going the round of the town, even in 1451, and I am afraid religiosity rather than piety was the true characteristic of this singular population. Still, the evidence in favour of Columbus and his family is so greatly to their advantage that we may feel sure they were really people of exceptional integrity and sincere piety.

Little Genoese boys and girls were brought up rather sternly, and the ferrula was much in use. Often, no doubt, did the small Columbus, both at home and at school, hold out his chubby hand to receive the strokes. The mother and sister appeared in public very rarely, and were invariably veiled. The church was the principal object of these excellent people's existence. It is so to this day with a majority of the lower and middle-class Genoese, who spend half their time in church, and are quite as well pleased to go and hear a sermon as their neighbours at Turin are to attend a new play. I am quite sure that more than once a year the infant Columbus and his brothers, dressed up as saints, and very artistically too, walked in the processions of the three or four confraternities attached to the church and convent of St Stefano. daresay Christopher often impersonated the infant St John, or even the Child Jesus, and was carried on the shoulders of some gigantic brother disguised as St Christopher :

"San Cristofero grosso,
Porta il mondo a dorso."

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-"the big St Christopher carries the world on his back."

In Holy Week, what a time these pious folks had, to be sure! There was so much to see that people were fain to leave their business to take care of itself, and either to walk in the processions or else watch them wend their way along the tortuous streets. There were the flagellants to see, who whipped themselves until their bare backs were red. As to the Guilds and Corporations: they were a source of infinite interest and excitement! Each had its Cassaccia or shrine to carry, and, above all, its tremendous crucifix, which people wagered would never reach its destination, so terrific was its weight. If the wretched man who carried it staggered and fell, hundreds of lire changed hands, and if he managed to restore it to its place in the Oratory belonging to the Guild, he was acclaimed as great a hero as a victorious modern jockey. And the Sepulchres on Holy Thursday, and the Procession of the Passion on Good Friday, all these wonderful things, and many others too numerous to describe, did the youthful Columbus admire, enjoy, and venerate,1 we may be sure.

The boy Columbus had his sports, too, like any other lad in every part of the world, old and new. He played boccie or bowls, and palla, a sort of football, and, like all other Genoese urchins, he was, I doubt not, an excellent diver and swimmer. His character in after life, so full of noble courage, gentleness, piety,

1 Then, in all probability, he witnessed the coronation of the Doge Paul of Novi, a dyer who certainly did business with his father, and lived in the same neighbourhood. The romantic and tragic history of this Doge recalls that of Marino Faliero. Deposed by the mob, he was decapitated.

and justice, speaks volumes for the education he received at his mother's knee. His devotion to parents is proved by his frequent mention of them, and he loved the beautiful city "where he was born, and whence he came " with patriotic ardour.

Although there is no positive proof that such was the case, we may safely conclude that, together with all the Genoese of his period, he was imbued from the earliest age with a love of the sea and of adventure. In the gloom of his father's cavernous shop he must often have heard foreign and native merchants, captains, and sailors, who came to purchase woollen goods, relate tales of extraordinary discoveries made in the unknown seas beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Vast, indeed, was the commerce of Genoa at this epoch. Her vessels roamed the seas as far as the Caspian, where Marco Polo found them trading from port to port. Genoa rivalled Venice in the Levant, and held the keys of the commerce of North Africa. In Bruges

her merchants had a hall of their own; it still exists, with the effigy of St George over its Gothic portal. Genoese merchants were well known in the crowded thoroughfares of London city, and their velvets and silks were to be bought in the High Street of Edinburgh and in the markets of Copenhagen and Christiania.

In the last half of the 15th century the world talked much of discoveries of magic isles of pearl, and of deceptive islands that rose on the horizon of the Atlantic, and, syren-like, deluded venturesome travellers to their doom. In Genoa lived the Vivaldi family,

descendants of Vadino and Guido Vivaldi, and of Ugolino and Tedesco Vivaldi, who, between 1285 and 1290, discovered not only the Azores, but also Madeira and the Canaries. The fact is mentioned very minutely in records of the 13th century. Often

must Columbus have heard of these bold pioneers, and likewise of the ship and its crew of thirty men, which, in 1467,—as we learn from Pietro d'Abano, in his Conciliatore,—the Genoese Government equipped in Lisbon, at its expense, and sent on a mission of discovery, from whence none ever returned. Sailors, whose frail vessels had been driven out to sea far beyond the coast of Spain towards "the new lands," had doubtless seen the Azores, and, returning home, had spread the most fantastic stories of cities of gold inhabited by a people whose heads grew beneath their shoulders. In short, the imaginative child must often have listened to tales of wonderment such as Othello poured out to Desdemona. At fourteen he went to sea. He was in the prime of his glorious manhood on that momentous morn of October 1492, when the verdant islands of San Salvador and Cuba rose like emeralds out of the shining sea to delight his thankful vision, and enriched European civilization by opening the gates of a New World before its wondering eyes.1

1 This Appendix and the following one respectively appeared in another and less elaborate form in the National Review and the Antiquary, and are reproduced here, with additional matter, by the courteous consent of the editors of these reviews.-R. D.

NOTES ON SOME OLD PAPERS CONNECTED WITH
THE HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES.

IN 1886-7 the writer of these lines became closely connected with the West Indian Section of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, South Kensington. Sir Augustus Adderley, the Commissioner for the West Indies, a gentleman of varied knowledge and experience, displayed an activity in organising the Court for which he was responsible, which resulted in a thorough and most satisfactory representation of the various West Indian islands under British dominion. To add attraction to his Department, Sir Augustus set himself to collect every historical document, book, print, and MS., illustrative of the early history of the islands, which he could procure. With this object, he entrusted the author with the mission of obtaining whatever records of Columbus and his companions. existed in Rome and elsewhere, even in the Antilles. Thanks to letters from Cardinal Manning, an interview with Cardinal Simeone, then Director of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, was soon obtained, and his introduction to the Secretary, Archbishop Jacobini, granted, in the most friendly manner.

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