Columbus"s hypothesis rested on much higher ground than mere popular belief. What indeed was credulity with the vulgar, and speculation with the learned, amounted in his mind to a settled practical conviction, that made him ready to peril life and fortune on the result of the experiment.
He was fortified still further in his conclusions by a correspondence with the learned Italian Toscanelli, who furnished him with a map of his own projection, in which the eastern coast of Asia was delineated opposite to the western frontier of Europe. [12]
Filled with lofty antic.i.p.ations of achieving a discovery, which would settle a question of such moment, so long involved in obscurity, Columbus submitted the theory on which he had founded his belief in the existence of a western route to King John the Second, of Portugal. Here he was doomed to encounter for the first time the embarra.s.sments and mortifications, which so often obstruct the conceptions of genius, too sublime for the age in which they are formed. After a long and fruitless negotiation, and a dishonorable attempt on the part of the Portuguese to avail themselves clandestinely of his information, he quitted Lisbon in disgust, determined to submit his proposals to the Spanish sovereigns, relying on their reputed character for wisdom and enterprise. [13]
The period of his arrival in Spain, being the latter part of 1484, would seem to have been the most unpropitious possible to his design. The nation was then in the heat of the Moorish war, and the sovereigns were unintermittingly engaged, as we have seen, in prosecuting their campaigns, or in active preparation for them. The large expenditure, incident to this, exhausted all their resources; and indeed the engrossing character of this domestic conquest left them little leisure for indulging in dreams of distant and doubtful discovery. Columbus, moreover, was unfortunate in his first channel of communication with the court. He was furnished by Fray Juan Perez de Marchena, guardian of the convent of La Rabida in Andalusia, who had early taken a deep interest in his plans, with an introduction to Fernando de Talavera, prior of Prado, and confessor of the queen, a person high in the royal confidence, and gradually raised through a succession of ecclesiastical dignities to the archiepiscopal see of Granada. He was a man of irreproachable morals, and of comprehensive benevolence for that day, as is shown in his subsequent treatment of the unfortunate Moriscoes. [14] He was also learned; although his learning was that of the cloister, deeply tinctured with pedantry and superst.i.tion, and debased by such servile deference even to the errors of antiquity, as at once led him to discountenance everything like innovation or enterprise.
[15]
With these timid and exclusive views, Talavera was so far from comprehending the vast conceptions of Columbus, that he seems to have regarded him as a mere visionary, and his hypothesis as involving principles not altogether orthodox. Ferdinand and Isabella, desirous of obtaining the opinion of the most competent judges on the merits of Columbus"s theory, referred him to a council selected by Talavera from the most eminent scholars of the kingdom, chiefly ecclesiastics, whose profession embodied most of the science of that day. Such was the apathy exhibited by this learned conclave, and so numerous the impediments suggested by dulness, prejudice, or skepticism, that years glided away before it came to a decision. During this time, Columbus appears to have remained in attendance on the court, bearing arms occasionally in the campaigns, and experiencing from the sovereigns an unusual degree of deference and personal attention; an evidence of which is afforded in the disburs.e.m.e.nts repeatedly made by the royal order for his private expenses, and in the instructions, issued to the munic.i.p.alities of the different towns in Andalusia, to supply him gratuitously with lodging and other personal accommodations. [16]
At length, however, Columbus, wearied out by this painful procrastination, pressed the court for a definite answer to his propositions; when he was informed, that the council of Salamanca p.r.o.nounced his scheme to be "vain, impracticable, and resting on grounds too weak to merit the support of the government." Many in the council, however, were too enlightened to acquiesce in this sentence of the majority. Some of the most considerable persons of the court, indeed, moved by the cogency of Columbus"s arguments, and affected by the elevation and grandeur of his views, not only cordially embraced his scheme, but extended their personal intimacy and friendship to him. Such, among others, were the grand cardinal Mendoza, a man whose enlarged capacity and acquaintance with affairs raised him above many of the narrow prejudices of his order, and Deza, archbishop of Seville, a Dominican friar, whose commanding talents were afterwards unhappily perverted in the service of the Holy Office, over which he presided as successor to Torquemada. [17] The authority of these individuals had undoubtedly great weight with the sovereigns, who softened the verdict of the junto, by an a.s.surance to Columbus, that, "although they were too much occupied at present to embark in his undertaking, yet, at the conclusion of the war, they should find both time and inclination to treat with him." Such was the ineffectual result of Columbus"s long and painful solicitation; and, far from receiving the qualified a.s.surance of the sovereigns in mitigation of their refusal, he seems to have considered it as peremptory and final. In great dejection of mind, therefore, but without further delay, he quitted the court, and bent his way to the south, with the apparently almost desperate intent of seeking out some other patron to his undertaking. [18]
Columbus had already visited his native city of Genoa, for the purpose of interesting it in his scheme of discovery; but the attempt proved unsuccessful. He now made application, it would seem, to the dukes of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi, successively, from the latter of whom he experienced much kindness and hospitality; but neither of these n.o.bles, whose large estates lying along the sea-sh.o.r.e had often invited them to maritime adventure, was disposed to a.s.sume one which seemed too hazardous for the resources of the crown. Without wasting time in further solicitation, Columbus prepared with a heavy heart to bid adieu to Spain, and carry his proposals to the king of France, from whom he had received a letter of encouragement while detained in Andalusia. [19]
His progress, however, was arrested at the convent of La Rabida, which he visited previous to his departure, by his friend the guardian, who prevailed on him to postpone his journey till another effort had been made to move the Spanish court in his favor. For this purpose the worthy ecclesiastic undertook an expedition in person to the newly erected city of Santa Fe, where the sovereigns lay encamped before Granada. Juan Perez had formerly been confessor of Isabella, and was held in great consideration by her for his excellent qualities. On arriving at the camp, he was readily admitted to an audience, when he pressed the suit of Columbus with all the earnestness and reasoning of which he was capable.
The friar"s eloquence was supported by that of several eminent persons, whom Columbus during his long residence in the country had interested in his project, and who viewed with sincere regret the prospect of its abandonment. Among these individuals are particularly mentioned Alonso de Quintanilla, comptroller general of Castile, Louis de St. Angel, a fiscal officer of the crown of Aragon, and the marchioness of Moya, the personal friend of Isabella, all of whom exercised considerable influence over her counsels. Their representations, combined with the opportune season of the application, occurring at the moment when the approaching termination of the Moorish war allowed room for interest in other objects, wrought so favorable a change in the dispositions of the sovereigns, that they consented to resume the negotiation with Columbus. An invitation was accordingly sent to him to repair to Santa Fe, and a considerable sum provided for his suitable equipment, and his expenses on the road. [20]
Columbus, who lost no time in availing himself of this welcome intelligence, arrived at the camp in season to witness the surrender of Granada, when every heart, swelling with exultation at the triumphant termination of the war, was naturally disposed to enter with greater confidence on a new career of adventure. At his interview with the king and queen, he once more exhibited the arguments on which his hypothesis was founded. He then endeavored to stimulate the cupidity of his audience, by picturing the realms of Mangi and Cathay, which he confidently expected to reach by this western route, in all the barbaric splendors which had been shed over them by the lively fancy of Marco Polo and other travellers of the Middle Ages; and he concluded with appealing to a higher principle, by holding out the prospect of extending the empire of the Cross over nations of benighted heathen, while he proposed to devote the profits of his enterprise to the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. This last ebullition, which might well have pa.s.sed for fanaticism in a later day, and given a visionary tinge to his whole project, was not quite so preposterous in an age, in which the spirit of the crusades might be said still to linger, and the romance of religion had not yet been dispelled by sober reason. The more temperate suggestion of the diffusion of the gospel was well suited to affect Isabella, in whose heart the principle of devotion was deeply seated, and who, in all her undertakings, seems to have been far less sensible to the vulgar impulses of avarice or ambition, than to any argument connected, however remotely, with the interests of religion. [21]
Amidst all these propitious demonstrations towards Columbus, an obstacle unexpectedly arose in the nature of his demands, which stipulated for himself and heirs the t.i.tle and authority of Admiral and Viceroy over all lands discovered by him, with one-tenth of the profits. This was deemed wholly inadmissible. Ferdinand, who had looked with cold distrust on the expedition from the first, was supported by the remonstrances of Talavera, the new archbishop of Granada; who declared, that "such demands savored of the highest degree of arrogance, and would be unbecoming in their Highnesses to grant to a needy foreign adventurer." Columbus, however, steadily resisted every attempt to induce him to modify his propositions.
On this ground, the conferences were abruptly broken off, and he once more turned his back upon the Spanish court, resolved rather to forego his splendid antic.i.p.ations of discovery, at the very moment when the career so long sought was thrown open to him, than surrender one of the honorable distinctions due to his services. This last act is perhaps the most remarkable exhibition in his whole life, of that proud, unyielding spirit, which sustained him through so many years of trial, and enabled him at length to achieve his great enterprise, in the face of every obstacle which man and nature had opposed to it. [22]
The misunderstanding was not suffered to be of long duration. Columbus"s friends, and especially Louis de St. Angel, remonstrated with the queen on these proceedings in the most earnest manner. He frankly told her, that Columbus"s demands, if high, were at least contingent on success, when they would be well deserved; that, if he failed, he required nothing. He expatiated on his qualifications for the undertaking, so signal as to insure in all probability the patronage of some other monarch, who would reap the fruits of his discoveries; and he ventured to remind the queen, that her present policy was not in accordance with the magnanimous spirit, which had hitherto made her the ready patron of great and heroic enterprise. Far from being displeased, Isabella was moved by his honest eloquence. She contemplated the proposals of Columbus in their true light; and, refusing to hearken any longer to the suggestions of cold and timid counsellors, she gave way to the natural impulses of her own n.o.ble and generous heart; "I will a.s.sume the undertaking," said she, "for my own crown of Castile, and am ready to p.a.w.n my jewels to defray the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury shall be found inadequate." The treasury had been reduced to the lowest ebb by the late war, but the receiver, St.
Angel, advanced the sums required, from the Aragonese revenues deposited in his hands. Aragon however was not considered as adventuring in the expedition, the charges and emoluments of which were reserved exclusively for Castile. [23]
Columbus, who was overtaken by the royal messenger at a few leagues"
distance only from Granada, experienced the most courteous reception on his return to Santa Fe, where a definitive arrangement was concluded with the Spanish sovereigns, April 17th, 1492. By the terms of the capitulation, Ferdinand and Isabella, as lords of the ocean-seas, const.i.tuted Christopher Columbus their admiral, viceroy, and governor- general of all such islands and continents as he should discover in the western ocean, with the privilege of nominating three candidates, for the selection of one by the crown, for the government of each of these territories. He was to be vested with exclusive right of jurisdiction over all commercial transactions within his admiralty. He was to be ent.i.tled to one-tenth of all the products and profits within the limits of his discoveries, and an additional eighth, provided he should contribute one- eighth part of the expense. By a subsequent ordinance, the official dignities above enumerated were settled on him and his heirs for ever, with the privilege of prefixing the t.i.tle of Don to their names, which had not then degenerated into an appellation of mere courtesy. [24]
No sooner were the arrangements completed, than Isabella prepared with her characteristic promptness to forward the expedition by the most efficient measures. Orders were sent to Seville and the other ports of Andalusia, to furnish stores and other articles requisite for the voyage, free of duty, and at as low rates as possible. The fleet, consisting of three vessels, was to sail from the little port of Palos in Andalusia, which had been condemned for some delinquency to maintain two caravels for a twelvemonth for the public service. The third vessel was furnished by the admiral, aided, as it would seem, in defraying the charges, by his friend the guardian of La Rabida, and the Pinzons, a family in Palos long distinguished for its enterprise among the mariners of that active community. With their a.s.sistance, Columbus was enabled to surmount the disinclination, and indeed open opposition, manifested by the Andalusian mariners to his perilous voyage; so that in less than three months his little squadron was equipped for sea. A sufficient evidence of the extreme unpopularity of the expedition is afforded by a royal ordinance of the 30th of April, promising protection to all persons, who should embark in it, from criminal prosecution of whatever kind, until two months after their return. The armament consisted of two caravels, or light vessels without decks, and a third of larger burden. The total number of persons who embarked amounted to one hundred and twenty; and the whole charges of the crown for the expedition did not exceed seventeen thousand florins, The fleet was instructed to keep clear of the African coast, and other maritime possessions of Portugal. At length, all things being in readiness, Columbus and his whole crew partook of the sacrament, and confessed themselves, after the devout manner of the ancient Spanish voyagers, when engaged in any important enterprise; and on the morning of the 3d of August, 1492, the intrepid navigator, bidding adieu to the Old World, launched forth on that unfathomed waste of waters where no sail had been ever spread before. [25]
It is impossible to peruse the story of Columbus without a.s.signing to him almost exclusively the glory of his great discovery; for, from the first moment of its conception to that of its final execution, he was encountered by every species of mortification and embarra.s.sment, with scarcely a heart to cheer, or a hand to help him. [26] Those more enlightened persons whom, during his long residence in Spain, he succeeded in interesting in his expedition, looked to it probably as the means of solving a dubious problem, with the same sort of vague and skeptical curiosity as to its successful result, with which we contemplate, in our day, an attempt to arrive at the Northwest pa.s.sage. How feeble was the interest excited, even among those who from their science and situation would seem to have their attention most naturally drawn towards it, may be inferred from the infrequency of allusion to it in the correspondence and other writings of that time, previous to the actual discovery. Peter Martyr, one of the most accomplished scholars of the period, whose residence at the Castilian court must have fully instructed him in the designs of Columbus, and whose inquisitive mind led him subsequently to take the deepest interest in the results of his discoveries, does not, so far as I am aware, allude to him in any part of his voluminous correspondence with the learned men of his time, previous to the first expedition. The common people regarded, not merely with apathy, but with terror, the prospect of a voyage, that was to take the mariner from the safe and pleasant seas which he was accustomed to navigate, and send him roving on the boundless wilderness of waters, which tradition and superst.i.tious fancy had peopled with innumerable forms of horror.
It is true that Columbus experienced a most honorable reception at the Castilian court; such as naturally flowed from the benevolent spirit of Isabella, and her just appreciation of his pure and elevated character.
But the queen was too little of a proficient in science to be able to estimate the merits of his hypothesis; and, as many of those, on whose judgment she leaned, deemed it chimerical, it is probable that she never entertained a deep conviction of its truth; at least not enough to warrant the liberal expenditure, which she never refused to schemes of real importance. This is certainly inferred by the paltry amount actually expended on the armament, far inferior to that appropriated to the equipment of two several fleets in the course of the late war for a foreign expedition, as well as to that, with which in the ensuing year she followed up Columbus"s discoveries.
But while, on a review of the circ.u.mstances, we are led more and more to admire the constancy and unconquerable spirit, which carried Columbus victorious through all the difficulties of his undertaking, we must remember, in justice to Isabella, that, although tardily, she did in fact furnish the resources essential to its execution; that she undertook the enterprise when it had been explicitly declined by other powers, and when probably none other of that age would have been found to countenance it; and that, after once plighting her faith to Columbus, she became his steady friend, shielding him against the calumnies of his enemies, reposing in him the most generous confidence, and serving him in the most acceptable manner, by supplying ample resources for the prosecution of his glorious discoveries. [27]
It is now more than thirty years since the Spanish government intrusted Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, one of the most eminent scholars of the country, with the care of exploring the public archives, for the purpose of collecting information relative to the voyages and discoveries of the early Spanish navigators. In 1825, Senor Navarrete gave to the world the first fruits of his indefatigable researches, in two volumes, the commencement of a series, comprehending letters, private journals, royal ordinances, and other original doc.u.ments, ill.u.s.trative of the discovery of America. These two volumes are devoted exclusively to the adventures and personal history of Columbus, and must be regarded as the only authentic basis, on which any notice of the great navigator can hereafter rest.
Fortunately, Mr. Irving"s visit to Spain, at this period, enabled the world to derive the full benefit of Senor Navarrete"s researches, by presenting their results in connection with whatever had been before known of Columbus, in the lucid and attractive form, which engages the interest of every reader. It would seem highly proper, that the fortunes of the discoverer of America should engage the pen of an inhabitant of her most favored and enlightened region; and it is unnecessary to add, that the task has been executed in a manner which must secure to the historian a share in the imperishable renown of his subject. The adventures of Columbus, which form so splendid an episode to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, cannot properly come within the scope of its historian, except so far as relates to his personal intercourse with the government, or their results on the fortunes of the Spanish monarchy.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Aragon, or rather Catalonia, maintained an extensive commerce with the Levant, and the remote regions of the east, during the Middle Ages, through the flourishing port of Barcelona. See Capmany y Montpalau, Memorias Historicas sobre la Marina, Comercio y Artes de Barcelona, (Madrid, 1779-92,) pa.s.sim.
[2] A council of mathematicians in the court of John II., of Portugal, first devised the application of the ancient astrolabe to navigation, thus affording to the mariner the essential advantages appertaining to the modern quadrant. The discovery of the polarity of the needle, which vulgar tradition a.s.signed to the Amalfite Flavio Gioja, and which Robertson has sanctioned without scruple, is clearly proved to have occurred more than a century earlier. Tiraboschi, who investigates the matter with his usual erudition, pa.s.sing by the doubtful reference of Guiot de Provins, whose age and personal ident.i.ty even are contested, traces the familiar use of the magnetic needle as far back as the first half of the thirteenth century, by a pertinent pa.s.sage from Cardinal Vitri, who died 1244; and sustains this by several similar references to other authors of the same century. Capmany finds no notice of its use by the Castilian navigators earlier than 1403. It was not until considerably later in the fifteenth century, that the Portuguese voyagers, trusting to its guidance, ventured to quit the Mediterranean and African coasts, and extend their navigation to Madeira and the Azores. See Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los Espanoles, (Madrid, 1825-29,) tom. i. Int. sec. 33.--Tiraboschi, Letteratura Italiana, tom. iv. pp. 173, 174.--Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. part. 1, cap. 4.--Koch, Tableau des Revolutions de l"Europe, (Paris, 1814,) tom. i. pp. 358-360.
[3] Four of the islands were conquered on behalf of private adventurers, chiefly from Andalusia, before the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, and under their reign were held as the property of a n.o.ble Castilian family, named Peraza. The sovereigns sent a considerable armament from Seville in 1480, which subdued the great island of Canary on behalf of the crown, and another in 1493, which effected the reduction of Palma and Teneriffe after a st.u.r.dy resistance from the natives. Bernaldez postpones the last conquest to 1495. Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquia, tom. i. pp. 347- 349.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, pp. 136, 203.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 64, 65, 66, 133.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i.
Introd., sec. 28.
[4] Among the provisions of the sovereigns enacted previous to the present date, may be noted those for regulating the coin and weights; for opening a free trade between Castile and Aragon; for security to Genoese and Venetian trading vessels; for safe conduct to mariners and fishermen; for privileges to the seamen of Palos; for prohibiting the plunder of vessels wrecked on the coast; and an ordinance of the very last year, requiring foreigners to take their return cargoes in the products of the country.
See these laws as extracted from the Ordenancas Reales and the various public archives, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 11.
[5] Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, pp. 373, 374, 398.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom.
iv. lib. 20, cap. 30, 34.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages.
[6] Spotorno, Memorials of Columbus, (London, 1823,) p. 14.--Senarega, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiv. p. 535.--Antonio Gallo, De Navigatione Columbi, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiii. p.
202.
It is very generally agreed that the father of Columbus exercised the craft of a wool-carder, or weaver. The admiral"s son Ferdinand, after some speculation on the genealogy of his ill.u.s.trious parent, concludes with remarking, that, after all, a n.o.ble descent would confer less l.u.s.tre on him than to have sprung from such a father; a philosophical sentiment, indicating pretty strongly that he had no great ancestry to boast of.
Ferdinand finds something extremely mysterious and typical in his father"s name of _Columbus_, signifying a _dove_, in token of his being ordained to "carry the olive-branch and oil of baptism over the ocean, like Noah"s dove, to denote the peace and union of the heathen people with the church, after they had been shut up in the ark of darkness and confusion."
Fernando Colon, Historia del Almirante, cap. 1, 2, apud Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos de las Indian Occidentals, (Madrid, 1749,) tom.
i., tom. i. Introd., sec. 21, 24.--Ferreras, Hist. d"Espagne, tom. vii. p.
548.
[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 131.--Munoz, Historia del Nuevo- Mundo, (Madrid, 1793,) lib. 2, sec. 13.
There are no sufficient data for determining the period of Columbus"s birth. The learned Munoz places it in 1446. (Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib.
2, sec. 12.) Navarrete, who has weighed the various authorities with caution, seems inclined to remove it back eight or ten years further, resting chiefly on a remark of Bernaldez, that he died in 1506, "in a good old age, at the age of seventy, a little more or less." (Cap. 131.) The expression is somewhat vague. In order to reconcile the facts with this hypothesis, Navarrete is compelled to reject, as a chirographical blunder, a pa.s.sage in a letter of the admiral, placing his birth in 1456, and to distort another pa.s.sage in his book of "Prophecies," which, if literally taken, would seem to establish his birth near the time a.s.signed by Munoz.
Incidental allusions in some other authorities, speaking of Columbus"s old age at or near the time of his death, strongly corroborate Navarrete"s inference. (See Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. Introd., sec. 54.)--Mr.
Irving seems willing to rely exclusively on the authority of Bernaldez.
[8] Antonio de Herrera, Historia General de las Indias Occidentales, (Amberes, 1728,) tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7.--Gomara, Historia de las Indias, cap. 14, apud Barcia, Hist. Primitivos, tom. ii.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 118.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i.
Introd., sec. 30.
Ferdinand Columbus enumerates three grounds on which his father"s conviction of land in the west was founded. First, natural reason,--or conclusions drawn from science; secondly, authority of writers,--amounting to little more than vague speculations of the ancients; thirdly, testimony of sailors, comprehending, in addition to popular rumors of land described in western voyages, such relics as appeared to have floated to the European sh.o.r.es from the other side of the Atlantic. Hist. del Almirante, cap. 6-8.
[9] None of the intimations are so precise as that contained in the well- known lines of Seneca"s Medea,
"Venient annuis saecula," etc.,
although, when regarded as a mere poetical vagary, it has not the weight which belongs to more serious suggestions, of similar import, in the writings of Aristotle and Strabo. The various allusions in the ancient cla.s.sic writers to an undiscovered world form the subject of an elaborate essay in the Memorias da Acad. Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, (tom. v. pp.
101-112,) and are embodied, in much greater detail, in the first section of Hnmboldt"s "Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent;" a work in which the author, with his usual acuteness, has successfully applied the vast stores of his erudition and experience to the ill.u.s.tration of many interesting points connected with the discovery of the New World, and the personal history of Columbus.
[10] It is probably the knowledge of this which has led some writers to impute part of his work to the learned Marsilio Ficino, and others, with still less charity and probability, to refer the authorship of the whole to Politian. Comp. Ta.s.so, Opere, (Venezia, 1735-42,) tom. x. p. 129.--and Crescimbeni, Istoria della Volgar Poesia, (Venezia, 1731,) tom. iii. pp.
273, 274.
[11] Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, canto 25, st. 229, 230.--I have used blank verse, as affording facility for a more literal version than the corresponding _ottava rima_ of the original. This pa.s.sage of Pulci, which has not fallen under the notice of Humboldt, or any other writer on the same subject whom I have consulted, affords, probably, the most circ.u.mstantial prediction that is to be found of the existence of a western world. Dante, two centuries before, had intimated more vaguely his belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe.
"De" vostri sensi, ch" e del rimanente, Non vogliate negar l"esperienza, Diretro al sol, del mondo senza gente."
Inferno, cant. 26, v. 115.
[12] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Dipl., no. 1.--Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 17.--It is singular that Columbus, in his visit to Iceland, in 1477, (see Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 4,) should have learned nothing of the Scandinavian voyages to the northern sh.o.r.es of America in the tenth and following centuries; yet if he was acquainted with them, it appears equally surprising that he should not have adduced the fact in support of his own hypothesis of the existence of land in the west; and that he should have taken a route so different from that of his predecessors in the path of discovery. It may be, however, as M. de Humboldt has well remarked, that the information he obtained in Iceland was too vague to suggest the idea, that the lands thus discovered by the Northmen had any connection with the Indies, of which he was in pursuit. In Columbus"s day, indeed, so little was understood of the true position of these countries, that Greenland is laid down on the maps in the European seas, and as a peninsular prolongation of Scandinavia. See Humboldt, Geographie du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. pp. 118, 125.
[13] Herrera, Indias Occidentals, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7.--Munoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 19.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap.
15.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Historia, lib. 1, cap. 6.--Fernando Colon, Hist.
del Almirante, cap. 10.--Faria y Sousa, Europa Portuguesa, tom. ii. part.