MAP OF ANTONIO DE HERRERA, THE HISTORIAN OF COLUMBUS.
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The first necessity for a pilot who conducts a ship across the ocean, when he is for many days out of sight of land, is the means of checking his dead reckoning by observations of the heavenly bodies. But in the days of Columbus such appliances were very defective, and, at times, altogether useless. There was an astrolabe adapted for use at sea by Martin Behaim, but it was very difficult to get a decent sight with it, and Vasco da Gama actually went on shore and rigged a triangle when he wanted to observe for latitude. If this was necessary, the instrument was useless as a guide across the pathless ocean. Columbus, of course, used it, but he seems to have relied more upon the old quadrant which he had used for long years before Behaim invented his adaption of the astrolabe. It was this instrument, the value of which received such warm testimony from Diogo Gomez, one of Prince Henry's navigators; and it was larger and easier to handle than the astrolabe. But the difficulty, as regards both these instruments,[49] was the necessity for keeping them perpendicular to the horizon when the observation is taken, in one case by means of a ring working freely, and in the other by a plummet line. The instruction of old Martin Cortes was to sit down with your back against the mainmast; but in reality the only man who obtained results of any use from such instruments was he who had been constantly working with them from early boyhood. In those days, far more than now, a good pilot had to be brought up at sea from his youth. Long habit could alone make up, to a partial extent, for defective means.

Columbus regularly observed for latitude when the weather rendered it possible, and he occasionally attempted to find the longitude by observing eclipses of the moon with the aid of tables calculated by old Regiomontanus, whose declination tables also enabled the Admiral to work out his meridian altitudes. But the explorer's main reliance was on the skill and care with which he calculated his dead reckoning, watching every sign offered by sea and sky by day and night, allowing for currents, for leeway, for every cause that could affect the movement of his ship, noting with infinite pains the bearings and the variation of his compass, and constantly recording all phenomena on his card and in his journal. Columbus was the true father of what we call proper pilotage.

It is most interesting to watch the consequences of this seaman-like and most conscientious care in the results of his voyages of discovery. We have seen with what accuracy he made his landfall at the Azores, on his return from his first and most memorable voyage. The incidents of his second voyage are equally instructive. He had heard from the natives of the eastern end of Española that there were numerous islands to the southeast inhabited by savage tribes of Caribs, and when he sailed from Spain on his second voyage he resolved to ascertain the truth of the report before proceeding to his settlement at Navidad. He shaped such a course as to hit upon Dominica, and within a few weeks he discovered the whole of the Windward Islands, thence to Puerto Rico. On his return his spirit of investigation led him to try the possibility of making a passage in the teeth of the trade-wind. It was a long voyage, and his people were reduced to the last extremity, even threatening to eat the Indians who were on board. One night, to the surprise of all the company, the Admiral gave the order to shorten sail. Next morning, at dawn, Cape St. Vincent was in sight. This is a remarkable proof of the care with which his reckoning must have been kept, and of his consummate skill as a navigator. On his third voyage he decided, for various reasons, to make further discoveries nearer to the equator, the result of his decision being the exploration of the Gulf of Paria, including the coast of Trinidad and of the continent. His speculations, although sometimes fantastic, and originating in a too vivid imagination, were usually shrewd and carefully thought out. Thus they led from one discovery to another; and even when, through want of complete knowledge, there was a flaw in the chain of his reasoning, the results were equally valuable.

A memorable example of an able and acute train of thought, based on observations at sea, was that which led to his last voyage in search of a strait. He had watched the gulf stream constantly flowing in a westerly direction, and he thought that he had ascertained, as the result of careful observation, that the islands in the course of the current had their lengths east and west, owing to erosion on their north and south sides. From this fact he deduced the constancy of the current. His own pilot, Juan de la Cosa, serving under Ojeda and Bastidas, had established the continuity of land from the Gulf of Paria to Darien. The Admiral himself had explored the coast of Cuba, both on the north and south sides, for so great a distance that he concluded it must surely be a promontory connected with the continent. The conclusion was that, as it could not turn to north or south, this current, ever flowing in one direction, must pass through a strait. The argument was perfectly sound except in one point—the continental character of Cuba was an hypothesis, not an ascertained fact.

Still, it was a brilliant chain of reasoning, and it led to a great result, though not to the expected result. Just as the search for the philosopher's stone led to valuable discoveries in chemistry, and as the search for El Dorado revealed the courses of the two largest rivers in South America, so the Admiral's heroic effort to discover a strait in the face of appalling difficulties, in advancing years and failing health, made known the coast of the continent from Honduras to Darien.

All the discoveries made by others, in the lifetime of Columbus, on the coasts of the western continent (except that of Cabral) were directly due to the first voyage of the Admiral, to his marvelous prevision in boldly sailing westward across the sea of darkness, and are to be classed as Columbian discoveries. This was clearly laid down by Las Casas, in a noble passage. "The Admiral was the first to open the gates of that ocean which had been closed for so many thousands of years before," exclaimed the good bishop. "He it was who gave the light by which all others might see how to discover. It can not be denied to the Admiral, except with great injustice, that as he was the first discoverer of those Indies, so he was really of all the mainland; and to him the credit is due. For it was he that put the thread into the hands of the rest by which they found the clew to more distant parts. It was not necessary for this that he should personally visit every part, any more than it is necessary to do so in taking possession of an estate; as the jurists hold." This generous protest by Las Casas should receive the assent of all geographers. The pupils and followers of Columbus, such as Pinzon, Ojeda, Niño, and La Cosa, discovered all the continent from 8 deg. S. of the equator to Darien, thus supplementing their great master's work; while he himself led the way, and showed the light both to the islands and to the continent.

Although none of the charts of Columbus have come down to us, there still exists a map of all discoveries up to the year 1500, drawn by the pilot Juan de la Cosa, who accompanied him in his first and second voyages, and sailed with Ojeda on a separate expedition in 1499, when the coast of the continent was explored from the Gulf of Paria to Cabo de la Vela. Juan de la Cosa drew this famous map of the world (which is preserved at Madrid) at Santa Maria, in the Bay of Cadiz, when he returned from his expedition with Ojeda in 1500. It is drawn in color, on oxhide, and measures 5 feet 9 inches by 3 feet 2 inches. La Cosa shows the islands discovered by Columbus, but it is difficult to understand what he could have been thinking about in placing them north of the tropic of cancer. The continent is delineated from 8 deg. S. of the equator to Cabo de la Vela, which was the extreme point to which discovery had reached in 1500; and over the undiscovered part to the west, which the Admiral himself was destined to bring to the knowledge of the world a few years afterward, Juan de la Cosa painted a vignette of St. Christopher bearing the infant Christ across the ocean. But the most important part of the map is that on which the discoveries of John Cabot are shown, for this is the only map which shows them. It is true that a map, or a copy of a map, of 1542, by Sebastian Cabot, was discovered of late years, and is now at Paris, and that it indicates the "Prima Vista," the first land seen by Cabot on his voyage of 1497; but it shows the later work of Jacques Cartier and other explorers, and does not show what part was due to Cabot. Juan de la Cosa, however, must have received, through the Spanish ambassador in London, the original chart of Cabot, showing his discoveries during his second voyage in 1498, and was enabled thus to include the new coast-line on his great map.