Notable Voyagers

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Voyagers, by W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

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Title: Notable Voyagers From Columbus to Nordenskiold
Author: W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
Release Date: November 15, 2007 [EBook #23494]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

From Columbus to Nordenskiold.
CHAPTER ONE.
INTRODUCTION--A.D. 1486.
Columbus before the conclave of Professors at Seville--His parentage and early history--Battle with Venetian galleys--Residence in Portugal-- Marries widow of a navigator--Grounds on which he founded his theory-- Offers his services to the King of Portugal--His offer declined--Sends his brother Bartholomew to Henry the Seventh of England--Don John sends out a squadron to forestall him--Sets off for Spain--Introduced by the Duke of Medina Celi to Queen Isabella--She encourages him--Plan for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre--His long detention at Court while Ferdinand and Isabella are engaged in the war against the Moors of Granada--A hearing at length afforded him--His demands refused--Leaves the Court in poverty and visits Palos on his way to France--Met by Juan Perez, Prior of the Rabida convent--The Prior listens to his plans-- Introduces him to the Pinzons, and informs the Queen of his intended departure--Sent for back at Court--All his demands agreed to--Authority given him to fit out a squadron.
In the year 1486 a council of learned professors of geography, mathematics, and all branches of science, erudite friars, accomplished bishops, and other dignitaries of the Church, were seated in the vast arched hall of the old Dominican convent of Saint Stephen in Salamanca, then the great seat of learning in Spain. They had met to hear a simple mariner, then standing in their midst, propound and defend certain conclusions at which he had arrived regarding the form and geography of the earth, and the possibility, nay, the certainty, that by sailing west, the unknown shores of Eastern India could be reached. Some of his hearers declared it to be grossly presumptuous in an ordinary man to suppose, after so many profound philosophers and mathematicians had been studying the world, and so many able navigators had been sailing about it for years past, that there remained so vast a discovery for him to make. Some cited the books of the Old Testament to prove that he was wrong, others the explanations of various reverend commentators. Doctrinal points were mixed up with philosophical discussions, and a mathematical demonstration was allowed no weight if it appeared to clash with a text of Scripture or comment of one of the fathers.
Although Pliny and the wisest of the ancients had maintained the possibility of an antipodes in the southern hemisphere, these learned gentlemen made out that it was altogether a novel theory.
Others declared that to assert there were inhabited lands on the opposite side of the globe would be to maintain that there were nations not descended from Adam, as it would have been impossible for them to have passed the intervening ocean, and therefore discredit would be thrown on the Bible.
Again, some of the council more versed in science, though admitting the globular form of the earth, and the possibility of an opposite habitable hemisphere, maintained that it would be impossible to arrive there on account of the insupportable heat of the torrid zone; besides which, if the circumference of the earth was as great as they supposed, it would require three years to make the voyage.
Several, with still greater absurdity, advanced as an objection that should a ship succeed in reaching the extremity of India, she could never get back again, as the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain up which it would be impossible for her to sail even with the most favourable wind.
The mariner replied in answer to the scriptural objection that the inspired writers were not speaking technically as cosmographers, but figuratively, in language addressed to all comprehensions, and that the commentaries of the fathers were not to be considered as philosophical propoundings, which it was necessary either to admit or refute.
In regard to the impossibility of passing the torrid zone, he himself stated that he had voyaged as far as Guinea under the equinoxial line, and had found that region not only traversable, but abounding in population, fruits, and pasturage.
Who was this simple mariner who could thus dare to differ from so many learned sages? His person was commanding; his demeanour elevated; his eye kindling; his manner that of one who had a right to be heard, while a rich flow of eloquence carried his hearers with him. His countenance was