The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Part 31

As to what he says of cinnamon, and aloes and ginger, incense, myrobolans, sandal woods, I never saw them in this island, at least I did not recognize them; what he says of flax must mean _cabuya_[364-4] which are leaves like the _cavila_ from which thread is made and cloth or linen can be made from it, but it is more like hemp cloth than linen. There are two sorts of it, _cabuya_ and _nequen_; _cabuya_ is coa.r.s.e and rough and _nequen_ is soft and delicate. Both are words of this island Espanola.

Storax gum I never smelled except in the island of Cuba, but I did not see it, and this is certain that in Cuba there must be trees of it, or of a gum that smells like it, because we never smelled it except in the fires that the Indians make of wood that they burn in their houses. It is a most perfect perfume, certainly. I never knew of incense being found in these islands.

Returning to the journey, Friday, August 17, he went 37 leagues, the sea being smooth, "to G.o.d our Lord," he says, "may infinite thanks be given."

He says that not finding islands now, a.s.sures him that that land from whence he came is a vast mainland, or where the Earthly Paradise is, "because all say that it is at the end of the east, and this is the Earthly Paradise,"[365-1] says he.

Sat.u.r.day, between day and night, he went 39 leagues.

Sunday, August 19, he went in the day and the night 33 leagues, and reached land; and this was a very small island which he called Madama Beata, and which is now commonly so called. This is a small island of a matter of a league and a half close by this island of Espanola, and distant from this port of Sancto Domingo about 50 leagues and distant 15 leagues from the port of Yaquino, which is more to the west. There is next to it another smaller one which has a small but somewhat high mountain, which from a distance looks like a sail, and he named it Alto Velo.[365-2] He believed that the Beata was a small island which he called Sancta Catherina when he came by this southern coast, from the discovery of the island of Cuba, and distant from this port of Sancto Domingo 25 leagues, and is next to this island. It weighed upon him to have fallen off in his course so much, and he says it should not be counted strange, since during the nights he was from caution beating about to windward, for fear of running against some islands or shoals; there was therefore reason for this error, and thus in not following a straight course, the currents, which are very strong here, and which flow down towards the mainland and the west, must have carried the ships, without realizing it, so low. They run so violently there toward La Beata that it has happened that a ship has been eight months in those waters without being able to reach this port and that much of delay in coming from there here, has happened many times.

Therefore he anch.o.r.ed now between the Beata and this island, between which there are two leagues of sea, Monday, August 20. He then sent the boats to land to call Indians, as there were villages there, in order to write of his arrival to the Adelantado; having come at midday, he despatched them. Twice there came to the ship six Indians, and one of them carried a crossbow with its cord, and nut and rack,[366-1] which caused him no small surprise, and he said, "May it please G.o.d that no one is dead." And because from Sancto Domingo the three ships must have been seen to pa.s.s downward, and concluding that it certainly was the Admiral as he was expecting him each day, the Adelantado started then in a caravel and overtook the Admiral here. They both were very much pleased to see each other. The Admiral having asked him about the condition of the country, the Adelantado recounted to him how Francisco Roldan had arisen with 80 men, with all the rest of the occurrences which had pa.s.sed in this island, since he left it. What he felt on hearing such news, there is small need to recite.

He left there, Wednesday, August 22, and finally with some difficulty because of the many currents and the north-east breezes which are continuous and contrary there he arrived at this port of Sancto Domingo, Friday, the last day of August of the said year 1498, having set out from Isabela for Castile, Thursday the tenth day of March, 1496, so that he delayed in returning to this island two years and a half less nine days.

FOOTNOTES:

[319-1] _I.e._, the first Admiral of the Ocean and the Indies where Las Casas was when he was writing.

[319-2] This clause is probably an explanatory remark by Las Casas. It is misleading. The war in Naples growing out of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, in which Ferdinand had taken an active part against the French, had been brought to a close so far as concerned France and Spain by a truce in March, 1497. The treaty of peace was signed August 5, 1498.

[320-1] Funchal.

[320-2] This positive a.s.sertion that Columbus had lived in Funchal, Madeira, has been overlooked by Vignaud and Harrisse. Vignaud, _etudes Critiques sur la Vie de Colomb avant ses Decouvertes_ (Paris, 1905), p.

443, note 9, rejects as unauthenticated the tradition that Columbus lived in Madeira, without adequate grounds it seems to me. Diego Columbus told Las Casas in 1519 that he was born in the neighboring island of Puerto Santo and that his father had lived there. Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, I. 54. This pa.s.sage is not noted by Vignaud.

[320-3] One of the Canary Islands.

[321-1] The Adelantado was Bartholomew Columbus. The t.i.tle Adelantado was given in Spain to the military and political governors of border provinces. In this use it was transplanted to America in the earlier days. _Cf._ Moses, _The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America_, pp.

68-69.

[321-2] Beatrix Enriquez.

[321-3] This Juan Antonio Columbo seems to have been a first cousin of the admiral. _Cf._ Markham, _Christopher Columbus_, pp. 2 and 187. It is to be noted that he retained in Spain his family name and did not follow the discoverer in changing his name to Colon. On this change of name, see above, p. 77, note 2.

[321-4] _I.e._, west by south.

[321-5] Porto Rico.

[321-6] Founded in the summer of 1496 by Bartholomew Columbus in accordance with the directions of the Admiral to establish a new settlement on the south side of the island. Las Casas, II. 136.

[322-1] "This Espanola," so frequently repeated, is one of the indications that Las Casas was writing in Espanola.

[322-2] _Canibales_, here used still as a tribal name equivalent to Caribbees.

[322-3] The correct form of this name is Gargades. Columbus's knowledge of them was derived indirectly from Pliny's _Natural History_, book VI., x.x.xVII., through Cardinal d'Ailly's _Imago Mundi_. _Cf._ Columbus's marginal note to ch. x.x.xXI. of that work: "_De situ GorG.o.dum insule nunc de Capite Viride vel Antonii dicitur." Raccolta Colombiana_, parte I., vol. II., p. 395. According to Pliny's location of them they were probably the Canaries. Pliny's knowledge of the location of the Hesperides is naturally vague, but his text would support their identification with the Cape Verde Islands.

[323-1] In this Columbus was mistaken, although he had no means of knowing it in 1498. Vasco da Gama had sailed in that sea the preceding summer. _Cf._ Bourne, _Spain in America_, p. 72.

[323-2] Ferro.

[323-3] August 16, 1494, the sovereigns included in the letter despatched to Columbus by Torres the essential articles of the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed June 7, 1494, and asked him if he could not co-operate in locating the Demarcation Line. Navarrete, _Coleccion de Viages_, II. 155; Harrisse, _Diplomatic History of America_, pp. 80-81.

[323-4] Columbus's illness began in September, 1494, and it was five months before he was fully recovered. Ferdinand Columbus, _Historie_, ed.

1867, p. 177. The death of Prince John took place October 4, 1497. No actual scientific conference to locate the line took place till that at Badajoz in 1524. See Bourne, _Essays in Historical Criticism_, pp.

205-211.

[324-1] _Mayordomo._

[324-2] _Escribano de la hacienda._ In 1497 Rodrigo Affonso, a member of the king's council, was granted the northern of the two captaincies into which So Thiago was divided and also the wild cattle on the island of Boavista (Buenavista in Spanish). D'Avezac, _Ils de l'Afrique_ (Paris, 1848), p. 218. The word _mayordomo_, translated "steward," here stands for the high Portuguese t.i.tle of honor _Mordomo mor da Casa Real_, a t.i.tle in its origin similar to the _majores domus_ or mayors of the palace of the early French kings. _Escribano de la hacienda del Rey_ means rather the king's treasurer.

[324-3] This account of Boavista and its lepers is not noticed in the histories of the Cape Verde Islands so far as I know.

[324-4] From Pliny's time through the Middle Ages the name Ethiopia embraced all tropical Africa. He calls the Atlantic in the tropics the "Ethiopian Sea." Pliny's _Natural History_, book VI., chs. x.x.xV. and x.x.xVI.

[325-1] A remark by Las Casas, of which many are interspersed with the material from Columbus's Journal of this voyage.

[326-1] The Tordesillas line was 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands alone.

[326-2] This reason for the desire of King John of Portugal to have the Demarcation Line moved further west has escaped all the writers on the subject. If Columbus reported the king's ideas correctly, we may have here a clew to one of the reasons why Cabral went so far to the southwest in 1500 that he discovered Brazil when on his voyage to India, and perhaps also one of the reasons why Vasco da Gama struck off so boldly into the South Atlantic. _Cf._ Bourne, _Spain in America_, pp. 72, 74.

[327-1] Sierra Leone.

[328-1] As one faces north.

[329-1] On Hanno's voyage see _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ under his name.

There was no Greek historian Amia.n.u.s; the name should be Arria.n.u.s, who wrote the history of Alexander the Great's expedition to India and a history of India. The reference is to the latter work, ch. XLIII., sects.

11, 12.

Ludovico Celio: Ludovico Ricchieri, born about 1450. He was for a time a professor in the Academy at Milan. He took the Latin name Rhodiginus from his birthplace Rovigo, and sometimes his name appears in full as Ludovicus Coelius Richerius Rhodiginus. His _Antiquarum Lectionum Libri XVI._ was published at Venice in 1516, at Paris in 1517, and in an extended form at Basel, 1542. It is a collection of pa.s.sages from the cla.s.sical authors relating to all branches of knowledge, with a critical commentary.

[329-2] The Guards, "the two brightest stars in Ursa Minor." (Tolhausen.)

[329-3] _Grajos._ The meaning given in the dictionaries for _grajo_ is "daw."

[329-4] This word, as a name of a fish, is Portuguese. It means "blunted."

[329-5] See Pliny, _Natural History_, book IV., ch. x.x.xVI. The Ca.s.siterides are commonly identified with the Scilly Islands.

[329-6] The fifth clime or climate is a term in Ptolemy's geographical system. The fifth climate was a strip 255 Roman miles in width lying between 41 and 45 north lat.i.tude. _Cf._ _Raccolta Columbiana_,[TN-7]

Parte I., Tomo 2, p. 293. The lat.i.tude of the Azores is about 37-40.

[330-1] The names are _alcatraz_ and _rabihorcado_. See above, note to Journal of First Voyage, p. 98, note 1, and p. 103, note 1.

[330-2] Huelva, near Palos.

[331-1] Trinidad.

[331-2] Salve Regina, one of the great hymns to the Virgin in the Catholic service. "The antiphon said after Lauds and Compline from Trinity Sunday to Advent." Addis and Arnold, _Catholic Dictionary_.