CHAPTER XXXIV
TWO years! It was March, 1496, when he sailed in the _Nina_. It was thesummer of 1498 when Juan Lepe was sent as physician with two shipsput forth from San Domingo by the Adelantado upon a rumor that thePortuguese had trespassed, landing from a great carrack upon Guadaloupe.Five days from Hispaniola we met a hurricane that carried us out of allreckoning. When stillness came again we were far south. No islands werein sight; there was only the sea vast and blue. There seemed to breathefrom it a strangeness. We were away and away, said our pilots, from thecurve, like a bent bow, of the Indian islands. A day and a night we hungin a dead calm. Dawn broke. "Sail, ho! Sail, ho!"
We thought that it might be the Portuguese and made preparation. Threeships lifted over the blue rim. There was now a light wind; it broughtthem nearer, they being better sailers than the _Santa Cruz_ and the_Santa Clara_. We saw the banner. "Castile!" and a lesser one. "ElAlmirante!"
Now we were close together. The masters hailed, "What ships?"--"FromHispaniola!"--"From Cadiz. The Admiral with us! Come aboard, yourcommander!"
That was Luis Mendez, and in the boat with him went Juan Lepe. The shipswere the _Esperanza_, the _San Sebastian_ and the _San Martin_, thefirst fairly large and well decked, the others small. They who lookedoverside and shouted welcome seemed a medley of gentle and simple,mariners, husbandmen, fighting men and hidalgos.
The Admiral! His hair was milk-white, his tall, broad frame gaunt asa January wolf. Two years had written in his face two years'experience--fully written, for he was sensitive to every wind ofexperience. "Excellency!"--"Juan Lepe, I am as glad of you as of abrother!--And what do you do, senors, here?"
Luis Mendez related. "I think it false news about the Portuguese," saidthe Admiral and gave reasons why. "Then shall we keep with you, sir?"
"No, since you are sent out by my brother and must give him account.Have you water to spare? We will take that from you. I am bound stillsouth. I will find out what is there!"
Further talk disclosed that he had left Spain with six ships, but atthe Canaries had parted his fleet in two, sending three under Alonzo deCaravajal upon the straight course to Hispaniola, and himself with threesailing first to the Green Cape islands, and thence southwest into anunknown sea.
So desolate, wide and blue it looked when the next day we parted,--twoships northward, three southward! But Juan Lepe stayed with the_Esperanza_ and the Admiral. As long since, between the _Santa Maria_and the _Pinta_, there had been exchange of physicians, so now again wasexchange between the _Santa Cruz_ and the _Esperanza_.
Days of blue sea. The _Esperanza_ carried a somewhat frank and friendlycrew of mariners and adventurers. Now he would sail south, he said,until he was under the Equator.
Days of stark blue ocean. Then out of the sea to the south rose a pointof land, becoming presently three points, as it were three peaks. TheAdmiral stared. I saw the enthusiasm rise in his face. "Did I not writeand say to the Sovereigns and to Rome that in the Name of the HolyTrinity, I would now again seek out and find? There! Look you! It is asign! Trinidad--we will name it Trinidad."
The next morning we came to Trinidad, and the palms trooped to the wateredge, and we saw sparkling streams, and from the heights above the seacurls of smoke from hidden huts. We coasted, seeking anchorage, andat last came into a clear, small harbor, and landing, filled our watercasks. We knew the country was inhabited for we saw the smokes, but nocanoes came about us, and though we met with footprints upon the sandthe men who made them never returned. We weighed anchor and sailed onalong the southern coast, and now to the south of us, across not manyleagues of blue water, we made out a low shore. Its ends were lost inhaze, but we esteemed it an island, and he named it Holy Island. It wasnot island, as now we know; but we did not know it then. How dreamlikeis all our finding, and how halfway only to great truths! Cuba wethought was the continent, and the shore that was continent, we called"island."
Now we came to a long southward running tongue of Trinidad. PointArenal, he named it. A corresponding tongue of that low Holy Islandreached out toward it, and between the two flowed an azure strait. Here,off Point Arenal, the three ships rested at anchor, and now there cameto us from Holy Island a big canoe, filled with Indians. As they camenear the _Esperanza_ we saw that they were somewhat lighter in hue thanthose Indians to whom we were used. Moreover they wore bright-coloredloin cloths, and twists of white or colored cotton about their heads,like slight turbans, and they carried not only bows and arrows to whichwe were used, but round bucklers to which we were not used. They lookedat us in amazement, but they were ready for war.
We invited them with every gesture of amity, holding out glass beads andhawk bells, but they would not come close to us. As they hung upon theblue water out of the shadow of the ship, the Admiral would have ourmusicians begin loudly to play. But when the drums began, the fife andthe castanets, the canoe started, quivered, the paddlers dipped, itraced back to that shore whence it came, that shore that we thoughtisland.
"Lighter than Haytiens!" exclaimed the Admiral. "I have thought that aswe neared the Equator we should find them black!"
Afterwards he expanded upon this. "Jayme Ferrer thinks as I think, thatthe nearer we come to the Equator the more precious grow all things, themore gold, the more diamonds, rubies and emeralds, the more prodigal anddelicious the spices! The people are burnt black, but they grow gentlerand more wise, and under the line they are makers of white magic. I havenot told you, Juan Lepe, but I hold that now we begin to come to whereour Mother Earth herself climbs, and climbs auspiciously!"
"That we come to great mountains?"
"No, not that, though there may be great mountains. But I have thoughtit out, and now I hold that the earth is not an orb, but is shaped, asit were, like a pear. It would take an hour to give you all the reasonsthat decide me! But I hold that from hereabouts it mounts fairer andfairer, until under the line, about where would be the stem of the pear,we come to the ancient Earthly Paradise, the old Garden of Eden!"
I looked to the southward. Certainly there is nowhere where there is notsomething!
He gazed over the truly azure and beauteous sea, and the air blew softand cool upon our foreheads, and the fragrance which came to us fromland seemed new. "Would you not look for the halcyons? Trinidad! HolyIsland! We approach, I hold, the Holy Mountain of the World. And harkto me, Juan Lepe, make vow that if it be permitted I will found therean abbey whence shall arise perpetual orison for the souls of our firstparents!"
We found that night that the ships swung, caught in a current issuingfrom the strait before us. In the morning we made sail and prepared topass through this narrow way between the two lands, seeing open waterbeyond. We succeeded by great skill and with Providence over us, for wemet as it were an under wall of water ridged atop with strong waves. Theships were tossed as by a tempest, yet was the air serene, the sky blue.We came hardly through and afterwards called that strait Mouth of theSerpent. Now we were in a great bay or gulf, and still the sea shook usand drove us. Calm above, around, but underneath an agitation of waters,strong currents and boilings. Among our mariners many took fright. "Whatis it? Are there witches? We are in a cauldron!"
Christopherus Columbus himself took the helm of the _Esperanza_. Many aman in these times chose to doubt what kind of Viceroy he made, but noman who ever sailed with him but at last said, "Child of Neptune, andthe greatest seaman we have!"
We outrode danger and came under land to a quiet anchorage, the _SanSebastian_ and the _San Martin_ following us as the chickens the hen.Still before us we saw that current ridge the sea. The Admiral stoodgazing upon the southward shore that hung in a dazzling haze. Now wethought water, now we thought land. He called to a ship boy and thelad presently brought him a pannikin of water dipped from the sea. TheAdmiral tasted. "Fresh! It is almost fresh!"
He stood with a kindling face. "A river runs into sea from this land!Surely the mightiest that may be, rushing forth like a dragon andfighting all the salt water! So great a riv
er could not come from anisland, no, not if it were twice as large as Hispaniola! Such a rivercomes downward with force hundreds of leagues and gathers children toitself as it comes. It is not an island yonder; it is a great main!"
We called the gulf where we were the Gulf of the Whale. Trinidad stoodon the one hand, the unknown continent on the other. After rest inmilky water, we set sail to cross the width of the Whale, and foundglass-green and shaken water, but never so piled and dangerous as at theMouth of the Serpent. So we came to that land that must be--we knew notwhat! It hung low, in gold sunlight. We saw no mountains, but it wascovered with the mightiest forest.
Anchoring in smooth water, we took out boats and went ashore, and weraised a cross. "As in Adam we all die, so in Christ we be alive!" saidthe Admiral, and then, "What grandeur is in this forest!"
In truth we found trees that we had not found in our islands, and of anunbelievable height and girth. Upon the boughs sat parrots, and we wereused to them, but we were not used to monkeys which now appeared, toour mariners' delight. We met footprints of some great animal, andpresently, being beside a stream, we made out upon a mud bank thosecrocodiles that the Indians call "cayman." And never have I seen somany and such splendid butterflies. All this forest seemed to us of avastness, as the rivers were vast. There rang in our ears "New! New!"
And at last came an Indian canoe--two--three, filled with light-hued,hardly more than tawny, folk, with cloth of cotton about their middlesand twisted around their heads, with bows and arrows and those newbucklers. But seeing that we did not wish to fight, they did not wish tofight either; and there was all the old amaze.
Gods--gods--gods! We sought the Earthly Paradise, and they thought wecame therefrom.
Paria. We made out that they called their country Paria.
They had in their canoes a bread like cassava, but more delicate, wethought, and in calabashes almost a true wine. We gave them toys, and asthey always pointed westward and seemed to signify that there was _the_land, we returned after two hours to the ships and set ourselves tofollow the coast. Two or three of this people would go with the gods.
We came to that river mouth that troubled all this sea. What shall I saybut that it was itself a sea, a green sea, a fresh sea? We crossed itwith long labor. The men of Paria made us understand that their seasonof rain was lately over, and that ever after that was more river.Whence did it come? They spoke at length and, Christopherus Columbus wascertain, of some heavenly country.
The dawn came up sweet and red. The country before us had hills and wemade out clearings in the monster forest, and now the blue water wasthronged with canoes. We anchored; they shot out to us fearlessly. TheJamaica canoe is larger and better than the Haytien, but those of thisland surpass the Jamaican. They are long and wide and have in the middlea light cabin. The rowers chant as they lift and dip their broad oars.If we were gods to them, yet they seemed gay and fearless of the gods. Ithought with the Admiral that they must have tradition or rumor, of folkhigher upon the mount of enlightenment than themselves. Perhaps nowand again there was contact. At any rate, we did not meet here thestupefaction and the prostrations of our first islands. We had again nocommon tongue, but they proved masters of gesture. Gold was upon them,and that in some amount, and what was extraordinary, often enough inwell-wrought shapes of ornament. A seaman brought to the Admiral agolden frog, well-made, pierced for a red cotton string, worn so abouta copper-colored neck. He had traded for it three hawk bells. TheAdmiral's face glowed. "It has been wrought by those who know how towork in metals! Tubal-cain!"
Moreover, now we found pearls. There came to us singing a great canoeand in it a plumed cacique with his wife and daughters. All wore twistsof pearls around throat and arms. They gave them freely for red,blue and green beads, which to them were indeed rubies, sapphires andemeralds.--Whence came the pearls? It seemed from the coast beyond andwithout this gulf. Whence the gold? It seemed from high mountains farbehind the country of Paria. It was dangerous in the extreme to gothere! "Because of the light which repels all darkness!" said theAdmiral. "When we go there, it must be gently and humbly like shrivenmen."
It was August. He knew that Don Bartholomew in Hispaniola cravedhis return. The three ships, too, were weatherworn, with seams thatthreatened gaping. And as for our adventurers and the husbandmen andcraftsmen, they were most weary of the sea. The mariners were used toit, the Admiral had lover's passion for it, but not they! Here beforeus, truly, loomed a promising great land, but it was not our port; ourport was San Domingo! There, there in Hispaniola, were old Castiliansin plenty to greet and show. There were the mines that were actuallyworking, gold to pick up, and Indians trained to bring it to you! There,for the enterprising and the lucky, were gifts of land, to each his_repartimentio_! There was companionship, there was fortune, there wasease! Others were getting, while we rode before a land we were too fewto occupy. They went in company to the Admiral. We had discovered. Nowlet us go onto Hispaniola! The ships--our health.
When it came to health it was he who had most to endure.
The gout possessed him often. His brow knotted with pain; his voice,by nature measured and deep, a rolling music, became sharp and dry. Hemoved with difficulty, now and then must stay in bed, or if on deck ina great chair which we lashed to the mast. But now a trouble seized hiseyes. They gave him great pain; at times he could barely see. Bathethem with a soothing medicine, rest them. But when had he rested them,straining over the ocean since he was a boy? He was a man greatlypatient under adversity, whether of the body or of the body'scircumstance, but this trouble with the eyes shook him. "If I becomeblind--and all that's yet to do and find! Blessed Mother of God, let notthat happen to me!"
I thought that he should go to Hispaniola, where in the Adelantado'shouse in San Domingo he might submit to bandaging, light and sea shutout.
At last, "Well, well, we will turn! But first we must leave this gulfand try it out for some distance westward!"
We left this water by a way as narrow as the entering strait, as narrowand presenting the like rough confusion of waters, wall against wall.We called it the Mouth of the Dragon. Mouth of the Dragon, Mouth of theSerpent, and between them the Gulf of the Whale or of Paria. Now wasopen sea, and south of us ran still that coast that he would have mountto the Equator and to that old, first Garden Land where all things yetwere fair and precious! "I can not stay now, but I will come again!I will find the mighty last things!" His eyes gave him great pain. Hecovered them, then dropped his hands and looked, then must again cover.
A strange thing! We were borne westward ever upon a vast current of thesea, taking us day and night, so that though the winds were light wewent as though every sail was wholly filled.
Christopherus Columbus talked of these rivers in ocean. "A day will comewhen they will be correctly marked. Aye, in the maps of our descendants!Then ships will say, 'Now here is the river so and so,' as to-day thehorseman says, 'Here is the Tagus, or the Guadalquiver!'"
Another thing he said was that to his mind all the islands that we hadfound in six years, from San Salvador to Cubagua, had once been joinedtogether. Land from this shore to Cuba and beyond. So the peoples werescattered.
He talked to us much upon this voyage of the great earth and the shapeof it, and its destinies; of the stars, the needle, the Great Circleand the lesser ones, and the Ocean. He had our time's learning, gainedthrough God knows how many nights of book by candle! And he had a mindthat took eagle flights with spread of eagle wings, and in many ways hehad the eagle's eye.
It was not Cipango and Cathay that now he talked of, but of this greatland-mass before us which he would have rise to Equator and all Wonder.And he talked also of some water passage, some strait lying to thewestward, by which we might sail between lands and islands to thefurther Indian Ocean, and so across to the Sea of Araby, and then aroundAfrica by Good Hope and then northward, northward, to Spain, coming intoCadiz with banners, having sailed around the world!
He talked, and all the time his pain
ate him, and he must cover eyes tokeep the sword-light out.
In middle August we turned northward from our New Land, and a fortnightlater we came to San Domingo, that Christopherus Columbus had neverseen, though to us in Hispaniola it was an old town, having been buildedabove two years.
The Viceroy and the Adelantado clasped hands, embraced; tears ran downtheir bronzed cheeks.
Not later than a day after our anchoring, the ships being unladed, allSan Domingo coming and going, trumpets blew and gathered all to our openplace before the Viceroy's house. Proclamation--Viceregal Proclamation!First, thanks to God for safe return, and second, hearty approval of theAdelantado, all his Acts and Measures.
There were two parties in San Domingo, and one now echoed in a shoutapproval of the Adelantado, and the other made here a dead silence, andhere a counter-murmur. I heard a man say, "Fool praises fool! Villainbrother upholding villain brother!"
Now I do not think the Adelantado's every act was wise, nor theViceroy's either, for that matter. But they were far, far, thosebrothers, from fool and villain!
The Proclamation arrived at long thunders against Francisco Roldan hissedition. Here again the place divided as before. Roldan, I had it fromLuis Torres, was in Xaragua, safe and arrogant, harking on Indian war,undermining everywhere. Our line of forts held for the Adelantado, butthe two or three hundred Spaniards left in Isabella were openly Roldan'smen. The Viceroy, through the voice of Miguel the Herald, recited,denounced and warned, then left Francisco Roldan and with suddennessmade statement that within a few days five ships would sail for Spain,and that all Spaniards whomsoever, who for reasons whatsoever desiredHome, had his consent to go! Consent, Free Passage, and No Questioning!
Whereat the place buzzed loudly, and one saw that many would go.
Many did go upon the ships that sailed not in a few days but a fewweeks. Some went for good reasons, but many for ill. Juan Lepe heardafar and ahead of time the great tide of talk when they should arrive inSpain! And though many went who wished the Admiral ill, many stayed, andforever Roldan made for him more enemies, open or secret.
He sent, it is true, upon those ships friends to plead his cause.Don Francisco de Las Casas went to Spain and others went. And he sentletters. Juan Lepe, much in his house, tending him who needed thephysician Long-Rest and Ease-of-Mind, heard these letters read. Therewas one to the Sovereigns in which he related with simple eloquence thatdiscovery to the South, and his assurance that he had touched thefoot of the Mount of all the World. With this letter he sent a hundredpearls, the golden frog and other gold. Again he took paper and wrote ofthe attitude of all things in Hispaniola, of Roldan and evil men, of theAdelantado's vigilance, justice and mercy, of natural difficulties andthe need to wait on time, of the Indians. He begged that there besent him ample supplies and good men, and withal friars for the Indiansalvation, and some learned, wise and able lawyer and judge, much neededto give the law upon a thousand complaints brought by childish andfactious men. And if the Sovereigns saw fit to send out some just andlofty mind to take evidence from all as to their servant ChristopherusColumbus's deeds and public acts and care of their Majesties' NewLands and all the souls therein, such an one would be welcomed by theirGraces' true servant.
So he himself asked for a commissioner--but he never thought of such anone as Francisco de Bobadilla!
So the ships sailed. Time passed.
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