author in the front rank of the
canonizers.

On the other hand, those who have taken the unfavorable view of
Columbus, have done their utmost to divest him of most of the honors
which the general voice of history has assigned him as America's
greatest discoverer. The established fact that parts of North America
were seen centuries before, though no permanent settlement nor
continuity of intercourse ensued, has been used to discredit him, though
he was undeniably the pioneer who set out with a plan to discover, and
did discover by design, what others found only by accident. His
geographical ideas were derived, they say, from Behaim and Toscanelli;
his nautical skill from Pinzon; his certainty of finding new lands from
Alonzo Sanchez; his courage and daring from some of his fellow-voyagers.

We are pointed to his double reckoning on his first voyage, by which he
deceived his sailors as to their true distance from Spain, as evidence
of a false nature. He is charged with ambition, cupidity, and arrogance,
in demanding titles, dignities, and money as fruits of his discoveries.
He was, we are told, a fanatic, a visionary, a tyrant, a buccaneer, a
liar, and a slave-trader. He was proud, cruel, and vindictive.

What manner of man, then, was this Columbus, with whose name the trump
of fame has been busy so long? As to his person, we have no verified
portrait, while the likenesses (of all periods) claiming to represent
his features, present irreconcilable differences. But here is the
description of him given by Herrera: "Columbus was tall of stature,
long-visaged, of a majestic aspect, his nose hooked, his eyes gray, of a
clear complexion, somewhat ruddy. He was witty and pleasant, well-spoken
and eloquent, moderately grave, affable to strangers, to his own family
mild. His conversation was discreet, which gained him the affection of
those he had to deal with, and his presence attracted respect, having an
air of authority and grandeur. He was a man of undaunted courage and
high thoughts, patient, unmoved in the many troubles and adversities
that attended him, ever relying on the Divine Providence." Gomara
describes him as "a man of good height, strong-limbed, with a long
countenance, fresh and rosy in aspect, somewhat given to anger, hardy in
exposure to fatigues."

Benzoni says that Columbus was "a man of exalted intellect, of a
pleasant and ingenuous countenance."

Bernaldez, the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, who kn