Christopher Columbus Part 10

The fitting out of the ships restored his spirits considerably. Whenever Christopher had to do with boats and sea preparations he was in his element. He now grew optimistic, and, with his usual fatal habit of promising great results, he told his Sevilla acquaintances that he expected to circ.u.mnavigate the world. Fatal habit, yes; but it meant that he still kept that rich imagination, without which he never would have made his first voyage.

Meanwhile, he realized that he was getting old, and that he might never come back from this trip. His thoughts often turned to his native Genoa, where he had played so happily as a child in the Vico Dritto di Ponticello; so, one day he sat down and generously wrote to the authorities of Genoa that, should his claims against the Spanish Crown ever be settled, a part of his money was to be used in paying the Genoese tax on wheat and wine, so that the poor might buy these two staples at a lower price.

Finally all was ready; four small, weather-beaten ships; a crew of one hundred and fifty men and boys; a few months' provisions. His brother Bartholomew, not very willingly, and his son Fernando, almost too eagerly, accompanied him. This, his fourth and last voyage, started from Cadiz on May 9, 1502.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST VOYAGE

Fernando Columbus, though only a lad of fourteen, noted every new experience with intelligent delight. He had his father's pa.s.sion for writing things down. As it was the result of personal observation, Fernando's account of the fourth voyage may be accepted as more reliable than many other items he has left us concerning the Admiral's history.

Among other things, Fernando says that the little fleet intended starting its search at the outlet of the Gulf of Paria, and then following the land west until they came to the straits leading into the Indian Ocean; but while approaching the Caribbean Islands, his father discovered that one of the vessels was in need of repairs; for which reason he headed for San Domingo, where he hoped to purchase a better caravel.

As Columbus had been told _not_ to stop there till his return trip, he sent one of the faster ships ahead with a letter to Governor Ovando, explaining that he wanted to buy another ship, and also that he was seeking protection from a hurricane that he saw approaching. Knowing the peculiarities of weather in those regions, he was so sure of the storm that he advised Ovando to hold back any vessels that might be about to depart for Spain.

Our weather-wise old Admiral was not mistaken in his prophecy. A furious West Indian hurricane broke on the last day of June; but his poor little ships, instead of lying safe in the shelter of San Domingo harbor, were exposed to all the ravages of the storm. Why? Because Ovando had refused to let him enter the port! A cruel insult; but the Admiral was too busy just then to brood over it. He must hastily draw in under the lee of the land and wait for the hurricane to pa.s.s.

It was not the sort that pa.s.sed, for it stayed and stayed till it was worn out by its own fury. "Eighty-eight days," Columbus wrote to his sovereign, "did this fearful tempest continue, during which I was at sea and saw neither sun nor stars. My ships lay exposed with sails torn; and anchors, cables, rigging, boats, and a quant.i.ty of provisions lost....

Other tempests have I experienced, but none of so long duration or so frightful as this."

And all this perilous time, when men and vessels narrowly escaped going to the bottom, the discoverer of the New World was denied the privilege of the only seaport in it! It makes one's blood boil, even to-day, to think that at San Domingo the Comendador Ovando and the whole group of ungrateful landsmen went safely to bed every night in the very houses that they had hated Columbus for making them build, while he was lashing about on the furious waves, thinking his other three ships lost, and expecting every minute a similar fate for his own!

The eighty-eight days, fortunately, were not continuously stormy; there were occasional lulls. It was the end of June when Columbus had asked for shelter; not till the middle of July did the first clear weather come. Then the scattered, battered boats reunited as by a miracle, and found themselves near the "Queen's Garden" islands south of Cuba. Let us leave them there patching their boats and enjoying a bit of sunshine while we see what has been happening at ungrateful San Domingo.

Ovando had been on the island a month and a half when Columbus came along asking permission to land. Whether this was refused through the new governor's ugly nature alone, or whether he believed Columbus's prophecy of bad weather merely an excuse to land, is not known. Certain it is that, although the Spanish monarchs thought San Domingo could get along better without the Admiral, they never intended him to be turned off when a violent hurricane was pending. Ovando evidently did not believe in the hurricane; besides, he did not want Columbus to find out that the new governors were managing no better than he had managed. In this respect there was nothing to be proud of, else Ovando would surely have believed in the hurricane. Bobadilla had been a miserable failure; and he himself had not been there long enough to make any improvements, except the detestable one of sending for African negroes to replace Indian slaves!

One thing, however, had turned out a little better than any one expected, and that was the gold mine near which the town of San Domingo had been built. When Columbus's warning about the storm came, eighteen caravels lay in the harbor ready to start for Spain with eighteen hundredweight of gold. One nugget alone, Las Casas tells us, weighed thirty-five pounds. Out of all this treasure, Columbus's share was forty pounds, and that was set aside and loaded on the poorest, leakiest caravel of the lot, called _The Needle_, to be sent to Spain and to remain there until he should appear to claim it.

Ovando, like Columbus, wanted the colony to appear profitable in the eyes of the monarchs, and was eager to start off this first golden cargo, also all the spoils he had filched from the natives since his arrival. Then, too, the Comendador Bobadilla was already aboard, and Ovando was eager to be rid of him and also of Francisco Roldan, who never had been, and never could be, of use in any colony; so Ovando, when he read Columbus's warning, threw back his head and exclaimed, "Nonsense! Let them start just the same!"

And start they did; and scarcely were the vessels out of sight when the hurricane broke. Of the eighteen ships only one ever got to Spain. Three returned much damaged to San Domingo. The others went down. The one vessel that reached Spain was the leaky little tub called _The Needle_, laden with the Admiral's gold! Thus the same storm that sent many of his San Domingo enemies to a watery grave saved for him the first profits he received from the island. It would be some satisfaction to learn that Ovando was rebuked for his cruelty and stupidity; but there is no record of such a reprimand. Perhaps no one even knew that Ovando had been warned. As for the wholesale shipwreck, people merely looked at such things piously in those days, and said, "It is the will of Heaven!"

When the first lull came in that devastating storm, Columbus found himself south of Cuba among the little "Garden" group. It was the third time he had had a chance to sail along the Cuban coast and discover whether it really was an island, as the natives said, or whether it was the mainland, as he had forced his sailors to swear while on the Cuban voyage when his brain was full of fever. Again he let the problem go unsolved; the object of this fourth voyage was to find the straits leading into the Indian Ocean. Having failed to begin his search from Trinidad by following South America westward, as originally planned, he expected he would come to the straits by following Cuba's southern sh.o.r.e in the same direction, if Cuba, as he hoped, was a great strip of land projecting eastward from the continent. And yet, instead of sailing along Cuba, or returning to the Gulf of Paria and hugging the land westward, he suddenly decided to put out southwest into the open sea.

This seems to us a foolish course, for no matter at what point he struck land, how would he know whether to explore to the left or right for his straits? Why this least desirable of three courses was taken neither the Admiral nor his son explained in their diaries. Of course he found land,--the Honduras coast; but of course he had no means of knowing what relation it had either to Cuba or to the land around the Gulf of Paria.

Thus the poor Admiral lost his last chance of arriving at any just conclusions of the magnitude of his discovery.

Before reaching this Honduras coast they stopped at the Isle of Pines, where they saw natives in comfortable-looking house boats; that is, huge canoes sixty feet long, cut from a single mahogany tree, and with a roofed caboose amidships. These natives wore plenty of gold ornaments and woven clothing; they had copper hatchets and sharp blades of flint; and they used a sort of money for buying and selling. In other words, it was the nearest approach to civilization that Columbus had ever seen in his new lands. He tried by signs to ask about all these things, and the natives pointed west as the place from which their house boat had come.

But so keen was Columbus for "the straits" to the Indian Ocean that even gold could not divert him this time; he refused to proceed due west, and thus failed to discover Mexico, the richest region the Spaniards were ever to find on the North American continent.

From the Isle of Pines, the Admiral put out again into the open sea, southwest, and the moment he had cleared land terrific storms were encountered. Worse still, when he neared the coast which he named Honduras, the currents were so violent that his boats could hardly make headway against them. All July and August thunder and lightning were incessant. Timbers creaked and strained till each minute it appeared as if they must have reached the breaking point. Meanwhile the Admiral was enduring the tortures of rheumatism and could not leave his bed; and so, up on deck where the gales and the waves swept free, he ordered them to rig a little cabin of sailcloth; there he lay and directed every move of his crew. One minute he saw his terrified seamen clinging to masts or slipping over wet decks; another, hauling in the mere shreds of sails that were left. One minute he heard them vowing pilgrimages and penances if only they might be saved; another, denouncing the madman who brought them to these terrible waters.

But the sick man did not heed all this; his business was to bring them out alive if possible; so he kept a clear head and issued his orders.

Whenever he became discouraged, he looked across the wave-washed decks to the comforting sight of a slender lad of fourteen, brought up delicately at court, but now turning to with a will and helping the sailors with every rough, heavy task. How proud the Admiral must have felt when he wrote in his journal, "It was as if Fernando had been at sea eighty years!"

At last they rounded a point where better weather greeted them, and in thankfulness Columbus called it Cape Gracias a Dios (Thanks to G.o.d). But straightway came another blow. On the very first day when they could catch their breath and cease struggling against wind and current and rain, their spirits were again dashed. A rowboat went near the mouth of a river to take on fresh water, and the river came out with a gush, upset the boat, and drowned the men in it. So our sick Admiral, who was drawing a map of the coast, and had just finished writing "Thanks to G.o.d," marks down the rushing river and names it "Rio de Desastre" (River of Disaster).

Just below Gracias Cape the current divided into two, one part flowing west, the other south; this latter was followed. Sailing down the Mosquito Coast they came, toward the end of September, to a pleasant spot which Columbus called "The Garden," or El Jardin (p.r.o.nounced Khar- deen'), and where the natives appeared to be more intelligent than any he had yet seen. Continuing south, he came to Caribaro Bay, where the people wore many flat ornaments of beaten gold. As if they could detect, from afar, the gold l.u.s.t in the European eye, the poor creatures brandished their weapons to keep the strange-looking visitors from landing; but it was of no avail. Land they did, and traded seventeen gold disks for just three tinkly bells! The voyagers asked, of course, where the gold came from, and were told from Veragua, a little farther south. For once the sign language was correctly understood. Veragua actually existed. The Spaniards found it just west of the Isthmus of Darien.

Here plenty more gold was seen. "In two days," wrote Columbus, "I saw more indications of near-by gold mines than I had seen in four years in Hispaniola." Not only did he see the precious metal, but he heard that "ten days inland" lived tribes who possessed quant.i.ties of gold and silver. And then the natives spoke of something far more wonderful, had Columbus but known it, than gold; for they said, also, that ten days'

tramp westward lay a vast sea. This, Columbus concluded, must be the immense river Ganges; and his tired brain began figuring how, by a little "tramping west," and a little river boating, and then some more tramping, a Spaniard could get from Darien back to Spain, provided the Moslems did not murder him on the way!

But he was not seeking for gold on this trip. He did not march ten days inland. He turned a deaf ear to it and to all his importuning crew and went searching for his "strait"; by which steadfastness of purpose he just missed discovering the Pacific Ocean. It has been said that Fate was always a little n.i.g.g.ardly with Columbus, and never was it truer than at this moment when she at last deafened his ear to the tale of gold and sent him south.

All November and December he continued coasting along South America. But his greedy crew could never forget the sight of those Veragua natives actually smelting gold. The men became sulky and clamored to go back; and furthermore, the ships were too worm-eaten and too covered with barnacles to proceed. On December 5, in order to take the gold-seekers back to Darien, he reluctantly gave over his search for the pa.s.sage to the Indian Ocean. But the minute he turned north new gales began to blow. These continued so furiously that in a whole month they progressed barely a hundred miles. All this time they were nearly starved; about the only provisions left were their rotten biscuits and these were, as Fernando tells us, so disgusting to look upon that "many waited till night to eat their sop."

At last the famished party got back to Veragua. Eighty men landed with the idea of forming a settlement under Bartolome Colon. They had the good sense to act in the friendliest manner to the native chief; but he was not the simple-minded creature that Guacanagari was, over in Haiti.

He saw at once that they wanted gold, so he nodded obligingly, and indicated by signs that he would lead them to the gold mines. And he did; but they proved to be the small, worked-out mines of a neighboring chief who drove the intruders off. Back they went to the first chief's land and began to build a stockade. The first chief still appeared friendly enough, but a very clever young Spaniard named Diego Mendez happened to prowl through the undergrowth to the Indian village and saw the warriors sharpening their knives and making ready to attack the uninvited settlers. Off rushed Diego to tell Don Bartolome; and he, believing that "the best defense is a sharp attack," rushed to the village, captured the chief and many warriors, and sent them captive aboard the waiting caravels. The chief, however, succeeded in jumping over the side, diving to the bottom, and swimming ash.o.r.e.

It was then quite dark and none saw him come to the surface, but the next day he had another force ready to defy them. Of his fellow- prisoners who had been thrust into the hold, some managed to throw open a hatchway, overpower the guard, and likewise plunge into the sea. The sailors hurriedly pushed back the hatchway so that no more might climb out on deck; but next morning it was discovered that all those who had not escaped were dead. They had committed suicide rather than be carried off by the ruthless strangers.

All this time there was such a rough sea that no small boats could get ash.o.r.e from the caravels to obtain news of the eighty colonists under Bartolome. At last a sailor offered to swim to land; when he came back, it was with the news that this settlement had gone the way of Isabella and San Domingo, for half its men had mutinied. The gold did not seem worth fighting for where natives were so hostile that a man could not even pick fruit from a tree and eat it! Columbus saw that there was nothing to do but get the men back on the boats and abandon all thought of colonizing what he had already named Costa Rica (Rich Coast).

But to carry out this decision for a while appeared impossible; the waves were too high for any boat to venture out; but at last the clever Diego Mendez, by lashing two canoes together into a sort of raft, got near enough to sh.o.r.e to rescue Don Bartolome and his men and stores.

When Diego had succeeded in this perilous task, his Admiral was so grateful that, in the presence of all the men, he kissed him on both cheeks, a mark of great respect in those days. Ah, if only Christopher had found such a stanch, capable friend earlier in his career!

Ever since they reached the mainland Columbus had been suffering torments with rheumatism. Now to add to his agonies a fever attacked him. Along with these ills, and the murmurings of his hungry men, one of the ships was wrecked; and after they had rescued its men and provisions, and were about to find room for them on another ship, this other ship was discovered to be too worm-eaten and disabled to continue the voyage. Columbus, in all his pain, directed the removal of men and goods to the best two caravels. This done, he started for San Domingo, turning his back on his last chance to find the pa.s.sage to India--the broad Pacific Ocean--if only he had crossed the isthmus between!

CHAPTER XX

THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ

At last they were clear of the most disastrous landing that Columbus had ever made. What you have read is but the bare sketch of a chapter in his life that was crowded thick with misfortunes and even horrors. And yet, strange to say, on this detestable coast is the only settlement in the New World that perpetuates the great discoverer's name, the town of Colon, at the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Ca.n.a.l.

The Admiral's health was now ruined, for fevers, sleeplessness, gout, and eyestrain kept him in constant pain, and at times made even that strong mind of his a little queer and wobbly. But on one point at least it remained alert and lucid,--he still could think out his course clearly. With a view to avoiding the treacherous winds and coastwise currents that had previously wrought such havoc with his ships, he set his rudders due east on leaving Veragua; his idea being to sail first east and then north to San Domingo.

Straightway the crews became alarmed, thinking he meant to return direct to Spain, in spite of the fact that the ships were too rotten for the long trip. But no; the Admiral hoped, besides escaping currents, to mystify them as to the geographical position of the gold coast.

Remembering how Alonzo de Ojeda had gone back and reaped riches from the pearl coast, and how Pedro Nino, that captain who brought slaves to Cadiz and sent word that he had brought a cargo of gold, and also been to Paria, Christopher decided to zigzag about in such a manner that no one could ever find his way back to the gold country ten days inland from Darien. Suffering and misfortune were surely telling on the Admiral's mind, else he would never have written this childish note: "None of them [the crew] could explain whither I went nor whence I came; they did not know the way to return thither."

But all the time his men grumbled, and could not understand why they were starting for Spain on crazy, crumbling ships, when San Domingo lay so much nearer. Every day they murmured louder, till at last the Admiral foolishly humored them by heading due north; the result was that he turned too soon and found himself in a new current he had never met before. This current carried them past Hispaniola westward again to those same "Gardens of the Queen." The series of storms that here overtook the two battered little ships were almost as bad as those that met them on their last approach to Hispaniola. Anchors were lost and the men kept the ships from sinking only by the constant use of "three pumps and all their pots and kettles." By the 23d of June they had drifted over to Jamaica. The crews were worn out by their hard work to keep afloat. It seemed as if human endurance could stand no more. Many were badly bruised from being dashed down on the decks like bits of wood before the gales; they had had no dry clothing on for days; their hearts were faint, their stomachs fainter, for they had had nothing to eat and drink for some time but black wormy bread and vinegar. How, we ask ourselves as we sit in our comfortable, solid houses, did they endure it? And yet there was even worse to come!

The Admiral saw that even "three pumps and all their pots and kettles"

could not keep the water bailed out of the leaky boats. The only thing he could do was to run his ships aground. The first harbor he tried was so barren on every side that starvation stared them in the face; so they pushed on a little farther, the exhausted men again bailing steadily, till they entered a greener spot, now called Don Christopher's Cove. Not a minute too soon did they reach it. Once the ships were grounded on the sandy beach, the tide soon filled the hulls with water. The weary men had to turn to and build cabins on the forecastles; and here at last they managed to keep dry, and to lie down and rest.

Their first thought was how to get food. The resourceful Diego Mendez offered to tramp over the island and trade whatever personal articles the sailors had left for foodstuffs. In this he was successful; he secured more than food; he exchanged the clothing on his own back for a large canoe and six rowers, and returned by sea. The next aid Mendez rendered the shipwrecked men showed even finer heroism than his lashing the canoes together to rescue Bartholomew. He offered to go in an open rowboat all the way from Jamaica to Haiti and ask Ovando to send a rescue vessel!

Look at a map of the West Indies and see what this offer meant! Two hundred miles to the western point of Haiti, two hundred more to the governor at San Domingo, and this, too, across a sea frequented by perilous hurricanes. It was a magnificent piece of volunteer work! Not one chance in a hundred did Diego Mendez have of reaching his destination, and he knew it; yet he offered to take the risk. One of his shipmates caught some of his valorous spirit and offered to accompany him; and the six native rowers, of course, had no choice but to go.

Mendez was as practical and ingenious as he was brave. He fastened weatherboards along the rim of the canoe to prevent shipping water; he fitted it with a mast and sail, and coated it with tar; and while he was doing it the Admiral wrote a brief, businesslike letter to Ovando, telling of the sad plight they were in; he also wrote a long, rambling letter, full of evidence of feeble-mindedness, to the monarchs. These letters Mendez was to take with him.

But Mendez, to every one's dismay, came back again in a few days,--came back alone and with boat and oars smashed. While waiting at the eastern point of Jamaica for a favorable wind to take them over to Haiti, they were surrounded by hostile natives and captured. The six rowers escaped, and the companion of Mendez was probably killed instantly; but while the savages were debating how to kill and cook Mendez, he managed to dash away, jump in his huge canoe, and push off!