The Spanish Pioneers

by Charles Fletcher Lummis

II.

A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY.

The least of the difficulties which beset the finders of the New World was the then tremendous voyage to reach it. Had that three thousand miles of unknown sea been the chief obstacle, civilization would have overstepped it centuries before it did. It was human ignorance deeper than the Atlantic, and bigotry stormier than its waves, which walled the western horizon of Europe for so long. But for that, Columbus himself would have found America ten years sooner than he did; and for that matter, America would not have waited for Columbus's five-times-great-grandfather to be born. It was really a strange thing how the richest half of the world played so long at hide-and-seek with civilization; and how at last it was found, through the merest chance, by those who sought something entirely different. Had America waited to be discovered by some one seeking a new continent, it might be waiting yet.

Despite the fact that long before Columbus vagrant crews of half a dozen different races had already reached the New World, they had left neither mark on America nor result in civilization; and Europe, at the very brink of the greatest discovery and the greatest events in history, never dreamed of it. Columbus himself had no imaginings of America. Do you know what he started westward to find? Asia.

The investigations of recent years have greatly changed our estimates of Columbus. The tendency of a generation ago was to transform him to a demigod,—an historical figure, faultless, rounded, all noble. That was absurd; for Columbus was only a man, and all men, however great, fall short of perfection. The tendency of the present generation is to go to the other extreme,—to rob him of every heroic quality, and make him out an unhanged pirate and a contemptible accident of fortune; so that we are in a fair way to have very little Columbus left. But this is equally unjust and unscientific. Columbus in his own field was a great man despite his failings, and far from a contemptible one.

To understand him, we must first have some general understanding of the age in which he lived. To measure how much of an inventor of the great idea he was, we must find out what the world's ideas then were, and how much they helped or hindered him.

In those far days geography was a very curious affair indeed. A map of the world then was something which very few of us would be able to identify at all; for all the wise men of all the earth knew less of the world's topography than an eight-year old schoolboy knows to-day. It had been decided at last that the world was not flat, but round,—though even that fundamental knowledge was not yet old; but as to what composed half the globe, no man alive knew. Westward from Europe stretched the "Sea of Darkness," and beyond a little way none knew what it was or contained. The variation of the compass was not yet understood. Everything was largely guess-work, and groping in the dark. The unsafe little "ships" of the day dared not venture out of sight of land, for there was nothing reliable to guide them back; and you will laugh at one reason why they were afraid to sail out into the broad western sea,—they feared that they might unknowingly get over the edge, and that ship and crew might fall off into space! Though they knew the world was roundish, the attraction of gravitation was not yet dreamed of; and it was supposed that if one got too far over the upper side of the ball one would drop off!

Still, it was a matter of general belief that there was land in that unknown sea. That idea had been growing for more than a thousand years,—for by the second century it began to be felt that there were islands beyond Europe. By Columbus's time the map-makers generally put on their rude charts a great many guess-work islands in the Sea of Darkness. Beyond this swarm of islands was supposed to lie the east coast of Asia,—and at no enormous distance, for the real size of the world was underestimated by one third. Geography was in its mere infancy; but it was engaging the attention and study of very many scholars who were learned for their day. Each of them put his studious guessing into maps, which varied astonishingly from one another.

But one thing was accepted: there was land somewhere to the west,—some said a few islands, some said thousands of islands, but all said land of some sort. So Columbus did not invent the idea; it had been agreed upon long before he was born. The question was not if there was a New World, but if it was possible or practicable to reach it without sailing over the jumping-off place or encountering other as sad dangers. The world said No; Columbus said Yes,—and that was his claim to greatness. He was not an inventor, but an accomplisher; and even what he accomplished physically was less remarkable than his faith. He did not have to teach Europe that there was a new country, but to believe that he could get to that country; and his faith in himself and his stubborn courage in making others believe in him was the greatness of his character. It took less of a man to make the final proof than to convince the public that it was not utter foolhardiness to attempt the proof at all.