Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-02-01
COLUMBUS. PERSONALITY.
The Great Obscurity That Surrounds thu
life of the Discoyerer


results of the first voyage across the
Atlantic, we are tempted to conceive
the leader of the expedition as a man
who has broken free from all traditions
On the contrary, he was held fast in
the dark prison of middle age theories,
in the letters of blind belief in author
ity; he was lost in the labyrinth of
sophistical mysticism-lost as but few
of his contemporaries, and among them
still fewer Sailors were lost. Like Don
QuiXote, he dreamt of the revival of the
faded chivalry; he looked for renewal
of the Crusades, for the destruction of
every enemy of the holy faith by fire
and sword. He believed absolutely in
the fulfillment of childish prophecies
in his own person; and declared himself
the apostle of the Triune God.
This marvellous contrast between the
person of the discoverer and his achieve
ments explains the fact that the inter-
est of his contemporaries was SO soon
diverted from the man and directed to
his deeds. This, too, is the reason why
we have so little information about the
life and development of this
wonderful man. A literary quarrel
has sprung up concerning almost
every important event in his
life. The year of his birth has been
holly disputed; nor is it yet known in
what house he first saw the light.
These questions are important, but to
this day we cannot answer them with
certainty; the materials at our COM
mand only enable us to reckon up
1lDO1~ L.
tidence. We know nothing of his edu-
cation, and are justifably suspicious of
the statement in an old prejudiced life,
attributed to his son, that he studied
at Pavia. 1t is not known when he
went to Portugal, nor when he pro-
ceeded to Spain. We do not even know
where he first set foot In the new
world. 1t is impossible to identify
with certainty the islanl which he
named San Salvador. There are strong
reasons for supposing that the life en-
titled Historic, which appeared in the
name of his son Ferdinand, does not,
in the form in which we have 1.-THE
printed edition of 1571-owe its origin
to Ferdinand: 1t follows that the state
ments of this book cannot be accepted
without careful consideration. Our
knowledge of the admiral's life has
hitherto been confidently built upon
this book; take it away, and
the whole structure becomes I'M
steady. In fact there is not
a single great man whose genius has
left its mark upon the world about
whose personality there is SO much
doubt as is the case with Columbus
Let us try, with the help of the latest
and most trustworthy researches, to
trace the story of the life and develop
ment of the great man of Genoa. A
GenOese we may certainly call him,
though one BIASED historian would
have us believe that he was born in
Corsica. He comes, then, from city
which has had Il great influence on the
history of commerce. We may assert
with absolute certainty that we owe to
Italian seamen the first accurate knowl-
edge of the Atlantic, the first maps of
The eastern parts of the ocean. The
use of the compass and its adaptation
to nautical purposes began in Italy.
With this trustworthy guide over the
boundless prospect the Italian seaman
committed his ship with confidence to
the ocean waves; and it was the prac-
teal Italian sailor who, with the help
| of the magnetic needle, made those
wonderful charts which from the
thirteenth century onward represent to
| us with marvellous fidelity, almost
with the accuracy of the mirror
the coast of the whole Mcditer-
ranean, from the foot of Mount
7 oh hnT nd hn c10 r.
to the Pillars of Hercules. Fortunately
a number of these documents have been
| preserved in archives and libraries; and
though the earliest parchment of the
| kind which comes down to us bears
the date 1911, we may infer from the
| high degree of accuracy that had even
then been reached, that years had
passed since the task of making these
surveys had commenced. There is no
more striking evidence of the extensive
| knowledge then possessed of the west
ern ocean than is presented by these
| remarkable relics, and it is of the great
est Importance that we should know
| what progress had been made in the
middle of the fifteenth century in the
| acquisition of clear and definite knowl-
@uSC VI VIC SCTcGCncS VI Ocedn III the
neighborhood of Europe and north
| Africa, for it was at this time that GER
tain ideas were gradually taking a
more definite shape, group of ideas
which eliminated, towards the end of
the century, in the plan of voyage
westward across the ocean; and Column
bus was the first to put the plan into
execution.-Dr b. Ruge, in Harper's
| Magazine,