Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery

by Justin Winsor

The embarkation.

The last day in port was a season of solemnity and gratulation. Coma, a Spaniard, who, if not an eyewitness, got his description from observers, thus describes the scene in a letter to Scillacio in Pavia: "The religious rites usual on such occasions were performed by the sailors; the last embraces were given; the ships were hung with brilliant cloths; streamers were wound in the rigging; and the royal standard flapped everywhere at the sterns of the vessels. The pipers and harpers held in mute astonishment the Nereids and even the Sirens with their sweet modulations. The shores reëchoed the clang of trumpets and the braying of clarions. The discharge of cannon rolled over the water. Some Venetian galleys chancing to enter the harbor joined in the jubilation, and the cheers of united nations went up with prayers for blessings on the venturing crews."

1493. September 25. The fleet sails.

Night followed, calm or broken, restful or wearisome, as the case might be, for one or another, and when the day dawned (September 25, 1493) the note of preparation was everywhere heard. It was the same on the three great caracks, on the lesser caravels, and on the light craft, which had been especially fitted for exploration. The eager and curious mass of beings which crowded their decks were certainly a motley show. There were cavalier and priest, hidalgo and artisan, soldier and sailor. The ambitious thoughts which animated them were as various as their habits. There were those of the adventurer, with no purpose whatever but pastime, be it easy or severe. There was the greed of the speculator, counting the values of trinkets against stores of gold.

Columbus's character.

There was the brooding of the administrators, with unsolved problems of new communities in their heads. There were ears that already caught the songs of salvation from native throats. There was Columbus himself, combining all ambitions in one, looking around this harbor of Cadiz studded with his lordly fleet, spreading its creaking sails, lifting its dripping anchors. It was his to contrast it with the scene at Palos a little over a year before. This needy Genoese vested with the viceroyalty of a new world was more of an adventurer than any. He was a speculator who overstepped them all in audacious visions and golden expectancies. He was an administrator over a new government, untried and undivined. To his ears the hymns of the Church soared with a militant warning, dooming the heathen of the Indies, and appalling the Moslem hordes that imperiled the Holy Sepulchre.

1493. October 1. Canaries.

Under the eye of this one commanding spirit, the vessels fell into a common course, and were wafted out upon the great ocean under the lead of the escorting galleys of the Venetians. The responsibility of the captain-general of the great armament had begun. He had been instructed to steer widely clear of the Portuguese coast, and he bore away in the lead directly to the southwest. On the seventh day (October 1) they reached the Gran Canaria, where they tarried to repair a leaky ship. On the 5th they anchored at Gomera. Two days were required here to complete some parts of their equipment, for the islands had already become the centre of great industries and produced largely. "They have enterprising merchants who carry their commerce to many shores," wrote Coma to Scillacio.

There were wood and water to be taken on board. A variety of domestic animals, calves, goats, sheep, and swine; some fowls, and the seed of many orchard and garden fruits, oranges, lemons, melons, and the like, were gathered from the inhabitants and stowed away in the remaining spaces of the ships.