The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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an earthly paradise with stately trees, fragrant flowers, groves of oranges and bananas, hanging vines, birds of bright plumage, and groups of dusky men, women, and children.
It was San Salvador, one of the Bahama Islands. A few days later Columbus discovered Cuba and Hispaniola, now known as St. Domingo, and returned to Spain with the wonderful news.
Who owned the islands? They were occupied by Indians; but the Pope, Alexander VI., Roderick Borgia, wicked and cruel, a murderer, claiming to be God’s agent on earth and endowed with all power, gave all lands that might be discovered west of an imaginary line, drawn north and south one hundred leagues west of the Azores, to Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain. So, by priority of discovery, and by the decree of the Pope, Spain entered upon the possession of what Columbus had discovered.
The news reached England. The merchants of Bristol who were sending their ships to France, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea, applied to the king, Henry YIL, for leave to send out an expedition for the discovery of new lands.
“If you discover any countries, they shall be mine,” he said, asserting his right to hold or give away lands, against that claimed by the Pope.
“If you make any money by the expedition, one-fifth of it shall be mine,” he added.
The merchants accepted the conditions, fitted out two vessels commanded by John and Sebastian Cabot, father and son, two Venetians in their employ as sea-captains. In May, 1497, the ships sailed down the river Severn, and steered west for a voyage over unknown seas, where vessels had not sailed since the days of the old Northmen.
In June they found themselves on soundings, and the sea around swarming with codfish. The water was warm, and dense fogs arose. A little farther on the water was colder, and filled with icebergs. They had reached a place where two great currents of the ocean meet. They did not know, nor was it till many years later that anybody knew, what caused the flowing of these currents; that the earth was whirling around the sun, and also turning on its own axis; that the speed at the equator was eighteen miles a minute.
We now know that the revolution of the earth upon its axis sets the water between Africa and South America to flowing westward, and that when the current strikes the coast of South America it is divided, a part flowing south and part north. The northern section, carrying with it the fresh water brought down the Amazon and Orinoco from the Andes and the plains of South America, sweeps into the Caribbean Sea, and whirls onward to the Gulf of Mexico, being heated by the sun to a temperature of eighty-six degrees. The Mississippi pours in its mighty flood, bringing minute particles of soil from the far distant prairies and mountains. Having no other outlet, the waters rush through the passage between Florida and Cuba, tearing great masses of sea-weed from the beds of white coral, which the coralline insects are building beneath the waves. This river of hot water, one thousand feet deep and fifty miles wide, sweeps on at the rate of five miles an hour, bearing the soil of two continents, the sea-weed, and myriads of marine insects — polyps, star and jellyfish, in infinite variety. East of Newfoundland it meets a current of cold water flowing south, from the frozen region of the North, bringing great icebergs; but the warm current whirls them north-east, speedily melting them, dropping the stones and gravel torn from the shore of Greenland beneath the sea. The fine particles of sand brought down from the Andes by the Amazon, and from the prairies of the West by the Mississippi, also settle to the bottom of the sea, thus making that portion of the sea a great dumping-place— building up the bank of Newfoundland. The hot river supplies the codfish with food, gives a mild climate to England, and makes it possible for men to live in Iceland and Northern Norway.
John and Sebastian Cabot caught all the fish they needed, and, sailing still west, on June 24th beheld the waves breaking against the rocky shore of Labrador.
Since the days of the old Northmen, no European eye had seen the main-land of the Western World. The Cabots sailed northward along a bleak and forbidding coast, with dense forests beyond the white granite ledges. They saw white-bears, floating on cakes of ice, plunge into the sea and catch fish in their paws. Walruses and seals frequented the shores, and myriads of birds reared their young upon the rocky cliffs; but their provisions failing, they returned to England.
What a year for discovery was 1498! Stimulated by what he had seen, Sebastian Cabot — young sagacious, bold — sailed once more westward. He coasted along the southern shore of Newfoundland, entered the Bay of Fundy, gazed upon the cliffs of Mount Desert, the majestic pines of Maine, the sandy beaches of Cape Cod, sailing southward to Virginia — thus, by priority of discovery, enabling England to claim the continent from Labrador to Cape Hatteras.
Christopher Columbus, at the same time, was making his third voyage; discovering the island of Trinidad, the coast of South America and Orinoco. He landed, and drank from a spring that still bears his name.
There was another brave sailor on the seas, Vasco da Gama, of Portugal, who was sailing south along the west coast of Africa, doubling the Cape of Good Hope; sailing on till, through the ocean haze, he beheld the mountains of Hindostan, thus opening a long sought for route to India. There was still another voyager on the seas, Amerigo Vespucci, a merchant of Florence, engaged in trade at Seville, in Spain, who, animated by a spirit of adventure, sailed to the West Indies with Captain Ojeda, and from thence to the coasts of South and Central America. He wrote interesting accounts of what he saw, which were published in 1507 — probably the first printed narrative given to the public of the discoveries in the West. The pamphlet fell into the hands of Martin Waldseemuller, of Freibourg, in Germany, who translated it into German. People spoke of the new world as Amerigo’s country, and thus the name became attached to the Western Continent, though the honor of discovery belongs to John and Sebastian Cabot.
The King of Portugal, desiring a share in the new world, sent Gasper Cortereal upon a voyage of discovery, who sailed along the coast of North America, from Virginia northward to Newfoundland. He enticed a number of Indians on board his ships, and treacherously carried them to Portugal and sold them into slavery.
Men do not like to grow old. How gladly would they ever retain the freshness of youth! The longing to be young again became a passion with Ponce de Leon, Governor of Porto Rico. The gray hairs had come, and there were furrows in his cheeks. Poets had written of a fountain of perpetual youth — a stream so clear, and pure, and life-giving, that those who drank of it would be forever young and fair. De Leon resolved to go in quest of it, that, tasting its refreshing waters, he might ever be young.
He sailed from Porto Rico, with three vessels, in 1513. On Easter Sunday, which the Spaniards call Pasqua de Flores, he sighted land a few miles north of St. Augustine, and took possession of the country for the King of Spain, naming it Florida. He was charmed by its scenery — the wide-spreading live-oaks, the fan-leaved palmettos, the tangle of jessamine and honeysuckle, filling the air with fragrance; but vain his search for the fabled Fountain of Eternal Youth; and, after coasting along the shores, landing here and there and exploring the country, he returned to Porto Rico.
The Spaniards in the West Indies heard of the wonderful land of Mexico, inhabited by millions of people — a land of cities and villages, cultivated fields and gardens, abounding in silver and gold, advanced in arts and architecture, with schools, courts of justice, and great stone temples.
On the 15th of February, 1519, an expedition, commanded by Hernando Cortez, sailed from Ravenna to conquer the empire of the West, landing first in Yucatan; again at the mouth of the river Tobasco, in the Bay of Campeachy, fighting a battle on the banks of that stream, sweeping the Indians down like grain before the reaper by his cannon and volleys of musketry, beginning a series of conquests that made him master of the empire of the Montezumas, and extending the authority and dominion of Spain westward to the Pacific, and northward to the Colorado and the Rio Grande; establishing the religion of the Roman Catholic Church, and the language and civilization of Spain over that vast section of North America.
The Spaniards were in need of more slaves to work in their mines and cane-fields, and to obtain them Vasquez D’Ayllon visited the coast of South Carolina in 1520. He called the country Chicora, and entered the Combahee River, which he named the Jordan, and gave the name of St. Helen to the cape which bounds St. Helen’s Sound on the south. The Indians received him kindly, accepted