For his fourth voyage he had most favourable weather. He got from Cadiz to the Canaries in four days, and thence to the West Indies in sixteen days. But then a great storm came down and lasted eighty-eight days, during which “my ships lay exposed, with sails torn, and anchors, rigging, cables, boats, and a great quantity of provisions lost.” Finally, on January 24, his ship broke both her cables and her bollards. “I departed in the name of the Holy Trinity, on Easter night, with the ships rotten, worm-eaten, and full of holes” ... “and in this condition I had to cross 7000 miles of sea.” “My ships were pierced with worm-holes, like a bee-hive.” “With three pumps, and the use of pots and kettles, we could scarcely with all hands clear the water that came into the ship, there being no remedy but this for the mischief done by the ship worm ... the other ship was half under water.” But Columbus never lost heart, never failed to believe in scientific navigation. Where had he got to; whither had his ship attained? “I ascertained, however, by the compass and by observation, that I moved parallel with the coast of terra firma.” “There is a mode of reckoning,” he observes, “derived from astronomy which is sure and safe, and a sufficient guide to anyone who understands it.”
And there are two very interesting comments which he makes as a seaman rather than a navigator that ought certainly to be noticed. The first occurs in his initial voyage across the Atlantic; the second in a letter dealing with this last cruise. “Many times the caravel Nina had to wait for the Pinta,” runs the narrative, “because she sailed badly when on a bowline,[46] the mizzen being of little use owing to the weakness of the mast.” ... “The India vessels do not sail except with the wind abaft, but this is not because they are badly built or clumsy, but because the strong currents in those parts, together with the wind, render it impossible to sail with the bowline, for in one day they would lose as much way as they might have made in seven; for the same reason I could make no use of caravels, even though they were Portuguese lateens.”
It will be remembered that the Nina had started out originally as a lateener, but this triangular-shaped sail was changed at Grand Canary to a squaresail before crossing the Atlantic. To “sail on a bowline” was to sail on a wind. In those days, when the cut of the squaresail was very bad, bowlines were really necessary for stretching the sails so that they set a flat surface without too much belly. The Pinta was apparently all right when running before the wind, but not much good close-hauled, owing to the fact that the mizzen-mast could not endure the strain. And similarly with reference to the second statement, Columbus makes it perfectly clear that these vessels had to be sailed “ramping full,” as we should say nowadays; it was useless to try to “pinch” them.
CHAPTER IX
THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD
I make no apology to the reader for having taken up so much of his time in a consideration of the methods which obtained during the time of Christopher Columbus, not merely because by his splendid seamanship and navigation a new world was revealed to the old, but because of the two arts in question at the time when the Middle Ages were beginning to ebb into obscurity, he was one of the finest if not the very best exponent. Not that he was very amply rewarded for his wondrous achievements. Although it is true he did receive other remuneration, yet his pay was only at the rate of 1600 francs per annum, and that of his two captains was but 960 francs. The crew’s wages were from 12 to 25 francs a month in addition to their mess allowance.
But now we find ourselves in the sixteenth century. Thanks to the new interest in nautical matters which had been aroused by Prince Henry the Navigator, thanks to the marvellous and true yarns which ocean-going skippers brought back of their discoveries, there began a new sort of profession for men who were at all attracted to the sea. It was a profession which, obviously, could not exist for many, nor last for many centuries. But for those who were wearied of shore monotony, who had ambition and dash and loved adventure, there was a keen fascination in becoming one of that great band of “new land seekers.” Charles V, you will remember, became King of Spain in the year 1517, while the period of 1485 to 1547 was covered by the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII of England. Not till the year 1555 did Charles V retire into the monastery of Yuste. Besides the influence of these three remarkable men at a critical time of the world’s history, there was also roaming over Europe that Renaissance movement which, checked here and there, could not be utterly constrained when it spread itself over shipping. Or, to change altogether the metaphor, spring was in the air: the buds were about to burst forth into the glorious flowers of new colonies.
Sixteenth-Century Caravel at Anchor.