The Life of Columbus Part 7

At first the voyage was tranquil enough, though the adverse trade-winds, and the bad sailing of the Pinta,[13] r.e.t.a.r.ded the progress of both vessels.

[Footnote 13: This was occasioned by the defective condition of her mast, whereupon the admiral remarks in his diary, that "if Pinzon had exerted himself as much to provide himself with a new mast in the Indies, where there are so many fine trees, as he had in running away from him in the hope of loading his vessel with gold, they would not have laboured under that inconvenience."]

But on the 12th of February a storm overtook them, and became more and more furious, until, on the 14th, it rose to a hurricane, before which Pinzon's vessel could only drift helplessly, while the Nina was able to set a close-reefed foresail, which kept her from being buried in the trough of the sea. In the evening both caravels were scudding under bare poles, and when darkness fell, and the signal light of the "Pinta" gleamed farther and farther off, through the blinding spray, until at last it could be seen no more, when his panic-stricken crew gave themselves up to despair, as the winds howled louder and louder, and the seas burst over his frail vessel--then, indeed, without a single skilled navigator to advise or to aid him, Columbus must have felt himself alone with the tempest and the night. But his brave heart bore him up, and his wonderful capacity for devising expedients on sudden emergencies did not forsake him. As the stores were consumed, the Nina felt the want of the ballast which Columbus had intended to take on board at the Amazonian Island.

"Fill the empty casks with water," he said, "and let them serve as ballast," an expedient which has grown common enough now, but which then was probably original.

THE PROMISED PILGRAMAGE

Nor, while he did all that human skill could suggest for the safety of his vessel, did Columbus neglect to invoke the aid of that Higher Power, at whose special instigation he believed himself to have undertaken the expedition. With his whole crew he drew lots to choose one of their number to perform a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe. The admiral was chosen. Twice more were lots drawn with a similar object, and once again the lot fell to the admiral. Afterwards, he and all the crew made a vow to go in procession, clothed in penitential garments, to the first church, dedicated to the Virgin, which they should meet with on arriving at land; and this vow, as we shall see presently, was followed by quite unexpected consequences.

NARRATIVE INCLOSED IN CASK.

When the chances of weathering the storm had become small indeed, Columbus determined that, if possible, the tidings of his discovery should not perish with him. He wrote a short account of his voyage on parchment, and this he enclosed in wax, and placed in a cask,[14] which he committed to the waves. Thinking, probably, that his crew would interpret this as an abandonment of all hope, he concealed from them the real nature of the contents of the cask, so that they believed that their commander was performing some religious rite which might a.s.suage the fury of the elements.

[Footnote 14: About the year 1852 a paragraph went the round of the English press announcing the discovery of this cask on the African coast, by the barque "Chieftain," of Boston (Ma.s.s). Lamartine has accepted this story as correct, but it has never been authenticated, and there is a strong presumption in favour of its having been invented by some ingeniously circ.u.mstantial newspaper correspondent.]

THE PILGRIMS CAPTURED.

On the 15th of February the storm abated to some extent, and at last they came in sight of some land on the E.N.E., which the pilots held to be the Rock of Lisbon, but which the admiral more accurately determined to be one of the Azores. Vainly endeavouring, however, to make head against the wind and the sea, they lost sight of this island, but came in sight of another, lying more to the south, round which they sailed on the night of the 17th, but lost an anchor in endeavouring to bring up near the land. On the following day they cast anchor, and succeeded in communicating with the inhabitants, from whom they learned that they had reached the island of St. Mary, belonging to the Portuguese. The governor sent amicable messages to Columbus, and announced his intention of visiting him. But when, in fulfilment of their vow, half the crew went, barefoot and in their shirts, on a pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Mary, which was not far from the harbour, the governor and his satellites lay in ambush on the road, and captured the whole band of pilgrims. The crowns of Portugal and Castile were still at peace, but it appears that this "man, dressed in a little brief authority," thought that the capture would gratify his sovereign.

The remonstrances of the admiral were of no avail; and as the weather would not allow of his remaining in his present anchorage, he was forced to stand out to sea, and to run nearly to St. Michael's, with a crew which comprised only three able seamen. On the 21st of February he returned to St. Mary's, and eventually, as the governor was unable to seize Columbus himself, he decided on recognizing the royal commission which he produced, and restoring his crew. On the 24th the "Nina" again steered for Spain, but another tempest supervened, and continued with more or less fury for more than a week.

ARRIVAL IN THE TAGUS.

In this last storm, which raged with destructive violence along the west coast of the whole Continent of Europe, and which drove the "Pinta" almost helplessly towards a lee-sh.o.r.e, the dangers of the voyage reached their climax. "I escaped," says the admiral, "by the greatest miracle in the world." Fortunately, however, his seamanship was equal to the emergency, and on the afternoon of the fourth of March he came to anchor in the Tagus. To the King of Portugal, who happened to be at no great distance, he sent a despatch announcing his arrival and the result of his voyage, and, in reply, received a pressing invitation to court. With this he thought proper to comply, "in order not to show mistrust, although he disliked it," and was received by the king with the highest honours. This must have been almost too much of a triumph for a generous mind, considering that the court before which he was displaying the signs of a new world had refused the opportunity of securing the discovery for itself. The king, however, now took occasion to put in a claim to the newly found countries, basing it on that papal bull which has been mentioned in a previous chapter but, although Columbus, in the interest of his sovereigns, took care to repudiate this claim as decidedly as possible, his royal host continued to entertain him with the utmost consideration.

RECEPTION AT PALOS.

Possibly mistrusting the seamanship of his subordinates, Columbus refused the offer of safe conduct and means of transport to Spain by land; and on the 13th of March, in the teeth of a north-westerly wind and a heavy sea, left the Tagus for the bar of Saltes, and safely reached his starting- point at Palos on the 15th, again a Friday. The enthusiasm and excitement aroused by the success of the expedition were unbounded. At Palos, especially, where few families had not a personal interest in some of the band of explorers, the little community was filled with extraordinary delight. Not an individual member of the expedition but was elevated into a hero,--not a debtor or a criminal whom the charter of immunity had led, rather than bear the ills he had, to fly to others that he knew not of,-- but had expiated his social misdeeds, and had become a person of consideration and an object of enthusiasm. The court was at Barcelona.

Immediately on his arrival Columbus despatched a letter to the king and queen, stating in general terms the success of his project; and proceeded forthwith to present himself in person to their highnesses.

BAD FAITH OF PINZON.

Almost at the same time, the "Pinta," which had been separated from her consort in the first storm which they encountered, made the port of Bayonne, whence Pinzon had forwarded a letter to the sovereigns, announcing "his" discoveries, and proposing to come to court and give full intelligence as to them. Columbus, whom he probably supposed to have perished at sea, he seems to have ignored utterly, and when he received a reply from the king and queen, directing him not to go to court without the admiral, chagrin and grief overcame him to such an extent that he took to his bed; and if any man ever died from mental distress and a broken heart, that man was Martin Alonzo Pinzon.

SOLEMN RECEPTION.

Herrera tells us that the admiral now "entered into the greatest reputation," and the historian goes on to explain to his readers what the meaning of "reputation" is. "It does not consist," he tells us, "in success, but in doing something which cannot be easily comprehended, which compels men to think over and over again about it." And certainly, this definition makes the word particularly applicable to the achievement of Columbus.

The court prepared a solemn reception for the admiral at Barcelona, where the people poured out in such numbers to see him that the streets could not contain them. A triumphal procession like his the world had not yet seen: it was a thing to make the most incurious alert, and even the sad and solitary student content to come out and mingle with the mob. The captives that accompanied a Roman general's car might be strange barbarians of a tribe from which Rome had not before had slaves. But barbarians were not unknown creatures. Here, with Columbus, were beings of a new world. Here was the conqueror, not of man but of nature, not of flesh and blood but of the fearful unknown, of the elements, and, more than all, of the prejudices of centuries. We may imagine the rumours that must have gone before his coming. And now he was there. Ferdinand and Isabella had their thrones placed in the presence of the a.s.sembled court.

Columbus approached the monarchs, and then, "his countenance beaming with modest satisfaction," knelt at the king's feet, and begged leave to kiss their highnesses' hands. They gave their hands; then they bade him rise and be seated before them. He recounted briefly the events of his voyage--a story more interesting than the tale told in the court of Dido by Aeneas, like whom he had almost perished close to home, and he concluded his unpretending narrative by showing what new things and creatures he had brought with him.

MARKS OF APPROBATION.

Ferdinand and Isabella fell on their knees, giving thanks to G.o.d with many tears; and then the choristers of the royal chapel closed the grand ceremonial by singing the "Te Deum." Afterwards men walked home grave and yet happy, having seen the symbol of a great work, something to be thought over for many a generation. Other marks of approbation for Columbus were not wanting. The agreement between him and the sovereigns was confirmed.

An appropriate coat of arms, then a thing of much significance, was granted to him in augmentation of his own. In the shield are conspicuously emblazoned the Royal Arms of Castile and Leon. Nothing can better serve to show the immense favour which Columbus had obtained at court by his discovery than such a grant; and it is but a trifling addition to make, in recounting his now honours, that the t.i.tle of Don was given to him and his descendants, and also to his brothers. He rode by the king's side; was served at table as a grandee; "All hail!" was said to him on state occasions; and the men of his age, happy in that, had found out another great man to honour.

GRANT BY THE POPE.

The more prosaic part of the business had then to be attended to. The Sovereigns applied to the Pope Alexander the Sixth, to confer on the crowns of Castile and Leon the lands discovered and to be discovered in the Indies. To this application they soon received a favourable answer.

The Pope granted to the Princes of Castile and Leon, and to their successors, the sovereign empire and princ.i.p.ality of the Indies, and of the navigation there, with high and royal jurisdiction and imperial dignity and lordship over all that hemisphere. To preserve the peace between Spain and Portugal, the Pontiff divided the Spanish and Portuguese Indian sovereignties by an imaginary line drawn from pole to pole, one hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape de Verde Islands.

SECOND VOYAGE PLANNED.

Meanwhile the preparations were being made for a second voyage to be undertaken by the admiral. After the arrival of the apostolic bulls, and before the departure of Columbus from Barcelona, the nine Indians brought by him were baptized. Here, parenthetically, we may take note of something which, if the fact did correspond with what the Spaniards thought about it, would, indeed, be notable. One of the Indians, after being baptized, died, and was, we are told,[Herrera] the first of that nation, according to pious belief, who entered heaven.

We cannot help thinking of the hospitable and faithful Guacanagari, and imagining that, if his race had been like him, some one might already have reached the regions of the blessed. I do not, however, refer to this pa.s.sage of Herrera for its boldness or its singularity, but because it brings before us again the profound import attached to baptism in those times, and may help to account for many seeming inconsistencies in the conduct of the Spaniards to the Indians.

COLONIAL DEPARTMENT.

In the conduct, however, of Ferdinand and Isabella towards the Indians there was nothing equivocal, but all that they did showed the tenderness and religious care of these monarchs for their new subjects. A special department for the control of colonial affairs was placed under the charge of Juan de Fonseca, an eminent ecclesiastic who was high in the royal favour, and on whom was eventually conferred the t.i.tle of Patriarch of the Indies. But, unfortunately for the poor savages whose fate he was now to influence so largely, Fonseca's character had in it but little of the mild and forbearing spirit of Christianity. A shrewd man of business, a hard task-master, an implacable enemy, he displayed, during his long administration of Indian affairs, all the qualities of an unscrupulous tyrant, and was instrumental in inflicting on the islanders keener miseries than ever have been brought by conqueror upon a subject race.

HOME OF THE GOLD.

Jealous of the rivalry of Portugal, the sovereigns took every means of hastening the preparations for a second voyage to be undertaken by the admiral. Twelve caravels and five smaller vessels were made ready, and were laden with horses and other animals, and with plants, seeds, and agricultural implements for the cultivation of the new countries.

Artificers of various trades were engaged, and a quant.i.ty of merchandize and gaudy trifles, fit for bartering with the natives, were placed on board. There was no need to press men into the service now; volunteers for the expedition were only too numerous. The fever for discovery was universal. Columbus was confident that he had been on the outskirts of Cathay, and that the scriptural land of Havilah, the home of gold, was not far off. Untold riches were to be acquired, and probably there was not one of the 1500 persons who took ship in the squadron that did not antic.i.p.ate a prodigious fortune as the reward of the voyage. Nor was one of the great objects of these discoveries uncared for. Twelve missionaries, eager to enlighten the spiritual darkness of the western lands, were placed under the charge of Bernard Buil, a Benedictine monk, who was specially appointed by the Pope, in order to ensure an authorized teaching of the faith, to superintend the religious education of the Indians.

THE ADMIRAL'S INSTRUCTIONS.

The instructions to Columbus, dated the 29th of May, 1493, are the first strokes upon that obdurate ma.s.s of colonial difficulty which at last, by incessant working of great princes, great churchmen, and great statesmen, was eventually to be hammered into some righteous form of wisdom and of mercy. In the course of these instructions, the admiral is ordered to labour in all possible ways to bring the dwellers in the Indies to a knowledge of the Holy Catholic Faith. And that this may the more easily be done, all the armada is to be charged to deal "lovingly" with the Indians; the admiral is to make them presents, and to "honour them much;" and if by chance any person or persons should treat the Indians ill, in any manner whatever, the admiral is to chastise such ill-doers severely.

Even at this early period of his administration, Fonseca appears to have made some attempts to thwart the admiral's wishes, attempts which Columbus, now at the zenith of royal favour, had no difficulty in baffling. As regards the household, for instance, Fonseca demurred to the number of footmen which the admiral proposed for his domestic establishment. The admiral appealed to the sovereigns, who allowed his claim, and reproved Fonseca for objecting.

CHAPTER VI. Second Voyage of Discovery.

On the 25th of September, all the preparations being complete, the squadron left Cadiz for the Canary Islands, and, after taking in provisions there, sailed from Ferro on the 13th of October. The voyage was singularly prosperous. There was but one storm, and that of not more than a few hours' duration; and favouring breezes wafted them over calm seas with a rapidity that brought the ships within sight of land on the 3rd of November, having made the voyage "by the goodness of G.o.d, and the wise management of the admiral, in as straight a track as if they had sailed by a well-known and frequented route." It was Sunday, and accordingly the name of Dominica was given to the first island to which the admiral came.

ISLAND OF GUADALOUPE.

From Dominica, where no aborigines were found, the admiral stood northward, naming one small island Maria Galante, after his own flagship, and calling a second and much larger one Guadaloupe, after a certain monastery in Estramadura. This island was peopled by a race of cannibals; and, in the houses of the natives, human flesh was found roasting at the fire. An exploring party from one of the ships penetrated into the interior, but so thickly was it wooded that they lost their way in the jungle, and only regained the ships after four days' wanderings, and when their safety was despaired of by their companions, who feared that they had become food for the savages. Fortunately, however, the men of the island were absent on some warlike expedition, and the white men only met with women and children in the course of their dangerous explorations.

DESTRUCTION OF LA NAVIDAD.