[64] It may have been on some island or in some canoe; or just as likely a mere delusion. The fact that Columbus at a later day set up a claim for the reward for the first discovery on the strength of this mysterious light, to the exclusion of the poor sailor who first actually saw land from the “Pinta,” has subjected his memory, not unnaturally, to some discredit at least with those who reckon magnanimity among the virtues. Cf. Navarrete, iii. 612.
[65] The prayer used was adopted later in similar cases, under Balboa, Cortes, Pizarro, etc. It is given in C. Clemente’s Tablas chronologicas, Valencia, 1689. Cf. Harrisse, Notes on Columbus, p. 140; Sabin, vol. iv. no. 13,632; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 1,376; Murphy, no. 599; and H. H. Bancroft’s Central America, i. 371.
[66] Humboldt in his Cosmos (English translation, ii. 422) has pointed out how in this first voyage the descriptions by Columbus of tropical scenes convince one of the vividness of his impressions and of the quickness of his observation.
[67] Pinzon’s heirs at a later day manifested hostility to Columbus, and endeavored to magnify their father’s importance in the voyage. Cf. Irving, App. x. In the subsequent lawsuit for the confirmation of Columbus’s right, the Pinzons brought witnesses to prove that it was their urgency which prevented Columbus from giving up the voyage and turning back.
[68] This Latin name seems to have been rendered by the Spaniards La Española, and from this by corruption the English got Hispaniola.
[69] There is a wide difference as reported by the early writers as to the number of men which Columbus had with him on this voyage. Ferdinand Columbus says ninety; Peter Martyr, one hundred and twenty; others say one hundred and eighty. The men he left at Hayti are reckoned variously at thirty-nine, forty-three, forty-eight, fifty-five, etc. Major, Select Letters, p. 12, reckons them as from thirty-seven to forty. The lists show among them an Irishman, “Guillermo Ires, natural de Galney, en Irlanda,” and an Englishman, “Tallarte de Lajes, Ingles.” These are interpreted to mean William Herries—probably “a namesake of ours,” says Harrisse—and Arthur Lake. Bernaldez says he carried back with him to Spain ten of the natives.
[70] The line of 1494 gave Portugal, Brazil, the Moluccas, the Philippines, and half of New Guinea. Jurien de la Gravière, Les marins du XVe et du XVIe siècle, i. 86.
[71] Bancroft, Central America, i. 496, describes the procedures finally established in laying out towns.
[72] Navarrete, ii. 143. It is the frequent recurrence of such audacious and arrogant acts on the part of Columbus which explains his sad failure as an administrator, and seriously impairs the veneration in which the world would rejoice to hold him.
[73] The question of the priority of Columbus’ discovery of the mainland over Vespucius is discussed in the following chapter. M. Herrera is said to have brought forward, at the Congrès des Américanistes held at Copenhagen in 1883, new evidence of Columbus’s landing on the mainland. Father Manoel de la Vega, in his Historia del descobrimiento de la America septentrional, first published in Mexico in 1826 by Bustamante, alleges that Columbus in this southern course was intending to test the theory of King John of Portugal, that land blocked a westerly passage in that direction.