real delight in Nature in the account of a journey to
the Cape Verde Islands, undertaken on the suggestion of Henry the
Navigator by Aloise da Mosto,[4] an intelligent Venetian nobleman:

Cape de Verde is so called because the Portuguese, who had
discovered it about a year before, found it covered with trees,
which continue green all the year round. This is a high and
beautiful Cape, which runs a good length into the sea, and has
two hills or little mountains at the point thereof. There are
several villages of negroes from Senega, on and about the
promontory, who dwell in thatched houses close to the shore, and
in sight of those who sail by.... The coast is all low and full
of fine large trees, which are constantly green; that is, they
never wither as those in Europe do, for the new leaves grow
before the old ones fall off. These trees are so near the shore
that they seem to drink out of the sea. It is a most beautiful
coast to behold, and the author, who had sailed both in the East
and West, never saw any comparable with it.

As Ruge says:

The delight of this solid and prudent citizen of Strasburg in the
beauty of the tropics is lost in translation, but very evident in
the original account.[5]

After reading it, we cannot quite say with Humboldt that Columbus was
the very first to give fluent expression to Nature's beauty on the
shores of the New World; none the less, and apart from his importance
in other respects, he remains the chief representative of his time in
the matter. Humboldt noted this in his critical examination of the
history of geography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in
which he pointed out his deep feeling for Nature, and also, what only
those who know the difficulties of language at the time can
appreciate, the beauty and simplicity of his expression of it.[6]

Columbus is a striking example of the fact that a man's openness to
Nature increases with his general inner growth. No one doubts that
uneducated sailors, like other unlettered people, are vividly
impressed by fine scenery, especially when it is new to them, if they
possess a spark of mental refinement. They have the feeling, but are
unable to express it in words. But, as Humboldt says, feeling
improves speech; with increased culture, the power of expression
increases.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Fernandez de Navarrete[7] for the Diary
in which we can tr