“How naturalists may explain this phenomenon we know not, nor shall we swell this article by attempting a solution.”
The paragraph concluded by giving the names of several respectable individuals who witnessed the singular phenomenon, and who were willing to testify to the truth of the report.
The Discovery of America.
By WASHINGTON IRVING.
In accordance with its policy of presenting to its readers each month articles that have to do with the history and characteristics of the month itself, The Scrap Book herewith reprints the most entertaining account that has been written of what is, without question, the most memorable incident of the month of October—the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. It is from the pen of Washington Irving, the first great man of letters produced in the New World.
In the course of a period of travel in Europe, Irving went to Madrid, Spain, in 1826. There a post as attaché of the United States Legation was offered to him by Alexander H. Everett, then our minister to the Spanish court. This offer was accepted. Mr. Everett suggested that Irving make a translation from the Spanish of Navarrete’s “Voyages of Columbus.” The suggestion appealed to Irving, but he had scarcely more than addressed himself to his task when the idea occurred to him to write an original work on the subject. He searched the Spanish archives for new material and worked so zealously that in July, 1827, he was able to place the completed manuscript in the hands of John Murray, the famous English publisher, who brought out the work, in three volumes, in 1828.
In order that the sketch here given may be the better appreciated by persons who have allowed the earlier incidents of Columbus’s memorable voyage to escape their memories, it may be well to say that with funds supplied by Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, on August 3, 1492. The expedition consisted of the Santa Maria, a decked ship, with a crew of fifty men, and commanded by Columbus in person; and of two caravels—the Pinta, with thirty men, commanded by Martin Pinzon, and the Niña, with twenty-four men, under Vicente Yañez Pinzon, a brother of Martin. Columbus had the rank of admiral. The total number of men on the three vessels was one hundred and twenty. Owing to an accident to the rudder of the Pinta, the expedition was compelled to put in at the Canary Islands on August 9th. On September 6th the vessels again weighed anchor and sailed westward into the mysterious “Ocean Sea.”
The situation of Columbus was daily becoming more and more critical. In proportion as he approached the regions where he expected to find land, the impatience of his crews augmented. The favorable signs which increased his confidence were derided by them as delusive; and there was danger of their rebelling, and obliging him to turn back when on the point of realizing the object of all his labors. They beheld themselves with dismay, still wafted onward, over the boundless wastes of what appeared to them a mere watery desert surrounding the habitable world.
What was to become of them should their provisions fail? Their ships were too weak and defective even for the great voyage they had already made, but if they were still to press forward, adding at every moment to the immense expanse behind them, how should they ever be able to return, having no intervening port where they might victual and refit?
In this way they fed each other’s discontents, gathering together in little knots, and fomenting a spirit of mutinous opposition; and when we consider the natural fire of the Spanish temperament and its impatience of control, and that a great part of these men were sailing on compulsion, we cannot wonder that there was imminent danger of their breaking forth into open rebellion and compelling Columbus to turn back.