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Page 10
I
AS DESCRIBED BY WASHINGTON IRVING[1]
It was early in the morning of Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, that
Columbus set sail from the bar of Saltes, a small island formed by the
rivers Odiel and Tinto, in front of Palos, steering for the Canary
Islands, from whence he intended to strike due west. As a guide by
which to sail, he had the conjectural map or chart sent him by Paolo
Toscanelli, of Florence. In this it is supposed the coasts of Europe
and Africa, from the south of Ireland to the end of Guinea, were
delineated as immediately opposite to the extremity of Asia, while the
great island of Cipango, described by Marco Polo, lay between them,
1,500 miles from the Asiatic coast. At this island Columbus expected
first to arrive....
On losing sight of this last trace of land, the hearts of the crews
failed them, for they seemed to have taken leave of the world. Behind
them was everything dear to the heart of man--country, family,
friends, life itself; before them everything was chaos, mystery, and
peril. In the perturbation of the moment they despaired of ever more
seeing their homes. Many of the rugged seamen shed tears, and some
broke into loud lamentations. Columbus tried in every way to soothe
their distress, describing the splendid countries to which he expected
to conduct them, promising them land, riches, and everything that
could arouse their cupidity or inflame their imaginations; nor were
these promises made for purposes of deception, for he certainly
believed he should realize them all.
He now gave orders to the commanders of the other vessels, in case
they should be separated by any accident, to continue directly
westward; but that, after sailing 700 leagues, they should lay by from
midnight until daylight, as at about that distance he confidently
expected to find land. Foreseeing that the vague terrors already
awakened among the seamen would increase with the space which
intervened between them and their homes, he commenced a stratagem
which he continued throughout the voyage. This was to keep two
reckonings, one private, in which the true way of the ship was noted,
and which he retained in secret for his own government; the other
public, for general inspection, in which a number of leagues was daily
subtracted from the sailing of the ships so as to keep the crews in
ignorance of the real distance they had advanced....
On the 13th of September, in the evening, Columbus, for the first
time, noticed the variation of the needle, a phenomenon which had
never before been remarked. He at first made no mention of it, lest
his people should be alarmed; but it soon attracted the attention of
the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the
very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were
entering another world, subject to unknown influences. They
apprehended that the compass was about to lose its mysterious virtues,
and, without this guide, what was to become of them in a vast and
trackless ocean? Columbus tasked his science and ingenuity for reasons
with which to allay their terrors. He told them that the direction of
the needle was not to the polar star, but to some fixt and invisible
point. The variation, therefore, was not caused by any fallacy in the
compass, but by the movement of the north star itself, which, like the
other heavenly bodies, had its changes and revolutions, and every day
described a circle round the pole. The high opinion they entertained
of Columbus as a profound astronomer gave weight to his theory, and
their alarm subsided.
They had now arrived within the influence of the trade-wind, which,
following the sun, blows steadily from east to west between the
tropics, and sweeps over a few adjoining degrees of the ocean. With
this propitious breeze directly aft, they were wafted gently but
speedily over a tranquil sea, so that for many days they did not shift
a sail. Columbus in his journal perpetually recurs to the bland and
temperate serenity of the weather, and compares the pure and balmy
mornings to those of April in Andalusia, observing that the song of
the nightingale was alone wanting to complete the illusion....
They now began to see large patches of herbs and weeds, all drifting
from the west. Some were such as grow about rocks or in rivers, and as
green as if recently washed from the land. On one of the patches was a
live crab. They saw also a white tropical bird, of a kind which never
sleeps upon the sea; and tunny-fish played about the ships. Columbus
now supposed himself arrived in the weedy sea described by Aristotle,
into which certain ships of Cadiz had been driven by an impetuous east
wind.
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