The Navigator
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, MARINER. By Samuel Eliot Morison. (Faber, 2Is.) PROFESSOR MORISON, the distinguished Harvard historian, has already written a full-length Life of Columbus, of which this may be said to be a short and lively version for the general reader. Few historians are better fitted for the task, for Professor Morison was (as he says) a sailor before he became an historian, and as official naval historian of the Second War he holds the rank of Rear-Admiral USNR. His study convinces, not only because it embodies much research that was clearly a labour of love, but because he has followed under sail in Columbus's tracks, observ- ing, checkingf, confirming or rejecting the reliability of his written
evidence. It is this which gives the book its quality and makes us tolerant of the author's occasional irritation with 'armchair admirals and library navigators.' There is a touch of marine poetry about this account of sailing before the trades, where Columbus sailed, amid 'the constant play of light and colour on the bellying square sails (silver in moonlight, black in starlight, cloth of gold at sunset, white as the clouds themselves at noon) the gorgeous deep blue of the sea, flecked with whitecaps, the fascination of seeing new stars arise. . . .' The title justly indicates the merits and limitations of the book. It is Columbus the intrepid sailor from Genoa whom the author admires, Columbus the brilliant navigator who first made landfall on San Salvador. The so-called 'colonisation' that followed made a tragic contrast with the bravery under canvas. The object in the minds of his Spanish masters, his shipmates and—one is bound to add— in his own, was the search for gold. Gold, spices and wealth drew Europeans into the search for India and China. Only a passing reference here and there to the greater glory of God, or the odd pious prelude on the importance of native conver- sions, breaks into the monotonous greed of the story on land. As one of Columbus's companions remarks after an exhausting journey, 'out of covetousness for gold we all kept strong and lusty.' Hence the brutal extermination of the harmless Tainos. Even allowing for the normal brutality of the age it remains a shocking story. On land Columbus has small claim to a halo. He was obstinate, argumentative, often plain stupid. No wonder others were allowed to breach his monopoly while he faced mutiny in the Indies and jail at home. Professor Morison does not face these unpleasant aspects as squarely as be might. The truth is that one feels no compassion as the great sailor dwindles into a rather ignoble figure trailing round Spain after the court in pursuance of his financial claims.
Professor Morison writes vigorously, directly, ' with the easy assurance of the historian who knows his ground (or should one say his waters) without charts. It may nevertheless be a trifle disconcerting for English readers to find Ferdinand and Isabella giving Columbus 'the royal OK' and be told that 'the Admiral's latitude was screwy.' Such colloquial breezes are, however, less likely to blow the reader off course than those other anachronisms —'logistic supply,' assigned stations,' task forces' and the like— in which one seems to be sniffing the hot air of the Pentagon rather tban the ozone of the quarterdeck.
CHARLES WILSON
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