r 



6 COSMOS. 



fied witn literary compositions, whose forms were unLiicwn 

 to former ao^es. 



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 h'« 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 Isa- 

 bella. 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 ?iuevo al nucvo 

 cielo i miindo que fasta entonces estaba en occidtd) with a 

 beauty and simplicity of expression which can only be ade- 

 quately appreciated by those who are conversant with the an- 

 cient vigor of the language at the period in which he wrote. 



The physiognomy and forms of the vegetation, the impene 

 trable thickets of the forests, " in which one can scarcely dis- 

 tinguish the stems to which the several blossoms and leaves 

 belong," the wild luxuriance of the flowering soil along the 

 humid shores, and the rose-colored 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 mar- 

 iner 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 ii?. 

 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 individualize all the 

 unknown forms he beheld. Thus, in Cuba alone, he distin- 

 guishes seven or eight different species of palms, more beau- 

 liful and taller than the date-tree [variedades de pahnas su- 

 periores a las nuestrao en su belleza y altura). He informs 

 his learned friend Anghiera that he has seen pines and palms 

 [palmeta et pineta) wonderfully associated together in one 

 and tfie same plain ; and he even so acutely observed the 

 vegetation around him, that he was the first to notice that 



* Humboldt, Examen Critique de VHistoire de la Geographie du 

 vnuveau Continent, t, iii., p 227-248. 



