1492

CHAPTER XXI

MARTIN PINZON did not return to us. That tall, blond sea captain was gone we knew not where. The Santa Maria and the Nina sailed south along the foot of Cuba. But now rose out of ocean on our southeast quarter a great island with fair mountain shapes. We asked our Indians—we had five aboard beside Diego Colon—what it was. “Bohio! Bohio!” But when we came there, its own inhabitants called it Hayti and Quisquaya.

The Admiral paced our deck, small as a turret chamber, his hands behind him, his mind upon some great chart drawn within, not without. At last, having decided, he called Juan de la Cosa. “We will go to Bohio.”

So it was done whereby much was done, the Woman with the distaff spinning fast, fast!

As this island lifted out of ocean, we who had said of Cuba, “It is the fairest!” now said, “No, this is the fairest!” It was most beautiful, with mountains and forests and vales and plains and rivers.

The twelfth day of December we came to anchor in a harbor which the Admiral named Concepcion.

On this shore the Indians fled from us. We found a village, but quite deserted. Not a woman, not a man, not a child! Only three or four of those silent dogs, and a great red and green parrot that screamed but said nothing. There was something in this day, I know not what, but it made itself felt. The Admiral, kneeling, kissed the soil, and he named the island Hispaniola, and we planted a cross.

For long we had been beaten about, and all aboard the ships were well willing to leave them for a little. We had a dozen sick and they craved the shore and the fruit trees. Our Indians, too, longed. So we anchored, and mariners and all adventurers rested from the sea. A few at a time, the villagers returned, and fearfully enough at first. But we had harmed nothing, and what greatness and gentleness was in us we showed it here. Presently all thought they were at home with us, and that heaven bred the finest folk!

Our people of Hispaniola, subjects now, since the planting of the flag, were taller, handsomer, we thought, than the Cubans, and more advanced in the arts. Their houses were neat and good, and their gardens weeded and well-stocked. The men wore loin cloths, the women a wide cotton girdle or little skirt. We found three or four copper knives, but again they said that they came from the south. As in Spain “west—west” had been his word, so now the Admiral brooded upon south.

These folk had a very little gold, but they seemed to say that theirs was a simple and poor village, and that we should find more of all things farther on. So we left Concepcion, the cross upon the rock showing a long way through the pure air.

For two days we coasted, and at the end of this time we came to a harbor of great beauty and back from it ran a vale like Paradise, so richly sweet it was! Christopherus Columbus was quick to find beauty and loved it when found. Often and often have I seen his face turn that of a child or a youth, filled with wonder. I have seen him kiss a flower, lay a caress upon stem of tree, yearn toward palm tops against the blue. He was well read in the old poets, and he himself was a poet though he wrote no line of verse.

We entered here and came to anchor and the sails rattled down. “Hispaniola—Hispaniola, and we will call this harbor St. Thomas! He was the Apostle to India. And now we are his younger brothers come after long folding away. Were we more—did we have a fleet—we might set a city here and, it being Christmas, call it La Navidad!” Out came the canoes to us, out the swimmers, dark and graceful figures cleaving the utter blue. Some one passing that way overland, hurrying with news, had told these villages how peaceful, noble, benevolent, beneficent we were.

The canoes were heaped with fruit and cassava bread, and they had cotton, not in balls, but woven in pieces. And these Indians had about neck or in ear some bits of gold. These they changed cheerfully, taking and valuing what trifle was given. “Gold. Where do you get your gold? Do you know of Cipango or Cathay or India? Have ever you heard of Zaiton, or of Quinsai and Cublai Khan?” They gave us answers which we could not fully understand, and gestured inland and a little to the east. “Cibao! Cibao!” They seemed to say that there was all the gold there that a reasonable mortal might desire. “Cibao?—Cipango?” said the Admiral. “They might be the same.”

“Like Cuba and Cublai Khan,” thought Juan Lepe.

Around a point of shore darted a long canoe with many rowers. Other canoes gave way for it, and the Indians already upon the Santa Maria exclaimed that it was the boat of the cacique, though not the cacique but his brother sat in it. Guacanagari was the cacique. His town was yonder! They pointed to a misty headland beyond St. Thomas’s bay.

The Indian from the great canoe came aboard, a handsome fellow, and he brought presents not like any we had seen. There was a width of cotton embroidered thick with bits of gleaming shell and bone, but what was most welcome was a huge wooden mask with eyes and tongue of gold. Fray Ignatio crossed himself. “The devil they worship,—poor lost sheep!” The third gift was a considerable piece of that mixed and imperfect gold which afterwards we called guanin. And would we go to visit the cacique whose town was not so far yonder?

It was Christmas Eve. We sailed with a small, small wind for the cacique’s village, out from harbor of St. Thomas, around a headland and along a low, bright green shore. So low and fitful was the wind that we moved like two great snails. Better to have left the ships and gone, so many of us, in our boats with oars, canoes convoying us! The distance was not great, but distance is as the power of going. “I remember,” quoth the Admiral, “a calm, going from the Levant to Crete, and our water cask broken and not a mouthful for a soul aboard! That was a long, long two days while the one shore went no further and the other came no nearer. And going once to Porto Santo with my wife she fell ill and moaned for the land, and we were held as by the sea bottom, and I thought she would die who might be saved if she could have the land. And I remember going down the African coast with Santanem—”

Diego de Arana said, “You have had a full life, senor!”

He was cousin, I had been told, to that Dona Beatrix whom the Admiral cherished, mother of his youngest son, Fernando. The Admiral had affection for him, and Diego de Arana lived and died, a good, loyal man. “A full outward life,” he went on, “and I dare swear, a full inward one!”

“That is God’s truth!” said the Admiral. “You may well say that, senor! Inside I have lived with all who have lived, and discovered with all who have discovered!”

I remember as a dream this last day upon the Santa Maria. Beltran the cook had scalded his arm. I dressed it each day, and dressing it now, half a dozen idling by, watching the operation, I heard again a kind of talk that I had heard before. Partly because I had shipped as Juan Lepe an Andalusian sailor and had had my forecastle days, and partly because men rarely fear to speak to a physician, and partly because in the great whole there existed liking between them and me, they talked and discussed freely enough what any other from the other end of ship could have come at only by formal questioning. Now many of the seamen wanted to know when we were returning to Palos, and another number said that they would just as soon never return, or at least not for a good while! But they did not wish to spend that good while upon the ship. It was a good land, and the heathen also good. The heathen might all be going to burn in hell, unless Fray Ignatio could get them baptized in time, and so numerous were they that seemed hardly possible! Almost all might have to go to hell. But in the meantime, here on earth, they had their uses, and one could even grow fond of them—certainly fond of the women. The heathen were eager to work for us, catch us coneys, bring us gold, put hammocks for us between trees and say “Sleep, senor, sleep!” Here even Tomaso Passamonte was “senor” and “Don.” And as for the women—only the skin is dark—they were warm-hearted! Gold and women and never any cold nor hunger nor toil! The heathen to toil for you—and they could be taught to make wine, with all these grapes dangling everywhere? Heathen could do the gathering and pressing, and also the gold hunting in rocks and streams. Spain would furnish the mind and the habit of command. It were well to stay and cultivate Hispaniola! The Admiral and those who wanted to might take home the ships. Of course the Admiral would come again, and with him ships and many men. No one wanted, of course, never to see again Castile and Palos and his family! But to stay in Hispaniola a while and rest and grow rich,—that was what they wanted. And no one could justly call them idle! If they found out all about the land and where were the gold and the spices, was there not use in that, just as much use as wandering forever on the Santa Maria?

Mother earth was kind, kind, here, and she didn’t have a rod like mother country and Mother Church! They did not say this last, but it was what they meant.

“You don’t see the rod, that is all,” said Juan Lepe.

But there had eventually to be colonies, and I knew that the Admiral was revolving in his head the leaving in this new world certain of our men, seed corn as it were, organs also to gather knowledge against his speedy return with power of ships and men. For surely Spain would be grateful,—surely, surely! But he was not ready yet to set sail for Spain. He meant to discover more, discover further, come if by any means he could to the actual wealth of great, main India; come perhaps to Zaiton, where are more merchants than in all the rest of the world, and a hundred master ships laden with pepper enter every year; or to Quinsai of the marble bridges. No, he was not ready to turn prow to Spain, and he was not likely to bleed himself of men, now or for many days to come. All these who would lie in hammocks ashore must wait awhile, and even when they made their colony, that is not the way that colonies live and grow.

Beltran said, “Some of you would like to do a little good, and some are for a sow’s life!”

It was Christmas Eve, and we had our vespers, and we thought of the day at home in Castile and in Italy. Dusk drew down. Behind us was the deep, secure water of St. Thomas, his harbor. The Admiral had us sound and the lead showed no great depth, whereupon we stood a little out to avoid shoal or bar.

For some nights the Admiral had been wakeful, suffering, as Juan Lepe knew, with that gout which at times troubled him like a very demon. But this night he slept. Juan de la Cosa set the watch. The helmsman was Sancho Ruiz than whom none was better, save only that he would take a risk when he pleased. All others slept. The day had been long, so warm, still and idle, with the wooded shore stealing so slowly by.

Early in the night Sancho Ruiz was taken with a great cramp and a swimming of the head. He called to one of the watch to come take the helm for a little, but none answered; called again and a ship boy sleeping near, uncurled himself, stretched, and came to hand. “It’s all safe, and the Admiral sleeping and the master sleeping and the watch also!” said the boy. Pedro Acevedo it was, a well-enough meaning young wretch.

Sancho Ruiz put helm in his hand. “Keep her so, while I lie down here for a little. My head is moving faster than the Santa Maria!”

He lay down, and the swimming made him close his eyes, and closed eyes and the disappearance of his pain, and pleasant resting on deck caused him to sleep. Pedro Acevedo held the wheel and looked at the moon. Then the wind chose to change, blowing still very lightly but bearing us now toward shore, and Pedro never noticing this grow larger. He was looking at the moon, he afterwards said with tears, and thinking of Christ born in Bethlehem.

The shore came nearer and nearer. Sancho Ruiz slept. Pedro now heard a sound that he knew well enough. Coming back to here and now, he looked and saw breakers upon a long sand bar. The making tide was at half, and that and the changed wind carried us toward the lines of foam. The boy cried, “Steersman! Steersman!” Ruiz sat up, holding his head in his hands. “Such a roaring in my ears!” But “Breakers! Breakers!” cried the boy. “Take the helm!”

Ruiz sprang to it, but as he touched it the Santa Maria grounded. The shock woke most on board, the immediate outcry and running feet the rest.

The harm was done, and no good now in recriminations! It was never, I bear witness, habit of Christopherus Columbus.

The Santa Maria listed heavily, the sea pounding against her, driving her more and more upon the sand. But order arrived with the Admiral. The master grew his lieutenant, the mariners his obedient ones. Back he was at thirty, with a shipwreck who had seen many and knew how to toil with hands and with head. Moreover, the great genius of the man shone in darkness. He could encourage; he could bring coolness.

We tried to warp her off, but it was not to be done. We cut away mast to lighten her, but more and more she grew fast to the bank, the waves striking all her side, pushing her over. Seams had opened, water was coming in. The Nina a mile away took our signal and came nearer, lay to, and sent her boat.

The Santa Maria, it was seen, was dying. Nothing more was to be done. Her mariners could only cling to her like bees to comb. We got the two boats clear and there was the boat of the Nina. Missioned by the Admiral, Juan Lepe got somehow into cabin, together with Sancho and Luis Torres, and we collected maps and charts, log, journal, box with royal letters and the small bags of gold, and the Admiral’s personal belongings, putting all into a great sack and caring for it, until upon the Nina we gave it into his hand. Above us rang the cry, “All off!”

From Christopherus Columbus to Pedro Acevedo all left the Santa Maria and were received by the Nina. Crowded, crowded was the Nina! Down voyaged the moon, up came with freshness the rose-chapleted dawn. A wreck lay the Santa Maria, painted against the east, about her a low thunder of breakers. Where was the Pinta no man knew! Perhaps halfway back to Spain or perhaps wrecked and drowned like the flagship. The Nina, a small, small ship and none too seaworthy, carried all of Europe and Discovery.