Death saved Columbus the infliction of a blow which he probably would have felt more than Bobadilla's fetters. He was allowed to carry to the grave the glorious illusion that Cuba was a province of the Chinese Empire, that Hispaniola was the Island Zipangu, and that only a narrow strip of land, instead of a hemisphere covered by water, intervened between the Caribbean Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
The discoverer of America died without suspecting that he had found a new continent. He regarded the distance between Spain and Jamaica as a third part of the circumference of the globe, and announced, "The earth is by no means as large as is popularly supposed."
The extension of the world by a new continent had no place in his conceptions, and the greatness of his achievement would have been lessened in his eyes if he had been permitted to discover a second vast ocean beyond that which he had traversed, for he would have seen that he had but half accomplished his object, the connection of Europe with the East.
PETRARCH'S TRIBUTE.
Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet. Born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, July 20, 1304; died at Arquá, near Padua, July 19, 1374.
The daylight hastening with wingéd steps,
Perchance to gladden the expectant eyes
Of far-off nations in a world remote.
COLUMBUS A VOLUMINOUS WRITER.
Barnet Phillips, in Harper's Weekly, June 25, 1892, on "The Columbus Festival at Genoa."[52]
It can not be questioned but that Christopher Columbus was a voluminous writer. Mr. Justin Winsor, who has made careful researches, says that "ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by the hand of Columbus either exist or are known to have existed. Of such, whether memoirs, relations, or letters, sixty-four are preserved in their entirety." Columbus seems to have written all his letters in Spanish. Genoa is fortunate in possessing a number of authentic letters, and these are preserved in a marble custodia, surmounted by a head of Columbus. In the pillar which forms the pedestal there is a bronze door, and the precious Columbus documents have been placed there. (See p. 54, ante.)