Part 5 (1/2)

Some writers have sought to ”establish an alibi” by showing that Vespucci was in Spain throughout the period which, he says, was pa.s.sed by him at sea, on this ”first” voyage; but they have not been successful in doing so. Some, again, have declared that the narrative of the ”four” voyages, beginning in May, 1497, was made up of that on which Vespucci certainly sailed with Ojeda, in May, 1499. ”The points of resemblance”--as the reader may see for himself--”are so many and so striking as to seem not only conclusive, but to preclude any other theory,” says Alexander Humboldt, who, in his _Examen Critique_, made an exhaustive research into the Vespucci letters. Humboldt completely vindicated the character of Vespucci, leaving no shade of doubt upon his integrity, but he did not unravel the mystery.

How happens it that Vespucci could make a voyage of which no record exists or was ever known to exist? Why did he not mention the names of the fleet's commander? Why do his descriptions of scenery and people so closely resemble those of scenery and people seen on the second voyage? He alludes several times to his forthcoming book, _The Four Voyages_ (_Quattro Giornate_); but no trace has ever been found of that book, while the fragmentary letters to his ”patrons,” Soderini and Francesco de Medici, have survived to the present day.

Men of the keenest ac.u.men and perfectly equipped for historical research, such as Humboldt, Irving, and Navarrete, have devoted themselves to the solution of this problem, but without complete success. The first and the last named have cleared his name from the aspersions of centuries; the second and third, in their endeavors to magnify Columbus by belittling Vespucci, have not convinced posterity that the Florentine was a liar and a villain. He was neither one nor the other; and that he was far more humane than his friend Columbus has been amply shown in his treatment of the Indians. He and his companions made a few slaves; they attacked the cannibals in behalf of rival natives; but they did not, in their l.u.s.t for gold, put Indians to the torture, enslave whole tribes and communities, and commit ma.s.sacres.

Vespucci's character is comparatively free from the stain of blood-guiltiness; from his dealings with men at all times, we infer him upright and honorable; yet he rests under a cloud of suspicion, because that so-called first voyage, which he says he took in 1497-1498, cannot be explained. Suspicion also attaches to his name because it was chosen as an appellation for the New World, which Columbus was the means of revealing to Europe; but for this (as will be shown in a succeeding chapter) he was not accountable.

Professor Fiske, following Vespucci's ardent defender, the Viscount Varnhagen, deduces from the vague generalizations in this letter that the voyage was made chiefly along the Honduras, Yucatan, Mexican, and Florida coasts, as far north, perhaps, as Chesapeake Bay. The cannibals attacked by the Spaniards were found, he says, in the Bermudas--where no Indians were ever seen, so far as known, and no cannibals inhabit, save, perhaps, the great Shakespeare's ”Caliban.”

He accounts for the lost voyage by declaring that it may have been taken with Pinzon and Solis, who were said to have been on the coast of Honduras in 1506. There is no certainty as to that date, and the voyage may as well have been made in 1497-1498, as indirectly shown by a pa.s.sage in Oviedo's history, as follows: ”Some persons have attributed the discovery of the bay of Honduras to Don Christopher Columbus, the first admiral; but this is not true, for it was discovered by the pilots Vicente Yanez Pinzon, Juan Diaz de Solis, and Pedro de Ledesma, with three caravels; and that was before Vicente Yanez had discovered the river Amazon.”

The Amazon and a portion of the Brazil coast were discovered by Pinzon in January, 1500; and as the historian has proved to his own satisfaction that the gallant Vicente Yanez was in Spain during the years 1505 and 1506, it is probable that Oviedo is right. It is also probable, or at least possible, that Vespucci was with Pinzon on that Honduras voyage as consulting navigator, having been sent by the king, as he says, to ”a.s.sist,” in his capacity of astronomer and cosmographer. In this capacity, in fact, he went on all his voyages, for he rarely, if ever, held command. Captains, commanders, chief mates, and admirals there might be in plenty, but such a pilot and navigator as Vespucci was hard to find.

It is not unreasonable to presume that they were together, for the one was a skilful sailor, the other a great navigator, and both renowned for their hardihood and daring. King Ferdinand had no more loyal servants than these two, and as they had served him faithfully in their respective professions, the one on land, the other at sea, and inasmuch as both were intimately acquainted with Columbus and his plans, it was like the crafty old king to send them off to scour the seas his exacting ”Admiral” claimed to control. Thereafter--whether Pinzon and Vespucci sailed together or not--their voyages alternated along the coast of South America, first one and then the other, and in 1505-1506 an expedition was actually projected, in which the king intended both should share. It did not sail, because the Portuguese objected, as its object was the exploration of the Brazilian coast south of the Tropic of Capricorn, to all which the great rivals of the Spaniards then made claim.

A seeming confirmation of this voyage is found in the map Juan de la Cosa made, in the year 1500, after he had been in company with Ojeda and Vespucci to the coast of pearls. He was with Columbus, in 1494, when the Admiral forced all his men to swear that Cuba was, to the best of their belief, part of the Asian continent. Yet, within six years, La Cosa depicts it on his map as an island--and that was before Ocampo had proved it one, by sailing around it, in 1508. It is thought that La Cosa obtained his information as to the insular character of Cuba from Vespucci, when they voyaged together on the coast of Terra Firma, which we now know as the northern sh.o.r.es of South America.

Admitting, still, the critics say, that Vespucci made the voyage he claimed, with Pinzon or with some one else, in 1497-1498, how does that affect the claim of Columbus? It does not affect it at all, for, though Vespucci may have discovered the continent a few months previous to his rival--and he never put forth the claim that he did so--Columbus, by his voyages of 1492 and 1493, led the way thither. If Vespucci, as some have a.s.serted, claimed to have sailed in 1497, in order to establish a priority of discovery, he did it in a very bungling manner, and at a time when it might easily have been refuted, so many of his companions were then living. Besides, though his name was bestowed upon the newly discovered continent--perhaps as a consequence of the writing of this very letter--it was done without his knowledge and without the remotest suggestion of such a thing from him. This should be made clear: that Amerigo Vespucci had no thought of depriving his friend, Christopher Columbus, of a single leaf of his laurels, hard-won and well-deserved as he knew them to be.

There is no doubt whatever that Vespucci made a voyage in 1499-1500, along with Alonzo de Ojeda and the great pilot Juan de la Cosa, but whether this may be styled his first or his second must be left to the intelligence of the reader, for the historians are at odds themselves, and it might seem presumptuous in the biographer to a.s.sume to decide.

This voyage was narrated by him in the following letter, written within a month of his return, to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de Medici, of Florence. It is dated, ”Seville, July 18, 1500,” and has been called by one of his countrymen ”the oldest known writing of Amerigo relating to his voyages to the New World.” Mr. John Fiske, in _The Discovery of America_, denounces this letter as a forgery; but why, and for what reason it should have been written by another, he does not state.

”MOST EXCELLENT AND DEAR LORD,--It is a long time since I have written to your Excellency, and for no other reason than that nothing has occurred to me worthy of being commemorated. This present letter will inform you that about a month ago I arrived from the Indies, by way of the great ocean, brought by the grace of G.o.d safely to this city of Seville. I think your Excellency will be gratified to learn the results of my voyage, and the most surprising things which have been presented to my observation. If I am somewhat tedious, let my letter be read in your more idle hours, as fruit is eaten after the cloth is removed from the table.

”You will please to note that, commissioned by his highness the King of Spain, I set out with two small s.h.i.+ps, the 18th of May, 1499, on a voyage of discovery to the southwest, by way of the Fortunate Isles, which are now called the Canaries. After having provided ourselves there with all things necessary, first offering our prayers to G.o.d, we set sail from an island which is called Gomera, and, turning our prows southwardly, sailed twenty-four days with a fresh wind, without seeing any land. At the end of that time we came within sight of land, and found that we had sailed about thirteen hundred leagues, and were at that distance from the city of Cadiz, in a southwesterly direction. When we saw the land we gave thanks to G.o.d, and then launched our boats and, with sixteen men, went to the sh.o.r.e, which we found thickly covered with trees, astonis.h.i.+ng both on account of their size and their verdure, for they never lose their foliage. The sweet odors which they exhaled (for they were all aromatic) highly delighted us, and we were rejoiced in regaling our senses.

”We rowed along the sh.o.r.e in the boats to see if we could find any suitable place for landing; but, after toiling from morning till night, we found no way of pa.s.sage, the land being low and densely covered with trees. We concluded, therefore, to return to the s.h.i.+ps and make an attempt to land at some other spot.

”One very remarkable circ.u.mstance we observed in these seas, which was that, at fifteen leagues distance from the land, we found the water fresh, like that of a river, and we filled all our empty casks with it. Sailing in a southerly direction, still along the coast, we saw two larger rivers issuing from the land; and I think that these two rivers, by reason of their magnitude, caused the freshness of the water in the sea adjoining. Seeing that the coast was invariably low, we determined to enter one of these rivers with the boats, and did so, after furnis.h.i.+ng them with provisions for four days, and twenty men well armed. We entered the river and rowed up it nearly two days, making a distance of about eighteen leagues; but we found the low land still continuing and so thickly covered with trees that a bird could scarcely fly through them.

”We saw signs that the inland parts of the country were inhabited; nevertheless, as our vessels were anch.o.r.ed in a dangerous place, in case an adverse wind should arise, at the end of two days we concluded to return. Here we saw an immense number of birds, including parrots in great variety, some crimson in color, others green and lemon, others entirely green, and others again that were black and flesh-colored [these last were probably toucans]. And oh!

the songs of other species of birds, so sweet and so melodious, as we heard them among the trees, that we often lingered, listening to their charming music. The trees, too, were so beautiful and smelled so sweetly that we almost imagined ourselves in a terrestrial paradise; yet none of those trees, or the fruit of them, were similar to anything in our part of the world.

”On our way back we saw many people of various descriptions fis.h.i.+ng in the river. Having arrived at our s.h.i.+ps, we raised anchor and set sail in a southerly direction, standing off to sea about forty leagues. While sailing on this course, we encountered a current running from southeast to northwest, so strong and furious that we were put into great fear and were exposed to imminent peril. This current was so strong that the Strait of Gibraltar and that of the Faro of Messina appeared to us like mere stagnant water in comparison with it. We could scarcely make headway against it, though we had the wind fresh and fair; so, seeing that we made no progress, or but very little, we determined to turn our prows to the northwest.[12]

”As, if I remember aright, your Excellency understands something of cosmography, I intend to describe to you our progress in our navigation by the lat.i.tude and longitude. We sailed so far to the south that we entered the torrid zone and penetrated the circle of Cancer.... Having pa.s.sed the equinoctial line and sailed six degrees to the south of it, we lost sight of the north star altogether, and even the stars of Ursa Major--or, to speak better, the guardians which revolve about the firmament--were scarcely seen. Very desirous of being the author who should designate the other polar star of the firmament, I lost, many a time, my night's sleep, while contemplating the movement of the stars about the southern pole. I desired to ascertain which had the least motion, and which might be nearest to the firmament; but I was not able to accomplish it with such poor instruments as I used, which were the quadrant and astrolabe. I could not distinguish a star which had less than ten degrees of motion; so that I was not satisfied, within myself, to name any particular one for the pole of the meridian, on account of the large revolution which they all made around the firmament.

”While I was arriving at this conclusion, I recollected a verse of our poet Dante, which may be found in the first chapter of his ”Purgatory,” where he imagines he is leaving this hemisphere to repair to the other and attempting to describe the antarctic pole, and says:

”'To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind On the other pole attentive, where I saw Four stars ne'er seen before, save by the ken Of our first parents. Heaven of their rays Seemed joyous. O! thou northern site, bereft Indeed, and widowed, since of these deprived!'

”It seems to me that the poet wished to describe in these verses, by the four stars, the pole of the other firmament, and I have little doubt, even now, that what he says may be true. I observed four stars in the figure of an almond which had but little motion; and if G.o.d gives me life and health I hope to go again into that hemisphere and not to return without observing the pole. In conclusion I would remark that we extended our navigation so far south that our difference in lat.i.tude from the city of Cadiz was sixty degrees and a half, because, at that city, the pole is elevated thirty-five degrees and a half, and we had pa.s.sed six degrees beyond the equinoctial line. Let this suffice as to our lat.i.tude. You must observe that this our navigation was in the months of July, August, and September, when, as you know, the sun is longest above the horizon in our hemisphere and describes the greatest arch in the day and the least in the night. On the contrary, while we were at the equinoctial line, or near it, the difference between the day and night was not perceptible. They were of equal length, or very nearly so....

”It appears to me, most excellent Lorenzo, that by this voyage most of the philosophers are controverted who say that the torrid zone cannot be inhabited on account of the great heat. I have found the case to be quite the contrary.

The air is fresher and more temperate in that region than beyond it, and the inhabitants are more numerous here than they are in the other zones, for reasons which will be given below. Thus, it is certain, that practice is more valuable than theory.

”Thus far I have related the navigation I accomplished in the South and West. It now remains for me to inform you of the appearance of the country we discovered, the nature of the inhabitants and their customs, the animals we saw, and of many other things worthy of remembrance which fell under my observation. After we turned our course to the north, the first land we found inhabited was an island at ten degrees distant from the equinoctial line [island of Trinidad]. When we arrived at it we saw on the sea-sh.o.r.e a great many people, who stood looking at us with astonishment.

”We anch.o.r.ed within about a mile of land, fitted out the boats, and twenty-two men, well armed, made for the land.

The people, when they saw us landing and perceived that we were different from themselves (because they have no beards and wear no clothing of any description, being also of a different color--brown, while we were white), began to be afraid of us and all ran into the woods. With great exertion, by means of signs, we rea.s.sured them and found that they were a race called cannibals, the greater part, or all of whom, live on human flesh. Your Excellency may be a.s.sured of this fact. They do not eat one another, but, navigating with certain barks which they call canoes, they bring their prey from the neighboring islands or countries inhabited by those who are their enemies, or of a different tribe from their own. They never eat any women, unless they consider them as outcasts. These things we verified in many places where we found similar people. We often saw the bones and heads of those who had been eaten, and they who had made the repast admitted the fact and said that their enemies stood in greater fear of them on that account.

”Still, they are a people of gentle disposition and fine stature, of great activity and much courage. They go entirely naked, and the arms which they carry are rare bows, arrows, and spears, with which they are excellent marksmen.

In fine, we held much intercourse with them, and they took us to one of their villages, about two leagues inland, and gave us our breakfast. They gave whatever was asked of them, though I think more through fear than affection; and after having been with them all one day we returned to the s.h.i.+ps, sailing along the coasts, and finding another large village of the same tribe. We landed in the boats and found they were waiting for us, all loaded with provisions, and they gave us enough to make a very good breakfast, according to their ideas.