COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library
COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library
DESCRIPTIONS OF NATUEE BY COLUMBUS. 421 the persecutions which he had to encounter, into a feeling of melancholy and morbid enthusiasm. In the heroic ages of the Portuguese and Castilian races it was not thirst for gold alone, as has been asserted from ignorance of the national character at that period, but rather a general spirit of daring, that led to the prosecution of distant voyages. The names of Hayti, Cubagua, and Darien, acted on the imaginations of men in the beginning of the sixteenth century in the same manner as those of Tinian and Otaheite have done in more recent times, since Anson and Cook. If the narrations of far distant lands then drew the youth of the and Southern Ger- Spanish peninsula, Flanders, Lombardy, many, to rally around the victorious standard of an imperial leader on the ridges of the Andes, or the burning plains of Uraba and Coro, the milder influence of a more modern civilisation, when all portions of the earth's surface were more generally accessible, gave other motives and directions to the restless longing for distant travels. A passionate love of the study of nature, which originated chiefly in the north, glowed in the breast of all ; intellectual expansion of views became associated with enlargement of knowledge ; whilst the poetic and sentimental tone of feeling, peculiar to the epoch of which we speak, has, since the close of the last century, been identified with literary compositions, whose forms were unknown to former ages. On casting a retrospective glance on the great discoveries which prepared the way for this modern tone of feeling, our attention is especially attracted by the descriptions of nature which we owe to the pen of Columbus. It is only recently that we have been in possession of his own ship's journal, his letters to the Chancellor Sanchez, to the Donna Juana de la Torre, governess of the Infant Don Juan, and to Queen Isabella. I have already attempted, in my critical investigation of the history of the geography of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,* to show with what depth of feeling for nature the great discoverer was endowed, and how he described the earth and the new heaven opened to his eyes, (viage nuevo al nuevo cielo i mundo quefasta entonces estaba en occulto,} with a beauty and simplicity of expression which can only be ade- * Humboldt, Examen critique de Vhistoire de la Geographic du nouveau Continent t. iii. pp. 227-248,
422 COSMOS. quately appreciated by those who are conversant with the ancient vigour of the language at the period in which ho wrote. The physiognomy and forms of the vegetation, the impenetrable thickets of the forests " in which one can scarcely distinguish the stems to which the several blossoms and leaves belong," the wild luxuriance of the flowering soil along the humid shores, and the rose-coloured flamingoes which, fishing at early morn at the mouth of the rivers, impart animation to the scenery all in turn arrested the attention of the old mariner as he sailed along the shores of Cuba, between the small Lucayan islands and the Jardinillos, which I too have visited. Each newly discovered land seems to him more beautiful than the one last described, and he deplores his inability to find words in which to express the sweet impressions awakened in his mind. Wholly unacquainted with botany (although, through the influence of Arabian and Jewish physicians, some superficial knowledge of plants had been diffused in Spain), he was led, by a simple love of nature, to individualise all the unknown forms he beheld. Thus, in Cuba alone, he distinguishes seven or eight different species of palms, more beautiful and taller than the date-tree (variedades de palmas superiores a las nuestras en su belleza y altura). He informs his learned friend Anghiera, that he has seen pines and palms (palmeta et pinetd] wonderfully associated together in one and the same plain; and he even so acutely observed the vegetation around him, that he was the first to notice that there were pines 011 the mountains of Cibao, whose fruits are not fir-cones but berries like the olives of the Axarafe de Sevilla; and further, as I have already remarked, Columbus* already separated the genus Podocarpus from the family of Abietineee. " The beauty of the new land," says the discoverer, " far surpasses the Campina de Cordova. The trees are bright, with an ever-verdant foliage, and are always laden with fruit. The plants on the ground are high and flowering. The air is warm as that of April in Castile, and the nightingale sings more melodiously than words can describe. At night the song of other smaller birds resounds sweetly, and I have also heard our grasshoppers and frogs. Once I came to a deeply * See p. 285.
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DESCRIPTIONS OF NATUEE BY COLUMBUS. 421<br />
the persecutions which he had to encounter, into a feeling of<br />
melancholy and morbid enthusiasm.<br />
In the heroic ages of the Portuguese and Castilian races it<br />
was not thirst for gold alone, as has been asserted from<br />
ignorance of the national character at that period, but rather<br />
a general spirit of daring, that led to the prosecution of distant<br />
voyages. The names of Hayti, Cubagua, and Darien, acted<br />
on the imaginations of men in the beginning of the sixteenth<br />
century in the same manner as those of Tinian and Otaheite<br />
have done in more recent times, since Anson and Cook. If<br />
the narrations of far distant lands then drew the youth of the<br />
and Southern Ger-<br />
Spanish peninsula, Flanders, Lombardy,<br />
many, to rally around the victorious standard of an imperial<br />
leader on the<br />
ridges of the Andes, or the burning plains of<br />
Uraba and Coro, the milder influence of a more modern civilisation,<br />
when all portions of the earth's surface were more<br />
generally accessible, gave other motives and directions to the<br />
restless longing for distant travels. A passionate love of the<br />
study of nature, which originated chiefly in the north, glowed<br />
in the breast of all ; intellectual expansion of views became<br />
associated with enlargement of knowledge ; whilst the poetic<br />
and sentimental tone of feeling, peculiar to the epoch of<br />
which we speak, has, since the close of the last century, been<br />
identified with literary compositions, whose forms were<br />
unknown to former ages.<br />
On casting a retrospective glance on the great discoveries<br />
which prepared the way for this modern tone of feeling, our<br />
attention is especially attracted by the descriptions of nature<br />
which we owe to the pen of Columbus. It is only recently that<br />
we have been in possession of his own ship's journal, his letters<br />
to the Chancellor Sanchez, to the Donna Juana de la Torre,<br />
governess of the Infant Don Juan, and to Queen Isabella. I<br />
have already attempted, in my critical investigation of the<br />
history of the geography of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,*<br />
to show with what depth of feeling for nature the<br />
great discoverer was endowed, and how he described the<br />
earth and the new heaven opened to his eyes, (viage nuevo al<br />
nuevo cielo i mundo quefasta entonces estaba en occulto,} with<br />
a beauty and simplicity of expression which can only be ade-<br />
*<br />
Humboldt, Examen critique de Vhistoire de la Geographic du<br />
nouveau Continent t. iii. pp. 227-248,