He Is Said, In A Particular
Manner To Have Been Confirmed In His Belief That India Might Be Reached By
Sailing to the west, by the communications which he had with Paul, a
physician of Florence, a man well known
At this period for his acquaintance
with geometry and cosmography, and who had paid particular attention to the
discoveries of the Portuguese. He stated several facts, and offered several
ingenious conjectures, and moreover, sent a chart to Columbus, on which he
pointed out the course which he thought would lead to the desired object.
As Columbus was at the court of Lisbon, when he had resolved to undertake
his great enterprise, and, in fact, regarded himself as in some degree a
Portuguese subject, he naturally applied in the first instance to John II.,
requesting that monarch to let him have some ships to carry him to Marco
Polo's island of Zepango or Japan. The king referred him to the Bishop of
Ceuta and his two physicians; but they having no faith in the existence of
this island, rejected the services of Columbus. For seven years afterwards
he solicited the court of Spain to send him out, while, during the same
period, his brother, Bartholomew, was soliciting the court of England: the
latter was unsuccessful, but Columbus himself at length persuaded Isabella
to grant 40,000 crowns for the service of the expedition. He accordingly
sailed from Palos, in Andalusia, on the 3d of August, 1492; and in
thirty-three days landed on one of the Bahamas. He had already sailed nine
hundred and fifty leagues west from the Canaries: after touching at the
Bahamas, he continued his course to the west, and at length discovered the
island of Cuba. He went no farther on this voyage; but on his return home,
he discovered Hispaniola. The variation of the compass was first observed
in this voyage. In a second voyage, in 1492, Columbus discovered Jamaica,
and in a third, in 1494, he visited Trinidad and the continent of America,
near the mouth of the Orinoco. In 1502, he made a fourth and last voyage,
in which he explored some part of the shores of the Gulph of Mexico. The
ungrateful return he met with from his country is well known: worn out with
fatigue, disappointment, and sorrow, he died at Valladolid, on the 20th of
May, 1506, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
In the mean time, the completion of the discovery of America was rapidly
advancing. In 1499, Ogeda, one of Columbus's companions, sailed for the new
world: he was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci: little was discovered on the
voyage, except some part of the coast of Guana and Terra Firma. But
Amerigo, having, on his return to Spain, published the first account of the
New World, the whole of this extensive quarter of the globe was called
after him. Some authors, however, contend that Amerigo visited the coasts
of Guiana and Terra Firma before Columbus; the more probable account is,
that he examined them more carefully two years after their discovery by
Columbus. Amerigo was treated by the court of Spain with as little
attention and gratitude as Columbus had been: he therefore offered his
services to Portugal, and in two voyages, between 1500 and 1504, he
examined the coasts of that part of South America which was afterwards
called Brazil. This country had been discovered by Cabral, who commanded
the second expedition of the Portuguese to India: on his voyage thither, a
tempest drove him so far to the west, that he reached the shores of
America. He called it the Land of the Holy Cross; but it was afterwards
called Brazil, from the quantity of red wood of that name found on it.
For some time after the discovery of America it was supposed to be part of
India: and hence, the name of the West Indies, still retained by the
islands in the Gulph of Mexico, was given to all those countries. There
were, however, circumstances which soon led the discoverers to doubt of the
truth of the first conceived opinion. The Portuguese had visited no part of
Asia, either continent or island, from the coast of Malabar to China, on
which they had not found natives highly civilized, who had made
considerable progress in the elegant as well as the useful arts of life,
and who were evidently accustomed to intercourse with strangers, and
acquainted with commerce. In all these respects, the New World formed a
striking contrast: the islands were inhabited by savages, naked,
unacquainted with the rudest arts of life, and indebted for their
sustenance to the spontaneous productions of a fertile soil and a fine
climate. The continent, for the most part, presented immense forests, and
with the exception of Mexico and Peru, was thinly inhabited by savages as
ignorant and low in the scale of human nature as those who dwelt on the
islands.
The natural productions and the animals differed also most essentially from
those, not only of India, but also of Europe. There were no lemons,
oranges, pomegranates, quinces, figs, olives, melons, vines, nor sugar
canes: neither apples, pears, plumbs, cherries, currants, gooseberries,
rice, nor any other corn but maize. There was no poultry (except turkeys),
oxen, sheep, goats, swine, horses, asses, camels, elephants, cats, nor
dogs, except an animal resembling a dog, but which did not bark. Even the
inhabitants of Mexico and Peru were unacquainted with iron and the other
useful metals, and destitute of the address requisite for acquiring such
command of the inferior animals, as to derive any considerable aid from
their labour.
In addition to these most marked and decided points of difference between
India and the newly discovered quarter of the globe, it was naturally
inferred that a coast extending, as America was soon ascertained to do,
many hundred miles to the northward and to the southward of the equator,
could not possibly be that of the Indies. At last, in the year 1513, a view
of the Grand Ocean having been attained from the mountains of Darien, the
supposition that the New World formed part of India was abandoned.
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