1492

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XIX

  FOREST endless and splendid! We white men often saw no path, but thered-brown men saw it. It ran level, it climbed, it descended; then beganthe three again. It was lost, it was found. They said, "Here path!" Butwe had to serpent through thickets, or make way on edge of dizzy crag,or find footing through morass. We came to great stretches of reedsand yielding grass, giving with every step into water. It was to toilthrough this under hot sun, with stinging clouds of insects. But whenthey were left behind we might step into a grove of the gods, suchfirmness, such pleasantness, such shady going or happy resting undertrees that dropped fruit.

  We met no great forest beasts. There seemed to be none in this partof Asia. And yet Luis and I had read of great beasts. Dogs of noconsiderable size were the largest four-footed things we had come uponfrom San Salvador to Cuba. There were what they called _utias_, like arabbit, much used for food, and twice we had seen an animal the size ofa fox hanging from a bough by its tail.

  If the beasts were few the birds were many. To see the parrots greatand small and gorgeously colored, to see those small, small birds liketossed jewels that never sang but hummed like a bee, to hear a gray birdsing clear and loud and sweet every strain that sang other birds, was tosee and hear most joyous things. Lizards were innumerable; at edge of amarsh we met with tortoises; once we passed coiled around a tree a greatserpent. It looked at us with beady eyes, but the Indians said it wouldnot harm a man. A thousand, thousand butterflies spread their paintedfans.

  The trees! so huge of girth and height and wherever was room sospreading, so rich of grain, so full, I knew, of strange virtues! Wefound one that I thought was cinnamon, and broke twigs and bark and putin our great pouch for the Admiral. Only time might tell the wealth ofthis green multitude. I thought, "Here is gold, if we would wait forit!" Fruit trees sprang by our path. We had with us some provision ofbiscuit and dried meat, and we never lacked golden or purple delectableorbs. We found the palm that bears the great nut, giving alike meat andmilk.

  By now Luis Torres and I had no little of Diego Colon's tongue and hehad Spanish enough to understand the simplest statements and orders.Ferdandina tongue was not quite Cuba tongue, but it was like enough tofurnish sea room. We asked this, we asked that. No! No one had ever cometo the end of their country. When one town was left behind, at last youcame to another town. One by one, were they bigger, better towns? Theyseemed to say that they were, but here was always, I thought, doubtfulunderstanding. But no one had ever walked around their country--theyseemed to laugh at the notion--land that way, always land! On the otherhand, there was sea yonder--like sea here. They pointed south. Not sofar there! "It must be," said Luis, "that Cuba is narrow, though withoutend westwardly. A great point or tongue of Asia?"

  The Cubans were strong young men and not unintelligent. "Chiefs?"Yes, they had chiefs, they called them _caciques_. Some of them werefighters, they and their people. Not fighters like Caribs! Whereupon thespeaker rose--we were resting under a tree--and facing south, used forgesture a strong shudder and a movement as if to flee.

  South--south--always they pointed south! We were going south--inland.Would we come to Caribs? But no. Caribs seemed not to be in Cuba, butbeyond sea, in islands.

  Luis and I made progress in language and knowledge. Roderigo Jerez,a simple man, slept or tried the many kinds of fruit, or teased theslender, green-flame lizards.

  We slept this night high on the mountainside, on soft grass near a fallof water. The Indians showed no fear of attack from man or beast. Theycould make fire in a most ingenious fashion, setting stick againstlarger stick and turning the first with such skill, vigor andpersistence that presently arose heat, a spark, fire. But they seemedto need or wish no watch fire. They lay, naked and careless,innocent--fearless, as though the whole land were their castle. Luistried to find out how they felt about dangers. We pieced together. "Nonehere! And the Great Lizard takes care!" That was the Cuban. Diego Colonsaid, "The Great Turtle takes care!"

  Luis Torres laughed. "Fray Ignatio should hear that!"

  "It is on the road," I said and went to sleep.

  The second day's going proved less difficult than the first. Lessdifficult means difficult enough! And as yet we had met no one noranything that remotely favored golden-roofed Cipango, or famous, richQuinsai, or Zaiton of the marble bridges. Jerez climbed a tall treeand coming down reported forest and mountain, and naught else. Ourcompanions watched with interest his climbing. "Do you go up trees inheaven?"

  This morning we had bathed in a pool below the little waterfall. DiegoColon by now was used to us so, but the Cuba men displayed excitement.They had not yet in mind separated us from our clothes. Now we wereseparated and were found in all our members like them, only the colordiffering. Color and the short beards of Luis Torres and Juan Lepe. Theywished to touch and examine our clothes lying upon the bank, but hereDiego Colon interfered. They were full of magic. Something terriblemight happen! When Luis and I came forth from water and dried ourselveswith handfuls of the warm grass, they asked: "Do they do so in heaven?"The stronger, more intelligent of the two, added, "It is not sodifferent!"

  I said to Luis as we took path after breakfast, "It is borne in uponme that only from ourselves, Admiral to ship boy, can we keep up thisheaven ballad! Clothes, beads and hawk bells, cannon, harquebus,trumpet and banner, ship and sails, royal letters and blessing of thePope--nothing will do it long unless we do it ourselves!"

  "Agreed!" quoth Luis. "But gods and angels are beginning to slip andslide, back there by the ships! We have the less temptation here."

  He began to speak of a sailor and a brown girl upon whom he had stumbledin a close wood a little way from shore. She thought Tomaso Pasamontewas a god wooing her and was half-frightened, half-fain. "And two hourslater I saw Don Pedro Gutierrez--"

  "Ay," said Juan Lepe. "The same story! The oldest that is!" And as atthe word our savages, who had been talking together, now at the nextresting place put forward their boldest, who with great reverence askedif there were women in heaven.

  Through most of this day we struggled with a difficult if fantasticallybeautiful country. Where rock outcropped and in the sands of brightrapid streams we looked for signs of that gold, so stressed as thoughit were the only salvation! But the rocks were silent, and though inthe bed of a shrunken streamlet we found some glistening particles andscraping them carefully together got a small spoonful to wrap in clothand bestow in our pouch of treasures, still were we not sure that it waswholly gold. It might be. We worked for an hour for just this pinch.

  Since yesterday morning our path had been perfectly solitary. Thensuddenly, when we were, we thought, six leagues at least from the ships,the way turning and entering a small green dell, we came upon threeIndians seated resting, their backs to palm trees. We halted, theyraised their eyes. They stared, they rose in amazement at the sight ofthose gods, Roderigo Jerez, Luis Torres and Juan Lepe. They stood likestatues with great eyes and parted lips. For us, coming silently uponthem, we had too our moment of astonishment.

  They were three copper men, naked, fairly tall and well to look at. Buteach had between his lips what seemed a brown stick, burning at the farend, dropping a light ash and sending up a thin cloud of odorous smoke.These burning sticks they dropped as they rose. They had seemed sosilent, so contented, so happy, sitting there with backs to trees,a firebrand in each mouth, I felt a love for them! Luis thought thelighted sticks some rite of their religion, but after a while when wecame to examine them, we found them not true stick, but some large,thickish brown leaf tightly twisted and pressed together and having apungent, not unpleasing odor. We crumbled one in our hands and tastedit. The taste was also pungent, strange, but one might grow to like it.They called the stick tobacco, and said they always used it thus withfire, drinking in the smoke and puffing it out again as they showed usthrough the nostrils. We thought it a great curiosity, and so it was!

  But to them we were unearthly beings. The men from the sea told ofus, then as it we
re introduced Diego Colon, who spoke proudly withappropriate gesture, loving always his part of herald Mercury--orrather of herald Mercury's herald--not assuming to be god himself, butcherishing the divine efflux and the importance it rayed upon him!

  The three Indians quivered with a sense of the great adventure! Theirtown was yonder. They themselves had been on the path to such and such aplace, but now would they turn and go with us, and when we went againto the sea they, if it were permitted, would accompany us and view forthemselves our amazing canoes! All this to our companion. They backedwith great deference from us.

  We went with these Indians to their town, evidently the town which wesought. And indeed it was larger, fitter, a more ordered community thanany we had met this side Ocean-Sea, though far, far from travelers'tales of Orient cities! It was set under trees, palm trees and others,by the side of a clear river. The huts were larger than those by thesea, and set not at random but in rows with a great trodden squarein the middle. From town to river where they fished and where, underoverhanging palms, we found many Canoes, ran a way wider than a path,much like a narrow road. But there were no wheeled vehicles nor draughtanimals. We were to find that in all these lands they on occasioncarried their caciques or the sick or hurt in litters or palanquinsborne on men's shoulders. But for carrying, grinding, drawing, they knewnaught of the wheel. It seemed strange that any part of Asia should notknow!

  In this town we found the cacique, and with him a _butio_ or priest.Once, too, I thought, our king and church were undeveloped like these.We were looking in these lands upon the bud which elsewhere we knew inthe flower. That to Juan Lepe seemed the difference between them and us.

  The people swarmed out upon us. When the first admiration was somewhatover, when Diego Colon and the two seaside men and the Cubans of theburning sticks had made explanation, we were swept with them into theirpublic square and to a hut much larger than common where we found astately Indian, the cacique, and an ancient wrinkled man, the _butio_.These met us with their own assumption of something like godship. Theyhad no lack of manner, and Luis and I had the Castilian to drawupon. Then came presents and Diego Colon interpreting. But as for theAdmiral's letter, though I showed it, it was not understood.

  It was gazed upon and touched, considered a heavenly rarity like thehawk bells we gave them, but not read nor tried to be read. The writingupon it was the natural veining of some most strange leaf that grew inheaven, or it was the pattern miraculously woven by a miraculous workmanwith thread miraculously finer than their cotton! It was strangethat they should have no notion at all--not even their chieftains andpriests--of writing! Any part of Asia, however withdrawn, surely shouldhave tradition there, if not practice!

  In this hut or lodge, doored but not windowed, we found a kind of tableand seats fashioned from blocks of some dark wood rudely carved andpolished. The cacique would have us seated, sat himself beside us, the_butio_ at his hand.

  There seemed no especial warrior class. We noted that, it being one ofthe things it was ever in order to note. No particular band of fightingmen stood about that block of polished wood, that was essentially throneor chair of state. The village owned slender, bone or flint-headedlances, but these rested idly in corners. Upon occasion all or any mightuse them, but there was no evidence that those occasions came often.There was no body of troops, nor armor, no shields, no crossbows, noswords. They had knives, rudely made of some hard stone, but it seemedthat they were made for hunting and felling and dividing. No clothinghid from us any frame. The cacique had about his middle a girdle ofwrought cotton with worked ends and some of the women wore as slight adress, but that was all. They were formed well, all of them, lithe andslender, not lacking either in sinew and muscle, but it was sinewand muscle of the free, graceful, wild world, not brawn of bowman andpikeman and swordman and knight with his heavy lance. In something theymight be like the Moor when one saw him naked, but the Moor, too, wasperfected in arms, and so they were not like.

  We did not know as yet if ever there were winter in this land. Itseemed perpetual, serene and perfect summer. Behind these huts ran smallgardens wherein were set melons and a large pepper of which we grewfond, and a nourishing root, and other plants. But the soil was rich,rich, and they loosened and furrowed it with a sharpened stick. Therewere no great forest beasts to set them sternly hunting. What then couldgive them toil? Not gathering the always falling fruit; not cutting fromthe trees and drying the calabashes, great and small, that they used forall manner of receptacle; not drawing out with a line of some stouterfiber than cotton and with a hook of bone or thorn the painted fish fromtheir crystal water! To fell trees for canoes, to hollow the canoe, waslabor, as was the building of their huts, but divided among so many itbecame light labor. In those days we saw no Indian figure bowed withtoil, and when it came it was not the Indian who imposed it.

  But they swam, they rowed their canoes, they hunted in their not arduousfashion, they roved afar in their country at peace, and they danced.That last was their fair, their games, their tourney, their pilgrimage,their processions to church, their attendance at mass, their expressionof anything else that they felt altogether and at once! It was likechildren's play, renewed forever, and forever with zest. But theydid not treat it as play. We had been showed dances in Concepcion andIsabella, but here in Cuba, in this inland town, Jerez and Luis and Iwere given to see a great and formal dance, arranged all in honor of us,gods descended for our own reasons to mix with men! They danced in thesquare, but first they made us a feast with _hutias_ and cassavaand fish and fruit and a drink not unlike mead, exhilarating but notbestowing drunkenness. Grapes were all over these lands, purple clustershanging high and low, but they knew not wine.

  Men and women danced, now in separate bands, now mingled together.Decorum was kept. We afterwards knew that it had been a religious dance.They had war dances, hunting dances, dances at the planting of theircorn, ghost dances and others. This now was a thing to watch, like abeautiful masque. They were very graceful, very supple; they had theirown dignity.

  We learned much in the three days we spent in this town. Men and womenfor instance! That nakedness of the body, that free and public mingling,going about work and adventure and play together, worked, thought JuanLepe no harm. Later on in this vast adventure of a new world, some ofour churchmen were given to asserting that they lived like animals,though the animals also are there slandered! The women were free andcomplaisant; there were many children about. But matings, I thought,occurred only of free and mutual desire, and not more frequently than inother countries. The women were not without modesty, nor the men withouta pale chivalry. At first I thought constraint or rule did not enter in,but after a talk with their priest through Diego Colon, I gathered thatthere prevailed tribe and kinship restraints. Later we were to find thata great network of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" ran through theirtotal society, wherever or to what members it might extend. Common good,or what was supposed to be common good, was the master here as it iseverywhere! The women worked the gardens, the men hunted; both men andwomen fished. Women might be caciques. There were women caciques, theysaid, farther on in their land. And it seemed to us that name and familywere counted from the mother's side.

  The Admiral had solemnly laid it upon us to discover the polity ofthis new world. If they held fief from fief, then at last we must comethrough however many overlords to the seigneur of them all, Grand Khanor Emperor. We applied ourselves to cacique and butio, but we found noGrand Seigneur. There were other caciques. When the Caribs descendedthey banded together. They had dimly, we thought, the idea of awar-lord. But it ended there, when the war ended. Tribute: He foundthey had no idea of tribute. Cotton grew everywhere! Cotton, cassava,calabashes, all things! When they visited a cacique they took him gifts,and at parting he gave them gifts. That was all.

  Gold? They knew of it. When they found a bit they kept it for ornament.The cacique possessed a piece the size of a ducat, suspended by a stringof cotton. It had been given to him by a cacique
who lived on the greatwater. Perhaps he took it from the Caribs. But it was in the mountains,too. He indicated the heights beyond. Sometimes they scraped it fromsand under the stream. He seemed indifferent to it. But Diego Colon,coming in, said that it was much prized in heaven, being used for highmagic, and that we would give heavenly gifts for it. Resulted from thatthe production in an hour of every shining flake and grain and buttonpiece the village owned. We carried from this place to the Admiral asmall gourd filled with gold. But it was not greatly plentiful; that wasevident to any thinking man! But we had so many who were not thinkingmen. And the Admiral had to appease with his reports gold-thirsty greatfolk in Spain.

  We spent three days in this village and they were days for gods andIndians of happy wonder and learning. They would have us describeheaven. Luis and I told them of Europe. We pointed to the east. Theysaid that they knew that heaven rested there upon the great water.The town of the sun was over there. Had we seen the sun's town? Was itbeside us in heaven, in "Europe"? The sun went down under the mountains,and there he found a river and his canoe. He rowed all night until hecame to his town. Then he ate cassava cakes and rested, while the greenand gold and red Lizard [These were "Lizard" folk. They had a Lizardpainted on a great post by the cacique's house.] went ahead to say thathe was coming. Then he rose, right out of the great water, and there wasday again! But we must know about the sun's town; we, the gods!

  Luis and I could have stayed long while and disentangled this place andloved the doing it.

  But it was to return to the Admiral and the waiting ships.

  The three tobacco men would go with us to see wonders, so we returnednine in number along the path. Before we set out we saw that a stormthreatened. All six Indians were loth to depart until it was over, andthe cacique would have kept us. But Luis and I did not know how long thebad weather might hold and we must get to the ships. It was Jerez whotold them boastfully that gods did not fear storms,--specimen of thatSpanish folly of ours that worked harm and harm again!

  We traveled until afternoon agreeably enough, then with great swiftnessthe clouds climbed and thickened. Sun went out, air grew dark. TheIndians behind us on the path, that was so narrow that we must tread oneafter the other, spoke among themselves, then Diego Colon pushed throughmarvelously huge, rich fern to Luis and me. "They say, 'will not thegods tell the clouds to go away?'" But doubt like a gnome sat in theyouth's eye. We had had bad weather off Isabella, and the gods had hadto wait for the sun like others. By now Diego Colon had seen many andstrange miracles, but he had likewise found limitations, quite numerousand decisive limitations! He thought that here was one, and I explainedto him that he thought correctly. Europeans could do many things butthis was not among them. Luis and I watched him tell the Cubans that he,Diego Colon, had never said that we three were among the highest gods.Even the great, white-headed, chief god yonder in the winged canoe wassaid to be less than some other gods in heaven which we called Europe,and over all was a High God who could do everything, scatter clouds,stop thunder or send thunder, everything! Had we brought our butio withus he might perhaps have made great magic and helped things. As it was,we must take luck. That seeming rational to the Indians, we proceeded,our glory something diminished, but still sufficient.

  The storm climbed and thickened and evidently was to become a fury. Windbegan to whistle, trees to bend, lightnings to play, thunder to sound.It grew. We stood in blazing light, thunder almost burst our ears, atree was riven a bow-shot away. Great warm rain began to fall. We couldhardly stand against the wind. We were going under mountainside with asplashing stream below us. Diego Colon shouted, as he must to get abovewind and thunder. "Hurry! hurry! They know place." All began to run.After a battle to make way at all, we came to a slope of loose, smallstones and vine and fern. This we climbed, passed behind a jagged massof rock, and found a cavern. A flash lit it for us, then another andanother. At mouth it might be twenty feet across, was deep and narrowedlike a funnel. Panting, we threw ourselves on the cave floor.

  The storm prevailed through the rest of this day and far into the night."_Hurricane!_" said the Cubans. "Not great one, little one!" But we fromSpain thought it a great enough hurricane. The rain fell as though itwould make another flood and in much less than forty days. We must besilent, for wind and thunder allowed no other choice. Streams of raincame into the cavern, but we found ledges curtained by rock. We atecassava cake and drank from a runlet of water. The storm made almostnight, then actual night arrived. We curled ourselves up, huggingourselves for warmth, and went to sleep.

  The third day from the town we came to the sea and the ships. All seemedwell. Our companions had felt the storm, had tales to tell of wrenchedanchors and the _Pinta's_ boat beat almost to pieces, uprooted trees,wind, lightning, thunder and rain. But they cut short their recital,wishing to know what we had found.

  Luis and I made report to the Admiral. He sat under a huge tree andaround gathered the Pinzons, Fray Ignatio, Diego de Arana, RoderigoSanchez and others. We related; they questioned, we answered; there wasdiscussion; the Admiral summed up.

  But later I spoke to him alone. We were now on ship, making ready forsailing. We would go eastward, around this point of Asia, since fromwhat all said it must be point, and see what was upon the other side."They all gesture south! They say 'Babeque--Babeque! Bohio!'"

  I asked him, "Why is it that these Indians here seem glad for us to go?"

  He sighed impatiently, drawing one hand through the other, with him arecurring gesture. "It is the women! Certain of our men--" I saw himlook at Gutierrez who passed.

  "Tomaso Passamonte, too," I said.

  "Yes. And others. It is the old woe! Now they have only to kill a man!"

  He arraigned short-sightedness. I said, "But still we are from heaven?"

  "Still. But some of the gods--just five or six, say--have fearful ways!"He laughed, sorrowfully and angrily. "And you think there is littlegold, and that we are very far from clothed and lettered Asia?"

  "So far," I answered, "that I see not why we call these brown, nakedfolk Indians."

  "What else would you call them?"

  "I do not know that."

  "Why, then, let us still call them Indians." He drummed upon the railbefore him, then broke out, "Christ! I think we do esteem hard, present,hand-held gold too much!"

  "I say yes to that!"

  He said, "We should hold to the joy of Discovery and great usehereafter--mounting use!"

  "Aye."

  "Here is virgin land, vast and beautiful, with a clime like heaven, androom for a hundred colonies such as Greece and Rome sent out! Here is adocile, unwarlike people ready to be industrious servitors and peasants,for which we do give them salvation of their souls! It is all Spain's,the banner is planted, the names given! We are too impatient! We cannothave it between dawn and sunset! But look into the future--there iswealth beyond counting! No great amount of gold, but enough to show thatthere is gold."

  I followed the working of his mind. It was to smile somewhatsorrowfully, seeing his great difficulties. He was the born Discoverermightily loving Discovery, and watching the Beloved in her life throughtime. But he had to serve Prince Have-it-now, in the city Greed. I said,"Senor, do not put too much splendor in your journal for the King andQueen and the Spanish merchants and the Church and all the chivalry thatthe ended war releases! Or, if you prophesy, mark it prophecy. It is agreat trouble in the world that men do not know when one day is talkedof or when is meant great ranges of days! Otherwise you will haveall thirsty Spain sailing for Ophir and Golden Chersonesus, wealthimmediate, gilding Midas where he stands! If they find disappointmentthey will not think of the future; they will smite you!"

  I knew that he was writing in that book too ardently, and that he waseven now composing letters to great persons to be dispatched from whatSpanish port he should first enter, coming back east from west, overOcean-Sea, from Asia!

  But he had long, long followed his own advice, stood by his own course.The doing so had s
o served him that it was natural he should haveconfidence. Now he said only, "I do the best I can! I have little searoom. One Scylla and Charybdis? Nay, a whole brood of them!"

  I could agree to that. I saw it coming up the ways that they would givehim less and less sea room. He went on, "Merchandise has to be madeattractive! The cook dresses the dish, the girl puts flowers in herhair.... Yet, in the end the wares are mighty beyond description! Thedish is for Pope and King--the girl is a bride for a paladin!"

  Again he was right afar and over the great span. But they would not seein Spain, or not many would see, that the whole span must be taken. ButI was not one to chide him, seeing that I, too, saw afar, and they wouldnot see with me either in Spain.