Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery | Page 3

actually once live and walk in the world; did
actually sail and look upon seas where we may also sail and look; did
stir with his feet the indestructible dust of this old Earth, and centre in
himself, as we all do, the whole interest and meaning of the Universe.
Truly the most commonplace fact, yet none the less amazing; and often
when in the dust of documents he has seemed most dead and unreal to
me I have found courage from the entertainment of some deep or
absurd reflection; such as that he did once undoubtedly, like other
mortals, blink and cough and blow his nose. And if my readers could
realise that fact throughout every page of this book, I should say that I
had succeeded in my task.

To be more particular in my acknowledgments. In common with every
modern writer on Columbus--and modern research on the history of
Columbus is only thirty years old--I owe to the labours of Mr. Henry
Harrisse, the chief of modern Columbian historians, the indebtedness of
the gold-miner to the gold-mine. In the matters of the Toscanelli
correspondence and the early years of Columbus I have followed more
closely Mr. Henry Vignaud, whose work may be regarded as a
continuation and reexamination --in some cases destructive--of that of
Mr. Harrisse. Mr. Vignaud's work is happily not yet completed; we all
look forward eagerly to the completion of that part of his 'Etudes
Critiques' dealing with the second half of the Admiral's life; and Mr.
Vignaud seems to me to stand higher than all modern workers in this
field in the patient and fearless discovery of the truth regarding certain
very controversial matters, and also in ability to give a sound and
reasonable interpretation to those obscurer facts or deductions in
Columbus's life that seem doomed never to be settled by the aid of
documents alone. It may be unseemly in me not to acknowledge
indebtedness to Washington Irving, but I cannot conscientiously do so.
If I had been writing ten or fifteen years ago I might have taken his
work seriously; but it is impossible that anything so one-sided, so
inaccurate, so untrue to life, and so profoundly dull could continue to
exist save in the absence of any critical knowledge or light on the
subject. All that can be said for him is that he kept the lamp of interest
in Columbus alive for English readers during the period that preceded
the advent of modern critical research. Mr. Major's edition' of
Columbus's letters has been freely consulted by me, as it must be by
any one interested in the subject. Professor Justin Winsor's work has
provided an invaluable store of ripe scholarship in matters of
cosmography and geographical detail; Sir Clements Markham's book,
by far the most trustworthy of modern English works on the subject,
and a valuable record of the established facts in Columbus's life, has
proved a sound guide in nautical matters; while the monograph of Mr.
Elton, which apparently did not promise much at first, since the author
has followed some untrustworthy leaders as regards his facts, proved to
be full of a fragrant charm produced by the writer's knowledge of and
interest in sub-tropical vegetation; and it is delightfully filled with the
names of gums and spices. To Mr. Vignaud I owe special thanks, not

only for the benefits of his research and of his admirable works on
Columbus, but also for personal help and encouragement. Equally
cordial thanks are due to Mr. John Boyd Thacher, whose work, giving
as it does so large a selection of the Columbus documents both in
facsimile, transliteration, and translation, is of the greatest service to
every English writer on the subject of Columbus. It is the more to be
regretted, since the documentary part of Mr. Thacher's work is so
excellent, that in his critical studies he should have seemed to ignore
some of the more important results of modern research. I am further
particularly indebted to Mr. Thacher and to his publishers, Messrs.
Putnam's Sons, for permission to reproduce certain illustrations in his
work, and to avail myself also of his copies and translations of original
Spanish and Italian documents. I have to thank Commendatore Guido
Biagi, the keeper of the Laurentian Library in Florence, for his very
kind help and letters of introduction to Italian librarians; Mr. Raymond
Beazley, of Merton College, Oxford, for his most helpful
correspondence; and Lord Dunraven for so kindly bringing, in the
interests of my readers, his practical knowledge of navigation and
seamanship to bear on the first voyage of Columbus. Finally my work
has been helped and made possible by many intimate and personal
kindnesses which, although they are not specified, are not the less
deeply acknowledged.
September 1906.

CONTENTS
THE INNER