Landfall - 3

Landfall - 3

 In the preparations for this voyage, and in the conduct and accomplishment of it, the

personality of the man Columbus stands clearly revealed. He was seen at his best, as all

men are who have a chance of doing the thing for which they are best fitted. The

singleness of aim that can accomplish so much is made manifest in his dogged search for

means with which to make his voyage; and his Italian quality of unscrupulousness in the

means employed to attain a good end was exercised to the full. The, practical seaman in

him carried him through the easiest part of his task, which was the actual sailing of his

ships from Palos to Guanahani; Martin Alonso Pinzon could have done as much as that.

But no Martin Alonso Pinzon or any other man of that time known to history had the

necessary combination of defective and effective qualities that made Columbus, once he

had conceived his glorious hazy idea, spend the best years of his life, first in acquiring the

position that would make him listened to by people powerful enough to help him, and

then in besieging them in the face of every rebuff and discouragement. Another man,

proposing to venture across the unknown ocean to unknown lands, would have required a

fleet for his conveyance, and an army for his protection; but Columbus asked for what he

thought he had some chance of getting, and for the barest equipment that would carry him

across the water. Another man would at least have had a bodyguard; but Columbus relied

upon himself, and alone held his motley crew in the bonds of discipline. A Pinzon could

have navigated the fleet from Palos to Guanahani; but only a Columbus, only a man

burning with belief is himself and in his quest, could have kept that superstitious crowd

of loafers and malefactors and gaol-birds to their duties, and bent them to his will. He

was destined in after years for situations which were beyond his power to deal with, and

for problems that were beyond his grasp; but here at least he was supreme, master of

himself and of his material, and a ruler over circumstances. The supreme thing that he

had professed to be able to do and which he had guaranteed to do was, in the sublime

simplicity of his own phrase, "to discover new lands," and luck or no luck, help or

hindrance, he did it at the very first attempt and in the space of thirty-five days. And

although it was from the Pinta that the gun was fired, and the first loom of the actual land

seen in the early morning, I am glad to think that, of all the number of eager watching

men, it was Columbus who first saw the dim tossing light that told him his journey was at

an end.