Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia Part 4

Ferdinand and Isabella raised him from the ground and endeavoured to encourage him by the most gracious expressions.

As soon as he had recovered his self-possession, he entered into an eloquent and high-minded vindication of his conduct, and his zeal for the glory and advantage of the Spanish crown.

The king and queen expressed their indignation at the proceedings of Bobadilla, and promised he should be immediately dismissed from his command.

The person chosen to supersede Bobadilla was Nicholas de Ovando. While his departure was delayed by various circ.u.mstances, every arrival brought intelligence of the disasterous state of the island under the administration of Bobadilla.

He encouraged the Spaniards in the exercise of the most wanton cruelties towards the natives, to obtain from them large quant.i.ties of gold. "Make the most of your time," he would say, "there is no knowing how long it will last;" and the colonists were not backward in following his advice.

In the meantime the poor Indians sunk under the toils imposed upon them, and the severities with which they were enforced.

These accounts hastened the departure of Ovando, and a person sailed with him, in order to secure what he could of the wreck of Columbus'

property.

CHAPTER VI.

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS ROBBED OF THE HONOUR OF GIVING HIS NAME TO AMERICA.

I have told you that Columbus, as soon as he arrived at Hispaniola, after discovering the new continent, sent a ship to Spain with a journal of the voyage he had made, and a description of the new continent which he had discovered, together with a chart of the coast of Paria and c.u.mana, along which he had sailed.

This journal, with the charts and description, and Columbus' letters on the subject, were placed in the custody of Fonseca, he being minister for Indian affairs.

No sooner had the particulars of this discovery been communicated by Columbus, than a separate commission of discovery, signed by Fonseca, but not by the sovereigns, was granted to Alonzo de Ojeda, who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, and whom Columbus had instructed in all his plans. Ojeda was accompanied on this voyage by a Florentine, whose name was Amerigo Vespucci.

To these adventurers Fonseca communicated Columbus' journal, his description of the country, his charts, and all his private letters.

This expedition sailed from Spain while Columbus was still at Hispaniola, and wholly ignorant of what was taking place; and Ojeda, without touching at the colony, steered his course direct for Paria, following the very track which Columbus had marked out.

Having extended their discoveries very little farther than Columbus had gone before them, Vespucci, on returning to Spain, published an account of his adventures and discoveries, and had the address and confidence so to frame his narrative, as to make it appear that the glory of having discovered the new continent belonged to him.

Thus the bold pretensions of an impostor have robbed the discoverer of his just reward, and the caprice of fame has unjustly a.s.signed to him an honour far above the renown of the greatest conquerors--that of indelibly impressing his name upon this vast portion of the earth, which ought in justice to have been called Columbia.

Two years had now been spent in soliciting the favour of an ungrateful court, and notwithstanding all his merits and services, he solicited in vain; but even this ungracious return did not lessen his ardour in his favourite pursuits, and his anxiety to pursue those discoveries in which he felt he had yet only made a beginning.

Ferdinand at last consented to grant him four small vessels, the largest of which did not exceed seventy tons in burden; but, accustomed to brave danger and endure hardships, he did not hesitate to accept the command of this pitiful squadron, and he sailed from Cadiz on his fourth voyage on the 9th of May.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Having touched, as usual, at the Canaries, he intended to have sailed direct for this new discovered continent; but his largest vessel was so clumsy and unfit for service, that he determined to bear away for Hispaniola, in hopes of exchanging her for some ship of the fleet that had carried out Ovando.

The fleet that had brought out Ovando lay in the harbour ready to put to sea, and was to take home Bobadilla, together with Roldan and many of his adherents, to be tried in Spain for rebellion. Bobadilla was to embark in the princ.i.p.al ship, on board of which he had put an immense amount of gold, which he hoped would atone for all his faults.

Among the presents intended for his sovereign was one ma.s.s of virgin gold, which was famous in the Spanish chronicles; it was said to weigh 3600 castillanos. Large quant.i.ties of gold had been shipped in the fleet by Roldan and other adventurers--the wealth gained by the sufferings of the unhappy natives.

Columbus sent an officer on sh.o.r.e to request permission to shelter his squadron in the river, as he apprehended an approaching storm. He also cautioned them not to let the fleet sail, but his request was refused by Ovando, and his advice disregarded.

The fleet put to sea, and Columbus kept his feeble squadron close to sh.o.r.e, and sought for shelter in some wild bay or river of the island.

Within two days, one of those tremendous storms which sometimes sweep those lat.i.tudes gathered up, and began to blow. Columbus sheltered his little squadron as well as he could, and sustained no damage. A different fate befel the other armament.

The ship in which were Bobadilla, Roldan, and a number of the most inveterate enemies of Columbus, was swallowed up with all its crew, together with the princ.i.p.al part of the ill-gotten treasure, gained by the miseries of the Indians.

Some of the ships returned to St. Domingo, and only one was able to continue her voyage to Spain; that one had on board four thousand pieces of gold, the property of Columbus, which had been recovered by the agent whom he sent out with Ovando.

Thus, while the enemies of the admiral were swallowed up as it were before his eyes, the only ship enabled to pursue her voyage was the frail bark freighted with his property.

CHAPTER VII.

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS SHIPWRECKED, AND ALSO OF THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH.

Columbus soon left Hispaniola where he met with so inhospitable a reception, and steering towards the west, he arrived on the coast of Honduras. There he had an interview with some of the inhabitants of the continent, who came off in a large canoe; they appeared to be more civilized than any whom he had hitherto discovered.

In return to the inquiries which the Spaniards made with their usual eagerness, where the Indians got the gold which they wore by way of ornaments, they directed him to countries situated to the west, in which gold was found in such profusion that it was applied to the most common uses.

Well would it have been for Columbus had he followed their advice.

Within a day or two he would have arrived at Yucatan; the discovery of Mexico and the other opulent countries of New Spain would have necessarily followed, the Southern Ocean would have been disclosed to him, and a succession of splendid discoveries would have shed fresh glory on his declining age.

But the admiral's mind was bent upon discovering the supposed strait that was to lead to the Indian Ocean. In this navigation he explored a great extent of coast from Cape Gracios a Dios till he came to a harbour, which on account of its beauty and security, he called Porto Bello.

On quitting this harbour he steered for the south, and he had not followed this course many days when he was overtaken by storms more terrible than any he had yet encountered.

For nine days the vessels were tossed about at the mercy of a raging tempest. The sea, according to the description of Columbus, boiled at times like a cauldron, at other times it ran in mountain waves covered with foam: at night the raging billows sparkled with luminous particles, which made them resemble great surges of flame.

For a day and a night the heavens glowed like a furnace with incessant flashes of lightning, while the loud claps of thunder were often mistaken for signal guns of their foundering companions.

In the midst of this wild tumult of the elements, they beheld a new object of alarm. The ocean, in one place, became strangely agitated; the water was whirled up into a kind of pyramid or cone; while a livid cloud, tapering to a point, bent down to meet it; joining together, they formed a column, which rapidly approached the ship, spinning along the surface of the deep, and drawing up the water with a rushing sound, it pa.s.sed the ship without injury.

His leaky vessels were not able to withstand storms like these. One of them foundered, and he was obliged to abandon another.

With the remaining two he bore away for Hispaniola, but in the tempest his ships falling foul of each other, it was with the greatest difficulty he reached the island of Jamaica.

His two vessels were in such a shattered condition, that, to prevent them from sinking, and to save the lives of his crews, he was obliged to run them on sh.o.r.e.

Having no ship now left, he had no means of reaching Hispaniola, or of making his situation known. In this juncture he had recourse to the hospitable kindness of the natives, who, considering the Spaniards as beings of a superior nature, were eager, on every occasion to a.s.sist them.

From them he obtained two canoes, each formed out of a single tree hollowed with fire. In these, which were only fit for creeping along the coast, two of his brave and faithful companions, a.s.sisted by a few Indians, gallantly offered to set out for Hispaniola; this voyage they accomplished in ten days, after encountering incredible fatigues and dangers.

By them he wrote letters to Ovando, describing his situation and requesting him to send ships to bring off him and his crews; but what will you think of the unfeeling cruelty of this man, when I tell you that he suffered these brave men to wait eight months before he would give them any hopes of relieving their companions: and what must have been the feelings of Columbus during this period.

At last the ships arrived which were to take them from the island, where the unfeeling Ovando had suffered them to languish above a year, exposed to misery in all its various forms. When he arrived at St. Domingo, Ovando treated him with every kind of insult and injustice. Columbus submitted in silence, but became extremely impatient to quit a country where he had been treated with such barbarity.

The preparations were soon finished, and he set sail for Spain with two ships, but disaster still pursued him to the end of his course. He suffered acutely from a painful and dangerous disease, and his mind was kept uneasy and anxious by a continued succession of storms. One of the vessels being disabled, was forced back to St. Domingo, and in the other he sailed 700 leagues with jury-masts, and reached with difficulty the port of St. Lucar in Spain, 1504.