Granted by the King and Queen, on condition that this jurisdiction should belong to the office of Admiral, as held by Don Enriques and other Admirals.
5. Christopher Columbus wishes to have the right to contribute the eighth part of the expenses of all ships which traffic with the new countries, and in return to earn the eighth part of the profits.
Granted by the King and Queen.
Santa Fé, in the Vega of Granada, April 17, 1492.
COLUMBUS, THE SEA-KING.
Thomas Carlyle, "the Sage of Chelsea," celebrated English philosophic writer. Born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, December 4, 1795; died at Cheyne walk, Chelsea, London, February 5, 1881. From "Past and Present."
Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king, Columbus, my hero, royalest Sea-king of all! it is no friendly environment this of thine, in the waste deep waters; around thee, mutinous, discouraged souls; behind thee, disgrace and ruin; before thee, the unpenetrated veil of Night. Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep basin—ten miles deep, I am told—are not entirely there on thy behalf! Meseems they have other work than floating thee forward; and the huge winds that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics and Equator, dancing their giant waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine. Thou art not among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling, wide as the world here. Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help in them; see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad southwester spend itself, saving thyself by dextrous science of defense the while; valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou strike in, when the favoring east, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt entirely repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage; thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness of others and thyself. There shall be a depth of silence in thee deeper than this sea, which is but ten miles deep; a silence unsoundable, known to God only. Thou shalt be a great man. Yes, my World-soldier, thou wilt have to be greater than this tumultuous, unmeasured world here around thee; thou, in thy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down, and make it bear thee on—to new Americas.
OUTBOUND.
Bliss Carman, from a poem in the Century Magazine, 1892.[30]
A lonely sail in the vast sea-room,
I have put out for the port of gloom.
The voyage is far on the trackless tide,
The watch is long, and the seas are wide.
The headlands, blue in the sinking day,
Kiss me a hand on the outward way.
The fading gulls, as they dip and veer,
Lift me a voice that is good to hear.
The great winds come, and the heaving sea,
The restless mother, is calling me.
The cry of her heart is lone and wild,
Searching the night for her wandered child.
Beautiful, weariless mother of mine,
In the drift of doom I am here, I am thine.
Beyond the fathom of hope or fear,
From bourn to bourn of the dusk I steer.
Swept on in the wake of the stars, in the stream
Of a roving tide, from dream to dream.