With the admiral of the ocean sea: a narrative of the first voyage to the western world, drawn mainly from the diary of Christopher Columbus

Front matter

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Contents

Chapter Page

I. The Father Superior's Sailor Guest . . ii

II. The Shrewd Idea of the Young Physician 20

I. The Father Superior's Sailor Guest

IN the little refectory of a tiny Franciscan convent, dedicated to Our Lady of the Madness, which still stands in the remote corner of Southern Spain where our narrative begins, two men sat conversing earnestly together on a certain sunny afternoon many a long year gone by. The one, a monk wearing the coarse gown and cowl of the Order of Saint Francis, was rather over forty years of age ; the other, a layman clad in the ordinary dress of the period, — somewhat the worse for wear and travel, — seemed to be ten years older. Against the tall back of the chair occupied by the older man, and listening respectfully to all that was said, leaned a lad of thirteen or fourteen years, whose features plainly proved him to be his son. A flagon of the common red wine of the country stood on the table before them, with the remains of a loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, and a broiled fish, — evidence that some one had been eating, although it was long past the hour for the simple midday meal of the worthy friars.

The room was barren of all ornament. Its only furniture consisted of a dozen or more ponderous chairs and stools.

all more or less carved and covered with embossed leather, which stood against the whitewashed walls, and a heavy table of some hard polished wood which occupied the centre of the smooth stone floor. Bare though it was, the exquisite cleanliness of everything around gave to the room an attractiveness of its own, which was heightened by the contrast between the fresh coolness of its shaded atmosphere and the quivering heat of the glaring Andalusian sun outside. From where the boy was standing he could look through the open doorway into the little courtyard of the convent, where the fig-trees and pomegranates stood motionless in the hot sunshine ; or, by turning his head, could see through the grated windows of the refectory the great waves of the mighty western sea lazily rolling landward, waiting to be whipped into dancing whitecaps later on by the brisk breezes of the afternoon. But as he listened to the older men before him, his eyes sought oftenest the plain of heaving waters ; for their talk was wholly of that vast world of unknown ocean whieh stretched far out of sight toward the setting sun, and of what might lie beyond the level mocking line which lay between sea and sky, and ever receded, as now and then some daring sailor sought to reach its limits and learn what was there concealed.

" Your Worship is not of Spain, I take it, Senor," the monk had said, when father and son had finished their light meal ; " if I do not offend in asking the question? "

" No, Father," the layman answered, " I am from Genoa ; a true son of Saint George, — may he ever defend me ! " he added, crossing himself devoutly.' " I was bom Christoforo Colombo, though here in Spain men call me Cristoval Colon ; an unworthy servant, ever at your orders, reverend sir."

" I hold myself happy in knowing your Worship, Serior Cristoval," the monk replied. **The sailors of our coast here often speak of your famous voyages to distant seas, and I have heard your name as well in the gossip from the Court."

1 For Columbus's statements concerning his birthplace, see Note A in the Appendix.

THE FATHER SUPERIOR'S SAILOR GUEST I 3

" Your own kindness exaggerates my deserts, good father," said Colon. " Some of the hardy seamen from the southern ports have sailed with me on voyages of some length, 't is true ; and it is but natural that they should bear in mind the hard knocks and scanty fare they found while on their travels."

" Your present journey is not a long one, Senor Cristoval, if I may judge by your boy accompanying you ? " the monk again queried, with a kindly glance at the young lad standing against his father's chair.

" We come now but from Seville," the latter responded ; " and 't is no great distance, — the more as we have walked at ease, good father. Please God, our journey ends at Huelva, your neighboring town. But as we broke our fast betimes this morning, and have still some hours of road before us, we have trespassed thus upon your hospitality which has been so bountiful."

" You must stay now under our poor roof, Senor, at least until your boy has had some rest. It will be no easy thing to reach Huelva this evening ; and in the morning we can get a boatman to put your Worship across the bay, if you needs must leave us. Whatever Juan Perez, the humble superior of this little cloister, can do for your comfort, worthy sir, you may count upon as already done."

" I thank your Reverence warmly," Colon replied ; "and we will tax your kindness still further, since you are so good. But Diego here is no court-bred youngster who cannot travel on his own legs. Which were the harder life in these days of war on sea and land, the life of the camps or that on shipboard, it were not easy to say ; but I have led both since he was born, so the colt has learned to go with the sire. Moreover, his lady-mother — may God give her rest ! — came of the stoutest-hearted stock in Portugal, and the lad should be no weakling. Mayhap you know one Pedro de Muliar, a townsman of Huelva, reverend father? He married a sister of my dead wife, — may God rest her soul ! — and 't is he I seek on this present journey."

"Seek you him, Senor? Then I greatly fear your labor will be fruitless ; for only lately I heard it said he was going on a cruise to the Levant, with a brave company of seamen from our neighboring ports along shore, — Palos and Lepe and Huelva and Ayamonte. Still, he may not yet have sailed."

A shade of annoyance crossed the frank brow of Colon at this news.

" So much the worse for me. Father," he said. " I counted much on seeing him ; and God only can tell when he will be back now, or whether at all. Who sails the Mediterranean in these troublous times, be he Christian or Moor, should leave his testament ready made behind him. Yet will Pedro go in good company, for stouter men never handled rope than those from these shores."

He sat some moments in silence, looking intently at the table. Then, turning his head upward toward his son, he said, —

" Well, Diego, my son, and what shall I do with thee, now that thine uncle is gone ? It were too long a journey to take thee with me to France."

"Yet would I gladly go, Seiior, if you will but take me," the boy replied eagerly. " Surely I could serve you well as page, and help you often in your journey."

Colon nodded, seeming pleased with the lad's spirit. Then putting his hand on the leathern wallet which hung at his belt, and giving it a shake, he said with a touch of bitterness, —

" 'T is scanty fare therein for one, my son, and I should ne'er see his Majesty of France were two to travel on it. The lad too is touched with the madness of the sea," he added, half sadly, as he turned again to the friar.

" I grieve to hear you speak of leaving Spain, Sefior Cristoval," the latter answered. " Surely their Highnesses our gracior.s sovereigns can ill spare such men as your Worship in these times of strife and trouble."

Colon raised himself erect in his chair, and grasped its carven arms nervously with his hands, as he looked straight at the monk out of his clear blue eyes.

"Their Highnesses of Spain have no more faithful or devoted servant in their kingdoms than I, good father," he

THE FATHER SUPERIOR'S SAILOR GUEST. 1 5

said with emphasis, " stranger though I be. To the noble Queen Isabella I am beholden for great favors, and a kindly sympathy more valued still. May the holy saints ever have her Majesty in their safe keeping ! " and again he crossed himself. " But for six long years have I been suitor at their court, asking of them no grace save to take at my hands all the wealth of Asia, and to bring under their dominion and that of the holy Christian faith the lands of the heathen which now languish in hateful idolatry. Is not that a task fit for the kings of Castile and of Aragon, the conquerors of the Moors, think you, good father ? Nor was my only hope with them ; for I myself placed in the queen's hands the letters of three other princes, bidding me to their courts and proffering me the aid I sought. Yet their Highnesses of Spain will none of it ! The cares of the war in Granada ; the intrigues of the emissaries of Portugal, who seek to retain a monopoly of sailing distant seas and searching for new lands ; the ignorance and apathy and timidity of those who advise their Highnesses, — all these and a thousand more pitiful reasons have resulted in my suit being rejected, or, what is harder still to bear, being postponed and deferred from month to month and year to year until I have grown weary and hopeless. Now that their Majesties have pitched their camp before Granada, there is neither time nor disposition to hear of aught save war, and I go to the Court of France, whose king has said he would give me tlie z\aw and ruen I ne^d co f.ua the world v/nich ne= oevcnd yoa wescerr horizon."

He gazed toward cne ocean, which heaved and sank beneath the afternoon sun, with a look in his eyes as though he clearly saw some distant headland lying low in the hazy west.

" Something of this have I heard, Sefior Cristoval," said the friar, with an air of sympathy, " but had thought ere this your suit had prospered. Your Worship may not know that our good queen honored me for several years as her Highness's confessor. At the Court they called me the Fray Antonio of Marchena."

" Say you so, Father? " Colon replied with interest ; "then I hold myself doubly fortunate in meeting your Reverence. Often has that most excellent lady her Grace of Maya spoken of you, and wished you at Court to further my petition. Yet had I good friends and powerful among their Highness's counsellors, and their number increased each year, as my proposals became more and more understood. But, Father," and he leaned toward the monk almost with an air of supplication, " the years are passing, and I grow old. It is God's will that I should make this voyage to the west, to find the great continent of Asia and bring its people to a knowledge of the true faith. If I wait on and on, it may be too late, and I shall go to my grave with my task undone."

The monk looked at his guest with a frank admiration. The stranger's eye was kindhng as if from the inspiration of some noble thought, and the whole expression of his face was that of a lofty determination to dare all in doing the duty he felt to be plain before him. Such a light had the good friar often seen, when he followed the camp of Isabella, in the faces of the knights of Santiago as they set spurs into their chargers and dashed, lance in rest, against the Moorish horsemen, with a great shout of " Saint James for the Holy Cross and Spain ! "

His heart was stirred now at the sight of his guest's enthusiasm ; but he spoke quietly enough as he answered Colon, —

" There is wisdom in the words of the son of David, that much waiting weareth the soul, good sir ; yet doubt I not It would sorely grieve our gracious sovereigns were this quest to be made under any banner save that of the Lions of Castile. I am but a layman in the arts wherein you are master, Seiior Cristoval ; still, I have given much thought and study to the writings of the ancients who held that there is a lost continent far out in yonder Atlantic, and our sailors at times have told me strange tales of distant lands they have spied from the shores of the Canaries and Azores. To me, who know so little, it seems likely enough ;

THE FATHER SUPERIOR'S SAILOR GUEST. 1 7

for I remember that the Canaries themselves were onlyfound in our fathers' times, though the ancients knew them well and called them the Fortunate Isles. Therefore glad would my heart be, Seiior, if my poor services could avail you anything. If it please your Worship, I would crave your warrant to bring to you my learned friend the physician Garcia Fernandez of Palos, hard by, who, albeit young, has studied deeply the science of the earth and the heavens, and conferred much Avith the sea-faring men who frequent our ports. His judgment and counsel are weighty beyond his years, Seiior, or I should not give your Worship the labor of meeting him ; and we should hold it a high privilege to know more of your project."

" It is no trial for me to meet those who use the minds that God has given them in trying to learn more of His works than what lies under their noses," Colon answered with vigor. " 'T is those who do not think, not those who differ from me, who have made my labors of none effect till now. Fourteen years did I pass at the Court of Portugal, ever pressing my plan save when I was on voyages. They took my charts and writings from me, saying they would ponder them ; but secretly they sent out the ships they had denied me. God drove them back on their own coasts, and punished their treachery ; but I could no longer tmst them. Two years I spent with that noble man the Duke of Medina Cell, and he would have gladly given me the ships I asked, but feared to affront the Crown by seeming bolder than his sovereigns. Six years have I spent at the Court of Castile, as I said but now, and all without result. In twenty years. Father, I have met scarcely more men than could be numbered twice on my fingers who have beheved in that western land as I believe in it. You shall judge, therefore, whether I count it a toil to converse with those who seek to share my faith."

The monk rose as he said, " I will myself go to the village for my friend, Seiior. Will your Worship go with me ? It is but a short half-league, and the brothers will see that the lad gets the rest he seems to need j " and he nodded smilingly toward Diego, who had seated himself on the arm of his father's chair and fallen fast asleep.

" Willingly," Colon replied, " for I would gladly learn what I may about some of the men from this coast who sailed with me years and years ago."

As they crossed the courtyard and passed through the portal of the convent into the space outside, they met the strong, steady press of the sea-breeze which had sprung up as the sun declined on its last quarter. The sharp swish of a few glittering palm-tops tossing overhead, sounded above the softer murmur of the light gale blowing through the pine-trees farther off. Away over the sea the white crests were riding landward, with here and there a glance of blinding sunbeams as some smoother wave cast back the nearly level rays. The sky was everywhere without a cloud, save that some few soft masses of rounded vapor hung on the sea-line directly in the path of the sun. A lovelier day never drew to its close even in favored Andalusia.

As his practised eyes half closed to veil the brilliant light reflected from sea and sky, Colon drew his tall figure up to its full height, and laying one hand on the friar's arm, stretched out the other toward the dim outlines of the cloud-piles lying along the western horizon.

" Saw you ever fairer scene than yonder ocean, Fray Antonio ? Yet shall you find nineteen men in every .score, be they seamen or men learned in the arts, who will maintain that that fair ocean is filled with all the horrible monsters of hell ; and that he who sails more than a few hundred leagues from this same coast on which we stand, even if he escape them, shall fall into Chaos, or be burned up by the sun's heat, or wander forever like another accursed Jew, over a trackless waste of waters."

The monk smiled kindly at his companion's enthusiasm, as he replied, —

" But who better than yourself, Seiior Cristoval, knows the fickleness of this now so comely sea? 'Tis not on days like this that our mariners dread its terrors, or our scholars weave their legends ; but when the skies close down in

THE FATHER SUPERIOR'S SAILOR GUEST. 1 9

leaden gloom, and the sea is naught but yawning gulfs of blackest pitch. Then the stoutest heart may well fear what lies ahead of the narrow distance the eye can pierce."

" True, Father," said Colon, thoughtfully ; " yet who trusts in God and weathers the storm, shall find ever the sun shining on smooth seas beyond."

And in friendly chat the two men passed down the winding path which led through the pines to the little village of Palos below.^

' For the historical basis of this and the following chapter, see the Appendix, Notes C and D.

TI.

THE SHREWD IDEA OF THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN.

THAT evening, shortly after vespers, the lamp which flickered on the table in Fray Antonio's room lighted up a group of men whose combined worldly possessions probably did not amount to one hundred of the dollars of our day ; and yet they were planning, in all simplicity, to accomplish the greatest work for their fellow-men the world has seen since the fishermen of Galilee laid down their nets and followed Him they called the Nazarene. Though the good father was superior of the convent, and therefore chief among the brethren, the bareness of his room showed that his vows of poverty and abstemiousness were no mere words. A low pallet-bed, with a crucifix on the whitewashed wall above it, a few straight-backed armchairs like those in the refectory below, a water-jar and basin of coarse earthenware, and a massive table completed the furniture of the apartment. At one end of the table sat Colon, with a parchment map of no great size spread under his hands ; and on either side of him, following closely all he said and bending down to distinguish the crabbed letters in the uncertain light, were Fray Antonio and his friend the physician of Palos, Garcia Fernandez. The latter was much younger than either cf his companions, being scarcely more than thirty years old ; and with the graceful courtesy of Spanish breeding, he showed a marked deference in manner and speech toward his seniors. But when he did speak it was with a clearness and conviction which showed that he had reflected much on the subject in hand, and had sought to increase his knowledge from every source open to him.

" This chart I had from my very learned friend and master in the geographical art, the Doctor Paolo Toscanelli of Florence, who sent it to me some fifteen years ago when I was seeking at the Court of Portugal the means with which to discover the lands which lie in the western ocean."

As Colon said this, the young physician remarked that he spoke of the existence of those unknown lands as a certainty, not as being merely probable or possible.

" In drawing it, that wise and ingenious man has brought together all that the ancients knew of the world we live in, and has added to it what has been discovered in our own times of the coast of Guinea, and the islands which are found on the course thither. I myself have made some few additions to it, and in particular have laid down the great island of Cipango and the mainland of Cathay somewhat nearer to the shores of Europe than my learned master had done. You will, I fear, consider it but presumption on my part, good sirs, to amend the work of so great a scholar ; but all the computations I have made, and all the knowledge I have been able to gather, strengthen my belief that the confines of Asia which stretch farthest to the east are nearer to our European shores than any of our maps now show."

Colon laid his finger on the chart at a spot distant by the scale some three thousand miles west of the coast of Portugal, where a large island was roughly drawn and marked " Cipango." About half-way to it, in the middle of what we now call the Atlantic Ocean, lay another uncertain outline lettered " Island of the Seven Cities ; " while far to the south, near the equator, was a third, charted as " St. Borondon's Isle." The space we now know to be covered by North America was filled with a multitude of other islands ; Java and the Celebes were placed nearly on the site of South America ; and the continent of Asia reached clear across the wide space where rolls the vast Pacific. There was no Africa south of Sierra Leone, nearly the whole of the map being marked as "unknown seas;" while in the remote North, where hardy modern voyagers have sought the Pole, lay the island of Thule, the Iceland of now-adays.

The monk and the physician studied intently that portion of the chart to which Colon had pointed.

" If this distance be in any measure exact, Seiior Cristoval, naught can be plainer than that the shortest track to the Golden Indies Ues in sailing west," said Fray Antonio. " But, with your Worship's permission, it seems to me that the chief danger is in your finding no land after sailing a thousand leagues to the west, and being unable to return to these shores. I have heard men who were no idle chatterers, but men of thought and sense, say that beyond the hmits of the known sea the ocean slopes so toward the west that no ship can hope to return eastward once it has passed the farthest hne."

" I treat lightly the opinion of no man who has thought much or seen much, good father," replied Colon. " Should that slope of which men speak lie really there, I could but sail on and on until we reached our bourn."

" Then you hold of no weight the tale some mariners tell of a great zone of dead calms lying in the west, where ships may lie as if at anchor from century to century? " the physician asked. " That seems to me a grievous peril, Seiior, though I frankly grant there may be land somewhere to the west of us."

Colon settled himself back in his chair before answering. When he spoke it was in the tone of one who weighs carefully his words in the hope of carrying conviction, —

" Sefior Doctor, once you are satisfied the land is there, all else seems little. There is no navigating without its share of peril, and he who would make sure of dying in bed must not go to sea. That there is no zone of calm I do not afifirm, since he is but foolish who denies all he has not seen. Rather, it seems to me that such a zone must lie far to the south, where the heat is greatest ; for when I sailed to the Guinea coast with the Portuguese, we found the airs grow lighter as we journeyed toward the Southern

Pole. And unless I err in every thought, and my life has been spent thus far in vain, the land I seek is to be found by sailing ever west on the line of these our shores, or, at the most, that of the Canary Islands."

The young physician spoke eagerly as Colon finished, —

" Your own voyaging hitherto has then confirmed your faith, Sehor? You have encountered naught to cause you to doubt?"

" Thirty years as boy and man have I followed the sea, worthy sir," Colon replied ; " and wherever keel has ploughed in the known world of waters, there have I sailed. I say it not boastingly ; but, as you know, much travelling on the ocean inclines a thoughtful man to ponder over its many and profound secrets. From the Pillars of Hercules to the farthest isles of Greece I have crossed and recrossed the Mediterranean Sea times without number, and visited all its coasts, whether of Africa, Europe, or Asia. To the English islands I have sailed more than once, and years ago I went to the utmost verge of the western sea which the ancients called Ultima Thule, but the people who dwell there call the Land of Ice. As far as men have sailed along the western coast of Africa I have also been on divers voyages, and passed much time in the islands the Portuguese name Azores, and in the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries. Wherever I have been I have sought to learn both from sailors and from learned scholars ; priests and laymen, Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors, — all these and many of other sects have I known and had conversation with. And to this day, good sirs, I have met none who could show one good cause why, by keeping a straight course to the setting sun, I should not reach the boundaries of Asia and the empire of the Great Khan. Much to the contrary, month by month and year by year my belief has been strengthened and increased, until now I know I but follow the way the finger of God marks out for me to go."

" There is, indeed, a mariner of our village, Seiior Cristoval," said the physician, with some diffidence, " one Pedro Velasco, who has followed the sea for many years, and declares that starting from the Azores some years ago he and his companions sailed due west for several days, and found the ocean ever the same in all its aspects as those it bears nearer home."

"You must do me the service of procuring me speech with your neighbor, Seilor Garcia," said Colon, with interest, " for from such men I have learned much. When I was before on this coast, under the protection of my noble patron, his Grace of Medina Cell, in his port of Santa Maria, a one-eyed sailor, who from his appearance must have had a stormy life, told me that on a certain voyage when he was bound for Ireland, which is one of the English isles, his ship was blown far off its course by constant easterly gales, until they came m sight of a western land they supposed to be the shores of Tartary. Being afraid to land, and the winds having changed, they made their way back again across the wide sea to these shores. Whether in fact they reached so far as Asia, or only lost their reckoning and sighted some nearer land, I cannot determine. But afterward I met in Murcia a Portuguese sailor who had been on this same voyage, and he confirmed all the other had told me. I see nothing extravagant in their tale ; but they could find no other to believe them."

" Others of our seafaring men have told me that returning from Guinea they have seen the dim outlines of some unknown land lying far in the western sky. Saw you anything of this, Senor Cristoval?" asked the younger man. " I trespass, perhaps, too far on your Worship's kindness in repeating such idle mariners' tales," he added, as if in apology.

" 'T is a kindness done, not one you ask, young sir," Colon responded with heartiness. " These reports have I heard both in the Azores and in the Canary Islands, as this afternoon I was saying to his Reverence here ; but I never saw with my own eyes aught that looked like land. Some filmy shadows there sometimes were, to say truth ; but they seemed to my sight to be but distant clouds or some trick played by the sea-haze upon us. Clearer tokens that something lay beyond our vision in that direction were to me the strange trees and plants which from time to time the sea has cast on the shores of those islands. The father of my dead wife — may God have her in his glory ! — was governor for the Crown of Portugal of the island of Porto Santo for many years ; and when I was there his son showed me some canes or reeds of the thickness of a man's thigh, which had come ashore in a gale, and avowed to me that he himself had talked with those who had found the bodies of two men cast up by the ocean on the isle of Flores, who had yellow faces and straight black hair, such as we know the people of Asia to have. These evidences, and others which have been given up by the waves, weigh more with me, Seiior, than the doubtful tales of lands which have been seen so near and never found."