"In search of Columbus" by Hunter Davies

This book, issued to mark the 500th anniversary of Columbus reaching America, has an unusual structure with its chapters alternating between the biography of Columbus and a travelogue as the author follows in the explorer's steps; thus Hunter Davies visits modern Genoa Portugal, Palos, the Bahamas, Seville, Haiti, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Valladolid. The modern adventures are, perhaps, the most interesting as the author a string of dodgy hotels in seedy towns. But the Columbus biography is also recounted and some of the more obvious legendary aspects are assessed.

In the end the author's summary is: “He was a man who made extraordinary discoveries and was a truly great navigator, but he was a bad conqueror and a bad governor.” (C 16)

I learned lots of interesting facts, quite apart from the main story:

• Prince Henry the Navigator (I read his biography which is reviewed here) set up his university of the sea at “the southern tip of Portugal ... a point near Cape St Vincent, said to have mystic significance. known for centuries as Promontorium Sacrum, or Sacred Promontory, which the Portuguese translated into Sagres.” (C 3)
• C sailed to Bristol to for wool but then went on to Iceland for fish. (C 3)
• C lived with his wife in Porto Santo off Madeira from 1480 to 1482; here his son Diego was born. He was given charts by his mother in law; his dead father in law had sailed under Henry the Navigator. A story is told in which he found a wrecked ship and rescued the helmsman who told him about a land on the other side of the ocean and draw a map before dying in the arms of Columbus. (C 3)
• A 1490 globe by Martin Behaim shows that it is littered with islands (including St Brendan, Cipnago and Candyn) all quite close to the Azors, the Canaries and the Cape Verde islands. (C 3)
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• By MartinBehaim1492.jpg: Encyclopedia Larousse illustree - 1898derivative work: PawełMM (talk) - MartinBehaim1492.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12185606
• The Pinta may have been a nickname meaning ‘painted one’ or whore. (C 7)
• The officers included: (C 7)
• Admiral (Columbus) in charge of fleet
• Captain responsible for ship (Columbus on Santa Maria, Martin Pinzon on Pinta, Vincente Pinzon on Nina)
• Master in charge of seamen, cargo, supplies, and sailing
• Pilot in charge of navigation
• Boatswain who organised the crew
• Columbus set sail on his First Voyage the day after all Jews had been expelled from Spain (the day before there were a lot of ships in harbour) (C 7)
• Columbus was only 9% out on distances travelled and he didn’t use an astrolabe. (C 7)
• First port of call was Gomera in the Canary Islands where he had a love interest! (C 7)
• Columbus fiddled his log to make the crew think that they were travelling smaller distances than they were, probably because he didn’t want them to worry about how they would return. (C 7)
• Bahamas first settled by English religious community on Eleuthera under William Sayle. (C 8)
• ‘Bahamas’ from Spanish ‘las islas de la baja mar’: the islands of the shallow sea (C 8)
• 700 islands in the Bahamas: 22 of them occupied. (C 8)
• Columbus describes ‘perros mudos’ (mute dogs, ie dogs that don’t bark?) on the Bahamas; perhaps normal dogs that hadn’t learned to bark like, so it is said, the dogs of the eskimoes. (C 9)
• ‘Hammock’ comes from Arawak word ‘hamaca’. (C 9)
• When Columbus, driven by a storm, landed in Lisbon the first person he encountered was Bartolomeo Dias “whose triumphal return to Lisbon in 1488 Columbus himself had witnessed.” (C 9)
• Portuguese King stabbed his own brother-in-law (C 9)
• Martin Pinzon arrived back in Palos in Pinta hours after Columbus returned on Nina; Pinzon went home and died five days later. (C 9)
• First European case of syphilis in 1494, one year after Columbus returned (C 11)
• Columbus noted Indians in Paria, Venezuela had handkerchiefs similar in design to those the Portuguese imported from Guinea. Evidence of pre-Colombian African - S American trade? (C 13)
• US Government stamps issued in 1893 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of [the year after] the voyage: 1c “Columbus in sight of land” shows him clean-shaven; 2c “The Landing of Columbus” (which occurred a few hours afterwards) shows him with a full beard. (C 21)

Some great quotes:

• “In the end, most able-bodied young men leave for good, to work elsewhere, abandoning a surplus of young women, who have no work at all, and a lot of children ...The older men often end up looking after three families, to all intents and purposes with three wives.” (C 14)
• “Being an economist is very much like being Columbus. You don't know where you are going, when you will arrive, and you don't recognise it when you get there, but it's all paid for by the government.” (C 16)
• “A rogue sees himself in every other man.” (C 17)

Very readable: 295 pages