FACTS AND FANCIES FOR THE CURIOUS FROM THE HARVEST-FIELDS OF LITERATURE

PREFACE

The electrotype plates of a compilation which maintained remarkable popularity for more than thirty years, “Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest Fields of Literature,” having been destroyed in the fire which wrecked the extensive plant of the J. B. Lippincott Company in November, 1899, the publishers requested the compiler to prepare a companion volume on similar lines. Like its predecessor, at once grave and sportive, the present miscellany offers, as Butler says, “a running banquet that hath much variety, but little of a sort.” It is a handy book for the shady nook in summer, or the cosey fireside in winter; for the traveller in a parlor-car, or on an ocean-steamer; for the military post, or the wardroom of a war-ship; for the waiting-room of a doctor or a dentist; for the stray half-hour whenever or wherever it may chance. It is not for a class of readers, but for the multitude. Even the scholar, who will find little in its pages with which he is unfamiliar, will have ready reference to facts and fancies which are not always within convenient reach. Even the captains

of industry, in moments of relaxation, may find in its manifold topics something more than what Autolycus calls “unconsidered trifles.” It makes no pretension to systematic completeness; it is at best, fragmentary, but as we are told in “Guesses at Truth,” a dinner of fragments is often the best dinner, and in the absence of a uniform web, patchwork may have a charm of its own.

6Literature, as an English writer remarks, is “not a matter of paper and ink, but a human voice speaking to human beings; a voice, or rather a collection of voices, from generation to generation, speaking to men and women of the present time.” To echo these voices the excursionist must not only follow the trail over beaten tracks, but must ramble through devious by-ways. He must be classed with those who endeavor, as Lord Bacon puts it, “out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, records, fragments of stories, passages of books, and the like, to save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.” The results of the literary activity of this wonder-working age and the marvels and miracles of the ever-widening field of science are, as Coleridge says, “not in everybody’s reach, and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more.”

For permission to select passages from copyrighted books, the grateful acknowledgments of the compiler are due to Messrs. Harper & Brothers and D. Appleton & Company, The Judge Company, publishers of Leslie’s Weekly, Prof. R. B. Anderson of Wisconsin, and Hon. Hampton L. Carson, of Philadelphia. Indebtedness is also acknowledged to writers and publishers whose copyrights have expired by limitation.

AMERICANA

The Norse Adventures

“What parts of the American coasts that adventurous Icelander, Bjarne Herjulfson, saw cannot be determined with certainty,” says that learned antiquarian, Professor R. B. Anderson, “but from the circumstances of the voyage, the course of the winds, the direction of the currents, and the presumed distance between each sight of land, there is reason to believe that the first land that Bjarne saw in the year 986 was the present Nantucket; the second, Nova Scotia; and the third, Newfoundland. Thus he was the first European whose eyes beheld any part of the American continent.”

But Bjarne made no exploration of the shores, and could take back no definite report of them. What little he had to say, however, stimulated the curiosity of Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, and aroused a determination to go in quest of the unknown lands. He bought Bjarne’s ship and set sail, in the year 1000, with a crew of thirty-five men, far away to the southwest of Greenland. They landed in Helluland (Newfoundland), afterwards in Markland (Nova Scotia), and eventually found their way to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, or Buzzard’s Bay, or Narragansett Bay, the exact locality being disputed by local antiquarians. The likelihood 10seems to favor Fall River. Finding abundance of grapes, they called the place of their sojourn Vinland. They remained there two years, and on their return to Greenland, another expedition was fitted out by Leif’s brother Thorwald. But Leif is entitled to the credit of being the first pale-faced man who planted his feet on the American continent.

The Icelandic Sagas

The old Norse narrative writings are called “Sagas,” a word which, as John Fiske remarks, we are in the habit of using in English as equivalent to legendary or semi-mythical narratives. To cite a saga as authority for a statement seems, therefore, to some people as inadmissible as to cite a fairy-tale. In the class of Icelandic sagas to which that of Erik the Red belongs, we have quiet and sober narrative, not in the least like a fairy-tale, but often much like a ship’s log. Whatever such narrative may be, it is not folk-lore. These sagas are divisible into two well-marked classes. In the one class are the mythical or romantic sagas, composed of legendary materials; they belong essentially to the literature of folk-lore. In the other class are the historical sagas, with their biographies and annals. These writings give us history, and often very good history. They come down to us in a narrative form which stamps them as accurate and trustworthy chronicles.

Foreknowledge

Strenuous efforts have been made in the interest of the Portuguese descendants of Columbus to depreciate the importance of the Norse discoveries of America. Not 11only has the Americanist Society—whose members devote much of their time to the study of the pre-Columbian history of the Western Continent—traced in genuine sagas full particulars of the voyages and settlements of the Norsemen, from the first expedition in 986 to the last in 1347, but they have shown that Columbus, during a visit to Iceland in 1477, must have been informed of the Norse discoveries, and must have profited by the knowledge thus acquired.

Erikson and Columbus

If we are bound by circumstances to put Columbus in the forefront, we are not bound to ignore an early discovery for the reality of which there is so much authentic evidence. Sceptical comments come from critics who have not sufficient knowledge of Norse customs or of Norse literature, and are consequently not in a position to judge fairly the amount of credence to be put in Scandinavian tradition. Experience with oral tradition as exhibited among the Aryans of India might have suggested that the old Western mistrust of that method of transmitting information was founded in ignorance alone. For we now know that it is quite possible to hand down the longest statements through ages, without loss or change. But in the present case the written word has come in aid of oral tradition, and the oldest records of Leif Erikson’s discovery of Vinland are so near the period of the event that the chain of testimony may be regarded as practically complete. It is all but certain that Leif Erikson landed on the main continent, whereas it is not at all certain, but extremely

problematical, whether Columbus ever saw, much less 12set foot on, the continent of America. The probability is that he did not get nearer than the Bahamas.

The result of modern investigation has been to reduce the glory of Columbus considerably, and to raise questions and doubts concerning him which, if they cannot be answered satisfactorily, must carry the depreciating movement farther. The prior discovery of the Northmen has been taken out of the realm of fable and established as an historical fact. On the other hand, the visit of the Northmen did not lead to permanent settlement. They may have colonized a little. They may have had relations with some of the American Indians, and even have taught the aborigines some of the Norse sagas. But they did not stay in the new land. After a longer or shorter period they sailed away, and left it finally, and no emigration from Iceland to Vinland was incited by the tales they told on their return home.

The incident was ended so far as they were concerned, and it was not reopened. Now, in the case of Columbus, it may be said that the first step was quickly followed up, and that there was no solution of continuity in the development of the new world. Certainty and perfectly clear demonstration is not to be had in the matter, but Columbus has the advantage of tradition, of familiarity, of the facility with which an at least apparent connection is established between the man and what came after him.

The Cabots

On the 24th of June, 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, living in England, with his young son Sebastian, first saw, from the deck of a British vessel, “the 13dismal cliffs of Labrador,” through the early morning mist. This was nearly fourteen months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the mainland of South America. Thenceforth the continent of North America belonged to England by right of discovery. Sailing along the coast many leagues without the sight of a human being, but observing that the country was inhabited, he landed and planted a large cross with the standard of England, and by its side the Venetian banner of St. Mark,—the one in loyalty to his king, Henry VII., the other in affection for Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic. From that hour the fortunes of this continent were to be swayed by the Anglo-Saxon race. The name of Cabot’s vessel—the first to touch our American shores—was Matteo (Matthew).

The Name America

Amalric was the name which compacted the old ideal of heroism and leadership common to all Germanic tribes, the ideal that stands out most clearly in the character of Beowulf—the Amal of Sweden, Denmark, and Saxon England. It meant what the North European hero stories described,—“The man who ruled because he labored for the benefit of all.”

In Norman France this name was softened to Amaury. Thus, a certain theologian who was born in the twelfth century at Bène, near Chartres, is called indifferently Amalric of Bène or Amaury of Chartres. England in the thirteenth century could show no more commanding figure than Simon of Montfort l’Amaury, Earl of Leicester, to whom King Henry once said, “If I fear the thunder, I fear you, Sir Earl, more than all the thunder 14in the world.” A Norman Amalric was that Earl Simon, creator of a new force, and in its outcome a democratic one, too, in English politics. J. R. Green says, “It was the writ issued by Earl Simon that first summoned the merchant and trader to sit beside the knight of the shire, the baron, and the bishop in the parliament of the realm.” In Italy, after the Gothic invasion, the northern name suffered comparatively slight euphonic changes, which can be easily traced. As borne by a bishop of Como in 865 it became Amelrico or Amelrigo. But the juxtaposition of the two consonants “l” and “r” presented a difficulty in pronunciation

which the Italians avoided: they changed “lr,” first, to double “r,” and then to a single “r.” Nevertheless, six hundred years after Bishop Amelrigo died, the Florentine merchant, explorer, and author—third son of Anastasio Vespucius, notary of Florence—usually retained the double “r” in his own signature, writing “Amerrigo Vespucci,” and, by the way, accenting his Gothic name on the penultimate (Ameri´go, not Ame´rigo).

The orthography of Amelric was still in this transitional stage in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. In Spain the name must have been rare, since it was often used alone to designate the Florentine during his residence in that country, the audit books in the archives of Seville containing entries in this form: “Ha de haber Amerigo.” There was, apparently, no other Amerigo or Amerrigo in the Spanish public service early in the sixteenth century.

We must look again toward the north for the scene of the next important change, and among the men of a northern race for its author. Martin Waldseemueller, 15a young German geographer at St. Dié, in the Vosgian Mountains, whose imagination had been stirred by reading, as news of the day, Amerigo’s account of his voyages to the New World, bestowed the name America upon the continental regions brought to light by the Florentine. It is not enough to say, with John Boyd Thacher (in his “Columbus,” Volume III.; compare also Thacher’s valuable “Continent of America”), that Waldseemueller “suggested” this designation. As editor of the Latin work, the “Cosmographiæ Introductio” (May 5, 1507), he stated most distinctly, with emphatic reiteration, his reasons for this name-giving; placed conspicuously in the margin the perfect geographical name, “America,” and at the end of the volume put Vespucci’s narrative. Further, on a large map of the world, separately published, he drew that fourth part of the earth “quarta orbis pars,” which was the

“Introductio’s” novel feature, and marked it firmly “America.”

The contention of Professor von der Hagen (in his letter to Humboldt, published in 1835 in “Neues Jahrbuch der Berliner Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache,” Heft 1, pp. 13–17), that Waldseemueller was distinctly conscious of giving the new continent a name of Germanic origin, may appeal to enthusiastic Germanists, but the original text clearly opposes that conclusion. “Quia Americus invenit,” says the Introductio, “Americi terra sive America nuncupare licet.” But the case stands otherwise, when we ask why Europeans generally caught up the word, as a name appropriate to the new Terra Firma of vaguely intimated contours, but of defined and appalling difficulty—a vaster, untried field for the exercise of proved Amal ability. Its association 16with so many men before Vespucci certainly commended the name to northern taste.

We may be thankful that no one has succeeded in the various attempts that have been made to call our part of the world by the relatively very weak name Columbia, which signifies Land of the Dove. We may be thankful that “America” means so much more than “Europe”—in respect to which Meredith Townsend says, “The people of the ‘setting sun’—that seems to be the most probable explanation of the word Europe.” The “setting sun” is precisely the wrong thing. And if we wish to get somewhat nearer to the time of the name-giving of the Old World Continents, we shall find that Herodotus says, “Nor can I conjecture why, as the earth is one, it has received three names, Asia, Europe, and Libya—the names of women; ... nor can I learn who it was that established these artificial distinctions, or whence were derived these appellations.”

We scarcely need to point out the appropriateness of a name which exactly fits the Saxon, Teutonic, and Latin conditions here. It is also clear that we need not ask whether Amerigo Vespucci was worthy to have his name given to a hemisphere. His name, it has been shown plainly, was but the cup that held the essence.

What it Cost to Discover America

As John Fiske remarks, “It is not easy to give an accurate account of the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history. Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle and mislead us.” Historians are inclined to accept the statement of Las 17Casas with regard to the amount of Queen Isabella’s contribution, whether it came from a pledge of the crown jewels, or from the Castile treasury, but the amount of the loan from Santangel, and of the levy upon the port of Palos, is open to question. The researches of Harrisse have been considered authoritative, but now comes the German investigator, Professor Ruge, whose estimates involve a large reduction from calculations heretofore made. He says,—

“The cost of the armament of the first fleet of Columbus, consisting of three small vessels, is given in all the documents as 1,140,000 maravedis. What this sum represents in our own money, however, is not so easy to determine, as the opinions upon the value of a maravedi vary greatly. The maravedi—the name is of Moorish origin—was a small coin used at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century. All prices were expressed in maravedis, even if they ran into the millions. It is, however, a fact well known that almost all coins which continue to bear one name decrease in value in the course of centuries. The Roman silver denarius sank finally to common copper coins, known in France as ‘dermer,’ in England as ‘d’ and in Germany as ‘pfennig.’ The original gulden-gold, as the name indicates—has long since become a silver piece which nowhere has the value of fifty cents. So, also, the value of the maravedi became less and less, until a century ago it was hardly equal to a pfennig (one-quarter of a cent). One may also reason backward

that it was much more valuable four centuries ago.”

Ruge comes to the conclusion, after the examination of various decrees of Ferdinand, that the value of a maravedi was about 2.56 pfennig, or less than three-quarters 18of a cent in modern money. Therefore the contribution of 1,140,000 maravedis made by Queen Isabella was, he says, 29,184 marks, or about $7296, without taking into consideration the higher purchasing power of money in Columbus’s days. “The city of Palos also,” adds the article, “had to furnish out of its own means two small ships manned for twelve months. The cost to the State, therefore, of the journey of discovery was not more than 30,000 marks ($7500). Of this sum the admiral received an annual salary of 1280 marks ($320); the captains, Martin, Juan, and Anton Perez, each 768 marks ($192); the pilots, 542 to 614 marks each ($128 to $153), and a physician only 153 marks and 60 pfennigs ($38.50). The sailors received for the necessaries of life, etc., each month 1 ducat, valued at 375 maravedis, about 9 marks and 60 pfennigs ($2.45).”

The American Indians

With reference to the ancestors of the native tribes, and their probable origin, the following syllabus of Charles Hallock’s paper in the American Antiquarian is interesting:

The Indians, or Indigenes, of both North and South America, originated from a civilization of high degree which occupied the subequatorial belt some ten thousand years ago, while the glacial sheet was still on. Population spread northward as the ice receded. Routes of exodus diverging from the central point of departure are plainly marked by ruins and lithic records. The subsequent settlements in Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California indicate the successive stages of advance, as well as the persistent struggle to 19maintain the ancient civilization against reversion and the catastrophes of nature. The varying architecture of the valleys, cliffs, and mesas is an intelligible expression of the exigencies which stimulated the builders. The gradual distribution of population over the higher latitudes in after years was supplemented by accretions from Europe and Northern Asia centuries before the coming of Columbus. Wars and reprisals were the natural and inevitable results of a mixed and degenerated population with different dialects. The mounds

which cover the midcontinental areas, isolated and in groups, tell the story thereof. The Korean immigration of the year 544, historically cited, which led to the founding of the Mexican empire in 1325, was but an incidental contribution to the growing population of North America. So also were the very much earlier migrations from Central America by water across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and Arkansas.

The Landing of the Pilgrims