Christopher Columbus by Filson Young, entire
by
Filson Young
Part 5 out of 8
valley at the foot of the hills where a river wound round a fertile plain
and there was ample accommodation for an encampment. There were the
usual signs of gold, and Columbus saw in the brightly coloured stones of
the river-bed evidence of unbounded wealth in precious stones. At last
he had come to the place! He who had doubted so much, and whose faith
had wavered, had now been led to a place where he could touch and handle
the gold and jewels of his desire; and he therefore called the place
Saint Thomas. He built a fort here, leaving a garrison of fifty-six men
under the command of Pedro Margarite to collect gold from the natives,
and himself returned to Isabella, which he reached at the end of March.
Enforced absence from the thing he has organised is a great test of
efficiency in any man. The world is full of men who can do things
themselves; but those who can organise from the industry of their men a
machine which will steadily perform the work whether the organiser is
absent or present are rare indeed. Columbus was one of the first class.
His own power and personality generally gave him some kind of mastery
over any circumstances in which he was immediately concerned; but let him
be absent for a little time, and his organisation went to pieces. No one
was better than he at conducting a one-man concern; and his conduct of
the first voyage, so long as he had his company under his immediate
command, was a model of efficiency. But when the material under his
command began to grow and to be divided into groups his life became a
succession of ups and downs. While he was settling and disciplining one
group mutiny and disorder would attack the other; and when he went to
attend to them, the first one immediately fell into confusion again. He
dealt with the discontent in Isabella, organising the better disposed
part of it in productive labour, and himself marching the malcontents
into something like discipline and order, leaving them at Saint Thomas,
as we have seen, usefully collecting gold. But while he was away the
people at Isabella had got themselves into trouble again, and when he
arrived there on the morning of March 29th he found the town in a
deplorable condition. The lake beside which the city had been built, and
which seemed so attractive and healthy a spot, turned out to be nothing
better than a fever trap. Drained from the malarial marshes, its sickly
exhalations soon produced an epidemic that incapacitated more than half
the colony and interrupted the building operations. The time of those
who were well was entirely occupied with the care of those who were sick,
and all productive work was at a standstill. The reeking virgin soil had
produced crops in an incredibly short time, and the sowings of January
were ready for reaping in the beginning of April. But there was no one
to reap them, and the further cultivation of the ground had necessarily
been neglected.
The faint-hearted Spaniards, who never could meet any trouble without
grumbling, were now in the depths of despair and angry discontent;
and it had not pleased them to be put on a short allowance of even the
unwholesome provisions that remained from the original store. A couple
of rude hand-mills had been erected for the making of flour, and as food
was the first necessity Columbus immediately put all the able-bodied men
in the colony, whatever their rank, to the elementary manual work of
grinding. Friar Buil and the twelve Benedictine brothers who were with
him thought this a wise order, assuming of course that as clerics they
would not be asked to work. But great was their astonishment, and loud
and angry their criticism of the Admiral, when they found that they also
were obliged to labour with their hands. But Columbus was firm; there
were absolutely no exceptions made; hidalgo and priest had to work
alongside of sailor and labourer; and the curses of the living mingled
with those of the dying on the man whose boastful words had brought them
to such a place and such a condition.
It was only in the nature of things that news should now arrive of
trouble at Saint Thomas. Gold and women again; instead of bartering or
digging, the Spaniards had been stealing; and discipline had been
relaxed, with the usual disastrous results with regard to the women of
the adjacent native tribes. Pedro Margarite sent a nervous message to
Columbus expressing his fear that Caonabo, the native king, should be
exasperated to the point of attacking them again. Columbus therefore
despatched Ojeda in command of a force of 350 armed men to Saint Thomas
with instructions that he was to take over the command of that post,
while Margarite was to take out an expedition in search of Caonabo whom,
with his brothers, Margarite was instructed to capture at all costs.
Having thus set things going in the interior, and once more restored
Isabella to something like order, he decided to take three ships and
attempt to discover the coast of Cathay. The old Nina, the San Juan, and
the Cordera, three small caravels, were provisioned for six months and
manned by a company of fifty-two men. Francisco Nino went once more with
the Admiral as pilot, and the faithful Juan de la Cosa was taken to draw
charts; one of the monks also, to act as chaplain. The Admiral had a
steward, a secretary, ten seamen and six boys to complete the company on
the Nina. The San Juan was commanded by Alonso Perez Roldan and the
Cordera by Christoval Nino. Diego was again left in command of the
colony, with four counsellors, Friar Buil, Fernandez Coronel, Alonso
Sanchez Carvajal, and Juan de Luxan, to assist his authority.
The Admiral sailed on April 24th, steering to the westward and touching
at La Navidad before he bore away to the island of Cuba, the southern
shore of which it was now his intention to explore. At one of his first
anchorages he discovered a native feast going on, and when the boats from
his ships pulled ashore the feasters fled in terror--the hungry Spaniards
finishing their meal for them. Presently, however, the feasters were
induced to come back, and Columbus with soft speeches made them a
compensation for the food that had been taken, and produced a favourable
impression, as his habit was; with the result that all along the coast he
was kindly received by the natives, who supplied him with food and fresh
fruit in return for trinkets. At the harbour now known as Santiago de
Cuba, where he anchored on May 2nd, he had what seemed like authentic
information of a great island to the southward which was alleged to be
the source of all the gold. The very compasses of Columbus's ships seem
by this time to have become demagnetised, and to have pointed only to
gold; for no sooner had he heard this report than he bore away to the
south in pursuit of that faint yellow glitter that had now quite taken
the place of the original inner light of faith.
The low coast of Jamaica, hazy and blue at first, but afterwards warming
into a golden belt crowned by the paler and deeper greens of the foliage,
was sighted first by Columbus on Sunday, May 4th; and he anchored the
next day in the beautiful harbour of Saint Anne, to which he gave the
name of Santa Gloria. To the island itself he gave the name of Santiago,
which however has never displaced its native name of Jamaica. The dim
blue mountains and clumps of lofty trees about the bay were wonderful
even to Columbus, whose eyes must by this time have been growing
accustomed to the beauty of the West Indies, and he lost his heart to
Jamaica from the first moment that his eyes rested on its green and
golden shores. Perhaps he was by this time a little out of conceit with
Hayti; but be that as it may he retracted all the superlatives he had
ever used for the other lands of his discovery, and bestowed them in his
heart upon Jamaica.
He was not humanly so well received as he had been on the other islands,
for when he cast anchor the natives came out in canoes threatening
hostilities and had to be appeased with red caps and hawks' bells. Next
day, however, Columbus wished to careen his ships, and sailed a little to
the west until he found a suitable beach at Puerto Bueno; and as he
approached the shore some large canoes filled with painted and feathered
warriors came out and attacked his ships, showering arrows and javelins,
and whooping and screaming at the Spaniards. The guns were discharged,
and an armed party sent ashore in a boat, and the natives were soon put
to flight. There was no renewal of hostilities; the next day the local
cacique came down offering provisions and help; presents were exchanged,
and cordial relations established. Columbus noticed that the Jamaicans
seemed to be a much more virile community than either the Cubans or the
people of Espanola. They had enormous canoes hollowed out of single
mahogany trees, some of them 96 feet long and 8 feet broad, which they
handled with the greatest ease and dexterity; they had a merry way with
them too, were quick of apprehension and clever at expressing their
meaning, and in their domestic utensils and implements they showed an
advance in civilisation on the other islanders of the group. Columbus
did some trade with the islanders as he sailed along the coast, but he
does not seem to have believed much in the gold story, for after sailing
to the western point of the island he bore away to the north again and
sighted the coast of Cuba on the 18th of May.
The reason why Columbus kept returning to the coast of Cuba was that he
believed it to be the mainland of Asia. The unlettered natives, who had
never read Marco Polo, told him that it was an island, although no man
had ever seen the end of it; but Columbus did not believe them, and
sailed westward in the belief that he would presently come upon the
country and city of Cathay. Soon he found himself in the wonderful
labyrinth of islets and sandbanks off the south coast; and because of the
wonderful colours of their flowers and climbing plants he called them
Jardin de la Reina or Queen's Garden. Dangerous as the navigation
through these islands was, he preferred to risk the shoals and sandbanks
rather than round them out at sea to the southward, for he believed them
to be the islands which, according to Marco Polo, lay in masses along the
coast of Cathay. In this adventure he had a very hard time of it; the
lead had to be used all the time, the ships often had to be towed, the
wind veered round from every quarter of the compass, and there were
squalls and tempests, and currents that threatened to set them ashore.
By great good fortune, however, they managed to get through the
Archipelago without mishap. By June 3rd they were sailing along the
coast again, and Columbus had some conversation with an old cacique who
told him of a province called Mangon (or so Columbus understood him) that
lay to the west. Sir John Mandeville had described the province of Mangi
as being the richest in Cathay; and of course, thought the Admiral, this
must be the place. He went westward past the Gulf of Xagua and got into
the shallow sandy waters, now known as the Jardinillos Bank, where the
sea was whitened with particles of sand. When he had got clear of this
shoal water he stood across a broad bay towards a native settlement where
he was able to take in yams, fruit, fish, and fresh water.
But this excitement and hard work were telling on the Admiral, and when a
native told him that there was a tribe close by with long tails, he
believed him; and later, when one of his men, coming back from a shore
expedition, reported that he had seen some figures in a forest wearing
white robes, Columbus believed that they were the people with the tails,
who wore a long garment to conceal them.
He was moving in a world of enchantment; the weather was like no weather
in any known part of the world; there were fogs, black and thick, which
blew down suddenly from the low marshy land, and blew away again as
suddenly; the sea was sometimes white as milk, sometimes black as pitch,
sometimes purple, sometimes green; scarlet cranes stood looking at them
as they slid past the low sandbanks; the warm foggy air smelt of roses;
shoals of turtles covered the waters, black butterflies circled in the
mist; and the fever that was beginning to work in the Admiral's blood
mounted to his brain, so that in this land of bad dreams his fixed ideas
began to dominate all his other faculties, and he decided that he must
certainly be on the coast of Cathay, in the magic land described by Marco
Polo.
There is nothing which illustrates the arbitrary and despotic government
of sea life so well as the nautical phrase "make it so." The very hours
of the day, slipping westward under the keel of an east-going ship, are
"made" by rigid decree; the captain takes his observation of sun or
stars, and announces the position of the ship to be at a certain spot on
the surface of the globe; any errors of judgment or deficiencies of
method are covered by the words "make it so." And in all the elusive
phenomena surrounding him the fevered brain of the Admiral discerned
evidence that he was really upon the coast of Asia, although there was no
method by which he could place the matter beyond a doubt. The word Asia
was not printed upon the sands of Cuba, as it might be upon a map; the
lines of longitude did not lie visibly across the surface of the sea;
there was nothing but sea and land, the Admiral's charts, and his own
conviction. Therefore Columbus decided to "make it so." If there was no
other way of being sure that this was the coast of Cathay, he would
decree it to be the coast of Cathay by a legal document and by oaths and
affidavits. He would force upon the members of his expedition a
conviction at least equal to his own; and instead of pursuing any further
the coast that stretched interminably west and south-west, he decided to
say, in effect, and once and for all, "Let this be the mainland of Asia."
He called his secretary to him and made him draw up a form of oath or
testament, to which every member of the expedition was required to
subscribe, affirming that the land off which they were then lying (12th
June 1494), was the mainland of the Indies and that it was possible to
return to Spain by land from that place; and every officer who should
ever deny it in the future was laid under a penalty of ten thousand
maravedis, and every ship's boy or seaman under a penalty of one hundred
lashes; and in addition, any member of the expedition denying it in the
future was to have his tongue cut out.
No one will pretend that this was the action of a sane man; neither will
any one wonder that Columbus was something less than sane after all he
had gone through, and with the beginnings of a serious illness already in
his blood. His achievement was slipping from his grasp; the gold had not
been found, the wonders of the East had not been discovered; and it was
his instinct to secure something from the general wreck that seemed to be
falling about him, and to force his own dreams to come true, that caused
him to cut this grim and fantastic legal caper off the coast of Cuba. He
thought it at the time unlikely, seeing the difficulties of navigation
that he had gone through, which he might be pardoned for regarding as
insuperable to a less skilful mariner, that any one should ever come that
way again; even he himself said that he would never risk his life again
in such a place. He wished his journey, therefore, not to have been made
in vain; and as he himself believed that he had stood on the mainland of
Asia he took care to take back with him the only kind of evidence that
was possible namely, the sworn affidavits of the ships' crews.
Perhaps in his madness he would really have gone on and tried to reach
the Golden Chersonesus of Ptolemy, which according to Marco Polo lay just
beyond, and so to steer homeward round Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope;
in which case he would either have been lost or would have discovered
Mexico. The crews, however, would not hear of the voyage being continued
westward. The ships were leaking and the salt water was spoiling the
already doubtful provisions and he was forced to turn back. He stood to
the south-east, and reached the Isle of Pines, to which he gave the name
of Evangelista, where the water-casks were filled, and from there he
tried to sail back to the east. But he found himself surrounded by
islands and banks in every direction, which made any straight course
impossible. He sailed south and east and west and north, and found
himself always back again in the middle of this charmed group of islands.
He spent almost a month trying to escape from them, and once his ship
went ashore on a sandbank and was only warped off with the greatest
difficulty. On July 7th he was back again in the region of the "Queen's
Gardens," from which he stood across to the coast of Cuba.
He anchored and landed there, and being in great distress and difficulty
he had a large cross erected on the mainland, and had mass said. When
the Spaniards rose from their knees they saw an old native man observing
them; and the old man came and sat down beside Columbus and talked to him
through the interpreter. He told him that he had been in Jamaica and
Espanola as well as in Cuba, and that the coming of the Spaniards had
caused great distress to the people of the islands.
He then spoke to Columbus about religion, and the gist of what he said
was something like this: "The performance of your worship seems good to
me. You believe that this life is not everything; so do we; and I know
that when this life is over there are two places reserved for me, to one
of which I shall certainly go; one happy and beautiful, one dreadful and
miserable. Joy and kindness reign in the one place, which is good enough
for the best of men; and they will go there who while they have lived on
the earth have loved peace and goodness, and who have never robbed or
killed or been unkind. The other place is evil and full of shadows, and
is reserved for those who disturb and hurt the sons of men; how important
it is, therefore, that one should do no evil or injury in this world!"
Columbus replied with a brief statement of his own theological views, and
added that he had been sent to find out if there were any persons in
those islands who did evil to others, such as the Caribs or cannibals,
and that if so he had come to punish them. The effect of this ingenuous
speech was heightened by a gift of hawks' bells and pieces of broken
glass; upon receiving which the good old man fell down on his knees, and
said that the Spaniards must surely have come from heaven.
A few days later the voyage to the, south-east was resumed, and some
progress was made along the coast. But contrary winds arose which made
it impossible for the ships to round Cape Cruz, and Columbus decided to
employ the time of waiting in completing his explorations in Jamaica.
He therefore sailed due south until he once more sighted the beautiful
northern coast of that island, following it to the west and landing, as
his custom was, whenever he saw a good harbour or anchorage. The wind
was still from the east, and he spent a month beating to the eastward
along the south coast of the island, fascinated by its beauty, and
willing to stay and explore it, but prevented by the discontent of his
crews, who were only anxious to get back to Espanola. He had friendly
interviews with many of the natives of Jamaica, and at almost the last
harbour at which he touched a cacique with his wife and family and
complete retinue came off in canoes to the ship, begging Columbus to take
him and his household back to Spain.
Columbus considers this family, and thinks wistfully how well they would
look in Barcelona. Father dressed in a cap of gold and green jewels,
necklace and earrings of the same; mother decked out in similar regalia,
with the addition of a small cotton apron; two sons and five brothers
dressed principally in a feather or two; two daughters mother-naked,
except that the elder, a handsome girl of eighteen, wears a jewelled
girdle from which depends a tablet as big as an ivy leaf, made of various
coloured stones embroidered on cotton. What an exhibit for one of the
triumphal processions: "Native royal family, complete"! But Columbus
thinks also of the scarcity of provisions on board his ships, and wonders
how all these royalties would like to live on a pint of sour wine and a
rotten biscuit each per day. Alas! there is not sour wine and rotten
biscuit enough for his own people; it is still a long way to Espanola;
and he is obliged to make polite excuses, and to say that he will come
back for his majesty another time.
It was on the 20th of August that Columbus, having the day before seen
the last of the dim blue hills of Jamaica, sighted again the long
peninsula of Hayti, called by him Cape San Miguel, but known to us as
Cape Tiburon; although it was not until he was hailed by a cacique who
called out to him "Almirante, Almirante," that the seaworn mariners
realised with joy that the island must be Espanola. But they were a long
way from Isabella yet. They sailed along the south coast, meeting
contrary winds, and at one point landing nine men who were to cross the
island, and try to reach Isabella by land. Week followed week, and they
made very poor progress. In the beginning of September they were caught
in a severe tempest, which separated the ships for a time, and held the
Admiral weather-bound for eight days. There was an eclipse of the moon
during this period, and he took advantage of it to make an observation
for longitude, by which he found himself to be 5 hrs. 23 min., or 80 deg.
40', west of Cadiz. In this observation there is an error of eighteen
degrees, the true longitude of the island of Saona, where the observation
was taken, being 62 deg. 20' west of Cadiz; and the error is accounted
for partly by the inaccuracy of the tables of Regiomontanus and partly by
the crudity and inexactness of the Admiral's methods. On the 24th of
September they at last reached the easternmost point of Espanola, named
by Columbus San Rafael. They stood to the east a little longer, and
discovered the little island of Mona, which lies between Espanola and
Puerto Rico; and from thence shaped their course west-by-north for
Isabella. And no sooner had the course been set for home than the
Admiral suddenly and completely collapsed; was carried unconscious to his
cabin; and lay there in such extremity that his companions gave him up
for lost.
It is no ordinary strain to which poor Christopher has succumbed. He has
been five months at sea, sharing with the common sailors their bad food
and weary vigils, but bearing alone on his own shoulders a weight of
anxiety of which they knew nothing. Watch has relieved watch on his
ships, but there has been no one to relieve him, or to lift the burden
from his mind. The eyes of a nation are upon him, watchful and jealous
eyes that will not forgive him any failure; and to earn their approval he
has taken this voyage of five months, during which he has only been able
to forget his troubles in the brief hours of slumber. Strange uncharted
seas, treacherous winds and currents, drenching surges have all done
their part in bringing him to this pass; and his body, now starved on
rotten biscuits, now glutted with unfamiliar fruits, has been preyed upon
by the tortured mind as the mind itself has been shaken and loosened by
the weakness of the body. He lies there in his cabin in a deep stupor;
memory, sight, and all sensation completely gone from him; dead but for
the heart that beats on faintly, and the breath that comes and goes
through the parted lips. Nino, de la Cosa, and the others come and look
at him, shake their heads, and go away again. There is nothing to be
done; perhaps they will get him back to Isabella in time to bury him
there; perhaps not.
And meanwhile they are back again in calm and safe waters, and coasting a
familiar shore; and the faithful little Nina, shaking out her wings in
the sunny breezes, trips under the guidance of unfamiliar hands towards
her moorings in the Bay of Isabella. It is a sad company that she
carries; for in the cabin, deaf and blind and unconscious, there lies the
heart and guiding spirit of the New World. He does not hear the talking
of the waters past the Nina's timbers, does not hear the stamping on the
deck and shortening of sail and unstopping of cables and getting out of
gear; does not hear the splash of the anchor, nor the screams of birds
that rise circling from the shore. Does not hear the greetings and the
news; does not see bending over him a kind, helpful, and well-beloved
face. He sees and hears and knows nothing; and in that state of rest and
absence from the body they carry him, still living and breathing, ashore.
CHAPTER II
THE CONQUEST OF ESPANOLA
We must now go back to the time when Columbus, having made what
arrangements he could for the safety of Espanola, left it under the
charge of his brother James. Ojeda had duly marched into the interior
and taken over the command of Fort St. Thomas, thus setting free
Margarite, according to his instructions, to lead an expedition for
purposes of reconnoitre and demonstration through the island. These, at
any rate, were Margarite's orders, duly communicated to him by Ojeda; but
Margarite will have none of them. Well born, well educated, well bred,
he ought at least to have the spirit to carry out orders so agreeable to
a gentleman of adventure; but unfortunately, although Margarite is a
gentleman by birth, he is a low and dishonest dog by nature. He cannot
take the decent course, cannot even play the man, and take his share in
the military work of the colony. Instead of cutting paths through the
forest, and exhibiting his military strength in an orderly and proper way
as the Admiral intended he should, he marches forth from St. Thomas, on
hearing that Columbus has sailed away, and encamps no further off than
the Vega Real, that pleasant place of green valleys and groves and
murmuring rivers. He encamps there, takes up his quarters there, will
not budge from there for any Admiral; and as for James Columbus and his
counsellors, they may go to the devil for all Margarite cares. One of
them at least, he knows--Friar Buil--is not such a fool as to sit down
under the command of that solemn-faced, uncouth young snip from Genoa;
and doubtless when he is tired of the Vega Real he and Buil can arrange
something between them. In the meantime, here is a very beautiful
sunshiny place, abounding in all kinds of provisions; food for more than
one kind of appetite, as he has noticed when he has thrust his rude way
into the native houses and seen the shapely daughters of the islanders.
He has a little army of soldiers to forage for him; they can get him food
and gold, and they are useful also in those other marauding expeditions
designed to replenish the seraglio that he has established in his camp;
and if they like to do a little marauding and woman-stealing on their own
account, it is no affair of his, and may keep the devils in a good
temper. Thus Don Pedro Margarite to himself.
The peaceable and gentle natives soon began to resent these gross doings.
To robbery succeeded outrage, and to outrage murder--all three committed
in the very houses of the natives; and they began to murmur, to withhold
that goodwill which the Spaniards had so sorely tried, and to develop a
threatening attitude that was soon communicated to the natives in the
vicinity of Isabella, and came under the notice of James Columbus and his
council. Grave, bookish, wool-weaving young James, not used to military
affairs, and not at all comfortable in his command, can think of no other
expedient than--to write a letter to Margarite remonstrating with him for
his licentious excesses and reminding him of the Admiral's instructions,
which were being neglected.
Margarite receives the letter and reads it with a contemptuous laugh. He
is not going to be ordered about by a family of Italian wool-weavers, and
the only change in his conduct is that he becomes more and more careless
and impudent, extending the area of his lawless operations, and making
frequent visits to Isabella itself, swaggering under the very nose of
solemn James, and soon deep in consultation with Friar Buil.
At this moment, that is to say very soon after the departure of
Christopher on his voyage to Cuba and Jamaica, three ships dropped anchor
in the Bay of Isabella. They were laden with the much-needed supplies
from Spain, and had been sent out under the command of Bartholomew
Columbus. It will be remembered that when Christopher reached Spain
after his first voyage one of his first cares had been to write to
Bartholomew, asking him to join him. The letter, doubtless after many
wanderings, had found Bartholomew in France at the court of Charles
VIII., by whom he was held in some esteem; in fact it was Charles who
provided him with the necessary money for his journey to Spain, for
Bartholomew had not greatly prospered, in spite of his voyage with Diaz
to the Cape of Good Hope and of his having been in England making
exploration proposals at the court of Henry VII. He had arrived in Spain
after Columbus had sailed again, and had presented himself at court with
his two nephews, Ferdinand and Diego, both of whom were now in the
service of Prince Juan as pages. Ferdinand and Isabella seem to have
received Bartholomew kindly. They liked this capable navigator, who had
much of Christopher's charm of manner, and was more a man of the world
than he. Much more practical also; Ferdinand would be sure to like him
better than he liked Christopher, whose pompous manner and long-winded
speeches bored him. Bartholomew was quick, alert, decisive and
practical; he was an accomplished navigator--almost as accomplished as
Columbus, as it appeared. He was offered the command of the three ships
which were being prepared to go to Espanola with supplies; and he duly
arrived there after a prosperous voyage. It will be remembered that
Christopher had, so far as we know, kept the secret of the road to the
new islands; and Bartholomew can have had nothing more to guide him than
a rough chart showing the islands in a certain latitude, and the distance
to be run towards them by dead-reckoning. That he should have made an
exact landfall and sailed into the Bay of Isabella, never having been
there before, was a certificate of the highest skill in navigation.
Unfortunately it was James who was in charge of the colony; Bartholomew
had no authority, for once his ships had arrived in port his mission was
accomplished until Christopher should return and find him employment.
He was therefore forced to sit still and watch his young brother
struggling with the unruly Spaniards. His presence, however, was no
doubt a further exasperation to the malcontents. There existed in
Isabella a little faction of some of the aristocrats who had never,
forgiven Columbus for employing them in degrading manual labour; who had
never forgiven him in fact for being there at all, and in command over
them. And now here was another woolweaver, or son of a wool-weaver, come
to put his finger in the pie that Christopher has apparently provided so
carefully for himself and his family.
Margarite and Buil and some others, treacherous scoundrels all of them,
but clannish to their own race and class, decide that they will put up
with it no longer; they are tired of Espanola in any case, and Margarite,
from too free indulgence among the native women, has contracted an
unpleasant disease, and thinks that a sea voyage and the attentions of a
Spanish doctor will be good for him. It is easy for them to put their
plot into execution. There are the ships; there is nothing, for them to
do but take a couple of them, provision them, and set sail for Spain,
where they trust to their own influence, and the story they will be able
to tell of the falseness of the Admiral's promises, to excuse their
breach of discipline. And sail they do, snapping their fingers at the
wool-weavers.
James and Bartholomew were perhaps glad to be rid of them, but their
relief was tempered with anxiety as to the result on Christopher's
reputation and favour when the malcontents should have made their false
representations at Court. The brothers were powerless to do anything in
that matter, however, and the state of affairs in Espanola demanded their
close attention. Margarite's little army, finding itself without even
the uncertain restraint of its commander, now openly mutinied and
abandoned itself to the wildest excesses. It became scattered and
disbanded, and little groups of soldiers went wandering about the
country, robbing and outraging and carrying cruelty and oppression among
the natives. Long-suffering as these were, and patiently as they bore
with the unspeakable barbarities of the Spanish soldiers, there came a
point beyond which their forbearance would not go. An aching spirit of
unforgiveness and revenge took the place of their former gentleness and
compliance; and here and there, when the Spaniards were more brutal and
less cautious than was their brutal and incautious habit, the natives
fell upon them and took swift and bloody revenge. Small parties found
themselves besieged and put to death whole villages, whose hospitality
had been abused, cut off wandering groups of the marauders and burned the
houses where they lodged. The disaffection spread; and Caonabo, who had
never abated his resentment at the Spanish intrusion into the island,
thought the time had come to make another demonstration of native power.
Fortunately for the Spaniards his object was the fort of St. Thomas,
commanded by the alert Ojeda; and this young man, who was not easily to
be caught napping, had timely intelligence of his intention. When
Caonabo, mustering ten thousand men, suddenly surrounded the fort and
prepared to attack it, he found the fifty Spaniards of the garrison more
than ready for him, and his naked savages dared not advance within the
range of the crossbows and arquebuses. Caonabo tried to besiege the
station, watching every gorge and road through which supplies could reach
it, but Ojeda made sallies and raids upon the native force, under which
it became thinned and discouraged; and Caonabo had finally to withdraw to
his own territory.
But he was not yet beaten. He decided upon another and much larger
enterprise, which was to induce the other caciques of the island to co-
operate with him in an attack upon Isabella, the population of which he
knew would have been much thinned and weakened by disease. The island
was divided into five native provinces. The northeastern part, named
Marien, was under the rule of Guacanagari, whose headquarters were near
the abandoned La Navidad. The remaining eastern part of the island,
called Higuay, was under a chief named Cotabanama. The western province
was Xaragua, governed by one Behechio, whose sister, Anacaona, was the
wife of Caonabo. The middle of the island was divided into two
provinces-that which extended from the northern coast to the Cibao
mountains and included the Vega Real being governed by Guarionex, and
that which extended from the Cibao mountains to the south being governed
by Caonabo. All these rulers were more or less embittered by the
outrages and cruelties of the Spaniards, and all agreed to join with
Caonabo except Guacanagari. That loyal soul, so faithful to what he knew
of good, shocked and distressed as he was by outrages from which his own
people had suffered no less than the others, could not bring himself to
commit what he regarded as a breach of the laws of hospitality. It was
upon his shores that Columbus had first landed; and although it was his
own country and his own people whose wrongs were to be avenged, he could
not bring himself to turn traitor to the grave Admiral with whom, in
those happy days of the past, he had enjoyed so much pleasant
intercourse. His refusal to co-operate delayed the plan of Caonabo, who
directed the island coalition against Guacanagari himself in order to
bring him to reason. He was attacked by the neighbouring chiefs; one of
his wives was killed and another captured; but still he would not swerve
from his ideal of conduct.
The first thing that Columbus recognised when he opened his eyes after
his long period of lethargy and insensibility was the face of his brother
Bartholomew bend-over him where he lay in bed in his own house at
Espanola. Nothing could have been more welcome to him, sick, lonely and
discouraged as he was, than the presence of that strong, helpful brother;
and from the time when Bartholomew's friendly face first greeted him he
began to get better. His first act, as soon as he was strong enough to
sign a paper, was to appoint Bartholomew to the office of Adelantado, or
Lieutenant-Governor--an indiscreet and rather tactless proceeding which,
although it was not outside his power as a bearer of the royal seal, was
afterwards resented by King Ferdinand as a piece of impudent encroachment
upon the royal prerogative. But Columbus was unable to transact business
himself, and James was manifestly of little use; the action was natural
enough.
In the early days of his convalescence he had another pleasant
experience, in the shape of a visit from Guacanagari, who came to express
his concern at the Admiral's illness, and to tell him the story of what
had been going on in his absence. The gentle creature referred again
with tears to the massacre at La Navidad, and again asserted that
innocence of any hand in it which Columbus had happily never doubted; and
he told him also of the secret league against Isabella, of his own
refusal to join it, and of the attacks to which he had consequently been
subjected. It must have been an affecting meeting for these two, who
represented the first friendship formed between the Old World and the
New, who were both of them destined to suffer in the impact of
civilisation and savagery, and whose names and characters were happily
destined to survive that impact, and to triumph over the oblivion of
centuries.
So long as the native population remained hostile and unconquered by
kindness or force, it was impossible to work securely at the development
of the colony; and Columbus, however regretfully, had come to feel that
circumstances more or less obliged him to use force. At first he did not
quite realise the gravity of the position, and attempted to conquer or
reconcile the natives in little groups. Guarionex, the cacique of the
Vega Real, was by gifts and smooth words soothed back into a friendship
which was consolidated by the marriage of his daughter with Columbus's
native interpreter. It was useless, how ever, to try and make friends
with Caonabo, that fierce irreconcilable; and it was felt that only by
stratagem could he be secured. No sooner was this suggested than Ojeda
volunteered for the service. Amid the somewhat slow-moving figures of
our story this man appears as lively as a flea; and he dances across our
pages in a sensation of intrepid feats of arms that make his great
popularity among the Spaniards easily credible to us. He did not know
what fear was; he was always ready for a fight of any kind; a quarrel in
the streets of Madrid, a duel, a fight with a man or a wild beast,
a brawl in a tavern or a military expedition, were all the same to him,
if only they gave him an opportunity for fighting. He had a little
picture of the Virgin hung round his neck, by which he swore, and to
which he prayed; he had never been so much as scratched in all his
affrays, and he believed that he led a charmed life. Who would go out
against Caonabo, the Goliath of the island? He, little David Ojeda, he
would go out and undertake to fetch the giant back with him; and all he
wanted was ten men, a pair of handcuffs, a handful of trinkets, horses
for the whole of his company, and his little image or picture of the
Virgin.
Columbus may have smiled at this proposal, but he knew his man; and Ojeda
duly departed with his horses and his ten men. Plunging into the forest,
he made his way through sixty leagues of dense undergrowth until he
arrived in the very heart of Caonabo's territory and presented himself at
the chiefs house. The chief was at home, and, not unimpressed by the
valour of Ojeda, who represented himself as coming on a friendly mission,
received him under conditions of truce. He had an eye for military
prowess, this Caonabo, and something of the lion's heart in him; he
recognised in Ojeda the little man who kept him so long at bay outside
Fort St. Thomas; and, after the manner of lion-hearted people, liked him
none the worse for that.
Ojeda proposes that the King should accompany him to Isabella to make
peace. No, says Caonabo. Then Ojeda tries another way. There is a
poetical side to this big fighting savage, and often in more friendly
days, when the bell in the little chapel of Isabella has been ringing for
Vespers, the cacique has been observed sitting alone on some hill
listening, enchanted by the strange silver voice that floated to him
across the sunset. The bell has indeed become something of a personality
in the island: all the neighbouring savages listen to its voice with awe
and fascination, pausing with inclined heads whenever it begins to speak
from its turret.
Ojeda talks to Caonabo about the bell, and tells him what a wonderful
thing it is; tells him also that if he will come with him to Isabella he
shall have the bell for a present. Poetry and public policy struggle
together in Caonabo's heart, but poetry wins; the great powerful savage,
urged thereto by his childish lion-heart, will come to Isabella if they
will give him the bell. He sets forth, accompanied by a native retinue,
and by Ojeda and his ten horsemen. Presently they come to a river and
Ojeda produces his bright manacles; tells the King that they are royal
ornaments and that he has been instructed to bestow them upon Caonabo as
a sign of honour. But first he must come alone to the river and bathe,
which he does. Then he must sit with Ojeda upon his horse; which he
does. Then he must have fitted on to him the shining silver trinkets;
which he does, the great grinning giant, pleased with his toys. Then, to
show him what it is like to be on a horse, Ojeda canters gently round in
widening and ever widening circles; a turn of his spurred heels, and the
canter becomes a gallop, the circle becomes a straight line, and Caonabo
is on the road to Isabella. When they are well beyond reach of the
natives they pause and tie Caonabo securely into his place; and by this
treachery bring him into Isabella, where he is imprisoned in the
Admiral's house.
The sulky giant, brought thus into captivity, refuses to bend his proud,
stubborn heart into even a form of submission. He takes no notice of
Columbus, and pays him no honour, although honour is paid to himself as
a captive king. He sits there behind his bars gnawing his fingers,
listening to the voice of the bell that has lured him into captivity,
and thinking of the free open life which he is to know no more. Though
he will pay no deference to the Admiral, will not even rise when he
enters his presence, there is one person he holds in honour, and that is
Ojeda. He will not rise when the Admiral comes; but when Ojeda comes,
small as he is, and without external state, the chief makes his obeisance
to him. The Admiral he sets at defiance, and boasts of his destruction
of La Navidad, and of his plan to destroy Isabella; Ojeda he respects and
holds in honour, as being the only man in the island brave enough to come
into his house and carry him off a captive. There is a good deal of the
sportsman in Caonabo.
The immediate result of the capture of Caonabo was to rouse the islanders
to further hostilities, and one of the brothers of the captive king led a
force of seven thousand men to the vicinity of St. Thomas, to which
Ojeda, however, had in the meantime returned. His small force was
augmented by some men despatched by Bartholomew Columbus on receipt of an
urgent message; and in command of this force Ojeda sallied forth against
the natives and attacked them furiously on horse and on foot, killing a
great part of them, taking others prisoner, and putting the rest to
flight. This was the beginning of the end of the island resistance. A
month or two later, when Columbus was better, he and Bartholomew together
mustered the whole of their available army and marched out in search of
the native force, which he knew had been rallied and greatly augmented.
The two forces met near the present town of Santiago, in the plain known
as the Savanna of Matanza. The Spanish force was divided into three main
divisions, under the command of Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus and
Ojeda respectively. These three divisions attacked the Indians
simultaneously from different points, Ojeda throwing his cavalry upon
them, riding them down, and cutting them to pieces. Drums were beaten
and trumpets blown; the guns were fired from the cover of the trees; and
a pack of bloodhounds, which had been sent out from Spain with
Bartholomew, were let loose upon the natives and tore their bodies to
pieces. It was an easy and horrible victory. The native force was
estimated by Columbus at one hundred thousand men, although we shall
probably be nearer the mark if we reduce that estimate by one half.
The powers of hell were let loose that day into the Earthly Paradise.
The guns mowed red lines of blood through the solid ranks of the natives;
the great Spanish horses trod upon and crushed their writhing bodies, in
which arrows and lances continually stuck and quivered; and the ferocious
dogs, barking and growling, seized the naked Indians by the throat,
dragged them to the ground, and tore out their very entrails . . . .
Well for us that the horrible noises of that day are silent now; well for
the world that that place of bloodshed and horror has grown green again;
better for us and for the world if those cries had never been heard, and
that quiet place had never received a stain that centuries of green
succeeding springtides can never wash away.
It was some time before this final battle that the convalescence of the
Admiral was further assisted by the arrival of four ships commanded by
Antonio Torres, who must have passed, out of sight and somewhere on the
high seas, the ships bearing Buil and Margarite back to Spain. He
brought with him a large supply of fresh provisions for the colony, and a
number of genuine colonists, such as fishermen, carpenters, farmers,
mechanics, and millers. And better still he brought a letter from the
Sovereigns, dated the 16th of August 1494, which did much to cheer the
shaken spirits of Columbus. The words with which he had freighted his
empty ships had not been in vain; and in this reply to them he was warmly
commended for his diligence, and reminded that he enjoyed the unshaken
confidence of the Sovereigns. They proposed that a caravel should sail
every month from Spain and from Isabella, bearing intelligence of the
colony and also, it was hoped, some of its products. In a general letter
addressed to the colony the settlers were reminded of the obedience they
owed to the Admiral, and were instructed to obey him in all things under
the penalty of heavy fines. They invited Columbus to come back if he
could in order to be present at the convention which was to establish the
line of demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese possessions; or if he
could not come himself to send his brother Bartholomew. There were
reasons, however, which made this difficult. Columbus wished to despatch
the ships back again as speedily as possible, in order that news of him
might help to counteract the evil rumours that he knew Buil and Margarite
would be spreading. He himself was as yet (February 1494) too ill to
travel; and during his illness Bartholomew could not easily be spared.
It was therefore decided to send home James, who could most easily be
spared, and whose testimony as a member of the governing body during the
absence of the Admiral on his voyage to Cuba might be relied upon to
counteract the jealous accusations of Margarite and Buil.
Unfortunately there was no golden cargo to send back with him. As much
gold as possible was scraped together, but it was very little. The usual
assortment of samples of various island products was also sent; but still
the vessels were practically empty. Columbus must have been painfully
conscious that the time for sending samples had more than expired, and
that the people in Spain might reasonably expect some of the actual
riches of which there had been so many specimens and promises. In
something approaching desperation, he decided to fill the empty holds of
the ships with something which, if it was not actual money, could at
least be made to realise money. From their sunny dreaming life on the
island five hundred natives were taken and lodged in the dark holds of
the caravels, to be sent to Spain and sold there for what they would
fetch. Of course they were to be "freed" and converted to Christianity
in the process; that was always part of the programme, but it did not
interfere with business. They were not man-eating Caribs or fierce
marauding savages from neighbouring islands, but were of the mild and
peaceable race that peopled Espanola. The wheels of civilisation were
beginning to turn in the New World.
After the capture of Caonabo and the massacre of April 25th Columbus
marched through the island, receiving the surrender and submission of the
terrified natives. At the approach of his force the caciques came out
and sued for peace; and if here and there there was a momentary
resistance, a charge of cavalry soon put an end to it. One by one the
kings surrendered and laid down their arms, until all the island rulers
had capitulated with the exception of Behechio, into whose territory
Columbus did not march, and who sullenly retired to the south-western
corner of the island. The terms of peace were harsh enough, and were
suggested by the dilemma of Columbus in his frantic desire to get
together some gold at any cost. A tribute of gold-dust was laid upon
every adult native in the island. Every three months a hawk's bell full
of gold was to be brought to the treasury at Isabella, and in the case 39
of caciques the measure was a calabash. A receipt in the form of a brass
medal was fastened to the neck of every Indian when he paid his tribute,
and those who could not show the medal with the necessary number of marks
were to be further fined and punished. In the districts where there was
no gold, 25 lbs. of cotton was accepted instead.
This levy was made in ignorance of the real conditions under which the
natives possessed themselves of the gold. What they had in many cases
represented the store of years, and in all but one or two favoured
districts it was quite impossible for them to keep up the amount of the
tribute. Yet the hawks' bells, which once had been so eagerly coveted
and were now becoming hated symbols of oppression, had to be filled
somehow; and as the day of payment drew near the wretched natives, who
had formerly only sought for gold when a little of it was wanted for a
pretty ornament, had now to work with frantic energy in the river sands;
or in other cases, to toil through the heat of the day in the cotton
fields which they had formerly only cultivated enough to furnish their
very scant requirements of use and adornment. One or two caciques,
knowing that their people could not possibly furnish the required amount
of gold, begged that its value in grain might be accepted instead; but
that was not the kind of wealth that Columbus was seeking. It must be
gold or nothing; and rather than receive any other article from the gold-
bearing districts, he consented to take half the amount.
Thus step by step, and under the banner of the Holy Catholic religion,
did dark and cruel misery march through the groves and glades of the
island and banish for ever its ancient peace. This long-vanished race
that was native to the island of Espanola seems to have had some of the
happiest and most lovable qualities known to dwellers on this planet.
They had none of the brutalities of the African, the paralysing wisdom of
the Asian, nor the tragic potentialities of the European peoples. Their
life was from day to day, and from season to season, like the life of
flowers and birds. They lived in such order and peaceable community as
the common sense of their own simple needs suggested; they craved no
pleasures except those that came free from nature, and sought no wealth
but what the sun gave them. In their verdant island, near to the heart
and source of light, surrounded by the murmur of the sea, and so enriched
by nature that the idea, of any other kind of riches never occurred to
them, their existence went to a happy dancing measure like that of the
fauns and nymphs in whose charmed existence they believed. The sun and
moon were to them creatures of their island who had escaped from a cavern
by the shore and now wandered free in the upper air, peopling it with
happy stars; and man himself they believed to have sprung from crevices
in the rocks, like the plants that grew tall and beautiful wherever there
was a handful of soil for their roots. Poor happy children! You are all
dead a long while ago now, and have long been hushed in the great humming
sleep and silence of Time; the modern world has no time nor room for
people like you, with so much kindness and so little ambition . . . .
Yet their free pagan souls were given a chance to be penned within the
Christian fold; the priest accompanied the gunner and the bloodhound, the
missionary walked beside the slave-driver; and upon the bewildered sun-
bright surface of their minds the shadow of the cross was for a moment
thrown. Verily to them the professors of Christ brought not peace, but a
sword.
CHAPTER III
UPS AND DOWNS
While Columbus was toiling under the tropical sun to make good his
promises to the Crown, Margarite and Buil, having safely come home to
Spain from across the seas, were busy setting forth their view of the
value of his discoveries. It was a view entirely different from any that
Ferdinand and Isabella had heard before, and coming as it did from two
men of position and importance who had actually been in Espanola, and
were loyal and religious subjects of the Crown, it could not fail to
receive, if not immediate and complete credence, at any rate grave
attention. Hitherto the Sovereigns had only heard one side of the
matter; an occasional jealous voice may have been raised from the
neighbourhood of the Pinzons or some one else not entirely satisfied with
his own position in the affair; but such small cries of dissent had
naturally had little chance against the dignified eloquence of the
Admiral.
Now, however, the matter was different. People who were at least the
equals of Columbus in intelligence, and his superiors by birth and
education, had seen with their own eyes the things of which he had
spoken, and their account differed widely from his. They represented
things in Espanola as being in a very bad way indeed, which was true
enough; drew a dismal picture of an overcrowded colony ravaged with
disease and suffering from lack of provisions; and held forth at length
upon the very doubtful quality of the gold with which the New World was
supposed to abound. More than this, they brought grave charges against
Columbus himself, representing him as unfit to govern a colony, given to
favouritism, and, worst of all, guilty of having deliberately
misrepresented for his own ends the resources of the colony. This as we
know was not true. It was not for his own ends, or for any ends at all
within the comprehension of men like Margarite and Buil, that poor
Christopher had spoken so glowingly out of a heart full of faith in what
he had seen and done. Purposes, dim perhaps, but far greater and loftier
than any of which these two mean souls had understanding, animated him
alike in his discoveries and in his account of them; although that does
not alter the unpleasant fact that at the stage matters had now reached
it seemed as though there might have been serious misrepresentation.
Ferdinand and Isabella, thus confronted with a rather difficult
situation, acted with great wisdom and good sense. How much or how
little they believed we do not know, but it was obviously their duty,
having heard such an account from responsible officers, to investigate
matters for themselves without assuming either that the report was true
or untrue. They immediately had four caravels furnished with supplies,
and decided to appoint an agent to accompany the expedition, investigate
the affairs of the colony, and make a report to them. If the Admiral was
still absent when their agent reached the colony he was to be entrusted
with the distribution of the supplies which were being sent out; for
Columbus's long absence from Espanola had given rise to some fears for
his safety.
The Sovereigns had just come to this decision (April 1495) when a letter
arrived from the Admiral himself, announcing his return to Espanola after
discovering the veritable mainland of Asia, as the notarial document
enclosed with the letter attested. Torres and James Columbus had arrived
in Spain, bearing the memorandum which some time ago we saw the Admiral
writing; and they were able to do something towards allaying the fears of
the Sovereigns as to the condition of the colony. The King and Queen,
nevertheless, wisely decided to carry out their original intention, and
in appointing an agent they very handsomely chose one of the men whom
Columbus had recommended to them in his letter--Juan Aguado. This action
shows a friendliness to Columbus and confidence in him that lead one to
suspect that the tales of Margarite and Buil had been taken with a grain
of salt.
At the same time the Sovereigns made one or two orders which could not
but be unwelcome to Columbus. A decree was issued making it lawful for
all native-born Spaniards to make voyages of discovery, and to settle in
Espanola itself if they liked. This was an infringement of the original
privileges granted to the Admiral--privileges which were really absurd,
and which can only have been granted in complete disbelief that anything
much would come of his discovery. It took Columbus two years to get this
order modified, and in the meantime a great many Spanish adventurers, our
old friends the Pinzons among them, did actually make voyages and added
to the area explored by the Spaniards in Columbus's lifetime. Columbus
was bitterly jealous that any one should be admitted to the western
ocean, which he regarded as his special preserve, except under his
supreme authority; and he is reported to have said that once the way to
the West had been pointed out "even the very tailors turned explorers."
There, surely, spoke the long dormant woolweaver in him.
The commission given to Aguado was very brief, and so vaguely worded
that it might mean much or little, according to the discretion of the
commissioner and the necessities of the case as viewed by him. "We send
to you Juan Aguada, our Groom of the Chambers, who will speak to you on
our part. We command you to give him faith and credit." A letter was
also sent to Columbus in which he was instructed to reduce the number of
people dependent on the colony to five hundred instead of a thousand; and
the control of the mines was entrusted to one Pablo Belvis, who was sent
out as chief metallurgist. As for the slaves that Columbus had sent
home, Isabella forbade their sale until inquiry could be made into the
condition of their capture, and the fine moral point involved was
entrusted to the ecclesiastical authorities for examination and solution.
Poor Christopher, knowing as he did that five hundred heretics were being
burned every year by the Grand Inquisitor, had not expected this hair-
splitting over the fate of heathens who had rebelled against Spanish
authority; and it caused him some distress when he heard of it. The
theologians, however, proved equal to the occasion, and the slaves were
duly sold in Seville market.
Aguado sailed from Cadiz at the end of August 1495, and reached Espanola
in October. James Columbus (who does not as yet seem to be in very great
demand anywhere, and who doubtless conceals behind his grave visage much
honest amazement at the amount of life that he is seeing) returned with
him. Aguado, on arriving at Isabella, found that Columbus was absent
establishing forts in the interior of the island, Bartholomew being left
in charge at Isabella.
Aguado, who had apparently been found faithful in small matters, was
found wanting in his use of the authority that had been entrusted to him.
It seems to have turned his head; for instead of beginning quietly to
investigate the affairs of the colony as he had been commanded to do he
took over from Bartholomew the actual government, and interpreted his
commission as giving him the right to supersede the Admiral himself. The
unhappy colony, which had no doubt been enjoying some brief period of
peace under the wise direction of Bartholomew, was again thrown into
confusion by the doings of Aguado. He arrested this person, imprisoned
that; ordered that things should be done this way, which had formerly
been done that way; and if they had formerly been done that way, then he
ordered that they should be done this way--in short he committed every
mistake possible for a man in his situation armed with a little brief
authority. He did not hesitate to let it be known that he was there to
examine the conduct of the Admiral himself; and we may be quite sure that
every one in the colony who had a grievance or an ill tale to carry,
carried it to Aguado. His whole attitude was one of enmity and
disloyalty to the Admiral who had so handsomely recommended him to the
notice of the Sovereigns; and so undisguised was his attitude that even
the Indians began to lodge their complaints and to see a chance by which
they might escape from the intolerable burden of the gold tribute.
It was at this point that Columbus returned and found Aguado ruling in
the place of Bartholomew, who had wisely made no protest against his own
deposition, but was quietly waiting for the Admiral to return. Columbus
might surely have been forgiven if he had betrayed extreme anger and
annoyance at the doings of Aguado; and it is entirely to his credit that
he concealed such natural wrath as he may have felt, and greeted Aguado
with extreme courtesy and ceremony as a representative of the Sovereigns.
He made no protest, but decided to return himself to Spain and confront
the jealousy and ill-fame that were accumulating against him.
Just as the ships were all ready to sail, one of the hurricanes which
occur periodically in the West Indies burst upon the island, lashing the
sea into a wall of advancing foam that destroyed everything before it.
Among other things it destroyed three out of the four ships, dashing them
on the beach and reducing them to complete wreckage. The only one that
held to her anchor and, although much battered and damaged, rode out the
gale, was the Nina, that staunch little friend that had remained faithful
to the Admiral through so many dangers and trials. There was nothing for
it but to build a new ship out of the fragments of the wrecks, and to
make the journey home with two ships instead of with four.
At this moment, while he was waiting for the ship to be completed,
Columbus heard a piece of news of a kind that never failed to rouse his
interest. There was a young Spaniard named Miguel Diaz who had got into
disgrace in Isabella some time before on account of a duel, and had
wandered into the island until he had come out on the south coast at the
mouth of the river Ozama, near the site of the present town of Santo
Domingo. There he had fallen in love with a female cacique and had made
his home with her. She, knowing the Spanish taste, and anxious to please
her lover and to retain him in her territory, told him of some rich gold-
mines that there were in the neighbourhood, and suggested that he should
inform the Admiral, who would perhaps remove the settlement from Isabella
to the south coast. She provided him with guides and sent him off to
Isabella, where, hearing that his antagonist had recovered, and that he
himself was therefore in no danger of punishment, he presented himself
with his story.
Columbus immediately despatched Bartholomew with a party to examine the
mines; and sure enough they found in the river Hayna undoubted evidence
of a wealth far in excess of that contained in the Cibao gold-mines.
Moreover, they had noticed two ancient excavations about which the
natives could tell them nothing, but which made them think that the mines
had once been worked.
Columbus was never backward in fitting a story and a theory to whatever
phenomena surrounded him; and in this case he was certain that the
excavations were the work of Solomon, and that he had discovered the gold
of Ophir. "Sure enough," thinks the Admiral, "I have hit it this time;
and the ships came eastward from the Persian Gulf round the Golden
Chersonesus, which I discovered this very last winter." Immediately, as
his habit was, Columbus began to build castles in Spain. Here was a fine
answer to Buil and Margarite! Without waiting a week or two to get any
of the gold this extraordinary man decided to hurry off at once to Spain
with the news, not dreaming that Spain might, by this time, have had a
surfeit of news, and might be in serious need of some simple, honest
facts. But he thought his two caravels sufficiently freighted with this
new belief--the belief that he had discovered the Ophir of Solomon.
The Admiral sailed on March 10th, 1496, carrying with him in chains the
vanquished Caonabo and other natives. He touched at Marigalante and at
Guadaloupe, where his people had an engagement with the natives, taking
several prisoners, but releasing them all again with the exception of one
woman, a handsome creature who had fallen in love with Caonabo and
refused to go. But for Caonabo the joys of life and love were at an end;
his heart and spirit were broken. He was not destined to be paraded as a
captive through the streets of Spain, and it was somewhere in the deep
Atlantic that he paid the last tribute to the power that had captured and
broken him. He died on the voyage, which was longer and much more full
of hardships than usual. For some reason or other Columbus did not take
the northerly route going home, but sailed east from Gaudaloupe,
encountering the easterly trade winds, which delayed him so much that the
voyage occupied three months instead of six weeks.
Once more he exhibited his easy mastery of the art of navigation and his
extraordinary gift for estimating dead-reckoning. After having been out
of sight of land for eight weeks, and while some of the sailors thought
they might be in the Bay of Biscay, and others that they were in the
English Channel, the Admiral suddenly announced that they were close to
Cape Saint Vincent.
No land was in sight, but he ordered that sail should be shortened that
evening; and sure enough the next morning they sighted the land close by
Cape Saint Vincent. Columbus managed his landfalls with a fine dramatic
sense as though they were conjuring tricks; and indeed they must have
seemed like conjuring tricks, except that they were almost always
successful.
CHAPTER IV
IN SPAIN AGAIN
The loiterers about the harbour of Cadiz saw a curious sight on June
11th, 1496, when the two battered ships, bearing back the voyagers from
the Eldorado of the West, disembarked their passengers. There were some
220 souls on board, including thirty Indians: and instead of leaping
ashore, flushed with health, and bringing the fortunes which they had
gone out to seek, they crawled miserably from the boats or were carried
ashore, emaciated by starvation, yellow with disease, ragged and unkempt
from poverty, and with practically no possessions other than the clothes
they stood up in. Even the Admiral, now in his forty-sixth year, hardly
had the appearance that one would expect in a Viceroy of the Indies. His
white hair and beard were rough and matted, his handsome face furrowed by
care and sunken by illness and exhaustion, and instead of the glittering
armour and uniform of his office he wore the plain robe and girdle of the
Franciscan order--this last probably in consequence of some vow or other
he had made in an hour of peril on the voyage.
One lucky coincidence marked his arrival. In the harbour, preparing to
weigh anchor, was a fleet of three little caravels, commanded by Pedro
Nino, about to set out for Espanola with supplies and despatches.
Columbus hurried on board Nino's ship, and there read the letters from
the Sovereigns which it had been designed he should receive in Espanola.
The letters are not preserved, but one can make a fair guess at their
contents. Some searching questions would certainly be asked, kind
assurances of continued confidence would doubtless be given, with many
suggestions for the betterment of affairs in the distant colony. Only
their result upon the Admiral is known to us. He sat down there and then
and wrote to Bartholomew, urging him to secure peace in the island by
every means in his power, to send home any caciques or natives who were
likely to give trouble, and most of all to push on with the building of a
settlement on the south coast where the new mines were, and to have a
cargo of gold ready to send back with the next expedition. Having
written this letter, the Admiral saw the little fleet sail away on June
17th, and himself prepared with mingled feelings to present himself
before his Sovereigns.
While he was waiting for their summons at Los Palacios, a small town near
Seville, he was the guest of the curate of that place, Andrez Bernaldez,
who had been chaplain to Christopher's old friend DEA, the Archbishop of
Seville. This good priest evidently proved a staunch friend to Columbus
at this anxious period of his life, for the Admiral left many important
papers in his charge when he again left Spain, and no small part of the
scant contemporary information about Columbus that has come down to us is
contained in the 'Historia de los Reyes Catolicos', which Bernaldez wrote
after the death of Columbus.
Fickle Spain had already forgotten its first sentimental enthusiasm over
the Admiral's discoveries, and now was only interested in their financial
results. People cannot be continually excited about a thing which they
have not seen, and there were events much nearer home that absorbed the
public interest. There was the trouble with France, the contemplated
alliance of the Crown Prince with Margaret of Austria, and of the Spanish
Princess Juana with Philip of Austria; and there were the designs of
Ferdinand upon the kingdom of Naples, which was in his eyes a much more
desirable and valuable prize than any group of unknown islands beyond the
ocean.
Columbus did his very best to work up enthusiasm again. He repeated the
performance that had been such a success after his first voyage--the kind
of circus procession in which the natives were marched in column
surrounded by specimens of the wealth of the Indies. But somehow it did
not work so well this time. Where there had formerly been acclamations
and crowds pressing forward to view the savages and their ornaments,
there were now apathy and a dearth of spectators. And although Columbus
did his very best, and was careful to exhibit every scrap of gold that he
had brought, and to hang golden collars and ornaments about the necks of
the marching Indians, his exhibition was received either in ominous
silence or, in some quarters, with something like derision. As I have
said before, there comes a time when the best-disposed debtors do not
regard themselves as being repaid by promises, and when the most
enthusiastic optimist desires to see something more than samples.
It was only old Colon going round with his show again--flamingoes,
macaws, seashells, dye-woods, gums and spices; some people laughed,
and some were angry; but all were united in thinking that the New World
was not a very profitable speculation.
Things were a little better, however, at Court. Isabella certainly
believed still in Columbus; Ferdinand, although he had never been
enthusiastic, knew the Admiral too well to make the vulgar mistake of
believing him an impostor; and both were too polite and considerate to
add to his obvious mortification and distress by any discouraging
comments. Moreover, the man himself had lost neither his belief in the
value of his discoveries nor his eloquence in talking of them; and when
he told his story to the Sovereigns they could not help being impressed,
not only with his sincerity but with his ability and single-heartedness
also. It was almost the same old story, of illimitable wealth that was
just about to be acquired, and perhaps no one but Columbus could have
made it go down once more with success; but talking about his exploits
was never any trouble to him, and his astonishing conviction, the lofty
and dignified manner in which he described both good and bad fortune, and
the impressive way in which he spoke of the wealth of the gold of Ophir
and of the far-reaching importance of his supposed discovery of the
Golden Chersonesus and the mainland of Asia, had their due effect on his
hearers.
It was always his way, plausible Christopher, to pass lightly over the
premises and to dwell with elaborate detail on the deductions. It was by
no means proved that he had discovered the mines of King Solomon; he had
never even seen the place which he identified with them; it was in fact
nothing more than an idea in his own head; but we may be sure that he
took it as an established fact that he had actually discovered the mines
of Ophir, and confined his discussion to estimates of the wealth which
they were likely to yield, and of what was to be done with the wealth
when the mere details of conveying it from the mines to the ships had
been disposed of. So also with the Golden Chersonesus. The very name
was enough to stop the mouths of doubters; and here was the man himself
who had actually been there, and here was a sworn affidavit from every
member of his crew to say that they had been there too. This kind of
logic is irresistible if you only grant the first little step; and
Columbus had the art of making it seem an act of imbecility in any of his
hearers to doubt the strength of the little link by which his great
golden chains of argument were fastened to fact and truth.
For Columbus everything depended upon his reception by the Sovereigns at
this time. Unless he could re-establish his hold upon them and move to a
still more secure position in their confidence he was a ruined man and
his career was finished; and one cannot but sympathise with him as he
sits there searching his mind for tempting and convincing arguments, and
speaking so calmly and gravely and confidently in spite of all the doubts
and flutterings in his heart. Like a tradesman setting out his wares,
he brought forth every inducement he could think of to convince the
Sovereigns that the only way to make a success of what they had already
done was to do more; that the only way to make profitable the money that
had already been spent was to spend more; that the only way to prove the
wisdom of their trust in him was to trust him more. One of his
transcendent merits in a situation of this kind was that he always had
something new and interesting to propose. He did not spread out his
hands and say, "This is what I have done: it is the best I can do; how
are you going to treat me?" He said in effect, "This is what I have
done; you will see that it will all come right in time; do not worry
about it; but meanwhile I have something else to propose which I think
your Majesties will consider a good plan."
His new demand was for a fleet of six ships, two of which were to convey
supplies to Espanola, and the other four to be entrusted to him for the
purpose of a voyage of discovery towards the mainland to the south of
Espanola, of which he had heard consistent rumours; which was said to be
rich in gold, and (a clever touch) to which the King of Portugal was
thinking of sending a fleet, as he thought that it might lie within the
limits of his domain of heathendom. And so well did he manage, and so
deeply did he impress the Sovereigns with his assurance that this time
the thing amounted to what is vulgarly called "a dead certainty," that
they promised him he should have his ships.
But promise and performance, as no one knew better than Columbus, are
different things; and it was a long while before he got his ships. There
was the usual scarcity of money, and the extensive military and
diplomatic operations in which the Crown was then engaged absorbed every
maravedi that Ferdinand could lay his hands on. There was an army to be
maintained under the Pyrenees to keep watch over France; fleets had to be
kept patrolling both the Mediterranean and Atlantic seaboards; and there
was a whole armada required to convey the princesses of Spain and Austria
to their respective husbands in connection with the double matrimonial
alliance arranged between the two countries. And when at last, in
October 1496, six million maravedis were provided wherewith Columbus
might equip his fleet, they were withdrawn again under very mortifying
circumstances. The appropriation had just been made when a letter
arrived from Pedro Nino, who had been to Espanola and come back again,
and now wrote from Cadiz to the Sovereigns, saying that his ships were
full of gold. He did not present himself at Court, but went to visit his
family at Huelva; but the good news of his letter was accepted as an
excuse for this oversight.
No one was better pleased than the Admiral. "What did I tell you?" he
says; "you see the mines of Hayna are paying already." King Ferdinand,
equally pleased, and having an urgent need of money in connection with
his operations against France, took the opportunity to cancel the
appropriation of the six million maravedis, giving Columbus instead an
order for the amount to be paid out of the treasure brought home by Nino.
Alas, the mariner's boast of gold had been a figure of speech. There was
no gold; there was only a cargo of slaves, which Nino deemed the
equivalent of gold; and when Bartholomew's despatches came to be read he
described the affairs of Espanola as being in very much the same
condition as before. This incident produced a most unfortunate
impression. Even Columbus was obliged to keep quiet for a little while;
and it is likely that the mention of six million maravedis was not
welcomed by him for some time afterwards.
After the wedding of Prince Juan in March 1497, when Queen Isabella had
more time to give to external affairs, the promise to Columbus was again
remembered, and his position was considered in detail. An order was made
(April 23rd, 1497), restoring to the Admiral the original privileges
bestowed upon him at Santa Fe. He was offered a large tract of land in
Espanola, with the title of Duke; but much as he hankered after titular
honours, he was for once prudent enough to refuse this gift. His reason
was that it would only further damage his influence, and give apparent
justification to those enemies who said that the whole enterprise had
been undertaken merely in his own interests; and it is possible also that
his many painful associations with Espanola, and the bloodshed and
horrors that he had witnessed there, had aroused in his superstitious
mind a distaste for possessions and titles in that devastated Paradise.
Instead, he accepted a measure of relief from the obligations incurred by
his eighth share in the many unprofitable expeditions that had been sent
out during the last three years, agreeing for the next three years to
receive an eighth share of the gross income, and a tenth of the net
profits, without contributing anything to the cost. His appointment of
Bartholomew to the office of Adelantado, which had annoyed Ferdinand, was
now confirmed; the universal license which had been granted to Spanish
subjects to settle in the new lands was revoked in so far as it infringed
the Admiral's privileges; and he was granted a force of 330 officers,
soldiers, and artificers to be at his personal disposal in the
prosecution of his next voyage.
The death of Prince Juan in October 1497 once more distracted the
attention of the Court from all but personal matters; and Columbus
employed the time of waiting in drafting a testamentary document in which
he was permitted to create an entail on his title and estates in favour
of his two sons and their heirs for ever. This did not represent his
complete or final testament, for he added codicils at various times,
the latest being executed the day before his death. The document is
worth studying; it reveals something of the laborious, painstaking mind
reaching out down the rivers and streams of the future that were to flow
from the fountain of his own greatness; it reveals also his triple
conception of the obligations of human life in this world--the
cultivation and retention of temporal dignity, the performance of pious
and charitable acts, and the recognition of duty to one's family. It was
in this document that Columbus formulated the curious cipher which he
always now used in signing his name, and of which various readings are
given in the Appendix. He also enjoined upon his heir the duty of using
the simple title which he himself loved and used most--"The Admiral."
After the death of Prince Juan, Queen Isabella honoured Columbus by
attaching his two sons to her own person as pages; and her friendship
must at this time have gone far to compensate him for the coolness shown
towards him by the public at large. He might talk as much as he pleased,
but he had nothing to show for all his talk except a few trinkets, a
collection of interesting but valueless botanical specimens, and a
handful of miserable slaves. Lives and fortunes had been wrecked on the
enterprise, which had so far brought nothing to Spain but the promise of
luxurious adventure that was not fulfilled and of a wealth and glory that
had not been realised. It must have been a very humiliating circumstance
to Columbus that in the preparations which he was now (February 1498)
making for the equipment of his new expedition a great difficulty was
found in procuring ships and men. Not even before the first voyage had
so much reluctance been shown to risk life and property in the
enterprise. Merchants and sailors had then been frightened of dangers
which they did not know; now, it seemed, the evils of which they did know
proved a still greater deterrent. The Admiral was at this time the guest
of his friend Bernaldez, who has told us something of his difficulties;
and the humiliating expedient of seizing ships under a royal order had
finally to be adopted. But it would never have done to impress the
colonists also; that would have been too open a confession of failure for
the proud Admiral to tolerate.
Instead he had recourse to the miserable plan of which he had made use in
Palos; the prisons were opened, and criminals under sentence invited to
come forth and enjoy the blessings of colonial life. Even then there was
not that rush from the prison doors that might have been expected, and
some desperate characters apparently preferred the mercies of a Spanish
prison to what they had heard of the joys of the Earthly Paradise. Still
a number of criminals did doubtfully crawl forth and furnish a retinue
for the great Admiral and Viceroy. Trembling, suspicious, and with more
than half a mind to go back to their bonds, some part of the human vermin
of Spain was eventually cajoled and chivied on board the ships.
The needs of the colony being urgent, and recruiting being slow, two
caravels laden with provisions were sent off in advance; but even for
this purpose there was a difficulty about money, and good Isabella
furnished the expense, at much inconvenience, from her private purse.
Columbus had to supervise everything himself; and no wonder that by the
end of May, when he was ready to sail, his patience and temper were
exhausted and his much-tried endurance broke down under the petty
gnatlike irritations of Fonseca and his myrmidons. It was on the deck of
his own ship, in the harbour of San Lucar, that he knocked down and
soundly kicked Ximeno de Breviesca, Fonseca's accountant, whose nagging
requisitions had driven the Admiral to fury.
After all these years of gravity and restraint and endurance, this
momentary outbreak of the old Adam in our hero is like a breath of wind
through an open window.
To the portraits of Columbus hanging in the gallery of one's imagination
this must surely be added; in which Christopher, on the deck of his ship,
with the royal standard and the Admiral's flag flying from his masthead,
is observed to be soundly kicking a prostrate accountant. The incident
is worthy of a date, which is accordingly here given, as near as may be--
May 29, 1498.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Absent for a little time, and his organisation went to pieces
Heretics were being burned every year by the Grand Inquisitor
Logic is irresistible if you only grant the first little step
Nautical phrase "make it so."
Professors of Christ brought not peace, but a sword
Terror and amazement; they had never seen horses before
The missionary walked beside the slave-driver
Theologians, however, proved equal to the occasion
Who never could meet any trouble without grumbling
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
AND THE NEW WORLD OF HIS DISCOVERY
A NARRATIVE BY FILSON YOUNG
BOOK 6.
CHAPTER V
THE THIRD VOYAGE
Columbus was at sea again; firm ground to him, although so treacherous
and unstable to most of us; and as he saw the Spanish coast sinking down
on the horizon he could shake himself free from his troubles, and feel
that once more he was in a situation of which he was master. He first
touched at Porto Santo, where, if the story of his residence there be
true, there must have been potent memories for him in the sight of the
long white beach and the plantations, with the Governor's house beyond.
He stayed there only a few hours and then crossed over to Madeira,
anchoring in the Bay of Funchal, where he took in wood and water. As it
was really unnecessary for him to make a port so soon after leaving,
there was probably some other reason for his visit to these islands;
perhaps a family reason; perhaps nothing more historically important than
the desire to look once more on scenes of bygone happiness, for even on
the page of history every event is not necessarily big with significance.
From Madeira he took a southerly course to the Canary Islands, and on
June 16th anchored at Gomera, where he found a French warship with two
Spanish prizes, all of which put to sea as the Admiral's fleet
approached. On June 21st, when he sailed from Gomera, he divided his
fleet of six vessels into two squadrons. Three ships were despatched
direct to Espanola, for the supplies which they carried were urgently
needed there. These three ships were commanded by trustworthy men: Pedro
de Arana, a brother of Beatriz, Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, and Juan
Antonio Colombo--this last no other than a cousin of Christopher's from
Genoa. The sons of Domenico's provident younger brother had not
prospered, while the sons of improvident Domenico were now all in high
places; and these three poor cousins, hearing of Christopher's greatness,
and deciding that use should be made of him, scraped together enough
money to send one of their number to Spain. The Admiral always had a
sound family feeling, and finding that cousin Antonio had sea experience
and knew how to handle a ship he gave him command of one of the caravels
on this voyage--a command of which he proved capable and worthy. From
these three captains, after giving them full sailing directions for
reaching Espanola, Columbus parted company off the island of Ferro. He
himself stood on a southerly course towards the Cape Verde Islands.
His plan on this voyage was to find the mainland to the southward, of
which he had heard rumours in Espanola. Before leaving Spain he had
received a letter from an eminent lapidary named Ferrer who had travelled
much in the east, and who assured him that if he sought gold and precious
stones he must go to hot lands, and that the hotter the lands were, and
the blacker the inhabitants, the more likely he was to find riches there.
This was just the kind of theory to suit Columbus, and as he sailed
towards the Cape Verde Islands he was already in imagination gathering
gold and pearls on the shores of the equatorial continent.
He stayed for about a week at the Cape Verde Islands, getting in
provisions and cattle, and curiously observing the life of the Portuguese
lepers who came in numbers to the island of Buenavista to be cured there
by eating the flesh and bathing in the blood of turtles. It was not an
inspiriting week which he spent in that dreary place and enervating
climate, with nothing to see but the goats feeding among the scrub, the
turtles crawling about the sand, and the lepers following the turtles.
It began to tell on the health of the crew, so he weighed anchor on July
5th and stood on a southwesterly course.
This third voyage, which was destined to be the most important of all,
and the material for which had cost him so much time and labour, was
undertaken in a very solemn and determined spirit. His health, which he
had hoped to recover in Spain, had been if anything damaged by his
worryings with officialdom there; and although he was only forty-seven
years of age he was in some respects already an old man. He had entered,
although happily he did not know it, on the last decade of his life; and
was already beginning to suffer from the two diseases, gout and
ophthalmia, which were soon to undermine his strength and endurance.
Religion of a mystical fifteenth-century sort was deepening in him;
he had undertaken this voyage in the name of the Holy Trinity; and to
that theological entity he had resolved to dedicate the first new land
that he should sight.
For ten days light baffling winds impeded his progress; but at the end of
that time the winds fell away altogether, and the voyagers found
themselves in that flat equatorial calm known to mariners as the
Doldrums. The vertical rays of the sun shone blisteringly down upon
them, making the seams of the ships gape and causing the unhappy crews
mental as well as bodily distress, for they began to fear that they had
reached that zone of fire which had always been said to exist in the
southern ocean.
Day after day the three ships lay motionless on the glassy water, with
wood-work so hot as to burn the hands that touched it, with the meat
putrefying in the casks below, and the water running from the loosened
casks, and no one with courage and endurance enough to venture into the
stifling hold even to save the provisions. And through all this the
Admiral, racked with gout, had to keep a cheerful face and assure his
prostrate crew that they would soon be out of it.
There were showers of rain sometimes, but the moisture in that baking
atmosphere only added to its stifling and enervating effects. All the
while, however, the great slow current of the Atlantic was moving
westward, and there came a day when a heavenly breeze, stirred in the
torrid air and the musical talk of ripples began to rise again from the
weedy stems of the ships. They sailed due west, always into a cooler and
fresher atmosphere; but still no land was sighted, although pelicans and
smaller birds were continually seen passing from south-west to north-
east. As provisions were beginning to run low, Columbus decided on the
31st July to alter his course to north-by-east, in the hope of reaching
the island of Dominica. But at mid-day his servant Alonso Perez,
happening to go to the masthead, cried out that there was land in sight;
and sure enough to the westward there rose three peaks of land united at
the base. Here was the kind of coincidence which staggers even the
unbeliever. Columbus had promised to dedicate the first land he saw to
the Trinity; and here was the land, miraculously provided when he needed
it most, three peaks in one peak, in due conformity with the requirements
of the blessed Saint Athanasius. The Admiral was deeply affected; the
God of his belief was indeed a good friend to him; and he wrote down his
pious conviction that the event was a miracle, and summoned all hands to
sing the Salve Regina, with other hymns in praise of God and the Virgin
Mary. The island was duly christened La Trinidad. By the hour of
Compline (9 o'clock in the evening) they had come up with the south coast
of the island, but it was the next day before the Admiral found a harbour
where he could take in water. No natives were to be seen, although there
were footprints on the shore and other signs of human habitation.
He continued all day to sail slowly along the shore of the island, the
green luxuriance of which astonished him; and sometimes he stood out from
the coast to the southward as he made a long board to round this or that
point. It must have been while reaching out in this way to the southward
that he saw a low shore on his port hand some sixty miles to the south of
Trinidad, and that his sight, although he did not know it, rested for the
first time on the mainland of South America. The land seen was the low
coast to the west of the Orinoco, and thinking that it was an island he
gave it the name of Isla Sancta.
On the 2nd of August they were off the south-west of Trinidad, and saw
the first inhabitants in the shape of a canoe full of armed natives, who
approached the ships with threatening gestures. Columbus had brought out
some musicians with him, possibly for the purpose of impressing the
natives, and perhaps with the idea of making things a little more
cheerful in Espanola; and the musicians were now duly called upon to give
a performance, a tambourine-player standing on the forecastle and beating
the rhythm for the ships' boys to dance to. The effect was other than
was anticipated, for the natives immediately discharged a thick flight of
arrows at the musicians, and the music and dancing abruptly ceased.
Eventually the Indians were prevailed upon to come on board the two
smaller ships and to receive gifts, after which they departed and were
seen no more. Columbus landed and made some observations of the
vegetation and climate of Trinidad, noticing that the fruits and-trees
were similar to those of Espanola, and that oysters abounded, as well as
"very large, infinite fish, and parrots as large as hens."
He saw another peak of the mainland to the northwest, which was the
peninsula of Paria, and to which Columbus, taking it to be another
island, gave the name of Isla de Gracia. Between him and this land lay a
narrow channel through which a mighty current was flowing--that press of
waters which, sweeping across the Atlantic from Africa, enters the
Caribbean Sea, sprays round the Gulf of Mexico, and turns north again in
the current known as the Gulf Stream. While his ships were anchored at
the entrance to this channel and Columbus was wondering how he should
cross it, a mighty flood of water suddenly came down with a roar, sending
a great surging wave in front of it. The vessels were lifted up as
though by magic; two of them dragged their anchors from the bottom, and
the other one broke her cable. This flood was probably caused by a
sudden flush of fresh water from one of the many mouths of the Orinoco;
but to Columbus, who had no thought of rivers in his mind, it was very
alarming. Apparently, however, there was nothing for it but to get
through the channel, and having sent boats on in front to take soundings
and see that there was clear water he eventually piloted his little
squadron through, with his heart in his mouth and his eyes fixed on the
swinging eddies and surging circles of the channel. Once beyond it he
was in the smooth water of the Gulf of Paria. He followed the westerly
coast of Trinidad to the north until he came to a second channel narrower
than the first, through which the current boiled with still greater
violence, and to which he gave the name of Dragon's Mouth. This is the
channel between the northwesterly point of Trinidad and the eastern
promontory of Paria. Columbus now began to be bewildered, for he
discovered that the water over the ship's side was fresh water, and he
could not make out where it came from. Thinking that the peninsula of
Paria was an island, and not wishing to attempt the dangerous passage of
the Dragon's Mouth, he decided to coast along the southern shore of the
land opposite, hoping to be able to turn north round its western
extremity.
Sweeter blew the breezes, fresher grew the water, milder and more balmy
the air, greener and deeper the vegetation of this beautiful region. The
Admiral was ill with the gout, and suffering such pain from his eyes that
he was sometimes blinded by it; but the excitement of the strange
phenomena surrounding him kept him up, and his powers of observation,
always acute, suffered no diminution. There were no inhabitants to be
seen as they sailed along the coast, but monkeys climbed and chattered in
the trees by the shore, and oysters were found clinging to the branches
that dipped into the water. At last, in a bay where they anchored to
take in water, a native canoe containing three, men was seen cautiously
approaching; and the men, who were shy, were captured by the device of a
sailor jumping on to the gunwale of the canoe and overturning it, the
natives being easily caught in the water, and afterwards soothed and
captivated by the unfailing attraction of hawks' bells. They were tall
men with long hair, and they told Columbus that the name of their country
was Paria; and when they were asked about other inhabitants they pointed
to the west and signified that there was a great population in that
direction.
On the 10th of August 1498 a party landed on this coast and formally took
possession of it in the name of the Sovereigns of Spain. By an unlucky
chance Columbus himself did not land. His eyes were troubling him so
much that he was obliged to lie down in his cabin, and the formal act of
possession was performed by a deputy. If he had only known! If he could
but have guessed that this was indeed the mainland of a New World that
did not exist even in his dreams, what agonies he would have suffered
rather than permit any one else to pronounce the words of annexation!
But he lay there in pain and suffering, his curious mystical mind
occupied with a conception very remote indeed from the truth.
For in that fertile hotbed of imagination, the Admiral's brain, a new and
staggering theory had gradually been taking shape. As his ships had been
wafted into this delicious region, as the airs had become sweeter, the
vegetation more luxuriant, and the water of the sea fresher,--he had
solemnly arrived at the conclusion that he was approaching the region of
the true terrestrial Paradise: the Garden of Eden that some of the
Fathers had declared to be situated in the extreme east of the Old World,
and in a region so high that the flood had not overwhelmed it. Columbus,
thinking hard in his cabin, blood and brain a little fevered, comes to
the conclusion that the world is not round but pear-shaped. He knows
that all this fresh water in the sea must come from a great distance and
from no ordinary river; and he decides that its volume and direction have
been acquired in its fall from the apex of the pear, from the very top of
the world, from the Garden of Eden itself. It was a most beautiful
conception; a theory worthy to be fitted to all the sweet sights and
sounds in the world about him; but it led him farther and farther away
from the truth, and blinded him to knowledge and understanding of what he
had actually accomplished.
He had thought the coast of Cuba the mainland, and he now began to
consider it at least possible that the peninsula of Paria was mainland
also--another part of the same continent. That was the truth--Paria was
the mainland--and if he had not been so bemused by his dreams and
theories he might have had some inkling of the real wonder and
significance of his discovery. But no; in his profoundly unscientific
mind there was little of that patience which holds men back from
theorising and keeps them ready to receive the truth. He was patient
enough in doing, but in thinking he was not patient at all. No sooner
had he observed a fact than he must find a theory which would bring it
into relation with the whole of his knowledge; and if the facts would not
harmonise of themselves he invented a scheme of things by which they were
forced into harmony. He was indeed a Darwinian before his time, an adept
in the art of inventing causes to fit facts, and then proving that the
facts sprang from the causes; but his origins were tangible, immovable
things of rock and soil that could be seen and visited by other men, and
their true relation to the terrestrial phenomena accurately established;
so that his very proofs were monumental, and became themselves the
advertisements of his profound misjudgment. But meanwhile he is the
Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and can "make it so"; and accordingly, in a
state of mental instability, he makes the Gulf of Paria to be a slope of
earth immediately below the Garden of Eden, although fortunately he does
not this time provide a sworn affidavit of trembling ships' boys to
confirm his discovery.
Meanwhile also here were pearls; the native women wore ropes of them all
over their bodies, and a fair store of them were bartered for pieces of
broken crockery. Asked as usual about the pearls the natives, also as
usual, pointed vaguely to the west and south-west, and explained that
there were more pearls in that direction. But the Admiral would not
tarry. Although he believed that he was within reach of Eden and pearls,
he was more anxious to get back to Espanola and send the thrilling news
to Spain than he was to push on a little farther and really assure
himself of the truth. How like Christopher that was! Ideas to him were
of more value than facts, as indeed they are to the world at large; but
one is sometimes led to wonder whether he did not sometimes hesitate to
turn his ideas into facts for very fear that they should turn out to be
only ideas. Was he, in his relations with Spain and the world, a trader
in the names rather than the substance of things? We have seen him going
home to Spain and announcing the discovery of the Golden Chersonesus,
although he had only discovered what he erroneously supposed to be an
indication of it; proclaiming the discovery of the Ophir of Solomon
without taking the trouble to test for himself so tremendous an
assumption; and we now see him hurrying away to dazzle Spain with the
story that he has discovered the Garden of Eden, without even trying to
push on for a few days more to secure so much as a cutting from the Tree
of Life.
These are grave considerations; for although happily the Tree of Life is
now of no importance to any human being, the doings of Admiral
Christopher were of great importance to himself and to his fellow-men at
that time, and are still to-day, through the infinite channels in which
human thought and action run and continue thoughout the world, of grave
importance to us. Perhaps this is not quite the moment, now that the
poor Admiral is lying in pain and weakness and not quite master of his
own mind, to consider fully how he stands in this matter of honesty; we
will leave it for the present until he is well again, or better still,
until his tale of life and action is complete, and comes as a whole
before the bar of human judgment.
On August 11th Columbus turned east again after having given up the
attempt to find a passage to the north round Paria. There were practical
considerations that brought him to this action. As the water was growing
shoaler and shoaler he had sent a caravel of light draft some way further
to the westward, and she reported that there lay ahead of her a great
inner bay or gulf consisting of almost entirely fresh water. Provisions,
moreover, were running short, and were, as usual, turning bad; the
Admiral's health made vigorous action of any kind impossible for him; he
was anxious about the condition of Espanola--anxious also, as we have
seen, to send this great news home; and he therefore turned back and
decided to risk the passage of the Dragon's Mouth. He anchored in the
neighbouring harbour until the wind was in the right quarter, and with
some trepidation put his ships into the boiling tideway. When they were
in the middle of the passage the wind fell to a dead calm, and the ships,
with their sails hanging loose, were borne on the dizzy surface of
eddies, overfalls, and whirls of the tide. Fortunately there was deep
water in the passage, and the strength of the current carried them safely
through. Once outside they bore away to the northward, sighting the
islands of Tobago and Grenada and, turning westward again, came to the
islands of Cubagua and Margarita, where three pounds of pearls were
bartered from the natives. A week after the passage of the Dragon's
Mouth Columbus sighted the south coast of Espanola, which coast he made
at a point a long way to the east of the new settlement that he had
instructed Bartholomew to found; and as the winds were contrary, and he
feared it might take him a long time to beat up against them, he sent a
boat ashore with a letter which was to be delivered by a native messenger
to the Adelantado. The letter was delivered; a few days later a caravel
was sighted which contained Bartholomew himself; and once more, after a
long separation, these two friends and brothers were united.
The see-saw motion of all affairs with which Columbus had to do was in
full swing. We have seen him patching up matters in Espanola; hurrying
to Spain just in time to rescue his damaged reputation and do something
to restore it; and now when he had come back it was but a sorry tale that
Bartholomew had to tell him. A fortress had been built at the Hayna
gold-mines, but provisions had been so scarce that there had been
something like a famine among the workmen there; no digging had been
done, no planting, no making of the place fit for human occupation and
industry. Bartholomew had been kept busy in collecting the native
tribute, and in planning out the beginnings of the settlement at the
mouth of the river Ozema, which was at first called the New Isabella, but
was afterwards named San Domingo in honour of old Domenico at Savona.
The cacique Behechio had been giving trouble; had indeed marched out with
an army against Bartholomew, but had been more or less reconciled by the
intervention of his sister Anacaona, widow of the late Caonabo, who had
apparently transferred her affections to Governor Bartholomew. The
battle was turned into a friendly pagan festival--one of the last ever
held on that once happy island--in which native girls danced in a green
grove, with the beautiful Anacaona, dressed only in garlands, carried on
a litter in their midst.
But in the Vega Real, where a chapel had been built by the priests of the
neighbouring settlement who were beginning to make converts, trouble had
arisen in consequence of an outrage on the wife of the cacique Guarionex.
The chapel was raided, the shrine destroyed, and the sacred vessels
carried off. The Spaniards seized a number of Indians whom they
suspected of having had a hand in the desecration, and burned them at the
stake in the most approved manner of the Inquisition--a hideous
punishment that fanned the remaining embers of the native spirit into
flame, and produced a hostile combination of Guarionex and several other
caciques, whose rebellion it took the Adelantado some trouble and display
of arms to quench.
But the worst news of all was the treacherous revolt of Francisco Roldan,
a Spaniard who had once been a servant of the Admiral's, and who had been
raised by him to the office of judge in the island--an able creature,
but, like too many recipients of Christopher's favour, a treacherous
rascal at bottom. As soon as the Admiral's back was turned Roldan had
begun to make mischief, stirring up the discontent that was never far
below the surface of life in the colony, and getting together a large
band of rebellious ruffians. He had a plan to murder Bartholomew
Columbus and place himself at the head of the colony, but this fell
through. Then, in Bartholomew's absence, he had a passage with James
Columbus, who had now returned to the island and had resumed his.
official duties at Isabella. Bartholomew, who was at another part of the
coast collecting tribute, had sent a caravel laden with cotton to
Isabella, and well-meaning James had her drawn up on the beach. Roldan
took the opportunity to represent this innocent action as a sign of the
intolerable autocracy of the Columbus family, who did not even wish a
vessel to be in a condition to sail for Spain with news of their
misdeeds. Insolent Roldan formally asks James to send the caravel to
Spain with supplies; poor James refuses and, perhaps being at bottom
afraid of Roldan and his insolences, despatches him to the Vega Real with
a force to bring to order some caciques who had been giving trouble.
Possibly to his surprise, although not to ours, Roldan departs with
alacrity at the head of seventy armed men. Honest, zealous James, no
doubt; but also, we begin to fear, stupid James.
The Vega Real was the most attractive part of the colony, and the scene
of infinite idleness and debauchery in the early days of the Spanish
settlement. As Margarite and other mutineers had acted, so did Roldan
and his soldiers now act, making sallies against several of the chain of
forts that stretched across the island, and even upon Isabella itself;
and returning to the Vega to the enjoyment of primitive wild pleasures.
Roldan and Bartholomew Columbus stalked each other about the island with
armed forces for several months, Roldan besieging Bartholomew in the
fortress at the Vega, which he had occupied in Roldan's absence, and
trying to starve him out there. The arrival in February 1498 of the two
ships which had been sent out from Spain in advance, and which brought
also the news of the Admiral's undamaged favour at Court, and of the
royal confirmation of Bartholomew's title, produced for the moment a good
moral effect; Roldan went and sulked in the mountains, refusing to have
any parley or communication with the Adelantado, declining indeed to
treat with any one until the Admiral himself should return. In the
meantime his influence with the natives was strong enough to produce a
native revolt, which Bartholomew had only just succeeded in suppressing
when Christopher arrived on August 30th.
The Admiral was not a little distressed to find that the three ships from
which he had parted company at Ferro had not yet arrived. His own voyage
ought to have taken far longer than theirs; they had now been nine weeks
at sea, and there was nothing to account for their long delay. When at
last they did appear, however they brought with them only a new
complication. They had lost their way among the islands and had been
searching about for Espanola, finally making a landfall there on the
coast of Xaragua, the south-western province of the island, where Roldan
and his followers were established. Roldan had received them and,
concealing the fact of his treachery, procured a large store of
provisions from them, his followers being meanwhile busy among the crews
of the ships inciting them to mutiny and telling them of the oppression
of the Admiral's rule and the joys of a lawless life. The gaol-birds
were nothing loth; after eight weeks at sea a spell ashore in this
pleasant land, with all kinds of indulgences which did not come within
the ordinary regimen of convicts and sailors, greatly appealing to them.
The result was that more than half of the crews mutinied and joined
Roldan, and the captains were obliged to put to sea with their small
loyal remnant. Carvajal remained behind in order to try to persuade
Roldan to give himself up; but Roldan had no such idea, and Carvajal had
to make his way by land to San Domingo, where he made his report to the
Admiral. Roldan has in fact delivered a kind of ultimatum. He will
surrender to no one but the Admiral, and that only on condition that he
gets a free pardon. If negotiations are opened, Roldan will treat with
no one but Carvajal. The Admiral, whose grip of the situation is getting
weaker and weaker, finds himself in a difficulty. His loyal army is only
some seventy strong, while Roldan has, of disloyal settlers, gaol-birds,
and sailors, much more than that. The Admiral, since he cannot reduce
his enemy's force by capturing them, seeks to do it by bribing them; and
the greatest bribe that he can think of to offer to these malcontents is
that any who like may have a free passage home in the five caravels which
are now waiting to return to Spain. To such a pass have things come in
the paradise of Espanola! But the rabble finds life pleasant enough in
Xaragua, where they are busy with indescribable pleasures; and for the
moment there is no great response to this invitation to be gone.
Columbus therefore despatches his ships, with such rabble of colonists,
gaol-birds, and mariners as have already had their fill both of pain and
pleasure, and writes his usual letter to the Sovereigns--half full of the
glories of the new discoveries he has made, the other half setting forth
the evil doings of Roldan, and begging that he may be summoned to Spain
for trial there. Incidentally, also, he requests a further licence for
two years for the capture and despatch of slaves to Spain. So the
vessels sail back on October 18, 1498, and the Admiral turns wearily to
the task of disentangling the web of difficulty that has woven itself
about him.
Carvajal and Ballester--another loyal captain--were sent with a letter to
Roldan urging him to come to terms, and Carvajal and Ballester added
their own honest persuasions. But Roldan was firm; he wished to be quit
of the Admiral and his rule, and to live independently in the island; and
of his followers, although some here and there showed signs of
submission, the greater number were so much in love with anarchy that
they could not be counted upon. For two months negotiations of a sort
were continued, Roldan even presenting himself under a guarantee of
safety at San Domingo, where he had a fruitless conference with the
Admiral; where also he had an opportunity of observing what a sorry state
affairs in the capital were in, and what a mess Columbus was making of it
all. Roldan, being a simple man, though a rascal, had only to remain
firm in order to get his way against a mind like the Admiral's, and get
his way he ultimately did. The Admiral made terms of a kind most
humiliating to him, and utterly subversive of his influence and
authority. The mutineers were not only to receive a pardon but a
certificate (good Heavens!) of good conduct. Caravels were to be sent to
convey them to Spain; and they were to be permitted to carry with them
all the slaves that they had collected and all the native young women
whom they had ravished from their homes.
Columbus signs this document on the 21st of November, and promises that
the ships shall be ready in fifty days; and then, at his wits' end, and
hearing of irregularities in the interior of the island, sets off with
Bartholomew to inspect the posts and restore them to order. In his
absence the see-saw, in due obedience to the laws that govern all see-
saws, gives a lurch to the other side, and things go all wrong again in
San Domingo. The preparations for the despatch of the caravels are
neglected as soon as his back is turned; not fifty days, but nearly one
hundred days elapse before they are ready to sail from San Domingo to
Xaragua. Even then they are delayed by storms and head-winds; and when
they do arrive Roldan and his company will not embark in them. The
agreement has been broken; a new one must be made. Columbus, returning
to San Domingo after long and harassing struggles on the other end of the
see-saw, gets news of this deadlock, and at the same time has news from
Fonseca in Spain of a far from agreeable character. His complaints
against the people under him have been received by the Sovereigns and
will be duly considered, but their Majesties have not time at the moment
to go into them. That is the gist of it, and very cold cheer it is for
the Admiral, balancing himself on this turbulent see-saw with anxious
eyes turned to Spain for encouragement and approval.
In the depression that followed the receipt of this letter he was no
match for Roldan. He even himself took a caravel and sailed towards
Xaragua, where he was met by Roldan, who boarded his ship and made his
new proposals. Their impudence is astounding; and when we consider that
the Admiral had in theory absolute powers in the island, the fact that
such proposals could be made, not to say accepted, shows how far out of
relation were his actual with his nominal powers. Roldan proposed that
he should be allowed to give a number of his friends a free passage to
Spain; that to all who should remain free grants of land should be given;
and (a free pardon and certificate of good conduct contenting him no
longer) that a proclamation should be made throughout the island
admitting that all the charges of disloyalty and mutiny which had been
brought against him and his followers were without foundation; and,
finally, that he should be restored to his office of Alcalde Mayor or
chief magistrate.
Here was a bolus for Christopher to swallow; a bolus compounded of his
own words, his own acts, his hope, dignity, supremacy. In dismal
humiliation he accepted the terms, with the addition of a clause more
scandalous still--to the effect that the mutineers reserved the right,
in case the Admiral should fail in the exact performance of any of his
promises, to enforce them by compulsion of arms or any other method they
might think fit. This precious document was signed on September 28, 1499
just twelve months after the agreement which it was intended to replace;
and the Admiral, sailing dismally back to San Domingo, ruefully pondered
on the fruits of a year's delay. Even then he was trying to make excuses
for himself, such as he made afterwards to the Sovereigns when he tried
to explain that this shameful capitulation was invalid. That he signed
under compulsion; that he was on board a ship, and so was not on his
viceregal territory; that the rebels had already been tried, and that he
had not the power to revoke a sentence which bore the authority of the
Crown; that he had not the power to dispose of the Crown property--
desperate, agonised shuffling of pride and self-esteem in the coils of
trial and difficulty. Enough of it.
CHAPTER VI
AN INTERLUDE
A breath of salt air again will do us no harm as a relief from these
perilous balancings of Columbus on the see-saw at Espanola. His true
work in this world had indeed already been accomplished. When he smote
the rock of western discovery many springs flowed from it, and some were
destined to run in mightier channels than that which he himself followed.
Among other men stirred by the news of Columbus's first voyage there was
one walking the streets of Bristol in 1496 who was fired to a similar
enterprise--a man of Venice, in boyhood named Zuan Caboto, but now known
in England, where he has some time been settled, as Captain John Cabot.
A sailor and trader who has travelled much through the known sea-roads
of this world, and has a desire to travel upon others not so well known.
He has been in the East, has seen the caravans of Mecca and the goods
they carried, and, like Columbus, has conceived in his mind the roundness
of the world as a practical fact rather than a mere mathematical theory.
Hearing of Columbus's success Cabot sets what machinery in England he has
access to in motion to secure for him patents from King Henry VII.; which
patents he receives on March 5, 1496. After spending a long time in
preparation, and being perhaps a little delayed by diplomatic protests
from the Spanish Ambassador in London, he sails from Bristol in May 1497.
After sailing west two thousand leagues Cabot found land in the
neighbourhood of Cape Breton, and was thus in all probability the first
discoverer, since the Icelanders, of the mainland of the New World. He
turned northward, sailed through the strait of Belle Isle, and came home
again, having accomplished his task in three months. Cabot, like
Columbus, believed he had seen the territory of the Great Khan, of whom
he told the interested population of Bristol some strange things. He
further told them of the probable riches of this new land if it were
followed in a southerly direction; told them some lies also, it appears,
since he said that the waters there were so dense with fish that his
vessels could hardly move in them. He received a gratuity of L10 and a
pension, and made a great sensation in Bristol by walking about the city
dressed in fine silk garments. He took other voyages also with his son
Sebastian, who followed with him the rapid widening stream of discovery
and became Pilot Major of Spain, and President of the Congress appointed
in 1524 to settle the conflicting pretensions of various discoverers; but
so far as our narrative is concerned, having sailed across from Bristol
and discovered the mainland of the New World some years before Columbus
discovered it, John Cabot sails into oblivion.
Another great conquest of the salt unknown taken place a few days before
Columbus sailed on his third voyage. The accidental discovery of the
Cape by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486 had not been neglected by Portugal; and
the achievements of Columbus, while they cut off Portuguese enterprise
from the western ocean, had only stimulated it to greater activity within
its own spheres. Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon in July 1497; by the
end of November he had rounded the Cape of Good Hope; and in May 1498,
after a long voyage full of interest, peril, and hardship he had landed
at Calicut on the shores of the true India. He came back in 1499 with a
battered remnant, his crew disabled by sickness and exhaustion, and half
his ships lost; but he had in fact discovered a road for trade and
adventure to the East that was not paved with promises, dreams, or mad
affidavits, but was a real and tangible achievement, bringing its reward
in commerce and wealth for Portugal. At that very moment Columbus was
groping round the mainland of South America, thinking it to be the coast
of Cathay, and the Garden of Eden, and God knows what other
cosmographical--theological abstractions; and Portugal, busy with her
arrangements for making money, could afford for the moment to look on
undismayed at the development of the mine of promises discovered by the
Spanish Admiral.
The anxiety of Columbus to communicate the names of things before he had
made sure of their substance received another rude chastisement in the
events that followed the receipt in Spain of his letter announcing the
discovery of the Garden of Eden and the land of pearls. People in Spain
were not greatly interested in his theories of the terrestrial Paradise;
but more than one adventurer pricked up his ears at the name of pearls,
and among the first was our old friend Alonso de Ojeda, who had returned
some time before from Espanola and was living in Spain. His position as
a member of Columbus's force on the second voyage and the distinction he
had gained there gave him special opportunities of access to the letters
and papers sent home by Columbus; and he found no difficulty in getting
Fonseca to show him the maps and charts of the coast of Paria sent back
by the Admiral, the veritable pearls which had been gathered, and the
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