|
It was late in the history of the
world before Europe and America became known to each other. During the first
fifteen centuries of the Christian era Europe was unaware of the vast
continent which lay beyond the sea. Asia had ceased to influence her. Africa
had not begun. Her history was waiting for the mighty influence which
America was to exercise in her affairs through all the future ages.
Men had been slow to establish completely their
dominion over the sea. They learned very early to build ships. They availed
themselves very early of the surprising power which the helm exerts over the
movements of a ship. But, during many ages, they found no surer guidance
upon the pathless sea than that which the position of the sun and the stars
afforded. When clouds intervened to deprive them of this uncertain
direction, they were helpless. They were thus obliged to keep the land in
view, and content themselves with creeping timidly along the coast.
But at length there was discovered a stone which the
wise Creator had endowed with strange properties. It was observed that a
needle brought once into contact with that stone pointed ever afterwards
steadfastly to the north. Men saw that with a needle thus influenced they
could guide themselves at sea as surely as on land. The Mariners' Compass
untied the bond which held sailors to the coast, and gave them liberty to
push out into the sea.
Just
when sailors were slowly learning to put confidence in the Mariners'
Compass, there arose in Europe a vehement desire for the discovery of
unknown countries. A sudden interest sprang up in all that was distant and
unexplored. The strange fables told by travellers were greedily received.
The human mind was beginning to cast off the torpor of the Middle Ages. As
intelligence increased, men became increasingly eager to ascertain the form
and extent of the world in which they dwelt, and to acquaint themselves with
those unknown races who were their fellow-inhabitants.
Portugal and Spain, looking out upon the boundless sea,
were powerfully stirred by the new impulse. The Courts of Lisbon and Madrid
swarmed with adventurers who had made discoveries, or who wished the means
to make them. Conspicuous among these was an enthusiast, who during eighteen
years had not ceased to importune incredulous monarchs for ships and men
that he might open up the secrets of the sea. lie was a tall man, of grave
and gentle manners, and noble though saddened look. His eye was gray, "all
to enkindle" when he spoke of those discoveries in the making of which he
felt himself to be Heaven's chosen agent. He had known hardship and sorrow
in his youth, and at thirty his hair was white. He was the son of a Genoese
wool-comber, and his name was Christopher Columbus. In him the universal
passion for discovery rose to the dignity of an inspiration.
No sailor of our time would cross the Atlantic in such
ships as were given to Columbus. In size they resembled the smaller of our
river and coasting vessels. Only one of them was decked. The others were
open, save at the prow and stern, where cabins were built for the crew. The
sailors went unwillingly and in much fear—compelled by an order from the
King. With such ships and such men Columbus left the land behind him and
pushed out into these unknown waters. To him there were no dangers, no
difficulties—God, who had chosen him to do this work, would sustain him for
its accomplishment, lie sailed on the 3rd of August 1492. On the 12th of
October, in the dim light of early morning, he gazed out from the deck of
his little ship upon the shores of a new world. His victory was gained. his
work was done. How great it was he himself never knew. He died in the belief
that he had merely discovered a shorter route to India. He never enjoyed
that which would have been the best recompense for all his toil—the
knowledge that he had added a vast continent to the possessions of civilized
men.
The revelation by Columbus
of the amazing fact that there were lands beyond the great ocean, inhabited
by strange races of human beings, roused to a passionate eagerness the
thirst for fresh discoveries. The splendours of the newly-found world were
indeed difficult to be resisted. Wealth beyond the wildest dreams of avarice
could be had, it was said, for the gathering. The sands of every river
sparkled with gold. The very colour of the ground showed that gold was
profusely abundant. The meanest of the Indians ornamented himself with gold
and jewels. The walls of the houses glittered with pearls. There was a
fountain, if one might but find it, whose waters bestowed perpetual youth
upon the bather. The wildest romances were greedily received, and the Old
World, with its familiar and painful realities, seemed mean and hateful
beside the fabled glories of the New.
Europe then enjoyed a season of unusual calm—a short
respite from the habitual toil of war—as if to afford men leisure to enter
on their new possession. The last of the Moors had taken his last look at
Granada, and Spain had rest from her eight centuries of war. In England, the
Wars of the Roses had ceased. After thirty years of hard fighting and huge
waste of life and property, the fortunate English had been able to determine
which branch of a certain old family was to rule over them. Henry VII., with
his clear, cold head, and his heavy hand, was guiding his people somewhat
forcibly towards the victories of peace. Even France tasted the joy of
repose. The Reformation was at hand. While Columbus was holding his
uncertain way across the great Atlantic, a boy called Martin Luther was
attending school in a small German town. The time was not far off, but as
yet the mind of Europe was not engrossed by those religious strifes which
were soon to convulse it.
The
men whose trade was fighting turned gladly in this idle time to the world
where boundless wealth was to be wrung from the grasp of unwarlike
barbarians. England and France had missed the splendid prize which Columbus
had won for Spain. They hastened now to secure what they could. A merchant
of Bristol, John Cabot, obtained permission from the King of England to make
discoveries in the northern parts of America. Cabot was to bear all
expenses, and the King was to receive one-fifth of the gains of the
adventure. Taking with him his son Sebastian, John Cabot sailed straight
westward across the Atlantic. He reached the American continent, of which he
was the undoubted discoverer. The result to him was disappointing. He landed
on the coast of Labrador. Being in the same latitude as England, he
reasoned that he should find the same genial climate. To his astonishment he
came upon a region of intolerable cold, dreary with ice and snow. John Cabot
had not heard of the Gulf Stream and its marvellous influences. He did not
know that the western shores of northern Europe are rescued from perpetual
winter, and warmed up to the enjoyable temperature which they possess, by an
enormous river of hot water flowing between banks of cold water eastward
from the Gulf of Mexico. The Cabots made many voyages afterwards, and
explored the American coast from extreme north to extreme south.
The French turned their attention to the northern parts
of the New World. The rich fisheries of Newfoundland attracted them. A
Frenchman sailed up the great St. Lawrence river. After some failures a
French settlement was established there, and for a century and a half the
French peopled Canada, until the English relieved them of the ownership.
Spanish adventurers never rested from their eager
search after the treasures of the new continent. An aged warrior called
Ponce de Leon fitted out an expedition at his own cost. He had heard of the
marvellous fountain whose waters would restore to him the years of his
wasted youth. He searched in vain. The fountain would not reveal itself to
the foolish old man, and lie had to bear without relief the burden of his
profitless years. But he found a country hitherto unseen by Europeans, which
was clothed with magnificent forests, and seemed to bloom with perpetual
flowers. He called it Florida. He attempted to found a colony in the
paradise he had discovered. But the natives attacked him, slew many of his
men, and drove the rest to their ships, carrying with them their chief,
wounded to death by the arrow of an Indian.
Ferdinand de Soto had been with Pizarro in his
expedition to Peru, and returned to Spain enriched by his share of the
plunder. He did not doubt that in the north were cities as rich and
barbarians as confiding. An expedition to discover new regions, and plunder
their inhabitants, was fitted out under his command. No one doubted that
success equal to that of Cortes and Pizarro would attend this new adventure.
The youth of Spain were eager to be permitted to go, and they sold houses
and lands to buy them the needful equipment. Six hundred men, in the prime
of life, were chosen from the crowd of applicants, and the expedition
sailed, high in courage, splendid in aspect, boundless in expectation. They
landed on the coast of Florida, and began their march into the wilderness.
They had fetters for the Indians whom they meant to take captive. They had
bloodhounds, lest these captives should escape. The camp swarmed with
priests, and as they marched the festivals and processions enjoined by the
Church were devoutly observed.
From the outset it was a toilsome and perilous enterprise; but to the
Spaniard of that time danger was a joy. The Indians were warlike, and
generally hostile. De Soto had pitched battles to fight and heavy losses to
bear. Always he was victorious, but he could ill afford the cost of many
such victories. The captive Indians amused him with tales of regions where
gold abounded. They had learned that ignorance on that subject was very
hazardous. De Soto had stimulated their knowledge by burning to death some
who denied the existence of gold in that country. The Spaniards wandered
slowly northwards. They looked eagerly for some great city, the plunder of
whose palaces and temples would enrich them all. They found nothing better
than occasionally an Indian town, composed of a few miserable huts. It was
all they could do to get needful food. At length they came to a magnificent
river. European eyes had seen no such river till now. It was about a mile in
breadth, and its mass of water swept downward to the sea with a current of
amazing strength. It was the Mississippi. The Spaniards built vessels and
ferried themselves to the western bank.
There they resumed their wanderings. De Soto would not
yet admit that he had failed. He still hoped that the plunder of a rich city
would reward his toils. For many months the Spaniards strayed among the
swamps and dense forests of that dreary region. The natives showed at first
some disposition to be helpful. But the Spaniards, in their disappointment,
were pitiless and savage. They amused themselves by inflicting pain upon the
prisoners. They cut off their hands; they hunted them with bloodhounds; they
burned them at the stake. The Indians became dangerous. De Soto hoped to awe
them by claiming to be one of the gods. But the imposture was too palpable.
"How can a man be God when he cannot get bread to eat!" asked a sagacious
savage. It was now three years since De Soto had landed in America. The
utter failure of the expedition would no longer conceal, and the men wished
to return home. Broken in spirit and in frame, De Soto caught fever and
died. His soldiers felled a tree and scooped room within its trunk for the
body of the ill-fated adventurer. They could not bury their chief on land,
lest the Indians should dishonour his remains. In the silence of midnight
the rude coffin was sunk in the Mississippi, and the discoverer of the great
river slept beneath its waters. The Spaniards promptly resolved now to make
their way to Cuba. They had tools, and wood was abundant. They slew their
horses for flesh; they plundered the Indians for bread; they struck the
fetters from their prisoners to reinforce their scanty supply of iron. They
built ships enough to float them down the Mississippi. Three hundred ragged
and disheartened men were all that remained of the brilliant company whose
hopes had been so high, whose good fortune had been so much envied.
|
