whose misconduct had alienated the natives, and provoked them to withhold their accustomed supplies, until he dexterously worked upon their superstitions by prognosticating an eclipse. Two vessels having at last arrived for their relief from Mendez and Ovando, Columbus set sail for Spain, and after a tempestuous voyage he landed once
more at Seville on 7th September 1504.
As he was too ill to go to court, his son Diego was sent thither in his place, to look after his interests and transact his business. Letter after letter followed the young man from Seville,—one by the hands of Amerigo Vespucci. A licence to ride on muleback was granted him on 23d February 1505; and in the following May he was removed to the court at Segovia, and thence again to Valladolid. On the landing of Philip and Juana at Coruña (25th April 1506) although “much oppressed with the gout and troubled to see himself put by his rights,” he is known to have sent off the adelantado to pay them his duty and to assure them that he was yet able to do them extraordinary service. The last documentary note of him is contained in a final codicil to the will of 1498, made at Valladolid on 19th May 1506. By this the old will is confirmed; the mayorazgo is bequeathed to his son Diego, and his heirs male, failing these to Fernando, his second son, and failing these to the heirs male of Bartholomew; only in case of the extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to the females of the family; and those into whose hands it may fall are never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means possible. The head of the house is to sign himself “The Admiral.” A tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribution among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed for the saying of masses. Beatriz Enriquez is left to the care of the young admiral in most grateful terms. Among other legacies is one of “ half a mark of silver to a Jew who used to live at the gate of the Jewry, in Lisbon.” The codicil was written and signed with the Admiral's own hand. Next day (20th May 1506) he died.
He was buried at Valladolid; but his remains were soon after transferred thence to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas, Seville, where the bones of Diego, the second Admiral, were also laid. Exhumed in 1536, the bodies of both father and son were taken over sea to Hispaniola (San Domingo), and interred in the cathedral. In 1795-96, on the cession of that island to the French, the august relics were re-exhumed, and were transferred with great state and solemnity to the cathedral of the Havana, where they yet remain. The male issue of the Admiral became extinct with the third generation, and the estates and titles passed by marriage to a scion of the house of Bragança.
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Columbus's Cipher.
The Interpretation of the seven-lettered cipher accepting the smaller letters of the second line as the final ones of the words, seems to be—Serrate-me, Xristūs, Maria, Yosephus. The name Christopher appears in the last line.
In person Columbus was tall and shapely, long-faced and aquiline, white-eyed and auburn-haired, and beautifully complexioned. At thirty his hair was quite grey. He was temperate in eating, drinking, and dress; and “so strict in religious matters, that for fasting and saying all the divine office, he might be thought professed in some religious order.” His piety, as his son has noted, was earnest and unwavering; it entered into and coloured alike his action and his speech; he tries his pen in a Latin distich of prayer; his signature is a mystical pietistic device. He was pre-eminently fitted for the task he created for himself. Through deceit and opprobrium and disdain he pushed on towards the consummation of his desire; and when the hour for action came the man was not found wanting.
See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, London, 1831; Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1836; Spotoruo, Codice Diplomatico Colombo-Americano, Genoa, 1823; Hernan Colon, Vita dell' Ammiraglio, 1571 (English translation in vol. ii. of Churchill's Voyages and Travels, third edition, London, 1744; Spanish, 1745); Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, London, 1870; Major, Select Letters of Columbus, Hakluyt Society, London, 1847, and “On the Landfall of Columbus,” in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1871; Sir Arthur Helps, Life of Columbus, London, 1868; Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages y Descubrimientos desde Fines del Siglo xv., Madrid, 1825; Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, London, 1863. See also Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, Opus Epistolarum, 1530, and De Rebus Oceanicis et de Orbe Novo, 1511; Gomora, in Historiadores Primitivos de Indias, vol. xxii. of Rivadaneyra's collection; Oviedo y Valdes, Cronica de las Indias, Salamanca, 1547; Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navigatione et Viaggi, iii., Venetia, 1575; Herrera de Tordesillas, Historia de las Indias Occidentales, 1601; Antonio Leon Pinelo, Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental y Occidental, Madrid, 1623; Muñoz, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, Madrid, 1793; Cancellieri, Notizia di Christoforo Colombo, 1809; Bossi, Vita di Christoforo Colombo, 1819; Charlevoix, Histoire de San Domingo; Lamartine, Christoph Colomb, Paris, 1862 (Spanish translation, 1865); Crompton, Life of Columbus, London, 1859; Voyages and Discoveries of Columbus, sixth edition, London, 1857; H. R. St John, Life of Columbus, London, 1850.
COLUMELLA, Lucius Junius Moderatus, the author of the most complete classical treatise on agricultural affairs, was born at Gades (Cadiz), and belongs to the 1st century A.D., being contemporary with Seneca. He possessed an estate called Ceretanum, perhaps near the Pyrenees, perhaps in Sardinia, and he also travelled extensively, but he prin cipally resided at Rome. His extant works treat with great fulness, and in a diffuse but not inelegant style which well represents the silver age, of the cultivation of all kinds of corn and garden vegetables, trees, flowers, the vine, the olive, and other fruits, and of the rearing of all the domestic animals. They consist of the 12 books of the De Re Rnstica, that which treats of gardening being in dactylic hexameters, and of a book De Arboribus, which is the only part we possess of a work treating of the same subjects as De Re Rustica, but earlier and less elaborate. The editio princeps was published by Jenson at Venice in 1472, in the Rei Rusticce Scriptores Varii. A good edition is contained in the Rei Riisticce Scriptores Veteres Latinicf Gesner (Leipsic, 1735, again edited and collated with, a newly discovered MS. by Ernesti, 1773); and the best is that given in the Scriptores Rei Rusticce by Schneidev (Leipsic, 1794). There are translations in English (1745), French (1551), Italian (1554-57-59and 1808^), and German (1769).
of Brassica Napus, var. oleifera, a variety of the plant which produces Swedish turnips. Colza is extensively cultivated in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany; and, especially in the first-named country, the expression of the oil is an important industry. In commerce colza is classed with rape oil, to which both in source and properties it is very closely allied. It is a comparatively inodorous oil of a yellow colour, having a specific gravity at 60 Fahr. of 9]28; and it solidifies at 22 Fahr. The cake left after expres sion of the oil is a valuable feeding substance for cattle.
Colza oil is extensively used as a lubricant for machinery,
