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[Illustration: COLUMBUS MONUMENT, PIAZZA ACQUAVERDE, GENOA, ITALY.

Sculptor, Signor Lanzio. Dedicated 1862.

(See page 141.)]




  CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

  AND HIS MONUMENT

  COLUMBIA

  BEING

  A CONCORDANCE OF CHOICE TRIBUTES TO THE GREAT GENOESE, HIS GRAND
  DISCOVERY, AND HIS GREATNESS OF MIND AND PURPOSE.


  _THE TESTIMONY OF ANCIENT AUTHORS, THE TRIBUTES OF MODERN MEN._

  ADORNED WITH THE SCULPTURES, SCENES, AND PORTRAITS OF THE OLD WORLD AND
  THE NEW.

  COMPILED BY J. M. DICKEY.


  CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1892.
  COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY RAND, MCNALLY & CO.
  Columbus.




PREFACE.


History places in prominence Columbus and America. They are the
brightest jewels in her crown. Columbus is a permanent orb in the
progress of civilization. From the highest rung of the ladder of fame,
he has stepped to the skies. America "still hangs blossoming in the
garden of time, while her penetrating perfume floats all round the
world, and intoxicates all other nations with the hope of liberty." If
possible, these tributes would add somewhat to the luster of fame which
already encircles the Nation and the Man. Many voices here speak for
themselves.

Six hundred authors and more have written of Columbus or his great
discovery. An endless task therefore would it be to attempt to
enumerate, much less set out, the thousands who have incidentally, and
even encomiastically, referred to him. Equally impossible would it be to
hope to include a tithe of their utterances within the limits of any
single volume, even were it of colossal proportions. This volume of
tributes essays then to be but a concordance of some of the most choice
and interesting extracts, and, artistically illustrated with statues,
scenes, and inscriptions, is issued at an appropriate time and place.
The compiler desires in this preface to acknowledge his sincere
obligations and indebtedness to the many authors and publishers who so
courteously and uniformly extended their consents to use copyright
matter, and to express an equal sense of gratitude to his friend, Stuart
C. Wade, for his valuable assistance in selecting, arranging, and
indexing much of the matter herein contained.

In one of the galleries of Florence there is a remarkable bust of
Brutus, left unfinished by the great sculptor Michael Angelo. Some
writer explained the incomplete condition by indicating that the artist
abandoned his labor in despair, "overcome by the grandeur of the
subject." With similar feeling, this little book is submitted to the
admirers of Columbus and Columbia, wherever they may be found.

                                                         J. M. D.

  COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO., July, 1892.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


                                                                    Page

  Preface,                                                             5

  Table of Contents,                                                   7

  List of Illustrations,                                               9

  Life of Columbus,                                                11-40

  Selected letters of Columbus,                                    41-57

  Tributes to Columbus,                                           61-323

  Tributes to Columbia,                                          327-384

  Index of Authors--Columbus,                                    385-388

  Index of Authors--Columbia,                                    389-390

  Index of Head Lines,                                           391-396

  Index of Statuary and Inscriptions,                                397




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


  The Columbus Statue, Genoa,                              _Frontispiece_

  Columbus at Salamanca,                                              17

  The De Bry Portrait,                                                24

  The Embarkation at Palos,                                           32

  Columbus in Chains,                                                 49

  Fac-simile of Columbus' letter to the Bank of St.
    George, Genoa,                                                    52

  Columbus Statue, on Barcelona Monument,                             64

  Columbus Monument, Barcelona,                                       81

  The Paseo Colon, Barcelona,                                         96

  Columbus Statue, City of Colon,                                    113

  Zearing's Head of Columbus,                                        120

  Park's Statue of Columbus, Chicago,                                128

  House of Columbus, Genoa,                                          145

  The Antonio Moro Portrait,                                         160

  Toscanelli's Map,                                                  177

  Samartin's Statue of Columbus, Madrid,                             192

  Suñol's Statue of Columbus, Madrid,                                209

  Map of Herrera (Columbus' Historian),                              224

  Modern Map of the Bahamas,                                         241

  Map of Columbus' Pilot,                                            256

  Columbus Monument, Mexico,                                         273

  Columbus Monument, New York City,                                  288

  Bas-relief, New York Monument,                                     296

  Bas-relief, New York Monument,                                     305

  Columbus Statue, Havana,                                           312

  Columbus Statue, Philadelphia,                                     320

  Part of Columbus Statue, New York City,                            328

  The Convent of Santa Maria de la Rábida,                           337

  The Santa Maria Caravel,                                           352

  The Columbus Fleet,                                                360

  Vanderlyn's Picture of the Landing of Columbus,                    369

  Columbus Statue, St. Louis, Mo.,                                   384




Columbus and His Monument Columbia.




THE LIFE OF COLUMBUS.


Christopher Columbus, the eldest son of Dominico Colombo and Suzanna
Fontanarossa, was born at Genoa in 1435 or 1436, the exact date being
uncertain. As to his birthplace there can be no legitimate doubt; he
says himself of Genoa, in his will, "Della salí y en ella naci" (from
there I came, and there was I born), though authorities, authors, and
even poets differ. Some, like Tennyson, having

  Stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto
  And drank, and loyally drank, to him.

His father was a wool-comber, of some small means, who was living two
years after the discovery of the West Indies, and who removed his
business from Genoa to Savona in 1469. Christopher, the eldest son, was
sent to the University of Pavia, where he devoted himself to the
mathematical and natural sciences, and where he probably received
instruction in nautical astronomy from Antonio da Terzago and Stefano di
Faenza. On his removal from the university it appears that he worked for
some months at his father's trade; but on reaching his fifteenth year he
made his choice of life, and became a sailor.

Of his apprenticeship, and the first years of his career, no records
exist. The whole of his earlier life, indeed, is dubious and
conjectural, founded as it is on the half-dozen dark and evasive
chapters devoted by Hernando, his son and biographer, to the first
half-century of his father's times. It seems certain, however, that
these unknown years were stormy, laborious, and eventful; "wherever ship
has sailed," he writes, "there have I journeyed." He is known, among
other places, to have visited England, "Ultima Thule" (Iceland), the
Guinea Coast, and the Greek Isles; and he appears to have been some time
in the service of René of Provence, for whom he is recorded to have
intercepted and seized a Venetian galley with great bravery and
audacity. According to his son, too, he sailed with Colombo el Mozo, a
bold sea captain and privateer; and a sea fight under this commander was
the means of bringing him ashore in Portugal. Meanwhile, however, he was
preparing himself for greater achievements by reading and meditating on
the works of Ptolemy and Marinus, of Nearchus and Pliny, the
Cosmographia of Cardinal Aliaco, the travels of Marco Polo and
Mandeville. He mastered all the sciences essential to his calling,
learned to draw charts and construct spheres, and thus fitted himself to
become a consummate practical seaman and navigator.

In 1470 he arrived at Lisbon, after being wrecked in a sea fight that
began off Cape St. Vincent, and escaping to land on a plank. In Portugal
he married Felipa Moñiz de Perestrello, daughter of Bartollomeu
Perestrello, a captain in the service of Prince Henry, called the
Navigator, one of the early colonists and the first governor of Porto
Santo, an island off Madeira. Columbus visited the island, and employed
his time in making maps and charts for a livelihood, while he pored over
the logs and papers of his deceased father-in-law, and talked with old
seamen of their voyages and of the mystery of the Western seas. About
this time, too, he seems to have arrived at the conclusion that much of
the world remained undiscovered, and step by step to have conceived
that design of reaching Asia by sailing west which was to result in the
discovery of America. In 1474 we find him expounding his views to Paolo
Toscanelli, the Florentine physician and cosmographer, and receiving the
heartiest encouragement.

These views he supported with three different arguments, derived from
natural reasons, from the theories of geographers, and from the reports
and traditions of mariners. "He believed the world to be a sphere," says
Helps; "he underestimated its size; he overestimated the size of the
Asiatic continent. The farther that continent extended to the east, the
nearer it came round toward Spain." And he had but to turn from the
marvelous propositions of Mandeville and Aliaco to become the recipient
of confidences more marvelous still. The air was full of rumors, and the
weird imaginings of many generations of mediæval navigators had taken
shape and substance, and appeared bodily to men's eyes. Martin Vicente,
a Portuguese pilot, had found, 450 leagues to the westward of Cape St.
Vincent, and after a westerly gale of many days' duration, a piece of
strange wood, sculptured very artistically, but not with iron. Pedro
Correa, his own brother-in-law, had seen another such waif near the
Island of Madeira, while the King of Portugal had information of great
canes, capable of holding four quarts of wine between joint and joint,
which Herrera declares the King received, preserved, and showed to
Columbus. From the colonists on the Azores Columbus heard of two men
being washed up at Flores, "very broad-faced, and differing in aspect
from Christians." The transport of all these objects being attributed to
the west winds and not to the gulf stream, the existence of which was
then totally unsuspected. West of the Azores now and then there hove in
sight the mysterious Islands of St. Brandan; and 200 leagues west of the
Canaries lay somewhere the lost Island of the Seven Cities, that two
valiant Genoese had vainly endeavored to discover, and in search of
which, yearly, the merchants of Bristol sent expeditions, even before
Columbus sailed. In his northern journey, too, some vague and formless
traditions may have reached his ear of the voyages of Biorn and Lief,
and of the pleasant coasts of Helleland, Markland, and Vinland that lay
toward the setting sun. All were hints and rumors to bid the bold
mariner sail westward, and this he at length determined to do. There is
also some vague and unreliable tradition as to a Portuguese pilot
discovering the Indies previous to Columbus, and on his deathbed
revealing the secret to the Genoese explorer. It is at the best but a
fanciful tale.

The concurrence of some state or sovereign, however, was necessary for
the success of this design. The Senate of Genoa had the honor to receive
the first offer, and the responsibility of refusing it. Rejected by his
native city, the projector turned next to John II. of Portugal. This
King had already an open field for discovery and enterprise along the
African coast; but he listened to the Genoese, and referred him to the
Committee of Council for Geographical Affairs. The council's report was
altogether adverse; but the King, who was yet inclined to favor the
theory of Columbus, assented to the suggestion of the Bishop of Ceuta
that the plan should be carried out in secret, and without Columbus'
knowledge, by means of a caravel or light frigate. The caravel was
dispatched, but it returned after a brief absence, the sailors having
lost heart, and having refused to venture farther. Upon discovering this
dishonorable transaction, Columbus felt so outraged and indignant that
he sent off his brother Bartholomew to England with letters for Henry
VII., to whom he had communicated his ideas. He himself left Lisbon
many other friends, and here met with Beatrix Enriquez, the mother of
his second son, Hernando, who was born August 15, 1488.

A certain class of writers pretend that Beatrix Enriquez was the lawful
wife of Columbus.[1] If so, when he died she would of right have been
Vice-Queen Dowager of the Indies. Is it likely that $56 would have been
the pension settled upon a lady of such rank? Señor Castelar, than whom
there is no greater living authority, scouts the idea of a legal
marriage; and, indeed, it is only a few irresponsible and peculiarly
aggressive Catholic writers who have the hardihood to advance this more
than improbable theory. Mr. Henry Harrisse, a most painstaking critic,
thinks that Felipa Moñiz died in 1488. She was buried in the Monastery
do Carmo, at Lisbon, and some trace of her may hereafter be found in the
archives of the Provedor or Registrar of Wills, at Lisbon, when these
papers are arranged, as she must have bequeathed a sum to the poor,
under the customs then prevailing.

From Cordova, Columbus followed the court to Salamanca, where he was
introduced to the notice of the grand cardinal, Pedro Gonzales de
Mendoza, "the third King of Spain." The cardinal, while approving the
project, thought that it savored strongly of heterodoxy; but an
interview with the projector brought him over, and through his influence
Columbus at last got audience of the King. The matter was finally
referred, however, to Fernando de Talavera, who, in 1487, summoned a
junta of astronomers and cosmographers to confer with Columbus, and
examine his design and the arguments by which he supported it. The
Dominicans of San Estebàn in Salamanca entertained Columbus during the
conference. The jurors, who were most of them ecclesiastics, were by no
means unprejudiced, nor were they disposed to abandon their pretensions
to for Spain (1484), taking with him his son Diego, the only issue of
his marriage with Felipa Moñiz. He departed secretly, according to some
writers to give the slip to King John, according to others to escape his
creditors. In one of his letters Columbus says: "When I came from such a
great distance to serve these princes, I abandoned a wife and children,
whom, for this cause, I never saw again." The first traces of Columbus
at the court of Spain are on May 5, 1487, when an entry in some accounts
reads: "Given to-day 3,000 maravedis (about $18) to Cristobal Colomo, a
stranger." Three years after (March 20, 1488), a letter was sent by the
King to "Christopher Colon, our especial friend," inviting him to
return, and assuring him against arrest and proceedings of any kind; but
it was then too late.

Columbus next betook himself to the south of Spain, and seems to have
proposed his plan first to the Duke of Medina Sidonia (who was at first
attracted by it, but finally threw it up as visionary and
impracticable), and next to the Duke of Medina Celi. The latter gave him
great encouragement, entertained him for two years, and even determined
to furnish him with the three or four caravels. Finally, however, being
deterred by the consideration that the enterprise was too vast for a
subject, he turned his guest from the determination he had come to, of
making instant application to the court of France, by writing on his
behalf to Queen Isabella; and Columbus repaired to the court at Cordova
at her bidding.

[Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS BEFORE THE DOMINICAN JUNTA AT
SALAMANCA, SPAIN.

From the celebrated painting by Señor V. Izquierdo.

(See page 16.)]

It was an ill moment for the navigator's fortune. Castille and Leon were
in the thick of that struggle which resulted in the final defeat of the
Moors; and neither Ferdinand nor Isabella had time to listen. The
adventurer was indeed kindly received; he was handed over to the care of
Alonzo de Quintanilla, whom he speedily converted into an enthusiastic
supporter of his theory. He made knowledge without a struggle.
Columbus argued his point, but was overwhelmed with Biblical texts, with
quotations from the great divines, with theological objections, and in a
short time the junta was adjourned. Señor Rodriguez Pinilla, the learned
Salamantine writer, holds that the first refusal of Columbus' project
was made in the official council at Cordova. In 1489, Columbus, who had
been following the court from place to place (billeted in towns as an
officer of the King and gratified from time to time with sums of money
toward his expenses), was present at the siege of Malaga. In 1490 the
junta decided that his project was vain and impracticable, and that it
did not become their Highnesses to have anything to do with it; and this
was confirmed, with some reservation, by their Highnesses themselves, at
Seville.

Columbus was now in despair. So reduced in circumstances was he that
(according to the eminent Spanish statesman and orator, Emilio Castelar)
he was jocularly and universally termed "the stranger with the
threadbare coat." He at once betook himself to Huelva, where his
brother-in-law resided, with the intention of taking ship to France. He
halted, however, at Palos, a little maritime town in Andalusia. At the
Monastery of Santa Maria de la Rábida[2] he knocked and asked for bread
and water for his boy Diego, and presently got into conversation with
Fray Juan Perez de Marchena, the prior, who invited him to take up his
quarters in the monastery, and introduced him to Garci Fernandez, a
physician and an ardent student of geography. To these good men did
Columbus propound his theory and explain his plan. Juan Perez had been
the Queen's confessor; he wrote to her and was summoned to her presence,
and money was sent to Columbus to bring him once more to court. He
reached Granada in time to witness the surrender of the city by the
Moors, and negotiations were resumed. Columbus believed in his mission,
and stood out for high terms; he asked the rank of admiral at once, the
vice-royalty of all he should discover, and a tenth of all the gain, by
conquest or by trade. These conditions were rejected, and the
negotiations were again interrupted. An interview with Mendoza appears
to have followed, but nothing came of it, and in January, 1492, Columbus
actually set out for France. At length, however, on the entreaty of Luis
de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of the crown of
Aragon, Isabella was induced to determine on the expedition. A messenger
was sent after Columbus, and overtook him at the Bridge of Piños, about
two leagues from Granada. He returned to the camp at Santa Fé, and on
April 17, 1492, the agreement between him and their Catholic Majesties
was signed and sealed. This agreement being familiarly known in Spanish
history as "The Capitulations of Santa Fé."

His aims were nothing less than the discovery of the marvelous province
of Cipango and the conversion to Christianity of the Grand Khan, to whom
he received a royal and curious blank letter of introduction. The town
of Palos was, by forced levy, as a punishment for former rebellion,
ordered to find him three caravels, and these were soon placed at his
disposal. But no crews could be got together, Columbus even offering to
throw open the jails and take all criminals and broken men who would
serve on the expedition; and had not Juan Perez succeeded in interesting
Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vicente Yañez Pinzon in the cause, Columbus'
departure had been long delayed. At last, however, men, ships, and
stores were ready. The expedition consisted of the Gallega, rechristened
the Santa Maria, a decked ship, with a crew of fifty men, commanded by
the Admiral in person; and of two caravels--the Pinta, with thirty men,
under Martin Pinzon, and the Niña, with twenty-four men, under his
brother, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, afterward (1499) the first to cross the
line in the American Atlantic. The adventurers numbered 120 souls, and
on Friday, August 3, 1492, at 8 in the morning, the little fleet weighed
anchor and stood out for the Canary Islands, sailing as it were "into a
world unknown--the corner-stone of a nation."

Deeply significant was one incident of their first few days' sail.
Emilio Castelar tells us that these barks, laden with bright promises
for the future, were sighted by other ships, laden with the hatreds and
rancors of the past, for it chanced that one of the last vessels
transporting into exile the Jews, expelled from Spain by the religious
intolerance of which the recently created and odious Tribunal of the
Faith was the embodiment, passed by the little fleet bound in search of
another world, where creation should be newborn, a haven be afforded
to the quickening principle of human liberty, and a temple be reared to
the God of enfranchised and redeemed consciences.

An abstract of the Admiral's diary made by the Bishop Las Casas is yet
extant; and from it many particulars may be gleaned concerning this
first voyage. Three days after the ships had set sail the Pinta lost her
rudder. The Admiral was in some alarm, but comforted himself with the
reflection that Martin Pinzon was energetic and ready-witted; they had,
however, to put in (August 9th) at Teneriffe to refit the caravel. On
September 6th they weighed anchor once more with all haste, Columbus
having been informed that three Portuguese caravels were on the lookout
for him. On September 13th the variations of the magnetic needle were
for the first time observed;[3] and on the 15th a wonderful meteor fell
into the sea at four or five leagues distance. On the 16th they arrived
at those vast plains of seaweed called the Sargasso Sea; and
thenceforward, writes the Admiral, they had most temperate breezes, the
sweetness of the mornings being most delightful, the weather like an
Andalusian April, and only the song of the nightingale wanting. On the
17th the men began to murmur. They were frightened by the strange
phenomena of the variations of the compass, but the explanation Columbus
gave restored their tranquillity. On the 18th they saw many birds and a
great ridge of low-lying cloud, and they expected to see land. On the
20th they saw two pelicans, and they were sure the land must be near. In
this, however, they were disappointed, and the men began to be afraid
and discontented; and thenceforth Columbus, who was keeping all the
while a double reckoning--one for the crew and one for himself--had
great difficulty in restraining the men from the excesses which they
meditated. On the 25th Alonzo Pinzon raised the cry of land, but it
proved a false alarm; as did the rumor to the same effect on October
7th, when the Niña hoisted a flag and fired a gun. On the 11th the Pinta
fished up a cane, a log of wood, a stick wrought with iron, and a board,
and the Niña sighted a branch of hawthorne laden with ripe luscious
berries, "and with these signs all of them breathed and were glad." At
8 o'clock on that night, Columbus perceived and pointed out a light
ahead,[4] Pedro Gutierrez also seeing it; and at 2 in the morning of
Friday, October 12, 1492, Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor aboard the Niña, a
native of Seville, announced the appearance of what proved to be the New
World.[5] The land sighted was an island called by the Indians
Guanahani, and named by Columbus San Salvador.[6]

The same morning Columbus landed, richly clad, and bearing the royal
banner of Spain. He was accompanied by the brothers Pinzon, bearing
banners of the Green Cross, a device of his own, and by great part of
the crew. When they had all "given thanks to God, kneeling down upon the
shore, and kissed the ground with tears of joy, for the great mercy
received," the Admiral named the island, and took solemn possession of
it for their Catholic Majesties of Castille and Leon. At the same time
such of the crews as had shown themselves doubtful and mutinous sought
his pardon weeping, and prostrated themselves at his feet. Had Columbus
kept the course he laid on leaving Ferrol, says Castelar, his landfall
would have been in the Florida of to-day, that is, upon the main
continent; but, owing to the deflection suggested by the Pinzons, and
tardily accepted by him, it was his hap to strike an island, very fair
to look upon, but small and insignificant when compared with the vast
island-world in whose waters he was already sailing.

Into the details of this voyage, of highest interest as it is, it is
impossible to go further. The letter of Columbus, hereinafter printed,
gives further and most interesting details. It will be enough to say
here that it resulted in the discovery of the islands of Santa Maria del
Concepcion, Exuma, Isabella, Juana or Cuba, Bohio, the Cuban Archipelago
(named by its finder the Jardin del Rey), the island of Santa Catalina,
and that of Española, now called Haiti or San Domingo. Off the last of
these the Santa Maria went aground, owing to the carelessness of the
steersman. No lives were lost, but the ship had to be unloaded and
abandoned; and Columbus, who was anxious to return to Europe with the
news of his achievement, resolved to plant a colony on the island, to
build a fort out of the material of the stranded hulk, and to leave the
crew. The fort was called La Navidad; forty-three Europeans were placed
in charge, including the Governor Diego de Arana; two lieutenants, Pedro
Gutierrez and Rodrigo de Escobedo; an Irishman named William Ires
(? Harris), a native of Galway; an Englishman whose name is given as
Tallarte de Lajes,[7] and the remainder being Spaniards.

On January 16, 1493, Columbus, who had lost sight of Martin Pinzon, set
sail alone in the Niña for the east; and four days afterward the Pinta
joined her sister ship off Monte Christo. A storm, however, separated
the vessels, during which (according to Las Casas) Columbus, fearing the
vessel would founder, cast his duplicate log-book, which was written on
parchment and inclosed in a cake of wax, inside a barrel, into the sea.
The log contained a promise of a thousand ducats to the finder on
delivering it to the King of Spain. Then a long battle with the trade
winds caused great delay, and it was not until February 18th that
Columbus reached the Island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Here he was
threatened with capture by the Portuguese governor, who could not for
some time be brought to recognize his commission. On February 24th,
however, he was allowed to proceed, and on March 4th the Niña dropped
anchor off Lisbon. The King of Portugal received the Admiral with the
highest honors; and on March 13th the Niña put out from the Tagus, and
two days afterward, Friday, March 15th, dropped anchor off Palos.

The court was at Barcelona, and thither, after dispatching a letter[8]
announcing his arrival, Columbus proceeded in person. He entered the
city in a sort of triumphal procession, and was received by their
Majesties in full court, and, seated in their presence, related the
story of his wanderings, exhibiting the "rich and strange" spoils of the
new-found lands--the gold, the cotton, the parrots, the curious arms,
the mysterious plants, the unknown birds and beasts, and the nine
Indians he had brought with him for baptism. All his honors and
privileges were confirmed to him; the title of Don was conferred on
himself and his brothers; he rode at the King's bridle; he was served
and saluted as a grandee of Spain. And, greatest honor of all, a new and
magnificent escutcheon was blazoned for him (May 4, 1493), whereon the
royal castle and lion of Castille and Leon were combined with the four
anchors of his own old coat of arms. Nor were their Catholic Highnesses
less busy on their own account than on that of their servant. On May 3d
and 4th, Alexander VI. granted bulls confirming to the crowns of
Castille and Leon all the lands discovered,[9] or to be discovered,
beyond a certain line of demarcation, on the same terms as those on
which the Portuguese held their colonies along the African coast. A new
expedition was got in readiness with all possible dispatch to secure and
extend the discoveries already made.

[Illustration: THE DE BRY PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS.]

After several delays the fleet weighed anchor on September 25th and
steered westward. It consisted of three great carracks (galleons) and
fourteen caravels (light frigates), having on board about 1,500 men,
besides the animals and materials necessary for colonization. Twelve
missionaries accompanied the expedition, under the orders of Bernardo
Boyle, a Benedictine friar; and Columbus had been directed (May 29,
1493) to endeavor by all means in his power to christianize the
inhabitants of the islands, to make them presents, and to "honor them
much," while all under him were commanded to treat them "well and
lovingly," under pain of severe punishment. On October 13th the ships,
which had put in at the Canaries, left Ferrol, and so early as Sunday,
November 3d, after a single storm, "by the goodness of God and the wise
management of the Admiral," land was sighted to the west, which was
named Dominica. Northward from this new-found island the isles of Maria
Galante and Guadaloupe were discovered and named; and on the
northwestern course to La Navidad, those of Montserrat, Antigua, San
Martin, and Santa Cruz were sighted, and the island now called Puerto
Rico was touched at, hurriedly explored, and named San Juan. On November
22d Columbus came in sight of Española, and, sailing eastward to La
Navidad, found the fort burned and the colony dispersed. He decided on
building a second fort, and, coasting on forty miles east of Cape
Haytien, he pitched on a spot, where he founded the city and settlement
of Isabella.

It is remarkable that the first notice of india rubber on record is
given by Herrera, who, in the second voyage of Columbus, observed that
the natives of Haiti "played a game with balls made of the gum of a
tree."

The character in which Columbus had appeared had till now been that of
the greatest of mariners; but from this point forward his claims to
supremacy are embarrassed and complicated with the long series of
failures, vexations, miseries, insults, that have rendered his career as
a planter of colonies and as a ruler of men most pitiful and remarkable.

The climate of Navidad proved unhealthy; the colonists were greedy of
gold, impatient of control, and as proud, ignorant, and mutinous as
Spaniards could be; and Columbus, whose inclinations drew him westward,
was doubtless glad to escape the worry and anxiety of his post, and to
avail himself of the instructions of his sovereigns as to further
discoveries. In January, 1494, he sent home, by Antonio de Torres, that
dispatch to their Catholic Highnesses by which he may be said to have
founded the West Indian slave trade. He founded the mining camp of San
Tomaso in the gold country; and on April 24, 1494, having nominated a
council of regency under his brother Diego, and appointed Pedro de
Margarite his captain-general, he put again to sea. After following the
southern shore of Cuba for some days, he steered southward, and
discovered the Island of Jamaica, which he named Santiago. He then
resumed his exploration of the Cuban coast, threading his way through a
labyrinth of islets supposed to be the Morant Keys, which he named the
Garden of the Queen, and after coasting westward for many days he became
convinced that he had discovered the mainland, and called Perez de Luna,
the notary, to draw up a document attesting his discovery (June 12,
1494), which was afterward taken round and signed, in presence of four
witnesses, by the masters, mariners, and seamen of his three caravels,
the Niña, the Cadera, and the San Juan. He then stood to the southeast
and sighted the Island of Evangelista; and after many days of
difficulties and anxieties he touched at and named the Island La Mona.
Thence he had intended to sail eastward and complete the survey of the
Carribbean Archipelago. But he was exhausted by the terrible wear and
tear of mind and body he had undergone (he says himself that on this
expedition he was three-and-thirty days almost without any sleep), and
on the day following his departure from La Mona he fell into a lethargy
that deprived him of sense and memory, and had well nigh proved fatal to
life. At last, on September 29th, the little fleet dropped anchor off
Isabella, and in his new city the great Admiral lay sick for five
months.

The colony was in a sad plight. Everyone was discontented, and many were
sick, for the climate was unhealthy and there was nothing to eat.
Margarite and Boyle had quitted Española for Spain; but ere his
departure the former, in his capacity as captain-general, had done much
to outrage and alienate the Indians. The strongest measures were
necessary to undo this mischief; and, backed by his brother Bartholomew,
a bold and skillful mariner, and a soldier of courage and resource, who
had been with Diaz in his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus
proceeded to reduce the natives under Spanish sway.[10] Alonzo de Ojeda
succeeded, by a brilliant _coup de main_, in capturing the Cacique
Caonabo, and the rest submitted. Five ship-loads of Indians were sent
off to Seville (June 24, 1495) to be sold as slaves; and a tribute was
imposed upon their fellows, which must be looked upon as the origin of
that system of _repartimientos_ or _encomiendas_ which was afterward to
work such cruel mischief among the conquered. But the tide of court
favor seemed to have turned against Columbus. In October, 1495, Juan
Aguada arrived at Isabella, with an open commission from their Catholic
Majesties, to inquire into the circumstances of his rule; and much
interest and recrimination followed. Columbus found that there was no
time to be lost in returning home; he appointed his brother Bartholomew
"adelantado" of the island, and on March 10, 1496, he quitted Española
in the Niña. The vessel, after a protracted and perilous voyage, reached
Cadiz on June 11, 1496. The Admiral landed in great dejection, wearing
the costume of a Franciscan. Reassured, however, by the reception of his
sovereigns, he asked at once for eight ships more, two to be sent to the
colony with supplies and six to be put under his orders for new
discoveries. The request was not immediately granted, as the Spanish
exchequer was not then well supplied. But principally owing to the
interest of the Queen, an agreement was come to similar to that of 1492,
which was now confirmed. By this royal patent, moreover, a tract of land
in Española, of fifty leagues by twenty, was made over to him. He was
offered a dukedom or a marquisate at his pleasure; for three years he
was to receive an eighth of the gross and a tenth of the net profits on
each voyage, the right of creating a mayorazgo or perpetual entail of
titles and estates was granted him, and on June 24th his two sons were
received into Isabella's service as pages. Meanwhile, however, the
preparing of the fleet proceeded slowly, and it was not till May 30,
1498, that he and his six ships set sail.

From San Lucar he steered for Gomera, in the Canaries, and thence
dispatched three of his ships to San Domingo. He next proceeded to the
Cape Verde Islands, which he quitted on July 4th. On the 31st of the
same month, being greatly in need of water, and fearing that no land lay
westward as they had hoped, Columbus had turned his ship's head north,
when Alonzo Perez, a mariner of Huelva, saw land about fifteen leagues
to the southwest. It was crowned with three hilltops, and so, when the
sailors had sung the _Salve Regina_, the Admiral named it Trinidad,
which name it yet bears. On Wednesday, August 1st, he beheld for the
first time, in the mainland of South America, the continent he had
sought so long. It seemed to him but an insignificant island, and he
called it Zeta. Sailing westward, next day he saw the Gulf of Paria,
which was named by him the Golfo de la Belena, and was borne into it--an
immense risk--on the ridge of breakers formed by the meeting with the
sea of the great rivers that empty themselves, all swollen with rain,
into the ocean. For many days he coasted the continent, esteeming as
islands the several projections he saw and naming them accordingly; nor
was it until he had looked on and considered the immense volume of fresh
water poured out through the embouchure of the river now called the
Orinoco, that he concluded that the so-called archipelago must be in
very deed a great continent.

Unfortunately at this time he was suffering intolerably from gout and
ophthalmia; his ships were crazy; and he was anxious to inspect the
infant colony whence he had been absent so long. And so, after touching
at and naming the Island of Margarita, he bore away to the northeast,
and on August 30th the fleet dropped anchor off Isabella.

He found that affairs had not prospered well in his absence. By the
vigor and activity of the adelantado, the whole island had been reduced
under Spanish sway, but at the expense of the colonists. Under the
leadership of a certain Roldan, a bold and unprincipled adventurer, they
had risen in revolt, and Columbus had to compromise matters in order to
restore peace. Roldan retained his office; such of his followers as
chose to remain in the island were gratified with _repartimientos_ of
land and labor; and some fifteen, choosing to return to Spain, were
enriched with a number of slaves, and sent home in two ships, which
sailed in the early part of October, 1499.

Five ship-loads of Indians had been deported to Spain some little time
before. On arrival of these living cargoes at Seville, the Queen, the
stanch and steady friend of Columbus, was moved with compassion and
indignation. No one, she declared, had authorized him to dispose of her
vassals in any such manner; and proclamations at Seville, Granada, and
other chief places ordered (June 20, 1499) the instant liberation and
return of all the last gang of Indians. In addition to this, the
ex-colonists had become incensed against Columbus and his brothers. They
were wont to parade their grievances in the very court-yards of the
Alhambra; to surround the King, when he came forth, with complaints and
reclamations; to insult the discoverer's young sons with shouts and
jeers. There was no doubt that the colony itself, whatever the cause,
had not prospered so well as might have been desired. Historians do not
hesitate to aver that Columbus' over-colored and unreliable statements
as to the amount of gold to be found there were the chief causes of
discontent.

And, on the whole, it is not surprising that Ferdinand, whose support to
Columbus had never been very hearty, should about this time have
determined to suspend him. Accordingly, on March 21, 1499, Francisco de
Bobadilla was ordered to "ascertain what persons had raised themselves
against justice in the Island of Española, and to proceed against them
according to law." On May 21st the government of the island was
conferred on him, and he was accredited with an order that all arms and
fortresses should be handed over to him; and on May 26th he received a
letter, for delivery to Columbus, stating that the bearer would "speak
certain things to him" on the part of their Highnesses, and praying him
to "give faith and credence, and to act accordingly." Bobadilla left
Spain in July, 1500, and landed in Española in October.

Columbus, meanwhile, had restored such tranquillity as was possible in
his government. With Roldan's help he had beaten off an attempt on the
island by the adventurer Ojeda, his old lieutenant; the Indians were
being collected into villages and christianized. Gold mining was
actively and profitably pursued; in three years, he calculated, the
royal revenues might be raised to an average of 60,000,000 reals. The
arrival of Bobadilla, however, on August 23, 1500, speedily changed this
state of affairs into a greater and more pitiable confusion than the
island had ever before witnessed. On landing, he took possession of the
Admiral's house, and summoned him and his brothers before him.
Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality even, were poured
down on their heads, and Columbus anticipated nothing less than a
shameful death. Bobadilla put all three in irons, and shipped them off
to Spain.

Andreas Martin, captain of the caravel in which the illustrious
prisoners sailed, still retained a proper sense of the honor and respect
due to Columbus, and would have removed the fetters; but to this
Columbus would not consent. He would wear them until their Highnesses,
by whose order they had been affixed, should order their removal; and he
would keep them afterward "as relics and memorials of the reward of his
services." He did so. His son Hernando "saw them always hanging in his
cabinet, and he requested that when he died they might be buried with
him." Whether this last wish was complied with is not known.

A heart-broken and indignant letter from Columbus to Doña Juana de la
Torres, the governess of the infant Don Juan, arrived at court before
the dispatch of Bobadilla. It was read to the Queen, and its tidings
were confirmed by communications from Alonso de Villejo and the alcaide
of Cadiz. There was a great movement of indignation; the tide of
popular and royal feeling turned once more in the Admiral's favor. He
received a large sum to defray his expenses; and when he appeared at
court, on December 17th, he was no longer in irons and disgrace, but
richly appareled and surrounded with friends. He was received with all
honor and distinction. The Queen is said to have been moved to tears by
the narration of his story. Their Majesties not only repudiated
Bobadilla's proceedings, but declined to inquire into the charges that
he at the same time brought against his prisoners, and promised Columbus
compensation for his losses and satisfaction for his wrongs. A new
governor, Nicolas de Ovando, was appointed in Bobadilla's room, and left
San Lucar on February 18, 1502, with a fleet of thirty ships. The latter
was to be impeached and sent home. The Admiral's property was to be
restored and a fresh start was to be made in the conduct of colonial
affairs. Thus ended Columbus' history as viceroy and governor of the new
Indies, which he had presented to the country of his adoption.

[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS TO DISCOVER AMERICA, FROM THE PORT
OF PALOS, SPAIN, ON AUGUST 3, 1492.

From the celebrated painting by Señor A. Gisbert.

(See page 19.)]

His hour of rest, however, was not yet come. Ever anxious to serve their
Catholic Highnesses, "and particularly the Queen," he had determined to
find a strait through which he might penetrate westward into Portuguese
Asia. After the usual inevitable delays his prayers were granted, and on
May 9, 1502, with four caravels and 150 men, he weighed anchor from
Cadiz and sailed on his fourth and last great voyage. He first betook
himself to the relief of the Portuguese fort of Arzilla, which had been
besieged by the Moors, but the siege had been raised voluntarily before
he arrived. He put to sea westward once more, and on June 13th
discovered the Island of Martinique. He had received positive
instructions from his sovereigns on no account to touch at Española, but
his largest caravel was greatly in need of repairs, and he had no
choice but to abandon her or disobey orders. He preferred the latter
alternative, and sent a boat ashore to Ovando, asking for a new ship and
for permission to enter the harbor to weather a hurricane which he saw
was coming on. But his requests were refused, and he coasted the island,
casting anchor under lee of the land. Here he weathered the storm, which
drove the other caravels out to sea and annihilated the homeward-bound
fleet, the richest till then that had been sent from Española. Roldan
and Bobadilla perished with others of the Admiral's enemies; and
Hernando Colon, who accompanied his father on this voyage, wrote, long
years afterward, "I am satisfied it was the hand of God, for had they
arrived in Spain they had never been punished as their crimes deserved,
but rather been favored and preferred."

After recruiting his flotilla at Azua, Columbus put in at Jaquimo and
refitted his four vessels, and on July 14, 1502, he steered for Jamaica.
For nine weeks the ships wandered painfully among the keys and shoals he
had named the Garden of the Queen, and only an opportune easterly wind
prevented the crews from open mutiny. The first land sighted was the
Islet of Guanaja, about forty miles to the east of the coast of
Honduras. Here he got news from an old Indian of a rich and vast country
lying to the eastward, which he at once concluded must be the
long-sought-for empire of the Grand Khan. Steering along the coast of
Honduras great hardships were endured, but nothing approaching his ideal
was discovered. On September 13th Cape Gracias-á-Dios was sighted. The
men had become clamorous and insubordinate; not until December 5th,
however, would he tack about and retrace his course. It now became his
intention to plant a colony on the River Veragua, which was afterward to
give his descendants a title of nobility; but he had hardly put about
when he was caught in a storm which lasted eight days, wrenched and
strained his crazy, worm-eaten ships severely, and finally, on the
Epiphany, blew him into an embouchure, which he named Bethlehem. Gold
was very plentiful in this place, and here he determined to found his
settlement. By the end of March, 1503, a number of huts had been run up,
and in these the adelantado, with eighty men, was to remain, while
Columbus returned to Spain for men and supplies. Quarrels, however,
arose with the natives, the adelantado made an attempt to seize on the
person of the cacique and failed, and before Columbus could leave the
coast he had to abandon a caravel to take the settlers on board, and to
relinquish the enterprise. Steering eastward he left a second caravel at
Porto Bello, and on May 31st he bore northward for Cuba, where he
obtained supplies from the natives. From Cuba he bore up for Jamaica,
and there, in the harbor of Santa Gloria, now St. Anne's Bay, he ran his
ships aground in a small inlet called Don Christopher's Cove.

The expedition was received with the greatest kindness by the natives,
and here Columbus remained upward of a year awaiting the return of his
lieutenant Diego Mendez, whom he had dispatched to Ovando for
assistance. During his critical sojourn here the Admiral suffered much
from disease and from the lawlessness of his followers, whose misconduct
had alienated the natives, and provoked them to withhold their
accustomed supplies, until he dexterously worked upon their
superstitions by prognosticating an eclipse. Two vessels having at last
arrived for their relief from Mendez and Ovando, Columbus set sail for
Spain, after a tempestuous voyage landing once more at Seville on
September 7, 1504.

As he was too ill to go to court, his son Diego was sent thither in his
place, to look after his interests and transact his business. Letter
after letter followed the young man from Seville, one by the hands of
Amerigo Vespucci. A license to ride on mule-back was granted him on
February 23, 1505;[11] and in the following May he was removed to the
court at Segovia, and thence again to Valladolid. On the landing of
Philip and Juan at Coruña (April 25, 1506), although "much oppressed
with the gout and troubled to see himself put by his rights," he is
known to have sent the adelantado to pay them his duty and to assure
them that he was yet able to do them extraordinary service. The last
documentary note of him is contained in a codicil to the will of 1498,
made at Valladolid on May 19, 1506; the principal portion is said,
however, to have been signed at Segovia on August 25, 1506. By this the
old will is confirmed; the mayorazgo is bequeathed to his son Diego and
his heirs male; failing these to Hernando, his second son, and failing
these to the heirs male of Bartholomew. Only in the event of the
extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to
the females of the family; and those into whose hands it may fall are
never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means
possible. The head of the house is to sign himself "The Admiral." A
tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribution
among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed
for the saying of masses. Beatrix Enriquez is left to the care of the
young Admiral in most grateful terms. Among other legacies is one of
"half a mark of silver to a Jew who used to live at the gate of the
Jewry in Lisbon." The codicil was written and signed with the Admiral's
own hand. Next day (May 20, 1506) he died.

The body of Columbus was buried in the parish church of Santa Maria de
la Antigua in Valladolid. It was transferred in 1513 to the Cartuja de
las Cuevas, near Seville, where on the monument was inscribed that
laconic but pregnant tribute:

  _Á Castilla y a Leon,
  Nuevo mundo dió Colon._

  (To Castille and Leon, Columbus gave a new world.)

Here the bones of Diego, the second Admiral, were also laid. Exhumed in
1536, the bodies of both father and son were taken over sea to Española
(San Domingo), and interred in the cathedral. In 1795-96, on the cession
of that island to the French, the august relics were re-exhumed, and
were transferred with great state and solemnity to the cathedral of
Havana, where, it is claimed, they yet remain. The male issue of the
Admiral became extinct with the third generation, and the estates and
titles passed by marriage to a scion of the house of Braganca.

"In person, Columbus was tall and shapely, long-faced and aquiline,
white-eyed and auburn-haired, and beautifully complexioned. At thirty
his hair was quite gray. He was temperate in eating and drinking and in
dress, and so strict in religious matters, that for fasting and saying
all the divine office he might be thought possessed in some religious
order." His piety, as his son has noted, was earnest and unwavering; it
entered into and colored alike his action and his speech; he tries his
pen in a Latin distich of prayer; his signature is a mystical pietistic
device.[12] He was pre-eminently fitted for the task he created for
himself. Through deceit and opprobrium and disdain he pushed on toward
the consummation of his desire; and when the hour for action came, the
man was not found wanting.

Within the last seven years research and discovery have thrown some
doubt upon two very important particulars regarding Columbus. One of
these is the identity of the island which was his first discovery in the
New World; the other, the final resting-place of his remains.

There is no doubt whatever that Columbus died in Valladolid, and that
his remains were interred in the church of the Carthusian Monastery at
Seville, nor that, some time between the years 1537 and 1540, in
accordance with a request made in his will, they were removed to the
Island of Española (Santo Domingo). In 1795, when Spain ceded to France
her portion of the island, Spanish officials obtained permission to
remove to the cathedral at Havana the ashes of the discoverer of
America. There seems to be a question whether the remains which were
then removed were those of Columbus or his son Don Diego.

In 1877, during the progress of certain work in the cathedral at Santo
Domingo, a crypt was disclosed on one side of the altar, and within it
was found a metallic coffin which contained human remains. The coffin
bore the following inscription: "The Admiral Don Luis Colon, Duke of
Veragua, Marquis of Jamaica," referring, undoubtedly, to the grandson of
Columbus. The archbishop Señor Roque Cocchia then took up the search,
and upon the other side of the altar were found two crypts, one empty,
from which had been taken the remains sent to Havana, and the other
containing a metallic case. The case bore the inscription: "D. de la A
Per Ate," which was interpreted to mean: "Descubridor de la America,
Primer Almirante" (Discoverer of America, the First Admiral). The box
was then opened, and on the inside of the cover were the words: "Illtre
y Esdo Varon, Dn Cristoval Colon"--Illustrissime y Esclarecido Varon Don
Cristoval Colon (Illustrious and renowned man, Don Christopher
Columbus). On the two ends and on the front were the letters,
"C.C.A."--Cristoval Colon, Almirante (Christopher Columbus, Admiral).
The box contained bones and bone-dust, a small bit of the skull, a
leaden ball, and a silver plate two inches long. On one side of the
plate was inscribed:

  _Ua. pte. de los rtos
  del pmr. alte D.
  Cristoval Colon Desr._

  (Urna perteneciente de los restos del Primer Almirante Don
        Cristoval Colon, Descubridor--Urn containing the
             remains of the First Admiral Don Christopher
                   Columbus, Discoverer.)

On the other side was: "U. Cristoval Colon" (The coffin of Christopher
Columbus).


These discoveries have been certified to by the archbishop Roque
Cocchia, and by others, including Don Emiliana Tejera, a well-known
citizen. The Royal Academy of History at Madrid, however, challenged the
foregoing statements and declared that the remains of Columbus were
elsewhere than at Havana. Tejera and the archbishop have since published
replies affirming the accuracy of their discovery.[13]

Regarding the identity of the island first seen by Columbus, Capt. G. V.
Fox, in a paper published by the U. S. Coast Survey in 1882, discusses
and reviews the evidence, and draws a different conclusion and inference
from that heretofore commonly accepted. His paper is based upon the
original journals and log-book of Columbus, which were published in 1790
by Don M. F. Navarrete, from a manuscript of Bishop Las Casas, the
contemporary and friend of Columbus, found in the archives of the Duke
del Infanta. In this the exact words of the Admiral's diary are
reproduced by Las Casas, extending from the 11th to the 29th of
October, the landing being on the 12th. From the description the diary
gives, and from a projection of a voyage of Columbus before and after
landing, Capt. Fox concludes that the island discovered was neither
Grand Turk's, Mariguana, Watling's, nor Cat Island (Guanahani), but
Samana, lat. 23 deg. 05 min., N.; long. 75 deg. 35 min., W.

If we accept the carefully drawn deductions of Capt. Fox there is reason
to believe that the island discovered was Samana.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Markham, in his "Life of Columbus," advances the ingenious
suggestion of a marriage invalidated by the pre-contract of Beatrix to
one Enriquez. No authority is adduced for this theory.]

[Footnote 2: The monastery has been restored and preserved as a national
memorial since 1846.]

[Footnote 3: The invention of the mariner's compass is claimed by the
Chinese for the Emperor Hong-ti, a grandson of Noah, about 2634 B. C. A
compass was brought from China to Queen Elizabeth A. D. 1260 by P.
Venutus. By some the invention is ascribed to Marcus Paulus, a Venetian,
A. D. 1260. The discovery of the compass was long attributed to Flavio
Gioja, a Neapolitan sailor, A. D. 1302, who in reality made improvements
on then existing patterns and brought them to the form now used. The
variation of the needle was known to the Chinese, being mentioned in the
works of the Chinese philosopher Keon-tsoung-chy, who flourished about
A. D. 1111. The dip of the needle was discovered A. D. 1576 by Robert
Norman of London. Time was measured on voyages by the hour-glass.
Compare Shakespere:

  Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
  Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass.

]

[Footnote 4: Capt. Parker, in _Goldthwaithe's Geographical Monthly_,
argues ably that the myth that a light was seen by Columbus at 8 P. M.
of the night of the discovery should be dropped simply as rubbish; it is
incredible. More than one hundred men in the three vessels were
anxiously looking for signs of land, and two "think" they see a light.
To say that Columbus felt sure that he saw a light is to pronounce him
an imbecile. For if ahead, he would have stopped; if abeam, stood for
it. His log does not say where or in what direction the light was--an
important omission--and Columbus _ran forty sea miles after he saw this
mythical light_.

We may safely decide that Watling Island, named after a buccaneer or
pirate of the seventeenth century, is best supported by investigation as
the landfall of Columbus.

Cronau, who visited Watling Island in 1890, supposes that Columbus'
ships, after making the land, continued on their course, under the
reduced sail, at the rate of four or five miles an hour; and at daylight
found themselves off the northwest end of the island. Mr. Cronau
evidently is not a seafaring man or he would know that no navigator off
an unknown island at night would stand on, even at the rate of one mile
an hour, ignorant of what shoal or reefs might lie off the end of the
island.]

[Footnote 5: The following from Las Casas' epitome of the log is all the
information we have concerning the "sighting" of the New World:

"THURSDAY, October 11, 1492.--_Navegó al Ouesudueste, turvieron mucho
mar mas que en todo el viage habian tenido. Despues del sol puesto
navegó á su primer Camino al Oueste; andarian doce millas cada hora. A
las dos horas despues de media noche pareció la tierra, de la cual
estarian dos leguas. Amainaron todas las velas y quedaron con el treo
que es la vela grande sin bonetas, y pusiérouse á la corda temporizando
hasta el dia viernes que llegaron á uná isleta de los Lucayos que se
llamaba en lengua de indios Guanahani._"

That is: "They steered west-southwest and experienced a much heavier sea
than they had had before in the whole voyage. After sunset they resumed
their former course west, and sailed twelve miles an hour. At 2 o'clock
in the morning the land appeared (was sighted), two leagues off. They
lowered all the sails and remained under the storm sail, which is the
main sail without bonnets, and hove to, waiting for daylight; and Friday
[found they had] arrived at a small island of the Lucayos which the
Indians called Guanahani."

It will be observed that these are the words of Las Casas, and they were
evidently written some years after the event.]

[Footnote 6: Helps refers to the island as "one of the Bahamas." It has
been variously identified with Turks Island, by Navarette (1825); with
Cat Island, by Irving (1828) and Humboldt (1836); with Mayaguara, by
Varnhagen (1864); and finally, with greatest show of probability, with
Watling Island, by Muñoz (1798), supported by Becher (1856), Peschel
(1857), and Major (1871).]

[Footnote 7: See page 217, _post_.]

[Footnote 8: The greatest blot on the character of Columbus is contained
in this and a succeeding letter. Under the shallow pretense of
benefiting the souls of idolators, he suggested to the Spanish rulers
the advisability of shipping the natives to Spain as slaves. He appeals
to their cupidity by picturing the revenue to be derived therefrom, and
stands convicted in the light of history as the prime author of that
blood-drenched rule which exterminated millions of simple aborigines in
the West Indian Archipelago.]

[Footnote 9: The countries which he had discovered were considered as a
part of India. In consequence of this notion the name of Indies is given
to them by Ferdinand and Isabella in a ratification of their former
agreement, which was granted to Columbus after his return.--Robertson's
"History of America."]

[Footnote 10: The will of Diego Mendez, one of Columbus' most trusted
followers, states that the Governor of Xaragua in seven months burned
and hanged eighty-four chiefs, including the Queen of San Domingo.]

[Footnote 11: Owing to the difficulty in securing animals for the
cavalry in Spain (about A. D. 1505), an edict had been published by the
King forbidding the use of mules in traveling, except by royal
permission.

While Columbus was in Seville he wished to make a journey to the court,
then sitting at Granada, to plead his own cause. Cardinal Mendoza placed
his litter at the disposal of the Admiral, but he preferred a mule, and
wrote to Diego, asking him to petition the King for the privilege of
using one. The request was granted in the following curious document:

_Decree granting to Don Cristoval Colon permission to ride on a mule,
saddled and bridled, through any part of these Kingdoms._

     THE KING: As I am informed that you, Cristoval Colon, the Admiral,
     are in poor bodily health, owing to certain diseases which you had
     or have, and that you can not ride on horse-back without injury to
     your health; therefore, conceding this to your advanced age, I, by
     these presents, grant you leave to ride on a mule, saddled and
     bridled, through whatever parts of these kingdoms or realms you
     wish and choose, notwithstanding the law which I issued thereto;
     and I command the subjects of all parts of these kingdoms and
     realms not to offer you any impediment or allow any to be offered
     to you, under penalty of ten thousand maravedi in behalf of the
     treasury, of whoever does the contrary.

     Given in the City of Toro, February 23, 1505.]

[Footnote 12:

      .s.
   .s. s .s.
    X  M  Y
  XPO FERENS.

COLUMBUS' CIPHER.--The interpretation of the seven-lettered cipher,
accepting the smaller letters of the second line as the final ones of
the words, seems to be _Servate-me, Xristus, Maria, Yosephus_. The name
Christopher appears in the last line.]

[Footnote 13: See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus,
London, 1831; Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geographie
du Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1836; Sportorno, Codice Diplomatico
Colombo-Americano, Genoa, 1823; Hernan Colon, Vita dell' Ammiraglio,
1571; (English translation in vol. xi of Churchill's Voyages and
Travels, third edition, London, 1744; Spanish, 1745); Prescott, History
of Ferdinand and Isabella, London, 1870; Major, Select Letters of
Columbus, Hakluyt Society, London, 1847, and "On the Landfall of
Columbus," in Journal of Royal Geographical Society for 1871; Sir Arthur
Helps, Life of Columbus, London, 1868; Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages y
Descubrimientos desde Fines del Siglo XV., Madrid, 1825; Ticknor,
History of Spanish Literature, London, 1863.

See also Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, Opus Epistolarum, 1530, and De Rebus
Oceanicis et de Orbe Novo, 1511; Gomora, in Historiadores Primitivos de
Indias, vol. xxii of Rivadaneyra's collection; Oveido y Valdes, Cronica
de las Indias, Salamanca, 1547; Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navigatione et
viaggi iii, Venetia, 1575; Herrera de Tordesillas, Historia de las
Indias Occidentales, 1601; Antonio Leon Pinelo, Epitome de la Biblioteca
Oriental y Occidental, Madrid, 1623; Muñoz, Historia del Nuevo Mundo,
Madrid, 1793; Cancellieri, Notizia di Christoforo Colombo, 1809; Bossi,
Vita di Christoforo Colombo, 1819; Charlevoix, Histoire de San Domingo;
Lamartine, Christoph Colomb, Paris, 1862 (Spanish translation, 1865);
Crompton, Life of Columbus, London, 1859; Voyages and Discoveries of
Columbus, sixth edition, London, 1857; H. R. St. John, Life of Columbus,
London, 1850.]




Selected Letters of Columbus


Translation of the letter of Christopher Columbus offering his services
to King Ferdinand of Spain:

     _Most Serene Prince: I have been engaged in navigating from my
     youth. I have voyaged on the seas for nearly forty years. I have
     visited all known quarters of the world and have conversed with a
     great number of learned men--with ecclesiastics, with seculars,
     with Latins, with Greeks, with Moors, and with persons of all sorts
     of religions. I have acquired some knowledge of navigation, of
     astronomy, and of geometry. I am sufficiently expert in designing
     the chart of the earth to place the cities, the rivers, and the
     mountains where they are situated. I have applied myself to the
     study of works on cosmography, on history, and on philosophy. I
     feel myself at present strongly urged to undertake the discovery of
     the Indies; and I come to your Highness to supplicate you to favor
     my enterprise. I doubt not that those who hear it will turn it into
     ridicule; but if your Highness will give me the means of executing
     it, whatever the obstacles may be I hope to be able to make it
     succeed._[14]

Translation of a letter written by Christopher Columbus from the court
of Queen Isabella at Barcelona to Padre Juan Perez de Marchena, a
Franciscan monk, Prior of the Convent of Santa Maria de la Rábida,
Huelva, Spain (Date, 1492):

     _Our Lord God has heard the prayers of His servants. The wise and
     virtuous Isabel, touched by the grace of Heaven, has kindly
     listened to this poor man's words. All has turned out well. I have
     read to them our plan, it has been accepted, and I have been called
     to the court to state the proper means for carrying out the designs
     of Providence. My courage swims in a sea of consolation, and my
     spirit rises in praise to God. Come as soon as you can; the Queen
     looks for you, and I much more than she. I commend myself to the
     prayers of my dear sons and you._

     _The grace of God be with you, and may our Lady of Rábida bless
     you._


COLUMBUS' OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS GREAT DISCOVERY.

Translation of a letter sent by Columbus to Luis de Santangel,
Chancellor of the Exchequer of Aragon, respecting the islands found in
the Indies; inclosing another for their Highnesses (Ferdinand and
Isabella).

     R. H. Major, F. S. A., Keeper of the Department of Maps and Charts
     in the British Museum and Honorary Secretary of the Royal
     Geographical Society of England, states that the peculiar value of
     the following letter, descriptive of the first important voyage of
     Columbus, is that the events described are from the pen of him to
     whom the events occurred. In it we have laid before us, as it were
     from Columbus' own mouth, a clear statement of his opinions and
     conjectures on what were to him great cosmical riddles--riddles
     which have since been solved mainly through the light which his
     illustrious deeds have shed upon the field of our observation:

_Sir: Believing that you will take pleasure in hearing of the great
success which our Lord has granted me in my voyage, I write you this
letter, whereby you will learn how in thirty-three[15] days' time I
reached the Indies with the fleet which the most illustrious King and
Queen, our Sovereigns, gave to me, where I found very many islands
thickly peopled, of all which I took possession, without resistance, for
their Highnesses, by proclamation made and with the royal standard
unfurled. To the first island that I found I gave the name of San
Salvador,[16] in remembrance of His High Majesty, who hath marvelously
brought all these things to pass; the Indians call it Guanahani. To the
second island I gave the name of Santa Maria de Conception; the third I
called Fernandina; the fourth, Isabella; the fifth, Juana; and so to
each one I gave a new name._

_When I reached Juana, I followed its coast to the westward, and found
it so large that I thought it must be the mainland,--the province of
Cathay; and as I found neither towns nor villages on the sea-coast, but
only a few hamlets, with the inhabitants of which I could not hold
conversation because they all immediately fled, I kept on the same
route, thinking that I could not fail to light upon some large cities
and towns._

_At length, after proceeding of many leagues and finding that nothing
new presented itself, and that the coast was leading me northward (which
I wished to avoid, because winter had already set in, and it was my
intention to move southward; and because, moreover, the winds were
contrary), I resolved not to wait for a change in the weather, but
returned to a certain harbor which I had remarked, and from which I sent
two men ashore to ascertain whether there was any king or large cities
in that part. They journeyed for three days and found countless small
hamlets with numberless inhabitants, but with nothing like order; they
therefore returned. In the meantime I had learned from some other
Indians whom I had seized that this land was certainly an island;
accordingly, I followed the coast eastward for a distance of 107
leagues, where it ended in a cape. From this cape I saw another island
to the eastward, at a distance of eighteen leagues from the former, to
which I gave the name of "La Española." Thither I went, and followed its
northern coast to the eastward (just as I had done with the coast of
Juana) 178 full leagues due east. This island like all the others is
extraordinarily large, and this one extremely so. In it are many
seaports, with which none that I know in Christendom can bear
comparison, so good and capacious that it is wonder to see. The lands
are high, and there are many very lofty mountains with which the island
of Cetefrey can not be compared. They are all most beautiful, of a
thousand different shapes, accessible, and covered with trees of a
thousand kinds, of such great height that they seemed to reach the
skies. I am told that the trees never lose their foliage, and I can well
understand it, for I observed that they were as green and luxuriant as
in Spain in the month of May. Some were in bloom, others bearing fruit,
and others otherwise, according to their nature. The nightingale was
singing as well as other birds of a thousand different kinds; and that
in November, the month in which I myself was roaming amongst them. There
are palm trees of six or eight kinds, wonderful in their beautiful
variety; but this is the case with all the other trees and fruits and
grasses; trees, plants, or fruits filled us with admiration. It contains
extraordinary pine groves and very extensive plains. There is also
honey, a great variety of birds, and many different kinds of fruits. In
the interior there are many mines of metals and a population
innumerable. Española is a wonder. Its mountains and plains, and meadows
and fields, are so beautiful and rich for planting and sowing, and
rearing cattle of all kinds, and for building towns and villages. The
harbors on the coast, and the number and size and wholesomeness of the
rivers, most of them bearing gold, surpass anything that would be
believed by one who had not seen them. There is a great difference
between the trees, fruits, and plants of this island and those of Juana.
In this island there are many spices and extensive mines of gold and
other metals. The inhabitants of this and of all the other islands I
have found or gained intelligence of, both men and women, go as naked as
they were born, with the exception that some of the women cover one part
only with a single leaf of grass or with a piece of cotton made for
that purpose. They have neither iron nor steel nor arms, nor are they
competent to use them; not that they are not well-formed and of handsome
stature, but because they are timid to a surprising degree. Their only
arms are reeds, cut in the seeding time,_[17] _to which they fasten
small sharpened sticks, and even these they dare not use; for on several
occasions it has happened that I have sent ashore two or three men to
some village to hold a parley, and the people have come out in countless
numbers, but as soon as they saw our men approach, would flee with such
precipitation that a father would not even stop to protect his son; and
this not because any harm had been done to any of them, for from the
first, wherever I went and got speech with them, I gave them of all that
I had, such as cloth and many other things, without receiving anything
in return; but they are, as I have described, incurably timid. It is
true that when they are reassured and thrown off this fear they are
guileless, and so liberal of all they have that no one would believe it
who had not seen it. They never refuse anything that they possess when
it is asked of them; on the contrary, they offer it themselves, and they
exhibit so much loving kindness that they would even give their hearts;
and, whether it be something of value or of little worth that is offered
to them, they are satisfied. I forbade that worthless things, such as
pieces of broken porringers and broken glass, and ends of straps, should
be given to them; although, when they succeeded in obtaining them, they
thought they possessed the finest jewel in the world. It was ascertained
that a sailor received for a leather strap a piece of gold weighing two
castellanos_[18] _and a half, and others received for other objects, of
far less value, much more. For new blancas_[19] _they would give all
they had, whether it was two or three castellanos in gold or one or two
arrobas[20] of spun cotton. They took even bits of the broken hoops of
the wine barrels, and gave, like fools, all that they possessed in
exchange, insomuch that I thought it was wrong and forbade it. I gave
away a thousand good and pretty articles which I had brought with me in
order to win their affection; and that they might be led to become
Christians, and be well inclined to love and serve their Highnesses and
the whole Spanish nation, and that they might aid us by giving us things
of which we stand in need, but which they possess in abundance. They are
not acquainted with any kind of worship, and are not idolaters; but
believe that all power and, indeed, all good things are in heaven; and
they are firmly convinced that I, with my vessels and crews, came from
heaven, and with this belief received me at every place at which I
touched, after they had overcome their apprehension. And this does not
spring from ignorance, for they are very intelligent, and navigate all
these seas, and relate everything to us, so that it is astonishing what
a good account they are able to give of everything; but they have never
seen men with clothes on, nor vessels like ours. On my reaching the
Indies, I took by force, in the first island that I discovered, some of
these natives, that they might learn our language and give me
information in regard to what existed in these parts; and it so happened
that they soon understood us and we them, either by words or signs, and
they have been very serviceable to us. They are still with me, and, from
repeated conversations that I have had with them, I find that they still
believe that I come from heaven. And they were the first to say this
wherever I went, and the others ran from house to house and to the
neighboring villages, crying with a loud voice: "Come, come, and see the
people from heaven!" And thus they all, men as well as women, after
their minds were at rest about us, came, both large and small, and
brought us something to eat and drink, which they gave us with
extraordinary kindness. They have in all these islands very many canoes
like our rowboats; some larger, some smaller, but most of them larger
than a barge of eighteen seats. They are not so wide, because they are
made of one single piece of timber; but a barge could not keep up with
them in rowing, because they go with incredible speed, and with these
canoes they navigate among these islands, which are innumerable, and
carry on their traffic. I have seen in some of these canoes seventy and
eighty men, each with his oar. In all these islands I did not notice
much difference in the appearance of the inhabitants, nor in their
manners, nor language, except that they all understood each other, which
is very singular, and leads me to hope that their Highnesses will take
means for their conversion to our holy faith, toward which they are very
well disposed. I have already said how I had gone 107 leagues in
following the seacoast of Juana in a straight line from west to east;
and from that survey I can state that the island is larger than England
and Scotland together, because beyond these 107 leagues there lie to the
west two provinces which I have not yet visited, one of which is called
Avan, where the people are born with a tail. These two provinces can not
be less than from fifty to sixty leagues, from what can be learned from
the Indians that I have with me, and who are acquainted with all these
islands. The other, Española, has a greater circumference than all
Spain, from Catalonia by the seacoast to Fuenterabia in Biscay, since on
one of its four sides I made 188 great leagues in a straight line from
west to east. This is something to covet, and, when found, not to be
lost sight of. Although I have taken possession of all these islands in
the name of their Highnesses, and they are all more abundant in wealth
than I am able to express; and although I hold them all for their
Highnesses, so that they can dispose of them quite as absolutely as they
can of the kingdoms of Castille, yet there was one large town in
Española of which especially I took possession, situated in a locality
well adapted for the working of the gold mines, and for all kinds of
commerce, either with the mainland on this side or with that beyond,
which is the land of the Great Khan, with which there will be vast
commerce and great profit. To that city I gave the name of Villa de
Navidad, and fortified it with a fortress, which by this time will be
quite completed, and I have left in it a sufficient number of men with
arms,[21] artillery, and provisions for more than a year, a barge, and a
sailing master skillful in the arts necessary for building others. I
have also established the greatest friendship with the King of that
country, so much so that he took pride in calling me his brother, and
treating me as such. Even should these people change their intentions
toward us and become hostile, they do not know what arms are, but, as I
have said, go naked, and are the most timid people in the world; so that
the men I have left could, alone, destroy the whole country, and this
island has no danger for them, if they only know how to conduct
themselves. In all those islands it seems to me that the men are content
with one wife, except their chief or king, to whom they give twenty. The
women seem to me to work more than the men. I have not been able to
learn whether they have any property of their own. It seems to me that
what one possessed belonged to all, especially in the matter of
eatables. I have not found in those islands any monsters, as many
imagined; but, on the contrary, the whole race is well formed, nor are
they black as in Guinea, but their hair is flowing, for they do not
dwell in that part where the force of the sun's rays is too powerful. It
is true that the sun has very great power there, for the country is
distant only twenty-six degrees from the equinoctial line. In the
islands where there are high mountains, the cold this winter was very
great, but they endure it, not only from being habituated to it, but by
eating meat with a variety of excessively hot spices. As to savages, I
did not even hear of any, except at an island which lies the second in
one's way coming to the Indies._[22] _It is inhabited by a race which is
regarded throughout these islands as extremely ferocious, and eaters of
human flesh. These possess many canoes, in which they visit all the
Indian islands, and rob and plunder whatever they can. They are no worse
formed than the rest, except that they are in the habit of wearing their
hair long, like women, and use bows and arrows made of reeds, with a
small stick at the end, for want of iron, which they do not possess.
They are ferocious amongst these exceedingly timid people; but I think
no more of them than of the rest. These are they which have intercourse
with the women of Matenino,[23] the first island one comes to on the way
from Spain to the Indies, and in which there are no men. These women
employ themselves in no labor suitable to their sex, but use bows and
arrows made of reeds like those above described, and arm and cover
themselves with plates of copper, of which metal they have a great
quantity._

[Illustration: THE RETURN OF COLUMBUS IN CHAINS TO SPAIN.

Marble statuary by Señor V. Vallmitjana, formerly in the Ministry of the
Colonies, Madrid; now in Havana, Cuba. (See page 31.)]

_They assure me that there is another island larger than Española in
which the inhabitants have no hair. It is extremely rich in gold; and I
bring with me Indians taken from these different islands, who will
testify to all these things. Finally, and speaking only of what has
taken place in this voyage, which has been so hasty, their Highnesses
may see that I shall give them all the gold they require, if they will
give me but a very little assistance; spices also, and cotton, as much
as their Highnesses shall command to be shipped; and mastic--hitherto
found only in Greece, in the Island of Chios, and which the Signoria[24]
sells at its own price--as much as their Highnesses shall command to be
shipped; lign aloes, as much as their Highnesses shall command to be
shipped; slaves, as many of these idolaters as their Highnesses shall
command to be shipped. I think I have also found rhubarb and cinnamon,
and I shall find a thousand other valuable things by means of the men
that I have left behind me, for I tarried at no point so long as the
wind allowed me to proceed, except in the town of Navidad, where I took
the necessary precautions for the security and settlement of the men I
had left there. Much more I would have done if my vessels had been in as
good a condition as by rights they ought to have been. This is much, and
praised be the eternal God, our Lord, who gives to all those who walk in
his ways victory over things which seem impossible; of which this is
signally one, for, although others have spoken or written concerning
these countries, it was all mere conjecture, as no one could say that he
had seen them--it amounting only to this, that those who heard listened
the more, and regarded the matter rather as a fable than anything else.
But our Redeemer has granted this victory to our illustrious King and
Queen and their kingdoms, which have acquired great fame by an event of
such high importance, in which all Christendom ought to rejoice, and
which it ought to celebrate with great festivals and the offering of
solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity with many solemn prayers, both for the
great exaltation which may accrue to them in turning so many nations to
our holy faith, and also for the temporal benefits which will bring
great refreshment and gain, not only to Spain, but to all Christians.
This, thus briefly, in accordance with the events._

_Done on board the caravel, off the Canary Islands, on the fifteenth of
February, fourteen hundred and ninety-three._

                                           _At your orders,

                                                THE ADMIRAL._

_After this letter was written, as I was in the Sea of Castille, there
arose a southwest wind, which compelled me to lighten my vessels, and
run this day into this port of Lisbon, an event which I consider the
most marvelous thing in the world, and whence I resolved to write to
their Highnesses. In all the Indies I have always found the weather like
that in the month of May. I reached them in thirty-three days, and
returned in twenty-eight, with the exception that these storms detained
me fourteen days knocking about in this sea. All seamen say that they
have never seen such a severe winter nor so many vessels lost._

_Done on the fourteenth day of March._

The prayer of Columbus on landing at Guanahani on the morning of Friday,
October 12, 1492:

_Lord! Eternal and Almighty God! who by Thy sacred word hast created the
heavens, the earth, and the seas, may Thy name be blessed and glorified
everywhere. May Thy Majesty be exalted, who hast deigned to permit that
by Thy humble servant Thy sacred name should be made known and preached
in this other part of the world._[25]


COLUMBUS AND GENOA.

Columbus in bequeathing a large portion of his income to the Bank of St.
George in Genoa, upon trust, to reduce the tax upon provisions, only
did what Dario de Vivaldi had accomplished in 1471 and 1480, as we read
on the pedestal of his statue, erected in the hall of the bank. This
example was followed by Antonio Doria, Francesco Lomellini, Eliano
Spinola, Ansaldo Grimaldo, and others, as the inscriptions on their
statues testify. A fac-simile letter of Columbus, announcing the
bequest, is shown on the opposite page.

[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF COLUMBUS' LETTER TO THE BANK OF ST. GEORGE,
GENOA

Dated April 2, 1502.

(See page 52.)]

The letter in English is as follows:

_High noble Lords: Although the body walks about here, the heart is
constantly over there. Our Lord has conferred on me the greatest favor
ever granted to any one since David. The results of my undertaking
already appear, and would shine greatly, were they not concealed by the
blindness of the government. I am going again to the Indies under the
auspices of the Holy Trinity, soon to return, and since I am mortal I
leave it with my son Diego that you receive every year, forever,
one-tenth of the entire revenue, such as it may be, for the purpose of
reducing the tax upon corn, wine, and other provisions.[26] If that
tenth amounts to something, collect it. If not, take at least the
will for the deed. I beg of you to entertain regard for the son I have
recommended to you. Mr. Nicolo de Oderigo knows more about my own
affairs than I do myself, and I have sent him the transcripts of my
privileges and letters for safe keeping. I should be glad if you could
see them. My lords, the King and Queen, endeavor to honor me more than
ever. May the Holy Trinity preserve your noble persons and increase the
most magnificent House (of St. George). Done in Sevilla on the second
day of April, 1502._

  _The Chief Admiral of the Ocean, Vice-Roy and
    Governor-General of the islands and continent
    of Asia, and the Indies of my lords, the King
    and Queen, their Captain-General of the sea,
    and of their Council._

                  _"S."

                "S. A. S."

              "X. M. Y."

            "Xpo. FERENS."_[27]


HIS PATIENCE AND NOBILITY OF MIND UNDER SUFFERING AND IN THE MIDST OF
UNDESERVED INDIGNITIES.

The reply of Columbus to Andreas Martin, captain of the caravel
conveying him a prisoner to Spain, upon an offer to remove his fetters:

_Since the King has commanded that I should obey his Governor, he shall
find me as obedient in this as I have been to all his other orders;
nothing but his command shall release me. If twelve years' hardship and
fatigue; if continual dangers and frequent famine; if the ocean first
opened, and five times passed and repassed, to add a new world,
abounding with wealth, to the Spanish monarchy; and if an infirm and
premature old age, brought on by these services, deserve these chains as
a reward, it is very fit I should wear them to Spain, and keep them by
me as memorials to the end of my life._

From a letter to the King and Queen:

_This country (the Bahamas) excels all others as far as the day
surpasses the night in splendor; the natives love their neighbors as
themselves; their conversation is the sweetest imaginable, and their
faces are always smiling. So gentle and so affectionate are they that I
swear to your Highness there is no better people in the world._

From the same:

_The fish rival the birds in tropical brilliancy of color, the scales of
some of them glancing back the rays of light like precious stones, as
they sported about the ships and flashed gleams of gold and silver
through the clear water._

Speech of a West Indian chief to Columbus, on his arrival in Cuba:

_Whether you are divinities or mortal men, we know not. You have come
into these countries with a force, against which, were we inclined to
resist, it would be folly. We are all therefore at your mercy; but if
you are men, subject to mortality like ourselves, you can not be
unapprised that after this life there is another, wherein a very
different portion is allotted to good and bad men. If therefore you
expect to die, and believe, with us, that every one is to be rewarded in
a future state according to his conduct in the present, you will do no
hurt to those who do none to you._


SHIPWRECK AND MARRIAGE.

From the "Life of Columbus," by his son Hernando:

_I say, that whilst the Admiral sailed with the aforesaid "Columbus the
Younger," which was a long time, it fell out that, understanding the
before-mentioned four great Venetian galleys were coming from Flanders,
they went out to seek, and found them beyond Lisbon, about Cape St.
Vincent, which is in Portugal, where, falling to blows, they fought
furiously and grappled, beating one another from vessel to vessel with
the utmost rage, making use not only of their weapons but artificial
fireworks; so that after they had fought from morning until evening, and
abundance were killed on both sides, the Admiral's ship took fire, as
did a great Venetian galley, which, being fast grappled together with
iron hooks and chains used to this purpose by seafaring men, could
neither of them be relieved because of the confusion there was among
them and the fright of the fire, which in a short time was so increased
that there was no other remedy but for all that could to leap into the
water, so to die sooner, rather than bear the torture of the fire._

_But the Admiral being an excellent swimmer, and seeing himself two
leagues or a little farther from land, laying hold of an oar, which good
fortune offered him, and, sometimes resting upon it, sometimes swimming,
it pleased God, who had preserved him for greater ends, to give him
strength to get to shore, but so tired and spent with the water that he
had much ado to recover himself. And because it was not far from Lisbon,
where he knew there were many Genoeses, his countrymen, he went away
thither as fast as he could, where, being known by them, he was so
courteously received and entertained that he set up house and married a
wife in that city. And forasmuch as he behaved himself honorably, and
was a man of comely presence, and did nothing but what was just, it
happened that a lady whose name was Dona Felipa Moñiz, of a good family,
and pensioner in the Monastery of All Saints, whither the Admiral used
to go to mass, was so taken with him that she became his wife._


PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES.

From a letter of Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella:

_Such is my fate that twenty years of service, through which I passed
with so much toil and danger, have profited me nothing; and at this day
I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to
eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and I
seldom have wherewith to pay the bill. I have not a hair upon me that is
not gray; my body is infirm; and all that was left me, as well as to my
brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore,
to my great dishonor. I implore your Highnesses to forgive my
complaints. I am indeed in as ruined a condition as I have related.
Hitherto I have wept over others; may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and
may the earth weep for me._


THE SELF-SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION OF COLUMBUS.

From Columbus' own account of his discovery:

_Such is my plan; if it be dangerous to execute, I am no mere theorist
who would leave to another the prospect of perishing in carrying it out,
but am ready to sacrifice my life as an example to the world in doing
so. If I do not reach the shores of Asia by sea, it will be because the
Atlantic has other boundaries in the west, and these boundaries I will
discover._


THE TRUST OF COLUMBUS.

From a letter of Columbus to a friend:

_For me to contend for the contrary, would be to contend with the wind.
I have done all that I could do. I leave the rest to God, whom I have
ever found propitious to me in my necessities._


SIGNATURE OF COLUMBUS.

  _S.           i. e.        Servidor_
  _S. A. S.                     Sus Altezas Sacras_
  _X. M. Y.                     Jesus Maria Ysabel_
  _Xpo. FERENS                  Christo-pher_
  _El Almirante                 El Almirante._

In English: Servant--of their Sacred Highnesses--Jesus, Mary, and
Isabella--Christopher--The Admiral.

  --BECHER.


THE LAST WORDS OF COLUMBUS.

_Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: This letter received no answer.]

[Footnote 15: Columbus left the Canary Isles September 8th, made the
land October 11th--thirty-three days.]

[Footnote 16: Watling's Island.]

[Footnote 17: These canes are probably the flowering stems of large
grasses, similar to the bamboo or to the _arundinaria_ used by the
natives of Guiana for blowing arrows.]

[Footnote 18: An old Spanish coin, equal to the fiftieth part of a mark
of gold.]

[Footnote 19: Small copper coins, equal to about the quarter of a
farthing.]

[Footnote 20: One arroba weighs twenty-five pounds.]

[Footnote 21: There appears to be a doubt as to the exact number of men
left by Columbus at Española, different accounts variously giving it as
thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, and forty. There is, however, a
list of their names included in one of the diplomatic documents printed
on Navarrete's work, which makes the number amount to forty, independent
of the Governor Diego de Arana and his two lieutenants, Pedro Gutierrez
and Rodrigo de Escobedo. All these men were Spaniards, with the
exception of two; one an Irishman named William Ires, a native of
Galway, and one an Englishman, whose name was given as Tallarte de
Lajes, but whose native designation it is difficult to guess at. The
document in question was a proclamation to the effect that the heirs of
those men should, on presenting at the office of public business at
Seville sufficient proof of their being the next of kin, receive payment
in conformity with the royal order to that purpose, issued at Burgos on
December 20, 1507.]

[Footnote 22: Dominica.]

[Footnote 23: Martinique.]

[Footnote 24: Of Genoa. The Island of Chios belonged to the Genoese
Republic from 1346 to 1566.]

[Footnote 25: This prayer of Columbus, which is printed by Padre Claudio
Clementi in the "Tablas Chronologicas de los Descubridores" (Valencia,
1689), was afterward repeated, by order of the Sovereigns of Castille,
in subsequent discoveries. Hernando Cortez, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,
Pizarro, and others, had to use it officially.]

[Footnote 26: It is very much to be regretted that Christopher Columbus'
intentions in this respect were not carried out because the Protectors
would have certainly decreed that a marble statue should be erected to
commemorate so great a gift, and we would then possess an authentic
portrait of the discoverer of America, which does not exist anywhere.
Nor do I believe that the portrait of Columbus ever was drawn, carved,
or painted from the life.

There were doubtless painters already in Spain at the close of the
fifteenth century, such, for instance, as Juan Sanchez de Castro, Pedro
Berruguette, Juan de Borgona, Antonio del Rincon, and the five artists
whom Cardinal Ximenes intrusted with the task of adorning the paranymph
of the University of Alcala, but they painted only religious subjects.
It is at a later period that portrait painting commenced in Spain. One
of those artists may have thought of painting a portrait of Columbus,
but there is no trace of any such intention in the writings of the time,
nor of the existence of an authentic effigy of the great navigator in
Spain or any other country.

We must recollect that the enthusiasm created by the news of the
discovery of America was far from being as great as people now imagine,
and if we may judge from the silence of Spanish poets and historians of
the fifteenth century, it produced less effect in Spain than anywhere
else. At all events, the popularity of Columbus lasted scarcely six
months, as deceptions commenced with the first letters that were sent
from Hispaniola, and they never ceased whilst he was living. In fact, it
is only between April 20, 1493, which is the date of his arrival in
Barcelona, and the 20th of May following, when he left that city to
embark for the second expedition (during the short space of six weeks),
that his portrait might have been painted; although it was not then a
Spanish notion, by any means. Neither Boabdil nor Gonzalvo de Cordova,
whose exploits were certainly much more admired by the Spaniards than
those of Columbus, were honored in that form during their lifetime. Even
the portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, although attributed to Antonio
del Rincon, are only fancy pictures of the close of the sixteenth
century.

The popularity of Columbus was short-lived because he led the Spanish
nation to believe that gold was plentiful and easily obtained in Cuba
and Hispaniola, whilst the Spaniards who, seduced by his enthusiastic
descriptions, crossed the Atlantic in search of wealth, found nothing
but sufferings and poverty. Those who managed to return home arrived in
Spain absolutely destitute. They were noblemen, who clamored at the
court and all over the country, charging "the stranger" with having
deceived them. (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, cap. lxxxv, f. 188; Las
Casas, lib. i, cap. cxxii, vol. ii, p. 176; Andres Bernaldez, cap.
cxxxi, vol. ii, p. 77.) It was not under such circumstances that
Spaniards would have caused his portrait to be painted. The oldest
effigy of Columbus known (a rough wood-cut in _Jovius_, illustrium
virorum vitæ, Florentiæ, 1549, folio), was made at least forty years
after his death, and in Italy, where he never returned after leaving it
as a poor and unknown artizan. Let it be enough for us to know that he
was above the medium height, robust, with sandy hair, a face elongated,
flushed and freckled, vivid light gray eyes, the nose shaped like the
beak of an eagle, and that he always was dressed like a monk.
(Bernaldez, Oviedo, Las Casas, and the author of the Libretto, all
eye-witnesses.)--H. Harrisse's "Columbus, and the Bank of St. George, in
Genoa."]

[Footnote 27: What strikes the paleographer, when studying the
handwriting of Christopher Columbus, is the boldness of the penmanship.
You can see at a glance that he was a very rapid caligrapher, and one
accustomed to write a great deal. This certainly was his reputation. The
numberless memoirs, petitions, and letters which flew from his pen gave
even rise to jokes and bywords. Francesillo de Zuñiga, Charles V.'s
jester, in one of his jocular epistles exclaims: "I hope to God that
Gutierrez will always have all the paper he wants, for he writes more
than Ptolemy and than Columbus, the discoverer of the Indies."--Harrisse.]




Columbus and Columbia.

COLUMBUS.

  Look up, look forth, and on.
  There's light in the dawning sky.
  The clouds are parting, the night is gone.
  Prepare for the work of the day.

  --_Bayard Taylor._

    _A Castilla y Leon,
  Nuevo mundo dió Colon._

    To Castille and Leon
  Columbus gave a New World.

Inscription upon Hernando Columbus' tomb, in the pavement of the
cathedral at Seville, Spain. Also upon the Columbus Monument in the
Paseo de Recoletos, Madrid.




COLUMBUS


REVERENCE AND WONDER.

     JOHN ADAMS, American lawyer and statesman, second President of the
     United States. Born at Braintree (now Quincy), Norfolk County,
     Mass., October 19, 1735. President, March 4, 1797-March 4, 1801.
     Died at Braintree July 4, 1826.

I always consider the discovery of America, with reverence and wonder,
as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence, for the
illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of
mankind all over the earth.


THE GREATNESS OF COLUMBUS.

     WILLIAM LIVINGSTON ALDEN, an American author. Born in Massachusetts
     October 9, 1837. From his "Life of Columbus" (1882), published by
     Messrs. Henry Holt & Co., New York City.

Whatever flaws there may have been in the man, he was of a finer clay
than his fellows, for he could dream dreams that their dull imaginations
could not conceive. He belonged to the same land which gave birth to
Garibaldi, and, like the Great Captain, the Great Admiral lived in a
high, pure atmosphere of splendid visions, far removed from and above
his fellow-men. The greatness of Columbus can not be argued away. The
glow of his enthusiasm kindles our own even at the long distance of four
hundred years, and his heroic figure looms grander through successive
centuries.


ANCIENT ANCHORS.

Two anchors that Columbus carried in his ships are exhibited at the
World's Fair. The anchors were found by Columbian Commissioner Ober near
two old wells at San Salvador. He had photographs and accurate models
made. These reproductions were sent to Paris, where expert antiquarians
pronounced them to be fifteenth century anchors, and undoubtedly those
lost by Columbus in his wreck off San Salvador. One of these has been
presented to the United States and the other is loaned to the Fair.


COLUMBUS AND THE CONVENT OF LA RÁBIDA.

(ANONYMOUS.)

It was at the door of the convent of La Rábida that Columbus,
disappointed and down-hearted, asked for food and shelter for himself
and his child. It was here that he found an asylum for a few years while
he developed his plans, and prepared the arguments which he submitted to
the council at Salamanca. It was in one of the rooms of this convent
that he met the Dominican monks in debate, and it was here also that he
conferred with Alonzo Pinzon, who afterward commanded one of the vessels
of his fleet. In this convent Columbus lived while he was making
preparations for his voyage, and on the morning that he sailed from
Palos he attended himself the little chapel. There is no building in the
world so closely identified with his discovery as this.


THE EARNESTNESS OF COLUMBUS.

(ANONYMOUS.)

Look at Christopher Columbus. Consider the disheartening difficulties
and vexatious delays he had to encounter; the doubts of the skeptical,
the sneers of the learned, the cavils of the cautious, and the
opposition, or at least the indifference, of nearly all. And then the
dangers of an untried, unexplored ocean. Is it by any means probable he
would have persevered had he not possessed that earnest enthusiasm which
was characteristic of the great discoverer? What mind can conceive or
tongue can tell the great results which have followed, and will continue
to follow in all coming time, from what this single individual
accomplished? A new continent has been discovered; nations planted whose
wealth and power already begin to eclipse those of the Old World, and
whose empires stretch far away beneath the setting sun. Institutions of
learning, liberty, and religion have been established on the broad basis
of equal rights to all. It is true, America might have been discovered
by what we call some fortunate accident. But, in all probability, it
would have remained unknown for centuries, had not some _earnest man_,
like Columbus, arisen, whose adventurous spirit would be roused, rather
than repressed, by difficulty and danger.


EACH THE COLUMBUS OF HIS OWN SOUL.

(ANONYMOUS.)

Every man has within himself a continent of undiscovered character.
Happy is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul.


A SUPERIOR SOUL.

(CLADERA. SPANISH.)

His soul was superior to the age in which he lived. For him was reserved
the great enterprise of traversing that sea which had given rise to so
many fables, and of deciphering the mystery of his time.


COLUMBUS DARED THE MAIN.

SAMUEL ROGERS. (See _post_, page 275.)

  When first Columbus dared the Western main,
  Spanned the broad gulf, and gave a world to Spain,
  How thrilled his soul with tumult of delight,
  When through the silence of the sleepless night
  Burst shouts of triumph.


THE WORLD A SEAMAN'S HAND CONFERRED.

J.R. LOWELL. (See _post_, page 204.)

  Joy, joy for Spain! a seaman's hand confers
  These glorious gifts, for a new world is hers.
    But where is he, that light whose radiance glows,
  The loadstone of succeeding mariners?
    Behold him crushed beneath o'ermastering woes--
    Hopeless, heart-broken, chained, abandoned to his foes.


THE RIDICULE WITH WHICH THE VIEWS OF COLUMBUS WERE RECEIVED.

     JOHN J. ANDERSON, American historical writer. Born in New York,
     1821. From his "History of the United States" (1887).

It is recorded that "Columbus had to beg his way from court to court to
offer to princes the discovery of a world." Genoa was appealed to again,
then the appeal was made to Venice. Not a word of encouragement came
from either. Columbus next tried Spain. His theory was examined by a
council of men who were supposed to be very wise about geography and
navigation. The theory and its author were ridiculed. Said one of the
wise men: "Is there any one so foolish as to believe that there are
people living on the other side of the earth with their feet opposite to
ours? people who walk with their heels upward and their heads hanging
down?" His idea was that the earth was flat like a plate.


THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE ANCIENTS.

     From the third of a series of articles by the Hon. ELLIOTT ANTHONY,
     Associate Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Chicago, in
     the Chicago _Mail_.

[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS ON THE BARCELONA MONUMENT.

(See page 81.)]

Bancroft, the historian, says that nearly three centuries before the
Christian era, Aristotle, following the lessons of the Pythagoreans, had
taught that the earth is a sphere and that the water which bounds
Europe on the west washes the eastern shores of Asia. Instructed by him,
the Spaniard, Seneca, believed that a ship, with a fair wind, could sail
from Spain to the Indies in a few days. The opinion was revived in the
Middle Ages by Averroes, the Arab commentator of Aristotle. Science and
observation assisted to confirm it; and poets of ancient and of more
recent times had foretold that empires beyond the ocean would one day be
revealed to the daring navigator. The genial country of Dante and
Buonarotti gave birth to Christopher Columbus, by whom these lessons
were so received and weighed that he gained the glory of fulfilling the
prophecy.

Accounts of the navigation from the eastern coast of Africa to Arabia
had reached the western kingdoms of Europe, and adventurous Venetians,
returning from travels beyond the Ganges, had filled the world with
dazzling descriptions of the wealth of China, as well as marvelous
reports of the outlying island empire of Japan. It began to be believed
that the continent of Asia stretched over far more than a hemisphere,
and that the remaining distance around the globe was comparatively
short. Yet from the early part of the fifteenth century the navigators
of Portugal had directed their explorations to the coast of Africa; and
when they had ascertained that the torrid zone is habitable, even under
the equator, the discovery of the islands of Madeira and the Azores
could not divert them from the purpose of turning the southern capes of
that continent and steering past them to the land of spices, which
promised untold wealth to the merchants of Europe, new dominions to its
princes, and heathen nations to the religion of the cross. Before the
year 1474, and perhaps as early as 1470, Columbus was attracted to
Lisbon, which was then the great center of maritime adventure. He came
to insist with immovable resoluteness that the shortest route to the
Indies lay across the Atlantic. By the words of Aristotle, received
through Averroes, and by letters from Toscanelli, the venerable
cosmographer of Florence--who had drawn a map of the world, with Eastern
Asia rising over against Europe--he was riveted in his faith and lived
only in the idea of laying open the western path to the Indies.

After more than ten years of vain solicitations in Portugal, he left the
banks of the Tagus to seek aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, rich in
nautical experience, having watched the stars at sea from the latitude
of Iceland to near the equator at Elmina. Though yet longer baffled by
the skepticism which knew not how to comprehend the clearness of his
conception, or the mystic trances which sustained his inflexibility of
purpose, or the unfailing greatness of his soul, he lost nothing of his
devotedness to the sublime office to which he held himself elected from
his infancy by the promises of God. When, half resolved to withdraw from
Spain, traveling on foot, he knocked at the gate of the monastery of La
Rábida, at Palos, to crave the needed charity of food and shelter for
himself and his little son, whom he led by the hand, the destitute and
neglected seaman, in his naked poverty, was still the promiser of
kingdoms, holding firmly in his grasp "the key of the ocean sea;"
claiming, as it were from Heaven, the Indies as his own, and "dividing
them as he pleased." It was then that through the prior of the convent
his holy confidence found support in Isabella, the Queen of Castille;
and in 1492, with three poor vessels, of which the largest only was
decked, embarking from Palos for the Indies by way of the west, Columbus
gave a new world to Castille and Leon, "the like of which was never done
by any man in ancient or in later times."

The jubilee of this great discovery is at hand, and now after the lapse
of 400 years, as we look back over the vast ranges of human history,
there is nothing in the order of Providence which can compare in
interest with the condition of the American continent as it lay upon the
surface of the globe, a hemisphere unknown to the rest of the world.

There stretched the iron chain of its mountain barriers, not yet the
boundary of political communities; there rolled its mighty rivers
unprofitably to the sea; there spread out the measureless, but as yet
wasteful, fertility of its uncultivated fields; there towered the gloomy
majesty of its unsubdued primeval forests; there glittered in the secret
caves of the earth the priceless treasures of its unsunned gold, and,
more than all that pertains to material wealth, there existed the
undeveloped capacity of 100 embryo states of an imperial confederacy of
republics, the future abode of intelligent millions, unrevealed as yet
to the "earnest" but unconscious "expectation" of the elder families of
man, darkly hidden by the impenetrable veil of waters. There is, to my
mind, says Everett, an overwhelming sadness in this long insulation of
America from the brotherhood of humanity, not inappropriately reflected
in the melancholy expression of the native races.

The boldest keels of Phoenicia and Carthage had not approached its
shores. From the footsteps of the ancient nations along the highways of
time and fortune--the embattled millions of the old Asiatic despotisms,
the iron phalanx of Macedonia, the living, crushing machinery of the
Roman legion which ground the world to powder, the heavy tramp of
barbarous nations from "the populous north"--not the faintest echo had
aroused the slumbering West in the cradle of her existence. Not a thrill
of sympathy had shot across the Atlantic from the heroic adventure, the
intellectual and artistic vitality, the convulsive struggles for
freedom, the calamitous downfalls of empire, and the strange new
regenerations which fill the pages of ancient and mediæval history.
Alike when the oriental myriads, Assyrian, Chaldean, Median, Persian,
Bactrian, from the snows of Syria to the Gulf of Ormus, from the Halys
to the Indus, poured like a deluge upon Greece and beat themselves to
idle foam on the sea-girt rock of Salamis and the lowly plain of
Marathon; when all the kingdoms of the earth went down with her own
liberties in Rome's imperial maëlstrom of blood and fire, and when the
banded powers of the west, beneath the ensign of the cross, as the
pendulum of conquest swung backward, marched in scarcely intermitted
procession for three centuries to the subjugation of Palestine, the
American continent lay undiscovered, lonely and waste. That mighty
action and reaction upon each other of Europe and America, the grand
systole and diastole of the heart of nations, and which now constitutes
so much of the organized life of both, had not yet begun to pulsate.

The unconscious child and heir of the ages lay wrapped in the mantle of
futurity upon the broad and nurturing bosom of divine Providence, and
slumbered serenely like the infant Danae through the storms of fifty
centuries.


THE DARK AGES BEFORE COLUMBUS.

     From the writings of SAINT AUGUSTINE, the most noted of the Latin
     fathers. Born at Tagasta, Numidia, November 13, A. D. 354; died at
     Hippo, August 28, A. D. 430. (This passage was relied on by the
     ecclesiastical opponents of Columbus to show the heterodoxy of his
     project.)

They do not see that even if the earth were round it would not follow
that the part directly opposite is not covered with water. Besides,
supposing it not to be so, what necessity is there that it should be
inhabited, since the Scriptures, in the first place, the fulfilled
prophecies of which attest the truth thereof for the past, can not be
suspected of telling tales; and, in the second place, it is really too
absurd to say that men could ever cross such an immense ocean to implant
in those parts a sprig of the family of the first man.


THE LEGEND OF COLUMBUS.

     JOANNA BAILLIE, a noted Scottish poetess. Born at Bothwell,
     Scotland, 1762; died at Hampstead, near London, February 23, 1851.
     From "The Legend of Columbus."

  Is there a man that, from some lofty steep,
  Views in his wide survey the boundless deep,
  When its vast waters, lined with sun and shade,
  Wave beyond wave, in serried distance, fade?


COLUMBUS THE CONQUEROR.

  No kingly conqueror, since time began
  The long career of ages, hath to man
  A scope so ample given for trade's bold range
  Or caused on earth's wide stage such rapid, mighty change.--_Ibid._


THE EXAMPLE OF COLUMBUS.

  Some ardent youth, perhaps, ere from his home
  He launch his venturous bark, will hither come,
  Read fondly o'er and o'er his graven name,
  With feelings keenly touched, with heart aflame;
  Till, wrapped in fancy's wild delusive dream,
  Times past and long forgotten, present seem.
  To his charmed ear the east wind, rising shrill,
  Seems through the hero's shroud to whistle still.
  The clock's deep pendulum swinging through the blast
  Sounds like the rocking of his lofty mast;
  While fitful gusts rave like his clam'rous band,
  Mixed with the accents of his high command.
  Slowly the stripling quits the pensive scene,
  And burns and sighs and weeps to be what he has been.

  Oh, who shall lightly say that fame
  Is nothing but an empty name?
  Whilst in that sound there is a charm
  The nerves to brace, the heart to warm,
  As, thinking of the mighty dead,
    The young from slothful couch will start,
  And vow, with lifted hands outspread,
    Like them to act a noble part.

  Oh, who shall lightly say that fame
  Is nothing but an empty name?
  When but for those, our mighty dead,
    All ages past a blank would be,
  Sunk in oblivion's murky bed,
    A desert bare, a shipless sea!
  They are the distant objects seen,
  The lofty marks of what hath been.--_Ibid._


PALOS--THE DEPARTURE.

  On Palos' shore, whose crowded strand
  Bore priests and nobles of the land,
  And rustic hinds and townsmen trim,
  And harnessed soldiers stern and grim,
  And lowly maids and dames of pride,
  And infants by their mother's side--
  The boldest seaman stood that e'er
  Did bark or ship through tempest steer;
  And wise as bold, and good as wise;
  The magnet of a thousand eyes,
    That on his form and features cast,
  His noble mien and simple guise,
    In wonder seemed to look their last.
  A form which conscious worth is gracing,
  A face where hope, the lines effacing
    Of thought and care, bestowed, in truth,
  To the quick eyes' imperfect tracing
    The look and air of youth.

   *       *       *       *       *

  The signal given, with hasty strides
  The sailors line their ships' dark sides,
  Their anchors weighed, and from the shore
  Each stately vessel slowly bore.
  High o'er the deep and shadowed flood,
  Upon his deck their leader stood,
  And turned him to departed land,
  And bowed his head and waved his hand.
  And then, along the crowded strand,
  A sound of many sounds combined,
  That waxed and waved upon the wind,
  Burst like heaven's thunder, deep and grand;
  A lengthened peal, which paused, and then
    Renewed, like that which loathly parts,
  Oft on the ear returned again,
    The impulse of a thousand hearts.
  But as the lengthened shouts subside,
    Distincter accents strike the ear,
  Wafting across the current wide
    Heart-uttered words of parting cheer:
  "Oh, shall we ever see again
  Those gallant souls across the main?
  God keep the brave! God be their guide!
  God bear them safe through storm and tide!
  Their sails with favoring breezes swell!
  O brave Columbus, fare thee well!"--_Ibid._


THE NAVIGATOR AND THE ISLANDS.

     MATURIN MURRAY BALLOU, American author. Compiler of "Pearls of
     Thought" and similar works. Born in Boston, Mass., April 14, 1822.
     From "Due South," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston,
     1887.

The name of Columbus flashes a bright ray over the mental darkness of
the period in which he lived, for the world was then but just awakening
from the dull sleep of the Middle Ages. The discovery of printing
heralded the new birth of the republic of letters, and maritime
enterprise received a vigorous impulse. The shores of the Mediterranean,
thoroughly explored and developed, had endowed the Italian states with
extraordinary wealth, and built up a very respectable mercantile marine.
The Portuguese mariners were venturing farther and farther from the
peninsula, and traded with many distant ports on the extended coast of
Africa.

To the west lay what men supposed to be an illimitable ocean, full of
mystery, peril, and death. A vague conception that islands hitherto
unknown might be met afar off on that strange wilderness of waters was
entertained by some minds, but no one thought of venturing in search of
them. Columbus alone, regarded merely as a brave and intelligent seaman
and pilot, conceived the idea that the earth was spherical, and that the
East Indies, the great El Dorado of the century, might be reached by
circumnavigating the globe. If we picture to ourselves the mental
condition of the age and the state of science, we shall find no
difficulty in conceiving the scorn and incredulity with which the theory
of Columbus was received. We shall not wonder that he was regarded as a
madman or a fool; we are not surprised to remember that he encountered
repulse upon repulse as he journeyed wearily from court to court, and
pleaded in vain to the sovereigns of Europe for aid to prosecute his
great design. The marvel is that when door after door was closed against
him, when all ears were deaf to his earnest importunities, when day by
day the opposition to his views increased, when, weary and footsore, he
was forced to beg a bit of bread and a cup of water for his fainting and
famishing boy at the door of a Spanish convent, his reason did not give
way, and his great heart did not break with disappointment.


THE FIRST AMERICAN MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS.

     From an article in the Baltimore _American_.

To a patriotic Frenchman and to Baltimore belongs the credit of the
erection of the first monument to the memory of Christopher Columbus.
This shaft, though unpretentious in height and material, is the first
ever erected in the "Monumental City" or in the whole United States. The
monument was put up on his estate by Charles Francis Adrian le Paulmier,
Chevalier d'Amour. The property is now occupied by the Samuel Ready
Orphan Asylum, at North and Hartford avenues. It passed into the hands
of the trustees from the executors of the late Zenus Barnum's will.

It has ever been a matter of surprise, particularly among tourists, that
among the thousand and one monuments which have been put up in the
United States to the illustrious dead, that the daring navigator who
first sighted an island which was part of a great continent which 400
years later developed into the first nation of the world, should be so
completely and entirely overlooked. It is on record that the only other
monument in the world, up to 1863, which has been erected in the honor
of Columbus is in Genoa. There is no authoritative account of the
construction of the Baltimore monument. The fact that it was built in
honor of Columbus is substantial, as the following inscription on the
shaft shows:

  Sacred
  to the
  Memory
  of
  CHRIS.
  COLUMBUS,
  OCT. XII,
  MDCC VIIIC.

It can be seen that the numerals are engrossed in the old English style,
and show eight less than 1800, or 1792, and the date October 12th. The
shaft towers among the boughs of a great oak tree which, like itself,
has stood the storms and winds of nearly a hundred years. It has seen
Baltimore develop from a little colonial town to a great city. The
existence of the monument, strange to say, was known to only a few
persons until the opening of North Avenue through the Barnum estate
about twelve years ago. It looms up about fifty feet, and is attractive.
Tradition says that it is built of brick which was brought from England,
and covered with mortar or cement. At any rate it is substantial, and
likely to stand the ravages of time for many more years. The Samuel
Ready estate is on the east side of the Hartford turnpike and fronts on
North Avenue. The old-fashioned country house, which was built many
years ago, was occupied by the proprietor of Baltimore's famous
hostelry, and is still in use. It is occupied by girls who are reared
and educated by money left by the philanthropist Samuel Ready. Forty or
fifty years ago the elder David Barnum resided there.

In the southeast corner of the beautiful inclosure stands the monument.
It is on an elevated terraced plateau. The plaster or cement coating is
intact, and the inscription is plain. The shaft is quadrangular in form,
sloping from a base six feet six inches in diameter to about two feet
and a half at the top, which is a trifle over fifty feet from the
ground. The pedestal comprises a base about thirty inches high, with
well-rounded corners of molded brick work. The pedestal proper is five
feet six inches in diameter, ten feet in height, and a cornice,
ornamental in style, about three feet in height. From this rises a
tapering shaft of about twenty-eight feet. The whole is surmounted by a
capstone eighteen inches high. Three stories are told about the
monument.

Here is the first: Among the humble people who have lived in that
section for years the legend is that the monument was erected to the
memory of a favorite horse owned by the old Frenchman who was the first
French consul to the United States. For years it was known as the "Horse
Monument," and people with imaginative brains conjured up all sorts of
tales, and retailed them _ad lib_. These stories were generally accepted
without much inquiry as to their authenticity.

This, however, is the true story: Gen. D'Amour, who was the first
representative sent to the colonies from France, was extremely wealthy.
He was a member of a society founded to perpetuate the memory of
Columbus in his own land.

It is said that Gen. D'Amour came to America with Count de Grasse, and
after the fall of Yorktown retired to this city, where he remained until
he was recalled to France in 1797. His reason for erecting the monument
was because of his admiration for Columbus' bravery in the face of
apparent failure. Tradition further says that one evening in the year
1792, while he was entertaining a party of guests, the fact that it was
then the tri-centennial of the discovery of America was the topic of
conversation. During the evening it was mentioned incidentally that
there was not in this whole country a monument to commemorate the deeds
of Columbus. Thereupon, Gen. D'Amour is said to have made a solemn vow
that this neglect should be immediately remedied by the erection of an
enduring shaft upon his own estate.

He bought the property around where the monument now stands, and lived
in grand style, as befitted a man of his wealth and position. He
entertained extensively. It is said that Lafayette was dined and fêted
by the Frenchman in the old brick house which is still standing behind
the mansion. In the year and on the date which marked the 300th
anniversary of the discovery of America the monument was unveiled. The
newspapers in those days were not enterprising, and the journals
published at that time do not mention the fact. Again, it is said that
D'Amour died at the old mansion, and many people believe that his body
was interred near the base of the shaft. It is related that about forty
years ago two Frenchmen came to this country and laid claims on the
property, which had, after the Frenchman's death, passed into other
hands. The claim was disputed because of an unsettled mortgage on it,
and they failed to prove their title. They tried to discover the
burial-place of the former owner. In this they also failed, although
large rewards were offered to encourage people to aid them in their
search. It is said that an ingenious Irishman in the neighborhood
undertook to earn the reward, and pointed out a grave in an old Quaker
burying-ground close by.

The grave was opened and the remains exhumed. Examination proved the
bones those of a colored man. Old Mrs. Reilly, who was the wife of
famous old Barnum's Hotel hackman Reilly, used to say that some years
after the two Frenchmen had departed there came another mysterious
Frenchman, who sat beside the monument for weeks, pleading to the then
owners for permission to dig in a certain spot hard by. He was refused.
Nothing daunted, he waited an opportunity and, when the coast was clear,
he dug up a stone slab, which he had heard was to be found, and carried
away the remains of a pet cat which had been buried there.

Frequent inquiries were made of Mr. Samuel H. Tagart, who was the
trustee in charge of the estate of Zenus Barnum, in regard to the old
Frenchman. Antiquarians all over the country made application for
permission to dig beneath the monument, and to remove the tablet from
the face of the shaft. He felt, however, that he could not do it, and
refused all requests.

Early in the present century the Samuel Ready estate was owned by Thomas
Tenant--in those days a wealthy, influential citizen. One of his
daughters, now dead, became the wife of Hon. John P. Kennedy. Another
daughter, who lived in New York, and who is supposed to be dead, paid a
visit in 1878 to the old homestead, and sat beneath the shadow of the
Columbus monument. She stated that the shaft has stood in her early
girlhood as it stands now. It was often visited by noted Italians and
Frenchmen, who seemed to have heard of the existence of the monument in
Europe. She repeated the story of the wealthy Frenchman, and told of
some of his eccentricities, and said he had put up the monument at a
cost of £800, or $4,000.

The old land records of Baltimore town were examined by a representative
of the _American_ as far back as 1787. It appears that in that year
Daniel Weatherly and his wife, Elizabeth; Samuel Wilson and wife,
Hannah; Isaac Pennington and Jemima, his wife, and William Askew and
Jonathan Rutter assigned to Rachel Stevenson four lots of ground,
comprising the estate known as "Hanson's Woods," "Darley Hall,"
"Rutter's Discovery," and "Orange." Later, in 1787 and 1788, additional
lots were received from one Christopher Hughes, and in the following
year the entire estate was assigned by Rachel Stevenson to Charles
Francis Adrian le Paulmier, Chevalier d'Amour, the French consul, the
eccentric Frenchman, and the perpetuator of Columbus' memory in
Baltimore.

The property remained in his possession up to 1796, when Archibald
Campbell purchased it. In the year 1800 James Hindman bought it, and
retained possession until 1802, when James Carere took hold. Thomas
Tenant purchased the estate in 1809. At his death, in 1830, it changed
hands several times, and was finally bought by David Barnum, about 1833.
At his death, in 1854, the estate passed into the hands of Samuel W.
McClellan, then to Zenus Barnum, and subsequently fell to his heirs, Dr.
Zenus Barnum, Arthur C. Barnum, Annie and Maggie Barnum. After much
litigation, about four years ago the estate passed into possession of
the executors of Samuel Ready's will, and they have turned the once
tumbled-down, deserted place into a beautiful spot. All the families
mentioned have relatives living in this city now. In all the changes of
time and owners, the monument to Columbus has remained intact, showing
that it is always the fittest that survives, and that old things are
best.

Mr. E. G. Perine, one of the officers of the Samuel Ready Orphan Asylum,
has collected most of the data relating to the monument.


THE ITALIAN STATUE.

The Italian citizens resident in Baltimore propose to donate a
magnificent statue of Columbus to the "Monumental City," in
commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America.


COLUMBUS--THE FULFILLER OF PROPHECY.

     GEORGE BANCROFT, Ph.D., LL.D., D.C.L., America's premier historian.
     Born at Worcester, Mass. October 3, 1800; died January 17, 1891.
     From "The History of the United States."[28]

Imagination had conceived the idea that vast inhabited regions lay
unexplored in the west; and poets had declared that empires beyond the
ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. But Columbus
deserves the undivided glory of having realized that belief.

       *       *       *       *       *

The writers of to-day are disposed to consider Magellan's voyage a
greater feat than that of Columbus. I can not agree with them. Magellan
was doubtless a remarkable man, and a very bold man. But when he crossed
the Pacific Ocean he _knew_ he must come to land at last; whereas
Columbus, whatever he may have heard concerning lands to the west, or
whatever his theories may have led him to expect, must still have been
in a state of uncertainty--to say nothing of the superstitious fears of
his companions, and probably his own.

       *       *       *       *       *

The enterprise of Columbus, the most memorable maritime enterprise in
the history of the world, formed between Europe and America the
communication which will never cease. The story of the colonization of
America by Northmen rests on narratives mythological in form and obscure
in meaning; ancient, yet not contemporary. The intrepid mariners who
colonized Greenland could easily have extended their voyages to Labrador
and have explored the coasts to the south of it. No clear historic
evidence establishes the natural probability that they accomplished the
passage; and no vestige of their presence on our continent has been
found.

Nearly three centuries before the Christian era, Aristotle, following
the lessons of the Pythagoreans, had taught that the earth is a sphere,
and that the water which bounds Europe on the west washes the eastern
shores of Asia. Instructed by him, the Spaniard Seneca believed that a
ship, with a fair wind, could sail from Spain to the Indies in the space
of a very few days. The opinion was revived in the Middle Ages by
Averroes, the Arab commentator of Aristotle; science and observation
assisted to confirm it; and poets of ancient and of more recent times
had foretold that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to
the daring navigator. The genial country of Dante and Buonarotti gave
birth to Christopher Columbus, by whom these lessons were so received
and weighed that he gained the glory of fulfilling the prophecy.


COLUMBUS THE MARINER.

     HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT, an American historian. Born at Granville,
     Ohio, 1832.

As a mariner and discoverer Columbus had no superior; as a colonist and
governor he proved himself a failure. Had he been less pretentious and
grasping, his latter days would have been more peaceful. Discovery was
his infatuation; but he lacked practical judgment, and he brought upon
himself a series of calamities.


A COLUMBUS BANK NOTE.

[Illustration: COLUMBUS MONUMENT, PASEO COLON, BARCELONA, SPAIN.

Dedicated May 2, 1888]

Since the Postoffice Department has decided to issue a set of stamps in
honor of Columbus, it has been suggested that a Columbus bank note would
also be in good taste at this time. Chief Meredith, of the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, originated the latter idea and will lay it
before Secretary Foster when he returns to his desk at the Treasury.
Issuing a whole set of Columbian notes would involve not only a great
deal of preparation but cost as well, and hence it is proposed to choose
one of the smaller denominations, probably the $1 note, for the change.
There is an engraving of Columbus in the bureau made by Burt, who was
considered the finest vignette engraver in the country. It is a
full-face portrait, representing Columbus with a smooth face and wearing
a brigandish-looking hat.


THE BARCELONA STATUE.

The historic Muralla del Mar (sea wall) of Barcelona has been effaced
during the progress of harbor improvements, and its place supplied by a
wide and handsome quay, which forms a delightful promenade, is planted
with palms, and has been officially named the Paseo de Colon (Columbus
Promenade). Here, at the foot of the Rambla in the Plaza de la Paz, is a
marble statue of Columbus.

This magnificent monument, erected in honor of the great Genoese
mariner, was unveiled on May 2, 1888, in the presence of the Queen
Regent, King Alfonzo XIII. of Spain, and the royal family; Señor
Sagasta, President of the Council of Ministers, the chief Alcalde of
Barcelona, many other Spanish notables, and the officers of the many
European and American men-of-war then in the port of Barcelona.

It was dedicated amid the thunders of more than 5,000 guns and the
salutes of battalions of brave seamen. The ceremony was such and so
imposing as to be without a parallel in the history of any other part of
the world.

The following ships of war, at anchor in the harbor of Barcelona, boomed
out their homage to the First Admiral of the Shadowy Sea, and, landing
detachments of officers, seamen, and marines, took part in the
inauguration ceremonies.

_American_--United States steamship Winnebago.

_Austrian_--The imperial steamships Tegethoff, Custozz, Prinz Eugen,
Kaiser Max, Kaiser John of Austria, Meteor, Panther, and Leopard.

_British_--H.M.S. Alexandra, Dreadnought, Colossus, Thunderer, and
Phaeton, and torpedo boats 99, 100, 101, and 108.

_Dutch_--The Johann Wilhelm Friso.

_French_--The Colbert, Duperre, Courbet, Devastation, Redoubtable,
Indomptable, Milan, Condor, Falcon, the dispatch boat Coulevrine, and
six torpedo boats.

_German_--The imperial vessel Kaiser.

_Italian_--The royal vessels Etna, Salta, Goito, Vesuvius, Archimedes,
Tripoli, Folgore, Castellfidardo, Lepanto, and Italia.

_Portuguese_--The Vasco da Gama.

_Russian_--The Vestruch and Zabiaca.

_Spanish_--The Numancia, Navarra, Gerona, Castilla, Blanca, Destructor,
Pilar, and Pilés.


DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT.

The monument was cast in the workshops of A. Wohlgemuth, engineer and
constructor of Barcelona, and was made in eight pieces, the base
weighing 31-1/2 tons. The first section, 22-1/2 tons; the second, 24-1/2
tons; the third, 23-1/2 tons; the fourth, 23-1/8 tons; the capital,
29-1/2 tons; the templete, 13-1/2 tons; the globe, 15-1/2 tons; the
bronze ornaments, 13-1/2 tons; the statue of Columbus, 41 tons; the
pedestal of the column, 31-1/2 tons; the total weight of bronze employed
in the column being 210-1/2 tons; its height, 198 feet.

The total cost of the monument amounted to 1,000,000 pesetas. Of these,
350,000 were collected by public subscription, and the remaining 650,000
pesetas were contributed by the city of Barcelona.

The monument is 198 feet in height, and is ascended by means of an
hydraulic elevator; five or six persons have room to stand on the
platform. On the side facing the sea there opens a staircase of a single
flight, which leads to a small resting room richly ornamented, and lit
by a skylight, which contains the elevator. The grand and beautiful city
of Barcelona, the busiest center of industry, commerce, and shipping,
and mart of the arts and sciences, is not likely to leave in oblivion he
who enriched the Old World with a new one, opening new arteries of trade
which immensely augmented its renowned commercial existence; and less is
it likely to forget that the citizens of Barcelona who were
contemporaneous with Columbus were among the first to greet the unknown
mariner when he returned from America, for the first time, with the
enthusiasm which his colossal discovery evoked.

If for this alone, in one of her most charming squares, in full view of
the ocean whose bounds the immortal sailor fixed and discovered, they
have raised his statue upon a monument higher than the most celebrated
ones of the earth. This statue, constructed under the supervision of the
artist Don Cayetano Buigas, is composed of a base one meter in height
and twenty meters wide, and of three sections. The first part is a
circular section, eighteen meters in diameter, ten feet in height; it is
composed of carved stone with interspersed bas-reliefs in bronze,
representing episodes in the life of Columbus.

The second story takes the form of a cross, and is of the height of
thirty-three feet, being of carved stone decorated with bronzes. On the
arms of the cross are four female figures, representing Catalonia,
Aragon, Castille, and Leon, and in the angles of the same are figures of
Father Boyle, Santangel, Margarite and Ferrer de Blanes.

On the sides of the cross are grouped eight medallions of bronze, on
which are placed the busts of Isabella I., Ferdinand V., Father Juan
Flores, Andrés de Cabrera, Padre Juan de la Marchena, the Marchioness of
Moya, Martin Pinzon, and his brother, Vicente Yañez Pinzon.

This section upholds the third part of the monument, which takes the
form of an immense globe, on top of which stands the statue of Columbus,
a noble conception of a great artist, grandly pointing toward the
conquered confines of the Mysterious Sea.[29]


LEGEND OF A WESTERN LAND.

     Rev. SABINE BARING-GOULD, vicar of Looe Trenchard, Devonshire,
     England. Born at Exeter, England, 1834. An antiquarian,
     archæological and historical writer, no mean poet, and a novelist.
     From his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages."

According to a Keltic legend, in former days there lived in Skerr a
Druid of renown. He sat with his face to the west on the shore, his eye
following the declining sun, and he blamed the careless billows which
tumbled between him and the distant Isle of Green. One day, as he sat
musing on a rock, a storm arose on the sea; a cloud, under whose squally
skirts the foaming waters tossed, rushed suddenly into the bay, and from
its dark womb emerged a boat with white sails bent to the wind and banks
of gleaming oars on either side. But it was destitute of mariners,
itself seeming to live and move. An unusual terror seized on the aged
Druid; he heard a voice call, "Arise, and see the Green Isle of those
who have passed away!" Then he entered the vessel. Immediately the wind
shifted, the cloud enveloped him, and in the bosom of the vapor he
sailed away. Seven days gleamed on him through the mist; on the eighth,
the waves rolled violently, the vessel pitched, and darkness thickened
around him, when suddenly he heard a cry, "The Isle! the Isle!" The
clouds parted before him, the waves abated, the wind died away, and the
vessel rushed into dazzling light. Before his eyes lay the Isle of the
Departed, basking in golden light. Its hills sloped green and tufted
with beauteous trees to the shore, the mountain tops were enveloped in
bright and transparent clouds, from which gushed limpid streams, which,
wandering down the steep hill-sides with pleasant harp-like murmur
emptied themselves into the twinkling blue bays. The valleys were open
and free to the ocean; trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to
the light breeze, were scattered on the green declivities and rising
ground; all was calm and bright; the pure sun of autumn shone from his
blue sky on the fields; he hastened not to the west for repose, nor was
he seen to rise in the east, but hung as a golden lamp, ever illumining
the Fortunate Isles.


LEGEND OF A WESTERN ISLAND.

There is a Phoenician legend that a large island was discovered in the
Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, several days' sail from
the coast of Africa. This island abounded in all manner of riches. The
soil was exceedingly fertile; the scenery was diversified by rivers,
mountains, and forests. It was the custom of the inhabitants to retire
during the summer to magnificent country houses, which stood in the
midst of beautiful gardens. Fish and game were found in great abundance,
the climate was delicious, and the trees bore fruit at all seasons of
the year.--_Ibid._


COLUMBUS AN IDEAL COMMANDER.

     JOEL BARLOW, American poet, patriot, and politician. Born at
     Reading, Conn., 1755; died near Cracow, in Poland, 1812. From the
     introduction to "Columbiad" (1807).

Every talent requisite for governing, soothing, and tempering the
passions of men is conspicuous in the conduct of Columbus on the
occasion of the mutiny of his crew. The dignity and affability of his
manners, his surprising knowledge and experience in naval affairs, his
unwearied and minute attention to the duties of his command, gave him a
great ascendancy over the minds of his men, and inspired that degree of
confidence which would have maintained his authority in almost any
circumstances.


MAN'S INGRATITUDE.

  Long had the sage, the first who dared to brave
  The unknown dangers of the western wave;
  Who taught mankind where future empires lay
  In these confines of descending day;
  With cares o'erwhelmed, in life's distressing gloom,
  Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb,
  While kings and nations, envious of his name,
  Enjoyed his toils and triumphed o'er his fame,
  And gave the chief, from promised empire hurl'd,
  Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.

  --_Barlow_, "Columbus" (1787).

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 28: By permission of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.]

[Footnote 29: For the above interesting particulars, and for the
artistic illustration of this beautiful statue, the compiler desires to
record his sincere obligations to the courteous kindness of Mr. William
G. Williams of Rutherford, N. J.]



"ONLY THE ACTIONS OF THE JUST."

  Ages unborn shall bless the happy day
  When thy bold streamers steer'd the trackless way.
  O'er these delightful realms thy sons shall tread,
  And following millions trace the path you led.
  Behold yon isles, where first the flag unfurled
  Waved peaceful triumph o'er the new-found world.
  Where, aw'd to silence, savage bands gave place,
  And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.

  --_Barlow_, "The Vision of Columbus,"
  a poem in nine books (1787).


QUEEN ISABELLA'S DEATH.

  Truth leaves the world and Isabella dies.

  --_Ibid._



COLUMBUS' CHAINS HIS CROWN.

  I sing the mariner who first unfurl'd
  An eastern banner o'er the western world,
  And taught mankind where future empires lay
  In these fair confines of descending day;
  Who swayed a moment, with vicarious power,
  Iberia's scepter on the new-found shore;
  Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod
  Pursued by avarice and defiled with blood;
  The tribes he fostered with paternal toil
  Snatched from his hand and slaughtered for their spoil.
  Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,
  Enjoyed his labors and purloined his fame,
  And gave the viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd,
  Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.

  --_Barlow_, The "Columbiad," Book I; lines 1-14.


PROPHETIC VISIONS URGED COLUMBUS ON.

  The bliss of unborn nations warm'd his breast,
  Repaid his toils, and sooth'd his soul to rest;
  Thus o'er thy subject wave shall thou behold
  Far happier realms their future charms unfold,
  In nobler pomp another Pisgah rise,
  Beneath whose foot thy new-found Canaan lies.
  There, rapt in vision, hail my favorite clime
  And taste the blessings of remotest time.

  --_Barlow_, The "Columbiad," Book 1; lines 176-184.


COLUMBUS, THE PATHFINDER OF THE SHADOWY SEA.

  He opened calm the universal cause
  To give each realm its limit and its laws,
  Bid the last breath of tired contention cease,
  And bind all regions in the leagues of peace.

  To yon bright borders of Atlantic day
  His swelling pinions led the trackless way,
  And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,
  To trace new seas and happy nations rear;
  Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurled
  Have waved at last in union o'er the world.

  --_Ibid._


RELIGIOUS OBJECT OF COLUMBUS.

     J. J. BARRY, M. D., "Life of Columbus."

The first object of the discovery, disengaged from every human
consideration, was the glorification of the Redeemer and the extension
of His Church.


THE NOBILITY OF COLUMBUS IN ADVERSITY.


The accumulations of his reverses exceed human proportions. His
misfortunes almost surpass his glory. Still this man does not murmur. He
accuses, he curses nobody; and does not regret that he was born. The
people of ancient times would never have conceived this type of a hero.
Christianity alone, whose creation he was, can comprehend him. * * * The
example of Columbus shows that nobody can completely obtain here below
the objects of his desires. The man who doubled the known space of the
earth was not able to attain his object; he proposed to himself much
more than he realized.--_Ibid._


COLUMBUS BELL.

The congregation of the little colored church at Haleyville, in
Cumberland County, N. J., contributes an interesting historical relic to
the World's Fair. It is the bell that has for years called them to
church. In the year 1445, the bell, it is said, hung in one of the
towers of the famous mosque at the Alhambra. After the siege of Granada,
the bell was taken away by the Spanish soldiers and presented to Queen
Isabella, who, in turn, presented it to Columbus, who brought it to
America on his fourth voyage and presented it to a community of Spanish
monks who placed it in the Cathedral of Carthagena, on the Island of New
Granada. In 1697 buccaneers looted Carthagena, and carried the bell on
board the French pirate ship La Rochelle, but the ship was wrecked on
the Island of St. Andreas shortly afterward, and the wreckers secured
the bell as part of their salvage. Capt. Newell of Bridgeton purchased
it, brought it to this country, and presented it to the colored
congregation of the Haleyville church. The bell weighs sixty-four
pounds, and is of fine metal.


THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF COLUMBUS.

     GERONIMO BENZONI of Milan, Italy. Born about 1520. From his
     "History of the New World" (1565).

He was a man of a good, reasonable stature, with sound, strong limbs; of
good judgment, high talent, and gentlemanlike aspect. His eyes were
bright, his hair red, his nose aquiline, his mouth somewhat large; but
above all he was a friend to justice, though rather passionate when
angry.


WESTWARD RELIGION'S BANNERS TOOK THEIR WAY.

     The Right Rev. GEORGE BERKELEY, Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland. Born at
     Kilcrin, Kilkenny, March 12, 1684; died at Oxford, England, January
     14, 1754. The author of the celebrated line, "Westward the course
     of Empire takes its way."

But all things of heavenly origin, like the glorious sun, move westward;
and Truth and Art have their periods of shining and of night. Rejoice,
then, O venerable Rome, in thy divine destiny! for, though darkness
overshadow thy seats, and though thy mitred head must descend into the
dust, thy spirit, immortal and undecayed, already spreads toward a new
world.


COLUMBUS NO CHANCE COMER.

     The Hon. JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE, one of America's leading
     statesmen. Born in Washington County, Pa., in 1830.

Columbus was no chance comer. The time was full. He was not premature;
he was not late. He came in accordance with a scientifically formed if
imperfect theory, whether his own or another's--a theory which had a
logical foundation, and which projected logical sequences. * * * Had not
Columbus discovered America in 1492, a hundred Columbuses would have
discovered it in 1493.


THE CERTAIN CONVICTIONS OF COLUMBUS.

     BARON BONNAFOUX, a French author. From "La Vie de Christophe
     Colombe" (1853).

He was as certain of the truth of his theory as if he had seen and
trodden on the very ground which his imagination had called into
existence. * * * There was an air of authority about him, and a dignity
in his manner, that struck all who saw him. He considered himself, on
principle, above envy and slander, and in calm and serious discussion
always had the superiority in argument on the subjects of his schemes.
To refuse to assist him in his projects was one thing; but it was
impossible to reply to his discourse in refutation of his arguments,
and, above all, not to respect him.


THE COLUMBUS OF MODERN TIMES.

     From an editorial in the Boston _Journal_, July 13, 1892.

When John Bright, in Parliament, shortly after the successful laying of
the Atlantic cable, called Cyrus W. Field _the Columbus of modern
times_, he made no inappropriate comparison. Mr. Field, in the early
days of the great undertaking that has made his name immortal, had to
contend against the same difficulties as the intrepid Genoese. The
lineal descendants of the fifteenth century pundits, who vexed the soul
of Columbus by insisting that the world was flat, were very sure that a
cable could never be laid across the boisterous Atlantic; that sea
monsters would bite it off and huge waves destroy it. Both men finally
prevailed over a doubting world by sheer force of indomitable
enthusiasm.

Many men in Mr. Field's place, having amassed a fortune comparatively
early in life, would have devoted themselves to ease and recreation. But
there was too much of the New England spirit of restless energy in Mr.
Field to permit him to pass the best years of his life thus
ingloriously. The great thought of his cable occurred to him, and he
became a man of one fixed idea, and ended by becoming a popular hero. No
private American citizen, probably, has received such distinguished
honors as Mr. Field when his cable was laid in 1867, and the undertaking
of his lifetime was successfully accomplished. And Mr. Field was
honestly entitled to all the glory and to all the financial profit that
he reaped. His project was one that only a giant mind could conceive,
and a giant mind and a giant will could carry on to execution.

As if to make the parallel with Columbus complete, Mr. Field passed his
last few days under the heavy shadow of misfortune. His son's failure,
and the sensational developments attending it, were probably the
occasion of his fatal illness. It is a melancholy termination of a
remarkable career to which the nations of the earth owe a vast debt of
gratitude.


Chicago _Tribune_, July 13, 1892.

The story of the twelve years' struggle to lay an Atlantic cable from
Ireland to Newfoundland is the story of one of the greatest battles with
the fates that any one man was ever called on to wage. It was a fight
not only against the ocean, jealous of its rights as a separator of the
continents, and against natural obstacles which seemed absolutely
unsurpassable, but a fight against stubborn Parliaments and Congresses,
and all the stumbling blocks of human disbelief. But the courage of
Cyrus W. Field was indomitable. _His patience and zeal were
inexhaustible, and so it came to pass, on July 27, 1866, that this man
knelt down in his cabin, like a second Columbus, and gave thanks to God,
for his labors were crowned with success at last._

He had lost his health. He had worn out his nervous forces by the
tremendous strain, and he paid in excruciating suffering the debt he
owed to nature. But he had won a fortune and a lasting fame.


THE BOSTON STATUE.

In 1849 the Italian merchants of Boston, under the presidency of Mr.
Iasigi, presented to the city a statue of Columbus, which was placed
inside the inclosure of Louisburg Square, at the Pinckney Street end of
the square. The statue, which is of inferior merit, bears no
inscription, and is at the present date forgotten, dilapidated, and fast
falling into decay.


YOU CAN NOT CONQUER AMERICA.

     FLAVIUS J. BROBST in an article on Westminster Abbey, in the
     _Mid-Continent Magazine_, August, 1892.

Sublimest of all, the incomparable Earl of Chatham, whose prophetic ken
foresaw the independence of the American nation even before the battles
of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill had been fought; and who, from
the first, in Parliament, rose with his eagle beak, and raised his
clarion voice with all the vehemence of his imperial soul in behalf of
the American colonies, reaching once a climax of inspiration, when, in
thunderous tones, he declared to the English nation, "_You can not
conquer America._"


THE INDOMITABLE COURAGE OF COLUMBUS.

     WILLIAM C. BRYANT, an eminent American poet. Born at Cummington,
     Mass., November 3, 1794; died June 12, 1878. From his "History of
     the United States."

With a patience that nothing could wear out, and a perseverance that,
was absolutely unconquerable, Columbus waited and labored for eighteen
years, appealing to minds that wanted light and to ears that wanted
hearing. His ideas of the possibilities of navigation were before his
time. It was one thing to creep along the coast of Africa, where the
hold upon the land need never be lost, another to steer out boldly into
that wilderness of waters, over which mystery and darkness brooded.


THE SANTA MARIA CARAVEL.

     J. W. BUEL, a celebrated American author.

Oh, thou Santa Maria, thou famous remembrancer of the centuries! The
names of none of those that sailed in search of the Golden Fleece are so
well preserved among the eternities of history as is thine. No vessel of
Rome, of Greece, of Carthage, of Egypt, that carried conquering Cæsar,
triumphant Alexander, valiant Hannibal, or beauteous Cleopatra, shall be
so well known to coming ages as thou art. No ship of the Spanish Armada,
or of Lord Howard, who swept it from the sea; no looming monster; no
Great Eastern or frowning ironclad of modern navies, shall be held like
thee in perpetual remembrance by all the sons of men. For none ever bore
such a hero on such a mission, that has glorified all nations by giving
the greatest of all countries to the world.


THE SCARLET THORN.

     JOHN BURROUGHS, an American essayist and naturalist. Born at
     Roxbury, New York, April 3, 1837. From a letter in the _St.
     Nicholas Magazine_ of July, 1892. (See _post_, NASON.)

There are a great many species of the thorn distributed throughout the
United States. All the Northern species, so far as I know, have white
flowers. In the South they are more inclined to be pink or roseate. If
Columbus picked up at sea a spray of the thorn, it was doubtless some
Southern species. Let us believe it was the Washington thorn, which
grows on the banks of streams from Virginia to the Gulf, and loads
heavily with small red fruit.

The thorn belongs to the great family of trees that includes the apple,
peach, pear, raspberry, strawberry, etc., namely, the rose family, or
_Rosaceæ_. Hence the apple, pear, and plum are often grafted on the
white thorn.

A curious thing about the thorns is that they are suppressed or
abortive branches. The ancestor of this tree must have been terribly
abused sometime to have its branches turn to thorns.

I have an idea that persistent cultivation and good treatment would
greatly mollify the sharp temper of the thorn, if not change it
completely.

The flower of the thorn would become us well as a National flower. It
belongs to such a hardy, spunky, unconquerable tree, and to such a
numerous and useful family. Certainly, it would be vastly better than
the merely delicate and pretty wild flowers that have been so generally
named.


CAPTAIN AND SEAMEN.

     RICHARD E. BURTON, in the Denver (Colo.) _Times_, 1892.

  I see a galleon of Spanish make,
    That westward like a wingéd creature flies,
    Above a sea dawn-bright, and arched with skies
  Expectant of the sun and morning-break.
  The sailors from the deck their land-thirst slake
    With peering o'er the waves, until their eyes
    Discern a coast that faint and dream-like lies,
  The while they pray, weep, laugh, or madly take
  Their shipmates in their arms and speak no word.
    And then I see a figure, tall, removed
    A little from the others, as behooved,
  That since the dawn has neither spoke nor stirred;
  A noble form, the looming mast beside,
  Columbus, calm, his prescience verified.


THE BEAUTIES OF THE BAHAMA SEA.

     HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH, American author. Born in Rhode Island, 1839.
     From an article, "The Sea of Discovery," in _The Youth's
     Companion_, June 9, 1892.

The Bahama Sea is perhaps the most beautiful of all waters. Columbus
beheld it and its islands with a poet's eye.

"It only needed the singing of the nightingale," said the joyful
mariner, "to make it like Andalusia in April;" and to his mind Andalusia
was the loveliest place on earth. In sailing among these gardens of the
seas in the serene and transparent autumn days after the great
discovery, the soul of Columbus was at times overwhelmed and entranced
by a sense of the beauty of everything in it and about it. Life seemed,
as it were, a spiritual vision.

"I know not," said the discoverer, "where first to go; nor are my eyes
ever weary of gazing on the beautiful verdure. The singing of the birds
is such that it seems as if one would never desire to depart hence."

He speaks in a poet's phrases of the odorous trees, and of the clouds of
parrots whose bright wings obscured the sun. His descriptions of the sea
and its gardens are full of glowing and sympathetic colorings, and all
things to him had a spiritual meaning.

"God," he said, on reviewing his first voyage over these western waters,
"God made me the messenger of the new heavens and earth, and told me
where to find them. Charts, maps, and mathematical knowledge had nothing
to do with the case."

On announcing his discovery on his return, he breaks forth into the
following highly poetic exhortation: "Let processions be formed, let
festivals be held, let lauds be sung. Let Christ rejoice on earth."

Columbus was a student of the Greek and Latin poets, and of the poetry
of the Hebrew Scriptures. The visions of Isaiah were familiar to him,
and he thought that Isaiah himself at one time appeared to him in a
vision. He loved nature. To him the outer world was a garment of the
Invisible; and it was before his great soul had suffered
disappointment that he saw the sun-flooded waters of the Bahama Sea
and the purple splendors of the Antilles.

[Illustration: THE PASEO COLON (COLUMBUS PROMENADE), BARCELONA, SPAIN.

With the Columbus Monument in the background.

See page 81]

There is scarcely an adjective in the picturesque report of Columbus in
regard to this sea and these islands that is not now as appropriate and
fitting as in the days when its glowing words delighted Isabella 400
years ago.


WHEN HISTORY DOES THEE WRONG.

     GEORGE GORDON NOEL, LORD BYRON, one of England's famous poets. Born
     in London, January 22, 1788; died at Missolonghi, Greece, April 19,
     1824.

  Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?
    Ah! such, alas, the hero's amplest fate.
  When granite molders and when records fail,

   *       *       *       *       *

  Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate,
    See how the mighty shrink into a song.
  Can volume, pillar, pile, preserve thee great?
    Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue,
    When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong.




CABOT'S CONTEMPORANEOUS UTTERANCE.

     SEBASTIAN CABOT, a navigator of great eminence. Born at Bristol,
     England, about 1477. Discovered the mainland of North America. Died
     about 1557.

When newes were brought that Don Christopher Colonus, the Genoese, had
discovered the coasts of India, whereof was great talke in all the Court
of King Henry the VII. who then raigned, * * * all men with great
admiration affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane to saile by
the West into the Easte, where the spices growe, by a chart that was
never before knowen.


THE CAPITULATIONS OF SANTA FÉ--AGREEMENT OF COLUMBUS WITH FERDINAND AND
ISABELLA.

     Sir ARTHUR HELPS. From "The Life of Columbus." [See other extracts,
     _post_, _sub nomine_ HELPS.]

1. Christopher Columbus wishes to be made Admiral of the seas and
countries which he is about to discover. He desires to hold this dignity
during his life, and that it should descend to his heirs.

_This request is granted by the King and Queen._

2. Christopher Columbus wishes to be made Viceroy of all the continents
and islands.

_Granted by the King and Queen._

3. He wishes to have a share amounting to a tenth part of the profits of
all merchandise--be it pearls, jewels, or any other thing--that may be
found, gained, bought, or exported from the countries which he is to
discover.

_Granted by the King and Queen._

4. He wishes, in his quality of Admiral, to be made sole judge of all
mercantile matters that may be the occasion of dispute in the countries
which he is to discover.

_Granted by the King and Queen, on condition that this jurisdiction
should belong to the office of Admiral, as held by Don Enriques and
other Admirals._

5. Christopher Columbus wishes to have the right to contribute the
eighth part of the expenses of all ships which traffic with the new
countries, and in return to earn the eighth part of the profits.

_Granted by the King and Queen._

Santa Fé, in the Vega of Granada, April 17, 1492.


COLUMBUS, THE SEA-KING.

     THOMAS CARLYLE, "the Sage of Chelsea," celebrated English
     philosophic writer. Born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, December 4,
     1795; died at Cheyne walk, Chelsea, London, February 5, 1881. From
     "Past and Present."

Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king, Columbus, my hero, royalest Sea-king
of all! it is no friendly environment this of thine, in the waste deep
waters; around thee, mutinous, discouraged souls; behind thee, disgrace
and ruin; before thee, the unpenetrated veil of Night. Brother, these
wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep basin--ten miles deep, I
am told--are not entirely there on thy behalf! Meseems they have other
work than floating thee forward; and the huge winds that sweep from Ursa
Major to the Tropics and Equator, dancing their giant waltz through the
kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little about filling rightly
or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this
cockle-skiff of thine. Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends,
my brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling,
howling, wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible to all
hearts but thine, there lies a help in them; see how thou wilt get at
that. Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad southwester spend itself,
saving thyself by dextrous science of defense the while; valiantly, with
swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favoring east, the
Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt entirely repress;
weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage; thou wilt swallow
down complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness of others and thyself.
There shall be a depth of silence in thee deeper than this sea, which is
but ten miles deep; a silence unsoundable, known to God only. Thou shalt
be a great man. Yes, my World-soldier, thou wilt have to be greater than
this tumultuous, unmeasured world here around thee; thou, in thy strong
soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down, and
make it bear thee on--to new Americas.


OUTBOUND.

     BLISS CARMAN, from a poem in the _Century Magazine_, 1892.[30]

  A lonely sail in the vast sea-room,
  I have put out for the port of gloom.

  The voyage is far on the trackless tide,
  The watch is long, and the seas are wide.

  The headlands, blue in the sinking day,
  Kiss me a hand on the outward way.

  The fading gulls, as they dip and veer,
  Lift me a voice that is good to hear.

  The great winds come, and the heaving sea,
  The restless mother, is calling me.

  The cry of her heart is lone and wild,
  Searching the night for her wandered child.

  Beautiful, weariless mother of mine,
  In the drift of doom I am here, I am thine.

  Beyond the fathom of hope or fear,
  From bourn to bourn of the dusk I steer.

  Swept on in the wake of the stars, in the stream
  Of a roving tide, from dream to dream.


THE TRIBUTES OF THE PHOENIX OF THE AGES.

     LOPE DE VEGA CARPIO, a celebrated Spanish poet and dramatist. Born
     at Madrid, November 25, 1562; died, 1635.[31]

Lope puts into the mouth of Columbus, in a dialogue with Ferdinand, who
earnestly invites the discoverer to ask of him the wherewithal to
prosecute the discovery, the following verses:

  Sire, give me gold, for gold is all in all;
  'Tis master, 'tis the goal and course alike,
  The way, the means, the handicraft, and power,
  The sure foundation and the truest friend.

       *       *       *       *       *

Referring to the results of the great discovery, Lope beautifully says
that it gave--

  _Al Rey infinitas terras
  Y á Dios infinitas almas._

  (To the King boundless lands, and to God souls without
  number.)

HERSCHEL, THE COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES.

     E. H. CHAPIN, American author of the nineteenth century.

Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force; the
world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of
infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to tread those shining
coasts along which Newton dropped his plummet and Herschel sailed, a
Columbus of the skies.


THE DISCOVERIES OF COLUMBUS AND AMERICUS.

     From Chicago _Tribune_, August, 1892. [See also _ante_, Boston
     _Journal_.]

The suggestion has been made by Mr. John Boyd Thacher, commissioner from
New York to the World's Fair, that a tribute be paid to the memory of
Amerigo Vespucci by opening the Fair May 5, 1893, that being the
anniversary of America's christening day. Mr. Thacher's suggestion is
based upon the fact that May 5, 1507, there was published at the
College of Saint-Dié, in Lorraine, the "Cosmographic Introductio," by
Waldseemuller, in which the name of America "for the fourth part of the
world" (Europe, Asia, and Africa being the other three parts) was first
advocated, in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. As Mr. Thacher's suggestion
already has aroused considerable jealous opposition among the Italians
of New York, who claim all the glory for Columbus, a statement of what
was really discovered by the two great explorers will be of interest at
the present time.

No writer of the present day has shed a clearer light upon this question
than John Fiske, and it may be incidentally added, no student has done
more than he to relieve Amerigo Vespucci from the reproach which has
been fastened upon his reputation as an explorer, by critics, who, as
Mr. Fiske clearly shows, have been misled by the sources of their
authority and have judged him from erroneous standpoints. In making a
statement of what the two explorers really discovered, the _Tribune_
follows on the lines of Prof. Fiske's investigation as the clearest,
most painstaking, and most authoritative that has yet been made.

Christopher Columbus made four voyages. On the first he sailed from
Palos, Friday, August 3, 1492, and Friday, October 12th (new style,
October 21st), discovered land in the West Indies. It was one of the
islands of the Bahamas, called by the natives Guanahani, and named by
him San Salvador; which name, after the seventeenth century, was applied
to Cat Island, though which one of the islands is the true San Salvador
is still a matter of dispute.

After spending ten days among the Bahamas Columbus (October 25th)
steered south and reached the great Island of Cuba. He cruised around
the east coast of the big island, and December 6th landed at Haiti,
another immense island. A succession of disasters ended his voyage and
he thereupon returned to Spain, arriving there March 15, 1493.

Columbus sailed on his second voyage September 25, 1493, and November 3d
landed at Dominica in the Caribbean Sea. During a two-weeks' cruise he
discovered the islands of Marigalante, Guadaloupe, and Antigua, and
lastly the large Island of Puerto Rico. April 24th he set out on another
cruise of discovery. He followed the south coast of Cuba and came to
Jamaica, the third largest of the West Indies, thence returning to Cuba,
and from there to Spain, where he arrived June 11, 1494. On his third
voyage he sailed May 30, 1498. Following a more southerly course, he
arrived at Trinidad, and in coasting along saw the delta of the Orinoco
River of South America and went into the Gulf of Paria. Thence he
followed the north coast of Venezuela and finally arrived at Santo
Domingo.

The story of his arrest there is well known. He was taken in chains to
Cadiz, Spain, arriving there in December, 1500.

On his fourth and last voyage he sailed May 11, 1502. On June 15th he
was at Martinique. He touched at Santo Domingo, thence sailed across to
Cape Honduras, doubled that cape, and skirted the coast of Nicaragua,
where he heard of the Pacific Ocean, though the name had not its present
meaning for him. It was during his attempt to find the Isthmus of
Darien, which he thought was a strait of water, that he was shipwrecked
on the coast of Jamaica. He remained there a year and then went back to
Spain, reaching home November 7, 1504. It was the last voyage of the
great navigator, and it will be observed that he never saw or stepped
foot on the mainland of _North_ America, though he saw South America in
1498, as stated. In 1506 he died in Spain.

Amerigo Vespucci, like Columbus, made four voyages, some of the details
of which are known. His letter, written to his friend Piero Soderini,
September 4, 1504, gives us information concerning his famous first
voyage. Hitherto the only copy of this letter known was a Latin
translation of it published at the College of Saint-Dié, April 25, 1507,
but the primitive text from which the translation was made has been
found, and by that text Americus' reputation has been saved from the
discredit critics and biographers have cast upon it, and his true
laurels have been restored to him. The mistake of changing one word, the
Indian name "Lariab," in the original, to "Parias," in the Latin
version, is accountable for it all. The scene of his explorations is now
transferred from Parias, in South America, to Lariab, in North America,
and his entire letter is freed from mystery or inconsistency with the
claims which have been made for him.

It is now established beyond controversy that Americus sailed on the
first voyage, not as commander, but as astronomer, of the expedition,
May 10, 1497, and first ran to the Grand Canaries. Leaving there May
25th, the first landfall was on the northern coast of Honduras of North
America. Thence he sailed around Yucatan and up the Mexican coast to
Tampico ("Lariab," not "Parias"). After making some inland explorations
he followed the coast line 870 leagues (2,610 miles), which would take
him along our Southern gulf coast, around Florida, and north along the
Atlantic coast until "they found themselves in a fine harbor." Was this
Charleston harbor or Hampton Roads? In any event, when he started back
to Spain he sailed from the Atlantic coast somewhere between Capes
Charles and Canaveral. The outcome of this voyage was the first
discovery of Honduras, parts of the Mexican and Florida coasts, the
insularity of Cuba--which Columbus thought was part of the mainland of
Asia--and 4,000 miles of the coast line of North America. The remaining
three voyages have no bearing upon North American discovery. On the
second, he explored the northern coast of Brazil to the Gulf of
Maracaibo; on the third, he went again to the Brazilian coast and found
the Island of South Georgia, and on the fourth returned to Brazil, but
without making any discoveries of importance.

Mr. Fiske's luminous narrative lends significance to Mr. Thacher's
suggestion, for Vespucci discovered a large portion of the mainland of
the North American continent which Columbus had never seen. To this
extent his first voyage gave a new meaning to Columbus' work, without
diminishing, however, the glory of the latter's great achievement.
Americus, indeed, had his predecessors, for John and Sebastian Cabot,
sent out by Henry VII. of England a short time before his discovery, had
set foot upon Labrador, and probably had visited Nova Scotia. And even
before Cabot, the Northern Vikings, among them Leif Ericcson, had found
their way to this continent and perhaps set up their Vineland in
Massachusetts. And before the Vikings there may have been other
migrants, and before the migrants the aborigines, who were the victims
of all the explorers from the Vikings to the Puritans. But their
achievements had no meaning and left no results. As Prof. Fiske says:
"In no sense was any real contact established between the eastern and
western halves of our planet until the great voyage of Columbus in
1492." It was that voyage which inspired the great voyage of Americus in
1497. He followed the path marked out by Columbus, and he invested the
latter's discovery with a new significance. Upon the basis of merit and
historical fact, therefore, Mr. Thacher's suggestion deserves
consideration; and why should Italians be jealous, when Christopher
Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and John Cabot were all of Italian birth?


ALL WITHIN THE KEN OF COLUMBUS.

     HYDE CLARKE, Vice-President Royal Historical Society of England, in
     his "Examination of the Legend of Atlantis," etc. London: Longmans,
     Green & Co., 1886.

At the time when Columbus, as well as others, was discussing the subject
of new lands to be discovered, literary resources had become available.
The Latin writers could be examined; but, above all, the fall of
Constantinople had driven numbers of Greeks into Italy. The Greek
language was studied, and Greek books were eagerly bought by the Latin
nations, as before they had been by the Arabs. Thus, all that had been
written as to the four worlds was within the ken of Columbus.


COLUMBUS A HERETIC AND A VISIONARY TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

     JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, an American writer and Unitarian minister.
     Born at Hanover, N. H., in 1810; died at Jamaica Plain, June 8,
     1888.[32]

We think of Columbus as the great discoverer of America; we do not
remember that his actual life was one of disappointment and failure.
Even his discovery of America was a disappointment; he was looking for
India, and utterly failed of this. He made maps and sold them to support
his old father. Poverty, contumely, indignities of all sorts, met him
wherever he turned. His expectations were considered extravagant, his
schemes futile; the theologians exposed him with texts out of the Bible;
he wasted seven years waiting in vain for encouragement at the court of
Spain. He applied unsuccessfully to the governments of Venice, Portugal,
Genoa, France, England. Practical men said, "It can't be done. He is a
visionary." Doctors of divinity said, "He is a heretic; he contradicts
the Bible." Isabella, being a woman, and a woman of sentiment, wished
to help him; but her confessor said no. We all know how he was compelled
to put down mutiny in his crew, and how, after his discovery was made,
he was rewarded with chains and imprisonment, how he died in neglect,
poverty, and pain, and only was rewarded by a sumptuous funeral. His
great hope, his profound convictions, were his only support and
strength.


LIKE HOMER--A BEGGAR IN THE GATE.

     DIEGO CLEMENCIN, a Spanish statesman and author of merit. Born at
     Murcia, 1765; died, 1834. From his "Elogio de la Reina Catolica,
     Isabella de Castilla" (1851).

A man obscure, and but little known, followed at this time the court.
Confounded in the crowd of unfortunate applicants, feeding his
imagination in the corners of antechambers with the pompous project of
discovering a world, melancholy and dejected in the midst of the general
rejoicing, he beheld with indifference, and almost with contempt, the
conclusion of a conquest which swelled all bosoms with jubilee, and
seemed to have reached the utmost bounds of desire. That man was
Christopher Columbus.


THE FIRST CATHOLIC KNIGHT.

     JAMES DAVID COLEMAN, Supreme President of the Catholic Knights of
     America, in an address to the members of that body, September 10,
     1892.

History tells that the anxious journey was begun by Columbus and his
resolute band, approaching Holy Communion at Palos, on August 3, 1492;
that its prosecution, through sacrifices and perils, amid harrowing
uncertainties, was stamped with an exalted faith and unyielding trust in
God, and that its marvelous and glorious consummation, in October, 1492,
was acknowledged by the chivalrous knight, in tearful gratitude, on
bended knee, at the foot of the cross of Christ, as the merciful gift of
his omnipotent Master. Then it was that Christopher Columbus, the first
Catholic knight of America, made the gracious Christian tribute of
grateful recognition of Divine assistance by planting upon the soil of
his newly discovered land the true emblem of Christianity and of man's
redemption--the cross of our Savior. And then, reverently kneeling
before the cross, and with eyes and hearts uplifted to their immolated
God, this valiant band of Christian knights uttered from the virgin sod
of America the first pious supplication that He would abundantly bless
His gift to Columbus; and the unequaled grandeur of our civil structure
of to-day tells the manifest response to those prayers of 400 years ago.


BY FAITH COLUMBUS FOUND AMERICA.

     ROBERT COLLYER, a distinguished pulpit orator. Born at Keighley,
     Yorkshire, December 8, 1823.

The successful men in the long fight with fortune are the cheerful men,
or those, certainly, who find the fair background of faith and hope.
Columbus, but for this, had never found our New World.


THE CITY OF COLON STATUE.

In the city of Colon, Department of Panama, Colombia, stands a statue to
the memory of Columbus, of some artistic merit. The great Genoese is
represented as encircling the neck of an Indian youth with his
protecting arm, a representation somewhat similar to the pose of the
statue in the plaza of the city of Santo Domingo. This statue was
donated by the ex-Empress of the French, and on a wooden tablet
attached to the concrete pedestal the following inscription appears:

  Statue de
  CHRISTOPHE COLOMB
  Donnée par
  L'Impératrice Eugénie
  Erigée à Colon
  Par Decret de la Legislature de
  Colombie
  Au 29 Juin, 1866,
  Par les soins de la Compagnie
  Universelle du Canal Maritime
  De Panama
  Le 21 Fevrier, 1886.[33]

  Translation:

  Statue of
  CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
  Presented by
  The Empress Eugénie
  Erected in honor of Columbus
  By Decree of the Legislature of
  Colombia
  The 29th of June, 1866,
  Under the Supervision of the Universal
  Company of the Maritime Canal
  Of Panama
  The 21st of February, 1886.


THE COLUMBUS OF LITERATURE.

Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, commonly called Lord
Bacon, is generally so called. Born in London January 22, 1561; died
April 19, 1626.


THE COLUMBUS OF THE HEAVENS.

Sir William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers that any age or
nation has produced, is generally so termed. Born at Hanover November
15, 1738; died August, 1822.


THE COLUMBUS OF MODERN TIMES.

Cyrus W. Field was termed "_the Columbus of modern times, who, by his
cable, had moored the New World alongside of the Old_," by the Rt. Hon.
John Bright, in a debate in the British Parliament soon after the
successful completion of the Atlantic cable.


THE COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES.

Galileo, the illustrious Italian mathematician and natural philosopher,
is so styled by Edward Everett (_post_). He was born at Pisa February
15, 1564; died near Florence in January, 1642.[34]


THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF COLUMBUS.

     HERNANDO COLUMBUS, son of Christopher. Born at Cordova, 1488; died
     at Valladolid, 1539.

He was tall, well formed, muscular, and of an elevated and dignified
demeanor. His visage was long, neither full nor meager; his complexion
fair and freckled, and inclined to ruddy; his nose aquiline; his cheek
bones were rather high, his eyes light gray, and apt to enkindle; his
whole countenance had an air of authority. His hair, in his youthful
days, was of a light color, but care and trouble, according to Las
Casas, soon turned it gray, and at thirty years of age it was quite
white. He was moderate and simple in diet and apparel, eloquent in
discourse, engaging and affable with strangers, and his amiability and
suavity in domestic life strongly attached his household to his person.
His temper was naturally irritable, but he subdued it by the
magnanimity of his spirits, comporting himself with a courteous and
gentle gravity, and never indulging in any intemperance of language.
Throughout his life he was noted for strict attention to the offices of
religion, observing rigorously the fasts and ceremonies of the church;
nor did his piety consist in mere forms, but partook of that lofty and
solemn enthusiasm with which his whole character was strongly tinctured.


THE SONG OF AMERICA.

     KINAHAN CORNWALLIS. From his "Song of America and Columbus; or, The
     Story of the New World." New York, 1892. Published by the _Daily
     Investigator_.

  Hail! to this New World nation; hail!
    That to Columbus tribute pays;
  That glorifies his name, all hail,
    And crowns his memory with bays.

  Hail! to Columbia's mighty realm,
    Which all her valiant sons revere,
  And foemen ne'er can overwhelm.
    Well may the world its prowess fear.

  Hail! to this richly favored land,
    For which the patriot fathers fought.
  Forever may the Union stand,
    To crown the noble deeds they wrought.

   *       *       *       *       *

  Hail! East and West, and North and South,
    From Bunker Hill to Mexico;
  The Lakes to Mississippi's mouth,
    And the Sierras crowned with snow.

  Hail! to the wondrous works of man,
    From Maine to California's shores;
  From ocean they to ocean span,
    And over all the eagle soars.


THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS.

  Six sail were in the squadron he possessed,
  And these he felt the Lord of Hosts had blessed,
  For he was ever faithful to the cross,
  With which compared, all else was earthly dross.
  Southwestward toward the equinoctial line
  He steered his barks, for vast was his design.
  There, like a mirror, the Atlantic lay,
  White dolphins on its breast were seen to play,
  And lazily the vessels rose and fell,
  With flapping sails, upon the gentle swell;
  While panting crews beneath the torrid sun
  Lost strength and spirits--felt themselves undone.
  Day after day the air a furnace seemed,
  And fervid rays upon them brightly beamed,
  The burning decks displayed their yawning seams,
  And from the rigging tar ran down in streams.--_Ibid._


COLUMBUS COLLECTION.

Rudolph Cronau, the eminent author and scientist of Leipsic, Germany,
has contributed to the World's Fair his extensive collection of
paintings, sketches, and photographs, representing scenes in the life of
Columbus, and places visited by Columbus during his voyages to the New
World. Doctor Cronau has spent a great part of his life in the study of
early American history, and has published a work on the subject, based
entirely upon his personal investigations.


COLUMBUS' HAVEN.

An indentation of the coast of Watling's Island, in the Bahamas, is
known to this day as Columbus' Haven.

[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS IN THE CITY OF COLON, DEPARTMENT OF
PANAMA, COLOMBIA.

The gift of the ex-Empress of the French. (See page 109.)]


CUBA'S CAVES--THE MANTLE OF COLUMBUS.

In the caves of Bellamar, near Matanzas, Cuba, are sparkling columns of
crystal 150 feet high; one is called the "Mantle of Columbus."


THE PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS.

     The Hon. WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS, an American journalist, Secretary
     of the Bureau of the American Republics, Washington, D. C. Born at
     Akron, Ohio. From an article, "The Columbus Portraits," in the
     _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, January, 1892.

Although Columbus twice mentioned in his alleged will that he was a
native of Genoa, a dozen places still demand the honor of being
considered his birthplace, and two claim to possess his bones. Nothing
is certain about his parentage, and his age is the subject of dispute.
The stories of his boyhood adventures are mythical, and his education at
the University of Pavia is denied.

The same doubt attends the various portraits that pretend to represent
his features. The most reliable authorities--and the subject has been
under discussion for two centuries--agree that there is no tangible
evidence to prove that the face of Columbus was ever painted or sketched
or graven, during his life. His portrait has been painted, like that of
the Madonna and those of the saints, by many famous artists, each
dependent upon verbal descriptions of his appearance by contemporaneous
writers, and each conveying to the canvas his own conception of what the
great seaman's face must have been; but it may not be said that any of
the portraits are genuine, and it is believed that all of them are more
or less fanciful.

It must be considered that the art of painting portraits was in its
infancy when Columbus lived. The honor was reserved for kings and queens
and other dignitaries, and Columbus was regarded as an importunate
adventurer, who at the close of his first voyage enjoyed a brief
triumph, but from the termination of his second voyage was the victim of
envy and misrepresentation to the close of his life. He was derided and
condemned, was brought in chains like a common felon from the continent
he had discovered, and for nearly two hundred years his descendants
contested in the courts for the dignities and emoluments he demanded of
the crown of Spain before undertaking what was then the most perilous
and uncertain of adventures. Even the glory of giving his name to the
lands he discovered was transferred to another--a man who followed in
his track; and it is not strange, under such circumstances, that the
artists of Spain did not leave the religious subjects upon which they
were engaged to paint the portrait of one who said of himself that he
was a beggar "without a penny to buy food."


THE STANDARD OF MODERN CRITICISM.

     The Hon. WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS, in an able article in the
     _Chautauquan Magazine_, September, 1892.

Whether the meager results of recent investigation are more reliable
than the testimony of earlier pens is a serious question, and the
sympathetic and generous reader will challenge the right of modern
historians to destroy and reject traditions to which centuries have paid
reverence. The failure to supply evidence in place of that which has
been discarded is of itself sufficient to impair faith in the modern
creation, and simply demonstrates the fallacy of the theory that what
can not be proven did not exist. If the same analysis to which the
career of Columbus has been subjected should be applied to every
character in sacred and secular history, there would be little left
among the world's great heroes to admire. So we ask permission to retain
the old ideal, and remember the discoverer of our hemisphere as a man
of human weaknesses but of stern purpose, inflexible will, undaunted
courage, patience, and professional theories most of which modern
science has demonstrated to be true.


AN ITALIAN CONTEMPORARY TRIBUTE.

     GIULIO DATI, a Florentine poet. Born, 1560; died about 1630.

A lengthy poem, in _ottava rima_ (founded upon the first letter of
Columbus announcing his success), was composed in 1493, by Giulio Dati,
the famous Florentine poet, and was sung in the streets of that city to
publish the discovery of the New World. The full Italian text is to be
found in R. H. Major's "Select Letters of Christopher Columbus," Hakluyt
Society, 1871.


THE MUTINY AT SEA.[35]

     JEAN FRANÇOIS CASIMIR DELAVIGNE, a popular French poet and
     dramatist. Born at Havre, April 4, 1793; died at Lyons, December,
     1843.

THREE DAYS.

  On the deck stood Columbus; the ocean's expanse,
  Untried and unlimited, swept by his glance.
  "Back to Spain!" cry his men; "put the vessel about!
  We venture no farther through danger and doubt."
  "Three days, and I give you a world," he replied;
  "Bear up, my brave comrades--three days shall decide."
  He sails--but no token of land is in sight;
  He sails--but the day shows no more than the night;
  On, onward he sails, while in vain o'er the lee
  The lead is plunged down through a fathomless sea.
  The second day's past, and Columbus is sleeping,
  While mutiny near him its vigil is keeping.
  "Shall he perish?" "Ay, death!" is the barbarous cry.
  "He must triumph to-morrow, or, perjured, must die!"
  Ungrateful and blind! shall the world-linking sea,
  He traced, for the future his sepulcher be?
  Shall that sea, on the morrow, with pitiless waves,
  Fling his corse on that shore which his patient eye craves?
  The corse of a humble adventurer, then.
  One day later--Columbus, the first among men.

  But, hush! he is dreaming! A veil on the main,
  At the distant horizon, is parted in twain;
  And now on his dreaming eye--rapturous sight--
  Fresh bursts the New World from the darkness of night.
  O vision of glory! how dazzling it seems;
  How glistens the verdure! how sparkle the streams!
  How blue the far mountains! how glad the green isles!
  And the earth and the ocean, how dimpled with smiles!
  "Joy! joy!" cries Columbus, "this region is mine!"
  Ah, not e'en its name, wondrous dreamer, is thine.


HONOR THE HARDY NORSEMEN.

     The Rev. B. F. DE COSTA, D. D., a well-known New York divine and
     social reformer of the present day. Founder of the White Cross
     Society.

Prof. Rafri, in "Antiquitates Americanæ," gives notices of numerous
Icelandic voyages to American and other lands of the West. The existence
of a great country southwest of Greenland is referred to, not as a
matter of speculation merely, but as something perfectly well known. Let
us remember that in vindicating the Northmen we honor those who not only
give us the first knowledge possessed of the American continent, but to
whom we are indebted besides for much that we esteem valuable.


BRILLIANTS FROM DEPEW.

     CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, one of the leading American orators of the
     nineteenth century. From an oration on "Columbus and the
     Exposition," delivered in Chicago in 1890.

It is not sacrilege to say that the two events to which civilization
to-day owes its advanced position are the introduction of Christianity
and the discovery of America.

When Columbus sailed from Palos, types had been discovered, but church
and state held intelligence by the throat.

Sustained enthusiasm has been the motor of every movement in the
progress of mankind.

Genius, pluck, endurance, and faith can be resisted by neither kings nor
cabinets.

Columbus stands deservedly at the head of that most useful band of
men--the heroic cranks in history.

The persistent enthusiast whom one generation despises as a lunatic with
one idea, succeeding ones often worship as a benefactor.

This whole country is ripe and ready for the inspection of the world.


GENOA--WHENCE GRAND COLUMBUS CAME.

     AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE, an English poet and political writer. Born,
     1814. In a sonnet, "Genoa."

   *       *       *       *       *
  Whose prow descended first the Hesperian Sea,
    And gave our world her mate beyond the brine,
  Was nurtured, whilst an infant, at thy knee.


THE VISION OF COLUMBUS.

  The crimson sun was sinking down to rest,
    Pavilioned on the cloudy verge of heaven;
  And ocean, on her gently heaving breast,
    Caught and flashed back the varying tints of even;
  When, on a fragment from the tall cliff riven,
    With folded arms, and doubtful thoughts opprest,
  Columbus sat, till sudden hope was given--
    A ray of gladness shooting from the West.
  Oh, what a glorious vision for mankind
  Then dawned upon the twilight of his mind;
    Thoughts shadowy still, but indistinctly grand.
  There stood his genie, face to face, and signed
    (So legends tell) far seaward with her hand,
    Till a new world sprang up, and bloomed beneath her wand.

   *       *       *       *       *

  He was a man whom danger could not daunt,
    Nor sophistry perplex, nor pain subdue;
  A stoic, reckless of the world's vain taunt,
    And steeled the path of honor to pursue.
  So, when by all deserted, still he knew
    How best to soothe the heart-sick, or confront
  Sedition; schooled with equal eye to view
    The frowns of grief and the base pangs of want.
  But when he saw that promised land arise
  In all its rare and beautiful varieties,
    Lovelier than fondest fancy ever trod,
  Then softening nature melted in his eyes;
    He knew his fame was full, and blessed his God,
    And fell upon his face and kissed the virgin sod!

                                            --_Ibid._


COLUMBUS' STATUE IN CHICAGO.

The Drake Fountain, Chicago, presented to the city by Mr. John B. Drake,
a prominent and respected citizen, is to occupy a space between the city
hall and the court house buildings, on the Washington Street frontage.
The monument is to be Gothic in style, and the base will be composed of
granite from Baveno, Italy. The design includes a pedestal, on the front
of which will be placed a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus, seven
feet high, which is to be cast in the royal foundry at Rome. The statue
will be the production of an American artist of reputation, Mr. R. H.
Park of Chicago. The fountain is to be provided with an ice-chamber
capable of holding two tons of ice, and is to be surrounded with a
water-pipe containing ten faucets, each supplied with a bronze cup. The
entire cost will be $15,000. Mr. Drake's generous gift to Chicago is to
be ready for public use in 1892, and it will, therefore, be happily
commemorative of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by
Columbus. The inscription on the fountain reads: "Ice-water drinking
fountain presented to the City of Chicago by John B. Drake 1892." At the
feet of the statue of Columbus, who is represented as a student of
geography in his youth at the University of Pavia, is inscribed,
"Christopher Columbus, 1492-1892."

The fountain is a very handsome piece of bronze art work, and
Commissioner Aldrich has decided to place it in a conspicuous place,
being none other than the area between the court house and the city
hall, facing Washington Street. This central and accessible spot of
public ground has been an unsightly stabling place for horses ever since
the court house was built. It will now be sodded, flower-beds will be
laid out, and macadamized walks will surround the Drake Fountain. The
new feature will be a relief to weary eyes, and an ornament to
Washington Street and the center of the city.

The red granite base for the fountain has been received at the custom
house. It was made in Turin, Italy, and cost $3,300. Under the law, the
stone came in duty free, as it is intended as a gift to the
municipality.


DREAM.

     JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, a celebrated American chemist and scientist.
     Born near Liverpool, England, 1811; died January 4, 1882. From his
     "Intellectual Development of Europe," 1876. By permission of
     Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.

Columbus appears to have formed his theory that the East Indies could be
reached by sailing to the west about A. D. 1474. He was at that time in
correspondence with Toscanelli, the Florentine astronomer, who held the
same doctrine, and who sent him a map or chart constructed on the
travels of Marco Polo. He offered his services first to his native city,
then to Portugal, then to Spain, and, through his brother, to England;
his chief inducement, in each instance, being that the riches of India
might be thus secured. In Lisbon he had married. While he lay sick near
Belem, an unknown voice whispered to him in a dream, "God will cause thy
name to be wonderfully resounded through the earth, and will give thee
the keys of the gates of the ocean which are closed with strong chains."
The death of his wife appears to have broken the last link which held
him to Portugal, where he had been since 1470. One evening, in the
autumn of 1485, a man of majestic presence, pale, careworn, and, though
in the meridian of life, with silver hair, leading a little boy by the
hand, asked alms at the gate of the Franciscan convent near Palos--not
for himself, but only a little bread and water for his child. This was
that Columbus destined to give to Europe a new world.


A PEN-PICTURE FROM THE SOUTH.

     The Right Rev. ANTHONY DURIER, Bishop of Natchitoches, La., in a
     circular letter to the clergy and laity of the diocese, printed in
     the New Orleans _Morning Star_, September 10, 1892.

We cherish the memory of the illustrious sailor, also of the lady and of
the monk who were providential instruments in opening a new world to
religion and civilization.

[Illustration: HEAD OF COLUMBUS.

Designed by H. H. Zearing of Chicago.]

Honor to the sailor, Christopher Columbus, the Christ-bearing dove, as
his name tells, gentle as a dove of hallowed memory as Christ-bearer. In
fact, he brought Christ to the New World. Look back at that sailor, 400
years ago, on bended knees, with hands uplifted in prayer, on the shores
of Guanahani, first to invoke the name of Jesus in the New World; in
fact, as in name, behold the Christ-bearing dove. Columbus was a knight
of the cross, with his good cross-hilted sword, blessed by the church.
The first aim and ambition of a knight of the cross, at that time, was
to plant the cross in the midst of heathen nations, and to have them
brought from "the region of the shadow of death" into the life-giving
bosom of Mother Church.

Listen to the prayer of Columbus, as he brings his lips to, and kneels
on, the blessed land he has discovered, that historic prayer which he
had prepared long in advance, and which all Catholic discoverers
repeated after him: "O Lord God, eternal and omnipotent, who by Thy
divine word hast created the heavens, the earth, and the sea! Blessed
and glorified be thy name and praised Thy majesty, who hast deigned by
me, thy humble servant, to have that sacred name made known and preached
in this other part of the world."

Behold the true knight of the cross, with cross-hilted sword in hand,
the name of Jesus on his lips, the glory of Jesus in his heart. He does
not say a word of the glory which, from the discovery, is bound to
accrue to the name of Spain and to his own name; every word is directed
to, and asking for, the glory of the name of Jesus.

The great discoverer has knelt down, kissed the ground, and said his
prayer; now, look at that Catholic Spanish sailor standing up, in
commanding dignity, and planting his Catholic cross and his Spanish flag
on the discovered land; what does it mean? It means--the Spanish flag in
America for a time, and the Catholic cross in America forever.

Hail, flag of the discoverer! Spanish flag, the flag of the noble and
the daring. That Spanish flag came here first, had its glorious day, and
still in glory went back. Hail, Catholic cross! the cross of the
discoverer. That cross is not to go back, as the Spanish flag; no, not
even in glory. About that cross, only two simple words, and that settles
it; that Catholic cross is here to stay. Hail, American flag!
star-spangled banner; the banner of the brave and of the free. That one,
our own flag, came long after the Spanish flag, but we trust came to
stay as long as the Catholic cross--until doom's-day.

Honor to the lady, Queen Isabella the Catholic. Among all illustrious
women, Isabella alone has been graced with the title of "the
Catholic,"--a peerless title! And truly did she deserve the peerless
title, the lady who threw heart and soul, and, over and above, her gold,
in the discovery by which, out of the spiritual domains of the Catholic
church, the sun sets no more; the lady who paved the way over the
bounding sea to the great discoverer. Bright and energetic lady! She at
once understood Columbus and stood resolute, ready to pave him the way
even with her jewels. Listen to her words: "I undertake the enterprise
for my own crown of Castille, and I will pledge my jewels to raise the
necessary funds."

The generous lady had not to pledge her jewels; yet her gold was freely
spent, lavished on the expedition; and she stood by Columbus, in storm
and sunshine, as long as she lived. Isabella stood by Columbus, in his
success, with winsome gentleness, keeping up his daring spirit of
enterprise; and, in his reverses, with the balm of unwavering devotion
healing his bruised, bleeding heart. Isabella stood by Columbus, as a
mother by her son, ever, ever true to her heroic son.

Honor to the humble monk, John Perez, Father John, as he was called in
his convent. That monk whose name will live as long as the names of
Columbus and Isabella; that monk, great by his learning and still better
by his heart; that humble, plain man inspired the sailor with
perseverance indomitable, the lady with generosity unlimited, and
sustained in both sailor and lady that will power and mount-removing
faith the result of which was to give "to the Spanish King innumerable
countries and to God innumerable souls." As the Spanish poet, Lope de
Vega, beautifully puts it:

  _Al Rey infinitas tierras,
  Y á Dios infinitas almas._

It is the Spanish throne which backed Columbus; but, mind! that monk was
"the power behind the throne."

We Louisianians live, may be, in the fairest part of the New World
discovered by Columbus. When Chevalier La Salle had explored the land,
he gave it the beautiful name of Louisiana, and he wrote to his king,
Louis XIV., these words: "The land we have explored and named Louisiana,
after your Majesty's name, is a paradise, the Eden of the New World."
Thanks be to God who has cast our lot in this paradise, the Eden of the
New World, fair Louisiana! Let us honor and ever cherish the memory of
the hero who led the way and opened this country to our forefathers.
Louisiana was never blessed with the footprints of Columbus, yet by him
it was opened to the onward march of the Christian nations.

To the great discoverer, Christopher Columbus, the gratitude of
Louisiana, the Eden of the New World.


BARTOLOMEO COLUMBUS.

     REV. L. A. DUTTO of Jackson, Miss., in an article, "Columbus in
     Portugal," in the _Catholic World_, April, 1892.

Columbus in 1492, accompanied by a motley crew of sailors of different
nationalities, crossed the Atlantic and discovered America. Hence the
glory of that event, second only in importance to the incarnation of
Christ, is attributed very generally solely to him. As reflex lights of
that glory, history mentions the names of Queen Isabella, of the Pinzon
brothers, the friar Juan Perez. There is another name that should be
placed at head of the list. That is, Bartolomeo Columbus, the brother of
Christopher. From the beginning there existed a partnership between the
two in the mighty undertaking; the effect of a common conviction that
the land of spices, Cipango and Cathay, the East, could be reached by
traveling west. Both of them spent the best years of their life in
privation, hardship, and poverty, at times the laughing stock of the
courts of Europe, in humbly begging from monarchies and republics the
ships necessary to undertake their voyage. While Christopher patiently
waited in the antechambers of the Catholic monarchs of Spain,
Bartolomeo, map in hand, explained to Henry VII. of England the
rotundity of the earth, and the feasibility of traveling to the
antipodes. Having failed in his mission to the English king, he passed
to France to ask of her what had been refused by Portugal, Spain,
Venice, England, and Genoa. While he was there, Columbus, who had no
means of communicating with him, sailed from Palos. Had there been, as
now, a system of international mails, Bartolomeo would now share with
his brother the title of Discoverer of America. Las Casas represents him
as little inferior to Christopher in the art of navigation, and as a
writer and in things pertaining to cartography as his superior. Gallo,
the earliest biographer of Columbus, and writing during his lifetime,
has told us that Bartolomeo settled in Lisbon, and there made a living
by drawing mariners' charts. Giustiniani, another countryman of
Columbus, says in his polyglot Psalter, published in 1537, that
Christopher learned cartography from his brother Bartolomeo, who had
learned it himself in Lisbon. But what may appear more surprising is the
plain statement of Gallo that Bartolomeo was the first to conceive the
idea of reaching the East by way of the West, by a transatlantic voyage,
and that he communicated it to his brother, who was more experienced
than himself in nautical affairs.


FIRST GLIMPSE OF LAND.

     CHARLES H. EDEN, English historical writer and traveler. From "The
     West Indies."

Nearly four centuries ago, in the year 1492, before the southern point
of the great African continent had been doubled, and when the barbaric
splendor of Cathay and the wealth of Hindustan were only known to
Europeans through the narratives of Marco Polo or Sir John
Mandeville--early on the morning of Friday, October 12th, a man stood
bareheaded on the deck of a caravel and watched the rising sun lighting
up the luxuriant tropical vegetation of a level and beautiful island
toward which the vessel was gently speeding her way. Three-and-thirty
days had elapsed since the last known point of the Old World, the Island
of Ferrol, had faded away over the high poop of his vessel; eventful
weeks, during which he had to contend against the natural fears of the
ignorant and superstitious men by whom he was surrounded, and by the
stratagem of a double reckoning, together with promises of future
wealth, to allay the murmuring which threatened to frustrate the project
that for so many years had been nearest his heart. Never, in the darkest
hour, did the courage of that man quail or his soul admit a single
doubt of success. When the terrified mariners remarked with awe that the
needle deviated from the pole star, their intrepid Admiral, by an
ingenious theory of his own, explained the cause of the phenomenon and
soothed the alarm that had arisen. When the steady trade-winds were
reached, and the vessels flew rapidly for days toward the west, the
commander hailed as a godsend the mysterious breeze that his followers
regarded with awe as imposing an insuperable barrier to their return to
sunny Spain. When the prow of the caravel was impeded, and her way
deadened by the drifting network of the Sargasso Sea, the leader saw
therein only assured indications of land, and resolutely shut his ears
against those prophets who foresaw evil in every incident.

Now his hopes were fulfilled, the yearnings of a lifetime realized.
During the night a light had been seen, and at 2 o'clock in the morning
land became, beyond all doubt, visible. Then the three little vessels
laid to, and with the earliest streak of dawn made sail toward the
coast. A man stood bareheaded on the deck of the leading caravel and
feasted his eyes upon the wooded shore; the man was Christopher
Columbus, the land he gazed on the "West Indies."


SAN SALVADOR, OR WATLING'S ISLAND.

San Salvador, or Watling's Island, is about twelve miles in length by
six in breadth, having its interior largely cut up by salt-water
lagoons, separated from each other by low woody hills. Being one of the
most fertile of the group, it maintains nearly 2,000 inhabitants, who
are scattered about over its surface. Peculiar interest will always
attach itself to this spot as being the first land on which the
discoverer of the New World set foot.--_Ibid._


THE MYSTERY OF THE SHADOWY SEA.

     XERIF AL EDRISI, surnamed "The Nubian," an eminent Arabian
     geographer. Born at Ceuta, Africa, about 1100. In "A Description of
     Spain" (Conde's Spanish translation, Madrid, 1799). He wrote a
     celebrated treatise of geography, and made a silver terrestrial
     globe for Roger II., King of Sicily, at whose court he lived.

The ocean encircles the ultimate bounds of the inhabited earth, and all
beyond it is unknown. No one has been able to verify anything concerning
it, on account of its difficult and perilous navigation, its great
obscurity, its profound depth, and frequent tempests; through fear of
its mighty fishes and its haughty winds; yet there are many islands in
it, some peopled, others uninhabited. There is no mariner who dares to
enter into its deep waters; or, if any have done so, they have merely
kept along its coasts, fearful of departing from them. The waves of this
ocean, although they roll as high as mountains, yet maintain themselves
without breaking, for if they broke it would be impossible for ship to
plow them.


PALOS.

     Prof. MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN. From an article, "Columbus the
     Christ-Bearer," in the New York _Independent_, June 2, 1892.

The caravels equipped at Palos were so unseaworthy, judged by the
dangers of the Atlantic, that no crew in our time would have trusted in
them. The people of Palos disliked this foreigner, Columbus. No man of
Palos, except the Pinzons, ancient mariners, sympathized with him in his
hopes. The populace overrated the risks of the voyage; the court,
fortunately for Columbus, underrated them. The Admiral's own ships and
his crew were not such as to inspire confidence. His friends, the
friars, had somewhat calmed the popular feeling against the expedition;
but ungrateful Palos never approved of it until it made her famous.


AN UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.

     SAMUEL R. ELLIOTT, in the _Century Magazine_, September, 1892.

  You have no heart? Ah, when the Genoese
    Before Spain's monarchs his great voyage planned,
  Small faith had they in worlds beyond the seas--
    And _your_ Columbus yet may come to land!


SAGACITY.

     RALPH WALDO EMERSON, the well-known American essayist, poet, and
     speculative philosopher. Born in Boston, May 25, 1803; died at
     Concord, April 27, 1882. From his essay on "Success," in _Society
     and Solitude_. Copyright, by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
     publishers, Boston, and with their permission.

Columbus at Veragua found plenty of gold; but, leaving the coast, the
ship full of one hundred and fifty skillful seamen, some of them old
pilots, and with too much experience of their craft and treachery to
him, the wise Admiral kept his private record of his homeward path. And
when he reached Spain, he told the King and Queen, "That they may ask
all the pilots who came with him, Where is Veragua? Let them answer and
say, if they know, where Veragua lies. I assert that they can give no
other account than that they went to lands where there was abundance of
gold, but they do not know the way to return thither, but would be
obliged to go on a voyage of discovery as much as if they had never been
there before. There is a mode of reckoning," he proudly adds, "derived
from astronomy, which is sure and safe to any who understands it."


THE VOICE OF THE SEA.

     From a poem, "Seashore," by RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Houghton, Mifflin
     & Co., Boston.

  I with my hammer pounding evermore
  The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
  Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
  Rebuild a continent of better men.
  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 know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal
  With credulous and imaginative man;
  For, though he scoop my water in his palm,
  A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.
  Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore,
  I make some coast alluring, some lone isle,
  To distant men, who must go there, or die.

  [Illustration: COLUMBUS AS A STUDENT AT PAVIA.

  From the Drake Drinking Fountain, Chicago.
  (See page 118.)]

THE REASONING OF COLUMBUS.

Columbus alleged, as a reason for seeking a continent in the West, that
the harmony of nature required a great tract of land in the western
hemisphere to balance the known extent of land in the eastern.--_Ibid._


STRANGER THAN FICTION.

     EDWARD EVERETT, a distinguished American orator, scholar, and
     statesman. Born at Dorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794; died,
     January 15, 1865. From a lecture on "The Discovery of America,"
     delivered at a meeting of the Historical Society of New York in
     1853.

No chapter of romance equals the interest of this expedition. The most
fascinating of the works of fiction which have issued from the modern
press have, to my taste, no attraction compared with the pages in which
the first voyage of Columbus is described by Robertson, and still more
by our own Irving and Prescott, the last two enjoying the advantage over
the great Scottish historian of possessing the lately discovered
journals and letters of Columbus himself. The departure from Palos,
where a few years before he had begged a morsel of bread and a cup of
water for his way-worn child; his final farewell to the Old World at the
Canaries; his entrance upon the trade-winds, which then for the first
time filled a European sail; the portentous variation of the needle,
never before observed; the fearful course westward and westward, day
after day and night after night, over the unknown ocean; the mutinous
and ill-appeased crew; at length, when hope had turned to despair in
every heart but one, the tokens of land--the cloud banks on the western
horizon, the logs of driftwood, the fresh shrub floating with its leaves
and berries, the flocks of land birds, the shoals of fish that inhabit
shallow water, the indescribable smell of the shore; the mysterious
presentment that seems ever to go before a great event; and finally, on
that ever memorable night of October 12, 1492, the moving light seen by
the sleepless eye of the great discoverer himself from the deck of the
Santa Maria, and in the morning the real, undoubted land swelling up
from the bosom of the deep, with its plains and forests, and hills and
rocks and streams, and strange new races of men. These are incidents in
which the authentic history of the discovery of our continent exceeds
the specious wonders of romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the
sun in the heavens outshines the flickering taper.


THE COLUMBUS OF THE HEAVENS--SCORNED.

Dominicans may deride thy discoveries now; but the time will come when
from two hundred observatories, in Europe and America, the glorious
artillery of science shall nightly assault the skies; but they shall
gain no conquests in those glittering fields before which thine shall be
forgotten. Rest in peace, great Columbus of the heavens![36] like him
scorned, persecuted, broken-hearted.--_Ibid._


FAME.

We find encouragement in every page of our country's history. Nowhere do
we meet with examples more numerous and more brilliant of men who have
risen above poverty and obscurity and every disadvantage to usefulness
and honorable name. One whole vast continent was added to the geography
of the world by the persevering efforts of a humble Genoese mariner, the
great Columbus; who, by the steady pursuit of the enlightened conception
he had formed of the figure of the earth, before any navigator had acted
upon the belief that it was round, discovered the American continent. He
was the son of a Genoese pilot, a pilot and seaman himself; and, at one
period of his melancholy career, was reduced to beg his bread at the
doors of the convents in Spain. But he carried within himself, and
beneath a humble exterior, a _spirit_ for which there was not room in
Spain, in Europe, nor in the then known world; and which led him on to a
height of usefulness and fame beyond that of all the monarchs that ever
reigned.--_Ibid._


TRIFLING INCIDENT.

     The Venerable FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR, D. D., F. R. S., Archdeacon
     of Westminster. Born in Bombay, August 7, 1831. From his "Lectures
     and Addresses."

There are some who are fond of looking at the apparently trifling
incidents of history, and of showing how the stream of centuries has
been diverted in one or other direction by events the most
insignificant. General Garfield told his pupils at Hiram that the roof
of a certain court house was so absolute a watershed that the flutter
of a bird's wing would be sufficient to decide whether a particular
rain-drop should make its way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence or into the
Gulf of Mexico. The flutter of a bird's wing may have affected all
history. Some students may see an immeasurable significance in the
flight of parrots, which served to alter the course of Columbus, and
guided him to the discovery of North and not of South America.


EXCITEMENT AT THE NEWS OF THE DISCOVERY.

     JOHN FISKE, a justly celebrated American historian. Born at
     Hartford, Conn., March 30, 1842. From "The Discovery of
     America."[37]

It was generally assumed without question that the Admiral's theory of
his discovery must be correct, that the coast of Cuba must be the
eastern extremity of China, that the coast of Hispaniola must be the
northern extremity of Cipango, and that a direct route--much shorter
than that which Portugal had so long been seeking--had now been found to
those lands of illimitable wealth described by Marco Polo. To be sure,
Columbus had not as yet seen the evidences of this oriental splendor,
and had been puzzled at not finding them, but he felt confident that he
had come very near them and would come full upon them in a second
voyage. There was nobody who knew enough to refute these opinions, and
really why should not this great geographer, who had accomplished so
much already which people had scouted as impossible--why should he not
know what he was about? It was easy enough now to get men and money for
the second voyage. When the Admiral sailed from Cadiz on September 25,
1493, it was with seventeen ships, carrying 1,500 men. Their dreams were
of the marble palaces of Quinsay, of isles of spices, and the treasures
of Prester John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such
untold riches were vouchsafed them, by the special decree of Heaven, as
a reward for having overcome the Moors at Granada and banished the Jews
from Spain. Columbus shared these views, and regarded himself as a
special instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow
to rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising within the next seven years to
equip at his own expense a crusading army of 50,000 foot and 4,000
horse; within five years thereafter he would follow this with a second
army of like dimensions.

Thus nobody had the faintest suspicion of what had been done. In the
famous letter to Santangel there is of course not a word about a new
world. The grandeur of the achievement was quite beyond the ken of the
generation that witnessed it. For we have since come to learn that in
1492 the contact between the eastern and the western halves of our
planet was first really begun, and the two streams of human life which
had flowed on for countless ages, apart, were thenceforth to mingle
together. The first voyage of Columbus is thus a unique event in the
history of mankind. Nothing like it was ever done before, and nothing
like it can ever be done again. No worlds are left for a future Columbus
to conquer. The era of which this great Italian mariner was the most
illustrious representative has closed forever.


VINLAND.

     JOHN FISKE, an American historian. Born in Connecticut, 1842. From
     "Washington and his Country."[38]

Learned men had long known that the earth is round, but people generally
did not believe it, and it had not occurred to anybody that such a
voyage would be practicable. People were afraid of going too far out
into the ocean. A ship which disappears in the offing seems to be going
down hill; and many people thought that if they were to get too far
down hill, they could not get back. Other notions, as absurd as this,
were entertained, which made people dread the "Sea of Darkness," as the
Atlantic was often called. Accordingly, Columbus found it hard to get
support for his scheme.

About fifteen years before his first voyage, Columbus seems to have
visited Iceland, and some have supposed that he then heard about the
voyages of the Northmen, and was thus led to his belief that land would
be found by sailing west. He may have thus heard about Vinland, and may
have regarded the tale as confirming his theory. That theory, however,
was based upon his belief in the rotundity of the earth. The best proof
that he was not seriously influenced by the Norse voyages, even if he
had heard of them, is the fact that he never used them as an argument.
In persuading people to furnish money for his enterprise, it has been
well said that an ounce of Vinland would have been worth a pound of talk
about the shape of the earth.


CRITICAL DAYS.

     JOHN MILNER FOTHERGILL, M. D., an English physician. Born at
     Morland in Westmoreland, April 11, 1841; died, 1888.

Columbus was an Italian who possessed all that determination which came
of Norse blood combined with the subtlety of the Italian character. He
thought much of what the ancients said of a short course from Spain to
India, of Plato's Atlantic Island; and conceived the idea of sailing to
India over the Atlantic. He applied to the Genoese, who rejected his
scheme as impracticable; then to Portugal; then to Spain. The fall of
Granada led to his ultimate success; and at last he set out into the
unknown sea with a small fleet, which was so ill-formed as scarcely to
reach the Canaries in safety. Soon after leaving them, the spirits of
his crew fell, and then Columbus perceived that the art of governing the
minds of men would be no less requisite for accomplishing the
discoveries he had in view than naval skill and undaunted courage. He
could trust himself only. He regulated everything by his sole authority;
he superintended the execution of every order. As he went farther
westward the hearts of his crew failed them, and mutiny was imminent.
But Columbus retained his serenity of mind even under these trying
circumstances, and induced his crew to persevere for three days more.
Three critical days in the history of the world.


AN APPROPRIATE HOUR.

     JOHN FOSTER, a noted English essayist and moralist. Born at
     Halifax, September 17, 1770; died at Stapleton, October, 1843.

The _hour_ just now begun may be exactly the period for finishing _some
great plan_, or concluding _some great dispensation_, which thousands of
years or ages have been advancing to its accomplishment. _This_ may be
the _very hour_ in which a new world shall originate or an ancient one
sink in ruins.


RANGE OF ENTERPRISE.

     EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, a celebrated English historian. Born at
     Harborne, Staffordshire, 1823; died at Alicante, Spain, March 16,
     1892. From an article on "The Intellectual Development of the
     English People," in the _Chautauquan Magazine_, May, 1891.

The discovery of a new world was something so startling as to help very
powerfully in the general enlargement of men's minds. And the phrase of
a new world is fully justified. The discovery of a western continent,
which followed on the voyage of Columbus, was an event differing in kind
from any discovery that had ever been made before. And this though there
is little reason to doubt that the western continent itself had been
discovered before. The Northmen had certainly found their way to the
real continent of North America ages before Columbus found his way to
the West India Islands. But the same results did not come of it, and the
discovery itself was not of the same kind. The Old World had grown a
good deal before the discovery of the New. The range of men's thoughts
and enterprise had gradually spread from the Mediterranean to the
Atlantic, the Baltic, and the northern seas. To advance from Norway to
the islands north of Britain, thence to Iceland, Greenland, and the
American continent, was a gradual process. The great feature in the
lasting discovery of America, which began at the end of the fifteenth
century, was its suddenness. Nothing led to it; it was made by an
accident; men were seeking one thing and then found another. Nothing
like it has happened before or since.


FRIDAY.

     Of evil omen for the ancients. For America the day of glad tidings
     and glorious deeds.

Friday, the sixth day of the week, has for ages borne the obloquy of
odium and ill-luck. Friday, October 5th, B. C. 105, was marked
_nefastus_ in the Roman calendar because on that day Marcus Mallius and
Cæpio the Consul were slain and their whole army annihilated in Gallia
Narbonensis by the Cimbrians. It was considered a very unlucky day in
Spain and Italy; it is still deemed an ill-starred day among the
Buddhists and Brahmins. The reason given by Christians for its ill-luck
is, of course, because it was the day of Christ's crucifixion, though
one would hardly term that an "unlucky event" for Christians. A Friday
moon is considered unlucky for weather. It is the Mohammedan Sabbath and
was the day on which Adam was created. The Sabeans consecrated it to
Venus or Astarte. According to mediæval romance, on this day fairies
and all the tribes of elves of every description were converted into
hideous animals and remained so until Monday. In Scotland it is a great
day for weddings. In England it is not. Sir William Churchill says,
"Friday is my lucky day. I was born, christened, married, and knighted
on that day, and all my best accidents have befallen me on a Friday."
Aurungzebe considered Friday a lucky day and used to say in prayer, "Oh,
that I may die on a Friday, for blessed is he that dies on that day."
British popular saying terms a trial, misfortune, or cross a "Friday
tree," from the "accursed tree" on which the Savior was crucified on
that day. Stow, the historian of London, states that "Friday Street" was
so called because it was the street of fish merchants who served the
Friday markets. In the Roman Catholic church Friday is a fast day, and
is considered an unlucky day because it was the day of Christ's
crucifixion. Soames ("Anglo-Saxon Church," page 255) says of it, "Adam
and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on Friday and died on Friday." Shakspere
refers to the ill-omened nature of the day as follows: "The duke, I say
to thee again, would eat mutton Friday" ("Measure for Measure," Act 3,
Scene 2).

But to turn to the more pleasing side, great has been the good fortune
of the land of freedom on this ill-starred day. On Friday, August 3,
1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from the port of Palos on his great
voyage of discovery. On Friday, October 12, 1492, he discovered land; on
Friday, January 4, 1493, he sailed on his return voyage to Spain. On
Friday, March 14, 1493, he arrived at Palos, Spain, in safety. On
Friday, November 22, 1493, he arrived at Española on his second voyage
to America. On Friday, June 12, 1494, he discovered the mainland of
America. On Friday, March 5, 1496, Henry VIII. gave John Cabot his
commission to pursue the discovery of America. On Friday, September 7,
1565, Melendez founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest town in the
United States. On Friday, November 10, 1620, the Mayflower, with the
Pilgrim Fathers, reached the harbor of Provincetown. On Friday, December
22, 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock. On Friday,
February 22, 1732, George Washington was born. On Friday, June 16, 1755,
Bunker Hill was seized and fortified. On Friday, October 17, 1777,
Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. On Friday, September 22, 1780,
Benedict Arnold's treason was discovered. On Friday, September 19, 1791,
Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. On Friday, July 7, 1776, a
motion was made by John Adams that "the United States are and ought to
be independent." On Friday, July 13, 1866, the Great Eastern steamship
sailed from Valentia, Ireland, with the second and successful Atlantic
cable, and completed the laying of this link of our civilization at
Heart's Content, Newfoundland, on Friday, July 27, 1866. In Spanish
history it is noteworthy that on Friday the Christians under Ferdinand
and Isabella had won Granada from the Moors. On a Friday, also, the
First Crusaders, under Geoffrey de Bouillon, took Jerusalem.


A PREVIOUS DISCOVERY.

     PAUL GAFFAREL. Summarized from "Les Découvreurs Français du XIVme
     au XVIme Siècle," published at Paris in 1888.

Jean Cousin, in 1488, sailed from Dieppe, then the great commercial and
naval port of France, and bore out to sea, to avoid the storms so
prevalent in the Bay of Biscay. Arrived at the latitude of the Azores,
he was carried westward by a current, and came to an unknown country
near the mouth of an immense river. He took possession of the
continent, but, as he had not sufficient crew nor material resources
adequate for founding a settlement, he re-embarked. Instead of returning
directly to Dieppe, he took a southeasterly direction--that is, toward
South Africa--discovered the cape which has since retained the name of
Cap des Aiguilles (Cape Agulhas, the southern point of Africa), went
north by the Congo and Guinea, and returned to Dieppe in 1489. Cousin's
lieutenant was a Castilian, Pinzon by name, who was jealous of his
captain, and caused him considerable trouble on the Gold Coast. On
Cousin's complaint, the admiralty declared him unfit to serve in the
marine of Dieppe. Pinzon then retired to Genoa, and afterward to
Castille. Every circumstance tends toward the belief that this is the
same Pinzon to whom Columbus afterward intrusted the command of the
Pinta.


GENIUS TRAVELS EAST TO WEST.

     The Abbé FERNANDO GALIANI, an Italian political economist. Born at
     Chieti, on the Abruzzi, 1728; died at Naples, 1787.

For five thousand years genius has turned opposite to the diurnal
motion, and traveled from east to west.


OBSERVATION LIKE COLUMBUS.

     The Rev. CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D. D., a noted English clergyman. Born
     at Edinborough, October 26, 1826.

Reading should be a Columbus voyage, in which nothing passes without
note and speculation; the Sargasso Sea, mistaken for the New Indies; the
branch with the fresh berries; the carved pole; the currents; the color
of the water; the birds; the odor of the land; the butterflies; the
moving light on the shore.


THE GENOA INSCRIPTION.

The following inscription is placed upon Columbus' house, No. 37, in the
Vico Dritto Ponticello, Genoa, Italy:

  _NVLLA. DOMVS. TITVLO. DIGNIOR.
  HAEIC.
  PATERNIS. IN. AEDIBVS.
  CHRISTOPHVS. COLVMBVS.
  PRIMAQVE. JVVENTAM. TRANSEGIT._

  (No house deserved better an inscription.
  This is the paternal home of Christopher Columbus, where
  he passed his childhood and youth.)


THE GENOA STATUE.

"Genoa and Venice," writes Mr. Oscar Browning, in _Picturesque Europe_,
"have much in common--both republics, both aristocracies, both
commercial, both powerful maritime states; yet, while the Doge of Venice
remains to us as the embodiment of stately and majestic pre-eminence, we
scarcely remember, or have forgotten, that there ever was a Doge of
Genoa. This surely can not be because Shakspere did not write of the
Bank of St. George or because Genoa has no Rialto. It must be rather
because, while Genoa devoted herself to the pursuits of riches and
magnificence, Venice fought the battle of Europe against barbarism, and
recorded her triumphs in works of art which will live forever. * * *
Genoa has no such annals and no such art. As we wander along the narrow
streets we see the courtyards of many palaces, the marble stairs, the
graceful _loggia_, the terraces and the arches of which stand out
against an Italian sky; but we look in vain for the magnificence of
public halls, where the brush of Tintoretto or Carpaccio decorated the
assembly-room of the rulers of the East or the chapter-house of a
charitable fraternity."

The artistic monument of Columbus, situated in the Piazza Acquaverde,
facing the railway station, consists of a marble statue fitly embowered
amid tropical palms, and is composed of a huge quadrangular pedestal, at
the angles of which are seated allegorical figures of Religion,
Geography, Strength, and Wisdom. Resting on this pedestal is a large
cylindrical pedestal decorated with three ships' prows, on which stands
a colossal figure of Columbus, his left hand resting on an anchor. At
his feet, in a half-sitting, half-kneeling posture, is an allegorical
figure of America in the act of adoring a crucifix, which she holds in
her right hand. The four bas-reliefs on the sides of the pedestal
represent the most important events in the life of the great discoverer:
(1) Columbus before the Council of Salamanca; (2) Columbus taking formal
possession of the New World; (3) his flattering reception at the court
of Ferdinand and Isabella; (4) Columbus in chains. It is as well that
this, the saddest of episodes, should be remembered, because great
actions are as often as not emphasized by martyrdom.

The first stone of the monument was laid September 27, 1846, and the
completed statue formally dedicated in 1862. It bears the laconic but
expressive dedication: "_A Cristoforo Colombo, La Patria_" (The Nation
to Christopher Columbus).

Genoa claims, with the largest presumption of truth, that Christopher
Columbus was born there. The best of historical and antiquarian research
tends to show that in a house, No. 37, in the Vico Dritto Ponticello,
lived Domenico Colombo, the father of Christopher, and that in this
house the Great Admiral was born. In 1887 the Genoese municipality
bought the house, and an inscription has been placed over the door. To
give the exact date of Christopher's birth is, however, difficult, but
it is believed to have occurred sometime between March 15, 1446, and
March 20, 1447.

Whether Columbus was actually a native of Genoa or of Cogoletto--the
latter is a sequestered little town a few miles west of the former--must
ever remain a matter of conjecture. True enough, the house in which his
father followed the trade of a wool-carder in Genoa is eagerly pointed
out to a stranger; but the inscription on the marble tablet over the
entrance does not state that the future discoverer was really born in
it. This stands in a narrow alley designated the Vico di Morcento, near
the prison of San Andrea.

On the other hand, the little town hall at Cogoletto contains a portrait
of Columbus, more than 300 years old, whose frame is completely covered
with the names of enthusiastic travelers. The room in which he is
believed to have been born resembles a cellar rather than aught else;
while the broken pavement shows how visitors have at various times taken
up the bricks to preserve as relics. As if this undoubted evidence of
hero worship were insufficient, the old woman in charge of the place
hastens to relate how a party of Americans one day lifted the original
door off its hinges and carried it bodily away between them.

As all the world knows, Columbus died at Valladolid on the 20th of May,
1506. It has always been a matter of intense regret to the Genoese that
his body should have been permitted to be shipped across the seas to its
first resting-place in San Domingo. More fortunate, however, were they
in securing the remains of their modern kinsman and national patriot,
Mazzini.

On the 29th of May, 1892, under the auspices of Ligurian Gymnastic
Society Cristofore Columbo, a bronze wreath was placed at the base of
the Columbus monument.

The Ligurian Gymnastic Society Cristofore Columbo is an association
which cultivates athletic exercises, music, and, above all, patriotism
and charity. To awaken popular interest in the coming exhibition, the
society had a bronze wreath made by the well-known sculptor Burlando,
and fitting ceremonies took place, with a procession through the
streets, before affixing the wreath at the base of the monument. The
wreath, which weighed some 500 pounds, was carried by a figure
representing Genoa seated on a triumphal car. There were 7,000 members
of the society present, with not less than fifty bands of music. The
ceremonies, beginning at 10 A. M., were concluded at 4 P. M. The last
act was a hymn, sung by 2,000 voices, with superb effect. Then, by means
of machinery, the bronze crown was put in its proper position. Never was
Genoa in a gayer humor, nor could the day have been more propitious. The
streets were decorated with flowers and banners. There were
representatives from Rome, Florence, Milan, Turin, Venice, Naples,
Leghorn, Palermo, and visitors from all parts of Europe and America. In
the evening only did the festivities close with a grand dinner given by
the Genoese municipality.

In this, the glorification of the grand old city of Liguria, was united
that of its most memorable man, Christopher Columbus, for that mediæval
feeling, when cities had almost individual personalities, is still a
civic sense alive in Genoa. She rejoices in the illustrious men born
within her walls with a sentiment akin to that of a mother for her son.

In an artistic sense, nothing could have been more complete than this
festival. Throwing the eye upward, beyond the figure of Columbus, the
frame is perfect. The slanting ways leading up to the handsome houses on
the background are wonderfully effective.

Genoa is rich in the relics of Columbus. In the city hall of Genoa is,
among other relics, a mosaic portrait of the Admiral, somewhat modified
from the De Bry's Columbus. Genoa is fortunate in possessing a number of
authentic letters of Columbus, and these are preserved in a marble
custodia, surmounted by a head of Columbus. In the pillar which forms
the pedestal there is a bronze door, and the precious Columbus documents
have been placed there.


GERMANY AND COLUMBUS.

The Geographical Society of Germany will shortly publish a volume
commemorative of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by
Columbus, which will, it is said, be one of the most elaborate
publications ever issued by the society. Dr. Konrad Kretschmer, the
editor of the forthcoming work, has visited all the principal libraries
of Italy in search of material, and has had access to many rare
manuscripts hitherto unused. The memorial volume will contain forty-five
maps relating to the discovery of America, thirty-one of which are said
to have never been published. Emperor William has contributed 15,000
marks toward the expenses of publication, etc., and the work will
undoubtedly be a most valuable contribution to the early history of
America. It is expected that it will leave the government printing
office early in August.


GERMANY'S EXHIBIT OF RARITIES.

Germany proposes to loan a collection of Columbus rarities to the United
States Government for exhibition at the Chicago Exposition, as will be
seen by a communication to the State Department from Consul-general
Edwards at Berlin. In his document, Mr. Edwards says:

[Illustration: HOUSE OF COLUMBUS. No. 37 Vico Dritto Ponticelli, Genoa,
Italy. (See page 140.)]

The German government, appreciating the fact that no time is to be lost
in this matter, has begun to carry its generous and friendly proposals
into practical operation by instituting a thorough search in the various
galleries, museums, and libraries throughout Germany for works of
art, objects, and rarities which are in any way identified with the
Columbus period, and which the German government believes would be
likely to be of general interest to the authorities of the World's
Columbian Exposition as well as the visitors at that great show.

Among other works of art the German government consents to loan
Pludderman's celebrated painting, "The Discovery of America by
Columbus." Under the laws of Germany, as well as under the rules and
regulations of the National Gallery, no person is permitted to
lithograph, photograph, or make any sort of a copy of any picture or
other work of art in the care or custody of any national gallery, in
case when the artist has not been dead for a period of thirty years,
without having first obtained the written permission of the legal
representative of the deceased artist, coupled with the consent of the
National Gallery authorities. Pludderman not having been dead thirty
years, I have given assurances that this regulation will be observed by
the United States Government.


THE REASON FOR SAILORS' SUPERSTITIONS.

     His Eminence JAMES GIBBONS, D.D., a celebrated American
     ecclesiastic. Born in Baltimore, Md., July 23, 1834.

There is but a plank between a sailor and eternity, and perhaps the
realization of that fact may have something to do with the superstition
lurking in his nature.


ONCE THE PILLARS OF HERCULES WERE THE END OF THE WORLD.

WILLIAM GIBSON.

  Thus opening on that glooming sea,
    Well seemed these walls[39] the ends of earth;
  Death and a dark eternity
    Sublimely symboled forth!

  Ere to one eagle soul was given
    The will, the wings, that deep to brave;
  In the sun's path to find a heaven,
    A New World--o'er the wave.

  Retraced the path Columbus trod,
    Our course was from the setting sun;
  While all the visible works of God,
    Though various else had one.


NEW LIGHT ON CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

     From the Glasgow _Times_.

The discovery by the Superintendent of the Military Archives at Madrid
of documents probably setting at rest the doubts that formerly existed
as to the birthplace of Columbus, must have awakened new interest in the
history of the most renowned discoverer of the past. It is to be noted,
however, that the documents only affirm tradition, for Genoa has always
been the Admiral's accredited birthplace. But if the discovery should
lead to nothing but a more careful investigation of the records of his
later history it will have been of use.

The character of Columbus has been greatly misunderstood, and his 600
biographers have in turn invested him with the glory of the religious
hero and the contumely of the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer.
An impartial critic must admit, indeed, that he was something of both,
though more of the hero than the adventurer, and that his biographers
have erred considerably in what Mr. R. L. Stevenson would call their
"point of view."

Educated, as it is supposed, in the local schools of Genoa, and for a
short period at the University of Pavia, the youthful Columbus must have
come in close contact with the scholars of the day. Naturally of a
religious temperament, the piety of the learned would early impress him,
and to this may possibly be attributed the feeling that he had been
divinely selected, which remained with him until his death.

There is little doubt that he began his career as a sailor, at the age
of fourteen, with the sole object of plunder. The Indies were the
constant attraction for the natives of Venice and Genoa; the
Mediterranean and the Adriatic were filled with treasure ships. In these
circumstances it is not to be wondered that the sea possessed a
wonderful fascination for the youth of those towns. This opulence was
the constant envy of Spain and Portugal, and Columbus was soon attracted
to the latter country by the desire of Prince Henry to discover a
southern route to the Indies. It was while in Portugal that he began to
believe that his mission on earth was to be the discoverer of a new
route to the land of gold--"the white man's god." For two years he
resided in Lisbon, from time to time making short voyages, but for the
most part engaged drawing maps to procure himself a living. Here he
married, here his son Diego was born, and here his wife, who died at an
early age, was buried.

Toscanelli at this time advanced the theory that the earth was round,
and Columbus at once entered into correspondence with him on the
subject, and was greatly impressed with the views of the Florentine
scientist, both as to the sphericity of the world and the wonders of the
Asiatic region. Heresy-hunting was then a favorite pastime, and
Columbus in accepting these theories ran no small risk of losing his
life. Portugal and France in turn rejected his offers to add to their
dependencies by his discoveries; and, though his brother found many in
England willing to give him the necessary ships to start on his
adventures, Spain, after much importuning on the part of the explorer,
forestalled our own country.

Then followed his four eventful voyages with all their varying fortunes,
and his death, when over seventy years of age, in a wretched condition
of poverty. The ready consideration of theories, not only dangerous but
so astounding in their character as to throw discredit on those who
advanced them, shows him to have been a man of intellectual courage.
Humility was another trait of his character, and in all his life it can
not be said that he acted in any but an honest and straightforward
manner toward his fellow-men.

It is true, no doubt, that his recognition of slavery somewhat dims his
reputation. He sold many Indians as slaves, but it should be remembered
that slavery prevailed at the time, and it was only on his second
voyage, when hard pressed for means to reimburse the Spanish treasury
for the immense expense of the expedition, that he resorted to the
barter in human flesh. Indeed, his friendly relations with the natives
show that, as a rule, he must have treated them in the kindly manner
which characterized all his actions.

Throughout the reverses of his long career, whether received with
sneers, lauded as a benefactor of his country, put in chains by crafty
fellow-subjects, or defrauded, by an unscrupulous prince, of the profit
of his discoveries, he continued a man of an eminently lovable
character, kind to his family, his servants, and even his enemies.
Americans are to do honor at the Columbian Exhibition to the name of him
who, though not the first white man to land on the shores of the New
World, was the first to colonize its fertile islands. Not only America,
but the whole world, may emulate his virtues with advantage; for, even
now, justice and mercy, courage and meekness, do not always abide
together.


SECRET.

     FRANK B. GOODRICH, an American author of several popular books.
     Born in Boston, 1826. From his "History of the Sea."

John II. of Portugal applied for an increase of power, and obtained a
grant of all the lands which his navigators could discover in sailing
_from west to east_. The grand idea of sailing from east to west--one
which implied a knowledge of the sphericity of the globe--had not yet,
to outward appearance, penetrated the brain of either pope or layman.
One Christopher Columbus, however, was already brooding over it in
secret and in silence.


THE PERIOD.

     FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT, a distinguished French statesman
     and historian. Born at Nîmes, October 4, 1787; died September 12,
     1874. From his "History of Civilization" (5 vols., 1845).

The period in question was also one of the most remarkable for the
display of physical activity among men. It was a period of voyages,
travels, enterprises, discoveries, and inventions of every kind. It was
the time of the great Portuguese expedition along the coast of Africa;
of the discovery of the new passage to India, by Vasco de Gama; of the
discovery of America, by Christopher Columbus; of the wonderful
extension of European commerce. A thousand new inventions started up;
others already known, but confined within a narrow sphere, became
popular and in general use. Gunpowder changed the system of war; the
compass changed the system of navigation. Painting in oil was invented,
and filled Europe with masterpieces of art. Engraving on copper,
invented in 1406, multiplied and diffused them. Paper made of linen
became common. Finally, between 1436 and 1452, was invented
printing--printing, the theme of so many declamations and commonplaces,
but to whose merits and effect no commonplaces or declamations will ever
be able to do justice.


MORNING TRIUMPHANT.

     Rev. F. W. GUNSAULUS, D. D., an American divine and able pulpit
     orator; at present, pastor of Plymouth Church, Chicago. From "New
     Testament and Liberty."

Look again! It has become so light now that it is easy to see. Yonder in
the West a man has been pleading before courts, praying to God,
thinking, and dreaming. His brave heart sends forth hot tears, but it
will not fail. The genius of God has seized him. The Holy Ghost has
touched him as the spirit of liberty. Humanity cries through him for
more room. Emperors will not hear. But he gains one ear, at last, and
with the mariner's needle set out for the unknown. Civilization has
always walked by faith and not by sight. And do not forget to note,
that, in that log-book, the first mark is, "In the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ." On! brave man, on! over wastes of ocean, in the midst of
scorn, through hate, rage, mutiny, even death--and despair, worse than
death. On! there is an America on the other side to balance. Cheerless
nights, sad days, nights dark with woe, days hideous with the form of
death, weeks sobbing with pity; but in that heart is He whose name is
written in the log-book. "Land ahead!" And Columbus has discovered a
continent. Humanity has another world. Light from the four corners of
heaven. Glory touching firmament and planet. It is morning! Triumphant,
beautiful dawn!


TENDENCY.

     ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT, Ph. D., LL. D., a meritorious writer on
     physical geography. Born near Neufchâtel, Switzerland, 1807.
     Professor of geology and physical geography at Princeton College
     from 1855 until his death, February 8, 1884. From "Earth and Man"
     (1849).

As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is made for
the animal world, America is made for the man of the Old World. The man
of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the highlands of Asia,
he descends from station to station toward Europe. Each of his steps is
marked by a new civilization superior to the preceding, by a greater
power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, he pauses on the shore of
this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he knows not, and turns upon his
footprints for an instant; then recommences his adventurous career
westward as in the earliest ages.


NEW LIFE.

     EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D. D., a celebrated American author. Born in
     Boston, Mass., April 3, 1822. From an article, "Christopher
     Columbus," in the _Independent_, June 2, 1892.

What the world owes to him and to Isabella, who made his work possible,
it is impossible in few words to say. The moment was one when Europe
needed America as never before. She had new life, given by the fall of
Constantinople, by the invention of printing, by the expulsion of the
Moors; there was new life even seething in the first heats of the
Reformation; and Europe must break her bonds, else she would die. Her
outlet was found in America. Here it is that that Power who orders
history could try, on a fit scale, the great experiments of the new
life. Thus it was ordered, let us say reverently, that South America
should show what the Catholic church could do in the line of civilizing
a desert, and that North America should show what the coming church of
the future could do. To us it is interesting to remember that Columbus
personally led the first discovery of South America, and that he made
the first effort for a colony on our half of the continent. Of these two
experiments the North America of to-day and South America of to-day are
the issue.


TRIUMPH OF AN IDEA.

The life of Columbus is an illustration constantly brought for the
success which God gives to those who, having conceived of a great idea,
bravely determine to carry it through. His singleness of purpose, his
determination to succeed, have been cited for four centuries, and will
be cited for centuries more among the noblest illustrations which
history has given of success wrought out by the courage of one
man.--_Ibid._


THE EAST LONGED FOR THE WEST.

    EDWARD EVERETT HALE, in _Overland Monthly Magazine_. An article on
    "A Visit to Palos."


Lord Houghton, following Freiligrath, has sung to us how the

  Palm tree dreameth of the pine,
  The pine tree of the palm;

and in his delicate imaginings the dream is of two continents--ocean
parted--each of which longs for the other. Strange enough, as one pushes
along the steep ascent from the landing at Rábida, up the high bluff on
which the convent stands, the palm tree and the pine grow together, as
in token of the dream of the great discoverer, who was to unite the
continents.


LIFE FOR LIBERTY.

     FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, a noted American poet. Born in Guilford,
     Conn., July 8, 1790; died November 19, 1867.

  Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
  And in its hollow tones are heard
    The thanks of millions yet to be.
  Come when his task of fame is wrought,
  Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought,
    Come in her crowning hour, and then
  Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
  To him is welcome as the sight
    Of sky and stars to prison'd men;
  Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
  Of brother in a foreign land;
  Thy summons welcome as the cry
  That told the Indian isles were nigh
    To the world-seeking Genoese,
  When the land wind, from woods of palm,
  And orange groves, and fields of balm,
    Blew o'er the Haytian seas.


GENOA.

     MURAT HALSTEAD, an American journalist. Born at Ross, Ohio,
     September 2, 1829. From "Genoa--the Home of Columbus," a paper in
     _Cosmopolitan_, May, 1892.

The Italian coast all around the Gulf of Genoa is mountainous, and the
mountains crowd each other almost into the sea. Land that can be built
upon or cultivated is scarce, and the narrow strips that are possible
are on the sunny southern slopes. The air is delicious. The orange trees
in December lean over the garden walls, heavy with golden spheres, and
the grass is green on the hills, and when a light snow falls the roses
blush through the soft veil of lace, and are modest but not ashamed, as
they bow their heads. The mountains are like a wall of iron against the
world, and from them issues a little river whose waters are pure as the
dew, until the washerwomen use them and spread clothing on the wide
spaces of clean gravel to dry. The harbor is easily defended, and with
the same expensive equipment would be strong as Gibraltar. It is in this
isolation that the individuality of Genoa, stamped upon so many chapters
of world-famous history, grew. There is so little room for a city that
the buildings are necessarily lofty. The streets are narrow and steep.
The pavements are blocks of stone that would average from two to three
feet in length, one foot in width, and of unknown depth. Evidently they
are not constructed for any temporary purpose, but to endure forever.
When, for a profound reason, a paving-stone is taken up it is speedily
replaced, with the closest attention to exact restoration, and then it
is again a rock of ages.


THE CELEBRATION AT HAMBURG.

Among the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of
America, that of the city of Hamburg, in Germany, will occupy a
prominent place. On October 1st an exhibition will be opened at which
objects will be on view that bear on the history of the act of
discovery, on the condition of geographical science of the time, and on
the conditions of the inhabitants of America at the time of the
discovery. Side by side with these will be exhibited whatever can show
the condition of America at the present time. On the date of the
discovery of the little Island of Guanahani--that is, October 12th--the
celebration proper will take place. The exercises will consist of songs
and music and a goodly array of speeches. In the evening, tableaux and
processions will be performed in the largest hall of the city. The
scenery, costumes, and implements used will all be got up as they were
at the time of the discovery, so as to furnish a real representation of
the age of Columbus.


SEEKER AND SEER--A RHYME FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

     EDWARD J. HARDING, in the Chicago _Tribune_, September 17, 1892.

  I.

      What came ye forth to see?
  Why from the sunward regions of the palm,
  And piney headlands by the northern main,
  From Holland's watery ways, and parching Spain,
  From pleasant France and storied Italy,
  From India's patience, and from Egypt's calm,
  To this far city of a soil new-famed
      Come ye in festal guise to-day,
      Charged with no fatal "gifts of Greece,"
      Nor Punic treaties double-tongued,
      But proffering hands of amity,
      And speaking messages of peace,
  With drum-beats ushered, and with shouts acclaimed,
      While cannon-echoes lusty-lung'd
          Reverberate far away?

   *       *       *       *       *

  IV.

      Our errand here to-day
      Hath warrant fair, ye say;
      We come with you to consecrate
  A hero's, ay a prophet's monument;
      Yet needs he none, who was so great;
  Vainly they build in Cuba's isle afar
  His sepulcher beside the sapphire sea;
  He hath for cenotaph a continent,
  For funeral wreaths, the forests waving free,
      And round his grave go ceaselessly
      The morning and the evening star.
  Yet is it fit that ye should praise him best,
      For ye his true descendants are,
      A spirit-begotten progeny;
  Wherefore to thee, fair city of the West,
      From elder lands we gladly came
      To grace a prophet's fame.

  V.

  Beauteous upon the waters were the wings
  That bore glad tidings o'er the leaping wave
  Of sweet Hesperian isles, more bland and fair
  Than lover's looks or bard's imaginings;
      And blest was he, the hero brave,
      Who first the tyrannous deeps defied,
  And o'er the wilderness of waters wide
  A sun-pursuing highway did prepare
      For those true-hearted exiles few
  The house of Liberty that reared anew.
      Nor fails he here of honor due.
      These goodly structures ye behold,
      These towering piles in order brave,
      From whose tall crests the pennons wave
      Like tropic plumage, gules and gold;
      These ample halls, wherein ye view
      Whate'er is fairest wrought and best--
      South with North vying, East with West,
      And arts of yore with science new--
  Bear witness for us how religiously
      We cherish here his memory.

  VI.

      Yet sure, the adventurous Genoese
  Did never in his most enlightened hours
  Forecast the high, the immortal destinies
      Of this dear land of ours.
  Nay, could ye call him hither from his tomb,
  Think ye that he would mark with soul elate
  A kingless people, a schismatic State,
  Nor on his work invoke perpetual doom?
  Though the whole Sacred College o'er and o'er
  Pronounce him sainted, prophet was he none
  Who to Cathaia's legendary shore
      Deemed that his bark a path had won.
      In sooth, our Western pioneer
      Was all as prescient as he
      Who cried, "The desert shall exult,
      The wild shall blossom as the rose,"
      And to a passing rich result
      Through summer heats and winter snows
      Toiling to prove himself a seer,
      Accomplished his own prophecy.
      Lo, here a greater far than he,
      A prophet nation hath its dwelling,
      With multitudinous voice foretelling,
          "Man shall be free!"

  VII.

  Hellas for Beauty, Rome for Order, stood,
      And Israel for the Good;
  Our message to the world is Liberty;
  Not the rude freedom of anarchic hordes,
  But reasoned kindness, whose benignant code
  Upon the emblazoned walls of history
      We carved with our good swords,
      And crimsoned with our blood.
  Last, from our eye we plucked the obscuring mote,
  (Not without tears expelled, and sharpest pain,)
      From swarthy limbs the galling chain
      With shock on mighty shock we smote,
      Whereby with clearer gaze we scan
  The heaven-writ message that we bear for man.
  Not ours to give, as erst the Genoese,
      Of a new world the keys;
  But of the prison-world ye knew before
      Hewing in twain the door,
  To thralls of custom and of circumstance
      We preach deliverance.
  O self-imprisoned ones, be free! be free!
  These fetters frail, by doting ages wrought
  Of basest metals--fantasy and fear,
  And ignorance dull, and fond credulity--
      Have moldered, lo! this many a year;
  See, at a touch they part, and fall to naught!
  Yours is the heirship of the universe,
  Would ye but claim it, nor from eyes averse
  Let fall the tears of needless misery;
      Deign to be free!

  VIII.

  The prophets perish, but their word endures;
  The word abides, the prophets pass away;
  Far be the hour when Hellas' fate is yours,
  O Nation of the newer day!
      Unmeet it were that I,
  Who sit beside your hospitable fire
  A stranger born--though honoring as a sire
  The land that binds me with a closer tie
  Than hers that bore me--should from sullen throat
  Send forth a raven's ominous note
      Upon a day of jubilee.
      Yet signs of coming ill I see,
  Which Heaven avert! Nay, rather let me deem
      That like a bright and broadening stream
  Fed by a hundred affluents, each a river
  Far-sprung and full, Columbia's life shall flow
  By level meads majestically slow,
      Blessing and blest forever!


THE JESUIT GEOGRAPHER.

     JEAN HARDOUIN, a French Jesuit. Born at Quimper, 1646; died, 1729.

The rotation of the earth is due to the efforts of the damned to escape
from their central fire. Climbing up the walls of hell, they cause the
earth to revolve as a squirrel its cage.


COLUMBUS DAY.

     _By the President of the United States of America. A proclamation:_

WHEREAS, By a joint resolution, approved June 29, 1892, it was resolved
by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America, in Congress assembled, "That the President of the United States
be authorized and directed to issue a proclamation recommending to the
people the observance in all their localities of the 400th anniversary
of the discovery of America, on the 21st day of October, 1892, by public
demonstration and by suitable exercises in their schools and other
places of assembly."

Now, THEREFORE, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of
America, in pursuance of the aforesaid joint resolution, do hereby
appoint Friday, October 21, 1892, the 400th anniversary of the discovery
of America by Columbus, as a general holiday for the people of the
United States. On that day let the people, so far as possible, cease
from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express
honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great
achievements of the four completed centuries of American life.

Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.
The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and
salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly
appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the
day's demonstration. Let the national flag float over every school-house
in the country, and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our
youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.

In the churches and in the other places of assembly of the people, let
there be expressions of gratitude to Divine Providence for the devout
faith of the discoverer, and for the Divine care and guidance which has
directed our history and so abundantly blessed our people.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 21st day of July, in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two, and of the
independence of the United States the one hundred and seventeenth.

                                           BENJAMIN HARRISON.

   ~~~~~    By the President.
  {L. S.}
  ~~~~~     JOHN W. FOSTER, _Secretary of State_.



THE ADMIRATION OF A CAREFUL CRITIC.

     HENRY HARRISSE, a celebrated Columbian critic, in his erudite and
     valuable work, "Columbus and the Bank of St. George."

Nor must you believe that I am inclined to lessen the merits of the
great Genoese or fail to admire him. But my admiration is the result of
reflection, and not a blind hero-worship. Columbus removed out of the
range of mere speculation the idea that beyond the Atlantic Ocean lands
existed and could be reached by sea, made of the notion a fixed fact,
and linked forever the two worlds. That event, which is unquestionably
the greatest of modern times, secures to Columbus a place in the
pantheon dedicated to the worthies whose courageous deeds mankind will
always admire.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS, BY SIR ANTONIO MORO.

Used by Washington Irving to illustrate his "Life of Columbus." From the
original in the possession of Mr. C. F. Gunther of Chicago. (See pages
52 and 113.)]

But our gratitude must not carry us beyond the limits of an equitable
appreciation. Indiscriminate praise works mischief and injustice. When
tender souls represent Columbus as being constantly the laughing-stock
of all, and leading a life of misery and abandonment in Spain, they do
injustice to Deza, to Cabrera, to Quintanilla, to Mendoza, to Beatrice
de Bobadilla, to Medina-Celi, to Ferdinand and Isabella, and probably a
host of others who upheld him as much as they could from the start. When
blind admirers imagine that the belief in the existence of transatlantic
countries rushed out of Columbus' cogitations, complete, unaided, and
alone, just as Minerva sprang in full armor from the head of Jupiter,
they disregard the efforts of numerous thinkers who, from Aristotle and
Roger Bacon to Toscanelli, evolved and matured the thought, until
Columbus came to realize it. When dramatists, poets, and romancers
expatiate upon the supposed spontaneous or independent character of the
discovery of America, and ascribe the achievement exclusively to the
genius of a single man, they adopt a theory which is discouraging and
untrue.

No man is, or ever was, ahead of his times. No human efforts are, or
ever were, disconnected from a long chain of previous exertions; and
this applies to all the walks of life. When a great event occurs, in
science as in history, the hero who seems to have caused it is only the
embodiment and resulting force of the meditations, trials, and
endeavors of numberless generations of fellow-workers, conscious and
unconscious, known and unknown.

When this solemn truth shall have been duly instilled into the minds of
men, we will no longer see them live in the constant expectation of
Messiahs and providential beings destined to accomplish, as by a sort of
miracle, the infinite and irresistible work of civilization. They will
rely exclusively upon the concentrated efforts of the whole race, and
cherish the encouraging thought that, however imperceptible and
insignificant their individual contributions may seem to be, these form
a part of the whole, and finally redound to the happiness and progress
of mankind.


THE CARE OF THE NEW WORLD.

     DAVID HARTLEY, a celebrated English physician and philosopher. Born
     at Armley, near Leeds, 1705; died, 1757.

Those who have the first care of this New World will probably give it
such directions and inherent influences as may guide and control its
course and revolutions for ages to come.


THE TRIBUTE OF HEINRICH HEINE.

     HEINRICH HEINE. Born December 12, 1799, in the Bolkerstrasse at
     Dusseldorf; died in Paris, February 17, 1856.

  Mancher hat schon viel gegeben,
  Aber jener hat der Welt
  Eine ganze Welt geschenkt
  Und sie heisst America.

  Nicht befreien könnt'er uns
  Aus dem orden Erdenkerker
  Doch er wusst ihn zu erweitern
  Und die Kette zu verlängern

  (_Translation._)

  Some have given much already,
  But this man he has presented
  To the world an entire world,
  With the name America.

  He could not set us free, out
  Of the dreary, earthly prison,
  But he knew how to enlarge it
  And to lengthen our chain.


COLUMBUS' AIM NOT MERELY SECULAR.

     GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL, one of the most eminent
     philosophers of the German school of metaphysics. Born at Stuttgart
     in 1770; died in Berlin, 1831. From his "Philosophy of History."

A leading feature demanding our notice in determining the character of
this period, might be mentioned that urging of the spirit outward, that
desire on the part of man to become acquainted with his world. The
chivalrous spirit of the maritime heroes of Portugal and Spain opened a
new way to the East Indies and discovered America. This progressive step
also involved no transgression of the limits of ecclesiastical
principles or feeling. The aim of Columbus was by no means a merely
secular one; it presented also a distinctly religious aspect; the
treasures of those rich Indian lands which awaited his discovery were
destined, in his intention, to be expended in a new crusade, and the
heathen inhabitants of the countries themselves were to be converted to
Christianity. The recognition of the spherical figure of the earth led
man to perceive that it offered him a definite and limited object, and
navigation had been benefited by the new-found instrumentality of the
magnet, enabling it to be something better than mere coasting; thus
technical appliances make their appearance when a need for them is
experienced.

These events--the so-called revival of learning, the flourishing of the
fine arts, and the discovery of America--may be compared with that
_blush of dawn_ which after long storms first betokens the return of a
bright and glorious day. This day is the day of universality, which
breaks upon the world after the long, eventful, and terrible night of
the Middle Ages.


THE BELIEF OF COLUMBUS.

     SIR ARTHUR HELPS, a popular English essayist and historian. Born,
     1813; died, March 7, 1875. From his "Life of Columbus" (1869).

Columbus believed the world to be a sphere; he underestimated its size;
he overestimated the size of the Asiatic continent. The farther that
continent extended to the east, the nearer it came round to Spain.


SPECULATION.

It has always been a favorite speculation with historians, and, indeed,
with all thinking men, to consider what would have happened from a
slight change of circumstances in the course of things which led to
great events. This may be an idle and a useless speculation, but it is
an inevitable one. Never was there such a field for this kind of
speculation as in the voyages, especially the first one, of Columbus.
* * * The gentlest breeze carried with it the destinies of future empires.
* * * Had some breeze big with the fate of nations carried Columbus
northward, it would hardly have been left for the English, more than a
century afterward, to found those colonies which have proved to be the
seeds of the greatest nation that the world is likely to
behold.--_Ibid._


RELIGION TURNS TO FREEDOM'S LAND.

     GEORGE HERBERT, an English poet. Born at Montgomery, Wales, 1593;
     died, 1632.

  Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
  Ready to pass to the American strand.


THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF COLUMBUS.

     ANTONIO HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, an eminent Spanish historian. Born
     at Cuellar in 1549; died, 1625.

Columbus was tall of stature, with a long and imposing visage. His nose
was aquiline; his eyes blue; his complexion clear, and having a tendency
to a glowing red; the beard and hair red in his youth, but his fatigues
early turned them white.


AN INCIDENT OF THE VOYAGE.

     FERNANDO HERRERA, Spanish poet, 1534-1597.

     Many sighed and wept, and every hour seemed a year.

THE EFFECT OF THE DISCOVERY.

     C. W. HODGIN, professor of history in Earlham College, Indiana.
     From "Preparation for the Discovery of America."

The discovery of America by Columbus stands out in history as an event
of supreme importance, both because of its value in itself and because
of its reflex action upon Europe. It swept away the hideous monsters and
frightful apparitions with which a superstitious imagination had peopled
the unknown Atlantic, and removed at once and forever the fancied
dangers in the way of its navigation. It destroyed the old patristic
geography and practically demonstrated the rotundity of the earth. It
overthrew the old ideas of science and gave a new meaning to the
Baconian method of investigation. It revolutionized the commerce of the
world, and greatly stimulated the intellect of Europe, already awakening
from the long torpor of the Dark Ages. It opened the doors of a new
world, through which the oppressed and overcrowded population of the Old
World might enter and make homes, build states, and develop a higher
ideal of freedom than the world had before conceived.

But this event did not come to pass by accident, neither was it the
result of a single cause. It was the culmination of a series of events,
each of which had a tendency, more or less marked, to concentrate into
the close of the fifteenth century the results of an _instinct_ to
search over unexplored seas for unknown lands.


COLUMBUS THE FIRST DISCOVERER.

     FRIEDRICH HEINRICH ALEXANDER, Baron VON HUMBOLDT, the illustrious
     traveler, naturalist, and cosmographer. Born in Berlin, September
     14, 1769; died there May 6, 1859. He has been well termed "The
     Modern Aristotle."

To say the truth, Vespucci shone only by reflection from an age of
glory. When compared with Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Bartolomé Dias, and
Da Gama, his place is an inferior one.

The majesty of great memories seems concentrated in the name of
Christopher Columbus. It is the originality of his vast idea, the
largeness and fertility of his genius, and the courage which bore up
against a long series of misfortunes, which have exalted the Admiral
high above all his contemporaries.


THE PENETRATION AND EXTREME ACCURACY OF COLUMBUS.

Columbus preserved, amid so many material and minute cares, which freeze
the soul and contract the character, a profound and poetic sentiment of
the grandeur of nature. What characterizes Columbus is the penetration
and extreme accuracy with which he seizes the phenomena of the external
world. He is quite as remarkable as an observer of nature as he is an
intrepid navigator.

Arrived under new heavens, and in a new world, the configuration of
lands, the aspect of vegetation, the habits of animals, the distribution
of heat according to longitude, the pelagic currents, the variations of
terrestrial magnetism--nothing escaped his sagacity. Columbus does not
limit himself to collecting isolated facts, he combines them, he seeks
their mutual relations to each other. He sometimes rises with boldness
to the discovery of the general laws that govern the physical
world.--_Ibid._


A FLIGHT OF PARROTS WAS HIS GUIDING STAR.

Columbus was guided in his opinion by a flight of parrots toward the
southwest. Never had the flight of birds more important consequences. It
may be said to have determined the first settlements on the new
continent, and its distribution between the Latin and Germanic
races.--_Ibid._


COLUMBUS A GIANT.

Columbus is a giant standing on the confines between mediæval and modern
times, and his existence marks one of the great epochs in the history of
the world.--_Ibid._


THE MAJESTY OF GRAND RECOLLECTIONS.

The majesty of grand recollections seems concentered on the illustrious
name of Columbus.--_Ibid._


RELIGION.

     JOHN FLETCHER HURST, D. D., LL.D., a noted American Methodist
     bishop. Born near Salem, Md., August 17, 1834. From his "Short
     History of the Church in the United States." Copyright, 1889. By
     permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Publishers.

When Columbus discovered the little West India Island of San Salvador,
and raised upon the shore the cross, he dedicated it and the lands
beyond to the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella. The "_Gloria in
Excelsis_" was sung by the discoverer and his weary crew with as much
fervor as it had ever been chanted in the cathedrals of Spain. The faith
was Roman Catholic. On his second voyage, in 1494, Columbus took with
him a vicar apostolic and twelve priests, and on the island of Haiti
erected the first chapel in the western world.[40] The success of
Columbus in discovering a new world in the West awakened a wild
enthusiasm throughout Europe. Visions of gold inflamed the minds alike
of rulers, knights, and adventurers. To discover and gather treasures,
and organize vast missionary undertakings, became the mania of the
times. No European country which possessed a strip of seaboard escaped
the delirium.


ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO.

     WASHINGTON IRVING, one of the most distinguished American authors
     and humorists. Born in New York City, April 3, 1783. Died at
     Sunnyside on the Hudson, N. Y., November 28, 1859. From his
     "History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus" (4 vols.,
     1828). "This is one of those works," says Alexander H. Everett,
     "which are at the same time the delight of readers and the despair
     of critics. It is as nearly perfect as any work well can be."

It is my object to relate the deeds and fortunes of the mariner who
first had the judgment to divine, and the intrepidity to brave, the
mysteries of the perilous deep; and who, by his hardy genius, his
inflexible constancy, and his heroic courage, brought the ends of the
earth into communication with each other. The narrative of his troubled
life is the link which connects the history of the Old World with that
of the New.

To his intellectual vision it was given to read the signs of the times
in the conjectures and reveries of the past ages, the indications of an
unknown world, as soothsayers were said to read predictions in the
stars, and to foretell events from the visions of the night.


PRACTICAL AND POETICAL.

He who paints a great man merely in great and heroic traits, though he
may produce a fine picture, will never present a faithful portrait.
Great men are compounds of great and little qualities. Indeed, much of
their greatness arises from their mastery over the imperfections of
their nature, and their noblest actions are sometimes struck forth by
the collision of their merits and their defects.

In Columbus were singularly combined the practical and the poetical. His
mind had grasped all kinds of knowledge, whether procured by study or
observation, which bore upon his theories; impatient of the scanty
aliment of the day, "his impetuous ardor threw him into the study of the
fathers of the Church, the Arabian Jews, and the ancient geographers";
while his daring but irregular genius, bursting from the limits of
imperfect science, bore him to conclusions far beyond the intellectual
vision of his contemporaries. If some of his conclusions were erroneous,
they were at least ingenious and splendid; and their error resulted from
the clouds which still hung over his peculiar path of enterprise. His
own discoveries enlightened the ignorance of the age, guided conjecture
to certainty, and dispelled that very darkness with which he had been
obliged to struggle.

In the progress of his discoveries, he has been remarked for the extreme
sagacity and the admirable justness with which he seized upon the
phenomena of the exterior world. As they broke upon him, these phenomena
were discerned with wonderful quickness of perception, and made to
contribute important principles to the stock of general knowledge. This
lucidity of spirit, this quick convertibility of facts to principles,
distinguish him from the dawn to the close of his sublime enterprise,
insomuch that, with all the sallying ardor of his imagination, his
ultimate success has been admirably characterized as a "conquest of
reflection."--_Ibid._


A VISIT TO PALOS.

I can not express to you what were my feelings on treading the shore
which had once been animated by the bustle of departure, and whose sands
had been printed by the last footstep of Columbus. The solemn and
sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate
and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet
melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the silent and empty stage of some
great drama when all the actors had departed. The very aspect of the
landscape, so tranquilly beautiful, had an effect upon me, and as I
paced the deserted shore by the side of a descendant of one of the
discoverers I felt my heart swelling with emotion and my eyes filling
with tears.--_Ibid._


COLUMBUS AT SALAMANCA.

Columbus appeared in a most unfavorable light before a select
assembly--an obscure navigator, a member of no learned institution,
destitute of all the trappings and circumstances which sometimes give
oracular authority to dullness, and depending on the mere force of
natural genius.

Some of the junta entertained the popular notion that he was an
adventurer, or at best a visionary; and others had that morbid
impatience which any innovation upon established doctrine is apt to
produce in systematic minds. What a striking spectacle must the hall of
the old convent have presented at this memorable conference! A simple
mariner standing forth in the midst of an imposing array of professors,
friars, and dignitaries of the Church, maintaining his theory with
natural eloquence, and, as it were, pleading the cause of the New
World.--_Ibid._


A MEMORIAL TO COLUMBUS AT OLD ISABELLA.

     From the _Sacred Heart Review_ of Boston, Mass.

Early in September, 1891, the proposition of erecting a monument to
Columbus on the site of his first settlement in the New World, at Old
Isabella, in Santo Domingo, was first broached to the _Sacred Heart
Review_ of Boston by Mr. Thomas H. Cummings of that city. As the first
house built by Columbus in the settlement was a church, it was suggested
that such a monument would indeed fitly commemorate the starting-point
and rise of Christian civilization in America. The _Review_ entered
heartily into the project, and steps were at once taken to secure a
suitable plot of ground for the site of the monument. Plans were also
drawn of a monument whose estimated cost would be from $3,000 to $5,000.
A design which included a granite plinth and ball three feet in
diameter, surmounting a pyramid of coral and limestone twenty feet
high,[41] was transmitted, through the Dominican consul-general at New
York to the Dominican government in Santo Domingo. Accompanying this
plan was a petition, of which the following is a copy, setting forth the
purpose of the _Review_, and asking certain concessions in return:

     "BOSTON, MASS., October 7, 1891.

     "HON. FCO. LEONTE VAZQUES, _Dominican Consul-general_, "_New York
     City_.

     "SIR: The _Sacred Heart Review_ of Boston is anxious to mark the
     spot with a suitable monument where Christian civilization took its
     rise in the New World, commonly known as Ancienne Isabelle, on the
     Island of Santo Domingo. We therefore beg the favor of your good
     offices with the Dominican government for the following
     concessions:

     "_First._ Free entrance of party and material for monument at
     ports of Puerto Plata or Monte Christi, and right of transportation
     for same to Isabella free of all coast expense and duties.

     "_Second._ Grant of suitable plot, not to contain more than 100 ×
     100 square yards, the present owner, Mr. C. S. Passailique of New
     York having already signified his willingness to concede same to
     us, so far as his rights under the Dominican government allowed him
     to do so.

     "_Third._ The right of perpetual care of monument, with access to
     and permission to care for same at all times.

     "_Fourth._ Would the government grant official protection to same;
     i. e., allow its representatives to aid and protect in every
     reasonable way the success of the enterprise, and when built guard
     same as public property, without assuming any legal liability
     therefor?

     "Finally, in case that we find a vessel sailing to one of said
     ports above named willing to take the monument to Isabella, would
     government concede this favor--allowing vessel to make coast
     service free of governmental duties?"

     "In exchange for above concessions on the part of the Dominican
     government, the undersigned hereby agree to erect, at their
     expense, and free of all charge to said government, a granite
     monument, according to plan herewith inclosed; estimated cost to be
     from $3,000 to $5,000.

     "Awaiting the favor of an early reply, and begging you to accept
     the assurance of our highest respect and esteem, we have the honor
     to be,

                    "Very respectfully yours,

                           "Rev. JOHN O'BRIEN and others in behalf of the
                                 Sacred Heart Review Monument Committee."


In reply to the above petition was received an official document, in
Spanish, of which the following is a literal translation:

     "ULISES HEUREAUX, _Division General-in-Chief of the National Army,
     Pacificator of the Nation, and Constitutional President of the
     Republic_:

     "In view of the petition presented to the government by the
     directors of the _Sacred Heart Review_ of Boston, United States of
     America, dated October 7, 1891, and considering that the object of
     the petitioners is to commemorate a historical fact of great
     importance, viz.: the establishment of the Christian religion in
     the New World by the erection of its first temple--an event so
     closely identified with Santo Domingo, and by its nature and
     results eminently American, indeed world-wide, in its
     scope--therefore the point of departure for Christian civilization
     in the western hemisphere, whose principal products were apostles
     like Cordoba, Las Casas, and others, defending energetically and
     resolutely the rights of the oppressed inhabitants of America, and
     themselves the real founders of modern democracy, be it

     "_Resolved_, Article 1. That it is granted to the _Sacred Heart
     Review_ of Boston, United States of America, permission to erect a
     monument on the site of the ruins of Old Isabella, in the district
     of Puerto Plata, whose purpose shall be to commemorate the site
     whereon was built the first Catholic church in the New World. This
     monument shall be of stone, and wholly conformable to the plan
     presented. It shall be erected within a plot of ground that shall
     not exceed 10,000 square yards, and shall be at all times solidly
     and carefully inclosed. If the site chosen belongs to the state,
     said state concedes its proprietary rights to the petitioners while
     the monument stands. If the site belongs to private individuals, an
     understanding must be reached with them to secure possession.

     "Article 2. The builders of said monument will have perpetual
     control and ownership, and they assume the obligation of caring
     for and preserving it in good condition. If the builders, as a
     society, cease to exist, the property will revert to the
     municipality to which belongs Old Isabella, and on them will revert
     the obligation to preserve it in perfect repair.

     "Article 3. The monument will be considered as public property, and
     the local authorities will give it the protection which the law
     allows to property of that class. * * * But on no condition and in
     no way could the government incur any responsibility of damage that
     might come to the monument situated in such a remote and exposed
     location.

     "Article 4. We declare free from municipal and coast duties the
     materials and tools necessary for the construction of said
     monument, and if it is introduced in a ship carrying only this as a
     cargo, it will be permitted to said ship to make voyage from Monte
     Christi or Puerto Plata without paying any of said coast imposts.
     In view of these concessions the monument committee will present to
     the mayor of the city a detailed statement of the material and
     tools needed, so that this officer can accept or reject them as he
     sees fit.

     "Article 5. Wherefore the Secretary of State, Secretary of the
     Interior, and other officers of the Cabinet are charged with the
     execution of the present resolution.

     "Given at the National Palace of Santo Domingo, Capital of the
     Republic, on the twenty-fifth day of November, 1891, forty-eighth
     year of independence and the twenty-ninth of the restoration.

                                        (Signed)
                                         "ULISES HEUREAUX, _President_.
                       "W. FIGUEREO, _Minister of Interior and Police_.
              "IGNACIO M. GONZALES, _Minister of Finance and Commerce_.
                                         "SANCHEZ, _Minister of State_.



     'Copy exactly conforming to the original given at Santo Domingo,
     November 28, 1891.

  "RAFAEL Y. RODRIGUEZ,
  "_Official Mayor and Minister of Public Works and Foreign Affairs._"



With these concessions in hand, a committee, consisting of Capt. Nathan
Appleton and Thomas H. Cummings, was appointed to go to Washington and
secure recognition from the United States Government for the enterprise.
The committee was everywhere favorably received, and returned with
assurances of co-operation and support. Hon. W. E. Curtis, head of the
Bureau of Latin Republics in the State Department, was added to the
general monument committee.

Meanwhile the _Sacred Heart Review_, through Dr. Charles H. Hall of
Boston, a member of the monument committee, put itself in communication
with the leading citizens of Puerto Plata, requesting them to use every
effort to locate the exact site of the ancient church, and make a
suitable clearing for the monument, at its expense.

In answer to this communication, a committee of prominent citizens was
organized at Puerto Plata, to co-operate with the Boston Columbus
Memorial Committee. The following extract is taken from a local paper,
_El Porvenir_, announcing the organization of this committee:

"On Saturday last, a meeting was held in this city (Puerto Plata) for
the purpose of choosing a committee which should take part in the
celebration. Those present unanimously resolved that such a body be
immediately formed under the title of, 'Committee in Charge of the
Centennial Celebration.'

"This committee then proceeded to the election of a board of management,
composed of a president, vice-president, secretary, and four directors.
The following gentlemen were elected to fill the above offices in the
order as named: Gen. Imbert, Dr. Llenas, Gen. Juan Guarrido, Presbitero
Don Wenceslao Ruiz, Don José Thomás Jimenez, Don Pedro M. Villalon, and
Don José Castellanos.

"To further the object for which it was organized, the board counts upon
the co-operation of such government officials and corporations of the
republic as may be inclined to take part in this great apotheosis in
preparation, to glorify throughout the whole world the work and name of
the famous discoverer.

"As this is the disinterested purpose for which the above-mentioned
committee was formed, we do not doubt that the public, convinced that it
is its duty to contribute in a suitable manner to the proposed
celebration, will respond to the idea with enthusiasm, seeing in it only
the desire which has guided its projectors--that of contributing their
share to the glorification of the immortal navigator."

The following official communication was received from this committee:

                                      "PUERTO DE PLATA, March 19, 1892.

       "Dr. CHARLES H. HALL, _Member Boston Columbus Memorial Committee,
                                                 Boston, Mass., U. S. A._

     "DEAR SIR: We have the honor of acquainting you that there exists
     in this city a committee for the celebration of the
     quadro-centennial whose purpose is to co-operate, to the extent of
     its ability, in celebrating here the memorable event.

     [Illustration: TOSCANELLI'S MAP.]

     "This committee has learned with the greatest satisfaction that it
     is proposed to erect a monument, on the site of Isabella, over the
     ruins of the first Catholic church in the New World. Here, also, we
     have had the same idea, and we rejoice that what we were unable to
     accomplish through lack of material means, you have brought to a
     consummation. And therefore we offer you our co-operation, and
     beg your acceptance of our services in any direction in which you
     may find them useful. With sentiments of high regard, we remain,

                                          "Your very obedient servants,

                                                "S. IMBERT, _President_.
                                            "JUAN GUARRIDO, _Secretary_.

  _Direction_, GEN. IMBERT, _President de la "Junta Para
  de la Celebracion del Centenario._"


The statue consists of a bronze figure of Columbus eight feet two inches
high, including the plinth, mounted on a pyramid of coral and limestone
twelve feet high, and which, in its turn, is crowned by a capstone of
dressed granite, on which the statue will rest.[42] The figure
represents Columbus in an attitude of thanksgiving to God, and pointing,
on the globe near his right hand, to the site of the first settlement in
the New World. The statue and pedestal were made from designs drawn at
the Massachusetts State Normal Art School by Mr. R. Andrew, under the
direction of Prof. George Jepson, and the statue was modeled by Alois
Buyens of Ghent.

The plaster cast of the monument, which has now been on exhibition at
the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston for some time, has been removed to the
foundry at Chicopee for casting. In a few months it will be transformed
into enduring bronze, and the Columbus monument will no longer be a
growing thought but a living reality. To say it has stood the critical
test of art connoisseurs in the Boston public is to say but little; for,
from every quarter, comments on the work of the sculptor have been
highly commendatory--the bold and vigorous treatment of the Flemish
school, of which Mr. Buyens is a disciple, being something of a novelty
in these parts, and well calculated to strike the popular fancy, which
always admires strength, especially when combined with gracefulness and
high art. Not a few of the best critics have pronounced it superior to
the average of similar statues to be found in and around Boston, and all
unite in declaring it to be unquestionably a work of art, and one
meriting great praise.

A recent communication from United States Consul Simpson, at Puerto
Plata, announces that he has lately visited Isabella, in the interest of
the monument. He made a careful survey of the site of the ancient town,
and cleared the grounds of the trees and masses of trailing vines that
encumbered the ruins, and after a thorough examination, assisted by the
people of the neighborhood, he found the remains of the first church.

Other communications have been received from the Dominican government
approving of the change of plan, substituting the statue for the simple
stone monument, and offering the memorial committee the hospitalities of
the island. And so the work goes on.

The monument, when erected, will commemorate two things--the
establishment of Christianity and the rise of civilization in the New
World. On the spot where it will stand Columbus built the first church
400 years ago.

One bronze relief shows the great discoverer in the fore-ground on
bended knees with a trowel in his hand, laying the corner-stone. On the
right, sits an ideal female figure, representing Mother Church,
fostering a little Indian child, and pointing with uplifted hand to the
cross, the emblem of man's salvation. Crouching Indians are at her feet,
listening with astonishment to the strange story, while on the left of
the cross are monks with bowed heads and lighted tapers, and in the
distance are Spanish cavaliers and hidalgos.

The conception is thoroughly Catholic, Christian, simple, and artistic;
it tells its own story with a pathos and directness not often found in
works of this kind.

The second tablet is more ideal and more severely classical than the
first. The genius of civilization, bearing gifts, is carried in a
chariot drawn by prancing horses. The Admiral, at the horses' heads,
with one hand points the way for her to follow, while with the other he
hands the reins to Columbia, the impersonation of the New World. An
Indian at the chariot wheels stoops to gather the gifts of civilization
as they fall from the cornucopia borne by the goddess. And thus is told
in enduring bronze, by the genius of the artist, the symbolic story of
the introduction of civilization to the New World.

Upon the face of the pedestal, a third tablet bears the inscription
which was written at the instance of Very Rev. Dr. Charles B. Rex,
president of the Brighton Theological Seminary. Mgr. Schroeder, the
author, interprets the meaning of the whole, in terse rhythmical Latin
sentences, after the Roman lapidary style:

  _Anno. claudente. sæculum XV._
  _Ex. quo. coloni. Christiani. Columbo. Duce_
  _Hic. post. oppidum. constitutum_
  _Primum. in. mundo. novo. templum_
  _Christo. Deo. dicarunt_
  _Ephemeris. Bostoniensis_
  _Cui. a. sacro. corde. est. nomen_
  _Sub. auspice. civium. Bostoniæ_
  _Ne. rei. tantæ. memoria. unquam. delabatur_
  _Hæc. marmori. commendavit._
  _A. D. MDCCCLXXXXII._

  (_Translation of the Inscription._)

  Toward the close of the fifteenth century,
  Christian colonists, under the leadership of Columbus,
  Here on this spot built the first settlement,
  And the first church dedicated
  To Christ our Lord
  In the new world.
  A Boston paper, called the _Sacred Heart Review_,
  Under the auspices of the citizens of Boston,
  That the memory of so great an event might not be forgotten,
  Hath erected this monument,
  A. D. 1892.

The question is sometimes asked why are Catholics specially interested,
and why should the _Review_ trouble itself to erect this monument. The
answer is this: We wish to locate the spot with some distinctive mark
where civilization was first planted and where Christianity reared its
first altar on this soil, 400 years ago. By this public act of
commemoration we hope to direct public attention to this modest
birthplace of our Mother Church, which stands to-day deserted and
unhonored like a pauper's grave, a monument of shame to the carelessness
and indifference of millions of American Catholics.

Why should we be specially interested? Because here on this spot the
Catholic church first saw the light of day in America; here the first
important act of the white man was the celebration of the holy mass, the
supreme act of Catholic worship; here the first instrument of
civilization that pierced the virgin soil was a cross, and here the
first Catholic anthems resounding through the forest primeval, and vying
in sweetness and melody with the song of birds, were the _Te Deum
Laudamus_ and the _Gloria in Excelsis_. Sculptured marble and engraved
stone we have in abundance, and tablets without number bear record to
deeds and historical events of far less importance than this. For, mark
well what these ruins and this monument stand for.

One hundred and twenty-six years before the Congregationalist church
landed on Plymouth Rock, 110 years before the Anglican church came to
Jamestown, and thirty-five years before the word Protestant was
invented, this church was erected, and the gospel announced to the New
World by zealous missionaries of the Catholic faith. No other
denomination of Christians in America can claim priority or even equal
duration with us in point of time. No other can show through all the
centuries of history such generous self-sacrifice and heroic missionary
efforts. No other has endured such misrepresentation and bitter
persecution for justice's sake. If her history here is a valuable
heritage, we to whom it has descended are in duty bound to keep it alive
in the memory and hearts of her children. We have recently celebrated
the centennial of the Church in the United States; but, for a still
greater reason, we should now prepare to celebrate the quadro-centennial
of the Church in America. And this is why Catholics should be specially
interested in this monument. Columbus himself was a deeply religious
man. He observed rigorously the fasts and ceremonies of the Church,
reciting daily the entire canonical office. He began everything he wrote
with the _Jesu cum Maria sit nobis in via_ (May Jesus and Mary be always
with us). And as Irving, his biographer, says, his piety did not consist
in mere forms, but partook of that lofty and solemn enthusiasm which
characterized his whole life. In his letter to his sovereigns announcing
his discovery he indulges in no egotism, but simply asks "Spain to
exhibit a holy joy, for Christ rejoices on earth as in heaven seeing the
future redemption of souls." And so his religion bursts out and seems to
pervade everything he touches. With such a man to commemorate and honor,
there is special reason why Catholics, and the _Review_, which
represents them, should busy themselves with erecting a Columbus
monument.

But the name and fame and beneficent work of Columbus belong to the
whole Christian world. While Catholics with gratitude recall his
fortitude and heroism, and thank God, who inspired him with a firm faith
and a burning charity for God and man, yet Protestants no less than
Catholics share in the fruit of his work, and, we are glad to say, vie
with Catholics in proclaiming and honoring his exalted character, his
courage, fortitude, and the beneficent work he accomplished for mankind.
Hence Dr. Edward Everett Hale, in his recent article on Columbus in the
_Independent_, voices the sentiment of every thoughtful, intelligent
Protestant when he says, "No wonder that the world of America loves and
honors the hero whose faith and courage called America into being. No
wonder that she celebrates the beginning of a new century with such
tributes of pride and hope as the world has never seen before." It is
this same becoming sentiment of gratitude which has prompted so many
worthy Protestants to enroll their names on the list of gentlemen who
are helping the _Review_ to mark and honor the spot Columbus chose for
the first Christian settlement on this continent.

Thus, so long as the bronze endures, the world will know that we
venerate the character and achievements of Columbus, and the spot where
Christian civilization took its rise in the New World.


FROM THE ITALIAN.

  The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
  The western wave, a smooth and level plain,
  Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.


SEARCHER OF THE OCEAN.

     SAMUEL JEFFERSON, a British author. From his epic poem, "Columbus,"
     published by S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago.[43]

  Thou searcher of the ocean, thee to sing
  Shall my devoted lyre awake each string!
  Columbus! Hero! Would my song could tell
  How great thy worth! No praise can overswell
  The grandeur of thy deeds! Thine eagle eye
  Pierced through the clouds of ages to descry
  From empyrean heights where thou didst soar
  With bright imagination winged by lore--
  The signs of continents as yet unknown;
  Across the deep thy keen-eyed glance was thrown;
  Thou, with prevailing longing, still aspired
  To reach the goal thy ardent soul desired;
  Thy heavenward soaring spirit, bold, elate,
  Scorned long delay and conquered chance and fate;
  Thy valor followed thy far-searching eyes,
  Until success crowned thy bold emprize.


FELIPA, WIFE OF COLUMBUS.

     ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON. From a poem published in _Harper's Weekly_,
     June 25, 1892.[44]

  More than the compass to the mariner
  Wast thou, Felipa, to his dauntless soul.
  Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nights
  Of rayless gloom, thou pointed ever to
  The north star of his great ambition. He
  Who once has lost an Eden, or has gained
  A paradise by Eve's sweet influence,
  Alone can know how strong a spell lies in
  The witchery of a woman's beckoning hand.
  And thou didst draw him, tidelike, higher still,
  Felipa, whispering the lessons learned
  From thy courageous father, till the flood
  Of his ambition burst all barriers,
  And swept him onward to his longed-for goal.

  Before the jewels of a Spanish queen
  Built fleets to waft him on his untried way,
  Thou gavest thy wealth of wifely sympathy
  To build the lofty purpose of his soul.
  And now the centuries have cycled by,
  Till thou art all forgotten by the throng
  That lauds the great Pathfinder of the deep.
  It matters not, in that infinitude
  Of space where thou dost guide thy spirit bark
  To undiscovered lands, supremely fair.
  If to this little planet thou couldst turn
  And voyage, wraithlike, to its cloud-hung rim,
  Thou wouldst not care for praise. And if, perchance,
  Some hand held out to thee a laurel bough,
  Thou wouldst not claim one leaf, but fondly turn
  To lay thy tribute also at his feet.


INCREASING INTEREST IN COLUMBUS.

     JOHN S. KENNEDY, an American author.

The near approach of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America
has revived in all parts of the civilized world great interest in
everything concerning that memorable event and the perilous voyage of
the great navigator whom it has immortalized.


THE MECCA OF THE NATION.

     MOSES KING, an American geographer of the nineteenth century.

I have read somewhere that in the northeastern part of Havana stands,
facing an open square, a brown stone church, blackened by age, and
dignified by the name of "cathedral." It is visited by every American,
because within its walls lies buried all that remains of the great
discoverer, Columbus.


THE CAUSE OF THE DISCOVERY.

Was it by the coarse law of demand and supply that a Columbus was
haunted by the ghost of a round planet at the time when the New World
was needed for the interests of civilization?--_Ibid._


MAGNANIMITY.

     ARTHUR G. KNIGHT, in his "Life of Columbus."

Through all the slow martyrdom of long delays and bitter
disappointments, he never faltered in his lofty purpose; in the hour of
triumph he was self-possessed and unassuming; under cruel persecution he
was patient and forgiving. For almost unexampled services he certainly
received a poor reward on earth.


THE IDEAS OF THE ANCIENTS.

     LUCIUS LACTANTIUS, an eminent Christian author, 260-325 A. D.

Is there any one so foolish as to believe that there are antipodes with
their feet opposite to ours; that there is a part of the world in which
all things are topsy-turvy, where the trees grow with their branches
downward, and where it rains, hails, and snows upward?


THE LAKE FRONT PARK STATUE OF COLUMBUS.

The World's Fair city is a close competitor with the historic cities of
the Old World for the grandest monument to Columbus and the fittest
location for it. At Barcelona, on the Paseo Colon, seaward, a snowy
marble Admiral looks toward the Shadowy Sea. At Genoa, 'mid the palms of
the Piazza Acquaverde, a noble representation of the noblest Genoese
faces the fitful gusts of the Mediterranean and fondly guards an Indian
maid. A lofty but rude cairn marks the Admiral's first footprints on the
shores of the wreck-strewn Bahamas, and many a monument or encomiastic
inscription denotes spots sacred to the history of his indomitable
resolve. These all commemorate, as it were, but the inception of the
great discovery. It remains for Chicago to perpetuate the results, and
most fitly to place an heroic figure of the first Admiral viewing, and
in full view of all.

On the Lake Front Park, in full view of the ceaseless commercial
activity of the Great Lakes, and close by the hum of the hive of human
industry, grandly will a bronze Columbus face the blasts from Michigan's
bosom. There the greatest navigator stands,

  Calm, his prescience verified,

proudly through the ages watching the full fruits of that first and
fateful voyage over the waves of the seas of mystery, to found a nation
where Freedom alone should be supreme. Just where the big monument will
be located on Lake Front Park has not been decided, but a site south of
the Auditorium, midway between the Illinois Central tracks and Michigan
Boulevard, will perhaps be chosen. The statue proper will be twenty feet
high. It will be of bronze, mounted on a massive granite pedestal, of
thirty feet in height, and will serve for all time as a memorial of the
Exposition.

The chosen artist, out of the many who submitted designs, was Mr. Howard
Kretschmar, a Chicago sculptor of rare power and artistic talent.

The massive figure of Columbus is represented at the moment the land,
and the glorious future of his great discovery, burst upon his delighted
gaze. No ascetic monk, no curled cavalier, looks down from the pedestal.
The apocryphal portraits of Europe may peer out of their frames in this
guise, but it has been the artist's aim here to chisel _a man, not a
monk; and a noble man_, rather than a cringing courtier. Above the
massive pedestal of simple design, which bears the terse legend,
"Erected by the World's Columbian Exposition, A. D. 1893," stands the
noble figure of the Noah of our nation. The open doublet discloses the
massive proportions of a more than well-knit man. The left hand, pressed
to the bosom, indicates the tension of his feelings, and the
outstretched hand but further intensifies the dawning and gradually
o'erwhelming sense of the future, the possibilities of his grand
discovery. One of the noblest conceptions in bronze upon this continent
is Mr. Howard Kretschmar's "Columbus," and of it may Chicago well be
proud.


COLUMBUS THE CIVILIZER.

     ALPHONSE LAMARTINE, the learned French writer and politician. Born
     at Macon, 1792; died, 1869. From "Life of Columbus."

All the characteristics of a truly great man are united in Columbus.
Genius, labor, patience, obscurity of origin, overcome by energy of
will; mild but persisting firmness, resignation toward heaven, struggle
against the world; long conception of the idea in solitude, heroic
execution of it in action; intrepidity and coolness in storms,
fearlessness of death in civil strife; confidence in the destiny--not of
an individual, but of the human race; a life risked without hesitation
or retrospect in venturing into the unknown and phantom-peopled ocean,
1,500 leagues across, and on which the first step no more allowed of
second thoughts than Cæsar's passage of the Rubicon; untiring study,
knowledge as extensive as the science of his day, skillful but honorable
management of courts to persuade them to truth; propriety of demeanor,
nobleness, and dignity in outward bearing, which afford proof of
greatness of mind and attracts eyes and hearts; language adapted to the
grandeur of his thoughts; eloquence which could convince kings and quell
the mutiny of crews; a natural poetry of style, which placed his
narrative on a par with the wonders of his discoveries and the marvels
of nature; an immense, ardent, and enduring love for the human race,
piercing even into that distant future in which humanity forgets those
that do it service; legislative wisdom and philosophic mildness in the
government of his colonies; paternal compassion for those Indians,
infants of humanity, whom he wished to give over to the
guardianship--not to the tyranny and oppression--of the Old World;
forgetfulness of injury and magnanimous forgiveness of his enemies; and
lastly, piety, that virtue which includes and exalts all other virtues,
when it exists as it did in the mind of Columbus--the constant presence
of God in the soul, of justice in the conscience, of mercy in the heart,
of gratitude in success, of resignation in reverses, of worship always
and everywhere.

Such was the man. We know of none more perfect. He contains several
impersonations within himself. He was worthy to represent the ancient
world before that unknown continent on which he was the first to set
foot, and carry to these men of a new race all the virtues, without any
of the vices, of the elder hemisphere. So great was his influence on the
destiny of the earth, that none more than he ever deserved the name of a
_Civilizer_.

His influence in civilization was immeasurable. He completed the world.
He realized the physical unity of the globe. He advanced, far beyond all
that had been done before his time, the work of God--the SPIRITUAL UNITY
OF THE HUMAN RACE. This work, in which Columbus had so largely assisted,
was indeed too great to be worthily rewarded even by affixing his name
to the fourth continent. America bears not that name, but the human
race, drawn together and cemented by him, will spread his renown over
the whole earth.


THE PSALM OF THE WEST.

     SIDNEY LANIER, an American poet of considerable talent. Born at
     Macon, Ga., February 3, 1842; died at Lynn, N. C., September 8,
     1881. From his "Psalm of the West."[45] Lanier was the author of
     the "Centennial Ode."

  Santa Maria, well thou tremblest down the wave,
    Thy Pinta far abow, thy Niña nigh astern;
  Columbus stands in the night alone, and, passing grave,
    Yearns o'er the sea as tones o'er under-silence yearn.
  Heartens his heart as friend befriends his friend less brave,
    Makes burn the faiths that cool, and cools the doubts that burn.

  "'Twixt this and dawn, three hours my soul will smite
    With prickly seconds, or less tolerably
    With dull-blade minutes flatwise slapping me.
  Wait, heart! Time moves. Thou lithe young Western Night,
  Just-crowned King, slow riding to thy right,
    Would God that I might straddle mutiny
    Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea,
  Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight,
  Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls,
    Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow,
      Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn
  Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls,
    No damage taking from their If and How,
      Nor no result save galloping to my Dawn.

  "My Dawn? my Dawn? How if it never break?
    How if this West by other Wests is pierced.
    And these by vacant Wests and Wests increased--
  One pain of space, with hollow ache on ache,
  Throbbing and ceasing not for Christ's own sake?
    Big, perilous theorem, hard for king and priest;
    'Pursue the West but long enough, 'tis East!'
  Oh, if this watery world no turning take;
  Oh, if for all my logic, all my dreams,
  Provings of that which is by that which seems,
  Fears, hopes, chills, heats, hastes, patiences, droughts, tears,
  Wife-grievings, slights on love, embezzled years,
  Hates, treaties, scorns, upliftings, loss, and gain,
  This earth, no sphere, be all one sickening plain.

  "Or, haply, how if this contrarious West,
    That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed,
    Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited,
  Have no fixed heart of law within his breast;
  Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest,
    Nature in the East? Why, 'tis but three weeks fled
    I saw my Judas needle shake his head
  And flout the Pole that, East, he lord confessed!
  God! if this West should own some other Pole,
  And with his tangled ways perplex my soul
    Until the maze grow mortal, and I die
  Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray,
  On earth some other wit than Time's at play,
    Some other God than mine above the sky!

  "Now speaks mine other heart with cheerier seeming;
    'Ho, Admiral! o'er-defalking to thine crew
    Against thyself, thyself far overfew
  To front yon multitudes of rebel scheming?'
  Come, ye wild twenty years of heavenly dreaming!
    Come, ye wild weeks, since first this canvas drew
    Out of vexed Palos ere the dawn was blue,
  O'er milky waves about the bows full-creaming!
  Come, set me round with many faithful spears
    Of confident remembrance--how I crushed
    Cat-lived rebellions, pitfalled treasons, hushed
    Scared husbands' heart-break cries on distant wives,
    Made cowards blush at whining for their lives;
  Watered my parching souls and dried their tears.

  "Ere we Gomera cleared, a coward cried:
    'Turn, turn; here be three caravels ahead,
    From Portugal, to take us; we are dead!'
  'Hold westward, pilot,' calmly I replied.
  So when the last land down the horizon died,
    'Go back, go back,' they prayed, 'our hearts are lead.'
    'Friends, we are bound into the West,' I said.
  Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side.
  'See (so they wept) God's warning! Admiral, turn!'
    'Steersman,' I said, 'hold straight into the West.'
  Then down the night we saw the meteor burn.
    So do the very heavens in fire protest.
  'Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain!'
  'Hold straight into the West,' I said again.

  "Next drive we o'er the slimy-weeded sea,
    'Lo! here beneath,' another coward cries,
    'The cursed land of sunk Atlantis lies;
  This slime will suck us down--turn while thou'rt free!'
  'But no!' I said, 'freedom bears West for me!'
    Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise,
    And day by day the keel to westward flies,
  My Good my people's Ill doth come to be;
    Ever the winds into the west do blow;
    Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go;
  Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main.
    'For Christ's sake, parley, Admiral! Turn, before
  We sail outside all bounds of help from pain.'
    'Our help is in the West,' I said once more.

  "So when there came a mighty cry of Land!
    And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong
    '_Salve Regina!_' all the ropes along,
  But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band
  Of level clouds had aped a silver strand;
    So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song,
    And all the people cried, 'A hellish throng
  To tempt us onward, by the Devil planned,
  Yea, all from hell--keen heron, fresh green weeds,
  Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds,
  Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die
  In clouds of nothing round the empty sky.
  'Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell, and rest!'
  'Steersman,' I said, 'hold straight into the West.'

   *       *       *       *       *

  "I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night,
    From its big circling ever absently
    Returns, thou large, low star, to fix on thee.
  Maria! Star? No star; a Light, a Light!
  Wouldst leap ashore, Heart? Yonder burns a Light!
    'Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me.
    I prithee stand and gaze about the sea;
  What seest?' 'Admiral, like as land--a Light!'
  'Well, Sanchez of Segovia come and try;
  What seest?' 'Admiral, naught but sea and sky!'
  'Well, but I saw it. Wait, the Pinta's gun!
  Why, look! 'tis dawn! the land is clear; 'tis done!
  Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand--
  God's East--mine, West! Good friends, behold my Land!'"


PASSION FOR GOLD.

     EUGENE LAWRENCE, an American historical writer. Born in New York,
     1823. From "The Mystery of Columbus," in _Harper's Magazine_, May,
     1892.[46]

In Columbus the passion for gold raged with a violence seldom known. He
dreamed of golden palaces, heaps of treasure, and mines teeming with
endless wealth. His cry was everywhere for gold. Every moment, in his
fierce avarice, he would fancy himself on the brink of boundless
opulence; he was always about to seize the treasures of the East,
painted by Marco Polo and Mandeville. "Gold," he wrote to the King and
Queen, "is the most valuable thing in the world; it rescues souls from
purgatory and restores them to the joys of paradise."

[Illustration: STATUE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IN THE MARIÑOL (MINISTRY
OF THE COLONIES), MADRID, SPAIN. Sculptor, Señor J. Samartin.]


THE TRIBUTE AND TESTIMONY OF THE POPE.

     POPE LEO XIII., the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
     From a letter in Chicago _Inter Ocean_, 1892.

While we see on all sides the preparations that are eagerly being made
for the celebration of the Columbian quadri-centenary feasts in memory
of a man most illustrious, and deserving of Christianity and all
cultured humanity, we hear with great pleasure that the United States
has, among other nations, entered this competition of praise in such a
manner as befits both the vastness and richness of the country and the
memory of the man so great as he to whom these honors are being shown.
The success of this effort will surely be another proof of the great
spirit and active energy of this people, who undertake enormous and
difficult tasks with such great and happy dealing. It is a testimony of
honor and gratitude to that immortal man of whom we have spoken, who,
desirous of finding a road by which the light and truth and all the
adornments of civil culture might be carried to the most distant parts
of the world, could neither be deterred by dangers nor wearied by
labors, until, having in a certain manner renewed the bonds between two
parts of the human race so long separated, he bestowed upon both such
great benefits that he in justice must be said to have few equals or a
superior.


COLUMBUS THE GLORY OF CATHOLICISM.

The Pope held a reception at the Vatican on the occasion of the festival
of his patron saint, St. Joachim. In an address he referred to Columbus
as the glory of Catholicism, and thanked the donors of the new Church of
St. Joachim for commemorating his jubilee.


THE POPE REVIEWS THE LIFE OF THE DISCOVERER.

     The following is the text of the letter addressed by Leo XIII. to
     the archbishops and bishops of Spain, Italy, and the two Americas
     on the subject of Christopher Columbus.

     LETTER OF OUR VERY HOLY FATHER, LEO XIII., POPE BY DIVINE
     PROVIDENCE, TO THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF SPAIN, ITALY, AND OF
     THE TWO AMERICAS, UPON CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

     _To the Archbishops and Bishops of Spain and Italy, and of the two
     Americas. Leo XIII., Pope._

     VENERABLE BROTHERS, GREETING AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION: From the
     end of the fifteenth century, since a man from Liguria first
     landed, under the auspices of God, on the transatlantic shores,
     humanity has been strongly inclined to celebrate with gratitude the
     recollection of this event. It would certainly not be an easy
     matter to find a more worthy cause to touch their hearts and to
     inflame their zeal. The event, in effect, is such in itself that no
     other epoch has seen a grander and more beautiful one accomplished
     by man.

     As to who accomplished it, there are few who can be compared to him
     in greatness of soul and genius. By his work a new world flashed
     forth from the unexplored ocean, thousands upon thousands of
     mortals were returned to the common society of the human race, led
     from their barbarous life to peacefulness and civilization, and,
     which is of much more importance, recalled from perdition to
     eternal life by the bestowal of the gifts which Jesus Christ
     brought to the world.

     Europe, astonished alike by the novelty and the prodigiousness of
     this unexpected event, understood little by little, in due course
     of time, what she owed to Columbus, when, by sending colonies to
     America, by frequent communications, by exchange of services, by
     the resources confided to the sea and received in return, there was
     discovered an accession of the most favorable nature possible to
     the knowledge of nature, to the reciprocal abundance of riches,
     with the result that the prestige of Europe increased enormously.

     Therefore, it would not be fitting, amid these numerous
     testimonials on honor, and in these concerts of felicitations, that
     the Church should maintain complete silence, since, in accordance
     with her character and her institution, she willingly approves and
     endeavors to favor all that appears, wherever it is, to be worthy
     of honor and praise. Undoubtedly she receives particular and
     supreme honors to the virtues pre-eminent in regard to morality,
     inasmuch as they are united to the eternal salvation of souls;
     nevertheless, she does not despise the rest, neither does she
     abstain from esteeming them as they deserve; it is even her habit
     to favor with all her power and to always have in honor those who
     have well merited of human society and who have passed to
     posterity.

     Certainly, God is admirable in His saints, but the vestiges of His
     divine virtues appear as imprinted in those in whom shines a
     superior force of soul and mind, for this elevation of heart and
     this spark of genius could only come from God, their author and
     protector.

     It is in addition an entirely special reason for which we believe
     we should commemorate in a grateful spirit this immortal event. It
     is that Columbus is one of us. When one considers with what motive
     above all he undertook the plan of exploring the dark sea, and with
     what object he endeavored to realize this plan, one can not doubt
     that the Catholic faith superlatively inspired the enterprise and
     its execution, so that by this title, also, humanity is not a
     little indebted to the Church.

     There are without doubt many men of hardihood and full of
     experience who, before Christopher Columbus and after him, explored
     with persevering efforts unknown lands across seas still more
     unknown. Their memory is celebrated, and will be so by the renown
     and the recollection of their good deeds, seeing that they have
     extended the frontiers of science and of civilization, and that not
     at the price of slight efforts, but with an exalted ardor of
     spirit, and often through extreme perils. It is not the less true
     that there is a great difference between them and him of whom we
     speak.

     The eminently distinctive point in Columbus is, that in crossing
     the immense expanses of the ocean he followed an object more grand
     and more elevated than the others. This does not say, doubtless,
     that he was not in any way influenced by the very praiseworthy
     desire to be master of science, to well deserve the approval of
     society, or that he despised the glory whose stimulant is
     ordinarily more sensitive to elevated minds, or that he was not at
     all looking to his own personal interests. But above all these
     human reasons, that of religion was uppermost by a great deal in
     him, and it was this, without any doubt, which sustained his spirit
     and his will, and which frequently, in the midst of extreme
     difficulties, filled him with consolation. He learned in reality
     that his plan, his resolution profoundly carved in his heart, was
     to open access to the gospel in new lands and in new seas.

     This may seem hardly probable to those who, concentrating all their
     care, all their thoughts, in the present nature of things, as it is
     perceived by the senses, refuse to look upon greater benefits. But,
     on the other hand, it is the characteristic of eminent minds to
     prefer to elevate themselves higher, for they are better disposed
     than all others to seize the impulses and the inspirations of the
     divine faith. Certainly, Columbus had united the study of nature to
     the study of religion, and he had conformed his mind to the
     precepts intimately drawn from the Catholic faith.

     It is thus that, having learned by astronomy and ancient documents
     that beyond the limits of the known world there were, in addition,
     toward the west, large tracts of territory unexplored up to that
     time by anybody, he considered in his mind the immense multitude of
     those who were plunged in lamentable darkness, subject to insensate
     rites and to the superstitions of senseless divinities. He
     considered that they miserably led a savage life, with ferocious
     customs; that, more miserably still, they were wanting in all
     notion of the most important things, and that they were plunged in
     ignorance of the only true God.

     Thus, in considering this in himself, he aimed first of all to
     propagate the name of Christianity and the benefits of Christian
     charity in the West. As a fact, as soon as he presented himself to
     the sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, he explained the
     cause for which they were not to fear taking a warm interest in the
     enterprise, as their glory would increase to the point of becoming
     immortal if they decided to carry the name and the doctrine of
     Jesus Christ into such distant regions. And when, not long
     afterward, his prayers were granted, he called to witness that he
     wished to obtain from God that these sovereigns, sustained by His
     help and His mercy, should persevere in causing the gospel to
     penetrate upon new shores and in new lands.

     He conceived in the same manner the plan of asking Alexander VI.
     for apostolic men, by a letter in which these words are found: "I
     hope that it will some day be given to me with the help of God to
     propagate afar the very holy name of Jesus Christ and his gospel."
     Also can one imagine him all filled with joy when he wrote to
     Raphael Sanchez, the first who from the Indies had returned to
     Lisbon, that immortal actions of grace must be rendered to God in
     that he had deigned to cause to prosper the enterprise so well, and
     that Jesus Christ could rejoice and triumph upon earth and in
     heaven for the coming salvation of innumerable people who
     previously had been going to their ruin. That, if Columbus also
     asks of Ferdinand and Isabella to permit only Catholic Christians
     to go to the New World, there to accelerate trade with the natives,
     he supports this motive by the fact that by his enterprise and
     efforts he has not sought for anything else than the glory and the
     development of the Christian religion.

     This was what was perfectly known to Isabella, who, better than any
     other person, had penetrated the mind of such a great man; much
     more, it appears that this same plan was fully adopted by this very
     pious woman of great heart and manly mind. She bore witness, in
     effect, of Columbus, that in courageously giving himself up to the
     vast ocean, he realized, for the divine glory, a most signal
     enterprise; and to Columbus himself, when he had happily returned,
     she wrote that she esteemed as having been highly employed the
     resources which she had consecrated and which she would still
     consecrate to the expeditions in the Indies, in view of the fact
     that the propagation of Catholicism would result from them.

     Also, if he had not inspired himself from a cause superior to human
     interests, where then would he have drawn the constancy and the
     strength of soul to support what he was obliged to the end to
     endure and to submit to; that is to say, the unpropitious advice of
     the learned people, the repulses of princes, the tempests of the
     furious ocean, the continual watches, during which he more than
     once risked losing his sight.

     To that add the combats sustained against the barbarians; the
     infidelities of his friends, of his companions; the villainous
     conspiracies, the perfidiousness of the envious, the calumnies of
     the traducers, the chains with which, after all, though innocent,
     he was loaded. It was inevitable that a man overwhelmed with a
     burden of trials so great and so intense would have succumbed had
     he not sustained himself by the consciousness of fulfilling a very
     noble enterprise, which he conjectured would be glorious for the
     Christian name and salutary for an infinite multitude.

     And the enterprise so carried out is admirably illustrated by the
     events of that time. In effect, Columbus discovered America at
     about the period when a great tempest was going to unchain itself
     against the Church. Inasmuch as it is permitted by the course of
     events to appreciate the ways of divine Providence, it really seems
     that the man for whom the Liguria honors herself was destined by
     special plan of God to compensate Catholicism for the injury which
     it was going to suffer in Europe.

     To call the Indian race to Christianity, this was, without doubt,
     the mission and the work of the Church in this mission. From the
     beginning, she continued to fulfill it with an uninterrupted course
     of charity, and she still continues it, having advanced herself
     recently so far as the extremities of Patagonia.

     Thus, when compelled by the Portuguese, by the Genoese, to leave
     without having obtained any result, he went to Spain. He matured
     the grand plan of the projected discovery in the midst of the walls
     of a convent, with the knowledge of and with the advice of a monk
     of the Order of St. Francis d'Assisi, after seven years had
     revolved. When at last he goes to dare the ocean, he takes care
     that the expedition shall comply with the acts of spiritual
     expiation; he prays to the Queen of Heaven to assist the enterprise
     and to direct its course, and before giving the order to make sail
     he invokes the august divine Trinity. Then, once fairly at sea,
     while the waters agitate themselves, while the crew murmurs, he
     maintains, under God's care, a calm constancy of mind.

     His plan manifests itself in the very names which he imposes on the
     new islands, and each time that he is called upon to land upon one
     of them he worships the Almighty God, and only takes possession of
     it in the name of Jesus Christ. At whatever coast he approaches he
     has nothing more as his first idea than the planting on the shore
     of the sacred sign of the cross; and the divine name of the
     Redeemer, which he had sung so frequently on the open sea to the
     sound of the murmuring waves--he is the first to make it
     reverberate in the new islands in the same way. When he institutes
     the Spanish colony he causes it to be commenced by the construction
     of a temple, where he first provides that the popular fêtes shall
     be celebrated by august ceremonies.

     Here, then, is what Columbus aimed at and what he accomplished when
     he went in search, over so great an expanse of sea and of land, of
     regions up to that time unexplored and uncultivated, but whose
     civilization, renown, and riches were to rapidly attain that
     immense development which we see to-day.

     In all this, the magnitude of the event, the efficacy and the
     variety of the benefits which have resulted from it, tend assuredly
     to celebrate he, who was the author of it, by a grateful
     remembrance and by all sorts of testimonials of honor; but, in the
     first place, we must recognize and venerate particularly the divine
     project, to which the discoverer of the New World was subservient
     and which he knowingly obeyed.

     In order to celebrate worthily and in a manner suitable to the
     truth of the facts the solemn anniversary of Columbus, the
     sacredness of religion must be united to the splendor of the civil
     pomp. This is why, as previously, at the first announcement of the
     event, public actions of grace were rendered to the providence of
     the immortal God, upon the example which the Supreme Pontiff gave;
     the same also now, in celebrating the recollection of the
     auspicious event, we esteem that we must do as much.

     We decree to this effect, that the day of October 12th, or the
     following Sunday, if the respective diocesan bishops judge it to be
     opportune, that, after the office of the day, the solemn mass of
     the very Holy Trinity shall be celebrated in the cathedral and
     collegial churches of Spain, Italy, and the two Americas. In
     addition to these countries, we hope that, upon the initiative of
     the bishops, as much may be done in the others, for it is fitting
     that all should concur in celebrating with piety and gratitude an
     event which has been profitable to all.

     In the meanwhile, as a pledge of the celestial favors and in
     testimony of our fraternal good-will, we affectionately accord in
     the Lord the Apostolic benediction to you, venerable brothers, to
     your clergy, and to your people.

     Given at Rome, near St. Peter's, July 16th of the year 1892, the
     fifteenth of our Pontificate.

                                                    LEO XIII., _Pope_.


TO SPAIN.

     CAPEL LOFFT.

  O generous nation! to whose noble boast,
    Illustrious Spain, the providence of Heaven
    A radiant sky of vivid power hath given,
  A land of flowers, of fruits, profuse; an host
  Of ardent spirits; when deprest the most,
    By great, enthusiastic impulse driven
  To deeds of highest daring.


WRAPPED IN A VISION GLORIOUS.

     The Rev. JOHN LORD, LL. D., a popular American lecturer and
     Congregational minister. Born in Portsmouth, N. H., December 27,
     1810.

Wrapped up in those glorious visions which come only to a man of
superlative genius, and which make him insensible to heat and cold and
scanty fare, even to reproach and scorn, this intrepid soul, inspired by
a great and original idea, wandered from city to city, and country to
country, and court to court, to present the certain greatness and wealth
of any state that would embark in his enterprise. But all were alike
cynical, cold, unbelieving, and even insulting. He opposes overwhelming
universal and overpowering ideas. To have surmounted these amid such
protracted opposition and discouragment constitutes his greatness; and
finally to prove his position by absolute experiment and hazardous
enterprise makes him one of the greatest of human benefactors, whose
fame will last through all the generations of men. And as I survey that
lonely, abstracted, disappointed, and derided man--poor and unimportant;
so harassed by debt that his creditors seized even his maps and charts;
obliged to fly from one country to another to escape imprisonment;
without even listeners and still less friends, and yet with
ever-increasing faith in his cause; utterly unconquerable; alone in
opposition to all the world--I think I see the most persistent man of
enterprise that I have read of in history. Critics ambitious to say
something new may rake out slanders from the archives of enemies and
discover faults which derogate from the character we have been taught to
admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we can not
disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness which shed its beneficent
rays over a century of darkness--but this we know, that whatever may be
the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on
the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, and that he now
shines as a fixed star in the constellation of the great lights of
modern times, not only because he succeeded in crossing the ocean when
once embarked on it, but for surmounting the moral difficulties which
lay in his way before he could embark upon it, and for being finally
instrumental in conferring the greatest boon that our world has received
from any mortal man since Noah entered into the ark.


BY THE GRACE OF GOD HE WAS WHAT HE WAS.

     ROSSELY DE LORGUES, a Catholic biographer.

Columbus did not owe his great celebrity to his genius or conscience,
but only to his vocation, to his faith, and to the Divine grace.


IN HONOR OF COLUMBUS.

Archbishop Janssens of New Orleans has issued a letter to his diocese
directing a general observance of the 400th anniversary of the discovery
of America. The opening paragraph reads:

"Christopher Columbus was a sincere and devout Catholic; his remarkable
voyage was made possible by the intercession of a holy monk and by the
patronage and liberality of the pious Queen Isabella. The cross of
Christ, the emblem of our holy religion, was planted on America's virgin
soil, and the _Te Deum_ and the holy mass were the first religious
services held on the same. It is, therefore, just and proper that this
great event and festival should be celebrated in a religious as well as
a civil manner."

The Pope having set the Julian date of October 12th for the celebration,
and the President October 21st, the archbishop directs that exercises be
held on both these days--the first of a religious character, the second
civic. October 12th a solemn votive mass will be sung in all the
churches of the diocese, with an exhortation, and October 21st in the
city of New Orleans the clergy will assemble at the archiepiscopal
residence early in the morning and march to the cathedral, where
services will be held at 7.30 o'clock. Sermons of ten minutes each are
to be preached in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.


THE IMPREGNABLE WILL OF COLUMBUS.

     JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, an American poet. Born in Boston, 1819; died
     in Cambridge, 1891. From "W. L. Garrison." Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
     Boston.

  Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,
    The compact nucleus, round which systems grow.
  Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,
    And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

  O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born
    In the rude stable, in the manger nursed.
  What humble hands unbar those gates of morn
    Through which the splendors of the new day burst.

  Whatever can be known of earth we know,
    Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled;
  No! said one man in Genoa, and that no
    Out of the dark created this New World.

  Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here;
    See one straightforward conscience put in pawn
  To win a world; see the obedient sphere
    By bravery's simple gravitation drawn.

  Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old,
    And by the Present's lips repeated still,
  In our own single manhood to be bold,
    Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?


COLUMBUS THE KING OF DISCOVERERS.

  He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods
  Doth walk a king; for him the pent-up cell
  Widens beyond the circles of the stars,
  And all the sceptered spirits of the past
  Come thronging in to greet him as their peer;
  While, like an heir new-crowned, his heart o'erleaps
  The blazing steps of his ancestral throne.--_Ibid._

Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the
front door of America.--_Ibid._


THE PATIENCE OF COLUMBUS.

     From "Columbus," a poem by the same author. Published by Houghton,
     Mifflin & Co.

  Chances have laws as fixed as planets have;
  And disappointment's dry and bitter root,
  Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool
  Of the world's scorn are the right mother-milk
  To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind,
  And break a pathway to those unknown realms
  That in the earth's broad shadow lie enthralled;
  Endurance is the crowning quality,
  And patience all the passion of great hearts;
  These are their stay, and when the leaden world
  Sets its hard face against their fateful thought,
  And brute strength, like a scornful conqueror,
  Clangs his huge mace down in the other scale,
  The inspired soul but flings his patience in,
  And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe--
  One faith against a whole world's unbelief,
  One soul against the flesh of all mankind.

         *       *       *       *       *

  I know not when this hope enthralled me first,
  But from my boyhood up I loved to hear
  The tall pine forests of the Apennine
  Murmur their hoary legends of the sea;
  Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld
  The sudden dark of tropic night shut down
  O'er the huge whisper of great watery wastes.

   *       *       *       *       *

  I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale
  Of happy Atlantis, and heard Björne's keel
  Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore.

  Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear
  The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams,
  O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night
  My heart flies on before me as I sail;
  Far on I see my life-long enterprise!

   *       *       *       *       *

LYTTON (Lord). See _post_, "Schiller."

   *       *       *       *       *


VESPUCCI AN ADVENTURER.

     THOMAS BABINGTON, Baron MACAULAY, one of England's most celebrated
     historians. Born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, October 25,
     1800; died, December 28, 1859.

Vespucci, an adventurer who accidentally landed in a rich and unknown
island, and who, though he only set up an ill-shaped cross upon the
shore, acquired possession of its treasures and gave his name to a
continent which should have derived its appellation from Columbus.


COLUMBUS NEITHER A VISIONARY NOR AN IMBECILE.

     CHARLES P. MACKIE, an American author. From his "With the Admiral
     of the Ocean Sea." Published by Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co.,
     Chicago.

Whatever were his mistakes and shortcomings, Colon was neither a
visionary nor an imbecile. Had he been perfect in all things and wise to
the point of infallibility, we could not have claimed him as the
glorious credit he was to the common humanity to which we all belong.
His greatness was sufficient to cover with its mantle far more of the
weaknesses of frail mortality than he had to draw under its protection;
and it becomes us who attempt to analyze his life in these later days,
to bear in mind that, had his lot befallen ourselves, the natives of the
western world would still, beyond a peradventure, be wandering in
undraped peace through their tangled woods, and remain forever ignorant
of the art of eating meat. In his trials and distresses the Admiral
encountered only the portion of the sons of Adam; but to him was also
given, as to few before or since, to say with the nameless shepherd of
Tempe's classic vale, "I, too, have lived in Arcady."

Colon did not merely discover the New World. He spent seven years and
one month among the islands and on the coasts of the hemisphere now
called after the ship-chandler who helped to outfit his later
expeditions. For the greater part of that time he was under the constant
burden of knowing that venomous intrigue and misrepresentation were
doing their deadly work at home while he did what he believed was his
Heaven-imposed duty on this side the Atlantic.


THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT IN MADRID.

At the top of the Paseo de Recoletos is a monument to Columbus in the
debased Gothic style of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was unveiled in 1885.
The sides are ornamented with reliefs and the whole surmounted by a
white marble statue. Among the sculptures are a ship and a globe, with
the inscription:

  _Á Castilla y á Leon
  Nuevo mundo dió Colon._

  (_Translation._)

  To Castille and Leon
  Columbus gave a new world.


VISIT OF COLUMBUS TO ICELAND.

     FINN MAGNUSEN, an Icelandic historian and antiquary. Born at
     Skalholt, 1781; died, 1847.

The English trade with Iceland certainly merits the consideration of
historians, if it furnished Columbus with the opportunity of visiting
that island, there to be informed of the historical evidence respecting
the existence of important lands and a large continent in the west. If
Columbus should have acquired a knowledge of the accounts transmitted to
us of the discoveries of the Northmen in conversations held in Latin
with the Bishop of Skalholt and the learned men of Iceland, we may the
more readily conceive his firm belief in the possibility of
rediscovering a western continent, and his unwearied zeal in putting his
plans in execution. The discovery of America, so momentous in its
results, may therefore be regarded as the mediate consequence of its
previous discovery by the Scandinavians, which may be thus placed among
the most important events of former ages.

[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS, BY SENOR G. SUÑOL, ON THE MONUMENT IN
THE PASEO DE RECOLETOS (DEVOTEES' PROMENADE), MADRID, SPAIN. Erected,
1885. (See page 208.)]


SYMPATHY FOR COLUMBUS.

     RICHARD HENRY MAJOR, F. S. A., late keeper of the printed books in
     the British Museum; a learned antiquary. Born in London, 1810; died
     June 25, 1891.

It is impossible to read without the deepest sympathy the occasional
murmurings and half-suppressed complaints which are uttered in the
course of his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella describing his fourth
voyage. These murmurings and complaints were rung from his manly spirit
by sickness and sorrow, and though reduced almost to the brink of
despair by the injustice of the King, yet do we find nothing harsh or
disrespectful in his language to the sovereign. A curious contrast is
presented to us. The gift of a world could not move the monarch to
gratitude; the infliction of chains, as a recompense for that gift,
could not provoke the subject to disloyalty. The same great heart which
through more than twenty wearisome years of disappointment and chagrin
gave him strength to beg and buffet his way to glory, still taught him
to bear with majestic meekness the conversion of that glory into
unmerited shame.

       *       *       *       *       *

We look back with astonishment and admiration at the stupendous
achievement effected a whole lifetime later by the immortal Columbus--an
achievement which formed the connecting link between the Old World and
the New; yet the explorations instituted by Prince Henry of Portugal
were in truth the anvil upon which that link was forged.

       *       *       *       *       *

He arrived in a vessel as shattered as his own broken and careworn
frame.


COLUMBUS HEARD OF NORSE DISCOVERIES.

     CONRAD MALTE-BRUN, a Danish author and geographer of great merit.
     Born at Thister in Jutland, 1775; died, December, 1826.

Columbus, when in Italy, had heard of the Norse discoveries beyond
Iceland, for Rome was then the world's center, and all information of
importance was sent there.


COLUMBUS AND COPERNICUS.

     HELEN P. MARGESSON, in an article entitled "Marco Polo's
     Explorations, and their Influence upon Columbus" (being the Old
     South First Prize Essay, 1891), published in the _New England
     Magazine_, August, 1892.

Columbus performed his vast undertaking in an age of great deeds and
great men, when Ficino taught the philosophy of Plato, when Florence was
thrilled by the luring words and martyrdom of Savonarola, when Michael
Angelo wrought his everlasting marvels of art. While Columbus, in his
frail craft, was making his way to "worlds unknown, and isles beyond the
deep," on the shores of the Baltic a young novitiate, amid the rigors of
a monastic life, was tracing the course of the planets, and solving the
problem in which Virgil delighted[47]--problems which had baffled
Chaldean and Persian, Egyptian and Saracen. Columbus explained the
earth, Copernicus explained the heavens. Neither of the great
discoverers lived to see the result of his labors, for the Prussian
astronomer died on the day that his work was published. But the
centuries that have come and gone have only increased the fame of
Columbus and Copernicus, and proven the greatness of their genius.


COLUMBUS AND THE FOURTH CENTENARY OF HIS DISCOVERY.

     Commander CLEMENTS ROBERT MARKHAM, R. N., C. B., F. R. S., a noted
     explorer and talented English author. Midshipman in H. M. S.
     Assistance in the Franklin Search Expedition, 1850-51. Born July
     20, 1830, at Stillingfleet, near York. From a paper read before the
     Royal Geographical Society of England, June 20, 1892.

In the present year the fourth centenary of the discovery of America by
Columbus will be celebrated with great enthusiasm in Spain, in Italy,
and in America. That discovery was, without any doubt, the most
momentous event since the fall of the Roman Empire in its effect on the
world's history. In its bearings on our science, the light thrown across
the sea of darkness by the great Genoese was nothing less than the
creation of modern geography. It seems fitting, therefore, that this
society should take some share in the commemoration, and that we should
devote one evening in this session to a consideration of some leading
points in the life of the foremost of all geographers. * * *

Much new light has been thrown upon the birth and early life of
Columbus, of late years, by the careful examination of monastic and
notarial records at Genoa and Savona. At Genoa the original documents
are still preserved. At Savona they no longer exist, and we are
dependent on copies made two centuries ago by Salinerius. But both the
Genoa and Savona records may be safely accepted, and we are thus
furnished with a new and more interesting view of the early life of
Columbus. Our thanks for this new light are mainly due to the laborious
and scholarly researches of the Marchese Marcello Staglieno of Genoa,
and to the work of Mr. Harrisse. We may take it as fully established
that the original home of Giovanni Colombo, the grandfather of the great
discoverer, was at Terrarossa, a small stone house, the massive walls
of which are still standing on a hillside forming the northern slope of
the beautiful valley of Fontanabuona. Here, no doubt, the father of
Columbus was born; but the family moved to Quinto-al-Mare, then a
fishing village about five miles east of Genoa. Next we find the father,
Domenico Colombo, owning a house at Quinto, but established at Genoa as
a wool weaver, with an apprentice. This was in 1439. A few years
afterward Domenico found a wife in the family of a silk weaver who lived
up a tributary valley of the Bisagno, within an easy walk of Genoa.
Quezzi is a little village high up on the west side of a ravine, with
slopes clothed to their summits in olive and chestnut foliage, whence
there is a glorious view of the east end of Genoa, including the church
of Carignano and the Mediterranean. On the opposite slope are the
scattered houses of the hamlet of Ginestrato. From this village of
Quezzi Domenico brought his wife, Susanna Fontanarossa, to Genoa, her
dowry consisting of a small property, a house or a field, at Ginestrato.

About the home of Domenico and his wife at Genoa during at least twenty
years there is absolute certainty. The old gate of San Andrea is still
standing, with its lofty arch across the street, and its high flanking
towers. A street with a rapid downward slope, called the Vico Dritto di
Ponticelli, leads from the gate of San Andrea to the Church of S.
Stefano; and the house of Domenico Colombo was in this street, a few
doors from the gate. It was the weavers' quarter, and S. Stefano was
their parish church, where they had a special altar. Domenico's house
had two stories besides the ground floor; and there was a back garden,
with a well between it and the city wall. It was battered down during
the bombardment of Genoa in the time of Louis XIV., was rebuilt with two
additional stories, and is now the property of the city of Genoa.

This was the house of the parents of Columbus, and at a solemn moment,
shortly before his death, Columbus stated that he was born in the city
of Genoa. No. 39 Vico Dritto di Ponticelli was therefore, in all
probability, the house where the great discoverer was born, and the old
Church of San Stefano, with its façade of alternate black and white
courses of marble, and its quaint old campanile, was the place of his
baptism. The date of his birth is fixed by three statements of his own,
and by a justifiable inference from the notarial records. He said that
he went to sea at the age of fourteen, and that when he came to Spain in
1485 he had led a sailor's life for twenty-three years. He was,
therefore, born in 1447. In 1501 he again said that it was forty years
since he first went to sea when he was fourteen; the same result--1447.
In 1503 he wrote that he first came to serve for the discovery of the
Indies--that is, that he left his home at the age of twenty-eight. This
was in 1474, and the result is again 1447. The supporting notarial
evidence is contained in two documents, in which the mother of Columbus
consented to the sale of property by her husband. For the first deed, in
May, 1471, the notary summoned her brothers to consent to the execution
of the deed, as the nearest relations of full age. The second deed is
witnessed by her son Cristoforo in August, 1473. He must have attained
the legal age of twenty-five in the interval. This again makes 1447 the
year of his birth.

The authorities who assign 1436 as the year of his birth rely
exclusively on the guess of a Spanish priest, Dr. Bernaldez, Cura of
Palacios, who made the great discoverer's acquaintance toward the end of
his career. Bernaldez, judging from his aged appearance, thought that he
might be seventy years of age, more or less, when he died. The use of
the phrase "more or less" proves that Bernaldez had no information from
Columbus himself, and that he merely guessed the years of the
prematurely aged hero. This is not evidence. The three different
statements of Columbus, supported by the corroborative testimony of the
deeds of sale, form positive evidence, and fix the date of the birth at
1447.

We know the place and date of the great discoverer's birth, thanks to
the researches of the Marchese Staglieno. The notarial records, combined
with incidental statements of Columbus himself, also tell us that he was
brought up, with his brothers and sister, in the Vico Dritto at Genoa;
that he worked at his father's trade and became a "lanerio," or wool
weaver; that he moved with his father and mother to Savona in 1472; and
that the last document connecting Cristoforo Colombo with Italy is dated
on August 7, 1473. After that date--doubtless very soon after that date,
when he is described as a wool weaver of Genoa--Columbus went to
Portugal, at the age of twenty-eight. But we also know that, in spite of
his regular business as a weaver, he first went to sea in 1461, at the
age of fourteen, and that he continued to make frequent voyages in the
Mediterranean and the Archipelago--certainly as far as Chios--although
his regular trade was that of a weaver.

This is not a mere question of places and dates. These facts enable us
to form an idea of the circumstances surrounding the youth and early
manhood of the future discoverer, of his training, of the fuel which
lighted the fire of his genius, and of the difficulties which surrounded
him. Moreover, a knowledge of the real facts serves to clear away all
the misleading fables about student life at Pavia, about service with
imaginary uncles who were corsairs or admirals, and about galleys
commanded for King Réné. Some of these fables are due to the mistaken
piety of the great discoverer's son Hernando, and to others, who seem
to have thought that they were doing honor to the memory of the Admiral
by surrounding his youth with romantic stories. But the simple truth is
far more honorable, and, indeed, far more romantic. It shows us the
young weaver loving his home and serving his parents with filial
devotion, but at the same time preparing, with zeal and industry, to
become an expert in the profession for which he was best fitted, and
even in his earliest youth making ready to fulfill his high destiny.

I believe that Columbus had conceived the idea of sailing westward to
the Indies even before he left his home at Savona. My reason is, that
his correspondence with Toscanelli on the subject took place in the very
year of his arrival in Portugal. That fact alone involves the position
that the young weaver had not only become a practical seaman--well
versed in all the astronomical knowledge necessary for his profession--a
cosmographer, and a draughtsman, but also that he had carefully digested
what he had learned, and had formed original conceptions. It seems
wonderful that a humble weaver's apprentice could have done all this in
the intervals of his regular work. Assuredly it is most wonderful; but I
submit that his correspondence with Toscanelli in 1474 proves it to be a
fact. We know that there were the means of acquiring such knowledge at
Genoa in those days; that city was indeed the center of the nautical
science of the day. Benincasa, whose beautiful _Portolani_ may still be
seen at the British Museum, and in other collections, was in the height
of his fame as a draughtsman at Genoa during the youth of Columbus; so
was Pareto. In the workrooms of these famous cartographers the young
aspirant would see the most accurate charts that could then be produced,
very beautifully executed; and his imagination would be excited by the
appearance of all the fabulous islands on the verge of the unknown
ocean.

When the time arrived for Columbus to leave his home, he naturally chose
Lisbon as the point from whence he could best enlarge his experience and
mature his plans. Ever since he could remember he had seen the
inscriptions respecting members of the Pasagni family, as we may see
them now, carved on the white courses of the west front of San Stefano,
his parish church. These Genoese Pasagni had been hereditary Admirals of
Portugal; they had brought many Genoese seamen to Lisbon; the Cross of
St. George marked their exploits on the _Portolani_, and Portugal was
thus closely connected with the tradition of Genoese enterprise. So it
was to Lisbon that Columbus and his brother made their way, and it was
during the ten years of his connection with Portugal that his
cosmographical studies, and his ocean voyages from the equator to the
arctic circle, _combined with his genius to make Columbus the greatest
seaman of his age_.

Capt. Duro, of the Spanish navy, has investigated all questions relating
to the ships of the Columbian period and their equipment with great
care; and the learning he has brought to bear on the subject has
produced very interesting results. The two small caravels provided for
the voyage of Columbus by the town of Palos were only partially decked.
The Pinta was strongly built, and was originally lateen-rigged on all
three masts, and she was the fastest sailer in the expedition; but she
was only fifty tons burden, with a complement of eighteen men. The Niña,
so-called after the Niño family of Palos, who owned her, was still
smaller, being only forty tons. These two vessels were commanded by the
Pinzons, and entirely manned by natives of the province of Huelva. The
third vessel was much larger, and did not belong to Palos. She was
called a "nao," or ship, and was of about one hundred tons burden,
completely decked, with a high poop and forecastle. Her length has been
variously estimated. Two of her masts had square sails, the mizzen being
lateen-rigged. The foremast had a square foresail, the mainmast a
mainsail and maintopsail, and there was a spritsail on the bowsprit. The
courses were enlarged, in fair weather, by lacing strips of canvas to
their leeches, called _bonetas_. There appear to have been two boats,
one with a sail, and the ship was armed with lombards. The rigs of these
vessels were admirably adapted for their purpose. The large courses of
the caravels enabled their commanders to lay their courses nearer to the
wind than any clipper ship of modern times. The crew of the ship Santa
Maria numbered fifty-two men all told, including the Admiral. She was
owned by the renowned pilot Juan de la Cosa of Santoña, who sailed with
Columbus on both his first and second voyages, and was the best
draughtsman in Spain. Mr. Harrisse, and even earlier writers, such as
Vianello, call him a Basque pilot, apparently because he came from the
north of Spain; but Santoña, his birthplace, although on the coast of
the Bay of Biscay, is not in the Basque provinces; and if Juan de la
Cosa was a native of Santoña he was not a Basque. While the crews of the
two caravels all came from Palos or its neighborhood, the men of the
Santa Maria were recruited from all parts of Spain, two from Santoña
besides Juan de la Cosa, which was natural enough, and several others
from northern ports, likewise attracted, in all probability, by the fame
of the Santoña pilot. Among these it is very interesting to find an
Englishman, who came from the little town of Lajes, near Coruña.

Our countryman is called in the list, "Tallarte de Lajes" (Inglés). It
is not unlikely that an English sailor, making voyages from Bristol or
from one of the Cinque Ports to Coruña, may have married and settled at
Lajes. But what can we make of "Tallarte"? Spaniards would be likely
enough to prefix a "T" to any English name beginning with a vowel, and
they would be pretty sure to give the word a vowel termination. So,
getting rid of these initial and terminal superfluities, there remains
Allart, or Alard. This was a famous name among the sailors of the Cinque
Ports. Gervaise Alard of Winchelsea in 1306 was the first English
admiral; and there were Alards of Winchelsea for several generations,
who were renowned as expert and daring sailors. One of them, I believe,
sailed with Columbus on his first voyage, and perished at Navidad.

Columbus took with him the map furnished by Toscanelli. It is
unfortunately lost. But the globe of Martin Behaim, drawn in 1492--the
very year of the sailing of Columbus--shows the state of knowledge on
the eve of the discovery of America. The lost map of Toscanelli must
have been very like it, with its islands in mid-Atlantic, and its
archipelago grouped round Cipango, near the coast of Cathay. This globe
deserves close attention, for its details must be impressed on the minds
of all who would understand what were the ideas and hopes of Columbus
when he sailed from Palos.

Friday, August 3, 1492, when the three little vessels sailed over the
bar of Saltes, was a memorable day in the world's history. It had been
prepared for by many years of study and labor, by long years of
disappointment and anxiety, rewarded at length by success. The proof was
to be made at last. To the incidents of that famous voyage nothing can
be added. But we may, at least, settle the long-disputed question of the
landfall of Columbus. It is certainly an important question. There are
the materials for a final decision, and we ought to know for certain on
what spot of land it was that the Admiral knelt when he sprang from the
boat on that famous 12th of October, 1492.

The learned have disputed over the matter for a century, and no less
than five islands of the Bahama group have had their advocates. This is
not the fault of Columbus, albeit we only have an abstract of his
journal. The island is there fully and clearly described, and courses
and distances are given thence to Cuba, which furnish data for fixing
the landfall with precision. Here it is not a case for the learning and
erudition of Navarretes, Humboldts, and Varnhagens. It is a sailor's
question. If the materials from the journal were placed in the hands of
any midshipman in her Majesty's navy, he would put his finger on the
true landfall within half an hour. When sailors took the matter in hand,
such as Admiral Becher, of the Hydrographic Office, and Lieut. Murdoch,
of the United States navy, they did so.

Our lamented associate, Mr. R. H. Major, read a paper on this
interesting subject on May 8, 1871, in which he proved that Watling's
Island was the Guanahani, or San Salvador, of Columbus. He did so by two
lines of argument--the first being the exact agreement between the
description of Guanahani, in the journal of Columbus, and Watling's
Island, a description which can not be referred to any other island in
the Bahama group; and the second being a comparison of the maps of Juan
de la Cosa and of Herrera with modern charts. He showed that out of
twenty-four islands on the Herrera map of 1600, ten retain the same
names as they then had, thus affording stations for comparison; and the
relative bearings of these ten islands lead us to the accurate
identification of the rest. The shapes are not correct, but the relative
bearings are, and the Guanahani of the Herrera map is thus identified
with the present Watling's Island. Mr. Major, by careful and minute
attention to the words of the journal of Columbus, also established the
exact position of the first anchorage as having been a little to the
west of the southeast point of Watling's Island.

I can not leave the subject of Mr. Major's admirable paper without
expressing my sense of the loss sustained by comparative geography when
his well-known face, so genial and sympathetic, disappeared from among
us. The biographer of Prince Henry the Navigator, Major did more than
any other Englishman of this century to bring the authentic history of
Columbus within the reach of his countrymen. His translations of the
letters of the illustrious Genoese, and the excellent critical essay
which preceded them, are indispensable to every English student of the
history of geographical discovery who is not familiar with the Spanish
language, and most useful even to Spanish scholars. His knowledge of the
history of cartography, his extensive and accurate scholarship, and his
readiness to impart his knowledge to others, made him a most valuable
member of the council of this society, and one whose place is not easy
to fill; while there are not a few among the Fellows who, like myself,
sincerely mourn the loss of a true and warmhearted friend.

When we warmly applauded the close reasoning and the unassailable
conclusions of Major's paper, we supposed that the question was at
length settled; but as time went on, arguments in favor of other islands
continued to appear, and an American in a high official position even
started a new island, contending that Samana was the landfall. But Fox's
Samana and Varnhagen's Mayaguana must be ruled out of court without
further discussion, for they both occur on the maps of Juan de la Cosa
and Herrera, on which Guanahani also appears. It is obvious that they
can not be Guanahani and themselves at the same time; and it is perhaps
needless to add that they do not answer to the description of Guanahani
by Columbus, and meet none of the other requirements.

On this occasion it may be well to identify the landfall by another
method, and thus furnish some further strength to the arguments which
ought to put an end to the controversy. Major established the landfall
by showing the identity between the Guanahani of Columbus and Watling's
Island, and by the evidence of early maps. There is still another
method, which was adopted by Lieut. Murdoch, of the United States navy,
in his very able paper. Columbus left Guanahani and sailed to his second
island, which he called Santa Maria de la Concepcion; and he gives the
bearing and distance. He gives the bearing and distance from this second
island to the north end of a third, which he called Fernandina. He gives
the length of Fernandina. He gives the bearing and distance from the
south end of Fernandina to a fourth island named Isabella, from Isabella
to some rocks called Islas de Arena, and from Islas de Arena to Cuba.

It is obvious that if we trace these bearings and distances backward
from Cuba, they will bring us to an island which must necessarily be the
Guanahani, or San Salvador, of Columbus. This is the sailor's method: On
October 27th, when Columbus sighted Cuba at a distance of 20 miles, the
bearing of his anchorage at sunrise of the same day, off the Islas de
Arena, was N. E. 58 miles, and from the point reached in Cuba it was N.
E. 75 miles. The Ragged Islands are 75 miles from Cuba, therefore the
Islas de Arena of Columbus are identified with the Ragged Islands of
modern charts. The Islas de Arena were sighted when Columbus was 56
miles from the south end of Fernandina, and E.N.E. from Isabella. These
bearings show that Fernandina was Long Island, and that Isabella was
Crooked Island, of modern charts. Fernandina was 20 leagues long N. N.
W. and S. S. E.; Long Island is 20 leagues long N. N. W. and S. S. E.
Santa Maria de la Concepcion was several miles east of the north end of
Fernandina, but in sight. Rum Cay is several miles east of the north
end of Long Island, but in sight. Rum Cay is, therefore, the Santa Maria
of Columbus. San Salvador, or Guanahani, was 21 miles N. W. from Santa
Maria de la Concepcion. Watling's Island is 21 miles N. W. from Rum Cay;
Watling's Island is, therefore, proved to be the San Salvador, or
Guanahani, of Columbus.

The spot where Columbus first landed in the New World is the eastern end
of the south side of Watling's Island. This has been established by the
arguments of Major, and by the calculations of Murdoch, beyond all
controversy. The evidence is overwhelming. Watling's Island answers to
every requirement and every test, whether based on the Admiral's
description of the island itself, on the courses and distances thence to
Cuba, or on the evidence of early maps. We have thus reached a final and
satisfactory conclusion, and we can look back on that momentous event in
the world's history with the certainty that we know the exact spot on
which it occurred--on which Columbus touched the land when he sprang
from his boat with the standard waving over his head.[48]

The discoveries of Columbus during his first voyage, as recorded in his
journal, included part of the north coast of Cuba, and the whole of the
north coast of Española. The journal shows the care with which the
navigation was conducted, how observations for latitude were taken, how
the coasts were laid down--every promontory and bay receiving a
name--and with what diligence each new feature of the land and its
inhabitants was examined and recorded. The genius of Columbus would not
have been of the same service to mankind if it had not been combined
with great capacity for taking trouble, and with habits of order and
accuracy. In considering the qualities of the great Genoese as a seaman
and an explorer, we can not fail to be impressed with this accuracy, the
result of incessant watchfulness and of orderly habits. Yet it is his
accuracy which has been called in question by some modern writers, on
the ground of passages in his letters which they have misinterpreted, or
failed to understand. In every instance the blunder has not been
committed by Columbus, but by his critics.

The Admiral's letters do not show him to be either careless or
inaccurate. On the contrary, they bear witness to his watchfulness, to
his methodical habits, and to his attention to details; although at the
same time they are full of speculations, and of the thoughts which
followed each other so rapidly in his imaginative brain. It was, indeed,
the combination of these two qualities, of practical and methodical
habits of thought with a vivid imagination, which constituted his
genius--a combination as rare as it is valuable. It created the thoughts
which conceived the great discovery, as well as the skill and ability
which achieved it.

Unfortunately, the journals and charts of Columbus are lost. But we have
the full abstract of the journal of his first voyage, made by Las Casas,
we have his letters and dispatches, and we have the map of his
discoveries, except those made during his last voyage, drawn by his own
pilot and draughtsman, Juan de la Cosa. We are thus able to obtain a
sufficient insight into the system on which his exploring voyages were
conducted, and into the sequence in which his discoveries followed each
other. This is the point of view from which the labors of the Admiral
are most interesting to geographers. The deficient means at the disposal
of a navigator in the end of the fifteenth century increase the
necessity for a long apprenticeship. It is much easier to become a
navigator with the aid of modern instruments constructed with extreme
accuracy, and with tables of logarithms, nautical almanacs, and
admiralty charts. With ruder appliances Columbus and his contemporaries
had to trust far more to their own personal skill and watchfulness, and
to ways of handling and using such instruments as they possessed, which
could only be acquired by constant practice and the experience of a
lifetime. _Even then, an insight and ability which few men possess were
required to make such a navigator as Columbus._

[Illustration: MAP OF ANTONIO DE HERRERA, THE HISTORIAN OF COLUMBUS.
(See page 220.)]

The first necessity for a pilot who conducts a ship across the ocean,
when he is for many days out of sight of land, is the means of checking
his dead reckoning by observations of the heavenly bodies. But in the
days of Columbus such appliances were very defective, and, at times,
altogether useless. There was an astrolabe adapted for use at sea by
Martin Behaim, but it was very difficult to get a decent sight with it,
and Vasco da Gama actually went on shore and rigged a triangle when he
wanted to observe for latitude. If this was necessary, the instrument
was useless as a guide across the pathless ocean. Columbus, of
course, used it, but he seems to have relied more upon the old
quadrant which he had used for long years before Behaim invented his
adaption of the astrolabe. It was this instrument, the value of which
received such warm testimony from Diogo Gomez, one of Prince Henry's
navigators; and it was larger and easier to handle than the astrolabe.
But the difficulty, as regards both these instruments,[49] was the
necessity for keeping them perpendicular to the horizon when the
observation is taken, in one case by means of a ring working freely, and
in the other by a plummet line. The instruction of old Martin Cortes was
to sit down with your back against the mainmast; but in reality the only
man who obtained results of any use from such instruments was he who had
been constantly working with them from early boyhood. In those days, far
more than now, a good pilot had to be brought up at sea from his youth.
Long habit could alone make up, to a partial extent, for defective
means.

Columbus regularly observed for latitude when the weather rendered it
possible, and he occasionally attempted to find the longitude by
observing eclipses of the moon with the aid of tables calculated by old
Regiomontanus, whose declination tables also enabled the Admiral to work
out his meridian altitudes. But the explorer's main reliance was on the
skill and care with which he calculated his dead reckoning, watching
every sign offered by sea and sky by day and night, allowing for
currents, for leeway, for every cause that could affect the movement of
his ship, noting with infinite pains the bearings and the variation of
his compass, and constantly recording all phenomena on his card and in
his journal. _Columbus was the true father of what we call proper
pilotage._

It is most interesting to watch the consequences of this seaman-like and
most conscientious care in the results of his voyages of discovery. We
have seen with what accuracy he made his landfall at the Azores, on his
return from his first and most memorable voyage. The incidents of his
second voyage are equally instructive. He had heard from the natives of
the eastern end of Española that there were numerous islands to the
southeast inhabited by savage tribes of Caribs, and when he sailed from
Spain on his second voyage he resolved to ascertain the truth of the
report before proceeding to his settlement at Navidad. He shaped such a
course as to hit upon Dominica, and within a few weeks he discovered the
whole of the Windward Islands, thence to Puerto Rico. On his return his
spirit of investigation led him to try the possibility of making a
passage in the teeth of the trade-wind. It was a long voyage, and his
people were reduced to the last extremity, even threatening to eat the
Indians who were on board. One night, to the surprise of all the
company, the Admiral gave the order to shorten sail. Next morning, at
dawn, Cape St. Vincent was in sight. This is a remarkable proof of the
care with which his reckoning must have been kept, and of his consummate
skill as a navigator. On his third voyage he decided, for various
reasons, to make further discoveries nearer to the equator, the result
of his decision being the exploration of the Gulf of Paria, including
the coast of Trinidad and of the continent. His speculations, although
sometimes fantastic, and originating in a too vivid imagination, were
usually shrewd and carefully thought out. Thus they led from one
discovery to another; and even when, through want of complete knowledge,
there was a flaw in the chain of his reasoning, the results were equally
valuable.

A memorable example of an able and acute train of thought, based on
observations at sea, was that which led to his last voyage in search of
a strait. He had watched the gulf stream constantly flowing in a
westerly direction, and he thought that he had ascertained, as the
result of careful observation, that the islands in the course of the
current had their lengths east and west, owing to erosion on their north
and south sides. From this fact he deduced the constancy of the current.
His own pilot, Juan de la Cosa, serving under Ojeda and Bastidas, had
established the continuity of land from the Gulf of Paria to Darien. The
Admiral himself had explored the coast of Cuba, both on the north and
south sides, for so great a distance that he concluded it must surely be
a promontory connected with the continent. The conclusion was that, as
it could not turn to north or south, this current, ever flowing in one
direction, must pass through a strait. The argument was perfectly sound
except in one point--the continental character of Cuba was an
hypothesis, not an ascertained fact.

Still, it was a brilliant chain of reasoning, and it led to a great
result, though not to the expected result. Just as the search for the
philosopher's stone led to valuable discoveries in chemistry, and as the
search for El Dorado revealed the courses of the two largest rivers in
South America, so the Admiral's heroic effort to discover a strait in
the face of appalling difficulties, in advancing years and failing
health, made known the coast of the continent from Honduras to Darien.

All the discoveries made by others, in the lifetime of Columbus, on the
coasts of the western continent (except that of Cabral) were directly
due to the first voyage of the Admiral, to his marvelous prevision in
boldly sailing westward across the sea of darkness, and are to be
classed as Columbian discoveries. This was clearly laid down by Las
Casas, in a noble passage. "The Admiral was the first to open the gates
of that ocean which had been closed for so many thousands of years
before," exclaimed the good bishop. "He it was who gave the light by
which all others might see how to discover. It can not be denied to the
Admiral, except with great injustice, that _as_ he was the first
discoverer of those Indies, _so_ he was really of all the mainland; and
to him the credit is due. For it was he that put the thread into the
hands of the rest by which they found the clew to more distant parts. It
was not necessary for this that he should personally visit every part,
any more than it is necessary to do so in taking possession of an
estate; as the jurists hold." This generous protest by Las Casas should
receive the assent of all geographers. The pupils and followers of
Columbus, such as Pinzon, Ojeda, Niño, and La Cosa, discovered all the
continent from 8 deg. S. of the equator to Darien, thus supplementing
their great master's work; while he himself led the way, and showed the
light both to the islands and to the continent.

Although none of the charts of Columbus have come down to us, there
still exists a map of all discoveries up to the year 1500, drawn by the
pilot Juan de la Cosa, who accompanied him in his first and second
voyages, and sailed with Ojeda on a separate expedition in 1499, when
the coast of the continent was explored from the Gulf of Paria to Cabo
de la Vela. Juan de la Cosa drew this famous map of the world (which is
preserved at Madrid) at Santa Maria, in the Bay of Cadiz, when he
returned from his expedition with Ojeda in 1500. It is drawn in color,
on oxhide, and measures 5 feet 9 inches by 3 feet 2 inches. La Cosa
shows the islands discovered by Columbus, but it is difficult to
understand what he could have been thinking about in placing them north
of the tropic of cancer. The continent is delineated from 8 deg. S. of
the equator to Cabo de la Vela, which was the extreme point to which
discovery had reached in 1500; and over the undiscovered part to the
west, which the Admiral himself was destined to bring to the knowledge
of the world a few years afterward, Juan de la Cosa painted a vignette
of St. Christopher bearing the infant Christ across the ocean. But the
most important part of the map is that on which the discoveries of John
Cabot are shown, for this is the only map which shows them. It is true
that a map, or a copy of a map, of 1542, by Sebastian Cabot, was
discovered of late years, and is now at Paris, and that it indicates the
"Prima Vista," the first land seen by Cabot on his voyage of 1497; but
it shows the later work of Jacques Cartier and other explorers, and does
not show what part was due to Cabot. Juan de la Cosa, however, must have
received, through the Spanish ambassador in London, the original chart
of Cabot, showing his discoveries during his second voyage in 1498, and
was enabled thus to include the new coast-line on his great map.

The gigantic labor wore out his body. But his mind was as active as
ever. He had planned an attempt to recover the Holy Sepulcher. He had
thought out a scheme for an Arctic expedition, including a plan for
reaching the north pole, which he deposited in the monastery of
Mejorada. It was not to be. When he returned from his last voyage, he
came home to die. We gather some idea of the Admiral's personal
appearance from the descriptions of Las Casas and Oviedo. He was a man
of middle height, with courteous manners and noble bearing. His face was
oval, with a pleasing expression; the nose aquiline, the eyes blue, and
the complexion fair and inclined to ruddiness. The hair was red, though
it became gray soon after he was thirty. Only one authentic portrait of
Columbus is known to have been painted. The Italian historian, Paulus
Jovius, who was his contemporary, collected a gallery of portraits of
worthies of his time at his villa on the Lake of Como. Among them was a
portrait of the Admiral. There is an early engraving from it, and very
indifferent copies in the Uffizi at Florence, and at Madrid. But until
quite recently I do not think that the original was known to exist. It,
however, never left the family, and when the last Giovio died it was
inherited by her grandson, the Nobile de Orché, who is the present
possessor. We have the head of a venerable man, with thin gray hair, the
forehead high, the eyes pensive and rather melancholy. It was thus that
he doubtless appeared during the period that he was in Spain, after his
return in chains, or during the last year of his life.

In his latter years we see Columbus, although as full as ever of his
great mission, thinking more and more of the transmission of his rights
and his property intact to his children. He had always loved his home,
and his amiable and affectionate disposition made many and lasting
friendships in all ranks of life, from Queen Isabella and Archbishop
Deza to the humblest _grumete_. We find his shipmates serving with him
over and over again. Terreros, the Admiral's steward, and Salcedo, his
servant, were with him in his first voyage and in his last. His faithful
captains, Mendez and Fieschi, risked life and limb for him, and attended
him on his deathbed. Columbus was also blessed with two loving and
devoted brothers. In one of his letters to his son Diego, he said,
"Never have I found better friends, on my right hand and on my left,
than my brothers." Bartholomew, especially, was his trusty and gallant
defender and counselor in his darkest hours of difficulty and distress,
his nurse in sickness, and his helpful companion in health. The enduring
affection of these two brothers, from the cradle to the grave, is most
touching. Columbus was happy too in his handsome, promising young sons,
who were ever dutiful, and whose welfare was his fondest care; they
fulfilled all his hopes. One recovered the Admiral's rights, while the
other studied his father's professional work, preserved his memorials,
and wrote his life. Columbus never forgot his old home at Genoa, and the
most precious treasures of the proud city are the documents which her
illustrious son confided to her charge, and the letters in which he
expressed his affection for his native town. Columbus was a man to
reverence, but he was still more a man to love.

The great discoverer's genius was a gift which is only produced once in
an age, and it is that which has given rise to the enthusiastic
celebration of the fourth centenary of his achievement. To geographers
and sailors the careful study of his life will always be useful and
instructive. They will be led to ponder over the deep sense of duty and
responsibility which produced his unceasing and untiring watchfulness
when at sea, over the long training which could alone produce so
consummate a navigator, and over that perseverance and capacity for
taking trouble which we should all not only admire but strive to
imitate. I can not better conclude this very inadequate attempt to do
justice to a great subject than by quoting the words of a geographer,
whose loss from among us we still continue to feel--the late Sir Henry
Yule. He said of Columbus: "His genius and lofty enthusiasm, his ardent
and justified previsions, mark the great Admiral as one of the lights of
the human race."


A DISCOVERY GREATER THAN THE LABORS OF HERCULES.

     PIETRO MARTIRE DE ANGHIERA (usually called Peter Martyr), an
     Italian scholar, statesman, and historian. Born at Arona, on Lake
     Maggiore, in 1455; died at Granada, Spain, 1526.

To declare my opinion herein, whatsoever hath heretofore been discovered
by the famous travayles of Saturnus and Hercules, with such other whom
the antiquitie for their heroical acts honoured as Gods, seemeth but
little and obscure if it be compared to the victorious labours of the
Spanyards.

  --Decad. ii, cap. 4, Lok's Translation.


GENIUS TRAVELED WESTWARD.

     WILLIAM MASON, an English poet. Born at Hull, 1725; died in 1797.

  Old England's genius turns with scorn away,
  Ascends his sacred bark, the sails unfurled,
  And steers his state to the wide Western World.


MISSION AND REWARD.

     J. N. MATTHEWS, in Chicago _Tribune_, 1892.

  Sailing before the silver shafts of morn,
    He bore the White Christ over alien seas--
  The swart Columbus--into "lands forlorn,"
    That lay beyond the dim Hesperides.
  Humbly he gathered up the broken chain
    Of human knowledge, and, with sails unfurled,
  He drew it westward from the coast of Spain,
    And linked it firmly to another world.

  Tho' blinding tempests drove his ships astray,
    And on the decks conspiring Spaniards grew
  More mutinous and dangerous, day by day,
    Than did the deadly winds that round him blew,
  Yet the bluff captain, with his bearded lip,
    His lordly purpose, and his high disdain,
  Stood like a master with uplifted whip,
    And urged his mad sea-horses o'er the main.

  Onward and onward thro' the blue profound,
    Into the west a thousand leagues or more,
  His caravels cut the billows till they ground
    Upon the shallows of San Salvador.
  Then, robed in scarlet like a rising morn,
    He climbed ashore and on the shining sod
  He gave to man a continent new-born;
    Then, kneeling, gave his gratitude to God.

  And his reward? In all the books of fate
    There is no page so pitiful as this--
  A cruel dungeon, and a monarch's hate,
    And penury and calumny were his;
  Robbed of his honors in his feeble age,
    Despoiled of glory, the old Genoese
  Withdrew at length from life's ungrateful stage,
    To try the waves of other unknown seas.


EAGER TO SHARE THE REWARD.

     Letter written by the Duke of MEDINA CELI to the Grand Cardinal of
     Spain, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, dated March 19, 1493.

MOST REVEREND SIR: I am not aware whether your Lordship knows that I had
Cristoforo Colon under my roof for a long time when he came from
Portugal, and wished to go to the King of France, in order that he might
go in search of the Indies with his Majesty's aid and countenance. I
myself wished to make the venture, and to dispatch him from my port
[Santa Maria], where I had a good equipment of three or four caravels,
_since he asked no more from me_; but as I recognized that this was an
undertaking for the Queen, our sovereign, I wrote about the matter to
her Highness from Rota, and she replied that I should send him to her.
Therefore I sent him, and asked her Highness that, since I did not
desire to pursue the enterprise but had arranged it for her service, she
should direct that compensation be made to me, and that I might have a
share in it by having the loading and unloading of the commerce done in
the port.

Her Highness received him [Colon], and referred him to Alonso de
Quintanilla, who, in turn, _wrote me that he did not consider this
affair to be very certain_; but that if it should go through, her
Highness would give me a reward and part in it. After having well
studied it, she agreed to send him in search of the Indies. Some eight
months ago he set out, and now has arrived at Lisbon on his return
voyage, and has found all which he sought and very completely; which, as
soon as I knew, in order to advise her Highness of such good tidings, I
am writing by Inares and sending him to beg that she grant me the
privilege of sending out there each year some of my own caravels.

I entreat your Lordship that you may be pleased to assist me in this,
and also ask it in my behalf; since on my account, and through my
keeping him [Colon] _two years in my house_, and having placed him at
her Majesty's service, so great a thing as this has come to pass; and
because Inares will inform your Lordship more in detail, I beg you to
hearken to him.


COLUMBUS STATUE, CITY OF MEXICO.

The Columbus monument, in the Paseo de la Reforma, in the City of
Mexico, was erected at the charges of Don Antonio Escandon, to whose
public spirit and enterprise the building of the Vera Cruz & Mexico
Railway was due. The monument is the work of the French sculptor
Cordier. The base is a large platform of basalt, surrounded by a
balustrade of iron, above which are five lanterns. From this base rises
a square mass of red marble, ornamented with four _basso-relievos_; the
arms of Columbus, surrounded with garlands of laurels; the rebuilding of
the monastery of Santa Maria de la Rábida; the discovery of the Island
of San Salvador; a fragment of a letter from Columbus to Raphael
Sanchez, beneath which is the dedication of the monument by Señor
Escandon. Above the _basso-relievos_, surrounding the pedestals, are
four life-size figures in bronze; in front and to the right of the
statue of Columbus (that stands upon a still higher plane), Padre Juan
Perez de la Marchena, prior of the Monastery of Santa Maria de la
Rábida, at Huelva, Spain; in front and to the left, Padre Fray Diego de
Deza, friar of the Order of Saint Dominic, professor of theology at the
Convent of St. Stephen, and afterward archbishop of Seville. He was also
confessor of King Ferdinand, to the support of which two men Columbus
owed the royal favor; in the rear, to the right, Fray Pedro de Gante; in
the rear, to the left, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas--the two missionaries
who most earnestly gave their protection to the Indians, and the latter
the historian of Columbus. Crowning the whole, upon a pedestal of red
marble, is the figure of Columbus, in the act of drawing aside the veil
that hides the New World. In conception and in treatment this work is
admirable; charming in sentiment, and technically good. The monument
stands in a little garden inclosed by iron chains hung upon posts of
stone, around which extends a large _glorieta_.


THE TRIBUTE OF JOAQUIN MILLER.

     JOAQUIN (CINCINNATUS HEINE) MILLER, "the Poet of the Sierras." Born
     in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 10, 1842. From a poem in the New York
     _Independent_.

  Behind him lay the gray Azores,
    Behind the gates of Hercules;
  Before him not the ghost of shores,
    Before him only shoreless seas.
  The good mate said, "Now must we pray,
    For lo! the very stars are gone.
  Brave Adm'ral, speak; what shall I say?"
    "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

  "My men grow mutinous day by day;
    My men grow ghastly, wan and weak."
  The stout mate thought of home; a spray
    Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
  "What shall I say, brave Adm'ral, say,
    If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
  "Why, you shall say, at break of day,
    'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"

  They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
    Until at last the blanched mate said,
  "Why, now not even God would know
    Should I and all my men fall dead.
  These very winds forget their way,
    For God from these dread seas is gone.
  Now speak, brave Adm'ral, speak and say--"
    He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

  They sailed. They sailed. Then spoke the mate,
    "This mad sea shows its teeth to-night.
  He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
    With lifted teeth as if to bite.
  Brave Adm'ral, say but one good word;
    What shall we do when hope is gone?"
  The words leapt as a leaping sword,
    "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

  Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
    And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
  Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
    A light! A light! A light! A light!
  It grew, a starlit flag unfurled,
    It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
  He gained a world; he gave that world
    Its grandest lesson--"On! and on!"


ADMIRAL OF MOSQUITO LAND.

     D. H. MONTGOMERY, author of "The Leading Facts of American
     History."

Loud was the outcry against Columbus. The rabble nicknamed him the
"Admiral of Mosquito Land." They pointed at him as the man who had
promised everything, and ended by discovering nothing but "a wilderness
peopled with naked savages."


COLUMBUS AND THE INDIANS.

     Gen. THOMAS J. MORGAN, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In an
     article, "Columbus and the Indians," in the New York _Independent_,
     June 2, 1892.

Columbus, when he landed, was confronted with an Indian problem, which
he handed down to others, and they to us. Four hundred years have rolled
by, and it is still unsolved. Who were the strange people who met him at
the end of his long and perilous voyage? He guessed at it and missed it
by the diameter of the globe. He called them Indians--people of
India--and thus registered the fifteenth century attainments in
geography and anthropology. How many were there of them? Alas! there was
no census bureau here then, and no record has come down to us of any
count or enumeration. Would they have lived any longer if they had been
counted? Would a census have strengthened them to resist the threatened
tide of invaders that the coming of Columbus heralded? If instead of
corn they had presented census rolls to their strange visitors, and
exhibited maps to show that the continent was already occupied, would
that have changed the whole course of history and left us without any
Mayflower or Plymouth Rock, Bunker Hill or Appomattox?


INTENSE UNCERTAINTY.

     CHARLES MORRIS, an American writer of the present day. In "Half
     Hours with American History."

The land was clearly seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took
in sail and waited impatiently for the dawn. The thoughts and feelings
of Columbus in this little space of time must have been tumultuous and
intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had
accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed;
his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly
established; he secured to himself a glory durable as the world itself.

It is difficult to conceive the feelings of such a man at such a moment,
or the conjectures which must have thronged upon his mind as to the land
before him, covered with darkness. A thousand speculations must have
swarmed upon him, as with his anxious crews he waited for the night to
pass away, wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage
wilderness, or dawn upon spicy groves and glittering fanes and gilded
cities, and all the splendor of oriental civilization.


THE FIRST TO GREET COLUMBUS.

     EMMA HUNTINGTON NASON. A poem in _St. Nicholas_, July, 1892,
     founded upon the incident of Columbus' finding a red thorn bush
     floating in the water a few days before sighting Watling's Island.

  When the feast is spread in our country's name,
    When the nations are gathered from far and near,
  When East and West send up the same
    Glad shout, and call to the lands, "Good cheer!"
  When North and South shall give their bloom,
    The fairest and best of the century born.
  Oh, then for the king of the feast make room!
    Make room, we pray, for the scarlet thorn!

  Not the golden-rod from the hillsides blest,
    Not the pale arbutus from pastures rare,
  Nor the waving wheat from the mighty West,
    Nor the proud magnolia, tall and fair,
  Shall Columbia unto the banquet bring.
    They, willing of heart, shall stand and wait,
  For the thorn, with his scarlet crown, is king.
    Make room for him at the splendid fête!

  Do we not remember the olden tale?
    And that terrible day of dark despair,
  When Columbus, under the lowering sail,
    Sent out to the hidden lands his prayer?
  And was it not he of the scarlet bough
    Who first went forth from the shore to greet
  That lone grand soul at the vessel's prow,
    Defying fate with his tiny fleet?

  Grim treachery threatened, above, below,
    And death stood close at the captain's side,
  When he saw--Oh, joy!--in the sunset glow,
    The thorn-tree's branch o'er the waters glide.
  "Land! Land ahead!" was the joyful shout;
    The vesper hymn o'er the ocean swept;
  The mutinous sailors faced about;
    Together they fell on their knees and wept.

  At dawn they landed with pennons white;
    They kissed the sod of San Salvador;
  But dearer than gems on his doublet bright
    Were the scarlet berries their leader bore;
  Thorny and sharp, like his future crown,
    Blood-red, like the wounds in his great heart made,
  Yet an emblem true of his proud renown
    Whose glorious colors shall never fade.


COLUMBA CHRISTUM-FERENS--WHAT'S IN A NAME?

     New Orleans _Morning Star and Catholic Messenger_, August 13, 1892.

The poet says that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but
there is no doubt that certain names are invested with a peculiar
significance. It would appear also that this significance is not always
a mere chance coincidence, but is intended, sometimes, to carry the
evidence of an overruling prevision. Christopher Columbus was not so
named _after_ his achievements, like Scipio Africanus. The name was his
from infancy, though human ingenuity could not have conceived one more
wonderfully suggestive of his after career.

Columba means a dove. Was there anything dove-like about Columbus?
Perhaps not, originally, but his many years of disappointment and
humiliation, of poverty and contempt, of failure and hopelessness, were
the best school in which to learn patience and sweetness under the
guiding hand of such teachers as faith and piety. Was anything wanting
to perfect him in the unresisting gentleness of the dove? If so, his
guardian angel saw to it when he sent him back in chains from the scenes
of his triumph. He then and there, by his meekness, established his
indefeasible right to the name _Columbus_--the right of conquest.

[Illustration: THE WEST INDIES]

And Christopher--_Christum-ferens_--the Christ-bearer? A saint of old
was so called because one day he carried the child Christ on his
shoulders across a dangerous ford. People called him _Christo-pher_. But
what shall we say of the man who carried Christ across the stormy
terrors of the unknown sea? Wherever the modern Christopher landed,
there he planted the cross; his first act was always one of devout
worship. And now that cross and that worship are triumphant from end to
end, and from border to border, of that New World. The very fairest
flower of untrammeled freedom in the diadem of the Christian church is
to-day blooming within the mighty domain which this instrument of
Providence wrested from the malign sway of error. Shall not that New
World greet him as the Christ-bearer? Indeed, there must have been more
than an accidental coincidence when, half a century in advance of
events, the priest, in pouring the sacred waters of baptism, proclaimed
the presence of one who was to be truly a Christopher--one who should
carry Christ on the wings of a dove.


CIRCULAR LETTER OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF NEW ORLEANS ON THE CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS CELEBRATION.

     From the _Morning Star and Catholic Messenger_, New Orleans, August
     13, 1892.

REVEREND AND DEAR FATHER: The fourth centenary of the discovery of
America by Christopher Columbus is at hand. It is an event of the
greatest importance. It added a new continent to the world for
civilization and Christianity; it gave our citizens a home of liberty
and freedom, a country of plenty and prosperity, a fatherland which has
a right to our deepest and best feelings of attachment and affection.
Christopher Columbus was a sincere and devout Catholic; his remarkable
voyage was made possible by the intercession of a holy monk; and by the
patronage and liberality of the pious Queen Isabella, the cross of
Christ, the emblem of our holy religion, was planted on America's virgin
soil, and the _Te Deum_ and the holy mass were the first religious
services held on the same; it is therefore just and proper that this
great event and festival should be celebrated in a religious as well as
in a civil manner.

Our Holy Father the Pope has appointed the 12th of October, and His
Excellency the President of the United States has assigned the 21st of
October, as the day of commemoration. The discrepancy of dates is based
on the difference of the two calendars. When Columbus discovered this
country, the old Julian calendar was in vogue, and the date of discovery
was marked the 12th; but Pope Gregory XIII. introduced the Gregorian
calendar, according to which the 21st would now be the date. We will
avail ourselves of both dates--the first date to be of a religious, the
second of a civil, character. We therefore order that on the 12th of
October a solemn votive mass (_pro gratiarum actione dicendo Missam
votivam de S. S. Trinitate_), in honor of the Blessed Trinity, be sung
in all the churches of the diocese, at an hour convenient to the parish,
with an exhortation to the people, as thanksgiving to God for all his
favors and blessings, and as a supplication to Him for the continuance
of the same, and that all the citizens of this vast country may ever
dwell in peace and union.

Let the 21st be a public holiday. We desire that the children of our
schools assemble in their Sunday clothes at their school-rooms or halls,
and that after a few appropriate prayers some exercises be organized to
commemorate the great event, and at the same time to fire their young
hearts with love of country, and with love for the religion of the cross
of Christ, which Columbus planted on the American shore. We further
desire that the different Catholic organizations and societies arrange
some programme by which the day may be spent in an agreeable and
instructive manner.

For our archiepiscopal city we make these special arrangements: On the
12th, at half-past 7 o'clock P. M., the cathedral will be open to the
public; the clergy of the city is invited to assemble at 7 o'clock, at
the archbishopric, to march in procession to the cathedral, where short
sermons of ten minutes each will be preached in five different
languages--Spanish, French, English, German, and Italian. The ceremony
will close with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the solemn
singing of the _Te Deum_. In order to celebrate the civil solemnity of
the 21st, we desire that a preliminary meeting be held at St. Alphonsus'
Hall, on Monday evening, the 22d of August, at 8 o'clock. The meeting
will be composed of the pastors of the city, of two members of each
congregation--to be appointed by them--and of the presidents of the
various Catholic societies. This body shall arrange the plan how to
celebrate the 21st of October.

May God, who has been kind and merciful to our people in the past,
continue his favors in the future and lead us unto life everlasting.

The pastors will read this letter to their congregations.

Given from our archiepiscopal residence, Feast of St. Dominic, August
the 4th, 1892.

   FRANCIS JANSSENS,
  _Archbishop of New Orleans_.

  By order of His Grace:
  J. BOGAERTS, _Vicar-general_.


THE COLUMBUS STATUE IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Stands at the Eighth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street entrance to Central
Park, and was erected October 12, 1892, by subscription among the
Italian citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central
America. From a base forty-six feet square springs a beautiful shaft of
great height, the severity of outline being broken by alternating lines
of figures, in relief, of the prows, or rostra, of the three ships of
Columbus, and medallions composed of an anchor and a coil of rope. In
July, 1889, Chevalier Charles Barsotti, proprietor of the _Progresso
Italo-Americano_, published in New York City, started a subscription to
defray the cost, which was liberally added to by the Italian government.
On December 10, 1890, a number of models were placed on exhibition at
the rooms of the Palace of the Exposition of Arts in Rome, and the
commission finally chose that of Prof. Gaetano Russo.

The monument is seventy-five feet high, including the three great
blocks, or steps, which form the foundation; and, aside from the
historical interest it may have, as a work of art alone its possession
might well be envied by any city or nation. The base, of Baveno granite,
has two beautiful bas-relief pictures in bronze, representing on one
side the moment when Columbus first saw land, and on the other the
actual landing of the party on the soil. Two inscriptions, higher up on
the monument, one in English and one in Italian, contain the dedication.
The column is also of Baveno granite, while the figure of the Genius of
Geography and the statue proper of Columbus are of white Carrara marble,
the former being ten feet high and the latter fourteen. There is also a
bronze eagle, six feet high, on the side opposite the figure of Genius
of Geography, holding in its claws the shields of the United States and
of Genoa. The rostra and the inscription on the column are in bronze.

This great work was designed by Prof. Gaetano Russo, who was born in
Messina, Sicily, fifty-seven years ago. Craving opportunities for study
and improvement, he made his way to Rome when a mere lad but ten years
old. In this great art center his genius developed early, and his later
years have been filled with success. Senator Monteverde of Italy, one of
the best sculptors of modern times, says that this is one of the finest
monuments made during the last twenty-five years. On accepting the
finished monument from the artist, the commission tendered him the
following: "The monument of Columbus made by you will keep great in
America the name of Italian art. It is very pleasant to convey to the
United States--a strong, free, and independent people--the venerated
resemblance of the man who made the civilization of America possible."

On the sides of the base, between the massive posts which form the
corners, are found the inscriptions in Italian and English, composed by
Prof. Ugo Fleres of Rome, and being as follows:

  TO
  CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS,
  THE ITALIANS RESIDENT IN AMERICA.

  SCOFFED AT BEFORE;
  DURING THE VOYAGE, MENACED;
  AFTER IT, CHAINED;
  AS GENEROUS AS OPPRESSED,
  TO THE WORLD HE GAVE A WORLD.

  JOY AND GLORY
  NEVER UTTERED A MORE THRILLING CALL
  THAN THAT WHICH RESOUNDED
  FROM THE CONQUERED OCEAN
  IN SIGHT OF THE FIRST AMERICAN ISLAND,
  LAND! LAND!

  ON THE XII. OF OCTOBER, MDCCCXCII
  THE FOURTH CENTENARY
  OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA,
  IN IMPERISHABLE REMEMBRANCE.

Near the base of the monument, on the front of the pedestal, is a
representation of the Genius of Geography in white Carrara marble. It is
a little over eleven feet high, and is represented as a winged angel
bending over the globe, which it is intently studying while held beneath
the open hand.

On the front and back of the base the corresponding spaces are filled
with two magnificent allegorical pictures in bas-relief representing the
departure from Spain and the landing in America of Columbus. The latter
one is particularly impressive, and the story is most graphically told
by the strongly drawn group, of which he is the principal figure,
standing in at attitude of prayer upon the soil of the New World he has
just discovered. To the left are his sailors drawing the keel of a boat
upon the sand, and on the right the Indians peep cautiously out from a
thicket of maize at the strange creatures whom they mistake for the
messengers of the Great Spirit. Towering over all, at the apex of the
column, stands the figure of the First Admiral himself, nobly portrayed
in snowiest marble. The figure is fourteen feet in height and represents
the bold navigator wearing the dress of the period, the richly
embroidered doublet, or waistcoat, thrown back, revealing a kilt that
falls in easy folds from a bodice drawn tightly over the broad chest
beneath. Not only the attitude of the figure but the expression of the
face is commanding, and as you look upon the clearly cut features you
seem to feel instinctively the presence of the man of genius and power,
which the artist has forcibly chiseled.

The Italian government decided to send the monument here in the royal
transport Garigliano. Also, as a token of their good-will to the United
States, they ordered their first-class cruiser, Giovanni Bausan, to be
in New York in time to take part in the ceremonies attending the
unveiling and also the ceremonies by the city and State of New York.

All the work on the foundation was directed gratuitously by the
architect V. Del Genoese and Italian laborers. The materials were
furnished free by Messrs. Crimmins, Navarro, Smith & Sons, and others.

The executive committee in New York was composed of Chevalier C.
Barsotti, president; C. A. Barattoni and E. Spinetti, vice-presidents;
G. Starace, treasurer; E. Tealdi and G. N. Malferrari, secretaries; of
the presidents of the Italian societies of New York, Brooklyn, Jersey
City, and Hoboken; and of sixty-five members chosen from the subscribers
as trustees.


THE COLUMBUS MEMORIAL ARCH IN NEW YORK.

Richard M. Hunt, John Lafarge, Augustus St. Gaudens, L. P. di Cesnola,
and Robert J. Hoguet of the Sub-Committee on Art of the New York
Columbian Celebration, awarded on September 1, 1892, the prizes offered
for designs for an arch to be erected at the entrance to Central Park at
Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.

The committee chose, from the numerous designs submitted, four which
were of special excellence. That which was unanimously acknowledged to
be the best was submitted with the identification mark, "Columbia," and
proved to be the work of Henry B. Hertz of 22 West Forty-third Street.
Mr. Hertz will receive a gold medal, and the arch which he has designed
will be erected in temporary form for the Columbian celebration in
October, 1892, and will be constructed as a permanent monument of marble
and bronze to the Genius of Discovery if $350,000 can be secured to
build it. The temporary structure is estimated to cost $7,500.

The design which the committee decided should receive the second prize
was offered by Franklin Crosby Butler and Paul Emil Dubois of 80
Washington Square, East, and was entitled, "The Santa Maria." A silver
medal will be given to the architects. The designs selected for
honorable mention were one of Moorish character, submitted by Albert
Wahle of 320 East Nineteenth Street, and one entitled "Liberty," by J.
C. Beeckman of 160 Fifth Avenue.

Mr. Hertz' design was selected by the committee not alone for its
artistic beauty, but because of its peculiar fitness. The main body of
the arch is to be built of white marble, and with its fountains, its
polished monolithic columns of pigeon-blood marble, its mosaic and gold
inlaying, and the bas-relief work and surmounting group of bronze, the
committee say it will be a monument to American architecture of which
the city will be proud.

From the ground to the top of the bronze caravel in the center of the
allegorical group with which the arch will be surmounted the distance
will be 160 feet, and the entire width of the arch will be 120 feet. The
opening from the ground to the keystone will be eighty feet high and
forty feet wide. On the front of each pier will be two columns of
pigeon-blood-red marble. Between each pair of columns and at the base of
each pier will be large marble fountains, the water playing about
figures representing Victory and Immortality. These fountains will be
lighted at night with electric lights. The surface of the piers between
the columns will be richly decorated in bas-relief with gold and mosaic.
Above each fountain will be a panel, one representing Columbus at the
court of Spain, and the other the great discoverer at the Convent of
Rábida, just before his departure on the voyage which resulted in the
discovery of America. In the spaces on either side of the crown of the
arch will be colossal reclining figures of Victory in bas-relief.

The highly decorated frieze will be of polished red marble, and
surmounting the projecting keystone of the arch will be a bronze
representation of an American eagle. On the central panel of the attic
will be the inscription: "The United States of America, in Memorial
Glorious to Christopher Columbus, Discoverer of America." The
ornamentation of the attic consists of representations of Columbus'
entrance into Madrid. Crowning all is to be a group in bronze symbolical
of Discovery. In this group there will be twelve figures of heroic size,
with a gigantic figure representing the Genius of Discovery heralding to
the world the achievements of her children.

Mr. Hertz, the designer, is only twenty-one years old, and is a student
in the department of architecture of Columbia College.


THE SPANISH FOUNTAIN IN NEW YORK.

The Spanish-American citizens also wish to present a monument to the
city in honor of the discovery. It is proposed to have a Columbus
fountain, to be located on the Grand Central Park plaza, at Fifth Avenue
and Fifty-ninth Street, in the near future. The statuary group of the
fountain represents Columbus standing on an immense globe, and on either
side of him is one of the Pinzon brothers, who commanded the Pinta and
Niña. Land has been discovered, and on the face of Columbus is an
expression of prayerful thanksgiving. The brother Pinzon who discovered
the land is pointing to it, while the other, with hand shading his eyes,
anxiously seeks some sign of the new continent.

It is proposed to cast the statuary group in New York of cannon donated
by Spain and Spanish-American countries. The first of the cannon has
already arrived, the gift of the republic of Spanish Honduras.

The proposed inscription reads:

  _A
  COLON
  y Los
  PINZONES
  Los Españoles
  E Hispaño-Americanos
  De
  Nueva York._

  To COLUMBUS and the PINZONS, the Spaniards
  and Spanish-Americans of New York.


FESTIVAL ALLEGORY FOR THE NEW YORK CELEBRATION OF THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY
OF COLUMBUS' DISCOVERY, 1892.

One of the features of the New York celebration of the Columbus
Quadro-Centennial is to be the production, October 10th, in the
Metropolitan Opera House, of "The Triumph of Columbus," a festival
allegory, by S. G. Pratt.

The work is written for orchestra, chorus, and solo voices, and is in
six scenes or parts, the first of which is described as being "in the
nature of a prologue, wherein a dream of Columbus is pictured. Evil
spirits and sirens hover about the sleeping mariner threatening and
taunting him. The Spirit of Light appears, the tormentors vanish, and a
chorus of angels join the Spirit of Light in a song of 'Hope and
Faith.'"

Part II. shows "the historical council at Salamanca; Dominican monks
support Columbus, but Cardinal Talavera and other priests ridicule him."
Columbus, to disprove their accusations of heresy on his part, quotes
"sentence after sentence of the Bible in defense of his theory."

Part III. represents Columbus and his boy Diego in poverty before the
Convent La Rábida. They pray for aid, and are succored by Father Juan
Perez and his monks.

Part IV. contains a Spanish dance by the courtiers and ladies of Queen
Isabella's court; a song by the Queen, wherein she tells of her
admiration for Columbus; the appearance of Father Juan, who pleads for
the navigator and his cause; the discouraging arguments of Talavera; the
hesitation of the Queen; her final decision to help Columbus in his
undertaking, and her prayer for the success of the voyage.

Part V. is devoted to the voyage. Mr. Pratt has here endeavored to
picture in a symphonic prelude "the peaceful progress upon the waters,
the jubilant feeling of Columbus, and a flight of birds"--subjects
dissimilar enough certainly to lend variety to any orchestral
composition. The part, in addition to this prelude, contains the
recitation by a sailor of "The Legend of St. Brandon's Isle"; a song by
Columbus; the mutiny of the sailors, and Columbus' vain attempts to
quell it; his appeal to Christ and the holy cross for aid, following
which "the miraculous appearance takes place and the sailors are awed
into submission"; the chanting of evening vespers; the firing of the
signal gun which announces the discovery of land, and the singing of a
_Gloria in Excelsis_ by Columbus, the sailors, and a chorus of angels.

Part VI. is the "grand pageantry of Columbus' reception at Barcelona. A
triumphal march by chorus, band, and orchestra forms an accompaniment to
a procession and the final reception."


STRANGE AND COLOSSAL MAN.

     From an introduction to "The Story of Columbus," in the New York
     _Herald_, 1892.

What manner of man was this Columbus, this admiral of the seas and lord
of the Indies, who gave to Castille and Leon a new world?

Was he the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer of the skeptic
biographer, who weighed all men by the sum of ages and not by the age in
which they lived, or the religious hero who carried a flaming cross into
the darkness of the unknown West, as his reverential historians have
painted him?

There have been over six hundred biographers of this strange and
colossal man, advancing all degrees of criticism, from filial affection
to religious and fanatical hate, yet those who dwell in the lands he
discovered know him only by his achievements, caring nothing about the
trivial weaknesses of his private life.

One of his fairest critics has said he was the conspicuous developer of
a great world movement, the embodiment of the ripened aspirations of his
time.

His life is enveloped in an almost impenetrable veil of obscurity; in
fact, the date and the place of his birth are in dispute. There are no
authentic portraits of him, though hundreds have been printed.

There are in existence many documents written by Columbus about his
discoveries. When he set sail on his first voyage he endeavored to keep
a log similar to the commentaries of Cæsar. It is from this log that
much of our present knowledge has been obtained, but it is a lamentable
fact that, while Columbus was an extraordinary executive officer, his
administrative ability was particularly poor, and in all matters of
detail he was so careless as to be untrustworthy. Therefore, there are
many statements in the log open to violent controversy.


TALES OF THE EAST.

It is probable that the letters of Toscanelli made a greater impression
on the mind of Columbus than any other information he possessed. The
aged Florentine entertained the brightest vision of the marvelous worth
of the Asiatic region. He spoke of two hundred towns whose bridges
spanned a single river, and whose commerce would excite the cupidity of
the world.

These were tales to stir circles of listeners wherever wandering mongers
of caravels came and went. All sorts of visionary discoveries were made
in those days. Islands were placed in the Atlantic that never existed,
and wonderful tales were told of the great Island of Antilla, or the
Seven Cities.

The sphericity of the earth was becoming a favorite belief, though it
must be borne in mind that education in those days was confined to the
cloister, and any departure from old founded tenets was regarded as
heresy. It was this peculiar doctrine that caused Columbus much
embarrassment in subsequent years. His greatest enemies were the narrow
minds that regarded religion as the _Ultima Thule_ of intellectual
endeavor. In spite of these facts, however, it was becoming more and
more the popular belief that the world was not flat. One of the
arguments used against Columbus was, that if the earth was not flat, and
was round, he might sail down to the Indies, but he could certainly not
sail up. Thus it was that fallacy after fallacy was thrown in
argumentative form in his way, and the character of the man grows more
wonderful as we see the obstacles over which he fought.

From utter obscurity, from poverty, derision, and treachery, this
unflinching spirit fought his way to a most courageous end, and in all
the vicissitudes of his wonderful life he never compromised one iota of
that dignity which he regarded as consonant with his lofty
aspirations.--_Ibid._


A PROTEST AGAINST IGNORANCE.

     New York _Tribune_, 1892.

The voyage of Columbus was a protest against the ignorance of the
mediæval age. The discovery of the New World was the first sign of the
real renaissance of the Old World. It created new heavens and a new
earth, broadened immeasurably the horizon of men and nations, and
transformed the whole order of European thought. Columbus was the
greatest educator who ever lived, for he emancipated mankind from the
narrowness of its own ignorance, and taught the great lesson that human
destiny, like divine mercy, arches over the whole world. If a
perspective of four centuries of progress could have floated like a
mirage before the eyes of the great discoverer as he was sighting San
Salvador, the American school-house would have loomed up as the greatest
institution of the New World's future. Behind him he had left mediæval
ignorance, encumbered with superstition, and paralyzed by an
ecclesiastical pedantry which passed for learning. Before him lay a new
world with the promise of the potency of civil and religious liberty,
free education, and popular enlightenment. Because the school-house,
like his own voyage, has been a protest against popular ignorance, and
has done more than anything else to make our free America what it is, it
would have towered above everything else in the mirage-like vision of
the world's progress.


THE EARTH'S ROTUNDITY.

     The Rev. Father NUGENT of Iowa. From an address printed in the
     Denver _Republican_, 1892.

The theory of the rotundity of the earth was not born with Columbus. It
had been announced centuries before Christ, but the law of gravitation
had not been discovered and the world found it impossible to think of
another hemisphere in which trees would grow downward into the air and
men walk with their heads suspended from their feet. The theologians and
scholars who scoffed at Columbus' theory had better grounds for opposing
him, according to the received knowledge of the time, than he for
upholding his ideal. They were scientifically wrong and he was
unscientifically correct.


HANDS ACROSS THE SEA.

     The President responds to a message from the Alcalde of Palos.

The following cable messages were exchanged this day:

LA RÁBIDA, August 3d. The President: To-day, 400 years ago, Columbus
sailed from Palos, discovering America. The United States flag is being
hoisted this moment in front of the Convent La Rábida, along with
banners of all the American States. Batteries and ships saluting,
accompanied by enthusiastic acclamations of the people, army, and navy.
God bless America.

  PRIETO,
  _Alcalde of Palos_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., August 3, 1892. Señor Prieto,
Alcalde de Palos, La Rábida, Spain: The President of the United States
directs me to cordially acknowledge your message of greeting. On this
memorable day, thus fittingly celebrated, the people of the new western
world, in grateful reverence to the name and fame of Columbus, join
hands with the sons of the brave sailors of Palos and Huelva who manned
the discoverer's caravels.

  FOSTER,
  _Secretary of State_.


THE PAN-AMERICAN TRIBUTE.

     The nations of North, South, and Central America in conference
     assembled, at Washington, D. C., from October 2, 1889, to April 19,
     1890.

_Resolved_, That in homage to the memory of the immortal discoverer of
America, and in gratitude for the unparalleled service rendered by him
to civilization and humanity, the International Conference hereby offers
its hearty co-operation in the manifestations to be made in his honor
on the occasion of the fourth centennial anniversary of the discovery of
America.[50]


THE GIFT OF SPAIN.

     THEODORE PARKER, a distinguished American clergyman and scholar.
     Born at Lexington, Mass., August 24, 1810; died in Florence, Italy,
     May 10, 1860. From "New Assault upon Freedom in America."

To Columbus, adventurous Italy's most venturous son, Spain gave,
grudgingly, three miserable ships, wherewith that daring genius sailed
through the classic and mediæval darkness which covered the great
Atlantic deep, opening to mankind a new world, and new destination
therein. No queen ever wore a diadem so precious as those pearls which
Isabella dropped into the western sea, a bridal gift, whereby the Old
World, well endowed with art and science, and the hoarded wealth of
experience, wed America, rich only in her gifts from Nature and her
hopes in time. The most valuable contribution Spain has made to mankind
is three scant ships furnished to the Genoese navigator, whom the
world's instinct pushed westward in quest of continents.


COLUMBUS THE BOLDEST NAVIGATOR.

     Capt. WILLIAM H. PARKER, an American naval officer of the
     nineteenth century. From "Familiar Talks on Astronomy."[51]

Let us turn our attention to Christopher Columbus, the boldest navigator
of his day; indeed, according to my view, the boldest man of whom we
have any account in history. While all the other seamen of the known
world were creeping along the shore, he heroically sailed forth on the
broad ocean.

[Illustration: THE MAP OF COLUMBUS' PILOT, JUAN DE LA COSA.

From the original in the Marine Museum, Madrid. (See page 228)]

       *       *       *       *       *

When I look back upon my own voyages and recall the many anxious moments
I have passed when looking for a port at night, and when I compare my
own situation, supplied with accurate charts, perfect instruments, good
sailing directions, everything, in short, that science can supply, and
then think of Columbus in his little bark, his only instruments an
imperfect compass and a rude astrolabe, _sailing forth upon an unknown
sea_, I must award to him the credit of being the boldest seaman that
ever "sailed the salt ocean."

       *       *       *       *       *

Columbus, then, had made three discoveries before he discovered
land--the trade-winds, the Sargasso Sea, and the variation of the
compass.


COLUMBUS THE PATRON SAINT OF REAL-ESTATE DEALERS.

At a banquet in Chicago of the real-estate brokers, a waggish orator
remarked that Columbus, with his cry of "Land! Land!" was clearly the
patron saint of American real-estate dealers.


THE MUTINY.

     HORATIO J. PERRY, an American author. From "Reminiscences."

When those Spanish mutineers leaped upon their Admiral's deck and
advanced upon him sword in hand, every man of them was aware that
according to all ordinary rules the safety of his own head depended on
their going clean through and finishing their work. No compromise that
should leave Columbus alive could possibly have suited them then.
Nevertheless, at the bottom of it all, the moving impulse of those men
was terror. They were banded for that work by a common fear and a
common superstition, and it was only when they looked in the clear face
of one wholly free from the influences which enslaved themselves, when
they felt in their marrow that supreme expression of Columbus at the
point of a miserable death--only then the revulsion of confidence in him
suddenly relieved their own terrors. It was instinctive. This man knows!
He does not deceive us! We fools are compromising the safety of all by
quenching this light. He alone can get us through this business--that
was the human instinct which responded to the look and bearing of
Columbus at the moment when he was wholly lost, and when his life's
work, his great voyage almost accomplished, was also to all appearance
lost. The instinct was sure, the response was certain, from the instinct
that its motive was also there sure and certain; but no other man in
that age could have provoked it, no other but Columbus could be sure of
what he was then doing.

The mutineers went back to their work, and the ships went on. For three
days previous, the Admiral, following some indications he had noted from
the flight of birds, had steered southwest. Through that night of the
10th and through the day of the 11th he still kept that course; but just
at evening of the 11th he ordered the helm again to be put due west. The
squadron had made eighty-two miles that day, and his practiced senses
now taught him that land was indeed near. Without any hesitation he
called together his chief officers, and announced to them that the end
of their voyage was at hand; and he ordered the ships to sail well
together, and to keep a sharp lookout through the night, as he expected
land before the morning. Also, they had strict orders to shorten sail at
midnight, and not to advance beyond half speed. Then he promised a
velvet doublet of his own as a present to the man who should first make
out the land. These details are well known, and they are authentic; and
it is true also that these dispositions of the Admiral spread life
throughout the squadron. Nobody slept that night. It was only
twenty-four hours since they were ready to throw him overboard; but they
now believed in him and bitterly accused one another.


THE TRACK OF COLUMBUS.

     From a paper in _New England Magazine_, 1892, taken originally from
     a volume of "Reminiscences" left by HORATIO J. PERRY, who made a
     voyage from Spain to New Orleans in 1847.

A fortnight out at sea! We are upon the track of Christopher Columbus.
Only three centuries and a half ago the keels of his caravels plowed for
the first time these very waters, bearing the greatest heart and wisest
head of his time, and one of the grandest figures in all history.

To conceive Columbus at his true value requires some effort in our age,
when the earth has been girdled and measured, when the sun has been
weighed and the planets brought into the relation of neighbors over the
way, into whose windows we are constantly peeping in spite of the social
gulf which keeps us from visiting either Mars or Venus. It is not easy
to put ourselves back into the fifteenth century and limit ourselves as
those men were limited.

I found it an aid to my comprehension of Columbus, this chance which
sent me sailing over the very route of his great voyage. It is not, even
now, a frequented route. The bold Spanish and Portuguese navigators of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are no longer found upon it. The
trade of the Indies has passed into other hands, and this is not the
road from England to the West Indies or to America.

Thus you may still sail for weeks in these seas without ever meeting a
ship. Leaving Madeira or the Canaries, you may even reach those western
lands he reached without having seen or felt any other sign or incident
except precisely such as were noted by him.


DEATH WAS COLUMBUS' FRIEND.

     OSKAR FERDINAND PESCHEL, a noted German geographer. Born at
     Dresden, March 17, 1826; died, August 31, 1875.

Death saved Columbus the infliction of a blow which he probably would
have felt more than Bobadilla's fetters. He was allowed to carry to the
grave the glorious illusion that Cuba was a province of the Chinese
Empire, that Hispaniola was the Island Zipangu, and that only a narrow
strip of land, instead of a hemisphere covered by water, intervened
between the Caribbean Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

The discoverer of America died without suspecting that he had found a
new continent. He regarded the distance between Spain and Jamaica as a
third part of the circumference of the globe, and announced, "The earth
is by no means as large as is popularly supposed."

The extension of the world by a new continent had no place in his
conceptions, and the greatness of his achievement would have been
lessened in his eyes if he had been permitted to discover a second vast
ocean beyond that which he had traversed, for he would have seen that he
had but half accomplished his object, the connection of Europe with the
East.


PETRARCH'S TRIBUTE.

     FRANCESCO PETRARCH, Italian poet. Born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, July
     20, 1304; died at Arquá, near Padua, July 19, 1374.

  The daylight hastening with wingéd steps,
  Perchance to gladden the expectant eyes
  Of far-off nations in a world remote.


COLUMBUS A VOLUMINOUS WRITER.

     BARNET PHILLIPS, in _Harper's Weekly_, June 25, 1892, on "The
     Columbus Festival at Genoa."[52]

It can not be questioned but that Christopher Columbus was a voluminous
writer. Mr. Justin Winsor, who has made careful researches, says that
"ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by the hand of Columbus either
exist or are known to have existed. Of such, whether memoirs, relations,
or letters, sixty-four are preserved in their entirety." Columbus seems
to have written all his letters in Spanish. Genoa is fortunate in
possessing a number of authentic letters, and these are preserved in a
marble custodia, surmounted by a head of Columbus. In the pillar which
forms the pedestal there is a bronze door, and the precious Columbus
documents have been placed there. (See p. 54, _ante_.)


HIS LIFE WAS A PATH OF THORNS.

     ROBERT POLLOK, a Scottish poet of some note. Born at Muirhouse,
     Renfrewshire, 1798; died near Southampton, September, 1827.

  Oh, who can tell what days, what nights, he spent,
  Of tideless, waveless, sailless, shoreless woe!
  And who can tell how many glorious once,
  To him, of brilliant promise full--wasted,
  And pined, and vanished from the earth!


UNWEPT, UNHONORED, AND UNSUNG.

     W. F. POOLE, LL. D., Librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
     From "Christopher Columbus," in _The Dial_ for April, 1892.
     Published by _The Dial_ Company, Chicago.

It had been well for the reputation of Columbus if he had died in 1493,
when he returned from his first voyage. He had found a pathway to a land
beyond the western ocean; and although he had no conception of what he
had discovered, it was the most important event in the history of the
fifteenth century. There was nothing left for him to do to increase his
renown. A coat-of-arms had been assigned him, and he rode on horseback
through the streets of Barcelona, with the King on one side of him and
Prince Juan on the other. His enormous claims for honors and emoluments
had been granted. His first letter of February, 1493, printed in several
languages, had been read in the courts of Europe with wonder and
amazement. "What delicious food for an ingenious mind!" wrote Peter
Martyr. In England, it was termed "a thing more divine than human." No
other man ever rose to such a pinnacle of fame so suddenly; and no other
man from such a height ever dropped out of sight so quickly. His three
later voyages were miserable failures; a pitiful record of misfortunes,
blunders, cruelties, moral delinquencies, quarrels, and impotent
complainings. They added nothing to the fund of human knowledge, or to
his own. On the fourth voyage he was groping about to find the River
Ganges, the great Khan of China, and the earthly paradise. His two
subsequent years of disappointment and sickness and poverty were
wretchedness personified. Other and more competent men took up the work
of discovery, and in thirteen years after the finding of a western route
to India had been announced, the name and personality of Columbus had
almost passed from the memory of men. He died at Valladolid, May 20,
1506; and outside of a small circle of relatives, his body was committed
to the earth with as little notice and ceremony as that of an unknown
beggar on its way to the potter's field. Yet the Spanish court was in
the town at the time. Peter Martyr was there, writing long letters of
news and gossip; and in five that are still extant there is no mention
of the sickness and death of Columbus. Four weeks later an official
document had the brief mention that "the Admiral is dead." Two Italian
authors, making, one and two years later, some corrections pertaining
to his early voyages, had not heard of his death.


NEW STAMPS FOR WORLD'S FAIR YEAR.

     From the New York _Commercial Advertiser_.

Third Assistant Postmaster-General Hazen is preparing the designs for a
set of "Jubilee" stamps, to be issued by the Postoffice Department in
honor of the quadri-centennial. That is, he is getting together material
which will suggest to him the most appropriate subjects to be
illustrated on these stamps. He has called on the Bureau of American
Republics for some of the Columbian pictures with which it is
overflowing, and he recently took a big portfolio of them down into the
country to examine at his leisure.

One of the scenes to be illustrated, undoubtedly, will be the landing of
Columbus. The Convent of La Rábida, where Columbus is supposed to have
been housed just before his departure from Spain on his voyage of
discovery, will probably be the chief figure of another. The head of
Columbus will decorate one of the stamps--probably the popular 2-cent
stamp. Gen. Hazen resents the suggestion that the 5-cent, or foreign,
stamp be made the most ornate in the collection. He thinks that the
American public is entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of the most
beautiful of the new stamps.

Besides, the stamps will be of chief value to the Exposition, as they
advertise it among the people of America. The Jubilee stamps will be one
of the best advertisements the World's Fair will have. It would not be
unfair if the Postoffice Department should demand that the managers of
the World's Fair pay the additional expense of getting out the new
issue. But the stamp collectors will save the department the necessity
of doing that.

It may be that the issue of the current stamps will not be suspended
when the Jubilee stamps come in; but it is altogether likely that the
issue will be suspended for a year, and that at the end of that time the
dies and plates for the Jubilee stamps will be destroyed and the old
dies and plates will be brought out and delivered to the contractor
again. These dies and plates are always subject to the order of the
Postmaster-general. He can call for them at any time, and the contractor
must deliver them into his charge.

While they are in use they are under the constant supervision of a
government agent, and the contractor is held responsible for any plate
that might be made from his dies and for any stamps that might be
printed surreptitiously from such plates.

An oddity in the new series will be the absence of the faces of
Washington and Franklin. The first stamps issued by the Postoffice
Department were the 5 and 10 cent stamps of 1847. One of these bore the
head of Washington and the other that of Franklin. From that day to this
these heads have appeared on some two of the stamps of the United
States. In the Jubilee issue they will be missing, unless Mr. Wanamaker
or Mr. Hazen changes the present plan. It is intended now that only one
portrait shall appear on any of the stamps, and that one will be of
Columbus.

It will take some time to prepare the designs for the new stamps, after
the selection of the subjects, but Gen. Hazen expects to have them on
sale the 1st of January next. The subjects will be sent to the American
Bank Note Company, which will prepare the designs and submit them for
approval. When they are approved, the dies will be prepared and proofs
sent to the department. Five engravings were made before an acceptable
portrait of Gen. Grant was obtained for use on the current 5-cent
stamp. Gen. Grant, by the way, was the only living American whose
portrait during his lifetime was under consideration in getting up stamp
designs.


THE CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS.

     WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, an eminent American historian. Born at
     Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796; died January 28, 1859. From "Ferdinand
     and Isabella."

There are some men in whom rare virtues have been closely allied, if not
to positive vice, to degrading weakness. Columbus' character presented
no such humiliating incongruity. Whether we contemplate it in its public
or private relations, in all its features it wears the same noble
aspect. It was in perfect harmony with the grandeur of his plans and
their results, more stupendous than those which heaven has permitted any
other mortal to achieve.


FROM PALOS TO BARCELONA--HIS TRIUMPH.

The bells sent forth a joyous peal in honor of his arrival; but the
Admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before the sovereigns to
protract his stay long at Palos. His progress through Seville was an
ovation. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Barcelona.
The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the
authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him, and escorted
him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were seated with their
son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival.
On his approach they rose from their seats, and, extending their hands
to him to salute, caused him to be seated before them. These were
unprecedented marks of condescension to a person of Columbus' rank in
the haughty and ceremonious court of Castille. It was, indeed, the
proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the
truth of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry,
sneer, skepticism, and contempt. After a brief interval the sovereigns
requested from Columbus a recital of his adventures; and when he had
done so, the King and Queen, together with all present, prostrated
themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgivings, while the solemn
strains of the _Te Deum_ were poured forth by the choir of the royal
chapel, as in commemoration of some glorious victory.--_Ibid._


THE CLAIM OF THE NORSEMEN.

     From an editorial in _Public Opinion_, Washington.

Modern historians are pretty generally agreed that America was actually
first made known to the Eastern world by the indefatigable Norsemen.
Yet, in spite of this fact, Columbus has been, and still continues to
be, revered as the one man to whose genius and courage the discovery of
the New World is due. Miss Brown, in her "Icelandic Discoverers," justly
says it should be altogether foreign to American institutions and ideas
of liberty and honor to countenance longer the worship of a false idol.
The author first proceeds to set forth the evidence upon which the
claims of the Norsemen rest. The author charges that the heads of the
Roman Catholic church were early cognizant of this discovery of the
Norsemen, but that they suppressed this information. The motives for
this concealment are charged to their well-known reluctance to allow any
credit to non-Catholic believers, under which head, at that time, the
Norsemen were included. They preferred that the New World should first
be made known to Southern Europe by adherents to the Roman Catholic
faith. Most damaging evidence against Columbus' having originated,
unaided, the idea of a western world or route to India is furnished by
the fact that he visited Iceland in person in the spring of 1477, when
he must have heard rumors of the early voyages. He is known to have
visited the harbor at Hvalfjord, on the south coast of Iceland, at a
time when that harbor was most frequented, and also at the same time
when Bishop Magnus is known to have been there. They must have met, and,
as they had means of communicating through the Latin language, would
naturally have spoken of these distant countries. We have no hint of the
object of this visit of Columbus, for he scrupulously avoids subsequent
mention of it; but the author pleases to consider it as a secret
mission, instigated by the Church for the purpose of obtaining all
available information concerning the Norse discoveries. Certain it is
that soon after his return to Spain we find him petitioning the King and
Queen for a grant of ships and men to further the enterprise; and he was
willing to wait for more than fourteen years before he obtained them.
His extravagant demands of the King and Queen concerning the rights,
titles, and percentage of all derived from the countries "he was about
to discover," can hardly be viewed in any other light than that of
positive knowledge concerning their existence.


PULCI'S PROPHECY.

     LUIGI PULCI, an Italian poet. Born at Florence in 1431; died about
     1487.

  Men shall descry another hemisphere,
  Since to one common center all things tend;
  So earth, by curious mystery divine,
  Well balanced hangs amid the starry spheres.
  At our antipodes are cities, states,
  And thronged empires ne'er divined of yore.


CHRISTOPHER, THE CHRIST-BEARER.

     GEORGE PAYNE QUACKENBOS, an American teacher and educational
     writer. Born in New York, 1826; died December 24, 1881.

Full of religious enthusiasm, he regarded this voyage to the western
seas as his peculiar mission, and himself--as his name, CHRISTOPHER,
imports--the appointed _Christ-bearer_, or _gospel-bearer_, to the
natives of the new lands he felt that he was destined to discover.


PLEADING WITH KINGS FOR A NEW WORLD.

     The Rev. MYRON REED, a celebrated American clergyman of the present
     day.

Here is Columbus. Somehow I think he is more of a man while he is
begging for ships and a crew, when he is in mid-ocean sailing to
discover America, than when he found it.


LAST DAYS OF THE VOYAGE.

The last days of the voyage of Columbus were lonesome days. He had to
depend on his own vision. I do not know what he had been--probably a
buccaneer. We know that he was to be a trader in slaves. But in spite of
what he had been and was to become, once he was great.--_Ibid._


ROLL OF THE CREWS OF THE THREE CARAVELS.

CREW OF THE SANTA MARIA.--_Admiral_, Cristoval Colon; _Master and
owner_, Juan de la Cosa of Santoña; _Pilot_, Sancho Ruiz; _Boatswain_,
Maestre Diego; _Surgeon_, Maestre Alonzo of Moguer; _Assistant Surgeon_,
Maestre Juan; _Overseer_, Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia; _Secretary_,
*Rodrigo de Escobedo[53]; _Master at Arms_, *Diego de Arana of Cordova;
_Volunteer_, *Pedro Gutierrez, (A gentleman of the King's bedchamber);
_Volunteer_, *Bachiller Bernardo de Tapia of Ledesma; _Steward_, Pedro
Terreros; _Admiral's Servant_, Diego de Salcedo; _Page_, Pedro de
Acevedo; _Interpreter_, Luis de Torres, (A converted Jew); _Seamen_,
Rodrigo de Jerez, Garcia Ruiz of Santoña, Pedro de Villa of Santoña,
Rodrigo Escobar, Francisco of Huelva, Ruy Fernandez of Huelva, Pedro
Bilbao of Larrabezua, *Alonzo Velez of Seville, *Alonzo Perez Osorio;
_Assayer and Silversmith_, *Castillo of Seville; _Seamen of the Santa
Maria_, *Antonio of Jaen, *Alvaro Perez Osorio, *Cristoval de Alamo of
Niebla, *Diego Garcia of Jerez, *Diego de Tordoya of Cabeza de Vaca,
*Diego de Capilla of Almeden, *Diego of Mambles, *Diego de Mendoza,
*Diego de Montalvan of Jaen, *Domingo de Bermeo, *Francisco de Godoy of
Seville, *Francisco de Vergara of Seville, *Francisco of Aranda,
*Francisco Henao of Avila, *Francisco Jimenes of Seville, *Gabriel
Baraona of Belmonte, *Gonzalo Fernandez of Segovia, *Gonzalo Fernandez
of Leon, *Guillermo Ires of Galway, *Jorge Gonzalez of Trigueros, *Juan
de Cueva, *Juan Patiño of La Serena, *Juan del Barco of Avila, *Pedro
Carbacho of Caceres, *Pedro of Talavera, *Sebastian of Majorca,
*Tallarte de Lajes (Ingles).

THE CREW OF THE PINTA.--_Captain of the Pinta_, Martin Alonzo Pinzon;
_Master_, Francisco Martin Pinzon; _Pilot of the vessel_, Cristoval
Garcia Sarmiento; _Boatswain_, Bartolomè Garcia; _Surgeon_, Garci
Hernandez; _Purser_, Juan de Jerez; _Caulker_, Juan Perez; _Seamen_,
Rodrigo Bermudez de Triana of Alcala de la Guadaira, Juan Rodriguez
Bermejo of Molinos, Juan de Sevilla, Garcia Alonzo, Gomez Rascon
(owner), Cristoval Quintero (owner), Diego Bermudez, Juan Bermudez,
Francisco Garcia Gallegos of Moguer, Francisco Garcia Vallejo, Pedro de
Arcos.

CREW OF THE NIÑA.--_Captain of the Niña_, Vicente Yañez Pinzon; _Master
and part owner of the vessel_, Juan Niño; _Pilots_, Pero Alonzo Niño,
Bartolomè Roldan; _Seamen_ _of the Niña_, Francisco Niño, Gutierrez
Perez, Juan Ortiz, Alonso Gutierrez Querido, *Diego de Torpa[54],
*Francisco Fernandez, *Hernando de Porcuna, *Juan de Urniga, *Juan
Morcillo, *Juan del Villar, *Juan de Mendoza, *Martin de Logrosan,
*Pedro de Foronda, *Tristan de San Jorge.


COLUMBUS A THEORETICAL CIRCUMNAVIGATOR.

     JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL. D., an American author and educator. Born
     in Putnam County, Indiana, April 26, 1840. From "History of United
     States," 1874.

Sir John Mandeville had declared in the very first English book that
ever was written (A. D. 1356) that the world is a sphere, and that it
was both possible and practicable for a man to sail around the world and
return to the place of starting; but neither Sir John himself nor any
other seaman of his times was bold enough to undertake so hazardous an
enterprise. Columbus was, no doubt, the first _practical_ believer in
the theory of circumnavigation, and although he never sailed around the
world himself, he demonstrated the possibility of doing so.

The great mistake with Columbus and others who shared his opinions was
not concerning the figure of the earth, but in regard to its size. He
believed the world to be no more than 10,000 or 12,000 miles in
circumference. He therefore confidently expected that after sailing
about 3,000 miles to the westward he should arrive at the East Indies,
and to do that was the one great purpose of his life.


AN IMPORTANT FIND OF MSS.

     JUAN F. RIAÑO. "Review of Continental Literature," July, 1891, to
     July, 1892. From "_The Athenæum_" (England), July 2, 1892.

The excitement about Columbus has rather been heightened by the
accidental discovery of three large holograph volumes, in quarto, of Fr.
Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapa, who, as is well known,
accompanied the navigator in his fourth voyage to the West Indies. The
volumes were deposited by Las Casas in San Gregorio de Valladolid, where
he passed the last years of his life in retirement. There they remained
until 1836, when, owing to the suppression of the monastic orders, the
books of the convent were dispersed, and the volumes of the Apostle of
the Indies, as he is still called, fell into the hands of a collector of
the name of Acosta, from whom a grandson named Arcos inherited them.
Though written in the bishop's own hand, they are not of great value, as
they only contain his well-known "Historia Apologetica de las Indias,"
of which no fewer than three different copies, dating from the sixteenth
century, are to be found here at Madrid, and the whole was published
some years ago in the "Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España."

The enthusiasm for Columbus and his companions has not in the least
damped the ardor of my countrymen for every sort of information
respecting their former colonies, in America or their possessions in the
Indian Archipelago and on the northern coast of Africa. Respecting the
former I may mention the second volume of the "Historia del Nuevo
Mundo," by Cobo, 1645; the third and fourth volume of the "Origen de los
Indios del Peru, Mexico, Santa Féy Chile," by Diego Andrés Rocha; "De
las Gentes del Peru," forming part of the "Historia Apologetica," by
Bartolomé de las Casas, though not found in his three holograph volumes
recently discovered.


CHILDREN OF THE SUN.

     WILLIAM ROBERTSON (usually styled Principal ROBERTSON), a
     celebrated Scottish historian. Born at Bosthwick, Mid-Lothian,
     September 19, 1721; died June, 1793.

Columbus was the first European who set foot in the New World which he
had discovered. He landed in a rich dress, and with a naked sword in his
hand. His men followed, and, kneeling down, they all kissed the ground
which they had long desired to see. They next erected a crucifix, and
prostrating themselves before it returned thanks to God for conducting
their voyage to such a happy issue.

The Spaniards while thus employed were surrounded by many of the
natives, who gazed in silent admiration upon actions which they could
not comprehend, and of which they could not foresee the consequences.
The dress of the Spaniards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards,
their arms, appeared strange and surprising. The vast machines in which
the Spaniards had traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the
water with wings, and uttered a dreadful sound, resembling thunder,
accompanied with lightning and smoke, struck the natives with such
terror that they began to respect their new guests as a superior order
of beings, and concluded that they were children of the sun, who had
descended to visit the earth.

       *       *       *       *       *

To all the kingdoms of Europe, Christopher Columbus, by an effort of
genius and of intrepidity the boldest and most successful that is
recorded in the annals of mankind, added a new world.--_Ibid._


THE BRONZE DOOR AT WASHINGTON.

This is the main central door of the Capitol at Washington, D. C., and
on it is a pictured history of events connected with the life of
Columbus and the discovery of America.

[Illustration: THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT, Paseo de la Reforma, City of
Mexico. Sculptor, M, Cordier.]

The door weighs 20,000 pounds; is seventeen feet high and nine feet
wide; it is folding or double, and stands sunk back inside of a bronze
casing, which projects about a foot forward from the leaves or valves.
On this casing are four figures at the top and bottom, representing
Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. A border, emblematic of conquest and
navigation, runs along the casing between them.

The door has eight panels besides the semicircular one at the top. In
each panel is a picture in _alto-relievo_.

It was designed by Randolph Rogers, an American, and modeled by him in
Rome, in 1858; and was cast by F. Von Muller, at Munich, 1861.

The story the door tells is the history of Columbus and the discovery of
America.

The panel containing the earliest event in the life of the discoverer is
the lowest one on the south side, and represents "Columbus undergoing an
examination before the Council of Salamanca."

The panel above it contains "Columbus' departure from the Convent of
Santa Maria de la Rábida," near Palos. He is just setting out to visit
the Spanish court.

The one above it is his "audience at the court of Ferdinand and
Isabella."

The next panel is the top one of this half of the door, and represents
the "starting of Columbus from Palos on his first voyage."

The transom panel occupies the semicircular sweep over the whole door.
The extended picture here is the "first landing of the Spaniards at San
Salvador."

The top panel on the other leaf of the door represents the "first
encounter of the discoverers with the natives." In it one of the sailors
is seen bringing an Indian girl on his shoulders a prisoner. The
transaction aroused the stern indignation of Columbus.

The panel next below this one has in it "the triumphal entry of Columbus
into Barcelona."

The panel below this represents a very different scene, and is "Columbus
in chains."

In the next and last panel is the "death scene." Columbus lies in bed;
the last rites of the Catholic church have been administered; friends
and attendants are around him; and a priest holds up a crucifix for him
to kiss, and upon it bids him fix his dying eyes.

On the door, on the sides and between the panels, are sixteen small
statues, set in niches, of eminent contemporaries of Columbus. Their
names are marked on the door, and beginning at the bottom, on the side
from which we started in numbering the panels, we find the figure in the
lowest niche is Juan Perez de la Marchena, prior of La Rábida; then
above him is Hernando Cortez; and again, standing over him, is Alonzo de
Ojeda.

Amerigo Vespucci occupies the next niche on the door.

Then, opposite in line, across the door, standing in two niches, side by
side, are Cardinal Mendoza and Pope Alexander VI.

Then below them stand Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain;
beneath them stands the Lady Beatrice Enriquez de Bobadilla; beside her
is Charles VIII., King of France.

The first figure of the lowest pair on the door is Henry VII. of
England; beside him stands John II., King of Portugal.

Then, in the same line with them, across the panel, is Alonzo Pinzon.

In the niche above Alonzo Pinzon stands Bartolomeo Columbus, the brother
of the great navigator.

Then comes Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, and in the niche above, again at the
top of the door, stands the figure of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror
of Peru.

Between the panels and at top and bottom of the valves of the door are
ten projecting heads. Those between the panels are historians who have
written Columbus' voyages from his own time down to the present day,
ending with Washington Irving and William Hickling Prescott.

The two heads at the tops of the valves are female heads, while the two
next the floor possess Indian characteristics.

Above, over the transom arch, looks down, over all, the serene grand
head of Columbus. Beneath it, the American eagle spreads out his widely
extended wings.

Mr. Rogers[55] received $8,000 for his models, and Mr. Von Muller was
paid $17,000 in gold for casting the door. To a large portion of this
latter sum must be added the high premium on exchange which ruled during
the war, the cost of storage and transportation, and the expense of the
erection of the door in the Capitol after its arrival. These items
would, added together, far exceed $30,000 in the then national currency.


SANTA MARIA RÁBIDA, THE CONVENT--RÁBIDA.

     SAMUEL ROGERS, the English banker-poet. Born near London, July 30,
     1763; died December, 1855. Translated from a Castilian MS., and
     printed as an introduction to his poem, "The Voyage of Columbus."
     It is stated that he spent $50,000 in the illustrations of this
     volume of his poems.

      In Rábida's monastic fane
      I can not ask, and ask in vain;
      The language of Castille I speak,
      'Mid many an Arab, many a Greek,
      Old in the days of Charlemagne,
      When minstrel-music wandered round,
      And science, waking, blessed the sound.

      No earthly thought has here a place,
      The cowl let down on every face;
      Yet here, in consecrated dust,
      Here would I sleep, if sleep I must.
      From Genoa, when Columbus came
      (At once her glory and her shame),
      'T was here he caught the holy flame;
      'T was here the generous vow he made;
      His banners on the altar laid.

      Here, tempest-worn and desolate,
        A pilot journeying through the wild
      Stopped to solicit at the gate
        A pittance for his child.

      'T was here, unknowing and unknown,
      He stood upon the threshold stone.
      But hope was his, a faith sublime,
      That triumphs over place and time;
      And here, his mighty labor done,
      And here, his course of glory run,
      Awhile as more than man he stood,
      So large the debt of gratitude.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Who the great secret of the deep possessed,
  And, issuing through the portals of the West,
  Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurled,
  Planted his standard on the unknown world.

                                     --_Ibid._


GENOA.

  Thy brave mariners,
  They had fought so often by thy side,
  Staining the mountain billows.

  --_Ibid._


LAUNCHED OUT INTO THE DEEP.

     WILLIAM RUSSELL, American author and educationist. Born in
     Scotland, 1798; died, 1873. From his "Modern History."

Transcendent genius and superlative courage experience almost equal
difficulty in carrying their designs into execution when they depend on
the assistance of others. Columbus possessed both--he exerted both; and
the concurrence of other heads and other hearts was necessary to give
success to either; he had indolence and cowardice to encounter, as well
as ignorance and prejudice. He had formerly been ridiculed as a
visionary, he was now pitied as a desperado. The Portuguese navigators,
in accomplishing their first discoveries, had always some reference to
the coast; cape had pointed them to cape; but Columbus, with no landmark
but the heavens, nor any guide but the compass, boldly launched into the
ocean, without knowing what shore should receive him or where he could
find rest for the sole of his foot.


STATUARY AT SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

One of the principal features in the State capitol at Sacramento is a
beautiful and artistic group of statuary, cut from a solid block of
purest white marble. It represents Columbus pleading the cause of his
project before Queen Isabella of Spain. The Spanish sovereign is seated;
at her left hand kneels the First Admiral, while an attendant page on
the right watches with wonder the nobly generous action of the Queen.
Columbus, with a globe in his hand, contends that the world is round,
and pleads for assistance to fit out an expedition to discover the New
World. The royal reply is, "I will assume the undertaking for my own
crown of Castille, and am ready to pledge my jewels to defray its
expense, if the funds in the treasury shall be found inadequate," The
group, which is said to be a masterpiece of work, the only piece of its
kind in the United States, was executed in Florence, Italy, by Larkin G.
Mead of Vermont, an American artist of known reputation. Costing
$60,000, it was presented to the State of California, in 1883, by Mr. D.
O. Mills.


A MONUMENT NEAR SALAMANCA.

At Valcuebo, a country farm once belonging to the Dominicans of
Salamanca, Columbus was entertained by Diego de Deza--prior of the great
Dominican convent of San Esteban and professor of theology at
Salamanca--while the Junta [committee] of Spanish ecclesiastics
considered his prospects. His residence there was a peaceful oasis in
the stormy life of the great discoverer. The little grange still stands
at a distance of about three miles west of Salamanca, and the country
people have a tradition that on the crest of a small hill near the
house, now called "Teso de Colon" (i. e., Columbus' Peak), the future
discoverer used to pass long hours conferring with his visitors or
reading in solitude. The present owner, Don Martin de Solis, has erected
a monument on this hill, consisting of a stone pyramid surmounted by a
globe; it commemorates the spot where the storm-tossed hero enjoyed a
brief interval of peace and rest.


HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE.

     MANOEL FRANCISCO DE BARROS Y SOUZA, VISCOUNT SANTAREM, a noted
     Portuguese diplomatist and writer. Born at Lisbon, 1790; died,
     1856.

If Columbus was not the first to discover America, he was, at least, the
man who _re_discovered it, and in a positive and definite shape
communicated the knowledge of it. For, if he verified what the Egyptian
priest indicated to Solon, the Athenian, as is related by Plato in the
Timoeus respecting the Island of Atlantis; if he realized the
hypothesis of Actian; if he accomplished the prophecy of Seneca in the
Medea; if he demonstrated that the story of the mysterious Carthaginian
vessel, related by Aristotle and Theophrastus, was not a dream; if he
established by deeds that there was nothing visionary in what St.
Gregory pointed at in one of his letters to St. Clement; if, in a word,
Columbus proved by his discovery the existence of the land which Madoc
had visited before him, as Hakluyt and Powell pretended; and ascertained
for a certainty that which for the ancients had always been so
uncertain, problematical, and mysterious--his glory becomes only the
more splendid, and more an object to command admiration.


THE SANTIAGO BUST.

At Santiago, Chili, a marble bust of Columbus is to be found, with a
face modeled after the De Bry portrait, an illustration of which latter
appears in these pages. The bust has a Dutch cap and garments.


THE ST. LOUIS STATUE.

In the city of St. Louis, Mo., a statue of Columbus has been erected as
the gift of Mr. Henry D. Shaw. It consists of a heroic-sized figure of
Columbus in gilt bronze, upon a granite pedestal, which has four bronze
_basso relievos_ of the principal events in his career. The face of the
statue follows the Genoa model, and the statue was cast at Munich.


SOUTHERN AMERICA'S TRIBUTE.

At Lima, Peru, a fine group of statuary was erected in 1850,
representing Columbus in the act of raising an Indian girl from the
ground. Upon the front of the marble pedestal is the simple dedication:
"Á Cristoval Colon" (To Christopher Columbus), and upon the other three
faces are appropriate nautical designs.


THE STATUE IN BOSTON.

In addition to the Iasigi statue, Boston boasts of one of the most
artistic statues to Columbus, and will shortly possess a third. "The
First Inspiration of the Boy Columbus" is a beautiful example of the
work of Signor G. Monteverde, a celebrated Italian sculptor. It was made
in Rome, in 1871, and, winning the first prize of a gold medal at Parma,
in that year, was presented to the city of Boston by Mr. A. P.
Chamberlain of Concord, Mass. It represents Columbus as a youth, seated
upon the capstan of a vessel, with an open book in his hand, his foot
carelessly swinging in an iron ring. In addition to this statue, a
_replica_ of the Old Isabella statue (described on page 171, _ante_),
is, it is understood, to be presented to the city.


STATUE AT GENOA.

In the Red Palace, Genoa, a statue of Columbus has been erected
representing him standing on the deck of the Santa Maria, behind a padre
with a cross. The pedestal of the statue is ornamented with prows of
caravels, and on each side a mythological figure represents Discovery
and Industry.


THE STATUE AT PALOS.

Now in course of erection to commemorate the discovery, and under the
auspices of the Spanish government, is a noble statue at Palos, Spain.
It consists of a fluted column of the Corinthian order of architecture,
capped by a crown, supporting an orb, surmounted by a cross. The orb
bears two bands, one about its equator and the other representing the
zodiac. On the column are the names of the Pinzon brothers, Martin and
Vicente Yañez; and under the prows of the caravels, "Colon," with a list
of the persons who accompanied him. The column rests upon a prismatic
support, from which protrude four prows, and the pedestal of the whole
is in the shape of a tomb, with an Egyptian-like appearance.


THE STATUE IN PHILADELPHIA.

In Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pa., there is placed a statue of
Columbus, which, originally exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, at
Philadelphia, in 1876, was presented to the Centennial Commission by the
combined Italian societies of Philadelphia.


THE STEBBINS STATUE.

In Central Park, New York City, is located an artistic statue, the gift
of Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts, and the work of Miss Emma Stebbins. The
figure of Columbus is seven feet high, and represents him as a sailor
with a mantle thrown over his shoulder. The face is copied from accepted
portraits of the Giovian type.


SANTO DOMINGOAN CANNON.

When Columbus was made a prisoner in Santo Domingo, the governor, who
arrested him, feared there might be an attempt at rescue, so he trained
a big gun on the entrance of the citadel, or castle, in which Columbus
was confined. That cannon laid in the same place until Mr. Ober, a
World's Fair representative, recovered it, and, with the permission of
the Governor of Santo Domingo, brought it to the United States. It is on
exhibition at the World's Fair.


THE SANTA MARIA CARAVEL.

A very novel feature of the historical exhibit at the Chicago World's
Columbian Exposition will be a fac-simile reproduction of the little
ship Santa Maria, in which Columbus sailed. Lieut. McCarty Little of the
United States navy was detailed to go to Spain to superintend the
construction of the ship by the Spanish government at the Carraca yard
at Cadiz. The keel was laid on March 1, 1892. The caravel's dimensions
are: Length at keel, 62 feet 4 inches; length between perpendiculars, 75
feet 5 inches; beam, 22 feet; draught, 14 feet 8 inches. Great care is
being taken with details. It is manned by Spanish sailors in the costume
of the time of Columbus, and is rigged as Columbus rigged his ship.
There are on board copies of the charts that Columbus used, and
fac-similes of his nautical instruments. The crew are of the same
number, and included in it are an Englishman and an Irishman, for it is
a well-founded historical fact that William Harris, an Englishman, and
Arthur Lake, an Irishman, were both members of Columbus' crew. In fact,
the reproduction is as exact as possible in every detail. The little
ship, in company with her sisters, the Pinta and the Niña, which were
reproduced by American capital, will make its first appearance at the
naval review in New York, where the trio will be saluted by the great
cruisers and war-ships of modern invention from all of the navies of the
world. They will then be presented by the government of Spain to the
President of the United States, and towed through the lakes to Chicago,
being moored at the Exposition. It is proposed that the vessels be taken
to Washington after the Exposition, and there anchored in the park of
the White House.

The Spanish committee having the matter in charge have made careful
examinations of all obtainable data to insure that the vessels shall be,
in every detail which can be definitely determined, exact copies of the
original Columbus vessels. In connection with this subject, _La
Ilustracion National_ of Madrid, to whom we are indebted for our
first-page illustration, says:

"A great deal of data of very varied character has been obtained, but
nothing that would give the exact details sought, because, doubtless,
the vessels of that time varied greatly, not only in the form of their
hulls, but also in their rigging, as will be seen by an examination of
the engravings and paintings of the fifteenth century; and as there was
no ship that could bear the generic name of 'caravel,' great confusion
was caused when the attempt was made to state, with a scientific
certainty, what the caravels were. The word 'caravel' comes from the
Italian _cara bella_, and with this etymology it is safe to suppose that
the name was applied to those vessels on account of the grace and beauty
of their form, and finally was applied to the light vessels which went
ahead of the ships as dispatch boats. Nevertheless, we think we have
very authentic data, perhaps all that is reliable, in the letter of Juan
de la Cosa, Christopher Columbus' pilot. Juan de la Cosa used many
illustrations, and with his important hydrographic letter, which is in
the Naval Museum, we can appreciate his ability in drawing both
landscapes and figures. As he was both draughtsman and mariner, we feel
safe in affirming that the caravels drawn in said letter of the
illustrious mariner form the most authentic document in regard to the
vessels of his time that is in existence. From these drawings and the
descriptions of the days' runs in the part marked 'incidents' of
Columbus' log, it is ascertained that these vessels had two sets of
sails, lateens for sailing with bowlines hauled, and with lines for
sailing before the wind.

"The same lateens serve for this double object, unbending the sails half
way and hoisting them like yards by means of top ropes. Instead of
having the points now used for reefing, these sails had bands of canvas
called bowlines, which were unfastened when it was unnecessary to
diminish the sails."


AT PALOS.

     From the _Saturday Review_, August 6, 1892.

It was a happy notion, and creditable to the ingenuity of the Spaniards,
to celebrate the auspicious event, which made Palos famous four hundred
years ago, by a little dramatic representation. The caravel Maria,
manned by appropriately dressed sailors, must be a sight better than
many eloquent speeches. She has, we are told, been built in careful
imitation of the flagship of Columbus' little squadron. If the fidelity
of the builders has been thorough, if she has not been coppered, has no
inner skin, and has to trust mainly to her caulking to keep out the
water, we hope that she will have unbroken good weather on her way to
New York. The voyage to Havana across the "Ladies' Sea" is a simple
business; but the coast of the United States in early autumn will be
trying to a vessel which will be buoyant enough as long as she is
water-tight, but is not to be trusted to remain so under a severe
strain. She will not escape the strain wholly by being towed. We are not
told whether the Maria is to make the landfall of Columbus as well as
take his departure. The disputes of the learned as to the exact spot
might make it difficult to decide for which of the Bahamas the captain
ought to steer. On the other hand, if it were left to luck, to the wind,
and the currents, the result might throw some light on a vexed question.
It might be interesting to see whether the Maria touched at Turk Island,
Watling's Island, or Mariguana, or at none of the three.

The event which the Spaniards are celebrating with natural pride is
peculiarly fitted to give an excuse for a centenary feast. The
complaints justly made as to the artificial character of the excuses
often chosen for these gatherings and their eloquence do not apply here.
Beyond all doubt, when Columbus sailed from Palos on August 3, 1492, he
did something by which the history of the world was profoundly
influenced. Every schoolboy of course knows that if Columbus had never
lived America would have been discovered all the same, when Pedro
Alvarez Cabral, the Portuguese admiral, was carried by the trade-winds
over to the coast of Brazil in 1500. But in that case it would not have
been discovered by Spain, and the whole course of the inevitable
European settlement on the continent must have been modified.

When that can be said of any particular event there can be no question
as to its importance. There is a kind of historical critic, rather
conspicuous in these latter days, who finds a peculiar satisfaction in
pointing out that Columbus discovered America without knowing it--which
is true. That he believed, and died in the belief, that he had reached
Asia is certain. It is not less sure that Amerigo Vespucci, from whom
the continent was named, by a series of flukes, misprints, and
misunderstandings, went to his grave in the same faith. He thought that
he had found an island of uncertain size to the south of the equator,
and that what Columbus had found to the north was the eastern extremity
of Asia. But the world which knows that Columbus did, as a matter of
fact, do it the service of finding America, and is aware that without
him the voyage from Palos would never have been undertaken, has refused
to belittle him because he did not know beforehand what was only found
out through his exertions.

The learned who have written very largely about Columbus have their
serious doubts as to the truth of the stories told of his connection
with Palos. Not that there is any question as to whether he sailed from
there. The dispute is as to the number and circumstances of his visits
to the Convent of Santa Maria Rábida, and the exact nature of his
relations to the Prior Juan Perez de Marchena. There has, in fact, been
a considerable accumulation of what that very rude man, Mr. Carlyle,
called the marine stores of history about the life of Columbus, as about
most great transactions. He certainly had been at La Rábida, and the
prior was his friend. But, with or without Juan Perez, Columbus as a
seafaring man would naturally have been in Palos. It lies right in the
middle of the coast, which has always been open to attack from Africa
and has been the starting point for attack on Africa. It is in the way
of trade for the same reason that it is in the way of war. What are now
fishing villages were brisk little trading towns in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Palos did not only send out Columbus. It received
Cortez when he came back from the conquest of Mexico. Palos does very
well to remember its glories. And Spain does equally well to remember
that she sent out Columbus. In spite of the platitudes talked by
painfully thoughtful persons as to the ruinous consequences of the
discovery to herself, it was, take it altogether, the greatest thing she
has done in the world. She owes to it her unparalleled position in the
sixteenth century, and the opportunity to become "a mother of nations."
The rest of the world has to thank her for the few magnificent and
picturesque passages which enliven the commonly rather colorless, not to
say Philistine, history of America.


A REMINISCENCE OF COLUMBUS.

     RANDALL N. SAUNDERS, Claverack, N. Y., in the _School Journal_.

* * * What boy has not felt a thrill of pride, for the sex, at the
dogged persistence with which Columbus clung to his purpose and to
Isabella after Ferdinand had flung to him but stony replies.

       *       *       *       *       *

Methinks I am starting from Palos. I see the pale, earnest face set in
its steadfast resolution from prophetic knowledge. I see the stern lines
of care, deeper from the contrast of the hair, a silver mantle refined
by the worry; the "midnight oil" that burned in the fiery furnace of his
ambition. I see the flush of pleasure at setting out to battle with the
perilous sea toward the consummation of life's grand desire. I feel the
waverings between hope and despair as the journey lengthens, with but
faint promise of reward, and with those around who would push us into
the overwhelming waves of defeat and remorse. Amid all discouragements,
amid the darkest gloom, I am inspired by his words, "Sail on, sail on";
and sailing on with the grand old Genoese, I yet hope to know and feel
his glorious success, and with him to return thanks on the golden strand
of the San Salvador of life's success.


THE DENSE IGNORANCE OF THOSE DAYS.

     The Reverend MINOT JUDSON SAVAGE, an American clergyman. Born at
     Norridgewock, Maine, June 10, 1841. Pastor of Unity Church, Boston.
     From his lecture, "The Religious Growth of Three Hundred Years."

Stand beside Columbus a moment, and consider how much and how little
there was known. It was commonly believed that the earth was flat and
was flowed round by the ocean stream. Jerusalem was the center. With the
exception of a little of Europe, a part of Asia, and a strip of North
Africa, the earth was unknown country. In these unknown parts dwelt
monsters of every conceivable description. Columbus indeed cherished the
daring dream that he might reach the eastern coast of Asia by sailing
west; but most of those who knew his dreams regarded him as crazy. And
it is now known that even he was largely impelled by his confident
expectation that he would be able to discover the Garden of Eden. The
motive of his voyage was chiefly a religious one. And, as a hint of the
kind of world in which people then lived, the famous Ponce de Leon
searched Florida in the hope of discovering the Fountain of Perpetual
Youth. At this time Copernicus and his system were unheard of. The
universe was a little three-story affair. Heaven, with God on his throne
and his celestial court about him, was only a little way overhead--just
beyond the blue dome. Hell was underneath the surface of the earth.
Volcanoes and mysterious caverns were vent-holes or gate-ways of the
pit; and devils came and went at will. Even after it was conceded that
the earth revolved, there were found writers who accounted for the
diurnal revolution by attributing it to the movements of damned souls
confined within, like restless squirrels in a revolving cage. On the
earth's surface, between heaven and hell, was man, the common
battleground of celestial and infernal hosts. At this time, of
course, there was none of our modern knowledge of the heavens, nor of
the age or structure of the earth.

[Illustration: From Harper's Weekly.

Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.

  THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT, NEW YORK CITY.
  Presented by the Italian Citizens.
  (See page 243.)]


SENECA'S PROPHECY.

     LUCIUS ANNÆUS SENECA, an eminent Roman stoic, philosopher, and
     moralist. Born at Corduba, Spain, about 5 B. C.; committed suicide
     65 A. D.

              _Venient annis
  Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus
  Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
  Pateat teilus, Tethysque novos
  Detegat orbes, nec sit terris
  Ultima Thule._


THE TOMB IN SEVILLE.

The following inscription is placed on the tomb of Hernando Columbus in
the pavement of the Cathedral of Seville, Spain:

Aqui yaze el. M. Magnifico S. D. Hernando Colon, el qual aplicó y gastó
toda su vida y hazienda en aumento de las letras, y juntar y perpetuar
en esta ciudad todas sus libros de todas las ciencias, que en su tiempo
halló y en reducirlo a quatro libros.

Falleció en esta ciudad a 12 de Julio de 1539 de edad de 50 años 9 meses
y 14 dias, fue hijo del valeroso y memoráble S. D. Christ. Colon primero
Almirante que descubrió las Yndias y nuevo mundo en vida de los Cat. R.
D. Fernando, y. D. Ysabel de gloriosa memoria a. 11 de Oct. de 1492, con
tres galeras y 90 personas, y partió del puerto de Palos a descubrirlas
á 3 de Agosto antés, y Bolvió a Castilla con victoria á 7 de Maio del
Año Siguente y tornó despues otras dos veces á poblar lo que descubrió.
Falleció en Valladolid á 20 de Agosto de 1506 anos--[56]

  Rogad á Dios por ellos.

(_In English._) Here rests the most magnificent Señor Don Hernando
Colon, who applied and spent all his life and estate in adding to the
letters, and collecting and perpetuating in this city all his books, of
all the sciences which he found in his time, and in reducing them to
four books. He died in this city on the 12th of July, 1539, at the age
of 50 years, 9 months, and 14 days. He was son of the valiant and
memorable Señor Don Christopher Colon, the First Admiral, who discovered
the Indies and the New World, in the lifetime of their Catholic
Majesties Don Fernando and Doña Isabel of glorious memory, on the 11th
of October, 1492, with three galleys and ninety people, having sailed
from the port of Palos on his discovery on the 3d of August previous,
and returned to Castille, with victory, on the 7th of May of the
following year. He returned afterward twice to people that which he had
discovered. He died in Valladolid on the 20th of August, 1506, aged
----.

  Entreat the Lord for them.

Beneath this is described, in a circle, a globe, presenting the western
and part of the eastern hemispheres, surmounted by a pair of compasses.
Within the border of the circle is inscribed:

  _Á Castillo, y á Leon
  Mundo nuevo dió Colon._

(To Castille and Leon, Columbus gave a new world.)


ONWARD! PRESS ON!

     JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER, one of Germany's greatest
     poets. Born at Marbach (about eight miles from Stuttgart), November
     11, 1759; died, May 9, 1805, at Weimar.


COLUMBUS.

(1795.)

  Steure, muthiger Segler! Es mag der Witz dich verhöhen
  Und der Schiffer am Steur senken die lässige Hand.
  Immer, immer nach West! Dort muss die Küste sich zeigen,
  Liegt sie doch deutlich und liegt schimmernd vor deinen Verstand.
  Traue dem leitenden Gott und folge dem schweigenden Weltmeer!
  War sie noch nicht, sie stieg' jetzt aus dem Fluten empor.
  Mit dem Genius steht die Natur in ewigem Bunde
  Was der Eine verspricht leistet die Andre gewiss.

     Metrically translated (1843) by SIR EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON,
     BULWER-LYTTON, Baronet (afterward first Lord Lytton. Born at Heydon
     Hall, Norfolk, May 25, 1803; died, January 18, 1873), in the
     following noble lines:


COLUMBUS.

  STEER on, bold sailor! Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
  And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
  YET EVER, EVER TO THE WEST, for there the coast must lie,
  And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye;
  Yea, trust the guiding God--and go along the floating grave,
  Though hid till now--yet now, behold the New World o'er the wave.
  With Genius Nature ever stands in solemn union still,
  And ever what the one foretells the other shall fulfill.

     Señor EMILIO CASTELAR, the talented Spanish orator and statesman,
     in the fourth of a series of most erudite and interesting articles
     upon Christopher Columbus, in the _Century Magazine_ for August,
     1892, thus masterly refers to the above passages:

He who pens these words, on reading the lines of the great poet Schiller
upon Columbus, found therein a philosophical thought, as original as
profound, calling upon the discoverer to press ever onward, for a new
world will surely arise for him, inasmuch as whatever is promised by
Genius is always fulfilled by Nature. To cross the seas of Life, naught
suffices save the bark of Faith. In that bark the undoubting Columbus
set sail, and at his journey's end found a new world. Had that world not
then existed, God would have created it in the solitude of the Atlantic,
if to no other end than to reward the faith and constancy of that great
man. America was discovered because Columbus possessed a living faith in
his ideal, in himself, and in his God.


THE NORSEMAN'S CLAIM TO PRIORITY.

     Mrs. JOHN B. SHIPLEY'S "Leif Erikson."

Father Bodfish, of the cathedral in Boston, in his paper, read a year
ago before the Bostonian Society, on the discovery of America by the
Northmen, is reported to have quoted, "as corroborative authority, the
account given in standard history of the Catholic Church of the
establishment of a bishopric in Greenland in 1112 A. D., and he added
the interesting suggestion that as it is the duty of a bishop so placed
at a distance to report from time to time to the Pope, not only on
ecclesiastical matters, but of the geography of the country and
character of the people, it is probable that Columbus had the benefit of
the knowledge possessed. It is [he said] stated in different biographies
of Columbus that when the voyage was first proposed by him he found
difficulty in getting Spanish sailors to go with him in so doubtful an
undertaking. After Columbus returned from a visit to Rome with
information there obtained, these sailors, or enough of them, appear to
have had their doubts or fears removed, and no difficulty in enlistment
was experienced."


COLUMBUS BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA.

     LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY, an American poet and miscellaneous writer.
     Born at Norwich, Conn., September 1, 1791; died, June 10, 1865.

  St. Stephen's cloistered hall was proud
    In learning's pomp that day,
  For there a robed and stately crowd
    Pressed on in long array.
  A mariner with simple chart
    Confronts that conclave high,
  While strong ambition stirs his heart,
  And burning thoughts of wonder part
    From lip and sparkling eye.

  What hath he said? With frowning face,
    In whispered tones they speak;
  And lines upon their tablet's trace
    Which flush each ashen cheek.
  The Inquisition's mystic doom
    Sits on their brows severe,
  And bursting forth in visioned gloom,
  Sad heresy from burning tomb
    Groans on the startled ear.

  Courage, thou Genoese! Old Time
    Thy splendid dream shall crown.
  Yon western hemisphere sublime,
    Where unshorn forests frown;
  The awful Andes' cloud-rapt brow,
    The Indian hunter's bow.
  Bold streams untamed by helm or prow,
  And rocks of gold and diamonds thou
    To thankless Spain shalt show.

  Courage, world-finder, thou hast need.
    In Fate's unfolding scroll,
  Dark woes and ingrate wrongs I read,
    That rack the noble soul.
  On, on! Creation's secrets probe.
    Then drink thy cup of scorn,
  And wrapped in fallen Cæsar's robe,
  Sleep like that master of the globe,
    All glorious, yet forlorn.


COLUMBUS A MARTYR.

     SAMUEL SMILES, the celebrated British biographer. Born at
     Haddington, Scotland, about 1815. From his volume, "Duty."

Even Columbus may be regarded in the light of a martyr. He sacrificed
his life to the discovery of a new world. The poor wool-carder's son of
Genoa had long to struggle unsuccessfully with the petty conditions
necessary for the realization of his idea. He dared to believe, on
grounds sufficing to his reason, that which the world disbelieved, and
scoffed and scorned at. He believed that the earth was round, while the
world believed that it was flat as a plate. He believed that the whole
circle of the earth, outside the known world, could not be wholly
occupied by sea; but that the probability was that continents of land
might be contained within it. It was certainly a Probability; But the
Noblest Qualities of the Soul Are Often Brought Forth by the Strength of
Probabilities That Appear Slight To Less Daring Spirits. In the Eyes of
His Countrymen, Few Things Were More Improbable Than That Columbus
Should Survive the Dangers of Unknown Seas, and Land On The Shores of a
New Hemisphere.


DIFFICULTIES BY THE WAY.

     ROYALL BASCOM SMITHEY, in an article. "The Voyage of Columbus," in
     _St. Nicholas_, July, 1892.

So the voyage progressed without further incident worthy of remark till
the 13th of September, when the magnetic needle, which was then believed
always to point to the pole-star, stood some five degrees to the
northwest. At this the pilots lost courage. "How," they thought, "was
navigation possible in seas where the compass, that unerring guide, had
lost its virtue?" When they carried the matter to Columbus, he at once
gave them an explanation which, though not the correct one, was yet very
ingenious, and shows the philosophic turn of his mind. The needle, he
said, pointed not to the north star, but to a fixed place in the
heavens. The north star had a motion around the pole, and in following
its course had moved from the point to which the needle was always
directed.

Hardly had the alarm caused by the variation of the needle passed away,
when two days later, after nightfall, the darkness that hung over the
water was lighted up by a great meteor, which shot down from the sky
into the sea. Signs in the heavens have always been a source of terror
to the uneducated; and this "flame of fire," as Columbus called it,
rendered his men uneasy and apprehensive. Their vague fears were much
increased when, on the 16th of September, they reached the Sargasso Sea,
in which floating weeds were so densely matted that they impeded the
progress of the ships. Whispered tales now passed from one sailor to
another of legends they had heard of seas full of shoals and treacherous
quicksands upon which ships had been found stranded with their sails
flapping idly in the wind, and manned by skeleton crews. Columbus, ever
cheerful and even-tempered, answered these idle tales by sounding the
ocean and showing that no bottom could be reached.


DESIGN FOR THE SOUVENIR COINS.[57]

A decision has been reached by the World's Fair management in relation
to the designs for the souvenir coins authorized by Congress at its last
session, and a radical change has been determined upon regarding these
coins. Several days ago Secretary Leach of the United States Mint sent
to the Fair officials a copy of the medal struck recently at Madrid,
Spain, in commemoration of Columbus' discovery of America. This medal
was illustrated in a Spanish-American paper of July, 1892, and showed a
remarkably fine profile head of the great explorer. It was deemed
superior to the Lotto portrait previously submitted for the obverse of
the coin, and the Fair directors have concluded that the Madrid medal
furnishes the best head obtainable, and have accordingly adopted it. For
the reverse of the coin a change has also been decided upon by the
substitution of a representation of the western continent instead of a
fac-simile of the Government building at Jackson Park, as originally
intended. It was suggested by experts, artists, and designers at the
Philadelphia mint that the representation of a building would not make a
very good showing on a coin, and in consequence of these expressions of
opinion it was decided to make the change proposed. Now that the
Director of the Mint knows what the Fair management wishes for a
souvenir coin, he will inaugurate the preparations of the dies and
plates as promptly as possible. Just as soon as the designs are
finished, work will be begun on the coins, which can be struck at the
rate of 60,000 daily, and it is quite likely that the deliveries of the
souvenir coins will be completed early in the spring.

[Illustration: From Harper's Weekly.

Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.

BAS-RELIEF--THE SIGHTING OF THE NEW WORLD. From the Columbus Monument in
New York City. (See page 244.)]

The announcement that the Director of the Mint has decided upon the
Madrid portrait of Columbus for the obverse side of the souvenir coin,
with this hemisphere on the reverse, was a surprise to many interested
in the designs. When the design was first presented, C. F. Gunther's
portrait, by Moro, and James W. Ellsworth's, by Lotto, were also
presented. Then a controversy opened between the owners of the two
last-named portraits, and, rather than extend this, Mr. Ellsworth
withdrew his portrait, with the suggestion that whatever design was
decided upon should first be submitted to the artists at the World's
Fair grounds. This was done, and they severely criticised the Madrid
picture. Notwithstanding this, the design was approved and sent to
Washington to be engraved. While Mr. Ellsworth, who is a director of the
Fair, will not push his portrait to the front in this matter, he regrets
that the Madrid portrait was selected. He said, "I think that the
opinion of the World's Fair artists should have had some weight in this
matter and that a portrait of authenticity should have been selected."


THE DARKNESS BEFORE DISCOVERY.

     CHARLES SUMNER, an American lawyer and senator. Born in Boston,
     Mass., January 6, 1811; died, March 11, 1874. From his "Prophetic
     Voices Concerning America." By permission of Messrs. Lee & Shepard,
     Publishers, Boston.

Before the voyage of Columbus in 1492, nothing of America was really
known. Scanty scraps from antiquity, vague rumors from the resounding
ocean, and the hesitating speculations of science were all that the
inspired navigator found to guide him.


GREATEST EVENT.

The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is the greatest event
of secular history. Besides the potato, the turkey, and maize, which it
introduced at once for the nourishment and comfort of the Old World, and
also tobacco--which only blind passion for the weed could place in the
beneficent group--this discovery opened the door to influences infinite
in extent and beneficence. Measure them, describe them, picture them,
you can not. While yet unknown, imagination invested this continent with
proverbial magnificence. It was the Orient, and the land of Cathay.
When, afterward, it took a place in geography, imagination found another
field in trying to portray its future history. If the golden age is
before, and not behind, as is now happily the prevailing faith, then
indeed must America share, at least, if it does not monopolize, the
promised good.--_Ibid._


THE DOUBTS OF COLUMBUS.

     Prof. DAVID SWING, a celebrated American preacher. Born in
     Cincinnati in 1830; graduated at Miami University in 1852; was for
     twelve years Professor of Languages at this university. In 1866 he
     became pastor of a Presbyterian church in Chicago. He was tried for
     heresy in 1874, was acquitted, and then withdrew from the
     Presbyterian church, being now independent of denominational
     relations.

Columbus was not a little troubled all through his early life lest there
might be over the sea some land greater than Spain, a land unused; a
garden where flowers came and went unseen for ages, and where gold
sparkled in the sand.


THE ERROR OF COLUMBUS.

     From a sermon by Prof. SWING, printed in Chicago _Inter
     Ocean_,1892.

The present rejoices in the remembrance that Columbus was a student, a
thinker; that he loved maps and charts; that he was a dreamer about new
continents; but after enumerating all these attractive forms of mental
activity, it comes with pain upon the thought that he was also a kind of
modified pirate. His thoughts and feelings went away from his charts and
compasses and touched upon vice and crime. Immorality ruins man's
thought. Let the name be Columbus, or Aaron Burr, or Byron, a touch of
immorality is the death of thought. "Whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are beautiful, whatsoever things are of good report,"
these seek, say, and do, but when the man who would discover a continent
robs a merchant ship or steals a cargo of slaves, or when a poet teaches
gross vulgarity, then the thinker is hemmed and degraded by criminality.
It is the glory of our age that it is washing white much of old thought.
What is the emancipation of woman but the filtration of old thought? Did
not Columbus study and read and think, and then go out and load his ship
with slaves? Did not the entire man--man the thinker, the philosopher,
the theologian--cover himself with intellectual glory and then load his
ship with enslaved womanhood? Was not the scholar Columbus part pirate?
What was in that atmosphere of the fifteenth century which could have
given peculiar thoughts to Columbus alone? Was he alone in his piracy?
It is much more certain that the chains that held the negro held also
all womanhood. All old thought thus awaited the electric process that
should weed ideas from crime. Our later years are active in
disentangling thought from injustice and vulgarity.


THE TRIBUTE OF TASSO.

     TORQUATO TASSO, a celebrated Italian epic poet. Born at Sorrento
     March 11, 1544; died in Rome, April, 1595.

  Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo polo
    Lontane sì le fortunate antenne,
  Ch'a pena seguirà con gli occhi il volo
    La Fama ch' hà mille occhi e mille penne
  Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco, e di te solo
    Basti a i posteri tuoi ch' alquanto accenne;
  Chè quel poco darà, lunga memoria
  Di poema degnissima e d'istoria.[58]

            --Gerusalemme Liberata, canto XV


KNOWLEDGE OF ICELANDIC VOYAGES.

     BAYARD TAYLOR, a distinguished American traveler, writer, and poet.
     Born in Chester County, Pa., in 1825; died at Berlin, December 19,
     1878. From a description of Iceland.

It is impossible that the knowledge of these voyages should not have
been current in Iceland in 1477, when Columbus, sailing in a ship from
Bristol, England, visited the island. As he was able to converse with
the priests and learned men in Latin, he undoubtedly learned of the
existence of another continent to the west and south; and this
knowledge, not the mere fanaticism of a vague belief, supported him
during many years of disappointment.


GLORY TO GOD.

     The Rev. GEORGE L. TAYLOR, an American clergyman of the present
     century. From "The Atlantic Telegraph."

  Glory to God above,
  The Lord of life and love!
    Who makes His curtains clouds and waters dark;
  Who spreads His chambers on the deep,
  While all its armies silence keep;
    Whose hand of old, world-rescuing, steered the ark;
  Who led Troy's bands exiled,
  And Genoa's god-like child,
  And Mayflower, grandly wild,
    And _now_ has guided safe a grander bark;
  Who, from her iron loins,
  Has spun the thread that joins
    Two yearning worlds made one with lightning spark.


TENNYSON'S TRIBUTE.

     ALFRED TENNYSON, Baron Tennyson D'Eyncourt of Aldworth, the poet
     laureate of England. Born, 1809, at Somerby, Lincolnshire; raised
     to the peerage in 1883.[59] From his poem, "Columbus."

  There was a glimmering of God's hand. And God
  Hath more than glimmer'd on me. O my lord,
  I swear to you I heard his voice between
  The thunders in the black Veragua nights,
  "O soul of little faith, slow to believe,
  Have I not been about thee from thy birth?
  Given thee the keys of the great ocean-sea?
  Set thee in light till time shall be no more?
  Is it I who have deceived thee or the world?
  Endure! Thou hast done so well for men, that men
  Cry out against thee; was it otherwise
  With mine own son?"
  And more than once in days
  Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope
  Sank all but out of sight, I heard his voice,
  "Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand,
  Fear not." And I shall hear his voice again--
  I know that he has led me all my life,
  I am not yet too old to work His will--
  His voice again.

  Sir, in that flight of ages which are God's
  Own voice to justify the dead--perchance
  Spain, once the most chivalric race on earth,
  Spain, then the mightiest, wealthiest realm on earth,
  So made by me, may seek to unbury me,
  To lay me in some shrine of this old Spain,
  Or in that vaster Spain I leave to Spain.
  Then some one standing by my grave will say,
  "Behold the bones of Christopher Colòn,
  "Ay, but the chains, what do _they_ mean--the chains?"
  I sorrow for that kindly child of Spain
  Who then will have to answer, "These same chains
  Bound these same bones back thro' the Atlantic sea,
  Which he unchain'd for all the world to come."

The golden guess is morning star to the full round of truth.--_Ibid._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: Copyright 1892 and by permission of the author.]

[Footnote 31: Lope de Vega has been variously termed the "Center of
Fame," the "Darling of Fortune," and the "Phoenix of the Ages," by his
admiring compatriots. His was a most fertile brain; his a most fecund
pen. A single day sufficed to compose a versified drama.]

[Footnote 32: By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.]

[Footnote 33: For the above particulars and inscription the compiler
desires to acknowledge his obligation to the Hon. Thomas Adamson, U. S.
Consul General at Panama, and Mr. George W. Clamman, the able clerk of
the U. S. Consulate in the city of Colon.]

[Footnote 34: Copernicus has also been so styled.]

[Footnote 35: Señor Emilio Castelar, the celebrated Spanish author and
statesman, in his most able series of articles on Columbus in the
_Century Magazine_, derides the fact of an actual mutiny as a convenient
fable which authors and dramatists have clothed with much choice
diction.]

[Footnote 36: Galileo, the great Italian natural philosopher, is here
referred to by the author.]

[Footnote 37: By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.]

[Footnote 38: By permission of Messrs. Ginn & Co., Publishers.]

[Footnote 39: The Rock of Gibraltar is referred to.]

[Footnote 40: The location of the church at Old Isabella has been
exactly determined, and a noble monument (fully described in these
pages) has been erected there under the auspices of the _Sacred Heart
Review_ of Boston.]

[Footnote 41: Since changed to a life-size statue of Columbus.]

[Footnote 42: A replica is erected in Boston.]

[Footnote 43: Copyright, 1892, by permission of the publishers.]

[Footnote 44: Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.]

[Footnote 45: Copyright, and by permission of Chas. Scribner's Sons,
Publishers, New York.]

[Footnote 46: Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.]

[Footnote 47: Docuit quae maximus Atlas. Hic canit errantem Lernam,
Solisque labores. _Virgil, Æneid_, I, 741.]

[Footnote 48: Navarrete thought that Turk Island was the island, the
most southern of the Bahama group, because he erroneously assumed that
Columbus always shaped a westerly course in sailing from island to
island; and Turk Island, being farthest east, would give most room for
such a course. This island has large lagoons, and is surrounded by a
reef. So far it resembles Guanahani. But the second island, according to
Navarrete, is Caicos, bearing W. N. W., while the second island of
Columbus bore S. W. from the first. The third island of Columbus was in
sight from the second. Inagua Chica (Little Inagua), Navarrete's third
island, is not in sight from Caicos. The third island of Columbus was 60
miles long. Inagua Chica is only 12 miles long. The fourth island of
Columbus bore east from the third. Inagua Grande (Great Inagua),
Navarrete's fourth island, bears southwest from Inagua Chica.

Cat Island was the landfall advocated by Washington Irving and Humboldt,
mainly on the ground that it was called San Salvador on the West India
map in Blaeu's Dutch atlas of 1635. But this was done for no known
reason but the caprice of the draughtsman. D'Anville copied from Blaeu
in 1746, and so the name got into some later atlases. Cat Island does
not meet a single one of the requirements of the case. Guanahani had a
reef round it, and a large lagoon in the center. Cat Island has no reef
and no lagoon. Guanahani was low; Cat Island is the loftiest of the
Bahamas. The two islands could not be more different. Of course, in
conducting Columbus from Cat Island to Cuba, Washington Irving is
obliged to disregard all the bearings and distances given in the
journal.]

[Footnote 49: The cross-staff had not then come into use, and it was
never of much service in low latitudes.]

[Footnote 50: It was also resolved to establish in the city of
Washington a Latin-American Memorial Library, wherein should be
collected all the historical, geographical, and literary works, maps,
and manuscripts, and official documents relating to the history and
civilization of America, _such library to be solemnly dedicated on the
day on which the United States celebrates the fourth centennial of the
discovery of America_.]

[Footnote 51: Published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.]

[Footnote 52: Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.]

[Footnote 53: NOTE.--Those marked * were left behind, in the fort, at La
Navidad, and perished there.]

[Footnote 54: NOTE.--The names of the crew are on the Madrid monument.]

[Footnote 55: Randolph Rogers, an American sculptor of eminence, was
born in Waterloo, N. Y., in 1825; died at Rome, in the same State, aged
sixty-seven, January 14, 1892.]

[Footnote 56: Mr. George Sumner, a painstaking investigator, states that
after diligent search he is unable to find any other inscription to the
memory of Columbus in the whole of Spain.

At Valladolid, where he died, and where his body lay for some years,
there is none, so far as he could discover; neither is there any trace
of any at the Cartuja, near Seville, to which his body was afterward
transferred, and in which his brother was buried. It is (he writes in
1871) a striking confirmation of the reproach of negligence, in regard
to the memory of this great man, that, in this solitary inscription in
old Spain, the date of his death should be inaccurately given.--Major's
"Letters of Columbus," 1871.

(The Madrid and Barcelona statues were erected in 1885 and 1888
respectively.)--S. C. W.]

[Footnote 57: Since writing this the Lotto portrait has been selected.]

[Footnote 58: For an English metrical translation, see _post_, WIFFEN.]

[Footnote 59: Died at Aldworth October 6, 1892.]



NEW YORK CELEBRATED THE TERCENTENARY.

The managers of the World's Columbian Exposition have prided themselves
upon being the first to celebrate any anniversary of the Columbian
discovery, but this credit really belongs to the Tammany Society of New
York, and the second place of honor belongs to the Massachusetts
Historical Society of Boston. The Tammany Society met in the great
wigwam on the 12th day of October, 1792 (old style), and exhibited a
monumental obelisk, and an animated oration was delivered by J. B.
Johnson, Esq.

The Massachusetts Historical Society met at the house of the Rev. Dr.
Peter Thacher, in Boston, the 23d day of October, 1792, and, forming in
procession, proceeded to the meeting-house in Brattle Street, where a
discourse was delivered by the Rev. Jeremy Belknap upon the subject of
the "Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus." He gave a concise
and comprehensive narrative of the most material circumstances which led
to, attended, or were consequent on the discovery of America. The
celebration commenced with an anthem. Mr. Thacher made an excellent
prayer. Part of a psalm was then sung, and then Mr. Belknap delivered
his discourse, which was succeeded by a prayer from Mr. Eliot. Mr.
Thacher then read an ode composed for the occasion by Mr. Belknap, which
was sung by the choir. This finished the ceremony.

The facts were brought to light by World's Fair Commissioner John Boyd
Thacher, New York. The account is taken from "a journal of a gentleman
visiting Boston in 1792." The writer is said to have been Nathaniel
Cutting, a native of Brookline, Mass., and who, in the following year,
was appointed by Washington, upon the recommendation of Thomas
Jefferson, on a mission to the Dey of Algiers.

It is interesting to note that the Massachusetts Historical Society, in
assuming to correct the old style date, October 12th, was guilty of the
error of dropping two unnecessary days. It dropped eleven days from the
calendar instead of nine, and at a subsequent meeting it determined to
correct the date to October 21st, "and that thereafter all celebrations
of the Columbian discovery should fall on the 21st day of October."

The proclamation of the President establishing October 21st as the day
of general observance of the anniversary of the Columbian discovery, and
the passage of Senator Hill's bill fixing the date for the dedication of
the buildings at Chicago, it is believed will forevermore fix October
21st as the Columbian day.


COLUMBUS' SUPREME SUSPENSE.

     MAURICE THOMPSON, an American poet and novelist. Born at Fairfield,
     Ind., September 9, 1844. From his "Byways and Bird-notes."

What a thrill is dashed through a moment of expectancy, a point of
supreme suspense, when by some time of preparation the source of
sensation is ready for a consummation --a catastrophe! At such a time
one's soul is isolated so perfectly that it feels not the remotest
influence from any other of all the universe. The moment preceding the
old patriarch's first glimpse of the promised land; that point of time
between certainty and uncertainty, between pursuit and capture,
whereinto are crowded all the hopes of a lifetime, as when the brave old
sailor from Genoa first heard the man up in the rigging utter the shout
of discovery; the moment of awful hope, like that when Napoleon watched
the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, is not to be described. There
is but one such crisis for any man. It is the yes or no of destiny. It
comes, he lives a lifetime in its span; it goes, and he never can pass
that point again.


GREAT WEST.

     HENRY DAVID THOREAU, an American author and naturalist. Born in
     Concord, Mass., in 1817; died, 1862. From his "Excursions,"
     published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west
as distant and as far as that into which the sun goes down. He appears
to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great
Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those
mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which
were last gilded by his rays. The Island of Atlantis, and the islands
and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear
to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and
poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset
sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those
fables?

[Illustration: Harper's Weekly.

Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.

THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS. Bas-relief on the New York Monument. (See page
244.)]

Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He
obeyed it, and found a new world for Castille and Leon. The herd of men
in those days scented fresh pastures from afar.

  And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
  And now was dropped into the western bay;
  At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue;
  To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.


THE ROUTE TO THE SPICE INDIES.

     PAOLO DEL POZZO TOSCANELLI, a celebrated Italian astronomer. Born
     at Florence, 1397; died, 1482. From a letter to Columbus in 1474.

I praise your desire to navigate toward the west; the expedition you
wish to undertake is not easy, but the route from the west coasts of
Europe to the spice Indies is certain if the tracks I have marked be
followed.


A VISIT TO PALOS.

     GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND. In a letter to the Philadelphia _Times_.

From one of the hillocks behind the hotel at Huelva you can see in the
distance East Rábida, Palos, Moguer, San Juan del Porto, and the sea,
where the three birds of good omen went skimming past in the vague
morning light 400 years ago, lest they might be seen by the Portuguese.
Columbus means dove, and the arms of Columbus contained three doves.
From Huelva I sailed to Rábida first. Rábida is on the last point of the
promontory, nearest the sea, and Palos is inland from it three miles
north, and is near half a mile from the Tinto. Passing down the oozy
Odiel, we soon saw a watering place on the beach outside just where
Columbus put to sea. We could also see the scaffolding around the
Columbus monument they were building by Rábida.

After inspecting the convent at Rábida, I bade my skipper wait for flood
tide to sail round to Palos, while I proceeded by land.

They brought me at Palos an old man who was extremely polite, but not
one word could we understand of each other, until finally I took him by
the arm and walked him in the direction of the church, whereupon
suppressed exclamations of delight broke forth; the American savage had
guessed the old man out. In point of fact, this old man was waiting all
the time to take me to the church, and was the father of the boy behind
whom I had ridden. Between the church and the beach rose a high hillock
covered with grass, and as high as the church tower. In old times this
was a mosque of military work, and it had not very long been Christian
when Columbus came here; possibly it had been Christian in his day 150
years. It stands quite alone, is of rude construction, and has at the
back of it some few graves--perhaps of priests. In the back part is a
very good Moorish arch, which they still show with admiration. The front
proper has a big door, barred strongly, as if the church might have been
in piratical times a place of refuge for the population up in the hills.
To the right of the entrance is the tower, which is buttressed, and its
spire is made of blue and colored tiles, which have thoroughly kept
their colors. A bell in this tower may have rung the inhabitants to
church when Columbus announced that he meant to impress the Palos people
to assist him in his voyage. I entered the church, which was all
whitewashed, and felt, as I did at Rábida, that it was a better
monument than I had reason to expect.

Its walls were one yard thick, its floors of tiles laid in an L form. As
I measured the floor it seemed to me to be sixty-six feet wide and
sixty-six feet long, but to the length must be added the altar chapel,
bringing it up to ninety feet, and to the width must be added the side
chapels, making the total width about eighty feet. The nave has a
sharper arched top than the two aisles, which have round arches. The
height of the roof is about thirty-five feet. The big door by which I
entered the church is fifteen feet high by eight feet wide. Some very
odd settees which I coveted were in the nave. The chief feature,
however, is the pulpit, which stands at the cross of the church, so that
persons gathered in the transepts, nave, or aisles can hear the
preacher. It has an iron pulpit of a round form springing from one stem
and railed in, and steps lead up to it which are inclosed. It looks old,
and worn by human hands, and is supposed to be the identical pulpit from
which the notary announced that, as a punishment of their offenses, the
Queen's subjects must start with this unknown man upon his unknown
venture. Those were high times in Palos, and it took Columbus a long
while to get his expedition ready, and special threats as of high
treason had to be made against the heads of families and women. But when
Columbus returned, and the same day Pinzon came back after their
separation of weeks, Palos church was full of triumph and hosannas. The
wild man had been successful, and Spain found another world than the
apostle knew of.

The grown boy, as he showed the building, went into an old lumber room,
or dark closet, at one corner of the church, and when I was about to
enter he motioned me back with his palm, as if I might not enter there
with my heretic feet. He then brought out an image of wood from four to
five feet high, or, I might say, the full size of a young woman. It was
plain that she had once been the Virgin worshiped here, but age and
moisture had taken most of the color from her, and washed the gilt from
her crown, and now we could only see that in her arm she bore a child,
and this child held in its hand a dove or pigeon. The back of the female
was hollow, and in there were driven hooks by which she had once been
suspended at some height. This was the image, I clearly understood,
which Columbus' men had knelt to when they were about to go forth upon
the high seas.

Strangely enough, the church is named St. George, and St. George was the
patron saint of Genoa, where Columbus was born; and the Genoese who took
the Crusaders to Jaffa had the satisfaction of seeing England annex
their patron saint.


BIBLE.

     The Rev. LUTHER TRACY TOWNSEND, D. D., an American divine. Born at
     Orono, Maine, September 27, 1838. From "The Bible and the
     Nineteenth Century."

When Luther in the sixteenth century brought the truths of the Bible
from the convent of Erfurth, and gave them to the people, he roused to
mental and moral life not only the slumbering German nationality, but
gave inspiration to every other country in Europe. "Gutenburg with his
printing press, Columbus with his compass, Galileo with his telescope,
Shakspere with his dramas, and almost every other man of note figuring
during those times, are grouped, not around some distinguished man of
science, or man of letters, or man of mechanical genius, or man famous
in war; but around that monk of Wittenberg, who stood with an unchained
Bible in his hand."


TESTIMONY OF A CONTEMPORARY AS TO THE TREATMENT OF COLUMBUS.

     From a letter of ANGELO TRIVIGIANO, of Granada, Spain, dated August
     1, 1501.

I have seen so much of Columbus that we are now on a footing of great
friendship. He is experiencing at present a streak of bad luck, being
deprived of the King's favor, and with but little money.


THE VALPARAISO STATUE.

At Valparaiso, Chili, a bronze statue of Columbus has been erected on a
marble pedestal. The figure, which is of heroic size, stands in an
advancing attitude, holding a cross in the right hand.


COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.

     Dr. P. H. VAN DER WEYDE. In an article in the _Scientific
     American_, June, 1892.

The stupid anecdote of the egg was a mere trifling invention, in fact a
trick, and it is surprising that intelligent men have for so many years
thoughtlessly been believing and repeating such nonsense. For my part, I
can not believe that Columbus did ever lower himself so far as to
compare the grand discovery to a trick. Surely it was no trick by which
he discovered a new world, but it was the result of his earnest
philosophical convictions that our earth is a globe, floating in space,
and it could be circumnavigated by sailing westward, which most likely
would lead to the discovery of new lands in the utterly unknown
hemisphere beyond the western expanse of the great and boisterous
Atlantic Ocean; while thus far no navigator ever had the courage to sail
toward its then utterly unknown, apparently limitless, western expanse.


THE MAN OF THE CHURCH.

     Padre GIOCCHINO VENTURA, an eloquent Italian preacher and
     theologian. Born at Palermo, 1792; died at Versailles, August,
     1861.

Columbus is the man of the Church.


ATTENDANT FAME SHALL BLESS.

     The Venerable GEORGE WADDINGTON, Dean of Durham, an English divine
     and writer. Died, July 20, 1869. From a poem read in Cambridge in
     1813.

  And when in happier days one chain shall bind,
  One pliant fetter shall unite mankind;
  When war, when slav'ry's iron days are o'er,
  When discords cease and av'rice is no more,
  And with one voice remotest lands conspire,
  To hail our pure religion's seraph fire;
  Then fame attendant on the march of time,
  Fed by the incense of each favored clime,
  Shall bless the man whose heav'n-directed soul
  Form'd the vast chain which binds the mighty whole.

   *       *       *       *       *

Columbus continued till death eager to extend his discoveries, and by so
doing to promote the glory of his persecutors.


VANDERLYN'S PICTURE AT WASHINGTON.

The first of the eight pictures in the rotunda of the Capitol at
Washington, D. C., and the first in point of event, is the "Landing of
Columbus at San Salvador in 1492," by John Vanderlyn; its cost was
$12,000. This picture represents the scene Washington Irving so
admirably describes in his "Voyages of Columbus," occurring the morning
the boats brought the little Spanish band from the ships to the shore of
Guanahani. "Columbus first threw himself upon his knees; then, rising,
drew his sword, displayed the royal standard, and, assembling around him
the two captains, with Rodrigo de Escobedo, notary of the armament;
Rodrigo Sanchez (the royal inspector), and the rest who had landed, he
took solemn possession of the island in the name of the Castilian
sovereigns." The picture contains the picture of Columbus, the two
Pinzons, Escobedo, all bearing standards; Sanchez, inspector; Diego de
Arana, with an old-fashioned arquebus on his shoulder; a cabin-boy
kneeling, a mutineer in a suppliant attitude, a sailor in an attitude of
veneration for Columbus, a soldier whose attention is diverted by the
appearance of the natives, and a friar bearing a crucifix.


COLUMBUS STATUE AT WASHINGTON, D. C.

The Columbus statue stands at the east-central portico of the Capitol,
at Washington, D. C., above the south end of the steps, on an elevated
block. It consists of a marble group, by Signor Persico, called "The
Discovery," on which he worked five years, and is composed of two
figures: Columbus holding the globe in his hand, triumphant, while
beside him, wondering, almost terror-stricken, is a female figure,
symbolizing the Indian race. The suit of armor worn by Columbus is said
to be a faithful copy of one he actually wore. The group cost $24,000.


THE WATLING'S ISLAND MONUMENT RAISED BY THE CHICAGO "HERALD."

With true Chicago enterprise, the wideawake Chicago _Herald_ dispatched
an expedition to the West Indies in 1891 to search out the landing place
of Columbus. The members of the party, after careful search and inquiry,
erected a monument fifteen feet high on Watling's Island bearing the
following inscription:

  ON THIS SPOT
  CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
  FIRST SET FOOT ON THE SOIL OF THE NEW WORLD.

    *       *       *

  Erected by
  The Chicago _Herald_,
  June 15, 1891.

    *       *       *

  COLUMBUS.
  FOR THE FESTIVAL AT HUELVA.

  _Á Castillo, y á Leon
  Nuevo Mundo dió Colon._


THEODORE WATTS, in the _Athenæum_ (England).

  To Christ he cried to quell Death's deafening measure,
    Sung by the storm to Death's own chartless sea;
    To Christ he cried for glimpse of grass or tree
  When, hovering o'er the calm, Death watch'd at leisure;
  And when he showed the men, now dazed with pleasure,
    Faith's new world glittering star-like on the lee,
    "I trust that by the help of Christ," said he,
  "I presently shall light on golden treasure."

  What treasure found he? Chains and pains and sorrow.
    Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find
    Whose footfalls mark the music of mankind.
  'Twas his to lend a life; 'twas man's to borrow;
  'Twas his to make, but not to share, the morrow,
    Who in love's memory lives this morn enshrined.


WEST INDIAN STATUES.

CARDENAS, CUBA.--At Cardenas, Cuba, a statue by Piguer of Madrid has
been erected by a Cuban lady, an authoress, and wife of a former
governor.

[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS In the Courtyard of the
Captain-General's Palace, Havana, Cuba (See page 313.)]

CATHEDRAL OF HAVANA, CUBA.--In the Cathedral of Havana there is a
plain marble bas-relief, about four feet high, representing in a
medallion a very apocryphal portrait of Columbus, with an inscription as
follows:

  _O restos é Ymajen del grande Colon!
  Mil siglos durad guardados en la urna
  Y en la remembranza de nuestra Nacion._

  (O remains and image of the great Columbus!
  For a thousand ages endure guarded within this urn
  And in the remembrance of our nation.)

PROPOSED TOMB--HAVANA CATHEDRAL.--In February, 1891, by royal decree,
all Spanish artists were invited to compete for a design for a sepulcher
in which to preserve the Havana remains of Columbus; several were
submitted to a jury, who awarded the first prize to Arthur Melida, with
a premium of $5,000.

The sepulcher is now being erected in the cathedral. The design
represents a bier covered with a heavily embroidered pall, borne upon
the shoulders of four heralds, in garments richly carved to resemble
lace and embroidered work. The two front figures bear scepters
surmounted by images of the Madonna and St. James, the patron saint of
Spain. On the front of their garments are the arms of Castille and Leon.

The two bearers represent Aragon and Navarre, the former being indicated
by four red staffs on a gold field, and the fourth has gold-linked
chains on a red field. The group is supported on a pedestal ornamented
about its edge with a Greek fret.


HAVANA, CUBA.--In the court-yard of the Captain-General's palace, in
Havana, is a full-length figure of Columbus, the face modeled after
accepted portraits at Madrid.


HAVANA, CUBA.--In the inclosure of the "Templete," the little chapel on
the site of which the first mass was celebrated in Cuba, there is a
bust of Columbus which has the solitary merit of being totally unlike
all others.

NASSAU.--At Nassau, in the Bahamas, a statue of Christopher Columbus
stands in front of Government House. The statue, which is nine feet
high, is placed upon a pedestal six feet in altitude, on the north or
seaward face of which is inscribed:

  COLUMBUS, 1492.

It was presented to the colony by Sir James Carmichael Smyth, Governor
of the Bahamas, 1829-1833, was modeled in London in 1831, is made of
metal and painted white, and was erected May, 1832.

SANTO DOMINGO CATHEDRAL.--Above the _boveda_, or vault, in the Cathedral
of Santo Domingo, from which the remains of Columbus were taken in 1877,
is a marble slab with the following:

_Reposaron en este sitio los restos de Don Cristobal Colon el célebre
descrubridor del Nuevo Mundo, desde el año de 1536, en que fueron
trasladados de España, hasta el 10 de Setiembre 1877, en que se
desenterraron para constatar su autenticidad. Y á posteridad la dedica
el Presbitero Billini._

(There reposed in this place the remains of Christopher Columbus, the
celebrated discoverer of the New World, from the year 1536, in which
they were transferred from Spain, until the 10th September, 1877, in
which year they were disinterred for the purpose of identification.
Dedicated to posterity by Padre Billini) (curate in charge when the
vault was opened.)

In the cathedral there is also preserved a large cross of mahogany,
rough and uneven, as though hewn with an adze out of a log, and then
left in the rough. This, it is claimed, is the cross made by Columbus
and erected on the opposite bank of the Ozama River, where the first
settlement in the West Indies was made. In a little room by itself they
keep a leaden casket, which Santo Domingoans claim contains the bones of
Christopher Columbus, and, in another, those of his brother.

PLAZA OF SANTO DOMINGO.--Humboldt once wrote that America could boast of
no worthy monument to its discoverer, but since his time many memorials
have been erected, not only in the New World, but the Old. In the plaza
in front of the cathedral, in the city of Santo Domingo, stands a
statue, heroic, in bronze, representing Columbus pointing to the
westward. Crouched at his feet is the figure of a female Indian,
supposed to be the unfortunate Anacaona, the caciquess of Xaragua,
tracing an inscription:

  _Yllustre y Esclarecido Varon Don Cristoval Colon._

The statue was cast in France, a few years ago, and stands in the center
of the plaza, in front of the cathedral.


COLUMBUS LORD NORTH'S "BÊTE NOIR."

     EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE, a distinguished American critic and essayist.
     Born at Gloucester, Mass., 1819; died, June 16, 1886.

Lord North more than once humorously execrated the memory of Columbus
for discovering a continent which gave him and his ministry so much
trouble.


HARDY MARINERS HAVE BECOME GREAT HEROES.

     DANIEL APPLETON WHITE, a distinguished American jurist and scholar.
     Born at Lawrence, Mass., June 7, 1776; died, March 30, 1861.

Hardy seamen, too, who have spent their days in conflict with the storms
of the ocean, have found means to make themselves distinguished in
science and literature, as well as by achievements in their profession.
The life of Columbus gloriously attests this fact.


TASSO'S TRIBUTE IN ENGLISH SPENSERIAN STANZA.

JEREMIAH HOLMES WIFFEN, an English writer and translator. Born at
Woburn, 1792. Many years librarian and private secretary to the Duke of
Bedford. Died, 1836. From his translation of Tasso's "Jerusalem
Delivered" (1830). (See _ante_, TASSO.)


CANTO XV.

XXX.

  The time shall come when ship-boys e'en shall scorn
    To have Alcides' fable on their lips,
  Seas yet unnamed and realms unknown adorn
    Your charts, and with their fame your pride eclipse;
    Then the bold Argo of all future ships
  Shall circumnavigate and circle sheer
    Whate'er blue Tethys in her girdle clips,
  Victorious rival of the sun's career,
  And measure e'en of earth the whole stupendous sphere.

XXXI.

  A Genoese knight shall first the idea seize
    And, full of faith, the untracked abyss explore.
  No raving winds, inhospitable seas,
    Thwart planets, dubious calms, or billows' roar,
    Nor whatso'er of risk or toil may more
  Terrific show or furiously assail,
    Shall make that mighty mind of his give o'er
  The wonderful adventure, or avail
  In close Abyla's bounds his spirit to impale.

XXXII.

  'Tis thou, Columbus, in new zones and skies,
    That to the wind thy happy sails must raise,
  Till fame shall scarce pursue thee with her eyes,
    Though she a thousand eyes and wings displays;
    Let her of Bacchus and Alcides praise
  The savage feats, and do thy glory wrong
    With a few whispers tossed to after days;
  These shall suffice to make thy memory long
  In history's page endure, or some divinest song.


NOAH AND COLUMBUS.

     EMMA HART WILLARD, an American teacher and educational writer. Born
     at Berlin, Conn., 1787; died, 1870.

Since the time when Noah left the ark to set his foot upon a recovered
world, a landing so sublime as that of Columbus had never occurred.


A GRAND PROPHETIC VISION.

     The Rev. ELHANAN WINCHESTER, an American divine. Born at Brookline,
     Mass., 1751; died, 1797. From an oration delivered in London,
     October 12, 1792, the 300th anniversary of the landing of Columbus
     in the New World. The orator, previous to a call to a pastorate in
     London, had lived many years in America, being at one time pastor
     of a large church in the city of Philadelphia. This oration should
     be prized, so to speak, for its "ancient simplicity." It is a relic
     of the style used in addresses one hundred years ago.

I have for some years had it upon my mind that if Providence preserved
my life to the close of the third century from the discovery of America
by Columbus, that I would celebrate that great event by a public
discourse upon the occasion.

And although I sincerely wish that some superior genius would take up
the subject and treat it with the attention that it deserves, yet,
conscious as I am of my own inability, I am persuaded that America has
not a warmer friend in the world than myself.

The discovery of America by Columbus was situated, in point of time,
between two great events, which have caused it to be much more noticed,
and have rendered it far more important than it would otherwise have
been. I mean _the art of printing_, which was discovered about the year
1440, and which has been and will be of infinite use to mankind, and
_the Reformation_ from popery, which began about the year 1517, the
effects of which have already been highly beneficial in a political as
well as in a religious point of view, and will continue and increase.

These three great events--_the art of printing_, the discovery of
America, and _the Reformation_--followed each other in quick succession;
and, combined together, have already produced much welfare and happiness
to mankind, and certainly will produce abundance more.

       *       *       *       *       *

By the discovery of America there was much room given to the inhabitants
of the Old World; an asylum was prepared for the persecuted of all
nations to fly to for safety, and a grand theater was erected where
Liberty might safely lift up her standard, and triumph over all the foes
of freedom. America may be called _the very birthplace of civil and
religious liberty_, which had never been known to mankind until since
the discovery of that country.

But the importance of the discovery will appear greater and greater
every year, and one century to come will improve America far more than
the three centuries past.

The prospect opens; it extends itself upon us. "The wilderness and
solitary place shall rejoice, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as
the rose." I look forward to that glorious era when that vast continent
shall be fully populated with civilized and religious people; when
heavenly wisdom and virtue, and all that can civilize, adorn, and bless
the children of men, shall cover that part of the globe as the waters
cover the seas.

Transported at the thought, I am borne forward to days of distant
renown. In my expanded view, the United States rise in all their ripened
glory before me. I look through and beyond every yet peopled region of
the New World, and behold period still brightening upon period. Where
one contiguous depth of gloomy wilderness now shuts out even the beams
of day, I see new states and empires, new seats of wisdom and knowledge,
new religious domes, spreading around. In places now untrod by any but
savage beasts, or men as savage as they, I hear the voice of happy
labor, and behold beautiful cities rising to view.

Lo, in this happy picture, I behold the native Indian exulting in the
works of peace and civilization; his bloody hatchet he buries deep under
ground, and his murderous knife he turns into a pruning fork, to lop the
tender vine and teach the luxuriant shoot to grow. No more does he form
to himself a heaven after death (according to the poet), in company with
his faithful dog, behind the cloud-topped hill, to enjoy solitary quiet,
far from the haunts of faithless men; but, better instructed by
Christianity, he views his everlasting inheritance--"a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Instead of recounting to his offspring, round the blazing fire, the
bloody exploits of their ancestors, and wars of savage death, showing
barbarous exultation over every deed of human woe, methinks I hear him
pouring forth his eulogies of praise, in memory of those who were the
instruments of heaven in raising his tribes from darkness to light, in
giving them the blessings of civilized life, and converting them from
violence and blood to meekness and love.

Behold the whole continent highly cultivated and fertilized, full of
cities, towns, and villages, beautiful and lovely beyond expression. I
hear the praises of my great Creator sung upon the banks of those rivers
unknown to song. Behold the delightful prospect! see the silver and gold
of America employed in the service of the Lord of the whole earth! See
slavery, with all its train of attendant evil, forever abolished! See a
communication opened through the whole continent, from north to south,
and from east to west, through a most fruitful country! Behold the glory
of God extending, and the gospel spreading, through the whole land!

O my native country! though I am far distant from thy peaceful shores,
which probably mine eyes may never more behold, yet I can never forget
thee. May thy great Creator bless thee, and make thee a happy land,
while thy rivers flow and thy mountains endure. And, though He has
spoken nothing plainly in His word concerning thee, yet has he blest
thee abundantly, and given thee good things in possession, and a
prospect of more glorious things in time to come. His name shall be
known, feared, and loved through all thy western regions, and to the
utmost bounds of thy vast extensive continent.

O America! land of liberty, peace, and plenty, in thee I drew my first
breath, in thee all my kindred dwell. I beheld thee in thy lowest state,
crushed down under misfortunes, struggling with poverty, war, and
disgrace. I have lived to behold thee free and independent, rising to
glory and extensive empire, blessed with all the good things of this
life, and a happy prospect of better things to come. I can say, "Lord,
now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen
thy salvation," which thou hast made known to my native land, in the
sight, and to the astonishment, of all the nations of the earth.

I die; but God will surely visit America, and make it a vast flourishing
and extensive empire; will take it under His protection, and bless it
abundantly--but the prospect is too glorious for my pen to describe. I
add no more.

[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS, IN FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA.
Presented by Italian Citizens. (See page 281.)]


DE MORTUIS, NIL NISI BONUM.

     JUSTIN WINSOR, a celebrated American critical historian. Born,
     1831.

No man craves more than Columbus to be judged with all the palliations
demanded of his own age and ours. It would have been well for his memory
if he had died when his master work was done.

       *       *       *       *       *

His discovery was a blunder; his blunder was a new world; the New World
is his monument.


ON A PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS.

     GEORGE E. WOODBERRY, in the _Century Magazine_, May, 1892. By
     permission of the author and the Century Company.

  Was this his face, and these the finding eyes
    That plucked a new world from the rolling seas?
    Who, serving Christ, whom most he sought to please,
  Willed his one thought until he saw arise
  Man's other home and earthly paradise--
    His early vision, when with stalwart knees
    He pushed the boat from his young olive trees
  And sailed to wrest the secret of the skies?

  He on the waters dared to set his feet,
    And through believing planted earth's last race.
  What faith in man must in our new world beat,
    Thinking how once he saw before his face
  The west and all the host of stars retreat
    Into the silent infinite of space.


GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT.

     JOSEPH EMERSON WORCESTER, a celebrated American lexicographer. Born
     at Bedford, N. H., 1758; died, 1865.

The discovery of America was the greatest achievement of the kind ever
performed by man; and, considered in connection with its consequences,
it is the greatest event of modern times. It served to wake up the
unprecedented spirit of enterprise; it opened new sources of wealth, and
exerted a powerful influence on commerce by greatly increasing many
important articles of trade, and also by bringing into general use
others before unknown; by leading to the discovery of the rich mines of
this continent, it has caused the quantity of the precious metals in
circulation throughout the world to be exceedingly augmented; it also
gave a new impulse to colonization, and prepared the way for the
advantages of civilized life and the blessings of =Christianity= to be
extended over vast regions which before were the miserable abodes of
barbarism and pagan idolatry.

The man to whose genius and enterprise the world is indebted for this
discovery was Christopher Columbus of Genoa. He conceived that in order
to complete the balance of the terraqueous globe another continent
necessarily existed, which might be reached by sailing to the west from
Europe; but he erroneously connected it with India. Being persuaded of
the truth of his theory, his adventurous spirit made him eager to verify
it by experiment.


THE FATE OF DISCOVERERS.

It is remarkable how few of the eminent men of the discoverers and
conquerors of the New World died in peace. Columbus died broken-hearted;
Roldan and Bobadilla were drowned; Ojeda died in extreme poverty;
Encisco was deposed by his own men; Nicuesa perished miserably by the
cruelty of his party; Balboa was disgracefully beheaded; Narvaez was
imprisoned in a tropical dungeon, and afterward died of hardship; Cortez
was dishonored; Alvarado was destroyed in ambush; Pizarro was murdered,
and his four brothers cut off; Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded by an
ungrateful king; the noble and adventurous Robert La Salle, the explorer
of the Mississippi Valley, was murdered by his mutinous crew; Sir Martin
Frobisher died of a wound received at Brest; Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
Raleigh's noble half-brother, "as near to God by sea as by land," sank
with the crew of the little Squirrel in the deep green surges of the
North Atlantic; Sir Francis Drake, "the terror of the Spanish Main," and
the explorer of the coast of California, died of disease near Puerto
Bello, in 1595. The frozen wilds of the North hold the bones of many an
intrepid explorer. Franklin and Bellot there sleep their last long
sleep. The bleak snow-clad _tundra_ of the Lena delta saw the last
moments of the gallant De Long. Afric's burning sands have witnessed
many a martyrdom to science and religion. Livingston, Hannington,
Gordon, Jamieson, and Barttelot are golden names on the ghastly roll.
Australia's scrub-oak and blue-gum plains have contributed their quota
of the sad and sudden deaths on the earth-explorers' roll.




Columbus and Columbia.

COLUMBIA.

  Hail, Columbia! happy land!
  Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!

  _Joseph Hopkinson_, 1770-1842.

  And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
  While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

  _Robert Treat Paine_, 1772-1811.

  Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise.
  The queen of the world, and child of the skies!
  Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold
  While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.

  _Timothy Dwight_, 1752-1817.




COLUMBIA


AMERICAN FUTURITY.

     JOHN ADAMS, second President of the United States. Born October 19,
     1735; died July 4, 1826.

A prospect into futurity in America is like contemplating the heavens
through the telescopes of Herschel. Objects stupendous in their
magnitudes and motions strike us from all quarters, and fill us with
amazement.


AMERICA THE OLD WORLD.

     LOUIS JEAN RODOLOPHE AGASSIZ, the distinguished naturalist. Born in
     Motier, near the Lake of Neufchâtel, Switzerland, in 1807; died at
     Cambridge, Mass., December 14, 1873. From his "Geological
     Sketches." By permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
     Publishers, Boston.

First-born among the continents, though so much later in culture and
civilization than some of more recent birth, America, so far as her
physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the _New
World_. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the
first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside; and
while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above
the sea, America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova
Scotia to the far West.


DISCOVERY OF THE BIRD OF WASHINGTON.

     JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, an American ornithologist. Born in Louisiana
     May 4, 1780. Died in New York January, 1851. From his "Adventures
     and Discoveries."

My commercial expeditions, rich in attraction for scientific
observation, were attended also with the varied pleasures which delight
a passenger on the waters of the glorious Mississippi. Fresh scenes are
continually disclosed by the frequent windings of the river, as you
speed along its rapid current. Thousands of birds in the adjacent woods
gratify the ear with their sweet mellow notes, or dazzle the sight, as
in their gorgeous attire they flash by. It was while ascending the Upper
Mississippi, during the month of February, 1814, that I first caught
sight of the beautiful Bird of Washington. My delight was extreme. Not
even Herschel, when he discovered the planet which bears his name, could
have experienced more rapturous feelings. Convinced that the bird was
extremely rare, if not altogether unknown, I felt particularly anxious
to learn its species. I next observed it whilst engaged in collecting
cray fish on one of the flats of the Green River, at its junction with
the Ohio, where it is bounded by a range of high cliffs. I felt assured,
by certain indications, that the bird frequented that spot. Seated about
a hundred yards from the foot of the rock, I eagerly awaited its
appearance as it came to visit its nest with food for its young. I was
warned of its approach by the loud hissing of the eaglets, which crawled
to the extremity of the cavity to seize the prey--a fine fish. Presently
the female, always the larger among rapacious birds, arrived, bearing
also a fish. With more shrewd suspicion than her mate, glaring with her
keen eye around, she at once perceived the nest had been discovered.
Immediately dropping her prey, with a loud shriek she communicated the
alarm, when both birds, soaring aloft, kept up a growling to intimidate
the intruders from their suspected design.

[Illustration: From Harper's Weekly. Copyright, 1892, by Harper &
Brothers

PART OF COLUMBUS STATUE, NEW YORK MONUMENT.

(See page 244.)]

Not until two years later was I gratified by the capture of this
magnificent bird. Considering the bird the noblest of its kind, I
dignified it with the great name to which this country owed her
salvation, and which must be imperishable therefore among her people.
Like the eagle, Washington was brave; like it, he was the terror of his
foes, and his fame, extending from pole to pole, resembles the majestic
soarings of the mightiest of the feathered tribe. America, proud of her
Washington, has also reason to be so of her Great Eagle.


ONE VAST WESTERN CONTINENT.

     Sir EDWIN ARNOLD, C. S. I., an English poet and journalist. Born,
     June 10, 1832.

I reserve as the destiny of these United States the control of all the
lands to the south, of the whole of the South American continent. Petty
troubles will die away, and all will be yours. In South America alone
there is room for 500,000,000 more people. Some day it will have that
many, and all will acknowledge the government at Washington. We in
England will not grudge you this added power. It is rightfully yours.
With the completion of the canal across the Isthmus of Nicaragua you
must have control of it, and of all the surrounding Egypt of the New
World.


THE RISING OF THE WESTERN STAR.

(ANONYMOUS.)

  Land of the mighty! through the nations
    Thy fame shall live and travel on;
  And all succeeding generations
    Shall bless the name of Washington.
  While year by year new triumphs bringing,
  The sons of Freedom shall be singing--
        Ever happy, ever free,
        Land of light and liberty.

  Columbus, on his dauntless mission,
    Beheld his lovely isle afar;
  Did he not see, in distant vision,
    The rising of this western star--
  This queen, who now, in state befitting,
  Between two ocean floods is sitting?
        Ever happy, ever free,
        Land of light and liberty.


THE AMERICAN FLAG.

     HENRY WARD BEECHER, a distinguished American writer and preacher.
     Born in Litchfield, Conn., June 24, 1813; died, March 8, 1887, in
     Brooklyn, N. Y. From his "Patriotic Addresses." By permission of
     Messrs. Fords, Howard & Hulbert, Publishers, New York.

When a man of thoughtful mind sees a nation's flag, he sees not the flag
only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, he reads
chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truth, the
history, which belong to the nation which sets it forth. When the French
tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the newfound
Italian flag is unfurled, we see Italy restored. When the other
three-cornered Hungarian flag shall be lifted to the wind, we shall see
in it the long-buried, but never dead, principles of Hungarian liberty.
When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on a fiery ground
set forth the banner of old England, we see not the cloth merely; there
rises up before the mind the noble aspect of that monarchy which, more
than any other on the globe, has advanced its banner for liberty, law,
and national prosperity. This nation has a banner, too, and wherever it
streamed abroad men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the
American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced in it.
Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth upon the
seas carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the captive
and such glorious tidings. The stars upon it were to the pining nations
like the morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of
morning light. As at early dawn the stars stand first, and then it grows
light, and then, as the sun advances, that light breaks into banks and
streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving
together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so on the American
flag stars and beams of many-colored lights shine out together. And
wherever the flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred
emblazonry no rampant lion and fierce eagle, but only light, and every
fold indicative of liberty. It has been unfurled from the snows of
Canada to the plains of New Orleans; in the halls of the Montezumas and
amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the luminous symbol
of resistless and beneficent power, it has led the brave to victory and
to glory. It has floated over our cradles; let it be our prayer and our
struggle that it shall float over our graves.


NATIONAL SELF-RESPECT.

     NATHANIEL S. S. BEMAN, an American Presbyterian divine. Born in New
     Lebanon, N. Y., 1785; died at Carbondale, Ill., August 8, 1871. For
     forty years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Troy, N. Y.

The western continent has, at different periods, been the subject of
every species of transatlantic abuse. In former days, some of the
naturalists of Europe told us that everything here was constructed upon
a small scale. The frowns of nature were represented as investing the
whole hemisphere we inhabit. It has been asserted that the eternal
storms which are said to beat upon the brows of our mountains, and to
roll the tide of desolation at their bases; the hurricanes which sweep
our vales, and the volcanic fires which issue from a thousand flaming
craters; the thunderbolts which perpetually descend from heaven, and
the earthquakes, whose trepidations are felt to the very center of our
globe, have superinduced a degeneracy through all the productions of
nature. Men have been frightened into intellectual dwarfs, and the
beasts of the forest have not attained more than half their ordinary
growth.

While some of the lines and touches of this picture have been blotted
out by the reversing hand of time, others have been added, which have,
in some respects, carried the conceit still farther. In later days, and,
in some instances, even down to the present period, it has been
published and republished from the enlightened presses of the Old World,
that so strong is the tendency to deterioration on this continent that
the descendants of European ancestors are far inferior to the original
stock from which they sprang. But inferior in what? In national spirit
and patriotic achievement? Let the revolutionary conflict--the opening
scenes at Boston and the catastrophe at Yorktown--furnish the reply. Let
Bennington and Saratoga support their respective claims. Inferior in
enterprise? Let the sail that whitens every ocean, and the commercial
spirit that braves every element and visits every bustling mart, refute
the unfounded aspersion. Inferior in deeds of zeal and valor for the
Church? Let our missionaries in the bosom of our own forest, in the
distant regions of the East, and on the islands of the great Pacific,
answer the question. Inferior in science and letters and the arts? It is
true our nation is young; but we may challenge the world to furnish a
national maturity which, in these respects, will compare with ours.

The character and institutions of this country have already produced a
deep impression upon the world we inhabit. What but our example has
stricken the chains of despotism from the provinces of South
America--giving, by a single impulse, freedom to half a hemisphere? A
Washington here has created a Bolivar there. The flag of independence,
which has waved from the summit of our Alleghany, has now been answered
by a corresponding signal from the heights of the Andes. And the same
spirit, too, that came across the Atlantic wave with the Pilgrims, and
made the rock of Plymouth the corner-stone of freedom, and of this
republic, is traveling back to the East. It has already carried its
influence into the cabinets of princes, and it is at this moment sung by
the Grecian bard and emulated by the Grecian hero.


COLUMBIA--A PROPHECY.

     ST. GEORGE BEST. In Kate Field's _Washington_.

  Puissant land! where'er I turn my eyes
    I see thy banner strewn upon the breeze;
  Each past achievement only prophesies
    Of triumphs more unheard of. These
  Are shadows yet, but time will write thy name
    In letters golden as the sun
  That blazed upon the sight of those who came
    To worship in the temple of the Delphic One.


THE FINAL STAGE.

     HENRY HUGH BRACKENRIDGE, a writer and politician. Born near
     Campbellton, Scotland, 1748; died, 1816. From his "Rising Glory of
     America," a commencement poem.

  This is thy praise, America, thy power,
  Thou best of climes by science visited,
  By freedom blest, and richly stored with all
  The luxuries of life! Hail, happy land,
  The seat of empire, the abode of kings,
  The final stage where time shall introduce
  Renowned characters, and glorious works
  Of high invention and of wondrous art,
  Which not the ravages of time shall waste,
  'Till he himself has run his long career!


BRIGHT'S BEATIFIC VISION.

     The Right Honorable JOHN BRIGHT, the celebrated English orator and
     radical statesman. Born at Greenbank, Rochdale, Lancashire,
     November 16, 1811; died, March 27, 1889. From a speech delivered at
     Birmingham, England, 1862.

I have another and a far brighter vision before my gaze. It may be but a
vision, but I will cherish it. I see one vast confederation stretching
from the frozen North in unbroken line to the glowing South, and from
the wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the
Pacific main; and I see one people and one language, and one faith and
one law, and, over all that wide continent, the home of freedom, and a
refuge for the oppressed of every race and every clime.


BROTHERS ACROSS THE SEA.

     ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, one of the most gifted female poets.
     Born near Ledbury, Herefordshire, England, in 1807; died at
     Florence, Italy, in June, 1861.

  I heard an angel speak last night,
               And he said, "Write--
      Write a nation's curse for me,
      And send it over the western sea."
  I faltered, taking up the word:
               "Not so, my lord!
       If curses must be, choose another
       To send thy curse against my brother.

      For I am bound by gratitude,
              By love and blood,
      To brothers of mine across the sea,
      Who stretch out kindly hands to me."
  "Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write
                My curse to-night;
      From the summits of love a curse is driven,
      As lightning is from the tops of heaven."


THE GRANDEUR OF DESTINY.

     WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, an eminent American poet. Born at
     Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794; died, June 12, 1878.

  Oh, Mother of a mighty race,
  Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
  The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
  Admire and hate thy blooming years;
          With words of shame
  And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

  They know not, in their hate and pride,
  What virtues with thy children bide;
  How true, how good, thy graceful maids
  Make bright, like flowers, the valley shades;
          What generous men
  Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen;

  What cordial welcomes greet the guest
  By the lone rivers of the West;
  How faith is kept, and truth revered,
  And man is loved, and God is feared,
         In woodland homes,
  And where the solemn ocean foams.

  Oh, fair young Mother! on thy brow
  Shall sit a nobler grace than now.
  Deep in the brightness of thy skies,
  The thronging years in glory rise,
          And, as they fleet,
  Drop strength and riches at thy feet.


AMERICAN NATIONAL HASTE.

     JAMES BRYCE, M. P. Born at Belfast, Ireland, May 10, 1838.
     Appointed Regius Professor of Civil Law to the University of
     Oxford, England, 1870. From his "American Commonwealth."

Americans seem to live in the future rather than in the present; not
that they fail to work while it is called to-day, but that they see the
country, not merely as it is, but as it will be twenty, fifty, a hundred
years hence, when the seedlings shall have grown to forest trees. Time
seems too brief for what they have to do, and result always to come
short of their desire. One feels as if caught and whirled along in a
foaming stream chafing against its banks, such is the passion of these
men to accomplish in their own lifetimes what in the past it took
centuries to effect. Sometimes, in a moment of pause--for even the
visitor finds himself infected by the all-pervading eagerness--one is
inclined to ask them: "Gentlemen, why in heaven's name this haste? You
have time enough. No enemy threatens you. No volcano will rise from
beneath you. Ages and ages lie before you. Why sacrifice the present to
the future, fancying that you will be happier when your fields teem with
wealth and your cities with people? In Europe we have cities wealthier
and more populous than yours, and we are not happy. You dream of your
posterity; but your posterity will look back to yours as the golden age,
and envy those who first burst into this silent, splendid nature, who
first lifted up their axes upon these tall trees, and lined these waters
with busy wharves. Why, then, seek to complete in a few decades what
the other nations of the world took thousands of years over in the older
continents? Why do rudely and ill things which need to be done well,
seeing that the welfare of your descendants may turn upon them? Why, in
your hurry to subdue and utilize nature, squander her splendid gifts?
Why allow the noxious weeds of Eastern politics to take root in your new
soil, when by a little effort you might keep it pure? Why hasten the
advent of that threatening day when the vacant spaces of the continent
shall all have been filled, and the poverty or discontent of the older
States shall find no outlet? You have opportunities such as mankind has
never had before, and may never have again. Your work is great and
noble; it is done for a future longer and vaster than our conceptions
can embrace. Why not make its outlines and beginnings worthy of these
destinies, the thought of which gilds your hopes and elevates your
purposes?"

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE CONVENT OF SANTA MARIA DE LA RÁBIDA (HUELVA),
SPAIN, WHERE COLUMBUS TOOK REFUGE.

This convent has been restored and preserved as a National Museum since
1846.

(See pages 17 and 275.)]


AMERICA'S UNPRECEDENTED GROWTH.

     EDMUND BURKE, an illustrious orator, statesman, and philanthropist.
     Born in Dublin, 1730; died, July 9, 1797. To Burke's eternal credit
     and renown be it said, that, had his advice and counsels been
     listened to, the causes which produced the American Revolution
     would have been removed.

I can not prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration--the
value of America to England. It is good for us to be here. We stand
where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds,
indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we
descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our
national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of
man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive
whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord
Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was, in
1704, of an age, at least, to be made to comprehend such things. Suppose
that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues
which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most
fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision, that when, in
the fourth generation, the third prince of the house of Brunswick had
sat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which by the happy issue
of moderate and healing councils was to be made Great Britain, he should
see his son, Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current of
hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of
peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one. If amidst these
bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity that angel
should have drawn up the curtain and unfolded the rising glories of his
country; and, whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then
commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a
little speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a
small seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him,
"Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more
than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; yet
shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that
commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has
been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by
varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and
civilizing settlements in a series of 1,700 years, you shall see as much
added to her by America in the course of a single life!" If this state
of his country had been foretold to him, would it not have required all
the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm,
to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it!
Fortunate, indeed, if he live to see nothing to vary the prospect, and
cloud the setting of his day!


AMERICA THE CONTINENT OF THE FUTURE.

     EMILIO CASTELAR, one of Spain's most noted orators and statesmen.
     His masterly articles on Columbus in the _Century Magazine_ alone
     would insure an international reputation. From a speech in the
     Spanish Cortes, 1871.

America, and especially Saxon America, with its immense virgin
territories, with its republic, with its equilibrium between stability
and progress, with its harmony between liberty and democracy, is the
continent of the future--the immense continent stretched by God between
the Atlantic and Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve
all social problems. Europe has to decide whether she will confound
herself with Asia, placing upon her lands old altars, and upon the
altars old idols, and upon the idols immovable theocracies, and upon the
theocracies despotic empires; or whether she will go by labor, by
liberty, and by the republic, to co-operate with America in the grand
work of universal civilization.


NOBLE CONCEPTIONS.

     WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, D. D., a distinguished American Unitarian
     divine, and one of the most eloquent writers America has produced.
     Born at Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780; died, October 2, 1842. From
     an address on "The Annexation of Texas to the United States."

When we look forward to the probable growth of this country; when we
think of the millions of human beings who are to spread over our present
territory; of the career of improvement and glory opened to this new
people; of the impulse which free institutions, if prosperous, may be
expected to give to philosophy, religion, science, literature, and
arts; of the vast field in which the experiment is to be made; of what
the unfettered powers of man may achieve; of the bright page of history
which our fathers have filled, and of the advantages under which their
toils and virtues have placed us for carrying on their work. When we
think of all this, can we help, for a moment, surrendering ourselves to
bright visions of our country's glory, before which all the glories of
the past are to fade away? Is it presumption to say that if just to
ourselves and all nations we shall be felt through this whole continent;
that we shall spread our language, institutions, and civilization
through a wider space than any nation has yet filled with a like
beneficent influence? And are we prepared to barter these hopes, this
sublime moral empire, for conquests by force? Are we prepared to sink to
the level of unprincipled nations; to content ourselves with a vulgar,
guilty greatness; to adopt in our youth maxims and ends which must brand
our future with sordidness, oppression, and shame? Why can not we rise
to noble conceptions of our destiny? Why do we not feel that our work as
a nation is to carry freedom, religion, science, and a nobler form of
human nature over this continent? And why do we not remember that to
diffuse these blessings we must first cherish them in our own borders,
and that whatever deeply and permanently corrupts us will make our
spreading influence a curse, not a blessing, to this New World? It is a
common idea in Europe that we are destined to spread an inferior
civilization over North America; that our absorption in gain and outward
interests mark us out as fated to fall behind the Old World in the
higher improvements of human nature--in the philosophy, the refinements,
the enthusiasm of literature and the arts, which throw a luster round
other countries. I am not prophet enough to read our fate.


THE GRAND SCOPE OF THE COLUMBIAN CELEBRATION.

     The Chicago _Inter Ocean_.

The Columbian Exposition should be an exhibition worthy of the fame of
Columbus and of the great republic that has taken root in the New World,
which the Genoese discoverer not only "to Castille and to Aragon gave,"
but to the struggling, the oppressed, the aspiring, and the resolute of
all humanity in all its conditions.


AMERICAN NATIONALITY.

     RUFUS CHOATE,, the most eminent advocate of New England. Born at
     Essex, Mass., October 1, 1799; died at Halifax, N. S., July 13,
     1858. From an Independence Day oration delivered in Boston.

But now there rises colossal the fine sweet spirit of nationality--the
nationality of America. See there the pillar of fire which God has
kindled, and lighted, and moved, for our hosts and our ages. Under such
an influence you ascend above the smoke and stir of this small local
strife; you tread upon the high places of the earth and of history; you
think and feel as an American for America; her power, her eminence, her
consideration, her honor are yours; your competitors, like hers, are
kings; your home, like hers, is the world; your path, like hers, is on
the highway of empires; your charge, her charge, is of generations and
ages; your record, her record, is of treaties, battles, voyages, beneath
all the constellations; her image--one, immortal, golden--rises on your
eye as our western star at evening rises on the traveler from his home;
no lowering cloud, no angry river, no lingering spring, no broken
crevasse, no inundated city or plantation, no tracts of sand, arid and
burning, on that surface, but all blended and softened into one beam of
kindred rays, the image, harbinger, and promise of love, hope, and a
brighter day.

But if you would contemplate nationality as an active virtue, look
around you. Is not our own history one witness and one record of what it
can do? This day, the 4th of July, and all which it stands for--did it
not give us these? This glory of the fields of that war, this eloquence
of that revolution, this one wide sheet of flame, which wrapped tyrant
and tyranny, and swept all that escaped from it away, forever and
forever; the courage to fight, to retreat, to rally, to advance, to
guard the young flag by the young arm and the young heart's blood, to
hold up and hold on till the magnificent consummation crown the
work--were not all these imparted or inspired by this imperial
sentiment.

Look at it! It has kindled us to no aims of conquest. It has involved us
in no entangling alliances. It has kept our neutrality dignified and
just. The victories of peace have been our prized victories. But the
larger and truer grandeur of the nations, for which they are created,
and for which they must one day, before some tribunal, give account,
what a measure of these it has enabled us already to fulfill! It has
lifted us to the throne, and has set on our brow the name of the Great
Republic. It has taught us to demand nothing wrong and to submit to
nothing wrong; it has made our diplomacy sagacious, wary, and
accomplished; it has opened the iron gate of the mountain, and planted
our ensign on the great tranquil sea. It has made the desert to bud and
blossom as the rose; it has quickened to life the giant brood of useful
arts; it has whitened lake and ocean with the sails of a daring, new,
and lawful trade; it has extended to exiles, flying as clouds, the
asylum of our better liberty. It has kept us at rest within our borders;
it has scattered the seeds of liberty, under law and under order,
broadcast; it has seen and helped American feeling to swell into a
fuller flood; from many a field and many a deck, though it seeks not
war, makes not war, and fears not war, it has borne the radiant flag,
all unstained.


THE LOVE OF COUNTRY.

There is a love of country which comes uncalled for, one knows not how.
It comes in with the very air, the eye, the ear, the instinct, the first
beatings of the heart. The faces of brothers and sisters, and the loved
father and mother, the laugh of playmates, the old willow tree and well
and school-house, the bees at work in the spring, the note of the robin
at evening, the lullaby, the cows coming home, the singing-book, the
visits of neighbors, the general training--all things which make
childhood happy, begin it.

And then, as the age of the passions and the age of the reason draw on,
and the love of home, and the sense of security and property under the
law come to life, and as the story goes round, and as the book or the
newspaper relates the less favored lot of other lands, and the public
and private sense of the man is forming and formed, there is a type of
patriotism already. Thus they have imbibed it who stood that charge at
Concord, and they who hung on the deadly retreat, and they who threw up
the hasty and imperfect redoubt at Bunker Hill by night, set on it the
blood-red provincial flag, and passed so calmly with Prescott and Putnam
and Warren through the experiences of the first fire.

To direct this spontaneous sentiment of hearts to our great Union, to
raise it high, to make it broad and deep, to instruct it, to educate it,
is in some things harder, and in some things easier; but it may be, it
must be, done. Our country has her great names; she has her food for
patriotism, for childhood, and for man.--_Ibid._


THE UNITED STATES STEAMSHIP COLUMBIA.

An appropriate addition to the White Squadron of the United States navy
was launched from the Cramps' ship-yard at Philadelphia, July 26, 1892,
and was most appropriately christened the Columbia. The launch was in
every way a success, and was witnessed by many thousand people,
including Secretary Tracy, Vice-President Morton, and others prominent
in the navy and in public life.

This new vessel is designed to be swifter than any other large war
vessel now afloat, and she will have a capacity possessed by no other
war vessel yet built, in that of being able to steam at a ten-knot speed
26,240 miles, or for 109 days, without recoaling. She also possesses
many novel features, the principal of which is the application of triple
screws. She is one of two of the most important ships designed for the
United States navy, her sister ship, No. 13, now being built at the same
yards.

The dimensions of the Columbia are: Length on mean load line, 412 feet;
beam, 58 feet. Her normal draught will be 23 feet; displacement, 7,550
tons; maximum speed, 22 knots an hour; and she will have the enormous
indicated horse-power of 20,000. As to speed, the contractor guarantees
an average speed, in the open sea, under conditions prescribed by the
Navy Department, of twenty-one knots an hour, maintained for four
consecutive hours, during which period the air-pressure in the fire-room
must be kept within a prescribed limit. For every quarter of a knot
developed above the required guaranteed speed the contractor is to
receive a premium of $50,000 over and above the contract price; and for
each quarter of a knot that the vessel may fail of reaching the
guaranteed speed there is to be deducted from the contract price the sum
of $25,000. There seems to be no doubt among the naval experts that she
will meet the conditions as to speed, and this is a great desideratum,
since her chief function is to be to sweep the seas of an enemy's
commerce. To do her work she must be able to overhaul, in an ocean race,
the swiftest transatlantic passenger steamships afloat.

The triple-screw system is a most decided novelty. One of these screws
will be placed amidships, or on the line of the keel, as in ordinary
single-screw vessels, and the two others will be placed about fifteen
feet farther forward and above, one on each side, as is usual in
twin-screw vessels. The twin screws will diverge as they leave the hull,
giving additional room for the uninterrupted motion upon solid water of
all three simultaneously. There is one set of triple expansion engines
for each screw independently, thus allowing numerous combinations of
movements. For ordinary cruising the central screw alone will be used,
giving a speed of about fourteen knots; with the two side-screws alone,
a speed of seventeen knots can be maintained, and with all three screws
at work, at full power, a high speed of from twenty to twenty-two knots
can be got out of the vessel. This arrangement will allow the machinery
to be worked at its most economical number of revolutions at all rates
of the vessel's speed, and each engine can be used independently of the
others in propelling the vessel. The full steam pressure will be 160
pounds. The shafting is made of forged steel, 16-1/2 inches in diameter.
In fact, steel has been used wherever possible, so as to secure the
lightest, in weight, of machinery. There are ten boilers, six of which
are double-ended--that is, with furnaces in each end--21-1/4 feet long
and 15-1/2 feet in diameter. Two others are 18-1/4 feet long and 11-2/3
feet in diameter, and the two others, single-ended, are 8 feet long and
10 feet in diameter. Eight of the largest boilers are set in
watertight compartments.

In appearance the Columbia will closely resemble, when ready for sea, an
ordinary merchantman, the sides being nearly free from projections or
sponsons, which ordinarily appear on vessels of war. She will have two
single masts, but neither of them will have a military top, such as is
now provided upon ordinary war vessels. This plan of her merchantman
appearance is to enable her to get within range of any vessel she may
wish to encounter before her character or purpose is discovered. The
vitals of the ship will be well protected with armor plating and the gun
stations will be shielded against the firing of machine guns. Her
machinery, boilers, magazines, etc., are protected by an armored deck
four inches thick on the slope and 2-1/2 inches thick on the flat. The
space between this deck and the gun-deck is minutely subdivided with
coal-bunkers and storerooms, and in addition to these a coffer-dam, five
feet in width, is worked next to the ship's side for the whole length of
the vessel. In the bunkers the space between the inner and outer skins
of the vessel will be filled with woodite, thus forming a wall five feet
thick against machine gun fire. This filling can also be utilized as
fuel in an emergency. Forward and abaft of the coal bunkers the
coffer-dam will be filled with some water-excluding substance similar to
woodite. In the wake of the four-inch and the machine guns, the ship's
side will be armored with four-inch and two-inch nickel steel plates.

The vessel will carry no big guns, for the reason that the uses for
which she is intended will not require them. Not a gun will be in sight,
and the battery will be abnormally light. There will be four six-inch
breech-loading rifles, mounted in the open, and protected with heavy
shields attached to the gun carriages; eight four-inch breech-loading
rifles; twelve six-pounder, and four one-pounder rapid-firing guns; four
machine or Gatling guns, and six torpedo-launching tubes. Besides these
she has a ram bow. The Columbia is to be completed, ready for service,
by May 19, 1893.


THE FIRST AMERICAN.

     ELIZA COOK, a popular English poetess. Born in Southwark, London,
     1817.

  Land of the West! though passing brief the record of thine age,
  Thou hast a name that darkens all on history's wide page.
  Let all the blasts of fame ring out--thine shall be loudest far;
  Let others boast their satellites--thou hast the planet star.
  Thou hast a name whose characters of light shall ne'er depart;
  'Tis stamped upon the dullest brain, and warms the coldest heart;
  A war-cry fit for any land where freedom's to be won:
  Land of the West! it stands alone--it is thy Washington!


COLUMBIA THE MONUMENT OF COLUMBUS.

     KINAHAN CORNWALLIS. In "The Song of America and Columbus," 1892.

  Queen of the Great Republic of the West,
  With shining stars and stripes upon thy breast,
  The emblems of our land of liberty,
  Thou namesake of Columbus--hail to thee!

   *       *       *       *       *

  No fitter queen could now Columbus crown,
  Or voice to all the world his great renown.
  His fame in thee personified we see--
  The sequel of his grand discovery;
  Yea, here, in thee, his monument behold.
  Whose splendor dims his golden dreams of old.
  And standing by Chicago's inland sea,
  The nations of the earth will vie with thee
  In twining laurel wreaths for him of yore
  Who found the New World in San Salvador.

   *       *       *       *       *

  COLUMBIA! to Columbus give thy hand.
  And, as ye on a sea of glory stand,
  The world will read anew the story grand
  Of thee, COLUMBIA, and Columbus, too--
  The matchless epic of the Old and New--
  The tale that grows more splendid with the years--
  The pride and wonder of the hemispheres.
  In vast magnificence it stands alone,
  With thee--Columbus greeting--on thy throne.


AMERICAN IDEA.

     The Hon. SHELBY M. CULLOM, U. S. Senator from Illinois. In a speech
     delivered in Chicago, 1892.

From the altitude of now, from this zenith of history, look out upon the
world. Behold! the American idea is everywhere prominent. The world
itself is preparing to take an American holiday. The wise men, not only
of the Orient, but everywhere, are girding up their loins, and will
follow the star of empire until it rests above this city of
Chicago--this civic Hercules; this miracle of accomplishment; the
throbbing heart of all the teeming life and activity of our American
commonwealth. The people of the world are soon to receive an object
lesson in the stupendous kindergarten we are instituting for their
benefit. Even Chile will be here, and will learn, I trust, something of
Christian forbearance and good-fellowship.

Now, is it possible that monarchy, plutarchy, or any other archy, can
long withstand this curriculum of instruction? No! I repeat, the
American idea is everywhere triumphant. England is a monarchy, to be
sure, but only out of compliment to an impotent and aged Queen. The Czar
of Russia clings to his throne. It is a hen-coop in the mäelstrom! The
crumbling monarchies of the earth are held together only by the force of
arms. Standing armies are encamped without each city. The sword and
bayonet threaten and retard, but the seeds of liberty have been caught
up by the winds of heaven and scattered broadcast throughout the earth.
Tyranny's doom is sounded! The people's millennium is at hand! And
this--this, under God, is the mission of America.


YOUNG AMERICA.

     GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, a popular American author and lecturer. Born
     at Providence, R. I., February 24, 1824; died at West Brighton,
     Staten Island, N. Y., August 31, 1892.

I know the flower in your hand fades while you look at it. The dream
that allures you glimmers and is gone. But flower and dream, like youth
itself, are buds and prophecies. For where, without the perfumed
blossoming of the spring orchards all over the hills and among all the
valleys of New England and New York, would the happy harvests of New
York and New England be? And where, without the dreams of the young men
lighting the future with human possibility, would be the deeds of the
old men, dignifying the past with human achievement? How deeply does it
become us to believe this, who are not only young ourselves, but living
with the youth of the youngest nation in history. I congratulate you
that you are young; I congratulate you that you are Americans. Like you,
that country is in its flower, not yet in its fruit, and that flower is
subject to a thousand chances before the fruit is set. Worms may destroy
it, frosts may wither it, fires may blight it, gusts may whirl it away;
but how gorgeously it still hangs blossoming in the garden of time,
while its penetrating perfume floats all round the world, and
intoxicates all other nations with the hope of liberty.

Knowing that the life of every nation, as of each individual, is a
battle, let us remember, also, that the battle is to those who fight
with faith and undespairing devotion. Knowing that nothing is worth
fighting for at all unless God reigns, let us, at least, believe as much
in the goodness of God as we do in the dexterity of the devil. And,
viewing this prodigious spectacle of our country--this hope of humanity,
this young America, _our_ America--taking the sun full in its front, and
making for the future as boldly and blithely as the young David for
Goliath, let us believe with all our hearts, and from that faith shall
spring the fact that David, and not Goliath, is to win the day; and
that, out of the high-hearted dreams of wise and good men about our
country, Time, however invisibly and inscrutably, is, at this moment,
slowly hewing the most colossal and resplendent result in history.


A HIDDEN WORLD.

     OLIVE E. DANA, an American journalist. In the _New England
     Journal_.

  The hidden world lies in the hand of God,
  Waiting, like seed, to fall on the sod;
  Tranquil its lakes were, and lovely its shores,
  While idly each stream o'er the fretting rocks pours.
  Its forests are fair and its mines fathomless,
  Grand are its mountains in their loftiness;
  Its fields wait the plow, and its harbors the ships,
  No sail down the blue of the water-way slips.
  God keeps in his palm, through centuries dim,
  This hid, idle seed. It belongeth to him.
  Away in a corner, where God only knows,
  The seed when he plants it quickens and grows.
  The pale buds unfold as the nations pass by,
  The fragrance is grateful, the blooms multiply,
  But it is blossom time, this what we see;
  Who knows what the fullness of harvest will be.


COLUMBIA THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD.

     TIMOTHY DWIGHT, an American divine and scholar. Born at
     Northampton, Mass., May 14, 1752; died at New Haven, Conn., January
     11, 1817.

  Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
  The queen of the world and the child of the skies.


A DEFINITION OF PATRIOTISM.

     T. M. EDDY, an eloquent speaker and profound scholar. Born, 1823;
     died, 1874. From an oration delivered on Independence Day.

Patriotism is the love of country. It has ever been recognized among the
cardinal virtues of true men, and he who was destitute of it has been
considered an ingrate. Even among the icy desolations of the far north
we expect to find, and _do_ find, an ardent affection for the land of
nativity, the home of childhood, youth, and age. There is much in our
country to create and foster this sentiment. It is a country of imperial
dimensions, reaching from sea to sea, and almost "from the rivers to the
ends of the earth." None of the empires of old could compare with it in
this regard. It is washed by two great oceans, while its lakes are vast
inland seas. Its rivers are silver lines of beauty and commerce. Its
grand mountain chains are the links of God's forging and welding,
binding together North and South, East and West. It is a land of
glorious memories. It was peopled by the picked men of Europe, who came
hither, "not for wrath, but conscience' sake." Said the younger Winthrop
to his father, "I shall call that my country where I may most glorify
God and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends." And so came godly men
and devoted women, flying from oppressive statutes, where they might
find

  Freedom to worship God.

There are spots on the sun, and the microscope reveals flaws in
burnished steel, and so there were spots and flaws in the character of
the early founders of this land; but with them all, our colonial history
is one that stirs the blood and quickens the pulse of him who reads. It
is the land of the free school, the free press, and the free pulpit. It
is impossible to compute the power of this trio. The free schools, open
to rich and poor, bind together the people in educational bonds, and in
the common memories of the recitation-room and the playground; and how
strong _they_ are, you, reader, well know, as some past recollection
tugs at your heart-strings. The free press may not always be altogether
as dignified or elevated as the more highly cultivated may desire, but
it is ever open to complaints of the people; is ever watchful of popular
rights and jealous of class encroachments, and the highest in authority
know that it is above President or Senate. The free pulpit, sustained
not by legally exacted tithes wrung from an unwilling people, but by the
free-will offerings of loving supporters, gathers about it the millions,
inculcates the highest morality, points to brighter worlds, and when
occasion demands will not be silent before political wrongs. Its power,
simply as an educating agency, can scarcely be estimated. In this
country its freedom gives a competition so vigorous that it must remain
in direct popular sympathy. How strong it is, the country saw when its
voice was lifted in the old cry, "Rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft." Its words started the slumbering, roused the careless, and
called the "sacramental host," as well as the "men of the world, to
arms." These three grand agencies are not rival, but supplementary, each
doing an essential work in public culture.

[Illustration: THE SHIP OF COLUMBUS--THE SANTA MARIA CARAVEL.

(See pages 94, 216, and 282.)]


AMERICA--OPPORTUNITY.

     RALPH WALDO EMERSON, a noted American essayist, poet, and
     speculative philosopher. Born in Boston, Mass., May 25, 1803; died,
     April 27, 1882.

America is another name for opportunity.


THE SEQUEL OF THE DISCOVERY.

There is a Columbia of thought and art and character which is the last
and endless sequel of Columbus' adventure.--_Ibid._


YOUNG AMERICA.

     ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT, an American scholar and diplomatist. Born
     in Boston, Mass., 1792; died at Canton, China, May, 1847.

  Scion of a mighty stock!
  Hands of iron--hearts of oak--
  Follow with unflinching tread
  Where the noble fathers led.

  Craft and subtle treachery,
  Gallant youth, are not for thee;
  Follow thou in words and deeds
  Where the God within thee leads.

  Honesty, with steady eye,
  Truth and pure simplicity,
  Love, that gently winneth hearts,
  These shall be thy holy arts.

  Prudent in the council train,
  Dauntless on the battle plain,
  Ready at thy country's need
  For her glorious cause to bleed.

  Where the dews of night distill
  Upon Vernon's holy hill,
  Where above it gleaming far
  Freedom lights her guiding star,

  Thither turn the steady eye,
  Flashing with a purpose high;
  Thither, with devotion meet,
  Often turn the pilgrim feet.

  Let the noble motto be:
  God--the _country_--_liberty_!
  Planted on religion's rock,
  Thou shalt stand in every shock.

  Laugh at danger, far or near;
  Spurn at baseness, spurn at fear.
  Still, with persevering might,
  Speak the truth, and do the right.

  So shall peace, a charming guest,
  Dove-like in thy bosom rest;
  So shall honor's steady blaze
  Beam upon thy closing days.


RESPONSIBILITY.

     EZRA STILES GANNETT, an American Unitarian divine. Born at
     Cambridge, Mass., 1801; died, August 26, 1871. From a patriotic
     address delivered in Boston.

The eyes of Europe are upon us; the monarch, from his throne, watches us
with an angry countenance; the peasant turns his gaze on us with joyful
faith; the writers on politics quote our condition as a proof of the
possibility of popular government; the heroes of freedom animate their
followers by reminding them of our success. At no moment of the last
half century has it been so important that we should send up a clear and
strong light which may be seen across the Atlantic. An awful charge of
unfaithfulness to the interests of mankind will be recorded against us
if we suffer this light to be obscured by the mingling vapors of passion
and misrule and sin. But not Europe alone will be influenced by the
character we give to our destiny. The republics of the South have no
other guide toward the establishment of order and freedom than our
example. If this should fail them, the last stay would be torn from
their hope. We are placed under a most solemn obligation, to keep before
them this motive to perseverance in their endeavors to place free
institutions on a sure basis. Shall we leave those wide regions to
despair and anarchy? Better that they had patiently borne a foreign
yoke, though it bowed their necks to the ground.

Citizens of the United States, it has been said of us, with truth, that
we are at the head of the popular party of the world. Shall we be
ashamed of so glorious a rank? or shall we basely desert our place and
throw away our distinction? Forbid it! self-respect, patriotism,
philanthropy. Christians, we believe that God has made us a name and a
praise among the nations. We believe that our religion yields its best
fruit in a free land. Shall we be regardless of our duty as creatures of
the Divine Power and recipients of His goodness? Shall we be indifferent
to the effects which our religion may work in the world? Forbid it! our
gratitude, our faith, our piety. In one way only can we discharge our
duty to the rest of mankind--by the purity and elevation of character
that shall distinguish us as a people. If we sink into luxury, vice, or
moral apathy, our brightness will be lost, our prosperity deprived of
its vital element, and we shall appear disgraced before man, guilty
before God.


ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC.

     JAMES A. GARFIELD, American general and statesman; twentieth
     President of the United States. Born in Orange, Ohio, November 19,
     1831; shot by an assassin, July 2, 1881; died, September 19 in the
     same year, at Long Branch, New Jersey. From "Garfield's Words." By
     permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.

The Atlantic is still the great historic sea. Even in its sunken wrecks
might be read the record of modern nations. Who shall say that the
Pacific will not yet become the great historic sea of the future--the
vast amphitheater around which shall sit in majesty and power the two
Americas, Asia, Africa, and the chief colonies of Europe. God forbid
that the waters of our national life should ever settle to the dead
level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation of death, the ocean
grave of individual liberty.


GREATEST CONTINUOUS EMPIRE.

     The Right Hon. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, the noted English statesman
     and orator. Born at Liverpool, December 29, 1809. From his "Kin
     beyond the Sea."

There is no parallel in all the records of the world to the case of that
prolific British mother who has sent forth her innumerable children over
all the earth to be the founders of half-a-dozen empires. She, with her
progeny, may almost claim to constitute a kind of universal church in
politics. But among these children there is one whose place in the
world's eye and in history is superlative; it is the American Republic.
She is the eldest born. She has, taking the capacity of her land into
view as well as its mere measurement, a natural base for the greatest
continuous empire ever established by man. And it may be well here to
mention what has not always been sufficiently observed, that the
distinction between continuous empire, and empire severed and dispersed
over sea is vital. The development which the Republic has effected has
been unexampled in its rapidity and force. While other countries have
doubled, or at most trebled, their population, she has risen during one
single century of freedom, in round numbers, from two millions to
forty-five. As to riches, it is reasonable to establish, from the
decennial stages of the progress thus far achieved, a series for the
future; and, reckoning upon this basis, I suppose that the very next
census, in the year 1880, will exhibit her to the world as certainly the
wealthiest of all the nations. The huge figure of a thousand millions
sterling, which may be taken roundly as the annual income of the United
Kingdom, has been reached at a surprising rate; a rate which may perhaps
be best expressed by saying that, if we could have started forty or
fifty years ago from zero, at the rate of our recent annual increment,
we should now have reached our present position. But while we have been
advancing with this portentous rapidity, America is passing us by as if
in a canter. Yet even now the work of searching the soil and the bowels
of the territory, and opening out her enterprise throughout its vast
expanse, is in its infancy. The England and the America of the present
are probably the two strongest nations of the world. But there can
hardly be a doubt, as between the America and the England of the future,
that the daughter, at some no very distant time, will, whether fairer or
less fair, be unquestionably yet stronger than the mother.


TYPICAL AMERICAN.

     HENRY W. GRADY, the late brilliant editor of the Atlanta
     _Constitution_. From an address delivered at the famous New England
     dinner in New York.

With the Cavalier once established as a fact in your charming little
books, I shall let him work out his own stratum, as he has always done,
with engaging gallantry, and we will hold no controversy as to his
merits. Why should we? Neither Puritan nor Cavalier long survived as
such. The virtues and traditions of both happily still live for the
inspiration of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. But both
Puritan and Cavalier were lost in the storm of their first revolution,
and the American citizen, supplanting both, and stronger than either,
took possession of the republic bought by their common blood and
fashioned to wisdom, and charged himself with teaching men government
and establishing the voice of the people as the voice of God. Great
types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and fruit. But from the
union of these colonists, from the straightening of their purposes and
the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a century, came he
who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended
within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and
grace of this Republic--Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and
Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and
in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was
greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American,
and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling
forces of this ideal government--charging it with such tremendous
meaning and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though
infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the
cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing his traditions and
honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands to the type of this
simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored, and in the
common glory we shall win as Americans there will be plenty and to spare
for your forefathers and for mine.


GRATITUDE AND PRIDE.

     BENJAMIN HARRISON, American soldier, lawyer, and statesman. Born at
     North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833. Grandson of General William
     Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States, and himself
     President, 1888-1892. From a speech at Sacramento, Cal., 1891.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: This fresh, delightful morning, this vast assemblage of
contented and happy people, this building, dedicated to the uses of
civil government--all things about us tend to inspire our hearts with
pride and with gratitude. Gratitude to that overruling Providence that
turned hither, after the discovery of this continent, the steps of those
who had the capacity to organize a free representative government.
Gratitude to that Providence that has increased the feeble colonies on
an inhospitable coast to these millions of prosperous people, who have
found another sea and populated its sunny shores with a happy and
growing people.

Gratitude to that Providence that led us through civil strife to a glory
and a perfection of unity as a people that was otherwise impossible.
Gratitude that we have to-day a Union of free States without a slave to
stand as a reproach to that immortal declaration upon which our
Government rests.

Pride that our people have achieved so much; that, triumphing over all
the hardships of those early pioneers, who struggled in the face of
discouragement and difficulties more appalling than those that met
Columbus when he turned the prows of his little vessels toward an
unknown shore; that, triumphing over perils of starvation, perils of
savages, perils of sickness, here on the sunny slope of the Pacific they
have established civil institutions and set up the banner of the
imperishable Union.


NATURE SUPERIOR.

     Sir FRANCIS BOND HEAD, a popular English writer. Born near
     Rochester, Kent, January 1, 1893. Lieutenant-general of Upper
     Canada 1836-1838. Died, July 20, 1875.

In both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New World, nature
has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has painted the
whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she used in
delineating and in beautifying the Old World. The heavens of America
appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold
is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder
is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is
heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the forests
bigger, the plains broader.


AMERICA'S WELCOME.

     PATRICK HENRY, a celebrated American orator and patriot. Born at
     Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died, June 6,
     1799. The author of the celebrated phrase, "Give me liberty or give
     me death," in speaking in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775.

Cast your eyes over this extensive country; observe the salubrity of
your climate, the variety and fertility of your soil, and see that soil
intersected in every quarter by bold, navigable streams, flowing to the
east and to the west, as if the finger of Heaven were marking out the
course of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing the
way to wealth. You are destined, at some time or other, to become a
great agricultural and commercial people; the only question is, whether
you choose to reach this point by slow gradations, and at some distant
period; lingering on through a long and sickly minority; subjected,
meanwhile, to the machinations, insults, and oppressions, of enemies,
foreign and domestic, without sufficient strength to resist and chastise
them; or whether you choose rather to rush at once, as it were, to the
full enjoyment of those high destinies, and be able to cope,
single-handed, with the proudest oppressor of the Old World. If you
prefer the latter course, as I trust you do, encourage immigration;
encourage the husbandmen, the mechanics, the merchants, of the Old World
to come and settle in this land of promise; make it the home of the
skillful, the industrious, the fortunate, and happy, as well as the
asylum of the distressed; fill up the measure of your population as
speedily as you can, by the means which Heaven hath placed in your
power; and I venture to prophesy there are those now living who will see
this favored land amongst the most powerful on earth; able to take care
of herself, without resorting to that policy, which is always so
dangerous, though sometimes unavoidable, of calling in foreign aid. Yes,
they will see her great in arts and in arms; her golden harvests waving
over fields of immeasurable extent; her commerce penetrating the most
distant seas, and her cannon silencing the vain boasts of those who now
proudly affect to rule the waves.

[Illustration: Niña. Santa Maria. Pinta.

THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS (See pages 216 and 282.)]

But you must have _men_; you can not get along without them; those heavy
forests of valuable timber, under which your lands are growing, must be
cleared away; those vast riches which cover the face of your soil, as
well as those which lie hid in its bosom, are to be developed and
gathered only by the skill and enterprise of men. Do you ask how you are
to get them? Open your doors, and they will come in; the population of
the Old World is full to overflowing; that population is ground, too, by
the oppressions of the governments under which they live. They are
already standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your
coasts with a wishful and longing eye; they see here a land blessed
with natural and political advantages which are not equaled by those of
any other country upon earth; a land on which a gracious Providence hath
emptied the horn of abundance; a land over which peace hath now
stretched forth her white wings, and where content and plenty lie down
at every door. They see something still more attractive than all this;
they see a land in which liberty hath taken up her abode; that liberty
whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, existing only in the
fancies of poets; they see her here a real divinity, her altars rising
on every hand throughout these happy States, her glories chanted by
three millions of tongues, and the whole region smiling under her
blessed influence. Let but this our celestial goddess, Liberty, stretch
forth her fair hand toward the people of the Old World, tell them to
come, and bid them welcome, and you will see them pouring in from the
north, from the south, from the east, and from the west; your
wildernesses will be cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your
ranks will be filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the
powers of any adversary.


OUR GREAT TRUST.

     GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD, an eminent American writer, lawyer, and
     orator. Born at Machias, Maine, 1808; died, 1879. From an
     Independence Day oration.

Our Rome can not fall, and we be innocent. No conqueror will chain us to
the car of his triumph; no countless swarm of Huns and Goths will bury
the memorials and trophies of civilized life beneath a living tide of
barbarism. Our own selfishness, our own neglect, our own passions, and
our own vices will furnish the elements of our destruction. With our own
hands we shall tear down the stately edifice of our glory. We shall die
by self-inflicted wounds.

But we will not talk of themes like these. We will not think of failure,
dishonor, and despair. We will elevate our minds to the contemplation of
our high duties and the great trust committed to us. We will resolve to
lay the foundations of our prosperity on that rock of private virtue
which can not be shaken until the laws of the moral world are reversed.
From our own breasts shall flow the salient springs of national
increase. Then our success, our happiness, our glory, will be as
inevitable as the inferences of mathematics. We may calmly smile at all
the croakings of all the ravens, whether of native or foreign breed.

The whole will not grow weak by the increase of its parts. Our growth
will be like that of the mountain oak, which strikes its roots more
deeply into the soil, and clings to it with a closer grasp, as its lofty
head is exalted and its broad arms stretched out. The loud burst of joy
and gratitude which, on this, the anniversary of our independence, is
breaking from the full hearts of a mighty people, will never cease to be
heard. No chasms of sullen silence will interrupt its course; no
discordant notes of sectional madness mar the general harmony. Year
after year will increase it by tributes from now unpeopled solitudes.
The farthest West shall hear it and rejoice; the Oregon shall swell it
with the voice of its waters; the Rocky Mountains shall fling back the
glad sound from their snowy crests.


ON FREEDOM'S GENEROUS SOIL.

     OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D., the distinguished American author,
     wit, and poet. Born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809.

America is the only place where man is full-grown.


NATIONAL HERITAGE.

     The Rev. THOMAS STARR KING, an American Unitarian divine. Born in
     New York in 1824; died, 1864. From an address on the "Privileges
     and Duties of Patriotism," delivered in November, 1862. By
     permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers, Boston.

Suppose that the continent could turn toward you to-morrow at sunrise,
and show to you the whole American area in the short hours of the sun's
advance from Eastport to the Pacific. You would see New England roll
into light from the green plumes of Aroostook to the silver stripe of
the Hudson; westward thence over the Empire State, and over the lakes,
and over the sweet valleys of Pennsylvania, and over the prairies, the
morning blush would run and would waken all the line of the Mississippi;
from the frosts where it rises to the fervid waters in which it pours,
for 3,000 miles it would be visible, fed by rivers that flow from every
mile of the Alleghany slope, and edged by the green embroideries of the
temperate and tropic zones; beyond this line another basin, too--the
Missouri--catching the morning, leads your eye along its western slope
till the Rocky Mountains burst upon the vision, and yet do not bar it;
across its passes we must follow, as the stubborn courage of American
pioneers has forced its way, till again the Sierras and their silver
veins are tinted along the mighty bulwark with the break of day; and
then over to the gold fields of the western slope, and the fatness of
the California soil, and the beautiful valleys of Oregon, and the
stately forests of Washington, the eye is drawn, as the globe turns out
of the night shadow; and when the Pacific waves are crested with
radiance, you have the one blending picture--nay, the reality--of the
American domain. No such soil--so varied by climate, by products, by
mineral riches, by forest and lake, by wild heights and buttresses, and
by opulent plains, yet all bound into unity of configuration and
bordered by both warm and icy seas--no such domain, was ever given to
one people.

And then suppose that you could see in a picture as vast and vivid the
preparation for our inheritance of this land. Columbus, haunted by his
round idea, and setting sail in a sloop, to see Europe sink behind him,
while he was serene in the faith of his dream; the later navigators of
every prominent Christian race who explored the upper coasts; the
Mayflower, with her cargo of sifted acorns from the hardy stock of
British puritanism, and the ship, whose name we know not, that bore to
Virginia the ancestors of Washington; the clearing of the wilderness,
and the dotting of its clearings with the proofs of manly wisdom and
Christian trust; then the gradual interblending of effort and interest
and sympathy into one life--the congress of the whole Atlantic slope--to
resist oppression upon one member; the rally of every State around
Washington and his holy sword, and again the nobler rally around him
when he signed the Constitution, and after that the organization of the
farthest West with North and South, into one polity and communion; when
this was finished, the tremendous energy of free life, under the
stimulus and with the aid of advancing science, in increasing wealth,
subduing the wilds to the bonds of use, multiplying fertile fields and
busy schools and noble work-shops and churches, hallowed by free-will
offerings of prayer; and happy homes, and domes dedicated to the laws of
States that rise by magic from the haunts of the buffalo and deer, all
in less than a long lifetime; and if we could see also how, in achieving
this, the flag which represents all this history is dyed in traditions
of exploits, by land and sea, that have given heroes to American annals
whose names are potent to conjure with, while the world's list of
thinkers in matter is crowded with the names of American inventors, and
the higher rolls of literary merit are not empty of the title of our
"representative men"; if all that the past has done for us, and the
present reveals, could thus stand apparent in one picture, and then if
the promise of the future to the children of our millions under our
common law, and with continental peace, could be caught in one vast
spectral exhibition--the wealth in store, the power, the privilege, the
freedom, the learning, the expansive and varied and mighty unity in
fellowship, almost fulfilling the poet's dream of "the parliament of
man, the federation of the world"--you would exclaim with exultation,
"I, too, am an American!" You would feel that patriotism, next to your
tie to the Divine Love, is the greatest privilege of your life; and you
would devote yourselves, out of inspiration and joy, to the obligations
of patriotism, that this land, so spread, so adorned, so colonized, so
blessed, should be kept forever against all the assaults of traitors,
one in polity, in spirit, and in aim.


SIFTED WHEAT.

     HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. From his "Courtship of Miles Standish,"
     IV.

God hath sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.


CENTER OF CIVILIZATION.

     From _North British Review_.

It is too late to disparage America. Accustomed to look with wonder on
the civilization of the past, upon the unblest glories of Greece and of
Rome, upon mighty empires that have risen but to fall, the English mind
has never fixed itself on the grand phenomenon of a great nation at
school. Viewing America as a forward child that has deserted its home
and abjured its parent, we have ever looked upon her with a callous
heart and with an evil eye, judicially blind to her progress.

But how she has gone on developing the resources of a region teeming
with vegetable life. How she has intrenched herself amid noble
institutions, with temples enshrined in religious toleration, with
universities of private bequest and public organization, with national
and unshackled schools, and with all the improvements which science,
literature, and philanthropy demand from the citizen or from the state.

Supplied from the Old World with its superabundant life, the Anglo-Saxon
tide has been carrying its multiplied population to the West, rushing
onward through impervious forests, leveling their lofty pines and
converting the wilderness into abodes of populous plenty, intelligence,
and taste. Nor is this living flood the destroying scourge which
Providence sometimes lets loose upon our species. It breathes in accents
which are our own; it is instinct with English life; and it bears on its
snowy crest the auroral light of the East, to gild the darkness of the
West with the purple radiance of salvation, of knowledge, and of peace.

Her empire of coal, her kingdom of cotton and of corn, her regions of
gold and of iron, mark out America as the center of civilization, as the
emporium of the world's commerce, as the granary and storehouse out of
which the kingdoms of the East will be clothed and fed; and, we greatly
fear, as the asylum in which our children will take refuge when the
hordes of Asia and the semi-barbarians of Eastern Europe shall again
darken and desolate the West.

Though dauntless in her mien, and colossal in her strength, she displays
upon her banner the star of peace, shedding its radiance upon us. Let us
reciprocate the celestial light, and, strong and peaceful ourselves, we
shall have nothing to fear from her power, but everything to learn from
her example.


A YOUTHFUL LAND.

     JAMES OTIS, a celebrated American orator and patriot. Born at West
     Barnstable, Mass., February 5, 1725. Killed by lightning at
     Andover, Mass., May, 1783.

England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to
fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land
than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland or couches
herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. We plunged into
the wave with the great charter of freedom in our teeth because the
faggot and torch were behind us. We have waked this new world from its
savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path, towns and
cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics, and the
fires in our autumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the increase of
our wealth and population.


THE COLUMBIAN CHORUS.

Prof. John Knowles Paine of Harvard University has completed the music
of his Columbian march and chorus, to be performed on the occasion of
the dedication of the Exposition buildings, October 21, 1892, to write
which he was especially commissioned by the Exposition management. Prof.
Paine has provided these original words for the choral ending of his
composition:

  All hail and welcome, nations of the earth!
    Columbia's greeting comes from every State.
  Proclaim to all mankind the world's new birth
    Of freedom, age on age shall consecrate.
  Let war and enmity forever cease,
    Let glorious art and commerce banish wrong;
  The universal brotherhood of peace
    Shall be Columbia's high inspiring song.

[Illustration: THE LANDING OF COLUMBUS. From the celebrated picture by
John Vanderlyn, in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, D. C. (See
page 310.)]


SOVEREIGN OF THE ASCENDANT.

     CHARLES PHILLIPS, an Irish barrister. Born at Sligo, about 1788. He
     practiced with success in criminal cases in London, and gained a
     wide reputation by his speeches, the style of which is rather
     florid. He was for many years a commissioner of the insolvent
     debtors' court in London. Died in 1859.

Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so
sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? Who shall say for what
purpose mysterious Providence may not have designed her? Who shall say
that when in its follies, or its crimes, the Old World may have buried
all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human
nature may not find its destined renovation in the New! When its temples
and its trophies shall have moldered into dust; when the glories of its
name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its
achievements live only in song, philosophy will revive again in the sky
of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington.

Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it even improbable? I appeal to
History! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the
illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a universal
commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the
establishments of this world's wisdom secure to empire the permanency of
its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives
only in song. Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have
crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly
intended to commemorate. So thought Palmyra; where is she? So thought
the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled
by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and
enervate Ottoman. In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their
imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb,
have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps.
The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island
that was then a speck, rude and neglected, in the barren ocean, now
rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame
of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration
of their bards. Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that
England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens
is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was. Who shall say,
when the European column shall have moldered, and the night of barbarism
obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge from
the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant.


LAND OF LIBERTY.

     WENDELL PHILLIPS, "the silver-tongued orator of America," and
     anti-slavery reformer. Born in Boston, Mass., November 29, 1811;
     died, February 2, 1884.

The Carpathian Mountains may shelter tyrants. The slopes of Germany may
bear up a race more familiar with the Greek text than the Greek phalanx.
For aught I know, the wave of Russian rule may sweep so far westward as
to fill once more with miniature despots the robber castles of the
Rhine. But of this I am sure: God piled the Rocky Mountains as the
ramparts of freedom. He scooped the Valley of the Mississippi as the
cradle of free States. He poured Niagara as the anthem of free men.


THE SHIP COLUMBIA.

     EDWARD G. PORTER. In an article entitled "The Ship Columbia and the
     Discovery of Oregon," in the _New England Magazine_, June, 1892.

Few ships, if any, in our merchant marine, since the organization of
the republic, have acquired such distinction as the Columbia.

By two noteworthy achievements, 100 years ago, she attracted the
attention of the commercial world and rendered a service to the United
States unparalleled in our history. _She was the first American vessel
to carry the stars and stripes around the globe; and, by her discovery
of "the great river of the West" to which her name was given, she
furnished us with the title to our possession_ of that magnificent
domain which to-day is represented by the flourishing young States of
Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

The famous ship was well-known and much talked about at the time, but
her records have mostly disappeared, and there is very little knowledge
at present concerning her.


COLUMBIA'S EMBLEM.

     EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. In September _Century_

  The rose may bloom for England,
    The lily for France unfold;
  Ireland may honor the shamrock,
    Scotland her thistle bold;
  But the shield of the great Republic,
    The glory of the West,
  Shall bear a stalk of the tasseled corn--
    Of all our wealth the best.
  The arbutus and the golden-rod
    The heart of the North may cheer;
  And the mountain laurel for Maryland
    Its royal clusters rear;
  And jasmine and magnolia
    The crest of the South adorn;
  But the wide Republic's emblem
    Is the bounteous, golden corn!


EAST AND WEST.

     THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, a distinguished American artist and poet.
     Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1822; died in New York, May
     11, 1872. From his "Emigrant's Song."[60]

Leave the tears to the maiden, the fears to the child, While the future
stands beckoning afar in the wild; For there Freedom, more fair, walks
the primeval land, Where the wild deer all court the caress of her hand.
There the deep forests fall, and the old shadows fly, And the palace and
temple leap into the sky. Oh, the East holds no place where the onward
can rest, And alone there is room in the land of the West!


THE PRIMITIVE PITCH.

     The Rev. MYRON W. REED, a distinguished American clergyman of
     Denver, Colo. From an address delivered in 1892.

The best thing we can do for the world is to take care of America. Keep
our country up to the primitive pitch. In front of my old home, in
another city, is the largest elm in the county. It never talked, it
never went about doing good. It stood there and made shade for an acre
of children, and a shelter for all the birds that came. It stood there
and preached strength in the air by wide-flung branches, and strength in
the earth by as many and as long roots as limbs. It stood, one fearful
night, the charge of a cyclone, and was serene in the March morning. It
proclaimed what an elm could be. It set tree-planters to planting elms.
So America preaches, man capable of self-government; preaches over the
sea, a republic is safer than any kingdom. Men have outgrown kings. We
shall remember Walt Whitman, if only for a line, "O America! we build
for you because you build for the world."


MORAL PROGRESS.

     WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, an eminent American statesman. Born at
     Florida, Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801; died at Auburn, N. Y.,
     October 10, 1872.

A kind of reverence is paid by all nations to antiquity. There is no one
that does not trace its lineage from the gods, or from those who were
especially favored by the gods. Every people has had its age of gold, or
Augustine age, or historic age--an age, alas! forever passed. These
prejudices are not altogether unwholesome. Although they produce a
conviction of declining virtue, which is unfavorable to generous
emulation, yet a people at once ignorant and irreverential would
necessarily become licentious. Nevertheless, such prejudices ought to be
modified. It is untrue that in the period of a nation's rise from
disorder to refinement it is not able to continually surpass itself. We
see the _present_, plainly, distinctly, with all its coarse outlines,
its rough inequalities, its dark blots, and its glaring deformities. We
hear all its tumultuous sounds and jarring discords. We see and hear the
_past_ through a distance which reduces all its inequalities to a plane,
mellows all its shades into a pleasing hue, and subdues even its
hoarsest voices into harmony. In our own case, the prejudice is less
erroneous than in most others. The Revolutionary age was truly a heroic
one. Its exigencies called forth the genius, and the talents, and the
virtues of society, and they ripened amid the hardships of a long and
severe trial. But there were selfishness and vice and factions then as
now, although comparatively subdued and repressed. You have only to
consult impartial history to learn that neither public faith, nor public
loyalty, nor private virtue, culminated at that period in our own
country; while a mere glance at the literature, or at the stage, or at
the politics of any European country, in any previous age, reveals the
fact that it was marked, more distinctly than the present, by
licentious morals and mean ambition. It is only just to infer in favor
of the United States an improvement of morals from their established
progress in knowledge and power; otherwise, the philosophy of society is
misunderstood, and we must change all our courses, and henceforth seek
safety in imbecility, and virtue in superstition and ignorance.


A PROPHETIC UTTERANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.

     SAMUEL SEWELL. Born at Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England, March,
     1652. Died at Boston, Mass., January, 1730.

Lift up your heads, O ye Gates of Columbia, and be ye lift up, ye
Everlasting Doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.


NATIONAL INFLUENCE.

     JOSEPH STORY, a distinguished American jurist. Born in Marblehead,
     Mass., September 18, 1779; died at Cambridge, Mass., September 10,
     1845. By permission of Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., Publishers.

When we reflect on what has been, and is, how is it possible not to feel
a profound sense of the responsibilities of this Republic to all future
ages? What vast motives press upon us for lofty efforts! What brilliant
prospects invite our enthusiasm! What solemn warnings at once demand our
vigilance and moderate our confidence! We stand, the latest, and, if we
fail, probably the last, experiment of self-government by the people. We
have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are
in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the
oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been enfeebled by
the vices or luxuries of the Old World. Such as we are, we have been
from the beginning--simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to
self-government and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any
formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many
degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products
and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press is
free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach, every home.
What fairer prospect of success could be presented? What means more
adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary than for
the people to preserve what they themselves have created? Already has
the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended
the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself
into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and
the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and
the north, and, moving to the south, has opened to Greece the lessons of
her better days.


AN ELECT NATION.

     WILLIAM STOUGHTON. From an election sermon at Boston, Mass., April
     29, 1669.

God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this
wilderness.


THE NAME "AMERICA."

     MOSES F. SWEETSER, an American _littérateur_. Born in
     Massachusetts, 1848. From his "Hand-book of the United States."[61]

The name America comes from _amalric_, or _emmerich_, an old German word
spread through Europe by the Goths, and softened in Latin to Americus,
and in Italian to Amerigo. It was first applied to Brazil. Americus
Vespucius, the son of a wealthy Florentine notary, made several voyages
to the New World, a few years later than Columbus, and gave spirited
accounts of his discoveries. About the year 1507, Hylacomylus, of the
college at St. Dié, in the Vosges Mountains, brought out a book on
cosmography, in which he said, "Now, truly, as these regions are more
widely explored, and another fourth part is discovered, by Americus
Vespucius, I see no reason why it should not be justly called
_Amerigen_; that is, the land of Americus, or America, from Americus,
its discoverer, a man of a subtle intellect." Hylacomylus invented the
name America, and, as there was no other title for the New World, this
came gradually into general use. It does not appear that Vespucius was a
party to this almost accidental transaction, which has made him a
monument of a hemisphere.


THE COLUMBINE AS THE EXPOSITION FLOWER.

     T. T. SWINBURNE, the poet, has written to J. M. Samuels, chief of
     the Department of Horticulture at the World's Columbian Exposition,
     proposing the columbine as the Columbian Exposition and national
     flower. He gives as reasons:

It is most appropriate in name, color, and form. Its name is suggestive
of Columbia, and our country is often called by that name. Its botanical
name, _aquilegia_, is derived from _aquila_ (eagle), on account of the
spur of the petals resembling the talons, and the blade, the beak, of
the eagle, our national bird. Its colors are red, white, and blue, our
national colors. The corolla is divided into five points resembling the
star used to represent our States on our flag; its form also represents
the Phrygian cap of liberty, and it is an exact copy of the horn of
plenty, the symbol of the Columbian Exposition. The flowers cluster
around a central stem, as our States around the central government.


THE SONG OF '76.

     BAYARD TAYLOR, the distinguished American traveler, writer, and
     poet. Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1835; died at
     Berlin, December 19, 1878. From his "Song of '76." By permission of
     Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers, Boston.

  Waken, voice of the land's devotion!
    Spirit of freedom, awaken all!
  Ring, ye shores, to the song of ocean,
    Rivers answer, and mountains call!
        The golden day has come;
        Let every tongue be dumb
  That sounded its malice or murmured its fears;
        She hath won her story;
        She wears her glory;
  We crown her the Land of a Hundred Years!

  Out of darkness and toil and danger
    Into the light of victory's day,
  Help to the weak, and home to the stranger,
    Freedom to all, she hath held her way!
        Now Europe's orphans rest
        Upon her mother-breast.
  The voices of nations are heard in the cheers
        That shall cast upon her
        New love and honor,
  And crown her the Queen of a Hundred Years!

  North and South, we are met as brothers;
    East and West, we are wedded as one;
  Right of each shall secure our mother's;
    Child of each is her faithful son.
        We give thee heart and hand,
        Our glorious native land,
  For battle has tried thee, and time endears.
        We will write thy story,
        And keep thy glory
  As pure as of old for a Thousand Years!


MAN SUPERIOR.

     HENRY DAVID THOREAU, American author and naturalist. Born in
     Concord, Mass., 1817; died in 1862. From his "Excursions" (1863).
     By permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers,
     Boston.

If the moon looks larger here than in Europe, probably the sun looks
larger also. If the heavens of America appear infinitely higher and the
stars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical of the height to
which the philosophy and poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one
day soar. At length, perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as
much higher to the American mind, and the intimations that star it, as
much brighter. For I believe that climate does thus react on man, as
there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and
inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well
as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many
foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more
imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more
ethereal, as our sky; our understanding more comprehensive and broader,
like our plains; our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our
thunder and lightning, our rivers, and mountains, and forests, and our
hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our
inland seas. Else to what end does the world go on, and why was America
discovered?


AMERICAN SCENERY.

     WILLIAM TUDOR, an American _littérateur_. Born at Boston in 1779;
     died, 1830.

Our numerous waterfalls and the enchanting beauty of our lakes afford
many objects of the most picturesque character; while the inland seas,
from Superior to Ontario, and that astounding cataract, whose roar would
hardly be increased by the united murmurs of all the cascades of Europe,
are calculated to inspire vast and sublime conceptions. The effects,
too, of our climate, composed of a Siberian winter and an Italian
summer, furnish new and peculiar objects for description. The
circumstances of remote regions are here blended, and strikingly
opposite appearances witnessed, in the same spot, at different seasons
of the year. In our winters, we have the sun at the same altitude as in
Italy, shining on an unlimited surface of snow, which can only be found
in the higher latitudes of Europe, where the sun, in the winter, rises
little above the horizon. The dazzling brilliancy of a winter's day and
a moonlight night, in an atmosphere astonishingly clear and frosty, when
the utmost splendor of the sky is reflected from a surface of spotless
white, attended with the most excessive cold, is peculiar to the
northern part of the United States. What, too, can surpass the celestial
purity and transparency of the atmosphere in a fine autumnal day, when
our vision and our thought seem carried to the third heaven; the
gorgeous magnificence of the close, when the sun sinks from our view,
surrounded with various masses of clouds, fringed with gold and purple,
and reflecting, in evanescent tints, all the hues of the rainbow.


LIBERTY HAS A CONTINENT OF HER OWN.

     HORACE WALPOLE, fourth Earl of Oxford, a famous English literary
     gossip, amateur, and wit. Born in London, October, 1717; died,
     March, 1797.

Liberty has still a continent to exist in.


LOVE OF AMERICA.

     DANIEL WEBSTER, the celebrated American statesman, jurist, and
     orator. Born at Salisbury, N. H., January 18, 1782; died at
     Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852.

I profess to feel a strong attachment to the liberty of the United
States; to the constitution and free institutions of the United States;
to the honor, and I may say the glory, of this great Government and
great country.

I feel every injury inflicted upon this country almost as a personal
injury. I blush for every fault which I think I see committed in its
public councils as if they were faults or mistakes of my own.

I know that, at this moment, there is no object upon earth so attracting
the gaze of the intelligent and civilized nations of the earth as this
great Republic. All men look at us, all men examine our course, all good
men are anxious for a favorable result to this great experiment of
republican liberty. We are on a hill and can not be hid. We can not
withdraw ourselves either from the commendation or the reproaches of the
civilized world. They see us as that star of empire which, half a
century ago, was predicted as making its way westward. I wish they may
see it as a mild, placid, though brilliant orb, making its way athwart
the whole heavens, to the enlightening and cheering of mankind; and not
a meteor of fire and blood, terrifying the nations.


GENIUS OF THE WEST.

     JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, the distinguished American poet. Born at
     Haverhill, Mass, December 17, 1807. From his poem, "On receiving an
     eagle's quill from Lake Superior." By permission of Messrs.
     Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers, Boston.

  I hear the tread of pioneers,
    Of nations yet to be;
  The first low wash of waves, where soon
    Shall roll a human sea.

  The rudiments of empire here
    Are plastic yet and warm;
  The chaos of a mighty world
    Is rounding into form.

  Each rude and jostling fragment soon
    Its fitting place shall find--
  The raw material of a state,
    Its muscle and its mind.

  And, westering still, the star which leads
    The New World in its train
  Has tipped with fire the icy spears
    Of many a mountain chain.

  The snowy cones of Oregon
    Are kindling on its way;
  And California's golden sands
    Gleam brighter in its ray.


GOD SAVE AMERICA.

     ROBERT C. WINTHROP, an American statesman and orator. Born in
     Boston, Mass., May 12, 1809. From his "Centennial Oration,"
     delivered in Boston, 1876.

Instruments and wheels of the invisible governor of the universe! This
is indeed all which the greatest men ever have been, or ever can be. No
flatteries of courtiers, no adulations of the multitude, no audacity of
self-reliance, no intoxications of success, no evolutions or
developments of science, can make more or other of them. This is "the
sea-mark of their utmost sail," the goal of their farthest run, the very
round and top of their highest soaring. Oh, if there could be to-day a
deeper and more pervading impression of this great truth throughout our
land, and a more prevailing conformity of our thoughts and words and
acts to the lessons which it involves; if we could lift ourselves to a
loftier sense of our relations to the invisible; if, in surveying our
past history, we could catch larger and more exalted views of our
destinies and our responsibilities; if we could realize that the want of
good men may be a heavier woe to a land than any want of what the world
calls great men, our centennial year would not only be signalized by
splendid ceremonials, and magnificent commemorations, and gorgeous
expositions, but it would go far toward fulfilling something of the
grandeur of that "acceptable year," which was announced by higher than
human lips, and would be the auspicious promise and pledge of a glorious
second century of independence and freedom for our country. For, if that
second century of self-government is to go on safely to its close, or is
to go on safely and prosperously at all, there must be some renewal of
that old spirit of subordination and obedience to divine, as well as
human, laws, which has been our security in the past. There must be
faith in something higher and better than ourselves. There must be a
reverent acknowledgment of an unseen, but all-seeing, all-controlling
Ruler of the Universe. His word, His house, His day, His worship, must
be sacred to our children, as they have been to their fathers; and His
blessing must never fail to be invoked upon our land and upon our
liberties. The patriot voice, which cried from the balcony of yonder old
State House, when the declaration had been originally proclaimed,
"stability and perpetuity to American independence," did not fail to
add, "God save our American States." I would prolong that ancestral
prayer. And the last phrase to pass my lips at this hour, and to take
its chance for remembrance or oblivion in years to come, as the
conclusion of this centennial oration, and as the sum and summing up of
all I can say to the present or the future, shall be: There is, there
can be, no independence of God; in Him, as a nation, no less than in
Him, as individuals, "we live, and move, and have our being!" GOD SAVE
OUR AMERICAN STATES!


A VOICE OF WARNING.

     From "Things that Threaten the Destruction of American
     Institutions," a sermon by T. DE WITT TALMAGE, delivered in
     Brooklyn Tabernacle, October 12, 1884.

What! can a nation die? Yes; there has been great mortality among
monarchies and republics. Like individuals, they are born, have a middle
life and a decease, a cradle and a grave. Sometimes they are
assassinated and sometimes they suicide. Call the roll, and let some one
answer for them. Egyptian civilization, stand up! Dead, answer the ruins
of Karnak and Luxor. Dead, respond in chorus the seventy pyramids on the
east side the Nile. Assyrian Empire, stand up! Dead, answer the charred
ruins of Nineveh. After 600 years of opportunity, dead. Israelitish
Kingdom, stand up! After 250 years of miraculous vicissitude, and Divine
intervention, and heroic achievement, and appalling depravity, dead.
Phoenicia, stand up! After inventing the alphabet and giving it to the
world, and sending out her merchant caravans to Central Asia in one
direction, and her navigators into the Atlantic Ocean in another
direction, and 500 years of prosperity, dead. Dead, answer the "Pillars
of Hercules" and the rocks on which the Tyrian fishermen spread their
nets. Athens--after Phidias, after Demosthenes, after Miltiades, after
Marathon--dead. Sparta--after Leonidas, after Eurybiades, after Salamis,
after Thermopylæ--dead.

Roman Empire, stand up and answer to the roll-call! Once bounded on the
north by the British Channel and on the south by the Sahara Desert of
Africa, on the east by the Euphrates and on the west by the Atlantic
Ocean. Home of three civilizations. Owning all the then discovered world
that was worth owning. Gibbon, in his "Rise and Fall of the Roman
Empire," answers, "Dead." And the vacated seats of the ruined Coliseum,
and the skeletons of the aqueduct, and the miasma of the Campagna, and
the fragments of the marble baths, and the useless piers of the bridge
Triumphalis, and the silenced forum, and the Mamertine dungeon, holding
no more apostolic prisoners; and the arch of Titus, and Basilica of
Constantine, and the Pantheon, lift up a nightly chorus of "Dead! dead!"
Dead, after Horace, and Virgil, and Tacitus, and Livy, and Cicero; after
Horatius of the bridge, and Cincinnatus, the farmer oligarch; after
Scipio, and Cassius, and Constantine, and Cæsar. Her war-eagle, blinded
by flying too near the sun, came reeling down through the heavens, and
the owl of desolation and darkness made its nest in the forsaken ærie.
Mexican Empire, dead! French Empire, dead! You see it is no unusual
thing for a government to perish. And in the same necrology of nations,
and in the same cemetery of expired governments, will go the United
States of America unless some potent voice shall call a halt, and
through Divine interposition, by a purified ballot-box and an
all-pervading moral Christian sentiment, the present evil tendency be
stopped.

[Illustration: STATUE OF COLUMBUS, ST LOUIS, MO. First Bronze Statue to
Columbus in America (See page 279.)]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: Copyright, by permission of Messrs. Lippincott.]

[Footnote 61: By permission of The Matthews-Northrup Co., Publishers.]




INDEX OF AUTHORS.

COLUMBUS.


  A

  Adams, John, 61

  Alden, William Livingston, 61

  Anderson, John J., 64

  Anonymous, 61-64

  Anthony, The Hon. Elliott, 64

  Augustine, Saint, 68


  B

  Baillie, Joanna, 69

  Ballou, Maturin Murray, 72

  Baltimore _American_, The, 73

  Bancroft, George, 79

  Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 80

  Baring-Gould, The Rev. Sabine, 84

  Barlow, Joel, 86

  Barry, J. J., M. D., 88

  Benzoni, Geronimo, 89

  Berkeley, The Right Rev. George, 90

  Blaine, The Hon. J. G., 90

  Bonnafoux, Baron, 90

  Boston _Journal_, The, 91

  Brobst, Flavius J., 93

  Bryant, William C., 93

  Buel, J. W., 94

  Burroughs, John, 94

  Burton, Richard E., 95

  Butterworth, Hezekiah, 95

  Byron, George Gordon Noel, Lord, 97


  C

  Cabot, Sebastian, 97

  Capitulations of Santa Fé, 98

  Carlyle, Thomas, 99

  Carman, Bliss, 100

  Carpio, Lope de Vega, 100

  Castelar, Emilio, 292

  Chapin, E. H., 101

  Chicago _Inter Ocean_ 193

  Chicago _Tribune_, The, 92-101

  Cladera, 63

  Clarke, Hyde, 106

  Clarke, James Freeman, 106

  Clemencin, Diego, 107

  Coleman, James David, 107

  Collyer, Robert, 108

  Columbus of Literature, 109

  Columbus of the Heavens, 110

  Columbus of Modern Times, 110

  Columbus of the Skies, 110

  Columbus, Hernando, 110

  Columbus, The Mantle of, 113

  Cornwallis, Kinahan, 111

  Curtis, William Eleroy, 113


  D

  Dati, Giulio, 115

  Delavigne, Jean François Casimir, 115

  De Costa, Rev. Dr. B. F., 116

  Depew, Chauncey M., 117

  De Vere, Aubrey Thomas, 117

  Draper, John William, 120

  Durier, Right Rev. Anthony, 120

  Dutto, L. A., 124


  E

  Eden, Charles Henry, 125

  Edrisi, Xerif Al, 127

  Egan, Prof. Maurice Francis, 127

  Elliott, Samuel R, 128

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 128

  Everett, Edward, 129


  F

  Farrar, The Venerable Frederick William, D. D., 131

  Fiske, John, 132

  Fothergill, John Milner, M. D. 134

  Foster, John, 135

  Freeman, Edward Augustus, 135

  Friday, 136


  G

  Gaffarel, Paul, 138

  Galiani, The Abbé Fernando, 139

  Geikie, The Rev. Cunningham, D. D., 139

  Gibbons, The Right Rev. James, D. D., 145

  Gibson, William, 145

  Glasgow _Times_, 146

  Goodrich, F. B., 149

  Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume, 149

  Gunsaulus, Rev. F. W., D. D., 150

  Guyot, Arnold Henry, Ph. D., LL. D., 151


  H

  Hale, Edward Everett, D. D., 151

  Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 153

  Halstead, Murat, 153

  Harding, Edward J., 155

  Hardouin, Jean, 159

  Harrison, Benjamin, 159

  Harrisse, Henry, 160

  Hartley, David, 162

  Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 163

  Heine, Heinrich, 162

  Helps, Sir Arthur, 164

  Herbert, George, 164

  Herrera, Antonio y Tordesillas, 165

  Herrera, Fernando, 165

  Hodgin, C. W., 165

  Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander, Baron von, 166

  Hurst, The Right Rev. John Fletcher. D. D., LL. D., 167


  I

  Irving, Washington, 168

  Italian, 182


  J

  Janssens, Archbishop, 203

  Jefferson, Samuel, 182

  Johnston, Annie Fellows, 183


  K

  Kennedy, John S., 184

  King, Moses, 184

  Knight, Arthur G., 185


  L

  Lactantius, Lucius, 185

  Lamartine, Alphonse, 187

  Lanier, Sidney, 189

  Lawrence, Eugene, 192

  Leo XIII., Pope, 193, 194

  Lofft, Capel, 201

  Lord, Rev. John, 202

  Lorgues, Rossely de, 203

  Lowell, James Russell, 64, 204

  Lytton, Lord, 291


  M

  Macaulay, Thomas Babbington, 206

  Mackie, C. P., 207

  Magnusen, Finn, 208

  Major, R. H., 209

  Malte-Brun, Conrad, 210

  Margesson, Helen P., 210

  Markham, Clements Robert, 211

  Martyr, Peter, 231

  Mason, William, 232

  Matthews, J. N., 232

  Medina-Celi, The Duke of, 233

  Miller, Joaquin, 235

  Montgomery, D. H., 237

  Morgan, Gen. Thomas J., 237

  Morris, Charles, 238


  N

  Nason, Emma Huntingdon, 238

  New Orleans _Morning Star_, 240

  New York _Herald_, 251

  New York _Tribune_, 253

  Nugent, Father, 254


  P

  Palos, The Alcalde of, 255

  Pan-American Tribute, 255

  Parker, Theodore, 256

  Parker, Capt. W. H., 256

  Perry, Horatio J., 257

  Peschel, O. F., 260

  Petrarch, F., 266

  Phillips, Barnet, 261

  Pollok, R., 261

  Poole, W. F., LL. D., 261

  Prescott, W. H., 265

  Pulci, Luigi, 267


  Q

  Quackenbos, G. P., 268


  R

  Read, Thomas Buchanan

  Reed, Myron, 268

  Roll of the Crew, 269

  Redpath, John Clark, LL. D., 270

  Riaño, Juan F., 271

  Robertson, William, 272

  Rogers, Samuel, 63, 275

  Russell, William, 277


  S

  Santarem, Manoel Francisco de Barros y Souza, Viscount, 279

  _Saturday Review_, 284

  Saunders, R. N., 287

  Savage, Minot J., 288

  Seneca, 289

  Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, 292

  Shipley, Mrs. John B, 292

  Sigourney (Lydia Huntley), Mrs. 293

  Smiles, Samuel, 294

  Smithey, Royall Bascom, 295

  Sumner, Charles, 297

  Swing, Prof. David, 298


  T

  Tasso, Torquato, 300

  Taylor, Bayard, 300

  Taylor, Rev. George L., 300

  Tennyson, Lord Alfred, 301

  Tercentenary, 302

  Thompson, Maurice, 304

  Thoreau, Henry D., 304

  Toscanelli, Paolo, 305

  Townsend, G. A., 305

  Townsend, L. T., D. D., 308

  Trivigiano, Angelo, 309


  V

  Van der Weyde, Dr. P. H., 309

  Ventura, Padre Gioacchino, 310


  W

  Waddington, The Venerable George, Dean of Durham, 310

  Watts, Theodore, 312

  Whipple, Edwin Percy, 315

  White, Daniel Appleton, 315

  Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes, 316

  Willard, Emma Hart, 317

  Winchester, The Rev. Elhanan, 317

  Winsor, Justin, 321

  Woodberry, George E., 321

  Worcester, Joseph Emerson, 321




INDEX OF AUTHORS.

COLUMBIA.


  A

  Adams, John, 327

  Agassiz, Louis Jean Rodolphe, 327

  Audubon, J. J., 327

  Anonymous, 329

  Arnold, Sir Edwin, 329


  B

  Beecher, Henry Ward, 330

  Beman, Nathaniel S. S., 331

  Best, St. George, 333

  Brackenridge, Henry Hugh, 333

  Bright, The Right Hon. John, M. P., 334

  Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 334

  Bryant, William Cullen, 335

  Bryce, James, M. P., 536

  Burke, Edmund, 337


  C

  Castelar, Emilio, 339

  Channing, William Ellery, 339

  Chicago _Inter Ocean_, 341

  Choate, Rufus, 341

  U. S. S. Columbia, 344

  Cook, Eliza, 347

  Cornwallis, Kinahan, 347

  Cullom, The Hon. Shelby M., 348

  Curtis, George William, 349


  D

  Dana, Olive E., 350

  Dwight, Timothy, 351


  E

  Eddy, T. M., 351

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 353

  Everett, Alexander Hill, 353


  G

  Gannett, Ezra Stiles, 354

  Garfield, James A., 356

  Gladstone, The Right Hon. William Ewart, 356

  Grady, Henry W., 357


  H

  Harrison, Benjamin, 359

  Head, Sir Francis Bond, 360

  Henry, Patrick, 360

  Hillard, George Stillman, 362

  Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 363


  K

  King, The Rev. Thomas Starr, 364


  L

  Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 366


  N

  _North British Review_, 366


  O

  Otis, James, 368


  P

  Paine, Prof. J. K., 368

  Phillips, Charles, 369

  Phillips, Wendell, 370

  Porter, Edward G., 370

  Proctor, Edna Dean, 371


  R

  Read, Thos. Buchanan, 372

  Reed, The Rev. Myron W., 372


  S

  Seward, William Henry, 373

  Sewell, Samuel, 374

  Storey, Joseph, 374

  Stoughton, William, 375

  Sweetser, Moses F., 375

  Swinburne, T. T., 376


  T

  Talmage, The Rev. T. Dewitt, 383

  Taylor, Bayard, 377

  Thoreau, Henry David, 378

  Tudor, William, 378


  W

  Walpole, Horace, 379

  Webster, Daniel, 380

  Whittier, John Greenleaf, 380

  Winthrop, Robert C., 381




INDEX OF HEAD LINES.


  A

  Admiral of Mosquito Land, 237

  Admiration of a Careful Critic, 160

  All within the Ken of Columbus, 106

  America--Opportunity, 353
    The Continent of the Future, 339
    The Old World, 327
    Flag, 330
    Futurity, 327
    Idea, 348
    National Haste, 336
    Nationality, 341
    Scenery, 378
    Unprecedented Growth, 337
    Welcome, 360

  Ancient Anchors, 61

  An Appropriate Hour, 135

  Arma Virumque Cano, 168

  At Palos, 284

  Atlantic and Pacific, 356

  Attendant Fame Shall Bless, 310


  B

  Barcelona Statue, 81

  Bartolomeo Columbus, 124

  Beauties of the Bahama Sea, 95

  Belief of Columbus, 164

  Bible, 308

  Boston Statue, 93, 280

  Bright's Beatific Vision, 334

  Brilliants from Depew, 117

  Bronze Door at Washington, 272

  Brothers across the Sea, 334

  By Faith Columbus found America, 108

  By the Grace of God He Was What He Was, 203


  C

  Cabot's Contemporaneous Utterance, 97

  Capitulations of Santa Fé, 98

  Captain and Seamen, 95

  Care of the New World, 162

  Cause of the Discovery, 184

  Celebration at Hamburg, 154

  Center of Civilization, 356

  Children of the Sun, 272

  Christopher, the Christ-Bearer, 268

  Circular Letter, Archbishop of New Orleans, 241

  Claim of the Norsemen, 266

  Columba Christum-Ferens--What's in a Name, 240

  Columbian Chorus, 368

  Columbia, Columbus' Monument, 347

  Columbia's Emblem, 371

  Columbian Festival Allegory, 250

  Columbia--A Prophecy, 333

  Columbia, Queen of the World, 351

  Columbia's Unguarded Gates, 327

  Columbine as the Exposition Flower, 376

  Columbus, 73, 312
    Aim not Merely Secular, 163
    Bank note, 80
    Bell, 89
    Boldest Navigator, 256
    Certain Convictions of, 90
    Chains--His Crown, 87
    Character of, 265
    The Civilizer, 187
    Collection, 112
    The Conqueror, 69
    And the Convent of La Rábida, 62
    And Copernicus, 210
    Dared the Main, 63
    Day, 159, 268-269
    And the Egg, 309
    The First Discoverer, 166
    And the Fourth Centenary of His Discovery, 211
    The Fulfiller of Prophecy, 79
    A Giant, 167
    Glory of Catholicism, 194
    Haven, 112
    Heard of Norse Discoveries, 210
    Of the Heavens, 110
    Of the Heavens--Scorned, 130
    A Heretic and a Visionary to His Contemporaries, 106
    An Ideal Commander, 86
    And the Indians, 237
    King of Discoverers, 205
    Of Literature, 109
    The Mariner, 80
    A Martyr, 294
    Of Modern Times, 91, 110
    Neither a Visionary nor an Imbecile, 207
    No Chance Comer, 90
    Lord North's _Bête Noir_, 315
    Pathfinder of the Shadowy Sea, 88
    Patron Saint of Real-Estate Dealers, 257
    Statue in Chicago, 118
    Statue, The City of Colon, 108
    Statue in Madrid, 208
    Statue, City of Mexico, 234
    Statue, New York, 243
    A Contemporary Italian Tribute, 115
    Critical Days, 134
    Cuba's Caves, 113
    A Voluminous Writer, 261
    At Salamanca, 170, 293
    The Sea-King, 99
    Of the Skies, 110
    Stamps, 263
    Supreme Suspense of, 304
    A Theoretical Circumnavigator, 270

  Crew of Columbus, 269


  D

  Dark Ages before Columbus, 68

  Darkness before Discovery, 297

  Death was Columbus' Friend, 260

  De Mortuis, nil nisi Bonum, 321

  Dense Ignorance of Those Days, 288

  Design for Souvenir Coins, 296

  Difficulties by the Way, 295

  Discoveries of Columbus and Americus, 101

  A Discovery Greater than the Labors of Hercules, 231

  Doubts of Columbus, 298

  Dream, 120


  E

  Each the Columbus of his own Soul, 63

  Eager to Share the Reward, 233

  Earnestness of Columbus, 62

  Earth's Rotundity, 254

  East and West, 372

  East longed for the West, 152

  Effect of the Discovery, 165

  Elect Nation, 375

  Error of Columbus, 299

  Example of Columbus, 69

  Excitement at the News of the Discovery, 132


  F

  Fame, 131

  Fate of Discoverers, 322

  Felipa, Wife of Columbus, 183

  Final Stage, 333

  First American Monument to Columbus, 347
    Catholic Knight, 107
    Glimpse of Land, 125
    To Greet Columbus, 238

  Fleet of Columbus, 112

  Flight of Parrots was his Guiding Star, 167

  Friday, 136

  From the Italian, 182


  G

  Genoa, 153, 277

  Genoa Inscription, The, 140

  Genoa Statue, The, 140, 280

  Genoa--whence Grand Columbus Came, 117

  Genius Travels East to West, 139

  Genius of the West, 380

  Genius Traveled Westward, 232

  Geography of the Ancients, 64

  Germany and Columbus, 144

  Germany's Exhibit of Rarities, 144

  Gift of Spain, 256

  Glory to God, 300

  God Save America, 381

  Grand Prophetic Vision, 317

  Grand Scope of the Celebration, 341

  Grandeur of Destiny, 335

  Gratitude and Pride, 359

  Great West, 304

  Greatest Achievement, 321

  Greatest Continuous Empire, 356

  Greatest Event, 298

  Greatness of Columbus, 61


  H

  Hands across the Sea, 255

  Hardy Mariners Have become Great Heroes, 315

  Herschel, the Columbus of the Skies, 101

  Hidden World, 350

  His Life Was a Path of Thorns, 261

  Honor the Hardy Norsemen, 116

  Honor to Whom Honor is Due, 279


  I

  Ideas of the Ancients, 185

  Important Find of MMS, 271

  Impregnable Will of Columbus, 204

  Incident of the Voyage, 165

  Increasing Interest in Columbus, 184

  Indomitable Courage of Columbus, 93

  In Honor of Columbus, 203

  Intense Uncertainty, 238

  Italian Statue (Baltimore), 78


  J

  Jesuit Geographer, 159


  K

  Knowledge of Icelandic Voyages, 300


  L

  Lake Front Park Statue of Columbus, 185

  Land of Liberty, 370

  Last Days of the Voyage, 269

  Launched out into the Deep, 277

  Legend of Columbus, 69

  Legend of a Western Island, 85

  Legend of a Western Land, 84

  Liberty Has a Continent of her Own, 379

  Life for Liberty, 153

  Like Homer, a Beggar in the Gate, 106

  Love of America, 380

  Love of Country, 343


  M

  Magnanimity, 185

  Man of the Church, 310

  Man's Ingratitude, 86

  Man Superior, 378

  Majesty of Grand Recollections, 167

  Mecca of the Nation, 184

  Memorial Arch, New York, 247

  Memorial to Columbus at Old Isabella, 171

  Mission and Reward, 232

  Moral Progress, 373

  Morning Triumphant, 150

  Mutiny at Sea, 115, 257

  Mystery of the Shadowy Sea, 127


  N

  Name America, 375

  National Heritage, 364

  National Influence, 374

  National Self-respect, 331

  Nature Superior, 360

  Navigator and the Islands, 72

  New Life, 151

  New Light on Christopher Columbus, 146

  New York Statue, 281

  Noah and Columbus, 317

  Nobility of Columbus in Adversity, 86

  Noble Conceptions, 339

  Norsemen's Claim to Priority, 292


  O

  Observation like Columbus, 139

  On a Portrait of Columbus, 321

  Once the Pillars of Hercules Were the End of the World, 145

  One Vast Western Continent, 329

  On Freedom's Generous Soil, 363

  Only the Actions of the Just, 86

  Onward! Press On!, 291

  Our Great Trust, 362

  Out-bound, 100


  P

  Palos, 127

  Palos to Barcelona--His Triumph, 261

  Palos--the Departure, 70

  Palos Statue, 281

  Pan-American Tribute, 255

  Passion for Gold, 192

  Patience of Columbus, 205

  Patriotism Defined, 351

  Penetration and Extreme Accuracy of Columbus, The, 166

  Pen Picture from the South, A, 121

  Period, The, 149

  Personal Appearance of Columbus, The, 89, 110, 165

  Petrarch's Tribute, 260

  Philadelphia Statue, 281

  Pleading with Kings for a New World, 268

  Pope Reviews the Life of the Discoverer, The, 194

  Portraits of Columbus, The, 113

  Practical and Poetical, 169

  Previous Discovery, 138

  Primitive Pitch, 372

  Prophetic Utterance of Colonial Days, 374
    Visions Urged Columbus On, 87

  Protest against Ignorance, A, 253

  Psalm of the West, 189

  Pulci's Prophecy, 267


  Q


  Queen Isabella's Death, 87


  R

  Range of Enterprise, 135

  Reason for Sailors' Superstitions, The, 145

  Reasoning of Columbus, The, 128

  Religion, 176

  Religion Turns to Freedom's Land, 164

  Religious Object of Columbus, 88

  Reminiscence of Columbus, A, 287

  Responsibility, 354

  Reverence and Wonder, 61

  Ridicule with which the Views of Columbus were Received, 64

  Rising of the Western Star, 329

  Route to the Spice Indies, 305


  S

  Sacramento Statuary, 277

  Sagacity, 128

  St. Louis Statue, The, 279

  Salamanca Monument, 278

  San Salvador or Watling's Island, 162

  Santa Maria Caravel, 94, 282
    Rábida, The Convent, 275

  Santiago Bust, 279

  Santo Domingoan Cannon, 282

  Scarlet Thorn, 94

  Searcher of the Ocean, 182

  Secret, 149

  Seeker and Seer, 155

  Seneca's Prophecy, 289

  Sequel of the Discovery, 353

  Seville Tomb, 289

  Ship Columbia, 370

  Sifted Wheat, 356

  Song of America, The, 111

  Song of '76, 377

  Southern America's Tribute, 280

  Sovereign of the Ascendant, 369

  Spanish Fountain, New York, 249

  Speculation, 164

  Standard of Modern Criticism, The, 114

  Strange and Colossal Man, 251

  Stranger than Fiction, 128

  A Superior Soul, 63

  Sympathy for Columbus, 209


  T

  Tales of the East, 252

  Tasso's Tribute (in English Spencerian Stanza), 316

  Tendency, 151

  Tennyson's Tribute, 301

  Tercentenary in New York, 302

  Testimony of a Contemporary, 309

  Three Days, 115

  To Spain, 201

  The Track of Columbus, 259

  The Tribute of Heinrich Heine, 162

  Tribute of Joaquin Miller, 235

  Tributes of the Phoenix of the Ages, The, 100

  Tribute and Testimony of the Pope, 193

  Tribute of Tasso, 300

  Trifling Incident, 131

  Triumph of an Idea, 152

  Typical American, 357


  U

  Undiscovered Country, 128

  Unwept, Unhonored, and Unsung, 261

  U. S. S. Columbia, 344


  V

  Valparaiso Statue, 309

  Vanderlyn's Picture, 310

  Vespucci an Adventurer, 206

  Vinland, 133

  Visit of Columbus to Iceland, 208

  Visit to Palos, 170, 305

  Voice of the Sea, The, 128

  Voice of Warning, 383


  W

  Washington Statue, 311

  Watling's Island Monument, 311

  West Indian Statues, 312

  Westward Religion's Banners Took their Way, 90

  When History Does Thee Wrong, 97

  World a Seaman's Hand Conferred, The, 64

  Wrapped in a Vision Glorious, 202


  Y

  You Can not Conquer America, 93

  Young America, 349-353

  Youthful Land, 368




INDEX OF STATUARY AND INSCRIPTIONS.


                 Page

  B

  Baltimore Monument, 73

  Baltimore Italian Statue, 78

  Barcelona Statue, 81

  Boston, The Iasagi Statue, 92
    First Inspirations of Columbus, 280
    Replica of Isabella Statue, 280


  C

  Cardenas (Cuba) Statue, 312

  City of Colon Statue, 108

  Chicago, Drake Fountain, Statue of Columbus, 118
    (Lake Front) Statue, 185


  G

  Genoa Inscription, 140
    The Reel Palace Statue, 280
    Statue, 140


  H

  Havana Cathedral, Tomb, 312
    Cathedral, Inscription, 313
    Statue, 313
    Bust, 313


  I

  Isabella Statue, 171


  L

  Lima (Peru) Statuary, 280


  M

  Madrid Statue, 208

  Mexico City Statue, 234


  N

  Nassau (Bahamas) Statue, 314

  New York, Central Park Statue, 281
    Italian Statue, 243
    Memorial Arch, 247
    Spanish Fountain, 249


  P

  Palos Statue, 281

  Philadelphia Statue, 281


  R

  Rogers Bronze Door, Washington, D. C., 273


  S

  Sacramento, Cal., Statuary in the Capitol, 277

  Salamanca Monument, 278

  Santiago (Chili) Bust, 279

  Santo Domingo, Inscription and Tomb, 38, 314
    Statue, 315

  St. Louis (Mo.) Statue, 279

  Seville Tomb and Inscription, 36, 289


  V

  Valparaiso (Chili) Statue, 309

  Vanderlyn's Picture at Washington, 310


  W

  Washington (D. C.) Statue, 311

  Watling's Island Monument, 311


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