396 CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS. 



Acre, where the ocean and the extreme part of India 

 meet under the equinoctial line, and at the supposed 

 prominence of the earth. This prominence he further 

 supposed to be of great height, though its sides rose 

 slowly and smoothly, the shores of Paria being situated 

 on its remote borders. As one ascended, no doubt, the 

 land would be found still more fertile, the scenery more 

 beautiful, the air more serene and celestial. There, in 

 a word, must be the original abode of our first parents, 

 the terrestrial Paradise, and there must still be preserved 

 its primitive and blissful delights, though accessible to 

 mortal feet only by divine permission. Such was the 

 strange mixture of speculation and science, of fancy and 

 fact, suggested to the mind of Columbus by the current 

 of fresh water rushing into the gulf of Paria, and spring- 

 ing, as he believed, from the tree of life in the garden 

 of Eden ! 



We have made these remarks in the train of an obser- 

 vation upon the ardent temperament of Columbus, and 

 to prove that his self-command never was owing to in- 

 difference of feeling. And how much is our estimate of 

 his fortitude and his magnanimity enhanced, when we 

 find that his worst misfortunes and his worst enemies 

 came upon him in the full career of these splendid vi- 

 sions ; that they checked and shackled him while yet pant- 

 ing, within view, as he believed, of the consummation 

 of his hopes, his happiness, and his glory. No wonder 

 that, succeeding as far as he had succeeded, he should have 

 been anxious for his own future fame, and unwilling that 

 what he had already acquired should be lost 10 him in 

 ignominy, or in oblivion. Hence the expedient he hit 

 upon in the tempest, to preserve a memorial of his dis- 

 covery, and the astonishing resolution with which he ef- 

 fected it, and the great relief it is known to have given 

 him. So in a similar case on his return-voyage 'I 

 could have supported this evil fortune with less grief,' he 

 says, ' had my person alone been in jeopardy. But it 

 was a cause of infinite sorrow and trouble to think, that 

 after having been illuminated from on high with faith and 

 certainty to undertake this enterprise ; after having vic- 

 toriously achieved it; and when on the point of convinc- 

 ing my opponents, and securing to your highness great 



