“Ifs” That Changed History.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 13, 27 March 1912, Page 12

“Ifs” That Changed History.

By

Albert Payson Tehune.

The greatest- events of history have often hung upon some small happening that at the time seemed to be of no importance. A word unspoken, a simple message misquoted, a chance that led a man to follow one road instead of another—on these petty things the fate of the whole World has hung. If some minor—often absurd—thing had or had not happened at a critical time the history of the nations and the inap of the earth would have been altered. IF COLUMBUS HAD KOT TURNED ASIDE FOR A NIGHT’S LODGING. Late one autumn afternoon, in 1491, two footsore, tired travellers plodded along the high road leading from Seville to Spain’s Portuguese frontier. One of the two was a mere lad. The other was a grizzled, ill clad man of 55. The grizled man was Christopher Columbus, a Genoese mariner. His few friends charitably called him a failure. The rest of the world laughed at him as a harmless lunatic.

Columbus had knocked about Europe sailing many seas, picking up a living sometimes as a soldier of fortune, sometimes as a mechanic. In nothing had he scored a real success. Wool comber, book peddler, merchant, (captain, pirate, fighter, his voyages had carried him far afield and taught him many strange and seemingly useless’ things. “Wherever ships have sailed,” he once wrote, “there have I journeyed.”

In the course of his wanderings in Scandinavian waters he heard from Norse sailors the old tale of Leif Ericson’s voyage to a wonderful westward land. The story excited the interest and envy of the man who hitherto had liked to'boast that he had journeyed to every spot on earth “wherever ship has sailed.” Columbus had -read the books he sold, especially those dealing with science. iAnd at length he had worked out the strange theory that made his fellows brand him insane. A DREAMER’S STRANGE PLAN. His idea in brief, was this; That the world was not a vast flat plain with somewhere a “jumping off place,” as most folk of his day thought. He believed that the earth w-as round and that by sailing west, one might reach the east and at last come back to the point whence he had started. His main idea was right; but he distorted it weirdly. For instance, he -thought the world far smaller than it really is, and he was certain that the westward land found by Leif Ericson must be India. India was in those times supposed to be a treasure country. It could be reached from Europe only by a fearfully long tedious, dangerous voyage. If, by sailing west instead of east, he could come upon a shorter route to the far side of India, Columbus believed he would be opening to Europe a vista of ■boundless wealth. Lueky the country that could claim possession of India’s ■treasures by dint of sueh a discovery.

Full of his new and distorted theory, Columbus laid the scheme (before one European monarch after another, .begging for a fleet to carry out the experiment. Everywhere his entreaty was refused. To each he offered the’gift of a world. Each threw away the golden prospect. The King of Portugal, to whom he applied, laughed at him. But

when Columbus* back was tuned, the king secretly sent out a ship along the route the discoverer had described. The vessel was driven back by a storm > and Portugal lost for ever her chance for world’s greatness. To the Spanish court Columbus went. The King and Queen Ferdinand and Isabella, put him off with evasive answers, not really believing in his plan, yet reluctant to have it taken up by some other nation than Spain. At last, after years of poverty and waiting, Columbus was turned away. The wise men of the Spanish court had gravely decided that_the world could not possibly be pound; as in that case all the people on the bottom of it would fall off into space. As the world was not round no one could reach India by sailing west. So with the contempt that greets a dreamer Columbus was dismissed.

With his son, Diego, the luckless man started for the frontier. Penniless, hopeless, worn out by failure, he longed to put Spain behind him. It was his poverty and his fatigue that led Columbus, at sunset, to turn aside from the highroad toward the hillside monastery of La Rabida, instead of keeping on to the nearest town. THE LONG ARM OF CHANCE. The monks he knew would grant him a night’s lodging. His weariness urged him to break his journey there. It was a matter of the merest chance—a tiny chance that was the turning point of his life. If ■ Columbus had gone on America might, for centuries longer, have awaited its discovery. The name “Christopher Columbus” would have been forgotten. Another nation in another age would have claimed the 'New World and 1 would have moulded America’s history along other lines. On that one “if” hangs the whole story of modern progress.

Columbus entered the monastery of La Rabida. The prior, Juan Perly de Marchena, welcomed him and listened with keen interest to a recital of his marvellous scheme. The prior was a trusted friend of Queen Isabella. Becoming convinced that Columbus’ theory was correct, he interested the queen in the project, Isabella backed the desperate enterprise—and America was reached. To the day of his death, by -the way, Columbus had no knowledge that he had discovered the- Western Hemisphere. He died believing he had merely opened a new route to India.