The Spaniards, however, were soon attacked by the natives, and were in such distressing circumstances that Columbus was compelled to abandon his purpose of leaving a colony on this part of the continent and to take his men on board the ships and to return to Española. Speaking of the return-voyage, Ferdinand Columbus writes: “Thus rejoicing that we were all together again, we sailed along the coast eastward. Although all the pilots were of the opinion that we might return to San Domingo by standing away to the north, nevertheless the admiral and his brother knew that it was requisite to run a considerable distance along this coast before they steered across the gulf that is between the continent and Española, at which our men were displeased, thinking that the admiral designed to sail directly for Spain, whereas he neither had provisions nor were his ships fit for the voyage.[213] But as he knew best what was to be done, we held on our course until we came to Porto Bello, where we were obliged to leave the ship Biscaina, on account of its leaky condition, being all worm-eaten through and through. Steering along the coast, we passed by the port we called Retrete, and a country near which there were many small islands, which the admiral called Las Barbas, but the Indians and pilots call that the territory of the cacique Pocorosa. We held on this course ten more leagues to the last land we saw of the continent, called Marmora, and on Monday, the first of May, 1503, we stood to the north.... Although all the pilots said we should be east of the Caribbee islands, yet the admiral feared we should not make Española, which proved to be true.... We reached an Indian town on the coast of Cuba, called Mataia, where, having obtained some refreshment, we sailed for Jamaica.”[214]

On his return to the island of Jamaica, in June, 1503, Columbus, describing his voyage along the isthmus of Darien, wrote to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, saying: “On the thirteenth of May I reached the province of Mango, which is contiguous to that of Cathay, and thence I steered for the island of Española.”[215] Peter Martyr[216] also seems to have held the opinion that Columbus’s explorations were along the continent of Asia. Writing in 1510, the first decade of the New World, he remarks: “The opinion of Christopher Columbus respecting the magnitude of the sphere and the opinions of the ancients concerning the under-navigation of the world seem to be adverse. Nevertheless the parrots and many other things brought from there indicate that the islands savor only of India, either being near it or else of the same nature.”[217]

With this fourth voyage, the zealous and enthusiastic navigator ended his life-work. On the twelfth of September, 1504, Columbus for the last time set sail from the attractive field of his numerous explorations and arrived at San Lucar, on the seventh of November, broken down in health, aged, and the victim of many unjust accusations and bitter disappointments. Two years afterward, on the twentieth of May, 1506, he died at Valladolid, being about seventy years old, leaving to another the discovery, by the way of the west, of a navigable route to the remote coast of Cathay.

As intended by him, when he set sail on his first voyage, Columbus afterward made a map on which he delineated “all the sea and the lands of the ocean-sea” (del mar Océanus) discovered by him.[218] Although the admiral’s chart is lost, there are several maps extant, which, in part, represent the islands of Juana, Jamaica, Española, and the smaller ones, as he evidently had outlined them on his new sailing chart (carta nueva de navegar). A map of the world, in the Estense library, at Modena, made between the years 1501 and 1504,[219] and the map of the New World (tabula terre nove), in the edition of Ptolemy’s geography, printed in 1513, at Strasburg,[220] exhibit the islands, discovered by Columbus on his first voyage, and of which he speaks in his journal of 1492 and 1493. The high latitudes in which he placed the Rio de Mares and other rivers of Juana, when he made his discoveries “toward the north,” are designated on these maps. On the Ptolemy map the name c doffun de abril at the southeast point of Cuba appears to designate the same cape as that of c de fvndabril on the map of the world made by Johann Ruysch, the German cartographer, contained in the edition of Ptolemy’s geography, printed at Rome in 1508.[221] Both of these misspelled names are evidently anomalous forms of the Spanish designation, C. de Fuenterabia. The names on Ruysch’s representation of the island of Cuba correspond more closely to the Spanish orthography of the designations given by Columbus to the places he visited than those which are inscribed on the two maps previously mentioned.[222]

The earliest map extant representing the territory discovered in the western hemisphere is a map of the world drafted by the Spanish cartographer, Juan de la Cosa.[223] It was found by Baron de Walckenaër in the possession of a dealer in old books and wares, from whom he bought it for a small sum of money. Baron von Humboldt shortly afterward made its discovery known in his notable work on the geography of the new continent.[224] When the library of Baron de Walckenaër was sold, in Paris, in 1853, La Cosa’s map was purchased for the queen of Spain for four thousand and twenty francs. It is now in the Naval museum, in Madrid.[225] The famous map-maker drafted the whole world, as then known, on an ox-hide, five feet nine inches long by three feet wide, on a scale of fifteen Spanish leagues to a degree. The map is attractively colored and brightened with gold. It may rightly be called the geographical frontispiece of the history of the discovery of America.[226]

The map bears the inscription “Juan de la cosa la fizo enel puerto de S: mjᵃ en año de. 1500.”—Juan de la Cosa made it in the port of Santa Maria in the year 1500. A picture of St. Christopher bearing the Christ-child across the water ornaments the space above the inscription.[227] Most prominent of the islands of the “Mar Oceanus” delineated on the map are Cuba, Habacoa,[228] and La Española. The coast of South America, as far as it had been explored, is well represented by the painstaking map-maker.[229]

La Cosa, having seen a copy of the map made by Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), to display the fields of the English discoveries of 1497 and 1498, attempted to show in what part of the New World they were. As outlined by him, the land explored by Cabot trends eastwardly from the sea discovered for the English (mar descubierta por inglese), to the Cape of England (Cavo de Inglaterra). As La Cosa had nothing else than his imagination to guide him in delineating the coast of North America between the field of the English discoveries and South America, his extension of the main-land from the one to the other has no geographical significance. Unable to determine definitely the position and extent of the territory of the New World, La Cosa projected it as accurately as his information respecting the explored parts of its sinuous coast gave him knowledge. Ignorant of the limits of the New Land he honorably darkens that part which might be deemed its cartographic development with several shades of meaningless colors.[230]

CHAPTER VI.
1496-1498.

The notable part which England took in searching for a navigable passage to Cathay, by exploring the sea toward the west, was incited by the success attending the explorations of Columbus in the New World. For it is said that when the news reached England that the Genoese seaman had discovered the coasts of India there was great talk in the court of King Henry VII., and that men declared with much admiration that it was more divine than human to sail toward the west to go to the East where spices grow[231]. The bold projector, who obtained for England the distinguished honor of being the second European power to enter the western hemisphere with her ships, was Giovanni Caboto (John Caboto), a Venetian[232], who had lived a number of years in London. With confessed confidence he explained to King Henry and his learned counsellors the grounds of his belief that the eastern coast of Asia could be reached by sailing in a direct westward course from England, and how this course would be a shorter way than the one taken by Columbus. He proposed to undertake the voyage at his own expense should the king grant him the necessary license.