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CHAPTER I
ОглавлениеTHE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
Bjarni, son of Herjulf, speeding westward from Iceland in 986, to spend the Yuletide in Greenland with his father, encountered foggy weather and steered by guesswork for many days. At last he sighted land, but a land covered with dense woods,—not at all the land of fiords and glaciers he was seeking. So, without stopping, he turned his prow to the north, and ten days later was telling his story to the listening circle before the blazing logs in his father's house at Brattahlid. The tale came, in time, to the ears of Leif, the famous son of Red Eric, and in the year 1000 he set out from Greenland, with a crew of thirty-five, in search of the strange land to the south. He reached the barren coast of Labrador and named it Helluland, or "slate-land;" south of it was a coast so densely wooded that he named it Markland, or "woodland." At last he ran his ship ashore at a spot where "a river, issuing from a lake, fell into the sea." Wild grapes abounded, and he named the country Vinland.
From "Psalm of the West"
Far spread, below,
The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow
All secrets of Atlantis' drownèd woe
Lay bound about with night on every hand,
Save down the eastern brink a shining band
Of day made out a little way from land.
Then from that shore the wind upbore a cry:
Thou Sea, thou Sea of Darkness! why, oh why Dost waste thy West in unthrift mystery? But ever the idiot sea-mouths foam and fill, And never a wave doth good for man, or ill, And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will; And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file Across the sunset toward their nightly isle On solemn wings that wave but seldom while, So leanly sails the day behind the day To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray, And down its mortal fissures sinks away.
Master, Master, break this ban:
The wave lacks Thee.
Oh, is it not to widen man
Stretches the sea?
Oh, must the sea-bird's idle van
Alone be free?
Into the Sea of the Dark doth creep
Björne's pallid sail,
As the face of a walker in his sleep,
Set rigid and most pale,
About the night doth peer and peep
In a dream of an ancient tale.
Lo, here is made a hasty cry:
Land, land, upon the west!— God save such land! Go by, go by: Here may no mortal rest, Where this waste hell of slate doth lie And grind the glacier's breast.
The sail goeth limp: hey, flap and strain!
Round eastward slanteth the mast;
As the sleep-walker waked with pain,
White-clothed in the midnight blast,
Doth stare and quake, and stride again
To houseward all aghast.
Yet as—A ghost! his household cry: He hath followed a ghost in flight. Let us see the ghost—his household fly With lamps to search the night— So Norsemen's sails run out and try The Sea of the Dark with light.
Stout Are Marson, southward whirled From out the tempest's hand, Doth skip the sloping of the world To Huitramannaland, Where Georgia's oaks with moss-beards curled Wave by the shining strand,
And sway in sighs from Florida's Spring
Or Carolina's Palm—
What time the mocking-bird doth bring The woods his artist's-balm, Singing the Song of Everything Consummate-sweet and calm—
Land of large merciful-hearted skies,
Big bounties, rich increase,
Green rests for Trade's blood-shotten eyes,
For o'er-beat brains surcease,
For Love the dear woods' sympathies,
For Grief the wise woods' peace.
For Need rich givings of hid powers
In hills and vales quick-won,
For Greed large exemplary flowers
That ne'er have toiled nor spun,
For Heat fair-tempered winds and showers,
For Cold the neighbor sun.
* * * * *
Then Leif, bold son of Eric the Red,
To the South of the West doth flee—
Past slaty Helluland is sped,
Past Markland's woody lea,
Till round about fair Vinland's head,
Where Taunton helps the sea,
The Norseman calls, the anchor falls,
The mariners hurry a-strand:
They wassail with fore-drunken skals
Where prophet wild grapes stand;
They lift the Leifsbooth's hasty walls,
They stride about the land—
New England, thee! whose ne'er-spent wine
As blood doth stretch each vein,
And urge thee, sinewed like thy vine,
Through peril and all pain
To grasp Endeavor's towering Pine,
And, once ahold, remain—
Land where the strenuous-handed Wind
With sarcasm of a friend
Doth smite the man would lag behind
To frontward of his end;
Yea, where the taunting fall and grind
Of Nature's Ill doth send
Such mortal challenge of a clown
Rude-thrust upon the soul,
That men but smile where mountains frown
Or scowling waters roll,
And Nature's front of battle down
Do hurl from pole to pole.
Now long the Sea of Darkness glimmers low
With sails from Northland flickering to and fro—
Thorwald, Karlsefne, and those twin heirs of woe,
Hellboge and Finnge, in treasonable bed
Slain by the ill-born child of Eric Red,
Freydisa false. Till, as much time is fled,
Once more the vacant airs with darkness fill,
Once more the wave doth never good nor ill,
And Blank is king, and Nothing works his will;
And leanly sails the day behind the day
To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,
And down its mortal fissures sinks away,
As when the grim-beaked pelicans level file
Across the sunset to their seaward isle
On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile.
Sidney Lanier.
Leif and his crew spent the winter in Vinland, and in the following spring took back to Greenland news of the pleasant country they had discovered. Other voyages followed, but the newcomers became embroiled with the natives, who attacked them in such numbers that all projects of colonization were abandoned; and finally, in 1012, the Norsemen sailed away forever from this land of promise.
THE NORSEMEN
[On a fragment of statue found at Bradford.]
Gift from the cold and silent Past!
A relic to the present cast;
Left on the ever-changing strand
Of shifting and unstable sand,
Which wastes beneath the steady chime
And beating of the waves of Time!
Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
Thy rude and savage outline wrought?
The waters of my native stream
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;
From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
The circles widen to its shore;
And cultured field and peopled town
Slope to its willowed margin down.
Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing
The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
Of the fire-winged and steedless car,
And voices from the wayside near
Come quick and blended on my ear,—
A spell is in this old gray stone,
My thoughts are with the Past alone!
A change!—The steepled town no more
Stretches along the sail-thronged shore;
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,
Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud:
Spectrally rising where they stood,
I see the old, primeval wood;
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand
I see its solemn waste expand;
It climbs the green and cultured hill,
It arches o'er the valley's rill,
And leans from cliff and crag to throw
Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
Unchanged, alone, the same bright river
Flows on, as it will flow forever!
I listen, and I hear the low
Soft ripple where its waters go;
I hear behind the panther's cry,
The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by,
And shyly on the river's brink
The deer is stooping down to drink.
But hark!—from wood and rock flung back,
What sound comes up the Merrimac?
What sea-worn barks are those which throw
The light spray from each rushing prow?
Have they not in the North Sea's blast
Bowed to the waves the straining mast?
Their frozen sails the low, pale sun
Of Thulë's night has shone upon;
Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep
Round icy drift, and headland steep.
Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
Lessening through driving mist and spray,
Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!
Onward they glide,—and now I view
Their iron-armed and stalwart crew;
Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,
Turned to green earth and summer sky.
Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;
Bared to the sun and soft warm air,
Streams back the Northmen's yellow hair.
I see the gleam of axe and spear,
A sound of smitten shields I hear,
Keeping a harsh and fitting time
To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme;
Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,
His gray and naked isles among;
Or muttered low at midnight hour
Round Odin's mossy stone of power.
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
Has answered to that startling rune;
The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
The light Frank knows its summons well;
Iona's sable-stoled Culdee
Has heard it sounding o'er the sea,
And swept, with hoary beard and hair,
His altar's foot in trembling prayer!
'Tis past,—the 'wildering vision dies
In darkness on my dreaming eyes!
The forest vanishes in air,
Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare;
I hear the common tread of men,
And hum of work-day life again;
The mystic relic seems alone
A broken mass of common stone;
And if it be the chiselled limb
Of Berserker or idol grim,
A fragment of Valhalla's Thor,
The stormy Viking's god of War,
Or Praga of the Runic lay,
Or love-awakening Siona,
I know not,—for no graven line,
Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign,
Is left me here, by which to trace
Its name, or origin, or place.
Yet, for this vision of the Past,
This glance upon its darkness cast,
My spirit bows in gratitude
Before the Giver of all good,
Who fashioned so the human mind,
That, from the waste of Time behind,
A simple stone, or mound of earth,
Can summon the departed forth;
Quicken the Past to life again,
The Present lose in what hath been,
And in their primal freshness show
The buried forms of long ago.
As if a portion of that Thought
By which the Eternal will is wrought,
Whose impulse fills anew with breath
The frozen solitude of Death,
To mortal mind were sometimes lent,
To mortal musings sometimes sent,
To whisper—even when it seems
But Memory's fantasy of dreams—
Through the mind's waste of woe and sin,
Of an immortal origin!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
This, in mere outline, is the story of Vinland, as told in the Icelandic Chronicle. Of its substantial accuracy there can be little doubt. Many proofs of Norse occupation have been found on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The "skeleton in armor," however, which was unearthed in 1835 near Fall River, Mass., was probably that of an Indian.
THE SKELETON IN ARMOR
"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?"
Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
From the heart's chamber.
"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
For this I sought thee.
"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.
"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark
Sang from the meadow.
"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew
With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.
"Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long winter out;
Often our midnight shout
Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
Filled to o'erflowing.
"Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendor.
"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade
Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.
"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.
"While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.
"She was a Prince's child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?
"Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,
Fairest of all was she
Among the Norsemen!
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armèd hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
With twenty horsemen.
"Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
Laugh as he hailed us.
"And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
'Death!' was the helmsman's hail,
'Death without quarter!'
Mid-ships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel! Down her black hulk did reel Through the black water!
"As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden.—
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
Bore I the maiden.
"Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower, Which, to this very hour, Stands looking seaward.
"There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden's tears;
She had forgot her fears,
She was a mother;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies;
Ne'er shall the sun arise
On such another!
"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,
Oh, death was grateful!
"Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!" Thus the tale ended.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The centuries passed, and no more of the white-skinned race came to the New World. But a new era was at hand; the day drew near when a little fleet was to put out from Spain and turn its prows westward on the grandest voyage the world has ever known.
PROPHECY
From "Il Morgante Maggiore"
1485
His bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
The Western wave, a smooth and level plain.
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.
Man was in ancient days of grosser mould,
And Hercules might blush to learn how far
Beyond the limits he had vainly set The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way. Man shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common centre all things tend. So earth, by curious mystery divine Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And throngèd empires, ne'er divined of yore. But see, the sun speeds on his western path To glad the nations with expected light.
Luigi Pulci.
About 1436 a son was born to Dominico Colombo, wool-comber, of Genoa, and in due time christened Cristoforo. Of his boyhood little is known save that he early went to sea. About 1470 he followed his brother Bartholomew to Lisbon, and in 1474 he was given a map by Toscanelli, the Florentine astronomer, showing Japan and the Indies directly west of Portugal, together with a long letter in which Toscanelli explained his reasons for believing that by sailing west one could reach the East. Columbus, studying the problem month by month, became convinced of the feasibility of such a route to the Indies, and determined himself to traverse it.
THE INSPIRATION
From "The West Indies"
Long lay the ocean-paths from man conceal'd;
Light came from heaven,—the magnet was reveal'd,
A surer star to guide the seaman's eye
Than the pale glory of the northern sky;
Alike ordain'd to shine by night and day,
Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray;
Where'er the mountains rise, the billows roll,
Still with strong impulse turning to the pole,
True as the sun is to the morning true,
Though light as film, and trembling as the dew.
Then man no longer plied with timid oar,
And failing heart, along the windward shore;
Broad to the sky he turn'd his fearless sail,
Defied the adverse, woo'd the favoring gale,
Bared to the storm his adamantine breast,
Or soft on ocean's lap lay down to rest;
While free, as clouds the liquid ether sweep,
His white-wing'd vessels coursed the unbounded deep;
From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam,
The waves his heritage, the world his home.
Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand
Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land;
The floods o'erbalanced:—where the tide of light,
Day after day, roll'd down the gulf of night,
There seem'd one waste of waters:—long in vain
His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main;
When sudden, as creation burst from nought,
Sprang a new world through his stupendous thought,
Light, order, beauty!—While his mind explored
The unveiling mystery, his heart adored;
Where'er sublime imagination trod,
He heard the voice, he saw the face of God.
Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye,
O'er the wide ocean stretching to the sky:
In calm magnificence the sun declined,
And left a paradise of clouds behind:
Proud at his feet, with pomp of pearl and gold,
The billows in a sea of glory roll'd.
"—Ah! on this sea of glory might I sail,
Track the bright sun, and pierce the eternal veil
That hides those lands, beneath Hesperian skies,
Where daylight sojourns till our morrow rise!"
Thoughtful he wander'd on the beach alone;
Mild o'er the deep the vesper planet shone,
The eye of evening, brightening through the west
Till the sweet moment when it shut to rest:
"Whither, O golden Venus! art thou fled?
Not in the ocean-chambers lies thy bed;
Round the dim world thy glittering chariot drawn
Pursues the twilight, or precedes the dawn;
Thy beauty noon and midnight never see,
The morn and eve divide the year with thee."
Soft fell the shades, till Cynthia's slender bow
Crested the furthest wave, then sunk below:
"Tell me, resplendent guardian of the night,
Circling the sphere in thy perennial flight,
What secret path of heaven thy smiles adorn,
What nameless sea reflects thy gleaming horn?"
Now earth and ocean vanish'd, all serene
The starry firmament alone was seen;
Through the slow, silent hours, he watch'd the host
Of midnight suns in western darkness lost, Till Night himself, on shadowy pinions borne, Fled o'er the mighty waters, and the morn Danced on the mountains:—"Lights of heaven!" he cried, "Lead on;—I go to win a glorious bride; Fearless o'er gulfs unknown I urge my way, Where peril prowls, and shipwreck lurks for prey: Hope swells my sail;—in spirit I behold That maiden-world, twin-sister of the old, By nature nursed beyond the jealous sea, Denied to ages, but betroth'd to me."
James Montgomery.
In 1484 Columbus laid his plan before King John II, of Portugal, but became so disgusted with his treachery and double-dealing, that he left Portugal and entered the service of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Spanish monarchs listened to him with attention, and ordered that the greatest astronomers and cosmographers of the kingdom should assemble at Salamanca and pass upon the feasibility of the project.
COLUMBUS
[January, 1487]
St. Stephen's cloistered hall was proud In learning's pomp that day, For there a robed and stately crowd Pressed on in long array. A mariner with simple chart Confronts that conclave high, While strong ambition stirs his heart, And burning thoughts of wonder part From lip and sparkling eye.
What hath he said? With frowning face,
In whispered tones they speak,
And lines upon their tablets trace,
Which flush each ashen cheek;
The Inquisition's mystic doom
Sits on their brows severe,
And bursting forth in visioned gloom,
Sad heresy from burning tomb
Groans on the startled ear.
Courage, thou Genoese! Old Time
Thy splendid dream shall crown;
Yon Western Hemisphere sublime,
Where unshorn forests frown,
The awful Andes' cloud-wrapt brow,
The Indian hunter's bow,
Bold streams untamed by helm or prow,
And rocks of gold and diamonds, thou
To thankless Spain shalt show.
Courage, World-finder! Thou hast need!
In Fate's unfolding scroll,
Dark woes and ingrate wrongs I read,
That rack the noble soul.
On! on! Creation's secrets probe,
Then drink thy cup of scorn,
And wrapped in fallen Cæsar's robe,
Sleep like that master of the globe,
All glorious,—yet forlorn.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney.
The council convened at Salamanca and examined Columbus; but it presented to him an almost impenetrable wall of bigotry and prejudice. Long delays and adjournments followed; and for three years the suppliant was put off with excuses and evasions. At last, worn out with waiting and anxiety, he appealed to Ferdinand to give him a definite answer.
COLUMBUS TO FERDINAND
[January, 1491]
Illustrious monarch of Iberia's soil,
Too long I wait permission to depart;
Sick of delays, I beg thy list'ning ear—
Shine forth the patron and the prince of art.
While yet Columbus breathes the vital air,
Grant his request to pass the western main:
Reserve this glory for thy native soil,
And what must please thee more—for thy own reign.
Of this huge globe, how small a part we know—
Does heaven their worlds to western suns deny?—
How disproportion'd to the mighty deep
The lands that yet in human prospect lie!
Does Cynthia, when to western skies arriv'd,
Spend her sweet beam upon the barren main,
And ne'er illume with midnight splendor, she,
The natives dancing on the lightsome green?—
Should the vast circuit of the world contain
Such wastes of ocean, and such scanty land?—
'Tis reason's voice that bids me think not so, I think more nobly of the Almighty hand.
Does yon fair lamp trace half the circle round
To light the waves and monsters of the seas?—
No—be there must beyond the billowy waste
Islands, and men, and animals, and trees.
An unremitting flame my breast inspires
To seek new lands amidst the barren waves,
Where falling low, the source of day descends,
And the blue sea his evening visage laves.
Hear, in his tragic lay, Cordova's sage: "The time shall come, when numerous years are past, The ocean shall dissolve the bonds of things, And an extended region rise at last;
"And Typhis shall disclose the mighty land Far, far away, where none have rov'd before; Nor shall the world's remotest region be Gibraltar's rock, or Thule's savage shore."
Fir'd at the theme, I languish to depart,
Supply the barque, and bid Columbus sail;
He fears no storms upon the untravell'd deep;
Reason shall steer, and skill disarm the gale.
Nor does he dread to lose the intended course,
Though far from land the reeling galley stray,
And skies above and gulphy seas below
Be the sole objects seen for many a day.
Think not that Nature has unveil'd in vain
The mystic magnet to the mortal eye:
So late have we the guiding needle plann'd
Only to sail beneath our native sky?
Ere this was found, the ruling power of all
Found for our use an ocean in the land,
Its breadth so small we could not wander long,
Nor long be absent from the neighboring strand.
Short was the course, and guided by the stars,
But stars no more shall point our daring way;
The Bear shall sink, and every guard be drown'd,
And great Arcturus scarce escape the sea,
When southward we shall steer—O grant my wish,
Supply the barque, and bid Columbus sail,
He dreads no tempests on the untravell'd deep,
Reason shall steer, and skill disarm the gale.
Philip Freneau.
Early in 1491 the council of Salamanca reported that the proposed enterprise was vain and impossible of execution, and Ferdinand accepted the decision. Indignant at thought of the years he had wasted, Columbus started for Paris, to lay his plan before the King of France. He was accompanied by his son, Diego, and stopped one night at the convent of La Rabida, near Palos, to ask for food and shelter. The prior, Juan Perez de Marchena, became interested in his project, detained him, and finally secured for him another audience of Isabella.
COLUMBUS AT THE CONVENT
[July, 1491]
