Further attempts were made in succeeding years. The Portuguese continually advanced and once brought home fish nets which they had taken from the natives to prove that the lands beyond the Cape were inhabited. Soon they penetrated to regions where they found gold-dust and other valuable products, which were taken in honor of the Infante. In consideration of the tremendous expense and the incalculable exertion involved in these voyages the matter of profit was alone taken into account. Naturally no heed was paid to their scientific importance. Explorations beyond the Cape at last proved very profitable and many vessels returned with large cargoes of slaves, for Europeans at that time were not ashamed of man-stealing. They hunted their human victims openly and even used dogs to run down their prey. Slavery was not abhorrent to them. They thought it natural that God should reward their man-stealing with success. A chronicle of the year 1444 says: “At last it pleased God to compensate them for their great suffering in His service with a glorious day’s efforts, for altogether, in men, women, and children, they captured one hundred and sixty-five head.”
An important discovery in the year 1445 removed many erroneous conceptions. Dinas Diaz in that year sailed farther south than any navigator had gone before. He passed Cape Blanco, reached the southern line of the Great Desert, and found a region green with palms, and people with black skins. The spot he discovered was called the “Green Cape.” He proved that the theory that the tropics were uninhabitable was false. Aristotle had maintained that the tropical regions must be unpeopled because the overpowering heat of the sun’s rays would destroy all vegetation. Other scholars, among them Ptolemy, were of the same opinion. The theory indeed was so universally accepted at the beginning of the fifteenth century that many a bold adventurer was deterred from making explorations in that direction.
In the same year, however, the Senegal, which Diaz had passed unobserved, was discovered on a second voyage. The river was declared to be a branch of the Egyptian Nile. In the following year the Portuguese met with a serious disaster on the African coast. Two vessels, owing to the misplaced confidence of their commanders in the negroes, ventured too near and were greeted by a shower of poisoned arrows. The wounded explorers died after reaching Lisbon, two months later, without having seen anything but sky and water. This disaster, however, did not deter other brave navigators from undertaking further explorations beyond the Green Cape, though they dreaded the poisoned arrows of the natives more than any hardships or perils of the sea.
About this time the Azores were colonized by the Portuguese, for these islands had been so little disturbed by man that even the birds could easily be taken by the hand. Henry, the Infante, bestowed the islands upon the explorers as an hereditary tenure.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Alfonso the Fifth, we have very inadequate reports of the progress of Portuguese exploration. We know, however, that the explorers advanced along the rivers of West Africa, especially the Gambia, which stream they ascended to transact business with caravans from the Soudan. It was at that time the European world began traffic in the great and rich resources of Central Africa. On the thirteenth of November, 1460, the Infante died, and the prosperity which had attended Portuguese explorations languished. History has honored him with the surname “Navigator,” though he took no personal part in exploration. Under his encouragement, the Portuguese, who before his time had timidly returned home from Cape Bajador, became bold seafarers. Discoveries rapidly advanced in his lifetime but Alfonso the Fifth wasted his inheritance. He gave no thought to new explorations for those already made were yielding him rich returns. The sugar plantations in Madeira brought him large profits, slaves were exchanged for horses, and the coast supplied great store of gold-dust, musk, ivory, and ginger. Notwithstanding their discouragement, the explorers pushed farther south. Before the close of the fifteenth century they found the Zaira, the Congo of our maps. King John the Second, like “Navigator” Henry, was greatly interested in sea voyages and the sciences. Under his patronage Bartholomew Dias, in 1486, left Lisbon with two small vessels and a supply boat, sailed south, and passed the mouth of the Congo. As the wind was contrary he put out to sea but was so driven about by storms that at last he found the coast of Africa on his left. He had rounded the southern extremity of the Dark Continent and, finding land, he kept on in a northerly direction.[4] His sailors, however, refused to go farther and insisted he should return. As he could not conciliate them, he began the home voyage reluctantly, passing again the mysterious cape, which he named Tormentoso, the name being subsequently changed by John the Second to Good Hope, and reached Lisbon in December, 1487, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days. Dias was poorly rewarded for his great discovery. He was not given command of a fleet a second time, but served as a simple captain under Cabral,[5] the discoverer of Brazil, and, in rounding the Cape of Good Hope during a fearful storm, May 23, 1500, was drowned.
Even before Dias had found the Cape of Good Hope an Italian explorer, named Cristoforo Colombo, appeared at the court of John the Second. When subsequently he made Spain his home, he was called Colon.[6] He is best known by his Latin name, Columbus. This extraordinary man was born at Genoa in the year 1456.[7] Genoese contemporaries assure us his father, Domenico, was a wool-comber. Domenico had four children: three sons, Cristoforo, Bartolomeo, and Giacomo (Diego),[8] and one daughter, of whom it is only known that she married an Italian innkeeper. From his earliest youth Christopher loved the sea. As a lad he showed promise of being a skilful sailor and brave man. He was active and courageous, had no delight in indolence or effeminate luxuries, and despised all delicacies which tickle the palate and weaken the health. His highest ambition was to secure all the knowledge he could so as to be of some service to his fellow men. In a short time he learned the Latin language, in which all the scientific books of the time were written, and, although a boy in those days could learn but very little of the sciences, compared with what can be done to-day, yet he acquired sufficient knowledge of them to become an authority. His father, who was comfortably well off, sent him to the University of Pavia where he studied geography, geometry, astronomy, and drawing. At fourteen he had made such advances that he was qualified to become a ship captain and go to sea. He exerted his utmost effort to investigate the ocean and its routes. The saying, “as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined,” well applies to him. He determined to become a great seafarer and from his earliest youth adhered to the determination until it was fully realized.
Our young hero had his first experience in the Mediterranean Sea, for the voyages of his people at that time did not extend farther. It was much too confined a sphere, however, for a spirit which burned with the desire to accomplish unprecedented achievements. After a voyage to the northern ocean, during which he reached Iceland and gathered valuable experience, he entered the service of a kinsman, a sea-captain, who had fitted out a few vessels at his own expense, with which he cruised at one time against the Venetians, at another against the Turks, seeking to capture their galleys. Upon one of their cruises, the young Columbus would have lost his life had not Providence preserved it for high purposes. In a stubborn fight with the Venetians, in which our young hero performed prodigies of valor, his ship as well as those with which it was engaged took fire. Columbus found himself in a desperate situation but even with death staring him in the face he had no fear. He boldly plunged into the sea, clutched a floating oar, and with its help swam safely to the shore, two miles distant. He landed upon the Portuguese coast and, as soon as he had rested, made his way to Lisbon.
This event had a marked influence upon his future career, for in the Portuguese capital his knowledge and ability were of great service in securing friends among seafarers, with whom plans were discussed for the discovery of a passage to the East Indies. An event soon happened which greatly promoted the ambitious purpose of his life. He married Felipa Perestrelli, daughter of a sea-captain, one of the early colonists and first governor of Porto Santo. This gave him possession of the diaries and charts of his experienced father-in-law, and as he studied them day and night his desire to visit these newly discovered islands grew stronger. He once more went on shipboard, made a voyage to Madeira, and for some time carried on a lucrative business, visiting the Canaries, the African coast, and the Azores in the meantime.
Chapter II
Columbus’ Scheme Rejected in Lisbon—He Goes to Madrid and Has an Interview with Ferdinand and Isabella, after which he Endures Bitter Disappointments
During the short voyages which Columbus made from the Canary Islands he was still busy with the great scheme upon which he was engaged in Lisbon. He often said to himself: “There must be a nearer route by sea to the Indies than that attempted by the Portuguese. If one sails from here across the ocean in a westerly direction he must at last reach a country which is either India or some region adjacent to it. Is not the earth round? And if round, must not God have created countries upon the other side of it, upon which men and other creatures live? Is it at all likely that the whole hemisphere is covered by the ocean? No! No! India certainly is a vaster region than people believe. It must stretch far from the east toward Europe. Then if one sails straight to the west he must eventually reach it.” This was not his only reasoning. Several other considerations strengthened his belief and this one among them: A Portuguese navigator once, sailing far to the west, found curiously wrought sticks floating in the sea, which came from the westward. This fact convinced him there must be an inhabited country in that direction. Columbus’ father-in-law, on one of his voyages, found similar sticks which had been driven by the west winds. Felled trees of a kind unknown there had been found on the west shores of the Azores, evidently blown there by west winds. The bodies of two men had been washed ashore on these same coasts, with strange, broad faces, evidently not Europeans, and unlike the people of Asia and Africa.