

 The Indians of the pueblos, in the middle status of barbarism 82, 83

 Horticulture with irrigation, and architecture with adobe 83, 84

 Possible origin of adobe architecture 84, 85

 Mr. Cushing's sojourn at Zuñi 86

 Typical structure of the pueblo 86-88

 Pueblo society 89

 Wonderful ancient pueblos in the Chaco valley 90-92

 The Moqui pueblos 93

 The cliff-dwellings 93

 Pueblo of Zuñi 93, 94

 Pueblo of Tlascala 94-96

 The ancient city of Mexico was a great composite pueblo 97

 The Spanish discoverers could not be expected to understand the state of society which they found there 97, 98

 Contrast between feudalism and gentilism 98

 Change from gentile society to political society in Greece and Rome 99, 100

 First suspicions as to the erroneousness of the Spanish accounts 101

 Detection and explanation of the errors, by Lewis Morgan 102

 Adolf Bandelier's researches 103

 The Aztec Confederacy 104, 105

 Aztec clans 106

 Clan officers 107

 Rights and duties of the clan 108

 Aztec phratries 108

 The _tlatocan_, or tribal council 109

 The _cihuacoatl_, or "snake-woman" 110

 The _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men" 111

 Evolution of kingship in Greece and Rome 112

 Mediæval kingship 113

 Montezuma was a "priest-commander" 114

 Mode of succession to the office 114, 115

 Manner of collecting tribute 116

 Mexican roads 117

 Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted 118

 Aztec priesthood; human sacrifices 119, 120

 Aztec slaves 121, 122

 The Aztec family 122, 123

 Aztec property 124

 Mr. Morgan's rules of criticism 125

 He sometimes disregarded his own rules 126

 Amusing illustrations from his remarks on "Montezuma's Dinner" 126-128

 The reaction against uncritical and exaggerated statements was often carried too far by Mr. Morgan 128, 129

 Great importance of the middle period of barbarism 130

 The Mexicans compared with the Mayas 131-133

 Maya hieroglyphic writing 132

 Ruined cities of Central America 134-138

 They are probably not older than the twelfth century 136

 Recent discovery of the Chronicle of Chicxulub 138

 Maya culture very closely related to Mexican 139

 The "Mound-Builders" 140-146

 The notion that they were like the Aztecs 142

 Or, perhaps, like the Zuñis 143

 These notions are not well sustained 144

 The mounds were probably built by different peoples in the lower status of barbarism, by Cherokees, Shawnees, and other tribes 144, 145

 It is not likely that there was a "race of Mound Builders" 146

 Society in America at the time of the Discovery had reached stages similar to stages reached by eastern Mediterranean peoples fifty or sixty centuries earlier 146, 147

CHAPTER II. 

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 

 Stories of voyages to America before Columbus; the Chinese 148

 The Irish. 149

 Blowing and drifting; Cousin, of Dieppe 150

 These stories are of small value 150

 But the case of the Northmen is quite different 151

 The Viking exodus from Norway 151, 152

 Founding of a colony in Iceland, A. D. 874 153

 Icelandic literature 154

 Discovery of Greenland, A. D. 876 155, 156

 Eric the Red, and his colony in Greenland, A. D. 986 157-161

 Voyage of Bjarni Herjulfsson 162

 Conversion of the Northmen to Christianity 163

 Leif Ericsson's voyage, A. D. 1000; Helluland and Markland 164

 Leif's winter in Vinland 165, 166

 Voyages of Thorvald and Thorstein 167

 Thorfinn Karlsefni, and his unsuccessful attempt to found a colony in Vinland, A. D. 1007-10 167-169

 Freydis, and her evil deeds in Vinland, 1011-12 170, 171

 Voyage into Baffin's Bay, 1135 172

 Description of a Viking ship discovered at Sandefiord, in Norway 173-175

 To what extent the climate of Greenland may have changed within the last thousand years 176, 177

 With the Northmen once in Greenland, the discovery of the American continent was inevitable 178

 Ear-marks of truth in the Icelandic narratives 179, 180

 Northern limit of the vine 181

 Length of the winter day 182

 Indian corn 182, 183

 Winter weather in Vinland 184

 Vinland was probably situated somewhere between Cape Breton and Point Judith 185

 Further ear-marks of truth; savages and barbarians of the lower status were unknown to mediæval Europeans 185, 186

 The natives of Vinland as described in the Icelandic narratives 187-193

 Meaning of the epithet "Skrælings" 188, 189

 Personal appearance of the Skrælings 189

 The Skrælings of Vinland were Indians, --very likely Algonquins 190

 The "balista" or "demon's head" 191, 192

 The story of the "uniped" 193

 Character of the Icelandic records; misleading associations with the word "saga" 194

 The comparison between Leif Ericsson and Agamemnon, made by a committee of the Massachusetts Historical Society, was peculiarly unfortunate and inappropriate 194, 197

 The story of the Trojan War, in the shape in which we find it in Greek poetry, is pure folk-lore 195

 The Saga of Eric the Red is not folk-lore 196

 Mythical and historical sagas 197

 The western or Hauks-bók version of Eric the Red's Saga 198

 The northern or Flateyar-bók version 199

 Presumption against sources not contemporary 200

 Hauk Erlendsson and his manuscripts 201

 The story is not likely to have been preserved to Hauk's time by oral tradition only 202

 Allusions to Vinland in other Icelandic documents 202-207

 Eyrbyggja Saga 203

 The abbot Nikulas, etc. 204

 Ari Fródhi and his works 204

 His significant allusion to Vinland 205

 Other references 206

 Differences between Hauks-bók and Flateyar-bók versions 207

 Adam of Bremen 208

 Importance of his testimony 209

 His misconception of the situation of Vinland 210

 Summary of the argument 211-213

 Absurd speculations of zealous antiquarians 213-215

 The Dighton inscription was made by Algonquins, and has nothing to do with the Northmen 213, 214

 Governor Arnold's stone windmill 215

 There is no reason for supposing that the Northmen founded a colony in Vinland 216

 No archæological remains of them have been found south of Davis strait 217

 If the Northmen had founded a successful colony, they would have introduced domestic cattle into the North American fauna 218

 And such animals could not have vanished and left no trace of their existence 219, 220

 Further fortunes of the Greenland colony 221

 Bishop Eric's voyage in search of Vinland, 1121 222

 The ship from Markland, 1347 223

 The Greenland colony attacked by Eskimos, 1349 224

 Queen Margaret's monopoly, and its baneful effects 225

 Story of the Venetian brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno 226

 Nicolò Zeno wrecked upon one of the Færoe islands 227

 He enters the service of Henry Sinclair, Earl of the Orkneys and Caithness 228

 Nicolò's voyage to Greenland, cir. 1394 229

 Voyage of Earl Sinclair and Antonio Zeno 229, 230

 Publication of the remains of the documents by the younger Nicolò Zeno, 1558 231

 The Zeno map 232, 233

 Queer transformations of names 234-236

 The name _Færoislander_ became _Frislanda_ 236

 The narrative nowhere makes a claim to the "discovery of America" 237

 The "Zichmni" of the narrative means Henry Sinclair 238

 Bardsen's "Description of Greenland" 239

 The monastery of St. Olaus and its hot spring 240

 Volcanoes of the north Atlantic ridge 241

 Fate of Gunnbjörn's Skerries, 1456 242

 Volcanic phenomena in Greenland 242, 243

 Estotiland 244

 Drogio 245

 Inhabitants of Drogio and the countries beyond 246

 The Fisherman's return to Frislanda 247

 Was the account of Drogio woven into the narrative by the younger Nicolò? 248

 Or does it represent actual experiences in North America? 249

 The case of David Ingram, 1568 250

 The case of Cabeza de Vaca, 1528-36 251

 There may have been unrecorded instances of visits to North America 252

 The pre-Columbian voyages made no real contributions to geographical knowledge 253

 And were in no true sense a discovery of America 254

 Real contact between the eastern and western hemisphere was first established by Columbus 255

CHAPTER III. 

EUROPE AND CATHAY. 

 Why the voyages of the Northmen were not followed up 256

 Ignorance of their geographical significance 257

 Lack of instruments for ocean navigation 257

 Condition of Europe in the year 1000 258, 259

 It was not such as to favour colonial enterprise 260

 The outlook of Europe was toward Asia 261

 Routes of trade between Europe and Asia 262

 Claudius Ptolemy and his knowledge of the earth 263

 Early mention of China 264

 The monk Cosmas Indicopleustes 265

 Shape of the earth, according to Cosmas 266, 267

 His knowledge of Asia 268

 The Nestorians 268

 Effects of the Saracen conquests 269

 Constantinople in the twelfth century 270

 The Crusades 270-274

 Barbarizing character of Turkish conquest 271

 General effects of the Crusades 272

 The Fourth Crusade 273

 Rivalry between Venice and Genoa 274

 Centres and routes of mediæval trade 275, 276

 Effects of the Mongol conquests 277

 Cathay, origin of the name 277

 Carpini and Rubruquis 278

 First knowledge of an eastern ocean beyond Cathay 278

 The data were thus prepared for Columbus; but as yet nobody reasoned from these data to a practical conclusion 279

 The Polo brothers 280

 Kublai Khan's message to the Pope 281

 Marco Polo and his travels in Asia 281, 282

 First recorded voyage of Europeans around the Indo-Chinese peninsula 282

 Return of the Polos to Venice 283

 Marco Polo's book, written in prison at Genoa, 1299; its great contributions to geographical knowledge 284, 285

 Prester John 285

 Griffins and Arimaspians 286

 The Catalan map, 1375 288, 289

 Other visits to China 287-291

 Overthrow of the Mongol dynasty, and shutting up of China 291

 First rumours of the Molucca islands and Japan 292

 The accustomed routes of Oriental trade were cut off in the fifteenth century by the Ottoman Turks 293

 Necessity for finding an "outside route to the Indies" 294

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES. 

_EASTWARD OR PORTUGUESE ROUTE. _

 Question as to whether Asia could be reached by sailing around Africa 295

 Views of Eratosthenes 296

 Opposing theory of Ptolemy 297

 Story of the Phoenician voyage in the time of Necho 298-300

 Voyage of Hanno 300, 301

 Voyages of Sataspes and Eudoxus 302

 Wild exaggerations 303

 Views of Pomponius Mela 304, 305

 Ancient theory of the five zones 306, 307

 The Inhabited World, or Oecumene, and the Antipodes 308

 Curious notions about Taprobane (Ceylon) 309

 Question as to the possibility of crossing the torrid zone 309

 Notions about sailing "up and down hill" 310, 311

 Superstitious fancies 311, 312

 Clumsiness of ships in the fifteenth century 312

 Dangers from famine and scurvy 313

 The mariner's compass; an interesting letter from Brunetto Latini to Guido Cavalcanti 313-315

 Calculating latitudes and longitudes 315

 Prince Henry the Navigator 316-326

 His idea of an ocean route to the Indies, and what it might bring 318

 The Sacred Promontory 319

 The Madeira and Canary islands 320-322

 Gil Eannes passes Cape Bojador 323

 Beginning of the modern slave-trade, 1442 323

 Papal grant of heathen countries to the Portuguese crown 324, 325

 Advance to Sierra Leone 326

 Advance to the Hottentot coast 326, 327

 Note upon the extent of European acquaintance with savagery and the lower forms of barbarism previous to the fifteenth century 327-329

 Effect of the Portuguese discoveries upon the theories of Ptolemy and Mela 329, 330

 News of Prester John; Covilham's journey 331

 Bartholomew Dias passes the Cape of Good Hope and enters the Indian ocean 332

 Some effects of this discovery 333

 Bartholomew Columbus took part in it 333

 Connection between these voyages and the work of Christopher Columbus 334

CHAPTER V. 

THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES. 

_WESTWARD OR SPANISH ROUTE. _

 Sources of information concerning the life of Columbus; Las Casas and Ferdinand Columbus 335

 The Biblioteca Colombina at Seville 336, 337

 Bernaldez and Peter Martyr 338

 Letters of Columbus 338

 Defects in Ferdinand's information 339, 340

 Researches of Henry Harrisse 341

 Date of the birth of Columbus; archives of Savona 342

 Statement of Bernaldez 343

 Columbus's letter of September, 1501 344

 The balance of probability is in favour of 1436 345

 The family of Domenico Colombo, and its changes of residence 346, 347

 Columbus tells us that he was born in the city of Genoa 348

 His early years 349-351

 Christopher and his brother Bartholomew at Lisbon 351, 352

 Philippa Moñiz de Perestrelo 352

 Personal appearance of Columbus 353

 His marriage, and life upon the island of Porto Santo 353, 354

 The king of Portugal asks advice of the great astronomer Toscanelli 355

 Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus 356-361

 His second letter to Columbus 361, 362

 Who first suggested the feasibleness of a westward route to the Indies? Was it Columbus? 363

 Perhaps it was Toscanelli 363, 364

 Note on the date of Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus 365-367

 The idea, being naturally suggested by the globular form of the earth, was as old as Aristotle 368, 369

 Opinions of ancient writers 370

 Opinions of Christian writers 371

 The "Imago Mundi" of Petrus Alliacus 372, 373

 Ancient estimates of the size of the globe and the length of the Oecumene 374

 Toscanelli's calculation of the size of the earth, and of the position of Japan (Cipango) 375, 376

 Columbus's opinions of the size of the globe, the length of the Oecumene, and the width of the Atlantic ocean from Portugal to Japan 377-380

 There was a fortunate mixture of truth and error in these opinions of Columbus 381

 The whole point and purport of Columbus's scheme lay in its promise of a route to the Indies shorter than that which the Portuguese were seeking by way of Guinea 381

 Columbus's speculations on climate; his voyages to Guinea and into the Arctic ocean 382

 He may have reached Jan Mayen island, and stopped at Iceland 383, 384

 The Scandinavian hypothesis that Columbus "must have" heard and understood the story of the Vinland voyages 384, 385

 It has not a particle of evidence in its favour 385

 It is not probable that Columbus knew of Adam of Bremen's allusion to Vinland, or that he would have understood it if he had read it 386

 It is doubtful if he would have stumbled upon the story in Iceland 387

 If he had heard it, he would probably have classed it with such tales as that of St. Brandan's isle 388

 He could not possibly have obtained from such a source his opinion of the width of the ocean 388, 389

 If he had known and understood the Vinland story, he had the strongest motives for proclaiming it and no motive whatever for concealing it 390-392

 No trace of a thought of Vinland appears in any of his voyages 393

 Why did not Norway or Iceland utter a protest in 1493? 393

 The idea of Vinland was not associated with the idea of America until the seventeenth century 394

 Recapitulation of the genesis of Columbus's scheme 395

 Martin Behaim's improved astrolabe 395, 396

 Negotiations of Columbus with John II. Of Portugal 396, 397

 The king is persuaded into a shabby trick 398

 Columbus leaves Portugal and enters into the service of Ferdinand and Isabella, 1486 398-400

 The junto at Salamanca, 1486 401

 Birth of Ferdinand Columbus, August 15, 1488 401

 Bartholomew Columbus returns from the Cape of Good Hope, December, 1487 402, 403

 Christopher visits Bartholomew at Lisbon, cir. September, 1488, and sends him to England 404

 Bartholomew, after mishaps, reaches England cir. February, 1490, and goes thence to France before 1492 405-407

 The duke of Medina-Celi proposes to furnish the ships for Columbus, but the queen withholds her consent 408, 409

 Columbus makes up his mind to get his family together and go to France, October, 1491 409, 410

 A change of fortune; he stops at La Rábida, and meets the prior Juan Perez, who writes to the queen 411

 Columbus is summoned back to court 411

 The junto before Granada, December, 1491 412, 413

 Surrender of Granada, January 2, 1492 414

 Columbus negotiates with the queen, who considers his terms exorbitant 414-416

 Interposition of Luis de Santangel 416

 Agreement between Columbus and the sovereigns 417

 Cost of the voyage 418

 Dismay at Palos 419

 The three famous caravels 420

 Delay at the Canary islands 421

 Martin Behaim and his globe 422, 423

 Columbus starts for Japan, September 6, 1492 424

 Terrors of the voyage:--1. Deflection of the needle 425

 2. The Sargasso sea 426, 427

 3. The trade wind 428

 Impatience of the crews 428

 Change of course from W. To W. S. W 429, 430

 Discovery of land, October 12, 1492 431

 Guanahani: which of the Bahama islands was it? 432

 Groping for Cipango and the route to Quinsay 433, 434

 Columbus reaches Cuba, and sends envoys to find a certain Asiatic prince 434, 435

 He turns eastward and Pinzon deserts him 435

 Columbus arrives at Hayti and thinks it must be Japan 436

 His flag-ship is wrecked, and he decides to go back to Spain 437

 Building of the blockhouse, La Navidad 438

 Terrible storm in mid-ocean on the return voyage 439

 Cold reception at the Azores 440

 Columbus is driven ashore in Portugal, where the king is advised to have him assassinated 440

 But to offend Spain so grossly would be imprudent 441

 Arrival of Columbus and Pinzon at Palos; death of Pinzon 442

 Columbus is received by the sovereigns at Barcelona 443, 444

 General excitement at the news that a way to the Indies had been found 445

 This voyage was an event without any parallel in history 446

CHAPTER VI. 

THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS. 

 The Discovery of America was a gradual process 447, 448

 The letters of Columbus to Santangel and to Sanchez 449

 Versification of the story by Giuliano Dati 450

 Earliest references to the discovery 451

 The earliest reference in English 452

 The Portuguese claim to the Indies 453

 Bulls of Pope Alexander VI. 454-458

 The treaty of Tordesillas 459

 Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, and his relations with Columbus 460-462

 Friar Boyle 462

 Notable persons who embarked on the second voyage 463

 Departure from Cadiz 464

 Cruise among the Cannibal (Caribbee) islands 465

 Fate of the colony at La Navidad 466

 Building the town of Isabella 467

 Exploration of Cibao 467, 468

 Westward cruise; Cape Alpha and Omega 468-470

 Discovery of Jamaica 471

 Coasting the south side of Cuba 472

 The "people of Mangon" 473

 Speculations concerning the Golden Chersonese 474-476

 A solemn expression of opinion 477

 Vicissitudes of theory 477, 478

 Arrival of Bartholomew Columbus in Hispaniola 478, 479

 Mutiny in Hispaniola; desertion of Boyle and Margarite 479, 480

 The government of Columbus was not tyrannical 481

 Troubles with the Indians 481, 482

 Mission of Juan Aguado 482

 Discovery of gold mines, and speculations about Ophir 483

 Founding of San Domingo, 1496 484

 The return voyage to Spain 485

 Edicts of 1495 and 1497 486, 487

 Vexatious conduct of Fonseca; Columbus loses his temper 487

 Departure from San Lucar on the third voyage 488

 The belt of calms 489-491

 Trinidad and the Orinoco 491, 492

 Speculations as to the earth's shape; the mountain of Paradise 494

 Relation of the "Eden continent" to "Cochin China" 495

 Discovery of the Pearl Coast 495

 Columbus arrives at San Domingo 496

 Roldan's rebellion and Fonseca's machinations 496, 497

 Gama's voyage to Hindustan, 1497 498

 Fonseca's creature, Bobadilla, sent to investigate the troubles in Hispaniola 499

 He imprisons Columbus 500

 And sends him in chains to Spain 501

 Release of Columbus; his interview with the sovereigns 502

 How far were the sovereigns responsible for Bobadilla? 503

 Ovando, another creature of Fonseca, appointed governor of Hispaniola 503, 504

 Purpose of Columbus's fourth voyage, to find a passage from the Caribbee waters into the Indian ocean 504, 506

 The voyage across the Atlantic 506

 Columbus not allowed to stop at San Domingo 507

 His arrival at Cape Honduras 508

 Cape Gracias a Dios, and the coast of Veragua 509

 Fruitless search for the strait of Malacca 510

 Futile attempt to make a settlement in Veragua 511

 Columbus is shipwrecked on the coast of Jamaica; shameful conduct of Ovando 512

 Columbus's last return to Spain 513

 His death at Valladolid, May 20, 1506 513

 "Nuevo Mundo;" arms of Ferdinand Columbus 514, 515

 When Columbus died, the fact that a New World had been discovered by him had not yet begun to dawn upon his mind, or upon the mind of any voyager or any writer 515, 516

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

 PAGE

 Portrait of the author _Frontispiece_

 View and ground-plan of Seneca-Iroquois long house _reduced from Morgan's Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines_ 66

 View, cross-section, and ground-plan of Mandan round house, _ditto_ 80

 Ground-plan of Pueblo Hungo Pavie, _ditto_ 86

 Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie, _ditto_ 88

 Restoration of Pueblo Bonito, _ditto_ 90

 Ground-plan of Pueblo Peñasca Blanca, _ditto_ 92

 Ground-plan of so-called "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal, _ditto_ 133

 Map of the East Bygd, or eastern settlement of the Northmen in Greenland, _reduced from Rafn's Antiquitates Americanæ_ 160, 161

 Ruins of the church at Kakortok, _from Major's Voyages of the Zeni, published by the Hakluyt Society_ 222

 Zeno Map, cir. 1400, _ditto_ 232, 233

 Map of the World according to Claudius Ptolemy, cir. A. D. 150, _an abridged sketch after a map in Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography_ _Facing_ 265

 Two sheets of the Catalan Map, 1375, _from Yule's Cathay, published by the Hakluyt Society_ 288, 289

 Map of the World according to Pomponius Mela, cir. A. D. 50, _from Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America_ 304

 Map illustrating Portuguese voyages on the coast of Africa, _from a sketch by the author_ 324

 Toscanelli's Map, 1474, _redrawn and improved from a sketch in Winsor's America_ _Facing_ 357

 Annotations by Columbus, _reduced from a photograph in Harrisse's Notes on Columbus_ 373

 Sketch of Martin Behaim's Globe, 1492, preserved in the city hall at Nuremberg, _reduced to Mercator's projection and sketched by the author_ 422, 423

 Sketch of Martin Behaim's Atlantic Ocean, with outline of the American continent superimposed, _from Winsor's America_ 429

 Map of the discoveries made by Columbus in his first and second voyages, _sketched by the author_ 469

 Map of the discoveries made by Columbus in his third and fourth voyages, _ditto_ 493

 Arms of Ferdinand Columbus, _from the title-page of Harrisse's Fernand Colomb_ 515

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

CHAPTER I. 

ANCIENT AMERICA. 

[Sidenote: The American aborigines. ]

When the civilized people of Europe first became acquainted with thecontinents of North and South America, they found them inhabited by arace of men quite unlike any of the races with which they were familiarin the Old World. Between the various tribes of this aboriginal Americanrace, except in the sub-arctic region, there is now seen to be a generalphysical likeness, such as to constitute an American type of mankind asclearly recognizable as those types which we call Mongolian and Malay, though far less pronounced than such types as the Australian or thenegro. The most obvious characteristics possessed in common by theAmerican aborigines are the copper-coloured or rather thecinnamon-coloured complexion, along with the high cheek-bones and smalldeep-set eyes, the straight black hair and absence or scantiness ofbeard. With regard to stature, length of limbs, massiveness of frame, and shape of skull, considerable divergencies may be noticed among thevarious American tribes, as indeed is also the case among the members ofthe white race in Europe, and of other races. With regard to culture thedifferences have been considerable, although, with two or three apparentbut not real exceptions, there was nothing in pre-Columbian America thatcould properly be called civilization; the general condition of thepeople ranged all the way from savagery to barbarism of a high type. 

[Sidenote: Question as to their origin. ]

[Sidenote: Antiquity of man in America. ]

Soon after America was proved not to be part of Asia, a puzzlingquestion arose. Whence came these "Indians, " and in what manner did theyfind their way to the western hemisphere. Since the beginning of thepresent century discoveries in geology have entirely altered our mentalattitude toward this question. It was formerly argued upon the twoassumptions that the geographical relations of land and water had beenalways pretty much the same as we now find them, and that all the racialdifferences among men have arisen since the date of the "NoachianDeluge, " which was generally placed somewhere between two and threethousand years before the Christian era. Hence inasmuch as Europeantradition knows nothing of any such race as the Indians, it was supposedthat at some time within the historic period they must have movedeastward from Asia into America; and thus "there was felt to be a sortof speculative necessity for discovering points of resemblance betweenAmerican languages, myths, and social observances and those of theOriental world. Now the aborigines of this Continent were made out tobe Kamtchatkans, and now Chinamen, and again they were shown, withquaint erudition, to be remnants of the ten tribes of Israel. Perhapsnone of these theories have been exactly disproved, but they have allbeen superseded and laid on the shelf. "[1] The tendency of moderndiscovery is indeed toward agreement with the time-honoured traditionwhich makes the Old World, and perhaps Asia, the earliest dwelling-placeof mankind. Competition has been far more active in the fauna of theeastern hemisphere than in that of the western, natural selection hasaccordingly resulted in the evolution of higher forms, and it is therethat we find both extinct and surviving species of man's nearestcollateral relatives, those tailless half-human apes, the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and gibbon. It is altogether probable that the peoplewhom the Spaniards found in America came by migration from the OldWorld. But it is by no means probable that their migration occurredwithin so short a period as five or six thousand years. A series ofobservations and discoveries kept up for the last half-century seem toshow that North America has been continuously inhabited by human beingssince the earliest Pleistocene times, if not earlier. 

 [Footnote 1: See my _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, p. 148. A good succinct account of these various theories, monuments of wasted ingenuity, is given in Short's _North Americans of Antiquity_, chap. Iii. The most elaborate statement of the theory of an Israelite colonization of America is to be found in the ponderous tomes of Lord Kingsborough, _Mexican Antiquities_, London, 1831-48, 9 vols. Elephant-folio. Such a theory was entertained by the author of that curious piece of literary imposture, _The Book of Mormon_. In this book we are told that, when the tongues were confounded at Babel, the Lord selected a certain Jared, with his family and friends, and instructed them to build eight ships, in which, after a voyage of 344 days, they were brought to America, where they "did build many mighty cities, " and "prosper exceedingly. " But after some centuries they perished because of their iniquities. In the reign of Zedekiah, when calamity was impending over Judah, two brothers, Nephi and Laman, under divine guidance led a colony to America. There, says the veracious chronicler, their descendants became great nations, and worked in _iron_, and had stuffs of _silk_, besides keeping plenty of _oxen_ and _sheep_. (_Ether_, ix. 18, 19; x. 23, 24. ) Christ appeared and wrought many wonderful works; people spake with tongues, and the dead were raised. (3 _Nephi_, xxvi. 14, 15. ) But about the close of the fourth century of our era, a terrible war between Lamanites and Nephites ended in the destruction of the latter. Some two million warriors, with their wives and children, having been slaughtered, the prophet Mormon escaped, with his son Moroni, to the "hill Cumorah, " hard by the "waters of Ripliancum, " or Lake Ontario. (_Ether_, xv. 2, 8, 11. ) There they hid the sacred tablets, which remained concealed until they were miraculously discovered and translated by Joseph Smith in 1827. There is, of course, no element of tradition in this story. It is all pure fiction, and of a very clumsy sort, such as might easily be devised by an ignorant man accustomed to the language of the Bible; and of course it was suggested by the old notion of the Israelitish origin of the red men. The references are to _The Book of Mormon_, Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co. , 1885. ]

[Sidenote: Shell-mounds. ]

The first group of these observations and discoveries relate to"middens" or shell-heaps. On the banks of the Damariscotta river inMaine are some of the most remarkable shell-heaps in the world. With anaverage thickness of six or seven feet, they rise in places to a heightof twenty-five feet. They consist almost entirely of huge oyster-shellsoften ten inches in length and sometimes much longer. The shells belongto a salt-water species. In some places "there is an appearance ofstratification covered by an alternation of shells and earth, as if thedeposition of shells had been from time to time interrupted, and avegetable mould had covered the surface. " In these heaps have been foundfragments of pottery and of the bones of such edible animals as themoose and deer. "At the very foundation of one of the highest heaps, " ina situation which must for long ages have been undisturbed, Mr. EdwardMorse "found the remains of an ancient fire-place, where he exhumedcharcoal, bones, and pottery. "[2] The significant circumstance is that"at the present time oysters are only found in very small numbers, toosmall to make it an object to gather them, " and so far as memory andtradition can reach, such seems to have been the case. The great size ofthe heap, coupled with the notable change in the distribution of thismollusk since the heap was abandoned, implies a very considerable lapseof time since the vestiges of human occupation were first left here. Similar conclusions have been drawn from the banks or mounds of shellson the St. John's river in Florida, [3] on the Alabama river, at GrandLake on the lower Mississippi, and at San Pablo in the bay of SanFrancisco. Thus at various points from Maine to California, and inconnection with one particular kind of memorial, we find records of thepresence of man at a period undoubtedly prehistoric, but not necessarilymany thousands of years old. 

 [Footnote 2: _Second Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology_, etc. , p. 18. ]

 [Footnote 3: Visited in 1866-74 by Professor Jeffries Wyman, and described in his _Fresh-Water Shell Mounds of the St. John's River_, Cambridge, 1875. ]

[Sidenote: The Glacial Period. ]

The second group of discoveries carries us back much farther, even intothe earlier stages of that widespread glaciation which was the mostremarkable feature of the Pleistocene period. At the periods of greatestcold "the continent of North America was deeply swathed in ice as farsouth as the latitude of Philadelphia, while glaciers descended intoNorth Carolina. "[4] The valleys of the Rocky Mountains also supportedenormous glaciers, and a similar state of things existed at the sametime in Europe. These periods of intense cold were alternated with longinterglacial periods during which the climate was warmer than it isto-day. Concerning the antiquity of the Pleistocene age, which wascharacterized by such extraordinary vicissitudes of heat and cold, therehas been, as in all questions relating to geological time, much conflictof opinion. Twenty years ago geologists often argued as if there were anunlimited fund of past time upon which to draw; but since Sir WilliamThomson and other physicists emphasized the point that in an antiquityvery far from infinite this earth must have been a molten mass, therehas been a reaction. In many instances further study has shown that lesstime was needed in order to effect a given change than had formerly beensupposed; and so there has grown up a tendency to shorten the timeassigned to geological periods. Here, as in so many other cases, thetruth is doubtless to be sought within the extremes. If we adopt themagnificent argument of Dr. Croll, which seems to me still to hold itsground against all adverse criticism, [5] and regard the Glacial epoch ascoincident with the last period of high eccentricity of the earth'sorbit, we obtain a result that is moderate and probable. Thatastronomical period began about 240, 000 years ago and came to an endabout 80, 000 years ago. During this period the eccentricity was seldomless than . 04, and at one time rose to . 0569. At the present time theeccentricity is . 0168, and nearly 800, 000 years will pass before itattains such a point as it reached during the Glacial epoch. For thelast 50, 000 years the departure of the earth's orbit from a circularform has been exceptionally small. 

 [Footnote 4: _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, p. 39. ]

 [Footnote 5: Croll, _Climate and Time in their Geological Relations_, New York, 1875; _Discussions on Climate and Cosmology_, New York, 1886; Archibald Geikie, _Text Book of Geology_, pp. 23-29, 883-909, London, 1882; James Geikie, _The Great Ice Age_, pp. 94-136, New York, 1874; _Prehistoric Europe_, pp. 558-562, London, 1881; Wallace, _Island Life_, pp. 101-225, New York, 1881. Some objections to Croll's theory may be found in Wright's _Ice Age in North America_, pp. 405-505, 585-595, New York, 1889. I have given a brief account of the theory in my _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp. 57-76. ]

Now the traces of the existence of men in North America during theGlacial epoch have in recent years been discovered in abundance, as forexample, the palæolithic quartzite implements found in the drift nearthe city of St. Paul, which date from toward the close of the Glacialepoch[6]; the fragment of a human jaw found in the red clay deposited inMinnesota during an earlier part of that epoch;[7] the noble collectionof palæoliths found by Dr. C. C. Abbott in the Trenton gravels in NewJersey; and the more recent discoveries of Dr. Metz and Mr. H. T. Cresson. 

 [Footnote 6: See Miss F. E. Babbitt, "Vestiges of Glacial Man in Minnesota, " in _Proceedings of the American Association_, vol. Xxxii. , 1883. ]

 [Footnote 7: See N. H. Winchell, _Annual Report of the State Geologist of Minnesota_, 1877, p. 60. ]

[Sidenote: Discoveries in the Trenton gravel. ]

[Sidenote: Discoveries in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota;]

The year 1873 marks an era in American archæology as memorable as theyear 1841 in the investigation of the antiquity of man in Europe. Withreference to these problems Dr. Abbott occupies a position similar tothat of Boucher de Perthes in the Old World, and the Trenton valley iscoming to be classic ground, like the valley of the Somme. In April, 1873, Dr. Abbott published his description of three rude implementswhich he had found some sixteen feet below the surface of the ground "inthe gravels of a bluff overlooking the Delaware river. " The implementswere in place in an undisturbed deposit, and could not have found theirway thither in any recent time; Dr. Abbott assigned them to the age ofthe Glacial drift. This was the beginning of a long series ofinvestigations, in which Dr. Abbott's work was assisted and supplementedby Messrs. Whitney, Carr, Putnam, Shaler, Lewis, Wright, Haynes, Dawkins, and other eminent geologists and archæologists. By 1888 Dr. Abbott had obtained not less than 60 implements from various recordeddepths in the gravel, while many others were found at depths notrecorded or in the talus of the banks. [8] Three human skulls and otherbones, along with the tusk of a mastodon, have been discovered in thesame gravel. Careful studies have been made of the conditions underwhich the gravel-banks were deposited and their probable age; and it isgenerally agreed that they date from the later portion of the Glacialperiod, or about the time of the final recession of the ice-sheet fromthis region. At that time, in its climate and general aspect, New Yorkharbour must have been much like a Greenland fiord of the present day. In 1883 Professor Wright of Oberlin, after a careful study of theTrenton deposits and their relations to the terrace and gravel depositsto the westward, predicted that similar palæolithic implements would befound in Ohio. Two years afterward, the prediction was verified by Dr. Metz, who found a true palæolith of black flint at Madisonville, in theLittle Miami valley, eight feet below the surface. Since then furtherdiscoveries have been made in the same neighbourhood by Dr. Metz, and inJackson county, Indiana, by Mr. H. T. Cresson; and the existence of manin that part of America toward the close of the Glacial period may beregarded as definitely established. The discoveries of Miss Babbitt andProfessor Winchell, in Minnesota, carry the conclusion still farther, and add to the probability of the existence of a human population allthe way from the Atlantic coast to the upper Mississippi valley at thatremote antiquity. 

 [Footnote 8: Wright's _Ice Age in North America_, p. 516. ]

[Sidenote: and in Delaware. ]

A still more remarkable discovery was made by Mr. Cresson in July, 1887, at Claymont, in the north of Delaware. In a deep cut of the Baltimoreand Ohio Railroad, in a stratum of Philadelphia red gravel and brickclay, Mr. Cresson obtained an unquestionable palæolith, and a few monthsafterward his diligent search was rewarded with another. [9] Thisformation dates from far back in the Glacial period. If we accept Dr. Croll's method of reckoning, we can hardly assign to it an antiquityless than 150, 000 years. 

 [Footnote 9: The chipped implements discovered by Messrs. Abbott, Metz, and Cresson, and by Miss Babbitt, are all on exhibition at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, whither it is necessary to go if one would get a comprehensive view of the relics of interglacial man in North America. The collection of implements made by Dr. Abbott includes much more than the palæoliths already referred to. It is one of the most important collections in the world, and is worth a long journey to see. Containing more than 20, 000 implements, all found within a very limited area in New Jersey, "as now arranged, the collection exhibits at one and the same time the sequence of peoples and phases of development in the valley of the Delaware, from palæolithic man, through the intermediate period, to the recent Indians, and the relative numerical proportion of the many forms of their implements, each in its time. . . . It is doubtful whether any similar collection exists from which a student can gather so much information at sight as in this, where the natural pebbles from the gravel begin the series, and the beautifully chipped points of chert, jasper, and quartz terminate it in one direction, and the polished celts and grooved stone axes in the other. " There are three principal groups, --first, the interglacial palæoliths, secondly, the argillite points and flakes, and thirdly, the arrow-heads, knives, mortars and pestles, axes and hoes, ornamental stones, etc. , of Indians of the recent period. Dr. Abbott's _Primitive Industry_, published in 1881, is a useful manual for studying this collection; and an account of his discoveries in the glacial gravels is given in _Reports of the Peabody Museum_, vol. Ii. Pp. 30-48, 225-258; see also vol. Iii. P. 492. A succinct and judicious account of the whole subject is given by H. W. Haynes, "The Prehistoric Archæology of North America, " in Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History_, vol. I. Pp. 329-368. ]

[Sidenote: The Calaveras skull. ]

But according to Professor Josiah Whitney there is reason for supposingthat man existed in California at a still more remote period. He holdsthat the famous skull discovered in 1866, in the gold-bearing gravels ofCalaveras county, belongs to the Pliocene age. [10] If this be so, itseems to suggest an antiquity not less than twice as great as that justmentioned. The question as to the antiquity of the Calaveras skull isstill hotly disputed among the foremost palæontologists, but as onereads the arguments one cannot help feeling that theoreticaldifficulties have put the objectors into a somewhat inhospitableattitude toward the evidence so ably presented by Professor Whitney. Ithas been too hastily assumed that, from the point of view of evolution, the existence of Pliocene man is improbable. Upon generalconsiderations, however, we have strong reason for believing that humanbeings must have inhabited some portions of the earth throughout thewhole duration of the Pliocene period, and it need not surprise us iftheir remains are presently discovered in more places than one. [11]

 [Footnote 10: J. D. Whitney, "The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada", _Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard College_, Cambridge, 1880, vol. Vi. ]

 [Footnote 11: In an essay published in 1882 on "Europe before the Arrival of Man" (_Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp. 1-40), I argued that if we are to find traces of the "missing link, " or primordial stock of primates from which man has been derived, we must undoubtedly look for it in the Miocene (p. 36). I am pleased at finding the same opinion lately expressed by one of the highest living authorities. The case is thus stated by Alfred Russel Wallace: "The evidence we now possess of the exact nature of the resemblance of man to the various species of anthropoid apes, shows us that he has little special affinity for any one rather than another species, while he differs from them all in several important characters in which they agree with each other. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is, that his points of affinity connect him with the whole group, while his special peculiarities equally separate him from the whole group, and that he must, therefore, have diverged from the common ancestral form before the existing types of anthropoid apes had diverged from each other. Now this divergence almost certainly took place as early as the Miocene period, because in the Upper Miocene deposits of western Europe remains of two species of ape have been found allied to the gibbons, one of them, dryopithecus, nearly as large as a man, and believed by M. Lartet to have approached man in its dentition more than the existing apes. We seem hardly, therefore, to have reached in the Upper Miocene the epoch of the common ancestor of man and the anthropoids. " (_Darwinism_, p. 455, London, 1889. ) Mr. Wallace goes on to answer the objection of Professor Boyd Dawkins, "that man did not probably exist in Pliocene times, because almost all the known mammalia of that epoch are distinct species from those now living on the earth, and that the same changes of the environment which led to the modification of other mammalian species would also have led to a change in man. " This argument, at first sight apparently formidable, quite overlooks the fact that in the evolution of man there came a point after which variations in his intelligence were seized upon more and more exclusively by natural selection, to the comparative neglect of physical variations. After that point man changed but little in physical characteristics, except in size and complexity of brain. This is the theorem first propounded by Mr. Wallace in the _Anthropological Review_, May, 1864; restated in his _Contributions to Natural Selection_, chap. Ix. , in 1870; and further extended and developed by me in connection with the theory of man's origin first suggested in my lectures at Harvard in 1871, and worked out in _Cosmic Philosophy_, part ii. , chapters xvi. , xxi. , xxii. ]

[Sidenote: Pleistocene men and mammals. ]

Whatever may be the final outcome of the Calaveras controversy, therecan be no doubt as to the existence of man in North America far back inearly Pleistocene times. The men of the River-drift, who long dwelt inwestern Europe during the milder intervals of the Glacial period, butseem to have become extinct toward the end of it, are well known topalæontologists through their bones and their rude tools. Contemporaneously with these Europeans of the River-drift therecertainly lived some kind of men, of a similar low grade of culture, inthe Mississippi valley and on both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes ofNorth America. Along with these ancient Americans lived some terrestrialmammals that still survive, such as the elk, reindeer, prairie wolf, bison, musk-ox, and beaver; and many that have long been extinct, suchas the mylodon, megatherium, megalonyx, mastodon, Siberian elephant, mammoth, at least six or seven species of ancestral horse, a huge bearsimilar to the cave bear of ancient Europe, a lion similar to theEuropean cave lion, and a tiger as large as the modern tiger of Bengal. 

[Sidenote: Elevation and subsidence. ]

Now while the general relative positions of those stupendous abyssesthat hold the oceans do not appear to have undergone any considerablechange since an extremely remote geological period, their shallowmarginal portions have been repeatedly raised so as to add extensiveterritories to the edges of continents, and in some cases to convertarchipelagoes into continents, and to join continents previouslyseparated. Such elevation is followed in turn by an era of subsidence, and almost everywhere either the one process or the other is slowlygoing on. If you look at a model in relief of the continents andocean-floors, such as may be seen at the Museum of Comparative Zoölogyin Cambridge, showing the results of a vast number of soundings in allparts of the world, you cannot fail to be struck with the shallowness ofBering Sea; it looks like a part of the continent rather than of theocean, and indeed it is just that, --an area of submerged continent. Soin the northern Atlantic there is a lofty ridge running from France toGreenland. The British islands, the Orkney, Shetland, and Færoe groups, and Iceland are the parts of this ridge high enough to remain out ofwater. The remainder of it is shallow sea. Again and again it has beenraised, together with the floor of the German ocean, so as to become dryland. Both before and since the time when those stone tools were droppedinto the red gravel from which Mr. Cresson took them the other day, thenorthwestern part of Europe has been solid continent for more than ahundred miles to the west of the French and Irish coasts, the Thames andHumber have been tributaries to the Rhine, which emptied into the Arcticocean, and across the Atlantic ridge one might have walked to the NewWorld dry-shod. [12] In similar wise the northwestern corner of Americahas repeatedly been joined to Siberia through the elevation of BeringSea. 

 [Footnote 12: See, for example, the map of Europe in early post-glacial times, in James Geikie's _Prehistoric Europe_. ]

There have therefore been abundant opportunities for men to get intoAmerica from the Old World without crossing salt water. Probably thiswas the case with the ancient inhabitants of the Delaware and LittleMiami valleys; it is not at all likely that men who used their kind oftools knew much about going on the sea in boats. 

[Sidenote: Waves of migration. ]

Whether the Indians are descended from this ancient population or not, is a question with which we have as yet no satisfactory method ofdealing. It is not unlikely that these glacial men may have perishedfrom off the face of the earth, having been crushed and supplanted bystronger races. There may have been several successive waves ofmigration, of which the Indians were the latest. [13] There is timeenough for a great many things to happen in a thousand centuries. Itwill doubtless be long before all the evidence can be brought in andransacked, but of one thing we may feel pretty sure; the past is morefull of changes than we are apt to realize. Our first theories areusually too simple, and have to be enlarged and twisted into all mannerof shapes in order to cover the actual complication of facts. [14]

 [Footnote 13: "There are three human crania in the Museum, which were found in the gravel at Trenton, one several feet below the surface, the others near the surface. These skulls, which are of remarkable uniformity, are of small size and of oval shape, differing from all other skulls in the Museum. In fact they are of a distinct type, and hence of the greatest importance. So far as they go they indicate that palæolithic man was exterminated, or has become lost by admixture with others during the many thousand years which have passed since he inhabited the Delaware valley. " F. W. Putnam, "The Peabody Museum, " _Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society_, 1889, New Series, vol. Vi. P. 189. ]

 [Footnote 14: An excellent example of this is the expansion and modification undergone during the past twenty years by our theories of the Aryan settlement of Europe. See Benfey's preface to Fick's _Woerterbuch der Indogermanischen Grundsprache_, 1868; Geiger, _Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit_, 1871; Cuno, _Forschungen im Gebiete der alten Voelkerkunde_, 1871; Schmidt, _Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Indogermanischen Sprachen_, 1872; Poesche, _Die Arier_, 1878; Lindenschmit, _Handbuch der deutschen Alterthumskunde_, 1880; Penka, _Origines Ariacæ_, 1883, and _Die Herkunft der Arier_, 1886; Spiegel, _Die arische Periode und ihre Zustande_, 1887; Rendal, _Cradle of the Aryans_, 1889; Schrader, _Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte_, 1883, and second edition translated into English, with the title _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, 1890. Schrader's is an epoch-making book. An attempt to defend the older and simpler views is made by Max Müller, _Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas_, 1888; see also Van den Gheyn, _L'origine européenne des Aryas_, 1889. The whole case is well summed up by Isaac Taylor, _Origin of the Aryans_, 1889. ]

[Sidenote: The Cave men of Europe in the Glacial Period. ]

[Sidenote: The Eskimos are probably a remnant of the Cave men. ]

In this connection the history of the Eskimos introduces us to someinteresting problems. Mention has been made of the River-drift men wholived in Europe during the milder intervals of the Glacial period. Atsuch times they made their way into Germany and Britain, along withleopards, hyænas, and African elephants. But as the cold intervals cameon and the edge of the polar ice-sheet crept southward and mountainglaciers filled up the valleys, these men and beasts retreated intoAfrica; and their place was taken by a sub-arctic race of men known asthe Cave men, along with the reindeer and arctic fox and musk-sheep. More than once with the secular alternations of temperature did theRiver-drift men thus advance and retreat and advance again, and as theyadvanced the Cave men retreated, both races yielding to an enemystronger than either, --to wit, the hostile climate. At length all tracesof the River-drift men vanish, but what of the Cave men? They have leftno representatives among the present populations of Europe, but themusk-sheep, which always went and came with the Cave men, is to-dayfound only in sub-arctic America among the Eskimos, and the fossilizedbones of the musk-sheep lie in a regular trail across the easternhemisphere, from the Pyrenees through Germany and Russia and all thevast length of Siberia. The stone arrow-heads, the sewing-needles, thenecklaces and amulets of cut teeth, and the daggers made from antler, used by the Eskimos, resemble so minutely the implements of the Cavemen, that if recent Eskimo remains were to be put into the Pleistocenecaves of France and England they would be indistinguishable inappearance from the remains of the Cave men which are now foundthere. [15] There is another striking point of resemblance. The Eskimoshave a talent for artistic sketching of men and beasts, and scenes inwhich men and beasts figure, which is absolutely unrivalled among rudepeoples. One need but look at the sketches by common Eskimo fishermenwhich illustrate Dr. Henry Rink's fascinating book on Danish Greenland, to realize that this rude Eskimo art has a character as pronounced andunmistakable in its way as the much higher art of the Japanese. Nowamong the European remains of the Cave men are many sketches ofmammoths, cave bears, and other animals now extinct, and hunting scenesso artfully and vividly portrayed as to bring distinctly before us manydetails of daily life in an antiquity so vast that in comparison with itthe interval between the pyramids of Egypt and the Eiffel tower shrinksinto a point. Such a talent is unique among savage peoples. It existsonly among the living Eskimos and the ancient Cave men; and whenconsidered in connection with so many other points of agreement, andwith the indisputable fact that the Cave men were a sub-arctic race, itaffords a strong presumption in favour of the opinion of that greatpalæontologist, Professor Boyd Dawkins, that the Eskimos of NorthAmerica are to-day the sole survivors of the race that made their homesin the Pleistocene caves of western Europe. [16]

 [Footnote 15: See Dawkins, _Early Man in Britain_, pp. 233-245. ]

 [Footnote 16: According to Dr. Rink the Eskimos formerly inhabited the central portions of North America, and have retreated or been driven northward; he would make the Eskimos of Siberia an offshoot from those of America, though he freely admits that there are grounds for entertaining the opposite view. Dr. Abbott is inclined to attribute an Eskimo origin to some of the palæoliths of the Trenton gravel. On the other hand, Mr. Clements Markham derives the American Eskimos from those of Siberia. It seems to me that these views may be comprehended and reconciled in a wider one. I would suggest that during the Glacial period the ancestral Eskimos may have gradually become adapted to arctic conditions of life; that in the mild interglacial intervals they migrated northward along with the musk-sheep; and that upon the return of the cold they migrated southward again, keeping always near the edge of the ice-sheet. Such a southward migration would naturally enough bring them in one continent down to the Pyrenees, in the other down to the Alleghanies; and naturally enough the modern inquirer has his attention first directed to the indications of their final retreat, _both_ northward in America and northeastward from Europe through Siberia. This is like what happened with so many plants and animals. Compare Darwin's remarks on "Dispersal in the Glacial Period, " _Origin of Species_, chap. Xii. 

 The best books on the Eskimos are those of Dr. Rink, _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, Edinburgh, 1875; _Danish Greenland_, London, 1877; _The Eskimo Tribes, their Distribution and Characteristics, especially in regard to Language_, Copenhagen, 1887. See also Franz Boas, "The Central Eskimo, " _Sixth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, Washington, 1888, pp. 399-669; W. H. Dall. _Alaska and its Resources_, 1870; Markham, "Origin and Migrations of the Greenland Esquimaux, " _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, 1865; Cranz, _Historie von Groenland_, Leipsic, 1765; Petitot, _Traditions indiennes du Canada nord-ouest_, Paris, 1886; Pilling's _Bibliography of the Eskimo Language_, Washington, 1887; Wells and Kelly, _English-Eskimo and Eskimo-English Vocabularies, with Ethnographical Memoranda concerning the Arctic Eskimos in Alaska and Siberia_, Washington, 1890; Carstensen's _Two Summers in Greenland_, London, 1890. ]

If we have always been accustomed to think of races of men only as theyare placed on modern maps, it at first seems strange to think of Englandand France as ever having been inhabited by Eskimos. Facts equallystrange may be cited in abundance from zoölogy and botany. The camel isfound to-day only in Arabia and Bactria; yet in all probability thecamel originated in America, [17] and is an intruder into what we areaccustomed to call his native deserts, just as the people of the UnitedStates are European intruders upon the soil of America. So the gianttrees of Mariposa grove are now found only in California, but there wasonce a time when they were as common in Europe[18] as maple-trees to-dayin a New England village. 

 [Footnote 17: Wallace, _Geographical Distribution of Animals_, vol. Ii. P. 155. ]

 [Footnote 18: Asa Gray, "Sequoia and its History, " in his _Darwiniana_, pp. 205-235. ]

[Sidenote: There was probably no connection or intercourse by waterbetween ancient America and the Old World. ]

Familiarity with innumerable facts of this sort, concerning thecomplicated migrations and distribution of plants and animals, hasentirely altered our way of looking at the question as to the origin ofthe American Indians. As already observed, we can hardly be said topossess sufficient data for determining whether they are descended fromthe Pleistocene inhabitants of America, or have come in some later waveof migration from the Old World. Nor can we as yet determine whetherthey were earlier or later comers than the Eskimos. But since we havegot rid of that feeling of speculative necessity above referred to, forbringing the red men from Asia within the historic period, it has becomemore and more clear that they have dwelt upon American soil for a verylong time. The aboriginal American, as we know him, with his languageand legends, his physical and mental peculiarities, his socialobservances and customs, is most emphatically a native and not animported article. He belongs to the American continent as strictly asits opossums and armadillos, its maize and its golden-rod, or anymembers of its aboriginal fauna and flora belong to it. In allprobability he came from the Old World at some ancient period, whetherpre-glacial or post-glacial, when it was possible to come by land; andhere in all probability, until the arrival of white men from Europe, heremained undisturbed by later comers, unless the Eskimos may have beensuch. There is not a particle of evidence to suggest any connection orintercourse between aboriginal America and Asia within any such periodas the last twenty thousand years, except in so far as there may perhapsnow and then have been slight surges of Eskimo tribes back and forthacross Bering strait. 

[Sidenote: There is one great American "red" race. ]

The Indians must surely be regarded as an entirely different stock fromthe Eskimos. On the other hand, the most competent American ethnologistsare now pretty thoroughly agreed that all the aborigines south of theEskimo region, all the way from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, belong toone and the same race. It was formerly supposed that the higher cultureof the Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians must indicate that they were ofdifferent race from the more barbarous Algonquins and Dakotas; and aspeculative necessity was felt for proving that, whatever may have beenthe case with the other American peoples, this higher culture at anyrate must have been introduced within the historic period from the OldWorld. [19] This feeling was caused partly by the fact that, owing tocrude and loosely-framed conceptions of the real points of differencebetween civilization and barbarism, this Central American culture wasabsurdly exaggerated. As the further study of the uncivilized parts ofthe world has led to more accurate and precise conceptions, this kind ofspeculative necessity has ceased to be felt. There is an increasingdisposition among scholars to agree that the warrior of Anahuac and theshepherd of the Andes were just simply Indians, and that their culturewas no less indigenous than that of the Cherokees or Mohawks. 

 [Footnote 19: Illustrations may be found in plenty in the learned works of Brasseur de Bourbourg:--_Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique centrale_, 4 vols. , Paris, 1857-58; _Popol Vuh_, Paris, 1861; _Quatre lettres sur le Mexique_, Paris, 1868; _Le manuscrit Troano_, Paris, 1870, etc. ]

[Sidenote: Different senses in which the word "race" is used. ]

To prevent any possible misconception of my meaning, a further word ofexplanation may be needed at this point. The word "race" is used in suchwidely different senses that there is apt to be more or less vaguenessabout it. The difference is mainly in what logicians call extension;sometimes the word covers very little ground, sometimes a great deal. Wesay that the people of England, of the United States, and of New SouthWales belong to one and the same race; and we say that an Englishman, aFrenchman, and a Greek belong to three different races. There is a sensein which both these statements are true. But there is also a sense inwhich we may say that the Englishman, the Frenchman, and the Greekbelong to one and the same race; and that is when we are contrastingthem as white men with black men or yellow men. Now we may correctly saythat a Shawnee, an Ojibwa, and a Kickapoo belong to one and the sameAlgonquin race; that a Mohawk and a Tuscarora belong to one and the sameIroquois race; but that an Algonquin differs from an Iroquois somewhatas an Englishman differs from a Frenchman. No doubt we may fairly saythat the Mexicans encountered by Cortes differed in race from theIroquois encountered by Champlain, as much as an Englishman differs froman Albanian or a Montenegrin. But when we are contrasting aboriginalAmericans with white men or yellow men, it is right to say that Mexicansand Iroquois belong to the same great red race. 

In some parts of the world two strongly contrasted races have becomemingled together, or have existed side by side for centuries withoutintermingling. In Europe the big blonde Aryan-speaking race has mixedwith the small brunette Iberian race, producing the endless varieties instature and complexion which may be seen in any drawing-room in Londonor New York. In Africa south of Sahara, on the other hand, we find, interspersed among negro tribes but kept perfectly distinct, thatprimitive dwarfish race with yellow skin and tufted hair to which belongthe Hottentots and Bushmen, the Wambatti lately discovered by Mr. Stanley, and other tribes. [20] Now in America south of Hudson's Bay thecase seems to have been quite otherwise, and more as it would have beenin Europe if there had been only Aryans, or in Africa if there had beenonly blacks. [21]

 [Footnote 20: See Werner, "The African Pygmies, " _Popular Science Monthly_, September, 1890, --a thoughtful and interesting article. ]

 [Footnote 21: This sort of illustration requires continual limitation and qualification. The case in ancient America was not _quite_ as it would have been in Europe if there had been only Aryans there. The semi-civilized people of the Cordilleras were relatively brachycephalous as compared with the more barbarous Indians north and east of New Mexico. It is correct to call this a distinction of race if we mean thereby a distinction developed upon American soil, a differentiation within the limits of the red race, and not an intrusion from without. In this sense the Caribs also may be regarded as a distinct sub-race; and, in the same sense, we may call the Kafirs a distinct sub-race of African blacks. See, as to the latter, Tylor, _Anthropology_, p. 39. ]

[Sidenote: No necessary connection between differences in culture anddifferences in race. ]

The belief that the people of the Cordilleras must be of radicallydifferent race from other Indians was based upon the vague notion thatgrades of culture have some necessary connection with likenesses anddifferences of race. There is no such necessary connection. [22] Betweenthe highly civilized Japanese and their barbarous Mandshu cousins thedifference in culture is much greater than the difference betweenMohawks and Mexicans; and the same may be said of the people of Israeland Judah in contrast with the Arabs of the desert, or of the imperialRomans in comparison with their Teutonic kinsmen as described byTacitus. 

 [Footnote 22: As Sir John Lubbock well says, "Different races in similar stages of development often present more features of resemblance to one another than the same race does to itself in different stages of its history. " (_Origin of Civilization_, p. 11. ) If every student of history and ethnology would begin by learning this lesson, the world would be spared a vast amount of unprofitable theorizing. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Grades of culture. ]

At this point, in order to prepare ourselves the more clearly tounderstand sundry facts with which we shall hereafter be obliged todeal, especially the wonderful experiences of the Spanish conquerors, itwill be well to pause for a moment and do something toward defining thedifferent grades of culture through which men have passed in attainingto the grade which can properly be called civilization. Unless we beginwith clear ideas upon this head we cannot go far toward understandingthe ancient America that was first visited and described for us bySpaniards. The various grades of culture need to be classified, and thatmost original and suggestive scholar, the late Lewis Morgan ofRochester, made a brilliant attempt in this direction, to which thereader's attention is now invited. 

[Sidenote: Distinction between Savagery and Barbarism. ]

[Sidenote: Origin of pottery. ]

Below _Civilization_ Mr. Morgan[23] distinguishes two principal gradesor stages of culture, namely _Savagery_ and _Barbarism_. There is muchlooseness and confusion in the popular use of these terms, and this isliable to become a fruitful source of misapprehension in the case of anystatement involving either of them. When popular usage discriminatesbetween them it discriminates in the right direction; there is a vaguebut not uncertain feeling that savagery is a lower stage than barbarism. But ordinarily the discrimination is not made and the two terms arecarelessly employed as if interchangeable. Scientific writers long sincerecognized a general difference between savagery and barbarism, but Mr. Morgan was the first to suggest a really useful criterion fordistinguishing between them. His criterion is the making of pottery; andhis reason for selecting it is that the making of pottery is somethingthat presupposes village life and more or less progress in the simplerarts. The earlier methods of boiling food were either putting it intoholes in the ground lined with skins and then using heated stones, orelse putting it into baskets coated with clay to be supported over afire. The clay served the double purpose of preventing liquids fromescaping and protecting the basket against the flame. It was probablyobserved that the clay was hardened by the fire, and thus in course oftime it was found that the clay would answer the purpose without thebasket. [24] Whoever first made this ingenious discovery led the way fromsavagery to barbarism. Throughout the present work we shall apply thename "savages" only to uncivilized people who do not make pottery. 

 [Footnote 23: See his great work on _Ancient Society_, New York, 1877. ]

 [Footnote 24: See the evidence in Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_, pp. 269-272; cf. Lubbock, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 573; and see Cushing's masterly "Study of Pueblo Pottery, " etc. , _Reports of Bureau of Ethnology_, iv. , 473-521. ]

[Sidenote: Lower status of savagery. ]

But within each of these two stages Mr. Morgan distinguishes threesubordinate stages, or Ethnic Periods, which may be called either lower, middle, and upper status, or older, middle, and later periods. The lowerstatus of savagery was that wholly prehistoric stage when men lived intheir original restricted habitat and subsisted on fruit and nuts. Tothis period must be assigned the beginning of articulate speech. Allexisting races of men had passed beyond it at an unknown antiquity. 

[Sidenote: Middle status of savagery. ]

Men began to pass beyond it when they discovered how to catch fish andhow to use fire. They could then begin (following coasts and rivers) tospread over the earth. The middle status of savagery, thus introduced, ends with the invention of that compound weapon, the bow and arrow. Thenatives of Australia, who do not know this weapon, are still in themiddle status of savagery. [25]

 [Footnote 25: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, London, 1889, gives a vivid picture of aboriginal life in Australia. ]

[Sidenote: Upper status of savagery. ]

The invention of the bow and arrow, which marks the upper status ofsavagery, was not only a great advance in military art, but it alsovastly increased men's supply of food by increasing their power ofkilling wild game. The lowest tribes in America, such as those upon theColumbia river, the Athabaskans of Hudson's Bay, the Fuegians and someother South American tribes, are in the upper status of savagery. 

[Sidenote: Lower status of barbarism: it ended differently in the twohemispheres. ]

The transition from this status to the lower status of barbarism wasmarked, as before observed, by the invention of pottery. The end of thelower status of barbarism was marked in the Old World by thedomestication of animals other than the dog, which was probablydomesticated at a much earlier period as an aid to the hunter. Thedomestication of horses and asses, oxen and sheep, goats and pigs, marksof course an immense advance. Along with it goes considerabledevelopment of agriculture, thus enabling a small territory to supportmany people. It takes a wide range of country to support hunters. In theNew World, except in Peru, the only domesticated animal was the dog. Horses, oxen, and the other animals mentioned did not exist in America, during the historic period, until they were brought over from Europe bythe Spaniards. In ancient American society there was no such thing as apastoral stage of development, [26] and the absence of domesticableanimals from the western hemisphere may well be reckoned as veryimportant among the causes which retarded the progress of mankind inthis part of the world. 

 [Footnote 26: The case of Peru, which forms an apparent but not real exception to this general statement, will be considered below in chap. Ix. ]

[Sidenote: Importance of Indian corn. ]

On the other hand the ancient Americans had a cereal plant peculiar tothe New World, which made comparatively small demands upon theintelligence and industry of the cultivator. Maize or "Indian corn" hasplayed a most important part in the history of the New World, asregards both the red men and the white men. It could be planted withoutclearing or ploughing the soil. It was only necessary to girdle thetrees with a stone hatchet, so as to destroy their leaves and let in thesunshine. A few scratches and digs were made in the ground with a stonedigger, and the seed once dropped in took care of itself. The ears couldhang for weeks after ripening, and could be picked off without meddlingwith the stalk; there was no need of threshing and winnowing. None ofthe Old World cereals can be cultivated without much more industry andintelligence. At the same time, when Indian corn is sown in tilled landit yields with little labour more than twice as much food per acre asany other kind of grain. This was of incalculable advantage to theEnglish settlers of New England, who would have found it much harder togain a secure foothold upon the soil if they had had to begin bypreparing it for wheat and rye without the aid of the beautiful andbeneficent American plant. [27] The Indians of the Atlantic coast ofNorth America for the most part lived in stockaded villages, andcultivated their corn along with beans, pumpkins, squashes, and tobacco;but their cultivation was of the rudest sort, [28] and population was toosparse for much progress toward civilization. But Indian corn, whensown in carefully tilled and irrigated land, had much to do with thedenser population, the increasing organization of labour, and the higherdevelopment in the arts, which characterized the confederacies of Mexicoand Central America and all the pueblo Indians of the southwest. Thepotato played a somewhat similar part in Peru. Hence it seems proper totake the regular employment of tillage with irrigation as marking theend of the lower period of barbarism in the New World. To this Mr. Morgan adds the use of adobe-brick and stone in architecture, which alsodistinguished the Mexicans and their neighbours from the ruder tribes ofNorth and South America. All these ruder tribes, except the few alreadymentioned as in the upper period of savagery, were somewhere within thelower period of barbarism. Thus the Algonquins and Iroquois, the Creeks, the Dakotas, etc. , when first seen by white men, were within thisperiod; but some had made much further progress within it than others. For example, the Algonquin tribe of Ojibwas had little more than emergedfrom savagery, while the Creeks and Cherokees had made considerableadvance toward the middle status of barbarism. 

 [Footnote 27: See Shaler, "Physiography of North America, " in Winsor's _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _ vol. Iv. P. Xiii. ]

 [Footnote 28: "No manure was used, " says Mr. Parkman, speaking of the Hurons, "but at intervals of from ten to twenty years, when the soil was exhausted and firewood distant, the village was abandoned and a new one built. " _Jesuits in North America_, p. Xxx. ]

[Sidenote: Middle status of barbarism. ]

Let us now observe some characteristics of this extremely interestingmiddle period. It began, we see, in the eastern hemisphere with thedomestication of other animals than the dog, and in the westernhemisphere with cultivation by irrigation and the use of adobe-brick andstone for building. It also possessed another feature whichdistinguished it from earlier periods, in the materials of which itstools were made. In the periods of savagery hatchets and spear-headswere made of rudely chipped stones. In the lower period of barbarism thechipping became more and more skilful until it gave place to polishing. In the middle period tools were greatly multiplied, improved polishinggave sharp and accurate points and edges, and at last metals began to beused as materials preferable to stone. In America the metal used wascopper, and in some spots where it was very accessible there wereinstances of its use by tribes not in other respects above the lowerstatus of barbarism, --as for example, the "mound-builders. " In the OldWorld the metal used was the alloy of copper and tin familiarly known asbronze, and in its working it called for a higher degree of intelligencethan copper. 

[Sidenote: Working of metals. ]

Toward the close of the middle period of barbarism the working of metalsbecame the most important element of progress, and the period may beregarded as ending with the invention of the process of smelting ironore. According to this principle of division, the inhabitants of thelake villages of ancient Switzerland, who kept horses and oxen, pigs andsheep, raised wheat and ground it into flour, and spun and wove linengarments, but knew nothing of iron, were in the middle status ofbarbarism. The same was true of the ancient Britons before they learnedthe use of iron from their neighbours in Gaul. In the New World therepresentatives of the middle status of barbarism were such peoples asthe Zuñis, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Peruvians. 

[Sidenote: Upper status of barbarism. ]

[Sidenote: Beginning of civilization. ]

The upper status of barbarism, in so far as it implies a knowledge ofsmelting iron, was never reached in aboriginal America. In the Old Worldit is the stage which had been reached by the Greeks of the Homericpoems[29] and the Germans in the time of Cæsar. The end of this periodand the beginning of true civilization is marked by the invention of aphonetic alphabet and the production of written records. This bringswithin the pale of civilization such people as the ancient Phoenicians, the Hebrews after the exodus, the ruling classes at Nineveh and Babylon, the Aryans of Persia and India, and the Japanese. But clearly it willnot do to insist too narrowly upon the phonetic character of thealphabet. Where people acquainted with iron have enshrined inhieroglyphics so much matter of historic record and literary interest asthe Chinese and the ancient Egyptians, they too must be classed ascivilized; and this Mr. Morgan by implication admits. 

 [Footnote 29: In the interesting architectural remains unearthed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ and Tiryns, there have been found at the former place a few iron keys and knives, at the latter one iron lance-head; but the form and workmanship of these objects mark them as not older than the beginning of the fifth century B. C. , or the time of the Persian wars. With these exceptions the weapons and tools found in these cities, as also in Troy, were of bronze and stone. Bronze was in common use, but obsidian knives and arrow-heads of fine workmanship abound in the ruins. According to Professor Sayce, these ruins must date from 2000 to 1700 B. C. The Greeks of that time would accordingly be placed in the middle status of barbarism. (See Schliemann's _Mycenæ_, pp. 75, 364; _Tiryns_, p. 171. ) In the state of society described in the Homeric poems the smelting of iron was well known, but the process seems to have been costly, so that bronze weapons were still commonly used. (Tylor, _Anthropology_, p. 279. ) The Romans of the regal period were ignorant of iron. (Lanciani, _Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries_, Boston, 1888, pp. 39-48. ) The upper period of barbarism was shortened for Greece and Rome through the circumstance that they learned the working of iron from Egypt and the use of the alphabet from Phoenicia. Such copying, of course, affects the symmetry of such schemes as Mr. Morgan's, and allowances have to be made for it. It is curious that both Greeks and Romans seem to have preserved some tradition of the Bronze Age:--

 [Greek: tois d' ên chalkea men teuchea, chalkeoi de te oikoi, chalkô d' eirgazonto; melas d' ouk eske sidêros. ] Hesiod, _Opp. Di. _ 134. 

 Arma antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt Et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami, Et flamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum. Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta. Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, etc. Lucretius, v. 1283. 

 Perhaps, as Munro suggests, Lucretius was thinking of Hesiod; but it does not seem improbable that in both cases there may have been a genuine tradition that their ancestors used bronze tools and weapons before iron, since the change was comparatively recent, and sundry religious observances tended to perpetuate the memory of it. ]

[Sidenote: "Civilizations" of Mexico and Peru. ]

This brilliant classification of the stages of early culture will befound very helpful if we only keep in mind the fact that in all widegeneralizations of this sort the case is liable to be somewhat undulysimplified. The story of human progress is really not quite so easy todecipher as such descriptions would make it appear, and when we havelaid down rules of this sort we need not be surprised if we now and thencome upon facts that will not exactly fit into them. In such an eventit is best not to try to squeeze or distort the unruly facts, but tolook and see if our rules will not bear some little qualification. Thefaculty for generalizing is a good servant but a bad master. If weobserve this caution we shall find Mr. Morgan's work to be of greatvalue. It will be observed that, with one exception, his restrictionsleave the area of civilization as wide as that which we are accustomedto assign to it in our ordinary speaking and thinking. That exception isthe case of Mexico, Central America, and Peru. We have so long beenaccustomed to gorgeous accounts of the civilization of these countriesat the time of their discovery by the Spaniards that it may at firstshock our preconceived notions to see them set down as in the "middlestatus of barbarism, " one stage higher than Mohawks, and one stage lowerthan the warriors of the Iliad. This does indeed mark a change since Dr. Draper expressed the opinion that the Mexicans and Peruvians weremorally and intellectually superior to the Europeans of the sixteenthcentury. [30] The reaction from the state of opinion in which such anextravagant remark was even possible has been attended with somecontroversy; but on the whole Mr. Morgan's main position has beensteadily and rapidly gaining ground, and it is becoming more and moreclear that if we are to use language correctly when we speak of thecivilizations of Mexico and Peru we really mean civilizations of anextremely archaic type, considerably more archaic than that of Egypt inthe time of the Pharaohs. A "civilization" like that of the Aztecs, without domestic animals or iron tools, with trade still in theprimitive stage of barter, with human sacrifices, and with cannibalism, has certainly some of the most vivid features of barbarism. Along withthese primitive features, however, there seem to have been--after makingall due allowances--some features of luxury and splendour such as we arewont to associate with civilization. The Aztecs, moreover, thoughdoubtless a full ethnical period behind the ancient Egyptians in generaladvancement, had worked out a system of hieroglyphic writing, and hadbegun to put it to some literary use. It would seem that a people may incertain special points reach a level of attainment higher than the levelwhich they occupy in other points. The Cave men of the Glacial periodwere ignorant of pottery, and thus had not risen above the upper statusof savagery; but their artistic talent, upon which we have remarked, wasnot such as we are wont to associate with savagery. Other instances willoccur to us in the proper place. 

 [Footnote 30: See his _Intellectual Development of Europe_, New York, 1863, pp. 448, 464. ]

[Sidenote: Loose use of the words "savagery" and "civilization". ]

The difficulty which people usually find in realizing the true positionof the ancient Mexican culture arises partly from the misconceptionswhich have until recently distorted the facts, and partly from the looseemployment of terms above noticed. It is quite correct to speak of theAustralian blackfellows as "savages, " but nothing is more common than tohear the same epithet employed to characterize Shawnees and Mohawks;and to call those Indians "savages" is quite misleading. So on the otherhand the term "civilization" is often so loosely used as to cover alarge territory belonging to "barbarism. " One does not look forscientific precision in newspapers, but they are apt to reflect popularhabits of thought quite faithfully, and for that reason it is properhere to quote from one. In a newspaper account of Mr. Cushing's recentdiscoveries of buried towns, works of irrigation, etc. , in Arizona, weare first told that these are the remains of a "splendid prehistoriccivilization, " and the next moment we are told, in entireunconsciousness of the contradiction, that the people who constructedthese works had only stone tools. Now to call a people "civilized" whohave only stone tools is utterly misleading. Nothing but confusion ofideas and darkening of counsel can come from such a misuse of words. Such a people may be in a high degree interesting and entitled to creditfor what they have achieved, but the grade of culture which they havereached is not "civilization. "

[Sidenote: Value and importance of the term "barbarism. "]

With "savagery" thus encroaching upon its area of meaning on the oneside, and "civilization" encroaching on the other, the word "barbarism, "as popularly apprehended, is left in a vague and unsatisfactory plight. If we speak of Montezuma's people as barbarians one stage furtheradvanced than Mohawks, we are liable to be charged with calling them"savages. " Yet the term "barbarism" is a very useful one; indispensable, indeed, in the history of human progress. There is no other word whichcan serve in its stead as a designation of the enormous interval whichbegins with the invention of pottery and ends with the invention of thealphabet. The popular usage of the word is likely to become moredefinite as it comes to be more generally realized how prodigious thatinterval has been. When we think what a considerable portion of man'spast existence has been comprised within it, and what a marvelloustransformation in human knowledge and human faculty has been graduallywrought between its beginning and its end, the period of barbarismbecomes invested with most thrilling interest, and its name ceases toappear otherwise than respectable. It is Mr. Morgan's chief title tofame that he has so thoroughly explored this period and described itsfeatures with such masterly skill. 

[Sidenote: The status of barbarism is most completely exemplified inancient America. ]

[Sidenote: Survivals of bygone epochs of culture. ]

It is worth while to observe that Mr. Morgan's view of the successivestages of culture is one which could not well have been marked out inall its parts except by a student of American archæology. AboriginalAmerica is the richest field in the world for the study of barbarism. Its people present every gradation in social life during three ethnicalperiods--the upper period of savagery and the lower and middle periodsof barbarism--so that the process of development may be mostsystematically and instructively studied. Until we have become familiarwith ancient American society, and so long as our view is confined tothe phases of progress in the Old World, the demarcation betweencivilized and uncivilized life seems too abrupt and sudden; we do notget a correct measure of it. The oldest European tradition reaches backonly through the upper period of barbarism. [31] The middle and lowerperiods have lapsed into utter oblivion, and it is only modernarchæological research that is beginning to recover the traces of them. But among the red men of America the social life of ages more remotethan that of the lake villages of Switzerland is in many particularspreserved for us to-day, and when we study it we begin to realize asnever before the continuity of human development, its enormous duration, and the almost infinite accumulation of slow efforts by which progresshas been achieved. Ancient America is further instructive in presentingthe middle status of barbarism in a different form from that which itassumed in the eastern hemisphere. Its most conspicuous outwardmanifestations, instead of tents and herds, were strange and imposingedifices of stone, so that it was quite natural that observersinterpreting it from a basis of European experience should mistake itfor civilization. Certain aspects of that middle period may be studiedto-day in New Mexico and Arizona, as phases of the older periods maystill be found among the wilder tribes, even after all the contact theyhave had with white men. These survivals from antiquity will notpermanently outlive that contact, and it is important that no timeshould be lost in gathering and putting on record all that can belearned of the speech and arts, the customs and beliefs, everything thatgoes to constitute the philology and anthropology of the red men. Forthe intelligent and vigorous work of this sort now conducted by theBureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, under the directionof Major Powell, no praise can be too strong and no encouragement toohearty. 

 [Footnote 31: Now and then, perhaps, but very rarely, it just touches the close of the middle period, as, e. G. , in the lines from Hesiod and Lucretius above quoted. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Tribal society and multiplicity of languages in aboriginalAmerica. ]

A brief enumeration of the principal groups of Indians will be helpfulin enabling us to comprehend the social condition of ancient America. The groups are in great part defined by differences of language, whichare perhaps a better criterion of racial affinity in the New World thanin the Old, because there seems to have been little or nothing of thatpeculiar kind of conquest with incorporation resulting in completechange of speech which we sometimes find in the Old World; as, forexample, when we see the Celto-Iberian population of Spain and theBelgic, Celtic, and Aquitanian populations of Gaul forgetting theirnative tongues, and adopting that of a confederacy of tribes in Latium. Except in the case of Peru there is no indication that anything of thissort went on, or that there was anything even superficially analogous to"empire, " in ancient America. What strikes one most forcibly at first isthe vast number of American languages. Adelung, in his "Mithridates, "put the number at 1, 264, and Ludewig, in his "Literature of the AmericanLanguages, " put it roundly at 1, 100. Squier, on the other hand, wascontent with 400. [32] The discrepancy arises from the fact that whereone scholar sees two or three distinct languages another sees two orthree dialects of one language and counts them as one; it is like thedifficulty which naturalists find in agreeing as to what are species andwhat are only varieties. The great number of languages and dialectsspoken by a sparse population is one mark of the universal prevalence ofa rude and primitive form of tribal society. [33]

 [Footnote 32: Winsor, "Bibliographical Notes on American Linguistics, " in his _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, vol. I. Pp. 420-428, gives an admirable survey of the subject. See also Pilling's bibliographical bulletins of Iroquoian, Siouan, and Muskhogean languages, published by the Bureau of Ethnology. ]

 [Footnote 33: _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp. 147-174. ]

[Sidenote: Tribes in the upper status of savagery. ]

The lowest tribes in North America were those that are still to be foundin California, in the valley of the Columbia river, and on the shores ofPuget Sound. The Athabaskans of Hudson's Bay were on about the samelevel of savagery. They made no pottery, knew nothing of horticulture, depended for subsistence entirely upon bread-roots, fish, and game, andthus had no village life. They were mere prowlers in the upper status ofsavagery. [34] The Apaches of Arizona, preëminent even among red men foratrocious cruelty, are an offshoot from the Athabaskan stock. Verylittle better are the Shoshones and Bannocks that still wander amongthe lonely bare mountains and over the weird sage-brush plains of Idaho. The region west of the Rocky Mountains and north of New Mexico is thusthe region of savagery. 

 [Footnote 34: For a good account of Indians in the upper status of savagery until modified by contact with civilization, see Myron Eells, "The Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of Washington Territory, " _Smithsonian Report_, 1887, pp. 605-681. ]

[Sidenote: The Dakota family of tribes. ]

Between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast the aborigines, atthe time of the Discovery, might have been divided into six or sevengroups, of which three were situated mainly to the east of theMississippi river, the others mainly to the west of it. All were in thelower period of barbarism. Of the western groups, by far the mostnumerous were the Dakotas, comprising the Sioux, Poncas, Omahas, Iowas, Kaws, Otoes, and Missouris. From the headwaters of the Mississippi theirterritory extended westward on both sides of the Missouri for a thousandmiles. One of their tribes, the Winnebagos, had crossed the Mississippiand pressed into the region between that river and Lake Michigan. 

[Sidenote: The Minnitarees and Mandans. ]

A second group, very small in numbers but extremely interesting to thestudent of ethnology, comprises the Minnitarees and Mandans on the upperMissouri. [35] The remnants of these tribes now live together in the samevillage, and in personal appearance, as well as in intelligence, theyare described as superior to any other red men north of New Mexico. From their first discovery, by the brothers La Vérendrye in 1742, downto Mr. Catlin's visit nearly a century later, there was no change intheir condition, [36] but shortly afterward, in 1838, the greater part ofthem were swept away by small-pox. The excellence of their horticulture, the framework of their houses, and their peculiar religious ceremoniesearly attracted attention. Upon Mr. Catlin they made such an impressionthat he fancied there must be an infusion of white blood in them; andafter the fashion of those days he sought to account for it by areference to the legend of Madoc, a Welsh prince who was dimly imaginedto have sailed to America about 1170. He thought that Madoc's partymight have sailed to the Mississippi and founded a colony which ascendedthat river and the Ohio, built the famous mounds of the Ohio valley, andfinally migrated to the upper Missouri. [37] To this speculation wasappended the inevitable list of words which happen to sound somewhatalike in Mandan and in Welsh. In the realm of free fancy everything iseasy. That there was a Madoc who went somewhere in 1170 is quitepossible, but as shrewd old John Smith said about it, "where this placewas no history can show. "[38] But one part of Mr. Catlin's speculationmay have hit somewhat nearer the truth. It is possible that theMinnitarees or the Mandans, or both, may be a remnant of some of thoseMound-builders in the Mississippi valley concerning whom something willpresently be said. 

 [Footnote 35: An excellent description of them, profusely illustrated with coloured pictures, may be found in Catlin's _North American Indians_, vol. I. Pp. 66-207, 7th ed. , London, 1848; the author was an accurate and trustworthy observer. Some writers have placed these tribes in the Dakota group because of the large number of Dakota words in their language; but these are probably borrowed words, like the numerous French words in English. ]

 [Footnote 36: See Francis Parkman's paper, "The Discovery of the Rocky Mountains, " _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1888. I hope the appearance of this article, two years ago, indicates that we have not much longer to wait for the next of that magnificent series of volumes on the history of the French in North America. ]

 [Footnote 37: _North American Indians_, vol. Ii. , Appendix A. ]

 [Footnote 38: Smith's _Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles_, p. 1, London, 1626. ]

[Sidenote: Pawnees, etc. ]

The third group in this western region consists of the Pawnees andArickarees, [39] of the Platte valley in Nebraska, with a few kindredtribes farther to the south. 

 [Footnote 39: For the history and ethnology of these interesting tribes, see three learned papers by J. B. Dunbar, in _Magazine of American History_, vol. Iv. Pp. 241-281; vol. V. Pp. 321-342; vol. Viii. Pp. 734-756; also Grinnell's _Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales_, New York, 1889. ]

[Sidenote: Maskoki family. ]

Of the three groups eastward of the Mississippi we may first mention theMaskoki, or Muskhogees, consisting of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and others, with the Creek confederacy. [40] These tribes wereintelligent and powerful, with a culture well advanced toward the end ofthe lower period of barbarism. 

 [Footnote 40: These tribes of the Gulf region were formerly grouped, along with others not akin to them, as "Mobilians. " The Cherokees were supposed to belong to the Maskoki family, but they have lately been declared an intrusive offshoot from the Iroquois stock. The remnants of another alien tribe, the once famous Natchez, were adopted into the Creek confederacy. For a full account of these tribes, see Gatschet, _A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians_, vol. I. , Philadelphia, 1884. ]

[Sidenote: Algonquin family of tribes. ]

The Algonquin family, bordering at its southern limits upon the Maskoki, had a vast range northeasterly along the Atlantic coast until it reachedthe confines of Labrador, and northwesterly through the region of theGreat Lakes and as far as the Churchill river[41] to the west ofHudson's Bay. In other words, the Algonquins were bounded on the southby the Maskoki, [42] on the west by the Dakotas, on the northwest by theAthabaskans, on the northeast by Eskimos, and on the east by the ocean. Between Lake Superior and the Red River of the North the Crees had theirhunting grounds, and closely related to them were the Pottawatomies, Ojibwas, and Ottawas. One offshoot, including the Blackfeet, Cheyennes, and Arrapahos, roamed as far west as the Rocky Mountains. The greattriangle between the upper Mississippi and the Ohio was occupied by theMenomonees and Kickapoos, the Sacs and Foxes, the Miamis and Illinois, and the Shawnees. Along the coast region the principal Algonquin tribeswere the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenape or Delawares, the Munsees orMinisinks of the mountains about the Susquehanna, the Mohegans on theHudson, the Adirondacks between that river and the St. Lawrence, theNarragansetts and their congeners in New England, and finally theMicmacs and Wabenaki far down East, as the last name implies. There is atradition, supported to some extent by linguistic evidence, [43] that theMohegans, with their cousins the Pequots, were more closely related tothe Shawnees than to the Delaware or coast group. While all theAlgonquin tribes were in the lower period of barbarism, there was anoticeable gradation among them, the Crees and Ojibwas of the far Northstanding lowest in culture, and the Shawnees, at their southernmostlimits, standing highest. 

 [Footnote 41: Howse, _Grammar of the Cree Language_, London, 1865, p. Vii. ]

 [Footnote 42: Except in so far as the Cherokees and Tuscaroras, presently to be mentioned, were interposed. ]

 [Footnote 43: Brinton, _The Lenape and their Legends_, p. 30. ]

[Sidenote: Huron-Iroquois family of tribes. ]

We have observed the Dakota tribes pressing eastward against theirneighbours and sending out an offshoot, the Winnebagos, across theMississippi river. It has been supposed that the Huron-Iroquois group oftribes was a more remote offshoot from the Dakotas. This is verydoubtful; but in the thirteenth or fourteenth century the general trendof the Huron-Iroquois movement seems to have been eastward, either insuccessive swarms, or in a single swarm, which became divided andscattered by segmentation, as was common with all Indian tribes. Theyseem early to have proved their superiority over the Algonquins inbravery and intelligence. Their line of invasion seems to have runeastward to Niagara, and thereabouts to have bifurcated, one linefollowing the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the other that of theSusquehanna. The Hurons established themselves in the peninsula betweenthe lake that bears their name and Lake Ontario. South of them and alongthe northern shore of Lake Erie were settled their kindred, afterwardcalled the "Neutral Nation. "[44] On the southern shore the Eries plantedthemselves, while the Susquehannocks pushed on in a directionsufficiently described by their name. Farthest of all penetrated theTuscaroras, even into the pine forests of North Carolina, where theymaintained themselves in isolation from their kindred until 1715. Theseinvasions resulted in some displacement of Algonquin tribes, and beganto sap the strength of the confederacy or alliance in which theDelawares had held a foremost place. 

 [Footnote 44: Because they refused to take part in the strife between the Hurons and the Five Nations. Their Indian name was Attiwandarons. They were unsurpassed for ferocity. See Parkman, _Jesuits in North America_, p. Xliv. ]

[Sidenote: The Five Nations. ]

But by far the most famous and important of the Huron-Iroquois werethose that followed the northern shore of Lake Ontario into the valleyof the St. Lawrence. In that direction their progress was checked by theAlgonquin tribe of Adirondacks, but they succeeded in retaining afoothold in the country for a long time; for in 1535 Jacques Cartierfound on the site which he named Montreal an Iroquois village which hadvanished before Champlain's arrival seventy years later. Those Iroquoiswho were thrust back in the struggle for the St. Lawrence valley, earlyin the fifteenth century, made their way across Lake Ontario andestablished themselves at the mouth of the Oswego river. They were thenin three small tribes, --the Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senecas, --but asthey grew in numbers and spread eastward to the Hudson and westward tothe Genesee, the intermediate tribes of Oneidas and Cayugas were formedby segmentation. [45] About 1450 the five tribes--afterwards known as theFive Nations--were joined in a confederacy in pursuance of the wisecounsel which Hayowentha, or Hiawatha, [46] according to the legend, whispered into the ears of the Onondaga sachem, Daganoweda. This unionof their resources combined, with their native bravery and cunning, andtheir occupation of the most commanding military position in easternNorth America, to render them invincible among red men. Theyexterminated their old enemies the Adirondacks, and pushed the Mohegansover the mountains from the Hudson river to the Connecticut. When theyfirst encountered white men in 1609 their name had become a terror inNew England, insomuch that as soon as a single Mohawk was caught sightof by the Indians in that country, they would raise the cry from hill tohill, "A Mohawk! a Mohawk!" and forthwith would flee like sheep beforewolves, never dreaming of resistance. [47]

 [Footnote 45: Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 125. ]

 [Footnote 46: Whether there was ever such a person as Hiawatha is, to say the least, doubtful. As a traditional culture-hero his attributes are those of Ioskeha, Michabo, Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha, and all that class of sky-gods to which I shall again have occasion to refer. See Brinton's _Myths of the New World_, p. 172. When the Indian speaks of Hiawatha whispering advice to Daganoweda, his meaning is probably the same as that of the ancient Greek when he attributed the wisdom of some mortal hero to whispered advice from Zeus or his messenger Hermes. Longfellow's famous poem is based upon Schoolcraft's book entitled _The Hiawatha Legends_, which is really a misnomer, for the book consists chiefly of Ojibwa stories about Manabozho, son of the West Wind. There was really no such legend of Hiawatha as that which the poet has immortalized. See Hale, _The Iroquois Book of Rites_, pp. 36, 180-183. ]

 [Footnote 47: Cadwallader Colden, _History of the Five Nations_, New York, 1727. ]

After the Five Nations had been supplied with firearms by the Dutchtheir power increased with portentous rapidity. [48] At first they soughtto persuade their neighbours of kindred blood and speech, the Eries andothers, to join their confederacy; and failing in this they went to warand exterminated them. [49] Then they overthrew one Algonquin tribe afteranother until in 1690 their career was checked by the French. By thattime they had reduced to a tributary condition most of the Algonquintribes, even to the Mississippi river. Some writers have spoken of theempire of the Iroquois, and it has been surmised that, if they had notbeen interfered with by white men, they might have played a partanalogous to that of the Romans in the Old World; but there is no realsimilarity between the two cases. The Romans acquired their mightystrength by incorporating vanquished peoples into their own bodypolitic. [50] No American aborigines ever had a glimmering of the processof state-building after the Roman fashion. No incorporation resultedfrom the victories of the Iroquois. Where their burnings and massacresstopped short of extermination, they simply took tribute, which was asfar as state-craft had got in the lower period of barbarism. GeneralWalker has summed up their military career in a single sentence: "Theywere the scourge of God upon the aborigines of the continent. "[51]

 [Footnote 48: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 12. ]

 [Footnote 49: All except the distant Tuscaroras, who in 1715 migrated from North Carolina to New York, and joining the Iroquois league made it the Six Nations. All the rest of the outlying Huron-Iroquois stock was wiped out of existence before the end of the seventeenth century, except the remnant of Hurons since known as Wyandots. ]

 [Footnote 50: See my _Beginnings of New England_, chap. I. ]

 [Footnote 51: F. A. Walker, "The Indian Question, " _North American Review_, April, 1873, p. 370. ]

[Sidenote: Horticulture must be distinguished from field agriculture. ]

[Sidenote: Perpetual warfare. ]

The six groups here enumerated--Dakota, Mandan, Pawnee, Maskoki, Algonquin, Iroquois--made up the great body of the aborigines of NorthAmerica who at the time of the Discovery lived in the lower status ofbarbarism. All made pottery of various degrees of rudeness. Their toolsand weapons were of the Neolithic type, --stone either polished oraccurately and artistically chipped. For the most part they lived instockaded villages, and cultivated maize, beans, pumpkins, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco. They depended for subsistence partly upon suchvegetable products, partly upon hunting and fishing, the women generallyattending to the horticulture, the men to the chase. _Horticulture_ isan appropriate designation for this stage in which the ground is merelyscratched with stone spades and hoes. It is incipient agriculture, butshould be carefully distinguished from the _field agriculture_ in whichextensive pieces of land are subdued by the plough. The assistance ofdomestic animals is needed before such work can be carried far, and itdoes not appear that there was an approach to field agriculture in anypart of pre-Columbian America except Peru, where men were harnessed tothe plough, and perhaps occasionally llamas were used in the sameway. [52] Where subsistence depended upon rude horticulture eked out bygame and fish, it required a large territory to support a sparsepopulation. The great diversity of languages contributed to maintain theisolation of tribes and prevent extensive confederation. Intertribalwarfare was perpetual, save now and then for truces of brief duration. Warfare was attended by wholesale massacre. As many prisoners as couldbe managed were taken home by their captors; in some cases they wereadopted into the tribe of the latter as a means of increasing itsfighting strength, otherwise they were put to death with lingeringtorments. [53] There was nothing which afforded the red men suchexquisite delight as the spectacle of live human flesh lacerated withstone knives or hissing under the touch of firebrands, and for elaborateingenuity in devising tortures they have never been equalled. [54]Cannibalism was quite commonly practised. [55] The scalps of slainenemies were always taken, and until they had attained such trophies theyoung men were not likely to find favour in the eyes of women. TheIndian's notions of morality were those that belong to that state ofsociety in which the tribe is the largest well-established politicalaggregate. Murder without the tribe was meritorious unless it entailedrisk of war at an obvious disadvantage; murder within the tribe waseither revenged by blood-feud or compounded by a present given to thevictim's kinsmen. Such rudimentary _wergild_ was often reckoned inwampum, or strings of beads made of a kind of mussel shell, and put todivers uses, as personal ornament, mnemonic record, and finally money. Religious thought was in the fetishistic or animistic stage, [56] whilemany tribes had risen to a vague conception of tutelar deities embodiedin human or animal forms. Myth-tales abounded, and the folk-lore of thered men is found to be extremely interesting and instructive. [57] Theirreligion consisted mainly in a devout belief in witchcraft. Nowell-defined priestly class had been evolved; the so-called "medicinemen" were mere conjurers, though possessed of considerable influence. 

 [Footnote 52: See Humboldt, _Ansichten der Natur_, 3d ed. , Stuttgart, 1849, vol. I. P. 203. ]

 [Footnote 53: "Women and children joined in these fiendish atrocities, and when at length the victim yielded up his life, his heart, if he were brave, was ripped from his body, cut in pieces, broiled, and given to the young men, under the belief that it would increase their courage; they drank his blood, thinking it would make them more wary; and finally his body was divided limb from limb, roasted or thrown into the seething pot, and hands and feet, arms and legs, head and trunk, were all stewed into a horrid mess and eaten amidst yells, songs, and dances. " Jeffries Wyman, in _Seventh Report of Peabody Museum_, p. 37. For details of the most appalling character, see Butterfield's _History of the Girtys_, pp. 176-182; Stone's _Life of Joseph Brant_, vol. Ii. Pp. 31, 32; Dodge's _Plains of the Great West_, p. 418, and _Our Wild Indians_, pp. 525-529; Parkman's _Jesuits in North America_, pp. 387-391; and many other places in Parkman's writings. ]

 [Footnote 54: One often hears it said that the cruelty of the Indians was not greater than that of mediæval Europeans, as exemplified in judicial torture and in the horrors of the Inquisition. But in such a judgment there is lack of due discrimination. In the practice of torture by civil and ecclesiastical tribunals in the Middle Ages, there was a definite moral purpose which, however lamentably mistaken or perverted, gave it a very different character from torture wantonly inflicted for amusement. The atrocities formerly attendant upon the sack of towns, as e. G. Beziers, Magdeburg, etc. , might more properly be regarded as an illustration of the survival of a spirit fit only for the lowest barbarism: and the Spanish conquerors of the New World themselves often exhibited cruelty such as even Indians seldom surpass. See below, vol. Ii. P. 444. In spite of such cases, however, it must be held that for artistic skill in inflicting the greatest possible intensity of excruciating pain upon every nerve in the body, the Spaniard was a bungler and a novice as compared with the Indian. See Dodge's _Our Wild Indians_, pp. 536-538. Colonel Dodge was in familiar contact with Indians for more than thirty years, and writes with fairness and discrimination. 

 In truth the question as to comparative cruelty is not so much one of race as of occupation, except in so far as race is moulded by long occupation. The "old Adam, " i. E. The inheritance from our brute ancestors, is very strong in the human race. Callousness to the suffering of others than self is part of this brute-inheritance, and under the influence of certain habits and occupations this germ of callousness may be developed to almost any height of devilish cruelty. In the lower stages of culture the lack of political aggregation on a large scale is attended with incessant warfare in the shape in which it comes home to everybody's door. This state of things keeps alive the passion of revenge and stimulates cruelty to the highest degree. As long as such a state of things endures, as it did in Europe to a limited extent throughout the Middle Ages, there is sure to be a dreadful amount of cruelty. The change in the conditions of modern warfare has been a very important factor in the rapidly increasing mildness and humanity of modern times. See my _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 226-229. Something more will be said hereafter with reference to the special causes concerned in the cruelty and brutality of the Spaniards in America. Meanwhile it may be observed in the present connection, that the Spanish taskmasters who mutilated and burned their slaves were not representative types of their own race to anything like the same extent as the Indians who tortured Brébeuf or Crawford. If the fiendish Pedrarias was a Spaniard, so too was the saintly Las Casas. The latter type would be as impossible among barbarians as an Aristotle or a Beethoven. Indeed, though there are writers who would like to prove the contrary, it may be doubted whether that type has ever attained to perfection except under the influence of Christianity. ]

 [Footnote 55: See the evidence collected by Jeffries Wyman, in _Seventh Report of Peabody Museum_, pp. 27-37; cf. Wake, _Evolution of Morality_, vol. I. P. 243. Many illustrations are given by Mr. Parkman. In this connection it may be observed that the name "Mohawk" means "Cannibal. " It is an Algonquin word, applied to this Iroquois tribe by their enemies in the Connecticut valley and about the lower Hudson. The name by which the Mohawks called themselves was "Caniengas, " or "People-at-the-Flint. " See Hale, _The Iroquois Book of Rites_, p. 173. ]

 [Footnote 56: For accounts and explanations of animism see Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, London, 1871, 2 vols. ; Caspari, _Urgeschichte der Menschheit_, Leipsic, 1877, 2 vols. ; Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, part i. ; and my _Myths and Mythmakers_, chap. Vii. ]

 [Footnote 57: No time should be lost in gathering and recording every scrap of this folk-lore that can be found. The American Folk-Lore Society, founded chiefly through the exertions of my friend Mr. W. W. Newell, and organized January 4, 1888, is already doing excellent work and promises to become a valuable aid, within its field, to the work of the Bureau of Ethnology. Of the _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, published for the society by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , nine numbers have appeared, and the reader will find them full of valuable information. One may also profitably consult Knortz's _Märchen und Sagen der nordamerikanischen Indianer_, Jena, 1871; Brinton's _Myths of the New World_, N. Y. , 1868, and his _American Hero-Myths_, Phila. , 1882; Leland's _Algonquin Legends of New England_, Boston, 1884; Mrs. Emerson's _Indian Myths_, Boston, 1884. Some brief reflections and criticisms of much value, in relation to aboriginal American folk-lore, may be found in Curtin's _Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland_, pp. 12-27. ]

But none of the characteristics of barbarous society above specifiedwill carry us so far toward realizing the gulf which divides it fromcivilized society as the imperfect development of its domesticrelations. The importance of this subject is such as to call for a fewwords of special elucidation. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Ancient Law. ]

Thirty years ago, when Sir Henry Maine published that magnificenttreatise on Ancient Law, which, when considered in all its potency ofsuggestiveness, has perhaps done more than any other single book of ourcentury toward placing the study of history upon a scientific basis, hebegan by showing that in primitive society the individual is nothing andthe state nothing, while the family-group is everything, and that theprogress of civilization politically has consisted on the one hand inthe aggregation and building up of family-groups through intermediatetribal organizations into states, and on the other hand in thedisentanglement of individuals from the family thraldom. In other words, we began by having no political communities larger than clans, and nobond of political union except blood relationship, and in this state ofthings the individual, as to his rights and obligations, was submergedin the clan. We at length come to have great nations like the English orthe French, in which blood-relationship as a bond of political union isno longer indispensable or even much thought of, and in which theindividual citizen is the possessor of legal rights and subject to legalobligations. No one in our time can forget how beautifully Sir HenryMaine, with his profound knowledge of early Aryan law and custom, fromIreland to Hindustan, delineated the slow growth of individual ownershipof property and individual responsibility for delict and crime out of anearlier stage in which ownership and responsibility belonged only tofamily-groups or clans. 

[Sidenote: The patriarchal family not primitive. ]

[Sidenote: "Mother-right. "]

[Sidenote: Primitive marriage. ]

[Sidenote: The system of reckoning kinship through females only. ]

In all these brilliant studies Sir Henry Maine started with thepatriarchal family as we find it at the dawn of history among allpeoples of Aryan and Semitic speech, --the patriarchal family of theancient Roman and the ancient Jew, the family in which kinship isreckoned through males, and in which all authority centres in the eldestmale, and descends to his eldest son. Maine treated this patriarchalfamily as primitive; but his great book had hardly appeared when otherscholars, more familiar than he with races in savagery or in the lowerstatus of barbarism, showed that his view was too restricted. We do notget back to primitive society by studying Greeks, Romans, and Jews, peoples who had nearly emerged from the later period of barbarism whenwe first know them. [58] Their patriarchal family was perfected in shapeduring the later period of barbarism, and it was preceded by a muchruder and less definite form of family-group in which kinship wasreckoned only through the mother, and the headship never descended fromfather to son. As so often happens, this discovery was made almostsimultaneously by two investigators, each working in ignorance of whatthe other was doing. In 1861, the same year in which "Ancient Law" waspublished, Professor Bachofen, of Basel, published his famous book, "DasMutterrecht, " of which his co-discoverer and rival, after takingexception to some of his statements, thus cordially writes: "It remains, however, after all qualifications and deductions, that Bachofen, beforeany one else, discovered the fact that a system of kinship throughmothers only, had anciently everywhere prevailed before the tie of bloodbetween father and child had found a place in systems of relationships. And the honour of that discovery, the importance of which, as affordinga new starting-point for all history, cannot be overestimated, mustwithout stint or qualification be assigned to him. "[59] Such are thegenerous words of the late John Ferguson McLennan, who had no knowledgeof Bachofen's work when his own treatise on "Primitive Marriage" waspublished in 1865. Since he was so modest in urging his own claims, itis due to the Scotch lawyer's memory to say that, while he was inferiorin point of erudition to the Swiss professor, his book is characterizedby greater sagacity, goes more directly to the mark, and is lessencumbered by visionary speculations of doubtful value. [60] Mr. McLennanproved, from evidence collected chiefly from Australians and South SeaIslanders, and sundry non-Aryan tribes of Hindustan and Thibet, thatsystems of kinship in which the father is ignored exist to-day, and hefurthermore discovered unmistakable and very significant traces of theformer existence of such a state of things among the Mongols, the Greeksand Phoenicians, and the ancient Hebrews. By those who were inclined toregard Sir Henry Maine's views as final, it was argued that Mr. McLennan's facts were of a sporadic and exceptional character. But whenthe evidence from this vast archaic world of America began to begathered in and interpreted by Mr. Morgan, this argument fell to theground, and as to the point chiefly in contention, Mr. McLennan wasproved to be right. Throughout aboriginal America, with one or twoexceptions, kinship was reckoned through females only, and in theexceptional instances the vestiges of that system were so prominent asto make it clear that the change had been but recently effected. Duringthe past fifteen years, evidence has accumulated from various parts ofthe world, until it is beginning to appear as if it were the patriarchalsystem that is exceptional, having been reached only by the highestraces. [61] Sir Henry Maine's work has lost none of its value, only, like all human work, it is not final; it needs to be supplemented by thefurther study of savagery as best exemplified in Australia and someparts of Polynesia, and of barbarism as best exemplified in America. Thesubject is, moreover, one of great and complicated difficulty, and leadsincidentally to many questions for solving which the data at our commandare still inadequate. It is enough for us now to observe in general thatwhile there are plenty of instances of change from the system ofreckoning kinship only through females, to the system of reckoningthrough males, there do not appear to have been any instances of changein the reverse direction; and that in ancient America the earlier systemwas prevalent. 

 [Footnote 58: Until lately our acquaintance with human history was derived almost exclusively from literary memorials, among which the Bible, the Homeric poems, and the Vedas, carried us back about as far as literature could take us. It was natural, therefore, to suppose that the society of the times of Abraham or Agamemnon was "primitive, " and the wisest scholars reasoned upon such an assumption. With vision thus restricted to civilized man and his ideas and works, people felt free to speculate about uncivilized races (generally grouped together indiscriminately as "savages") according to any _à priori_ whim that might happen to captivate their fancy. But the discoveries of the last half-century have opened such stupendous vistas of the past that the age of Abraham seems but as yesterday. The state of society described in the book of Genesis had five entire ethnical periods, and the greater part of a sixth, behind it; and its institutions were, comparatively speaking, modern. ]

 [Footnote 59: McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History, comprising a reprint of Primitive Marriage_, etc. London, 1876, p. 421. ]

 [Footnote 60: There is much that is unsound in it, however, as is often inevitably the case with books that strike boldly into a new field of inquiry. ]

 [Footnote 61: A general view of the subject may be obtained from the following works: Bachofen, _Das Mutterrecht_, Stuttgart, 1871, and _Die Sage von Tanaquil_, Heidelberg, 1870; McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History_, London, 1876, and _The Patriarchal Theory_, London, 1884; Morgan's _Systems of Consanguinity_ (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. Xvii. ), Washington, 1871, and _Ancient Society_, New York, 1877; Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, Cambridge, Eng. , 1885; Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, 5th ed. , London, 1889; Giraud-Teulon, _La Mère chez certains peuples de l'antiquité_, Paris, 1867, and _Les Origines de la Famille_, Geneva, 1874; Starcke (of Copenhagen), _The Primitive Family_, London, 1889. Some criticisms upon McLennan and Morgan may be found in Maine's later works, _Early History of Institutions_, London, 1875, and _Early Law and Custom_, London, 1883. By far the ablest critical survey of the whole field is that in Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, vol. I. Pp. 621-797. ]

[Sidenote: Original reason for the system. ]

[Sidenote: The primeval human horde. ]

[Sidenote: Earliest family-group: the clan. ]

[Sidenote: "Exogamy. "]

If now we ask the reason for such a system of reckoning kinship andinheritance, so strange according to all our modern notions, the trueanswer doubtless is that which was given by prudent ([Greek:Pepnymenos]) Telemachus to the goddess Athene when she asked him to tellher truly if he was the son of Odysseus:--"My mother says I am his son, for my part, I don't know; one never knows of one's self who one'sfather is. "[62] Already, no doubt, in Homer's time there was a gleam ofsatire about this answer, such as it would show on a modern page; but inmore primitive times it was a very serious affair. From what we know ofthe ideas and practices of uncivilized tribes all over the world, it isevident that the sacredness of the family based upon indissolublemarriage is a thing of comparatively modern growth. If the sexualrelations of the Australians, as observed to-day, [63] are an improvementupon an antecedent state of things, that antecedent state must have beensheer promiscuity. There is ample warrant for supposing, with Mr. McLennan, that at the beginning of the lower status of savagery, longsince everywhere extinct, the family had not made itself distinctlyvisible, but men lived in a horde very much like gregarious brutes. [64]I have shown that the essential difference between this primeval humanhorde and a mere herd of brutes consisted in the fact that the gradualbut very great prolongation of infancy had produced two effects: thelengthening of the care of children tended to differentiate the hordeinto family-groups, and the lengthening of the period of youthful mentalplasticity made it more possible for a new generation to improve uponthe ideas and customs of its predecessors. [65] In these two concomitantprocesses--the development of the family and the increase of mentalplasticity, or ability to adopt new methods and strike out into newpaths of thought--lies the whole explanation of the moral andintellectual superiority of men over dumb animals. But in each case thechange was very gradual. [66] The true savage is only a little lessunteachable than the beasts of the field. The savage family is at firstbarely discernible amid the primitive social chaos in which it had itsorigin. Along with polyandry and polygyny in various degrees and forms, instances of exclusive pairing, of at least a temporary character, areto be found among the lowest existing savages, and there are reasons forsupposing that such may have been the case even in primeval times. Butit was impossible for strict monogamy to flourish in the ruder stages ofsocial development; and the kind of family-group that was first clearlyand permanently differentiated from the primeval horde was not at alllike what civilized people would recognize as a family. It was the_gens_ or _clan_, as we find it exemplified in all stages from themiddle period of savagery to the middle period of barbarism. The _gens_or _clan_ was simply--to define it by a third synonym--the _kin_; it wasoriginally a group of males and females who were traditionally aware oftheir common descent reckoned in the female line. At this stage ofdevelopment there was quite generally though not universally prevalentthe custom of "exogamy, " by which a man was forbidden to marry a womanof his own clan. Among such Australian tribes as have been studied, thisprimitive restriction upon promiscuity seems to be about the only one. 

 [Footnote 62: [Greek: All' age moi tode eipe kai atrekeôs katalexon, ei dê ex autoio tosos pais eis Odysêos. Ainôs gar kephalên te kai ommata kala eoikas keinô, epei thama toion emisgometh' allêloisin, prin ge ton es Troiên anabêmenai, entha per alloi Argeiôn hoi aristoi eban koilês epi nêusin ek tou d' out' Odysêa egôn idon out' eme keinos. 

 Tên d' au Têlemachos pepnymenos antion êuda toigar egô toi, xeine, mal' atrekeôs agoreusô. Mêtêr men t' eme phêsi tou emmenai, autar egôge ouk oid'; ou gar pô tis heon gonon autos anegnô. ] _Odyssey_, i. 206. ]

 [Footnote 63: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 213; Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, p. 107; Morgan, _Ancient Society_, part iii. , chap. Iii. "After battle it frequently happens among the native tribes of Australia that the wives of the conquered, of their own free-will, go over to the victors; reminding us of the lioness which, quietly watching the fight between two lions, goes off with the conqueror. " Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, vol. I. P. 632. ]

 [Footnote 64: The notion of the descent of the human race from a single "pair, " or of different races from different "pairs, " is a curious instance of transferring modern institutions into times primeval. Of course the idea is absurd. When the elder Agassiz so emphatically declared that "pines have originated in forests, heaths in heaths, grasses in prairies, bees in hives, herrings in shoals, buffaloes in herds, men in nations" (_Essay on Classification_, London, 1859, p. 58), he made, indeed, a mistake of the same sort, so far as concerns the origin of Man, for the nation is a still more modern institution than the family; but in the other items of his statement he was right, and as regards the human race he was thinking in the right direction when he placed _multitude_ instead of _duality_ at the beginning. If instead of that extremely complex and highly organized multitude called "nation" (in the plural), he had started with the extremely simple and almost unorganized multitude called "horde" (in the singular), the statement for Man would have been correct. Such views were hardly within the reach of science thirty years ago. ]

 [Footnote 65: _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_, part ii. , chaps. Xvi. , xxi. , xxii. ; _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, pp. 306-319; _Darwinism, and other Essays_, pp. 40-49; _The Destiny of Man_, §§ iii. -ix. ]

 [Footnote 66: The slowness of the development has apparently been such as befits the transcendent value of the result. Though the question is confessedly beyond the reach of science, may we not hold that civilized man, the creature of an infinite past, is the child of eternity, maturing for an inheritance of immortal life?]

[Sidenote: Phratry and tribe. ]

Throughout all the earlier stages of culture, and even into thecivilized period, we find society organized with the clan for itsultimate unit, although in course of time its character becomes greatlyaltered by the substitution of kinship in the paternal, for that in thematernal line. By long-continued growth and repeated segmentation theprimitive clan was developed into a more complex structure, in which agroup of clans constituted a _phratry_ or brotherhood, and a group ofphratries constituted a _tribe_. This threefold grouping is found socommonly in all parts of the world as to afford good ground for thebelief that it has been universal. It was long ago familiar tohistorians in the case of Greece and Rome, and of our Teutonicforefathers, [67] but it also existed generally in ancient America, andmany obscure points connected with the history of the Greek and Romangroups have been elucidated through the study of Iroquois and Algonquininstitutions. Along with the likenesses, however, there are numerousunlikenesses, due to the change of kinship, among the European groups, from the female line to the male. 

 [Footnote 67: The Teutonic _hundred_ and Roman _curia_ answered to the Greek _phratry_. ]

[Sidenote: Effect of pastoral life upon property and upon the family. ]

This change, as it occurred among Aryan and Semitic peoples, marked oneof the most momentous revolutions in the history of mankind. It probablyoccurred early in the upper period of barbarism, or late in the middleperiod, after the long-continued domestication of animals had resultedin the acquisition of private property (_pecus, peculium, pecunia_) inlarge amounts by individuals. In primitive society there was very littlepersonal property except in weapons, clothing (such as it was), andtrinkets. Real estate was unknown. Land was simply _occupied_ by thetribe. There was general communism and social equality. In the OldWorld the earliest instance of extensive "adverse possession" on thepart of individuals, as against other individuals in the clan-community, was the possession of flocks and herds. Distinctions in wealth and rankwere thus inaugurated; slavery began to be profitable and personalretainers and adherents useful in new ways. As in earlier stages thecommunity in marital relations had been part of the general community inpossessions, so now the exclusive possession of a wife or wives was partof the system of private property that was coming into vogue. The man ofmany cattle, the man who could attach subordinates to him throughmotives of self-interest as well as personal deference, the man whocould defend his property against robbers, could also have his separatehousehold and maintain its sanctity. In this way, it is believed, indissoluble marriage, in its two forms of monogamy and polygamy, originated. That it had already existed sporadically is not denied, butit now acquired such stability and permanence that the older and looserforms of alliance, hitherto prevalent, fell into disfavour. A naturalresult of the growth of private wealth and the permanence of the maritalrelation was the change in reckoning kinship from the maternal to thepaternal line. This change was probably favoured by the prevalence ofpolygamy among those who were coming to be distinguished as "upperclasses, " since a large family of children by different mothers could beheld together only by reckoning the kinship through the father. Thus, wemay suppose, originated the patriarchal family. Even in its rudest formit was an immense improvement upon what had gone before, and to thestronger and higher social organization thus acquired we must largelyascribe the rise of the Aryan and Semitic peoples to the foremost rankof civilization. [68]

 [Footnote 68: Fenton's _Early Hebrew Life_, London, 1880, is an interesting study of the upper period of barbarism; see also Spencer, _Princip. Of Sociol. _, i. 724-737. ]

It is not intended to imply that there is no other way in which thechange to the male line may have been brought about among other peoples. The explanation just given applies very well to the Aryan and Semiticpeoples, but it is inapplicable to the state of things which seems tohave existed in Mexico at the time of the Discovery. [69] The subject isa difficult one, and sometimes confronts us with questions much easierto ask than to answer. The change has been observed among tribes in alower stage than that just described. [70] On the other hand, as oldcustoms die hard, no doubt inheritance has in many places continued inthe maternal line long after paternity is fully known. Symmetricalregularity in the development of human institutions has by no means beenthe rule, and there is often much difficulty in explaining particularcases, even when the direction of the general drift can be discerned. 

 [Footnote 69: See below, p. 122. ]

 [Footnote 70: As among the Hervey Islanders; Gill, _Myths and Songs of the South Pacific_, p. 36. Sir John Lubbock would account for the curious and widely spread custom of the _Couvade_ as a feature of this change. _Origin of Civilization_, pp. 14-17, 159; cf. Tylor, _Early Hist. Of Mankind_, pp. 288, 297. ]

[Sidenote: The exogamous clan in ancient America. ]

In aboriginal America, as already observed, kinship through females onlywas the rule, and exogamy was strictly enforced, --the wife must be takenfrom a different clan. Indissoluble marriage, whether monogamous orpolygamous, seems to have been unknown. The marriage relation wasterminable at the will of either party. [71] The abiding unit upon whichthe social structure was founded was not the family but the exogamousclan. 

 [Footnote 71: "There is no embarrassment growing out of problems respecting the woman's future support, the division of property, or the adjustment of claims for the possession of the children. The independent self-support of every adult healthy Indian, male or female, and the gentile relationship, which is more wide-reaching and authoritative than that of marriage, have already disposed of these questions, which are usually so perplexing for the white man. So far as personal maintenance is concerned, a woman is, as a rule, just as well off without a husband as with one. What is hers, in the shape of property, remains her own whether she is married or not. In fact, marriage among these Indians seems to be but the natural mating of the sexes, to cease at the option of either of the interested parties. " Clay MacCauley, "The Seminole Indians of Florida", in _Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, Washington, 1887, p. 497. For a graphic account of the state of things among the Cheyennes and Arrapahos, see Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, pp. 204-220. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Intimate connection of aboriginal architecture with sociallife. ]

I have been at some pains to elucidate this point because the house-lifeof the American aborigines found visible, and in some instances verydurable, expression in a remarkable style of house-architecture. Themanner in which the Indians built their houses grew directly out of therequirements of their life. It was an unmistakably characteristicarchitecture, and while it exhibits manifold unlikenesses in detail, due to differences in intelligence as well as to the presence or absenceof sundry materials, there is one underlying principle always manifest. That underlying principle is adaptation to a certain mode of communalliving such as all American aborigines that have been carefully studiedare known to have practised. Through many gradations, from the sty ofthe California savage up to the noble sculptured ruins of Uxmal andChichen-Itza, the principle is always present. Taken in connection withevidence from other sources, it enables us to exhibit a gradation ofstages of culture in aboriginal North America, with the savages of theSacramento and Columbia valleys at the bottom, and the Mayas of Yucatanat the top; and while in going from one end to the other a very longinterval was traversed, we feel that the progress of the aborigines incrossing that interval was made along similar lines. [72]

 [Footnote 72: See Morgan's _Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines_, Washington, 1881, an epoch-making book of rare and absorbing interest. ]

[Illustration: Seneca-Iroquois long house. ]

[Illustration: Ground-plan of long house. ]

[Sidenote: The long houses of the Iroquois. ]

The principle was first studied and explained by Mr. Morgan in the caseof the famous "long houses" of the Iroquois. "The long house . . . Wasfrom fifty to eighty and sometimes one hundred feet long. It consistedof a strong frame of upright poles set in the ground, which wasstrengthened with horizontal poles attached with withes, and surmountedwith a triangular, and in some cases with a round roof. It was coveredover, both sides and roof, with long strips of elm bark tied to theframe with strings or splints. An external frame of poles for the sidesand of rafters for the roof were then adjusted to hold the bark shinglesbetween them, the two frames being tied together. The interior of thehouse was comparted[73] at intervals of six or eight feet, leaving eachchamber entirely open like a stall upon the passageway which passedthrough the centre of the house from end to end. At each end was adoorway covered with suspended skins. Between each four apartments, twoon a side, was a fire-pit in the centre of the hall, used in common bytheir occupants. Thus a house with five fires would contain twentyapartments and accommodate twenty families, unless some apartments werereserved for storage. They were warm, roomy, and tidily-kepthabitations. Raised bunks were constructed around the walls of eachapartment for beds. From the roof-poles were suspended their strings ofcorn in the ear, braided by the husks, also strings of dried squashesand pumpkins. Spaces were contrived here and there to store away theiraccumulations of provisions. Each house, as a rule, was occupied byrelated families, the mothers and their children belonging to the samegens, while their husbands and the fathers of these children belonged toother gentes; consequently the gens or clan of the mother largelypredominated in the household. Whatever was taken in the hunt or raisedby cultivation by any member of the household . . . Was for the commonbenefit. Provisions were made a common stock within the household. "[74]

 [Footnote 73: This verb of Mr. Morgan's at first struck me as odd, but though rarely used, it is supported by good authority; see _Century Dictionary_, s. V. ]

 [Footnote 74: The Iroquois ceased to build such houses before the beginning of the present century. I quote Mr. Morgan's description at length, because his book is out of print and hard to obtain. It ought to be republished, and in octavo, like his _Ancient Society_, of which it is a continuation. ]

"Over every such household a matron presided, whose duty it was tosupervise its domestic economy. After the single daily meal had beencooked at the different fires within the house, it was her province todivide the food from the kettle to the several families according totheir respective needs. What remained was placed in the custody ofanother person until she again required it. "[75]

 [Footnote 75: Lucien Carr, "On the Social and Political Position of Woman among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes, " _Reports of Peabody Museum_, vol. Iii. P. 215. ]

[Sidenote: Summary divorce. ]

Not only the food was common property, but many chattels, including thechildren, belonged to the gens or clan. When a young woman got marriedshe brought her husband home with her. Though thenceforth an inmate ofthis household he remained an alien to her clan. "If he proved lazy andfailed to do his share of the providing, woe be to him. No matter howmany children, or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might atany time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after suchorders it would not be healthful for him to disobey; the house would betoo hot for him; and unless saved by the intercession of some aunt orgrandmother [of his wife] he must retreat to his own clan, or, as wasoften done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in some other. . . . The female portion ruled the house. "[76]

 [Footnote 76: This was not incompatible with the subjection of women to extreme drudgery and ill-treatment. For an instructive comparison with the case among the tribes of the Far West, see Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, chap. Xvi. ]

[Sidenote: Hospitality. ]

Though there was but one freshly-cooked meal, taken about the middle ofthe day, any member of the household when hungry could be helped fromthe common stock. Hospitality was universal. If a person from one of theother communal households, or a stranger from another tribe (in time ofpeace), were to visit the house, the women would immediately offer himfood, and it was a breach of etiquette to decline to eat it. This customwas strictly observed all over the continent and in the West IndiaIslands, and was often remarked upon by the early discoverers, in whoseminds it was apt to implant idyllic notions that were afterward rudelydisturbed. The prevalence of hospitality among uncivilized races haslong been noted by travellers, and is probably in most cases, as itcertainly was in ancient America, closely connected with communism inliving. 

[Sidenote: Structure of the clan. ]

The clan, which practised this communism, had its definite organization, officers, rights, and duties. Its official head was the "sachem, " whosefunctions were of a civil nature. The sachem was elected by the clan andmust be a member of it, so that a son could not be chosen to succeed hisfather, but a sachem could be succeeded by his uterine brother or by hissister's son, and in this way customary lines of succession could andoften did tend to become established. The clan also elected its"chiefs, " whose functions were military; the number of chiefs wasproportionate to that of the people composing the clan, usually onechief to every fifty or sixty persons. The clan could depose its sachemor any of its chiefs. Personal property, such as weapons, or trophies, or rights of user in the garden-plots, was inheritable in the femaleline, and thus stayed within the clan. The members were reciprocallybound to help, defend, and avenge one another. The clan had the right ofadopting strangers to strengthen itself. It had the right of naming itsmembers, and these names were always obviously significant, like LittleTurtle, Yellow Wolf, etc. ; of names like our Richard or William, withthe meaning lost, or obvious only to scholars, no trace is to be foundin aboriginal America. The clan itself, too, always had a name, whichwas usually that of some animal, --as Wolf, Eagle, or Salmon, and a rudedrawing or pictograph of the creature served as a "totem" or primitiveheraldic device. A mythological meaning was attached to this emblem. Theclan had its own common religious rites and common burial place. Therewas a clan-council, of which women might be members; there wereinstances, indeed, of its being composed entirely of women, whoseposition was one of much more dignity and influence than has commonlybeen supposed. Instances of squaw sachems were not so very rare. [77]

 [Footnote 77: Among the Wyandots there is in each clan a council composed of four squaws, and this council elects the male sachem who is its head. Therefore the tribal council, which is the aggregate of the clan-councils, consists one fifth of men and four fifths of women. See Powell, "Wyandot Government: a Short Study of Tribal Society, " in _First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, Washington, 1881, pp. 59-69; and also Mr. Carr's interesting essay above cited. ]

[Sidenote: Origin and structure of the phratry. ]

The number of clans in a tribe naturally bore some proportion to thepopulousness of the tribe, varying from three, in the case of theDelawares, to twenty or more, as in the case of the Ojibwas and Creeks. There were usually eight or ten, and these were usually grouped into twoor three phratries. The phratry seems to have originated in thesegmentation of the overgrown clan, for in some cases exogamy wasoriginally practised as between the phratries and afterward the customdied out while it was retained as between their constituent clans. [78]The system of naming often indicates this origin of the phratry, thoughseldom quite so forcibly as in the case of the Mohegan tribe, which wasthus composed:[79]--

I. WOLF PHRATRY. 

_Clans:_ 1. Wolf, 2. Bear, 3. Dog, 4. Opossum. 

II. TURTLE PHRATRY. 

_Clans:_ 5. Little Turtle, 6. Mud Turtle, 7. Great Turtle, 8. YellowEel. 

III. TURKEY PHRATRY. 

_Clans:_ 9. Turkey, 10. Crane, 11. Chicken. 

Here the senior clan in the phratry tends to keep the originalclan-name, while the junior clans have been guided by a sense of kinshipin choosing their new names. This origin of the phratry is furtherindicated by the fact that the phratry does not always occur; sometimesthe clans are organized directly into the tribe. The phratry was not somuch a governmental as a religious and social organization. Its mostimportant function seems to have been supplementing or reinforcing theaction of the single clan in exacting compensation for murder; and thispoint is full of interest because it helps us to understand how amongour Teutonic forefathers the "hundred" (the equivalent of the phratry)became charged with the duty of prosecuting criminals. The Greek phratryhad a precisely analogous function. [80]

 [Footnote 78: H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, vol. I. P. 109. ]

 [Footnote 79: Morgan, _Houses and House-Life_, p. 16. ]

 [Footnote 80: See Freeman, _Comparative Politics_, p. 117; Stubbs, _Const. Hist. _, vol. I. Pp. 98-104; Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. Iii. Pp. 74, 88. It is interesting to compare Grote's description with Morgan's (_Anc. Soc. _, pp. 71, 94) and note both the closeness of the general parallelism and the character of the specific variations. ]

[Sidenote: Structure of the tribe. ]

The Indian tribe was a group of people distinguished by the exclusivepossession of a dialect in common. It possessed a tribal name andoccupied a more or less clearly defined territory; there were alsotribal religious rites. Its supreme government was vested in the councilof its clan-chiefs and sachems; and as these were thus officers of thetribe as well as of the clan, the tribe exercised the right of investingthem with office, amid appropriate solemnities, after their election bytheir respective clans. The tribal-council had also the right to deposechiefs and sachems. In some instances, not always, there was a headchief or military commander for the tribes, elected by the tribalcouncil. Such, was the origin of the office which, in most societies ofthe Old World, gradually multiplied its functions and accumulated poweruntil it developed into true kingship. Nowhere in ancient North Americadid it quite reach such a stage. 

[Sidenote: Cross-relationships between clans and tribes: the IroquoisConfederacy. ]

Among the greater part of the aborigines no higher form of socialstructure was attained than the tribe. There were, however, severalinstances of permanent confederation, of which the two most interestingand most highly developed were the League of the Iroquois, mentionedabove, and the Mexican Confederacy, presently to be considered. Theprinciples upon which the Iroquois league was founded have beenthoroughly and minutely explained by Mr. Morgan. [81] It originated in aunion of five tribes composed of clans in common, and speaking fivedialects of a common language. These tribes had themselves arisenthrough the segmentation of a single overgrown tribe, so that portionsof the original clans survived in them all. The Wolf, Bear, and Turtleclan were common to all the five tribes; three other clans were commonto three of the five. "All the members of the same gens [clan], whetherMohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas, were brothers andsisters to each other in virtue of their descent from the same common[female] ancestor, and they recognized each other as such with thefullest cordiality. When they met, the first inquiry was the name ofeach other's gens, and next the immediate pedigree of each other'ssachems; after which they were able to find, under their peculiar systemof consanguinity, the relationship in which they stood to each other. . . . This cross-relationship between persons of the same gens in thedifferent tribes is still preserved and recognized among them in all itsoriginal force. It explains the tenacity with which the fragments of theold confederacy still cling together. "[82] Acknowledged consanguinityis to the barbarian a sound reason, and the only one conceivable, forpermanent political union; and the very existence of such a confederacyas that of the Five Nations was rendered possible only through thepermanence of the clans or communal households which were its ultimateunits. We have here a clue to the policy of these Indians toward thekindred tribes who refused to join their league. These tribes, too, sofar as is known, would seem to have contained the same clans. After aseparation of at least four hundred years the Wyandots have still fiveof their eight clans in common with the Iroquois. When the Eries andother tribes would not join the league of their kindred, the refusalsmacked of treason to the kin, and we can quite understand the deadlyfury with which the latter turned upon them and butchered every man, woman, and child except such as they saw fit to adopt into their ownclans. 

 [Footnote 81: In his _League of the Iroquois_, Rochester, 1851, a book now out of print and excessively rare. A brief summary is given in his _Ancient Society_, chap. V. , and in his _Houses and House-Life_, pp. 23-41. Mr. Morgan was adopted into the Seneca tribe, and his life work was begun by a profound and exhaustive study of this interesting people. ]

 [Footnote 82: _Houses and House-Life_, p. 33. At the period of its greatest power, about 1675, the people of the confederacy were about 25, 000 in number. In 1875, according to official statistics (see table appended to Dodge's _Plains of the Great West_, pp. 441-448), there were in the state of New York 198 Oneidas, 203 Onondagas, 165 Cayugas, 3, 043 Senecas, and 448 Tuscaroras, --in all 4, 057. Besides these there were 1, 279 Oneidas on a reservation in Wisconsin, and 207 Senecas in the Indian Territory. The Mohawks are not mentioned in the list. During the Revolutionary War, and just afterward, the Mohawks migrated into Upper Canada (Ontario), for an account of which the reader may consult the second volume of Stone's _Life of Brant_. Portions of the other tribes also went to Canada. In New York the Oneidas and Tuscaroras were converted to Christianity by Samuel Kirkland and withheld from alliance with the British during the Revolution; the others still retain their ancient religion. They are for the most part farmers and are now increasing in numbers. Their treatment by the state of New York has been honourably distinguished for justice and humanity. ]

[Sidenote: Structure of the confederacy. ]

Each of the Five Tribes retained its local self-government. The supremegovernment of the confederacy was vested in a General Council of fiftysachems, "equal in rank and authority. " The fifty sachemships werecreated in perpetuity in certain clans of the several tribes; whenever avacancy occurred, it was filled by the clan electing one of its ownmembers; a sachem once thus elected could be deposed by the clan-councilfor good cause; "but the right to invest these sachems with office wasreserved to the General Council. " These fifty sachems of the confederacywere likewise sachems in their respective tribes, "and with the chiefsof these tribes formed the council of each, which was supreme over allmatters pertaining to the tribe exclusively. " The General Council couldnot convene itself, but could be convened by any one of the five tribalcouncils. The regular meeting was once a year in the autumn, in thevalley of Onondaga, but in stirring times extra sessions were frequent. The proceedings were opened by an address from one of the sachems, "inthe course of which he thanked the Great Spirit [i. E. Ioskeha, thesky-god] for sparing their lives and permitting them to meet together;"after this they were ready for business. It was proper for any oratorfrom among the people to address the Council with arguments, and thedebates were sometimes very long and elaborate. When it came to voting, the fifty sachems voted by tribes, each tribe counting as a unit, andunanimity was as imperative as in an English jury, so that one tribecould block the proceedings. The confederacy had no head-sachem, orcivil chief-magistrate; but a military commander was indispensable, and, curiously enough, without being taught by the experience of a Tarquin, the Iroquois made this a dual office, like the Roman consulship. Therewere two permanent chieftainships, one in the Wolf, the other in theTurtle clan, and both in the Seneca tribe, because the western borderwas the most exposed to attack. [83] The chiefs were elected by the clan, and inducted into office by the General Council; their tenure was duringlife or good behaviour. This office never encroached upon the others inits powers, but an able warrior in this position could wield greatinfluence. 

 [Footnote 83: Somewhat on the same principle that in mediæval Europe led an earl or count, commanding an exposed border district or _march_ to rise in power and importance and become a "margrave" [_mark_ + _graf_ = march-count] or "marquis. " Compare the increase of sovereignty accorded to the earls of Chester and bishops of Durham as rulers of the two principal march counties of England. ]

[Sidenote: The "Long House. "]

Such was the famous confederacy of the Iroquois. They called it the LongHouse, and by this name as commonly as any other it is known in history. The name by which they called themselves was Hodenosaunee, or "People ofthe Long House. " The name was picturesquely descriptive of the long andnarrow strip of villages with its western outlook toward the Niagara, and its eastern toward the Hudson, three hundred miles distant. But itwas appropriate also for another and a deeper reason than this. We haveseen that in its social and political structure, from top to bottom andfrom end to end, the confederacy was based upon and held together by thegentes, clans, communal households, or "long houses, " which were itscomponent units. They may be compared to the hypothetical indestructibleatoms of modern physics, whereof all material objects are composed. Thewhole institutional fabric was the outgrowth of the group of ideas andhabits that belong to a state of society ignorant of and incapable ofimagining any other form of organization than the clan held together bythe tie of a common maternal ancestry. The house architecture was asmuch a constituent part of the fabric as the council of sachems. Thereis a transparency about the system that is very different from theobscurity we continually find in Europe and Asia, where different strataof ideas and institutions have been superimposed one upon another andcrumpled and distorted with as little apparent significance or purposeas the porches and gables of a so-called "Queen Anne" house. [84]Conquest in the Old World has resulted in the commingling and manifoldfusion of peoples in very different stages of development. In the NewWorld there has been very little of that sort of thing. Conquest inancient America was pretty much all of the Iroquois type, entailing inits milder form the imposition of tribute, in its more desperate formthe extermination of a tribe with the adoption of its remnants into thesimilarly-constituted tribe of the conquerors. There was therefore butlittle modification of the social structure while the people, graduallyacquiring new arts, were passing through savagery and into a more orless advanced stage of barbarism. The symmetry of the structure and therelation of one institution to another is thus distinctly apparent. 

 [Footnote 84: For instance, the whole discussion in Gomme's _Village Community_, London, 1890, an excellent book, abounds with instances of this crumpling. ]

The communal household and the political structure built upon it, asabove described in the case of the Iroquois, seem to have existed allover ancient North America, with agreement in fundamentalcharacteristics and variation in details and degree of development. There are many corners as yet imperfectly explored, but hitherto, in sofar as research has been rewarded with information, it all points in thesame general direction. Among the tribes above enumerated as either insavagery or in the lower status of barbarism, so far as they have beenstudied, there seems to be a general agreement, as to the looseness ofthe marriage tie the clan with descent in the female line, the phratry, the tribe, the officers and councils, the social equality, the communityin goods (with exceptions already noted), and the wigwam or houseadapted to communal living. 

[Illustration: View, Cross-section, and Ground-plan of Mandan roundhouse. ]

[Sidenote: Circular houses of the Mandans. ]

The extreme of variation consistent with adherence to the commonprinciple was to be found in the shape and material of the houses. Thoseof the savage tribes were but sorry huts. The long house was used by thePowhatans and other Algonquin tribes. The other most highly developedtype may be illustrated by the circular frame-houses of theMandans. [85] These houses were from forty to sixty feet in diameter. Adozen or more posts, each about eight inches in diameter, were set inthe ground, "at equal distances in the circumference of a circle, andrising about six feet above the level of the floor. " The tops of theposts were connected by horizontal stringers; and outside each post aslanting wooden brace sunk in the ground about four feet distant servedas a firm support to the structure. The spaces between these braces werefilled by tall wooden slabs, set with the same slant and resting againstthe stringers. Thus the framework of the outer wall was completed. Tosupport the roof four posts were set in the ground about ten feet apartin the form of a square, near the centre of the building. They were fromtwelve to fifteen feet in height, and were connected at the top by fourstringers forming a square. The rafters rested upon these stringers andupon the top of the circular wall below. The rafters were covered withwillow matting, and upon this was spread a layer of prairie grass. Thenboth wall and roof, from the ground up to the summit, were covered withearth, solid and hard, to a thickness of at least two feet. The raftersprojected above the square framework at the summit, so as to leave acircular opening in the centre about four feet in diameter. This holelet in a little light, and let out some of the smoke from the fire whichblazed underneath in a fire-pit lined with stone slabs set on edge. The only other aperture for light was the doorway, which was a kind ofvestibule or passage some ten feet in length. Curtains of buffalo robesdid duty instead of doors. The family compartments were triangles withbase at the outer wall, and apex opening upon the central hearth; andthe partitions were hanging mats or skins, which were tastefully fringedand ornamented with quill-work and pictographs. [86] In the lower Mandanvillage, visited by Catlin, there were about fifty such houses, eachable to accommodate from thirty to forty persons. The village, situatedupon a bold bluff at a bend of the Missouri river, and surrounded by apalisade of stout timbers more than ten feet in height, was very strongfor defensive purposes. Indeed, it was virtually impregnable to Indianmethods of attack, for the earth-covered houses could not be set on fireby blazing arrows, and just within the palisade ran a trench in whichthe defenders could securely skulk, while through the narrow chinksbetween the timbers they could shoot arrows fast enough to keep theirassailants at a distance. This purpose was further secured by rudebastions, and considering the structure as a whole one cannot helpadmiring the ingenuity which it exhibits. It shows a marked superiorityover the conceptions of military defence attained by the Iroquois or anyother Indians north of New Mexico. Besides the communal houses thevillage contained its "medicine lodge, " or council house, and an openarea for games and ceremonies. In the spaces between the houses werethe scaffolds for drying maize, buffalo meat, etc. , ascended bywell-made portable ladders. Outside the village, at a short distance onthe prairie, was a group of such scaffolds upon which the dead were leftto moulder, somewhat after the fashion of the Parsees. [87]

 [Footnote 85: Morgan, _Houses and House-life_, pp. 126-129; Catlin's _North Amer. Indians_, i. 81 _ff. _]

 [Footnote 86: Catlin, i. 83. ]

 [Footnote 87: Catlin, i. 90. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The Indians of the pueblos, --in the middle status ofbarbarism. ]

We are now prepared to understand some essential points in the life ofthe groups of Indians occupying the region of the Cordilleras, bothnorth and south of the Isthmus of Darien, all the way from Zuñi toQuito. The principal groups are the Moquis and Zuñis of Arizona and NewMexico, the Nahuas or Nahuatlac tribes of Mexico, the Mayas, Quichés, and kindred peoples of Central America; and beyond the isthmus, theChibchas of New Granada, and sundry peoples comprised within the domainof the Incas. With regard to the ethnic relationships of these variousgroups, opinion is still in a state of confusion; but it is notnecessary for our present purpose that we should pause to discuss thenumerous questions thus arising. Our business is to get a clear notionin outline of the character of the culture to which these peoples hadattained at the time of the Discovery. Here we observe, on the part ofall, a very considerable divergence from the average Indian level whichwe have thus far been describing. 

This divergence increases as we go from Zuñi toward Cuzco, reaching itsextreme, on the whole, among the Peruvians, though in some respects thenearest approach to civilization was made by the Mayas. All thesepeoples were at least one full ethnical period nearer to truecivilization than the Iroquois, --and a vast amount of change andimprovement is involved in the conception of an entire ethnical period. According to Mr. Morgan, one more such period would have brought theaverage level of these Cordilleran peoples to as high a plane as that ofthe Greeks described in the Odyssey. Let us now observe the principalpoints involved in the change, bearing in mind that it implies aconsiderable lapse of time. While the date 1325, at which the city ofMexico was founded, is the earliest date in the history of that countrywhich can be regarded as securely established, it was preceded by a longseries of generations of migration and warfare, the confused andfragmentary record of which historians have tried--hitherto with scantsuccess--to unravel. To develop such a culture as that of the Aztecs outof an antecedent culture similar to that of the Iroquois must of coursehave taken a long time. 

[Sidenote: Horticulture with irrigation, and architecture with adobe. ]

It will be remembered that the most conspicuous distinctive marks of thegrade of culture attained by the Cordilleran peoples were two, --thecultivation of maize in large quantities by irrigation, and the use ofadobe-brick or stone in building. Probably there was at first, to someextent, a causal connection between the former and the latter. Theregion of the Moqui-Zuñi culture is a region in which arid plains becomerichly fertile when water from neighbouring cliffs or peaks isdirected down upon them. It is mainly an affair of sluices, not of pumpor well, which seem to have been alike beyond the ken of aboriginalAmericans of whatever grade. The change of occupation involved inraising large crops of corn by the aid of sluices would facilitate anincrease in density of population, and would encourage a preference foragricultural over predatory life. Such changes would be likely to favourthe development of defensive military art. The Mohawk's surest defencelay in the terror which his prowess created hundreds of miles away. Onecan easily see how the forefathers of our Moquis and Zuñis may have cometo prefer the security gained by living more closely together andbuilding impregnable fortresses. 

[Sidenote: Possible origin of adobe architecture. ]

The earthen wall of the Mandan, supported on a framework of posts andslabs, seems to me curiously and strikingly suggestive of the incipientpottery made by surrounding a basket with a coating of clay. [88] When itwas discovered how to make the earthen bowl or dish without the basket, a new era in progress was begun. So when it was discovered that anearthen wall could be fashioned to answer the requirements ofhouse-builders without the need of a permanent wooden framework, anothergreat step was taken. Again the consequences were great enough to makeit mark the beginning of a new ethnical period. If we suppose thecentral portion of our continent, the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, to have been occupied at some time by tribes familiar with the Mandanstyle of building; and if we further suppose a gradual extension ormigration of this population, or some part of it, westward into themountain region; that would be a movement into a region in which timberwas scarce, while adobe clay was abundant. Under such circumstances theuseful qualities of that peculiar clay could not fail to be soondiscovered. The simple exposure to sunshine would quickly convert aMandan house built with it into an adobe house; the coating of earthwould become a coating of brick. It would not then take long toascertain that with such adobe-brick could be built walls at once lightand strong, erect and tall, such as could not be built with common clay. In some such way as this I think the discovery must have been made bythe ancestors of the Zuñis, and others who have built pueblos. After thepueblo style of architecture, with its erect walls and terraced stories, had become developed, it was an easy step, when the occasion suggestedit, to substitute for the adobe-brick coarse rubble-stones embedded inadobe. The final stage was reached in Mexico and Yucatan, when softcoralline limestone was shaped into blocks with a flint chisel and laidin courses with adobe-mortar. 

 [Footnote 88: See above, p. 25. ]

[Sidenote: Mr. Cushing at Zuñi. ]

The pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona are among the most interestingstructures in the world. Several are still inhabited by the descendantsof the people who were living in them at the time of the SpanishDiscovery, and their primitive customs and habits of thought have beenpreserved to the present day with but little change. The long sojournof Mr. Cushing, of the Bureau of Ethnology, in the Zuñi pueblo, hasalready thrown a flood of light upon many points in Americanarchæology. [89] As in the case of American aborigines generally, thesocial life of these people is closely connected with theirarchitecture, and the pueblos which are still inhabited seem to furnishus with the key to the interpretation of those that we find deserted orin ruins, whether in Arizona or in Guatemala. 

 [Footnote 89: See his articles in the _Century Magazine_, Dec. , 1882, Feb. , 1883, May, 1883; and his papers on "Zuñi Fetiches, " _Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology_, ii. 9-45; "A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth, " id. Iv. 473-521; see also Mrs. Stevenson's paper, "Religious Life of a Zuñi Child, " id. V. 539-555; Sylvester Baxter, "An Aboriginal Pilgrimage, " _Century Magazine_, Aug. , 1882. ]

[Illustration: Pueblo Hungo Pavie. Chaco Cañon N. M. ]

[Sidenote: Typical structure of the pueblo. ]

In the architecture of the pueblos one typical form is reproduced withsundry variations in detail. The typical form is that of a solid blockof buildings making three sides of an extensive rectangular enclosureor courtyard. On the inside, facing upon the courtyard, the structureis but one story in height; on the outside, looking out upon thesurrounding country, it rises to three, or perhaps even five or sixstories. From inside to outside the flat roofs rise in a series ofterraces, so that the floor of the second row is continuous with theroof of the first, the floor of the third row is continuous with theroof of the second, and so on. The fourth side of the rectangle isformed by a solid block of one-story apartments, usually with one or twonarrow gateways overlooked by higher structures within the enclosure. Except these gateways there is no entrance from without; the onlywindows are frowning loop-holes, and access to the several apartments isgained through skylights reached by portable ladders. Such a structureis what our own forefathers would have naturally called a "burgh, " orfortress; it is in one sense a house, yet in another sense a town;[90]its divisions are not so much houses as compartments; it is ajoint-tenement affair, like the Iroquois long houses, but in a higherstage of development. 

 [Footnote 90: Cf. [Greek: oikos], "house, " with Latin _vicus_, "street" or "village, " Sanskrit _vesa_, "dwelling-place, " English _wick_, "mansion" or "village. "]

[Illustration: Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie. ]

[Sidenote: Pueblo society. ]

So far as they have been studied, the pueblo Indians are found to beorganized in clans, with descent in the female line, as in the case ofthe ruder Indians above described. In the event of marriage the younghusband goes to live with his wife, and she may turn him out of doors ifhe deserves it. [91] The ideas of property seem still limited to thatof possessory right, with the ultimate title in the clan, except thatportable articles subject to individual ownership have become morenumerous. In government the council of sachems reappears with aprincipal sachem, or cacique, called by the Spaniards "gobernador. "There is an organized priesthood, with distinct orders, and a ceremonialmore elaborate than those of the ruder Indians. In every pueblo there isto be found at least one "estufa, " or council-house, for governmental orreligious transactions. Usually there are two or three or more suchestufas. In mythology, in what we may call pictography or rudimentaryhieroglyphics, as well as in ordinary handicrafts, there is a markedadvance beyond the Indians of the lower status of barbarism, aftermaking due allowances for such things as the people of the pueblos havelearned from white men. [92]

 [Footnote 91: "With the woman rests the security of the marriage ties; and it must be said, in her high honour, that she rarely abuses the privilege; that is, never sends her husband 'to the home of his fathers, ' unless he richly deserves it. " But should not Mr. Cushing have said "home of his mothers, " or perhaps, of "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts?" For a moment afterward he tells us, "To her belong all the children; and descent, including inheritance, is on her side. " _Century Magazine_, May, 1883, p. 35. ]

 [Footnote 92: For example, since the arrival of the Spaniards some or perhaps all of the pueblos have introduced chimneys into their apartments; but when they were first visited by Coronado, he found the people wearing cotton garments, and Franciscan friars in 1581 remarked upon the superior quality of their shoes. In spinning and weaving, as well as in the grinding of meal, a notable advance had been made. ]

[Illustration: Restoration of Pueblo Bonito. ]

[Illustration: Pueblo Peñasca Blanca. ]

[Sidenote: Wonderful ancient pueblos in the Chaco valley. ]

[Sidenote: The Moqui pueblos. ]

[Sidenote: The cliff pueblos. ]

From the pueblos still existing, whether inhabited or in ruins, we mayeventually get some sort of clue to the populations of ancient townsvisited by the Spanish discoverers. [93] The pueblo of Zuñi seems to havehad at one time a population of 5, 000, but it has dwindled to less than2, 000. Of the ruined pueblos, built of stone with adobe mortar, in thevalley of the Rio Chaco, the Pueblo Hungo Pavie contained 73 apartmentsin the first story, 53 in the second, and 29 in the third, with anaverage size of 18 feet by 13; and would have accommodated about 1, 000Indians. In the same valley Pueblo Bonito, with four stories, containednot less than 640 apartments, with room enough for a population of3, 000; within a third of a mile from this huge structure stood PuebloChettro Kettle, with 506 apartments. The most common variation from therectangular shape was that in which a terraced semicircle wassubstituted for the three terraced sides, as in Pueblo Bonito, or thewhole rectangular design was converted into an ellipse, as in PuebloPeñasca Blanca. There are indications that these fortresses were not inall cases built at one time, but that, at least in some cases, they grewby gradual accretions. [94] The smallness of the distances between thosein the Chaco valley suggests that their inhabitants must have beenunited in a confederation; and one can easily see that an actualjuxtaposition or partial coalescence of such communities would havemade a city of very imposing appearance. The pueblos are always foundsituated near a river, and their gardens, lying outside, are easilyaccessible to sluices from neighbouring cliffs or mesas. But in somecases, as the Wolpi pueblo of the Moquis, the whole stronghold is builtupon the summit of the cliff; there is a coalescence of communalstructures, each enclosing a courtyard, in which there is a spring forthe water-supply; and the irrigated gardens are built in terrace-formjust below on the bluff, and protected by solid walls. From this curiouspueblo another transition takes us to the extraordinary cliff-houses foundin the Chelly, Mancos, and McElmo cañons, and elsewhere, --veritablehuman eyries perched in crevices or clefts of the perpendicular rock, accessible only by dint of a toilsome and perilous climb; places ofrefuge, perhaps for fragments of tribes overwhelmed by more barbarousinvaders, yet showing in their dwelling-rooms and estufas marks ofcareful building and tasteful adornment. [95]

 [Footnote 93: At least a better one than Mr. Prescott had when he naively reckoned five persons to a household, _Conquest of Mexico_, ii. 97. ]

 [Footnote 94: Morgan, _Houses and House-Life_, chap. Vii. ]

 [Footnote 95: For careful descriptions of the ruined pueblos and cliff-houses, see Nadaillac's _Prehistoric America_, chap. V. , and Short's _North Americans of Antiquity_, chap. Vii. The latter sees in them the melancholy vestiges of a people gradually "succumbing to their unpropitious surroundings--a land which is fast becoming a howling wilderness, with its scourging sands and roaming savage Bedouin--the Apaches. "]

[Sidenote: Pueblo of Zuñi. ]

The pueblo of Zuñi is a more extensive and complex structure than theruined pueblos on the Chaco river. It is not so much an enormouscommunal house as a small town formed of a number of such houses crowdedtogether, with access from one to another along their roof-terraces. Some of the structures are of adobe brick, others of stone embedded inadobe mortar and covered with plaster. There are two open plazas orsquares in the town, and several streets, some of which are covered wayspassing beneath the upper stories of houses. The effect, though notsplendid, must be very picturesque, and would doubtless astonish andbewilder visitors unprepared for such a sight. When Coronado's mendiscovered Zuñi in 1540, although that style of building was no longer anovelty to them, they compared the place to Granada. 

[Sidenote: Pueblo of Tlascala. ]

Now it is worthy of note that Cortes made the same comparison in thecase of Tlascala, one of the famous towns at which he stopped on hismarch from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. In his letter to the emperorCharles V. , he compared Tlascala to Granada, "affirming that it waslarger, stronger, and more populous than the Moorish capital at the timeof the conquest, and quite as well built. "[96] Upon this Mr. Prescottobserves, "we shall be slow to believe that its edifices could haverivalled those monuments of Oriental magnificence, whose light aerialforms still survive after the lapse of ages, the admiration of everytraveller of sensibility and taste. The truth is that Cortes, likeColumbus, saw objects through the warm medium of his own fondimagination, giving them a higher tone of colouring and largerdimensions than were strictly warranted by the fact. " Or, as Mr. Bandelier puts it, when it comes to general statements about numbersand dimensions, "the descriptions of the conquerors cannot be taken asfacts, only as the expression of feelings, honestly entertained butuncritical. " From details given in various Spanish descriptions, including those of Cortes himself, it is evident that there could nothave been much difference in size between Tlascala and its neighbourCholula. The population of the latter town has often been given as from150, 000 to 200, 000; but, from elaborate archæological investigationsmade on the spot in 1881, Mr. Bandelier concludes that it cannot havegreatly exceeded 30, 000, and this number really agrees with theestimates of two very important Spanish authorities, Las Casas andTorquemada, when correctly understood. [97] We may therefore suppose thatthe population of Tlascala was about 30, 000. Now the population of thecity of Granada, at the time of its conquest by Ferdinand and Isabella, is said by the greatest of Spanish historians[98] to have been about200, 000. It would thus appear that Cortes sometimes let his feelings runaway with him; and, all things considered, small blame to him if he did!In studying the story of the Spanish conquest of America, liberalallowance must often be made for inaccuracies of statement that wereusually pardonable and sometimes inevitable. 

 [Footnote 96: "La qual ciudad . . . Es muy mayor que Granada, y muy mas fuerte, y de tan buenos edificios, y de mucha mas gente, que Granada tenia al tiempo que se gaño. " Cortes, _Relacion segunda al Emperador_, ap. Lorenzana, p. 58, cited in Prescott's _Conquest of Mexico_, vol. I. P. 401 (7th ed. , London, 1855). ]

 [Footnote 97: See Bandelier's _Archæological Tour in Mexico_, Boston, 1885, pp. 160-164. Torquemada's words, cited by Bandelier, are "Quando entraron los Españoles, dicen que tenia mas de quarenta mil vecinos esta ciudad. " _Monarquía Indiana_, lib. Iii. Cap. Xix. P. 281. A prolific source of error is the ambiguity in the word _vecinos_, which may mean either "inhabitants" or "householders. " Where Torquemada meant 40, 000 inhabitants, uncritical writers fond of the marvellous have understood him to mean 40, 000 houses, and multiplying this figure by 5, the average number of persons _in a modern family_, have obtained the figure 200, 000. But 40, 000 houses peopled after the old Mexican fashion, with at least 200 persons in a house (to put it as low as possible), would make a city of 8, 000, 000 inhabitants! Las Casas, in his _Destruycion de las Indias_, vii. , puts the population of Cholula at about 30, 000. I observe that Llorente (in his _Oeuvres de Las Casas_, tom. I. P. 38) translates the statement correctly. I shall recur to this point below, vol. Ii. P. 264. ]

 [Footnote 98: Mariana, _Historia de España_, Valencia, 1795, tom. Viii. P. 317. ]

But when Cortes described Tlascala as "quite as well built" as Granada, it is not at all likely that he was thinking about that exquisiteMoorish architecture which in the mind of Mr. Prescott or any cultivatedmodern writer is the first thing to be suggested by the name. TheSpaniards of those days did not admire the artistic work of "infidels;"they covered up beautiful arabesques with a wash of dirty plaster, andotherwise behaved very much like the Puritans who smashed the"idolatrous" statues in English cathedrals. When Cortes looked atTlascala, and Coronado looked at Zuñi, and both soldiers were remindedof Granada, they were probably looking at those places with aprofessional eye as fortresses hard to capture; and from this point ofview there was doubtless some justice in the comparison. 

[Sidenote: The ancient city of Mexico was a great composite pueblo. ]

In the description of Tlascala by the Spaniards who first saw it, withits dark and narrow streets, its houses of adobe, or "the better sort"of stone laid in adobe mortar, and its flat and terraced roofs, one isirresistibly reminded of such a pueblo as Zuñi. Tlascala was a town ofa type probably common in Mexico. In some respects, as will hereafterappear, the city of Mexico showed striking variations from the commontype. Yet there too were to be seen the huge houses, with terracedroofs, built around a square courtyard; in one of them 450 Spaniards, with more than 1, 000 Tlascalan allies, were accommodated; in another, called "Montezuma's palace, " one of the conquerors, who came severaltimes intending to see the whole of it, got so tired with wanderingthrough the interminable succession of rooms that at length he gave itup and never saw them all. [99] This might have happened in such abuilding as Pueblo Bonito; and a suspicion is raised that Montezuma'scity was really a vast composite pueblo, and that its so-called palaceswere communal buildings in principle like the pueblos of the Chacovalley. 

 [Footnote 99: "Et io entrai piu di quattro volte in una casa del gran Signor non por altro effetto che per vederla, et ogni volta vi camminauo tanto che mi stancauo, et mai la fini di vedere tutta. " _Relatione fatta per un gentil' huomo del Signor Fernando Cortese_, apud Ramusio, _Navigationi et Viaggi_, Venice, 1556, tom. Iii. Fol. 309. ]

[Sidenote: Natural mistake of the Spanish discoverers. ]

[Sidenote: Contrast between feudalism and gentilism. ]

[Sidenote: Change from gentile society to political society. ]

Of course the Spanish discoverers could not be expected to understandthe meaning of what they saw. It dazed and bewildered them. They knewlittle or nothing of any other kind of society than feudal monarchy, andif they made such mistakes as to call the head war-chief a "king" (i. E. Feudal king) or "emperor, " and the clan-chiefs "lords" or "noblemen, " ifthey supposed that these huge fortresses were like feudal castles andpalaces in Europe, they were quite excusable. Such misconceptions werecommon enough before barbarous societies had been much studied; and manya dusky warrior, without a tithe of the pomp and splendour about himthat surrounded Montezuma, has figured in the pages of history as amighty potentate girt with many of the trappings of feudalism. [100]Initial misconceptions that were natural enough, indeed unavoidable, found expression in an absurdly inappropriate nomenclature; and then theuse of wrong names and titles bore fruit in what one cannot properlycall a theory but rather an incoherent medley of notions about barbaricsociety. Nothing could be further from _feudalism_, in which therelation of landlord and tenant is a fundamental element, than thesociety of the American aborigines, in which that relation was utterlyunknown and inconceivable. This more primitive form of society is notimproperly called _gentilism_, inasmuch as it is based upon the gens orclan, with communism in living, and with the conception of individualownership of property undeveloped. It was gentilism that everywhereprevailed throughout the myriads of unrecorded centuries during whichthe foremost races of mankind struggled up through savagery andbarbarism into civilization, while weaker and duller races lagged behindat various stages on the way. The change from "gentile" society topolitical society as we know it was in some respects the most importantchange that has occurred in human affairs since men became human. Itmight be roughly defined as the change from personal to territorialorganization. It was accomplished when the stationary clan becameconverted into the township, and the stationary tribe into the smallstate;[101] when the conception of individual property in land was fullyacquired; when the tie of physical kinship ceased to be indispensable asa bond for holding a society together; when the _clansman_ became a_citizen_. This momentous change was accomplished among the Greeksduring a period beginning shortly before the first Olympiad (B. C. 776), and ending with the reforms of Kleisthenes at Athens (B. C. 509);among the Romans it was accomplished by the series of legislativechanges beginning with those ascribed to Servius Tullius (about B. C. 550), and perfected by the time of the first Punic War (B. C. 264-241). In each case about three centuries was required to work the change. [102]If now the reader, familiar with European history, will reflect upon theperiod of more than a thousand years which intervened between the datelast named and the time when feudalism became thoroughly established, ifhe will recall to mind the vast and powerful complication of causeswhich operated to transform civil society from the aspect which it worein the days of Regulus and the second Ptolemy to that which it hadassumed in the times of Henry the Fowler or Fulk of Anjou, he will beginto realize how much "feudalism" implies, and what a wealth of experienceit involves, above and beyond the change from "gentile" to "civil"society. It does not appear that any people in ancient America everapproached very near to this earlier change. None had fairly begun toemerge from gentilism; none had advanced so far as the Greeks of thefirst Olympiad or the Romans under the rule of the Tarquins. 

 [Footnote 100: When Pocahontas visited London in 1616 she was received at court as befitted a "king's daughter, " and the old Virginia historian, William Stith (born in 1689), says it was a "constant tradition" in his day that James I. "became jealous, and was highly offended at Mr. Rolfe for marrying a princess. " The notion was that "if Virginia descended to Pocahontas, as it might do at Powhatan's death, at her own death the kingdom would be vested in Mr. Rolfe's posterity. " Esten Cooke's _Virginia_, p. 100. Powhatan (i. E. Wahunsunakok, chief of the Powhatan tribe) was often called "emperor" by the English settlers. To their intense bewilderment he told one of them that his office would descend to his [maternal] brothers, even though he had sons living. It was thought that this could not be true. ]

 [Footnote 101: The small states into which tribes were at first transformed have in many cases survived to the present time as portions of great states or nations. The shires or counties of England, which have been reproduced in the United States, originated in this way, as I have briefly explained in my little book on _Civil Government in the United States_, p. 49. When you look on the map of England, and see the town of _Icklingham_ in the county of _Suffolk_, it means that this place was once the "home" of the "Icklings" or "children of Ickel, " a clan which formed part of the tribe of Angles known as "South folk. " So the names of Gaulish tribes survived as names of French provinces, e. G. _Auvergne_ from the _Arverni_, _Poitou_ from the _Pictavi_, _Anjou_ from the _Andecavi_, _Béarn_ from the _Bigerrones_, etc. ]

 [Footnote 102: "It was no easy task to accomplish such a fundamental change, however simple and obvious it may now seem. . . . Anterior to experience, a township, as the unit of a political system, was abstruse enough to tax the Greeks and Romans to the depths of their capacities before the conception was formed and set in practical operation. " Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 218. ]

[Sidenote: Suspicions as to the erroneousness of the Spanish accounts. ]

[Sidenote: Detection and explanation of the errors, by Lewis Morgan. ]

The first eminent writer to express a serious doubt as to thecorrectness of the earlier views of Mexican civilization was thatsagacious Scotchman, William Robertson. [103] The illustrious statesmanand philologist, Albert Gallatin, founder of the American EthnologicalSociety, published in the first volume of its "Transactions" an essaywhich recognized the danger of trusting the Spanish narratives withoutvery careful and critical scrutiny. [104] It is to be observed that Mr. Gallatin approached the subject with somewhat more knowledge ofaboriginal life in America than had been possessed by previous writers. A similar scepticism was expressed by Lewis Cass, who also knew a greatdeal about Indians. [105] Next came Mr. Morgan, [106] the man ofpath-breaking ideas, whose minute and profound acquaintance with Indianlife was joined with a power of penetrating the hidden implications offacts so keen and so sure as to amount to genius. Mr. Morgan saw thenature of the delusion under which the Spaniards laboured; he saw thatwhat they mistook for feudal castles owned by great lords, and inhabitedby dependent retainers, were really huge communal houses, owned andinhabited by clans, or rather by segments of overgrown clans. He sawthis so vividly that it betrayed him now and then into a somewhatimpatient and dogmatic manner of statement; but that was a slight fault, for what he saw was not the outcome of dreamy speculation but ofscientific insight. His researches, which reduced "Montezuma's empire"to a confederacy of tribes dwelling in pueblos, governed by a council ofchiefs, and collecting tribute from neighbouring pueblos, have beenfully sustained by subsequent investigation. 

 [Footnote 103: Robertson's _History of America_, 9th ed. Vol. Iii. Pp. 274, 281. ]

 [Footnote 104: "Notes on the Semi-civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America, " _American Ethnological Society's Transactions_, vol. I. , New York, 1852. There is a brief account of Mr. Gallatin's pioneer work in American philology and ethnology in Stevens's _Albert Gallatin_, pp. 386-396. ]

 [Footnote 105: Cass, "Aboriginal Structures, " _North Amer. Review_, Oct. , 1840. ]

 [Footnote 106: Mr. R. A. Wilson's _New History of the Conquest of Mexico_, Philadelphia, 1859, denounced the Spanish conquerors as wholesale liars, but as his book was ignorant, uncritical, and full of wild fancies, it produced little effect. It was demolished, with neatness and despatch, in two articles in the _Atlantic Monthly_, April and May, 1859, by the eminent historian John Foster Kirk, whose _History of Charles the Bold_ is in many respects a worthy companion to the works of Prescott and Motley. Mr. Kirk had been Mr. Prescott's secretary. ]

[Sidenote: Adolf Bandelier's researches. ]

The state of society which Cortes saw has, indeed, passed away, and itsmonuments and hieroglyphic records have been in great part destroyed. Nevertheless some monuments and some hieroglyphic records remain, andthe people are still there. Tlascalans and Aztecs, descendants in theeleventh or twelfth generation from the men whose bitter feuds gave sucha golden opportunity to Cortes, still dwell upon the soil of Mexico, andspeak the language in which Montezuma made his last harangue to thefurious people. There is, moreover, a great mass of literature inSpanish, besides more or less in Nahuatl, written during the centuryfollowing the conquest, and the devoted missionaries and painstakingadministrators, who wrote books about the country in which they wereworking, were not engaged in a wholesale conspiracy for deceivingmankind. From a really critical study of this literature, combined witharchæological investigation, much may be expected; and a noble beginninghas already been made. A more extensive acquaintance with Mexicanliterature would at times have materially modified Mr. Morgan'sconclusions, though without altering their general drift. At this pointthe work has been taken up by Mr. Adolf Bandelier, of Highland, Illinois, to whose rare sagacity and untiring industry as a fieldarchæologist is joined such a thorough knowledge of Mexican literatureas few men before him have possessed. Armed with such resources, Mr. Bandelier is doing for the ancient history of America work assignificant as that which Mommsen has done for Rome, or Baur for thebeginnings of Christianity. When a sufficient mass of facts andincidents have once been put upon record, it is hard for ignorantmisconception to bury the truth in a pit so deep but that the delvinggenius of critical scholarship will sooner or later drag it forth intothe light of day. [107]

 [Footnote 107: A summary of Mr. Bandelier's principal results, with copious citation and discussion of original Spanish and Nahuatl sources, is contained in his three papers, "On the art of war and mode of warfare of the ancient Mexicans, "--"On the distribution and tenure of land, and the customs with respect to inheritance, among the ancient Mexicans, "--"On the social organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans, " _Peabody Museum Reports_, vol. Ii. , 1876-79, pp. 95-161, 385-448, 557-699. ]

[Sidenote: The Aztec confederacy. ]

At this point in our exposition a very concise summary of Mr. Bandelier's results will suffice to enable the reader to understandtheir import. What has been called the "empire of Montezuma" was inreality a confederacy of three tribes, the Aztecs, Tezcucans, andTlacopans, [108] dwelling in three large composite pueblos situated verynear together in one of the strongest defensive positions ever occupiedby Indians. This Aztec confederacy extended its "sway" over aconsiderable portion of the Mexican peninsula, but that "sway" could notcorrectly be described as "empire, " for it was in no sense a militaryoccupation of the country. The confederacy did not have garrisons insubject pueblos or civil officials to administer their affairs for them. It simply sent some of its chiefs about from one pueblo to another tocollect tribute. This tax consisted in great part of maize and otherfood, and each tributary pueblo reserved a certain portion of its tribalterritory to be cultivated for the benefit of the domineeringconfederacy. If a pueblo proved delinquent or recalcitrant, Aztecwarriors swooped down upon it in stealthy midnight assault, butcheredits inhabitants and emptied its granaries, and when the paroxysm of ragehad spent itself, went exulting homeward, carrying away women forconcubines, men to be sacrificed, and such miscellaneous booty as couldbe conveyed without wagons or beasts to draw them. [109] If the suddenassault, with scaling ladders, happened to fail, the assailants werelikely to be baffled, for there was no artillery, and so little foodcould be carried that a siege meant starvation for the besiegers. 

 [Footnote 108: In the Iroquois confederacy the Mohawks enjoyed a certain precedence or seniority, the Onondagas had the central council-fire, and the Senecas, who had the two head war-chiefs, were much the most numerous. In the Mexican confederacy the various points of superiority seem to have been more concentrated in the Aztecs; but spoils and tribute were divided into five portions, of which Mexico and Tezcuco each took two, and Tlacopan one. ]

 [Footnote 109: The wretched prisoners were ordinarily compelled to carry the booty. ]

The tributary pueblos were also liable to be summoned to furnish acontingent of warriors to the war-parties of the confederacy, under thesame penalties for delinquency as in the case of refusal of tribute. Insuch cases it was quite common for the confederacy to issue a peremptorysummons, followed by a declaration of war. When a pueblo was captured, the only way in which the vanquished people could stop the massacre wasby holding out signals of submission; a parley then sometimes adjustedthe affair, and the payment of a year's tribute in advance induced theconquerors to depart, but captives once taken could seldom if ever beransomed. If the parties could not agree upon terms, the slaughter wasrenewed, and sometimes went on until the departing victors left noughtbehind them but ruined houses belching from loop-hole and doorway luridclouds of smoke and flame upon narrow silent streets heaped up withmangled corpses. 

The sway of the Aztec confederacy over the Mexican peninsula was thusessentially similar to the sway of the Iroquois confederacy over a greatpart of the tribes between the Connecticut river and the Mississippi. It was simply the levying of tribute, --a system of plunder enforced byterror. The so-called empire was "only a partnership formed for thepurpose of carrying on the business of warfare, and that intended, notfor the extension of territorial ownership, but only for an increase ofthe means of subsistence. "[110] There was none of that coalescence andincorporation of peoples which occurs after the change from gentilism tocivil society has been effected. Among the Mexicans, as elsewherethroughout North America, the tribe remained intact as the highestcompleted political integer. 

 [Footnote 110: Bandelier, _op. Cit. _ p. 563. ]

[Sidenote: Aztec clans. ]

The Aztec tribe was organized in clans and phratries, and the number ofclans would indicate that the tribe was a very large one. [111] Therewere twenty clans, called in the Nahuatl language "calpullis. " We mayfairly suppose that the average size of a clan was larger than theaverage tribe of Algonquins or Iroquois; but owing to the compact "city"life, this increase of numbers did not result in segmentation andscattering, as among Indians in the lower status. Each Aztec clan seemsto have occupied a number of adjacent communal houses, forming a kind ofprecinct, with its special house or houses for official purposes, corresponding to the _estufas_ in the New Mexican pueblos. The houseswere the common property of the clan, and so was the land which itsmembers cultivated; and such houses and land could not be sold orbartered away by the clan, or in anywise alienated. The idea of "realestate" had not been developed; the clan simply exercised a right ofoccupancy, and--as among some ruder Indians--its individual membersexercised certain limited rights of user in particular garden-plots. 

 [Footnote 111: The notion of an immense population groaning under the lash of taskmasters, and building huge palaces for idle despots must be dismissed. The statements which refer to such a vast population are apt to be accompanied by incompatible statements. Mr. Morgan is right in throwing the burden of proof upon those who maintain that a people without domestic animals or field agriculture could have been so numerous (_Anc. Soc. _, p. 195). On the other hand, I believe Mr. Morgan makes a grave mistake in the opposite direction, in underestimating the numbers that could be supported upon Indian corn even under a system of horticulture without the use of the plough. Some pertinent remarks on the extraordinary reproductive power of maize in Mexico may be found in Humboldt, _Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne_, Paris, 1811, tom. Iii. Pp. 51-60; the great naturalist is of course speaking of the yield of maize in ploughed lands, but, after making due allowances, the yield under the ancient system must have been well-nigh unexampled in barbaric agriculture. ]

[Sidenote: Clan officers. ]

The clan was governed by a clan council, consisting of chiefs(_tecuhtli_) elected by the clan, and inducted into office after a cruelreligious ordeal, in which the candidate was bruised, tortured, and halfstarved. An executive department was more clearly differentiated fromthe council than among the Indians of the lower status. The clan(_calpulli_) had an official head, or sachem, called the _calpullec_;and also a military commander called the _ahcacautin_, or "elderbrother. " The _ahcacautin_ was also a kind of peace officer, orconstable, for the precinct occupied by the clan, and carried about withhim a staff of office; a tuft of white feathers attached to this staffbetokened that his errand was one of death. The clan elected its_calpullec_ and _ahcacautin_, and could depose them for cause. [112]

 [Footnote 112: Compare this description with that of the institutions of Indians in the lower status, above, p. 69. ]

[Sidenote: Rights and duties of the clan. ]

The members of the clan were reciprocally bound to aid, defend, andavenge one another; but wergild was no longer accepted, and the penaltyfor murder was death. The clan exercised the right of naming itsmembers. Such names were invariably significant (as _Nezahualcoyotl_, "Hungry Coyote, " _Axayacatl_, "Face-in-the-Water, " etc. ), and more orless "medicine, " or superstitious association, was attached to the name. The clans also had their significant names and totems. Each clan had itspeculiar religious rites, its priests or medicine-men who were membersof the clan council, and its temple or medicine-house. Instead ofburying their dead the Mexican tribes practised cremation; there was, therefore, no common cemetery, but the funeral ceremonies were conductedby the clan. 

[Sidenote: Aztec phratries. ]

The clans of the Aztecs, like those of many other Mexican tribes, wereorganized into four phratries; and this divided the city of Mexico, asthe Spaniards at once remarked, into four quarters. The phratry hadacquired more functions than it possessed in the lower status. Besidescertain religious and social duties, and besides its connection with thepunishment of criminals, the Mexican phratry was an organization formilitary purposes. [113] The four phratries were four divisions of thetribal host, each with its captain. In each of the quarters was anarsenal, or "dart-house, " where weapons were stored, and from which theywere handed out to war-parties about to start on an expedition. 

 [Footnote 113: In this respect it seems to have had some resemblance to the Roman _centuria_ and Teutonic _hundred_. So in prehistoric Greece we may perhaps infer from Nestor's advice to Agamemnon that a similar organization existed:--

 [Greek: krin' andras kata phyla, kata phrêtras, Agamemnon, hôs phrêtrê phrêtrêphin arêgê, phyla de phylois. ] _Iliad_, ii. 362. 

 But the phratry seems never to have reached so high a development among the Greeks as among the Romans and the early English. ]

[Sidenote: The tribal council. ]

The supreme government of the Aztecs was vested in the tribal councilcomposed of twenty members, one for each clan. The member, representinga clan, was not its _calpullec_, or "sachem;" he was one of the_tecuhtli_, or clan-chiefs, and was significantly called the "speaker"(_tlatoani_). The tribal council, thus composed of twenty speakers, wascalled the _tlatocan_, or "place of speech. "[114] At least as often asonce in ten days the council assembled at the _tecpan_, or officialhouse of the tribe, but it could be convened whenever occasion required, and in cases of emergency was continually in session. Its powers andduties were similar to those of an ancient English shiremote, in so faras they were partly directive and partly judicial. A large part of itsbusiness was settling disputes between the clans. It superintended theceremonies of investiture with which the chiefs and other officers ofthe clans were sworn into office. At intervals of eighty days there wasan "extra session" of the _tlatocan_, attended also by the twenty "elderbrothers, " the four phratry-captains, the two executive chiefs of thetribe, and the leading priests, and at such times a reconsideration ofan unpopular decision might be urged; but the authority of the_tlatocan_ was supreme, and from its final decision there could be noappeal. [115]

 [Footnote 114: Compare _parliament_ from _parler_. These twenty were the "grandees, " "counsellors, " and "captains" mentioned by Bernal Diaz as always in Montezuma's company; "y siempre á la contina estaban en su compañía veinte grandes señores y consejeros y capitanes, " etc. _Historia verdadera_, ii. 95. See Bandelier, _op. Cit. _ p. 646. ]

 [Footnote 115: Mr. Bandelier's note on this point gives an especially apt illustration of the confusion of ideas and inconsistencies of statement amid which the early Spanish writers struggled to understand and describe this strange society: _op. Cit. _ p. 651. ]

[Sidenote: The "snake-woman. "]

The executive chiefs of the tribe were two in number, as was commonlythe case in ancient America. The tribal sachem, or civil executive, borethe grotesque title of _cihuacoatl_, or "snake-woman. "[116] His relationto the tribe was in general like that of the _calpullec_ to the clan. Heexecuted the decrees of the tribal council, of which he was _ex officio_a member, and was responsible for the housing of tribute and its properdistribution among the clans. He was also chief judge, and he waslieutenant to the head war-chief in command of the tribal host. [117]He was elected for life by the tribal council, which could depose himfor misconduct. 

 [Footnote 116: In Aztec mythology Cihuacoatl was wife of the supreme night deity, Tezcatlipoca. Squier, _Serpent Symbol in America_, pp. 159-166, 174-183. On the connection between serpent worship and human sacrifices, see Fergusson's _Tree and Serpent Worship_, pp. 3-5, 38-41. Much evidence as to American serpent worship is collected in J. G. Müller's _Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen_, Basel, 1855. The hieroglyphic emblem of the Aztec tribal sachem was a female head surmounted by a snake. ]

 [Footnote 117: Other tribes besides the Aztec had the "snake-woman. " In the city of Mexico the Spaniards mistook him for a "second-king, " or "royal lieutenant. " In other towns they regarded him, somewhat more correctly, as "governor, " and called him _gobernador_, --a title still applied to the tribal sachem of the pueblo Indians, as e. G. In Zuñi heretofore mentioned; see above p. 89. ]

[Sidenote: The "chief-of men. "]

[Sidenote: Evolution of kingship in Greece and Rome. ]

The office of head war-chief was an instance of primitive royalty in avery interesting stage of development. The title of this officer was_tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men. "[118] He was primarily head war-chiefof the Aztec tribe, but about 1430 became supreme military commander ofthe three confederate tribes, so that his office was one of peculiardignity and importance. When the Spaniards arrived upon the sceneMontezuma was _tlacatecuhtli_, and they naturally called him "king. " Tounderstand precisely how far such an epithet could correctly be appliedto him, and how far it was misleading, we must recall the manner inwhich early kingship arose in Europe. The Roman _rex_ was an officerelected for life; the typical Greek _basileus_ was a somewhat more fullydeveloped king, inasmuch as his office was becoming practicallyhereditary; otherwise _rex_ was about equivalent to _basileus_. Alike inRome and in Greece the king had at least three great functions, andpossibly four. [119] He was, primarily, chief commander, secondly, chiefpriest, thirdly, chief judge; whether he had reached the fourth stageand added the functions of chief civil executive, is matter of dispute. Kingship in Rome and in most Greek cities was overthrown at so early adate that some questions of this sort are difficult to settle. But inall probability the office grew up through the successive acquisition ofritual, judicial, and civil functions by the military commander. Theparamount necessity of consulting the tutelar deities before fightingresulted in making the general a priest competent to perform sacrificesand interpret omens;[120] he thus naturally became the most importantamong priests; an increased sanctity invested his person and office; andby and by he acquired control over the dispensation of justice, andfinally over the whole civil administration. One step more was needed todevelop the _basileus_ into a despot, like the king of Persia, and thatwas to let him get into his hands the law-making power, involvingcomplete control over taxation. When the Greeks and Romans becamedissatisfied with the increasing powers of their kings, they destroyedthe office. The Romans did not materially diminish its functions, butput them into commission, by entrusting them to two consuls of equalauthority elected annually. The Greeks, on the other hand, divided theroyal functions among different officers, as e. G. At Athens among thenine archons. [121]

 [Footnote 118: This title seems precisely equivalent to [Greek: anax andrôn], commonly applied to Agamemnon, and sometimes to other chieftains, in the Iliad. ]

 [Footnote 119: Ramsay's _Roman Antiquities_, p. 64; Hermann's _Political Antiquities of Greece_, p. 105; Morgan, _Anc. Soc. _, p. 248. ]

 [Footnote 120: Such would naturally result from the desirableness of securing unity of command. If Demosthenes had been in sole command of the Athenian armament in the harbour of Syracuse, and had been a _basileus_, with priestly authority, who can doubt that some such theory of the eclipse as that suggested by Philochorus would have been adopted, and thus one of the world's great tragedies averted? See Grote, _Hist. Greece_, vol. Vii. Chap. Lx. M. Fustel de Coulanges, in his admirable book _La Cité antique_, pp. 205-210, makes the priestly function of the king primitive, and the military function secondary; which is entirely inconsistent with what we know of barbarous races. ]

 [Footnote 121: It is worthy of note that the archon who retained the priestly function was called _basileus_, showing perhaps that at that time this had come to be most prominent among the royal functions, or more likely that it was the one with which reformers had some religious scruples about interfering. The Romans, too, retained part of the king's priestly function in an officer called _rex sacrorum_, whose duty was at times to offer a sacrifice in the forum, and then run away as fast as legs could carry him, --[Greek: hên thysas ho basileus, kata tachos apeisi pheugôn ex agoras] (!) Plutarch, _Quæst. Rom. _ 63. ]

[Sidenote: Mediæval kingship. ]

The typical kingship in mediæval Europe, after the full development ofthe feudal system, was very different indeed from the kingship in earlyGreece and Rome. In the Middle Ages all priestly functions had passedinto the hands of the Church. [122] A king like Charles VII. Of France, or Edward III. Of England, was military commander, civil magistrate, chief judge, and _supreme landlord_; the people were his tenants. Thatwas the kind of king with which the Spanish discoverers of Mexico werefamiliar. 

 [Footnote 122: Something of the priestly quality of "sanctity, " however, surrounded the king's person; and the ceremony of anointing the king at his coronation was a survival of the ancient rite which invested the head war-chief with priestly attributes. ]

[Sidenote: Montezuma was a "priest-commander. "]

Now the Mexican _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men, " was much more likeAgamemnon in point of kingship than like Edward III. He was not supremelandlord, for landlordship did not exist in Mexico. He was not chiefjudge or civil magistrate; those functions belonged to the"snake-woman. " Mr. Bandelier regards the "chief-of-men" as simply amilitary commander; but for reasons which I shall state hereafter, [123]it seems quite clear that he exercised certain very important priestlyfunctions, although beside him there was a kind of high-priest ormedicine-chief. If I am right in holding that Montezuma was a"priest-commander, " then incipient royalty in Mexico had advanced atleast one stage beyond the head war-chief of the Iroquois, and remainedone stage behind the _basileus_ of the Homeric Greeks. 

 [Footnote 123: They can be most conveniently stated in connection with the story of the conquest of Mexico; see below, vol. Ii. P. 278. When Mr. Bandelier completes his long-promised paper on the ancient Mexican religion, perhaps it will appear that he has taken these facts into the account. ]

[Sidenote: Mode of succession to the office. ]

The _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men, " was elected by an assemblyconsisting of the tribal council, the "elder brothers" of the severalclans, and certain leading priests. Though the office was thus elective, the choice seems to have been practically limited to a particular clan, and in the eleven chiefs who were chosen from 1375 to 1520 a certainprinciple or custom of succession seems to be plainly indicated. [124]There was a further limit to the order of succession. Allusion has beenmade to the four phratry-captains commanding the quarters of the city. Their cheerful titles were "man of the house of darts, " "cutter of men, ""bloodshedder, " and "chief of the eagle and cactus. " These captains weremilitary chiefs of the phratries, and also magistrates charged with theduty of maintaining order and enforcing the decrees of the council intheir respective quarters. The "chief of the eagle and cactus" was chiefexecutioner, --Jack Ketch. He was not eligible for the office of"chief-of-men;" the three other phratry-captains were eligible. Thenthere was a member of the priesthood entitled "man of the dark house. "This person, with the three eligible captains, made a quartette, and oneof this privileged four _must_ succeed to the office of "chief-of-men. "

 [Footnote 124: I cannot follow Mr. Bandelier in discrediting Clavigero's statement that the office of _tlacatecuhtli_ "should always remain in the house of Acamapitzin, " inasmuch as the eleven who were actually elected were all closely akin to one another. In point of fact it _did_ remain "in the house of Acamapitzin. "]

The eligibility of the "man of the dark house" may be cited here aspositive proof that sometimes the "chief-of-men" could be a"priest-commander. " That in all cases he acquired priestly functionsafter election, even when he did not possess them before, is indicatedby the fact that at the ceremony of his induction into office heascended to the summit of the pyramid sacred to the war-godHuitzilopochtli, where he was anointed by the high-priest with a blackointment, and sprinkled with sanctified water; having thus becomeconsecrated he took a censer of live coals and a bag of copal, and ashis first official act offered incense to the war-god. [125]

 [Footnote 125: H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, vol. Ii. P. 145. Hence the accounts of the reverent demeanour of the people toward Montezuma, though perhaps overcoloured, are not so absurd as Mr. Morgan deemed them. Mr. Morgan was sometimes too anxious to reduce Montezuma to the level of an Iroquois war-chief. ]

[Sidenote: Manner of collecting tribute. ]

As the "chief-of-men" was elected, so too he could be deposed formisbehaviour. He was _ex officio_ a member of the tribal council, and hehad his official residence in the _tecpan_, or tribal house, where themeetings of the council were held, and where the hospitalities of thetribe were extended to strangers. As an administrative officer, the"chief-of-men" had little to do within the limits of the tribe; that, asalready observed, was the business of the "snake-woman. " But outside ofthe confederacy the "chief-of-men" exercised administrative functions. He superintended the collection of tribute. Each of the threeconfederate tribes appointed, through its tribal council, agents tovisit the subjected pueblos and gather in the tribute. These agents wereexpressively termed _calpixqui_, "crop-gatherers. " As these men wereobliged to spend considerable time in the vanquished pueblos in thedouble character of tax-collectors and spies, we can imagine how hatefultheir position was. Their security from injury depended upon thereputation of their tribes for ruthless ferocity. [126] The tiger-likeconfederacy was only too ready to take offence; in the lack of a decentpretext it often went to war without one, simply in order to get humanvictims for sacrifice. 

 [Footnote 126: As I have elsewhere observed in a similar case:--"Each summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the dread that Iroquois prowess had everywhere inspired; and up and down the Connecticut valley they seized the tribute of weapons and wampum, and proclaimed the last harsh edict issued from the savage council at Onondaga. " _Beginnings of New England_, p. 121. ]

Once appointed, the tax-gatherers were directed by the "chief-of-men. "The tribute was chiefly maize, but might be anything the conquerorschose to demand, --weapons, fine pottery or featherwork, gold ornaments, or female slaves. Sometimes the tributary pueblo, instead of sacrificingall its prisoners of war upon its own altars, sent some of them up toMexico as part of its tribute. The ravening maw of the horrible deitieswas thus appeased, not by the pueblo that paid the blackmail, but by thepower that extorted it, and thus the latter obtained a larger share ofdivine favour. Generally the unhappy prisoners were forced to carry thecorn and other articles. They were convoyed by couriers who saw thateverything was properly delivered at the _tecpan_, and also broughtinformation by word of mouth and by picture-writing from the _calpixqui_to the "chief-of-men. " When the newly-arrived Spaniards saw thesecouriers coming and going they fancied that they were "ambassadors. "This system of tribute-taking made it necessary to build roads, and thisin turn facilitated, not only military operations, but trade, which hadalready made some progress albeit of a simple sort. These "roads" mightperhaps more properly be called Indian trails, [127] but they servedtheir purpose. 

 [Footnote 127: See Salmeron's letter of August 13, 1531, to the Council of the Indies, cited in Bandelier, _op. Cit. _ p. 696. The letter recommends that to increase the security of the Spanish hold upon the country the roads should be made practicable for beasts and wagons. They were narrow paths running straight ahead up hill and down dale, sometimes crossing narrow ravines upon heavy stone culverts. ]

[Sidenote: Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted. ]

The general similarity of the Aztec confederacy to that of theIroquois, in point of social structure, is thus clearly manifest. Alongwith this general similarity we have observed some points of higherdevelopment, such as one might expect to find in traversing the entirelength of an ethnical period. Instead of stockaded villages, with housesof bark or of clay supported upon a wooden framework, we have pueblos ofadobe-brick or stone, in various stages of evolution, the most advancedof which present the appearance of castellated cities. Along with thesystematic irrigation and increased dependence upon horticulture, wefind evidences of greater density of population; and we see in thevictorious confederacy a more highly developed organization for addingto its stock of food and other desirable possessions by the systematicplunder of neighbouring weaker communities. Naturally such increase innumbers and organization entails some increase in the number of officersand some differentiation of their functions, as illustrated in therepresentation of the clans (_calpulli_) in the tribal council(_tlatocan_), by speakers (_tlatoani_) chosen for the purpose, and notby the official heads (_calpullec_) of the clan. Likewise in themilitary commander-in-chief (_tlacatecuhtli_) we observe a markedincrease in dignity, and--as I have already suggested and hope tomaintain--we find that his office has been clothed with sacerdotalpowers, and has thus taken a decided step toward kingship of the ancienttype, as depicted in the Homeric poems. 

[Sidenote: Aztec priesthood: human sacrifices. ]

No feature of the advance is more noteworthy than the development ofthe medicine-men into an organized priesthood. [128] The presence of thispriesthood and its ritual was proclaimed to the eyes of the traveller inancient Mexico by the numerous tall truncated pyramids (_teocallis_), onthe flat summits of which men, women, and children were sacrificed tothe gods. This custom of human sacrifice seems to have been acharacteristic of the middle period of barbarism, and to have survived, with diminishing frequency, into the upper period. There are abundanttraces of its existence throughout the early Aryan world, from Britainto Hindustan, as well as among the ancient Hebrews and theirkindred. [129] But among all these peoples, at the earliest times atwhich we can study them with trustworthy records, we find the custom ofhuman sacrifice in an advanced stage of decline, and generally no longeraccompanied by the custom of cannibalism in which it probablyoriginated. [130] Among the Mexicans, however, when they were firstvisited by the Spaniards, cannibalism flourished as nowhere else in theworld except perhaps in Fiji, and human sacrifices were conducted onsuch a scale as could not have been witnessed in Europe without goingback more than forty centuries. 

 [Footnote 128: The priesthood was not hereditary, nor did it form a caste. There was no hereditary nobility in ancient Mexico, nor were there any hereditary vocations, as "artisans, " "merchants, " etc. See Bandelier, _op. Cit. _ p. 599. ]

 [Footnote 129: See the copious references in Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, ii. 340-371; Mackay, _Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews_, ii. 406-434; Oort and Hooykaas, _The Bible for Young People_, i. 30, 189-193; ii. 102, 220; iii. 21, 170, 316, 393, 395; iv. 85, 226. Ghillany, _Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer_, Nuremberg, 1842, treats the subject with much learning. ]

 [Footnote 130: Spencer, _Princip. Sociol. _, i. 287; Tylor, _op. Cit. _ ii. 345. ]

The custom of sacrificing captives to the gods was a marked advance uponthe practice in the lower period of barbarism, when the prisoner, unlesssaved by adoption into the tribe of his captors, was put to death withlingering torments. There were occasions on which the Aztecs torturedtheir prisoners before sending them to the altar, [131] but in generalthe prisoner was well-treated and highly fed, --fatted, in short, for thefinal banquet in which the worshippers participated with their savagedeity. [132] In a more advanced stage of development than that which theAztecs had reached, in the stage when agriculture became extensiveenough to create a steady demand for servile labour, the practice ofenslaving prisoners became general; and as slaves became more and morevaluable, men gradually succeeded in compounding with their deities foreasier terms, --a ram, or a kid, or a bullock, instead of the humanvictim. [133]

 [Footnote 131: Mr. Prescott, to avoid shocking the reader with details, refers him to the twenty-first canto of Dante's Inferno, _Conquest of Mexico_, vol. I. P. 64. ]

 [Footnote 132: See below, vol. Ii. P. 283. ]

 [Footnote 133: The victim, by the offer of which the wrath of the god was appeased or his favour solicited, must always be some valued possession of the sacrificer. Hence, e. G. , among the Hebrews "wild animals, as not being property, were generally considered unfit for sacrifice. " (Mackay, _op. Cit. _ ii. 398. ) Among the Aztecs (Prescott, _loc. Cit. _) on certain occasions of peculiar solemnity the clan offered some of its own members, usually children. In the lack of prisoners such offerings would more often be necessary, hence one powerful incentive to war. The use of prisoners to buy the god's favour was to some extent a substitute for the use of the clan's own members, and at a later stage the use of domestic animals was a further substitution. The legend of Abraham and Isaac (_Genesis_, xxii. 1-14) preserves the tradition of this latter substitution among the ancient Hebrews. Compare the Boeotian legend of the temple of Dionysos Aigobolos:--[Greek: thyontes gar tô theô proêchthêsan pote hypo methês es hybrin, hôste kai tou Dionysou ton hierea apokteinousin; apokteinantas de autika epelabe nosos loimôdês; kai sphisin aphiketo hama ek Delphôn, tô Dionysô thyein paida hôraion; etesi de ou pollois hysteron ton theon phasin aiga hiereion hypallaxai sphisin anti tou paidos. ]

Pausanias, ix. 8. A further stage of progress was the substitution of amere inanimate symbol for a living victim, whether human or brute, asshown in the old Roman custom of appeasing "Father Tiber" once a year bythe ceremony of drowning a lot of dolls in that river. Of thissignificant rite Mommsen aptly observes, "Die Ideen göttlicher Gnade undVersöhnbarkeit sind hier ununterscheidbar gemischt mit der frommenSchlauigkeit, welche es versucht den gefährlichen Herrn durchscheinhafte Befriedigung zu berücken und abzufinden. " _RömischeGeschichte_, 4e Aufl. , 1865, Bd. I. P. 176. After reading such a remarkit may seem odd to find the writer, in a footnote, refusing to acceptthe true explanation of the custom; but that was a quarter of a centuryago, when much less was known about ancient society than now. ]

[Sidenote: Aztec slaves. ]

The ancient Mexicans had not arrived at this stage, which in the OldWorld characterized the upper period of barbarism. Slavery had, however, made a beginning among the Aztecs. The nucleus of the smallslave-population of Mexico consisted of _outcasts_, persons expelledfrom the clan for some misdemeanour. The simplest case was that in whicha member of a clan failed for two years to cultivate hisgarden-plot. [134] The delinquent member was deprived, not only of hisright of user, but of all his rights as a clansman, and the only way toescape starvation was to work upon some other lot, either in his own orin some other clan, and be paid in such pittance from its produce as theoccupant might choose to give him. This was slavery in embryo. Theoccupant did not own this outcast labourer, any more than he owned hislot; he only possessed a limited right of user in both labourer and lot. To a certain extent it was "adverse" or exclusive possession. If theslave ran away or was obstinately lazy, he could be made to wear awooden collar and sold without his consent; if it proved too troublesometo keep him, the collared slave could be handed over to the priests forsacrifice. [135] In this class of outcasts and their masters we have aninteresting illustration of a rudimentary phase of slavery and ofprivate property. 

 [Footnote 134: Bandelier, _op. Cit. _ p. 611. ]

 [Footnote 135: There was, however, in this extreme case, a right of sanctuary. If the doomed slave could flee and hide himself in the _tecpan_ before the master or one of his sons could catch him, he became free and recovered his clan-rights; and no third person was allowed to interfere in aid of the pursuer. Torquemada, _Monarquía indiana_, ii. 564-566. ]

[Sidenote: The Aztec family. ]

At this point it is worthy of note that in the development of the familythe Aztecs had advanced considerably beyond the point attained byShawnees and Mohawks, and a little way toward the point attained in thepatriarchal family of the ancient Romans and Hebrews. In the Aztec clan(which was exogamous[136]) the change to descent in the male line seemsto have been accomplished before the time of the Discovery. Apparentlyit had been recently accomplished. Names for designating familyrelationships remained in that primitive stage in which no distinctionis made between father and uncle, grandchildren and cousins. The familywas still too feebly established to count for much in the structure ofsociety, which still rested firmly upon the clan. [137] Nevertheless themarriage bonds were drawn much tighter than among Indians of the lowerstatus, and penalties for incontinence were more severe. The wife becameher husband's property and was entitled to the protection of his clan. All matrimonial arrangements were controlled by the clan, and no memberof it, male or female, was allowed to remain unmarried, except forcertain religious reasons. The penalty for contumacy was expulsion fromthe clan, and the same penalty was inflicted for such sexualirregularities as public opinion, still in what we should call quite aprimitive stage, condemned. Men and women thus expelled went to swellthe numbers of that small class of outcasts already noted. With men theresult, as we have seen, was a kind of slavery; with women it wasprostitution; and it is curious to see that the same penalty, entailingsuch a result, was visited alike upon unseemly frailty and upon refusalto marry. In either case the sin consisted in rebellion against theclan's standards of proper or permissible behaviour. 

 [Footnote 136: Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, vol. Ii. P. 251. ]

 [Footnote 137: Bandelier, _op. Cit. _ pp. 429, 570, 620. ]

[Sidenote: Aztec property. ]

The inheritance in the male line, the beginnings of individual propertyin slaves, the tightening of the marriage bond, accompanied by thecondemnation of sundry irregularities heretofore tolerated, arephenomena which we might expect to find associated together. They aregerms of the upper status of barbarism, as well as of the earlieststatus of civilization more remotely to follow. The common cause, ofwhich they are the manifestations, is an increasing sense of the valueand importance of personal property. In the Old World this sense grew upduring a pastoral stage of society such as the New World never knew, andby the ages of Abraham and Agamemnon[138] it had produced results suchas had not been reached in Mexico at the time of the Discovery. Stillthe tendency in the latter country was in a similar direction. Thoughthere was no notion of real estate, and the house was stillclan-property, yet the number and value of articles of personalownership had no doubt greatly increased during the long interval whichmust have elapsed since the ancestral Mexicans entered upon the middlestatus. The mere existence of large and busy market-places with regularand frequent fairs, even though trade had scarcely begun to emerge fromthe stage of barter, is sufficient proof of this. Such fairs and marketsdo not belong to the Mohawk chapter in human progress. They imply aconsiderable number and diversity of artificial products, valued asarticles of personal property. A legitimate inference from them is theexistence of a certain degree of luxury, though doubtless luxury of abarbaric type. 

 [Footnote 138: I here use these world-famous names without any implication as to their historical character, or their precise date, which are in themselves interesting subjects for discussion. I use them as best symbolizing the state of society which existed about the northern and eastern shores of the eastern Mediterranean, several centuries before the Olympiads. ]

[Sidenote: Mr. Morgan's rules. ]

It is at this point, I think, that a judicious critic will begin to partcompany with Mr. Morgan. As regards the outward aspect of the societywhich the Spaniards found in Mexico, that eminent scholar more than onceused arguments that were inconsistent with principles of criticism laiddown by himself. At the beginning of his chapter on the Aztecconfederacy Mr. Morgan proposed the following rules:--

"The histories of Spanish America may be trusted in whatever relates tothe acts of the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal characteristicsof the Indians; in whatever relates to their weapons, implements andutensils, fabrics, food and raiment, and things of a similar character. 

"But in whatever relates to Indian society and government, their socialrelations and plan of life, they are nearly worthless, because theylearned nothing and knew nothing of either. We are at full liberty toreject them in these respects and commence anew; using any facts theymay contain which harmonize with what is known of Indian society. "[139]

 [Footnote 139: Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 186, note. ]

Perhaps it would have been better if the second of these rules had beensomewhat differently worded; for even with regard to the strange societyand government, the Spanish writers have recorded an immense number ofvaluable facts, without which Mr. Bandelier's work would have beenimpossible. It is not so much the _facts_ as the _interpretations_ ofthe Spanish historians that are "nearly worthless, " and even theirmisinterpretations are interesting and instructive when once we rightlyunderstand them. Sometimes they really help us toward the truth. 

[Sidenote: Mr. Morgan sometimes disregarded his own rules: "Montezuma'sDinner. "]

The broad distinction, however, as stated in Mr. Morgan's pair of rules, is well taken. In regard to such a strange form of society the Spanishdiscoverers of Mexico could not help making mistakes, but in regard toutensils and dress their senses were not likely to deceive them, andtheir statements, according to Mr. Morgan, may be trusted. Very good. But as soon as Mr. Morgan had occasion to write about the social life ofthe Aztecs, he forgot his own rules and paid as little respect to thesenses of eye-witnesses as to their judgment. This was amusinglyillustrated in his famous essay on "Montezuma's Dinner. "[140] WhenBernal Diaz describes Montezuma as sitting on a low chair at a tablecovered with a white cloth, Mr. Morgan declares that it could not havebeen so, --there were no chairs or tables! On second thought he willadmit that there may have been a wooden block hollowed out for a stool, but in the matter of a table he is relentless. So when Cortes, in hisdespatch to the emperor, speaks of the "wine-cellar" and of the presenceof "secretaries" at dinner, Mr. Morgan observes, "Since cursive writingwas unknown among the Aztecs, the presence of these secretaries is anamusing feature in the account. The wine-cellar also is remarkable fortwo reasons: firstly, because the level of the streets and courts wasbut four feet above the level of the water, which made cellarsimpossible; and, secondly, because the Aztecs had no knowledge of wine. An acid beer (_pulque_), made by fermenting the juice of the maguey, wasa common beverage of the Aztecs; but it is hardly supposable that eventhis was used at dinner. "[141]

 [Footnote 140: _North Amer. Review_, April, 1876. The substance of it was reproduced in his _Houses and House-Life_, chap. X. ]

 [Footnote 141: _Houses and House-Life_, p. 241. ]

To this I would reply that the fibre of that same useful plant fromwhich the Aztecs made their "beer" supplied them also with paper, uponwhich they were in the habit of writing, not indeed in cursivecharacters, but in hieroglyphics. This kind of writing, as well as anyother, accounts for the presence of secretaries, which seems to me, bythe way, a very probable and characteristic feature in the narrative. From the moment the mysterious strangers landed, every movement oftheirs had been recorded in hieroglyphics, and there is no reason whynotes of what they said and did should not have been taken at dinner. Asfor the place where the _pulque_ was kept, it was a venial slip of thepen to call it a "wine-cellar, " even if it was not below the ground. Thelanguage of Cortes does not imply that he visited the "cellar;" he saw acrowd of Indians drinking the beverage, and supposing the great house hewas in to be Montezuma's, he expressed his sense of that person'shospitality by saying that "his wine-cellar was open to all. " Andreally, is it not rather a captious criticism which in one breath chidesCortes for calling the beverage "wine, " and in the next breath goes onto call it "beer"? The _pulque_ was neither the one nor the other; forwant of any other name a German might have called it beer, a Spaniardwould be more likely to call it wine. And why is it "hardly supposable"that _pulque_ was used at dinner? Why should Mr. Morgan, who never dinedwith Montezuma, know so much more about _such things_ than Cortes andBernal Diaz, who did?[142]

 [Footnote 142: Mr. Andrew Lang asks some similar questions in his _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, vol. Ii. P. 349, but in a tone of impatient contempt which, as applied to a man of Mr. Morgan's calibre, is hardly becoming. ]

[Sidenote: The reaction against uncritical and exaggerated statements. ]

The Spanish statements of facts are, of course, not to be accepteduncritically. When we are told of cut slabs of porphyry inlaid in thewalls of a room, we have a right to inquire how so hard a stone could becut with flint or copper chisels, [143] and are ready to entertain thesuggestion that some other stone might easily have been mistaken forporphyry. Such a critical inquiry is eminently profitable, and none theless so when it brings us to the conclusion that the Aztecs did succeedin cutting porphyry. Again, when we read about Indian armies of 200, 000men, pertinent questions arise as to the commissariat, and we are led toreflect that there is nothing about which old soldiers spin suchunconscionable yarns as about the size of the armies they havethrashed. In a fairy tale, of course, such suggestions are impertinent;things can go on anyhow. In real life it is different. The trouble withmost historians of the conquest of Mexico has been that they have madeit like a fairy tale, and the trouble with Mr. Morgan was that, in awholesome and much-needed spirit of reaction, he was too much inclinedto dismiss the whole story as such. He forgot the first of his pair ofrules, and applied the second to everything alike. He felt "at fullliberty to reject" the testimony of the discoverers as to what they sawand tasted, and to "commence anew, " reasoning from "what is known ofIndian society. " And here Mr. Morgan's mind was so full of the kind ofIndian society which he knew more minutely and profoundly than any otherman, that he was apt to forget that there could be any other kind. Heoverlooked his own distinction between the lower and middle periods ofbarbarism in his attempt to ignore or minimize the points of differencebetween Aztecs and Iroquois. [144] In this way he did injustice to hisown brilliant and useful classification of stages of culture, and inparticular to the middle period of barbarism, the significance of whichhe was the first to detect, but failed to realize fully because hisattention had been so intensely concentrated upon the lower period. 

 [Footnote 143: For an excellent account of ancient Mexican knives and chisels, see Dr. Valentini's paper on "Semi-Lunar and Crescent-Shaped Tools, " in _Proceedings of Amer. Antiq. Soc. _, New Series, vol. Iii. Pp. 449-474. Compare the very interesting Spanish observations on copper hatchets and flint chisels in Clavigero, _Historia antigua_, tom. I. P. 242; Mendieta, _Historia ecclesiastica indiana_, tom. Iv. Cap. Xii. ]

 [Footnote 144: It often happens that the followers of a great man are more likely to run to extremes than their master, as, for example, when we see the queen of pueblos rashly described as "a collection of mud huts, such as Cortes found and dignified with the name of a city. " _Smithsonian Report_, 1887, part i. P. 691. This is quite inadmissible. ]

[Sidenote: Importance of the middle period of barbarism. ]

In truth, the middle period of barbarism was one of the most importantperiods in the career of the human race, and full of fascination to thestudent, as the unfading interest in ancient Mexico and the huge mass ofliterature devoted to it show. It spanned the interval between suchsociety as that of Hiawatha and such as that of the Odyssey. One moresuch interval (and, I suspect, a briefer one, because the use of ironand the development of inheritable wealth would accelerate progress) ledto the age that could _write_ the Odyssey, one of the most beautifulproductions of the human mind. If Mr. Morgan had always borne in mindthat, on his own classification, Montezuma must have been at least asnear to Agamemnon as to Powhatan, his attitude toward the Spanishhistorians would have been less hostile. A Moqui pueblo stands near thelower end of the middle period of barbarism; ancient Troy stood next theupper end. Mr. Morgan found apt illustrations in the former; perhaps ifhe had lived long enough to profit by the work of Schliemann andBandelier, he might have found equally apt ones in the latter. Mr. Bandelier's researches certainly show that the ancient city of Mexico, in point of social development, stood somewhere between the two. 

How that city looked may best be described when we come to tell what itsfirst Spanish visitors saw. Let it suffice here to say that, upon areasonable estimate of their testimony, pleasure-gardens, menageries andaviaries, fountains and baths, tessellated marble floors, finely wroughtpottery, exquisite featherwork, brilliant mats and tapestries, silvergoblets, dainty spices burning in golden censers, varieties of highlyseasoned dishes, dramatic performances, jugglers and acrobats, balladsingers and dancing girls, --such things were to be seen in this city ofsnake-worshipping cannibals. It simulated civilization as a tree-fernsimulates a tree. 

 * * * * *

[Illustration: Ground-plan of so-called "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal. ]

[Sidenote: Mexicans and Mayas. ]

In its general outlines the account here given of Aztec society andgovernment at the time of the Discovery will probably hold true of allthe semi-civilized communities of the Mexican peninsula and CentralAmerica. The pueblos of Mexico were doubtless of various grades of size, strength, and comfort, ranging from such structures as Zuñi up to thecity of Mexico. The cities of Chiapas, Yucatan, and Guatemala, whoseruins, in those tropical forests, are so impressive, probably belong tothe same class. The Maya-Quiché tribes, who dwelt and still dwell inthis region, were different in stock-language from their neighbours ofMexico; but there are strong reasons for believing that the two greatgroups, Mexicans and Mayas, arose from the expansion and segmentation ofone common stock, and there is no doubt as to the very close similaritybetween the two in government, religion, and social advancement. In somepoints the Mayas were superior. They possessed a considerableliterature, written in highly developed hieroglyphic characters uponmaguey paper and upon deerskin parchment, so that from this point ofview they stood upon the threshold of civilization as strictlydefined. [145] But, like the Mexicans, they were ignorant of iron, theirsociety was organized upon the principle of gentilism, they werecannibals and sacrificed men and women to idols, some of which wereidentical with those of Mexico. The Mayas had no conception of propertyin land; their buildings were great communal houses, like pueblos; insome cases these so-called palaces, at first supposed to be scantyremnants of vast cities, were themselves the entire "cities;" in othercases there were doubtless large composite pueblos fit to be calledcities. 

 [Footnote 145: This writing was at once recognized by learned Spaniards, like Las Casas, as entirely different from anything found elsewhere in America. He found in Yucatan "letreros de ciertos caracteres que en otra ninguna parte, " Las Casas, _Historia apologética_, cap. Cxxiii. For an account of the hieroglyphics, see the learned essays of Dr. Cyrus Thomas, _A Study of the Manuscript Troano_, Washington, 1882; "Notes on certain Maya and Mexican MSS. , " _Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 7-153; "Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices, " _Sixth Report_, pp. 259-371. (The paper last mentioned ends with the weighty words, "The more I study these characters the stronger becomes the conviction that they have grown out of a pictographic system similar to that common among the Indians of North America. " Exactly so; and this is typical of every aspect and every detail of ancient American culture. It is becoming daily more evident that the old notion of an influence from Asia has not a leg to stand on. ) See also a suggestive paper by the astronomer, E. S. Holden, "Studies in Central American Picture-Writing, " _First Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 205-245; Brinton, _Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan_, New York, 1870; _Essays of an Americanist_, Philadelphia, 1890, pp. 193-304; Léon de Rosny, _Les écritures figuratives_, Paris, 1870; _L'interprétation des anciens textes Mayas_, Paris, 1875; _Essai sur le déchiffrement de l'écriture hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale_, Paris, 1876; Förstemann, _Erläuterungen der Maya Handschrift_, Dresden, 1886. The decipherment is as yet but partially accomplished. The Mexican system of writing is clearly developed from the ordinary Indian pictographs; it could not have arisen from the Maya system, but the latter might well have been a further development of the Mexican system; the Maya system had probably developed some characters with a phonetic value, i. E. Was groping toward the alphabetical stage; but how far this groping had gone must remain very doubtful until the decipherment has proceeded further. Dr. Isaac Taylor is too hasty in saying that "the Mayas employed twenty-seven characters which must be admitted to be alphabetic" (Taylor, _The Alphabet_, vol. I. P. 24); this statement is followed by the conclusion that the Maya system of writing was "superior in simplicity and convenience to that employed . . . By the great Assyrian nation at the epoch of its greatest power and glory. " Dr. Taylor has been misled by Diego de Landa, whose work (_Relation des choses de l'Yucatan_, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864) has in it some pitfalls for the unwary. ]

[Sidenote: Ruined cities of Central America. ]

These noble ruins have excited great and increasing interest since thepublication of Mr. Stephens's charming book just fifty years ago. [146]An air of profound mystery surrounded them, and many wild theories werepropounded to account for their existence. They were at first accreditedwith a fabulous antiquity, and in at least one instance this notion wasresponsible for what must be called misrepresentation, if nothumbug. [147] Having been placed by popular fancy at such a remote age, they were naturally supposed to have been built, not by the Mayas, --whostill inhabit Yucatan and do not absolutely dazzle us with their exaltedcivilization, --but by some wonderful people long since vanished. Now asto this point the sculptured slabs of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza tell theirown story. They are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and thesehieroglyphs are the same as those in which the Dresden Codex and otherMaya manuscripts still preserved are written; though their deciphermentis not yet complete, there is no sort of doubt as to their being writtenin the Maya characters. Careful inspection, moreover, shows that thebuildings in which these inscriptions occur are not so very ancient. Mr. Stephens, who was one of their earliest as well as sanest explorers, believed them to be the work of the Mayas at a comparatively recentperiod. [148] The notion of their antiquity was perhaps suggested by thebelief that certain colossal mahogany trees growing between and overthe ruins at Palenque must be nearly 2, 000 years old. But when M. DeCharnay visited Palenque in 1859 he had the eastern side of the "palace"cleared of its dense vegetation in order to get a good photograph; andwhen he revisited the spot in 1881 he found a sturdy growth of youngmahogany the age of which he knew did not exceed twenty-two years. Instead of making a ring once a year, as in our sluggish and temperatezone, these trees had made rings at the rate of about one in a month;their trunks were already more than two feet in diameter; judging fromthis rate of growth the biggest giant on the place need not have beenmore than 200 years old, if as much. [149]

 [Footnote 146: Stephens, _Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_, 2 vols. , New York, 1841. ]

 [Footnote 147: It occurred in the drawings of the artist Fréderic de Waldeck, who visited Palenque before Stephens, but whose researches were published later. "His drawings, " says Mr. Winsor, "are exquisite; but he was not free from a tendency to improve and restore, where the conditions gave a hint, and so as we have them in the final publication they have not been accepted as wholly trustworthy. " _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, i. 194. M. De Charnay puts it more strongly. Upon his drawing of a certain panel at Palenque, M. De Waldeck "has seen fit to place three or four elephants. What end did he propose to himself in giving this fictitious representation? Presumably to give a prehistoric origin to these ruins, since it is an ascertained fact that elephants in a fossil state only have been found on the American continent. It is needless to add that neither Catherwood, who drew these inscriptions most minutely, nor myself who brought impressions of them away, nor living man, ever saw these elephants and their fine trunks. But such is the mischief engendered by preconceived opinions. With some writers it would seem that to give a recent date to these monuments would deprive them of all interest. It would have been fortunate had explorers been imbued with fewer prejudices and gifted with a little more common sense, for then we should have known the truth with regard to these ruins long since. " Charnay, _The Ancient Cities of the New World_, London, 1887, p. 248. The gallant explorer's indignation is certainly quite pardonable. ]

 [Footnote 148: Some of his remarks are worth quoting in detail, especially in view of the time when they were written: "I repeat my opinion that we are not warranted in going back to any ancient nation of the Old World for the builders of these cities; that they are not the work of people who have passed away and whose history is lost, but that there are strong reasons to believe them the creations of the same races who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or some not very distant progenitors. And I would remark that we began our exploration without any theory to support. . . . Some are beyond doubt older than others; some are known to have been inhabited at the time of the Spanish conquest, and others, perhaps, were really in ruins before; . . . But in regard to Uxmal, at least, we believe that it was an existing and inhabited city at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards. " Stephens, _Central America_, etc. , vol. Ii. P. 455. ]

 [Footnote 149: Charnay, _The Ancient Cities of the New World_, p. 260. ]

[Sidenote: They are probably not older than the twelfth century. ]

These edifices are not so durably constructed as those which in Europehave stood for more than a thousand years. They do not indicate a highcivilization on the part of their builders. They do not, as Mr. AndrewLang says, "throw Mycenæ into the shade, and rival the remains ofCambodia. "[150] In pictures they may seem to do so, but M. De Charnay, after close and repeated examination of these buildings, assures us thatas structures they "cannot be compared with those at Cambodia, whichbelong to nearly the same period, the twelfth century, and which, notwithstanding their greater and more resisting proportions, are foundin the same dilapidated condition. "[151] It seems to me that if Mr. Lang had spoken of the Yucatan ruins as rivalling the remains of Mycenæ, instead of "throwing them into the shade, " he would have come nearer themark. The builders of Uxmal, like those of Mycenæ, did not understandthe principle of the arch, but were feeling their way toward it. [152]And here again we are brought back, as seems to happen whatever road wefollow, to the middle status of barbarism. The Yucatan architectureshows the marks of its origin in the adobe and rubble-stone work of theNew Mexico pueblos. The inside of the wall "is a rude mixture of friablemortar and small irregular stones, " and under the pelting tropical rainsthe dislocation of the outer facing is presently effected. The largeblocks, cut with flint chisels, are of a soft stone that is soon damagedby weather; and the cornices and lintels are beams of a very hard wood, yet not so hard but that insects bore into it. From such considerationsit is justly inferred that the highest probable antiquity for most ofthe ruins in Yucatan or Central America is the twelfth or thirteenthcentury of our era. [153] Some, perhaps, may be no older than the ancientcity of Mexico, built A. D. 1325. 

 [Footnote 150: Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, vol. Ii. P. 348. ]

 [Footnote 151: Charnay, _op. Cit. _ p. 209. "I may remark that [the] virgin forests [here] have no very old trees, being destroyed by insects, moisture, lianas, etc. ; and old monteros tell me that mahogany and cedar trees, which are most durable, do not live above 200 years, " id. P. 447. ]

 [Footnote 152: The reader will find it suggestive to compare portions of Schliemann's _Mycenæ_ and M. De Charnay's book, just cited, with Morgan's _Houses and House-Life_, chap. Xi. ]

 [Footnote 153: Charnay, _op. Cit. _ p. 411. Copan and Palenque may be two or three centuries older, and had probably fallen into ruins before the arrival of the Spaniards. ]

[Sidenote: Chronicle of Chicxulub. ]

But we are no longer restricted to purely archæological evidence. One ofthe most impressive of all these ruined cities is Chichen-Itza, which isregarded as older than Uxmal, but not so old as Izamal. Now in recenttimes sundry old Maya documents have been discovered in Yucatan, andamong them is a brief history of the Spanish conquest of that country, written in the Roman character by a native chief, Nakuk Pech, about1562. It has been edited, with an English translation, by that zealousand indefatigable scholar, to whom American philology owes such a debtof gratitude, --Dr. Daniel Brinton. This chronicle tells us severalthings that we did not know before, and, among others, it refers mostexplicitly to Chichen-Itza and Izamal as inhabited towns during the timethat the Spaniards were coming, from 1519 to 1542. If there could havebeen any lingering doubt as to the correctness of the views of Stephens, Morgan, and Charnay, this contemporaneous documentary testimony dispelsit once for all. [154]

 [Footnote 154: Brinton, _The Maya Chronicles_, Philadelphia, 1882, "Chronicle of Chicxulub, " pp. 187-259. This book is of great importance, and for the ancient history of Guatemala Brinton's _Annals of the Cakchiquels_, Philadelphia, 1885, is of like value and interest. 

 Half a century ago Mr. Stephens wrote in truly prophetic vein, "the convents are rich in manuscripts and documents written by the early fathers, caciques, and Indians, who very soon acquired the knowledge of Spanish and the art of writing. These have never been examined with the slightest reference to this subject; _and I cannot help thinking that some precious memorial is now mouldering in the library of a neighbouring convent, which would determine the history of some one of these ruined cities_. " Vol. Ii. P. 456. The italicizing, of course, is mine. ]

[Sidenote: Maya culture very closely related to Mexican. ]

The Mexicans and Mayas believed themselves to be akin to each other, they had several deities and a large stock of traditional lore incommon, and there was an essential similarity in their modes of life; sothat, since we are now assured that such cities as Izamal andChichen-Itza were contemporary with the city of Mexico, we shallprobably not go very far astray if we assume that the elaborately carvedand bedizened ruins of the former may give us some hint as to how thingsmight have looked in the latter. Indeed this complicated and grotesquecarving on walls, door-posts, and lintels was one of the first things toattract the attention of the Spaniards in Mexico. They regarded it withmingled indignation and awe, for serpents, coiled or uncoiled, withgaping mouths, were most conspicuous among the objects represented. Thevisitors soon learned that all this had a symbolic and religiousmeaning, and with some show of reason they concluded that this strangepeople worshipped the Devil. 

 * * * * *

We have now passed in review the various peoples of North America, fromthe Arctic circle to the neighbourhood of the isthmus of Darien, and canform some sort of a mental picture of the continent at the time of itsdiscovery by Europeans in the fifteenth century. Much more might havebeen said without going beyond the requirements of an outline sketch, but quite as much has been said as is consistent with the general planof this book. I have not undertaken at present to go beyond the isthmusof Darien, because this preliminary chapter is already disproportionatelylong, and after this protracted discussion the reader's attention may besomewhat relieved by an entire change of scene. Enough has been setforth to explain the narrative that follows, and to justify ushenceforth in taking certain things for granted. The outline descriptionof Mexico will be completed when we come to the story of its conquest bySpaniards, and then we shall be ready to describe some principalfeatures of Peruvian society and to understand how the Spaniardsconquered that country. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The "Mound-Builders. "]

[Sidenote: The notion that they were like the Aztecs;]

[Sidenote: or like the Zuñis. ]

There is, however, one conspicuous feature of North American antiquitywhich has not yet received our attention, and which calls for a fewwords before we close this chapter. I refer to the mounds that arescattered over so large a part of the soil of the United States, andmore particularly to those between the Mississippi river and theAlleghany mountains, which have been the subject of so much theorizing, and in late years of so much careful study. [155] Vague and wild werethe speculations once rife about the "Mound-Builders" and theirwonderful civilization. They were supposed to have been a race quitedifferent from the red men, with a culture perhaps superior to our own, and more or less eloquence was wasted over the vanished "empire" of themound-builders. There is no reason, however, for supposing that thereever was an empire of any sort in ancient North America, and no relic ofthe past has ever been seen at any spot on our planet which indicatesthe former existence of a vanished civilization even remotelyapproaching our own. The sooner the student of history gets his headcleared of all such rubbish, the better. As for the mounds, which arescattered in such profusion over the country west of the Alleghanies, there are some which have been built by Indians since the arrival ofwhite men in America, and which contain knives and trinkets of Europeanmanufacture. There are many others which are much older, and in whichthe genuine remains sometimes indicate a culture like that of Shawneesor Senecas, and sometimes suggest something perhaps a little higher. With the progress of research the vast and vague notion of a distinctrace of "Mound-Builders" became narrowed and defined. It began to seemprobable that the builders of the more remarkable mounds were tribes ofIndians who had advanced beyond the average level in horticulture, andconsequently in density of population, and perhaps in political andpriestly organization. Such a conclusion seemed to be supported by thesize of some of the "ancient garden-beds, " often covering more than ahundred acres, filled with the low parallel ridges in which corn wasplanted. The mound people were thus supposed to be semi-civilized redmen, like the Aztecs, and some of their elevated earthworks wereexplained as places for human sacrifice, like the pyramids of Mexico andCentral America. It was thought that the "civilization" of theCordilleran peoples might formerly have extended northward and eastwardinto the Mississippi valley, and might after a while have been pushedback by powerful hordes of more barbarous invaders. A furthermodification and reduction of this theory likened the mound-builders tothe pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Such was the opinion of Mr. Morgan, who offered a very ingenious explanation of the extensive earthworks atHigh Bank, in Ross county, Ohio, as the fortified site of a pueblo. [156]Although there is no reason for supposing that the mound-builderspractised irrigation (which would not be required in the Mississippivalley) or used adobe-brick, yet Mr. Morgan was inclined to admit theminto his middle status of barbarism because of the copper hatchets andchisels found in some of the mounds, and because of the apparentsuperiority in horticulture and the increased reliance upon it. Hesuggested that a people somewhat like the Zuñis might have migratedeastward and modified their building habits to suit the alteredconditions of the Mississippi valley, where they dwelt for severalcenturies, until at last, for some unknown reason, they retired to theRocky Mountain region. It seems to me that an opinion just the reverseof Mr. Morgan's would be more easily defensible, --namely, that theancestors of the pueblo Indians were a people of building habitssomewhat similar to the Mandans, and that their habits became modifiedin adaptation to a country which demanded careful irrigation andsupplied adobe-clay in abundance. If ever they built any of the moundsin the Mississippi valley, I should be disposed to place theirmound-building period before their pueblo period. 

 [Footnote 155: For original researches in the mounds one cannot do better than consult the following papers in the _Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology_:--1. By W. H. Holmes, "Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans, " ii. 181-305; "The Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley, " iv. 365-436; "Prehistoric Textile Fabrics of the United States, " iii. 397-431; followed by an illustrated catalogue of objects collected chiefly from mounds, iii. 433-515;--2. H. W. Henshaw, "Animal Carvings from the Mounds of the Mississippi Valley, " ii. 121-166;--3. Cyrus Thomas, "Burial Mounds of the Northern Section of the United States, " v. 7-119; also three of the Bureau's "Bulletins" by Dr. Thomas, "The Problem of the Ohio Mounds, " "The Circular, Square, and Octagonal Earthworks of Ohio, " and "Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology;" also two articles by Dr. Thomas in the _Magazine of American History_:--"The Houses of the Mound-Builders, " xi. 110-115; "Indian Tribes in Prehistoric Times, " xx. 193-201. See also Horatio Hale, "Indian Migrations, " in _American Antiquarian_, v. 18-28, 108-124; M. F. Force, _To What Race did the Mound-Builders belong?_ Cincinnati, 1875; Lucien Carr, _Mounds of the Mississippi Valley historically considered_, 1883; Nadaillac's _Prehistoric America_, ed. W. H. Dall, chaps. Iii. , iv. The earliest work of fundamental importance on the subject was Squier's _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, Philadelphia, 1848, being the first volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. --For statements of the theory which presumes either a race connection or a similarity in culture between the mound-builders and the pueblo Indians, see Dawson, _Fossil Men_, p. 55; Foster, _Prehistoric Races of the United States_, Chicago, 1873, chaps. Iii. , v. -x. ; Sir Daniel Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_, chap. X. The annual _Smithsonian Reports_ for thirty years past illustrate the growth of knowledge and progressive changes of opinion on the subject. The bibliographical account in Winsor's _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, i. 397-412, is full of minute information. ]

 [Footnote 156: _Houses and House-Life_, chap. Ix. ]

[Sidenote: The mounds were probably built by different peoples in thelower status of barbarism;]

[Sidenote: by Cherokees;]

[Sidenote: and by Shawnees, and other tribes. ]

Recent researches, however, make it more and more improbable that themound-builders were nearly akin to such people as the Zuñis or similarto them in grade of culture. Of late years the exploration of themounds has been carried on with increasing diligence. More than 2, 000mounds have been opened, and at least 38, 000 ancient relics have beengathered from them: such as quartzite arrow-heads and spades, greenstoneaxes and hammers, mortars and pestles, tools for spinning and weaving, and cloth, made of spun thread and woven with warp and woof, somewhatlike a coarse sail-cloth. The water-jugs, kettles, pipes, and sepulchralurns have been elaborately studied. The net results of all thisinvestigation, up to the present time, have been concisely summed up byDr. Cyrus Thomas. [157] The mounds were not all built by one people, butby different tribes as clearly distinguishable from one another asAlgonquins are distinguishable from Iroquois. These mound-buildingtribes were not superior in culture to the Iroquois and many of theAlgonquins as first seen by white men. They are not to be classifiedwith Zuñis, still less with Mexicans or Mayas, in point of culture, butwith Shawnees and Cherokees. Nay more, --some of them _were_ Shawnees andCherokees. The missionary Johann Heckewelder long ago published theLenape tradition of the Tallegwi or Allighewi people, who have lefttheir name upon the Alleghany river and mountains. [158] The Tallegwihave been identified with the Cherokees, who are now reckoned among themost intelligent and progressive of Indian peoples. [159] The Cherokeeswere formerly classed in the Muskoki group, along with the Creeks andChoctaws, but a closer study of their language seems to show that theywere a somewhat remote offshoot of the Huron-Iroquois stock. For a longtime they occupied the country between the Ohio river and the GreatLakes, and probably built the mounds that are still to be seen there. Somewhere about the thirteenth or fourteenth century they were graduallypushed southward into the Muskoki region by repeated attacks from theLenape and Hurons. The Cherokees were probably also the builders of themounds of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. They retainedtheir mound-building habits some time after the white men came upon thescene. On the other hand the mounds and box-shaped stone graves ofKentucky, Tennessee, and northern Georgia were probably the work ofShawnees, and the stone graves in the Delaware valley are to be ascribedto the Lenape. There are many reasons for believing that the mounds ofnorthern Mississippi were constructed by Chickasaws, and the burialtumuli and "effigy mounds" of Wisconsin by Winnebagos. The Minnitareesand Mandans were also very likely at one time a mound-building people. 

 [Footnote 157: _Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology_, Washington, 1887. For a sight of the thousands of objects gathered from the mounds, one should visit the Peabody Museum at Cambridge and the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. ]

 [Footnote 158: Heckewelder, _History of the Indian Nations of Pennsylvania_, etc. , Philadelphia, 1818; cf. Squier, _Historical and Mythological Traditions of the Algonquins_, a paper read before the New York Historical Society in June, 1848; also Brinton, _The Lenape and their Legends_, Philadelphia, 1885. ]

 [Footnote 159: For a detailed account of their later history, see C. C. Royce, "The Cherokee Nation, " _Reports of Bureau of Ethnology_, v. 121-378. ]

If this view, which is steadily gaining ground, be correct, ourimaginary race of "Mound-Builders" is broken up and vanishes, andhenceforth we may content ourselves with speaking of the authors of theancient earthworks as "Indians. " There were times in the career ofsundry Indian tribes when circumstances induced them to erect mounds assites for communal houses or council houses, medicine-lodges orburial-places; somewhat as there was a period in the history of our ownforefathers in England when circumstances led them to build moatedcastles, with drawbridge and portcullis; and there is no more occasionfor assuming a mysterious race of "Mound-Builders" in America than forassuming a mysterious race of "Castle-Builders" in England. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Society in America at the time of the Discovery had reachedstages similar to stages reached by eastern Mediterranean peoples fiftyor sixty centuries earlier. ]

Thus, at whatever point we touch the subject of ancient America, wefind scientific opinion tending more and more steadily toward theconclusion that its people and their culture were indigenous. One of themost important lessons impressed upon us by a long study of comparativemythology is that human minds in different parts of the world, but underthe influence of similar circumstances, develop similar ideas and clothethem in similar forms of expression. It is just the same with politicalinstitutions, with the development of the arts, with social customs, with culture generally. To repeat the remark already quoted from SirJohn Lubbock, --and it is well worth repeating, --"Different races insimilar stages of development often present more features of resemblanceto one another than the same race does to itself in different stages ofits history. " When the zealous Abbé Brasseur found things in the historyof Mexico that reminded him of ancient Egypt, he hastened to theconclusion that Mexican culture was somehow "derived" from that ofEgypt. It was natural enough for him to do so, but such methods ofexplanation are now completely antiquated. Mexican culture was no moreEgyptian culture than a prickly-pear is a lotus. It was an outgrowth ofpeculiar American conditions acting upon the aboriginal American mind, and such of its features as remind us of ancient Egypt or prehistoricGreece show simply that it was approaching, though it had not reached, the standard attained in those Old World countries. From this point ofview the resemblances become invested with surpassing interest. AncientAmerica, as we have seen, was a much more archaic world than the worldof Europe and Asia, and presented in the time of Columbus forms ofsociety that on the shores of the Mediterranean had been outgrown beforethe city of Rome was built. Hence the intense and peculiar fascinationof American archæology, and its profound importance to the student ofgeneral history. 

CHAPTER II. 

PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 

There is something solemn and impressive in the spectacle of human lifethus going on for countless ages in the Eastern and Western halves ofour planet, each all unknown to the other and uninfluenced by it. Thecontact between the two worlds practically begins in 1492. 

[Sidenote: The Chinese. ]

[Sidenote: The Irish. ]

[Sidenote: Cousin, of Dieppe. ]

By this statement it is not meant to deny that occasional visitors mayhave come and did come before that famous date from the Old World to theNew. On the contrary I am inclined to suspect that there may have beenmore such occasional visits than we have been wont to suppose. For themost part, however, the subject is shrouded in the mists of obscurenarrative and fantastic conjecture. When it is argued that in the fifthcentury of the Christian era certain Buddhist missionary priests camefrom China by way of Kamtchatka and the Aleutian islands, and kept ontill they got to a country which they called Fusang, and which wasreally Mexico, one cannot reply that such a thing was necessarily andabsolutely impossible; but when other critics assure us that, after all, Fusang was really Japan, perhaps one feels a slight sense ofrelief. [160] So of the dim whispers of voyages to America undertaken bythe Irish, in the days when the cloisters of sweet Innisfallen were acentre of piety and culture for northwestern Europe, [161] we may saythat this sort of thing has not much to do with history, or history withit. Irish anchorites certainly went to Iceland in the seventhcentury, [162] and in the course of this book we shall have frequentoccasion to observe that first and last there has been on all seas agood deal of blowing and drifting done. It is credibly reported thatJapanese junks have been driven ashore on the coasts of Oregon andCalifornia;[163] and there is a story that in 1488 a certain JeanCousin, of Dieppe, while sailing down the west coast of Africa, wascaught in a storm and blown across to Brazil. [164] This was certainlyquite possible, for it was not so very unlike what happened in 1500 toPedro Alvarez de Cabral, as we shall hereafter see;[165] nevertheless, the evidence adduced in support of the story will hardly bear a criticalexamination. [166]

 [Footnote 160: This notion of the Chinese visiting Mexico was set forth by the celebrated Deguignes in 1761, in the _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions_, tom. Xxviii. Pp. 506-525. Its absurdity was shown by Klaproth, "Recherches sur le pays de Fou Sang, " _Nouvelles annales des voyages_, Paris, 1831, 2e série, tom. Xxi. Pp. 58-68; see also Klaproth's introduction to _Annales des empereurs du Japon_, Paris, 1834, pp. Iv. -ix. ; Humboldt, _Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent_, Paris, 1837, tom. Ii. Pp. 62-84. The fancy was revived by C. G. Leland ("Hans Breitmann"), in his _Fusang_, London, 1875, and was again demolished by the missionary, S. W. Williams, in the _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, vol. Xi. , New Haven, 1881. ]

 [Footnote 161: On the noble work of the Irish church and its missionaries in the sixth and seventh centuries, see Montalembert, _Les moines d'Occident_, tom. Ii. Pp. 465-661; tom. Iii. Pp. 79-332; Burton's _History of Scotland_, vol. I. Pp. 234-277; and the instructive map in Miss Sophie Bryant's _Celtic Ireland_, London, 1889, p. 60. The notice of the subject in Milman's _Latin Christianity_, vol. Ii. Pp. 236-247, is entirely inadequate. ]

 [Footnote 162: The passion for solitude led some of the disciples of St. Columba to make their way from Iona to the Hebrides, and thence to the Orkneys, Shetlands, Færoes, and Iceland, where a colony of them remained until the arrival of the Northmen in 874. See Dicuil, _Liber de mensura Orbis Terræ_ (A. D. 825), Paris, 1807; Innes, _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, p. 101; Lanigan, _Ecclesiastical History of Ireland_, chap. Iii. ; Maurer, _Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des Germanischen Nordens_, i. 35. For the legend of St. Brandan, see Gaffarel, _Les voyages de St. Brandan_, Paris, 1881. ]

 [Footnote 163: C. W. Brooks, of San Francisco, cited in Higginson, _Larger History of the United States_, p. 24. ]

 [Footnote 164: Desmarquets, _Mémoires chronologiques pour servir à l'histoire de Dieppe_, Paris, 1785, tom. I. Pp. 91-98; Estancelin, _Recherches sur les voyages et découvertes des navigateurs normands_, etc. , Paris, 1832, pp. 332-361. ]

 [Footnote 165: See below, vol. Ii. P. 96. ]

 [Footnote 166: As Harrisse says, concerning the alleged voyages of Cousin and others, "Quant aux voyages du Dieppois Jean Cousin en 1488, de João Ramalho en 1490, et de João Vaz Cortereal en 1464 ou 1474, le lecteur nous pardonnera de les passer sous silence. " _Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1884, tom. I. P. 307. ]

[Sidenote: Those stories are of little value;]

It is not my purpose to weary the reader with a general discussion ofthese and some other legends or rumours of pre-Columbian visitors toAmerica. We may admit, at once, that "there is no good reason why anyone of them may not have done" what is claimed, but at the same time theproof that any one of them _did_ do it is very far fromsatisfactory. [167] Moreover the questions raised are often of smallimportance, and belong not so much to the serious workshop of history asto its limbo prepared for learned trifles, whither we will herebyrelegate them. [168]

 [Footnote 167: Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, i. 59. ]

 [Footnote 168: Sufficiently full references may be found in Watson's _Bibliography of the Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America_, appended to Anderson's _America not discovered by Columbus_, 3d ed. , Chicago, 1883, pp. 121-164; and see the learned chapters by W. H. Tillinghast on "The Geographical Knowledge of the Ancients considered in relation to the Discovery of America, " and by Justin Winsor on "Pre-Columbian Explorations, " in _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, vol. I. ]

[Sidenote: but the case of the Northmen is entirely different. ]

[Sidenote: The Viking exodus from Norway. ]

[Sidenote: Founding of Iceland, A. D. 874. ]

But when we come to the voyages of the Northmen in the tenth andeleventh centuries, it is quite a different affair. Not only is this asubject of much historic interest, but in dealing with it we stand for agreat part of the time upon firm historic ground. The narratives whichtell us of Vinland and of Leif Ericsson are closely intertwined with theauthentic history of Norway and Iceland. In the ninth century of our erathere was a process of political consolidation going on in Norway, somewhat as in England under Egbert and his successors. After a war oftwelve years, King Harold Fairhair overthrew the combined forces of theJarls, or small independent princes, in the decisive naval battle ofHafursfiord in the year 872. This resulted in making Harold the feudallandlord of Norway. Allodial tenures were abolished, and the Jarls wererequired to become his vassals. This consolidation of the kingdom wasprobably beneficial in its main consequences, but to many a proud spiritand crafty brain it made life in Norway unendurable. These bold Jarlsand their Viking[169] followers, to whom, as to the ancient Greeks, thesea was not a barrier, but a highway, [170] had no mind to stay at homeand submit to unwonted thraldom. So they manned their dragon-prowedkeels, invoked the blessing of Wodan, god of storms, upon theirenterprise, and sailed away. Some went to reinforce their kinsmen whowere making it so hot for Alfred in England[171] and for Charles theBald in Gaul; some had already visited Ireland and were establishingthemselves at Dublin and Limerick; others now followed and found homesfor themselves in the Hebrides and all over Scotland north of gloriousLoch Linnhe and the Murray frith; some made their way through the blueMediterranean to "Micklegard, " the Great City of the Byzantine Emperor, and in his service wielded their stout axes against Magyar andSaracen;[172] some found their amphibious natures better satisfied uponthe islands of the Atlantic ridge, --the Orkneys, Shetlands, andFæroes, and especially noble Iceland. There an aristocratic republicsoon grew up, owning slight and indefinite allegiance to the kings ofNorway. [173] The settlement of Iceland was such a wholesale colonizationof communities of picked men as had not been seen since ancient Greektimes, and was not to be seen again until Winthrop sailed intoMassachusetts Bay. It was not long before the population of Icelandexceeded 50, 000 souls. Their sheep and cattle flourished, hay crops wereheavy, a lively trade--with fish, oil, butter, skins, and wool, inexchange for meal and malt--was kept up with Norway, Denmark, and theBritish islands, political freedom was unimpaired, [174] justice was (forthe Middle Ages) fairly well administered, naval superiority kept allfoes at a distance; and under such conditions the growth of the newcommunity in wealth[175] and culture was surprisingly rapid. In thetwelfth century, before literature had begun to blossom in the modernspeech of France or Spain or Italy, there was a flourishing literaturein prose and verse in Iceland. Especial attention was paid to history, and the "Landnáma-bók, " or statistical and genealogical account of theearly settlers, was the most complete and careful work of the kind whichhad ever been undertaken by any people down to quite recent times. Fewpersons in our day adequately realize the extent of the early Icelandicliterature or its richness. The poems, legends, and histories earlierthan the date when Dante walked and mused in the streets of Florencesurvive for us now in some hundreds of works, for the most part of rareand absorbing interest. The "Heimskringla, " or chronicle of SnorroSturleson, written about 1215, is one of the greatest history books inthe world. [176]

 [Footnote 169: The proper division of this Old Norse word is not into _v[=i]-king_, but into _v[)i]k-ing_. The first syllable means a "bay" or "fiord, " the second is a patronymic termination, so that "vikings" are "sons of the fiord, "--an eminently appropriate and descriptive name. ]

 [Footnote 170: Curtius (_Griechische Etymologie_, p. 237) connects [Greek: pontos] with [Greek: patos]; compare the Homeric expressions [Greek: hygra keleutha, ichthyoenta keleutha], etc. ]

 [Footnote 171: The descendants of these Northmen formed a very large proportion of the population of the East Anglian counties, and consequently of the men who founded New England. The East Anglian counties have been conspicuous for resistance to tyranny and for freedom of thought. See my _Beginnings of New England_, p. 62. ]

 [Footnote 172: They were the Varangian guard at Constantinople, described by Sir Walter Scott in _Count Robert of Paris_. About this same time their kinsmen, the Russ, moving eastward from Sweden, were subjecting Slavic tribes as far as Novgorod and Kief, and laying the foundations of the power that has since, through many and strange vicissitudes, developed into Russia. See Thomsen, _The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia_, Oxford, 1877. ]

 [Footnote 173: Fealty to Norway was not formally declared until 1262. ]

 [Footnote 174: The settlement of Iceland is celebrated by Robert Lowe in verses which show that, whatever his opinion may have been in later years as to the use of a classical education, his own early studies must always have been a source of comfort to him:--

 [Greek: Chaire kai en nephelaisi kai en niphadessi bareiais Kai pyri kai seismois nêse saleuomenê Enthade gar basilêos hyperbion hybrin alyxas Dêmos Hyperboreôn, kosmou ep' eschatiê, Autarkê bioton theiôn t' erethismata Mousôn Kai thesmous hagnês heuren eleutherias. ]

 These verses are thus rendered by Sir Edmund Head (_Viga Glums Saga_, p. V. ):--

 "Hail, Isle! with mist and snowstorms girt around, Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground, -- Here once o'er furthest ocean's icy path The Northmen fled a tyrant monarch's wrath: Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free, And held unscathed their laws and liberty. "

 Laing (_Heimskringla_, vol. I. P. 57) couples Iceland and New England as the two modern colonies most distinctly "founded on principle and peopled at first from higher motives than want or gain. "]

 [Footnote 175: Just what was then considered wealth, for an individual, may best be understood by a concrete instance. The historian Snorro Sturleson, born in 1178, was called a rich man. "In one year, in which fodder was scarce, he lost 120 head of oxen without being seriously affected by it. " The fortune which he got with his first wife Herdisa, in 1199, was equivalent nominally to $4, 000, or, according to the standard of to-day, about $80, 000. Laing, _Heimskringla_, vol. I. Pp. 191, 193. ]

 [Footnote 176: Laing's excellent English translation of it was published in London in 1844. The preliminary dissertation, in five chapters, is of great value. A new edition, revised by Prof. Rasmus Anderson, was published in London in 1889. Another charming book is Sir George Dasent's _Story of Burnt Njal_, Edinburgh, 1861, 2 vols. , translated from the _Njals Saga_. Both the saga itself and the translator's learned introduction give an admirable description of life in Iceland at the end of the tenth century, the time when the voyages to America were made. It is a very instructive chapter in history. 

 The Icelanders of the present day retain the Old Norse language, while on the Continent it has been modified into Swedish and Norwegian-Danish. They are a well-educated people, and, in proportion to their numbers, publish many books. ]

[Sidenote: Discovery of Greenland, 876. ]

[Sidenote: Eric's Colony in Greenland, 986. ]

Now from various Icelandic chronicles[177] we learn that in 876, onlytwo years after the island commonwealth was founded, one of thesettlers named Gunnbjörn was driven by foul weather to some point on thecoast of Greenland, where he and his crew contrived to pass the winter, their ship being locked in ice; when the spring set them free, theyreturned to Iceland. In the year 983 Eric the Red, a settler upon Öxney(Ox-island) near the mouth of Breidafiord, was outlawed for killing aman in a brawl. Eric then determined to search for the western landwhich Gunnbjörn had discovered. He set out with a few followers, and inthe next three years these bold sailors explored the coasts of Greenlandpretty thoroughly for a considerable distance on each side of CapeFarewell. At length they found a suitable place for a home, at the headof Igaliko fiord, not far from the site of the modern Julianeshaab. [178]It was fit work for Vikings to penetrate so deep a fiord and find outsuch a spot, hidden as it is by miles upon miles of craggy andice-covered headlands. They proved their sagacity by pitching upon oneof the pleasantest spots on the gaunt Greenland coast; and there upon asmooth grassy plain may still be seen the ruins of seventeen housesbuilt of rough blocks of sandstone, their chinks caulked up with clayand gravel. In contrast with most of its bleak surroundings the placemight well be called Greenland, and so Eric named it, for, said he, itis well to have a pleasant name if we would induce people to comehither. The name thus given by Eric to this chosen spot has beenextended in modern usage to the whole of the vast continental regionnorth of Davis strait, for the greater part of which it is a flagrantmisnomer. [179] In 986 Eric ventured back to Iceland, and was sosuccessful in enlisting settlers for Greenland that on his return voyagehe started with five and twenty ships. The loss from foul weather andicebergs was cruel. Eleven vessels were lost; the remaining fourteen, carrying probably from four to five hundred souls, arrived safely at thehead of Igaliko fiord, and began building their houses at the placecalled Brattahlid. Their settlement presently extended over the head ofTunnudliorbik fiord, the next deep inlet to the northwest; they calledit Ericsfiord. After a while it extended westward as far as Immartinek, and eastward as far as the site of Friedrichsthal; and another distinctsettlement of less extent was also made about four hundred miles to thenorthwest, near the present site of Godthaab. The older settlement, which began at Igaliko fiord, was known as the East Bygd;[180] theyounger settlement, near Godthaab, was called the West Bygd. 

 [Footnote 177: A full collection of these chronicles is given in Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanæ_, Copenhagen, 1837, in the original Icelandic, with Danish and Latin translations. This book is of great value for its full and careful reproduction of original texts; although the rash speculations and the want of critical discernment shown in the editor's efforts to determine the precise situation of Vinland have done much to discredit the whole subject in the eyes of many scholars. That is, however, very apt to be the case with first attempts, like Rafn's, and the obvious defects of his work should not be allowed to blind us to its merits. In the footnotes to the present chapter I shall cite it simply as "Rafn;" as the exact phraseology is often important, I shall usually cite the original Icelandic, and (for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with that language) shall also give the Latin version, which has been well made, and quite happily reflects the fresh and pithy vigour of the original. An English translation of all the essential parts may be found in De Costa, _Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen_, 2d ed. , Albany, 1890; see also Slafter, _Voyages of the Northmen to America_, Boston, 1877 (Prince Society). An Icelandic version, interpolated in Peringskiold's edition of the _Heimskringla_, 1697, is translated in Laing, vol. Iii. Pp. 344-361. 

 The first modern writer to call attention to the Icelandic voyages to Greenland and Vinland was Arngrim Jónsson, in his _Crymogoea_, Hamburg, 1610, and more explicitly in his _Specimen Islandiæ historicum_, Amsterdam, 1643. The voyages are also mentioned by Campanius, in his _Kort beskrifning om provincien Nya Swerige uti America_, Stockholm, 1702. The first, however, to bring the subject prominently before European readers was that judicious scholar Thormodus Torfæus, in his two books _Historia Vinlandiæ antiquæ_, and _Historia Gronlandiæ antiquæ_, Copenhagen, 1705 and 1706. Later writers have until very recently added but little that is important to the work of Torfæus. In the voluminous literature of the subject the discussions chiefly worthy of mention are Forster's _Geschichte der Entdeckungen und Schiffahrten im Norden_, Frankfort, 1784, pp. 44-88; and Humboldt, _Examen critique_, etc. , Paris, 1837, tom. I. Pp. 84-104; see, also, Major, _Select Letters of Columbus_, London, 1847 (Hakluyt Soc. ) pp. Xii. -xxi. The fifth chapter of Samuel Laing's preliminary dissertation to the _Heimskringla_, which is devoted to this subject, is full of good sense; for the most part the shrewd Orkneyman gets at the core of the thing, though now and then a little closer knowledge of America would have been useful to him. The latest critical discussion of the sources, marking a very decided advance since Rafn's time, is the paper by Gustav Storm, professor of history in the University of Christiania, "Studier over Vinlandsreiserne, " in _Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie_, Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 293-372. 

 Since this chapter was written I have seen an English translation of the valuable paper just mentioned, "Studies on the Vineland Voyages, " in _Mémoires de la société royale des antiquaires du Nord_, Copenhagen, 1888, pp. 307-370. I have therefore in most cases altered my footnote references below, making the page-numbers refer to the English version (in which, by the way, some parts of the Norwegian original are, for no very obvious reason, omitted). By an odd coincidence there comes to me at the same time a book fresh from the press, whose rare beauty of mechanical workmanship is fully equalled by its intrinsic merit, _The Finding of Wineland the Good--the History of the Icelandic Discovery of America_, edited and translated from the earliest records by Arthur Middleton Reeves, London, 1890. This beautiful quarto contains phototype plates of the original Icelandic vellums in the _Hauks-bók_, the MS. AM. 557, and the _Flateyar-bók_, together with the texts carefully edited, an admirable English translation, and several chapters of critical discussion decidedly better than anything that has gone before it. On reading it carefully through, it seems to me the best book we have on the subject in English, or perhaps in any language. 

 Since the above was written, the news has come of the sudden and dreadful death of Mr. Reeves, in the railroad disaster at Hagerstown, Indiana, February 25, 1891. Mr. Reeves was an American scholar of most brilliant promise, only in his thirty-fifth year. ]

 [Footnote 178: Rink, _Danish Greenland_, p. 6. ]

 [Footnote 179: We thus see the treacherousness of one of the arguments cited by the illustrious Arago to prove that the Greenland coast must be colder now than in the tenth century. The Icelanders, he thinks, called it "a green land" because of its verdure, and therefore it must have been warmer than at present. But the land which Eric called green was evidently nothing more than the region about Julianeshaab, which still has plenty of verdure; and so the argument falls to the ground. See Arago, _Sur l'état thermométrique du globe terrestre_, in his _Oeuvres_, tom. V. P. 243. There are reasons, however, for believing that Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than at present. See below, p. 176. ]

 [Footnote 180: The map is reduced from Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanæ_, tab. Xv. The ruins dotted here and there upon it have been known ever since the last rediscovery of Greenland in 1721, but until after 1831 they were generally supposed to be the ruins of the West Bygd. After the fifteenth century, when the old colony had perished, and its existence had become a mere literary tradition, there grew up a notion that the names East Bygd and West Bygd indicated that the two settlements must have been respectively eastward and westward of Cape Farewell; and after 1721 much time was wasted in looking for vestiges of human habitations on the barren and ice-bound eastern coast. At length, in 1828-31, the exploring expedition sent out by the Danish government, under the very able and intelligent Captain Graah, demonstrated that both settlements were west of Cape Farewell, and that the ruins here indicated upon the map are the ruins of the East Bygd. It now became apparent that a certain description of Greenland by Ivar Bardsen--written in Greenland in the fourteenth century, and generally accessible to European scholars since the end of the sixteenth, but not held in much esteem before Captain Graah's expedition--was quite accurate and extremely valuable. From Bardsen's description, about which we shall have more to say hereafter, we can point out upon the map the ancient sites with much confidence. Of those mentioned in the present work, the bishop's church, or "cathedral" (a view of which is given below, p. 222), was at Kakortok. The village of Gardar, which gave its name to the bishopric, was at Kaksiarsuk, at the northeastern extremity of Igaliko fiord. Opposite Kaksiarsuk, on the western fork of the fiord, the reader will observe a ruined church; that marks the site of Brattahlid. The fiord of Igaliko was called by the Northmen Einarsfiord; and that of Tunnudliorbik was their Ericsfiord. The monastery of St. Olaus, visited by Nicolò Zeno (see below, p. 240), is supposed by Mr. Major to have been situated near the Iisblink at the bottom of Tessermiut fiord, between the east shore of the fiord and the small lake indicated on the map. ]

[Illustration: The East Bygd, or Eastern Settlement of the Northmen inGreenland. ]

This colonization of Greenland by the Northmen in the tenth century isas well established as any event that occurred in the Middle Ages. Forfour hundred years the fortunes of the Greenland colony formed a part, albeit a very humble part, of European history. Geographically speaking, Greenland is reckoned as a part of America, of the westernhemisphere, and not of the eastern. The Northmen who settled inGreenland had, therefore, in this sense found their way to America. Nevertheless one rightly feels that in the history of geographicaldiscovery an arrival of Europeans in Greenland is equivalent merely toreaching the vestibule or ante-chamber of the western hemisphere. It isan affair begun and ended outside of the great world of the red men. 

But the story does not end here. Into the world of the red men thevoyagers from Iceland did assuredly come, as indeed, after once gettinga foothold upon Greenland, they could hardly fail to do. Let us pursuethe remainder of the story as we find it in our Icelandic sources ofinformation, and afterwards it will be proper to inquire into thecredibility of these sources. 

[Sidenote: Voyage of Bjarni Herjulfson, 986. ]

One of the men who accompanied Eric to Greenland was named Herjulf, whose son Bjarni, after roving the seas for some years, came home toIceland in 986 to drink the Yuletide ale with his father. Finding himgone, he weighed anchor and started after him to Greenland, butencountered foggy weather, and sailed on for many days by guess-workwithout seeing sun or stars. When at length he sighted land it was ashore without mountains, showing only small heights covered with densewoods. It was evidently not the land of fiords and glaciers for whichBjarni was looking. So without stopping to make explorations he turnedhis prow to the north and kept on. The sky was now fair, and afterscudding nine or ten days with a brisk breeze astern, Bjarni saw theicy crags of Greenland looming up before him, and after some furthersearching found his way to his father's new home. [181] On the route hemore than once sighted land on the larboard. 

 [Footnote 181: In Herjulfsfiord, at the entrance to which the modern Friedrichsthal is situated. Across the fiord from Friedrichsthal a ruined church stands upon the cape formerly known as Herjulfsness. See map. ]

[Sidenote: Conversion of the Northmen to Christianity. ]

This adventure of Bjarni's seems not to have excited general curiosityor to have awakened speculation. Indeed, in the dense geographicalignorance of those times there is no reason why it should have done so. About 994 Bjarni was in Norway, and one or two people expressed somesurprise that he did not take more pains to learn something about thecountry he had seen; but nothing came of such talk till it reached theears of Leif, the famous son of Eric the Red. This wise and statelyman[182] spent a year or two in Norway about 998. Roman missionarypriests were then preaching up and down the land, and had converted theking, Olaf Tryggvesson, great-grandson of Harold Fairhair. Leif became aChristian and was baptised, and when he returned to Greenland he tookpriests with him who converted many people, though old Eric, it is said, preferred to go in the way of his fathers, and deemed boisterousValhalla, with its cups of wassail, a place of better cheer than the NewJerusalem, with its streets of gold. 

 [Footnote 182: "Leifr var mikill madhr ok sterkr, manna sköruligastr at sjá, vitr madhr ok gódhr hófsmadhr um alla hluti, " i. E. "Leif was a large man and strong, of noble aspect, prudent and moderate in all things. " Rafn, p. 33. ]

[Sidenote: Leif Ericsson's voyage, 1000. ]

[Sidenote: Helluland. ]

[Sidenote: Markland. ]

[Sidenote: Vinland. ]

Leif's zeal for the conversion of his friends in Greenland did not sofar occupy his mind as to prevent him from undertaking a voyage ofdiscovery. His curiosity had been stimulated by what he had heard aboutBjarni's experiences, and he made up his mind to go and see what thecoasts to the south of Greenland were like. He sailed fromBrattahlid--probably in the summer or early autumn of the year1000[183]--with a crew of five and thirty men. Some distance to thesouthward they came upon a barren country covered with big flat stones, so that they called it Helluland, or "slate-land. " There is little roomfor doubt that this was the coast opposite Greenland, either west oreast of the strait of Belle Isle; in other words, it was either Labradoror the northern coast of Newfoundland. Thence, keeping generally to thesouthward, our explorers came after some days to a thickly wooded coast, where they landed and inspected the country. What chiefly impressed themwas the extent of the forest, so that they called the place Markland, or"wood-land. " Some critics have supposed that this spot was somewhereupon the eastern or southern coast of Newfoundland, but the more generalopinion places it somewhere upon the coast of Cape Breton island orNova Scotia. From this Markland our voyagers stood out to sea, andrunning briskly before a stiff northeaster it was more than two daysbefore they came in sight of land. Then, after following the coast for awhile, they went ashore at a place where a river, issuing from a lake, fell into the sea. They brought their ship up into the lake and castanchor. The water abounded in excellent fish, and the country seemed sopleasant that Leif decided to pass the winter there, and accordingly hismen put up some comfortable wooden huts or booths. One day one of theparty, a "south country" man, whose name was Tyrker, [184] came in from aramble in the neighbourhood making grimaces and talking to himself inhis own language (probably German), which his comrades did notunderstand. On being interrogated as to the cause of his excitement, he replied that he had discovered vines loaded with grapes, and was muchpleased at the sight inasmuch as he had been brought up in a vinecountry. Wild grapes, indeed, abounded in this autumn season, and Leifaccordingly called the country Vinland. The winter seems to have passedoff very comfortably. Even the weather seemed mild to these visitorsfrom high latitudes, and they did not fail to comment on the unusuallength of the winter day. Their language on this point has been soconstrued as to make the length of the shortest winter day exactly ninehours, which would place their Vinland in about the latitude of Boston. But their expressions do not admit of any such precise construction; andwhen we remember that they had no accurate instruments for measuringtime, and that a difference of about fourteen minutes between sunriseand sunset on the shortest winter day would make all the differencebetween Boston and Halifax, we see how idle it is to look for therequisite precision in narratives of this sort, and to treat them as onewould treat the reports of a modern scientific exploring expedition. 

 [Footnote 183: The year seems to have been that in which Christianity was definitely established by law in Iceland, viz. , A. D. 1000. The chronicle _Thattr Eireks Raudha_ is careful about verifying its dates by checking one against another. See Rafn, p. 15. The most masterly work on the conversion of the Scandinavian people is Maurer's _Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume_, Munich, 1855; for an account of the missionary work in Iceland and Greenland, see vol. I. Pp. 191-242, 443-452. ]

 [Footnote 184: The name means "Turk, " and has served as a touchstone for the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a "Southman" would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called a Turk? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a Turk in their company? Mr. Laing suggests that he may have been a Magyar. Yes; or he may have visited the Eastern Empire and taken part in a fight _against_ Turks, and so have got a soubriquet, just as Thorhall Gamlason, after returning from Vinland to Iceland, was ever afterward known as "the Vinlander. " That did not mean that he was an American redskin. See below, p. 203. From Tyrker's grimaces one commentator sagely infers that he had been eating grapes and got drunk; and another (even Mr. Laing!) thinks it necessary to remind us that all the grape-juice in Vinland would not fuddle a man unless it had been fermented, --and then goes on to ascribe the absurdity to our innocent chronicle, instead of the stupid annotator. See _Heimskringla_, vol. I. P. 168. ]

[Sidenote: Voyages of Thorvald and Thorstein, 1002-05. ]

In the spring of 1001 Leif returned to Greenland with a cargo oftimber. [185] The voyage made much talk. Leif's brother Thorvald caughtthe inspiration, [186] and, borrowing Leif's ship, sailed in 1002, andsucceeded in finding Vinland and Leif's huts, where his men spent twowinters. In the intervening summer they went on an exploring expeditionalong the coast, fell in with some savages in canoes, and got into afight in which Thorvald was killed by an arrow. In the spring of 1004the ship returned to Brattahlid. Next year the third brother, ThorsteinEricsson, set out in the same ship, with his wife Gudrid and a crew ofthirty-five men; but they were sore bestead with foul weather, gotnowhere, and accomplished nothing. Thorstein died on the voyage, and hiswidow returned to Greenland. 

 [Footnote 185: On the homeward voyage he rescued some shipwrecked sailors near the coast of Greenland, and was thenceforward called Leif the Lucky (et postea cognominatus est Leivus Fortunatus). The pleasant reports from the newly found country gave it the name of "Vinland the Good. " In the course of the winter following Leif's return his father died. ]

 [Footnote 186: "Jam crebri de Leivi in Vinlandiam profectione sermones serebantur, Thorvaldus vero, frater ejus, nimis pauca terræ loca explorata fuisse judicavit. " Rafn, p. 39. ]

[Sidenote: Thorfinn Karlsefni, and his unsuccessful attempt to found acolony in Vinland, 1007-10. ]

In the course of the next summer, 1006, there came to Brattahlid fromIceland a notable personage, a man of craft and resource, wealthy withaland well born, with the blood of many kinglets or jarls flowing in hisveins. This man, Thorfinn Karlsefni, straightway fell in love with theyoung and beautiful widow Gudrid, and in the course of the winter therewas a merry wedding at Brattahlid. Persuaded by his adventurous bride, whose spirit had been roused by the reports from Vinland and by herformer unsuccessful attempt to find it, Thorfinn now undertook to visitthat country in force sufficient for founding a colony there. Accordingly in the spring of 1007 he started with three or fourships, [187] carrying one hundred and sixty men, several women, and quitea cargo of cattle. In the course of that year his son Snorro was born inVinland, [188] and our chronicle tells us that this child was three yearsold before the disappointed company turned their backs upon that land ofpromise and were fain to make their way homeward to the fiords ofGreenland. It was the hostility of the natives that compelled Thorfinnto abandon his enterprise. At first they traded with him, barteringvaluable furs for little strips of scarlet cloth which they sought mosteagerly; and they were as terribly frightened by his cattle as theAztecs were in later days by the Spanish horses. [189] The chancebellowing of a bull sent them squalling to the woods, and they did notshow themselves again for three weeks. After a while quarrels arose, thenatives attacked in great numbers, many Northmen were killed, and in1010 the survivors returned to Greenland with a cargo of timber andpeltries. On the way thither the ships seem to have separated, and oneof them, commanded by Bjarni Grimolfsson, found itself bored by worms(the _teredo_) and sank, with its commander and half the crew. [190]

 [Footnote 187: Three is the number usually given, but at least four of their ships would be needed for so large a company; and besides Thorfinn himself, three other captains are mentioned, --Snorro Thorbrandsson, Bjarni Grimolfsson, and Thorhall Gamlason. The narrative gives a picturesque account of this Thorhall, who was a pagan and fond of deriding his comrades for their belief in the new-fangled Christian notions. He seems to have left his comrades and returned to Europe before they had abandoned their enterprise. A further reference to him will be made below, p. 203. ]

 [Footnote 188: To this boy Snorro many eminent men have traced their ancestry, --bishops, university professors, governors of Iceland, and ministers of state in Norway and Denmark. The learned antiquarian Finn Magnusson and the celebrated sculptor Thorwaldsen regarded themselves as thus descended from Thorfinn Karlsefni. ]

 [Footnote 189: Compare the alarm of the Wampanoag Indians in 1603 at the sight of Martin Pring's mastiff. Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, iii. 174. ]

 [Footnote 190: The fate of Bjarni was pathetic and noble. It was decided that as many as possible should save themselves in the stern boat. "Then Bjarni ordered that the men should go in the boat by lot, and not according to rank. As it would not hold all, they accepted the saying, and when the lots were drawn, the men went out of the ship into the boat. The lot was that Bjarni should go down from the ship to the boat with one half of the men. Then those to whom the lot fell went down from the ship to the boat. When they had come into the boat, a young Icelander, who was the companion of Bjarni, said: 'Now thus do you intend to leave me, Bjarni?' Bjarni replied, 'That now seems necessary. ' He replied with these words: 'Thou art not true to the promise made when I left my father's house in Iceland. ' Bjarni replied: 'In this thing I do not see any other way'; continuing, 'What course can you suggest?' He said: 'I see this, that we change places and thou come up here and I go down there. ' Bjarni replied: 'Let it be so, since I see that you are so anxious to live, and are frightened by the prospect of death. ' Then they changed places, and he descended into the boat with the men, and Bjarni went up into the ship. It is related that Bjarni and the sailors with him in the ship perished in the worm sea. Those who went in the boat went on their course until they came to land, where they told all these things. " De Costa's version from _Saga Thorfinns Karlsefnis_, Rafn, pp. 184-186. ]

[Sidenote: Freydis, and her evil deeds in Vinland, 1011-12. ]

Among Karlsefni's companions on this memorable expedition was oneThorvard, with his wife Freydis, a natural daughter of Eric the Red. About the time of their return to Greenland in the summer of 1010, aship arrived from Norway, commanded by two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi. During the winter a new expedition was planned, and in the summer of1011 two ships set sail for Vinland, one with Freydis, Thorvard, and acrew of 30 men, the other with Helgi and Finnbogi, and a crew of 35 men. There were also a number of women. The purpose was not to found a colonybut to cut timber. The brothers arrived first at Leif's huts and hadbegun carrying in their provisions and tools, when Freydis, arrivingsoon afterward, ordered them off the premises. They had no right, shesaid, to occupy her brother's houses. So they went out and built otherhuts for their party a little farther from the shore. Before theirbusiness was accomplished "winter set in, and the brothers proposed tohave some games for amusement to pass the time. So it was done for atime, till discord came among them, and the games were given up, andnone went from one house to the other; and things went on so during agreat part of the winter. " At length came the catastrophe. Freydis onenight complained to her husband that the brothers had given her evilwords and struck her, and insisted that he should forthwith avenge theaffront. Presently Thorvard, unable to bear her taunts, was aroused to adeed of blood. With his followers he made a night attack upon the hutsof Helgi and Finnbogi, seized and bound all the occupants, and killedthe men one after another in cold blood. Five women were left whomThorvard would have spared; as none of his men would raise a handagainst them, Freydis herself took an axe and brained them one and all. In the spring of 1012 the party sailed for Brattahlid in the ship ofthe murdered brothers, which was the larger and better of the two. Freydis pretended that they had exchanged ships and left the other partyin Vinland. With gifts to her men, and dire threats for any who shoulddare tell what had been done, she hoped to keep them silent. Words werelet drop, however, which came to Leif's ears, and led him to arrestthree of the men and put them to the torture until they told the wholestory. "'I have not the heart, ' said Leif, 'to treat my wicked sister asshe deserves; but this I will foretell them [Freydis and Thorvard] thattheir posterity will never thrive. ' So it went that nobody thoughtanything of them save evil from that time. "

[Sidenote: The whole story is eminently probable. ]

With this grewsome tale ends all account of Norse attempts at exploringor colonizing Vinland, though references to Vinland by no means endhere. [191] Taking the narrative as a whole, it seems to me a sober, straightforward, and eminently probable story. We may not be able to saywith confidence exactly where such places as Markland and Vinland were, but it is clear that the coasts visited on these southerly andsouthwesterly voyages from Brattahlid must have been parts of the coastof North America, unless the whole story is to be dismissed as a figmentof somebody's imagination. But for a figment of the imagination, and ofEuropean imagination withal, it has far too many points ofverisimilitude, as I shall presently show. 

 [Footnote 191: The stories of Gudleif Gudlaugsson and Ari Marsson, with the fanciful speculations about "Hvitramannaland" and "Irland it Mikla, " do not seem worthy of notice in this connection. They may be found in De Costa, _op. Cit. _ pp. 159-177; and see Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland the Good_, chap. V. ]

[Sidenote: Voyage into Baffin's Bay, 1135. ]

In the first place, it is an extremely probable story from the time thatEric once gets settled in Brattahlid. The founding of the Greenlandcolony is the only strange or improbable part of the narrative, but thatis corroborated in so many other ways that we know it to be true; asalready observed, no fact in mediæval history is better established. When I speak of the settlement of Greenland as strange, I do not meanthat there is anything strange in the Northmen's accomplishing thevoyage thither from Iceland. That island is nearer to Greenland than toNorway, and we know, moreover, that Norse sailors achieved moredifficult things than penetrating the fiords of southern Greenland. Uponthe island of Kingitorsook in Baffin's Bay (72° 55' N. , 56° 5' W. ) nearUpernavik, in a region supposed to have been unvisited by man before themodern age of Arctic exploration, there were found in 1824 some smallartificial mounds with an inscription upon stone:--"Erling Sighvatsonand Bjarni Thordharson and Eindrid Oddson raised these marks and clearedground on Saturday before Ascension Week, 1135. " That is to say, theytook symbolic possession of the land. [192]

 [Footnote 192: Laing, _Heimskringla_, i. 152. ]

[Sidenote: A Viking ship discovered at Sandefiord, in Norway. ]

In order to appreciate how such daring voyages were practicable, we mustbear in mind that the Viking "ships" were probably stronger and moreseaworthy, and certainly much swifter, than the Spanish vessels of thetime of Columbus. One was unearthed a few years ago at Sandefiord inNorway, and may be seen at the museum in Christiania. Its pagan ownerhad been buried in it, and his bones were found amidships, along withthe bones of a dog and a peacock, a few iron fish-hooks and otherarticles. Bones of horses and dogs, probably sacrificed at the funeralaccording to the ancient Norse custom, lay scattered about. This crafthas been so well described by Colonel Higginson, [193] that I may as wellquote the passage in full:--

 [Footnote 193: See his _Larger History of the United States_, pp. 32-34. ]

[Sidenote: Description of the ship. ]

She "was seventy-seven feet eleven inches at the greatest length, andsixteen feet eleven inches at the greatest width, and from the top ofthe keel to the gunwale amidships she was five feet nine inches deep. She had twenty ribs, and would draw less than four feet of water. Shewas clinker-built; that is, had plates slightly overlapped, like theshingles on the side of a house. The planks and timbers of the framewere fastened together with withes made of roots, but the oaken boardsof the side were united by iron rivets firmly clinched. The bow andstern were similar in shape, and must have risen high out of water, butwere so broken that it was impossible to tell how they originally ended. The keel was deep and made of thick oak beams, and there was no trace ofany metallic sheathing; but an iron anchor was found almost rusted topieces. There was no deck and the seats for rowers had been taken out. The oars were twenty feet long, and the oar-holes, sixteen on each side, had slits sloping towards the stern to allow the blades of the oars tobe put through from inside. The most peculiar thing about the ship wasthe rudder, which was on the starboard or right side, this side beingoriginally called 'steerboard' from this circumstance. The rudder waslike a large oar, with long blade and short handle, and was attached, not to the side of the boat, but to the end of a conical piece of woodwhich projected almost a foot from the side of the vessel, and almosttwo feet from the stern. This piece of wood was bored down its length, and no doubt a rope passing through it secured the rudder to the ship'sside. It was steered by a tiller attached to the handle, and perhapsalso by a rope fastened to the blade. As a whole, this disinterredvessel proved to be anything but the rude and primitive craft whichmight have been expected; it was neatly built and well preserved, constructed on what a sailor would call beautiful lines, and eminentlyfitted for sea service. Many such vessels may be found depicted on thecelebrated Bayeux tapestry; and the peculiar position of the rudderexplains the treaty mentioned in the Heimskringla, giving to Norway alllands lying west of Scotland between which and the mainland a vesselcould pass with her rudder shipped. . . . This was not one of the verylargest ships, for some of them had thirty oars on each side, andvessels carrying from twenty to twenty-five were not uncommon. Thelargest of these were called Dragons, and other sizes were known asSerpents or Cranes. The ship itself was often so built as to representthe name it bore: the dragon, for instance, was a long low vessel, withthe gilded head of a dragon at the bow, and the gilded tail at thestern; the moving oars at the side might represent the legs of theimaginary creature, the row of shining red and white shields that werehung over the gunwale looked like the monster's scales, and the sailsstriped with red and blue might suggest his wings. The ship preserved atChristiania is described as having had but a single mast, set into ablock of wood so large that it is said no such block could now be cut inNorway. Probably the sail was much like those still carried by largeopen boats in that country, --a single square on a mast forty feetlong. [194] These masts have no standing rigging, and are taken down whennot in use; and this was probably the practice of the Vikings. "

 [Footnote 194: Perhaps it may have been a square-headed lug, like those of the Deal galley-punts; see Leslie's _Old Sea Wings, Ways, and Words, in the Days of Oak and Hemp_, London, 1890, p. 21. ]

[Sidenote: The climate of Greenland. ]

In such vessels, well stocked with food and weapons, the Northmen wereaccustomed to spend many weeks together on the sea, now and thentouching land. In such vessels they made their way to Algiers andConstantinople, to the White Sea, to Baffin's Bay. It is not, therefore, their voyage to Greenland that seems strange, but it is their success infounding a colony which could last for more than four centuries in thatinhospitable climate. The question is sometimes asked whether theclimate of Greenland may not have undergone some change within the lastthousand years. [195] If there has been any change, it must have beenvery slight; such as, perhaps, a small variation in the flow of oceancurrents might occasion. I am inclined to believe that there may havebeen such a change, from the testimony of Ivar Bardsen, steward of theGardar bishopric in the latter half of the fourteenth century, or abouthalfway between the time of Eric the Red and our own time. According toBardsen there had long been a downward drifting of ice from the northand a consequent accumulation of bergs and floes upon the eastern coastof Greenland, insomuch that the customary route formerly followed byships coming from Iceland was no longer safe, and a more southerly routehad been generally adopted. [196] This slow southward extension of thepolar ice-sheet upon the east of Greenland seems still to be going on atthe present day. [197] It is therefore not at all improbable, but on thecontrary quite probable, that a thousand years ago the mean annualtemperature of the tip end of Greenland, at Cape Farewell, was a fewdegrees higher than now. [198] But a slight difference of this sortmight have an important bearing upon the fortunes of a colony plantedthere. For example, it would directly affect the extent of the hay crop. Grass grows very well now in the neighbourhood of Julianeshaab. Insummer it is still a "green land, " with good pasturage for cattle, butthere is difficulty in getting hay enough to last through the ninemonths of winter. In 1855 "there were in Greenland 30 to 40 head ofhorned cattle, about 100 goats, and 20 sheep;" but in the ancientcolony, with a population not exceeding 6, 000 persons, "herds of cattlewere kept which even yielded produce for exportation to Europe. "[199] Sostrong a contrast seems to indicate a much more plentiful grass cropthan to-day, although some hay might perhaps have been imported fromIceland in exchange for Greenland exports, which were chiefly whale oil, eider-down, and skins of seals, foxes, and white bears. 

 [Footnote 195: Some people must have queer notions about the lapse of past time. I have more than once had this question put to me in such a way as to show that what the querist really had in mind was some vague impression of the time when oaks and chestnuts, vines and magnolias, grew luxuriantly over a great part of Greenland! But that was in the Miocene period, probably not less than a million years ago, and has no obvious bearing upon the deeds of Eric the Red. ]

 [Footnote 196: Bardsen, _Descriptio Groenlandiæ_, appended to Major's _Voyages of the Venetian Brothers_, etc. , pp. 40, 41; and see below, p. 242. ]

 [Footnote 197: Zahrtmann, _Journal of Royal Geographical Society_, London, 1836, vol. V. P. 102. On this general subject see J. D. Whitney, "The Climate Changes of Later Geological Times, " in _Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard College_, Cambridge, 1882, vol. Vii. According to Professor Whitney there has also been a deterioration in the climate of Iceland. ]

 [Footnote 198: One must not too hastily infer that the mean temperature of points on the American coast south of Davis strait would be affected in the same way. The relation between the phenomena is not quite so simple. For example, a warm early spring on the coast of Greenland increases the discharge of icebergs from its fiords to wander down the Atlantic ocean; and this increase of floating ice tends to chill and dampen the summers at least as far South as Long Island, if not farther. ]

 [Footnote 199: Rink's _Danish Greenland_, pp. 27, 96, 97. ]

[Sidenote: With the Northmen once in Greenland, the discovery of theAmerican continent was almost inevitable. ]

[Sidenote: Voyages for timber. ]

When once the Northmen had found their way to Cape Farewell, it wouldhave been marvellous if such active sailors could long have avoidedstumbling upon the continent of North America. Without compass orastrolabe these daring men were accustomed to traverse long stretches ofopen sea, trusting to the stars; and it needed only a stiffnortheasterly breeze, with persistent clouds and fog, to land a westwardbound "dragon" anywhere from Cape Race to Cape Cod. This is what appearsto have happened to Bjarni Herjulfsson in 986, and something quite likeit happened to Henry Hudson in 1609. [200] Curiosity is a motive quitesufficient to explain Leif's making the easy summer voyage to find outwhat sort of country Bjarni had seen. He found it thickly wooded, and asthere was a dearth of good timber both in Greenland and in Iceland, itwould naturally occur to Leif's friends that voyages for timber, to beused at home and also to be exported to Iceland, might turn out to beprofitable. [201] As Laing says, "to go in quest of the wooded countriesto the southwest, from whence driftwood came to their shores, was areasonable, intelligible motive for making a voyage in search of thelands from whence it came, and where this valuable material could be gotfor nothing. "[202]

 [Footnote 200: See Read's _Historical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson_, Albany, 1866, p. 160. ]

 [Footnote 201: "Nú tekst umrædha at nýju um Vínlandsferdh, thviat sú ferdh thikir bædhi gódh til fjár ok virdhíngar, " i. E. "Now they began to talk again about a voyage to Vinland, for the voyage thither was both gainful and honourable. " Rafn, p. 65. ]

 [Footnote 202: _Heimskringla_, i, 168. ]

[Sidenote: Ear-marks of truth in the narrative. ]

If now we look at the details of the story we shall find many ear-marksof truth in it. We must not look for absolute accuracy in a narrativewhich--as we have it--is not the work of Leif or Thorfinn or any oftheir comrades, but of compilers or copyists, honest and careful as itseems to me, but liable to misplace details and to call by wrong namesthings which they had never seen. Starting with these modestexpectations we shall find the points of verisimilitude numerous. Tobegin with the least significant, somewhere on our northeastern coastthe voyagers found many foxes. [203] These animals, to be sure, are foundin a great many countries, but the point for us is that in a southerlyand southwesterly course from Cape Farewell these sailors are said tohave found them. If our narrators had been drawing upon theirimaginations or dealing with semi-mythical materials, they would aslikely as not have lugged into the story elephants from Africa orhippogriffs from Dreamland; mediæval writers were blissfully ignorant ofall canons of probability in such matters. [204] But our narrators simplymention an animal which has for ages abounded on our northeasterncoasts. One such instance is enough to suggest that they were followingreports or documents which emanated ultimately from eye-witnesses andtold the plain truth. A dozen such instances, if not neutralized bycounter-instances, are enough to make this view extremely probable; andthen one or two instances which could not have originated in theimagination of a European writer will suffice to prove it. 

 [Footnote 203: "Fjöldi var thar melrakka, " i. E. "ibi vulpium magnus numerus erat, " Rafn, p. 138. ]

 [Footnote 204: It is extremely difficult for an impostor to concoct a narrative without making blunders that can easily be detected by a critical scholar. For example, the Book of Mormon, in the passage cited (see above, p. 3), in supremely blissful ignorance introduces oxen, sheep, and silk-worms, as well as the knowledge of smelting iron, into pre-Columbian America. ]

Let us observe, then, that on coming to Markland they "slew abear;"[205] the river and lake (or bay) in Vinland abounded with salmonbigger than Leif's people had ever seen;[206] on the coast they caughthalibut;[207] they came to an island where there were so many eiderducks breeding that they could hardly avoid treading on their eggs;[208]and, as already observed, it was because of the abundance of wild grapesthat Leif named the southernmost country he visited Vinland. 

 [Footnote 205: "Thar í drápu their einn björn, " i. E. "in qua ursum interfecerunt, " id. P. 138. ]

 [Footnote 206: "Hvorki skorti thar lax í ánni nè í vatninu, ok stærra lax enn their hefdhi fyrr sèdh, " i. E. "ibi neque in fluvio neque in lacu deerat salmonum copia, et quidem majoris corporis quam antea vidissent, " id. P. 32. ]

 [Footnote 207: "Helgir fiskar, " i. E. "sacri pisces, " id. P. 148. The Danish phrase is "helleflyndre, " i. E. "holy flounder. " The English _halibut_ is _hali_ = _holy_ + _but_ = _flounder_. This word _but_ is classed as Middle English, but may still be heard in the north of England. The fish may have been so called "from being eaten particularly on holy days" (_Century Dict. _ s. V. ); or possibly from a pagan superstition that water abounding in flat fishes is especially safe for mariners (Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _ ix. 70); or possibly from some lost folk-tale about St. Peter (Maurer, _Isländische Volkssagen der Gegenwart_, Leipsic, 1860, p. 195). ]

 [Footnote 208: "Svâ var mörg ædhr í eynni, at varla mátti gánga fyri eggjum, " i. E. "tantus in insula anatum mollissimarum numerus erat, ut præ ovis transiri fere non posset, " id. P. 141. Eider ducks breed on our northeastern coasts as far south as Portland, and are sometimes in winter seen as far south as Delaware. They also abound in Greenland and Iceland, and, as Wilson observes, "their nests are crowded so close together that a person can scarcely walk without treading on them. . . . The Icelanders have for ages known the value of eider down, and have done an extensive business in it. " See Wilson's _American Ornithology_, vol. Iii. P. 50. ]

[Sidenote: Northern limit of the vine. ]

From the profusion of grapes--such that the ship's stern boat is said onone occasion to have been filled with them[209]--we get a clue, thoughless decisive than could be wished, to the location of Vinland. Theextreme northern limit of the vine in Canada is 47°, the parallel whichcuts across the tops of Prince Edward and Cape Breton islands on themap. [210] Near this northern limit, however, wild grapes are by no meansplenty; so that the coast upon which Leif wintered must apparently havebeen south of Cape Breton. Dr. Storm, who holds that Vinland was on thesouthern coast of Nova Scotia, has collected some interesting testimonyas to the growth of wild grapes in that region, but on the whole theabundance of this fruit seems rather to point to the shores ofMassachusetts Bay. [211]

 [Footnote 209: {"Svâ er sagt at eptirbátr theirra var fylldr af vinberjurn. "} { So it-is-said that afterboat their was filled of vine-berries. } Rafn, p. 36. ]

 [Footnote 210: Storm, "Studies on the Vinland Voyages, " _Mémoires de la société royale des antiquaires du Nord_, Copenhagen, 1888, p. 351. The limit of the vine at this latitude is some distance inland; near the shore the limit is a little farther south, and in Newfoundland it does not grow at all. Id. P. 308. ]

 [Footnote 211: The attempt of Dr. Kohl (_Maine Hist. Soc. _, New Series, vol. I. ) to connect the voyage of Thorfinn with the coast of Maine seems to be successfully refuted by De Costa, _Northmen in Maine_, etc. , Albany, 1870. ]

[Sidenote: Length of the winter day. ]

We may now observe that, while it is idle to attempt to determineaccurately the length of the winter day, as given in our chronicles, nevertheless since that length attracted the attention of the voyagers, as something remarkable, it may fairly be supposed to indicate alatitude lower than they were accustomed to reach in their tradingvoyages in Europe. Such a latitude as that of Dublin, which liesopposite Labrador, would have presented no novelty to them, for voyagesof Icelanders to their kinsmen in Dublin, and in Rouen as well, werecommon enough. Halifax lies about opposite Bordeaux, and Boston a littlesouth of opposite Cape Finisterre, in Spain, so that either of theselatitudes would satisfy the conditions of the case; either would show alonger winter day than Rouen, which was about the southern limit ofordinary trading voyages from Iceland. At all events, the length of dayindicates for Vinland a latitude south of Cape Breton. 

[Sidenote: Indian corn. ]

The next point to be observed is the mention of "self-sownwheat-fields. "[212] This is not only an important ear-mark of truth inthe narrative, but it helps us somewhat further in determining theposition of Vinland. The "self-sown" cereal, which these Icelanderscalled "wheat, " was in all probability what the English settlers sixhundred years afterward called "corn, " in each case applying to a newand nameless thing the most serviceable name at hand. In England "corn"means either wheat, barley, rye, and oats collectively, or morespecifically wheat; in Scotland it generally means oats; in America itmeans maize, the "Indian corn, " the cereal peculiar to the westernhemisphere. The beautiful waving plant, with its exquisitely tasselledears, which was one of the first things to attract Champlain'sattention, could not have escaped the notice of such keen observers aswe are beginning to find Leif and Thorfinn to have been. A cereal likethis, requiring so little cultivation that without much latitude ofspeech it might be described as growing wild, would be interesting toEuropeans visiting the American coast; but it would hardly occur toEuropean fancy to invent such a thing. The mention of it is therefore avery significant ear-mark of the truth of the narrative. As regards theposition of Vinland, the presence of maize seems to indicate a somewhatlower latitude than Nova Scotia. Maize requires intensely hot summers, and even under the most careful European cultivation does not flourishnorth of the Alps. In the sixteenth century its northern-most limit onthe American coast seems to have been at the mouth of the Kennebec(44°), though farther inland it was found by Cartier at Hochelaga, onthe site of Montreal (45° 30'). A presumption is thus raised in favourof the opinion that Vinland was not farther north than MassachusettsBay. [213]

 [Footnote 212: {"Sjálfsána hveitiakra" } { } Rafn, p. 147. { Self-sown wheat-acres }]

 [Footnote 213: Dr. Storm makes perhaps too much of this presumption. He treats it as decisive against his own opinion that Vinland was the southern coast of Nova Scotia, and accordingly he tries to prove that the self-sown corn was not maize, but "wild rice" (_Zizania aquatica_). _Mémoires_, etc. , p. 356. But his argument is weakened by excess of ingenuity. ]

[Sidenote: Winter weather in Vinland. ]

This presumption is supported by what is said about the climate ofVinland, though it must be borne in mind that general statements aboutclimate are apt to be very loose and misleading. We are told that itseemed to Leif's people that cattle would be able to pass the winter outof doors there, for there was no frost and the grass was not muchwithered. [214] On the other hand, Thorfinn's people found the wintersevere, and suffered from cold and hunger. [215] Taken in connection witheach other, these two statements would apply very well to-day to ourvariable winters on the coast southward from Cape Ann. The winter of1889-90 in Cambridge, for example, might very naturally have beendescribed by visitors from higher latitudes as a winter without frostand with grass scarcely withered. Indeed, we might have described it soourselves. On Narragansett and Buzzard's bays such soft winter weatheris still more common; north of Cape Ann it is much less common. Thesevere winter (_magna hiems_) is of course familiar enough anywherealong the northeastern coast of America. 

 [Footnote 214: "Thar var svâ gódhr landskostr at thví er theim sýndist, at thar mundi eingi fènadhr fódhr thurfa á vetrum; thar kvomu eingi frost á vetrum, ok lítt rènudhu thar grös, " i. E. "tanta autem erat terræ bonitas, ut inde intelligere esset, pecora hieme pabulo non indigere posse, nullis incidentibus algoribus hiemalibus, et graminibus parum flaccescentibus. " Rafn, p. 32. ]

 [Footnote 215: "Thar voru their um vetrinn; ok gjördhist vetr mikill, en ekki fyri unnit ok gjördhist íllt til matarins, ok tókust af veidhirnar, " i. E. "hic hiemarunt; cum vero magna incideret hiems, nullumque provisum esset alimentum, cibus coepit deficere capturaque cessabat, " Id. P. 174. ]

[Sidenote: Probable situation of Vinland. ]

On the whole, we may say with some confidence that the place describedby our chroniclers as Vinland was situated somewhere between PointJudith and Cape Breton; possibly we may narrow our limits and say thatit was somewhere between Cape Cod and Cape Ann. But the latterconclusion is much less secure than the former. In such a case as this, the more we narrow our limits the greater our liability to error. [216]While by such narrowing, moreover, the question may acquire moreinterest as a bone of contention among local antiquarians, its value forthe general historian is not increased. 

 [Footnote 216: A favourite method of determining the exact spots visited by the Northmen has been to compare their statements regarding the shape and trend of the coasts, their bays, headlands, etc. , with various well-known points on the New England coast. It is a tempting method, but unfortunately treacherous, because the same general description will often apply well enough to several different places. It is like summer boarders in the country struggling to tell one another where they have been to drive, --past a school-house, down a steep hill, through some woods, and by a saw-mill, etc. ]

[Sidenote: "Savages" unknown to mediæval Europeans. ]

[Sidenote: The natives of Vinland. ]

But we have not yet done with the points of verisimilitude in our story. We have now to cite two or three details that are far more striking thanany as yet mentioned, --details that could never have been conjured up bythe fancy of any mediæval European. We must bear in mind that "savages, "whether true savages or people in the lower status of barbarism, werepractically unknown to Europeans before the fifteenth century. Therewere no such people in Europe or in any part of Asia or Africa visitedby Europeans before the great voyages of the Portuguese. MediævalEuropeans knew nothing whatever about people who would show surprise atthe sight of an iron tool[217] or frantic terror at the voice of abull, or who would eagerly trade off valuable property for worthlesstrinkets. Their imagination might be up to inventing hobgoblins andpeople with heads under their shoulders, [218] but it was not up toinventing such simple touches of nature as these. Bearing this in mind, let us observe that Thorfinn found the natives of Vinland eager to givevaluable furs[219] in exchange for little strips of scarlet cloth tobind about their heads. When the Northmen found the cloth growing scarcethey cut it into extremely narrow strips, but the desire of the nativeswas so great that they would still give a whole skin for the smalleststrip. They wanted also to buy weapons, but Thorfinn forbade his men tosell them. One of the natives picked up an iron hatchet and cut woodwith it; one after another tried and admired it; at length one tried iton a stone and broke its edge, and then they scornfully threw itdown. [220] One day while they were trading, Thorfinn's bull ran outbefore them and bellowed, whereupon the whole company was instantlyscattered in headlong flight. After this, when threatened with an attackby the natives, Thorfinn drew up his men for a fight and put the bull infront, very much as Pyrrhus used elephants--at first with success--tofrighten the Romans and their horses. [221]

 [Footnote 217: It is not meant that stone implements did not continue to be used in some parts of Europe far into the Middle Ages. But this was not because iron was not perfectly well known, but because in many backward regions it was difficult to obtain or to work, so that stone continued in use. As my friend, Mr. T. S. Perry, reminds me, Helbig says that stone-pointed spears were used by some of the English at the battle of Hastings, and stone battle-axes by some of the Scots under William Wallace at the end of the thirteenth century. _Die Italiker in der Poebene_, Leipsic, 1879, p. 42. Helbig's statement as to Hastings is confirmed by Freeman, _Norman Conquest of England_, vol. Iii. P. 473. ]

 [Footnote 218: My use of the word "inventing" is, in this connection, a slip of the pen. Of course the tales of "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, " the Sciopedæ, etc. , as told by Sir John Mandeville, were not invented by the mediæval imagination, but copied from ancient authors. They may be found in Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _, lib. Vii. , and were mentioned before his time by Ktesias, as well as by Hecatæus, according to Stephanus of Byzantium. Cf. Aristophanes, _Aves_, 1553; Julius Solinus, _Polyhistor_, ed. Salmasius, cap. 240. Just as these sheets are going to press there comes to me Mr. Perry's acute and learned _History of Greek Literature_, New York, 1890, in which this subject is mentioned in connection with the mendacious and medical Ktesias:--These stories have probably acquired a literary currency "by exercise of the habit, not unknown even to students of science, of indiscriminate copying from one's predecessors, so that in reading Mandeville we have the ghosts of the lies of Ktesias, almost sanctified by the authority of Pliny, who quoted them and thereby made them a part of mediæval folk-lore--and from folk-lore, probably, they took their remote start" (p. 522). ]

 [Footnote 219: "En that var grávara ok safvali ok allskonar skinnavara" (Rafn, p. 59), --i. E. Gray fur and sable and all sorts of skinwares; in another account, "skinnavöru ok algrá skinn, " which in the Danish version is "skindvarer og ægte graaskind" (id. P. 150), --i. E. Skinwares and genuine gray furs. Cartier in Canada and the Puritans in Massachusetts were not long in finding that the natives had good furs to sell. ]

 [Footnote 220: Rafn, p. 156. ]

 [Footnote 221: Much curious information respecting the use of elephants in war may be found in the learned work of the Chevalier Armandi, _Histoire militaire des éléphants_, Paris, 1843. As regards Thorfinn's bull, Mr. Laing makes the kind of blunder that our British cousins are sometimes known to make when they get the Rocky Mountains within sight of Bunker Hill monument. "A continental people in that part of America, " says Mr. Laing, "could not be strangers to the much more formidable bison. " _Heimskringla_, p. 169. Bisons on the Atlantic coast, Mr. Laing?! And then his comparison quite misses the point; a bison, if the natives had been familiar with him, would not have been at all formidable as compared to the bull which they had never before seen. A horse is much less formidable than a cougar, but Aztec warriors who did not mind a cougar were paralyzed with terror at the sight of men on horseback. It is the unknown that frightens in such cases. Thorfinn's natives were probably familiar with such large animals as moose and deer, but a deer isn't a bull. ]

[Sidenote: Meaning of the epithet "Skrælings. "]

These incidents are of surpassing interest, for they were attendant uponthe first meeting (in all probability) that ever took place betweencivilized Europeans and any people below the upper status ofbarbarism. [222] Who were these natives encountered by Thorfinn? TheNorthmen called them "Skrælings, " a name which one is at first sightstrongly tempted to derive from the Icelandic verb _skrækja_, identicalwith the English _screech_. A crowd of excited Indians might mostappropriately be termed Screechers. [223] This derivation, however, isnot correct. The word _skræling_ survives in modern Norwegian, and meansa feeble or puny or _insignificant_ person. Dr. Storm's suggestion is inall probability correct, that the name "Skrælings, " as applied to thenatives of America, had no ethnological significance, but simply meant"inferior people;" it gave concise expression to the white man's opinionthat they were "a bad lot. " In Icelandic literature the name is usuallyapplied to the Eskimos, and hence it has been rashly inferred thatThorfinn found Eskimos in Vinland. Such was Rafn's opinion, and sincehis time the commentators have gone off upon a wrong trail and muchingenuity has been wasted. [224] It would be well to remember, however, that the Europeans of the eleventh century were not ethnologists; inmeeting these inferior peoples for the first time they were more likelyto be impressed with the broad fact of their inferiority than to be nicein making distinctions. When we call both Australians and Fuegians"savages, " we do not assert identity or relationship between them; andso when the Northmen called Eskimos and Indians by the same disparagingepithet, they doubtless simply meant to call them savages. 

 [Footnote 222: The Phoenicians, however (who in this connection may be classed with Europeans), must have met with some such people in the course of their voyages upon the coasts of Africa. I shall treat of this more fully below, p. 327. ]

 [Footnote 223: As for Indians, says Cieza de Leon, they are all noisy (alharaquientos). _Segunda Parte de la Crónica del Peru_, cap. Xxiii. ]

 [Footnote 224: For example, Dr. De Costa refers to Dr. Abbott's discoveries as indicating "that the Indian was preceded by a people like the Eskimos, whose stone implements are found in the Trenton gravel. " _Pre-Columbian Discovery_, p. 132. Quite so; but that was in the Glacial Period (!!), and when the edge of the ice-sheet slowly retreated northward, the Eskimo, who is emphatically an Arctic creature, doubtless retreated with it, just as he retreated from Europe. See above, p. 18. There is not the slightest reason for supposing that there were any Eskimos south of Labrador so lately as nine hundred years ago. ]

[Sidenote: Personal appearance of the Skrælings. ]

Our chronicle describes the Skrælings of Vinland as swarthy in hue, ferocious in aspect, with ugly hair, big eyes, and broad cheeks. [225]This will do very well for Indians, except as to the eyes. We areaccustomed to think of Indian eyes as small; but in this connection itis worthy of note that a very keen observer, Marc Lescarbot, in hisminute and elaborate description of the physical appearance of theMicmacs of Acadia, speaks with some emphasis of their large eyes. [226]Dr. Storm quite reasonably suggests that the Norse expression may referto the size not of the eye-ball, but of the eye-socket, which in theIndian face is apt to be large; and very likely this is what theFrenchman also had in mind. 

 [Footnote 225: "Their voru svartir menn ok illiligir, ok havdhu íllt hár á höfdhi. Their voru mjök eygdhir ok breidhir í kinnum, " i. E. "Hi homines erant nigri, truculenti specie, foedam in capite comam habentes, oculis magnis et genis latis. " Rafn, p. 149. The Icelandic _svartr_ is more precisely rendered by the identical English _swarthy_ than by the Latin _niger_. ]

 [Footnote 226: "Mais quãt à noz Sauvages, pour ce qui regarde les ïeux ilz ne les ont ni bleuz, ni verds, mais noirs pour la pluspart, ainsi que les cheveux; & neantmoins ne sont petits, cõme ceux des anciens Scythes, mais d'une grandeur bien agréable. " Lescarbot, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, Paris, 1612, tom. Ii. P. 714. ]

[Sidenote: The Skrælings of Vinland were Indians, --very likelyAlgonquins. ]

These Skrælings were clad in skins, and their weapons were bows andarrows, slings, and stone hatchets. In the latter we may now, I think, be allowed to recognize the familiar tomahawk; and when we read that, ina sharp fight with the natives, Thorbrand, son of the commander Snorro, was slain, and the woman Freydis afterward found his corpse in thewoods, with a flat stone sticking in the head, and his naked sword lyingon the ground beside him, we seem to see how it all happened. [227] Weseem to see the stealthy Indian suddenly dealing the death-blow, andthen obliged for his own safety to dart away among the trees withoutrecovering his tomahawk or seizing the sword. The Skrælings came up theriver or lake in a swarm of canoes, all yelling at the top of theirvoices (_et illi omnes valde acutum ululabant_), and, leaping ashore, began a formidable attack with slings and arrows. The narrative callsthese canoes "skin-boats" (_hudhkeipar_), whence it has been inferredthat the writer had in mind the _kayaks_ and _umiaks_ of theEskimos. [228] I suspect that the writer did have such boats in mind, andaccordingly used a word not strictly accurate. Very likely hisauthorities failed to specify a distinction between bark-boats andskin-boats, and simply used the handiest word for designating canoes ascontrasted with their own keeled boats. [229]

 [Footnote 227: "Hún fann fyrir sèr mann daudhan, thar var Thorbrandr Snorrason, ok stódh hellusteinn í höfdhi honum; sverdhit lá bert í hjá honum, " i. E. "Illa incidit in mortuum hominem, Thorbrandum Snorrii filium, cujus capiti lapis planus impactus stetit; nudus juxta eum gladius jacuit. " Rafn, p. 154. ]

 [Footnote 228: These Eskimo skin-boats are described in Rink's _Danish Greenland_, pp. 113, 179. ]

 [Footnote 229: Cf. Storm, _op. Cit. _ pp. 366, 367. ]

One other point which must be noticed here in connection with theSkrælings is a singular manoeuvre which they are said to have practisedin the course of the fight. They raised upon the end of a pole a bigball, not unlike a sheep's paunch, and of a bluish colour; this ballthey swung from the pole over the heads of the white men, and it fell tothe ground with a horrid noise. [230] Now, according to Mr. Schoolcraft, this was a mode of fighting formerly common among the Algonquins, in NewEngland and elsewhere. This big ball was what Mr. Schoolcraft calls the"balista, " or what the Indians themselves call the "demon's head. " Itwas a large round boulder, sewed up in a new skin and attached to apole. As the skin dried it enwrapped the stone tightly; and then it wasdaubed with grotesque devices in various colours. "It was borne byseveral warriors who acted as balisteers. Plunged upon a boat or canoe, it was capable of sinking it. Brought down upon a group of men on asudden, it produced consternation and death. "[231] This is a mostremarkable feature in the narrative, for it shows us the Icelandicwriter (here manifestly controlled by some authoritative source ofinformation) describing a very strange mode of fighting, which we knowto have been characteristic of the Algonquins. Karlsefni's men do notseem to have relished this outlandish style of fighting; they retreatedalong the river bank until they came to a favourable situation amongsome rocks, where they made a stand and beat off their swarmingassailants. The latter, as soon as they found themselves losing manywarriors without gaining their point, suddenly turned and fled to theircanoes, and paddled away with astonishing celerity. Throughout theaccount it seems to me perfectly clear that we are dealing with Indians. 

 [Footnote 230: "That sá their Karlsefni at Skrælíngar færdhu upp á stöng knött stundar mykinn thví nær til at jafna sem saudharvömb, ok helzt blán at lit, ok fleygdhu af stönginni upp á landit yfir lidh theirra Karlsefnis, ok lèt illilega vidhr, thar sem nidhr kom. Vidh thetta sló ótta myklum á Karlsefni ok allt lidh hans, svâ at thá fýsti engis annars enn flýja, ok halda undan upp medh ánni, thvíat theim thótti lidh Skrælínga drífa at sèr allum megin, ok lètta eigi, fyrr enn their koma til hamra nokkurra, ok veittu thar vidhrtöku hardha, " i. E. "Viderunt Karlsefniani quod Skrælingi longurio sustulerunt globum ingentem, ventri ovillo haud absimilem, colore fere cæruleo; hune ex longurio in terram super manum Karlsefnianorum contorserunt, qui ut decidit, dirum sonuit. Hac re terrore perculsus est Karlsefnius suique omnes, ut nihil aliud cuperent quam fugere et gradum referre sursum secundum fluvium: credebant enim se ab Skrælingis undique circumveniri. Hinc non gradum stitere, priusquam ad rupes quasdam pervenissent, ubi acriter resistebant. " Rafn, p. 153. ]

 [Footnote 231: Schoolcraft, _Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge_, Philadelphia, 1860, 6 vols. 4to, vol. I. P. 89; a figure of this weapon is given in the same volume, plate xv. Fig. 2, from a careful description by Chingwauk, an Algonquin chief. ]

[Sidenote: The uniped. ]

The coexistence of so many unmistakable marks of truth in our narrativesmay fairly be said to amount to a demonstration that they must bederived, through some eminently trustworthy channel, from the statementsof intelligent eye-witnesses who took part in the events related. Hereand there, no doubt, we come upon some improbable incident or a touch ofsuperstition, such as we need not go back to the eleventh century tofind very common among seamen's narratives; but the remarkable thing inthe present case is that there are so few such features. One fabulouscreature is mentioned. Thorfinn and his men saw from their vessel aglittering speck upon the shore at an opening in the woods. They hailedit, whereupon the creature proceeded to perform the quite human act ofshooting an arrow, which killed the man at the helm. The narrator callsit a "uniped, " or some sort of one-footed goblin, [232] but that ishardly reasonable, for after the shooting it went on to perform thefurther quite human and eminently Indian-like act of running away. [233]Evidently this discreet "uniped" was impressed with the desirableness ofliving to fight another day. In a narrative otherwise characterized bysobriety, such an instance of fancy, even supposing it to have come downfrom the original sources, counts for as much or as little as HenryHudson's description of a mermaid. [234]

 [Footnote 232: Rafn, p. 160; De Costa, p. 134; Storm, p. 330. ]

 [Footnote 233: Here the narrator seems determined to give us a genuine smack of the marvellous, for when the fleeing uniped comes to a place where his retreat seems cut off by an arm of the sea, he runs (glides, or hops?) across the water without sinking. In Vigfusson's version, however, the marvellous is eliminated, and the creature simply runs over the stubble and disappears. The incident is evidently an instance where the narrative has been "embellished" by introducing a feature from ancient classical writers. The "Monocoli, " or one-legged people, are mentioned by Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _, vii. 2: "Item hominum genus qui Monocoli vocarentur, singulis cruribus, miræ pernicitatis ad saltum. " Cf. Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticæ_, viii. 4. ]

 [Footnote 234: Between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, June 15, 1608. For the description, with its droll details, see _Purchas his Pilgrimes_, iii. 575. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Misleading associations with the word "saga. "]

[Sidenote: Unfortunate comparison between Leif Ericsson and Agamemnon. ]

[Sidenote: The story of the Trojan War, as we have it, is purefolk-lore. ]

It is now time for a few words upon the character of the records uponwhich our story is based. And first, let us remark upon a possiblesource of misapprehension due to the associations with which a certainNorse word has been clothed. The old Norse narrative-writings are called"sagas, " a word which we are in the habit of using in English asequivalent to legendary or semi-mythical narratives. To cite a "saga" asauthority for a statement seems, therefore, to some people asinadmissible as to cite a fairy-tale; and I cannot help suspecting thatto some such misleading association of ideas is due the particular formof the opinion expressed some time ago by a committee of theMassachusetts Historical Society, --"that there is the same sort ofreason for believing in the existence of Leif Ericsson that there is forbelieving in the existence of Agamemnon. They are both traditionsaccepted by later writers, and there is no more reason for regarding astrue the details related about the discoveries of the former than thereis for accepting as historic truth the narrative contained in theHomeric poems. " The report goes on to observe that "it is antecedentlyprobable that the Northmen discovered America in the early part of theeleventh century; and this discovery is confirmed by the same sort ofhistorical tradition, not strong enough to be called evidence, uponwhich our belief in many of the accepted facts of history rests. "[235]The second of these statements is characterized by critical moderation, and expresses the inevitable and wholesome reaction against the rashenthusiasm of Professor Rafn half a century ago, and the vagaries ofmany an uninstructed or uncritical writer since his time. But the firststatement is singularly unfortunate. It would be difficult to find acomparison more inappropriate than that between Agamemnon and Leif, between the Iliad and the Saga of Eric the Red. The story of the TrojanWar and its heroes, as we have it in Homer and the Athenian dramatists, is pure folk-lore as regards form, and chiefly folk-lore as regardscontents. It is in a high degree probable that this mass of folk-loresurrounds a kernel of plain fact, that in times long before the firstOlympiad an actual "king of men" at Mycenæ conducted an expeditionagainst the great city by the Simois, that the Agamemnon of the poetstands in some such relation toward this chieftain as that in which theCharlemagne of mediæval romance stands toward the mighty Emperor of theWest. [236] Nevertheless the story, as we have it, is simply folk-lore. If the Iliad and Odyssey contain faint reminiscences of actual events, these events are so inextricably wrapped up with mythical phraseologythat by no cunning of the scholar can they be construed into history. The motives and capabilities of the actors and the conditions underwhich they accomplish their destinies are such as exist only infairy-tales. Their world is as remote from that in which we live as theworld of Sindbad and Camaralzaman; and this is not essentially alteredby the fact that Homer introduces us to definite localities and familiarcustoms as often as the Irish legends of Finn M'Cumhail. [237]

 [Footnote 235: _Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc. _, December, 1887. ]

 [Footnote 236: I used this argument twenty years ago in qualification of the over-zealous solarizing views of Sir G. W. Cox and others. See my _Myths and Mythmakers_, pp. 191-202; and cf. Freeman on "The Mythical and Romantic Elements in Early English History, " in his _Historical Essays_, i. 1-39. ]

 [Footnote 237: Curtin, _Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland_, pp. 12, 204, 303; Kennedy, _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts_, pp. 203-311. ]

[Sidenote: The Saga of Eric the Red is not folk-lore. ]

It would be hard to find anything more unlike such writings than theclass of Icelandic sagas to which that of Eric the Red belongs. Here wehave quiet and sober narrative, not in the least like a fairy-tale, butoften much like a ship's log. Whatever such narrative may be, it is notfolk-lore. In act and motive, in its conditions and laws, its world isthe every-day world in which we live. If now and then a "uniped" happensto stray into it, the incongruity is as conspicuous as in the case ofHudson's mermaid, or a ghost in a modern country inn; whereas in theHomeric fabric the supernatural is warp and woof. To assert a likenessbetween two kinds of literature so utterly different is to go very farastray. 

[Sidenote: Mythical and historical sagas. ]

As already observed, I suspect that misleading associations with theword "saga" may have exerted an unconscious influence in producing thisparticular kind of blunder, --for it is nothing less than a blunder. Resemblance is tacitly assumed between the Iliad and an Icelandic saga. Well, between the Iliad and _some_ Icelandic sagas there is a real andstrong resemblance. In truth these sagas are divisible into two wellmarked and sharply contrasted classes. In the one class belong the EddicLays, and the _mythical sagas_, such as the Volsunga, the stories ofRagnar, Frithiof, and others; and along with these, though totallydifferent in source, we may for our present purpose group the _romanticsagas_, such as Parceval, Remund, Karlamagnus, and others brought fromsouthern Europe. These are alike in being composed of legendary andmythical materials; they belong essentially to the literature offolk-lore. In the other class come the _historical sagas_, such as thoseof Njal and Egil, the Sturlunga, and many others, with the numerousbiographies and annals. [238] These writings give us history, and oftenvery good history indeed. "Saga" meant simply any kind of literature innarrative form; the good people of Iceland did not happen to have such ahandy word as "history, " which they could keep entire when they meant itin sober earnest and chop down into "story" when they meant itotherwise. It is very much as if we were to apply the same word to theArthur legends and to William of Malmesbury's judicious and accuratechronicles, and call them alike "stories. "

 [Footnote 238: Nowhere can you find a more masterly critical account of Icelandic literature than in Vigfusson's "Prolegomena" to his edition of _Sturlunga Saga_, Oxford, 1878, vol. I. Pp. Ix. -ccxiv. There is a good but very brief account in Horn's _History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North_, transl. By R. B. Anderson, Chicago, 1884, pp. 50-70. ]

[Sidenote: The western or Hauks-bók version of Eric the Red's Saga. ]

The narrative upon which our account of the Vinland voyages is chieflybased belongs to the class of historical sagas. It is the Saga of Ericthe Red, and it exists in two different versions, of which one seems tohave been made in the north, the other in the west, of Iceland. Thewestern version is the earlier and in some respects the better. It isfound in two vellums, that of the great collection known as _Hauks-bók_(AM. 544), and that which is simply known as AM. 557 from its cataloguenumber in Arni Magnusson's collection. Of these the former, which is thebest preserved, was written in a beautiful hand by Hauk Erlendsson, between 1305 and 1334, the year of his death. This western version isthe one which has generally been printed under the title, "Saga ofThorfinn Karlsefni. " It is the one to which I have most frequentlyreferred in the present chapter. [239]

 [Footnote 239: It is printed in Rafn, pp. 84-187, and in _Grönlands historiske Mindesmærker_, i. 352-443. The most essential part of it may now be found, under its own name, in Vigfusson's _Icelandic Prose Reader_, pp. 123-140. ]

[Sidenote: The northern or Flateyar-bók version. ]

The northern version is that which was made about the year 1387 by thepriest Jón Thórdharson, and contained in the famous compilation known asthe _Flateyar-bók_, or "Flat Island Book. "[240] This priest was editingthe saga of King Olaf Tryggvesson, which is contained in thatcompilation, and inasmuch as Leif Ericsson's presence at King Olaf'scourt was connected both with the introduction of Christianity intoGreenland and with the discovery of Vinland, Jón paused, after themanner of mediæval chroniclers, and inserted then and there what he knewabout Eric and Leif and Thorfinn. In doing this, he used parts of theoriginal saga of Eric the Red (as we find it reproduced in the westernversion), and added thereunto a considerable amount of materialconcerning the Vinland voyages derived from other sources. Jón's versionthus made has generally been printed under the title, "Saga of Eric theRed. "[241]

 [Footnote 240: It belonged to a man who lived on Flat Island, in one of the Iceland fiords. ]

 [Footnote 241: It is printed in Rafn, pp. 1-76, under the title "Thættir af Eireki Rauda ok Grænlendíngum. " For a critical account of these versions, see Storm, _op. Cit. _ pp. 319-325; I do not, in all respects, follow him in his depreciation of the Flateyar-bók version. ]

[Sidenote: Presumption against sources not contemporary. ]

Now the older version, written at the beginning of the fourteenthcentury, gives an account of things which happened three centuriesbefore it was written. A cautious scholar will, as a rule, be slow toconsider any historical narrative as quite satisfactory authority, evenwhen it contains no improbable statements, unless it is nearlycontemporary with the events which it records. Such was the rule laiddown by the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and it is a very good rule;the proper application of it has disencumbered history of much rubbish. At the same time, like all rules, it should be used with judiciouscaution and not allowed to run away with us. As applied by Lewis toRoman history it would have swept away in one great cataclysm not onlykings and decemvirs, but Brennus and his Gauls to boot, and left us withnothing to swear by until the invasion of Pyrrhus. [242] Subsequentresearch has shown that this was going altogether too far. The mere factof distance in time between a document and the events which it recordsis only negative testimony against its value, for it may be a faithfultranscript of some earlier document or documents since lost. It is sodifficult to prove a negative that the mere lapse of time simply raisesa presumption the weight of which should be estimated by a carefulsurvey of all the probabilities in the case. Among the many Icelandicvellums that are known to have perished[243] there may well have beenearlier copies of Eric the Red's Saga. 

 [Footnote 242: Lewis's _Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History_, 2 vols. , London, 1855. ]

 [Footnote 243: And notably in that terrible fire of October, 1728, which consumed the University Library at Copenhagen, and broke the heart of the noble collector of manuscripts, Arni Magnusson. The great eruption of Hecla in 1390 overwhelmed two famous homesteads in the immediate neighbourhood. From the local history of these homesteads and their inmates, Vigfusson thinks it not unlikely that some records may still be there "awaiting the spade and pickaxe of a new Schliemann. " _Sturlunga Saga_, p. Cliv. ]

[Sidenote: Hauk Erlendsson and his manuscripts. ]

Hauk Erlendsson reckoned himself a direct descendant, in the eighthgeneration, from Snorro, son of Thorfinn and Gudrid, born in Vinland. Hewas an important personage in Iceland, a man of erudition, author of abrief book of contemporary annals and a treatise on arithmetic in whichhe introduced the Arabic numerals into Iceland. In those days the loverof books, if he would add them to his library, might now and then obtainan original manuscript, but usually he had to copy them or have themcopied by hand. The Hauks-bók, with its 200 skins, one of the mostextensive Icelandic vellums now in existence, is really Hauk's privatelibrary, or what there is left of it, and it shows that he was a man whoknew how to make a good choice of books. He did a good deal of hiscopying himself, and also employed two clerks in the same kind ofwork. [244]

 [Footnote 244: An excellent facsimile of Hauk's handwriting is given in Rafn, tab. Iii. , lower part; tab. Iv. And the upper part of tab. Iii. Are in the hands of his two amanuenses. See Vigfusson, _op. Cit. _ p. Clxi. ]

[Sidenote: The story is not likely to have been preserved to Hauk's timeby oral tradition only. ]

Now I do not suppose it will occur to any rational being to suggest thatHauk may have written down his version of Eric the Red's Saga from anoral tradition nearly three centuries old. The narrative could not havebeen so long preserved in its integrity, with so little extravagance ofstatement and so many marks of truthfulness in details foreign toordinary Icelandic experience, if it had been entrusted to oraltradition alone. One might as well try to imagine Drake's "WorldEncompassed" handed down by oral tradition from the days of QueenElizabeth to the days of Queen Victoria. Such transmission is possibleenough with heroic poems and folk-tales, which deal with a few dramaticsituations and a stock of mythical conceptions familiar at everyfireside; but in a simple matter-of-fact record of sailors' observationsand experiences on a strange coast, oral tradition would not be long indistorting and jumbling the details into a result quite undecipherable. The story of the Zeno brothers, presently to be cited, shows whatstrange perversions occur, even in written tradition, when the copyist, instead of faithfully copying records of unfamiliar events, tries toedit and amend them. One cannot reasonably doubt that Hauk's vellum ofEric the Red's Saga, with its many ear-marks of truth above mentioned, was copied by him--and quite carefully and faithfully withal--from someolder vellum not now forthcoming. 

[Sidenote: Allusions to Vinland in other documents. ]

As we have no clue, however, beyond the internal evidence, to the age orcharacter of the sources from which Hauk copied, there is nothing leftfor us to do but to look into other Icelandic documents, to see ifanywhere they betray a knowledge of Vinland and the voyages thither. Incidental references to Vinland, in narratives concerned with othermatters, are of great significance in this connection; for they imply onthe part of the narrator a presumption that his readers understand suchreferences, and that it is not necessary to interrupt his story in orderto explain them. Such incidental references imply the existence, duringthe interval between the Vinland voyages and Hauk's manuscript, of manyintermediate links of sound testimony that have since dropped out ofsight; and therefore they go far toward removing whatever presumptionmay be alleged against Hauk's manuscript because of its distance fromthe events. 

[Sidenote: Eyrbyggja Saga. ]

Now the Eyrbyggja Saga, written between 1230 and 1260, is largelydevoted to the settlement of Iceland, and is full of valuable notices ofthe heathen institutions and customs of the tenth century. TheEyrbyggja, having occasion to speak of Thorbrand Snorrason, observesincidentally that he went from Greenland to Vinland with Karlsefni andwas killed in a battle with the Skrælings. [245] We have alreadymentioned the death of this Thorbrand, and how Freydis found his body inthe woods. 

 [Footnote 245: Vigfusson, _Eyrbyggja Saga_, pp. 91, 92. Another of Karlsefni's comrades, Thorhall Gamlason, is mentioned in _Grettis Saga_, Copenhagen, 1859, pp. 22, 70; he went back to Iceland, settled on a farm there, and was known for the rest of his life as "the Vinlander. " See above, pp. 165, 168. ]

[Sidenote: The abbot Nikulas, etc. ]

Three Icelandic tracts on geography, between the twelfth and fourteenthcenturies, mention Helluland and Vinland, and in two of these accountsMarkland is interposed between Helluland and Vinland. [246] One of thesetracts mentions the voyages of Leif and Thorfinn. It forms part of anessay called "Guide to the Holy Land, " by Nikulas Sæmundsson, abbot ofThvera, in the north of Iceland, who died 1159. This Nikulas was curiousin matters of geography, and had travelled extensively. 

 [Footnote 246: Werlauf, _Symbolæ ad Geogr. Medii Ævi_, Copenhagen, 1820. ]

[Sidenote: Ari Fródhi. ]

With the celebrated Ari Thorgilsson, usually known as Fródhi, "thelearned, " we come to testimony nearly contemporaneous in time andextremely valuable in character. This erudite priest, born in 1067, wasthe founder of historical writing in Iceland. He was the principalauthor of the "Landnáma-bók, " already mentioned as a work of thoroughand painstaking research unequalled in mediæval literature. His otherprincipal works were the "Konunga-bók, " or chronicle of the kings ofNorway, and the "Islendinga-bók, " or description of Iceland. [247] Ari'sbooks, written not in monkish Latin, but in a good vigorous vernacular, were a mine of information from which all subsequent Icelandichistorians were accustomed to draw such treasures as they needed. To hisdiligence and acumen they were all, from Snorro Sturlason down, verymuch indebted. He may be said to have given the tone to history-writingin Iceland, and it was a high tone. 

 [Footnote 247: For a critical estimate of Ari's literary activity and the extent of his work, the reader is referred to Möbius, _Are's Isländerbuch_, Leipsic, 1869; Maurer, "Über Ari Thorgilsson und sein Isländerbuch, " in _Germania_, xv. ; Olsen, _Ari Thorgilsson hinn Fródhi_, Reykjavik, 1889, pp. 214-240. ]

[Sidenote: Ari's significant allusion to Vinland. ]

Unfortunately Ari's Islendinga-bók has perished. One cannot helpsuspecting that it may have contained the contemporary materials fromwhich Eric the Red's Saga in the Hauks-bók was ultimately drawn. ForAri made an abridgment or epitome of his great book, and this epitome, commonly known as "Libellus Islandorum, " still survives. In it Ari makesbrief mention of Greenland, and refers to his paternal uncle, ThorkellGellison, as authority for his statements. This Thorkell Gellison, ofHelgafell, a man of high consideration who flourished about the middleof the eleventh century, had visited Greenland and talked with one ofthe men who accompanied Eric when he went to settle in Brattahlid in986. From this source Ari gives us the interesting information thatEric's party found in Greenland "traces of human habitations, fragmentsof boats, and stone implements; so from this one might conclude thatpeople of the kind who inhabited Vinland and were known by the (Norse)Greenlanders as Skrælings must have roamed about there. "[248] Observethe force of this allusion. The settlers in Greenland did not at first(nor for a long time) meet with barbarous or savage natives there, butonly with the vestiges of their former presence. But when Ari wrote theabove passage, the memory of Vinland and its fierce Skrælings was stillfresh, and Ari very properly inferred from the archæological remains inGreenland that a people similar (in point of barbarism) to theSkrælings must have been there. Unless Ari and his readers had adistinct recollection of the accounts of Vinland, such a reference wouldhave been only an attempt to explain the less obscure by the moreobscure. It is to be regretted that we have in this book no moreallusions to Vinland; but if Ari could only leave us one such allusion, he surely could not have made that one more pointed. 

 [Footnote 248: Their "fundo thar manna vister bæthi austr ok vestr á landi ok kæiplabrot ok steinsmíthi, that es af thví má scilja, at thar hafdhi thessconar thjóth farith es Vínland hefer bygt, ok Grænlendínger calla Skrelínga, " i. E. "invenerunt ibi, tam in orientali quam occidentali terræ parte, humanæ habitationis vestigia, navicularum fragmenta et opera fabrilia ex lapide, ex quo intelligi potest, ibi versatum esse nationem quæ Vinlandiam incoluit quamque Grænlandi Skrælingos appellant. " Rafn, p. 207. ]

[Sidenote: Other references. ]

But this is not quite the only reference that Ari makes to Vinland. There are three others that must in all probability be assigned to him. Two occur in the Landnáma-bók, the first in a passage where mention ismade of Ari Marsson's voyage to a place in the western ocean nearVinland;[249] the only point in this allusion which need here concern usis that Vinland is tacitly assumed to be a known geographical situationto which others may be referred. The second reference occurs in one ofthose elaborate and minutely specific genealogies in the Landnáma-bók:"Their son was Thordhr Hest-höfdhi, father of Karlsefni, who foundVinland the Good, Snorri's father, " etc. [250] The third reference occursin the Kristni Saga, a kind of supplement to the Landnáma-bók, giving anaccount of the introduction of Christianity into Iceland; here it isrelated how Leif Ericsson came to be called "Leif the Lucky, " 1. Fromhaving rescued a shipwrecked crew off the coast of Greenland, 2. Fromhaving discovered "Vinland the Good. "[251] From these brief allusions, and from the general relation in which Ari Fródhi stood to laterwriters, I suspect that if the greater Islendinga-bók had survived toour time we should have found in it more about Vinland and itsdiscoverers. At any rate, as to the existence of a definite andcontinuous tradition all the way from Ari down to Hauk Erlendsson, therecan be no question whatever. [252]

 [Footnote 249: _Landnáma-bók_, part ii. Chap. Xxii. ]

 [Footnote 250: Id. Part iii. Chap. X. ]

 [Footnote 251: _Kristni Saga_, apud _Biskupa Sögur_, Copenhagen, 1858, vol. I. P. 20. ]

 [Footnote 252: Indeed, the parallel existence of the Flateyar-bók version of Eric the Red's Saga, alongside of the Hauks-bók version, is pretty good proof of the existence of a written account older than Hauk's time. The discrepancies between the two versions are such as to show that Jón Thordharson did not copy from Hauk, but followed some other version not now forthcoming. Jón mentions six voyages in connection with Vinland: 1. Bjarni Herjulfsson; 2. Leif; 3. Thorvald; 4. Thorstein and Gudrid; 5. Thorfinn Karlsefni; 6. Freydis. Hauk, on the other hand, mentions only the two principal voyages, those of Leif and Thorfinn; ignoring Bjarni, he accredits his adventures to Leif on his return voyage from Norway in 999, and he makes Thorvald a comrade of Thorfinn, and mixes his adventures with the events of Thorfinn's voyage. Dr. Storm considers Hauk's account intrinsically the more probable, and thinks that in the Flateyar-bók we have a later amplification of the tradition. But while I agree with Dr. Storm as to the general superiority of the Hauk version, I am not convinced by his arguments on this point. It seems to me likely that the Flateyar-bók here preserves more faithfully the details of an older tradition too summarily epitomized in the Hauks-bók. As the point in no way affects the general conclusions of the present chapter, it is hardly worth arguing here. The main thing for us is that the divergencies between the two versions, when coupled with their agreement in the most important features, indicate that both writers were working upon the basis of an antecedent written tradition, like the authors of the first and third synoptic gospels. Only here, of course, there are in the divergencies no symptoms of what the Tübingen school would call "_tendenz_, " impairing and obscuring to an indeterminate extent the general trustworthiness of the narratives. On the whole, it is pretty clear that Hauks-bók and Flateyar-bók were independent of each other, and collated, each in its own way, earlier documents that have probably since perished. ]

[Sidenote: Adam of Bremen. ]

The testimony of Adam of Bremen brings us yet one generation nearer tothe Vinland voyages, and is very significant. Adam was much interestedin the missionary work in the north of Europe, and in 1073, the sameyear that Hildebrand was elected to the papacy, he published his famous"Historia Ecclesiastica" in which he gave an account of the conversionof the northern nations from the time of Leo III. To that ofHildebrand's predecessor. In prosecuting his studies, Adam made a visitto the court of Swend Estridhsen, king of Denmark, nephew of Cnut theGreat, king of Denmark and England. Swend's reign began in 1047, so thatAdam's visit must have occurred between that date and 1073. The voyageof Leif and Thorfinn would at that time have been within the memory ofliving men, and would be likely to be known in Denmark, because theintercourse between the several parts of the Scandinavian world wasincessant; there was continual coming and going. Adam learned what hecould of Scandinavian geography, and when he published his history, hedid just what a modern writer would do under similar circumstances; heappended to his book some notes on the geography of those remotecountries, then so little known to his readers in central and southernEurope. After giving some account of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, hedescribes the colony in Iceland, and then the further colony inGreenland, and concludes by saying that out in that ocean there isanother country, or island, which has been visited by many persons, andis called Vinland because of wild grapes that grow there, out of which avery good wine can be made. Either rumour had exaggerated the virtues offox-grape juice, or the Northmen were not such good judges of wine as ofale. Adam goes on to say that corn, likewise, grows in Vinland withoutcultivation; and as such a statement to European readers must needs havea smack of falsehood, he adds that it is based not upon fable andguess-work, but upon "trustworthy reports (_certa relatione_) of theDanes. "

[Sidenote: Adam's misconception of the situation. ]

Scanty as it is, this single item of strictly contemporary testimony isvery important, because quite incidentally it gives to the lateraccounts such confirmation as to show that they rest upon a solid basisof continuous tradition and not upon mere unintelligent hearsay. [253]The unvarying character of the tradition, in its essential details, indicates that it must have been committed to writing at a very earlyperiod, probably not later than the time of Ari's uncle Thorkell, whowas contemporary with Adam of Bremen. If, however, we read the wholepassage in which Adam's mention of Vinland occurs, it is clear from thecontext that his own information was not derived from an inspection ofIcelandic documents. He got it, as he tells us, by talking with KingSwend; and all that he got, or all that he thought worth telling, wasthis curious fact about vines and self-sown corn growing so near toGreenland; for Adam quite misconceived the situation of Vinland, andimagined it far up in the frozen North. After his mention of Vinland, the continental character of which he evidently did not suspect, he goeson immediately to say, "After this island nothing inhabitable is to befound in that ocean, all being covered with unendurable ice andboundless darkness. " That most accomplished king, Harold Hardrada, saysAdam, tried not long since to ascertain how far the northern oceanextended, and plunged along through this darkness until he actuallyreached the end of the world, and came near tumbling off![254] Thus theworthy Adam, while telling the truth about fox-grapes and maize as wellas he knew how, spoiled the effect of his story by putting Vinland inthe Arctic regions. The juxtaposition of icebergs and vines was a littletoo close even for the mediæval mind so hospitable to strange yarns. Adam's readers generally disbelieved the "trustworthy reports of theDanes, " and when they thought of Vinland at all, doubtless thought of itas somewhere near the North Pole. [255] We shall do well to bear this inmind when we come to consider the possibility of Columbus havingobtained from Adam of Bremen any hint in the least likely to be of usein his own enterprise. [256]

 [Footnote 253: It is further interesting as the only undoubted reference to Vinland in a mediæval book written beyond the limits of the Scandinavian world. There is also, however, a passage in Ordericus Vitalis (_Historia Ecclesiastica_, iv. 29), in which _Finland_ and the Orkneys, along with Greenland and Iceland, are loosely described as forming part of the dominions of the kings of Norway. This Finland does not appear to refer to the country of the Finns, east of the Baltic, and it has been supposed that it may have been meant for Vinland. The book of Ordericus was written about 1140. ]

 [Footnote 254: The passage from Adam of Bremen deserves to be quoted in full: "Præterea unam adhuc insulam [regionam] recitavit [i. E. Svendus rex] a multis in eo repertam oceano, quæ dicitur Vinland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum bonum gerentes [ferentes]; nam et fruges ibi non seminatas abundare, non fabulosa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danorum. Post quam insulam terra nulla invenitur habitabilis in illo oceano, sed omnia quæ ultra sunt glacie intolerabili ac caligine immensa plena sunt; cujus rei Marcianus ita meminit: ultra Thyle, inquiens, navigare unius diei mare concretum est. Tentavit hoc nuper experientissimus Nordmannorum princeps Haroldus, qui latitudinem septentrionalis oceani perscrutatus navibus, tandem caligantibus ante ora deficientis mundi finibus, immane abyssi baratrum, retroactis vestigiis, vix salvus evasit. " _Descriptio insularum aquilonis_, cap. 38, apud _Hist. Ecclesiastica_, iv. Ed. Lindenbrog, Leyden, 1595. No such voyage is known to have been undertaken by Harold of Norway, nor is it likely. Adam was probably thinking of an Arctic voyage undertaken by one Thorir under the auspices of King Harold; one of the company brought back a polar bear and gave it to King Swend, who was much pleased with it. See Rafn, 339. "Regionam" and "ferentes" in the above extract are variant readings found in some editions. ]

 [Footnote 255: "Det har imidlertid ikke forhindret de senere forfattere, der benyttede Adam, fra at blive mistænksomme, og saalænge Adams beretning stod alene, har man i regelen vægret sig for at tro den. Endog den norske forfatter, der skrev 'Historia Norvegiæ' og som foruden Adam vel ogsaa bar kjendt de hjemlige sagn om Vinland, maa have anseet beretningen for fabelagtig og derfor forbigaaet den; han kjendte altfor godt Grønland som et nordligt isfyldt Polarland til at ville tro paa, at i nærheden fandtes et Vinland. " Storm, in _Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed_, etc. , Copenhagen, 1887, p. 300. ]

 [Footnote 256: See below, p. 386. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Summary of the argument. ]

To sum up the argument:--we have in Eric the Red's Saga, as copied byHauk Erlendsson, a document for the existence of which we are requiredto account. That document contains unmistakable knowledge of somethings which mediæval Europeans could by no human possibility havelearned, except through a visit to some part of the coast of NorthAmerica further south than Labrador or Newfoundland. It tells aneminently probable story in a simple, straightforward way, agreeing inits details with what we know of the North American coast between PointJudith and Cape Breton. Its general accuracy in the statement andgrouping of so many remote details is proof that its statements werecontrolled by an exceedingly strong and steady tradition, --altogethertoo strong and steady, in my opinion, to have been maintained simply byword of mouth. These Icelanders were people so much given to writingthat their historic records during the Middle Ages were, as the late SirRichard Burton truly observed, more complete than those of any othercountry in Europe. [257] It is probable that the facts mentioned inHauk's document rested upon some kind of a written basis as early as theeleventh century; and it seems quite clear that the constant tradition, by which all the allusions to Vinland and the Skrælings are controlled, had become established by that time. The data are more scanty than wecould wish, but they all point in the same direction as surely as strawsblown by a steady wind, and their cumulative force is so great as tofall but little short of demonstration. For these reasons it seems to methat the Saga of Eric the Red should be accepted as history; and thereis another reason which might not have counted for much at thebeginning of this discussion, but at the end seems quite solid andworthy of respect. The narrative begins with the colonization ofGreenland and goes on with the visits to Vinland. It is unquestionablysound history for the first part; why should it be anything else for thesecond part? What shall be said of a style of criticism which, indealing with one and the same document, arbitrarily cuts it in two inthe middle and calls the first half history and the last half legend?which accepts its statements as serious so long as they keep to thenorth of the sixtieth parallel, and dismisses them as idle as soon asthey pass to the south of it? Quite contrary to common sense, I shouldsay. 

 [Footnote 257: Burton, _Ultima Thule_, London, 1875, i. 237. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Absurd speculations of zealous antiquarians. ]

[Sidenote: There is no reason for supposing that the Northmen founded acolony in Vinland. ]

[Sidenote: No archæological remains of the Northmen have been foundsouth of Davis strait. ]

The only discredit which has been thrown upon the story of the Vinlandvoyages, in the eyes either of scholars or of the general public, hasarisen from the eager credulity with which ingenious antiquarians havenow and then tried to prove more than facts will warrant. It ispeculiarly a case in which the judicious historian has had frequentoccasion to exclaim, Save me from my friends! The only fit criticismupon the wonderful argument from the Dighton inscription is a referenceto the equally wonderful discovery made by Mr. Pickwick at Cobham;[258]and when it was attempted, some sixty years ago, to prove that GovernorArnold's old stone windmill at Newport[259] was a tower built by theNorthmen, no wonder if the exposure of this rather laughable notionshould have led many people to suppose that the story of Leif andThorfinn had thereby been deprived of some part of its support. But thestory never rested upon any such evidence, and does not call forevidence of such sort. There is nothing in the story to indicate thatthe Northmen ever founded a colony in Vinland, or built durablebuildings there. The distinction implicitly drawn by Adam of Bremen, whonarrates the colonization of Iceland and Greenland, and then goes on tospeak of Vinland, not as colonized, but simply as discovered, is adistinction amply borne out by our chronicles. Nowhere is there theslightest hint of a colony or settlement established in Vinland. On thecontrary, our plain, business-like narrative tells us that ThorfinnKarlsefni tried to found a colony and failed; and it tells us why hefailed. The Indians were too many for him. The Northmen of the eleventhcentury, without firearms, were in much less favourable condition forwithstanding the Indians than the Englishmen of the seventeenth; and atthe former period there existed no cause for emigration from Norway andIceland at all comparable to the economic, political, and religiouscircumstances which, in a later age, sent thousands of Englishmen toVirginia and New England. The founding of colonies in America in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries was no pastime; it was a tale ofdrudgery, starvation, and bloodshed, that curdles one's blood to read;more attempts failed than succeeded. Assuredly Thorfinn gave proof ofthe good sense ascribed to him when he turned his back upon Vinland. Butif he or any other Northman had ever succeeded in establishing a colonythere, can anybody explain why it should not have stamped the fact ofits existence either upon the soil, or upon history, or both, asunmistakably as the colony of Greenland? Archæological remains of theNorthmen abound in Greenland, all the way from Immartinek to near CapeFarewell; the existence of one such relic on the North Americancontinent has never yet been proved. Not a single vestige of theNorthmen's presence here, at all worthy of credence, has ever beenfound. The writers who have, from time to time, mistaken other thingsfor such vestiges, have been led astray because they have failed todistinguish between the different conditions of proof in Greenland andin Vinland. As Mr. Laing forcibly put the case, nearly half a centuryago, "Greenland was a colony with communications, trade, civil andecclesiastical establishments, and a considerable population, " for morethan four centuries. "Vinland was only visited by flying parties ofwoodcutters, remaining at the utmost two or three winters, but neversettling there permanently. . . . To expect here, as in Greenland, materialproofs to corroborate the documentary proofs, is weakening the latter bylinking them to a sort of evidence which, from the very nature of thecase, --the temporary visits of a ship's crew, --cannot exist in Vinland, and, as in the case of Greenland, come in to support them. "[260]

 [Footnote 258: See _Pickwick Papers_, chap. Xi. I am indebted to Mr. Tillinghast, of Harvard University Library, for calling my attention to a letter from Rev. John Lathrop, of Boston, to Hon. John Davis, August 10, 1809, containing George Washington's opinion of the Dighton inscription. When President Washington visited Cambridge in the fall of 1789, he was shown about the college buildings by the president and fellows of the university. While in the museum he was observed to "fix his eye" upon a full-size copy of the Dighton inscription made by the librarian, James Winthrop. Dr. Lathrop, who happened to be standing near Washington, "ventured to give the opinion which several learned men had entertained with respect to the origin of the inscription. " Inasmuch as some of the characters were thought to resemble "oriental" characters, and inasmuch as the ancient Phoenicians had sailed outside of the Pillars of Hercules, it was "conjectured" that some Phoenician vessels had sailed into Narragansett bay and up the Taunton river. "While detained by winds, or other causes now unknown, the people, it has been conjectured, made the inscription, now to be seen on the face of the rock, and which we may suppose to be a record of their fortunes or of their fate. "

 "After I had given the above account, the President smiled and said he believed the learned gentlemen whom I had mentioned were mistaken; and added that in the younger part of his life his business called him to be very much in the wilderness of Virginia, which gave him an opportunity to become acquainted with many of the customs and practices of the Indians. The Indians, he said, had a way of writing and recording their transactions, either in war or hunting. When they wished to make any such record, or leave an account of their exploits to any who might come after them, they scraped off the outer bark of a tree, and with a vegetable ink, or a little paint which they carried with them, on the smooth surface they wrote in a way that was generally understood by the people of their respective tribes. As he had so often examined the rude way of writing practised by the Indians of Virginia, and observed many of the characters on the inscription then before him so nearly resembled the characters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was made long ago by some natives of America. " _Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society_, vol. X. P. 115. This pleasant anecdote shows in a new light Washington's accuracy of observation and unfailing common-sense. Such inscriptions have been found by the thousand, scattered over all parts of the United States; for a learned study of them see Garrick Mallery, "Pictographs of the North American Indians, " _Reports of Bureau of Ethnology_, iv. 13-256. "The voluminous discussion upon the Dighton rock inscription, " says Colonel Mallery, "renders it impossible wholly to neglect it. . . . It is merely a type of Algonquin rock-carving, not so interesting as many others. . . . It is of purely Indian origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic character of the Kekeewin, " p. 20. The characters observed by Washington in the Virginia forests would very probably have been of the same type. Judge Davis, to whom Dr. Lathrop's letter was addressed, published in 1809 a paper maintaining the Indian origin of the Dighton inscription. 

 A popular error, once started on its career, is as hard to kill as a cat. Otherwise it would be surprising to find, in so meritorious a book as Oscar Peschel's _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, Stuttgart, 1877, p. 82, an unsuspecting reliance upon Rafn's ridiculous interpretation of this Algonquin pictograph. In an American writer as well equipped as Peschel, this particular kind of blunder would of course be impossible; and one is reminded of Humboldt's remark, "Il est des recherches qui ne peuvent s'exécuter que près des sources mêmes. " _Examen critique_, etc. , tom. Ii. P. 102. 

 In old times, I may add, such vagaries were usually saddled upon the Phoenicians, until since Rafn's time the Northmen have taken their place as the pack-horses for all sorts of antiquarian "conjecture. "]

 [Footnote 259: See Palfrey's _History of New England_, vol. I. Pp. 57-59; Mason's _Reminiscences of Newport_, pp. 392-407. Laing (_Heimskringla_, pp. 182-185) thinks the Yankees must have intended to fool Professor Rafn and the Royal Society of Antiquaries at Copenhagen; "Those sly rogues of Americans, " says he, "dearly love a quiet hoax;" and he can almost hear them chuckling over their joke in their club-room at Newport. I am afraid these Yankees were less rogues and more fools than Mr. Laing makes out. ]

 [Footnote 260: Laing, _Heimskringla_, vol. I. P. 181. ]

[Sidenote: If the Northmen had founded a successful colony, they wouldhave introduced domestic cattle into the North American fauna;]

[Sidenote: and such animals could not have vanished and left no trace oftheir existence. ]

The most convincing proof that the Northmen never founded a colony inAmerica, south of Davis strait, is furnished by the total absence ofhorses, cattle, and other domestic animals from the soil of NorthAmerica until they were brought hither by the Spanish, French, andEnglish settlers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If theNorthmen had ever settled in Vinland, they would have brought cattlewith them, and if their colony had been successful, it would haveintroduced such cattle permanently into the fauna of the country. Indeed, our narrative tells us that Karlsefni's people "had with themall kinds of cattle, having the intention to settle in the land if theycould. "[261] Naturally the two things are coupled in the narrator'smind. So the Portuguese carried livestock in their earliest expeditionsto the Atlantic islands;[262] Columbus brought horses and cows, withvines and all kinds of grain, on his second voyage to the WestIndies;[263] when the French, under Baron Léry, made a disastrousattempt to found a colony on or about Cape Breton in 1518, they leftbehind them, upon Sable island, a goodly stock of cows and pigs, whichthrove and multiplied long after their owners had gone;[264] thePilgrims at Plymouth had cattle, goats, and swine as early as 1623. [265]In fact, it would be difficult to imagine a community of Europeanssubsisting anywhere for any length of time without domestic animals. Wehave seen that the Northmen took pains to raise cattle in Greenland, andwere quick to comment upon the climate of Vinland as favourable forpasturage. To suppose that these men ever founded a colony in NorthAmerica, but did not bring domestic animals thither, would be absurd. But it would be scarcely less absurd to suppose that such animals, having been once fairly introduced into the fauna of North America, would afterward have vanished without leaving a vestige of theirpresence. As for the few cattle for which Thorfinn could find room inhis three or four dragon-ships, we may easily believe that his peopleate them up before leaving the country, especially since we are toldthey were threatened with famine. But that domestic cattle, after beingsupported on American soil during the length of time involved in theestablishment of a successful colony (say, for fifty or a hundredyears), should have disappeared without leaving abundant traces ofthemselves, is simply incredible. Horses and kine are not dependent uponman for their existence; when left to themselves, in almost any part ofthe world, they run wild and flourish in what naturalists call a "feral"state. Thus we find feral horned cattle in the Falkland and in theLadrone islands, as well as in the ancient Chillingham Park, inNorthumberland; we find feral pigs in Jamaica; feral European dogs in LaPlata; feral horses in Turkestan, and also in Mexico, descended fromSpanish horses. [266] If the Northmen had ever founded a colony inVinland, how did it happen that the English and French in theseventeenth century, and from that day to this, have never set eyes upona wild horse, or wild cattle, pigs, or hounds, or any such indicationwhatever of the former presence of civilized Europeans? I do notrecollect ever seeing this argument used before, but it seems to meconclusive. It raises against the hypothesis of a Norse colonization inVinland a presumption extremely difficult if not impossible toovercome. [267]

 [Footnote 261: "Their höfdhu medh sèr allskonar fènadh, thvíat their ætlödhu at byggja landit, ef their mætti that, " i. E. , "illi omne pecudum genus secum habuerunt, nam terram, si liceret, coloniis frequentare cogitarunt. " Rafn, p. 57. ]

 [Footnote 262: Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, p. 241. ]

 [Footnote 263: Irving's _Life of Columbus_, New York, 1828, vol. I. P. 293. ]

 [Footnote 264: _Histoire chronologique de la Nouvelle France_, pp. 40, 58; this work, written in 1689 by the Recollet friar Sixte le Tac, has at length been published (Paris, 1888) with notes and other original documents by Eugène Réveillaud. See, also, Læt, _Novus Orbis_, 39. ]

 [Footnote 265: John Smith, _Generall Historie_, 247. ]

 [Footnote 266: Darwin, _Animals and Plants under Domestication_, London, 1868, vol. I pp. 27, 77, 84. ]

 [Footnote 267: The views of Professor Horsford as to the geographical situation of Vinland and its supposed colonization by Northmen are set forth in his four monographs, _Discovery of America by Northmen--address at the unveiling of the statue of Leif Eriksen_, etc. , Boston, 1888; _The Problem of the Northmen_, Cambridge, 1889; _The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega_, Boston, 1890; _The Defences of Norumbega_, Boston, 1891. Among Professor Horsford's conclusions the two principal are: 1. That the "river flowing through a lake into the sea" (Rafn, p. 147) is Charles river, and that Leif's booths were erected near the site of the present Cambridge hospital; 2. That "Norumbega"--a word loosely applied by some early explorers to some region or regions somewhere between the New Jersey coast and the Bay of Fundy--was the Indian utterance of "Norbega" or "Norway;" and that certain stone walls and dams at and near Watertown are vestiges of an ancient "city of Norumbega, " which was founded and peopled by Northmen and carried on a more or less extensive trade with Europe for more than three centuries. 

 With regard to the first of these conclusions, it is perhaps as likely that Leif's booths were within the present limits of Cambridge as in any of the numerous places which different writers have confidently assigned for them, all the way from Point Judith to Cape Breton. A judicious scholar will object not so much to the conclusion as to the character of the arguments by which it is reached. Too much weight is attached to hypothetical etymologies. 

 With regard to the Norse colony alleged to have flourished for three centuries, it is pertinent to ask, what became of its cattle and horses? Why do we find no vestiges of the burial-places of these Europeans? or of iron tools and weapons of mediæval workmanship? Why is there no documentary mention, in Scandinavia or elsewhere in Europe, of this transatlantic trade? etc. , etc. Until such points as these are disposed of, any further consideration of the hypothesis may properly be postponed. ]

[Illustration: Ruins of the church at Kakortok. ]

[Sidenote: Further fortunes of the Greenland colony. ]

[Sidenote: Bishop Eric's voyage in search of Vinland, 1121. ]

[Sidenote: The ship from Markland, 1347. ]

As for the colony in Greenland, while its population seems never to haveexceeded 5, 000 or 6, 000 souls, it maintained its existence and itsintercourse with Europe uninterruptedly from its settlement in 986, byEric the Red, for more than four hundred years. Early in the fourteenthcentury the West Bygd, or western settlement, near Godthaab, seems tohave contained ninety farmsteads and four churches; while the East Bygd, or eastern settlement, near Julianeshaab, contained one hundred andninety farmsteads, with one cathedral and eleven smaller churches, twovillages, and three or four monasteries. [268] Between Tunnudliorbik andIgaliko fiords, and about thirty miles from the ruined stone houses ofBrattahlid, there now stands, imposing in its decay, the simple butmassive structure of Kakortok church, once the "cathedral" church of theGardar bishopric, where the Credo was intoned and censers swung, whilenot less than ten generations lived and died. About the beginning of thetwelfth century there was a movement at Rome for establishing newdioceses in "the islands of the ocean;" in 1106 a bishop's see waserected in the north of Iceland, and one at about the same time in theFæroes. In 1112, Eric Gnupsson, [269] having been appointed by PopePaschal II. "bishop of Greenland and Vinland _in partibus infidelium_, "went from Iceland to organize his new diocese in Greenland. It ismentioned in at least six different vellums that in 1121 Bishop Eric"went in search of Vinland. "[270] It is nowhere mentioned that he foundit, and Dr. Storm thinks it probable that he perished in the enterprise, for, within the next year or next but one, the Greenlanders asked for anew bishop, and Eric's successor, Bishop Arnold, was consecrated in1124. [271] After Eric there was a regular succession of bishopsappointed by the papal court, down at least to 1409, and seventeen ofthese bishops are mentioned by name. We do not learn that any of themever repeated Eric's experiment of searching for Vinland. So far asexisting Icelandic vellums know, there was no voyage to Vinland after1121. Very likely, however, there may have been occasional voyages fortimber from Greenland to the coast of the American continent, which didnot attract attention or call for comment in Iceland. This is renderedsomewhat probable from an entry in the "Elder Skálholt Annals, " a vellumwritten about 1362. This informs us that in 1347 "there came a ship fromGreenland, less in size than small Icelandic trading-vessels. It waswithout an anchor. There were seventeen men on board, and they hadsailed to Markland, but had afterwards been driven hither by storms atsea. "[272] This is the latest mention of any voyage to or from thecountries beyond Greenland. 

 [Footnote 268: Laing, _Heimskringla_, i. 141. A description of the ruins may be found in two papers in _Meddelelser om Gronland_, Copenhagen, 1883 and 1889. ]

 [Footnote 269: Sometimes called Eric Uppsi; he is mentioned in the Landnáma-bók as a native of Iceland. ]

 [Footnote 270: Storm, _Islandske Annaler_, Christiania, 1888; Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland the Good_, London, 1890, pp. 79-81. ]

 [Footnote 271: Storm, in _Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed_, 1887, p. 319. ]

 [Footnote 272: Reeves, _op. Cit. _ p. 83. In another vellum it is mentioned that in 1347 "a ship came from Greenland, which had sailed to Markland, and there were eighteen men on board. " As Mr. Reeves well observes: "The nature of the information indicates that the knowledge of the discovery had not altogether faded from the memories of the Icelanders settled in Greenland. It seems further to lend a measure of plausibility to a theory that people from the Greenland colony may from time to time have visited the coast to the southwest of their home for supplies of wood, or for some kindred purpose. The visitors in this case had evidently intended to return directly from Markland to Greenland, and had they not been driven out of their course to Iceland, the probability is that this voyage would never have found mention in Icelandic chronicles, and all knowledge of it must have vanished as completely as did the colony to which the Markland visitors belonged. "]

[Sidenote: The Greenland colony attacked by Eskimos. ]

If the reader is inclined to wonder why a colony could be maintained insouthern Greenland more easily than on the coasts of Nova Scotia orMassachusetts, or even why the Northmen did not at once abandon theirfiords at Brattahlid and come in a flock to these pleasanter places, hemust call to mind two important circumstances. First, the settlers insouthern Greenland did not meet with barbarous natives, but only withvestiges of their former presence. It was not until the twelfth centurythat, in roaming the icy deserts of the far north in quest of seals andbearskins, the Norse hunters encountered tribes of Eskimo using stoneknives and whalebone arrow-heads;[273] and it was not until thefourteenth century that we hear of their getting into a war with thesepeople. In 1349 the West Bygd was attacked and destroyed by Eskimos; in1379 they invaded the East Bygd and wrought sad havoc; and it isgenerally believed that some time after 1409 they completed thedestruction of the colony. 

 [Footnote 273: Storm, _Monumenta historica Norvegiæ_, p. 77. ]

[Sidenote: Queen Margaret's monopoly, and its baneful effects. ]

Secondly, the relative proximity of Greenland to the mother country, Iceland, made it much easier to sustain a colony there than in the moredistant Vinland. In colonizing, as in campaigning, distance from one'sbase is sometimes the supreme circumstance. This is illustrated by thefact that the very existence of the Greenland colony itself dependedupon perpetual and untrammelled exchange of commodities with Iceland;and when once the source of supply was cut off, the colony soonlanguished. In 1380 and 1387 the crowns of Norway and Denmark descendedupon Queen Margaret, and soon she made her precious contribution to theinnumerable swarm of instances that show with how little wisdom theworld is ruled. She made the trade to Greenland, Iceland, and the Færoeisles "a royal monopoly which could only be carried on in shipsbelonging to, or licensed by, the sovereign. . . . Under the monopoly oftrade the Icelanders could have no vessels, and no object for sailing toGreenland; and the vessels fitted out by government, or its lessees, would only be ready to leave Denmark or Bergen for Iceland at the seasonthey ought to have been ready to leave Iceland to go to Greenland. Thecolony gradually fell into oblivion. "[274] When this prohibitorymanagement was abandoned after 1534 by Christian III. , it was altogethertoo late. Starved by the miserable policy of governmental interferencewith freedom of trade, the little Greenland colony soon became too weakto sustain itself against the natives whose hostility had, for half acentury, been growing more and more dangerous. Precisely when or how itperished we do not know. The latest notice we have of the colony is of amarriage ceremony performed (probably in the Kakortok church), in 1409, by Endrede Andreasson, the last bishop. [275] When, after threecenturies, the great missionary, Hans Egede, visited Greenland, in 1721, he found the ruins of farmsteads and villages, the population of whichhad vanished. 

 [Footnote 274: Laing, _Heimskringla_, i. 147. It has been supposed that the Black Death, by which all Europe was ravaged in the middle part of the fourteenth century, may have crossed to Greenland, and fatally weakened the colony there; but Vigfusson says that the Black Death never touched Iceland (_Sturlunga Saga_, vol. I. P. Cxxix. ), so that it is not so likely to have reached Greenland. ]

 [Footnote 275: Laing, _op. Cit. _ i. 142. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The story of the Venetian brothers. ]

Our account of pre-Columbian voyages to America would be very incompletewithout some mention of the latest voyage said to have been made byEuropean vessels to the ancient settlement of the East Bygd. I refer tothe famous narrative of the Zeno brothers, which has furnished so manysubjects of contention for geographers that a hundred years ago JohnPinkerton called it "one of the most puzzling in the whole circle ofliterature. "[276] Nevertheless a great deal has been done, chieflythrough the acute researches of Mr. Richard Henry Major and BaronNordenskjöld, toward clearing up this mystery, so that certain points inthe Zeno narrative may now be regarded as established;[277] and fromthese essential points we may form an opinion as to the character ofsundry questionable details. 

 [Footnote 276: Yet this learned historian was quite correct in his own interpretation of Zeno's story, for in the same place he says, "If real, his Frisland is the Ferro islands, and his Zichmni is Sinclair. " Pinkerton's _History of Scotland_, London, 1797, vol. I. P. 261. ]

 [Footnote 277: Major, _The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the XIVth Century_, London, 1873 (Hakluyt Society); cf. Nordenskjöld, _Om bröderna Zenos resor och de äldsta kartor öfner Norden_, Stockholm, 1883. ]

[Sidenote: The Zeno family. ]

[Sidenote: Nicolò Zeno wrecked upon one of the Færoe islands, 1390. ]

[Sidenote: Nicolò's voyage to Greenland, cir. 1394. ]

[Sidenote: Voyage of Earl Sinclair and Antonio Zeno. ]

The Zeno family was one of the oldest and most distinguished in Venice. Among its members in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we find adoge, several senators and members of the Council of Ten, and militarycommanders of high repute. Of these, Pietro Dracone Zeno, about 1350, was captain-general of the Christian league for withstanding the Turks;and his son Carlo achieved such success in the war against Genoa that hewas called the Lion of St. Mark, and his services to Venice werecompared with those of Camillus to Rome. Now this Carlo had twobrothers, --Nicolò, known as "the Chevalier, " and Antonio. After theclose of the Genoese war the Chevalier Nicolò was seized with a desireto see the world, [278] and more particularly England and Flanders. Soabout 1390 he fitted up a ship at his own expense, and, passing out fromthe strait of Gibraltar, sailed northward upon the Atlantic. After somedays of fair weather, he was caught in a storm and blown along for manydays more, until at length the ship was cast ashore on one of the Færoeislands and wrecked, though most of the crew and goods were rescued. According to the barbarous custom of the Middle Ages, some of thenatives of the island (Scandinavians) came swarming about theunfortunate strangers to kill and rob them, but a great chieftain, witha force of knights and men-at-arms, arrived upon the spot in time toprevent such an outrage. This chief was Henry Sinclair of Roslyn, who in1379 had been invested by King Hacon VI. , of Norway, with the earldom ofthe Orkneys and Caithness. On learning Zeno's rank and importance, Sinclair treated him with much courtesy, and presently a friendshipsprang up between the two. Sinclair was then engaged with a fleet ofthirteen vessels in conquering and annexing to his earldom the Færoeislands, and on several occasions profited by the military and nauticalskill of the Venetian captain. Nicolò seems to have enjoyed thisstirring life, for he presently sent to his brother Antonio in Venice anaccount of it, which induced the latter to come and join him in theFæroe islands. Antonio arrived in the course of 1391, and remained inthe service of Sinclair fourteen years, returning to Venice in time todie there in 1406. After Antonio's arrival, his brother Nicolò wasappointed to the chief command of Sinclair's little fleet, and assistedhim in taking possession of the Shetland islands, which were properlycomprised within his earldom. In the course of these adventures, Nicolòseems to have had his interest aroused in reports about Greenland. Itwas not more than four or five years since Queen Margaret had undertakento make a royal monopoly of the Greenland trade in furs and whale oil, and this would be a natural topic of conversation in the Færoes. InJuly, 1393, or 1394, Nicolò Zeno sailed to Greenland with three ships, and visited the East Bygd. After spending some time there, not beingaccustomed to such a climate, he caught cold, and died soon after hisreturn to the Færoes, probably in 1395. His brother Antonio succeeded tohis office and such emoluments as pertained to it; and after a while, atEarl Sinclair's instigation, he undertook a voyage of discovery in theAtlantic ocean, in order to verify some fishermen's reports of theexistence of land a thousand miles or more to the west. One of thesefishermen was to serve as guide to the expedition, but unfortunately hedied three days before the ships were ready to sail. Nevertheless, theexpedition started, with Sinclair himself on board, and encounteredvicissitudes of weather and fortune. In fog and storm they lost allreckoning of position, and found themselves at length on the westerncoast of a country which, in the Italian narrative, is called "Icaria, "but which has been supposed, with some probability, to have been Kerry, in Ireland. Here, as they went ashore for fresh water, they wereattacked by the natives and several of their number were slain. Fromthis point they sailed out into the broad Atlantic again, and reached aplace supposed to be Greenland, but which is so vaguely described thatthe identification is very difficult. [279] Our narrative here endssomewhat confusedly. We are told that Sinclair remained in this place, "and explored the whole of the country with great diligence, as well asthe coasts on both sides of Greenland. " Antonio Zeno, on the other hand, returned with part of the fleet to the Færoe islands, where he arrivedafter sailing eastward for about a month, during five and twenty days ofwhich he saw no land. After relating these things and paying a word ofaffectionate tribute to the virtues of Earl Sinclair, "a prince asworthy of immortal memory as any that ever lived for his great braveryand remarkable goodness, " Antonio closes his letter abruptly: "But ofthis I will say no more in this letter, and hope to be with you veryshortly, and to satisfy your curiosity on other subjects by word ofmouth. "[280]

 [Footnote 278: "Or M. Nicolò il Caualiere . . . Entrò in grandissimo desiderio di ueder il mondo, e peregrinare, e farsi capace di varij costumi e di lingue de gli huomini, acciò che con le occasioni poi potesse meglio far seruigio alla sua patria ed à se acquistar fama e onore. " The narrative gives 1380 as the date of the voyage, but Mr. Major has shown that it must have been a mistake for 1390 (_op. Cit. _ xlii. -xlviii. ). ]

 [Footnote 279: It appears on the Zeno map as "Trin p[-p]montor, " about the site of Cape Farewell; but how could six days' sail W. From Kerry, followed by four days' sail N. E. , reach any such point? and how does this short outward sail consist with the return voyage, twenty days E. And eight days S. E. , to the Færoes? The place is also said to have had "a fertile soil" and "good rivers, " a description in nowise answering to Greenland. ]

 [Footnote 280: "Però non ni dirò altro in questa lettera, sperando tosto di essere con uoi, e di sodisfarui di molte altre cose con la uiua uoce. " Major, p. 34. ]

[Sidenote: Publication of the remains of the documents by the youngerNicolò Zeno. ]

The person thus addressed by Antonio was his brother, the illustriousCarlo Zeno. Soon after reaching home, after this long and eventfulabsence, Antonio died. Besides his letters he had written a moredetailed account of the affairs in the northern seas. These papersremained for more than a century in the palace of the family at Venice, until one of the children, in his mischievous play, got hold of them andtore them up. This child was Antonio's great-great-great-grandson, Nicolò, born in 1515. When this young Nicolò had come to middle age, andwas a member of the Council of Ten, he happened to come across someremnants of these documents, and then all at once he remembered withgrief how he had, in his boyhood, pulled them to pieces. [281] In thelight of the rapid progress in geographical discovery since 1492, thisstory of distant voyages had now for Nicolò an interest such as it couldnot have had for his immediate ancestors. Searching the palace he founda few grimy old letters and a map or sailing chart, rotten with age, which had been made or at any rate brought home by his ancestor Antonio. Nicolò drew a fresh copy of this map, and pieced together the letters asbest he could, with more or less explanatory text of his own, and theresult was the little book which he published in 1558. [282]

 [Footnote 281: "All these letters were written by Messire Antonio to Messire Carlo, his brother; and I am grieved that the book and many other writings on these subjects have, I don't know how, come sadly to ruin; for, being but a child when they fell into my hands, I, not knowing what they were, tore them in pieces, as children will do, and sent them all to ruin: a circumstance which I cannot now recall without the greatest sorrow. Nevertheless, in order that such an important memorial should not be lost, I have put the whole in order, as well as I could, in the above narrative. " Major, p. 35. ]

 [Footnote 282: Nicolò Zeno, _Dello scoprimento dell' isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelanda, Estotilanda, & Icaria, fatto per due fratelli Zeni, M. Nicolò it Caualiere, & M. Antonio. Libro Vno, col disegno di dette Isole. _ Venice, 1558. Mr. Major's book contains the entire text, with an English translation. ]

[Illustration: Zeno Map, cir. 1400--western half. ]

[Illustration: Zeno Map, cir. 1400--eastern half. ]

[Sidenote: Queer transformations of names. ]

[Sidenote: "Frislanda. "]

Unfortunately young Nicolò, with the laudable purpose of making it allas clear as he could, thought it necessary not simply to reproducethe old weather-beaten map, but to amend it by putting on here and theresuch places and names as his diligent perusal of the manuscript led himto deem wanting to its completeness. [283] Under the most favourablecircumstances that is a very difficult sort of thing to do, but in thiscase the circumstances were far from favourable. Of course Nicolò gotthese names and places into absurd positions, thus perplexing the mapand damaging its reputation. With regard to names, there was obscurityenough, to begin with. In the first place, they were Icelandic namesfalling upon the Italian ears of old Nicolò and Antonio, and spelled bythem according to their own notions; in the second place, theseoutlandish names, blurred and defaced withal in the weather-stainedmanuscript, were a puzzle to the eye of young Nicolò, who could butdecipher them according to _his_ notions. The havoc that can be wroughtupon winged words, subjected to such processes, is sometimesmarvellous. [284] Perhaps the slightest sufferer, in this case, was thename of the group of islands upon one of which the shipwrecked Nicolòwas rescued by Sinclair. The name _Færoislander_ sounded to Italianears as _Frislanda_, and was uniformly so written. [285] Then thepronunciation of _Shetland_ was helped by prefixing a vowel sound, as iscommon in Italian, and so it came to be _Estland_ and _Esland_. This ledyoung Nicolò's eye in two or three places to confound it with _Islanda_, or _Iceland_, and probably in one place with _Irlanda_, or _Ireland_. Where old Nicolò meant to say that the island upon which he was livingwith Earl Sinclair was somewhat larger than Shetland, young Nicolòunderstood him as saying that it was somewhat larger than Ireland; andso upon the amended map "Frislanda" appears as one great islandsurrounded by tiny islands. [286] After the publication of this map, in1558, sundry details were copied from it by the new maps of that day, sothat even far down into the seventeenth century it was common to depicta big "Frislanda" somewhere in mid-ocean. When at length it was provedthat no such island exists, the reputation of the Zeno narrative wasseriously damaged. The nadir of reaction against it was reached when itwas declared to be a tissue of lies invented by the younger Nicolò, [287]apparently for the purpose of setting up a Venetian claim to thediscovery of America. 

 [Footnote 283: The map is taken from Winsor's _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, i. 127, where it is reduced from Nordenskjöld's _Studien ok Forskningar_. A better because larger copy may be found in Major's _Voyages of the Venetian Brothers_. The original map measures 12 x 15-1/2 inches. In the legend at the top the date is given as M CCC LXXX. But evidently one X has been omitted, for it should be 1390, and is correctly so given by Marco Barbaro, in his _Genealogie dei nobili Veneti_; of Antonio Zeno he says, "Scrisse con il fratello Nicolò Kav. Li viaggi dell' Isole sotto il polo artico, e di quei scoprimente del 1390, e che per ordine di Zieno, re di Frislanda, si portò nel continente d'Estotilanda nell' America settentrionale e che si fermò 14 anni in Frislanda, cioè 4 con suo fratello Nicolò e 10 solo. " (This valuable work has never been published. The original MS. , in Barbaro's own handwriting, is preserved in the Biblioteca di San Marco at Venice. There is a seventeenth century copy of it among the Egerton MSS. In the British Museum. )--Nicolò did not leave Italy until after December 14, 1388 (Muratori, _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, tom. Xxii. P. 779). The map can hardly have been made before Antonio's voyage, about 1400. The places on the map are wildly out of position, as was common enough in old maps. Greenland is attached to Norway according to the general belief in the Middle Ages. In his confusion between the names "Estland" and "Islanda, " young Nicolò has tried to reproduce the Shetland group, or something like it, and attach it to Iceland. "Icaria, " probably Kerry, in Ireland, has been made into an island and carried far out into the Atlantic. The queerest of young Nicolò's mistakes was in placing the monastery of St. Olaus ("St. Thomas"). He should have placed it on the southwest coast of Greenland, near his "Af [-p]montor;" but he has got it on the extreme northeast, just about where Greenland is joined to Europe. ]

 [Footnote 284: "Combien de coquilles typographiques ou de lectures défectueuses ont créé de noms boiteux, qu'il est ensuite bien difficile, quelquefois impossible de redresser! L'histoire et la géographie en sont pleines. " Avezac, _Martin Waltzemüller_, p. 9. 

 It is interesting to see how thoroughly words can be disguised by an unfamiliar phonetic spelling. I have seen people hopelessly puzzled by the following bill, supposed to have been made out by an illiterate stable-keeper somewhere in England:--

 Osafada 7s 6d Takinonimome 4d ------ 7s 10d

 Some years ago Professor Huxley told me of a letter from France which came to the London post-office thus addressed:--

 Sromfrédévi, Piqué du lait, Londres, Angleterre. 

 This letter, after exciting at first helpless bewilderment and then busy speculation, was at length delivered to the right person, _Sir Humphry Davy_, in his rooms at the Royal Institution on Albemarle street, just off from _Piccadilly_!]

 [Footnote 285: Columbus, on his journey to Iceland in 1477, also heard the name _Færoislander_ as _Frislanda_, and so wrote it in the letter preserved for us in his biography by his son Ferdinand, hereafter to be especially noticed. See Major's remarks on this, _op. Cit. _ p. Xix. ]

 [Footnote 286: Perhaps in the old worn-out map the archipelago may have been blurred so as to be mistaken for one island. This would aid in misleading young Nicolò. ]

 [Footnote 287: See the elaborate paper by Admiral Zahrtmann, in _Nordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyndighed_, Copenhagen, 1834, vol. I. , and the English translation of it in _Journal of Royal Geographical Society_, London, 1836, vol. V. All that human ingenuity is ever likely to devise against the honesty of Zeno's narrative is presented in this erudite essay, which has been so completely demolished under Mr. Major's heavy strokes that there is not enough of it left to pick up. As to this part of the question, we may now safely cry, "finis, laus Deo!"]

[Sidenote: The narrative nowhere makes a claim to the "discovery ofAmerica. "]

The narrative, however, not only sets up no such claim, but nowherebetrays a consciousness that its incidents entitle it to make such aclaim. It had evidently not occurred to young Nicolò to institute anycomparison between his ancestors' voyages to Greenland and the voyagesof Columbus to the western hemisphere, of which _we now know_ Greenlandto be a part. The knowledge of the North American coast, and of thebearing of one fact upon another fact in relation to it, was still, in1558, in an extremely vague and rudimentary condition. In the mind ofthe Zeno brothers, as the map shows, Greenland was a European peninsula;such was the idea common among mediæval Northmen, as is nowhere betterillustrated than in this map. Neither in his references to Greenland, nor to Estotiland and Drogio, presently to be considered, does youngNicolò appear in the light of a man urging or suggesting a "claim. " Heappears simply as a modest and conscientious editor, interested in thedeeds of his ancestors and impressed with the fact that he has got holdof important documents, but intent only upon giving his material ascorrectly as possible, and refraining from all sort of comment exceptsuch as now and then seems needful to explain the text as he himselfunderstands it. 

[Sidenote: Earl Sinclair. ]

[Sidenote: Bardsen's "Description of Greenland. "]

The identification of "Frislanda" with the Færoe islands was put beyonddoubt by the discovery that the "Zichmni" of the narrative means HenrySinclair; and, in order to make this discovery, it was only necessary toknow something about the history of the Orkneys; hence old Pinkerton, asabove remarked, got it right. The name "Zichmni" is, no doubt, a fearfuland wonderful bejugglement; but Henry Sinclair is a personage well knownto history in that corner of the world, and the deeds of "Zichmni, " asrecounted in the narrative, are neither more nor less than the deeds ofSinclair. Doubtless Antonio spelled the name in some queer way of hisown, and then young Nicolò, unable to read his ancestor's pot-hookswhere--as in the case of proper names--there was no clue to guide him, contrived to make it still queerer. Here we have strong proof of thegenuineness of the narrative. If Nicolò had been concocting a story inwhich Earl Sinclair was made to figure, he would have obtained hisknowledge from literary sources, and thus would have got his namesright; the earl might have appeared as Enrico de Santo Claro, but not as"Zichmni. " It is not at all likely, however, that any literary knowledgeof Sinclair and his doings was obtainable in Italy in the sixteenthcentury. The Zeno narrative, moreover, in its references to Greenland inconnection with the Chevalier Nicolò's visit to the East Bygd, shows atopographical knowledge that was otherwise quite inaccessible to theyounger Nicolò. Late in the fourteenth century Ivar Bardsen, steward tothe Gardar bishopric, wrote a description of Greenland, with sailingdirections for reaching it, which modern research has proved to havebeen accurate in every particular. Bardsen's details and those of theZeno narrative mutually corroborate each other. But Bardsen's book didnot make its way down into Europe until the very end of the sixteenthcentury, [288] and then amid the dense ignorance prevalent concerningGreenland its details were not understood until actual explorationwithin the last seventy years has at length revealed their meaning. Thegenuineness of the Zeno narrative is thus conclusively proved by itsknowledge of Arctic geography, such as could have been obtained only bya visit to the far North at a time before the Greenland colony hadfinally lost touch with its mother country. 

 [Footnote 288: It was translated into Dutch by the famous Arctic explorer, William Barentz, whose voyages are so graphically described in Motley's _United Netherlands_, vol. Iii. Pp. 552-576. An English translation was made for Henry Hudson. A very old Danish version may be found in Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanæ_, pp. 300-318; Danish, Latin, and English versions in Major's _Voyages of the Venetian Brothers_, etc. , pp. 39-54; and an English version in De Costa's _Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson_, Albany, 1869, pp. 61-96. ]

[Sidenote: The monastery of St. Olaus and its hot spring. ]

The visit of the Chevalier Nicolò, therefore, about 1394, has a peculiarinterest as the last distinct glimpse afforded us of the colony foundedby Eric the Red before its melancholy disappearance from history. Already the West Bygd had ceased to exist. Five and forty years beforethat time it had been laid waste and its people massacred by Eskimos, and trusty Ivar Bardsen, tardily sent with a small force to the rescue, found nothing left alive but a few cattle and sheep running wild. [289]Nicolò Zeno, arriving in the East Bygd, found there a monasterydedicated to St. Olaus, a name which in the narrative has become St. Thomas. To this monastery came friars from Norway and other countries, but for the most part from Iceland. [290] It stood "hard by a hill whichvomited fire like Vesuvius and Etna. " There was also in theneighbourhood a spring of hot water which the ingenious friars conductedin pipes into their monastery and church, thereby keeping themselvescomfortable in the coldest weather. This water, as it came into thekitchen, was hot enough to boil meats and vegetables. The monks evenmade use of it in warming covered gardens or hot-beds in which theyraised sundry fruits and herbs that in milder climates grow out ofdoors. [291] "Hither in summertime come many vessels from . . . The Capeabove Norway, and from Trondheim, and bring the friars all sorts ofcomforts, taking in exchange fish . . . And skins of different kinds ofanimals. . . . There are continually in the harbour a number of vesselsdetained by the sea being frozen, and waiting for the next season tomelt the ice. "[292]

 [Footnote 289: So he tells us himself: "Quo cum venissent, nullum hominem, neque christianum neque paganum, invenerunt, tantummodo fera pecora et oves deprehenderunt, ex quibus quantum naves ferre poterant in has deportato domum redierunt. " _Descriptio Groenlandiæ_, apud Major, p. 53. The glacial men had done their work of slaughter and vanished. ]

 [Footnote 290: "Ma la maggior parte sono delle Islande. " Mr. Major is clearly wrong in translating it "from the Shetland Isles. " The younger Nicolò was puzzled by the similarity of the names Islanda and Eslanda, and sometimes confounded Iceland with the Shetland group. But in this place Iceland is evidently meant. ]

 [Footnote 291: This application of the hot water to purposes of gardening reminds us of the similar covered gardens or hot-beds constructed by Albertus Magnus in the Dominican monastery at Cologne in the thirteenth century. See Humboldt's _Kosmos_, ii. 130. ]

 [Footnote 292: Major, _op. Cit. _ p. 16. The narrative goes on to give a description of the skin-boats of the Eskimo fishermen. ]

[Sidenote: Volcanoes of the north Atlantic ridge. ]

[Sidenote: Fate of Gunnbjörn's Skerries, 1456. ]

[Sidenote: Volcanic phenomena in Greenland. ]

This mention of the volcano and the hot spring is very interesting. Inthe Miocene period the Atlantic ridge was one of the principal seats ofvolcanic activity upon the globe; the line of volcanoes extended all theway from Greenland down into central France. But for several hundredthousand years this activity has been diminishing. In France, in thewestern parts of Great Britain and the Hebrides, the craters have longsince become extinct. In the far North, however, volcanic action hasbeen slower in dying out. Iceland, with no less than twenty activevolcanoes, is still the most considerable centre of such operations inEurope. The huge volcano on Jan Mayen island, between Greenland andSpitzbergen, is still in action. Among the submerged peaks in thenorthern seas explosions still now and then occur, as in 1783, when asmall island was thrown up near Cape Reykianes, on the southern coast ofIceland, and sank again after a year. [293] Midway between Iceland andGreenland there appears to have stood, in the Middle Ages, a smallvolcanic island discovered by that Gunnbjörn who first went toGreenland. It was known as Gunnbjörn's Skerries, and was described byIvar Bardsen. [294] This island is no longer above the surface, and itsfate is recorded upon Ruysch's map of the world in the 1508 edition ofPtolemy: "Insula hæc anno Domini 1456 fuit totaliter combusta, "--thisisland was entirely burnt (i. E. Blown up in an eruption) in 1456; andin later maps Mr. Major has found the corrupted name "Gombar Scheer"applied to the dangerous reefs and shoals left behind by thisexplosion. [295] Where volcanic action is declining geysers and boilingsprings are apt to abound, as in Iceland; where it has become extinct ata period geologically recent, as in Auvergne and the Rhine country, itslatest vestiges are left in the hundreds of thermal and mineral springswhither fashionable invalids congregate to drink or to bathe. [296] Nowin Greenland, at the present day, hot springs are found, of which themost noted are those on the island of Ounartok, at the entrance to thefiord of that name. These springs seem to be the same that weredescribed five hundred years ago by Ivar Bardsen. As to volcanoes, ithas been generally assumed that those of Greenland are all extinct; butin a country as yet so imperfectly studied this only means thateruptions have not been recorded. [297] On the whole, it seems to me thatthe mention, in our Venetian narrative, of a boiling spring and anactive volcano in Greenland is an instance of the peculiar sort--toostrange to have been invented, but altogether probable in itself--thatadds to the credit of the narrative. 

 [Footnote 293: Daubeny, _Description of Active and Extinct Volcanoes_, London, 1848, pp. 307; cf. Judd, _Volcanoes_, London, 1881, p. 234. ]

 [Footnote 294: "Ab Snefelsneso Islandiæ, quâ brevissimus in Gronlandiam trajectus est, duorum dierum et duarum noctium spatio navigandum est recto cursu versus occidentem; ibique Gunnbjoernis scopulos invenies, inter Gronlandiam et Islandiam medio situ interjacentes. Hic cursus antiquitûs frequentabatur, nunc vero glacies ex recessu oceani euroaquilonari delata scopulos ante memoratos tam prope attigit, ut nemo sine vitæ discrimine antiquum cursum tenere possit, quemadmodum infra dicetur. " _Descriptio Groenlandiæ_, apud Major, _op. Cit. _ p. 40. ]

 [Footnote 295: _Op. Cit. _ p. Lxxvi. See below, vol. Ii. P. 115, note B. ]

 [Footnote 296: Judd, _op. Cit. _ pp. 217-220. ]

 [Footnote 297: My friend, Professor Shaler, tells me that "a volcano during eruption might shed its ice mantle and afterward don it again in such a manner as to hide its true character even on a near view;" and, on the other hand, "a voyager not familiar with volcanoes might easily mistake the cloud-bonnet of a peak for the smoke of a volcano. " This, however, will not account for Zeno's "hill that vomited fire, " for he goes on to describe the use which the monks made of the pumice and calcareous tufa for building purposes. ]

Thus far, in dealing with the places actually visited by Nicolò orAntonio, or by both brothers, we have found the story consistent andintelligible. But in what relates to countries beyond Greenland, countries which were not visited by either of the brothers, but aboutwhich Antonio heard reports, it is quite a different thing. We areintroduced to a jumble very unlike the clear, business-like account ofVinland voyages in the Hauks-bók. Yet in this medley there are somestatements curiously suggestive of things in North America. It will beremembered that Antonio's voyage with Sinclair (somewhere about 1400)was undertaken in order to verify certain reports of the existence ofland more than a thousand miles west of the Færoe islands. 

[Sidenote: Estotiland. ]

About six and twenty years ago, said Antonio in a letter to Carlo, foursmall fishing craft, venturing very far out upon the Atlantic, had beenblown upon a strange coast, where their crews were well received by thepeople. The land proved to be an island rather smaller than Iceland (orShetland?), with a high mountain whence flowed four rivers. Theinhabitants were intelligent people, possessed of all the arts, but didnot understand the language of these Norse fishermen. [298] Therehappened, however, to be one European among them, who had himself beencast ashore in that country and had learned its language; he could speakLatin, and found some one among the shipwrecked men who could understandhim. There was a populous city with walls, and the king had Latin booksin his library which nobody could read. [299] All kinds of metalsabounded, and especially gold. [300] The woods were of immense extent. The people traded with Greenland, importing thence pitch(?), brimstone, and furs. They sowed grain and made "beer. " They made small boats, butwere ignorant of the loadstone and the compass. For this reason, theyheld the newcomers in high estimation. [301] The name of the country wasEstotiland. 

 [Footnote 298: They were, therefore, not Northmen. ]

 [Footnote 299: Pruning this sentence of its magniloquence, might it perhaps mean that there was a large palisaded village, and that the chief had some books in Roman characters, a relic of some castaway, which he kept as a fetish?]

 [Footnote 300: With all possible latitude of interpretation, this could not be made to apply to any part of America north of Mexico. ]

 [Footnote 301: The magnetic needle had been used by the mariners of western and northern Europe since the end of the thirteenth century. ]

There is nothing so far in this vague description to show thatEstotiland was an American country, except its western direction andperhaps its trading with Greenland. The points of unlikeness are atleast as numerous as the points of likeness. But in what follows thereis a much stronger suggestion of North America. 

[Sidenote: Drogio. ]

For some reason not specified an expedition was undertaken by peoplefrom Estotiland to a country to the southward named Drogio, and theseNorse mariners, or some of them, because they understood the compass, were put in charge of it. [302] But the people of Drogio were cannibals, and the people from Estotiland on their arrival were taken prisoners anddevoured, --all save the few Northmen, who were saved because of theirmarvellous skill in catching fish with nets. The barbarians seemed tohave set much store by these white men, and perhaps to have regardedthem as objects of "medicine. " One of the fishermen in particular becameso famous that a neighbouring tribe made war upon the tribe which kepthim, and winning the victory took him over into its own custody. Thissort of thing happened several times. Various tribes fought to securethe person and services of this Fisherman, so that he was passed aboutamong more than twenty chiefs, and "wandering up and down the countrywithout any fixed abode, . . . He became acquainted with all those parts. "

 [Footnote 302: "Fanno nauigli e nauigano, ma non hanno la calamìta ne intendeno col bossolo la tramontana. Per ilche questi pescatori furono in gran pregio, si che il re li spedì con dodici nauigli uerso ostro nel paese che essi chiamano Drogio. " Major, _op. Cit. _ p. 21. ]

[Sidenote: Inhabitants of Drogio and the countries beyond. ]

And now comes quite an interesting passage. The Fisherman "says that itis a very great country, and, as it were, a new world; the people arevery rude and uncultivated, for they all go naked, and suffer cruellyfrom the cold, nor have they the sense to clothe themselves with theskins of the animals which they take in hunting [a gross exaggeration]. They have no kind of metal. They live by hunting, and carry lances ofwood, sharpened at the point. They have bows, the strings of which aremade of beasts' skins. They are very fierce, and have deadly fightsamongst each other, and eat one another's flesh. They have chieftainsand certain laws among themselves, but differing in the differenttribes. The farther you go southwestwards, however, the more refinementyou meet with, because the climate is more temperate, and accordinglythere they have cities and temples dedicated to their idols, in whichthey sacrifice men and afterwards eat them. In those parts they havesome knowledge and use of gold and silver. Now this Fisherman, havingdwelt so many years in these parts, made up his mind, if possible, toreturn home to his own country; but his companions, despairing of everseeing it again, gave him God's speed, and remained themselves wherethey were. Accordingly, he bade them farewell, and made his escapethrough the woods in the direction of Drogio, where he was welcomed andvery kindly received by the chief of the place, who knew him, and was agreat enemy of the neighbouring chieftain; and so passing from one chiefto another, being the same with whom he had been before, after a longtime and with much toil, he at length reached Drogio, where he spentthree years. Here, by good luck, he heard from the natives that someboats had arrived off the coast; and full of hope of being able to carryout his intention, he went down to the seaside, and to his great delightfound that they had come from Estotiland. He forthwith requested thatthey would take him with them, which they did very willingly, and as heknew the language of the country, which none of them could speak, theyemployed him as their interpreter. "[303]

 [Footnote 303: Major, _op. Cit. _ pp. 20-22. ]

[Sidenote: The Fisherman's return to "Frislanda. "]

Whither the Fisherman was first carried in these boats or vessels, Antonio's letter does not inform us. We are only told that he engaged insome prosperous voyages, and at length returned to the Færoes afterthese six and twenty years of strange adventures. It was apparently theFisherman's description of Estotiland as a very rich country (_paesericchissimo_) that led Sinclair to fit out an expedition to visit it, with Antonio as his chief captain. As we have already seen, theFisherman died just before the ships were ready to start, and towhatever land they succeeded in reaching after they sailed without him, the narrative leaves us with the impression that it was not themysterious Estotiland. 

To attempt to identify that country from the description of it, whichreads like a parcel of ill-digested sailors' yarns, would be idle. Themost common conjecture has identified it with Newfoundland, from itsrelations to other points mentioned in the Zeno narrative, as indicated, with fair probability, on the Zeno map. To identify it with Newfoundlandis to brand the description as a "fish story, " but from such aconclusion there seems anyway to be no escape. 

[Sidenote: Was the account of Drogio woven into the narrative by theyounger Nicolò?]

With Drogio, however, it is otherwise. The description of Drogio and thevast country stretching beyond it, which was like a "new world, " is themerest sketch, but it seems to contain enough characteristic details tostamp it as a description of North America, and of no other countryaccessible by an Atlantic voyage. It is a sketch which apparently musthave had its ultimate source in somebody's personal experience ofaboriginal North America. Here we are reminded that when the youngerNicolò published this narrative, in 1558, some dim knowledge of theNorth American tribes was beginning to make its way into the minds ofpeople in Europe. The work of Soto and Cartier, to say nothing of otherexplorers, had already been done. May we suppose that Nicolò had thusobtained some idea of North America, and wove it into his reproductionof his ancestors' letters, for the sake of completeness and point, insomewhat the same uncritical mood as that in which the most worthyancient historians did not scruple to invent speeches to put into themouths of their heroes? It may have been so, and in such case thedescription of Drogio loses its point for us as a feature in thepre-Columbian voyages to America. In such case we may dismiss it atonce, and pretty much all the latter part of the Zeno narrative, relating to what Antonio heard and did, becomes valueless; though theearlier part, relating to the elder Nicolò, still remains valid andtrustworthy. 

[Sidenote: Or does it represent actual experiences in North America?]

But suppose we take the other alternative. As in the earlier part of thestory we feel sure that young Nicolò must have reproduced the ancestraldocuments faithfully, because it shows knowledge that he could not havegot in any other way; let us now suppose that in the latter part also headded nothing of himself, but was simply a faithful editor. It will thenfollow that the Fisherman's account of Drogio, reduced to writing byAntonio Zeno about 1400, must probably represent personal experiences inNorth America; for no such happy combination of details characteristiconly of North America is likely at that date to have been invented byany European. Our simplest course will be to suppose that the Fishermanreally had the experiences which are narrated, that he was bandied aboutfrom tribe to tribe in North America, all the way, perhaps, from NovaScotia to Mexico, and yet returned to the Færoe islands to tell thetale! Could such a thing be possible? Was anything of the sort ever donebefore or since?

[Sidenote: The case of David Ingram, 1568. ]

Yes: something of the sort appears to have been done about ten yearsafter the Zeno narrative was published. In October, 1568, that greatsailor, Sir John Hawkins, by reason of scarcity of food, was compelledto set about a hundred men ashore near the Rio de Minas, on the Mexicancoast, and leave them to their fate. The continent was a network of rudepaths or trails, as it had doubtless been for ages, and as centralAfrica is to-day. Most of these Englishmen probably perished in thewilderness. Some who took southwestern trails found their way to thecity of Mexico, where, as "vile Lutheran dogges, " they were treated withanything but kindness. Others took northeasterly trails, and one ofthese men, David Ingram, made his way from Texas to Maine, and beyond tothe St. John's river, where he was picked up by a friendly French shipand carried to France, and so got home to England. The journey acrossNorth America took him about eleven months, but one of his comrades, JobHortop, had no end of adventures, and was more than twenty years ingetting back to England. Ingram told such blessed yarns about houses ofcrystal and silver, and other wonderful things, that many disbelievedhis whole story, but he was subjected to a searching examination beforeSir Francis Walsingham, and as to the main fact of his journey throughthe wilderness there seems to be no doubt. [304]

 [Footnote 304: Ingram's narrative was first published in Hakluyt's folio of 1589, pp. 557-562, but in his larger work, _Principal Navigations_, etc. , London, 1600, it is omitted. As Purchas quaintly says, "As for David Ingram's perambulation to the north parts, Master Hakluyt in his first edition published the same; but it seemeth some incredibilities of his reports caused him to leaue him out in the next impression, the reward of lying being not to be beleeued in truths. " _Purchas his Pilgrimes_, London, 1625, vol. Iv. P. 1179. The examination before Walsingham had reference to the projected voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which was made in 1583. Ingram's relation, "w^{ch} he reported vnto S^{r} Frauncys Walsingh[~m], Knight, and diuers others of good judgment and creditt, in August and Septembar, A^{o} Dñi, 1582, " is in the British Museum, Sloane MS. No. 1447, fol. 1-18; it was copied and privately printed in Plowden Weston's _Documents connected with the History of South Carolina_, London, 1856. There is a MS. Copy in the Sparks collection in the Harvard University library. See the late Mr. Charles Deane's note in his edition of Hakluyt's _Discourse concerning Westerne Planting_, Cambridge, 1877, p. 229 (_Collections of Maine Hist. Soc. _, 2d series, vol. Ii. ); see, also, Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, iii. 186. ]

[Sidenote: The case of Cabeza de Vaca, 1528-36. ]

Far more important, historically, and in many ways more instructive thanthe wanderings of David Ingram, was the journey of Cabeza de Vaca andhis ingenious comrades, in 1528-36, from the Mississippi river to theirfriends in Mexico. This remarkable journey will receive furtherconsideration in another place. [305] In the course of it Cabeza de Vacawas for eight years held captive by sundry Indian tribes, and at lasthis escape involved ten months of arduous travel. On one occasion he andhis friends treated some sick Indians, among other things breathing uponthem and making the sign of the cross. As the Indians happened to getwell, these Spaniards at once became objects of reverence, and differenttribes vied with one another for access to them, in order to benefit bytheir supernatural gifts. In those early days, before the red men hadbecome used to seeing Europeans, a white captive was not so likely to beput to death as to be cherished as a helper of vast and undeterminedvalue. [306] The Indians set so much store by Cabeza de Vaca that hefound it hard to tear himself away; but at length he used his influenceover them in such wise as to facilitate his moving in a direction bywhich he ultimately succeeded in escaping to his friends. There seems tobe a real analogy between his strange experiences and those of theFisherman in Drogio, who became an object of reverence because he coulddo things that the natives could not do, yet the value of which theywere able to appreciate. 

 [Footnote 305: See below, vol. Ii. P. 501. ]

 [Footnote 306: In the first reception of the Spaniards in Peru, we shall see a similar idea at work, vol. Ii. Pp. 398, 407. ]

Now if the younger Nicolò had been in the mood for adorning hisancestors' narrative by inserting a few picturesque incidents out of hisown hearsay knowledge of North America, it does not seem likely that hewould have known enough to hit so deftly upon one of the peculiaritiesof the barbaric mind. Here, again, we seem to have come upon one ofthose incidents, inherently probable, but too strange to have beeninvented, that tend to confirm the story. Without hazarding anythinglike a positive opinion, it seems to me likely enough that this voyageof Scandinavian fishermen to the coast of North America in thefourteenth century may have happened. 

[Sidenote: There may have been unrecorded instances of visits to NorthAmerica. ]

It was this and other unrecorded but possible instances that I had inmind at the beginning of this chapter, in saying that occasional visitsof Europeans to America in pre-Columbian times may have occurred oftenerthan we are wont to suppose. Observe that our scanty records--naturallysomewhat perplexed and dim, as treating of remote and unknownplaces--refer us to that northern Atlantic region where the ocean iscomparatively narrow, and to that northern people who, from the time oftheir first appearance in history, have been as much at home upon sea asupon land. For a thousand years past these hyperborean waters have beenfurrowed in many directions by stout Scandinavian keels, and if, inaiming at Greenland, the gallant mariners may now and then have hit uponLabrador or Newfoundland, and have made flying visits to coasts stillfarther southward, there is nothing in it all which need surpriseus. [307]

 [Footnote 307: The latest pre-Columbian voyage mentioned as having occurred in the northern seas was that of the Polish pilot John Szkolny, who, in the service of King Christian I. Of Denmark, is said to have sailed to Greenland in 1476, and to have touched upon the coast of Labrador. See Gomara, _Historia de las Indias_, Saragossa, 1553, cap. Xxxvii. ; Wytfliet, _Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum_, Douay, 1603, p. 102; Pontanus, _Rerum Danicarum Historia_, Amsterdam, 1631, p. 763. The wise Humboldt mentions the report without expressing an opinion, _Examen critique_, tom. Ii. P. 153. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The pre-Columbian voyages made no real contributions togeographical knowledge;]

[Sidenote: and were in no true sense a Discovery of America. ]

Nothing can be clearer, however, from a survey of the whole subject, than that these pre-Columbian voyages were quite barren of results ofhistoric importance. In point of colonization they produced the twoill-fated settlements on the Greenland coast, and nothing more. Otherwise they made no real addition to the stock of geographicalknowledge, they wrought no effect whatever upon the European mindoutside of Scandinavia, and even in Iceland itself the mention ofcoasts beyond Greenland awakened no definite ideas, and, except for abrief season, excited no interest. The Zeno narrative indicates that theVinland voyages had practically lapsed from memory before the end of thefourteenth century. [308] Scholars familiar with saga literature ofcourse knew the story; it was just at this time that Jón Thórdharsonwrote out the version of it which is preserved in the Flateyar-bók. Butby the general public it must have been forgotten, or else theFisherman's tale of Estotiland and Drogio would surely have awakenedreminiscences of Markland and Vinland, and some traces of this wouldhave appeared in Antonio's narrative or upon his map. The principalnaval officer of the Færoes, and personal friend of the sovereign, afterdwelling several years among these Northmen, whose intercourse withtheir brethren in Iceland was frequent, apparently knew nothing of Leifor Thorfinn, or the mere names of the coasts which they had visited. Nothing had been accomplished by those voyages which could properly becalled a contribution to geographical knowledge. To speak of them asconstituting, in any legitimate sense of the phrase, a Discovery ofAmerica is simply absurd. Except for Greenland, which was supposed to bea part of the European world, America remained as much undiscoveredafter the eleventh century as before. In the midsummer of 1492 itneeded to be discovered as much as if Leif Ericsson or the whole race ofNorthmen had never existed. 

 [Footnote 308: Practically, but not entirely, for we have seen Markland mentioned in the "Elder Skálholt Annals, " about 1362. See above, p. 223. ]

As these pre-Columbian voyages produced no effect in the easternhemisphere, except to leave in Icelandic literature a scanty butinteresting record, so in the western hemisphere they seem to haveproduced no effect beyond cutting down a few trees and killing a fewIndians. In the outlying world of Greenland it is not improbable thatthe blood of the Eskimos may have received some slight Scandinavianinfusion. But upon the aboriginal world of the red men, from Davisstrait to Cape Horn, it is not likely that any impression of any sortwas ever made. It is in the highest degree probable that Leif Ericssonand his friends made a few voyages to _what we now know to have been_the coast of America; but it is an abuse of language to say that they"discovered" America. In no sense was any real contact establishedbetween the eastern and the western halves of our planet until the greatvoyage of Columbus in 1492. 

CHAPTER III. 

EUROPE AND CATHAY. 

[Sidenote: Why the voyages of the Northmen were not followed up. ]

The question has sometimes been asked, Why did the knowledge of thevoyages to Vinland so long remain confined to the Scandinavian people ora portion of them, and then lapse into oblivion, insomuch that it didnot become a matter of notoriety in Europe until after the publicationof the celebrated book of Thormodus Torfæus in 1705? Why did not thenews of the voyages of Leif and Thorfinn spread rapidly over Europe, like the news of the voyage of Columbus? and why was it not presentlyfollowed, like the latter, by a rush of conquerors and colonizers acrossthe Atlantic?

Such questions arise from a failure to see historical events in theirtrue perspective, and to make the proper allowances for the manifolddifferences in knowledge and in social and economic conditions whichcharacterize different periods of history. In the present case, theanswer is to be found, first, in the geographical ignorance whichprevented the Northmen from realizing in the smallest degree what suchvoyages really signified or were going to signify to posterity; and, secondly, in the political and commercial condition of Europe at theclose of the tenth century. 

[Sidenote: Ignorance of geography. ]

In the first place the route which the Norse voyagers pursued, fromIceland to Greenland and thence to Vinland, was not such as to givethem, in their ignorance of the shape of the earth, and with theirimperfect knowledge of latitude and longitude, any adequate gaugewherewith to measure their achievement. The modern reader, who has inhis mind a general picture of the shape of the northern Atlantic oceanwith its coasts, must carefully expel that picture before he can beginto realize how things must have seemed to the Northmen. None of theIcelandic references to Markland and Vinland betray a consciousness thatthese countries belong to a geographical world outside of Europe. Therewas not enough organized geographical knowledge for that. They weresimply conceived as remote places beyond Greenland, inhabited byinferior but dangerous people. The accidental finding of such placesserved neither to solve any great commercial problem nor to gratify andprovoke scientific curiosity. It was, therefore, not at all strange thatit bore no fruit. 

[Sidenote: Lack of instruments for ocean navigation. ]

Secondly, even if it had been realized, and could have been dulyproclaimed throughout Europe, that across the broad Atlantic a new worldlay open for colonization, Europe could not have taken advantage of thefact. Now and then a ship might make its way, or be blown, across thewaste of waters without compass or astrolabe; but until theseinstruments were at hand anything like systematic ocean navigation wasout of the question; and from a colonization which could only begin bycreeping up into the Arctic seas and taking Greenland on the way, notmuch was to be expected, after all. 

[Sidenote: Europe in the year 1000. ]

But even if the compass and other facilities for oceanic navigation hadbeen at hand, the state of Europe in the days of Eric the Red was notsuch as to afford surplus energy for distant enterprise of this sort. Let us for a moment recall what was going on in Europe in the year ofgrace 1000, just enough to get a suggestive picture of the time. InEngland the Danish invader, fork-bearded Swend, father of the greatCnut, was wresting the kingship from the feeble grasp of Ethelred theRedeless. In Gaul the little duchy of France, between the Somme and theLoire, had lately become the kingdom of France, and its sovereign, HughCapet, had succeeded to feudal rights of lordship over the great dukesand counts whose territories surrounded him on every side; and nowHugh's son, Robert the Debonair, better hymn-writer than warrior, waswaging a doubtful struggle with these unruly vassals. It was not yet inany wise apparent what the kingdoms of England and France were going tobe. In Germany the youthful Otto III. , the "wonder of the world, " hadjust made his weird visit to the tomb of his mighty predecessor atAachen, before starting on that last journey to Rome which was so soonto cost him his life. Otto's teacher, Gerbert, most erudite ofpopes, --too learned not to have had dealings with the Devil, --wasbeginning to raise the papacy out of the abyss of infamy into which thepreceding age had seen it sink, and so to prepare the way for thefar-reaching reforms of Hildebrand. The boundaries of Christendom wereas yet narrow and insecure. With the overthrow of Olaf Tryggvesson inthis year 1000, and the temporary partition of Norway between Swedes andDanes, the work of Christianizing the North seemed, for the moment, tolanguish. Upon the eastern frontier the wild Hungarians had scarcelyceased to be a terror to Europe, and in this year Stephen, their firstChristian king, began to reign. At the same time the power of hereticalBulgaria, which had threatened to overwhelm the Eastern Empire, wasbroken down by the sturdy blows of the Macedonian emperor Basil. In thisyear the Christians of Spain met woful defeat at the hands of Almansor, and there seemed no reason why the Mussulman rule over the greater partof that peninsula should not endure forever. 

Thus, from end to end, Europe was a scene of direst confusion, andthough, as we now look back upon it, the time seems by no means devoidof promise, there was no such cheering outlook then. Nowhere were theoutlines of kingdoms or the ownership of crowns definitely settled. Private war was both incessant and universal; the Truce of God had notyet been proclaimed. [309] As for the common people, their hardshipswere well-nigh incredible. Amid all this anarchy and misery, at theclose of the thousandth year from the birth of Christ, the belief wasquite common throughout Europe that the Day of Judgment was at hand fora world grown old in wickedness and ripe for its doom. 

 [Footnote 309: The "Truce of God" (_Treuga Dei_) was introduced by the clergy in Guienne about 1032; it was adopted in Spain before 1050, and in England by 1080. See Datt, _De pace imperii publica_, lib. I. Cap. Ii. A cessation of all violent quarrels was enjoined, under ecclesiastical penalties, during church festivals, and from every Wednesday evening until the following Monday morning. This left only about eighty days in the year available for shooting and stabbing one's neighbours. The truce seems to have accomplished much good, though it was very imperfectly observed. ]

[Sidenote: The condition of things was not such as to favour colonialenterprise. ]

It hardly need be argued that a period like this, in which all the vitalenergy in Europe was consumed in the adjustment of affairs at home, wasnot fitted for colonial enterprises. Before a people can send forthcolonies it must have solved the problem of political life so far as toensure stability of trade. It is the mercantile spirit that hassupported modern colonization, aided by the spirit of intellectualcuriosity and the thirst for romantic adventure. In the eleventh centurythere was no intellectual curiosity outside the monastery walls, nor hadsuch a feeling become enlisted in the service of commerce. Of tradethere was indeed, even in western Europe, a considerable amount, but thecommercial marine was in its infancy, and on land the trader sufferedsorely at the hands of the robber baron. In those days the fashionablemethod of compounding with your creditors was, not to offer them fiftycents on the dollar, but to inveigle them into your castle and broilthem over a slow fire. 

[Sidenote: The outlook of Europe was toward Asia. ]

In so far as the attention of people in Europe was called to anyquarter of the globe outside of the seething turbulence in which theydwelt, it was directed toward Asia. Until after 1492, Europe stood withher back toward the Atlantic. What there might be out beyond that "Seaof Darkness" (_Mare Tenebrosum_), as it used commonly to be called, wasa question of little interest and seems to have excited no speculation. In the view of mediæval Europe the inhabited world was cut off on thewest by this mysterious ocean, and on the south by the burning sands ofSahara; but eastward it stretched out no one knew how far, and in thatdirection dwelt tribes and nations which Europe, from time immemorial, had reason to fear. As early as the time of Herodotus, the secularantagonism between Europe and Asia had become a topic of reflectionamong the Greeks, and was wrought with dramatic effect by that greatwriter into the structure of his history, culminating in the grand andstirring scenes of the Persian war. A century and a half later theconquests of Alexander the Great added a still more impressive climax tothe story. The struggle was afterward long maintained between Roman andParthian, but from the fifth century after Christ onward through theMiddle Ages, it seemed as if the Oriental world would never rest untilit had inflicted the extremities of retaliation upon Europe. Whether itwas the heathen of the steppes who were in question, from Attila in thefifth century to Batu Khan in the thirteenth, or the followers of theProphet, who tore away from Christendom the southern shores of theMediterranean, and held Spain in their iron grasp, while from age to agethey exhausted their strength in vain against the Eastern Empire, thethreatening danger was always coming with the morning sun; whatevermight be the shock that took the attention of Europe away from herself, it directed it upon Asia. This is a fact of cardinal importance for us, inasmuch as it was directly through the interest, more and moreabsorbing, which Europe felt in Asia that the discovery of the westernhemisphere was at last effected. 

[Sidenote: Routes of trade between Europe and Asia. ]

[Sidenote: Claudius Ptolemy. ]

[Sidenote: Early mention of China. ]

It was not only in war, but in commerce, that the fortunes of Europewere dependent upon her relations with Asia. Since prehistoric timesthere has always been some commercial intercourse between the easternshores of the Mediterranean and the peninsula of Hindustan. Tyre andSidon carried on such trade by way of the Red Sea. [310] After Alexanderhad led his army to Samarcand and to the river Hyphasis, theacquaintance of the Greeks with Asia was very considerably increased, and important routes of trade were established. One was practically theold Phoenician route, with its western terminus moved from Tyre toAlexandria. Another was by way of the Caspian sea, up the river Oxus, and thence with camels to the banks of the Indus. [311] An intermediateroute was through Syria and by way of the Euphrates and the Persiangulf; the route which at one time made the greatness of Palmyra. Afterthe extension of Roman sway to the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Euxine, these same routes continued to be used. The European commodities carriedto India were light woollen cloths, linens, coral, black lead, variouskinds of glass vessels, and wine. In exchange for these the tradersbrought back to Europe divers aromatic spices, black pepper, ivory, cotton fabrics, diamonds, sapphires, and pearls, silk thread and silkstuffs. [312] Detailed accounts of these commercial transactions, and ofthe wealth of personal experiences that must have been connected withthem, are excessively scant. Of the Europeans who, during all thecenturies between Alexander and Justinian, made their way to Hindustanor beyond, we know very few by name. The amount of geographicalinformation that was gathered during the first half of this period isshown in the map representing Claudius Ptolemy's knowledge of the earth, about the middle of the second century after Christ. Except for theScandinavian world, and some very important additions made to theknowledge of Asia by Marco Polo, this map fairly represents the maximumof acquaintance with the earth's surface possessed by Europeans previousto the great voyages of the fifteenth century. It shows a dim knowledgeof the mouths of the Ganges, of the island of Ceylon, and of what wesometimes call Farther India. A very dim knowledge, indeed; for the hugepeninsula of Hindustan is shrunk into insignificance, while Taprobane, or Ceylon, unduly magnified, usurps the place belonging to the Deccan. At the same time we see that some hearsay knowledge of China had madeits way into the Roman world before the days of Ptolemy. The two namesby which China was first known to Europeans were "Seres" or "Serica, "and "Sinæ" or "Thin. " These two differing names are the records of twodifferent methods of approach to different parts of a vast country, verymuch as the Northmen called their part of eastern North America"Vinland, " while the Spaniards called their part "Florida. " The name"Seres" was given to northwestern China by traders who approached itthrough the highlands of central Asia from Samarcand, while "Sinæ" wasthe name given to southeastern China by traders who approached it by wayof the Indian ocean, and heard of it in India, but never reached it. Apparently no European ships ever reached China before the Portuguese, in 1517. [313] The name "Sinæ" or "Thin" seems to mean the country of the"Tchin" dynasty, which ruled over the whole of China in the secondcentury before Christ, and over a portion of it for a much longer time. The name "Seres, " on the other hand, was always associated with thetrade in silks, and was known to the Romans in the time of the EmperorClaudius, [314] and somewhat earlier. The Romans in Virgil's time set ahigh value upon silk, and every scrap of it they had came from China. They knew nothing about the silk-worm, and supposed that the fibres orthreads of this beautiful stuff grew upon trees. Of actual intercoursebetween the Roman and Chinese empires there was no more than is impliedin this current of trade, passing through many hands. But that eachknew, in a vague way, of the existence of the other, there is nodoubt. [315]

 [Footnote 310: Diodorus Siculus, i. 70. ]

 [Footnote 311: Strabo, xi. 7, § 3. ]

 [Footnote 312: Robertson, _Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India_, Dublin, 1791, p. 55. I never have occasion to consult Dr. Robertson without being impressed anew with his scientific habit of thought and the solidity of his scholarship; and in none of his works are these qualities better illustrated than in this noble essay. ]

 [Footnote 313: The Polos sailed back from China to the Persian gulf in 1292-94; see below, p. 282. ]

 [Footnote 314: The name "Seres" appears on the map of Pomponius Mela (cir. A. D. 50), while "Sinæ" does not. See below, p. 304. 

 Jam Tartessiaco quos solverat æquore Titan In noctem diffusus equos, jungebat Eoïs Littoribus, primique novo Phaethonte retecti Seres lanigeris repetebant vellera lucis. Silius Italicus, lib. Vi. _ad init. _]

 [Footnote 315: For this whole subject see Colonel Sir Henry Yule's _Cathay and the Way Thither_, London, 1866, 2 vols. , --a work of profound learning and more delightful than a novel. ]

[Sidenote: Cosmas Indicopleustes. ]

[Sidenote: Shape of the earth, according to Cosmas. ]

In the course of the reign of Justinian, we get references at first handto India, and coupled withal to a general theory of cosmography. Thiscurious information we have in the book of the monk CosmasIndicopleustes, written somewhere between A. D. 530 and 550. A pleasantbook it is, after its kind. In his younger days Cosmas had been amerchant, and in divers voyages had become familiar with the coasts ofEthiopia and the Persian gulf, and had visited India and Ceylon. Afterbecoming a monk at Alexandria, Cosmas wrote his book of Christiangeography, [316] maintaining, in opposition to Ptolemy, that the earthis not a sphere, but a rectangular plane forming the floor of theuniverse; the heavens rise on all four sides about this rectangle, likethe four walls of a room, and, at an indefinite height above the floor, these blue walls support a vaulted roof or firmament, in which Goddwells with the angels. In the centre of the floor are the inhabitedlands of the earth, surrounded on all sides by a great ocean, beyondwhich, somewhere out in a corner, is the Paradise from which Adam andEve were expelled. In its general shape, therefore, the universesomewhat resembles the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, or a modern"Saratoga trunk. " On the northern part of the floor, under thefirmament, is a lofty conical mountain, around which the sun, moon, andplanets perform their daily revolutions. In the summer the sun takes aturn around the apex of the cone, and is, therefore, hidden only for ashort night; but in the winter he travels around the base, which takeslonger, and, accordingly, the nights are long. Such is the doctrinedrawn from Holy Scripture, says Cosmas, and as for the vain blasphemerswho pretend that the earth is a round ball, the Lord hath stultifiedthem for their sins until they impudently prate of Antipodes, wheretrees grow downward and rain falls upward. As for such nonsense, theworthy Cosmas cannot abide it. 

 [Footnote 316: Its title is [Greek: Christianôn biblos, hermêneia eis tên Oktateuchon], i. E. Against Ptolemy's Geography in eight books. The name Cosmas Indicopleustes seems merely to mean "the cosmographer who has sailed to India. " He begins his book in a tone of extreme and somewhat unsavory humility: [Greek: Anoigô ta mogilala kai bradyglôssa cheilê ho hamartôlos kai talas egô]--"I, the sinner and wretch, open my stammering, stuttering lips, " etc. --The book has been the occasion of some injudicious excitement within the last half century. Cosmas gave a description of some comparatively recent inscriptions on the peninsula of Sinai, and because he could not find anybody able to read them, he inferred that they must be records of the Israelites on their passage through the desert. (Compare the Dighton rock, above, p. 214. ) Whether in the sixth century of grace or in the nineteenth, your unregenerate and unchastened antiquary snaps at conclusions as a drowsy dog does at flies. Some years ago an English clergyman, Charles Forster, started up the nonsense again, and argued that these inscriptions might afford a clue to man's primeval speech! Cf. Bunsen, _Christianity and Mankind_, vol. Iii. P. 231; Müller and Donaldson, _History of Greek Literature_, vol. Iii. P. 353; Bury, _History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene_, vol. Ii. P. 177. ]

I cite these views of Cosmas because there can be no doubt that theyrepresent beliefs current among the general public until after the timeof Columbus, [317] in spite of the deference paid to Ptolemy's views bythe learned. Along with these cosmographical speculations, Cosmas showsa wider geographical knowledge of Asia than any earlier writer. He givesa good deal of interesting information about India and Ceylon, and has afairly correct idea of the position of China, which he calls Tzinista orChinistan. This land of silk is the remotest of all the Indies, andbeyond it "there is neither navigation nor inhabited country. . . . And theIndian philosophers, called Brachmans, tell you that if you were tostretch a straight cord from Tzinista through Persia to the Romanterritory, you would just divide the world in halves. And mayhap theyare right. "[318]

 [Footnote 317: Such views have their advocates even now. There still lives, I believe, in England, a certain John Hampden, who with dauntless breast maintains that the earth is a circular plane with centre at the north pole and a circumference of nearly 30, 000 miles where poor misguided astronomers suppose the south pole to be. The sun moves across the sky at a distance of about 800 miles. From the boundless abyss beyond the southern circumference, with its barrier of icy mountains, came the waters which drowned the antediluvian world; for, as this author quite reasonably observes, "on a globular earth such a deluge would have been physically Impossible. " Hampden's title is somewhat like that of Cosmas, --_The New Manual of Biblical Cosmography_, London, 1877; and he began in 1876 to publish a periodical called _The Truth-Seeker's Oracle and Scriptural Science Review_. Similar views have been set forth by one Samuel Rowbotham, under the pseudonym of "Parallax, " _Zetetic Astronomy. Earth not a Globe. An experimental inquiry into the true figure of the earth, proving it a plane without orbital or axial motion_, etc. , London, 1873; and by a William Carpenter, _One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is not a Globe_, Baltimore, 1885. There is a very considerable quantity of such literature afloat, the product of a kind of mental aberration that thrives upon paradox. When I was superintendent of the catalogue of Harvard University library, I made the class "Eccentric Literature" under which to group such books, --the lucubrations of circle-squarers, angle-trisectors, inventors of perpetual motion, devisers of recipes for living forever without dying, crazy interpreters of Daniel and the Apocalypse, upsetters of the undulatory theory of light, the Bacon-Shakespeare lunatics, etc. ; a dismal procession of long-eared bipeds, with very raucous bray. The late Professor De Morgan devoted a bulky and instructive volume to an account of such people and their crotchets. See his _Budget of Paradoxes_, London, 1872. ]

 [Footnote 318: Cosmas, ii. 138. Further mention of China was made early in the seventh century by Theophylactus Samocatta, vii. 7. See Yule's _Cathay_, vol. I. Pp. Xlix. , clxviii. ]

[Sidenote: The Nestorians. ]

In the fourth and following centuries, Nestorian missionaries were veryactive in Asia, and not only made multitudes of converts and establishedmetropolitan sees in such places as Kashgar and Herat, but even foundtheir way into China. Their work forms an interesting though melancholychapter in history, but it does not seem to have done much toward makingAsia better known to Europe. As declared heretics, the Nestorians werethemselves almost entirely cut off from intercourse with EuropeanChristians. 

[Sidenote: Effects of the Saracen conquests. ]

[Sidenote: Constantinople in the twelfth century. ]

The immediate effect of the sudden rise of the vast Saracen empire, inthe seventh and eighth centuries, was to interpose a barrier to theextension of intercourse between Europe and the Far East. Trade betweenthe eastern and western extremities of Asia went on more briskly thanever, but it was for a long time exclusively in Mussulman hands. Themediæval Arabs were bold sailors, and not only visited Sumatra and Java, but made their way to Canton. Upon the southern and middle routes theArab cities of Cairo and Bagdad became thriving centres of trade; but asSpain and the whole of northern Africa were now Arab countries, most ofthe trade between east and west was conducted within Mussulmanboundaries. Saracen cruisers prowled in the Mediterranean and sorelyharassed the Christian coasts. During the eighth, ninth, and tenthcenturies, Europe was more shut in upon herself than ever before orsince. In many respects these were especially the dark ages ofEurope, --the period of least comfort and least enlightenment since thedays of pre-Roman barbarism. But from this general statementConstantinople should be in great measure excepted. The current ofmediæval trade through the noble highway of the Dardanelles and theBosphorus was subject to fluctuations, but it was always great. Thecity of the Byzantine emperors was before all things a commercial city, like Venice in later days. Until the time of the Crusades Constantinoplewas the centre of the Levant trade. The great northern route from Asiaremained available for commercial intercourse in this direction. Persianand Armenian merchants sent their goods to Batoum, whence they wereshipped to Constantinople; and silk was brought from northwestern Chinaby caravan to the Oxus, and forwarded thence by the Caspian sea, therivers Cyrus and Phasis, and the Euxine sea. [319] When it was visited byBenjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century, Constantinople wasundoubtedly the richest and most magnificent city, and the seat of thehighest civilization, to be found anywhere upon the globe. 

 [Footnote 319: Robertson, _Historical Disquisition_, p. 93; Pears, _The Fall of Constantinople_, p. 177, --a book of great merit. ]

[Sidenote: The Crusades. ]

[Sidenote: Barbarizing character of Turkish conquest. ]

[Sidenote: General effects of the Crusades. ]

In the days of its strength the Eastern Empire was the staunch bulwarkof Christendom against the dangerous assaults of Persian, Saracen, andTurk; alike in prosperity and in calamity, it proved to be the teacherand civilizer of the western world. The events which, at the close ofthe eleventh century, brought thousands upon thousands of adventurous, keen-witted people from western Europe into this home of wealth andrefinement, were the occasion of the most remarkable intellectualawakening that the world had ever witnessed up to that time. TheCrusades, in their beginning, were a symptom of the growing energy ofwestern Europe under the ecclesiastical reformation effected by themighty Hildebrand. They were the military response of Europe to the mostthreatening, and, as time has proved, the most deadly of all the blowsthat have ever been aimed at her from Asia. Down to this time theMahometanism with which Christendom had so long been in conflict was aMahometanism of civilized peoples. The Arabs and Moors were industriousmerchants, agriculturists, and craftsmen; in their society one mightmeet with learned scholars, refined poets, and profound philosophers. But at the end of the tenth century, Islam happened to make converts ofthe Turks, a nomad race in the upper status of barbarism, with flocksand herds and patriarchal families. Inspired with the sudden zeal forconquest which has always characterized new converts to Islam, the Turksbegan to pour down from the plains of central Asia like a deluge uponthe Eastern Empire. In 1016 they overwhelmed Armenia, and presentlyadvanced into Asia Minor. Their mode of conquest was peculiarly baleful, for at first they deliberately annihilated the works of civilization inorder to prepare the country for their nomadic life; they pulled downcities to put up tents. Though they long ago ceased to be nomads, theyhave to this day never learned to comprehend civilized life, and theyhave been simply a blight upon every part of the earth's surface whichthey have touched. At the beginning of the eleventh century, Asia Minorwas one of the most prosperous and highly civilized parts of theworld;[320] and the tale of its devastation by the terrible Alp Arslanand the robber chiefs that came after him is one of the most mournfulchapters in history. At the end of that century, when the Turks wereholding Nicæa and actually had their outposts on the Marmora, it washigh time for Christendom to rise _en masse_ in self-defence. The ideawas worthy of the greatest of popes. Imperfectly and spasmodically as itwas carried out, it undoubtedly did more than anything that had evergone before toward strengthening the wholesome sentiment of a commonChristendom among the peoples of western Europe. The Crusades increasedthe power of the Church, which was equivalent to putting a curb upon thepropensities of the robber baron and making labour and traffic moresecure. In another way they aided this good work by carrying off therobber baron in large numbers to Egypt and Syria, and killing him there. In this way they did much toward ridding European society of its mostturbulent elements; while at the same time they gave fresh developmentto the spirit of romantic adventure, and connected it with somethingbetter than vagrant freebooting. [321] By renewing the long-suspendedintercourse between the minds of western Europe and the Greek cultureof Constantinople, they served as a mighty stimulus to intellectualcuriosity, and had a large share in bringing about that great thirteenthcentury renaissance which is forever associated with the names of Giottoand Dante and Roger Bacon. 

 [Footnote 320: "It is difficult for the modern traveller who ventures into the heart of Asia Minor, and finds nothing but rude Kurds and Turkish peasants living among mountains and wild pastures, not connected even by ordinary roads, to imagine the splendour and rich cultivation of this vast country, with its brilliant cities and its teeming population. " Mahaffy, _The Greek World under Roman Sway_, London, 1890, p. 229. ]

 [Footnote 321: The general effects of the Crusades are discussed, with much learning and sagacity, by Choiseul-Daillecourt, _De l'Influence des Croisades sur l'état des peuples de l'Europe_, Paris, 1809. ]

[Sidenote: The Fourth Crusade. ]

There can be no doubt that in these ways the Crusades were for ourforefathers in Europe the most bracing and stimulating events thatoccurred in the whole millennium between the complicated disorders ofthe fifth century and the outburst of maritime discovery in thefifteenth. How far they justified themselves from the military point ofview, it is not so easy to say. On the one hand, they had much to dowith retarding the progress of the enemy for two hundred years; theyoverwhelmed the Seljukian Turks so effectually that their successors, the Ottomans, did not become formidable until about 1300, after the lastcrusading wave had spent its force. On the other hand, the FourthCrusade, with better opportunities than any of the others for striking acrushing blow at the Moslem, played false to Christendom, and in 1204captured and despoiled Constantinople in order to gratify Venice'shatred of her commercial rival and superior. It was a sorry piece ofbusiness, and one cannot look with unmixed pleasure at the four superbhorses that now adorn the front of the church of St. Mark as a trophy ofthis unhallowed exploit. [322] One cannot help feeling that but for thiscolossal treachery, the great city of Constantine, to which our owncivilization owes more than can ever be adequately told, might, perhaps, have retained enough strength to withstand the barbarian in 1453, andthus have averted one of the most lamentable catastrophes in the historyof mankind. 

 [Footnote 322: They were taken from Chios in the fourth century by the emperor Theodosius, and placed in the hippodrome at Constantinople, whence they were taken by the Venetians in 1204. The opinion that "the results of the Fourth Crusade upon European civilization were altogether disastrous" is ably set forth by Mr. Pears, _The Fall of Constantinople_, London, 1885, and would be difficult to refute. Voltaire might well say in this case, "Ainsi le seul fruit des chrétiens dans leurs barbares croisades fut d'exterminer d'autres chrétiens. Ces croisés, qui ruinaient l'empire auraient pu, bien plus aisément que tous leurs prédécesseurs, chasser les Turcs de l'Asie. " _Essai sur les Moeurs_, tom. Ii. P. 158. Voltaire's general view of the Crusades is, however, very superficial. ]

[Sidenote: Rivalry between Venice and Genoa. ]

The general effect of the Crusades upon Oriental commerce was toincrease the amount of traffic through Egypt and Syria. Of thislucrative trade Venice got the lion's share, and while she helpedsupport the short-lived Latin dynasty upon the throne at Constantinople, she monopolized a great part of the business of the Black Sea also. Butin 1261 Venice's rival, Genoa, allied herself with the Greek emperor, Michael Palæologus, at Nicæa, placed him upon the Byzantine throne, andagain cut off Venice from the trade that came through the Bosphorus. From this time forth the mutual hatred between Venice and Genoa "waxedfiercer than ever; no merchant fleet of either state could go to seawithout convoy, and wherever their ships met they fought. It wassomething like the state of things between Spain and England in thedays of Drake. "[323] In the one case as in the other, it was a strifefor the mastery of the sea and its commerce. Genoa obtained full controlof the Euxine, took possession of the Crimea, and thus acquired amonopoly of the trade from central Asia along the northern route. Withthe fall of Acre in 1291, and the consequent expulsion of Christiansfrom Syria, Venice lost her hold upon the middle route. But with thepope's leave[324] she succeeded in making a series of advantageouscommercial treaties with the new Mameluke sovereigns of Egypt, and thedealings between the Red Sea and the Adriatic soon came to beprodigious. The Venetians gained control of part of the Peloponnesus, with many islands of the Ægean and eastern Mediterranean. During thefourteenth and fifteenth centuries their city was the most splendid andluxurious in all Christendom. 

 [Footnote 323: Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. I. P. Lxxi. ]

 [Footnote 324: A papal dispensation was necessary before a commercial treaty could be made with Mahometans. See Leibnitz, _Codex Jur. Gent. Diplomat. _, i. 489. ]

[Sidenote: Centres and routes of mediæval trade. ]

Such a development of wealth in Venice and Genoa implies a largeproducing and consuming area behind them, able to take and pay for thecostly products of India and China. Before the end of the thirteenthcentury the volume of European trade had swelled to great proportions. How full of historic and literary interest are the very names of thecentres and leading routes of this trade as it was established in thosedays, with its outlook upon the Mediterranean and the distant East! Farup in the North we see Wisby, on the little isle of Gothland in theBaltic, giving its name to new rules of international law; and themerchants of the famous Hansa towns extending their operations as far asNovgorod in one direction, and in another to the Steelyard in London, where the pound of these honest "Easterlings" was adopted as the"sterling" unit of sound money. Fats and tallows, furs and wax fromRussia, iron and copper from Sweden, strong hides and unrivalled woolsfrom England, salt cod and herring (much needed on meagre churchfast-days) from the North and Baltic seas, appropriately followed bygenerous casks of beer from Hamburg, were sent southward in exchange forfine cloths and tapestries, the products of the loom in Ghent andBruges, in Ulm and Augsburg, with delicious vintages of the Rhine, supple chain armour from Milan, Austrian yew-wood for English long-bows, ivory and spices, pearls and silks from Italy and the Orient. Along theroutes from Venice and Florence to Antwerp and Rotterdam we see theprogress in wealth and refinement, in artistic and literaryproductiveness. We see the early schools of music and painting in Italymeet with prompt response in Flanders; in the many-gabled streets ofNuremberg we hear the voice of the Meistersinger, and under the lowoaken roof of a Canterbury inn we listen to joyous if sometimes naughtytales erst told in pleasant groves outside of fever-stricken Florence. 

[Sidenote: Effects of the Mongol conquests. ]

[Sidenote: Cathay. ]

[Sidenote: Carpini and Rubruquis. ]

[Sidenote: First knowledge of an eastern ocean beyond Cathay. ]

With this increase of wealth and culture in central Europe there came aconsiderable extension of knowledge and a powerful stimulus tocuriosity concerning the remote parts of Asia. The conquering career ofJenghis Khan (1206-1227) had shaken the world to its foundations. In themiddle of that century, to adopt Colonel Yule's lively expression, "throughout Asia and eastern Europe, scarcely a dog might bark withoutMongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the coast of Cilicia to theAmur and the Yellow Sea. " About these portentous Mongols, who had thusin a twinkling overwhelmed China and Russia, and destroyed the Caliphateof Bagdad, there was a refreshing touch of open-minded heathenism. Theywere barbarians willing to learn. From end to end of Asia the barrierswere thrown down. It was a time when Alan chiefs from the Volga servedas police in Tunking, and Chinese physicians could be consulted atTabriz. For about a hundred years China was more accessible than at anyperiod before or since, --more even than to-day; and that country now forthe first time became really known to a few Europeans. In the northernprovinces of China, shortly before the Mongol deluge, there had reigneda dynasty known as the _Khitai_, and hence China was (and still is)commonly spoken of in central Asia as the country of the Khitai. Whenthis name reached European ears it became _Cathay_, the name by whichChina was best known in Europe during the next four centuries. [325] In1245, Friar John of Plano Carpini, a friend and disciple of St. Francis, was sent by Pope Innocent IV. On a missionary errand to the Great Khan, and visited him in his camp at Karakorum in the very depths of Mongolia. In 1253 the king of France, St. Louis, sent another Franciscan monk, Willem de Rubruquis, to Karakorum, on a mission of which the purpose isnow not clearly understood. Both these Franciscans were men of shrewdand cultivated minds, especially Rubruquis, whose narrative, "in itsrich detail, its vivid pictures, its acuteness of observation and stronggood sense . . . Has few superiors in the whole library of travel. "[326]Neither Rubruquis nor Friar John visited China, but they fell in withChinese folk at Karakorum, and obtained information concerning thegeography of eastern Asia far more definite than had ever before beenpossessed by Europeans. They both describe Cathay as bordering upon aneastern ocean, and this piece of information constituted the firstimportant leap of geographical knowledge to the eastward since the daysof Ptolemy, who supposed that beyond the "Seres and Sinæ" lay an unknownland of vast extent, "full of reedy and impenetrable swamps. "[327] Theinformation gathered by Rubruquis and Friar John indicated that therewas an end to the continent of Asia; that, not as a matter of vaguespeculation, but of positive knowledge, Asia was bounded on the east, just as Europe was bounded on the west, by an ocean. 

 [Footnote 325: Yule's _Cathay_, vol. I. P. Cxvi. ; _Marco Polo_, vol. I. P. Xlii. ]

 [Footnote 326: Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. I. P. Cxxx. ; cf. Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. I. P. 71. The complete original texts of the reports of both monks, with learned notes, may be found in the _Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, publié par la Société de Géographie_, Paris, 1839, tom. Iv. , viz. : _Johannis de Plano Carpini Historia Mongolorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus_, ed. M. D'Avezac; _Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruk_, ed. F. Michel et T. Wright. ]

 [Footnote 327: Yule's _Cathay_, vol. I. P. Xxxix. ; Ptolemy, i. 17. Cf. Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, London, 1883, vol. Ii. P. 606. ]

[Sidenote: The data were thus prepared for Columbus;]

[Sidenote: but as yet nobody reasoned from these data to a practicalconclusion. ]

Here we arrive at a notable landmark in the history of the Discovery ofAmerica. Here from the camp of bustling heathen at Karakorum there isbrought to Europe the first announcement of a geographical fact fromwhich the poetic mind of Christopher Columbus will hereafter reap awonderful harvest. This is one among many instances of the way in which, throughout all departments of human thought and action, the gloriousthirteenth century was beginning to give shape to the problems of whichthe happy solution has since made the modern world so different from theancient. [328] Since there is an ocean east of Cathay and an ocean westof Spain, how natural the inference--and albeit quite wrong, howamazingly fruitful--that these oceans are one and the same, so that bysailing westward from Spain one might go straight to Cathay! The datafor such an inference were now all at hand, but it does not appear thatany one as yet reasoned from the data to the conclusion, although wefind Roger Bacon, in 1267, citing the opinions of Aristotle and otherancient writers to the effect that the distance by sea from the westernshores of Spain to the eastern shores of Asia cannot be so verygreat. [329] In those days it took a long time for such ideas to get fromthe heads of philosophers into the heads of men of action; and in thethirteenth century, when Cathay was more accessible by land than at anytime before or since, there was no practical necessity felt for a waterroute thither. Europe still turned her back upon the Atlantic and gazedmore intently than ever upon Asia. Stronger and more general grew theinterest in Cathay. 

 [Footnote 328: See my _Beginnings of New England_, chap. I. How richly suggestive to an American is the contemporaneity of Rubruquis and Earl Simon of Leicester!]

 [Footnote 329: Roger Bacon, _Opus Majus_, ed. Jebb, London, 1733, p. 183. ]

[Sidenote: The Polo brothers. ]

[Sidenote: Kublai Khan's message to the Pope. ]

In the middle of the thirteenth century, some members of the Polofamily, one of the aristocratic families of Venice, had a commercialhouse at Constantinople. Thence, in 1260, the brothers Nicolò and MaffeoPolo started on a trading journey to the Crimea, whence one opportunityafter another for making money and gratifying their curiosity with newsights led them northward and eastward to the Volga, thence intoBokhara, and so on until they reached the court of the Great Khan, inone of the northwestern provinces of Cathay. The reigning sovereign wasthe famous Kublai Khan, grandson of the all-conquering Jenghis. Kublaiwas an able and benevolent despot, earnest in the wish to improve thecondition of his Mongol kinsmen. He had never before met Europeangentlemen, and was charmed with the cultivated and polished Venetians. He seemed quite ready to enlist the Roman Church in aid of hiscivilizing schemes, and entrusted the Polos with a message to the Pope, asking him for a hundred missionary teachers. The brothers reachedVenice in 1269, and found that Pope Clement IV. Was dead and there wasan interregnum. After two years Gregory X. Was elected and received theKhan's message, but could furnish only a couple of Dominican friars, andthese men were seized with the dread not uncommonly felt for"Tartareans, " and at the last moment refused to go. Nicolò and hisbrother then set out in the autumn of 1271 to return to China, takingwith them Nicolò's son Marco, a lad of seventeen years. From Acre theywent by way of Bagdad to Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian gulf, apparently with the intention of proceeding thence by sea, but for somereason changed their course, and travelled through Kerman, Khorassan, and Balkh, to Kashgar, and thence by way of Yarkand and Khotan, andacross the desert of Gobi into northwestern China, where they arrived inthe summer of 1275, and found the Khan at Kaipingfu, not far from thenorthern end of the Great Wall. 

[Sidenote: Marco Polo and his travels in Asia. ]

[Sidenote: First recorded voyage of Europeans around the Indo-Chinesepeninsula, 1292-94. ]

[Sidenote: Return of the Polos to Venice. ]

It has been said that the failure of Kublai's mission to the Pope ledhim to apply to the Grand Lama, at Thibet, who responded moreefficiently and successfully than Gregory X. , so that Buddhism seizedthe chance which Catholicism failed to grasp. The Venetians, however, lost nothing in the good Khan's esteem. Young Marco began to makehimself proficient in speaking and writing several Asiatic languages, and was presently taken into the Khan's service. His name is mentionedin the Chinese Annals of 1277 as a newly-appointed commissioner of theprivy council. [330] He remained in Kublai's service until 1292, whilehis father and uncle were gathering wealth in various ways. Marco mademany official journeys up and down the Khan's vast dominions, not onlyin civilized China, but in regions of the heart of Asia seldom visitedby Europeans to this day, --"a vast ethnological garden, " says ColonelYule, "of tribes of various race and in every stage of uncivilization. "In 1292 a royal bride for the Khan of Persia was to be sent all the wayfrom Peking to Tabriz, and as war that year made some parts of theoverland route very unsafe, it was decided to send her by sea. The threePolos had for some time been looking for an opportunity to return toVenice, but Kublai was unwilling to have them go. Now, however, as everyVenetian of that day was deemed to be from his very cradle a seasonedseadog, and as the kindly old Mongol sovereign had an inveterateland-lubber's misgivings about ocean voyages, he consented to part withhis dear friends, so that he might entrust the precious princess totheir care. They sailed from the port of Zaiton (Chinchow) early in1292, and after long delays on the coasts of Sumatra and Hindustan, inorder to avoid unfavourable monsoons, they reached the Persian gulf in1294. They found that the royal bridegroom, somewhat advanced in years, had died before they started from China; so the young princess becamethe bride of his son. After tarrying awhile in Tabriz, the Polosreturned, by way of Trebizond and the Bosphorus, to Venice, arriving in1295. When they got there, says Ramusio, after their absence of four andtwenty years, "the same fate befel them as befel Ulysses, who, when hereturned to his native Ithaca, was recognized by nobody. " Their kinsfolkhad long since given them up for dead; and when the three wayworntravellers arrived at the door of their own palace, the middle-aged mennow wrinkled graybeards, the stripling now a portly man, all threeattired in rather shabby clothes of Tartar cut, and "with a certainindescribable smack of the Tartar about them, both in air and accent, "some words of explanation were needed to prove their identity. After afew days they invited a party of old friends to dinner, and bringingforth three shabby coats, ripped open the seams and welts, and beganpulling out and tumbling upon the table such treasures of diamonds andemeralds, rubies and sapphires, as could never have been imagined, "which had all been stitched up in those dresses in so artful a fashionthat nobody could have suspected the fact. " In such wise had theybrought home from Cathay their ample earnings; and when it became knownabout Venice that the three long-lost citizens had come back, "straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house toembrace them, and to make much of them, with every conceivabledemonstration of affection and respect. "[331]

 [Footnote 330: Pauthier's _Marco Polo_, p. 361; Yule's _Marco Polo_, p. Li. ]

 [Footnote 331: Ramusio, _apud_ Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. I. P. Xxxvii. ]

[Sidenote: Marco Polo's book written in prison at Genoa, 1299. ]

Three years afterward, in 1298, Marco commanded a galley in the greatnaval battle with the Genoese near Curzola. The Venetians were totallydefeated, and Marco was one of the 7, 000 prisoners taken to Genoa, wherehe was kept in durance for about a year. One of his companions incaptivity was a certain Rusticiano, of Pisa, who was glad to listen tohis descriptions of Asia, and to act as his amanuensis. French was then, at the close of the Crusades, a language as generally understoodthroughout Europe as later, in the age of Louis XIV. ; and Marco'snarrative was duly taken down by the worthy Rusticiano in rather lameand shaky French. In the summer of 1299 Marco was set free and returnedto Venice, where he seems to have led a quiet life until his death in1324. 

[Sidenote: Its great contributions to geographical knowledge. ]

"The Book of Ser Marco Polo concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of theEast" is one of the most famous and important books of the Middle Ages. It contributed more new facts toward a knowledge of the earth's surfacethan any book that had ever been written before. Its author was "thefirst traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of Asia;"the first to describe China in its vastness, with its immense cities, its manufactures and wealth, and to tell, whether from personalexperience or direct hearsay, of Thibet and Burmah, of Siam and CochinChina, of the Indian archipelago, with its islands of spices, of Javaand Sumatra, and of the savages of Andaman. He knew of Japan and thewoful defeat of the Mongols there, when they tried to invade the islandkingdom in 1281. He gave a description of Hindustan far more completeand characteristic than had ever before been published. From Arabsailors, accustomed to the Indian ocean, he learned something aboutZanzibar and Madagascar and the semi-Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. Tothe northward from Persia he described the country of the Golden Horde, whose khans were then holding Russia in subjection; and he had gatheredsome accurate information concerning Siberia as far as the country ofthe Samoyeds, with their dog-sledges and polar bears. [332]

 [Footnote 332: Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. I. P. Cxxxi. ]

[Sidenote: Prester John. ]

[Sidenote: The "Arimaspians. "]

Here was altogether too much geographical knowledge for Europeanignorance in those days to digest. While Marco's book attracted muchattention, its influence upon the progress of geography was slighterthan it would have been if addressed to a more enlightened public. Manyof its sober statements of fact were received with incredulity. Many ofthe places described were indistinguishable, in European imagination, from the general multitude of fictitious countries mentioned infairy-tales or in romances of chivalry. Perhaps no part of Marco's storywas so likely to interest his readers as his references to Prester John. In the course of the twelfth century the notion had somehow gainedpossession of the European mind that somewhere out in the dim vastnessof the Orient there dwelt a mighty Christian potentate, known as Johnthe Presbyter or "Prester. "[333] At different times he was identifiedwith various known Asiatic sovereigns. Marco Polo identified him withone Togrul Wang, who was overcome and slain by the mighty Jenghis; buthe would not stay dead, any more than the grewsome warlock in Russiannursery lore. The notion of Prester John and his wealthy kingdom couldno more be expelled from the European mind in the fourteenth andfifteenth centuries than the kindred notion of El Dorado in thesixteenth. The position of this kingdom was shifted about here andthere, as far as from Chinese Tartary to Abyssinia and back again, butsomewhere or other in people's vague mental picture of the East it wassure to occur. Other remote regions in Asia were peopled with elves andgriffins and "one-eyed Arimaspians, "[334] and we may be sure that toMarco's readers these beings were quite as real as the polishedcitizens of Cambaluc (Peking) or the cannibals of the Andaman islands. From such a chaos of ideas sound geographical knowledge must needs be aslow evolution, and Marco Polo's acquisitions were altogether too far inadvance of his age to be readily assimilated. 

 [Footnote 333: "But for to speake of riches and of stones, And men and horse, I trow the large wones Of Prestir John, ne all his tresorie, Might not unneth have boght the tenth partie. " Chaucer, _The Flower and the Leaf_, 200. 

 The fabulous kingdom of Prester John is ably treated in Yule's _Cathay_, vol. I. Pp. 174-182; _Marco Polo_, vol. I. P. 204-216. Colonel Yule suspects that its prototype may have been the semi-Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. This is very likely. As for its range, shifted hither and thither as it was, all the way from the upper Nile to the Thian-Shan mountains, we can easily understand this if we remember how an ignorant mind conceives all points distant from its own position as near to one another; i. E. If you are about to start from New York for Arizona, your housemaid will perhaps ask you to deliver a message to her brother in Manitoba. Nowhere more than in the history of geography do we need to keep before us, at every step, the limitations of the untutored mind and its feebleness in grasping the space-relations of remote regions. ]

 [Footnote 334: These Arimaspians afford an interesting example of the uncritical statements of travellers at an early time, as well as of their tenacious vitality. The first mention of these mythical people seems to have been made by Greek travellers in Scythia as early as the seventh century before Christ; and they furnished Aristeas of Proconnesus, somewhat later, with the theme of his poem "Arimaspeia, " which has perished, all except six verses quoted by Longinus. See Mure's _Literature of Antient Greece_, vol. Iv. P. 68. Thence the notion of the Arimaspians seems to have passed to Herodotus (iii. 116; iv. 27) and to Æschylus:--

 [Greek: oxystomous gar Zênos akrageis kynas grypas phylaxai, ton te mounôpa straton Arimaspon hippobamon', hoi chrysorrhyton oikousin amphi nama Ploutônos porou; toutois sy mê pelaze. ] _Prometheus_, 802. 

 Thence it passed on to Pausanias, i. 24; Pomponius Mela, ii. 1; Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _, vii. 2; Lucan, _Pharsalia_, iii. 280; and so on to Milton:--

 "As when a gryphon through the wilderness, With winged course o'er hill or moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold. " _Paradise Lost_, ii. 944. ]

[Illustration: Two sheets of the Catalan Map, 1375. ]

[Sidenote: Other visits to China. ]

[Sidenote: Overthrow of the Mongol dynasty, and shutting up of China. ]

Nevertheless, in the Catalan map, made in 1375, and now to be seen inthe National Library at Paris, there is a thorough-going and notunsuccessful attempt to embody the results of Polo's travels. In theinterval of three quarters of a century since the publication of Marco'snarrative, several adventurous travellers had found their way to Cathay. There was Friar Odoric, of Pordenone, who, during the years 1316-30visited Hindustan, Sumatra, Java, Cochin China, the Chinese Empire, andThibet. [335] It was from this worthy monk that the arrant old impostor, "Sir John Mandeville, " stole his descriptions of India and Cathay, seasoning them with yarns from Pliny and Ktesias, and grotesque conceitsof his own. [336] Several other missionary friars visited China between1302 and 1330, and about ten years after the latter date the Florentinemerchant, Francesco Pegolotti, wrote a very useful handbook forcommercial travellers on the overland route to that country. [337]Between 1338 and 1353 Giovanni Marignolli spent some years at Peking, aspapal legate from Benedict XI. To the Great Khan, and also travelled inCeylon and Hindustan. [338] That seems to have been the last of thesejourneys to the Far East. In 1368, the people of China rose against theMongol dynasty and overthrew it. The first emperor of the native Mingdynasty was placed upon the throne, and the Chinese retorted upon theirlate conquerors by overrunning vast Mongolia and making it ChineseTartary. The barriers thrown down by the liberal policy of the Mongolsovereigns were now put up again, and no more foreigners were allowed toset foot upon the sacred soil of the Flowery Kingdom. 

 [Footnote 335: Odoric mentions Juggernaut processions and the burning of widows; in Sumatra he observed cannibalism and community of wives; he found the kingdom of Prester John in Chinese Tartary; "but as regards him, " says wise Odoric, "not one hundredth part is true of what is told of him as if it were undeniable. " Yule's _Cathay_, vol. I. Pp. 79, 85, 146. ]

 [Footnote 336: Colonel Yule gives a list of fourteen important passages taken bodily from Odoric by Mandeville. _Op. Cit. _ i. 28. It is very doubtful if that famous book, "Sir John Mandeville's Travels, " was written by a Mandeville, or by a knight, or even by an Englishman. It seems to have been originally written in French by Jean de Bourgogne, a physician who lived for some years at Liège, and died there somewhere about 1370. He may possibly have been an Englishman named John Burgoyne, who was obliged some years before that date to flee his country for homicide or for some political offence. He had travelled as far as Egypt and Palestine, but no farther. His book is almost entirely cribbed from others, among which may be mentioned the works of Jacques de Vitry, Plano Carpini, Hayton the Armenian, Boldensele's Itinerary, Albert of Aix's chronicle of the first crusade, Brunetto Latini's _Trésor_, Petrus Comestor's _Historia scholastica_, the _Speculum_ of Vincent de Beauvais, etc. , etc. It is one of the most wholesale and successful instances of plagiarism and imposture on record. See _The Buke of John Mandevill, from the unique copy (Egerton MS. 1982) in the British Museum. Edited by G. F. Warner. _ Westminster, 1889. (Roxburghe Club. )]

 [Footnote 337: One piece of Pegolotti's advice is still useful for travellers in the nineteenth century who visit benighted heathen countries afflicted with robber tariffs: "And don't forget that if you treat the custom-house officers with respect, and make them something of a present in goods or money, they will behave with great civility and always be ready to appraise your wares below their real value. " _Op. Cit. _ ii. 307. ]

 [Footnote 338: The works of all the writers mentioned in this paragraph, or copious extracts from them, may be found in Yule's _Cathay_, which comprises also the book of the celebrated Ibn Batuta, of Tangier, whose travels, between 1325 and 1355, covered pretty much the whole of Asia except Siberia, besides a journey across Sahara to the river Niger. His book does not seem to have attracted attention in Europe until early in the present century. ]

[Sidenote: First rumours of the Molucca islands and Japan. ]

Thus, for just a century, --from Carpini and Rubruquis toMarignolli, --while China was open to strangers as never before or since, a few Europeans had availed themselves of the opportunity in such wiseas to mark the beginning of a new era in the history of geographicalknowledge. Though the discoveries of Marco Polo were as yet butimperfectly appreciated, one point, and that the most significant ofall, was thoroughly established. It was shown that the continent of Asiadid not extend indefinitely eastward, nor was it bounded and barricadedon that side, as Ptolemy had imagined, by vast impenetrable swamps. Onthe contrary, its eastern shores were perfectly accessible through anopen sea, and half a dozen Europeans in Chinese ships had now actuallymade the voyage between the coast of China and the Persian gulf. Moreover, some hearsay knowledge--enough to provoke curiosity andgreed--had been gained of the existence of numerous islands in thatfar-off eastern ocean, rich in the spices which from time immemorial hadformed such an important element in Mediterranean commerce. News, also, had been brought to Europe of the wonderful island kingdom of Japan(Cipango or Zipangu) lying out in that ocean some hundreds of milesbeyond the coast of Cathay. These were rich countries, abounding inobjects of lucrative traffic. Under the liberal Mongol rule the Orientaltrade had increased enough for Europe to feel in many ways itsbeneficial effects. Now this trade began to be suddenly and severelychecked, and while access to the interior of Asia was cut off, Europeanmerchants might begin to reflect upon the value of what they werelosing, and to consider if there were any feasible method of recoveringit. 

[Sidenote: The accustomed routes of Oriental trade cut off by theOttoman Turks. ]

[Sidenote: Necessity for finding an "outside route to the Indies. "]

It was not merely the shutting up of China by the first Ming emperor, in 1368, that checked the intercourse between Europe and Asia. A stillmore baleful obstacle to all such intercourse had lately come upon thescene. In Asia Minor the beastly Turk, whose career had been for twocenturies arrested by the Crusades, now reared his head again. TheSeljukian had been only scotched, not killed; and now he sprang to lifeas the Ottoman, with sharper fangs than before. In 1365 the Turksestablished themselves in the Balkan peninsula, with Adrianople as theircapital, and began tightening their coils about the doomed city ofConstantine. Each point that they gained meant the strangling of just somuch Oriental trade; for, as we have seen, the alliance ofConstantinople with Genoa since 1261 had secured to the latter city, andto western Europe, the advantages of the overland routes from Asia, whether through the Volga country or across Armenia. When at length, in1453, the Turks took Constantinople, the splendid commercial career ofGenoa was cut with the shears of Atropos. At the same time, as theirpower was rapidly extending over Syria and down toward Egypt, threatening the overthrow of the liberal Mameluke dynasty there, thecommercial prosperity of Venice also was seriously imperilled. Moreover, as Turkish corsairs began to swarm in the eastern waters of theMediterranean, the voyage became more and more unsafe for Christianvessels. It was thus, while the volume of trade with Asia was, in thenatural course of things, swelling year by year, that its accustomedroutes were being ruthlessly cut off. It was fast becoming necessary toconsider whether there might not be other practicable routes to "theIndies" than those which had from time immemorial been followed. Couldthere be such a thing as an "outside route" to that land of promise? Amore startling question has seldom been propounded; for it involved aradical departure from the grooves in which the human mind had beenrunning ever since the days of Solomon. Two generations of men lived anddied while this question was taking shape, and all that time Cathay andIndia and the islands of Spices were objects of increasing desire, clothed by eager fancy with all manner of charms and riches. The moreeffectually the eastern Mediterranean was closed, the stronger grew theimpulse to venture upon unknown paths in order to realize the vague butglorious hopes that began to cluster about these remote countries. Suchan era of romantic enterprise as was thus ushered in, the world hasnever seen before or since. It was equally remarkable as an era ofdiscipline in scientific thinking. In the maritime ventures ofunparalleled boldness now to be described, the human mind was gropingtoward the era of enormous extensions of knowledge in space and timerepresented by the names of Newton and Darwin. It was learning the rightway of putting its trust in the Unseen. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES. 

_EASTWARD OR PORTUGUESE ROUTE. _

[Sidenote: Question as to whether Asia could be reached by sailingaround Africa. ]

As it dawned upon men's minds that to find some oceanic route fromEurope to the remote shores of Asia was eminently desirable, the firstattempt would naturally be to see what could be done by sailing down thewestern coast of Africa, and ascertaining whether that continent couldbe circumnavigated. It was also quite in the natural order of thingsthat this first attempt should be made by the Portuguese. 

In the general history of the Middle Ages the Spanish peninsula had beento some extent cut off from the main currents of thought and feelingwhich actuated the rest of Europe. Its people had never joined the otherChristian nations in the Crusades, for the good reason that they alwayshad quite enough to occupy them in their own domestic struggle with theMoors. From the throes of this prolonged warfare Portugal emergedsomewhat sooner than the Spanish kingdoms, and thus had somewhat earliera surplus of energy released for work of another sort. It was notstrange that the Portuguese should be the first people since the oldNorthmen to engage in distant maritime adventure upon a grand scale. Nor was it strange that Portuguese seamanship should at first havethriven upon naval warfare with Mussulmans. It was in attempting tosuppress the intolerable nuisance of Moorish piracy that Portugueseships became accustomed to sail a little way down the west coast ofAfrica; and such voyages, begun for military purposes, were kept up inthe interests of commerce, and presently served as a mighty stimulus togeographical curiosity. We have now to consider at some length how gravewas the problem that came up for immediate solution. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Views of Eratosthenes, B. C. 276-196. ]

[Sidenote: Opposing theory of Ptolemy, cir. A. D. 150. ]

With regard to the circumnavigability of Africa two opposite opinionswere maintained by the ancient Greek and Latin writers whose authoritythe men of the Middle Ages were wont to quote as decisive of every vexedquestion. The old Homeric notion of an ocean encompassing theterrestrial world, although mentioned with doubt by Herodotus, [339]continued to survive after the globular form of the earth had come to begenerally maintained by ancient geographers. The greatest of thesegeographers, Eratosthenes, correctly assumed that the Indian ocean wascontinuous with the Atlantic, [340] and that Africa could becircumnavigated, just as he incorrectly assumed that the Caspian seawas a huge gulf communicating with a northern ocean, by which it wouldbe possible to sail around the continent of Asia as he imagined it. [341]A similar opinion as to Africa was held by Posidonius and byStrabo. [342] It was called in question, however, by Polybius, [343] andwas flatly denied by the great astronomer Hipparchus, who thought thatcertain observations on the tides, reported by Seleucus of Babylon, proved that there could be no connection between the Atlantic and Indianoceans. [344] Claudius Ptolemy, writing in the second century afterChrist, followed the opinion of Hipparchus, and carried to an extremethe reaction against Eratosthenes. By Ptolemy's time the Caspian hadbeen proved to be an inland sea, and it was evident that Asia extendedmuch farther to the north and east than had once been supposed. Thisseems to have discredited in his mind the whole conception of outsideoceans, and he not only gave an indefinite northward and eastwardextension to Asia and an indefinite southern extension to Africa, butbrought these two continents together far to the southeast, thus makingthe Indian ocean a land-locked sea. [345]

 [Footnote 339: [Greek: Ton de Ôkeanon logô men legousi ap' hêliou anatoleôn arxamenon gên peri pasan rheein, ergô de ouk apodeiknysi. ] Herodotus, iv. 8. ]

 [Footnote 340: [Greek: Kai gar kat' auton Eratosthenê tên ektos thalattan hapasan syrroun einai, hôste kai tên Hesperion kai tên Erythran thalattan mian einai. ] Strabo, i. 3, § 13. ]

 [Footnote 341: Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. I. P. 644. ]

 [Footnote 342: Strabo, ii. 3, § 4; xvii. 3, § 1. ]

 [Footnote 343: [Greek: Kathaper de kai tês Asias kai tês Libyes, katho synaptousin allêlais peri tên Aithiopian, oudeis echei legein atrekôs heôs tôn kath' hêmas kairôn, poteron êpeiros esti kata to syneches ta pros tên mesêmbrian, ê thalattê periechetai. ] Polybius, iii. 38. ]

 [Footnote 344: Bunbury, _op. Cit. _ vol. Ii. P. 15. ]

 [Footnote 345: See the map of Ptolemy's world, above, p. 264. ]

[Sidenote: Story of the Phoenician voyage, in the time of Necho. ]

These views of Hipparchus and Ptolemy took no heed of the story told toHerodotus of the circumnavigation of Africa by a Phoenician squadron atsome time during the reign of Necho in Egypt (610-595 B. C. ). [346] ThePhoenician ships were said to have sailed from the Red Sea and to havereturned through the Mediterranean in the third year after starting. Ineach of the two autumn seasons they stopped and sowed grain and waitedfor it to ripen, which in southern Africa would require ten or twelveweeks. [347] On their return to Egypt they declared ("I for my part donot believe them, " says Herodotus, "but perhaps others may") that inthus sailing from east to west around Africa they had the sun upon theirright hand. About this alleged voyage there has been a good deal ofcontroversy. [348] No other expedition in any wise comparable to it forlength and difficulty can be cited from ancient history, and a criticalscholar is inclined to look with suspicion upon all such accounts ofunique and isolated events. As we have not the details of the story, itis impossible to give it a satisfactory critical examination. Thecircumstance most likely to convince us of its truth is precisely thatwhich dear old Herodotus deemed incredible. The position of the sun, tothe north of the mariners, is something that could hardly have beenimagined by people familiar only with the northern hemisphere. It istherefore almost certain that Necho's expedition sailed beyond theequator. [349] But that is as far as inference can properly carry us; forour experience of the uncritical temper of ancient narrators is enoughto suggest that such an achievement might easily be magnified by rumourinto the story told, more than a century after the event, to Herodotus. The data are too slight to justify us in any dogmatic opinion. Onething, however, is clear. Even if the circumnavigation waseffected, --which, on the whole, seems improbable, --it remained quitebarren of results. It produced no abiding impression upon men'sminds[350] and added nothing to geographical knowledge. The veil ofmystery was not lifted from southern Africa. The story was doubted byStrabo and Posidonius, and passed unheeded, as we have seen, byHipparchus and Ptolemy. 

 [Footnote 346: Ptolemy expressly declares that the equatorial regions had never been visited by people from the northern hemisphere: [Greek: Tines de eisin hai oikêseis ouk an echoimen pepeismenôs eipein. Atriptoi gar eisi mechri tou deuro tois apo tês kath' hêmas oikoumenês, kai eikasian mallon an tis ê historian hêgêsaito ta legomena peri autôn. ] _Syntaxis_, ii. 6. ]

 [Footnote 347: Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, vol. Iii. P. 29, note 8. ]

 [Footnote 348: The story is discredited by Mannert, _Geographie der Griechen und Römer_, bd. I. Pp. 19-26; Gossellin, _Recherches sur la géographie des Anciens_, tom. I. P. 149; Lewis, _Astronomy of the Ancients_, pp. 508-515; Vincent, _Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean_, vol. I. Pp. 303-311, vol. Ii. Pp. 13-15; Leake, _Disputed Questions of Ancient Geography_, pp. 1-8. It is defended by Heeren, _Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr_, etc. , 3e aufl. , Göttingen, 1815, bd. I. Abth. Ii. Pp. 87-93; Rennell, _Geography of Herodotus_, pp. 672-714; Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. Iii. Pp. 377-385. The case is ably presented in Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. I. Pp. 289-296, where it is concluded that the story "cannot be disproved or pronounced to be absolutely impossible; but the difficulties and improbabilities attending it are so great that they cannot reasonably be set aside without better evidence than the mere statement of Herodotus, upon the authority of unknown informants. " Mr. Bunbury (vol. I. P. 317) says that he has reasons for believing that Mr. Grote afterwards changed his opinion and came to agree with Sir George Lewis. ]

 [Footnote 349: In reading the learned works of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, one is often reminded of what Sainte-Beuve somewhere says of the great scholar Letronne, when he had spent the hour of his lecture in demolishing some pretty or popular belief: "Il se frotta les mains et s'en alla bien content. " When it came to ancient history, Sir George was undeniably fond of "the everlasting No. " In the present case his skepticism seems on the whole well-judged, but some of his arguments savour of undue haste toward a negative conclusion. He thus strangely forgets that what we call autumn is springtime in the southern hemisphere (_Astronomy of the Ancients_, p. 511). His argument that the time alleged was insufficient for the voyage is fully met by Major Rennell, who has shown that the time was amply sufficient, and that the direction of winds and ocean currents would make the voyage around southern Africa from east to west much easier than from west to east. ]

 [Footnote 350: "No trace of it could be found in the Alexandrian library, either by Eratosthenes in the third, or by Marinus of Tyre in the second, century before Christ, although both of them were diligent examiners of ancient records. " Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, p. 90. ]

[Sidenote: Voyage of Hanno. ]

Of Phoenician and other voyages along the Atlantic coast of Africa wehave much more detailed and trustworthy information. As early as thetwelfth century before Christ traders from Tyre had founded Cadiz(Gades), [351] and at a later date the same hardy people seem to havemade the beginnings of Lisbon (Olisipo). From such advanced stationsTyrian and Carthaginian ships sometimes found their way northward as faras Cornwall, and in the opposite direction fishing voyages were madealong the African coast. The most remarkable undertaking in this quarterwas the famous voyage of the Carthaginian commander Hanno, whose ownbrief but interesting account of it has been preserved. [352] Thisexpedition consisted of sixty penteconters (fifty-oared ships), and itschief purpose was colonization. Upon the Mauritanian coast seven smalltrading stations were founded, one of which--Kerne, at the mouth of theRio d' Ouro[353]--existed for a long time. From this point Hanno madetwo voyages of exploration, the second of which carried him as far asSierra Leone and the neighbouring Sherboro island, where he found "wildmen and women covered with hair, " called by the interpreters"gorillas. "[354] At that point the ships turned back, apparently forwant of provisions. 

 [Footnote 351: Rawlinson's _History of Phoenicia_, pp. 105, 418; Pseudo-Aristotle, _Mirab. Auscult. _, 146; Velleius Paterculus, i. 2, § 6. ]

 [Footnote 352: Hanno, _Periplus_, in Müller, _Geographi Græci Minores_, tom. I. Pp. 1-14. Of two or three commanders named Hanno it is uncertain which was the one who led this expedition, and thus its date has been variously assigned from 570 to 470 B. C. ]

 [Footnote 353: For the determination of these localities see Bunbury, _op. Cit. _ vol. I. Pp. 318-335. There is an interesting Spanish description of Hanno's expedition in Mariana, _Historia de España_, Madrid, 1783, tom. I. Pp. 89-93. ]

 [Footnote 354: The sailors pursued them, but did not capture any of the males, who scrambled up the cliffs out of their reach. They captured three females, who bit and scratched so fiercely that it was useless to try to take them away. So they killed them and took their skins home to Carthage. _Periplus_, xviii. According to Pliny (_Hist. Nat. _, vi. 36) these skins were hung up as a votive offering in the temple of Juno (i. E. Astarte or Ashtoreth: see Apuleius, _Metamorph. _, xi. 257; Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenic. _, p. 168), where they might have been seen at any time before the Romans destroyed the city. ]

[Sidenote: Voyages of Sataspes and Eudoxus. ]

No other expedition in ancient times is known to have proceeded so farsouth as Sierra Leone. Two other voyages upon this Atlantic coast arementioned, but without definite details. The one was that of Sataspes(about 470 B. C. ), narrated by Herodotus, who merely tells us that acoast was reached where undersized men, clad in palm-leaf garments, fledto the hills at sight of the strange visitors. [355] The other was thatof Eudoxus (about 85 B. C. ), related by Posidonius, the friend andteacher of Cicero. The story is that this Eudoxus, in a voyage upon theeast coast of Africa, having a philological turn of mind, wrote down thewords of some of the natives whom he met here and there along the shore. He also picked up a ship's prow in the form of a horse's head, and uponhis return to Alexandria some merchants professed to recognize it asbelonging to a ship of Cadiz. Eudoxus thereupon concluded that Africawas circumnavigable, and presently sailed through the Mediterranean andout upon the Atlantic. Somewhere upon the coast of Mauritania he foundnatives who used some words of similar sound to those which he hadwritten down when visiting the eastern coast, whence he concluded thatthey were people of the same race. At this point he turned back, and thesequel of the story was unknown to Posidonius. [356]

 [Footnote 355: Herodotus, iv. 43. ]

 [Footnote 356: The story is preserved by Strabo, ii. 3, §§ 4, 5, who rejects it with a vehemence for which no adequate reason is assigned. ]

[Sidenote: Wild exaggerations. ]

It is worthy of note that both Pliny and Pomponius Mela, quotingCornelius Nepos as their authority, speak of Eudoxus as havingcircumnavigated Africa from the Red Sea to Cadiz; and Pliny, moreover, tells us that Hanno sailed around that continent as far asArabia, [357]--a statement which is clearly false. These examples showhow stories grow when carelessly and uncritically repeated, and theystrongly tend to confirm the doubt with which one is inclined to regardthe tale of Necho's sailors above mentioned. In truth, the island ofGorillas, discovered by Hanno, was doubtless the most southerly point onthat coast reached by navigators in ancient times. Of the islands in thewestern ocean the Carthaginians certainly knew the Canaries (where theyhave left undoubted inscriptions), probably also the Madeiras, andpossibly the Cape Verde group. [358]

 [Footnote 357: Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _, ii. 67; Mela, _De Situ Orbis_, iii. 9. ]

 [Footnote 358: After the civil war of Sertorius (B. C. 80-72), the Romans became acquainted with the Canaries, which, because of their luxuriant vegetation and soft climate, were identified with the Elysium described by Homer, and were commonly known as the Fortunate islands. "Contra Fortunatæ Insulæ abundant sua sponte genitis, et subinde aliis super aliis innascentibus nihil sollicitos alunt, beatius quam aliæ urbes excultæ. " Mela, iii. 10. 

 [Greek: Alla s' es Êlysion pedion kai peirata gaiês athanatoi pempsousin, hothi xanthos Rhadamanthys, têper rhêïstê biotê pelei anthrôpoisin; ou niphetos, out' ar cheimôn polys oute pot' ombros, all' aiei Zephyroio ligy pneiontas aêtas Ôkeanos aniêsin anapsychein anthrôpous. ] _Odyssey_, iv. 563. 

 Since Horace's time (_Epod. _ vi. 41-66) the Canary islands have been a favourite theme for poets. It was here that Tasso placed the loves of Rinaldo and Armida, in the delicious garden where

 Vezzosi augelli infra le verde fronde Temprano a prova lascivette note. Mormora l' aura, e fa le foglie e l' onde Garrir, che variamente ella percote. _Gerusalemme Liberata_, xvi. 12. ]

[Illustration: Pomponius Mela's World, cir. A. D. 50. ]

[Sidenote: Views of Pomponius Mela, cir. A. D. 50. ]

The extent of the knowledge which the ancients thus had of westernAfrica is well illustrated in the map representing the geographicaltheories of Pomponius Mela, whose book was written about A. D. 50. Ofthe eastern coast and the interior Mela knew less than Ptolemy acentury later, but of the Atlantic coast he knew more than Ptolemy. Thefact that the former geographer was a native of Spain and the latter anative of Egypt no doubt had something to do with this. Mela hadprofited by the Carthaginian discoveries. His general conception of theearth was substantially that of Eratosthenes. It was what has beenstyled the "oceanic" theory, in contrast with the "continental" theoryof Ptolemy. In the unvisited regions on all sides of the known worldEratosthenes imagined vast oceans, Ptolemy imagined vast deserts orimpenetrable swamps. The former doctrine was of course much morefavourable to maritime enterprise than the latter. The works of Ptolemyexercised over the mediæval mind an almost despotic sway, which, inspite of their many merits, was in some respects a hindrance toprogress; so that, inasmuch as the splendid work of Strabo, the mosteminent follower of Eratosthenes, was unknown to mediæval Europe untilabout 1450, it was fortunate that the Latin treatise of Mela wasgenerally read and highly esteemed. People in those days were suchuncritical readers that very likely the antagonism between Ptolemy andMela may have failed to excite comment, [359] especially in view of thelack of suitable maps such as emphasize that antagonism to our modernminds. But in the fifteenth century, when men were getting their firstinklings of critical scholarship, and when the practical question of anocean voyage to Asia was pressing for solution, such a point could nolonger fail to attract attention; and it happened fortunately that thewet theory, no less than the dry theory, had a popular advocate amongthose classical authors to whose authority so much deference was paid. 

 [Footnote 359: Just as our grandfathers used to read the Bible without noticing such points as the divergences between the books of Kings and Chronicles, the contradictions between the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, the radically different theories of Christ's personality and career in the Fourth Gospel as compared with the three Synoptics, etc. ]

[Sidenote: Ancient theory of the five zones. ]

[Sidenote: The Inhabited World and the Antipodes. ]

If the Portuguese mariners of the generation before Columbus hadacquiesced in Ptolemy's views as final, they surely would not havedevoted their energies to the task of circumnavigating Africa. But therewere yet other theoretical or fanciful obstacles in the way. When youlook at a modern map of the world, the "five zones" may seem like a meregraphic device for marking conveniently the relations of differentregions to the solar source of heat; but before the great Portuguesevoyages and the epoch-making third voyage of Vespucius, to be describedhereafter, a discouraging doctrine was entertained with regard to thesezones. Ancient travellers in Scythia and voyagers to "Thule"--which inPtolemy's scheme perhaps meant the Shetland isles[360]--had learnedsomething of Arctic phenomena. The long winter nights, [361] the snow andice, and the bitter winds, made a deep impression upon visitors from theMediterranean;[362] and when such facts were contrasted with thescorching blasts that came from Sahara, the resulting theory wasundeniably plausible. In the extreme north the ocean must be frozen andthe country uninhabitable by reason of the cold; contrariwise, in thefar south the ocean must be boiling hot and the country inhabitable onlyby gnomes and salamanders. Applying these ideas to the conception of theearth as a sphere, Pomponius Mela tells us that the surface of thesphere is divided into five zones, of which only two are fit to supporthuman life. About each pole stretches a dead and frozen zone; thesouthern and northern hemispheres have each a temperate zone, with thesame changes of seasons, but not occurring at the same (but opposite)times; the north temperate zone is the seat of the Oecumene ([Greek:oikoumenê]), or Inhabited World; the south temperate zone is alsoinhabited by the Antichthones or Antipodes, but about these people weknow nothing, because between us and them there intervenes the burningzone, which it is impossible to cross. [363]

 [Footnote 360: Bunbury, _op. Cit. _ vol. Ii. Pp. 492, 527. The name is used in different geographical senses by various ancient writers, as is well shown in Lewis's _Astronomy of the Ancients_, pp. 467-481. ]

 [Footnote 361: The Romans, at least by the first century A. D. , knew also of the shortness of northern nights in summer. 

 Arma quidem ultra Littora Invernæ promovimus, et modo captas Orcadas, ac minima contentos nocte Britannos. Juvenal, ii. 159. 

 See also Pliny, _Hist. Nat. _, iv. 30; Martianus Capella, vi. 595; Achilles Tatius, XXXV. ]

 [Footnote 362: The reader will remember Virgil's magnificent description of a Scythian winter (_Georg. _, iii. 352):--

 Illic clausa tenent stabulis armenta; neque ullæ Aut herbæ campo apparent, aut arbore frondes: Sed jacet aggeribus niveis informis, et alto Terra gelu late, septemque assurgit in ulnas; Semper hiems, semper spirantes frigora Cauri. Tum Sol pallentes haud unquam discutit umbras; Nec cum invectus equis altum petit æthera, nec cum Præcipitem Oceani rubro lavit æquore currum. Concrescunt subitæ currenti in flumine crustæ; Undaque jam tergo ferratos sustinet orbes, Puppibus illa prius patulis, nunc hospita plaustris, Æraque dissiliunt vulgo, vestesque rigescunt Indutæ, cæduntque securibus humida vina Et totæ solidam in glaciem vertêre lacunæ, Stiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis. Interea toto non secius aëre ningit; Intereunt pecudes; stant circumfusa pruinis Corpora magna boum; confertoque agmine cervi Torpent mole nova, et summis vix cornibus exstant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ipsi in defossis specubus, secura sub alta Otia agunt terra, congestaque robora, totasque Advolvere focis ulmos, ignique dedere. Hic noctem ludo ducunt, et pocula læti Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis. Talis Hyperboreo Septem subjecta trioni Gens effræna virûm Rhipæo tunditur Euro, Et pecudum fulvis velantur corpora sætis. 

 The Roman conception of the situation of these "Hyperboreans" and of the Rhipæan mountains may be seen in the map of Mela's world. ]

 [Footnote 363: "Huic medio terra sublimis cingitur undique mari: eodemque in duo latera, quæ hemisphæria nominantur, ab oriente divisa ad occasum, zonis quinque distinguitur. Mediam æstus infestat, frigus ultimas: reliquæ habitabiles paria agunt anni tempora, verum non pariter. Antichthones alteram, nos alteram incolimus. Illius situ ab ardorem intercedentis plagæ incognito, hujus dicendus est, " etc. _De Situ Orbis_, i. 1. A similar theory is set forth by Ovid (_Metamorph. _, i. 45), and by Virgil (_Georg. _, i. 233):--

 Quinque tenent coelum zonæ; quarum una corusco Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni; Quam circum extremæ dextra lævaque trahuntur, Cærulea glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris. Has inter mediamque, duæ mortalibus ægris Munere concessæ Divûm; et via secta per ambas, Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo. ]

[Sidenote: Curious notions about Ceylon. ]

This notion of an antipodal world in the southern hemisphere will haveespecial interest for us when we come to deal with the voyages ofVespucius. The idea seems to have originated in a guess of Hipparchusthat Taprobane--the island of Ceylon, about which the most absurdreports were brought to Europe--might be the beginning of another world. This is very probable, says Mela, with delightful _naïveté_, becauseTaprobane is inhabited, and still we do not know of anybody who has evermade the tour of it. [364] Mela's contemporary, the elder Pliny, declares that Taprobane "has long been regarded" as part of anotherworld, the name of which is Antichthon, or Opposite-Earth;[365] at thesame time Pliny vouchsafes three closely-printed pages of informationabout this mysterious country. Throughout the Middle Ages the conceptionof some sort of an antipodal inhabited world was vaguely entertained bywriters here and there, but many of the clergy condemned it as implyingthe existence of people cut off from the knowledge of the gospel and notincluded in the plan of salvation. 

 [Footnote 364: "Taprobane aut grandis admodum insula aut prima pars orbis alterius Hipparcho dicitur; sed quia habitata, nec quisquam circummeasse traditur, prope verum est. " _De Situ Orbis_, iii. 7. ]

 [Footnote 365: "Taprobanen alterum orbem terrarum esse, diu existimatum est, Antichthonum appellatione. " _Hist. Nat. _, vi. 24. ]

[Sidenote: The fiery zone. ]

As to the possibility of crossing the torrid zone, opinion was notunanimous. Greek explorers from Alexandria (cir. B. C. 100) seem to havegone far up the Nile toward the equator, and the astronomer Geminusquotes their testimony in proof of his opinion that the torrid zone isinhabitable. [366] Panætius, the friend of the younger Scipio Africanus, had already expressed a similar opinion. But the flaming theoryprevailed. Macrobius, writing about six hundred years later, maintainedthat the southernmost limit of the habitable earth was 850 miles southof Syene, which lies just under the tropic of Cancer. [367] Beyond thispoint no man could go without danger from the fiery atmosphere. Beyondsome such latitude on the ocean no ship could venture without risk ofbeing engulfed in some steaming whirlpool. [368] Such was the commonbelief before the great voyages of the Portuguese. 

 [Footnote 366: Geminus, _Isagoge_, cap. 13. ]

 [Footnote 367: Macrobius, _Somnium Scipionis_, ii. 8. Strabo (ii. 5, §§ 7, 8) sets the southern boundary of the Inhabited World 800 miles south of Syene, and the northern boundary at the north of Ireland. ]

 [Footnote 368: Another notion, less easily explicable and less commonly entertained, but interesting for its literary associations, was the notion of a mountain of loadstone in the Indian ocean, which prevented access to the torrid zone by drawing the nails from ships and thus wrecking them. This imaginary mountain, with some variations in the description, is made to carry a serious geographical argument by the astrologer Pietro d' Abano, in his book _Conciliator Differentiarum_, written about 1312. (See Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, p. 100. ) It plays an important part in one of the finest tales in the _Arabian Nights_, --the story of the "Third Royal Mendicant. "]

[Sidenote: Going downhill. ]

Besides this dread of the burning zone, another fanciful obstacle besetthe mariner who proposed to undertake a long voyage upon the outerocean. It had been observed that a ship which disappears in the offingseems to be going downhill; and many people feared that if they shouldhappen thus to descend too far away from the land they could never getback again. Men accustomed to inland sea travel did not feel this dreadwithin the regions of which they had experience, but it assailed themwhenever they thought of braving the mighty waters outside. [369] Thusthe master mariner, in the Middle Ages, might contemplate the possiblechance of being drawn by force of gravity into the fiery gulf, should herashly approach too near; and in such misgivings he would be confirmedby Virgil, who was as much read then as he is to-day and esteemed anauthority, withal, on scientific questions; for according to Virgil theInhabited World descends toward the equator and has its apex in theextreme north. [370]

 [Footnote 369: Ferdinand Columbus tells us that this objection was urged against the Portuguese captains and afterwards against his father: "E altri di ciò quasi così disputavano, come già i Portoghesi intorno al navigare in Guinea; dicendo che, se si allargasse alcuno a far cammino diritto al occidente, come l' Ammiraglio diceva, non potrebbe poi tornare in Ispagna per la rotondità della sfera; tenendo per certissime, che qualunque uscisse del emisperio conosciuto da Tolomeo, anderebbe in giù, e poi gli sarebbe impossibile dar la volta; e affermando che ciò sarebbe quasi uno ascendere all' insù di un monte. Il che non potrebbono fare i navigli con grandissimo vento. " _Vita deli' Ammiraglio_, Venice, 1571, cap. Xii. The same thing is told, in almost the same words, by Las Casas, since both writers followed the same original documents: "Añidian mas, que quien navegase por vía derecha la vuelta del poniente, como el Cristóbal Colon proferia, no podria despues volver, suponiendo que el mundo era redondo y yendo hácia el occidente iban cuesta abajo, y saliendo del hemisferio que Ptolomeo escribiò, á la vuelta érales necesario subir cuesta arriba, lo que los navíos era imposible hacer. " The gentle but keen sarcasm that follows is very characteristic of Las Casas: "Esta era gentil y profunda razon, y señal de haber bien el negocio entendido!" _Historia de las Indias_, tom. I. P. 230. ]

 [Footnote 370: Mundus, ut ad Scythiam Rhipæasque arduus arces Consurgit, premitur Libyæ devexus in austros. Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum Sub pedibus Styx atra videt Manesque profundi. _Georg. _, i. 240. 

 For an account of the deference paid to Virgil in the Middle Ages, as well as the grotesque fancies about him, see Tunison's _Master Virgil_, 2d ed. , Cincinnati, 1890. ]

[Sidenote: Superstitious fancies. ]

To such notions as these, which were supposed to have some sort ofscientific basis, we must add the wild superstitious fancies thatclustered about all remote and unvisited corners of the world. In mapsmade in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in such places as weshould label "Unexplored Region, " there were commonly depicted uncouthshapes of "Gorgons and Hydras and Chimæras dire, " furnishing eloquenttestimony to the feelings with which the unknown was regarded. Thebarren wastes of the Sea of Darkness awakened a shuddering dread likethat with which children shrink from the gloom of a cellar. When weremember all these things, and consider how the intelligent purposewhich urged the commanders onward was scarcely within the comprehensionof their ignorant and refractory crews, we can begin to form some ideaof the difficulties that confronted the brave mariners who first soughtan ocean route to the far-off shores of Cathay. 

[Sidenote: Clumsiness of the caravels. ]

[Sidenote: Famine and scurvy. ]

Less formidable than these obstacles based on fallacious reasoning orsuperstitious whim were those that were furnished by the clumsiness ofthe ships and the crudeness of the appliances for navigation. As alreadyobserved, the Spanish and Portuguese caravels of the fifteenth centurywere less swift and manageable craft than the Norwegian "dragons" of thetenth. Mere yachts in size we should call them, but far from yachtlikein shape or nimbleness. With their length seldom more than thrice theirwidth of beam, with narrow tower-like poops, with broad-shouldered bowsand bowsprit weighed down with spritsail yards, and with no canvashigher than a topsail, these clumsy caravels could make but littleprogress against head-winds, and the amount of tacking and beating toand fro was sometimes enough to quadruple the length of the voyage. Forwant of metallic sheathing below the waterline the ship was liable to besunk by the terrible worm which, in Hakluyt's phrase, "many timespearceth and eateth through the strongest oake. " For want of vegetablefood in the larder, or anything save the driest of bread and beefstiffened with brine, the sailors were sure to be attacked by scurvy, and in a very long voyage the crew was deemed fortunate that did notlose half its number from that foul disease. Often in traversing unknownseas the sturdy men who survived all other perils were brought face toface with starvation when they had ventured too far without turningback. [371] We need not wonder that the first steps in oceanic discoverywere slow and painful. 

 [Footnote 371: Or simply because a wrong course happened to be taken, through ignorance of atmospheric conditions, as in the second homeward and third outward voyages of Columbus. See below, pp. 485, 490. ]

[Sidenote: The mariner's compass. ]

First among the instruments without which systematic ocean navigationwould have been impossible, the magnetic compass had been introducedinto southern Europe and was used by Biscayan and Catalan sailors beforethe end of the twelfth century. [372] Parties of Crusaders had learnedthe virtues of the suspended needle from the Arabs, who are said to havegot their knowledge indirectly from China in the course of their easternvoyages. [373] It seems to have been at Amalfi that the needle was firstenclosed in a box and connected with a graduated compass-card. Apparently it had not come into general use in the middle of thethirteenth century, for in 1258 the famous Brunetto Latini, afterwardstutor of Dante, made a visit to Roger Bacon, of which he gives adescription in a letter to his friend the poet Guido Cavalcanti: "TheParliament being summoned to assemble at Oxford, I did not fail to seeFriar Bacon as soon as I arrived, and (among other things) he showed mea black ugly stone called a magnet, which has the surprising property ofdrawing iron to it; and upon which, if a needle be rubbed, andafterwards fastened to a straw so that it shall swim upon water, theneedle will instantly turn toward the Pole-star: therefore, be the nightever so dark, so that neither moon nor star be visible, yet shall themariner be able, by the help of this needle, to steer his vessel aright. This discovery, which appears useful in so great a degree to all whotravel by sea, must remain concealed until other times; because nomaster mariner dares to use it lest he should fall under the imputationof being a magician; nor would the sailors venture themselves out to seaunder his command, if he took with him an instrument which carries sogreat an appearance of being constructed under the influence of someinfernal spirit. [374] A time may arrive when these prejudices, whichare of such great hindrance to researches into the secrets of nature, will be overcome; and it will be then that mankind shall reap thebenefit of the labours of such learned men as Friar Bacon, and dojustice to that industry and intelligence for which he and they now meetwith no other return than obloquy and reproach. "[375]

 [Footnote 372: Navarrete, _Discurso historico sobre los progresos del arte de navegar en España_, p. 28; see also Raymond Lully's treatise, _Libro felix, ó Maravillas del mundo_ (A. D. 1286). ]

 [Footnote 373: See Humboldt's _Kosmos_, bd. I. P. 294; Klaproth, _Lettre à M. De Humboldt sur l'invention de la boussole_, pp. 41, 45, 50, 66, 79, 90. But some of Klaproth's conclusions have been doubted: "Pour la boussole, rien ne prouve que les Chinois l'aient employée pour la navigation, tandis que nous la trouvons dès le xi^{e} siècle chez les Arabes qui s'en servent non seulement dans leurs traversées maritimes, mais dans les voyages de caravanes au milieu des déserts, " etc. Sédillot, _Histoire des Arabes_, tom. Ii. P. 130. ]

 [Footnote 374: Is it not a curious instance of human perversity that while customary usage from time immemorial has characterized as "acts of God" such horrible events as famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, on the other hand when some purely beneficent invention has appeared, such as the mariner's compass or the printing press, it has commonly been accredited to the Devil? The case of Dr. Faustus is the most familiar example. ]

 [Footnote 375: This version is cited from Major's _Prince Henry the Navigator_, p. 58. ]

[Sidenote: Latitude and longitude. ]

That time was after all not so long in arriving, for by the end of thethirteenth century the compass had come to be quite generally used, [376]and the direction of a ship's course could be watched continuously infoul and fair weather alike. For taking the sun's altitude rudeastrolabes and jack-staffs were in use, very crazy affairs as comparedwith the modern quadrant, but sufficiently accurate to enable awell-trained observer, in calculating his latitude, to get somewherewithin two or three degrees of the truth. In calculating longitude theerror was apt to be much greater, for in the absence of chronometersthere were no accurate means for marking differences in time. It wasnecessary to depend upon the dead-reckoning, and the custom was first tosail due north or south to the parallel of the place of destination andthen to turn at right angles and sail due east or west. Errors of eightor even ten degrees were not uncommon. Thus at the end of a long outwardvoyage the ship might find itself a hundred miles or more to the northor south, and six or seven hundred miles to the east or west, of thepoint at which it had been aimed. Under all these difficulties, theapproximations made to correct sailing by the most skilful mariners weresometimes wonderful. Doubtless this very poverty of resources served tosharpen their watchful sagacity. [377] To sail the seas was in those daysa task requiring high mental equipment; it was no work for yourcommonplace skipper. Human faculty was taxed to its utmost, and humancourage has never been more grandly displayed than by the glorioussailors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

 [Footnote 376: Hüllmann, _Städtewesen des Mittelalters_, bd. I. Pp. 125-137. ]

 [Footnote 377: Compare the remarks of Mr. Clark Russell on the mariners of the seventeenth century, in his _William Dampier_, p. 12. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Prince Henry the Navigator, 1394-1463. ]

[Sidenote: His idea of an ocean route to the Indies, and what it mightbring. ]

We are now prepared to appreciate the character of the work that wasdone in the course of the first attempts to find an oceanic route fromEurope to Asia. Then, as in other great epochs of history, men of geniusarose to meet the occasion. In 1394 was born Prince Henry of Portugal, since known as Henry the Navigator. [378] He was fourth son of King JohnI. , the valiant and prudent king under whom began the golden age ofPortugal, which lasted until the conquest of that country in 1580 byPhilip II. Of Spain. Henry's mother was Philippa, daughter of John ofGaunt. He was therefore cousin to our own Henry V. Of England, whom hequite equalled in genius, while the laurels that he won were moreglorious than those of Agincourt. In 1415, being then in histwenty-first year, Prince Henry played a distinguished part in theexpedition which captured Ceuta from the Moors. While in Morocco hegathered such information as he could concerning the interior of thecontinent; he learned something about the oases of Sahara, the distantriver Gambia, and the caravan trade between Tunis and Timbuctoo, wherebygold was carried from the Guinea coast to Mussulman ports on theMediterranean. If this coast could be reached by sea, its gold might bebrought to Lisbon as well. To divert such treasure from the infidel andsecure it for a Christian nation was an enterprise fitted to kindle aprince's enthusiasm. While Henry felt the full force of theseconsiderations, his thoughts took a wider range. The views of PomponiusMela had always been held in high esteem by scholars of the Spanishpeninsula, [379] and down past that Gold Coast Prince Henry saw theocean route to the Indies, the road whereby a vast empire might be wonfor Portugal and millions of wandering heathen souls might be gatheredinto the fold of Christ. To doubt the sincerity of the latter motive, orto belittle its influence, would be to do injustice to PrinceHenry, --such cynical injustice as our hard-headed age is only too apt tomete out to that romantic time and the fresh enthusiasm which inspiredits heroic performances. Prince Henry was earnest, conscientious, large-minded, and in the best sense devout; and there can be no questionthat in his mind, as in that of Columbus, and (with somewhat more alloy)in the minds of Cortes and others, the desire of converting the heathenand strengthening the Church served as a most powerful incentive to theactions which in the course of little more than a century quite changedthe face of the world. 

 [Footnote 378: My chief authorities for the achievements of Prince Henry and his successors are the Portuguese historians, Barros and Azurara. The best edition of the former is a modern one, Barros y Couto, _Decadas da Asia, nova edicão con Indice geral_, Lisbon, 1778-88, 24 vols. 12mo. I also refer sometimes to the Lisbon, 1752, edition of the _Decada primeira_, in folio. The priceless contemporary work of Azurara, written in 1453 under Prince Henry's direction, was not printed until the present century; Azurara, _Chronica do Descobrimento e Conquista de Guiné_, Paris, 1841, a superb edition in royal quarto, edited by the Viscount da Carreira, with introduction and notes by the Viscount de Santarem. ]

 [Footnote 379: Partly, perhaps, because Mela was himself a Spaniard, and partly because his opinions had been shared and supported by St. Isidore, of Seville (A. D. 570-636), whose learned works exercised immense authority throughout the Middle Ages. It is in one of St. Isidore's books (_Etymologiarum_, xiii. 16, apud Migne, _Patrologia_, tom. Lxxxii. Col. 484) that we first find the word "Mediterranean" used as a proper name for that great land-locked sea. ]

[Sidenote: The Sacred Promontory. ]

Filled with such lofty and generous thoughts, Prince Henry, on hisreturn from Morocco, in 1418, chose for himself a secluded place ofabode where he could devote himself to his purposes undisturbed by thecourt life at Lisbon or by political solicitations of whatever sort. Inthe Morocco campaign he had won such military renown that he was nowinvited by Pope Martin V. To take chief command of the papal army; andpresently he received similar flattering offers from his own cousin, Henry V. Of England, from John II. Of Castile, and from the EmperorSigismund, who, for shamefully violating his imperial word andpermitting the burning of John Huss, was now sorely pressed by theenraged and rebellious Bohemians. Such invitations had no charm forHenry. Refusing them one and all, he retired to the promontory ofSagres, in the southernmost province of Portugal, the ancient kingdom ofAlgarve, of which his father now appointed him governor. That lonely andbarren rock, protruding into the ocean, had long ago impressed theimagination of Greek and Roman writers; they called it the SacredPromontory, and supposed it to be the westernmost limit of the habitableearth. [380] There the young prince proceeded to build an astronomicalobservatory, the first that his country had ever seen, and to gatherabout him a school of men competent to teach and men eager to learn themysteries of map-making and the art of navigation. There he spent thegreater part of his life; thence he sent forth his captains to ploughthe southern seas; and as year after year the weather-beaten shipsreturned from their venturesome pilgrimage, the first glimpse of homethat greeted them was likely to be the beacon-light in the tower wherethe master sat poring over problems of Archimedes or watching the stars. For Henry, whose motto was "Talent de bien faire, " or (in the old Frenchusage) "Desire[381] to do well, " was wont to throw himselfwhole-hearted into whatever he undertook, and the study of astronomy andmathematics he pursued so zealously as to reach a foremost place amongthe experts of his time. With such tastes and such ambition, he wassingularly fortunate in wielding ample pecuniary resources; if such acombination could be more often realized, the welfare of mankind wouldbe notably enhanced. Prince Henry was Grand Master of the Order ofChrist, an organization half military, half religious, and out of itsabundant revenues he made the appropriations needful for the worthypurpose of advancing the interests of science, converting the heathen, and winning a commercial empire for Portugal. At first he had toencounter the usual opposition to lavish expenditure for a distantobject without hope of immediate returns; but after a while his doggedperseverance began to be rewarded with such successes as to silence alladverse comment. 

 [Footnote 380: [Greek: Homoiôs de kai peri tês exô stêlôn legetai; dysmikôtaton men gar sêmeion tês oikoumenês, to tôn Ibêrôn akrôtêrion, ho kalousin Ieron. ] Strabo, ii. 5, § 14; cf. Dionysius Periegetes, v. 161. In reality it lies not quite so far west as the country around Lisbon. ]

 [Footnote 381: See Littré, _Dictionnaire_, s. V. "Talent;" Du Cange, _Glossarium_, "talentum, animi decretum, voluntas, desiderium, cupiditas, " etc. ; cf. Raynouard, _Glossaire Provençale_, tom. V. P. 296. French was then fashionable at court, in Lisbon as well as in London. ]

[Sidenote: The Madeira and Canary islands. ]

The first work in hand was the rediscovery of coasts and islands thathad ceased to be visited even before the breaking up of the RomanEmpire. For more than a thousand years the Madeiras and Canaries hadbeen well-nigh forgotten, and upon the coast of the African continent noship ventured beyond Cape Non, the headland so named because it said"No!" to the wistful mariner. [382] There had been some re-awakening ofmaritime activity in the course of the fourteenth century, chiefly due, no doubt, to the use of the compass. Between 1317 and 1351 certainPortuguese ships, with Genoese pilots, had visited not only the Madeirasand Canaries, but even the Azores, a thousand miles out in the Atlantic;and these groups of islands are duly laid down upon the so-called Medicimap of 1351, preserved in the Laurentian library at Florence. [383] Thevoyage to the Azores was probably the greatest feat of ocean navigationthat had been performed down to that time, but it was not followed bycolonization. Again, somewhere about 1377 Madeira seems to have beenvisited by Robert Machin, an Englishman, whose adventures make a mostromantic story; and in 1402 the Norman knight, Jean de Béthencourt, hadbegun to found a colony in the Canaries, for which, in return for aidand supplies, he did homage to the King of Castile. [384] As for theAfrican coast, Cape Non had also been passed at some time during thefourteenth century, for Cape Bojador is laid down on the Catalan map of1375; but beyond that point no one had dared take the risks of theunknown sea. 

 [Footnote 382: The Portuguese proverb was "Quem passar o Cabo de Não ou voltará ou _não_, " i. E. "Whoever passes Cape _Non_ will return or _not_. " See Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 173; Mariana, _Hist. De España_, tom. I. P. 91; Barros, tom. I. P. 36. ]

 [Footnote 383: An engraved copy of this map may be found in Major's _Prince Henry the Navigator_, London, 1868, facing p. 107. I need hardly say that in all that relates to the Portuguese voyages I am under great obligation to Mr. Major's profoundly learned and critical researches. He has fairly conquered this subject and made it his own, and whoever touches it after him, however lightly, must always owe him a tribute of acknowledgment. ]

 [Footnote 384: See Bontier and Le Verrier, _The Canarian, or, Book of the Conquest and Conversion of the Canaries_, translated and edited by R. H. Major, London, 1872 (Hakluyt Soc). In 1414, Béthencourt's nephew, left in charge of these islands, sold them to Prince Henry, but Castile persisted in claiming them, and at length in 1479 her claim was recognized by treaty with Portugal. Of all the African islands, therefore, the Canaries alone came to belong, and still belong, to Spain. ]

[Sidenote: Gil Eannes passes Cape Bojador. ]

The first achievement under Prince Henry's guidance was the finalrediscovery and colonization of Porto Santo and Madeira in 1418-25 byGonsalvez Zarco, Tristam Vaz, and Bartholomew Perestrelo. [385] This workoccupied the prince's attention for some years, and then came up theproblem of Cape Bojador. The difficulty was twofold; the waves aboutthat headland were apt to be boisterous, and wild sailor's fancies wereapt to enkindle a mutinous spirit in the crews. It was not until 1433-35that Gil Eannes, a commander of unusually clear head and steady nerves, made three attempts and fairly passed the dreaded spot. In the firstattempt he failed, as his predecessors had done, to double the cape; inthe second attempt he doubled it; in the third he sailed nearly twohundred miles beyond. 

 [Footnote 385: Perestrelo had with him a female rabbit which littered on the voyage, and being landed, with her young, at Porto Santo, forthwith illustrated the fearful rate of multiplication of which organisms are capable in the absence of enemies or other adverse circumstances to check it. (Darwin, _Origin of Species_, chap. Iii. ) These rabbits swarmed all over the island and devoured every green and succulent thing, insomuch that they came near converting it into a desert. Prince Henry's enemies, who were vexed at the expenditure of money in such colonizing enterprises, were thus furnished with a wonderful argument. They maintained that God had evidently created those islands for beasts alone, not for men! "En este tiempo habia en todo Portugal grandísimas murmuraciones del Infante, viéndolo tan cudicioso y poner tanta diligencia en el descubrir de la tierra y costa de África, diciendo que destruia el reino en los gastos que hacia, y consumia los vecinos dél en poner en tanto peligro y daño la gente portoguesa, donde muchos morian, enviándolos en demanda de tierras que nunca los reyes de España pasados se atrevieron á emprender, donde habia de hacer muchas viudas y huérfanos con esta su porfia. Tomaban por argumento, que Dios no habia criado aquellas tierras sino para bestias, pues en tan poco tiempo en aquella isla tantos conejos habia multiplicado, que no dejaban cosa que para sustentacion de los hombres fuese menester. " Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 180. See also Azurara, _Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné_, cap. Lxxxiii. ]

[Illustration: Portuguese voyages on the coast of Africa. ]

[Sidenote: Beginning of the modern slave-trade, 1442. ]

[Sidenote: Papal grant of heathen countries to the Portuguese crown. ]

[Sidenote: Advance to Sierra Leone. ]

This achievement of Gil Eannes (_anglicè_, plain Giles Jones) marks anera. It was the beginning of great things. When we think of thehesitation with which this step was taken, and the vociferous applausethat greeted the successful captain, it is strange to reflect that babeswere already born in 1435 who were to live to hear of the prodigiousvoyages of Columbus and Gama, Vespucius and Magellan. After seven yearsa further step was taken in advance; in 1442 Antonio Gonçalves broughtgold and negro slaves from the Rio d' Ouro, or Rio del Oro, four hundredmiles beyond Cape Bojador. Of this beginning of the modern slave-trade Ishall treat in a future chapter. [386] Let it suffice here to observethat Prince Henry did not discourage but sanctioned it. The first aspectwhich this baleful traffic assumed in his mind was that of a means forconverting the heathen, by bringing black men and women to Portugal tobe taught the true faith and the ways of civilized people, that theymight in due season be sent back to their native land to instruct theirheathen brethren. The kings of Portugal should have a Christian empirein Africa, and in course of time the good work might be extended to theIndies. Accordingly a special message was sent to Pope Eugenius IV. , informing him of the discovery of the country of these barbarous peoplebeyond the limits of the Mussulman world, and asking for a grant inperpetuity to Portugal of all heathen lands that might be discovered infurther voyages beyond Cape Bojador, even so far as to include theIndies. [387] The request found favour in the eyes of Eugenius, and thegrant was solemnly confirmed by succeeding popes. To these proceedingswe shall again have occasion to refer. We have here to observe that thediscovery of gold and the profits of the slave-trade--though it was asyet conducted upon a very small scale--served to increase the interestof the Portuguese people in Prince Henry's work and to diminish theobstacles in his way. A succession of gallant captains, whose names makea glorious roll of honour, carried on the work of exploration, reachingthe farthest point that had been attained by the ancients. In 1445 DinisFernandez passed Cape Verde, and two years later Lançarote found themouth of the Gambia. In 1456 Luigi Cadamosto--a Venetian captain in theservice of Portugal--went as far as the Rio Grande; in 1460 Diego Gomezdiscovered the Cape Verde islands; and in 1462 Piedro de Cintra reachedSierra Leone. [388] At the same time, in various expeditions between 1431and 1466, the Azores (i. E. "Hawk" islands) were rediscovered andcolonized, and voyages out into the Sea of Darkness began to losesomething of their manifold terrors. 

 [Footnote 386: See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 429-431. ]

 [Footnote 387: "En el año de 1442, viendo el Infante que se habia pasado el cabo del Boxador y que la tierra iba muy adelante, y que todos los navíos que inviaba traian muchos esclavos moros, con que pagaba los gastos que hacia y que cada dia crecia más el provecho y se prosperaba su amada negociacion, determinó de inviar á suplicar al Papa Martino V. , . . . Que hiciese gracia á la Corona real de Portogal de los reinos y señoríos que habia y hobiese desde el cabo del Boxador adelante, hácia el Oriente y la India inclusive; y ansí se las concedió, . . . Con todas las tierras, puertos, islas, tratos, rescates, pesquerías y cosas á esto pertenecientes, poniendo censuras y penas á todos los reyes cristianos, príncipes, y señores y comunidades que á esto le perturbasen; despues, dicen, que los sumos pontífices, sucesores de Martino, como Eugenio IV. Y Nicolas V. Y Calixto IV. Lo confirmaron. " Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 185. The name of Martin V. Is a slip of the memory on the part of Las Casas. That pope had died of apoplexy eleven years before. It was Eugenius IV. Who made this memorable grant to the crown of Portugal. The error is repeated in Irving's _Columbus_, vol. I. P. 339. ]

 [Footnote 388: The first published account of the voyages of Cadamosto and Cintra was in the _Paesi nouamente retrouati_, Vicenza, 1507, a small quarto which can now sometimes be bought for from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars. See also Grynæus, _Novus Orbis_, Basel, 1532. ]

[Sidenote: Advance to the Hottentot coast. ]

Prince Henry did not live to see Africa circumnavigated. At the time ofhis death, in 1468, his ships had not gone farther than the spot whereHanno found his gorillas two thousand years before. But the work of thisexcellent prince did not end with his death. His adventurous spiritlived on in the school of accomplished navigators he had trained. Manyvoyages were made after 1462, of which we need mention only those thatmarked new stages of discovery. In 1471 two knights of the royalhousehold, João de Santarem and Pedro de Escobar, sailed down the GoldCoast and crossed the equator; three years later the line was againcrossed by Fernando Po, discoverer of the island that bears his name. In1484 Diego Cam went on as far as the mouth of the Congo, and enteredinto very friendly relations with the negroes there. In a second voyagein 1485 this enterprising captain pushed on a thousand miles farther, and set up a cross in 22° south latitude on the coast of the Hottentotcountry. Brisk trading went on along the Gold Coast, and missionarieswere sent to the Congo. [389]

 [Footnote 389: It was in the course of these voyages upon the African coast that civilized Europeans first became familiar with people below the upper status of barbarism. Savagery and barbarism of the lower types were practically unknown in the Middle Ages, and almost, though probably not quite unknown, to the civilized peoples of the Mediterranean in ancient times. The history of the two words is interesting. The Greek word [Greek: barbaros], whence Eng. _barbarian_ (=Sanskrit _barbara_, Latin _balbus_), means "a stammerer, " or one who talks gibberish, i. E. In a language we do not understand. Aristophanes (_Aves_, 199) very prettily applies the epithet to the inarticulate singing of birds. The names _Welsh_, _Walloon_, _Wallachian_, and _Belooch_, given to these peoples by their neighbours, have precisely the same meaning (Kuhn's _Zeitschrift_, ii. 252); and in like manner the Russians call the Germans _Nyemetch_, or people who cannot talk (Schafarik, _Slawische Alterthumer_, i. 443; Pott, _Etym. Forsch. _, ii. 521). The Greeks called all men but themselves barbarians, including such civilized people as the Persians. The Romans applied the name to all tribes and nations outside the limits of the Empire, and the Italians of the later Middle Ages bestowed it upon all nations outside of Italy. Upon its lax use in recent times I have already commented (above, pp. 25-35). The tendency to apply the epithet to savages is modern. The word _savage_, on the other hand, which came to us as the Old French _sauvage_ or _salvage_ (Ital. _selvaggio_, _salvatico_), is the Latin _silvaticus_, _sylvaticus_, _salvaticus_, that which pertains to a forest and is sylvan or wild. In its earliest usage it had reference to plants and beasts rather than to men. Wild apples, pears, or laurels are characterized by the epithet _sylvaticus_ in Varro, _De re rustica_, i. 40; and either this adjective, or its equivalent _silvestris_, was used of wild animals as contrasted with domesticated beasts, as wild sheep and wild fowl, in Columella, vii. 2; viii. 12, or wolves, in Propertius, iii. 7, or mice, in Pliny, xxx. 22. (Occasionally it is used of men, as in Pliny, viii. 79. ) The meaning was the same in mediæval Latin (Du Cange, _Glossarium_, Niort, 1886, tom. Vii. P. 686) and in Old French, as "La douce voiz du loussignol sauvage" (Michel, _Chansons de chatelain de Coucy_, xix. ). In the romance of _Robert le Diable_, in the verses

 Sire, se vos fustes Sauvages Viers moi, je n'i pris mie garde, etc. , the reference is plainly to degenerate civilized men frequenting the forests, such as bandits or outlaws, not to what we call savages. 

 Mediæval writers certainly had some idea of savages, but it was not based upon any actual acquaintance with such people, but upon imperfectly apprehended statements of ancient writers. At the famous ball at the Hotel de Saint Pol in Paris, in 1393, King Charles VI. And five noblemen were dressed in close-fitting suits of linen, thickly covered from head to foot with tow or flax, the colour of hair, so as to look like "savages. " In this attire nobody recognized them, and the Duke of Orleans, in his eagerness to make out who they were, brought a torch too near, so that the flax took fire, and four of the noblemen were burned to death. See Froissart's _Chronicles_, tr. Johnes, London, 1806, vol. Xi. Pp. 69-76. The point of the story is that savages were supposed to be men covered with hair, like beasts, and Froissart, in relating it, evidently knew no better. Whence came this notion of hairy men? Probably from Hanno's gorillas (see above, p. 301), through Pliny, whose huge farrago of facts and fancies was a sort of household Peter Parley in mediæval monasteries. Pliny speaks repeatedly of men covered with hair from head to foot, and scatters them about according to his fancy, in Carmania and other distant places (_Hist. Nat. _, vi. 28, 36, vii. 2). 

 Greek and Roman writers seem to have had some slight knowledge of savagery and the lower status of barbarism as prevailing in remote places ("Ptolomée dit que es extremités de la terre habitable sont gens sauvages, " Oresme, _Les Éthiques d'Aristote_, Paris, 1488), but their remarks are usually vague. Seldom do we get such a clean-cut statement as that of Tacitus about the Finns, that they have neither horses nor houses, sleep on the ground, are clothed in skins, live by the chase, and for want of iron use bone-tipped arrows (_Germania_, cap. 46). More often we have unconscionable yarns about men without noses, or with only one eye, tailed men, solid-hoofed men, Amazons, and parthenogenesis. The Troglodytes, or Cave-dwellers, on the Nubian coast of the Red Sea seem to have been in the middle status of barbarism (Diodorus, iii. 32; Agatharchides, 61-63), and the Ichthyophagi, or Fish-eaters, whom Nearchus found on the shores of Gedrosia (Arrian, _Indica_, cap. 29), were probably in a lower stage, perhaps true savages. It is exceedingly curious that Mela puts a race of pygmies at the headwaters of the Nile (see map above, p. 304). Is this only an echo from _Iliad_, iii. 6, or can any ancient traveller have penetrated far enough inland toward the equator to have heard reports of the dwarfish race lately visited by Stanley (_In Darkest Africa_, vol. Ii. Pp. 100-104, 164)? Strabo had no real knowledge of savagery in Africa (cf. Bunbury, _Hist. Ancient Geog. _, ii. 331). Sataspes may have seen barbarians of low type, possibly on one of the Canary isles (see description of Canarians in Major's _Prince Henry_, p. 212). Ptolemy had heard of an island of cannibals in the Indian ocean, perhaps one of the Andaman group, visited A. D. 1293 by Marco Polo. The people of these islands rank among the lowest savages on the earth, and Marco was disgusted and horrified; their beastly faces, with huge prognathous jaws and projecting canine teeth, he tried to describe by calling them a dog-headed people. Sir Henry Yule suggests that the mention of Cynocephali, or Dog-heads, in ancient writers may have had an analogous origin (_Marco Polo_, vol. Ii. P. 252). This visit of the Venetian traveller to Andaman was one of very few real glimpses of savagery vouchsafed to Europeans before the fifteenth century; and a general review of the subject brings out in a strong light the truthfulness and authenticity of the description of American Indians in Eric the Red's Saga, as shown above, pp. 185-192. ]

[Sidenote: Effect of these discoveries upon the theories of Ptolemy andMela. ]

These voyages into the southern hemisphere dealt a damaging blow to thetheory of an impassable fiery zone; but as to the circumnavigability ofthe African continent, the long stretch of coast beyond the equatorseemed more in harmony with Ptolemy's views than with those of Mela. Theeastward trend of the Guinea coast was at first in favour of the lattergeographer, but when Santarem and Escobar found it turning southward tothe equator the facts began to refute him. According to Mela theyshould have found it possible at once to sail eastward to the gulf ofAden. What if it should turn out after all that there was no connectionbetween the Atlantic and Indian oceans? Every added league of voyagingtoward the tropic of Capricorn must have been fraught with addeddiscouragement, for it went to prove that, even if Ptolemy's theory waswrong, at any rate the ocean route to Asia was indefinitely longer thanhad been supposed. But was it possible to imagine any other route thatshould be more direct? To a trained mariner of original and imaginativemind, sojourning in Portugal and keenly watching the progress of Africandiscovery, the years just following the voyage of Santarem and Escobarwould be a period eminently fit for suggesting such a question. Let usnot forget this date of 1471 while we follow Prince Henry's work to itsfirst grand climax. 

[Sidenote: News of Prester John. ]

About the time that Diego Cam was visiting the tribes on the Congo, thenegro king of Benin, a country by the mouth of the Niger, sent anembassy to John II. Of Portugal (Prince Henry's nephew), with a requestthat missionary priests might be sent to Benin. It has been thought thatthe woolly-haired chieftain was really courting an alliance with thePortuguese, or perhaps he thought their "medicine men" might have theknack of confounding his foes. The negro envoy told King John that athousand miles or so east of Benin there was an august sovereign whoruled over many subject peoples, and at whose court there was an orderof chivalry whose badge or emblem was a brazen cross. Such, at least, was the king's interpretation of the negro's words, and forthwith hejumped to the conclusion that this African potentate must be PresterJohn, whose name was redolent of all the marvels of the mysterious East. To find Prester John would be a long step toward golden Cathay and theisles of spice. So the king of Portugal rose to the occasion, andattacked the problem on both flanks at once. He sent Pedro de Covilhamby way of Egypt to Aden, and he sent Bartholomew Dias, with threefifty-ton caravels, to make one more attempt to find an end to theAtlantic coast of Africa. 

[Sidenote: Covilham's journey. ]

Covilham's journey was full of interesting experiences. He sailed fromAden to Hindustan, and on his return visited Abyssinia, where thesemi-Christian king took such a liking to him that he would never lethim go. So Covilham spent the rest of his life, more than thirty years, in Abyssinia, whence he was able now and then to send to Portugal itemsof information concerning eastern Africa that were afterwards quiteserviceable in voyages upon the Indian ocean. [390]

 [Footnote 390: See Major's _India in the Fifteenth Century_, pp. Lxxxv. -xc. ]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew Dias passes the Cape of Good Hope and enters theIndian ocean. ]

The daring captain, Bartholomew Dias, started in August, 1486, and afterpassing nearly four hundred miles beyond the tropic of Capricorn, wasdriven due south before heavy winds for thirteen days without seeingland. At the end of this stress of weather he turned his prows eastward, expecting soon to reach the coast. But as he had passed the southernmostpoint of Africa and no land appeared before him, after a while hesteered northward and landed near the mouth of Gauritz river, more thantwo hundred miles east of the Cape of Good Hope. Thence he pushed onabout four hundred miles farther eastward as far as the Great Fish river(about 33° 30' S. , 27° 10' E. ), where the coast begins to have a steadytrend to the northeast. Dias was now fairly in the Indian ocean, andcould look out with wistful triumph upon that waste of waters, but hisworn-out crews refused to go any farther and he was compelledreluctantly to turn back. On the way homeward the ships passed in fullsight of the famous headland which Dias called the Stormy Cape; butafter arriving at Lisbon, in December, 1487, when the report of thisnoble voyage was laid before King John II. , his majesty said, Nay, letit rather be called the Cape of Good Hope, since there was now muchreason to believe that they had found the long-sought ocean route to theIndies. [391] Though this opinion turned out to be correct, it is wellfor us to remember that the proof was not yet complete. No one couldyet say with certainty that the African coast, if followed a few mileseast of Great Fish river, would not again trend southward and run allthe way to the pole. The completed proof was not obtained until Vasco daGama crossed the Indian ocean ten years later. 

 [Footnote 391: The greatest of Portuguese poets represents the Genius of the Cape as appearing to the storm-tossed mariners in cloud-like shape, like the Jinni that the fisherman of the Arabian tale released from a casket. He expresses indignation at their audacity in discovering his secret, hitherto hidden from mankind:--

 Eu sou aquelle occulto e grande Cabo, A quem chamais vós outros Tormentorio, Que nunca á Ptolomeo, Pomponio, Estrabo, Plinio, e quantos passaram, fui notorio: Aqui toda a Africana costa acabo Neste meu nunca vista promontorio, Que para o polo Antarctico se estende, A quem vossa ousadia tanto offende. Camoens, _Os Lusiadas_, v. 50. ]

[Sidenote: Some effects of the discovery. ]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew Columbus. ]

This voyage of Bartholomew Dias was longer and in many respects moreremarkable than any that is known to have been made before that time. From Lisbon back to Lisbon, reckoning the sinuosities of the coast, butmaking no allowance for tacking, the distance run by those tiny craftwas not less than thirteen thousand miles. This voyage completed theoverthrow of the fiery-zone doctrine, so far as Africa was concerned; itpenetrated far into the southern temperate zone where Mela had placedhis antipodal world; it dealt a staggering blow to the continentaltheory of Ptolemy; and its success made men's minds readier for yet moredaring enterprises. Among the shipmates of Dias on this ever memorablevoyage was a well-trained and enthusiastic Italian mariner, none otherthan Bartholomew, the younger brother of Christopher Columbus. There wastrue dramatic propriety in the presence of that man at just this time;for not only did all these later African voyages stand in a directcausal relation to the discovery of America, but as an immediateconsequence of the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope we shall presentlyfind Bartholomew Columbus in the very next year on his way to England, to enlist the aid of King Henry VII. In behalf of a scheme ofunprecedented boldness for which his elder brother had for some yearsbeen seeking to obtain the needful funds. Not long after thatdisappointing voyage of Santarem and Escobar in 1471, this original andimaginative sailor, Christopher Columbus, had conceived (or adopted andmade his own) a new method of solving the problem of an ocean route toCathay. We have now to sketch the early career of this epoch-making man, and to see how he came to be brought into close relations with the workof the Portuguese explorers. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES. 

_WESTWARD OR SPANISH ROUTE. _

[Sidenote: Sources of information concerning the life of Columbus: LasCasas and Ferdinand Columbus. ]

[Sidenote: The Biblioteca Colombina at Seville. ]

Our information concerning the life of Columbus before 1492 is far frombeing as satisfactory as one could wish. Unquestionably he is to bedeemed fortunate in having had for his biographers two such men as hisfriend Las Casas, one of the noblest characters and most faithfulhistorians of that or any age, and his own son Ferdinand Columbus, amost accomplished scholar and bibliographer. The later years ofFerdinand's life were devoted, with loving care, to the preparation of abiography of his father; and his book--which unfortunately survives onlyin the Italian translation of Alfonso Ulloa, [392] published in Venice in1571--is of priceless value. As Washington Irving long ago wrote, it is"an invaluable document, entitled to great faith, and is the cornerstoneof the history of the American continent. "[393] After Ferdinand'sdeath, in 1539, his papers seem to have passed into the hands of LasCasas, who, from 1552 to 1561, in the seclusion of the college of SanGregorio at Valladolid, was engaged in writing his great "History of theIndies. "[394] Ferdinand's superb library, one of the finest in Europe, was bequeathed to the cathedral at Seville. [395] It contained sometwenty thousand volumes in print and manuscript, four fifths of which, through shameful neglect or vandalism, have perished or been scattered. Four thousand volumes, however, are still preserved, and this library(known as the "Biblioteca Colombina") is full of interest for thehistorian. Book-buying was to Ferdinand Columbus one of the mostimportant occupations in life. His books were not only carefullynumbered, but on the last leaf of each one he wrote a memorandum of thetime and place of its purchase and the sum of money paid for it. [396]This habit of Ferdinand's has furnished us with clues to the solutionof some interesting questions. Besides this, he was much given to makingmarginal notes and comments, which are sometimes of immense value, and, more than all, there are still to be seen in this library a few booksthat belonged to Christopher Columbus himself, with very important notesin his own handwriting and in that of his brother Bartholomew. Las Casaswas familiar with this grand collection in the days of its completeness, he was well acquainted with all the members of the Columbus family, andhe had evidently read the manuscript sources of Ferdinand's book; for acomparison with Ulloa's version shows that considerable portions of theoriginal Spanish text--or of the documents upon which it rested--arepreserved in the work of Las Casas. [397] The citation and adoption ofFerdinand's statements by the latter writer, who was able independentlyto verify them, is therefore in most cases equivalent to corroboration, and the two writers together form an authority of the weightiest kind, and not lightly to be questioned or set aside. 

 [Footnote 392: _Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; Nelle quali s' ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de' fatti dell' Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre: Et dello scoprimento, ch' egli fece dell' Indie Occidentali, dette Monde-Nuovo, hora possedute dal Sereniss. Re Catolico: Nuouamente di lingua Spagnuola tradotte nell' Italiana dal S. Alfonso Vlloa. Con. Privilegio. _ IN VENETIA, M D LXXI. _Appresso Francesco de' Franceschi Sanese. _ The principal reprints are those of Milan, 1614; Venice, 1676 and 1678; London, 1867. I always cite it as _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_. ]

 [Footnote 393: Irving's _Life of Columbus_, New York, 1868, vol. Iii. P. 375. My references, unless otherwise specified, are to this, the "Geoffrey Crayon, " edition. ]

 [Footnote 394: Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias, ahora por primera vez dada á luz por el Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle y D. José Sancho Rayon_, Madrid, 1875, 5 vols. 8vo. ]

 [Footnote 395: "Fu questo D. Ernando di non minor valore del padre, ma di molte più lettere et scienze dotato che quelle non fu; et il quale lasciò alla Chiesa maggiore di Siviglia, dove hoggi si vede honorevolmente sepolto, una, non sola numerosissima, ma richissima libraria, et piena di molti libri in ogni facoltà et scienza rarissimi: laquale da coloro che l' han veduta, vien stimata delle più rare cose di tutta Europa. " Moleto's prefatory letter to _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, April 25, 1571. ]

 [Footnote 396: For example, "_Manuel de la Sancta Fe católica_, Sevilla, 1495, in-4. Costó en Toledo 34 maravedis, año 1511, 9 de Octubre, No. 3004. " "_Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea_, Sevilla, 1502, in-4. Muchas figuras. Costó en Roma 25 cuatrines, por Junio de 1515. No. 2417, " etc. See Harrisse, _Fernand Colomb_, Paris, 1872, p. 13. ]

 [Footnote 397: "L' autorita di Las Casas è d' una suprema e vitale importanza tanto nella storia di Cristoforo Colombo, come nell' esame delle _Historie_ di Fernando suo figlio. . . . E dal confronto tra questi due scrittori emergerà una omogeneità si perfetta, che si potrebbe coi termini del frate domenicano ritrovare o rifare per due terzi il testo originale spagnuolo delle _Historie_ di Fernando Colombo. " Peragallo, _L' autenticità delle Historie di Fernando Colombo_, Genoa, 1884, p. 23. ]

[Sidenote: Bernaldez and Peter Martyr. ]

[Sidenote: Letters of Columbus. ]

Besides these books of most fundamental importance, we have valuableaccounts of some parts of the life of Columbus by his friend AndresBernaldez, the curate of Los Palacios near Seville. [398] Peter Martyr, of Anghiera, by Lago Maggiore, was an intimate friend of Columbus, andgives a good account of his voyages, besides mentioning him in sundryepistles. [399] Columbus himself, moreover, was such a voluminous writerthat his contemporaries laughed about it. "God grant, " says Zuñiga in aletter to the Marquis de Pescara, "God grant that Gutierrez may nevercome short for paper, for he writes more than Ptolemy, more thanColumbus, the man who discovered the Indies. "[400] These writings are ingreat part lost, though doubtless a good many things will yet be broughtto light in Spain by persistent rummaging. We have, however, from sixtyto seventy letters and reports by Columbus, of which twenty-three atleast are in his own handwriting; and all these have beenpublished. [401]

 [Footnote 398: _Historia de los Reyes Católicos D. Fernando y D^a Isabel. Crónica inédita del siglo XV, escrita por el Bachiller Andrés Bernaldez, cura que fué de Los Palacios_, Granada, 1856, 2 vols. Small 4to. It is a book of very high authority. ]

 [Footnote 399: _De orbe novo Decades_, Alcalá, 1516; _Opus epistolarum_, Compluti (Alcalá), 1530; Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, Nos. 88, 160. ]

 [Footnote 400: "A Gutierrez vuestro solicitador, ruego à Dios que nunca le falte papel, porque escribe mas que Tolomeo y que Colon, el que halló las Indias. " Rivadeneyra, _Curiosidades bibliográficas_, p. 59, apud Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom. I. P. 1. ]

 [Footnote 401: Harrisse, _loc. Cit. _, in 1884, gives the number at sixty-four. ]

[Sidenote: Defects in Ferdinand's information. ]

Nevertheless, while these contemporary materials give us abundantinformation concerning the great discoverer, from the year 1492 untilhis death, it is quite otherwise with his earlier years, especiallybefore his arrival in Spain in 1484. His own allusions to these earlieryears are sometimes hard to interpret;[402] and as for his sonFerdinand, that writer confesses, with characteristic and winningfrankness, that his information is imperfect, inasmuch as filial respecthad deterred him from closely interrogating his father on such points, or, to tell the plain truth, being still very young when his fatherdied, he had not then come to recognize their importance. [403] This doesnot seem strange when we reflect that Ferdinand must have seen verylittle of his father until in 1502, at the age of fourteen, heaccompanied him on that last difficult and disastrous voyage, in whichthe sick and harassed old man could have had but little time or strengthfor aught but the work in hand. It is not strange that when, a quarterof a century later, the son set about his literary task, he should nowand then have got a date wrong, or have narrated some incidents in aconfused manner, or have admitted some gossiping stories, the falsehoodof which can now plainly be detected. Such blemishes, which occurchiefly in the earlier part of Ferdinand's book, do not essentiallydetract from its high authority. [404] The limits which bounded the son'saccurate knowledge seem also to have bounded that of such friends asBernaldez, who did not become acquainted with Columbus until after hisarrival in Spain. 

 [Footnote 402: Sometimes from a slip of memory or carelessness of phrasing, on Columbus's part, sometimes from our lacking the clue, sometimes from an error in numerals, common enough at all times. ]

 [Footnote 403: "Ora, l' Ammiraglio avendo cognizione delle dette scienze, cominciò ad attendere al mare, e a fare alcuni viaggi in levante e in ponente; de' quali, e di molte altre cose di quei primi dì io non ho piena notizia; perciocchè egli venne a morte a tempo che io non aveva tanto ardire, o pratica, per la riverenza filiale, che io ardissi di richiederlo di cotali cose; o, per parlare più veramente, allora mi ritrovava io, come giovane, molto lontano da cotal pensiero. " _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Iv. ]

 [Footnote 404: Twenty years ago M. Harrisse published in Spanish and French a critical essay maintaining that the _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_ was not written by Ferdinand Columbus, but probably by the famous scholar Perez de Oliva, professor in the university of Salamanca, who died in 1530 (_D. Fernando Colon, historiador de su padre_, Seville, 1871; _Fernand Colomb: sa vie, ses oeuvres_, Paris, 1872). The Spanish manuscript of the book had quite a career. As already observed, it is clear that Las Casas used it, probably between 1552 and 1561. From Ferdinand's nephew, Luis Columbus, it seems to have passed in 1568 into the hands of Baliano di Fornari, a prominent citizen of Genoa, who sent it to Venice with the intention of having it edited and published with Latin and Italian versions. All that ever appeared, however, was the Italian version made by Ulloa and published in 1571. Harrisse supposes that the Spanish manuscript, written by Oliva, was taken to Genoa by some adventurer and palmed off upon Baliano di Fornari as the work of Ferdinand Columbus. But inasmuch as Harrisse also supposes that Oliva probably wrote the book (about 1525) at Seville, under Ferdinand's eyes and with documents furnished by him, it becomes a question, in such case, how far was Oliva anything more than an amanuensis to Ferdinand? and there seems really to be precious little wool after so much loud crying. If the manuscript was actually written "sous les yeux de Fernand et avec documents fournis par lui, " most of the arguments alleged to prove that it could not have emanated from the son of Columbus fall to the ground. It becomes simply a question whether Ulloa may have here and there tampered with the text, or made additions of his own. To some extent he seems to have done so, but wherever the Italian version is corroborated by the Spanish extracts in Las Casas, we are on solid ground, for Las Casas died five years before the Italian version was published. M. Harrisse does not seem as yet to have convinced many scholars. His arguments have been justly, if somewhat severely, characterized by my old friend, the lamented Henry Stevens (_Historical Collections_, London, 1881, vol. I. No. 1379), and have been elaborately refuted by M. D'Avezac, _Le livre de Ferdinand Colomb: revue critique des allegations proposées contre son authenticité_, Paris, 1873; and by Prospero Peragallo, _L' autenticità delle Historie di Fernando Colombo_, Genoa, 1884. See also Fabié, _Vida de Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas_, Madrid, 1869, tom. I. Pp. 360-372. ]

[Sidenote: Researches of Henry Harrisse. ]

In recent years elaborate researches have been made, by Henry Harrisseand others, in the archives of Genoa, Savona, Seville, and other placeswith which Columbus was connected, in the hope of supplementing thisimperfect information concerning his earlier years. [405] A number ofdata have thus been obtained, which, while clearing up the subject mostremarkably in some directions, have been made to mystify and embroil itin others. There is scarcely a date or a fact relating to Columbusbefore 1492 but has been made the subject of hot dispute; and somepretty wholesale reconstructions of his biography have beenattempted. [406] The general impression, however, which the discussionsof the past twenty years have left upon my mind, is that the moreviolent hypotheses are not likely to be sustained, and that thenewly-ascertained facts do not call for any very radical interferencewith the traditional lines upon which the life of Columbus hasheretofore been written. [407] At any rate there seems to be nolikelihood of such interference as to modify our views of the causalsequence of events that led to the westward search for the Indies; andit is this relation of cause and effect that chiefly concerns us in ahistory of the Discovery of America. 

 [Footnote 405: See Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1884, 2 vols. , a work of immense research, absolutely indispensable to every student of the subject, though here and there somewhat over-ingenious and hypercritical, and in general unduly biased by the author's private crotchet about the work of Ferdinand. ]

 [Footnote 406: One of the most radical of these reconstructions may be found in the essay by M. D'Avezac, "Canevas chronologique de la vie de Christophe Colomb, " in _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_, Paris, 1872, 6e série, tom. Iv. Pp. 5-59. ]

 [Footnote 407: Washington Irving's _Life of Columbus_, says Harrisse, "is a history written with judgment and impartiality, which leaves far behind it all descriptions of the discovery of the New World published before or since. " _Christophe Colomb_, tom. I. P. 136. Irving was the first to make use of the superb work of Navarrete, _Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo XV. _, Madrid, 1825-37, 5 vols. 4to. Next followed Alexander von Humboldt, with his _Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie de Nouveau Continent_, Paris, 1836-39, 5 vols. 8vo. This monument of gigantic erudition (which, unfortunately, was never completed) will always remain indispensable to the historian. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Date of the birth of Columbus: archives of Savona. ]

[Sidenote: Statement of Bernaldez. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus's letter of September, 1501. ]

[Sidenote: The balance of probability is in favour of 1436. ]

The date of the birth of Columbus is easy to determine approximately, but hard to determine with precision. In the voluminous discussion uponthis subject the extreme limits assigned have been 1430 and 1456, butneither of these extremes is admissible, and our choice really liessomewhere between 1436 and 1446. Among the town archives of Savona is adeed of sale executed August 7, 1473, by the father of ChristopherColumbus, and ratified by Christopher and his next brotherGiovanni. [408] Both brothers must then have attained their majority, which in the republic of Genoa was fixed at the age of twenty-five. Christopher, therefore, can hardly have been less than seven and twenty, so that the latest probable date for his birth is 1446, and this is thedate accepted by Muñoz, Major, Harrisse, and Avezac. There is nodocumentary proof, however, to prevent our taking an earlier date; andthe curate of Los Palacios--strong authority on such a point--saysexpressly that at the time of his death, in 1506, Columbus was "in agood old age, seventy years a little more or less. "[409] Upon thisstatement Navarrete and Humboldt have accepted 1436 as the probable dateof birth. [410] The most plausible objection to this is a statement madeby Columbus himself in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, written in1501. In this letter, as first given in the biography by his son, Columbus says that he was of "very tender age" when he began to sail theseas, an occupation which he has kept up until the present moment; andin the next sentence but one he adds that "now for forty years I havebeen in this business and have gone to every place where there is anynavigation up to the present time. "[411] The expression "very tenderage" agrees with Ferdinand's statement that his father was fourteenyears old when he first took to the sea. [412] Since 1446 + 14-40 = 1500, it is argued that Columbus was probably born about 1446; some sticklersfor extreme precision say 1447. But now there were eight years spent byColumbus in Spain, from 1484 to 1492, without any voyages at all; theywere years, as he forcibly says, "dragged out in disputations. "[413] Didhe mean to include those eight years in his forty spent upon the sea?Navarrete thinks he did not. When he wrote under excitement, as in thisletter, his language was apt to be loose, and it is fair to construe itaccording to the general probabilities of the case. This addition ofeight years brings his statement substantially into harmony with that ofBernaldez, which it really will not do to set aside lightly. Moreover, in the original text of the letter, since published by Navarrete, Columbus appears to say, "now for _more than_ forty years, " so that theagreement with Bernaldez becomes practically complete. [414] The goodcurate spoke from direct personal acquaintance, and his phrases"seventy years" and "a good old age" are borne out by the royal decreeof February 23, 1505, permitting Columbus to ride on a mule, instead ofa horse, by reason of his old age (_ancianidad_) and infirmities. [415]Such a phrase applies much better to a man of sixty-nine than to a manof fifty-nine. On the whole, I think that Washington Irving showed goodsense in accepting the statement of the curate of Los Palacios asdecisive, dating as it does the birth of Columbus at 1436, "a littlemore or less. "

 [Footnote 408: Harrisse, _op. Cit. _ tom. I. P. 196. ]

 [Footnote 409: "In _senectute bona_, de edad de setenta años poco mas o menos. " Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, tom. I. P. 334. ]

 [Footnote 410: M. D'Avezac (_Canevas chronologique_, etc. ) objects to this date that we have positive documentary evidence of the birth of Christopher's youngest brother Giacomo (afterwards spanished into Diego) in 1468, which makes an interval of 32 years; so that if the mother were (say) 18 in 1436 she must have borne a child at the age of 50. That would be unusual, but not unprecedented. But M. Harrisse (tom. Ii. P. 214), from a more thorough sifting of this documentary evidence, seems to have proved that while Giacomo cannot have been born later than 1468 he may have been born as early as 1460; so that whatever is left of M. D'Avezac's objection falls to the ground. ]

 [Footnote 411: "Serenissimi principi, di età molto tenera io entrai in mare navigando, et vi ho continovato fin' hoggi: . . . Et hoggimai passano quaranta anni che io uso per tutte quelle parti che fin hoggi si navigano. " _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Iv. ]

 [Footnote 412: _Op. Cit. _ cap. Iv. _ad fin_. ]

 [Footnote 413: "Traido en disputas, " Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. Ii. P. 254. ]

 [Footnote 414: "Muy altos Reyes, de muy pequeña edad entré en la mar navegando, é lo he continuado fasta hoy. . . . Yá pasan de cuarenta años que yo voy en este uso: todo lo que hoy se navega, todo lo he andado. " Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. Ii. P. 262. Observe the lame phrase "pasan de cuarenta;" what business has that "de" in such a place without "mas" before it? "Pasan mas de cuarenta, " i. E. "more than forty;" writing in haste and excitement, Columbus left out a little word; or shall we blame the proof-reader? Avezac himself translates it "il y a plus de quarante ans, " and so does Eugène Müller, in his French version of Ferdinand's book, _Histoire de la vie de Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1879, p. 15. ]

 [Footnote 415: That was the golden age of sumptuary laws. Because Alfonso XI. Of Castile (1312-1350), when he tried to impress horses for the army, found it hard to get as many as he wanted, he took it into his head that his subjects were raising too many mules and not enough horses. So he tried to remedy the evil by a wholesale decree prohibiting all Castilians from riding upon mules! In practice this precious decree, like other villainous prohibitory laws that try to prevent honest people from doing what they have a perfect right to do, proved so vexatious and ineffective withal that it had to be perpetually fussed with and tinkered. One year you could ride a mule and the next year you couldn't. In 1492, as we shall see, Columbus immortalized one of these patient beasts by riding it a few miles from Granada. But in 1494 Ferdinand and Isabella decreed that nobody except women, children, and clergymen could ride on mules, --"dont la marche est beaucoup plus douce que celle des chevaux" (Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. Iii. P. 338). This edict remained in force in 1505, so that the Discoverer of the New World, the inaugurator of the greatest historic event since the birth of Christ, could not choose an easygoing animal for the comfort of his weary old weather-shaken bones without the bother of getting a special edict to fit his case. _Eheu, quam parva sapientia regitur mundus!_]

[Sidenote: The family of Domenico Colombo, and its changes ofresidence. ]

With regard to the place where the great discoverer was born there oughtto be no dispute, since we have his own most explicit and unmistakableword for it, as I shall presently show. Nevertheless there has been noend of dispute. He has been claimed by as many places as Homer, [416] butthe only real question is whether he was born in the city of Genoa or insome neighbouring village within the boundaries of the Genoese republic. It is easy to understand how doubt has arisen on this point, if we tracethe changes of residence of his family. The grandfather of Columbusseems to have been Giovanni Colombo, of Terrarossa, an inland hamletsome twenty miles east by north from Genoa. Giovanni's son, DomenicoColombo, was probably born at Terrarossa, and moved thence with hisfather, somewhere between 1430 and 1445, to Quinto al Mare, four mileseast of Genoa on the coast. All the family seem to have been weavers. Before 1445, but how many years before is not known, Domenico marriedSusanna Fontanarossa, who belonged to a family of weavers, probably ofQuezzi, four miles northeast of Genoa. Between 1448 and 1451 Domenico, with his wife and three children, moved into the city of Genoa, where hebecame the owner of a house and was duly qualified as a citizen. In 1471Domenico moved to Savona, thirty miles west on the Corniche road, wherehe set up a weaving establishment and also kept a tavern. He had thenfive children, Cristoforo, Giovanni, Bartolommeo, Giacomo, and adaughter. Domenico lived in Savona till 1484. At that time his wife andhis son Giovanni were dead, Giacomo was an apprentice, learning theweaver's trade, Christopher and Bartholomew had long been domiciled inPortugal, the daughter had married a cheese merchant in Genoa, and tothat city Domenico returned in the autumn of 1484, and lived there untilhis death, at a great age, in 1499 or 1500. He was always in pecuniarydifficulties, and died poor and in debt, though his sons seem to havesent him from Portugal and Spain such money as they could spare. [417]

 [Footnote 416: "Nous avons démontré l'inanité des théories qui le font naître à Pradello, à Cuccaro, à Cogoleto, à Savona, à Nervi, à Albissola, à Bogliasco, à Cosseria, à Finale, à Oneglia, voire même en Angleterre ou dans l'isle de Corse. " Harrisse, tom. I. P. 217. In Cogoleto, about sixteen miles west of Genoa on the Corniche road, the visitor is shown a house where Columbus is said first to have seen the light. Upon its front is a quaint inscription in which the discoverer is compared to the dove (_Colomba_) which, when sent by Noah from the ark, discovered dry land amid the waters:--

 Con generoso ardir dall' Arca all' onde Ubbidiente il vol Colomba prende, Corre, s' aggira, terren scopre, e fronde D' olivo in segno, al gran Noè ne rende. L' imita in ciò Colombo, ne' s' asconde, E da sua patria il mar solcando fende; Terreno al fin scoprendo diede fondo, Offerendo all' Ispano un Nuovo Mondo. 

 This house is or has been mentioned in Baedeker's _Northern Italy_ as the probable birthplace, along with Peschel's absurd date 1456. It is pretty certain that Columbus was _not_ born in that house or in Cogoleto. See Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 148-155. ]

 [Footnote 417: Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 166-216. ]

[Sidenote: Christopher tells us that he was born in the city of Genoa. ]

The reader will observe that Christopher and his two next brothers wereborn before the family went to live in the city of Genoa. It has hencebeen plausibly inferred that they were born either in Quinto or inTerrarossa; more likely the latter, since both Christopher andBartholomew, as well as their father, were called, and sometimes signedthemselves, Columbus of Terrarossa. [418] In this opinion the mostindefatigable modern investigator, Harrisse, agrees with Las Casas. [419]Nevertheless, in a solemn legal instrument executed February 22, 1498, establishing a _mayorazgo_, or right of succession to his estates andemoluments in the Indies, Columbus expressly declares that he was bornin the city of Genoa: "I enjoin it upon my son, the said Don Diego, orwhoever may inherit the said _mayorazgo_, always to keep and maintain inthe City of Genoa one person of our lineage, because from thence I cameand in it I was born. "[420] I do not see how such a definite andpositive statement, occurring in such a document, can be doubted orexplained away. It seems clear that the son was born while the parentswere dwelling either at Terrarossa or at Quinto, but what is to hinderour supposing that the event might have happened when the mother was inthe city on some errand or visit? The fact that Christopher and hisbrother were often styled "of Terrarossa" does not prove that they wereborn in that hamlet. A family moving thence to Quinto and to Genoa wouldstand in much need of some such distinctive epithet, because the nameColombo was extremely common in that part of Italy; insomuch that themodern historian, who prowls among the archives of those towns, musthave a care lest he get hold of the wrong person, and thus open a freshand prolific source of confusion. This has happened more than once. 

 [Footnote 418: Harrisse, tom. I. P. 188; _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xi. ]

 [Footnote 419: "Fué este varon escogido de nacion genovés, de algun lugar de la provincia de Génova; cual fuese, donde nació ó qué nombre tuvo el tal lugar, no consta la verdad dello más de que se solia llamar ántes que llegase al estado que llegó, Cristobal Colombo de Terra-rubia y lo mismo su hermano Bartolomé Colon. " Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, tom. I. P. 42; cf. Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 217-222. ]

 [Footnote 420: "Mando al dicho D. Diego, mi hijo, ó á la persona que heredare el dicho mayorazgo, que tenga y sostenga siempre en la _Ciudad de Génova_ una persona de nuestro linage . . . Pues que della salí _y en ella naci_" [italics mine]. Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. Ii. P. 232. ]

[Sidenote: Christopher's early years. ]

[Sidenote: Christopher and Bartholomew at Lisbon. ]

On the whole, then, it seems most probable that the Discoverer ofAmerica was born in the city of Genoa in 1436, or not much later. Of hischildhood we know next to nothing. Las Casas tells us that he studied atthe University of Pavia and acquired a good knowledge of Latin. [421]This has been doubted, as incompatible with the statement of Columbusthat he began a seafaring life at the age of fourteen. It is clear, however, that the earlier years of Columbus, before his departure forPortugal, were not all spent in seafaring. Somewhere, if not at Pavia, he not only learned Latin, but found time to study geography, with alittle astronomy and mathematics, and to become an expert draughtsman. He seems to have gone to and fro upon the Mediterranean in merchantvoyages, now and then taking a hand in sharp scrimmages with Mussulmanpirates. [422] In the intervals of this adventurous life he was probablyto be found in Genoa, earning his bread by making maps and charts, forwhich there was a great and growing demand. About 1470, having becomenoted for his skill in such work, he followed his younger brotherBartholomew to Lisbon, [423] whither Prince Henry's undertakings hadattracted able navigators and learned geographers until that city hadcome to be the chief centre of nautical science in Europe. Las Casasassures us that Bartholomew was quite equal to Christopher as a sailor, and surpassed him in the art of making maps and globes, as well as inthe beauty of his handwriting. [424] In Portugal, as before in Italy, thework of the brothers Columbus was an alternation of map-making on landand adventure on the sea. We have Christopher's own word for it that hesailed with more than one of those Portuguese expeditions down theAfrican coast;[425] and I think it not altogether unlikely that he mayhave been with Santarem and Escobar in their famous voyage of 1471. 

 [Footnote 421: Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. I. P. 46. ]

 [Footnote 422: The reader must beware, however, of some of the stories of adventure attaching to this part of his life, even where they are confirmed by Las Casas. They evidently rest upon hearsay, and the incidents are so confused that it is almost impossible to extract the kernel of truth. ]

 [Footnote 423: The date 1470 rests upon a letter of Columbus to King Ferdinand of Aragon in May, 1505. He says that God must have directed him into the service of Spain by a kind of miracle, since he had already been in Portugal, whose king was more interested than any other sovereign in making discoveries, and yet God closed his eyes, his ears, and all his senses to such a degree that _in fourteen years_ Columbus could not prevail upon him to lend aid to his scheme. "Dije milagrosamente porque fui á aportar á Portugal, adonde el Rey de allí entendia en el descubrir mas que otro: él le atajó la vista, oido y todos los sentidos, que en catorce años no le pude hacer entender lo que yo dije. " Las Casas, _op. Cit. _ tom. Iii. P. 187; Navarrete, tom. Iii. P. 528. Now it is known that Columbus finally left Portugal late in 1484, or very early in 1485, so that fourteen years would carry us back to before 1471 for the first arrival of Columbus in that country. M. Harrisse (_op. Cit. _ tom. I. P. 263) is unnecessarily troubled by the fact that the same person was not king of Portugal during the whole of that period. Alfonso V. (brother of Henry the Navigator) died in 1481, and was succeeded by his son John II. ; but during a considerable part of the time between 1475 and 1481 the royal authority was exercised by the latter. Both kings were more interested in making discoveries than any other European sovereigns. Which king did Columbus mean? Obviously his words were used loosely; he was too much preoccupied to be careful about trifles; he probably had John in his mind, and did not bother himself about Alfonso; King Ferdinand, to whom he was writing, did not need to have such points minutely specified, and could understand an elliptical statement; and the fact stated by Columbus was simply that during a residence of fourteen years in Portugal he had not been able to enlist even that enterprising government in behalf of his novel scheme. 

 In the town archives of Savona we find Christopher Columbus witnessing a document March 20, 1472, endorsing a kind of promissory note for his father August 26, 1472, and joining with his mother and his next brother Giovanni, August 7, 1473, in relinquishing all claims to the house in Genoa sold by his father Domenico by deed of that date. It will be remembered that Domenico had moved from Genoa to Savona in 1471. From these documents (which are all printed in his _Christophe Colomb_, tom. Ii. Pp. 419, 420, 424-426) M. Harrisse concludes that Christopher cannot have gone to Portugal until after August 7, 1473. Probably not, so far as to be domiciled there; but inasmuch as he had long been a sailor, why should he not have been in Portugal, or upon the African coast in a Portuguese ship, in 1470 and 1471, and nevertheless have been with his parents in Savona in 1472 and part of 1473? His own statement "fourteen years" is not to be set aside on such slight grounds as this. Furthermore, from the fact that Bartholomew's name is not signed to the deed of August 7, 1473, M. Harrisse infers that he was then a minor; i. E. Under five and twenty. But it seems to me more likely that Bartholomew was already domiciled at Lisbon, since we are expressly told by two good contemporary authorities--both of them Genoese writers withal--that he moved to Lisbon and began making maps there at an earlier date than Christopher. See Antonio Gallo, _De navigatione Columbi per inaccessum antea Oceanum Commentariolus_, apud Muratori, tom. Xxiii. Col. 301-304; Giustiniani, _Psalterium_, Milan, 1516 (annotation to Psalm xix. ); Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, No. 88. To these statements M. Harrisse objects that he finds (in Belloro, _Notizie_, p. 8) mention of a document dated Savona, June 16, 1480, in which Domenico Colombo gives a power of attorney to his son Bartholomew to act for him in some matter. The document itself, however, is not forthcoming, and the notice cited by M. Harrisse really affords no ground for the assumption that Bartholomew was in 1480 domiciled at Savona or at Genoa. ]

 [Footnote 424: Las Casas, _op. Cit. _ tom. I. P. 224; tom. Ii. P. 80. He possessed many maps and documents by both the brothers. ]

 [Footnote 425: "Spesse volte navigando da Lisbona a Guinea, " etc. _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Iv. The original authority is Columbus's marginal note in his copy of the _Imago Mundi_ of Alliacus, now preserved in the Colombina at Seville: "Nota quod sepius navigando ex Ulixbona ad austrum in Guineam, notavi cum diligentia viam, etc. " Compare the allusions to Guinea in his letters, Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. I. Pp. 55, 71, 101. ]

[Sidenote: Philippa Moñiz de Perestrelo. ]

[Sidenote: Personal appearance of Columbus. ]

He had not been long in Portugal before he found a wife. We have alreadymet the able Italian navigator, Bartholomew Perestrelo, who was sent byPrince Henry to the island of Porto Santo with Zarco and Vaz, about1425. In recognition of eminent services Prince Henry afterwards, in1446, appointed him governor of Porto Santo. Perestrelo died in 1457, leaving a widow (his second wife, Isabella Moñiz) and a charmingdaughter Philippa, [426] whom Columbus is said to have first met at areligious service in the chapel of the convent of All Saints at Lisbon. From the accounts of his personal appearance, given by Las Casas andothers who knew him, we can well understand how Columbus should have wonthe heart of this lady, so far above him at that time in socialposition. He was a man of noble and commanding presence, tall andpowerfully built, with fair ruddy complexion and keen blue-gray eyesthat easily kindled; while his waving white hair must have been quitepicturesque. His manner was at once courteous and cordial and hisconversation charming, so that strangers were quickly won, and infriends who knew him well he inspired strong affection and respect. [427]There was an indefinable air of authority about him, as befitted a manof great heart and lofty thoughts. [428] Out of those kindling eyeslooked a grand and poetic soul, touched with that divine spark ofreligious enthusiasm which makes true genius. 

 [Footnote 426: There are some vexed questions concerning this lady and the connections between the Moñiz and Perestrelo families, for which see Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 267-292. ]

 [Footnote 427: Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. I. P. 43. He describes Bartholomew as not unlike his brother, but not so tall, less affable in manner, and more stern in disposition, _id. _ tom. Ii. P. 80. ]

 [Footnote 428: "Christoval Colon . . . Persona de gran corazon y altos pensamientos. " Mariana, _Historia de España_, tom. Viii. P. 341. ]

[Sidenote: His marriage, and life upon the island of Porto Santo. ]

The acquaintance between Columbus and Philippa Moñiz de Perestrelo wasnot long in ripening into affection, for they were married in 1473. Asthere was a small estate at Porto Santo, Columbus went home thither withhis bride to live for a while in quiet and seclusion. Such repose we maybelieve to have been favourable to meditation, and on that littleisland, three hundred miles out on the mysterious ocean, we are toldthat the great scheme of sailing westward to the Indies first took shapein the mind of Columbus. [429] His father-in-law Perestrelo had left aquantity of sailing charts and nautical notes, and these Columbusdiligently studied, while ships on their way to and from Guinea everynow and then stopped at the island, and one can easily imagine the eagerdiscussions that must have been held over the great commercial problemof the age, --how far south that African coast extended and whether therewas any likelihood of ever finding an end to it. 

 [Footnote 429: Upon that island his eldest son Diego was born. This whole story of the life upon Porto Santo and its relation to the genesis of Columbus's scheme is told very explicitly by Las Casas, who says that it was told to him by Diego Columbus at Barcelona in 1519, when they were waiting upon Charles V. , just elected Emperor and about to start for Aachen to be crowned. And yet there are modern critics who are disposed to deny the whole story. (See Harrisse, tom. I. P. 298. ) The grounds for doubt are, however, extremely trivial when confronted with Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. I. P. 54. ]

[Sidenote: Alfonso V. Asks advice of the great astronomer Toscanelli. ]

How long Columbus lived upon Porto Santo is not known, but he seems tohave gone from time to time back to Lisbon, and at length to have madehis home--or in the case of such a rover we might better say hisheadquarters--in that city. We come now to a document of supremeimportance for our narrative. Paolo del Pozzo dei Toscanelli, born atFlorence in 1397, was one of the most famous astronomers andcosmographers of his time, a man to whom it was natural that questionsinvolving the size and shape of the earth should be referred. To himAlfonso V. Of Portugal made application, through a gentleman of theroyal household, Fernando Martinez, who happened to be an old friend ofToscanelli. What Alfonso wanted to know was whether there could be ashorter oceanic route to the Indies than that which his captains wereseeking by following the African coast; if so, he begged that Toscanelliwould explain the nature and direction of such a route. The Florentineastronomer replied with the letter presently to be quoted in full, datedJune 25, 1474; and along with the letter he sent to the king a sailingchart, exhibiting his conception of the Atlantic ocean, with Europe onthe east and Cathay on the west. The date of this letter is eloquent. Itwas early in 1472 that Santarem and Escobar brought back to Lisbon thenews that beyond the Gold Coast the African shore turned southwards andstretched away in that direction beyond the equator. As I have alreadyobserved, this was the moment when the question as to the possibility ofa shorter route was likely to arise;[430] and this is precisely thequestion we find the king of Portugal putting to Toscanelli some timebefore the middle of 1474. Now about this same time, or not longafterwards, we find Columbus himself appealing to Toscanelli. An agedFlorentine merchant, Lorenzo Giraldi, then settled in Lisbon, was goingback to his native city for a visit, and to him Columbus entrusted aletter for the eminent astronomer. He received the following answer:

[Sidenote: Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus. ]

"Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus greeting. [431] I perceiveyour great and noble desire to go to the place where the spices grow;wherefore in reply to a letter of yours, I send you a copy of anotherletter, which I wrote a few days ago [or some time ago] to a friend ofmine, a gentleman of the household of the most gracious king of Portugalbefore the wars of Castile, [432] in reply to another, which by commandof His Highness he wrote me concerning that matter: and I send youanother sailing chart, similar to the one I sent him, by which yourdemands will be satisfied. The copy of that letter of mine is asfollows:--

[Sidenote: Toscanelli's copy of his former letter to Martinez--enclosedin his first letter to Columbus. ]

"'Paul, the physicist, to Fernando Martinez, canon, at Lisbon, greeting. [433] I was glad to hear of your intimacy and favour with yourmost noble and illustrious king. I have formerly spoken with you about ashorter route to the places of Spices by ocean navigation than thatwhich you are pursuing by Guinea. The most gracious king now desiresfrom me some statement, or rather an exhibition to the eye, so that evenslightly educated persons can grasp and comprehend that route. AlthoughI am well aware that this can be proved from the spherical shape of theearth, nevertheless, in order to make the point clearer and tofacilitate the enterprise, I have decided to exhibit that route by meansof a sailing chart. I therefore send to his majesty a chart made by myown hands, [434] upon which are laid down your coasts, and the islandsfrom which you must begin to shape your course steadily westward, andthe places at which you are bound to arrive, and how far from the poleor from the equator you ought to keep away, and through how much spaceor through how many miles you are to arrive at places most fertile inall sorts of spices and gems; and do not wonder at my calling _west_ theparts where the spices are, whereas they are commonly called _east_, because to persons sailing persistently westward those parts will befound by courses on the under side of the earth. For if [you go] by landand by routes on this upper side, they will always be found in the east. The straight lines drawn lengthwise upon the map indicate distance fromeast to west, while the transverse lines show distances from south tonorth. I have drawn upon the map various places upon which you may come, for the better information of the navigators in case of their arriving, whether through accident of wind or what not, at some different placefrom what they had expected; but partly in order that they may show theinhabitants that they have some knowledge of their country, which issure to be a pleasant thing. It is said that none but merchants dwell inthe islands. [435] For so great there is the number of navigators withtheir merchandise that in all the rest of the world there are not somany as in one very splendid port called Zaiton. [436] For they say thata hundred great ships of pepper unload in that port every year, besidesother ships bringing other spices. That country is very populous andvery rich, with a multitude of provinces and kingdoms and cities withoutnumber, under one sovereign who is called the Great Khan, which namesignifies King of Kings, whose residence is for the most part in theprovince of Cathay. His predecessors two hundred years ago desired analliance with Christendom; they sent to the pope and asked for a numberof persons learned in the faith, that they might be enlightened; butthose who were sent, having encountered obstacles on the way, returned. [437] Even in the time of Eugenius[438] there came one toEugenius and made a declaration concerning their great goodwill towardChristians, and I had a long talk with him about many things, about thegreat size of their royal palaces and the remarkable length and breadthof their rivers, and the multitude of cities on the banks of the rivers, such that on one river there are about two hundred cities, with marblebridges very long and wide and everywhere adorned with columns. Thiscountry is worth seeking by the Latins, not only because great treasuresmay be obtained from it, --gold, silver, and all sorts of jewels andspices, --but on account of its learned men, philosophers, and skilledastrologers, and [in order that we may see] with what arts and devicesso powerful and splendid a province is governed, and also [how] theyconduct their wars. This for some sort of answer to his request, so faras haste and my occupations have allowed, ready in future to makefurther response to his royal majesty as much as he may wish. Given atFlorence 25th June, 1474. '

 [Footnote 430: See above, p. 330. ]

 [Footnote 431: I translate this prologue from the Italian text of the _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Viii. The original Latin has nowhere been found. A Spanish version of the whole may be found in Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. I. Pp. 92-96. Las Casas, by a mere slip of the pen, calls "Paul, the physicist, " _Marco Paulo_, and fifty years later Mariana calls him _Marco Polo, physician_: "por aviso que le dió un cierto Marco Polo médico Florentin, " etc. _Historia de España_, tom. Viii. P. 343. Thus step by step doth error grow. ]

 [Footnote 432: He means that his friend Martinez has been a member of King Alfonso's household ever since the time before the civil wars that began with the attempted deposition of Henry IV. In 1465 and can hardly be said to have come to an end before the death of that prince in December, 1474. See Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. I. P. 225. ]

 [Footnote 433: I translate this enclosed letter from the original Latin text, as found, a few years ago, in the handwriting of Columbus upon the fly-leaves of his copy of the _Historia rerum ubique gestarum_ of Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II. ), published at Venice in 1477, in folio, and now preserved in the Colombina at Seville. This Latin text is given by Harrisse, in his _Fernand Colomb_, pp. 178-180, and also (with more strict regard to the abbreviations of the original) in his _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima--Additions_, Paris, 1872, pp. Xvi. -xviii. Very likely Columbus had occasion to let the original MS. Go out of his hands, and so preserved a copy of it upon the fly-leaves of one of his books. These same fly-leaves contain extracts from Josephus and Saint Augustine. The reader will rightly infer from my translation that the astronomer's Latin was somewhat rugged and lacking in literary grace. Apparently he was anxious to jot down quickly what he had to say, and get back to his work. ]

 [Footnote 434: A sketch of this most memorable of maps is given opposite. Columbus carried it with him upon his first voyage, and shaped his course in accordance with it. Las Casas afterwards had it in his possession (_Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. Pp. 96, 279). It has since been lost, that is to say, it may still be in existence, but nobody knows where. But it has been so well described that the work of restoring its general outlines is not difficult and has several times been done. The sketch here given is taken from Winsor (_Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, ii. 103), who takes it from _Das Ausland_, 1867, p. 5. Another restoration may be found in St. Martin's _Atlas_, pl. Ix. This map was the source of the western part of Martin Behaim's globe, as given below, p. 422. ]

 [Footnote 435: All the description that follows is taken by Toscanelli from the book of Marco Polo. ]

 [Footnote 436: On modern maps usually called Chang-chow, about 100 miles S. W. From Fou-chow. ]

 [Footnote 437: I have given an account of this mission, above, p. 281. ]

 [Footnote 438: Eugenius IV. , pope from 1431 to 1447. ]

[Sidenote: Conclusion of Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus. ]

"From[439] the city of Lisbon due west there are 26 spaces marked on themap, each of which contains 250 miles, as far as the very great andsplendid city of Quinsay. [440] For it is a hundred miles incircumference and has ten bridges, and its name means City of Heaven, and many wonderful things are told about it and about the multitude ofits arts and revenues. This space is almost a third part of the wholesphere. That city is in the province of Mangi, or near the province ofCathay in which land is the royal residence. But from the island ofAntilia, which you know, to the very splendid island of Cipango[441]there are ten spaces. For that island abounds in gold, pearls, andprecious stones, and they cover the temples and palaces with solid gold. So through the unknown parts of the route the stretches of sea to betraversed are not great. Many things might perhaps have been stated moreclearly, but one who duly considers what I have said will be able towork out the rest for himself. Farewell, most esteemed one. "

 [Footnote 439: This paragraph is evidently the conclusion of the letter to Columbus, and not a part of the letter to Martinez, which has just ended with the date. In _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_ the two letters are mixed together. ]

 [Footnote 440: On modern maps Hang-chow. After 1127 that city was for some time the capital of China, and Marco Polo's name _Quinsay_ represents the Chinese word _King-sse_ or "capital, " now generally applied to Peking. Marco Polo calls it the finest and noblest city in the world. It appears that he does not overstate the circumference of its walls at 100 Chinese miles or _li_, equivalent to about 30 English miles. It has greatly diminished since Polo's time, while other cities have grown. Toscanelli was perhaps afraid to repeat Polo's figure as to the number of stone bridges; Polo says there were 12, 000 of them, high enough for ships to pass under! We thus see how his Venetian fellow-citizens came to nickname him "Messer Marco Milione. " As Colonel Yule says, "I believe we must not bring Marco to book for the literal accuracy of his statements as to the bridges; but all travellers have noticed the number and elegance of the bridges of cut stone in this part of China. " _Marco Polo_, vol. Ii, p. 144. ]

 [Footnote 441: For Cipango, or Japan, see Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. Ii. Pp. 195-207. The venerable astronomer's style of composition is amusing. He sets out to demonstrate to Columbus that the part of the voyage to be accomplished through new and unfamiliar stretches of the Atlantic is not great; but he is so full of the glories of Cathay and Cipango that he keeps reverting to that subject, to the manifest detriment of his exposition. His argument, however, is perfectly clear. ]

Some time after the receipt of this letter Columbus wrote again toToscanelli, apparently sending him either some charts of his own, orsome notes, or something bearing upon the subject in hand. No suchletter is preserved, but Toscanelli replied as follows:--

[Sidenote: Toscanelli's second letter to Columbus. ]

"Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus greeting. [442] I havereceived your letters, with the things which you sent me, for which Ithank you very much. I regard as noble and grand your project of sailingfrom east to west according to the indications furnished by the mapwhich I sent you, and which would appear still more plainly upon asphere. I am much pleased to see that I have been well understood, andthat the voyage has become not only possible but certain, [443] fraughtwith honour as it must be, and inestimable gain, and most lofty fameamong all Christian people. You cannot take in all that it means exceptby actual experience, or without such copious and accurate informationas I have had from eminent and learned men who have come from thoseplaces to the Roman court, and from merchants who have traded a longtime in those parts, persons whose word is to be believed (_persone digrande autorità_). When that voyage shall be accomplished, it will be avoyage to powerful kingdoms, and to cities and provinces most wealthyand noble, abounding in all sorts of things most desired by us; I mean, with all kinds of spices and jewels in great abundance. It will also beadvantageous for those kings and princes who are eager to have dealingsand make alliances with the Christians of our countries, and to learnfrom the erudite men of these parts, [444] as well in religion as in allother branches of knowledge. For these reasons, and many others thatmight be mentioned, I do not wonder that you, who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese nation, which has always had men distinguishedin all such enterprises, are now inflamed with desire[445] to executethe said voyage. "

 [Footnote 442: The original of this letter is not forthcoming. I translate from _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Viii. ]

 [Footnote 443: Yet poor old Toscanelli did not live to see it accomplished; he died in 1482, before Columbus left Portugal. ]

 [Footnote 444: That is, of Europe, and especially of Italy. Toscanelli again refers to Kublai Khan's message to the pope which--more or less mixed up with the vague notions about Prester John--had evidently left a deep impression upon the European mind. In translating the above sentence I have somewhat retrenched its excessive verbiage without affecting the meaning. ]

 [Footnote 445: In including the "whole Portuguese nation" as feeling this desire, the good astronomer's enthusiasm again runs away with him. ]

[Sidenote: Who first suggested the feasibleness of a westward route? Wasit Columbus?]

These letters are intensely interesting, especially the one to Martinez, which reveals the fact that as early as 1474 the notion that a westwardroute to the Indies would be shorter than the southward route hadsomehow been suggested to Alfonso V. ; and had, moreover, sufficientlyarrested his attention to lead him to make inquiries of the most eminentastronomer within reach. Who could have suggested this notion to theking of Portugal? Was it Columbus, the trained mariner and map-maker, who might lately have been pondering the theories of Ptolemy and Mela asaffected by the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, and whose connectionwith the Moñiz and Perestrelo families would now doubtless facilitatehis access to the court? On some accounts this may seem probable, especially if we bear in mind Columbus's own statement implying that hisappeals to the crown dated almost from the beginning of his fourteenyears in Portugal. 

[Sidenote: Perhaps it was Toscanelli. ]

All the circumstances, however, seem to be equally consistent with thehypothesis that the first suggestion of the westward route may have comefrom Toscanelli himself, through the medium of the canon Martinez, whohad for so many years been a member of King Alfonso's household. Thewords at the beginning of the letter lend some probability to this view:"I have formerly spoken with you about a shorter route to the places ofSpices by ocean navigation than that which you are pursuing by Guinea. "It was accordingly earlier than 1474--how much earlier does notappear--that such discussions between Toscanelli and Martinez mustprobably have come to the ears of King Alfonso; and now, very likelyowing to the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, that monarch began to thinkit worth while to seek for further information, "an exhibition to theeye, " so that mariners not learned in astronomy like Toscanelli might"grasp and comprehend" the shorter route suggested. It is altogetherprobable that the Florentine astronomer, who was seventy-seven years oldwhen he wrote this letter, had already for a long time entertained theidea of a westward route; and a man in whom the subject aroused so muchenthusiasm could hardly have been reticent about it. It is not likelythat Martinez was the only person to whom he descanted[446] upon theglory and riches to be found by sailing "straight to Cathay, " and therewere many channels through which Columbus might have got some inkling ofhis views, even before going to Portugal. 

 [Footnote 446: Luigi Pulci, in his famous romantic poem published in 1481, has a couple of striking stanzas in which Astarotte says to Rinaldo that the time is at hand when Hercules shall blush to see how far beyond his Pillars the ships shall soon go forth to find another hemisphere, for although the earth is as round as a wheel, yet the water at any given point is a plane, and inasmuch as all things tend to a common centre so that by a divine mystery the earth is suspended in equilibrium among the stars, just so there is an antipodal world with cities and castles unknown to men of olden time, and the sun in hastening westwards descends to shine upon those peoples who are awaiting him below the horizon:--

 Sappi che questa opinione è vana Perchè più oltre navicar si puote, Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana, Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote; Era più grossa allor la gente umana, Tal che potrebbe arrossirne le gote Ercule ancor, d' aver posti que' segni, Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni. E puossi andar giù nell' altro emisperio, Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime: Sicchè la terra per divin misterio Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime, E laggiù son città, castella, e imperio; Ma nol cognobbon quelle gente prime. Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta, Dove io dico che laggiù s' aspetta. Pulci, _Morgante Maggiore_, xxv. 229, 230. 

 This prophecy of western discovery combines with the astronomical knowledge here shown, to remind us that the Florentine Pulci was a fellow-townsman and most likely an acquaintance of Toscanelli. ]

[Sidenote: The idea was suggested by the globular form of the earth;]

[Sidenote: and was as old as Aristotle. ]

[Sidenote: Opinions of ancient writers. ]

However this may have been, the letter clearly proves that at that mostinteresting period, in or about 1474, Columbus was already meditatingupon the westward route. [447] Whether he owed the idea to Toscanelli, or not, is a question of no great importance so far as concerns his ownoriginality; for the idea was already in the air. The originality ofColumbus did not consist in his conceiving the possibility of reachingthe shores of Cathay by sailing west, but in his conceiving it in suchdistinct and practical shape as to be ready to make the adventure inhis own person. As a matter of theory the possibility of such a voyagecould not fail to be suggested by the globular form of the earth; andever since the days of Aristotle that had been generally admitted by menlearned in physical science. Aristotle proved, from the differentaltitudes of the pole-star in different places, that the earth mustnecessarily be a globe. Moreover, says Aristotle, "some stars are seenin Egypt or at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries to the north ofthese; and the stars that in the north are visible while they make acomplete circuit, there undergo a setting. So that from this it ismanifest, not only that the form of the earth is round, but also that itis part of not a very large sphere; for otherwise the difference wouldnot be so obvious to persons making so small a change of place. Wherefore we may judge that _those persons who connect the region in theneighbourhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that towards India, andwho assert that in this way the sea is_ ONE, do not assert things veryimprobable. "[448] It thus appears that more than eighteen centuriesbefore Columbus took counsel of Toscanelli, "those persons" to whomAristotle alludes were discussing, as a matter of theory, this samesubject. Eratosthenes held that it would be easy enough to sail fromSpain to India on the same parallel were it not for the vast extent ofthe Atlantic ocean. [449] On the other hand, Seneca maintained that thedistance was probably not so very great, and that with favouring winds aship might make the voyage in a few days. [450] In one of his tragediesSeneca has a striking passage[451] which has been repeatedly quoted asreferring to the discovery of America, and is certainly one of the mostnotable instances of prophecy on record. There will come a time, hesays, in the later years, when Ocean shall loosen the bonds by which wehave been confined, when an immense land shall lie revealed, and Tethysshall disclose new worlds, and Thule will no longer be the most remoteof countries. In Strabo there is a passage, less commonly noticed, whichhits the truth--as we know it to-day--even more closely. Having arguedthat the total length of the Inhabited World is only about a third partof the circumference of the earth in the temperate zone, he suggests itas possible, or even probable, that within this space there may beanother Inhabited World, or even more than one; but such places would beinhabited by different races of men, with whom the geographer, whosetask it is to describe the _known_ world, has no concern. [452] Nothingcould better illustrate the philosophical character of Strabo's mind. Insuch speculations, so far as his means of verification went, he wassituated somewhat as we are to-day with regard to the probableinhabitants of Venus or Mars. 

 [Footnote 447: It was formerly assumed, without hesitation, that the letter from Toscanelli to Columbus was written and sent in 1474. The reader will observe, however, that while the enclosed letter to Martinez is dated June 25, 1474, the letter to Columbus, in which it was enclosed, has no date. But according to the text as given in _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Viii. , this would make no difference, for the letter to Columbus was sent only a few days later than the original letter to Martinez: "I send you a copy of another letter, which I wrote a few days ago (_alquanti giorni fa_) to a friend of mine, a gentleman of the household of the king of Portugal before the wars of Castile, in reply to another, " etc. This friend, Martinez, had evidently been a gentleman of the household of Alfonso V. Since before the civil wars of Castile, which in 1474 had been going on intermittently for nine years under the feeble Henry IV. , who did not die until December 12, 1474. Toscanelli apparently means to say "a friend of mine who has for ten years or more been a gentleman of the royal household, " etc. ; only instead of mentioning the number of years, he alludes less precisely (as most people, and perhaps especially old people, are apt to do) to the most notable, mentionable, and glaring fact in the history of the Peninsula for that decade, --namely, the civil wars of Castile. As if an American writer in 1864 had said, "a friend of mine, who has been secretary to A. B. Since before the war, " instead of saying "for four years or more. " This is the only reasonable interpretation of the phrase as it stands above, and it was long ago suggested by Humboldt (_Examen critique_, tom. I. P. 225). Italian and Spanish writers of that day, however, were lavish with their commas and sprinkled them in pretty much at haphazard. In this case Ferdinand's translator, Ulloa, sprinkled in one comma too many, and it fell just in front of the clause "before the wars of Castile;" so that Toscanelli's sentence was made to read as follows: "I send you a copy of another letter, which I wrote a few days ago to a friend of mine, a gentleman of the household of the king of Portugal, before the wars of Castile, in reply to another, " etc. Now this unhappy comma, coming after the word "Portugal, " has caused ream after ream of good paper to be inked up in discussion, for it has led some critics to understand the sentence as follows: "I send you a copy of another letter, which I wrote a few days ago, before the wars of Castile, to a friend of mine, " etc. This reading brought things to a pretty pass. Evidently a letter dated June 25, 1474, could not have been written before the civil wars of Castile, which began in 1465. It was therefore assumed that the phrase must refer to the "War of Succession" between Castile and Portugal (in some ways an outgrowth from the civil wars of Castile) which began in May, 1475, and ended in September, 1479. M. D'Avezac thinks that the letter to Columbus must have been written after the latter date, or more than five years later than the enclosed letter. M. Harrisse is somewhat less exacting, and is willing to admit that it may have been written at any time after this war had fairly begun, --say in the summer of 1475, not more than a year or so later than the enclosed letter. Still he is disposed on some accounts to put the date as late as 1482. The phrase _alquanti giorni fa_ will not allow either of these interpretations. It means "a few days ago, " and cannot possibly mean a year ago, still less five years ago. The Spanish retranslator from Ulloa renders it exactly _algunos dias há_ (Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. Ii. P. 7), and Humboldt (_loc. Cit. _) has it _il y a quelques jours_. If we could be sure that the expression is a correct rendering of the lost Latin original, we might feel sure that the letter to Columbus must have been written as early as the beginning of August, 1474. But now the great work of Las Casas, after lying in manuscript for 314 years, has at length been published in 1875. Las Casas gives a Spanish version of the Toscanelli letters (_Historia de las Indias_, tom. I. Pp. 92-97), which is unquestionably older than Ulloa's Italian version, though perhaps not necessarily more accurate. The phrase in Las Casas is not _algunos dias há_, but _há dias_, i. E. Not "a few days ago, " but "some time ago. " Just which expression Toscanelli used cannot be determined unless somebody is fortunate enough to discover the lost Latin original. The phrase in Las Casas admits much more latitude of meaning than the other. I should suppose that _há dias_ might refer to an event a year or two old, which would admit of the interpretation considered admissible by M. Harrisse. I should hardly suppose that it could refer to an event five or six years old; if Toscanelli had been referring in 1479 or 1480 to a letter written in 1474, his phrase would probably have appeared in Spanish as _algunos años há_, i. E. "a few years ago, " not as _há dias_. M. D'Avezac's hypothesis seems to me not only inconsistent with the phrase _há dias_, but otherwise improbable. The frightful anarchy in Castile, which began in 1465 with the attempt to depose Henry IV. And alter the succession, was in great measure a series of ravaging campaigns and raids, now more general, now more local, and can hardly be said to have come to an end before Henry's death in 1474. The war which began with the invasion of Castile by Alfonso V. Of Portugal, in May, 1475, was simply a later phase of the same series of conflicts, growing out of disputed claims to the crown and rivalries among great barons, in many respects similar to the contemporary anarchy in England called the Wars of the Roses. It is not likely that Toscanelli, writing at any time between 1475 and 1480, and speaking of the "wars of Castile" in the plural, could have had 1474 in his mind as a date previous to those wars; to his mind it would have rightly appeared as a date in the midst of them. In any case, therefore, his reference must be to a time before 1465, and Humboldt's interpretation is in all probability correct. The letter from Toscanelli to Columbus was probably written within a year or two after June 25, 1474. 

 On account of the vast importance of the Toscanelli letters, and because the early texts are found in books which the reader is not likely to have at hand, I have given them entire in the Appendix at the end of this work. ]

 [Footnote 448: [Greek: Hôste ta hyper tês kephalês astra megalên echein tên metabolên, kai mê tauta phainesthai pros arkton te kai mesêmbrian metabainousin; enioi gar en Aigyptô men asteres horôntai, kai peri Kypron; en tois pros arkton de chôrious ouch horôntai kai ta dia pantos en tois pros arkton phainomena tôn astrôn, en ekeinois tois topois poieitai dysin. Hôst' ou monon ek toutôn dêlon peripheres on to schêma tês gês, alla kai sphairas ou megalês. Ou gar an houtô tachy epidêlon epoiei methistemenois houtô brachy. Dio tous hypolambanontas synaptein ton peri tas Hêrakleious stêlas topon tô peri tên Indikên, kai touton ton tropon einai tên Thalattan mian, mê lian hypolambanein apista dokein. ] Aristotle, _De Coelo_, ii. 14. He goes on to say that "those persons" allege the existence of elephants alike in Mauretania and in India in proof of their theory. ]

 [Footnote 449: [Greek: Hôst' ei mê to megethos tou Atlantikou pelagous ekôlye, kan plein hêmas ek tês Ibêrias eis tên Indikên dia tou autou parallêlou. ] Strabo, i. 4, § 6. ]

 [Footnote 450: "Quantum enim est, quod ab ultimis litoribus Hispaniæ usque ad Indos jacet? Paucissimorum dierum spatium, si navem suus ventus implevit. " Seneca, _Nat. Quæst. _, i. Præf. § 11. ]

 [Footnote 451:

 Venient annis sæcula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule. Seneca, _Medea_, 376. 

 In the copy of Seneca's tragedies, published at Venice in 1510, bought at Valladolid by Ferdinand Columbus in March, 1518, for 4 reals (plus 2 reals for binding), and now to be seen at the Biblioteca Colombina, there is a marginal note attached to these verses: "hæc prophetia expleta [=e] per patr[=e] meuz[=z] cristofor[=u] col[=o] almir[=a]t[=e] anno 1492. "]

 [Footnote 452: [Greek: Kaloumen gar oikoumenên hên oikoumen kai gnôrizomen; endeketai de kai en tê autê eukratô zônê kai dyo oikoumenas einai ê kai pleious. ] Strabo, i. 4, § 6; [Greek: kai gar ei houtôs echei, ouch hypo toutôn ge oikeitai tôn par' hêmin; all' ekeinên allên oikoumenên theteon. Hoper esti pithanon. Hêmin de ta en autê tauta lekteon. ] Id. Ii. 5, § 13. This has always seemed to me one of the most remarkable anticipations of modern truth in all ancient literature. Mr. Bunbury thinks it may have suggested the famous verses of Seneca just quoted. _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. Ii. P. 224. ]

[Sidenote: Opinions of Christian writers. ]

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon. ]

[Sidenote: The "Imago Mundi" of Petrus Alliacus. ]

Early in the Christian era we are told by an eminent Greek astronomerthat the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was accepted by allcompetent persons except the Epicureans. [453] Among the Fathers of theChurch there was some difference of opinion; while in general theydenied the existence of human beings beyond the limits of theirOecumene, or Inhabited World, this denial did not necessarily involvedisbelief in the globular figure of the earth. [454] The views of thegreat mass of people, and of the more ignorant of the clergy, down tothe time of Columbus, were probably well represented in the book ofCosmas Indicopleustes already cited. [455] Nevertheless among the moreenlightened clergy the views of the ancient astronomers were never quiteforgotten, and in the great revival of intellectual life in thethirteenth century the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was againbrought prominently into the foreground. We find Dante basing upon itthe cosmical theory elaborated in his immortal poem. [456] In 1267 RogerBacon--stimulated, no doubt, by the reports of the ocean east ofCathay--collected passages from ancient writers to prove that thedistance from Spain to the eastern shores of Asia could not be verygreat. Bacon's argument and citations were copied in an extremelycurious book, the "Imago Mundi, " published in 1410 by the CardinalPierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, better known by the Latinized form ofhis name as Petrus Alliacus. This treatise, which throughout thefifteenth century enjoyed a great reputation, was a favourite book withColumbus, and his copy of it, covered with marginal annotations in hisown handwriting, is still preserved among the priceless treasures of theBiblioteca Colombina. [457] He found in it strong confirmation of hisviews, and it is not impossible that the reading of it may have firstput such ideas into his head. Such a point, however, can hardly bedetermined. As I have already observed, these ideas were in the air. What Columbus did was not to originate them, but to incarnate them infacts and breathe into them the breath of life. It was one thing tosuggest, as a theoretical possibility, that Cathay might be reached bysailing westward; and it was quite another thing to prove that theenterprise was feasible with the ships and instruments then at command. 

 [Footnote 453: [Greek: Hoi de hêmeteroi] [i. E. The Stoics] [Greek: kai apo mathêmatôn pantes, kai hoi pleious tôn apo tou Sôkratikou didaskaleiou sphairikon einai to schêma tês gês diebebaiôsanto. ] Cleomedes, i. 8; cf. Lucretius, _De Rerum Nat. _, i. 1052-1082; Stobæus, _Eclog. _ i. 19; Plutarch, _De facie in Orbe Luna_, cap. Vii. ]

 [Footnote 454: See Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, xvi. 9; Lactantius, _Inst. Div. _, iii. 23; Jerome, _Comm. In Ezechiel_, i. 6; Whewell's _History of the Inductive Sciences_, vol i. P. 196. ]

 [Footnote 455: See above, p. 266. ]

 [Footnote 456: For an account of the cosmography of the Divine Comedy, illustrated with interesting diagrams, see Artaud de Montor, _Histoire de Dante Alighieri_, Paris, 1841. ]

 [Footnote 457: It was first printed without indication of place or date, but probably the place was Paris and the date somewhere from 1483 to 1490. Manuscript copies were very common, and Columbus probably knew the book long before that time. There is a good account of it in Humboldt's _Examen critique_, tom. I. Pp. 61-76, 96-108. Humboldt thinks that such knowledge as Columbus had of the opinions of ancient writers was chiefly if not wholly obtained from Alliacus. It is doubtful if Columbus had any direct acquaintance with the works of Roger Bacon, but he knew the _Liber Cosmographicus_ of Albertus Magnus and the _Speculum Naturale_ of Vincent de Beauvais (both about 1250), and drew encouragement from them. He also knew the book of Mandeville, first printed in French at Lyons in 1480, and a Latin translation of Marco Polo, published in 1485, a copy of which, with marginal MS. Notes, is now in the Colombina. ]

[Illustration: Annotations by Columbus. ]

[Sidenote: Ancient estimates of the size of the globe and the length ofthe Oecumene. ]

The principal consideration, of course, was the distance to betraversed; and here Columbus was helped by an error which he shared withmany geographers of his day. He somewhat underestimated the size of theearth, and at the same time greatly overestimated the length of Asia. The first astronomer to calculate, by scientific methods, thecircumference of our planet at the equator was Eratosthenes (B. C. 276-196), and he came--all things considered--fairly near the truth; hemade it 25, 200 geographical miles (of ten stadia), or about one seventhtoo great. The true figure is 21, 600 geographical miles, equivalent to24, 899 English statute miles. [458] Curiously enough, Posidonius, inrevising this calculation a century later, reduced the figure to 18, 000miles, or about one seventh too small. The circumference in the latitudeof Gibraltar he estimated at 14, 000 miles; the length of the Oecumene, or Inhabited World, he called 7, 000; the distance across the Atlanticfrom the Spanish strand to the eastern shores of Asia was the other7, 000. The error of Posidonius was partially rectified by Ptolemy, whomade the equatorial circumference 20, 400 geographical miles, and thelength of a degree 56. 6 miles. [459] This estimate, in which the errorwas less than one sixteenth, prevailed until modern times. Ptolemy alsosupposed the Inhabited World to extend over about half the circumferenceof the temperate zone, but the other half he imagined as consistinglargely of bad lands, quagmires, and land-locked seas, instead of a vastand open ocean. [460]

 [Footnote 458: See Herschel's _Outlines of Astronomy_, p. 140. For an account of the method employed by Eratosthenes, see Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne_, tom. I. Pp. 86-91; Lewis, _Astronomy of the Ancients_, p. 198. ]

 [Footnote 459: See Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. Ii. Pp. 95-97, 546-579; Müller and Donaldson, _History of Greek Literature_, vol. Iii. P. 268. ]

 [Footnote 460: Strabo, in arguing against this theory of bad lands, etc. , as obstacles to ocean navigation--a theory which seems to be at least as old as Hipparchus--has a passage which finely expresses the loneliness of the sea:--[Greek: Hoite gar periplein epicheirêsantes, eita anastrepsantes, ouch hypo êpeirou tinos antipiptousês kai kôlyousês, ton epekeina ploun anakrousthênai phasin, alla hypo aporias kai erêmias, ouden hêtton tês thalattês echousês ton poron] (lib. I. Cap. I. § 8). When one thinks of this [Greek: aporia] and [Greek: erêmia], one fancies oneself far out on the Atlantic, alone in an open boat on a cloudy night, bewildered and hopeless. ]

[Sidenote: Toscanelli's calculation of the size of the earth, ]

[Sidenote: and of the position of Cipango. ]

Ptolemy's opinion as to the length of the Inhabited World wasconsiderably modified in the minds of those writers who toward the endof the Middle Ages had been strongly impressed by the book of MarcoPolo. Among these persons was Toscanelli. This excellent astronomercalculated the earth's equatorial circumference at almost exactly thetrue figure; his error was less than 124 English miles in excess. Thecircumference in the latitude of Lisbon he made 26 × 250 × 3 = 19, 500miles. [461] Two thirds of this figure, or 13, 000 miles, he allowed forthe length of the Oecumene, from Lisbon eastward to Quinsay (i. E. Hang-chow), leaving 6, 500 for the westward voyage from Lisbon toQuinsay. Thus Toscanelli elongated Asia by nearly the whole width of thePacific ocean. His Quinsay would come about 130° W. , a few hundred mileswest of the mouth of the Columbia river. Zaiton (i. E. Chang-chow), theeasternmost city in Toscanelli's China, would come not far from the tipend of Lower California. Thus the eastern coast of Cipango, about athousand miles east from Zaiton, would fall in the Gulf of Mexicosomewhere near the ninety-third meridian, and that island, being over athousand miles in length north and south, would fill up the spacebetween the parallel of New Orleans and that of the city of Guatemala. The westward voyage from the Canaries to Cipango, according toToscanelli, would be rather more than 3, 250 miles, but at a third of thedistance out he placed the imaginary island of "Antilia, " with which heseems to have supposed Portuguese sailors to be familiar. [462] "Sothrough the unknown parts of the route, " said the venerable astronomer, "the stretches of sea to be traversed are not great, "--not much morethan 2, 000 English miles, not so long as the voyage from Lisbon to theGuinea coast. 

[Sidenote: Columbus's opinion of the size of the globe, the length ofthe Oecumene, and the width of the Atlantic ocean. ]

[Sidenote: The fourth book of Esdras. ]

While Columbus attached great importance to these calculations andcarried Toscanelli's map with him upon his first voyage, he improvedsomewhat upon the estimates of distance, and thus made his case stillmore hopeful. Columbus was not enough of an astronomer to adoptToscanelli's improved measurement of the size of the earth. He acceptedPtolemy's figure of 20, 400 geographical miles for the equatorialgirth, [463] which would make the circumference in the latitude of theCanaries about 18, 000; and Columbus, on the strength of sundry passagesfrom ancient authors which he found in Alliacus (cribbed from RogerBacon), concluded that six sevenths of this circumference must beoccupied by the Oecumene, including Cipango, so that in order to reachthat wonderful island he would only have to sail over one seventh, ornot much more than 2, 500 miles from the Canaries. [464] An authority uponwhich he placed great reliance in this connection was the fourth bookof Esdras, which although not a canonical part of the Bible was approvedby holy men, and which expressly asserted that six parts of the earth(i. E. Of the length of the Oecumene, or north temperate zone) areinhabited and only the seventh part covered with water. From the generalhabit of Columbus's mind it may be inferred that it was chiefly uponthis scriptural authority that he based his confident expectation offinding land soon after accomplishing seven hundred leagues from theCanaries. Was it not as good as written in the Bible that land was to befound there?

 [Footnote 461: See above, p. 360. Toscanelli's mile was nearly equivalent to the English statute mile. See the very important note in Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, vol. I. P. 51. ]

 [Footnote 462: The reader will also notice upon Toscanelli's map the islands of Brazil and St. Brandan. For an account of all these fabulous islands see Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, vol. I. Pp. 46-51. The name of "Antilia" survives in the name "Antilles, " applied since about 1502 to the West India islands. All the islands west of Toscanelli's ninetieth meridian belong in the Pacific. He drew them from his understanding of the descriptions of Marco Polo, Friar Odoric, and other travellers. These were the islands supposed, rightly, though vaguely, to abound in spices. ]

 [Footnote 463: Columbus was confirmed in this opinion by the book of the Arabian astronomer Alfragan, written about A. D. 950, a Latin translation of which appeared in 1447. There is a concise summary of it in Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie du Moyen Âge_, pp. 63-73. Columbus proceeded throughout on the assumption that the length of a degree at the equator is 56. 6 geographical miles, instead of the correct figure 60. This would oblige him to reduce all Toscanelli's figures by about six per cent. , to begin with. Upon this point we have the highest authority, that of Columbus himself, in an autograph marginal note in his copy of the _Imago Mundi_, where he expresses himself most explicitly: "Nota quod sepius navigando ex Ulixbona ad Austrum in Guineam, notavi cum diligentia viam, ut solitum naucleris et malineriis, et preteria accepi altitudinem solis cum quadrante et aliis instrumentis plures vices, et inveni concordare cum Alfragano, videlicet respondere quemlibet gradum milliariis 56-2/3. Quare ad hanc mensuram fidem adhibendam. Tunc igitur possumus dicere quod circuitus Terræ sub aræ equinoctiali est 20, 400 milliariorum. Similiter que id invenit magister Josephus phisicus et astrologus et alii plures missi specialiter ad hoc per serenissimum regem Portugaliæ, " etc. ; _anglicè_, "Observe that in sailing often from Lisbon southward to Guinea, I carefully marked the course, according to the custom of skippers and mariners, and moreover I took the sun's altitude several times with a quadrant and other instruments, and in agreement with Alfragan I found that each degree [i. E. Of longitude, measured on a great circle] answers to 56-2/3 miles. So that one may rely upon this measure. We may therefore say that the equatorial circumference of the earth is 20, 400 miles. A similar result was obtained by Master Joseph, the physicist [or, perhaps, physician] and astronomer, and several others sent for this special purpose by the most gracious king of Portugal. "--Master Joseph was physician to John II. Of Portugal, and was associated with Martin Behaim in the invention of an improved astrolabe which greatly facilitated ocean navigation. --The exact agreement with Ptolemy's figures shows that by a mile Columbus meant a geographical mile, equivalent to ten Greek stadia. ]

 [Footnote 464: One seventh of 18, 000 is 2, 571 geographical miles, equivalent to 2, 963 English miles. The actual length of Columbus's first voyage, from last sight of land in the Canaries to first sight of land in the Bahamas, was according to his own dead reckoning about 3, 230 geographical miles. See his journal in Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. I. Pp. 6-20. 

 I give here in parallel columns the passage from Bacon and the one from Alliacus upon which Columbus placed so much reliance. In the Middle Ages there was a generous tolerance of much that we have since learned to stigmatize as plagiarism. 

 From Roger Bacon, _Opus From Petrus Alliacus, _De Majus_ (A. D. 1267), London, imagine Mundi_ (A. D. 1410), 1733, ed. Jebb, p. 183:--"Sed Paris, cir. 1490, cap. Viii. Fol. Aristoteles vult in fine secundi 13 b:--"Summus Aristoteles Coeli et Mundi quod plus [terræ] dicit quod mare parvum est inter habitetur quam quarta pars. Et finem Hispaniæ a parte occidentis Averroes hoc confirmat. Dicit et inter principium Indiæ Aristoteles quod mare parvum a parte orientis, et vult quod est inter finem Hispaniæ a parte plus habitetur quam quarta occidentis et inter principium pars, et Averroes hoc confirmat. Indiæ a parte orientis. Et Seneca, Insuper Seneca libro libro quinto Naturalium, quinto Naturalium, dicit quod dicit quod mare hoc est navigabile mare est navigabile in paucis in paucissimis diebus si diebus si ventus sit conveniens. Ventus sit conveniens. Et Plinius Et Plinius docet in Naturalibus, docet in Naturalibus quod libro secundo, quod navigatum navigatum est a sinu Arabico est a sinu Arabico usque ad usque ad Gades: unde refert Gades Herculis non multum quendam fugisse a rego suo magno tempore, præ timore et intravit sinum Maris Rubri . . . Qui circiter spatium navigationis annualis distat a Mari Indico: . . . Ex quo patet principium Indiæ in oriente multum a nobis distare et ab Hispania, postquam tantum distat a principio Arabiæ versus Indiam. A fine Hispaniæ unde concludunt sub terra tam parvum mare est aliqui, quod mare non est quod non potest cooperire tres tantum quod possit cooperire quartas terræ. Et hoc per tres quartas terræ. Accedit ad auctoritatem alterius considerationis hoc auctoritas Esdræ libro suo probatur. Nam Esdras quarto, dicentis quod sex partes dicit quarto libro, quod sex partes terræ sunt habitatæ et terrae sunt habitatæ et septima septima est cooperta aquis. Et est cooperta aquis, ne aliquis impediat hanc auctoritatem, dicens quod liber ille est apocryphus et ignotæ auctoritatis, dicendum est quod cujus libri auctoritatem sancti sancti habuerunt illum librum habuerunt in reverentia. " in usu et confirmant veritates sacras per illum librum. "

 Columbus must either have carried the book of Alliacus with him on his voyages, or else have read his favourite passages until he knew them by heart, as may be seen from the following passage of a letter, written from Hispaniola in 1498 to Ferdinand and Isabella (Navarrete, tom i. P. 261):--"El Aristotel dice que este mundo es pequeño y es el agua muy poca, y que facilmente se puede pasar de España à las Indias, y esto confirma el Avenryz [Averroes], y le alega el cardenal Pedro de Aliaco, autorizando este decir y aquel de Seneca, el qual conforma con estos. . . . À esto trac una autoridad de Esdras del tercero libro suyo, adonde dice que de siete partes del mundo las seis son descubiertas y la una es cubierta de agua, la cual autoridad es aprobada por Santos, los cuales dan autoridad al 3^o é 4^o libro de Esdras, ansí come es S. Agustin é S. Ambrosio en su _exámeron_, " etc. --"Singular period, " exclaims Humboldt, "when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and Averroes, Esdras and Seneca, on the small extent of the ocean compared with the magnitude of continental land, afforded to monarchs guarantees for the safety and expediency of costly enterprises!" _Cosmos_, tr. Sabine, vol. Ii. P. 250. The passages cited in this note may be found in Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. I. Pp. 65-69. Another interesting passage from _Imago Mundi_, cap. Xv. , is quoted on p. 78 of the same work. ]

[Sidenote: Fortunate mixture of truth and error. ]

[Sidenote: The whole point and purport of Columbus's scheme. ]

Thus did Columbus arrive at his decisive conclusion, estimating thedistance across the Sea of Darkness to Japan at something less than thefigure which actually expresses the distance to the West Indies. Many ahopeful enterprise has been ruined by errors in figuring, but this wrongcalculation was certainly a great help to Columbus. When we considerhow difficult he found it to obtain men and ships for a voyage supposedto be not more than 2, 500 miles in this new and untried direction, wemust admit that his chances would have been poor indeed if he hadproposed to sail westward on the Sea of Darkness for nearly 12, 000miles, the real distance from the Canaries to Japan. It was a case wherethe littleness of the knowledge was not a dangerous but a helpful thing. If instead of the somewhat faulty astronomy of Ptolemy and the very hazynotions prevalent about "the Indies, " the correct astronomy ofToscanelli had prevailed and had been joined to an accurate knowledge ofeastern Asia, Columbus would surely never have conceived his greatscheme, and the discovery of America would probably have waited to bemade by accident. [465] The whole point of his scheme lay in its promiseof a shorter route to the Indies than that which the Portuguese wereseeking by way of Guinea. Unless it was probable that it could furnishsuch a shorter route, there was no reason for such an extraordinaryenterprise. 

 [Footnote 465: See below, vol. Ii. P. 96. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Columbus's speculations on climate. ]

[Sidenote: His voyage to Guinea. ]

[Sidenote: His voyage into the Arctic ocean, 1477. ]

The years between 1474 and 1480 were not favourable for new maritimeventures on the part of the Portuguese government. The war with Castileabsorbed the energies of Alfonso V. As well as his money, and he wasbadly beaten into the bargain. About this time Columbus was writing atreatise on "the five habitable zones, " intended to refute the oldnotions about regions so fiery or so frozen as to be inaccessible toman. As this book is lost we know little or nothing of its views andspeculations, but it appears that in writing it Columbus utilized sundryobservations made by himself in long voyages into the torrid and arcticzones. He spent some time at the fortress of San Jorge de la Mina, onthe Gold Coast, and made a study of that equinoctial climate. [466] Thiscould not have been earlier than 1482, the year in which the fortresswas built. Five years before this he seems to have gone far in theopposite direction. In a fragment of a letter or diary, preserved by hisson and by Las Casas, he says:--"In the month of February, 1477, Isailed a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule, [to?] an island ofwhich the south part is in latitude 73°, not 63°, as some say; and it[i. E. Thule] does not lie within Ptolemy's western boundary, but muchfarther west. And to this island, which is as big as England, theEnglish go with their wares, especially from Bristol. When I was therethe sea was not frozen. In some places the tide rose and fell twenty-sixfathoms. It is true that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy lies where hesays it does, and this by the moderns is called Frislanda. "[467]

 [Footnote 466: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Iv. ; Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. I. P. 49. ]

 [Footnote 467: "Io navigai l' anno M CCCC LXXVII nel mese di Febraio oltra Tile isola cento leghe, la cui parte Australe è lontana dall' Equinottiale settantatrè gradi, e non sessantatrè, come alcuni vogliono; nè giace dentro della linea, che include l' Occidente di Tolomeo, ma è molto più Occidentale. Et a questa isola, che è tanto grande, come l'Inghilterra, vanno gl' Inglesi con le loro mercatantie, specialmente quelli di Bristol. Et al tempo che io vi andai, non era congelato il mare, quantunque vi fossero si grosse maree, che in alcuni luoghi ascendeva ventisei braccia, e discendeva altretanti in altezza. È bene il vero, che Tile, quella, di cui Tolomeo fa mentione, giace dove egli dice; & questa da' moderni è chiamata Frislanda. " _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Iv. In the original edition of 1571, there are no quotation-marks; and in some modern editions, where these are supplied, the quotation is wrongly made to end just before the last sentence, so as to make it appear like a gloss of Ferdinand's. This is, however, impossible. Ferdinand died in 1539, and the Zeno narrative of Frislanda was not published till 1558, so that the only source from which that name could have come into his book was his father's document. The genuineness of the passage is proved by its recurrence, almost word for word, in Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. I. P. 48. ]

[Sidenote: He may have reached Jan Mayen island, ]

[Sidenote: and stopped at Iceland. ]

Taken as it stands this passage is so bewildering that we can hardlysuppose it to have come in just this shape from the pen of Columbus. Itlooks as if it had been abridged from some diary of his by some personunfamiliar with the Arctic seas; and I have ventured to insert inbrackets a little preposition which may perhaps help to straighten outthe meaning. By Thule Columbus doubtless means Iceland, which liesbetween latitudes 64° and 67°, and it looks as if he meant to say thathe ran beyond it as far as the little island, just a hundred leaguesfrom Iceland and in latitude 71°, since discovered by Jan Mayen in 1611. The rest of the paragraph is more intelligible. It is true that Icelandlies thirty degrees farther west than Ptolemy placed Thule; and that fora century before the discovery of the Newfoundland fisheries the Englishdid much fishing in the waters about Iceland, and carried waresthither, especially from Bristol. [468] There can be no doubt that byFrislanda Columbus means the Færoe islands, [469] which do lie in thelatitude though not in the longitude mentioned by Ptolemy. As for thevoyage into the Jan Mayen waters in February, it would be dangerous butby no means impossible. [470] In another letter Columbus mentionsvisiting England, apparently in connection with this voyage, [471] and itis highly probable that he went in an English ship from Bristol. 

 [Footnote 468: See Thorold Rogers, _The Economic Interpretation of History_, London, 1888, pp. 103, 319. ]

 [Footnote 469: See above, p. 236. ]

 [Footnote 470: See the graphic description of a voyage in these waters in March, 1882, in Nansen's _The First Crossing of Greenland_, London, 1890, vol. I. Pp. 149-152. ]

 [Footnote 471: "E vidi tutto il Levante, e tutto il Ponente, che si dice per andare verso il Settentrione, cioè l'Inghilterra, e ho camminato per la Guinea. " _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Iv. ]

[Sidenote: The hypothesis that Columbus "must have" heard and understoodthe story of the Vinland voyages. ]

The object of Columbus in making these long voyages to the equator andinto the polar circle was, as he tells us, to gather observations uponclimate. From the circumstance of his having made a stop at some pointin Iceland, it was conjectured by Finn Magnusson that Columbus mighthave learned something about Vinland which served to guide him to hisown enterprise or to encourage him in it. Starting from this suggestion, it has been argued[472] that Columbus must have read the geographicalappendix to Adam of Bremen's "Ecclesiastical History;" that he musthave understood, as we now do, the reference therein made to Vinland;that he made his voyage to Iceland in order to obtain furtherinformation; that he there not only heard about Vinland and otherlocalities mentioned in the sagas, but also mentally placed them aboutwhere they were placed in 1837 by Professor Rafn; that, among otherthings, he thus obtained a correct knowledge of the width of theAtlantic ocean in latitude 28° N. ; and that during fifteen subsequentyears of weary endeavour to obtain ships and men for his westwardvoyage, he sedulously refrained from using the most convincing argumentat his command, --namely that land of continental dimensions had actuallybeen found (though by a very different route) in the direction which heindicated. 

 [Footnote 472: See Anderson's _America not discovered by Columbus_, Chicago, 1874; 3d ed. Enlarged, Chicago, 1883. ]

[Sidenote: That hypothesis has no evidence in its favour. ]

I have already given an explanation of the process by which Columbusarrived at the firm belief that by sailing not more than about 2, 500geographical miles due west from the Canaries he should reach the coastof Japan. Every step of that explanation is sustained by documentaryevidence, and as his belief is thus completely accounted for, thehypothesis that he may have based it upon information obtained inIceland is, to say the least, superfluous. We do not need it in order toexplain his actions, and accordingly his actions do not afford apresumption in favour of it. There is otherwise no reason, of course, for refusing to admit that he might have obtained information inIceland, were there any evidence that he did. But not a scrap of suchevidence has ever been produced. Every step in the Scandinavianhypothesis is a pure assumption. 

[Sidenote: It is not probable that Columbus knew of Adam of Bremen'sallusion to Vinland, ]

[Sidenote: or that he would have understood it if he had read it. ]

First it is assumed that Columbus _must_ have read the appendix to Adamof Bremen's history. But really, while it is not impossible that heshould have read that document, it is, on the whole, improbable. Theappendix was first printed in Lindenbrog's edition, published at Leyden, in 1595. The eminent Norwegian historian, Gustav Storm, finds that inthe sixteenth century just six MSS. Of Adam's works can now be traced. Of these, two were preserved in Denmark, two in Hamburg, one had_perhaps_ already wandered southward to Leyden, and one as far asVienna. Dr. Storm, therefore, feels sure that Columbus never saw Adam'smention of Vinland, and pithily adds that "had Columbus known it, itwould not have been able to show him the way to the West Indies, butperhaps to the North Pole. "[473] From the account of this mention andits context, which I have already given, [474] it is in the highestdegree improbable that if Columbus had read the passage he could haveunderstood it as bearing upon his own problem. There is, therefore, noground for the assumption that Columbus went to Iceland in order tomake inquiries about Vinland. 

 [Footnote 473: "Det er derfor sikkert, at Columbus ikke, som nogle har formodet, kan have kjendt Adam af Bremens Beretning on Vinland; vi kan gjerne tilføie, at havde Columbus kjendt den, vilde den ikke have kunnet vise ham Vei til Vesten (Indien), men kanske til Nordpolen. " _Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed_, 1887, ii. 2, p. 301. ]

 [Footnote 474: See above, p. 210. ]

[Sidenote: It is doubtful if Columbus would have stumbled upon the storyin Iceland. ]

It may be argued that even if he did not go for such a purpose, nevertheless when once there he could hardly have failed incidentally toget the information. This, however, is not at all clear. Observe thatour sole authority for the journey to Iceland is the passage abovequoted at second-hand from Columbus himself; and there is nothing in itto show whether he staid a few hours or several weeks ashore, or metwith any one likely to be possessed of the knowledge in question. Theabsence of any reference to Vinland in the Zeno narrative is anindication that the memory of it had faded away before 1400, and it wasnot distinctly and generally revived until the time of Torfæus in1705. [475]

 [Footnote 475: In 1689 the Swedish writer, Ole Rudbeck, could not understand Adam of Bremen's allusion to Vinland. The passage is instructive. Rudbeck declares that in speaking of a wine-growing country near to the Arctic ocean, Adam must have been misled by some poetical or figurative phrase; he was deceived either by his trust in the Danes, or by his own credulity, for he manifestly refers to _Finland_, for which the form _Vinland_ does not once occur in Sturleson, etc. :--"Ne tamen poetis solis hoc loquendi genus in suis regionum laudationibus familiare fuisse quis existimet, sacras adeat literas quæ Palæstinæ fæcunditatem appellatione _fluentorum lactis & mellis_ designant. Tale aliquid, sine omne dubio, Adamo Bremensi quondam persuaserat insulam esse in ultimo septentrione sitam, mari glaciali vicinam, vini feracem, & ea propter fide tamen Danorum, _Vinlandiam_ dictam prout ipse . . . Fateri non dubitat. Sed deceptum eum hae sive Danorum fide, sive credulitate sua planum facit affine isti vocabulum _Finlandiæ_ provinciæ ad Regnum nostrum pertinentis, pro quo apud Snorronem & in Hist. Regum non semel occurrit _Vinlandiæ_ nomen, cujus promontorium ad ultimum septentrionem & usque ad mare glaciale sese extendit. " Rudbeck, _Atland eller Manheim_, Upsala, cir. 1689, p. 291. ]

[Sidenote: If he had heard it, he would probably have classed it withsuch tales as that of St. Brandan's isle. ]

But to hear about Vinland was one thing, to be guided by it to Japan wasquite another affair. It was not the mention of timber and peltries andSkrælings that would fire the imagination of Columbus; his dreams wereof stately cities with busy wharves where ships were laden with silksand jewels, and of Oriental magnates decked out with "barbaric pearl andgold, " dwelling in pavilions of marble and jasper amid flowery gardensin "a summer fanned with spice. " The mention of Vinland was no morelikely to excite Columbus's attention than that of St. Brandan's isle orother places supposed to lie in the western ocean. He was after highergame. 

[Sidenote: He could not have obtained from such a source his opinion ofthe width of the ocean. ]

To suppose that Columbus, even had he got hold of the Saga of Eric theRed and conned it from beginning to end, with a learned interpreter athis elbow, could have gained from it a knowledge of the width of theAtlantic ocean, is simply preposterous. It would be impossible toextract any such knowledge from that document to-day without the aid ofour modern maps. The most diligent critical study of all the Icelandicsources of information, with all the resources of modern scholarship, enables us with some confidence to place Vinland somewhere between CapeBreton and Point Judith, that is to say, somewhere between two pointsdistant from each other more than four degrees in latitude and more thaneleven degrees in longitude! When we have got thus far, knowing as we dothat the coast in question belongs to the same continental system asthe West Indies, we can look at our map and pick up our pair ofcompasses and measure the width of the ocean at the twenty-eighthparallel. But it is not the mediæval document, but our modern map thatguides us to this knowledge. And yet it is innocently assumed thatColumbus, without any knowledge or suspicion of the existence ofAmerica, and from such vague data concerning voyages made five hundredyears before his time, by men who had no means of reckoning latitude andlongitude, could have obtained his figure of 2, 500 miles for the voyagefrom the Canaries to Japan![476] The fallacy here is that whichunderlies the whole Scandinavian hypothesis and many other fancifulgeographical speculations. It is the fallacy of projecting our presentknowledge into the past. 

 [Footnote 476: The source of such a confusion of ideas is probably the ridiculous map in Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanæ_, upon which North America is represented in all the accuracy of outline attainable by modern maps, and then the Icelandic names are put on where Rafn thought they ought to go, i. E. Markland upon Nova Scotia, Vinland upon New England, etc. Any person using such a map is liable to forget that it cannot possibly represent the crude notions of locality to which the reports of the Norse voyages must have given rise in an ignorant age. (The reader will find the map reproduced in Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, i. 95. ) Rafn's fault was, however, no greater than that committed by the modern makers of so-called "ancient atlases"--still current and in use in schools--when, for example, they take a correct modern map of Europe, with parts of Africa and Asia, and upon countries so dimly known to the ancients as Scandinavia and Hindustan, but now drawn with perfect accuracy, they simply print the ancient names!! Nothing but confusion can come from using such wretched maps. The only safe way to study the history of geography is to reproduce the ancient maps themselves, as I have done in the present work. Many of the maps given below in the second volume will illustrate the slow and painful growth of the knowledge of the North American coast during the two centuries after Columbus. ]

[Sidenote: If he had known and understood the Vinland story, he had thestrongest motives for proclaiming it and no motive for concealing it. ]

We have next to inquire, if Columbus had heard of Vinland andcomprehended its relation to his own theory about land at the west, whyin the world should he have concealed this valuable knowledge? Thenotion seems to be that he must have kept it secret through an unworthydesire to claim a priority in discovery to which he knew that he was notentitled. [477] This is projecting our present knowledge into the pastwith a vengeance. Columbus never professed to have discovered America;he died in the belief that what he had done was to reach the easternshores of Asia by a shorter route than the Portuguese. If he had reasonto suppose that the Northmen had once come down from the Arctic seas tosome unknown part of the Asiatic coast, he had no motive for concealingsuch a fact, but the strongest of motives for proclaiming it, inasmuchas it would have given him the kind of inductive argument which hesorely needed. The chief obstacle for Columbus was that for want oftangible evidence he was obliged to appeal to men's reason withscientific arguments. When you show things to young children they arenot content with looking; they crave a more intimate acquaintance thanthe eyes alone can give, and so they reach out and handle the things. So when ideas are presented to grown-up men, they are apt to beunwilling to trust to the eye of reason until it has been supplementedby the eye of sense; and indeed in most affairs of life such caution iswholesome. The difference between Columbus and many of the "practical"men whom he sought to convince was that he could see with his mind's eyesolid land beyond the Sea of Darkness while they could not. To them theocean, like the sky, had nothing beyond, unless it might be thesupernatural world. [478] For while the argument from the earth'srotundity was intelligible enough, there were few to whom, as toToscanelli, it was a living truth. Even of those who admitted, intheory, that Cathay lay to the west of Europe, most deemed the distanceuntraversable. Inductive proof of the existence of accessible land tothe west was thus what Columbus chiefly needed, and what he sought everyopportunity to find and produce; but it was not easy to find anythingmore substantial than sailors' vague mention of driftwood of foreignaspect or other outlandish jetsam washed up on the Portuguesestrand. [479] What a godsend it would have been for Columbus if he couldhave had the Vinland business to hurl at the heads of his adversaries!If he could have said, "Five hundred years ago some Icelanders coastedwestward in the polar regions, and then coasted southward until theyreached a country beyond the ocean and about opposite to France orPortugal; therefore that country must be Asia, and I can reach it bystriking boldly across the ocean, which will obviously be shorter thangoing down by Guinea, "--if he could have said this, he would have hadprecisely the unanswerable argument for lack of which his case waswaiting and suffering. In persuading men to furnish hard cash, for hiscommercial enterprise, as Colonel Higginson so neatly says, "an ounce ofVinland would have been worth a pound of cosmography. "[480] We may besure that the silence of Columbus about the Norse voyages proves that heknew nothing about them or quite failed to see their bearings upon hisown undertaking. It seems to me absolutely decisive. 

 [Footnote 477: "The fault that we find with Columbus is, that he was not honest and frank enough to tell where and how he had obtained his previous information about the lands which he pretended to discover. " Anderson, _America not discovered by Columbus_, p. 90. ]

 [Footnote 478: See below, p. 398, note. ]

 [Footnote 479: For example, the pilot Martin Vicenti told Columbus that 1, 200 miles west of Cape St. Vincent he had picked up from the sea a piece of carved wood evidently not carved with iron tools. Pedro Correa, who had married Columbus's wife's sister, had seen upon Porto Santo a similar piece of carving that had drifted from the west. Huge reeds sometimes floated ashore upon those islands, and had not Ptolemy mentioned enormous reeds as growing in eastern Asia? Pine-trees of strange species were driven by west winds upon the coast of Fayal, and two corpses of men of an unknown race had been washed ashore upon the neighbouring island of Flores. Certain sailors, on a voyage from the Azores to Ireland, had caught glimpses of land on the west, and believed it to be the coast of "Tartary;" etc. , etc. See _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Ix. Since he cited these sailors, why did he not cite the Northmen also, if he knew what they had done?]

 [Footnote 480: _Larger History of the United States_, p. 54. ]

[Sidenote: No trace of a thought of Vinland appears in the voyages ofColumbus. ]

Furthermore, this silence is in harmony with the fact that in none ofhis four voyages across the Atlantic did Columbus betray anyconsciousness that there was anything for him to gain by steering towardthe northwest. If he could correctly have conceived the position ofVinland he surely would not have conceived it as south of the fortiethparallel. On his first voyage he steered due west in latitude 28°because Toscanelli placed Japan opposite the Canaries. When at lengthsome doubts began to arise and he altered his course, as we shallhereafter see, the change was toward the southwest. His first twovoyages did not reveal to him the golden cities for which he waslooking, and when on his third and fourth voyages he tried a differentcourse it was farther toward the equator, not farther away from it, thathe turned his prows. Not the slightest trace of a thought of Vinlandappears in anything that he did. 

[Sidenote: Why did not Norway or Iceland utter a protest in 1493?]

Finally it may be asked, if the memory of Vinland was such a livingthing in Iceland in 1477 that a visitor would be likely to be told aboutit, why was it not sufficiently alive in 1493 to call forth a protestfrom the North? When the pope, as we shall presently see, wasproclaiming to the world that the Spanish crown was entitled to allheathen lands and islands already discovered or to be discovered in theocean west of the Azores, why did not some zealous Scandinavian at oncejump up and cry out, "Look here, old Columbus, _we_ discovered thatwestern route, you know! Stop thief!" Why was it necessary to wait morethan a hundred years longer before the affair of Vinland was mentionedin this connection?

[Sidenote: The idea of Vinland was not associated with the idea ofAmerica until the seventeenth century. ]

Simply because it was not until the seventeenth century that theknowledge of North American geography had reached such a stage ofcompleteness as to suggest to anybody the true significance of the oldvoyages from Greenland. That significance could not have been understoodby Leif and Thorfinn themselves, or by the compilers of Hauks-bók andFlateyar-bók, or by any human being, until about the time of HenryHudson. Not earlier than that time should we expect to find itmentioned, and it is just then, in 1610, that we do find it mentioned byArngrim Jonsson, who calls Vinland "an island of _America_, in theregion of Greenland, perhaps the modern Estotilandia. "[481] This is theearliest glimmering of an association of the idea of Vinland with thatof America. 

 [Footnote 481: "Terram veró Landa Rolfoni quæsitam existimarem esse Vinlandiam olim Islandis sic dictam; de qua alibi insulam nempe Americæ e regione Gronlandiæ, quæ fortè hodie Estotilandia, " etc. _Crymogoea_, Hamburg, 1610, p. 120. 

 Abraham Ortelius in 1606 speaks of the Northmen coming to America, but bases his opinion upon the Zeno narrative (published in 1558) and upon the sound of the name _Norumbega_, and apparently knows nothing of Vinland:--"Iosephus Acosta in his book _De Natura noui orbis_ indeuors by many reasons to proue, that this part of _America_ was originally inhabited by certaine Indians, forced thither by tempestuous weather ouer the South sea which now they call Mare del Zur. But to me it seemes more probable, out of the historie of the two Zeni, gentlemen of Venice, . . . That this New World many ages past was entred upon by some islanders of _Europe_, as namely of _Groenland_, Island, and Frisland; being much neerer thereunto than the Indians, nor disioyned thence . . . By an Ocean so huge, and to the Indians so vnnauigable. Also, what else may we coniecture to be signified by this _Norumbega_ [the name of a North region of _America_] but that from _Norway_, signifying a North land, some Colonie in times past hath hither beene transplanted?" _Theatre of the Whole World_, London, 1606, p. 5. These passages are quoted and discussed by Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland the Good_, pp. 95, 96. The supposed connection of _Norumbega_ with _Norway_ is very doubtful. Possibly Stephanius, in his map of 1570 (Torfæus, _Gronlandia antiqua_, 1706), may have had reference to Labrador or the north of Newfoundland. ]

[Sidenote: Résumé of the genesis of Columbus's scheme. ]

[Sidenote: Martin Behaim's improved astrolabe. ]

[Sidenote: Negotiations of Columbus with John II. Of Portugal. ]

[Sidenote: A shabby trick. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus leaves Portugal, ]

[Sidenote: and enters the service of the Spanish sovereigns, 1486. ]

[Sidenote: The junto at Salamanca. ]

The genesis of the grand scheme of Columbus has now been set forth, Ibelieve, with sufficient fulness. The cardinal facts are 1, that theneed for some such scheme was suggested in 1471, by the discovery thatthe Guinea coast extended south of the equator; 2, that by 1474 advicehad been sought from Toscanelli by the king of Portugal, and not verylong after 1474 by Columbus; 3, that upon Toscanelli's letters and map, amended by the Ptolemaic estimate of the earth's size and by theauthority of passages quoted in the book of Alliacus (one of which was averse from the Apocrypha), Columbus based his firm conviction of thefeasibleness of the western route. How or by whom the suggestion of thatroute was first made--whether by Columbus himself or by Toscanelli or byFernando Martinez or, as Antonio Gallo declares, by BartholomewColumbus, [482] or by some person in Portugal whose name we know not--itwould be difficult to decide. Neither can we fix the date when Columbusfirst sought aid for his scheme from the Portuguese government. Thereseems to be no good reason why he should not have been talking about itbefore 1474; but the affair did not come to any kind of a climax untilafter his return from Guinea, some time after 1482 and certainly notlater than 1484. It was on some accounts a favourable time. The war withCastile was out of the way, and Martin Behaim had just invented animproved astrolabe which made it ever so much easier to find and keepone's latitude at sea. It was in 1484 that Portuguese discoveries took afresh start after a ten years' lull, and Diego Cam, with the learnedBehaim and his bran-new astrolabe on board, was about to sail a thousandmiles farther south than white men had ever gone before. About this timethe scheme of Columbus was formally referred by King John II. To thejunto of learned cosmographers from whom the crown had been wont to seekadvice. The project was condemned as "visionary, "[483] as indeed itwas, --the outcome of vision that saw farther than those men could see. But the king, who had some of his uncle Prince Henry's love for boldenterprises, was more hospitably inclined toward the ideas of Columbus, and he summoned a council of the most learned men in the kingdom todiscuss the question. [484] In this council the new scheme found somedefenders, while others correctly urged that Columbus must be wrong insupposing Asia to extend so far to the east, and it must be a muchlonger voyage than he supposed to Cipango and Cathay, [485] Othersargued that the late war had impoverished the country, and that theenterprises on the African coast were all that the treasury couldafford. Here the demands of Columbus were of themselves an obstacle tohis success. He never at any time held himself cheap, [486] and therewards and honours for which he insisted on stipulating were greaterthan the king of Portugal felt inclined to bestow upon a plain Genoesemariner. It was felt that if the enterprise should prove a failure, asvery likely it would, the less heartily the government should havecommitted itself to it beforehand, the less it would expose itself toridicule. King John was not in general disposed toward unfair anddishonest dealings, but on this occasion, after much parley, he waspersuaded to sanction a proceeding quite unworthy of him. Havingobtained Columbus's sailing plans, he sent out a ship secretly, to carrysome goods to the Cape Verde islands, and then to try the experiment ofthe westward voyage. If there should turn out to be anything profitablein the scheme, this would be safer and more frugal than to meet theexorbitant demands of this ambitious foreigner. So it was done; but thepilots, having no grand idea to urge them forward, lost heart before thestupendous expanse of waters that confronted them, and beat anignominious retreat to Lisbon; whereupon Columbus, having been informedof the trick, [487] departed in high dudgeon, to lay his proposals beforethe crown of Castile. He seems to have gone rather suddenly, leavinghis wife, who died shortly after, and one or two children who must alsohave died, for he tells us that he never saw them again. But his sonDiego, aged perhaps four or five years, he took with him as far as thetown of Huelva, near the little port of Palos in Andalusia, where heleft him with one of his wife's sisters, who had married a man of thattown named Muliar. [488] This arrival in Spain was probably late in theautumn of 1484, and Columbus seems to have entered into the service ofFerdinand and Isabella January 20, 1486. What he was doing in theinterval of rather more than a year is not known. There is a verydoubtful tradition that he tried to interest the republic of Genoa inhis enterprise, [489] and a still more doubtful rumour that he afterwardsmade proposals to the Venetian senate. [490] If these things everhappened, there was time enough for them in this year, and they canhardly be assigned to any later period. In 1486 we find Columbus atCordova, where the sovereigns were holding court. He was unable toeffect anything until he had gained the ear of Isabella's financeminister Alonso de Quintanilla, who had a mind hospitable to largeideas. The two sovereigns had scarcely time to attend to such things, for there was a third king in Spain, the Moor at Granada, whom there nowseemed a fair prospect of driving to Africa, and thus ending thestruggle that had lasted with few intermissions for nearly eightcenturies. The final war with Granada had been going on since the end of1481, and considering how it weighed upon the minds of Ferdinand andIsabella it is rather remarkable that cosmography got any hearing atall. The affair was referred to the queen's confessor Fernando deTalavera, whose first impression was that if what Columbus said wastrue, it was very strange that other geographers should have failed toknow all about it long ago. Ideas of evolution had not yet begun toexist in those days, and it was thought that what the ancients did notknow was not worth knowing. Toward the end of 1486 the Spanishsovereigns were at Salamanca, and Talavera referred the question to ajunto of learned men, including professors of the famousuniversity. [491] There was no lack of taunt and ridicule, and a wholearsenal of texts from Scripture and the Fathers were discharged atColumbus, but it is noticeable that quite a number were inclined tothink that his scheme might be worth trying, and that some of his mostfirmly convinced supporters were priests. No decision had been reachedwhen the sovereigns started on the Malaga campaign in the spring of1487. 

 [Footnote 482: Gallo, _De navigatione Columbi_, apud Muratori, _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, tom. Xxiii. Col. 302. ]

 [Footnote 483: Lafuente, _Historia de España_, tom. Ix, p. 428. ]

 [Footnote 484: Vasconcellos, _Vida del rey Don Juan II. _, lib. Iv. ; La Clède, _Histoire de Portugal_, lib. Xiii. ]

 [Footnote 485: The Portuguese have never been able to forgive Columbus for discovering a new world for Spain, and their chagrin sometimes vents itself in amusing ways. After all, says Cordeiro, Columbus was no such great man as some people think, for he did not discover what he promised to discover; and, moreover, the Portuguese geographers were right in condemning his scheme, because it really is not so far by sea from Lisbon around Africa to Hindustan as from Lisbon by any practicable route westward to Japan! See Luciano Cordeiro, _De la part prise par les Portugais dans la découverte d'Amérique_, Lisbon, 1876, pp. 23, 24, 29, 30. Well, I don't know that there is any answer to be made to this argument. Logic is logic, says the wise Autocrat:--

 "End of the wonderful one-hoss shay, Logic is logic, that's all I say. "

 Cordeiro's book is elaborately criticised in the learned work of Prospero Peragallo, _Cristoforo Colombo in Portogallo: studi critici_, Genoa, 1882. ]

 [Footnote 486: "Perciocchè essendo l' Ammiraglio di generosi ed alti pensieri, volle capitolare con suo grande onore e vantaggio, per lasciar la memoria sua, e la grandezza della sua casa, conforme alla grandezza delle sue opere e de' suoi meriti. " _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xi. The jealous Portuguese historian speaks in a somewhat different tone from the affectionate son:--"Veó requerer á el rey Dom João que le desse algums navios pera ir á descobrir a ilha de Gypango [_sic_] per esta mar occidental. . . . El rey, porque via ser este Christovão Colom homem falador e glorioso em mostrar suas habilidades, e mas fantastico et de imaginacão com sua ilha de Cypango, que certo no que dezia: davalhe pouco credito. " Barros, _Decada primeira da Asia_, Lisbon, 1752, liv. Iii. Cap. Xi. Fol. 56. ]

 [Footnote 487: It has been urged in the king's defence that "such a proceeding was not an instance of bad faith or perfidy (!) but rather of the policy customary at that time, which consisted in distrusting everything that was foreign, and in promoting by whatever means the national glory. " Yes, indeed, whether the means were fair or foul. Of course it was a common enough policy, but it was lying and cheating all the same. "Não foi sem duvida por mà fè ou perfidia que tacitamente se mandon armar hum navio à cujo capitão se confiou o plano que Colombo havia proposto, e cuja execuçao se lhe encarregou; mas sim por seguir a politica naquelle tempo usada, que toda consistia em olhar com desconfiança para tudo o que era estrangeiro, e en promover por todos os modos a gloria nacional. O capitão nomeado para a empreza, como não tivesse nem o espirito, nem a convicção de Colombo, depois de huma curta viagem nos mares do Oeste, fez-se na volta da terra: e arribou à Lisboa descontente e desanimado. " Campe, _Historia do descobrimento da America_, Paris, 1836, tom. I. P. 13. The frightened sailors protested that YOU MIGHT AS WELL EXPECT TO FIND LAND IN THE SKY AS IN THAT WASTE OF WATERS! See Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 221. Las Casas calls the king's conduct by its right name, _dobladura_, "trickery. "]

 [Footnote 488: It has generally been supposed, on the authority of _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xi. , that his wife had lately died; but an autograph letter of Columbus, in the possession of his lineal descendant and representative the present Duke of Veraguas, proves that this is a mistake. In this letter Columbus says expressly that when he left Portugal he left wife and children, and never saw them again. (Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. Ii. Doc. Cxxxvii. P. 255. ) As Las Casas, who knew Diego so well, also supposed his mother to have died before his father left Portugal, it is most likely that she died soon afterwards. Ferdinand Columbus says that Diego was left in charge of some friars at the convent of La Rábida near Palos (_loc. Cit. _); Las Casas is not quite so sure; he thinks Diego was left with some friend of his father at Palos, or perhaps (_por ventura_) at La Rábida. (_Historia_, tom. I. P. 227. ) These mistakes were easy to make, for both La Rábida and Huelva were close by Palos, and we know that Diego's aunt Muliar was living at Huelva. (Las Casas, _op. Cit. _ tom. I. P. 241; Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 279, 356, 391; tom. Ii. P. 229. ) It is pretty clear that Columbus never visited La Rábida before the autumn of 1491 (see below, p. 412). My own notion is that Columbus may have left his wife with an infant and perhaps one older child, relieving her of the care of Diego by taking him to his aunt, and intending as soon as practicable to reunite the family. He clearly did not know at the outset whether he should stay in Spain or not. ]

 [Footnote 489: It rests upon an improbable statement of Ramusio, who places the event as early as 1470. The first Genoese writer to allude to it is Casoni, _Annali della Republica di Genova_, Genoa, 1708, pp. 26-31. Such testimony is of small value. ]

 [Footnote 490: First mentioned in 1800 by Marin, _Storia del commercio de Veneziani_, Venice, 1798-1808, tom. Vii. P. 236. ]

 [Footnote 491: The description usually given of this conference rests upon the authority of Remesal, _Historia de la prouincia de Chyapa_, Madrid, 1619, lib. Ii. Cap. Vii. P. 52. Las Casas merely says that the question was referred to certain persons at the court, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 228. It is probably not true that the project of Columbus was officially condemned by the university of Salamanca as a corporate body. See Camara, _Religion y Ciencia_, Valladolid, 1880, p. 261. ]

[Sidenote: Birth of Ferdinand Columbus, Aug. 15, 1488. ]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew Columbus returns from the Cape of Good Hope, Dec, 1487. ]

[Sidenote: Christopher visits Bartholomew at Lisbon, cir. Sept. , 1488;]

[Sidenote: and sends him to England. ]

[Sidenote: Bartholomew, after mishaps, reaches England cir. Feb. , 1490;]

[Sidenote: and goes thence to France before 1492. ]

After the surrender of Malaga in August, 1487, Columbus visited thecourt in that city. For a year or more after that time silken chainsseem to have bound him to Cordova. He had formed a connection with alady of noble family, Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, who gave birth to hisson Ferdinand on the 15th of August, 1488. [492] Shortly after thisevent, Columbus made a visit to Lisbon, in all probability for thepurpose of meeting his brother Bartholomew, who had returned in the lastweek of December, 1487, in the Dias expedition, with the proud news ofthe discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, [493] which was rightlybelieved to be the extremity of Africa; and we can well understand howChristopher, on seeing the success of Prince Henry's method of reachingthe Indies so nearly vindicated, must have become more impatient thanever to prove the superiority of his own method. It was probably notlong after Bartholomew's return that Christopher determined to go andsee him, for he applied to King John II. For a kind of safe-conduct, which was duly granted March 20, 1488. This document[494] guaranteesChristopher against arrest or arraignment or detention on any chargecivil or criminal whatever, during his stay in Portugal, and commandsall magistrates in that kingdom to respect it. From this it would seemprobable that in the eagerness of his geographical speculations he hadneglected his business affairs and left debts behind him in Portugal forwhich he was liable to be arrested. The king's readiness to grant thedesired privilege seems to indicate that he may have cherished a hope ofregaining the services of this accomplished chart-maker and mariner. Christopher did not avail himself of the privilege until late in thesummer, [495] and it is only fair to suppose that he waited for the birthof his child and some assurance of its mother's safety. On meetingBartholomew he evidently set him to work forthwith in making overturesto the courts of England and France. It was natural enough thatBartholomew should first set out for Bristol, where old shipmates andacquaintances were sure to be found. It appears that on the way he wascaptured by pirates, and thus some delay was occasioned before hearrived in London and showed the king a map, probably similar toToscanelli's and embellished with quaint Latin verses. An entry on thismap informs us that it was made by Bartholomew Columbus in London, February 10, 1488, which I think should be read 1489 or even 1490, so wemay suppose it to have been about that time or perhaps later that heapproached the throne. [496] Henry VII. Was intelligent enough to seethe bearings of Bartholomew's arguments, and at the same time, as a goodman of business, he was likely to be cautious about investing money inremote or doubtful enterprises. What arguments were used we do not know, but the spring of 1492 had arrived before any decisive answer had beengiven. Meanwhile Bartholomew had made his way to France, and found apowerful protector in a certain Madame de Bourbon, [497] while he mademaps for people at the court and waited to see if there were anychances of getting help from Charles VIII. 

 [Footnote 492: Some historians, unwilling to admit any blemishes in the character of Columbus, have supposed that this union was sanctioned by marriage, but this is not probable. He seems to have been tenderly attached to Beatriz, who survived him many years. See Harrisse, tom. Ii. Pp. 353-357. ]

 [Footnote 493: The authority for Bartholomew Columbus having sailed to the Cape of Good Hope with Dias is a manuscript note of his own in Christopher's copy of the _Imago Mundi_: "Nota quod hoc anno de 88 [it should be 87] in mense decembri appulit in Ulixbona Bartholomeus Didacus capitaneus trium carabelarum quem miserat serenissimus rex Portugalie in Guineam ad tentandum terrain. Et renunciavit ipse serenissimo regi prout navigaverat ultra jam navigata leuchas 600, videlicet 450 ad austrum et 150 ad aquilonem usque montem per ipsum nominatum _Cabo de boa esperança_ quem in Agesimba estimamus. Qui quidem in eo loco invenit se distare per astrolabium ultra lineam equinoctialem gradus 35. Quem viagium pictavit et scripsit de leucha in leucham in una carta navigationis ut oculi visum ostenderet ipso serenissimo regi. In quibus omnibus interfui. " M. Varnhagen has examined this note and thinks it is in the handwriting of Christopher Columbus (_Bulletin de Géographie_, janvier, 1858, tom. Xv. P. 71); and M. D'Avezac (_Canevas chronologique_, p. 58), accepting this opinion, thinks that the words _in quibus omnibus interfui_, "in all of which I took part, " only mean that Christopher was present in Lisbon when the expedition returned, and heard the whole story! With all possible respect for such great scholars as MM. D'Avezac and Varnhagen, I submit that the opinion of Las Casas, who first called attention to this note, must be much better than theirs on such a point as the handwriting of the two brothers. When Las Casas found the note he wondered whether it was meant for Bartholomew or Christopher, i. E. Wondered which of the two was meant to be described as having "taken part;" but at all events, says Las Casas, the handwriting is Bartholomew's:--"Estas son palabras escritas de la mano de Bartolomé Colon, no sé si las escribió de sí ó de su letra por su hermano Cristóbal Colon. " Under these circumstances it seems idle to suppose that Las Casas could have been mistaken about the handwriting; he evidently put his mind on that point, and in the next breath he goes on to say, "la letra yo conozco ser de Bartolomé Colon, porque tuve muchas suyas, " i. E. "I know it is Bartholomew's writing, for I have had many letters of his;" and again "estas palabras . . . De la misma letra y mano de Bartolomé Colon, la cual muy bien conocí y agora tengo hartas cartas y letras suyas, tratando deste viaje, " i. E. "these words . . . From the very writing and hand of Bartholomew Columbus, which I knew very well, and I have to-day many charts and letters of his, treating of this voyage. " (_Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. Pp. 213, 214. ) This last sentence makes Las Casas an independent witness to Bartholomew's presence in the expedition, a matter about which he was not likely to be mistaken. What puzzled him was the question, not whether Bartholomew went, but whether Christopher could have gone also, "pudo ser tambien que se hallase Cristóbal Colon. " Now Christopher certainly did not go on that voyage. The expedition started in August, 1486, and returned to Lisbon in December, 1487, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days, "anendo dezaseis meses et dezasete dias que erão partidos delle. " (Barros, _Decada primeira da Asia_, Lisbon, 1752, tom. I. Fol. 42, 44. ) The account-book of the treasury of Castile shows that sums of money were paid to Christopher at Seville, May 5, July 3, August 27, and October 15, 1487; so that he could not have gone with Dias (see Harrisse, tom. Ii. P. 191). Neither could Christopher have been in Lisbon in December, 1487, when the little fleet returned, for his safe-conduct from King John is dated March 20, 1488. It was not until the autumn of 1488 that Columbus made this visit to Portugal, and M. D'Avezac has got the return of the fleet a year too late. Bartholomew's note followed a custom which made 1488 begin at Christmas, 1487. 

 In reading a later chapter of Las Casas for another purpose (tom. I. P. 227), I come again upon this point. He rightly concludes that Christopher could not have gone with Dias, and again declares most positively that the handwriting of the note was Bartholomew's and not Christopher's. 

 This footnote affords a good illustration of the kind of difficulties that surround such a subject as the life of Columbus, and the ease with which an excess of ingenuity may discover mare's nests. ]

 [Footnote 494: It may be found in Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. Ii. Pp. 5, 6. ]

 [Footnote 495: The account-book of the treasury shows that on June 16 he was still in Spain. See Harrisse, tom. I. P. 355. ]

 [Footnote 496: The entry, as given by Las Casas, is "Pro authore, seu pictore, || Gennua cui patria est, nomen cui Bartolomeus || Columbus de terra rubea, opus edidit istud || Londonije: anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno || Atque insuper anno octavo: decimaque die mensis Februarii. || Laudes Christo cantentur abunde. " _Historia_, tom. I. P. 225. Now since Bartholomew Columbus was a fairly educated man, writing this note in England on a map made for the eyes of the king of England, I suppose he used the old English style which made the year begin at the vernal equinox instead of Christmas, so that his February, 1488, means the next month but one after December, 1488, i. E. What in our new style becomes February, 1489. Bartholomew returned to Lisbon from Africa in the last week of December, 1487, and it is not likely that his plans could have been matured and himself settled down in London in less than seven weeks. The logical relation of the events, too, shows plainly that Christopher's visit to Lisbon was for the purpose of consulting his brother and getting first-hand information about the greatest voyage the world had ever seen. In the early weeks of 1488 Christopher sends his request for a safe-conduct, gets it March 20, waits till his child is born, August 15, and then presently goes. Bartholomew may have sailed by the first of October for England, where (according to this reading of his date) we actually find him four months later. What happened to him in this interval? Here we come to the story of the pirates. M. Harrisse, who never loses an opportunity for throwing discredit upon the _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, has failed to make the correction of date which I have here suggested. He puts Bartholomew in London in February, 1488, and is thus unable to assign any reason for Christopher's visit to Lisbon. He also finds that in the forty-six days between Christmas, 1487, and February, 10, 1488, there is hardly room enough for any delay due to so grave a cause as capture by pirates. (_Christophe Colomb_, vol. Ii. P. 192. ) He therefore concludes that the statement in the _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xi. , is unworthy of credit, and it is upon an accumulation of small difficulties like this that he bases his opinion that Ferdinand Columbus cannot have written that book. But Las Casas also gives the story of the pirates, and adds the information that they were "Easterlings, " though he cannot say of what nation, i. E. Whether Dutch, German, or perhaps Danes. He says that Bartholomew was stripped of his money and fell sick, and after his recovery was obliged to earn money by map-making before he could get to England. (_Historia_, tom. I. P. 225. ) Could all this have happened within the four months which I have allowed between October, 1488, and February, 1489? Voyages before the invention of steamboats were of very uncertain duration. John Adams in 1784 was fifty-four days in getting from London to Amsterdam (see my _Critical Period of American History_, p. 156). But with favourable weather a Portuguese caravel in 1488 ought to have run from Lisbon to Bristol in fourteen days or less, so that in four months there would be time enough for quite a chapter of accidents. Las Casas, however, says it was _a long time_ before Bartholomew was able to reach England:--"Esto fué causa que enfermase y viniese á mucha pobreza, y estuviese mucho tempo sin poder llegar á Inglaterra, hasta tanto que quiso Dies sanarle; y reformado algo, por su industria y trabajos de sus manos, haciendo cartas de marear, llegó á Inglaterra, y, pasados un dia y otros, hobo de alcanzar que le oyese Enrique VII. " It is impossible, I think, to read this passage without feeling that at least a year must have been consumed; and I do not think we are entitled to disregard the words of Las Casas in such a matter. But how shall we get the time?

 Is it possible that Las Casas made a slight mistake in deciphering the date on Bartholomew's map? Either that mariner did not give the map to Henry VII. , or the king gave it back, or more likely it was made in duplicate. At any rate Las Casas had it, along with his many other Columbus documents, and for aught we know it may still be tumbling about somewhere in the Spanish archives. It was so badly written (_de muy mala é corrupta letra_), apparently in abbreviations (_sin ortografía_), that Las Casas says he found extreme difficulty in making it out. Now let us observe that date, which is given in fantastic style, apparently because the inscription is in a rude doggerel, and the writer seems to have wished to keep his "verses" tolerably even. (They don't scan much better than Walt Whitman's. ) As it stands, the date reads _anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno atque insuper anno octavo_, i. E. "in the year of our Lord the thousandth, four hundredth, AND EIGHT-TIMES-ONE, and thereafter the eighth year. " What business has this cardinal number _octiesque uno_ in a row of ordinals? If it were translatable, which it is not, it would give us 1, 000 + 400 + 8 + 8 = 1416, an absurd date. The most obvious way to make the passage readable is to insert the ordinal _octogesimo primo_ instead of the incongruous _octiesque uno_; then it will read "in the year of our Lord the one-thousand-four-hundred-and-eighty-first, and thereafter the eighth year, " that is to say 1489. Now translate old style into new style, and February, 1489, becomes February, 1490, which I believe to be the correct date. This allows sixteen months for Bartholomew's mishaps; it justifies the statement in which Las Casas confirms Ferdinand Columbus; and it harmonizes with the statement of Lord Bacon: "For Christopherus Columbus, refused by the king of Portugal (who would not embrace at once both east and west), employed his brother Bartholomew Columbus unto King Henry to negotiate for his discovery. And it so fortuned that he was taken by pirates at sea; by which accidental impediment he was long ere he came to the king; so long that before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for his brother the enterprise was achieved, and so the West Indies by Providence were then reserved for the crown of Castilia. " _Historie of the Raygne of K. Henry the Seventh_, Bacon's _Works_, Boston, 1860, vol. Xi. P. 296. Lord Bacon may have taken the statement from Ferdinand's biography; but it probably agreed with English traditions, and ought not to be slighted in this connection. ]

 [Footnote 497: One of the sisters of Charles VIII. See Harrisse, tom. Ii. P. 194. ]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Medina-Celi proposes to furnish the ships forColumbus, ]

[Sidenote: but Isabella withholds her consent. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus makes up his mind to get his family together and goto France, Oct. , 1491. ]

As for Christopher Columbus, we find him back in Spain again, in May, 1489, attending court at Cordova. In the following autumn there was muchsuffering in Spain from floods and famine, [498] and the sovereigns weretoo busy with the Moorish war to give ear to Columbus. It was no timefor new undertakings, and the weary suitor began to think seriously ofgoing in person to the French court. First, however, he thought it worthwhile to make an attempt to get private capital enlisted in hisenterprise, and in the Spain of that day such private capital meant alargess from some wealthy grandee. Accordingly about Christmas of 1489, after the Beza campaign in which Columbus is said to have fought withdistinguished valour, [499] he seems to have applied to the most powerfulnobleman in Spain, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, but without success. Butat the hands of Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medina-Celi, he met with moreencouragement than he had as yet found in any quarter. That noblemanentertained Columbus most hospitably at his castle at Puerto de SantaMaria for nearly two years, until the autumn of 1491. He becameconvinced that the scheme of Columbus was feasible, and decided to fitup two or three caravels at his own expense, if necessary, but first hethought it proper to ask the queen's consent, and to offer her anotherchance to take part in the enterprise. [500] Isabella was probablyunwilling to have the duke come in for a large share of the profits incase the venture should prove successful. She refused the royal license, saying that she had not quite made up her mind whether to take up theaffair or not, but if she should decide to do so she would be glad tohave the duke take part in it. [501] Meanwhile she referred the questionto Alonso de Quintanilla, comptroller of the treasury of Castile. Thiswas in the spring of 1491, when the whole country was in a buzz ofexcitement with the preparations for the siege of Granada. The baffledColumbus visited the sovereigns in camp, but could not get them toattend to him, and early in the autumn, thoroughly disgusted and sick atheart, he made up his mind to shake the dust of Castile from his feetand see what could be done in France. In October or November he went toHuelva, apparently to get his son Diego, who had been left there, incharge of his aunt. It was probably his intention to take all the familyhe had--Beatriz and her infant son Ferdinand, of whom he was extremelyfond, as well as Diego--and find a new home in either France or England, besides ascertaining what had become of his brother Bartholomew, fromwhom he had not heard a word since the latter left Portugal forEngland. [502]

 [Footnote 498: Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. Xci. ]

 [Footnote 499: Zuñiga, _Anales de Sevilla_, lib. Xii. P. 404. ]

 [Footnote 500: See the letter of March 19, 1493, from the Duke of Medina-Celi to the Grand Cardinal of Spain (from the archives of Simancas) in Navarrete _Coleccion de viages_, tom. Ii. P. 20. ]

 [Footnote 501: This promise was never fulfilled. When Columbus returned in triumph, arriving March 6, 1493, at Lisbon, and March 15 at Palos, the Duke of Medina-Celi wrote the letter just cited, recalling the queen's promise and asking to be allowed to send to the Indies once each year an expedition on his own account; for, he says, if he had not kept Columbus with him in 1490 and 1491 he would have gone to France, and Castile would have lost the prize. There was some force in this, but Isabella does not appear to have heeded the request. ]

 [Footnote 502: This theory of the situation is fully sustained by Las Casas, tom. I. P. 241. ]

[Sidenote: He stops at La Rábida, and meets the prior Juan Perez. ]

[Sidenote: Perez writes to the queen, ]

[Sidenote: and Columbus is summoned back to court. ]

But now at length events took a favourable turn. Fate had grown tired offighting against such indomitable perseverance. For some years now thestately figure of Columbus had been a familiar sight in the streets ofSeville and Cordova, and as he passed along, with his white hairstreaming in the breeze, and countenance aglow with intensity of purposeor haggard with disappointment at some fresh rebuff, the ragged urchinsof the pavement tapped their foreheads and smiled with mingled wonderand amusement at this madman. Seventeen years had elapsed since theletter from Toscanelli to Martinez, and all that was mortal of theFlorentine astronomer had long since been laid in the grave. ForColumbus himself old age was not far away, yet he seemed no nearer thefulfilment of his grand purpose than when he had first set it forth tothe king of Portugal. We can well imagine that when he started fromHuelva, with his little son Diego, now some eleven or twelve years old, again to begin renewing his suit in a strange country, his thoughts musthave been sombre enough. For some reason or other--tradition says to askfor some bread and water for his boy--he stopped at the Franciscanmonastery of La Rábida, about half a league from Palos. The prior, JuanPerez, who had never seen Columbus before, became greatly interested inhim and listened with earnest attention to his story. This worthy monk, who before 1478 had been Isabella's father-confessor, had a mindhospitable to new ideas. He sent for Garcia Fernandez, a physician ofPalos, who was somewhat versed in cosmography, and for Martin AlonsoPinzon, a well-to-do ship-owner and trained mariner of that town, and inthe quiet of the monastery a conference was held in which Columbuscarried conviction to the minds of these new friends. Pinzon declaredhimself ready to embark in the enterprise in person. The venerable priorforthwith sent a letter to the queen, and received a very prompt replysummoning him to attend her in the camp before Granada. The result ofthe interview was that within a few days Perez returned to the conventwith a purse of 20, 000 maravedis (equivalent to about 1, 180 dollars ofthe present day), out of which Columbus bought a new suit of clothes anda mule; and about the first of December he set out for the camp incompany with Juan Perez, leaving the boy Diego in charge of the priestMartin Sanchez and a certain Rodriguez Cabejudo, upon whose sworntestimony, together with that of the physician Garcia Fernandez, someyears afterward, several of these facts are related. [503]

 [Footnote 503: My account of these proceedings at La Rábida differs in some particulars from any heretofore given, and I think gets the events into an order of sequence that is at once more logical and more in harmony with the sources of information than any other. The error of Ferdinand Columbus--a very easy one to commit, and not in the least damaging to his general character as biographer--lay in confusing his father's two real visits (in 1484 and 1491) to Huelva with two visits (one imaginary in 1484 and one real in 1491) to La Rábida, which was close by, between Huelva and Palos. The visits were all the more likely to get mixed up in recollection because in each case their object was little Diego and in each case he was left in charge of somebody in that neighbourhood. The confusion has been helped by another for which Ferdinand is not responsible, viz. : the friar Juan Perez has been confounded with another friar Antonio de Marchena, who Columbus says was the only person who from the time of his first arrival in Spain had always befriended him and never mocked at him. These worthy friars twain have been made into one (e. G. "the prior of the convent, Juan Perez de Marchena, " Irving's _Columbus_, vol. I. P. 128), and it has often been supposed that Marchena's acquaintance began with Columbus at La Rábida in 1484, and that Diego was left at the convent at that time. But some modern sources of information have served at first to bemuddle, and then when more carefully sifted, to clear up the story. In 1508 Diego Columbus brought suit against the Spanish crown to vindicate his claim to certain territories discovered by his father, and there was a long investigation in which many witnesses were summoned and past events were busily raked over the coals. Among these witnesses were Rodriguez Cabejudo and the physician Garcia Fernandez, who gave from personal recollection a very lucid account of the affairs at La Rábida. These proceedings are printed in Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. Iii. Pp. 238-591. More recently the publication of the great book of Las Casas has furnished some very significant clues, and the elaborate researches of M. Harrisse have furnished others. (See Las Casas, lib. I. Cap. Xxix. , xxxi. ; Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 341-372; tom. Ii. Pp. 237-231; cf. Peragallo, _L' autenticità_, etc. , pp. 117-134. )--It now seems clear that Marchena, whom Columbus knew from his first arrival in Spain, was not associated with La Rábida. At that time Columbus left Diego, a mere infant, with his wife's sister at Huelva. Seven years later, intending to leave Spain forever, he went to Huelva and took Diego, then a small boy. On his way from Huelva to the Seville road, and thence to Cordova (where he would have been joined by Beatriz and Ferdinand), he happened to pass by La Rábida, where up to that time he was evidently unknown, and to attract the attention of the prior Juan Perez, and the wheel of fortune suddenly and unexpectedly turned. As Columbus's next start was not for France, but for Granada, his boy was left in charge of two trustworthy persons. On May 8, 1492, the little Diego was appointed page to Don John, heir-apparent to the thrones of Castile and Aragon, with a stipend of 9, 400 maravedis. On February 19, 1498, after the death of that young prince, Diego became page to Queen Isabella. ]

[Sidenote: The junto before Granada, Dec, 1491. ]

At once upon the arrival of Columbus in the camp before Granada, hiscase was argued then and there before an assembly of learned men andwas received more hospitably than formerly, at Salamanca. Severaleminent prelates had come to think favourably of his project or to deemit at least worth a trial. Among these were the royal confessors, Dezaand Talavera, the latter having changed his mind, and especiallyMendoza, archbishop of Toledo, who now threw his vast influencedecisively in favour of Columbus. [504] The treasurers of the twokingdoms, moreover, Quintanilla for Castile and Luis de Santangel forAragon, were among his most enthusiastic supporters; and the result ofthe conference was the queen's promise to take up the matter in earnestas soon as the Moor should have surrendered Granada. 

 [Footnote 504: In popular allusions to Columbus it is quite common to assume or imply that he encountered nothing but opposition from the clergy. For example the account in Draper's _Conflict between Science and Religion_, p. 161, can hardly be otherwise understood by the reader. But observe that Marchena who never mocked at Columbus, Juan Perez who gave the favourable turn to his affairs, the great prelates Deza and Mendoza, and the two treasurers Santangel and Quintanilla, were every one of them priests! Without cordial support from the clergy no such enterprise as that of Columbus could have been undertaken, in Spain at least. It is quite right that we should be free-thinkers; and it is also desirable that we should have some respect for facts. ]

[Sidenote: Surrender of Granada, Jan. 2, 1492. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus negotiates with the queen. ]

[Sidenote: His terms are considered exorbitant. ]

Columbus had not long to wait for that great event, which came on the 2dof January, 1492, and was hailed with rejoicings throughout Europe as insome sort a compensation for the loss of Constantinople. It must havebeen with a manifold sense of triumph that Columbus saw the banner ofSpain unfurled to the breeze from the highest tower of the Alhambra. Butat this critical moment in his fortunes the same obstacle wasencountered that long before had broken off his negotiations with theking of Portugal. With pride and self-confidence not an inch abated byall these years of trial, he demanded such honours and substantialrewards as seemed extravagant to the queen, and Talavera advised her notto grant them. Columbus insisted upon being appointed admiral of theocean and viceroy of such heathen countries as he might discover, besides having for his own use and behoof one eighth part of suchrevenues and profits as might accrue from the expedition. In principlethis sort of remuneration did not differ from that which the crown ofPortugal had been wont to award to its eminent discoverers;[505] but inamount it was liable to prove indefinitely great, enough perhaps toraise to princely power and rank this foreign adventurer. Could he notbe satisfied with something less? But Columbus was as inexorable as theSibyl with her books, and would hear of no abatement in his price. Forthis "great constancy and loftiness of soul, "[506] Las Casas warmlycommends his friend Columbus. A querulous critic might call itunreasonable obstinacy. But in truth the good man seems to haveentertained another grand scheme of his own, to which he wished to makehis maritime venture contribute. It was natural that his feelings towardTurks should have been no more amiable than those of Hannibal toward theRomans. It was the Turks who had ruined the commerce of his nativeGenoa, in his youth he had more than once crossed swords with theircorsairs, and now he looked forward to the time when he might play thepart of a second Godfrey de Bouillon and deliver Jerusalem from themiscreant followers of Mahound. [507] Vast resources would be needed forsuch work, and from Cipango with its gold-roofed temples, and thenameless and numberless isles of spices that crowded the Cathayan seas, he hoped to obtain them. Long brooding over his cherished projects, inwhich chimeras were thus mixed with anticipations of scientific truth, had imparted to his character a tinge of religious fanaticism. He hadcome to regard himself as a man with a mission to fulfil, as God'schosen instrument for enlarging the bounds of Christendom and achievingtriumphs of untold magnificence for its banners. In this mood he was aptto address kings with an air of equality that ill comported with hishumble origin and slender means; and on the present occasion, ifTalavera felt his old doubts and suspicions reviving, and was more thanhalf inclined to set Columbus down as a mere vendor of crotchets, onecan hardly wonder. 

 [Footnote 505: Our Scandinavian friends are fond of pointing to this demand of Columbus as an indication that he secretly expected to "discover America, " and not merely to find the way to Asia. But how about Ferdinand and Isabella, who finally granted what was demanded, and their ministers who drew up the agreement, to say nothing of the clerks who engrossed it? What did they all understand by "discovering islands and continents in the ocean"? Were they all in this precious Vinland secret? If so, it was pretty well kept. But in truth there was nothing singular in these stipulations. Portugal paid for discovery in just this way by granting governorships over islands like the Azores, or long stretches of continent like Guinea, along with a share of the revenues yielded by such places. See for example the cases of Gonzalo Cabral, Fernando Gomez, and others in Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, pp. 238, 321, and elsewhere. In their search for the Indies the Portuguese were continually finding new lands, and it was likely to be the same with the western route, which was supposed (see Catalan, Toscanelli, and Behaim maps) to lead among spice islands innumerable, and to Asiatic kingdoms whose heathen people had no rights of sovereignty that Christian monarchs felt bound to respect. ]

 [Footnote 506: Las Casas, _op. Cit. _ tom i. P. 243. ]

 [Footnote 507: See his letter of February, 1502, to Pope Alexander VI. In Navarrete, tom. Ii. P. 280; and cf. Helps, _Spanish Conquest in America_, vol. I. P. 96; Roselly de Lorgues, _Christophe Colomb_, p. 394. ]

[Sidenote: Interposition of Luis de Santangel. ]

The negotiations were broken off, and the indomitable enthusiast oncemore prepared to go to France. He had actually started on his mule onefine winter day, when Luis de Santangel rushed into the queen's room andspoke to her with all the passionate and somewhat reproachful energy ofone who felt that a golden opportunity was slipping away forever. Hisarguments were warmly seconded by Quintanilla, who had followed him intothe room, as well as by the queen's bosom friend Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, who happened to be sitting on the sofa and was adevoted admirer of Columbus. An impulse seized Isabella. A courier wassent on a fleet horse, and overtook Columbus as he was jogging quietlyover the bridge of Pinos, about six miles out from Granada. The matterwas reconsidered and an arrangement was soon made. It was agreed:--

[Sidenote: Agreement between Columbus and the sovereigns. ]

"1. That Columbus should have, for himself, during his life, and for hisheirs and successors forever, the office of admiral in all the islandsand continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean, withsimilar honours and prerogatives to those enjoyed by the high admiral ofCastile in his district. 

"2. That he should be viceroy and governor-general over all the saidlands and continents; with the privilege of nominating three candidatesfor the government of each island or province, one of whom should beselected by the sovereigns. 

"3. That he should be entitled to reserve for himself one tenth of allpearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and all other articlesand merchandises, in whatever manner found, bought, bartered, or gainedwithin his admiralty, the costs being first deducted. 

"4. That he, or his lieutenant, should be the sole judge in all causesand disputes arising out of traffic between those countries and Spain, provided the high admiral of Castile had similar jurisdiction in hisdistrict. 

"5. That he might then, and at all after times, contribute an eighthpart of the expense in fitting out vessels to sail on this enterprise, and receive an eighth part of the profits. "[508]

 [Footnote 508: I cite this version from Irving's _Columbus_, vol. I. P. 142, making a slight amendment in the rendering; the original text is in Navarrete, tom. Ii. P. 7. A few days later the title of "Don" was granted to Columbus and made hereditary in his family along with the offices of viceroy and governor-general. ]

Columbus was not long in finding friends to advance or promise on hisaccount an eighth part of the sum immediately required. A considerableamount was assessed upon the town of Palos in punishment for certainmisdeeds or delinquencies on the part of its people or some of them. Castile assumed the rest of the burden, though Santangel may haveadvanced a million maravedis out of the treasury of Aragon, or out ofthe funds of the _Hermandad_, [509] or perhaps more likely on his ownaccount. [510] In any case it was a loan to the treasury of Castilesimply. It was always distinctly understood that Ferdinand as king ofAragon had no share in the enterprise, and that the Spanish Indies werean appurtenance to the crown of Castile. The agreement was signed April17, 1492, and with tears of joy Columbus vowed to devote every maravedithat should come to him to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. 

 [Footnote 509: A police organization formed in 1476 for suppressing highway robbery. ]

 [Footnote 510: It is not easy to give an accurate account of the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history. Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle and mislead us. According to M. Harrisse 1, 000, 000 maravedis would be equivalent to 295, 175 francs, or about 59, 000 gold dollars of United States money at present values. Las Casas (tom. I. P. 256) says that the eighth part, raised by Columbus, was 500, 000 maravedis (29, 500 dollars). Account-books preserved in the archives of Simancas show that the sums paid from the treasury of Castile amounted to 1, 140, 000 maravedis (67, 500 dollars). Assuming the statement of Las Casas to be correct, the amounts contributed would perhaps have been as follows:--

 Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury $67, 500 " loan from Santangel 59, 000 Columbus 29, 500 Other sources, including contribution levied upon the town of Palos 80, 000 -------- Total $236, 000

 This total seems to me altogether too large for probability, and so does the last item, which is simply put at the figure necessary to make the total eight times 29, 500. I am inclined to suspect that Las Casas (with whom arithmetic was not always a strong point) may have got his figures wrong. The amount of Santangel's loan also depends upon the statement of Las Casas, and we do not know whether he took it from a document or from hearsay. Nor do we know whether it should be added to, or included in, the first item. More likely, I think, the latter. The only item that we know with documentary certainty is the first, so that our statement becomes modified as follows:--

 Queen Isabella, from Castile treasury $67, 500 " loan from Santangel ? Columbus ? { rent of two fully Town of Palos { equipped caravels { for two months, etc. ---------------------- Total ?

 (Cf. Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 391-404. ) Unsatisfactory, but certain as far as it goes. Alas, how often historical statements are thus reduced to meagreness, after the hypothetical or ill-supported part has been sifted out! The story that the Pinzon brothers advanced to Columbus his portion is told by Las Casas, but he very shrewdly doubts it. The famous story that Isabella pledged her crown jewels (_Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xiv. ) has also been doubted, but perhaps on insufficient grounds, by M. Harrisse. It is confirmed by Las Casas (tom. I. P. 249). According to one account she pledged them to Santangel in security for his loan, --which seems not altogether improbable. See Pizarro y Orellana, _Varones ilustres del Nuevo Mundo_, Madrid, 1639, p. 16. ]

[Sidenote: Dismay at Palos. ]

[Sidenote: The three famous caravels; the Santa Maria. ]

[Sidenote: The Pinta. ]

[Sidenote: The Niña. ]

When he reached Palos in May, with royal orders for ships and men, therehad like to have been a riot. Terrible dismay was felt at the prospectof launching out for such a voyage upon the Sea of Darkness. Groans andcurses greeted the announcement of the forced contribution. But MartinPinzon and his brothers were active in supporting the crown officials, and the work went on. To induce men to enlist, debts were forgiven andcivil actions suspended. Criminals were released from jail on conditionof serving. Three caravels were impressed into the service of the crownfor a time unlimited; and the rent and maintenance of two of thesevessels for two months was to be paid by the town. The largest caravel, called the Santa Maria or Capitana, belonged to Juan de La Cosa, aBiscayan mariner whose name was soon to become famous. [511] He nowcommanded her, with another consummate sailor, Sancho Ruiz, for hispilot. This single-decked craft, about ninety feet in length by twentyfeet breadth of beam, was the Admiral's flag-ship. The second caravel, called the Pinta, a much swifter vessel, was commanded by Martin Pinzon. She belonged to two citizens of Palos, Gomez Rascon and CristobalQuintero, who were now in her crew, sulky and ready for mischief. Thethird and smallest caravel, the Niña ("Baby"), had for her commanderVicente Yañez Pinzon, the youngest of the brothers, now about thirtyyears of age. Neither the Pinta nor the Niña were decked amidships. Onboard the three caravels were just ninety persons. [512] And so they setsail from Palos on Friday, August 3, 1492, half an hour before sunrise, and by sunset had run due south five and forty geographical miles, whenthey shifted their course a couple of points to starboard and stood forthe Canaries. 

 [Footnote 511: Navarrete, _Biblioteca maritima_, tom. Ii. Pp. 208, 209. ]

 [Footnote 512: The accounts of the armament are well summed up and discussed in Harrisse, tom. I. Pp. 405-408. Eighty-seven names, out of the ninety, have been recovered, and the list is given below, Appendix C. ]

[Sidenote: They go to the Canaries and are delayed there. ]

No thought of Vinland is betrayed in these proceedings. Columbus wasaiming at the northern end of Cipango (Japan). Upon Toscanelli's map, which he carried with him, the great island of Cipango extends from 5°to about 28° north latitude. He evidently aimed at the northern end ofCipango as being directly on the route to Zaiton (Chang-chow) and otherChinese cities mentioned by Marco Polo. Accordingly he began by runningdown to the Canaries, in order that he might sail thence due west on the28th parallel without shifting his course by a single point until heshould see the coast of Japan looming up before him. [513] On thispreliminary run signs of mischief began already to show themselves. ThePinta's rudder was broken and unshipped, and Columbus suspected her twoangry and chafing owners of having done it on purpose, in order thatthey and their vessel might be left behind. The Canaries at thisjuncture merited the name of Fortunate Islands; fortunately they, aloneamong African islands, were Spanish, so that Columbus could stop thereand make repairs. While this was going on the sailors were scared outof their wits by an eruption of Teneriffe, which they deemed an omen ofevil, and it was also reported that some Portuguese caravels werehovering in those waters, with intent to capture Columbus and carry himoff to Lisbon. 

 [Footnote 513: "Para de allí tomar mi derrota, y navegar tanto que yo llegase á las Indias, " he says in his journal, Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. I. P. 3. ]

[Illustration: Martin Behaim's Globe, 1492, ]

[Illustration: reduced to Mercator's projection. ][514]

 [Footnote 514: Martin Behaim was born at Nuremberg in 1436, and is said to have been a pupil of the celebrated astronomer, Regiomontanus, author of the first almanac published in Europe, and of Ephemerides, of priceless value to navigators. He visited Portugal about 1480, invented a new kind of astrolabe, and sailed with it in 1484 as cosmographer in Diego Cam's voyage to the Congo. On his return to Lisbon he was knighted, and presently went to live on the island of Fayal, of which his wife's father was governor. He was a friend of Columbus. Toward 1492 he visited Nuremberg, to look after some family affairs, and while there "he gratified some of his townspeople by embodying in a globe the geographical views which prevailed in the maritime countries; and the globe was finished before Columbus had yet accomplished his voyage. The next year (1493) Behaim returned to Portugal; and after having been sent to the Low Countries on a diplomatic mission, he was captured by English cruisers and carried to England. Escaping finally, and reaching the Continent, he passes from our view in 1494, and is scarcely heard of again. " (Winsor, _Narr. And Crit. Hist. _, ii. 104. ) He died in May, 1506. A ridiculous story that he anticipated Columbus in the discovery of America originated in the misunderstanding of an interpolated passage in the Latin text of Schedel's _Registrum_, Nuremberg, 1498, p. 290 (the so-called _Nuremberg Chronicle_). See Winsor, _op. Cit. _ ii. 34; Major's _Prince Henry_, p. 326; Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. I. P. 256; Murr, _Diplomatische Geschichte des Ritters Behaim_, Nuremberg, 1778; Cladera, _Investigaciones históricas_, Madrid, 1794; Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, pp. 37-43. --The globe made by Behaim may now be seen in the city hall at Nuremberg. It "is made of _papier-maché_, covered with gypsum, and over this a parchment surface received the drawing; it is twenty inches in diameter. " (Winsor, _op. Cit. _ ii. 105. ) The portion west of the 330th meridian is evidently copied from Toscanelli's map. I give below (p. 429) a sketch (from Winsor, after Ruge's _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_, p. 230) of Behaim's ocean, with the outline of the American continent superimposed in the proper place. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus starts for Japan, Sept. 6, 1492. ]

At length, on the 6th of September, they set sail from Gomera, but werebecalmed and had made only thirty miles by the night of the 8th. Thebreeze then freshened, and when next day the shores of Ferro, the lastof the Canaries, sank from sight on the eastern horizon, many of thesailors loudly lamented their unseemly fate, and cried and sobbed likechildren. Columbus well understood the difficulty of dealing with thesemen. He provided against one chief source of discontent by keeping twodifferent reckonings, a true one for himself and a false one for hisofficers and crews. He was shrewd enough not to overdo it and awakendistrust. Thus after a twenty-four hours' run of 180 miles on September10, he reported it as 144 miles; next day the run was 120 miles and heannounced it as 108, and so on. But for this prudent if somewhatquestionable device, it is not unlikely that the first week of Octoberwould have witnessed a mutiny in which Columbus would have been eitherthrown overboard or forced to turn back. 

[Sidenote: Deflection of the needle. ]

The weather was delicious, and but for the bug-a-boos that worried thosepoor sailors it would have been a most pleasant voyage. Chief among theimaginary terrors were three which deserve especial mention. Atnightfall on September 13 the ships had crossed the magnetic line of novariation, and Columbus was astonished to see that the compass-needle, instead of pointing a little to the right of the pole-star, began tosway toward the left, and next day this deviation increased. It wasimpossible to hide such a fact from the sharp eyes of the pilots, andall were seized with alarm at the suspicion that this witch instrumentwas beginning to play them some foul trick in punishment of theirtemerity; but Columbus was ready with an ingenious astronomicalexplanation, and their faith in the profundity of his knowledgeprevailed over their terrors. 

[Sidenote: The Sargasso Sea. ]

The second alarm came on September 16, when they struck into vastmeadows of floating seaweeds and grasses, abounding in tunny fish andcrabs. They had now come more than 800 miles from Ferro and wereentering the wonderful Sargasso Sea, that region of the Atlantic sixtimes as large as France, where vast tangles of vegetation grow upon thesurface of water that is more than 2, 000 fathoms deep, and furnishsustenance for an untold wealth of fishy life. [515] To the eye of themariner the Sargasso Sea presents somewhat the appearance of an endlessgreen prairie, but modern ships plough through it with ease and so didthe caravels of Columbus at first. After two or three days, however, thewind being light, their progress was somewhat impeded. It was notstrange that the crews were frightened at such a sight. It seemeduncanny and weird, and revived ancient fancies about mysteriousimpassable seas and overbold mariners whose ships had been stuck fast inthem. The more practical spirits were afraid of running aground uponsubmerged shoals, but all were somewhat reassured on this point when itwas found that their longest plummet-lines failed to find bottom. 

 [Footnote 515: The situation of this Sargasso region in mid-ocean seems to be determined by its character as a quiet neutral ground between the great ocean-currents that flow past it on every side. Sargasso plants are found elsewhere upon the surface of the waves, but nowhere else do they congregate as here. There are reasons for supposing that in ancient times this region extended nearer to the African coast. Skylax (_Periplus_, cap. 109) says that beyond Kerne, at the mouth of Rio d' Ouro the sea cannot be navigated on account of the mud and seaweed. Sataspes, on his return to Persia, B. C. 470, told King Xerxes that his voyage failed because his ship stopped or was stuck fast. (Herodotus, iv. 43. ) Festus Avienus mentions vast quantities of seaweed in the ocean west of the Pillars of Hercules:--

 Exsuperat autem gurgitem fucus frequens Atque impeditur æstus ex uligine. . . . Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem, Sic segnis humor æquoris pigri stupet. Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites Exstare fucum, et sæpe virgulti vice Retinere puppim, etc. Avienus, _Ora Maritima_, 108, 117. 

 See also Aristotle, _Meteorol. _, ii. 1, 14; Pseudo-Aristotle, _De Mirab. Auscult. _, p. 106; Theophrastus, _Historia plantarum_, iv. 7 Jornandes, _De rebus Geticis_, apud Muratori, tom. I. P. 191; according to Strabo (iii. 2, § 7) tunny fish were caught in abundance in the ocean west of Spain, and were highly valued for the table on account of their fatness which was due to submarine vegetables on which they fed. Possibly the reports of these Sargasso meadows may have had some share in suggesting to Plato his notion of a huge submerged island Atlantis (_Timæus_, 25; _Kritias_, 108; cf. The notion of a viscous sea in Plutarch, _De facie in Orbe Luna_, 26), Plato's fancy has furnished a theme for much wild speculation. See, for example, Bailly, _Lettres sur l'Atlantide de Platon_, Paris, 1779. The belief that there can ever have been such an island in that part of the Atlantic is disposed of by the fact that the ocean there is nowhere less than two miles in depth. See the beautiful map of the Atlantic sea-bottom in Alexander Agassiz's _Three Cruises of the Blake_, Boston, 1888, vol. I. P. 108, and compare chap. Vi. Of that noble work, on "The Permanence of Continents and of Oceanic Basins;" see also Wallace's _Island Life_, chap. Vi. It was formerly supposed that the Sargasso plants grow on the sea-bottom, and becoming detached rise to the surface (Peter Martyr, _De rebus oceanicis_, dec. Iii. Lib. V. P. 53; Humboldt, _Personal Narrative_, book i. Chap, i. ); but it is now known that they are simply rooted in the surface water itself. "L'accumulation de ces plantes marines est l'exemple le plus frappant de plantes congénères réunies sur le même point. Ni les forêts colossales de l'Himalaya, ni les graminées qui s'étendent à perte de vue dans les savanes américaines ou les steppes sibériens ne rivalisent avec ces prairies océaniques. Jamais sur un espace aussi étendu, ne se rencontrent de telles masses de plantes semblables. Quand on a vu la mer des Sargasses, on n'oublie point un pareil spectacle. " Paul Gaffarel, "La Mer des Sargasses, " _Bulletin de Géographie_, Paris, 1872, 6e série, tom. Iv. P. 622. ]

[Sidenote: The trade wind. ]

On September 22 the journal reports "no more grass. " They were in clearwater again, and more than 1, 400 geographical miles from the Canaries. A third source of alarm had already begun to disturb the sailors. Theywere discovering much more than they had bargained for. They were in thebelt of the trade winds, and as the gentle but unfailing breeze waftedthem steadily westward, doubts began to arise as to whether it wouldever be possible to return. Fortunately soon after this question beganto be discussed, the wind, jealous of its character for capriciousnesseven there, veered into the southwest. 

[Sidenote: Impatience of the crews. ]

By September 25 the Admiral's chief difficulty had come to be theimpatience of his crews at not finding land. On that day there was amirage, or some such illusion, which Columbus and all hands supposed tobe a coast in front of them, and hymns of praise were sung, but at dawnnext day they were cruelly undeceived. Flights of strange birds andother signs of land kept raising hopes which were presently dashedagain, and the men passed through alternately hot and cold fits ofexultation and dejection. Such mockery seemed to show that they wereentering a realm of enchantment. Somebody, perhaps one of the releasedjail-birds, hinted that if a stealthy thrust should happen some night topush the Admiral overboard, it could be plausibly said that he hadslipped and fallen while star-gazing. His situation grew daily moreperilous, and the fact that he was an Italian commanding Spaniards didnot help him. Perhaps what saved him was their vague belief in hissuperior knowledge; they may have felt that they should need him ingoing back. 

[Illustration: Martin Behaim's Atlantic Ocean (with outline of Americancontinent superimposed). ]

[Sidenote: Change of course from W. To W. S. W. ]

[Sidenote: Land ahead! Oct. 12 (N. S. 21), 1492. ]

By October 4 there were ominous symptoms of mutiny, and the anxiety ofColumbus was evinced in the extent of his bold understatement of thatday's run, --138 miles instead of the true figure 189. For some days hispilots had been begging him to change his course; perhaps they hadpassed between islands. Anything for a change! On the 7th at sunrise, they had come 2, 724 geographical miles from the Canaries, which wasfarther than the Admiral's estimate of the distance to Cipango; butaccording to his false statement of the runs, it appeared that they hadcome scarcely 2, 200 miles. This leads one to suspect that in stating thelength of the voyage, as he had so often done, at 700 leagues, he mayhave purposely made it out somewhat shorter than he really believed itto be. But now after coming more than 2, 500 miles he began to fear thathe might be sailing past Cipango on the north, and so he shifted hiscourse two points to larboard, or west-southwest. If a secret knowledgeof Vinland had been his guiding-star he surely would not have turned hishelm that way; but a glance at the Toscanelli map shows what was in hismind. Numerous flights of small birds confirmed his belief that land atthe southwest was not far off. The change of direction was probablyfortunate. If he had persisted in keeping on the parallel, 720 mileswould have brought him to the coast of Florida, a little south of CapeMalabar. After the change he had but 505 miles of water before him, andthe temper of the sailors was growing more dangerous with everymile, [516]--until October 11, when the signs of land becameunmistakable, and the wildest excitement prevailed. A reward of 10, 000maravedis had been promised to the person who should first discoverland, and ninety pair of eyes were strained that night with looking. About ten o'clock the Admiral, standing on the tower-like poop of hisvessel, saw a distant light moving as if somebody were running alongthe shore with a torch. This interpretation was doubted, but a fewhours later a sailor on the Pinta saw land distinctly, and soon it wasvisible to all, a long low coast about five miles distant. This was attwo in the morning of Friday, October 12, [517]--just ten weeks sincethey had sailed from Palos, just thirty-three days since they had lostsight of the coast of Ferro. The sails were now taken in, and the shipslay to, awaiting the dawn. 

 [Footnote 516: The often-repeated story that a day or two before the end of the voyage Columbus capitulated with his crew, promising to turn back if land were not seen within three days, rests upon the single and relatively inferior authority of Oviedo. It is not mentioned by Las Casas or Bernaldez or Peter Martyr or Ferdinand Columbus, and it is discredited by the tone of the Admiral's journal, which shows as unconquerable determination on the last day of the voyage as on any previous day. Cf. Irving, vol. I. P. 187. ]

 [Footnote 517: Applying the Gregorian Calendar, or "new style, " it becomes the 21st. The four hundredth anniversary will properly fall on October 21, 1892. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The crews go ashore. ]

At daybreak the boats were lowered and Columbus, with a large part ofhis company, went ashore. Upon every side were trees of unknown kinds, and the landscape seemed exceedingly beautiful. Confident that they musthave attained the object for which they had set sail, the crews werewild with exultation. Their heads were dazed with fancies of princelyfortunes close at hand. The officers embraced Columbus or kissed hishands, while the sailors threw themselves at his feet, craving pardonand favour. 

[Sidenote: The astonished natives. ]

[Sidenote: Guanahani: where was it?]

These proceedings were watched with unutterable amazement and awe by amultitude of men, women, and children of cinnamon hue, different fromany kind of people the Spaniards had ever seen. All were stark naked andmost of them were more or less greased and painted. They thought thatthe ships were sea-monsters and the white men supernatural creaturesdescended from the sky. [518] At first they fled in terror as theseformidable beings came ashore, but presently, as they found themselvesunmolested, curiosity began to overcome fear, and they slowly approachedthe Spaniards, stopping at every few paces to prostrate themselves inadoration. After a time, as the Spaniards received them with encouragingnods and smiles, they waxed bold enough to come close to the visitorsand pass their hands over them, doubtless to make sure that all thismarvel was a reality and not a mere vision. Experiences in Africa hadrevealed the eagerness of barbarians to trade off their possessions fortrinkets, and now the Spaniards began exchanging glass beads and hawks'bells for cotton yarn, tame parrots, and small gold ornaments. Some sortof conversation in dumb show went on, and Columbus naturally interpretedeverything in such wise as to fit his theories. Whether the nativesunderstood him or not when he asked them where they got their gold, atany rate they pointed to the south, and thus confirmed Columbus in hissuspicion that he had come to some island a little to the north of theopulent Cipango. He soon found that it was a small island, and heunderstood the name of it to be Guanahani. He took formal possession ofit for Castile, just as the discoverers of the Cape Verde islands andthe Guinea coasts had taken possession of those places for Portugal;and he gave it a Christian name, San Salvador. That name has since theseventeenth century been given to Cat island, but perhaps in pursuanceof a false theory of map-makers; it is not proved that Cat island is theGuanahani of Columbus. All that can positively be asserted of Guanahaniis that it was one of the Bahamas: there has been endless discussion asto which one, and the question is not easy to settle. Perhaps the theoryof Captain Gustavus Fox, of the United States navy, is on the whole bestsupported. Captain Fox maintains that the true Guanahani was the littleisland now known as Samana or Atwood's Cay. [519] The problem wellillustrates the difficulty in identifying any route from even a gooddescription of landmarks, without the help of persistent proper names, especially after the lapse of time has somewhat altered the landmarks. From this point of view it is a very interesting problem and has itslessons for us; otherwise it is of no importance. 

 [Footnote 518: This is a common notion among barbarians. "The Polynesians imagine that the sky descends at the horizon and encloses the earth. Hence they call foreigners _papalangi_, or 'heaven-bursters, ' as having broken in from another world outside. " Max Müller, _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. Ii. P. 268. ]

 [Footnote 519: "An Attempt to solve the Problem of the First Landing Place of Columbus in the New World, " in _United States Coast and Geodetic Survey--Report for 1880--Appendix 18_, Washington, 1882. ]

[Sidenote: Groping for Cipango and the route to Quinsay. ]

A cruise of ten days among the Bahamas, with visits to four of theislands, satisfied Columbus that he was in the ocean just east ofCathay, for Marco Polo had described it as studded with thousands ofspice-bearing islands, and the Catalan map shows that some of these weresupposed to be inhabited by naked savages. To be sure, he could not findany spices or valuable drugs, but the air was full of fragrance and thetrees and herbs were strange in aspect and might mean anything; so for awhile he was ready to take the spices on trust. Upon inquiries aboutgold the natives always pointed to the south, apparently meaningCipango; and in that direction Columbus steered on the 25th of October, intending to stay in that wealthy island long enough to obtain allneedful information concerning its arts and commerce. Thence a sail ofless than ten days would bring him to the Chinese coast, along which hemight comfortably cruise northwesterly as far as Quinsay and deliver tothe Great Khan a friendly letter with which Ferdinand and Isabella hadprovided him. Alas, poor Columbus--unconscious prince ofdiscoverers--groping here in Cuban waters for the way to a city on theother side of the globe and to a sovereign whose race had more than acentury since been driven from the throne and expelled from the verysoil of Cathay! Could anything be more pathetic, or better illustratethe profound irony with which our universe seems to be governed?

[Sidenote: Columbus reaches Cuba, and sends envoys to find a certainAsiatic prince. ]

On reaching Cuba the Admiral was charmed with the marvellous beauty ofthe landscape, --a point in which he seems to have been unusuallysensitive. He found pearl oysters along the shore, and although nosplendid cities as yet appeared, he did not doubt that he had reachedCipango. But his attempts at talking with the amazed natives only servedto darken counsel. He understood them to say that Cuba was part of theAsiatic continent, and that there was a king in the neighbourhood whowas at war with the Great Khan! So he sent two messengers to seek thisrefractory potentate, --one of them a converted Jew acquainted withArabic, a language sometimes heard far eastward in Asia, as Columbusmust have known. These envoys found pleasant villages, with largehouses, surrounded with fields of such unknown vegetables as maize, potatoes, and tobacco; they saw men and women smoking cigars, [520] andlittle dreamed that in that fragrant and soothing herb there was aricher source of revenue than the spices of the East. They passed acresof growing cotton and saw in the houses piles of yarn waiting to bewoven into rude cloth or twisted into nets for hammocks. But they foundneither cities nor kings, neither gold nor spices, and after a tediousquest returned, somewhat disappointed, to the coast. 

 [Footnote 520: The first recorded mention of tobacco is in Columbus's diary for November 20, 1492:--"Hallaron los dos cristianos por el camino mucha gente que atravesaba á sus pueblos, mugeres y hombres con un tizon en la mano, yerbas para tomar sus sahumerios que acostumbraban, " i. E. "the two Christians met on the road a great many people going to their villages, men and women with brands in their hands, made of herbs for taking their customary smoke. " Navarrete, tom. I. P. 51. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus turns eastward; Pinzon deserts him. ]

Columbus seems now to have become perplexed, and to have vacillatedsomewhat in his purposes. If this was the continent of Asia it wasnearer than he had supposed, and how far mistaken he had been in hiscalculations no one could tell. But where was Cipango? He gathered fromthe natives that there was a great island to the southeast, aboundingin gold, and so he turned his prows in that direction. On the 20th ofNovember he was deserted by Martin Pinzon, whose ship could alwaysoutsail the others. It seems to have been Pinzon's design to get home inadvance with such a story as would enable him to claim for himself anundue share of credit for the discovery of the Indies. This was theearliest instance of a kind of treachery such as too often marred thestory of Spanish exploration and conquest in the New World. 

[Sidenote: Columbus arrives at Hayti and thinks it must be Japan. ]

[Sidenote: Wreck of the Santa Maria, Dec. 25, 1492. ]

For a fortnight after Pinzon's desertion Columbus crept slowly eastwardalong the coast of Cuba, now and then landing to examine the country andits products; and it seemed to him that besides pearls and mastic andaloes he found in the rivers indications of gold. When he reached thecape at the end of the island he named it Alpha and Omega, as being theextremity of Asia, --Omega from the Portuguese point of view, Alpha fromhis own. On the 6th of December he landed upon the northwestern coast ofthe island of Hayti, which he called Española, Hispaniola, or "Spanishland. "[521] Here, as the natives seemed to tell him of a region to thesouthward and quite inland which abounded in gold, and which they calledCibao, the Admiral at once caught upon the apparent similarity of soundsand fancied that Cibao must be Cipango, and that at length he hadarrived upon that island of marvels. It was much nearer the Asiaticmainland (i. E. Cuba) than he had supposed, but then, it was beginningto appear that in any case somebody's geography must be wrong. Columbuswas enchanted with the scenery. "The land is elevated, " he says, "withmany mountains and peaks . . . Most beautiful, of a thousand varied forms, accessible, and full of trees of endless varieties, so tall that theyseem to touch the sky; and I have been told that they never lose theirfoliage. The nightingale [i. E. Some kind of thrush] and other smallbirds of a thousand kinds were singing in the month of November[December] when I was there. "[522] Before he had done much towardexploring this paradise, a sudden and grave mishap quite altered hisplans. On Christmas morning, between midnight and dawn, owing tocareless disobedience of orders on the part of the helmsman, theflag-ship struck upon a sand-bank near the present site of Port au Paix. All attempts to get her afloat were unavailing, and the waves soon beather to pieces. 

 [Footnote 521: Not "Little Spain, " as the form of the word, so much like a diminutive, might seem to indicate. It is simply the feminine of _Español_, "Spanish, " sc. _tierra_ or _isla_. Columbus believed that the island was larger than Spain. See his letter to Gabriel Sanchez, in Harrisse, tom. I. P. 428. ]

 [Footnote 522: Columbus to Santangel, February 15, 1493 (Navarrete, tom. I. P. 168). ]

[Sidenote: Columbus decides to go back to Spain. ]

This catastrophe brought home, with startling force, to the mind ofColumbus, the fact that the news of his discovery of land was not yetknown in Europe. As for the Pinta and her insubordinate commander, nonecould say whether they would ever be seen again or whether their speedyarrival in Spain might not portend more harm than good to Columbus. Hisarmament was now reduced to the little undecked Niña alone, such a craftas we should deem about fit for a summer excursion on Long Island Sound. What if his party should all perish, or be stranded helpless on thesestrange coasts, before any news of their success should reach the earsof friends in Europe! Then the name of Columbus would serve as a by-wordfor foolhardiness, and his mysterious fate would simply deter otherexpeditions from following in the same course. Obviously the firstnecessity of the situation was to return to Spain immediately and reportwhat had already been done. Then it would be easy enough to get shipsand men for a second voyage. 

[Sidenote: Building of the blockhouse, La Navidad. ]

[Sidenote: Meeting with Pinzon. ]

This decision led to the founding of an embryo colony upon Hispaniola. There was not room enough for all the party to go in the Nina, and quitea number begged to be left behind, because they found life upon theisland lazy and the natives, especially the women, seemed well-disposedtoward them. So a blockhouse was built out of the wrecked ship's timbersand armed with her guns, and in commemoration of that eventful Christmasit was called Fort Nativity (_La Navidad_). Here forty men were leftbehind, with provisions enough for a whole year, and on January 4, 1493, the rest of the party went on board the Niña and set sail for Spain. Twodays later in following the northern coast of Hispaniola theyencountered the Pinta, whose commander had been delayed by trading withthe natives and by finding some gold. Pinzon tried to explain his suddendisappearance by alleging that stress of weather had parted him fromhis comrades, but his excuses were felt to be lame and improbable. However it may have been with his excuses, there was no doubt as to thelameness of his foremast; it had been too badly sprung to carry muchsail, so that the Pinta could not again run away from her consort. 

[Sidenote: Terrible storm in mid-ocean, Feb. , 1493. ]

On this return voyage the Admiral, finding the trade winds dead againsthim, took a northeasterly course until he had passed the thirty-seventhparallel and then headed straight toward Spain. On the 12th of Februarya storm was brewing, and during the next four days it raged with suchterrific violence that it is a wonder how those two frail caravels evercame out of it. They were separated this time not to meet again upon thesea. Expecting in all likelihood to be engulfed in the waves with histiny craft, Columbus sealed and directed to Ferdinand and Isabella twobrief reports of his discovery, written upon parchment. Each of these hewrapped in a cloth and inclosed in the middle of a large cake of wax, which was then securely shut up in a barrel. One of the barrels wasflung into the sea, the other remained standing on the littlequarter-deck to await the fate of the caravel. The anxiety was notlessened by the sight of land on the 15th, for it was impossible toapproach it so as to go ashore, and there was much danger of beingdashed to pieces. 

[Sidenote: Cold reception at the Azores. ]

At length on the 18th, the storm having abated, the ship's boat wentashore and found that it was the island of St. Mary, one of the Azores. It is worthy of note that such skilful sailors as the Nina's captain, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, and the pilot Ruiz were so confused in theirreckoning as to suppose themselves near the Madeiras, whereas Columbushad correctly maintained that they were approaching the Azores, --a goodinstance of his consummate judgment in nautical questions. [523] From thePortuguese governor of the island this Spanish company met with a veryungracious reception. A party of sailors whom Columbus sent ashore to asmall chapel of the Virgin, to give thanks for their deliverance fromshipwreck, were seized and held as prisoners for five days. Itafterwards appeared that this was done in pursuance of generalinstructions from the king of Portugal to the governors of his variousislands. If Columbus had gone ashore he would probably have beenarrested himself. As it was, he took such a high tone and threatened tosuch good purpose that the governor of St. Mary was fain to give up hisprisoners for fear of bringing on another war between Portugal andCastile. 

 [Footnote 523: Las Casas, tom. I. Pp. 443, 449. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus is driven ashore in Portugal, where the king isadvised to have him assassinated;]

[Sidenote: but to offend Spain so grossly would be dangerous. ]

Having at length got away from this unfriendly island, as the Niña wasmaking her way toward Cape St. Vincent and within 400 miles of it, shewas seized by another fierce tempest and driven upon the coast ofPortugal, where Columbus and his crew were glad of a chance to run intothe river Tagus for shelter. The news of his voyage and his discoveriesaroused intense excitement in Lisbon. Astonishment was mingled withchagrin at the thought that the opportunity for all this glory andprofit had first been offered to Portugal and foolishly lost. The kingeven now tried to persuade himself that Columbus had somehow or otherbeen trespassing upon the vast and vague undiscovered dominions grantedto the Crown of Portugal by Pope Eugenius IV. Some of the king'scounsellors are said to have urged him to have Columbus assassinated; itwould be easy enough to provoke such a high-spirited man into a quarreland then run him through the body. [524] To clearer heads, however, theimprudence of such a course was manifest. It was already impossible tokeep the news of the discovery from reaching Spain, and Portugal couldnot afford to go to war with her stronger neighbour. In fact even hadJohn II. Been base enough to resort to assassination, which seems quiteincompatible with the general character of Lope de Vega's "perfectprince, " Columbus was now too important a personage to be safelyinterfered with. So he was invited to court and made much of. On the13th of March he set sail again and arrived in the harbour of Palos atnoon of the 15th. His little caravel was promptly recognized by thepeople, and as her story flew from mouth to mouth all the business ofthe town was at an end for that day. [525]

 [Footnote 524: This story rests upon the explicit statement of a contemporary Portuguese historian of high authority, Garcia de Resende, _Chronica del Rey Dom João II. _, Lisbon, 1622, cap. Clxiv. (written about 1516); see also Vasconcellos, _Vida del Rey Don Juan II. _, Madrid, 1639, lib. Vi. ]

 [Footnote 525: "When they learnt that she returned in triumph from the discovery of a world, the whole community broke forth into transports of joy. " Irving's _Columbus_, vol. I. P. 318. This is projecting our present knowledge into the past. We now know that Columbus had discovered a new world. He did not so much as suspect that he had done anything of the sort; neither did the people of Palos. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus and Pinzon at Palos; death of Pinzon. ]

Towards evening, while the bells were ringing and the streets brilliantwith torches, another vessel entered the harbour and dropped anchor. Shewas none other than the Pinta! The storm had driven her to Bayonne, whence Martin Pinzon instantly despatched a message to Ferdinand andIsabella, making great claims for himself and asking permission to waitupon them with a full account of the discovery. As soon as practicablehe made his way to Palos, but when on arriving he saw the Niña alreadyanchored in the harbour his guilty heart failed him. He took advantageof the general hub-bub to slink ashore as quickly and quietly aspossible, and did not dare to show himself until after the Admiral hadleft for Seville. The news from Columbus reached the sovereigns beforethey had time to reply to the message of Pinzon; so when their answercame to him it was cold and stern and forbade him to appear in theirpresence. Pinzon was worn out with the hardships of the homeward voyage, and this crushing reproof was more than he could bear. His sudden death, a few days afterward, was generally attributed to chagrin. [526]

[Sidenote: Columbus is received by the sovereigns at Barcelona, April, 1493. ]

[Sidenote: General excitement at the news that a way to the Indies hadbeen found. ]

From Seville the Admiral was summoned to attend court at Barcelona, where he was received with triumphal honours. He was directed to seathimself in the presence of the sovereigns, a courtesy usually reservedfor royal personages. [527] Intense interest was felt in his specimens ofstuffed birds and small mammals, his live parrots, his collection ofherbs which he supposed to have medicinal virtues, his few pearls andtrinkets of gold, and especially his six painted and bedizenedbarbarians, the survivors of ten with whom he had started fromHispaniola. Since in the vague terminology of that time the remote andscarcely known parts of Asia were called the Indies, and since theislands and coasts just discovered were Indies, of course these red menmust be Indians. So Columbus had already named them in his first letterwritten from the Niña, off the Azores, sent by special messenger fromPalos, and now in April, 1493, printed at Barcelona, containing theparticulars of his discovery, --a letter appropriately addressed to theworthy Santangel but for whose timely intervention he might have riddenmany a weary league on that mule of his to no good purpose. [528] It wasgenerally assumed without question that the Admiral's theory of hisdiscovery must be correct, that the coast of Cuba must be the easternextremity of China, that the coast of Hispaniola must be the northernextremity of Cipango, and that a direct route--much shorter than thatwhich Portugal had so long been seeking--had now been found to thoselands of illimitable wealth described by Marco Polo. [529] To be sureColumbus had not as yet seen the evidences of this Oriental splendour, and had been puzzled at not finding them, but he felt confident that hehad come very near them and would come full upon them in a secondvoyage. There was nobody who knew enough to refute these opinions, [530]and really why should not this great geographer, who had accomplished somuch already which people had scouted as impossible, --why should he notknow what he was about? It was easy enough now to get men and money forthe second voyage. When the Admiral sailed from Cadiz on September 25, 1493, it was with seventeen ships carrying 1, 500 men. Their dreams wereof the marble palaces of Quinsay, of isles of spices, and the treasuresof Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that suchuntold riches were vouchsafed them by the special decree of Heaven, as areward for having overcome the Moor at Granada and banished the Jewsfrom Spain. [531] Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as aspecial instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vowto rescue the Holy Sepulchre, promising within the next seven years toequip at his own expense a crusading army of 50, 000 foot and 4, 000horse; within five years thereafter he would follow this with a secondarmy of like dimensions. 

 [Footnote 526: Charlevoix, _Histoire de l'isle Espagnole, ou de St. Domingue_, Paris, 1730, liv. Ii. ; Muñoz, _Historia de las Indias ó Nuevo Mundo_, Madrid, 1793, lib. Iv. § 14. ]

 [Footnote 527: He was also allowed to quarter the royal arms with his own, "which consisted of a group of golden islands amid azure billows. To these were afterwards added five anchors, with the celebrated motto, well known as being carved on his sepulchre. " Prescott's _Ferdinand and Isabella_, pt. I. Chap. Vii. This statement about the motto is erroneous. See below, p. 514. Considering the splendour of the reception given to Columbus, and the great interest felt in his achievement, Mr. Prescott is surprised at finding no mention of this occasion in the local annals of Barcelona, or in the royal archives of Aragon. He conjectures, with some probability, that the cause of the omission may have been what an American would call "sectional" jealousy. This Cathay and Cipango business was an affair of Castile's, and, as such, quite beneath the notice of patriotic Aragonese archivists! That is the way history has too often been treated. With most people it is only a kind of ancestor worship. ]

 [Footnote 528: The unique copy of this first edition of this Spanish letter is a small folio of two leaves, or four pages. It was announced for sale in Quaritch's Catalogue, April 16, 1891, No. 111, p. 47, for £1, 750. Evidently most book-lovers will have to content themselves with the facsimile published in London, 1891, price two guineas. A unique copy of a Spanish reprint in small quarto, made in 1493, is preserved in the Ambrosian library at Milan. In 1889 Messrs. Ellis & Elvey, of London, published a facsimile _alleged_ to have been made from an edition of about the same date as the Ambrosian quarto; but there are good reasons for believing that these highly respectable publishers have been imposed upon. It is a time just now when fictitious literary discoveries of this sort may command a high price, and the dealer in early Americana must keep his eyes open. See Quaritch's note, _op. Cit. _ p. 49; and Justin Winsor's letter in _The Nation_, April 9, 1891, vol. Lii. P. 298. ]

 [Footnote 529: "The lands, therefore, which Columbus had visited were called the West Indies; and as he seemed to have entered upon a vast region of unexplored countries, existing in a state of nature, the whole received the comprehensive appellation of the New World. " Irving's _Columbus_, vol. I. P. 333. These are very grave errors, again involving the projection of our modern knowledge into the past. The lands which Columbus had visited were called simply the Indies; it was not until long after his death, and after the crossing of the Pacific ocean, that they were distinguished from the East Indies. The _New World_ was not at first a "comprehensive appellation" for the countries discovered by Columbus; it was at first applied to one particular region never visited by him, viz. To that portion of the southeastern coast of South America first explored by Vespucius. See vol. Ii. Pp. 129, 130. ]

 [Footnote 530: Peter Martyr, however, seems to have entertained some vague doubts, inasmuch as this assumed nearness of the China coast on the west implied a greater eastward extension of the Asiatic continent than seemed to him probable:--"Insulas reperit plures; has esse, de quibus fit apud cosmographos mentio extra oceanum orientalem, adjacentes Indiæ arbitrantur. Nec inficior ego penitus, _quamvis sphæræ magnitudo aliter sentire videatur_; neque enim desunt qui parvo tractu a finibus Hispaniæ distare littus Indicum putent. " _Opus Epist. _, No. 135. The italicizing is mine. ]

 [Footnote 531: This abominable piece of wickedness, driving 200, 000 of Spain's best citizens from their homes and their native land, was accomplished in pursuance of an edict signed March 30, 1492. There is a brief account of it in Prescott's _Ferdinand and Isabella_, pt. I. Chap. Vi. ]

[Sidenote: This voyage was an event without any parallel in history. ]

Thus nobody had the faintest suspicion of what had been done. In thefamous letter to Santangel there is of course not a word about a NewWorld. The grandeur of the achievement was quite beyond the ken of thegeneration that witnessed it. For we have since come to learn that in1492 the contact between the eastern and the western halves of ourplanet was first really begun, and the two streams of human life whichhad flowed on for countless ages apart were thenceforth to mingletogether. The first voyage of Columbus is thus a unique event in thehistory of mankind. Nothing like it was ever done before, and nothinglike it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for a future Columbusto conquer. The era of which this great Italian mariner was the mostillustrious representative has closed forever. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS. 

[Sidenote: The Discovery of America was a gradual process. ]

But that era did not close with Columbus, nor did he live long enough tocomplete the Discovery of America. Our practice of affixing specificdates to great events is on many accounts indispensable, but it issometimes misleading. Such an event as the discovery of a pair of vastcontinents does not take place within a single year. When we speak ofAmerica as discovered in 1492, we do not mean that the moment Columbuslanded on two or three islands of the West Indies, a full outline map ofthe western hemisphere from Labrador and Alaska to Cape Horn suddenlysprang into existence--like Pallas from the forehead of Zeus--in theminds of European men. Yet people are perpetually using arguments whichhave neither force nor meaning save upon the tacit assumption thatsomehow or other some such sort of thing must have happened. Thisgrotesque fallacy lies at the bottom of the tradition which has causedso many foolish things to be said about that gallant mariner, AmericusVespucius. In geographical discussions the tendency to overlook the factthat Columbus and his immediate successors did not sail with the latestedition of Black's General Atlas in their cabins is almost inveterate;it keeps revealing itself in all sorts of queer statements, and probablythere is no cure for it except in familiarity with the long series ofperplexed and struggling maps made in the sixteenth century. Properlyregarded, the Discovery of America was not a single event, but a verygradual process. It was not like a case of special creation, for it wasa case of evolution, and the voyage of 1492 was simply the most decisiveand epoch-marking incident in that evolution. Columbus himself, afterall his four eventful voyages across the Sea of Darkness, died in thebelief that he had simply discovered the best and straightest route tothe eastern shores of Asia. Yet from his first experiences in Cuba downto his latest voyage upon the coasts of Honduras and Veragua, he wasmore or less puzzled at finding things so different from what he hadanticipated. If he had really known anything with accuracy about theeastern coast of Asia, he would doubtless soon have detected hisfundamental error, but no European in his day had any such knowledge. Inhis four voyages Columbus was finding what he supposed to be parts ofAsia, what we now know to have been parts of America, but what werereally to him and his contemporaries neither more nor less than StrangeCoasts. We have now to consider briefly his further experiences uponthese strange coasts. 

 * * * * *

The second voyage of Columbus was begun in a very different mood andunder very different auspices from either his former or his twosubsequent voyages. On his first departure from Palos, in 1492, allsave a few devoted friends regarded him as a madman rushing upon hisdoom; and outside the Spanish peninsula the expedition seems to haveattracted no notice. But on the second start, in 1493, all handssupposed that they were going straight to golden Cathay and to boundlessriches. It was not now with groans but with pæans that they flocked onboard the ships; and the occasion was observed, with more or lessinterest, by some people in other countries of Europe, --as in Italy, andfor the moment in France and England. 

[Sidenote: The letter to Sanchez. ]

At the same time with his letter to Santangel, the Admiral haddespatched another account, substantially the same, [532] to GabrielSanchez, [533] another officer of the royal treasury. Several copies of aLatin translation of this letter were published at Rome, at Paris, andelsewhere, in the course of the year 1493. [534] The story which itcontained was at once paraphrased in Italian verse by Giuliano Dati, oneof the most popular poets of the age, and perhaps in the autumn of 1493the amazing news that the Indies had been found by sailing west[535] wassung by street urchins in Florence. We are also informed, in anill-vouched but not improbable clause in Ramusio, that not far from thatsame time the news was heard with admiration in London, where it waspronounced "a thing more divine than human to sail by the West unto theEast, where spices grow, by a way that was never known before;"[536] andit seems altogether likely that it was this news that prompted theexpedition of John Cabot hereafter to be mentioned. [537]

 [Footnote 532: "Un duplicata de cette relation, " Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom i. P. 419. ]

 [Footnote 533: Often called Raphael Sanchez. ]

 [Footnote 534: The following epigram was added to the first Latin edition of the latter by Corbaria, Bishop of Monte-Peloso:--

 _Ad Invictissimum Regem Hispaniarum_:

 Iam nulla Hispanis tellus addenda triumphis, Atque parum tantis viribus orbis erat. Nunc longe eois regio deprensa sub undis, Auctura est titulos Betice magne tuos. Unde repertori inerita referenda Columbo Gratia, sed summo est maior habenda deo, Qui vincenda parat noua regna tibique sibique Teque simul fortem prestat et esse pium. 

 These lines are thus paraphrased by M. Harrisse:--

 _To the Invincible King of the Spains_:

 Less wide the world than the renown of Spain, To swell her triumphs no new lands remain. Rejoice, Iberia! see thy fame increased! Another world Columbus from the East And the mid-ocean summons to thy sway! Give thanks to him--but loftier homage pay To God Supreme, who gives its realms to thee! Greatest of monarchs, first of servants be! _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 13. 

 The following is a literal version:--"Already there is no land to be added to the triumphs of Spain, and the earth was too small for such great deeds. Now a far country under the eastern waves has been discovered, and will be an addition to thy titles, O great Bætica! wherefore thanks are due to the illustrious discover Columbus; but greater thanks to the supreme God, who is making ready new realms to be conquered for thee and for Himself, and vouchsafes to thee to be at once strong and pious. " It will be observed that nothing is said about "another world. "

 An elaborate account of these earliest and excessively rare editions is given by M. Harrisse, _loc. Cit. _]

 [Footnote 535: Or, as Mr. Major carelessly puts it, "the astounding news of the discovery of a new world. " (_Select Letters of Columbus_, p. Vi. ) Mr. Major knows very well that no such "news" was possible for many a year after 1493; his remark is, of course, a mere slip of the pen, but if we are ever going to straighten out the tangle of misconceptions with which this subject is commonly surrounded, we must be careful in our choice of words. --As a fair specimen, of the chap-book style of Dati's stanzas, we may cite the fourteenth:--

 Hor vo tornar almio primo tractato dellisole trovate incognite a te in [~q]sto anno presente [~q]sto e stato nel millequatrocento nov[=a]tatre, uno che x[~p]ofan col[=o]bo chiamato, che e stato in corte der prefecto Re ha molte volte questa stimolato, el Re ch'cerchi acrescere il suo stato. 

 M. Harrisse gives the following version:--

 Back to my theme, O Listener, turn with me And hear of islands all unknown to thee! Islands whereof the grand discovery Chanced in this year of fourteen ninety-three. One Christopher Colombo, whose resort Was ever in the King Fernando's court, Bent himself still to rouse and stimulate The King to swell the borders of his State. _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 29. 

 The entire poem of sixty-eight stanzas is given in Major, _op. Cit. _ pp. Lxxiii. -xc. It was published at Florence, Oct. 26, 1493, and was called "the story of the discovery [not of a new world, but] of the new Indian islands of Canary!" (_Storia della inventione delle nuove isole dicanaria indiane. _)]

 [Footnote 536: _Raccolta di Navigazioni_, etc. , Venice, 1550, tom. I. Fol. 414. ]

 [Footnote 537: See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 2-15. ]

[Sidenote: Earliest references to the discovery. ]

[Sidenote: Earliest reference in English. ]

The references to the discovery are very scanty, however, until afterthe year 1500, and extremely vague withal. For example, Bernardino deCarvajal, the Spanish ambassador at the papal court, delivered anoration in Rome on June 19, 1493, in which he said: "And Christ placedunder their [Ferdinand and Isabella's] rule the Fortunate [Canary]islands, the fertility of which has been ascertained to be wonderful. And he has lately disclosed some other unknown ones towards the Indieswhich may be considered among the most precious things on earth; and itis believed that they will be gained over to Christ by the emissariesof the king. "[538] Outside of the Romance countries we find one Germanversion of the first letter of Columbus, published at Strasburg, in1497, [539] and a brief allusion to the discovery in Sebastian Brandt'sfamous allegorical poem, "Das Narrenschiff, " the first edition of whichappeared in 1494. [540] The earliest distinct reference to Columbus inthe English language is to be found in a translation of this poem, "TheShyppe of Fooles, " by Henry Watson, published in London by Wynkyn deWorde in 1509. The purpose of Brandt's allegory was to satirize thefollies committed by all sorts and conditions of men. In the chapter, "Of hym that wyll wryte and enquere of all regyons, " it is said: "Therewas one that knewe that in y^{e} ysles of Spayne was enhabitantes. Wherefore he asked men of Kynge Ferdynandus & wente & founde them, thewhiche lyved as beestes. "[541] Until after the middle of the sixteenthcentury no English chronicler mentions either Columbus or the Cabots, nor is there anywhere an indication that the significance of thediscoveries in the western ocean was at all understood. [542]

 [Footnote 538: Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, p. 35. ]

 [Footnote 539: Id. P. 50. ]

 [Footnote 540: Auch hat man sydt in Portigall Und in Hyspanyen uberall Golt-inseln funden, und nacket l[°u]t Von den man vor wust sagen n[°u]t. Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet. _; _Additions_, p. 4. 

 Or, in more modern German:--

 Wie man auch jüngst von Portugal Und Hispanien aus schier überall Goldinseln fand und nakte Leute, Von denen man erst weiss seit heute. _Das Narrenschiff_, ed. Simrock, Berlin, 1872, p. 161. 

 In the Latin version of 1497, now in the National Library at Paris, it goes somewhat differently:--

 Antea que fuerat priscis incognita tellus: Exposita est oculis & manifesta patet. Hesperie occidue rex Ferdinandus: in alto Aequore nunc gentes repperit innumeras. Harrisse, _op. Cit. _; _Additions_, p. 7. 

 It will be observed that these foreign references are so ungallant, and so incorrect, as to give all the credit to Ferdinand, while poor Isabella is not mentioned!]

 [Footnote 541: Harrisse, _op. Cit. _; _Additions_, p. 45. ]

 [Footnote 542: Harrisse, _Jean et Sebastien Cabot_, Paris, 1882, p. 15. ]

[Sidenote: Portuguese claim to the Indies. ]

North of the Alps and Pyrenees the interest in what was going on at theSpanish court in 1493 was probably confined to very few people. As forVenice and Genoa we have no adequate means of knowing how they feltabout the matter, --a fact which in itself is significant. The interestwas centred in Spain and Portugal. There it was intense and awakenedfierce heart-burnings. Though John II. Had not given his consent to theproposal for murdering Columbus, he appears to have seriouslyentertained the thought of sending a small fleet across the Atlantic assoon as possible, to take possession of some point in Cathay or Cipangoand then dispute the claims of the Spaniards. [543] Such a summaryproceeding might perhaps be defended on the ground that the grant fromPope Eugenius V. To the crown of Portugal expressly included "theIndies. " In the treaty of 1479, moreover, Spain had promised not tointerfere with the discoveries and possessions of the Portuguese. 

 [Footnote 543: Vasconcellos, _Vida del Rey Don Juan II. _, Madrid, 1639, lib. Vi. ]

[Sidenote: Bulls of Pope Alexander VI. ]

But whatever King John may have intended, Ferdinand and Isabella weretoo quick for him. No sooner had Columbus arrived at Barcelona than anembassy was despatched to Rome, asking for a grant of the Indies justdiscovered by that navigator in the service of Castile. The notoriousRodrigo Borgia, who had lately been placed in the apostolic chair asAlexander VI. , was a native of Valencia in the kingdom of Aragon, andwould not be likely to refuse such a request through any excess ofregard for Portugal. As between the two rival powers the pontiff'sarrangement was made in a spirit of even-handed justice. On the 3d ofMay, 1493, he issued a bull conferring upon the Spanish sovereigns alllands already discovered or thereafter to be discovered in the westernocean, with jurisdiction and privileges in all respects similar to thoseformerly bestowed upon the crown of Portugal. This grant was made by thepope "out of our pure liberality, certain knowledge, and plenitude ofapostolic power, " and by virtue of "the authority of omnipotent Godgranted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ whichwe administer upon the earth. "[544] It was a substantial reward for themonarchs who had completed the overthrow of Mahometan rule in Spain, andit afforded them opportunities for further good work in converting theheathen inhabitants of the islands and mainland of Asia. [545]

 [Footnote 544: "De nostra mera liberalitate, et ex certa scientia, ac de apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine. " . . . "auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in beato Petro concessa, ac vicariatus Jesu Christi qua fungimur in terris. " The same language is used in the second bull. Mr. Prescott (_Ferdinand and Isabella_, part i. Chap, vii. ) translates _certa scientia_ "infallible knowledge, " but in order to avoid any complications with modern theories concerning papal infallibility, I prefer to use a less technical word. ]

 [Footnote 545: A year or two later the sovereigns were further rewarded with the decorative title of "Most Catholic. " See Zurita, _Historia del Rey Hernando_, Saragossa, 1580, lib. Ii. Cap. Xl. ; Peter Martyr, _Epist. _ clvii. ]

[Sidenote: Treaty of Tordesillas. ]

On the following day Alexander issued a second bull in order to preventany occasion for quarrel between Spain and Portugal. [546] He decreedthat all lands discovered or to be discovered to the west of a meridianone hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde islands shouldbelong to the Spaniards. Inasmuch as between the westernmost of theAzores and the easternmost of the Cape Verde group the difference inlongitude is not far from ten degrees, this description must be allowedto be somewhat vague, especially in a document emanating from "certainknowledge;"[547] and it left open a source of future disputes which onewould suppose the "plenitude of apostolic power" might have beenworthily employed in closing. The meridian 25° W. , however, would havesatisfied the conditions, and the equitable intent of the arrangement ismanifest. The Portuguese were left free to pursue their course ofdiscovery and conquest along the routes which they had always preferred. King John, however, was not satisfied. He entertained vague hopes offinding spice islands, or something worth having, in the western waters;and he wished to have the Line of Demarcation carried farther to thewest. After a year of diplomatic wrangling a treaty was signed atTordesillas, June 7, 1494, in which Spain consented to the moving of theline to a distance of 370 leagues west from the Cape Verde islands. [548]It would thus on a modern map fall somewhere between the 41st and 44thmeridians west of Greenwich. This amendment had important and curiousconsequences. It presently gave the Brazilian coast to the Portuguese, and thereupon played a leading part in the singular and complicatedseries of events that ended in giving the name of Americus Vespucius tothat region, whence it was afterwards gradually extended to the wholewestern hemisphere. [549]

 [Footnote 546: The complete text of this bull, with Richard Eden's translation, is given at the end of this work; see below, Appendix B. The official text is in _Magnum Bullarium Romanum_, ed. Cherubini, Lyons, 1655, tom. I. P. 466. The original document received by Ferdinand and Isabella is preserved in the Archives of the Indies at Seville; it is printed entire in Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. Ii. No. 18. Another copy, less complete, may be found in Raynaldus, _Annales ecclesiastici_, Lucca, 1754, tom. Xi. P. 214, No. 19-22; and another in Leibnitz, _Codex Diplomaticus_, tom. I. Pt. I. P. 471. It is often called the Bull "Inter Cetera, " from its opening words. 

 The origin of the pope's claim to apostolic authority for giving away kingdoms is closely connected with the fictitious "Donation of Constantine, " an edict probably fabricated in Rome about the middle of the eighth century. The title of the old Latin text is _Edictum domini Constantini Imp. _, apud Pseudo-Isidorus, _Decretalia_. Constantine's transfer of the seat of empire from the Tiber to the Bosphorus tended greatly to increase the dignity and power of the papacy, and I presume that the fabrication of this edict, four centuries afterward, was the expression of a sincere belief that the first Christian emperor _meant_ to leave the temporal supremacy over Italy in the hands of the Roman see. The edict purported to be such a donation from Constantine to Pope Sylvester I. , but the extent and character of the donation was stated with such vagueness as to allow a wide latitude of interpretation. Its genuineness was repeatedly called in question, but belief in it seems to have grown in strength until after the thirteenth century. Leo IX. , who was a strong believer in its genuineness, granted in 1054 to the Normans their conquests in Sicily and Calabria, to be held as a fief of the Roman see. (Muratori, _Annali d' Italia_, tom. Vi. Pt. Ii. P. 245. ) It was next used to sustain the papal claim to suzerainty over the island of Corsica. A century later John of Salisbury maintained the right of the pope to dispose "of all _islands_ on which Christ, the Sun of righteousness, hath shined, " and in conformity with this opinion Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman) authorized in 1164 King Henry II. Of England to invade and conquer Ireland. (See Adrian IV. , _Epist. _ 76, apud Migne, _Patrologia_, tom. Clxxxviii. ) Dr. Lanigan, in treating of this matter, is more an Irishman than a papist, and derides "this nonsense of the pope's being the head-owner of all Christian islands. " (_Ecclesiastical History of Ireland_, vol. Iv. P. 159. )--Gregory VII. , in working up to the doctrine that all Christian kingdoms should be held as fiefs under St. Peter (Baronius, _Annales_, tom. Xvii. P. 430; cf. Villemain, _Histoire de Grégoire VII. _, Paris, 1873, tom. Ii. Pp. 59-61), does not seem to have appealed to the Donation. Perhaps he was shrewd enough to foresee the kind of objection afterwards raised by the Albigensians, who pithily declared that if the suzerainty of the popes was derived from the Donation, then they were successors of Constantine and not of St. Peter. (Moneta Cremonensis, _Adversus Catharos et Waldenses_, ed. Ricchini, Rome, 1743, v. 2. ) But Innocent IV. Summarily disposed of this argument at the Council of Lyons in 1245, when he deposed the Emperor Frederick II. And King Sancho II. Of Portugal, --saying that Christ himself had bestowed temporal as well as spiritual headship upon St. Peter and his successors, so that Constantine only gave up to the Church what belonged to it already. The opposite or Ghibelline theory was eloquently set forth by Dante, in his treatise _De Monarchia_; he held that inasmuch as the Empire existed before the Church, it could not be derived from it. Dante elsewhere expressed his abhorrence of the Donation:--

 Ahi Constantin, di quanto mal fu matre, Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote Che da te prese il primo ricco patre! _Inferno_, xix. 115. 

 Similar sentiments were expressed by many of the most popular poets from the twelfth century to the sixteenth. Walther von der Vogelweide was sure that if the first Christian emperor could have foreseen the evils destined to flow from his Donation, he would have withheld it:--

 Solte ich den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min, So spræche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din, Ir zunge sünge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin, Gedæhten daz ouch si dur Got wæren almuosenære. Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin, Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik wære, So het er wol underkomen des riches swære, Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete lære. Hagen, _Minnesinger-Sammlung_, Leipsic, 1838, bd. I. P. 270. 

 Ariosto, in a passage rollicking with satire, makes his itinerant paladin find the "stinking" Donation in the course of his journey upon the moon:--

 Di varii fiori ad un gran monte passa, Ch' ebber già buono odore, or puzzan forte, Questo era il dono, se però dir lece, Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. _Orlando Furioso_, xxxiv. 80. 

 The Donation was finally proved to be a forgery by Laurentius Valla in 1440, in his _De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio_ (afterward spread far and wide by Ulrich von Hutten), and independently by the noble Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, in his _Repressor_, written about 1447. --During the preceding century the theory of Gregory VII. And Innocent IV. Had been carried to its uttermost extreme by the Franciscan monk Alvaro Pelayo, in his _De Planctu Ecclesiæ_, written at Avignon during the "Babylonish Captivity, " about 1350 (printed at Venice in 1560), and by Agostino Trionfi, in his _Summa de potestate ecclesiastica_, Augsburg, 1473, an excessively rare book, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. These writers maintained that the popes were suzerains of the whole earth and had absolute power to dispose not only of all Christian kingdoms, but also of all heathen lands and powers. It was upon this theory that Eugenius IV. Seems to have acted with reference to Portugal and Alexander VI. With reference to Spain. Of course there was never a time when such claims for the papacy were not denied by a large party within the Church. The Spanish sovereigns in appealing to Alexander VI. Took care to hint that some of their advisers regarded them as already entitled to enjoy the fruits of their discoveries, even before obtaining the papal permission, but they did not choose to act upon that opinion (Herrera, decad. I. Lib. Ii. Cap. 4). The kings of Portugal were less reserved in their submission. In _Valasci Ferdinandi ad Innocentium octauum de obedientia oratio_, a small quarto printed at Rome about 1488, John II. Did homage to the pope for the countries just discovered by Bartholomew Dias. His successor Emanuel did the same after the voyages of Gama and Vespucius. In a small quarto, _Obedientia potentissimi Emanuelis Lusitaniæ regis &c. Per clarissimum juris consultum Dieghum Pacett[=u] oratorem ad Iuli[=u] Pont. Max. _, Rome, 1505, all the newly found lands are laid at the feet of Julius II. In a passage that ends with words worth noting: "Accipe tandem orbem ipsum terrarum, Deus enim noster es, " i. E. "Accept in fine the earth itself, for thou art our God. " Similar homage was rendered to Leo X. In 1513, on account of Albuquerque's conquests in Asia. --We may suspect that if the papacy had retained, at the end of the fifteenth century, anything like the overshadowing power which it possessed at the end of the twelfth, the kings of Portugal would not have been quite so unstinted in their homage. As it came to be less of a reality and more of a flourish of words, it cost less to offer it. Among some modern Catholics I have observed a disposition to imagine that in the famous bull of partition Alexander VI. Acted not as supreme pontiff but merely as an arbiter, in the modern sense, between the crowns of Spain and Portugal; but such an interpretation is hardly compatible with Alexander's own words. An arbiter, as such, does not make awards by virtue of "the authority of Omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth. "

 Since writing this note my attention has been called to Dr. Ignaz von Döllinger's _Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages_, London, 1871; and I find in it a chapter on the Donation of Constantine, in which the subject is treated with a wealth of learning. Some of my brief references are there discussed at considerable length. To the references to Dante there is added a still more striking passage, where Constantine is admitted into Heaven _in spite of_ his Donation (_Paradiso_, xx. 55). ]

 [Footnote 547: The language of the bull is even more vague than my version in the text. His Holiness describes the lands to be given to the Spaniards as lying "to the west and south" (versus occidentem et meridiem) of his dividing meridian. Land to the south of a meridian would be in a queer position! Probably it was meant to say that the Spaniards, once west of the papal meridian, might go south as well as north. For the king of Portugal had suggested that they ought to confine themselves to northern waters. ]

 [Footnote 548: For the original Spanish text of the treaty of Tordesillas, see Navarrete, tom. Ii. Pp. 116-130. ]

 [Footnote 549: See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 98-154. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca. ]

Already in April, 1493, without waiting for the papal sanction, Ferdinand and Isabella bent all their energies to the work of fittingout an expedition for taking possession of "the Indies. " First, adepartment of Indian affairs was created, and at its head was placedJuan Rodriguez de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville: in Spain a man in highoffice was apt to be a clergyman. This Fonseca was all-powerful inIndian affairs for the next thirty years. He won and retained theconfidence of the sovereigns by virtue of his executive ability. He wasa man of coarse fibre, ambitious and domineering, cold-hearted andperfidious, with a cynical contempt--such as low-minded people are aptto call "smart"--for the higher human feelings. He was one of those uglycustomers who crush, without a twinge of compunction, whatever comes intheir way. The slightest opposition made him furious, and hisvindictiveness was insatiable. This dexterous and pushing Fonseca heldone after another the bishoprics of Badajoz, Cordova, Palencia, andConde, the archbishopric of Rosano in Italy, together with the bishopricof Burgos, and he was also principal chaplain to Isabella and afterwardsto Ferdinand. As Sir Arthur Helps observes, "the student of earlyAmerican history will have a bad opinion of many Spanish bishops, if hedoes not discover that it is Bishop Fonseca who reappears undervarious designations. "[550] Sir Arthur fitly calls him "the ungodlybishop. "

 [Footnote 550: _History of the Spanish Conquest_, vol. I. P. 487. ]

[Sidenote: Friar Boyle. ]

The headquarters of Fonseca and of the Indian department wereestablished at Seville, and a special Indian custom-house was set up atCadiz. There was to be another custom-house upon the island ofHispaniola (supposed to be Japan), and a minute registry was to be keptof all ships and their crews and cargoes, going out or coming in. Nobodywas to be allowed to go to the Indies for any purpose whatever without alicense formally obtained. Careful regulations were made for hamperingtrade and making everything as vexatious as possible for traders, according to the ordinary wisdom of governments in such matters. Allexpenses were to be borne and all profits received by the crown ofCastile, saving the rights formerly guaranteed to Columbus. The cost ofthe present expedition was partly defrayed with stolen money, theplunder wrung from the worthy and industrious Jews who had been drivenfrom their homes by the infernal edict of the year before. Extensive"requisitions" were also made; in other words, when the sovereignswanted a ship or a barrel of gunpowder they seized it, and impressed itinto the good work of converting the heathen. To superintend thismissionary work, a Franciscan monk[551] was selected who had latelydistinguished himself as a diplomatist in the dispute with France overthe border province of Rousillon. This person was a native of Catalonia, and his name was Bernardo Boyle, which strongly suggests an Irishorigin. Alexander VI. Appointed him his apostolic vicar for theIndies, [552] and he seems to have been the first clergyman to performmass on the western shores of the Atlantic. To assist the vicar, the sixIndians brought over by Columbus were baptized at Barcelona, with theking and queen for their godfather and godmother. It was hoped that theywould prove useful as missionaries, and when one of them presently diedhe was said to be the first Indian ever admitted to heaven. [553]

 [Footnote 551: Irving calls him a Benedictine, but he is addressed as "fratri ordinis Minorum" in the bull clothing him with apostolic authority in the Indies, June 25, 1493. See Raynaldus, _Annales ecclesiastici_, tom. Xi. P. 216. I cannot imagine what M. Harrisse means by calling him "religieux de Saint-Vincent de Paule" (_Christophe Colomb_, tom. Ii. P. 55). Vincent de Paul was not born till 1576. ]

 [Footnote 552: Not for "the New World, " as Irving carelessly has it in his _Columbus_, vol. I. P. 346. No such phrase had been thought of in 1493, or until long afterward. ]

 [Footnote 553: Herrera, _Hist. De las Indias_, decad. I. Lib. Ii. Cap. 5. ]

The three summer months were occupied in fitting out the little fleet. There were fourteen caravels, and three larger store-ships known ascarracks. Horses, mules, and other cattle were put on board, [554] aswell as vines and sugar-canes, and the seeds of several Europeancereals, for it was intended to establish a permanent colony uponHispaniola. In the course of this work some slight matters ofdisagreement came up between Columbus and Fonseca, and the questionhaving been referred to the sovereigns, Fonseca was mildly snubbed andtold that he must in all respects be guided by the Admiral's wishes. From that time forth this ungodly prelate nourished a deadly hatredtoward Columbus, and never lost an opportunity for whispering evilthings about him. The worst of the grievous afflictions that afterwardbeset the great discoverer must be ascribed to the secret machinationsof this wretch. 

 [Footnote 554: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xliv. ]

[Sidenote: Notable persons who embarked on the second voyage. ]

At last the armament was ready. People were so eager to embark that itwas felt necessary to restrain them. It was not intended to have morethan 1, 200, but about 1, 500 in all contrived to go, so that some of thecaravels must have been overcrowded. The character of the company wasvery different from that of the year before. Those who went in the firstvoyage were chiefly common sailors. Now there were many aristocraticyoung men, hot-blooded and feather-headed hidalgos whom the surrender ofGranada had left without an occupation. Most distinguished among thesewas Alonso de Ojeda, a dare-devil of unrivalled muscular strength, fullof energy and fanfaronade, and not without generous qualities, but withvery little soundness of judgment or character. Other notable personagesin this expedition were Columbus's youngest brother Giacomo (henceforthcalled Diego), who had come from Genoa at the first news of theAdmiral's triumphant return; the monk Antonio de Marchena, [555] whomhistorians have so long confounded with the prior Juan Perez; anAragonese gentleman named Pedro Margarite, a favourite of the king anddestined to work sad mischief; Juan Ponce de Leon, who afterwards gaveits name to Florida; Francisco de Las Casas, father of the great apostleand historian of the Indies; and, last but not least, the pilot Juan deLa Cosa, now charged with the work of chart-making, in which he was anacknowledged master. [556]

 [Footnote 555: He went as astronomer, from which we may perhaps suppose that scientific considerations had made him one of the earliest and most steadfast upholders of Columbus's views. ]

 [Footnote 556: See Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom. Ii. Pp. 55, 56; Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 498; Fabié, _Vida de Las Casas_, Madrid, 1879, tom. I. P. 11; Oviedo, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. I. P. 467; Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. Ii. Pp. 143-149. ]

[Sidenote: Cruise among the cannibal islands. ]

The pomp and bustle of the departure from Cadiz, September 25, 1493, atwhich the Admiral's two sons, Diego and Ferdinand, were present, musthave been one of the earliest recollections of the younger boy, thenjust five years of age. [557] Again Columbus stopped at the Canaryislands, this time to take on board goats and sheep, pigs and fowls, forhe had been struck by the absence of all such animals on the coastswhich he had visited. [558] Seeds of melons, oranges, and lemons werealso taken. On the 7th of October the ships weighed anchor, heading atrifle to the south of west, and after a pleasant and uneventful voyagethey sighted land on the 3d of November. [559] It turned out to be asmall mountainous island, and as it was discovered on Sunday they calledit Dominica. In a fortnight's cruise in these Caribbean waters theydiscovered and named several islands, such as Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Antigua, and others, and at length reached Porto Rico. The inhabitantsof these islands were ferocious cannibals, very different from thenatives encountered on the former voyage. There were skirmishes in whicha few Spaniards were killed with poisoned arrows. On Guadaloupe thenatives lived in square houses made of saplings intertwined with reeds, and on the rude porticoes attached to these houses some of the woodenpieces were carved so as to look like serpents. In some of these houseshuman limbs were hanging from the roof, cured with smoke, like ham; andfresh pieces of human flesh were found stewing in earthen kettles, alongwith the flesh of parrots. Now at length, said Peter Martyr, was provedthe truth of the stories of Polyphemus and the Læstrygonians, and thereader must look out lest his hair stand on end. [560] These westernLæstrygonians were known as Caribbees, Caribales, or Canibales, and havethus furnished an epithet which we have since learned to apply toman-eaters the world over. 

 [Footnote 557: "E con questo preparamento il mercoledé ai 25 del mese di settembre dell' anno 1493 un' ora avanti il levar del sole, essendovi io e mio fratel presenti, l' Ammiraglio levò le ancore, " etc. _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xliv. ]

 [Footnote 558: Eight sows were bought for 70 maravedis apiece, and "destas ocho puercas se han multiplicado todos los puercos que, hasta hoy, ha habido y hay en todas estas Indias, " etc. Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. Ii. P. 3. ]

 [Footnote 559: The relation of this second voyage by Dr. Chanca may be found in Navarrete, tom. I. Pp. 198-241; an interesting relation in Italian by Simone Verde, a Florentine merchant then living in Valladolid, is published in Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom. Ii. Pp. 68-78. The narrative of the curate of Los Palacios is of especial value for this voyage. ]

 [Footnote 560: Martyr, _Epist. _ cxlvii. _ad Pomponium Lætum_; cf. _Odyssey_, x. 119; Thucyd. Vi. 2. --Irving (vol. I. P. 385) finds it hard to believe these stories, but the prevalence of cannibalism, not only in these islands, but throughout a very large part of aboriginal America, has been superabundantly proved. ]

[Sidenote: Fate of the colony at La Navidad. ]

It was late at night on the 27th of November that Columbus arrived inthe harbour of La Navidad and fired a salute to arouse the attention ofthe party that had been left there the year before. There was no replyand the silence seemed fraught with evil omen. On going ashore nextmorning and exploring the neighbourhood, the Spaniards came upon sightsof dismal significance. The fortress was pulled to pieces and partlyburnt, the chests of provisions were broken open and emptied, tools andfragments of European clothing were found in the houses of the natives, and finally eleven corpses, identifiable as those of white men, werefound buried near the fort. Not one of the forty men who had been leftbehind in that place ever turned up to tell the tale. The little colonyof La Navidad had been wiped out of existence. From the Indians, however, Columbus gathered bits of information that made a sufficientlyprobable story. It was a typical instance of the beginnings ofcolonization in wild countries. In such instances human nature has shownconsiderable uniformity. Insubordination and deadly feuds amongthemselves had combined with reckless outrages upon the natives toimperil the existence of this little party of rough sailors. The causeto which Horace ascribes so many direful wars, both before and since thedays of fairest Helen, seems to have been the principal cause on thisoccasion. At length a fierce chieftain named Caonabo, from the region ofXaragua, had attacked the Spaniards in overwhelming force, knocked theirblockhouse about their heads, and butchered all that were left of them. 

[Sidenote: Building of Isabella. ]

[Sidenote: Exploration of Cibao. ]

This was a gloomy welcome to the land of promise. There was nothing tobe done but to build new fortifications and found a town. The sitechosen for this new settlement, which was named Isabella, was at a goodharbour about thirty miles east of Monte Christi. It was chosen becauseColumbus understood from the natives that it was not far from there tothe gold-bearing mountains of Cibao, a name which still seemed tosignify Cipango. Quite a neat little town was presently built, withchurch, marketplace, public granary, and dwelling-houses, the wholeencompassed with a stone wall. An exploring party led by Ojeda into themountains of Cibao found gold dust and pieces of gold ore in the beds ofthe brooks, and returned elated with this discovery. Twelve of the shipswere now sent back to Spain for further supplies and reinforcements, andspecimens of the gold were sent as an earnest of what was likely to befound. At length, in March, 1494, Columbus set forth, with 400 armedmen, to explore the Cibao country. The march was full of interest. It isupon this occasion that we first find mention of the frantic terrormanifested by Indians at the sight of horses. At first they supposed thehorse and his rider to be a kind of centaur, and when the riderdismounted this separation of one creature into two overwhelmed themwith supernatural terror. Even when they had begun to get over thisnotion they were in dread of being eaten by the horses. [561] Thesenatives lived in houses grouped into villages, and had carved woodenidols and rude estufas for their tutelar divinities. It was ascertainedthat different tribes tried to steal each other's idols and even foughtfor the possession of valuable objects of "medicine. "[562] Columbusobserved and reported the customs of these people with some minuteness. There was nothing that agreed with Marco Polo's descriptions of Cipango, but so far as concerned the discovery of gold mines, the indicationswere such as to leave little doubt of the success of thisreconnaissance. The Admiral now arranged his forces so as to hold theinland regions just visited and gave the general command to Margarite, who was to continue the work of exploration. He left his brother, DiegoColumbus, in charge of the colony, and taking three caravels set sailfrom Isabella on the 24th of April, on a cruise of discovery in theseAsiatic waters. 

 [Footnote 561: For an instance of 400 hostile Indians fleeing before a single armed horseman, see _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lii. ; Las Casas, _Hist. _ tom. Ii. P. 46. ]

 [Footnote 562: Compare the Fisherman's story of Drogio, above, pp. 246, 252. ]

[Illustration: Discoveries made by Columbus in his first and secondvoyages. ]

[Sidenote: Cape Alpha and Omega. ]

A brief westward sail brought the little squadron into the WindwardPassage and in sight of Cape Mayzi, which Columbus on his first voyagehad named Cape Alpha and Omega as being the easternmost point on theChinese coast. He believed that if he were to sail to the right of thiscape he should have the continent on his port side for a thousand milesand more, as far as Quinsay and Cambaluc (Peking). If he had sailedin this direction and had succeeded in keeping to the east of Florida, he would have kept a continent on his port side, and a thousand mileswould have taken him a long way toward that Vinland which ourScandinavian friends would fondly have us believe was his secretguiding-star, and the geographical position of which they suppose him tohave known with such astounding accuracy. But on this as on otheroccasions, if the Admiral had ever received any information aboutVinland, it must be owned that he treated it very cavalierly, for hechose the course to the left of Cape Mayzi. His decision is intelligibleif we bear in mind that he had not yet circumnavigated Hayti and was notyet cured of his belief that its northern shore was the shore of thegreat Cipango. At the same time he had seen enough on his first voyageto convince him that the relative positions of Cipango and the mainlandof Cathay were not correctly laid down upon the Toscanelli map. He hadalready inspected two or three hundred miles of the coast to the rightof Cape Mayzi without finding traces of civilization; and wheneverinquiries were made about gold or powerful kingdoms the nativesinvariably pointed to the south or southwest. Columbus, therefore, decided to try his luck in this direction. He passed to the left of CapeMayzi and followed the southern coast of Cuba. 

[Sidenote: Discovery of Jamaica. ]

By the 3d of May the natives were pointing so persistently to the southand off to sea that he changed his course in that direction and sooncame upon the northern coast of the island which we still know by itsnative name Jamaica. Here he found Indians more intelligent and morewarlike than any he had as yet seen. He was especially struck with theelegance of their canoes, some of them nearly a hundred feet in length, carved and hollowed from the trunks of tall trees. We may alreadyobserve that different tribes of Indians comported themselves verydifferently at the first sight of white men. While the natives of someof the islands prostrated themselves in adoration of thesesky-creatures, or behaved with a timorous politeness which the Spaniardsmistook for gentleness of disposition, in other places the red menshowed fight at once, acting upon the brute impulse to drive awaystrangers. In both cases, of course, dread of the unknown was theprompting impulse, though so differently manifested. As the Spaniardswent ashore upon Jamaica, the Indians greeted them with a shower ofjavelins and for a few moments stood up against the deadly fire of thecross-bows, but when they turned to flee, a single bloodhound, let looseupon them, scattered them in wildest panic. [563]

 [Footnote 563: Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. Cxxv. Domesticated dogs were found generally in aboriginal America, but they were very paltry curs compared to these fierce hounds, one of which could handle an unarmed man as easily as a terrier handles a rat. ]

[Sidenote: Coasting the south side of Cuba. ]

Finding no evidences of civilization upon this beautiful island, Columbus turned northward and struck the Cuban coast again at the pointwhich still bears the name he gave it, Cape Cruz. Between the generalcontour of this end of Cuba and that of the eastern extremity of Cathayupon the Toscanelli map there is a curious resemblance, save that thedirection is in the one case more east and west and in the other morenorth and south. Columbus passed no cities like Zaiton, nor cities ofany sort, but when he struck into the smiling archipelago which hecalled the Queen's Gardens, now known as Cayos de las Doce Leguas, hefelt sure that he was among Marco Polo's seven thousand spice islands. On the 3d of June, at some point on the Cuban coast, probably nearTrinidad, the crops of several doves were opened and spices found inthem. None of the natives here had ever heard of an end to Cuba, andthey believed it was endless. [564] The next country to the west ofthemselves was named Mangon, and it was inhabited by people with tailswhich they carefully hid by wearing loose robes of cloth. Thisinformation seemed decisive to Columbus. Evidently this Mangon wasMangi, the province in which was the city of Zaiton, the province justsouth of Cathay. And as for the tailed men, the book of Mandeville had astory of some naked savages in eastern Asia who spoke of their morecivilized neighbours as wearing clothes in order to cover up some bodilypeculiarity or defect. Could there be any doubt that the Spanishcaravels had come at length to the coast of opulent Mangi?[565]

 [Footnote 564: As a Greek would have said, [Greek: êpeiros], a continent. ]

 [Footnote 565: Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. Cxxvii, Mr. Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia. " (_Life of Columbus_, vol. I. P. 493. ) This lends a false colour to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an "ardent imagination. " It was simply a plain common-sense conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were then accessible (i. E. The Toscanelli map, amended by information such as was understood to be given by the natives); it was more probable than any other theory of the situation likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern historians abound in unconscious turns of expression--as in this quotation from Irving--which project modern knowledge back into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the reader must not suppose that this is any indication of captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration. ]

[Sidenote: The "people of Mangon. "]

[Sidenote: The Golden Chersonese. ]

Under the influence of this belief, when a few days later they landed insearch of fresh water, and a certain archer, on the lookout for game, caught distant glimpses of a flock of tall white cranes feeding in aneverglade, he fled to his comrades with the story that he had seen aparty of men clad in long white tunics, and all agreed that these mustbe the people of Mangon. [566] Columbus sent a small company ashore tofind them. It is needless to add that the search was fruitless, butfootprints of alligators, interpreted as footprints of griffins guardinghoarded gold, [567] frightened the men back to their ships. From thenatives, with whom the Spaniards could converse only by signs, theyseemed to learn that they were going toward the realm of PresterJohn;[568] and in such wise did they creep along the coast to the point, some fifty miles west of Broa Bay, where it begins to trend decidedly tothe southwest. Before they had reached Point Mangles, a hundred milesfarther on, inasmuch as they found this southwesterly trend persistent, the proof that they were upon the coast of the Asiatic continent beganto seem complete. Columbus thought that they had passed the point (lat. 23°, long. 145° on Toscanelli's map) where the coast of Asia began totrend steadily toward the southwest. [569] By pursuing this coast he feltsure that he would eventually reach the peninsula (Malacca) whichPtolemy, who knew of it only by vague hearsay, called the GoldenChersonese. [570] An immense idea now flitted through the mind ofColumbus. If he could reach and double that peninsula he could then findhis way to the mouth of the Ganges river; thence he might cross theIndian ocean, pass the Cape of Good Hope (for Dias had surely shown thatthe way was open), and return that way to Spain after circumnavigatingthe globe! But fate had reserved this achievement for another man ofgreat heart and lofty thoughts, a quarter of a century later, who shouldindeed accomplish what Columbus dreamed, but only after crossing anotherSea of Darkness, the most stupendous body of water on our globe, themere existence of which until after Columbus had died no European eversuspected. [571] If Columbus had now sailed about a hundred milesfarther, he would have found the end of Cuba, and might perhaps haveskirted the northern shore of Yucatan and come upon the barbaricsplendours of Uxmal and Campeche. The excitement which such news wouldhave caused in Spain might perhaps have changed all the rest of his lifeand saved him from the worst of his troubles. But the crews were nowunwilling to go farther, and the Admiral realized that it would beimpossible to undertake such a voyage as he had in mind with no morethan their present outfit. So it was decided to return to Hispaniola. 

 [Footnote 566: These tropical birds are called _soldados_, or "soldiers, " because their stately attitudes remind one of sentinels on duty. The whole town of Angostura, in Venezuela, was one day frightened out of its wits by the sudden appearance of a flock of these cranes on the summit of a neighbouring hill. They were mistaken for a war-party of Indians. Humboldt, _Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent_, tom. Ii. P. 314. ]

 [Footnote 567: See above, p. 287, note. ]

 [Footnote 568: For these events, see Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, cap. Cxxiii. ; F. Columbus, _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lvi. ; Muñoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_, lib. V. § 16; Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. Iv. Pp. 237-263; Irving's _Columbus_, vol. I. Pp. 491-504. ]

 [Footnote 569: That is to say, he thought he had passed the coast of Mangi (southern China) and reached the beginning of the coast of Champa (Cochin China; see Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. Ii. P. 213). The name Champa, coming to European writers through an Italian source, was written Ciampa and Ciamba. See its position on the Behaim and Toscanelli maps, and also on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. Ii. P. 114. Peter Martyr says that Columbus was sure that he had reached the coast of Gangetic (i. E. What we call Farther) India: "Indiæ Gangetidis continentem eam (Cubæ) plagam esse contendit Colonus. " _Epist. _ xciii. _ad Bernardinum_. Of course Columbus understood that this region, while agreeing well enough with Toscanelli's latitude, was far from agreeing with his longitude. But from the moment when he turned eastward on his first voyage he seems to have made up his mind that Toscanelli's longitudes needed serious amendment. Indeed he had always used different measurements from Toscanelli. ]

 [Footnote 570: For an account of Ptolemy's almost purely hypothetical and curiously distorted notions about southeastern Asia, see Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. Ii. Pp. 604-608. ]

 [Footnote 571: See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 200-210. ]

Upon consultation with La Cosa and others, it was unanimously agreedthat they were upon the coast of the continent of Asia. The evidenceseemed conclusive. From Cape Mayzi (Alpha and Omega) they had observed, upon their own reckoning, 335 leagues, or about 1, 000 geographicalmiles, of continuous coast running steadily in nearly the samedirection. [572] Clearly it was too long for the coast of an island; andthen there was the name Mangon = Mangi. The only puzzling circumstancewas that they did not find any of Marco Polo's cities. They kept gettingscraps of information which seemed to refer to gorgeous kingdoms, butthese were always in the dim distance. Still there was no doubt thatthey had discovered the coast of a continent, and of course such acontinent could be nothing else but Asia!

 [Footnote 572: The length of Cuba from Cape Mayzi to Cape San Antonio is about 700 English miles. But in following the sinuosities of the coast, and including tacks, the estimate of these pilots was probably not far from correct. ]

[Sidenote: A solemn expression of opinion. ]

Such unanimity of opinion might seem to leave nothing to be desired. ButColumbus had already met with cavillers. Before he started on thiscruise from Isabella, some impatient hidalgos, disgusted at finding muchto do and little to get, had begun to hint that the Admiral was ahumbug, and that his "Indies" were no such great affair after all. Inorder to silence these ill-natured critics, he sent his notary, accompanied by four witnesses, to every person in those three caravels, to get a sworn statement. If anybody had a grain of doubt about thiscoast being the coast of Asia, so that you could go ashore there andwalk on dry land all the way to Spain if so disposed, let him declarehis doubts once for all, so that they might now be duly considered. Noone expressed any doubts. All declared, under oath, their firm belief. It was then agreed that if any of the number should thereafter deny orcontradict this sworn statement, he should have his tongue slit;[573]and if an officer, he should be further punished with a fine of 10, 000maravedis, or if a sailor, with a hundred lashes. These proceedings wereembodied in a formal document, dated June 12, 1494, which is still to beseen in the Archives of the Indies at Seville. [574]

 [Footnote 573: "É cortada la lengua;" "y le cortarian la lengua. " Irving understands it to mean cutting off the tongue. But in those days of symbolism slitting the tip of that unruly member was a recognized punishment for serious lying. ]

 [Footnote 574: It is printed in full in Navarrete, torn. Ii. Pp. 143-149. ]

Having disposed of this solemn matter, the three caravels turnedeastward, touching at the Isle of Pines and coasting back along thesouth side of Cuba. The headland where the Admiral first becameconvinced of the significance of the curvature of the coast, he namedCape of Good Hope, [575] believing it to be much nearer the goal whichall were seeking than the other cape of that name, discovered by Diasseven years before. 

 [Footnote 575: It is given upon La Cosa's map; see below, vol. Ii. , frontispiece. ]

[Sidenote: Vicissitudes of theory. ]

It will be remembered that the Admiral, upon his first voyage, hadcarried home with him two theories, --first, that in the Cuban coast hehad already discovered that of the continent of Asia, secondly thatHispaniola was Cipango. The first theory seemed to be confirmed byfurther experience; the second was now to receive a serious shock. Leaving Cape Cruz the caravels stood over to Jamaica, leisurely exploredthe southern side of that island, and as soon as adverse winds would letthem, kept on eastward till land appeared on the port bow. Nobodyrecognized it until an Indian chief who had learned some Spanish hailedthem from the shore and told them it was Hispaniola. They then followedthat southern coast its whole length, discovering the tiny islands, Beata, Saona, and Mona. Here Columbus, overcome by long-sustainedfatigue and excitement, suddenly fell into a death-like lethargy, and inthis sad condition was carried all the way to Isabella, and to his ownhouse, where he was put to bed. Hispaniola had thus beencircumnavigated, and either it was not Cipango or else that wonderlandmust be a much smaller affair than Toscanelli and Martin Behaim haddepicted it. [576] There was something truly mysterious about theseStrange Coasts!

 [Footnote 576: Hispaniola continued, however, for many years to be commonly identified with Cipango. See note D on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. Ii. P. 114. ]

[Sidenote: Arrival of Bartholomew Columbus. ]

When Columbus, after many days, recovered consciousness, he found hisbrother Bartholomew standing by his bedside. It was six years since theyhad last parted company at Lisbon, whence the younger brother startedfor England, while the elder returned to Spain. The news ofChristopher's return from his first voyage found Bartholomew in Paris, whence he started as soon as he could for Seville, but did not arrivethere until just after the second expedition had started. Presently thesovereigns sent him with three ships to Hispaniola, to carry supplies tothe colony; and there he arrived while the Admiral was exploring thecoast of Cuba. The meeting of the two brothers was a great relief toboth. The affection between them was very strong, and each was a supportfor the other. The Admiral at once proceeded to appoint Bartholomew tothe office of Adelantado, which in this instance was equivalent tomaking him governor of Hispaniola under himself, the Viceroy of theIndies. In making this appointment Columbus seems to have exceeded theauthority granted him by the second article of his agreement of April, 1492, with the sovereigns;[577] but they mended the matter in 1497 bythemselves investing Bartholomew with the office and dignity ofAdelantado. [578]

 [Footnote 577: See above, p. 417. ]

 [Footnote 578: Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. Ii. P. 80. ]

[Sidenote: Mutiny in Hispaniola; desertion of Boyle and Margarite. ]

Columbus was in need of all the aid he could summon, for, during hisabsence, the island had become a pandemonium. His brother Diego, a manof refined and studious habits, who afterwards became a priest, was toomild in disposition to govern the hot-heads who had come to Hispaniolato get rich without labour. They would not submit to the rule of thisforeigner. Instead of doing honest work they roamed about the island, abusing the Indians and slaying one another in silly quarrels. Chiefamong the offenders was King Ferdinand's favourite, the commanderMargarite; and he was aided and abetted by Friar Boyle. Some time afterBartholomew's arrival, these two men of Aragon gathered about them aparty of malcontents and, seizing the ships which had brought thatmariner, sailed away to Spain. Making their way to court, they soughtpardon for thus deserting the colony, saying that duty to theirsovereigns demanded that they should bring home a report of what wasgoing on in the Indies. They decried the value of Columbus'sdiscoveries, and reminded the king that Hispaniola was taking money outof the treasury much faster than it was putting it in; an argument wellcalculated to influence Ferdinand that summer, for he was getting readyto go to war with France over the Naples affair. Then the two recreantspoured forth a stream of accusations against the brothers Columbus, thegeneral purport of which was that they were gross tyrants not fit to betrusted with the command of Spaniards. 

[Sidenote: The government of Columbus was not tyrannical. ]

No marked effect seems to have been produced by these first complaints, but when Margarite and Boyle were once within reach of Fonseca, we neednot wonder that mischief was soon brewing. It was unfortunate forColumbus that his work of exploration was hampered by the necessity offounding a colony and governing a parcel of unruly men let loose in thewilderness, far away from the powerful restraints of civilized society. Such work required undivided attention and extraordinary talent forcommand. It does not appear that Columbus was lacking in such talent. Onthe contrary both he and his brother Bartholomew seem to have possessedit in a high degree. But the situation was desperately bad when thespirit of mutiny was fomented by deadly enemies at court. I do not findadequate justification for the charges of tyranny brought againstColumbus. The veracity and fairness of the history of Las Casas arebeyond question; in his divinely beautiful spirit one sees now and thena trace of tenderness even for Fonseca, whose conduct toward him wasalways as mean and malignant as toward Columbus. One gets from Las Casasthe impression that the Admiral's high temper was usually kept underfirm control, and that he showed far less severity than most men wouldhave done under similar provocation. Bartholomew was made of sternerstuff, but his whole career presents no instance of wanton cruelty;toward both white men and Indians his conduct was distinguished byclemency and moderation. Under the government of these brothers a fewscoundrels were hanged in Hispaniola. Many more ought to have been. 

[Sidenote: Troubles with the Indians. ]

Of the attempt of Columbus to collect tribute from the nativepopulation, and its consequences in developing the system of_repartimientos_ out of which grew Indian slavery, I shall treat in afuture chapter. [579] That attempt, which was ill-advised andill-managed, was part of a plan for checking wanton depredations andregulating the relations between the Spaniards and the Indians. Thecolonists behaved so badly toward the red men that the chieftainCaonabo, who had destroyed La Navidad the year before, now formed ascheme[580] for a general alliance among the native tribes, hoping withsufficient numbers to overwhelm and exterminate the strangers, in spiteof their solid-hoofed monsters and death-dealing thunderbolts. Thisscheme was revealed to Columbus, soon after his return from the coast ofCuba, by the chieftain Guacanagari, who was an enemy to Caonabo andcourted the friendship of the Spaniards. Alonso de Ojeda, by a daringstratagem, captured Caonabo and brought him to Columbus, who treated himkindly but kept him a prisoner until it should be convenient to send himto Spain. But this chieftain's scheme was nevertheless put in operationthrough the influence of his principal wife Anacaona. An Indian warbroke out; roaming bands of Spaniards were ambushed and massacred; andthere was fighting in the field, where the natives--assailed by firearmsand cross-bows, horses and bloodhounds--were wofully defeated. 

 [Footnote 579: See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 433, 434. ]

 [Footnote 580: The first of a series of such schemes in American history, including those of Sassacus, Philip, Pontiac, and to some extent Tecumseh. ]

[Sidenote: Mission of Aguado. ]

[Sidenote: Discovery of gold mines. ]

[Sidenote: Speculations about Ophir. ]

Thus in the difficult task of controlling mutinous white men anddefending the colony against infuriated red men Columbus spent the firsttwelvemonth after his return from Cuba. In October, 1495, there arrivedin the harbour of Isabella four caravels laden with welcome supplies. Inone of these ships came Juan Aguado, sent by the sovereigns to gatherinformation respecting the troubles of the colony. This appointmentwas doubtless made in a friendly spirit, for Columbus had formerlyrecommended Aguado to favour. But the arrival of such a person created ahope, which quickly grew into a belief, that the sovereigns werepreparing to deprive Columbus of the government of the island; and, asIrving neatly says, "it was a time of jubilee for offenders; everyculprit started up into an accuser. " All the ills of the colony, many ofthem inevitable in such an enterprise, many of them due to theshiftlessness and folly, the cruelty and lust of idle swash-bucklers, were now laid at the door of Columbus. Aguado was presently won over bythe malcontents, so that by the time he was ready to return to Spain, early in 1496, Columbus felt it desirable to go along with him and makehis own explanations to the sovereigns. Fortunately for his purposes, just before he started, some rich gold mines were discovered on thesouth side of the island, in the neighbourhood of the Hayna and Ozemarivers. Moreover there were sundry pits in these mines, which lookedlike excavations and seemed to indicate that in former times there hadbeen digging done. [581] This discovery confirmed the Admiral in a newtheory, which he was beginning to form. If it should turn out thatHispaniola was not Cipango, as the last voyage seemed to suggest, perhaps it might prove to be Ophir![582] Probably these ancientexcavations were made by King Solomon's men when they came here to getgold for the temple at Jerusalem! If so, one might expect to findsilver, ivory, red sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks at no great distance. Just where Ophir was situated no one could exactly tell, [583] but thethings that were carried thence to Jerusalem certainly came from "theIndies. " Columbus conceived it as probably lying northeastward of theGolden Chersonese (Malacca) and as identical with the island ofHispaniola. 

 [Footnote 581: The Indians then living upon the island did not dig, but scraped up the small pieces of gold that were more or less abundant in the beds of shallow streams. ]

 [Footnote 582: Peter Martyr, _De Rebus Oceanicis_, dec. I. Lib. Iv. ]

 [Footnote 583: The original Ophir may be inferred, from _Genesis_ x. 29, to have been situated where, as Milton says, "northeast winds blow Sabæan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest, "

 but the name seems to have become applied indiscriminately to the remote countries reached by ships that sailed past that coast; chiefly no doubt, to Hindustan. See Lassen, _Indische Alterthumskunde_, bd. I. P. 538. ]

[Sidenote: Founding of San Domingo, 1496. ]

[Sidenote: The return voyage. ]

The discovery of these mines led to the transfer of the headquarters ofthe colony to the mouth of the Ozema river, where, in the summer of1496, Bartholomew Columbus made a settlement which became the city ofSan Domingo. [584] Meanwhile Aguado and the Admiral sailed for Spainearly in March, in two caravels overloaded with more than two hundredhomesick passengers. In choosing his course Columbus did not show somuch sagacity as on his first return voyage. Instead of workingnorthward till clear of the belt of trade-winds, he kept straight to theeast, and so spent a month in beating and tacking before getting out ofthe Caribbean Sea. Scarcity of food was imminent, and it becamenecessary to stop at Guadaloupe and make a quantity of cassavabread. [585] It was well that this was done, for as the ships workedslowly across the Atlantic, struggling against perpetual head-winds, theprovisions were at length exhausted, and by the first week in June thefamine was such that Columbus had some difficulty in preventing thecrews from eating their Indian captives, of whom there were thirty ormore on board. [586]

 [Footnote 584: Bartholomew's town was built on the left side of the river, and was called New Isabella. In 1504 it was destroyed by a hurricane, and rebuilt on the right bank in its present situation. It was then named San Domingo after the patron saint of Domenico, the father of Columbus. ]

 [Footnote 585: While the Spaniards were on this island they encountered a party of tall and powerful women armed with bows and arrows; so that Columbus supposed it must be the Asiatic island of Amazons mentioned by Marco Polo. See Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. Ii. Pp. 338-340. ]

 [Footnote 586: Among them was Caonabo, who died on the voyage. ]

[Sidenote: Edicts of 1495 and 1497. ]

At length, on the 11th of June, the haggard and starving company arrivedat Cadiz, and Columbus, while awaiting orders from the sovereigns, stayed at the house of his good friend Bernaldez, the curate of LosPalacios. [587] After a month he attended court at Burgos, and was kindlyreceived. No allusion was made to the complaints against him, and thesovereigns promised to furnish ships for a third voyage of discovery. For the moment, however, other things interfered with this enterprise. One was the marriage of the son and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabellato the daughter and son of the Emperor Maximilian. The war with Francewas at the same time fast draining the treasury. Indeed, for more thantwenty years, Castile had been at war nearly all the time, first withPortugal, next with Granada, then with France; and the crown never foundit easy to provide money for maritime enterprises. Accordingly, at theearnest solicitation of Vicente Yañez Pinzon and other enterprisingmariners, the sovereigns had issued a proclamation, April 10, 1495, granting to all native Spaniards the privilege of making, at their ownrisk and expense, voyages of discovery or traffic to the newly foundcoasts. As the crown was to take a pretty heavy tariff out of theprofits of these expeditions, while all losses were to be borne by theadventurers, a fairly certain source of revenue, be it great or small, seemed likely to be opened. [588] Columbus protested against this edict, inasmuch as he deemed himself entitled to a patent or monopoly in thework of conducting expeditions to Cathay. The sovereigns evaded thedifficulty by an edict of June 2, 1497, declaring that it was nevertheir intention "in any way to affect the rights of the said DonChristopher Columbus. " This declaration was, doubtless, intended simplyto pacify the Admiral. It did not prevent the authorization of voyagesconducted by other persons a couple of years later; and, as I shall showin the next chapter, there are strong reasons for believing that on May10, 1497, three weeks before this edict, an expedition sailed from Cadizunder the especial auspices of King Ferdinand, with Vicente Yañez Pinzonfor its chief commander and Americus Vespucius for one of its pilots. 

 [Footnote 587: The curate thus heard the story of the second voyage from Columbus himself while it was fresh in his mind. Columbus also left with him written memoranda, so that for the events of this expedition the _Historia de los Reyes Católicos_ is of the highest authority. ]

 [Footnote 588: "All vessels were to sail exclusively from the port of Cadiz, and under the inspection of officers appointed by the crown. Those who embarked for Hispaniola without pay, and at their own expense, were to have lands assigned to them, and to be provisioned for one year, with a right to retain such lands and all houses they might erect upon them. Of all gold which they might collect, they were to retain one third for themselves, and pay two thirds to the crown. Of all other articles of merchandise, the produce of the island, they were to pay merely one tenth to the crown. Their purchases were to be made in the presence of officers appointed by the sovereigns, and the royal duties paid into the hands of the king's receiver. Each ship sailing on private enterprise was to take one or two persons named by the royal officers at Cadiz. One tenth of the tonnage of the ship was to be at the service of the crown, free of charge. One tenth of whatever such ships should procure in the newly-discovered countries was to be paid to the crown on their return. These regulations included private ships trading to Hispaniola with provisions. For every vessel thus fitted out on private adventure, Columbus, in consideration of his privilege of an eighth of tonnage, was to have the right to freight one on his own account. " Irving's _Columbus_, vol. Ii. P. 76. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus loses his temper. ]

It was not until late in the spring of 1498 that the ships were readyfor Columbus. Everything that Fonseca could do to vex and delay him wasdone. One of the bishop's minions, a converted Moor or Jew named XimenoBreviesca, behaved with such outrageous insolence that on the day ofsailing the Admiral's indignation, so long restrained, at last brokeout, and he drove away the fellow with kicks and cuffs. [589] Thisimprudent act gave Fonseca the opportunity to maintain that what theAdmiral's accusers said about his tyrannical disposition must be true. 

 [Footnote 589: "Parece que uno debiera de, en estos reveses, y, por ventura, en palábras contra él y contra la negociacion destas Indias, mas que otro señalarse, y segun entendí, no debiera ser cristiano viejo, y creo que se llamaba Ximeno, contra el cual debió el Almirante gravemente sentirse y enojarse, y aguardó el dia que se hizo á la vela, y, ó en la nao que entró, por ventura, el dicho oficial, ó en tierra quando queria desembarcarse, arrebatólo el Almirante, y dále muchas coces ó remesones, por manera que lo trató mal; y á mi parecer, por esta causa principalmente, sobre otras quejas que fueron de acá, y cosas que murmuraron dél y contra él los que bien con él no estaban y le acumularon; los Reyes indignados proveyeron de quitarle la gobernacion. " Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, tom. Ii. P. 199. ]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: The third voyage. ]

The expedition started on May 30, 1498, from the little port of SanLucar de Barrameda. There were six ships, carrying about 200 men besidesthe sailors. On June 21, at the Isle of Ferro, the Admiral divided hisfleet, sending three ships directly to Hispaniola, while with the otherthree he kept on to the Cape Verde islands, whence he steered southweston the 4th of July. A week later, after a run of about 900 miles, hisastrolabe seemed to show that he was within five degrees of theequator. [590] There were three reasons for going so far to thesouth:--1, the natives of the islands already visited always pointedin that direction when gold was mentioned; 2, a learned jeweller, whohad travelled in the East, had assured Columbus that gold and gems, aswell as spices and rare drugs, were to be found for the most part amongblack people near the equator; 3, if he should not find any rich islandson the way, a sufficiently long voyage would bring him to the coast ofChampa (Cochin China) at a lower point than he had reached on thepreceding voyage, and nearer to the Golden Chersonese (Malacca), bydoubling which he could enter the Indian ocean. It will be rememberedthat he supposed the southwesterly curve in the Cuban coast, thefarthest point reached in his second voyage, to be the beginning of thecoast of Cochin China according to Marco Polo. 

 [Footnote 590: The figure given by Columbus is equivalent only to 360 geographical miles (Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. I. P. 246), but as Las Casas (_Hist. _ tom. Ii. P. 226) already noticed, there must be some mistake here, for on a S. W. Course from the Cape Verde islands it would require a distance of 900 geographical miles to cut the fifth parallel. From the weather that followed, it is clear that Columbus stated his latitude pretty correctly; he had come into the belt of calms. Therefore his error must be in the distance run. ]

[Sidenote: The belt of calms. ]

Once more through ignorance of the atmospheric conditions of the regionswithin the tropics Columbus encountered needless perils and hardships. If he had steered from Ferro straight across the ocean a trifle south ofwest-southwest, he might have made a quick and comfortable voyage, withthe trade-wind filling his sails, to the spot where he actually struckland. [591] As it was, however, he naturally followed the custom then socommon, of first running to the parallel upon which he intended to sail. This long southerly run brought him into the belt of calms or neutralzone between the northern and southern trade-winds, a little north ofthe equator. [592] No words can describe what followed so well as thoseof Irving: "The wind suddenly fell, and a dead sultry calm commenced, which lasted for eight days. The air was like a furnace; the tar melted, the seams of the ship yawned; the salt meat became putrid; the wheat wasparched as if with fire; the hoops shrank from the wine and water casks, some of which leaked and others burst, while the heat in the holds ofthe vessels was so suffocating that no one could remain below asufficient time to prevent the damage that was taking place. Themariners lost all strength and spirits, and sank under the oppressiveheat. It seemed as if the old fable of the torrid zone was about to berealized; and that they were approaching a fiery region where it wouldbe impossible to exist. "[593]

 [Footnote 591: Humboldt in 1799 did just this thing, starting from Teneriffe and reaching Trinidad in nineteen days. See Bruhn's _Life of Humboldt_, vol. I. P. 263. ]

 [Footnote 592: "The strength of the trade-winds depends entirely upon the difference in temperature between the equator and the pole; the greater the difference, the stronger the wind. Now, at the present time, the south pole is much colder than the north pole, and the southern trades are consequently much stronger than the northern, so that the neutral zone in which they meet lies some five degrees north of the equator. " _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, p. 64. ]

 [Footnote 593: Irving's _Columbus_, vol. Ii. P. 137. One is reminded of a scene in the _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_:--

 "All in a hot and copper sky The bloody sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon. 

 "Day after day, day after day, We stuck, --nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. "]

Fortunately, they were in a region where the ocean is comparativelynarrow. The longitude reached by Columbus on July 13, when the wind diedaway, must have been about 36° or 37° W. , and a run of only 800 mileswest from that point would have brought him to Cayenne. His coursebetween the 13th and 21st of July must have intersected the thermalequator, or line of greatest mean annual heat on the globe, --anirregular curve which is here deflected as much as five degrees north ofthe equinoctial line. But although there was not a breath of wind, thepowerful equatorial current was quietly driving the ships, much fasterthan the Admiral could have suspected, to the northwest and toward land. By the end of that stifling week they were in latitude 7° N. , and caughtthe trade-wind on the starboard quarter. Thence after a brisk run of tendays, in sorry plight, with ugly leaks and scarcely a cask of freshwater left, they arrived within sight of land. Three mountain peaksloomed up in the offing before them, and as they drew nearer it appearedthat those peaks belonged to one great mountain; wherefore the piousAdmiral named the island Trinidad. 

[Sidenote: Trinidad and the Orinoco. ]

Here some surprises were in store for Columbus. Instead of finding blackand woolly-haired natives, he found men of cinnamon hue, like those inHispaniola, only--strange to say--lighter in colour. Then in coastingTrinidad he caught a glimpse of land at the delta of the Orinoco, andcalled it Isla Santa, or Holy Island. [594] But, on passing into thegulf of Paria, through the strait which he named Serpent's Mouth, hisships were in sore danger of being swamped by the raging surge thatpoured from three or four of the lesser mouths of that stupendous river. Presently, finding that the water in the gulf was fresh to the taste, hegradually reasoned his way to the correct conclusion, that the billowswhich had so nearly overwhelmed him must have come out from a rivergreater than any he had ever known or dreamed of, and that so vast astream of running water could be produced only upon land of continentaldimensions. [595] This coast to the south of him was, therefore, thecoast of a continent, with indefinite extension toward the south, a landnot laid down upon Toscanelli's or any other map, and of which no onehad until that time known anything. [596]

 [Footnote 594: He "gave it the name of Isla Santa, " says Irving (vol. Ii. P. 140), "little imagining that he now, for the first time, beheld that continent, that Terra Firma, which had been the object of his earnest search. " The reader of this passage should bear in mind that the continent of South America, which nobody had ever heard of, was _not_ the object of Columbus's search. The Terra Firma which was the object of his search was the mainland of Asia, and that he never beheld, though he felt positively sure that he had already set foot upon it in 1492 and 1494. ]

 [Footnote 595: A modern traveller thus describes this river: "Right and left of us lay, at some distance off, the low banks of the Apuré, at this point quite a broad stream. But before us the waters spread out like a wide dark flood, limited on the horizon only by a low black streak, and here and there showing a few distant hills. This was the Orinoco, rolling with irrepressible power and majesty sea-wards, and often upheaving its billows like the ocean when lashed to fury by the wind. . . . The Orinoco sends a current of fresh water far into the ocean, its waters--generally green, but in the shallows milk-white--contrasting sharply with the indigo blue of the surrounding sea. " Bates, _Central America, the West Indies, and South America_, 2d ed. , London, 1882, pp. 234, 235. The island of Trinidad forms an obstacle to the escape of this huge volume of fresh water, and hence the furious commotion at the two outlets, the Serpent's Mouth and Dragon's Mouth, especially in July and August, when the Orinoco is swollen with tropical rains. ]

 [Footnote 596: In Columbus's own words, in his letter to the sovereigns describing this third voyage, "Y digo que . . . Viene este rio y procede de tierra infinita, pues al austro, de la cual fasta agora no se ha habido noticia. " Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. I. P. 262. ]

[Illustration: Discoveries made by Columbus in his third and fourthvoyages. ]

[Sidenote: Speculations as to the earth's shape. ]

[Sidenote: The mountain of Paradise. ]

In spite of the correctness of this surmise, Columbus was still as farfrom a true interpretation of the whole situation as when he supposedHispaniola to be Ophir. He entered upon a series of speculations whichforcibly remind us how empirical was the notion of the earth's rotunditybefore the inauguration of physical astronomy by Galileo, Kepler, andNewton. We now know that our planet has the only shape possible for sucha rotating mass that once was fluid or nebulous, the shape of a spheroidslightly protuberant at the equator and flattened at the poles; but thisknowledge is the outcome of mechanical principles utterly unknown andunsuspected in the days of Columbus. He understood that the earth is around body, but saw no necessity for its being strictly spherical orspheroidal. He now suggested that it was probably shaped like a pear, rather a blunt and corpulent pear, nearly spherical in its lower part, but with a short, stubby apex in the equatorial region somewhere beyondthe point which he had just reached. He fancied he had been sailing up agentle slope from the burning glassy sea where his ships had beenbecalmed to this strange and beautiful coast where he found the climateenchanting. If he were to follow up the mighty river just now revealed, it might lead him to the summit of this apex of the world, the placewhere the terrestrial paradise, the Garden which the Lord plantedeastward in Eden, was in all probability situated![597]

 [Footnote 597: Thus would be explained the astounding force with which the water was poured down. It was common in the Middle Ages to imagine the terrestrial paradise at the top of a mountain. See Dante, _Purgatorio_, canto xxviii. Columbus quotes many authorities in favour of his opinion. The whole letter is worth reading. See Navarrete, tom. I. Pp. 242-264. ]

[Sidenote: Relation of the "Eden continent" to "Cochin China. "]

As Columbus still held to the opinion that by keeping to the west fromthat point he should soon reach the coast of Cochin China, hisconception of the position of Eden is thus pretty clearly indicated. Heimagined it as situated about on the equator, upon a continental masstill then unknown, but evidently closely connected with the continent ofAsia if not a part of it. If he had lived long enough to hear of Quitoand its immense elevation, I should suppose that might very well havesuited his idea of the position of Eden. The coast of this continent, upon which he had now arrived, was either continuous with the coast ofCochin China (Cuba) and Malacca, or would be found to be divided from itby a strait through which one might pass directly into the Indian ocean. 

[Sidenote: The Pearl Coast. ]

[Sidenote: Arrival at San Domingo. ]

It took some little time for this theory to come to maturity in the mindof Columbus. Not expecting to find any mainland in that quarter, hebegan by calling different points of the coast different islands. Comingout through the passage which he named Dragon's Mouth, he caught distantglimpses of Tobago and Grenada to starboard, and turning westwardfollowed the Pearl Coast as far as the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. The fine pearls which he found there in abundance confirmed him in thegood opinion he had formed of that country. By this time, the 15th ofAugust, he had so far put facts together as to become convinced of thecontinental character of that coast, and would have been glad to pursueit westward. But now his strength gave out. During most of the voyage hehad suffered acute torments with gout, his temperature had been veryfeverish, and his eyes were at length so exhausted with perpetualwatching that he could no longer make observations. So he left the coasta little beyond Cubagua, and steered straight for Hispaniola, aiming atSan Domingo, but hitting the island of Beata because he did not makeallowance for the westerly flow of the currents. He arrived at SanDomingo on the 30th of August, and found his brother Bartholomew, whomhe intended to send at once on a further cruise along the Pearl Coast, while he himself should be resting and recovering strength. 

[Sidenote: Roldan's rebellion. ]

[Sidenote: Fonseca's machinations. ]

But alas! there was to be no cruising now for the younger brother norrest for the elder. It was a sad story that Bartholomew had to tell. Warwith the Indians had broken out afresh, and while the Adelantado wasengaged in this business a scoundrel named Roldan had taken advantage ofhis absence to stir up civil strife. Roldan's rebellion was a result ofthe ill-advised mission of Aguado. The malcontents in the colonyinterpreted the Admiral's long stay in Spain as an indication that hehad lost favour with the sovereigns and was not coming back to theisland. Gathering together a strong body of rebels, Roldan retired toXaragua and formed an alliance with the brother of the late chieftainCaonabo. By the time the Admiral arrived the combination of mutiny withbarbaric warfare had brought about a frightful state of things. A partyof soldiers, sent by him to suppress Roldan, straightway deserted andjoined that rebel. It thus became necessary to come to terms withRoldan, and this revelation of the weakness of the government only madematters worse. Two wretched years were passed in attempts to restoreorder in Hispaniola, while the work of discovery and exploration waspostponed. Meanwhile the items of information that found their way toSpain were skilfully employed by Fonseca in poisoning the minds of thesovereigns, until at last they decided to send out a judge to theisland, armed with plenary authority to make investigations and settledisputes. The glory which Columbus had won by the first news of thediscovery of the Indies had now to some extent faded away. Theenterprise yielded as yet no revenue and entailed great expense; andwhenever some reprobate found his way back to Spain, the maliciousFonseca prompted him to go to the treasury with a claim for pay allegedto have been wrongfully withheld by the Admiral. Ferdinand Columbustells how some fifty such scamps were gathered one day in the courtyardof the Alhambra, cursing his father and catching hold of the king'srobe, crying, "Pay us! pay us!" and as he and his brother Diego, whowere pages in the queen's service, happened to pass by, they weregreeted with hoots:--"There go the sons of the Admiral of Mosquito-land, the man who has discovered a land of vanity and deceit, the grave ofSpanish gentlemen!"[598]

 [Footnote 598: "Ecco i figliuoli dell' Ammiraglio de' Mosciolini, di colui che ha trovate terre di vanitá e d' inganno, per sepoltura e miseria de' gentiluomini castigliani. " _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lxxxiv. ]

[Sidenote: Gama's voyage to Hindustan, 1497. ]

An added sting was given to such taunts by a great event that happenedabout this time. In the summer of 1497, Vasco da Gama started fromLisbon for the Cape of Good Hope, and in the summer of 1499 he returned, after having doubled the cape and crossed the Indian ocean to Calicut onthe Malabar coast of Hindustan. His voyage was the next Portuguese stepsequent upon that of Bartholomew Dias. There was nothing questionable ordubious about Gama's triumph. He had seen splendid cities, talked with apowerful Rajah, and met with Arab vessels, their crews madly jealous atthe unprecedented sight of Christian ships in those waters; and hebrought back with him to Lisbon nutmegs and cloves, pepper and ginger, rubies and emeralds, damask robes with satin linings, bronze chairs withcushions, trumpets of carved ivory, a sunshade of crimson satin, a swordin a silver scabbard, and no end of such gear. [599] An old civilizationhad been found and a route of commerce discovered, and a factory was tobe set up at once on that Indian coast. What a contrast to the miserableperformance of Columbus, who had started with the flower of Spain'schivalry for rich Cipango, and had only led them to a land where theymust either starve or do work fit for peasants, while he spent his timein cruising among wild islands! The king of Portugal could now snap hisfingers at Ferdinand and Isabella, and if a doubt should have sometimescrossed the minds of those chagrined sovereigns, as to whether thisplausible Genoese mariner might not, after all, be a humbug or a crazyenthusiast, we can hardly wonder at it. 

 [Footnote 599: Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, pp. 398-401. ]

[Sidenote: Fonseca's creature, Bobadilla. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus in chains. ]

The person sent to investigate the affairs of Hispaniola was Franciscode Bobadilla, a knight commander of the order of Calatrava. He carriedseveral documents, one of them directing him to make inquiries andpunish offenders, another containing his appointment as governor, athird commanding Columbus and his brothers to surrender to him allfortresses and other public property. [600] The two latter papers were tobe used only in case of such grave misconduct proved against Columbus asto justify his removal from the government. These papers were made outin the spring of 1499, but Bobadilla was not sent out until July, 1500. When he arrived at San Domingo on the 23d of August, the insurrectionhad been suppressed; the Admiral and Bartholomew were bringing thingsinto order in distant parts of the island, while Diego was left incommand at San Domingo. Seven ringleaders had just been hanged, and fivemore were in prison under sentence of death. If Bobadilla had not comeupon the scene this wholesome lesson might have worked some improvementin affairs. [601] He destroyed its moral in a twinkling. The first dayafter landing, he read aloud, at the church door, the paper directinghim to make inquiries and punish offenders; and forthwith demanded ofDiego Columbus that the condemned prisoners should be delivered up tohim. Diego declined to take so important a step until he could getorders from the Admiral. Next day Bobadilla read his second and thirdpapers, proclaimed himself governor, called on Diego to surrender thefortress and public buildings, and renewed his demand for the prisoners. As Diego still hesitated to act before news of these proceedings couldbe sent to his brother, Bobadilla broke into the fortress, took theprisoners out, and presently set them free. All the rebellious spiritsin the colony were thus drawn to the side of Bobadilla, whose royalcommission, under such circumstances, gave him irresistible power. Hethrew Diego into prison and loaded him with fetters. He seized theAdmiral's house, and confiscated all his personal property, evenincluding his business papers and private letters. When the Admiralarrived in San Domingo, Bobadilla, without even waiting to see him, sentan officer to put him in irons and take him to prison. When Bartholomewarrived, he received the same treatment. The three brothers wereconfined in different places, nobody was allowed to visit them, andthey were not informed of the offences with which they were charged. While they lay in prison, Bobadilla busied himself with inventing anexcuse for this violent behaviour. Finally he hit upon one at whichSatan from the depths of his bottomless pit must have grimly smiled. Hesaid that he had arrested and imprisoned the brothers only because hehad reason to believe they were inciting the Indians to aid them inresisting the commands of Ferdinand and Isabella!! In short, from theday of his landing Bobadilla made common cause with the insurgentrabble, and when they had furnished him with a ream or so of chargesagainst the Admiral and his brothers, it seemed safe to send thesegentlemen to Spain. They were put on board ship, with their fetters uponthem, and the officer in charge was instructed by Bobadilla to deliverthem into the hands of Bishop Fonseca, who was thus to have theprivilege of glutting to the full his revengeful spite. 

 [Footnote 600: The documents are given in Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. Ii. Pp. 235-240; and, with accompanying narrative, in Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. Ii. Pp. 472-487. ]

 [Footnote 601: No better justification for the government of the brothers Columbus can be found than to contrast it with the infinitely worse state of affairs that ensued under the administrations of Bobadilla and Ovando. See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 442-446. ]

[Sidenote: Return to Spain. ]

[Sidenote: Release of Columbus. ]

The master of the ship, shocked at the sight of fetters upon such a manas the Admiral, would have taken them off, but Columbus would not let itbe done. No, indeed! they should never come off except by order of thesovereigns, and then he would keep them for the rest of his life, toshow how his labours had been rewarded. [602] The event--which alwaysjustifies true manliness--proved the sagacity of this proud demeanour. Fonseca was baulked of his gratification. The clumsy Bobadilla hadoverdone the business. The sight of the Admiral's stately and venerablefigure in chains, as he passed through the streets of Cadiz, on aDecember day of that year 1500, awakened a popular outburst of sympathyfor him and indignation at his persecutors. While on the ship he hadwritten or dictated a beautiful and touching letter[603] to a lady ofwhom the queen was fond, the former nurse of the Infante, whose untimelydeath, three years since, his mother was still mourning. This letterreached the court at Granada, and was read to the queen before she hadheard of Bobadilla's performances from any other quarter. A courier wassent in all haste to Cadiz, with orders that the brothers should at oncebe released, and with a letter to the Admiral, inviting him to court andenclosing an order for money to cover his expenses. The scene in theAlhambra, when Columbus arrived, is one of the most touching in history. Isabella received him with tears in her eyes, and then thismuch-enduring old man, whose proud and masterful spirit had so long beenproof against all wrongs and insults, broke down. He threw himself atthe feet of the sovereigns in an agony of tears and sobs. [604]

 [Footnote 602: Las Casas, _Hist. De las Indias_, tom. Ii. P. 501; F. Columbus, _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lxxxv. Ferdinand adds that he had often seen these fetters hanging in his father's room. ]

 [Footnote 603: It is given in full in Las Casas, _op. Cit. _ tom. Ii. Pp. 502-510. ]

 [Footnote 604: Herrera, _Historia_, dec. I. Lib. Iv. Cap. 10. ]

[Sidenote: How far were the sovereigns responsible for Bobadilla?]

How far the sovereigns should be held responsible for the behaviour oftheir agent is not altogether easy to determine. The appointment of sucha creature as Bobadilla was a sad blunder, but one such as is liable tobe made under any government. Fonseca was very powerful at court, andBobadilla never would have dared to proceed as he did if he had notknown that the bishop would support him. Indeed, from the indecent hastewith which he went about his work, without even the pretence of ajudicial inquiry, it is probable that he started with privateinstructions from that quarter. But, while Fonseca had some of thewisdom along with the venom of the serpent, Bobadilla was simply ajackass, and behaved so that in common decency the sovereigns wereobliged to disown him. They took no formal or public notice of hiswritten charges against the Admiral, and they assured the latter that heshould be reimbursed for his losses and restored to his viceroyalty andother dignities. 

[Sidenote: Ovando, another creature of Fonseca, appointed governor ofHispaniola. ]

This last promise, however, was not fulfilled; partly, perhaps, becauseFonseca's influence was still strong enough to prevent it, partlybecause the sovereigns may have come to the sound and reasonableconclusion that for the present there was no use in committing thegovernment of that disorderly rabble in Hispaniola to a foreigner. Whatwas wanted was a Spanish priest, and a military priest withal, of thesort that Spain then had in plenty. Obedience to priests came natural toSpaniards. The man now selected was Nicolas de Ovando, a knightcommander of the order of Alcántara, of whom we shall have more to sayhereafter. [605] Suffice it now to observe that he proved himself afamous disciplinarian, and that he was a great favourite with Fonseca, to whom he seems to have owed his appointment. He went out in February, 1502, with a fleet of thirty ships carrying 2, 500 persons, for thependulum of public opinion had taken another swing, and faith in theIndies was renewed. Some great discoveries, to be related in the nextchapter, had been made since 1498; and, moreover, the gold mines ofHispaniola were beginning to yield rich treasures. 

 [Footnote 605: See below, vol. Ii. Pp. 435-446. ]

[Sidenote: Purpose of Columbus's fourth voyage. ]

But, while the sovereigns were not disposed to restore Columbus to hisviceroyalty, they were quite ready to send him on another voyage ofdiscovery which was directly suggested by the recent Portuguese voyageof Gama. Since nothing was yet known about the discovery of a New World, the achievement of Gama seemed to have eclipsed that of Columbus. Spainmust make a response to Portugal. As already observed, the Admiralsupposed the coast of his "Eden continent" (South America) either to becontinuous with the coast of Cochin China (Cuba) and Malacca, or else tobe divided from that coast by a strait. The latter opinion was the moreprobable, since Marco Polo and a few other Europeans had sailed fromChina into the Indian ocean without encountering any great continentthat had to be circumnavigated. The recent expedition of Vespucius andOjeda (1499-1500) had followed the northern coast of South America for along distance to the west of Cubagua, as far as the gulf of Maracaibo. Columbus now decided to return to the coast of Cochin China (Cuba) andfollow the coast southwestward until he should find the passage betweenhis Eden continent and the Golden Chersonese (Malacca) into the Indianocean. He would thus be able to reach by this western route the sameshores of Hindustan which Gama had lately reached by sailing eastward. So confident did he feel of the success of this enterprise, that hewrote a letter to Pope Alexander VI. , renewing his vow to furnish troopsfor the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. [606] It was no doubt the symptomof a reaction against his misfortunes that he grew more and moremystical in these days, consoling himself with the belief that he was achosen instrument in the hands of Providence for enlarging the bounds ofChristendom. In this mood he made some studies on the prophecies, afterthe fantastic fashion of his time, [607] and a habit grew upon him ofattributing his discoveries to miraculous inspiration rather than to thegood use to which his poetical and scientific mind had put the datafurnished by Marco Polo and the ancient geographers. 

 [Footnote 606: Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. Ii. Pp. 280-282. ]

 [Footnote 607: The MS. Volume of notes on the prophecies is in the Colombina. There is a description of it in Navarrete, tom. Ii. Pp. 260-273. ]

[Sidenote: Crossing the Atlantic. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus not allowed to stop at San Domingo. ]

The armament for the Admiral's fourth and last voyage consisted of foursmall caravels, of from fifty to seventy tons burthen, with crewsnumbering, all told, 150 men. His brother Bartholomew, and his youngerson Ferdinand, then a boy of fourteen, accompanied him. They sailed fromCadiz on the 11th of May, 1502, and finally left the Canaries behind onthe 26th of the same month. The course chosen was the same as on thesecond voyage, and the unfailing trade-winds brought the ships on the15th of June to an island called Mantinino, probably Martinique, notmore than ten leagues distant from Dominica. The Admiral had beeninstructed not to touch at Hispaniola upon his way out, probably forfear of further commotions there until Ovando should have succeeded inbringing order out of the confusion ten times worse confounded intowhich Bobadilla's misgovernment had thrown that island. Columbus mightstop there on his return, but not on his outward voyage. His intentionhad, therefore, been, on reaching the cannibal islands, to steer forJamaica, thence make the short run to "Cochin China, " and then turnsouthwards. But as one of his caravels threatened soon to becomeunmanageable, he thought himself justified in touching at San Domingolong enough to hire a sound vessel in place of her. Ovando had assumedthe government there in April, and a squadron of 26 or 28 ships, containing Roldan and Bobadilla, with huge quantities of gold wrung fromthe enslaved Indians, was ready to start for Spain about the end ofJune. In one of these ships were 4, 000 pieces of gold destined forColumbus, probably a part of the reimbursement that had been promisedhim. On the 29th of June the Admiral arrived in the harbour and statedthe nature of his errand. At the same time, as his practised eye haddetected the symptoms of an approaching hurricane, he requestedpermission to stay in the harbour until it should be over, and hefurthermore sent to the commander of the fleet a friendly warning not toventure out to sea at present. His requests and his warnings were aliketreated with contumely. He was ordered to leave the harbour, and did soin great indignation. As his first care was for the approaching tempest, he did not go far but found safe anchorage in a sheltered and secludedcove, where his vessels rode the storm with difficulty but withoutserious damage. Meanwhile the governor's great fleet had rashly put outto sea, and was struck with fatal fury by wind and wave. Twenty or moreships went to the bottom, with Bobadilla, Roldan, and most of theAdmiral's principal enemies, besides all the ill-gotten treasure; fiveor six shattered caravels, unable to proceed, found their way back toSan Domingo; of all the fleet, only one ship arrived safe and sound inSpain, and that, says Ferdinand, was the one that had on board hisfather's gold. Truly it was such an instance of poetical justice as onedoes not often witness in this world. "We will not inquire now, " saysLas Casas, who witnessed the affair, "into this remarkable divinejudgment, for at the last day of the world it will be made quite clearto us. "[608] If such judgments were more often visited upon the rightpersons, perhaps the ways of Providence would not have so generally cometo be regarded as inscrutable. 

 [Footnote 608: "Aqueste tan gran juicio de Dios no curemos de escudriñallo, pues en el dia final deste mundo nos será bien claro. " _Hist. Do las Indias_, tom. Iii. P. 32; cf. _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lxxxvii. As Las Casas was then in San Domingo, having come out in Ovando's fleet, and as Ferdinand Columbus was with his father, the testimony is very direct. ]

[Sidenote: Arrival at Cape Honduras. ]

The hurricane was followed by a dead calm, during which the Admiral'sships were carried by the currents into the group of tiny islands calledthe Queen's Gardens, on the south side of Cuba. With the firstfavourable breeze he took a southwesterly course, in order to strikethat Cochin-Chinese coast farther down toward the Malay peninsula. Thisbrought him directly to the island of Guanaja and to Cape Honduras, which he thus reached without approaching the Yucatan channel. [609]

 [Footnote 609: In the next chapter I shall give some reasons for supposing that the Admiral had learned the existence of the Yucatan channel from the pilot Ledesma, coupled with information which made it unlikely that a passage into the Indian ocean would be found that way. See below, vol. Ii. P. 92. ]

[Sidenote: Cape Gracias a Dios. ]

Upon the Honduras coast the Admiral found evidences of semi-civilizationwith which he was much elated, --such as copper knives and hatchets, pottery of skilled and artistic workmanship, and cotton garments finelywoven and beautifully dyed. Here the Spaniards first tasted the_chicha_, or maize beer, and marvelled at the heavy clubs, armed withsharp blades of obsidian, with which the soldiers of Cortes were by andby to become unpleasantly acquainted. The people here wore cottonclothes, and, according to Ferdinand, the women covered themselves ascarefully as the Moorish women of Granada. [610] On inquiring as to thesources of gold and other wealth, the Admiral was now referred to thewest, evidently to Yucatan and Guatemala, or, as he supposed, to theneighbourhood of the Ganges. Evidently the way to reach these countrieswas to keep the land on the starboard and search for the passagebetween the Eden continent and the Malay peninsula. [611] This course atfirst led Columbus eastward for a greater number of leagues than hecould have relished. Wind and current were dead against him, too; andwhen, after forty days of wretched weather, he succeeded in doubling thecape which marks on that coast the end of Honduras and the beginning ofNicaragua, and found it turning square to the south, it was doubtlessjoy at this auspicious change of direction, as well as the sudden relieffrom head-winds, that prompted him to name that bold prominence CapeGracias a Dios, or Thanks to God. 

 [Footnote 610: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lxxxviii. ]

 [Footnote 611: Irving (vol. Ii. Pp. 386, 387) seems to think it strange that Columbus did not at once turn westward and circumnavigate Yucatan. But if--as Irving supposed--Columbus had not seen the Yucatan channel, and regarded the Honduras coast as continuous with that of Cuba, he could only expect by turning westward to be carried back to Cape Alpha and Omega, where he had already been twice before! In the next chapter, however, I shall show that Columbus may have shaped his course in accordance with the advice of the pilot Ledesma. ]

[Sidenote: The coast of Veragua. ]

[Sidenote: Fruitless search for the Strait of Malacca. ]

[Sidenote: Futile attempt to make a settlement. ]

[Sidenote: Columbus shipwrecked. ]

As the ships proceeded southward in the direction of Veragua, evidencesof the kind of semi-civilization which we recognize as characteristic ofthat part of aboriginal America grew more and more numerous. Greathouses were seen, built of "stone and lime, " or perhaps of rubble stonewith adobe mortar. Walls were adorned with carvings and pictographs. Mummies were found in a good state of preservation. There were signs ofabundant gold; the natives wore plates of it hung by cotton cords abouttheir necks, and were ready to exchange pieces worth a hundred ducatsfor tawdry European trinkets. From these people Columbus heard what weshould call the first "news of the Pacific Ocean, " though it had no suchmeaning to his mind. From what he heard he understood that he was on theeast side of a peninsula, and that there was another sea on the otherside, by gaining which he might in ten days reach the mouth of theGanges. [612] By proceeding on his present course he would soon come to a"narrow place" between the two seas. There was a curious equivocationhere. No doubt the Indians were honest and correct in what they tried totell Columbus. But by the "narrow place" they meant narrow land, notnarrow water; not a strait which connected but an isthmus which dividedthe two seas, not the Strait of Malacca, but the Isthmus of Darien![613]Columbus, of course, understood them to mean the strait for which he waslooking, and in his excitement at approaching the long-expected goal hepressed on without waiting to verify the reports of gold mines in theneighbourhood, a thing that could be done at any time. [614] By the 5thof December, however, having reached a point on the isthmus, a fewleagues east of Puerto Bello, without finding the strait, he yielded tothe remonstrances of the crews, and retraced his course to Veragua. Ifthe strait could not be found, the next best tidings to carry home toSpain would be the certain information of the discovery of gold mines, and it was decided to make a settlement here which might serve as a basefor future operations. Three months of misery followed. Many of theparty were massacred by the Indians, the stock of food was nearlyexhausted, and the ships were pierced by worms until it was feared therewould be no means left for going home. Accordingly, it was decided toabandon the enterprise and return to Hispaniola. [615] In order to allowfor the strong westerly currents in the Caribbean sea, the Admiral firstsailed eastward almost to the gulf of Darien, and then turned to thenorth. The allowance was not enough, however. The ships were againcarried into the Queen's Gardens, where they were caught in a storm andnearly beaten to pieces. At length, on St. John's eve, June 23, 1503, the crazy wrecks--now full of water and unable to sail anotherleague--were beached on the coast of Jamaica and converted into a sortof rude fortress; and while two trusty men were sent over to San Domingoin a canoe, to obtain relief, Columbus and his party remainedshipwrecked in Jamaica. They waited there a whole year before it provedpossible to get any relief from Ovando. He was a slippery knave, whoknew how to deal out promises without taking the first step towardfulfilment. 

 [Footnote 612: Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. I. P. 299. ]

 [Footnote 613: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Lxxxix. ; Humboldt, _Examen Critique_, tom. I. P. 350. ]

 [Footnote 614: "Nothing could evince more clearly his generous ambition than hurrying in this brief manner along a coast where wealth was to be gathered at every step, for the purpose of seeking a strait which, however it might produce vast benefit to mankind, could yield little else to himself than the glory of the discovery. " Irving's _Columbus_, vol. Ii. P. 406. In this voyage, however, the express purpose from the start was to find the strait of Malacca as a passage to the very same regions which had been visited by Gama, and Columbus expected thus to get wealth enough to equip an army of Crusaders. Irving's statement does not correctly describe the Admiral's purpose, and as savouring of misplaced eulogy, is sure to provoke a reaction on the part of captious critics. ]

 [Footnote 615: A graphic account of these scenes, in which he took part, is given by Ferdinand Columbus, _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. Xciii. -cvi. ]

[Sidenote: A year of misery. ]

[Sidenote: Last return to Spain. ]

It was a terrible year that Columbus spent upon the wild coast ofJamaica. To all the horrors inseparable from such a situation there wasadded the horror of mutiny. The year did not end until there had been apitched battle, in which the doughty Bartholomew was, as usual, victorious. The ringleader was captured, and of the other mutineers suchas were not slain in the fight were humbled and pardoned. At lengthOvando's conduct began to arouse indignation in San Domingo, and wasopenly condemned from the pulpit; so that, late in June, 1504, he sentover to Jamaica a couple of ships which brought away the Admiral and hisstarving party. Ovando greeted the brothers Columbus with his customaryhypocritical courtesy, which they well understood. During the past yearthe island of Hispaniola had been the scene of atrocities such as havescarcely been surpassed in history. I shall give a brief account of themin a future chapter. Columbus was not cheered by what he saw and heard, and lost no time in starting for Spain. On the 7th of November, 1504, after a tempestuous voyage and narrow escape from shipwreck, he landedat San Lucar de Barrameda and made his way to Seville. Queen Isabellawas then on her death-bed, and breathed her last just nineteen dayslater. 

[Sidenote: Death of Columbus. ]

The death of the queen deprived Columbus of the only protector who couldstand between him and Fonseca. The reimbursement for the wrongs which hehad suffered at that man's hands was never made. The last eighteenmonths of the Admiral's life were spent in sickness and poverty. Accumulated hardship and disappointment had broken him down, and he diedon Ascension day, May 20, 1506, at Valladolid. So little heed was takenof his passing away that the local annals of that city, "which givealmost every insignificant event from 1333 to 1539, day by day, do notmention it. "[616] His remains were buried in the Franciscan monastery atValladolid, whence they were removed in 1513 to the monastery of LasCuevas, at Seville, where the body of his son Diego, second Admiral andViceroy of the Indies, was buried in 1526. Ten years after this date, the bones of father and son were removed to Hispaniola, to the cathedralof San Domingo; whence they have since been transferred to Havana. Theresult of so many removals has been to raise doubts as to whether theashes now reposing at Havana are really those of Columbus and his son;and over this question there has been much critical discussion, of asort that we may cheerfully leave to those who like to spend their timeover such trivialities. 

 [Footnote 616: Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, New York, 1866, p. 73. ]

[Sidenote: "Nuevo Mundo. "]

There is a tradition that Ferdinand and Isabella, at some dateunspecified, had granted to Columbus, as a legend for his coat-of-arms, the noble motto:--

 Á Castilla y á Leon Nuevo mundo dió Colon, _i. E. _ "To Castile-and-Leon Columbus gave a New World;" and we arefurther told that, when the Admiral's bones were removed to Seville, this motto was, by order of King Ferdinand, inscribed upon histomb. [617] This tradition crumbles under the touch of historicalcriticism. The Admiral's coat-of-arms, as finally emblazoned under hisown inspection at Seville in 1502, quarters the royal Castle-and-Lion ofthe kingdom of Castile with his own devices of five anchors, and a groupof golden islands with a bit of Terra Firma, upon a blue sea. But thereis no legend of any sort, nor is anything of the kind mentioned by LasCasas or Bernaldez or Peter Martyr. The first allusion to such a mottois by Oviedo, in 1535, who gives it a somewhat different turn:--

 Por Castilla y por Leon Nuevo mundo halló Colon, _i. E. _ "For Castile-and-Leon Columbus found a New World. " But the otherform is no doubt the better, for Ferdinand Columbus, at some time notlater than 1537, had adopted it, and it may be read to-day upon his tombin the cathedral at Seville. The time-honoured tradition has evidentlytransferred to the father the legend adopted, if not originallydevised, by his son. 

 [Footnote 617: _Vita del Ammiraglio_, cap. Cvii. This is unquestionably a gloss of the translator Ulloa. Cf. Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom. Ii. Pp. 177-179. ]

[Illustration: Arms. ]

But why is this mere question of heraldry a matter of importance for thehistorian? Simply because it furnishes one of the most striking amongmany illustrations of the fact that at no time during the life ofColumbus, nor for some years after his death, did anybody use the phrase"New World" with conscious reference to _his_ discoveries. At the timeof his death their true significance had not yet begun to dawn upon themind of any voyager or any writer. It was supposed that he had found anew route to the Indies by sailing west, and that in the course of thisachievement he had discovered some new islands and a bit or bits ofTerra Firma of more or less doubtful commercial value. To group theseitems of discovery into an organic whole, and to ascertain that theybelonged to a whole quite distinct from the Old World, required the workof many other discoverers, companions and successors to Columbus. In thefollowing chapter I shall endeavour to show how the conception of theNew World was thus originated and at length became developed into theform with which we are now familiar. 

[Illustration: Sketch of Toscanelli's map, sent to Portugal in 1474, andused by Columbus in his first voyage across the Atlantic. ]

[Illustration: Claudius Ptolemy's world, cir. A. D. 150. ]

[Illustration: John Fiske. ]