Notable Voyagers, From Columbus to Nordenskiold

by William Henry Giles Kingston; Henry Frith

Columbus and his followers, having solemnly taken the communion, went on board their ships. Believing that their friends were going to certain death, the inhabitants of Paios looked on with gloomy apprehensions, which greatly affected the minds of the crew.

The little squadron set sail from Palos half an hour before sunrise on the 3rd of August, 1492, and steered a course for the Canary Islands. Columbus had prepared a chart by which to sail. On this he drew the coasts of Europe and Africa, from the south of Ireland to the end of Guinea, and opposite to them, on the other side of the Atlantic, the extremity of Asia, or rather India, as it was then called. Between them he placed the island of Cipango or Japan, which, according to Marco Polo, lay one thousand five hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. This island Columbus placed where Florida really exists. Though he saw his hopes of commencing the expedition realised, he had good reason to fear that his crews might at any moment insist on returning.

On the third day after sailing, it was discovered that the rudder of the Pinta was broken and unslung, probably a trick of her owners. The wind was blowing so strongly at the time that he could not render assistance, but Martin Alonzo Pinzon, being an able seaman, succeeded in securing it temporarily with ropes.

As the Pinta also leaked, Columbus put into the Canaries on the morning of the 9th of August, and was detained there three weeks, trying to obtain a better vessel. None being found, the lateen sails of the Pinta were altered into square sails. While here the crews were frightened by seeing flames burst out of the lofty peak of Teneriffe. Shortly after a vessel arrived from Ferro, which reported that three Portuguese caravels were watching to capture the squadron of Columbus, who, suspecting that the King of Portugal had formed a hostile plan in revenge for his having embarked in the service of Spain, immediately put to sea and stood away from the coast. He was now striking off from the frontier islands of the Old World into the region of discovery. For three days the squadron was detained by a calm. On the 9th of September he saw Ferro, the most western of the Canary Islands, where the Portuguese were said to be waiting for him, about nine leagues distant. At length, a breeze filling the sails of his ships, he was able to stand on his course, as he hoped, free of all danger. Chaos, mystery, and peril were before them. The hearts of his crew sank as they lost sight of land, and many of the seamen broke into loud lamentations. The Admiral tried to soothe their distress, and to inspire them with his own glorious anticipations by describing to them the magnificence of the countries to which he was about to conduct them, and the wealth and glory which would be theirs.

He now issued orders to the commanders of the other vessels that, in the event of separation, they should continue directly westward; but that, after sailing seven hundred leagues, they should lay by from midnight to daylight, as about that distance he confidently expected to find land.

As he foresaw the farther they sailed the more their vague terrors would increase, to deceive them, he kept two logs; one correct, retained for his own government, and the other open to general inspection, from which a certain number of leagues were daily subtracted from the sailing of the ships.

The crews, though no faint-hearted fellows, had not as yet learned to place confidence in him. The slightest thing alarmed them. When about one hundred and fifty leagues west of Ferro, they picked up part of the mast of a large vessel, and the crews fancied that she must have been wrecked drifting ominously to the entrance of those unknown seas.

About nightfall, on the 13th of September, he for the first time noticed the variation of the needle, which, instead of pointing to the north star, varied about half a point. He remarked that this variation of the needle increased as he advanced. He quieted the alarm of his pilots, when they observed this, by assuring them that the variation was not caused by any fallacy in the compass, but by the movement of the north star itself, which, like the other heavenly bodies, described a circle round the pole.

The explanation appeared so highly plausible and ingenious that it was readily received. On the 14th of September they believed that they were near land, from seeing a heron and a tropical bird, neither of which were supposed to venture far out to sea.

The following night the mariners were awestruck by beholding a meteor of great brilliancy—a common phenomenon in those latitudes. With a favourable breeze, day after day, the squadron was wafted on, so that it was unnecessary to shift a single sail.