1492 Part 24

How many red men were in Quisquaya I do not know. In some regions they dwelled thickly, in others were few folk. In this wide, long, laughing plain dwelled many, in clean towns sunk among trees good to look at and dropping fruit; by river or smaller stream, with plantings of maize, batata, ca.s.sava, jucca, maguey, and I know not what beside. If the stream was a considerable one, canoes. They had parrots; they had the small silent dogs. In some places we saw clay pots and bowls. They wove their cotton, though not very skillfully. They crushed their maize in hand mills. We found caciques and butios, and heard of their main cacique, Gwarionex. But he did not come to meet us; they said he had gone on a visit to Caonabo in Cibao. They brought us food and took our gifts in exchange; they harangued us in answer to our harangues; they made dances for us. The children thronged around, fearless now and curious. The women were kind. Old men and women together, and sometimes more women than men, sat in a council ring about some venerable tree.

There was no quarrel and no oppression upon this adventure. I look back and I see that single journey in Hispaniola a flower and pattern of what might be.

They gave us what gold they had--freely--and we gave in return things that they prized. But always they said Cibao for gold.

We rode and marched afoot, with many halts and turns aside, five leagues across plain. A large river barred our way,--the Yaqui they called it. Here we spent two days in a village a bowshot from the water. We searched for gold, we sent from Indian to Indian rumor that it was the highest magic, G.o.d-magic that of all things in the world we most desired and took it from their hands, yet still we paid for it in goods for which they l.u.s.ted, and we neither forced nor threatened force. And though we were four hundred, yet there might be in the Royal Plain forty thousand, and their hue and their economy was yet prince in the land, and the Spaniard a visitor. And there commanded the four hundred a humane man, with something of the guilelessness of the child.

We crossed the Yaqui in canoes and upon rafts. White, brown and black, the horses swam the stream. Again nigh impenetrable forest, again villages, again clear singing and running waters. But ever the mountains came closer. At last we entered hilly country and the streams pushed with rapidity, flowing to the Yaqui, flowing to the sea. Now we began to find gold. It glistened in the river sands. Sometimes we found nuts of it, washed from the rocks far above. There came upon us the gold fever.

Mines--we must open mines! Fermin Cedo, our essayer, would have it that it was not Ophir, but at that time he was hardly believed. The Admiral wrote a letter about these golden mines.

An Indian brought him a piece of amber; another, a lump of blue stone.

We found jasper, we were sure of copper.

We came to a natural rampart, wide at top, steeply descending on three sides, set in a loop of a little clear river named Yanique. "Ho!" cried Alonso de Ojeda. "Here is the cradle for the babe! Round tower, walls, barbican yonder, and Mother Nature has dug the moat!" He sent his voice across to the Viceroy. "A fort, senor, a fort!"

Council was held by the Yanique. A fort,--a luckier than La Navidad!

Men left here to collect gold, establish a road, keep communication with Isabella which in turn should forward supplies and men. The returning fleet might bring two thousand--nay, five thousand men! It would certainly bring a.s.ses and mules as well as horses. We should have burden-bearers. Moreover, a company of Indians might be trained to come and go as carriers. Train them, set some sort of penalty for malfeasance.

"They should be taught to mine for us," said Pedro Margarite. "Pay them?

Of course--of course! But do not pay them too much. Do not we protect them from Caribs and save their souls to boot? Take it as tribute!" It was the first time the word was said, in Spanish, here.

We built a fort much after the model of La Navidad and named it St.

Thomas. When after days it was done, and commandant must be chosen, the Viceroy's choice fell upon Pedro Margarite. And that was great pity.

But he could not know Margarite then as afterwards he came to know him.

Fifty-six men he left with Margarite, and the rest of us marched home across the Vega and the northern mountains to Isabella.

Sickness. Quarrels. Idleness, vanity, dissensions and accusations. Heat, more sickness, wild quarrels.

Tidings from Margarite at St. Thomas. The Indians would no longer bring food. Caonabo was threatening from the higher mountains. The Viceroy wrote to Margarite. Compel the Indians to bring food, but as it were to compel them gently!

Quarrels--quarrels at Isabella. Two main parties and all the lesser ones. Disease and scarcity. Fray Geronimo arrived from St. Thomas.

He had stories. The Viceroy grew dark red, his eyes lightened. Yet he believed that what was told pertained to men of Margarite, not to that cavalier himself. He wrote to Margarite--I do not know what. But presently a plan arose in his mind and was announced. Don Alonso de Ojeda was to command St. Thomas. Don Pedro Margarite should have a moving force of several hundred Castilians, mainly for exploration, but at need for other things. Going here and there about the country, it might impress upon Caonabo that the Spaniard though gentle by nature, was dangerous when aroused.

Alonso de Ojeda, three hundred men behind him, went forth on his black horse, to trumpet and drum, very gay and ready to go. In a week he sent into Isabella six Indians in chains. These had set upon three of Margarite's men coming with a letter to the Viceroy and had robbed them, though without doing them bodily injury. Alonso de Ojeda had cut off their ears and sent them all in heavily chained. The Viceroy condemned them to be beheaded, but when they were on their knees before the block reprieved them, one by one. He kept them chained for a time for all visiting Indians to see, then formally pardoned them and let them go.

Matters quieted. Sickness again sank, a flood retiring, leaving pools.

Alonso de Ojeda and Pedro Margarite reported peace in Hispaniola. The Admiral came forth from his house one day and said quietly to this one and that one that now he meant again to take up Discovery.

He gave authority in Isabella to Don Diego, and made him a council where sat Father Buil, Caravajal, Coronel and Juan de Luxan. Then out of five ships we took the _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, and we set sail on April the twenty-fourth.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE island, we learned, was named Jamaica. The Admiral called it Santiago, but it also rests Jamaica.

Of all these lands, outside of the low, small islands to which we came first, Cuba seemed to us the peaceable land. Jamaica gave us almost Carib welcome. Its folk had the largest canoes, the sharpest, toughest lances. Perhaps they had heard from some bold sea rover that we had come, but that we were not wholly G.o.ds!

Our crossbow men shot amongst them. The arrows failed to halt them, but when we sent a bloodhound the dog did our work. It was to them what griffon or fire-breathing dragon might be to a Seville throng. When the creature sprang among them they uttered a great cry and fled. Jamaica is most beautiful.

For not a few days we visited, sailing and anchoring, lifting again and stopping again. Once the people were pacified, they gave us kindly enough welcome, trading and wondering. We slipped by bold coasts and headlands which we must double, mountains above us. They ran by inland paths, saving distance, telling village after village. When we made harbor, here was the thronged beach. Some of these people wore a slight dress of woven gra.s.s and palm leaves, and they used crowns of bright feathers. We got from them in some quant.i.ty golden ornaments. But south for gold, south--south, they always pointed south!

The _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_ set sail out of the Harbor of Good Weather, in Santiago or Jamaica. A day and a night of pleasant sailing, then we saw the great Cuba coast rise blue in the distance. The weather wheeled.

There was first a marvelous green hush, while clouds formed out of nothing. We heard a moaning sound and we did not know its quarter. The sea turned dead man's color. Then burst the wind. It was more than wind; it seemed the movement of a world upon us. Bare of all sails, we labored. We were driven, one from the other. The mariners fell to praying.

A strange light was around us, as though the tempest itself made a light. By it I marked the Admiral, upright where he could best command the whole. He had lashed himself there, for the ship tossed excessively.

His great figure stood; his white, blowing hair, in that strange light, made for him a nimbus. It was strange, how the light seemed to seize that and his brow and his gray-blue eyes. Below the eyes his lips moved.

He was shouting encouragement, but only the intention could be heard.

The intention was heard. He looked what he was, something more than a bold man and a brave sea captain, and there streamed from him comfort.

It touched his mariners; it came among them like tongues of flame.

Darkness increased. We were now among lightnings like javelins and loud thunder. Then fell the rain, in torrents, in drops large as plums. It was as though another ocean was descending upon us.

It lasted and we endured. After long while came lessening in that weight of rain, and then cessation. Suddenly the tempest was over. There shone a star--three stars and on topmast and bowsprit Saint Elmo's lights.

Our mariners shouted, "Safe--safe! Saint Elmo!"

Suddenly, over all the sky, were stars shining. The Admiral raised his great voice. "Sing, all of us!

'Stella Maris--Sancta Maria!'"

With the morning the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, beaten about, some injury done, but alive! And the coast of Cuba, nearer, nearer, tall and blue--and at last very tall and green and gold.

Off Cuba and still off Cuba, the southern coast now, as against the northern that once we tried for a while. Sail and come to land, stay a bit, and shake out sails once more!

Wherever we tarried we found peaceable if vastly excited Indians.

But still naked, but still unwise as to gold and spices, traders and markets. Cambalu, Quinsai and Zaiton of the marble bridges!

"'Somewhere,' saith Messer Marco, 'in part the country is savage, filled with mountains, and here come few strangers, for the king will not have them, in order that his treasures and certain matters of his kingdom come not into the world's knowledge.' And again he saith, 'The folk here are naked.'--What wonder then," said the Admiral, "that we find these things! Yea, I feel surprised at the incessancy, but I check myself and think, how vast is Asia, and what variousness must needs be!"

But we moved in a cloud of differences, and while on the one hand this world was growing familiar, on the other the sense increased. "How vast indeed must be Asia, if all this and yet we come not--and now it is going on two years--to any clear hint of other than this!"

He himself, the Admiral, began to feel this strangeness. Or rather, he had long felt it and fought the feeling, but now strongly it came creeping over.

We were among the hugest number of small islands. Starboard loomed, until it was lost in the farness, that coast that we were following, but the three ships were in a half-land, half-water world. We wandered in this labyrinth, keeping with difficulty our way, so crooked and narrow the channels, so many the sandbars. From deck it minded me of that sea of weed we met in the first pa.s.sage.

Waves of fragrance struck us. "Ha!" cried the Admiral. "Can you not smell cinnamon, spikenard, nutmeg, cloves and galingal?" His faith was so strong that we did smell. From one of these islands, the _Cordera_ lying at anchor and a boat going ash.o.r.e, we took a number of pigeons. So unafraid were these birds that our men approached them easily and beat them down with a pike. We had them for supper, and when their crops were opened, the cook found and brought to the Admiral a number of brown seeds. The Admiral dropped them into clear water, then smelled and tasted. "Cloves? Are they not cloves?" He gave to Juan de la Cosa and to me who also tasted and thought they might be cloves. But we did not find their tree, and we saw no signs of ever a merchant of Cathay or Mangi or Ind.

Christopherus Columbus leaned upon the rail of the _Cordera_. In this islet world we lay at anchor for the night. "Do you know what it is," he asked, "to have a word color the whole day long?" He glanced around, but none was very near. "My Word to-day is _magic_. I'd not give it to any but you, and I drop my voice in saying it. I'll sail on through magic and against magic, for I have Help from Above! But I'll not lay a fearsome word among those who are not so accorded! All say India hath high magic, and the Grand Khan takes from that country his astrologers and sorcerers. I have read that at Shandu, if there be long raining, they will mount a tower by the palace and wave it back, so that the falling rain makes but a pleasant wall around the king's fair garden that itself rests in sunshine. Also that without touching them they cause the golden flagons to fill with red wine and to move through air, with no hand upon them, to the king's table. That was long ago. We have had no news of them of late. They may do now more marvelous, vaster things."

"And the moral?"

"I said, 'They do them there.' Perhaps this is there."

"I take you!" I said and half-laughed. "We may be in Cathay all this while, under the golden roofs, with the bells strung from the eaves.