With the rest of his company and in his two smaller vessels, on the 4th of January, 1493, Columbus started on his return to Spain. He ran northerly to the latitude of his destination, and then steered due east. He experienced severe weather, but reached the Azores safely; and then, passing on, entered the Tagus and had an interview with the Portuguese King. Leaving Lisbon on the 13th, he reached Palos on the 15th of March, after an absence of over seven months.
CURING THE SICK.
This is Benzoni’s sketch of the way in which the natives cure and tend their sick at Hispaniola. Edition of 1572, p. 56.
He was received by the people of the little seaport with acclamations and wonder; and, despatching a messenger to the Spanish Court at Barcelona, he proceeded to Seville to await the commands of the monarchs. He was soon bidden to hasten to them; and with the triumph of more than a conqueror, and preceded by the bedizened Indians whom he had brought with him, he entered the city and stood in the presence of the sovereigns. He was commanded to sit before them, and to tell the story of his discovery. This he did with conscious pride; and not forgetting the past, he publicly renewed his previous vow to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel.
THE TRIUMPH OF COLUMBUS.
This is a reduction of a fac-simile by Pilinski, given in Margry’s Les Navigations Françaises, p. 360,—an earlier reproduction having been given by M. Jal in La France maritime. It is also figured in Charton’s Voyageurs, iii. 139. The original sketch, by Columbus himself, was sent by him from Seville in 1502, and is preserved in the city hall at Genoa. M. Jal gives a description of it in his De Paris à Naples, 1836, i. 257. The figure sitting beside Columbus is Providence; Envy and Ignorance are hinted at as monsters following in his wake; while Constancy, Tolerance, the Christian Religion, Victory, and Hope attend him. Above all is the floating figure of Fame blowing two trumpets, one marked “Genoa,” the other “Fama Columbi.” Harrisse (Notes on Columbus, p. 165) says that good judges assign this picture to Columbus’s own hand, though none of the drawings ascribed to him are authentic beyond doubt; while it is very true that he had the reputation of being a good draughtsman. Feuillet de Conches (Revue contemporaine, xxiv. 509) disbelieves in its authenticity. The usual signature of Columbus is in the lower left-hand corner of the above sketch, the initial letters in which have never been satisfactorily interpreted; but perhaps as reasonable a guess as any would make them stand for “Servus supplex Altissimi Salvatoris—Christus, Maria, Yoseph—Christo ferens.” Others read, “Servidor sus Altezas sacras, Christo, Maria, Ysabel [or Yoseph].” The “Christo ferens” is sometimes replaced by “El Almirante.” The essay on the autograph in the Cartas de Indias is translated in the Magazine of American History, Jan., 1883, p. 55. Cf. Irving, app. xxxv. Ruge, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, p. 317; Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, xvi. 322, etc.
The expectation which had sustained Columbus in his voyage, and which he thought his discoveries had confirmed, was that he had reached the western parts of India or Asia; and the new islands were accordingly everywhere spoken of as the West Indies, or the New World.
