ng, and were now
lying bare without sails.

These extracts shew how feeling for Nature in unlettered minds could
develop into an enthusiasm which begot to some extent its own power
of expression. Columbus was entirely deficient in all previous
knowledge of natural history; but he was gifted with deep feeling
(the account of the nocturnal visions in the _Lettera Rarissima_ is
proof of this)[9], mental energy, and a capacity for exact
observation which many of the other explorers did not possess, and
these faculties made up for what he lacked in education.

In Cuba alone, he distinguishes seven or eight
different species of palm more beautiful and taller than
the date tree; he informs his learned friend Anghiera
that he has seen pines and palms wonderfully associated
together in one and the same plain, and he even
so acutely observed the vegetation around him, that he
was the first to notice that there were pines in the
mountains of Cibao, whose fruits are not fir cones but
berries like the olives of the Axarafe de Sevilla.

(_Cosmos._)

Most of Vespucci's narratives of travel, especially his letters to
the Medici, only contain adventures and descriptions of manners and
customs. He lacked the originality and enthusiasm which gave the
power of the wing to Columbus.

That imposing Portuguese poem, the _Lusiad_ of Camoens, is full of
jubilation over the discovery of the New World. Camoens made his
notes of foreign places at first hand; he had served as a soldier,
fought at the foot of Atlas in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, had
doubled the Cape twice, and, inspired by a deep love for Nature, had
spent sixteen years in examining the phenomena of the ocean on the
Indian and Chinese shores. He was a great sea painter. His poetic and
inventive power remind one at times of Dante--for instance, in the
description of the Dream Face; and he pictures foreign lands with the
clearness and detail of the discoverers and later travellers. Here
and there his poetry is like the Diary of Columbus translated into
verse--epic verse.

He had the same fiery spirit, nerve, and fresh insight, with the
poet's gift added.

(None the less, the classic apparatus of deities in Thetys' _Apology_
is no adornment.)

Comparisons from Nature and animals are few but detailed:

E'en as the prudent ants which towards their nest
Bearing the apportioned heavy burden go,
Exercise all their