The Discovery of America Part 39

[Sidenote: Arrival at Cape Honduras.]

The hurricane was followed by a dead calm, during which the Admiral's ships were carried by the currents into the group of tiny islands called the Queen's Gardens, on the south side of Cuba. With the first favourable breeze he took a southwesterly course, in order to strike that Cochin-Chinese coast farther down toward the Malay peninsula. This brought him directly to the island of Guanaja and to Cape Honduras, which he thus reached without approaching the Yucatan channel.[609]

[Footnote 609: In the next chapter I shall give some reasons for supposing that the Admiral had learned the existence of the Yucatan channel from the pilot Ledesma, coupled with information which made it unlikely that a pa.s.sage into the Indian ocean would be found that way. See below, vol. ii. p.

92.]

[Sidenote: Cape Gracias a Dios.]

Upon the Honduras coast the Admiral found evidences of semi-civilization with which he was much elated,--such as copper knives and hatchets, pottery of skilled and artistic workmanship, and cotton garments finely woven and beautifully dyed. Here the Spaniards first tasted the _chicha_, or maize beer, and marvelled at the heavy clubs, armed with sharp blades of obsidian, with which the soldiers of Cortes were by and by to become unpleasantly acquainted. The people here wore cotton clothes, and, according to Ferdinand, the women covered themselves as carefully as the Moorish women of Granada.[610] On inquiring as to the sources of gold and other wealth, the Admiral was now referred to the west, evidently to Yucatan and Guatemala, or, as he supposed, to the neighbourhood of the Ganges. Evidently the way to reach these countries was to keep the land on the starboard and search for the pa.s.sage between the Eden continent and the Malay peninsula.[611] This course at first led Columbus eastward for a greater number of leagues than he could have relished. Wind and current were dead against him, too; and when, after forty days of wretched weather, he succeeded in doubling the cape which marks on that coast the end of Honduras and the beginning of Nicaragua, and found it turning square to the south, it was doubtless joy at this auspicious change of direction, as well as the sudden relief from head-winds, that prompted him to name that bold prominence Cape Gracias a Dios, or Thanks to G.o.d.

[Footnote 610: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. lx.x.xviii.]

[Footnote 611: Irving (vol. ii. pp. 386, 387) seems to think it strange that Columbus did not at once turn westward and circ.u.mnavigate Yucatan. But if--as Irving supposed--Columbus had not seen the Yucatan channel, and regarded the Honduras coast as continuous with that of Cuba, he could only expect by turning westward to be carried back to Cape Alpha and Omega, where he had already been twice before! In the next chapter, however, I shall show that Columbus may have shaped his course in accordance with the advice of the pilot Ledesma.]

[Sidenote: The coast of Veragua.]

[Sidenote: Fruitless search for the Strait of Malacca.]

[Sidenote: Futile attempt to make a settlement.]

[Sidenote: Columbus shipwrecked.]

As the ships proceeded southward in the direction of Veragua, evidences of the kind of semi-civilization which we recognize as characteristic of that part of aboriginal America grew more and more numerous. Great houses were seen, built of "stone and lime," or perhaps of rubble stone with adobe mortar. Walls were adorned with carvings and pictographs.

Mummies were found in a good state of preservation. There were signs of abundant gold; the natives wore plates of it hung by cotton cords about their necks, and were ready to exchange pieces worth a hundred ducats for tawdry European trinkets. From these people Columbus heard what we should call the first "news of the Pacific Ocean," though it had no such meaning to his mind. From what he heard he understood that he was on the east side of a peninsula, and that there was another sea on the other side, by gaining which he might in ten days reach the mouth of the Ganges.[612] By proceeding on his present course he would soon come to a "narrow place" between the two seas. There was a curious equivocation here. No doubt the Indians were honest and correct in what they tried to tell Columbus. But by the "narrow place" they meant narrow land, not narrow water; not a strait which connected but an isthmus which divided the two seas, not the Strait of Malacca, but the Isthmus of Darien![613]

Columbus, of course, understood them to mean the strait for which he was looking, and in his excitement at approaching the long-expected goal he pressed on without waiting to verify the reports of gold mines in the neighbourhood, a thing that could be done at any time.[614] By the 5th of December, however, having reached a point on the isthmus, a few leagues east of Puerto Bello, without finding the strait, he yielded to the remonstrances of the crews, and retraced his course to Veragua. If the strait could not be found, the next best tidings to carry home to Spain would be the certain information of the discovery of gold mines, and it was decided to make a settlement here which might serve as a base for future operations. Three months of misery followed. Many of the party were ma.s.sacred by the Indians, the stock of food was nearly exhausted, and the ships were pierced by worms until it was feared there would be no means left for going home. Accordingly, it was decided to abandon the enterprise and return to Hispaniola.[615] In order to allow for the strong westerly currents in the Caribbean sea, the Admiral first sailed eastward almost to the gulf of Darien, and then turned to the north. The allowance was not enough, however. The ships were again carried into the Queen's Gardens, where they were caught in a storm and nearly beaten to pieces. At length, on St. John's eve, June 23, 1503, the crazy wrecks--now full of water and unable to sail another league--were beached on the coast of Jamaica and converted into a sort of rude fortress; and while two trusty men were sent over to San Domingo in a canoe, to obtain relief, Columbus and his party remained shipwrecked in Jamaica. They waited there a whole year before it proved possible to get any relief from Ovando. He was a slippery knave, who knew how to deal out promises without taking the first step toward fulfilment.

[Footnote 612: Navarrete, _Coleccion de viages_, tom. i. p.

299.]

[Footnote 613: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. lx.x.xix.; Humboldt, _Examen Critique_, tom. i. p. 350.]

[Footnote 614: "Nothing could evince more clearly his generous ambition than hurrying in this brief manner along a coast where wealth was to be gathered at every step, for the purpose of seeking a strait which, however it might produce vast benefit to mankind, could yield little else to himself than the glory of the discovery." Irving's _Columbus_, vol. ii. p. 406. In this voyage, however, the express purpose from the start was to find the strait of Malacca as a pa.s.sage to the very same regions which had been visited by Gama, and Columbus expected thus to get wealth enough to equip an army of Crusaders.

Irving's statement does not correctly describe the Admiral's purpose, and as savouring of misplaced eulogy, is sure to provoke a reaction on the part of captious critics.]

[Footnote 615: A graphic account of these scenes, in which he took part, is given by Ferdinand Columbus, _Vita dell'

Ammiraglio_, cap. xciii.-cvi.]

[Sidenote: A year of misery.]

[Sidenote: Last return to Spain.]

It was a terrible year that Columbus spent upon the wild coast of Jamaica. To all the horrors inseparable from such a situation there was added the horror of mutiny. The year did not end until there had been a pitched battle, in which the doughty Bartholomew was, as usual, victorious. The ringleader was captured, and of the other mutineers such as were not slain in the fight were humbled and pardoned. At length Ovando's conduct began to arouse indignation in San Domingo, and was openly condemned from the pulpit; so that, late in June, 1504, he sent over to Jamaica a couple of ships which brought away the Admiral and his starving party. Ovando greeted the brothers Columbus with his customary hypocritical courtesy, which they well understood. During the past year the island of Hispaniola had been the scene of atrocities such as have scarcely been surpa.s.sed in history. I shall give a brief account of them in a future chapter. Columbus was not cheered by what he saw and heard, and lost no time in starting for Spain. On the 7th of November, 1504, after a tempestuous voyage and narrow escape from shipwreck, he landed at San Lucar de Barrameda and made his way to Seville. Queen Isabella was then on her death-bed, and breathed her last just nineteen days later.

[Sidenote: Death of Columbus.]

The death of the queen deprived Columbus of the only protector who could stand between him and Fonseca. The reimburs.e.m.e.nt for the wrongs which he had suffered at that man's hands was never made. The last eighteen months of the Admiral's life were spent in sickness and poverty.

Acc.u.mulated hardship and disappointment had broken him down, and he died on Ascension day, May 20, 1506, at Valladolid. So little heed was taken of his pa.s.sing away that the local annals of that city, "which give almost every insignificant event from 1333 to 1539, day by day, do not mention it."[616] His remains were buried in the Franciscan monastery at Valladolid, whence they were removed in 1513 to the monastery of Las Cuevas, at Seville, where the body of his son Diego, second Admiral and Viceroy of the Indies, was buried in 1526. Ten years after this date, the bones of father and son were removed to Hispaniola, to the cathedral of San Domingo; whence they have since been transferred to Havana. The result of so many removals has been to raise doubts as to whether the ashes now reposing at Havana are really those of Columbus and his son; and over this question there has been much critical discussion, of a sort that we may cheerfully leave to those who like to spend their time over such trivialities.

[Footnote 616: Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, New York, 1866, p. 73.]

[Sidenote: "Nuevo Mundo."]

There is a tradition that Ferdinand and Isabella, at some date unspecified, had granted to Columbus, as a legend for his coat-of-arms, the n.o.ble motto:--

a Castilla y a Leon Nuevo mundo dio Colon,

_i. e._ "To Castile-and-Leon Columbus gave a New World;" and we are further told that, when the Admiral's bones were removed to Seville, this motto was, by order of King Ferdinand, inscribed upon his tomb.[617] This tradition crumbles under the touch of historical criticism. The Admiral's coat-of-arms, as finally emblazoned under his own inspection at Seville in 1502, quarters the royal Castle-and-Lion of the kingdom of Castile with his own devices of five anchors, and a group of golden islands with a bit of Terra Firma, upon a blue sea. But there is no legend of any sort, nor is anything of the kind mentioned by Las Casas or Bernaldez or Peter Martyr. The first allusion to such a motto is by Oviedo, in 1535, who gives it a somewhat different turn:--

Por Castilla y por Leon Nuevo mundo hallo Colon,

_i. e._ "For Castile-and-Leon Columbus found a New World." But the other form is no doubt the better, for Ferdinand Columbus, at some time not later than 1537, had adopted it, and it may be read to-day upon his tomb in the cathedral at Seville. The time-honoured tradition has evidently transferred to the father the legend adopted, if not originally devised, by his son.

[Footnote 617: _Vita del Ammiraglio_, cap. cvii. This is unquestionably a gloss of the translator Ulloa. Cf. Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, tom. ii. pp. 177-179.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Arms.]

But why is this mere question of heraldry a matter of importance for the historian? Simply because it furnishes one of the most striking among many ill.u.s.trations of the fact that at no time during the life of Columbus, nor for some years after his death, did anybody use the phrase "New World" with conscious reference to _his_ discoveries. At the time of his death their true significance had not yet begun to dawn upon the mind of any voyager or any writer. It was supposed that he had found a new route to the Indies by sailing west, and that in the course of this achievement he had discovered some new islands and a bit or bits of Terra Firma of more or less doubtful commercial value. To group these items of discovery into an organic whole, and to ascertain that they belonged to a whole quite distinct from the Old World, required the work of many other discoverers, companions and successors to Columbus. In the following chapter I shall endeavour to show how the conception of the New World was thus originated and at length became developed into the form with which we are now familiar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sketch of Toscanelli's map, sent to Portugal in 1474, and used by Columbus in his first voyage across the Atlantic.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Claudius Ptolemy's world, cir. A. D. 150.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Fiske.]