CHAPTER III.

1474-1492.

THE Success attending the voyages of the Portuguese along the coast of Africa suggested to Cristoforo Colombo (or Christopher Columbus, as he is more commonly called by those speaking English), the possibility of sailing by a shorter way to India in another direction. Ferdinand Columbus, in his history of the life and achievements of his father, makes no attempt to

1 Cristoforo Colombo was born in the city of Genoa, about the year 1435. His father, Dominico Colombo, was a wool-comber. The navigator married, in Lisbon, Doña Felipa, the daughter of Bartolomeo Moñis de Perestrello, a distinguished mariner, who had been in the service of Prince Henry of Portugal.

Ferdinand Columbus, in his history of the life and achievements of his father, remarks: "So it is that some, who would cast a cloud upon his fame, say he was of Nervi, others of Cugureo, and others of Bugiesco, all small towns near the city of Genoa, and upon its coast. Others, who wish to exalt him, say he was a native of Savona, others of Genoa, and others, more vain, make him of Piacenza, in which city there are some honorable persons of his family and tombs with the arms and inscriptions of the family of Colombi, this being the common surname of his ancestors, though he, complying with the customs of the country where he went to live and begin a new condition of life, altered the word that it might be like the old name, and designated the direct from the collateral line, calling himself Colon. And the surname of Colon

which he revived was appropriate, which in Greek signifies a member, and his Christian name being Christopher, designate him as being a member of Christ, by whom salvation was conveyed to those Indian people."-Histoire del Signore Don Fernando Colombo. cap. I.

'Fernando Colombo, an illegitimate son of the admiral, was born in Cor, dova about the year 1487. After his father's discovery of the New World, he was made page to Prince Juan, the son of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He accompanied his father in his fourth voyage, in 1502, and after the latter's death, sailed twice to the West Indies. He was excellently educated, and was the author of several works. His library, it is said, contained more than twenty thousand books and manuscripts, which, after his death, became the property of the cathedral of Seville. The manuscript of his history of the life of his

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conceal this fact from publicity. With an apparent intention to give all the information which might be desired concerning the great discoverer's first thoughts respecting the practicability of reaching Asia by sailing in a westerly direction, he frankly tells what originated them in the mind of the admiral. "As one thing leads to another, and one thought to another, in this way, while the admiral was in Portugal, he began to infer that as the Portuguese sailed so far southward, it was also feasible to steer westward, and that land might likely be found in this direction. In order to be more assured and satisfied in this matter, he began to review the cosmographies which he had read, and to note what astronomical reasons would support this theory.' That

father was lost before the work appeared in Spanish. It is said that Luis Colon, duke of Veragua, a dissipated grandson of the navigator, went to Genoa about the year 1568, taking Fernando's manuscript with him, and placed it in the hands of Baltano de Fornari, by whom it was transferred to Giorgio Baptista Marini, who had it translated into Italian, after which it was printed in Venice in this language, and also in Latin. Alfonso de Ulloa's Italian translation of it was published, in Venice, in 1571, entitled Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo ; nelli quali s' ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de 'fatti dell'Ammiraglio D. Cristoforo Colombo, suo padre. There are several English translations of Fernando Colombo's history. Vide Collection of voyages and travels by [A. & J.] Churchhill. London, 1732. vol. ii. pp. 499–628. Pinkerton's Collection of voyages and travels. London, 1819. vol. ii. pp. 1-155.

'Columbus, in his investigations, no doubt, became informed concerning the arguments advanced by the Greek astronomer, Anaximander, in the sixth century before the Christian era, respecting the globular form of the earth. He evidently read what Aristotle wrote in the fifth century of the Christian era: "As to the figure of the earth, it must necessarily be spherical. * * * And, moreover, from the visible phenomena, for if it were not so, the eclipses of the moon would not have such sections as they have. For in the configurations in the course of a month, the deficient part takes all different shapes; it is straight, and concave, and convex ; but in eclipses it always has the line of division convex; wherefore, since the moon is eclipsed in consequence of the interposition of the earth, the periphery of the earth must be the cause of this by having a spherical form. And again, from the appearance of the stars, it is clear not only that the earth is round, but that its size is not very great; for when we go a little distance to the south or to the north, the circle of the horizon becomes palpably different, so that the stars overheard undergo a great change, and are not the same to those that travel to the north and to the south. For some stars are seen

he might be more enlightened concerning his assumption, he paid attention to what was said by people respecting it, especially by seamen. His diligent investigations soon led him to conclude that there were many lands west of the Canaries and the Cape Verd Islands, and that it was practicable to sail to and discover them." :

The remarkable aptitude displayed by Columbus in forming his conclusions that the Atlantic Ocean was navigable, and that ships might pass across its unexplored expanse to Cathay, was the natural expression of his peculiar passion for geographical knowledge. In a letter written to their Spanish majesties, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, in 1501, he says: "I went to sea when quite young, and have continued my seafaring until now; and this profession makes those who follow it eager to discover the secrets of this globe. It is now forty years that I have been sailing to all those places which are at present visited, and I have dealt and talked with learned people, ecclesiastics as well as laymen, Latins, Greeks, Indians, Moors, and many other people of different nations, and our Lord has favored this inclination, and I have received from him in Egypt and at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries north of them; and the stars that in the north are visible while they make a complete circuit there [in Egypt and at Cyprus], undergo a setting. So that from this it is manifest, not only that the form of the earth is round, but also that it is not a very large sphere; for otherwise the difference would not be so obvious to persons making so small a change of place. Wherefore we may judge that those persons who connect the region in the neighborhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that toward India, and who assert that in this way the sea is one, do not assert things very improbable. They confirm this conjecture, moreover, by elephants, which are said to be of the same species toward each extreme of the earth, as if this circumstance was a consequence of the conjunction of the extreme parts. The mathematicians, who try to calculate the measure of the circumference, make it amount to 400,000 stadia; whence we infer that the earth is not only spherical, but that it is not large compared with the magnitude of the other stars."-De "œlo. lib. ii. cap. xiv.

'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. v.

the spirit of understanding. He has made me very skillful in navigation, and to know much in astronomy, in geometry, and mathematics. God has given me the knowledge and the ability to portray the globe, and also to delineate cities, rivers, islands, and ports in their proper situation. During my life I have examined and endeavored to see all books of cosmography, history, and philosophy, and of the other sciences, so that our Lord has sensibly opened my mind in order that I may sail from here to the Indies, and has made me extremely anxious to do it."

Columbus's irrepressible desire to possess all the information he could acquire respecting the navigable water-ways of the Atlantic also led him to sail over the sea-path to Iceland and to the south coast of Africa, at the equator. In his geographical work, written "to show that all the five zones are habitable," he says: "In February, 1467, I sailed myself a hundred leagues beyond Thule, the northern part of which is seventy degrees distant from the equator, and not sixty-three degrees as some will have it to be; nor does it lie upon the line where Ptolemy's West begins, but much more to the westward, and to this island, which is as large as England, the English trade, especially those from Bristol. At the time I was there the sea was not frozen, but the tides were so great that in some places it swelled twenty-six fathoms and fell as much.' The truth is, that the Thule of which Ptolemy speaks lies where he says, and this is called by the moderns Frizeland." Again he says: "I have followed sea-faring for twenty-three years without being on shore any space of time worth mentioning, and I have seen all the East and all the West, and have been to the North where 'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. iv.

'Iceland lies between 63° 24′ and 66° 33′ north latitude.

England is situated, and even to Guinea." He also says that he went to sea when fourteen years old, and ever after that led a sea-faring life.'

Among the motives influencing him to think that he could sail to Cathay by the way of the Atlantic Ocean were the statements of geographical writers. By them it was said "that a great part of the globe had already been travelled over, and there only remained to be discovered and made known the space lying between the eastern limits of India, known to Ptolemy and Marinus, and the West, where are the islands Azores' and those of Cape Verd,3 the most western lands yet discovered.* He con

*

'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. iv.

*

'The Azores or Western Islands, about eight hundred miles west of Portugal, lie in an oblique line, northwest and southeast, between 36° 50′ and 39° 50′ north latitude and 24° 30′ and 31° 20′ west longitude. The Azores, frequently called Terceiras, were discovered in 1439 by Josua van der Berg, a Flemish merchant, who was carried in his ship to them in a storm. They were named Açores from the number of goshawks found on them. They were not inhabited when discovered.

'The Cape Verd Islands, three hundred and twenty miles west of Cape Verd on the west coast of Africa, lie between 14° 45′ and 17° 13′ north latitude and between 22° 45′ and 25° 25' west longitude.

Claudius Ptolemæus, an Egyptian astronomer and geographer, lived, in the second century at Alexandria. His System of Geography, (Iɛwypaqɩuń 'Aphynσ15,) contained in eight books, was a standard work for fourteen centuries. During the first part of the sixteenth century twenty-one editions of the geography, with editions and emendations, were published. According to Ptolemy, all the known part of the earth, from the first meridian, or the Canary Islands, eastwardly, on the parallel of Rhodes, measured seventy-two thousand stadia, or one hundred and eighty degrees, which he deemed to be the half of the circumference of the globe. But the extent he was acquainted with was really measured by one hundred and twenty degrees, which made the circumference one third less than it is.

Marinus of Tyre, a Greek geographer, lived about 150 A.D. This cosmographer supposed that the country of the Seres, or Sinae (China), the farthest part of India known to the ancients, was fifteen hours, by the course of the sun, or two hundred and twenty-five degrees east of the first meridian passing through the Fortunate (Canary) Islands. According to our present geographical measurements, the distance given by Marinus was not more than one hundred and thirty degrees, leaving two hundred and thirty the remaining distance from China eastwardly to the Canary Islands. Following the deduc