The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-23

WnaJ ne proposed TO DO Is Suluclently OO-
vious. The entire commercial world of his
day, Venice alone excepted, was anxious TO
discover passage by sea to India. During
a space of two centuries the facts and fables
recounted by Marco Polo had gained more or
less credence in Europe, and the not un-
natural desire to visit his distant "Cathay"
(Chins), and that goodliest island of "Cipan-
go" (Japan), where the soil literally sparkled
with rubies and diamonds, pearls we're as plen-
tifnl as pebbles, and gold was found in the
form of mountains rather than nuggets, had
not little stimulated at once the lovers of
adventure and of lucre. Whether young
Christopher had perused the glowing pages of
the Venetian voyager we are not informed.
Yet it may be con niectured with the highest
degree of probability that he had. At the
close of his first voyage he affirmed that he
had returned from "Cipango." In letter
written in 1904 he says-'I reached, on the
18th of May, the province of Mango, which
| is contiguous to that of Cathay. From
Ciguara, in the country of Veragua, it is only
! ten days journey to the Ganges." Reference
! to the map of Behaim will show that our
navigator considered himself to have been, at
the time specified on the northern shores of
China, somewhere near the district
living to the north of the tropic of
Cancer, which is assigned to the "konig," or
king, ''Von Mangi." The mere fact that
Columbus gives to the lands which he visits
the names of countries described by Marco
Polo, is tolerable strong circumstantial evil
dence that he was in search of those regions.
If, however, the fables of travellers did
not give color and character to his enter
prise, there we're facts of very pslpable and
suggestive order which could not but operate
powerfully upon his mind. No state had ex-
ercised more influence in European politics,
for the space of hundred aud fifty years,
than the diminutive republic of Venice. Her
doges were emperors; they figure as the great
interventionists of their day; her merchants
were princes; her dwellings were palaces
Before the gorgeous portal of San Marco
stood the banner-poles that once had
borne the standards of Cyprus, Gambia,
and Morea. When Mohammed III was
threatening Constantinople, the last of the
imperial race of Byzantium sent, in his emer-
! gency, ambassadors to beg the aid of the city
of waters. Venice was recognized as the
| sovereign of the seas. The annual mystic
marriage of the Adriatic was far from being a
meaningless ceremony. And the cause of this
was no mystery. Venice had been for hun
dreds of years the entrepot for the European
trade with India. Upon the bosom of the
Canal Giudeca rocked argosies fraught with
the tine-spun produce of the looms of Cash
mere, the gittering yield of Goconda $ mines,
the spices, perfumes, and dyes gathered on
! the banks Of the sacred Ganges.
Even now the swarthy belle of many an
Egyptian village bears unwilling testimony
to the commercial supremacy once enjoyed
by the Queen of the Adriatic. No more
! goodly ornament does she boast than the
string of Venetian sequins which crowns her
brow. The coin of the republic was the
| recognized standard of pecuniary value, the
medium through which the hostility of the
lshmaelite was converted into commercial
urbanity.
The kingdoms of Spain and Portugal we're
| quite capable of appreciating the advantages
derived by their more fortunately situated
neighbor, from her direct intercourse with
the east; and nothing was nearer to the heart
of the sovereigns of those countries than the
discovery of some other mode of intercommu-
nication for themselves than the Veneto-
! AleXandrian. For the sea-hOard nations of
! Western Europe this was the great CONNER
cal problem of the day. 1t suggested it
! gave character, to all their geogra ohical en-
terprise.
! And it was the design of Columbus to solve
this problem. So far was he from conceiving
of any necessity for the existence of o balanc-
ing continent, hitherto unknown, that never,
to the end of his days, did he even dream of
! the possibility of the existence OF such a con-
tinent. He seems to have supposed-at least
he strenuously, not to say Indignantly, claims
that his achievement has been to reach the
shores Of India, and the regions described in
Marco Polo's letters of gold. An extant letter
written by him, in the year 1900, contains the
assertion that ''if any one does not give him
credit for having discovered the remaining
parts of India, it simply arises from personal
hostility" towards him. In letter
addressed by him to Pope Alex
ander, in 1902, only four years before
his death, he says, venturing largely upon the
meagre geographical information of his Holi-
ness: 81 discovered fourteen hundred islands
and three hundred and thirty y-three leagues OF
the coast of Asia" Over these islands it be.
comes us to cast the decent veil of charity
unless, indeed, we allow ourselves to suppose
that our worthy navigator always kept re.
miniscence of Madeira in sight. Rut what OF
his statement regarding the 333 leagues OF
Asiatic coast? The claim to have made this
discovery, aside from certain obvious moral
inferences, which it not very feebly suggests
compels the conclusion that this, which, OF
course, he never did at all, was what he had
always desired to do.
w. S. Turner sends us Arthur'S Lad1I,
Home Magazine and Tile Chtdren's Hour fol
February, both of which are nicely illustrated
and contain much entertaining literary mat
ter adapted to the wants of readers of al
ages