Transcriber’s Notes


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The original book did not have a Table of Contents. Transcriber added
one to this eBook by copying the Chapter names from the text.

Additional notes will be found near the end of this eBook.




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  =ALDEN, WILLIAM L.= CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1440–1506). The First
    American Citizen (By Adoption). By William L. Alden. New York:
    Henry Holt & Co., 1881. 16mo, pp. 287. (Lives of American Worthies).

  =COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER=, (1440–1506). The First American Citizen (By
    Adoption). By William L. Alden. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1881.
    16mo, pp. 287. (Lives of American Worthies).

  =HISTORY.= CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS (1440–1506). The First American
    Citizen (By Adoption). By William L. Alden. New York: Henry Holt &
    Co., 1881. 16mo, pp. 287. (Lives of American Worthies).




_LIVES OF AMERICAN WORTHIES._


Under the above title, Messrs. HENRY HOLT & CO. are contributing one
more biographical series to the number with which the reading world is
being so abundantly favored.

That there may be something in the method of this series not altogether
identical with that of its numerous predecessors, contemporaries
and promised successors, will perhaps be suspected from the list of
subjects and authors thus far selected:

  CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, (1440–1506),
      By W. L. ALDEN, (_of the New York Times_),
          _Author of “The Moral Pirates,” etc._

  CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, (1579–1631),
      By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER,
          _Author of “My Summer in a Garden,” etc._

  WILLIAM PENN, (1644–1715),
      By ROBERT J. BURDETTE, _of the Burlington Hawkeye_.

  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, (1706–1790),
      By

  GEORGE WASHINGTON, (1732–1799),
      By JOHN HABBERTON, _Author of “Helen’s Babies,” etc._

  THOMAS JEFFERSON, (1743–1826),
      By

  ANDREW JACKSON, (1767–1845),
      By GEORGE T. LANIGAN, _Author of “Fables out of the World._”

If the names of the authors awaken a suspicion that there may be
something humorous in the books, it should be known that despite
anything of that kind, the truth of history is adhered to with
most uncompromising rigidity--perhaps, in some cases, a little too
uncompromising, or compromising: that depends on the point of view.

Recent announcements make it proper to state that this series was begun
several years before the date of this prospectus, and that the first
volume published--Mr. Charles Dudley Warner’s Life of Captain John
Smith, was in type in the Spring of the current year.

_New York_, November, 1881.




                      _LIVES OF AMERICAN WORTHIES_


                          CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
                              (1440–1506)

                      _THE FIRST AMERICAN CITIZEN_
                            (_BY ADOPTION_)

                                   BY
                              W. L. ALDEN

                             [Illustration]

                                NEW YORK
                         HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
                                  1881




                            COPYRIGHT, 1881,
                                   BY
                            HENRY HOLT & CO.


                      Electrotyped and Printed by
                           S. W. GREEN’S SON,
                       74 and 76 Beekman Street,
                               NEW YORK.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I.
    Early Years.

  CHAPTER II.
    First Plans of Exploration.

  CHAPTER III.
    In Search of a Patron.

  CHAPTER IV.
    He Receives His Commission.

  CHAPTER V.
    He Is Commissioned, and Sets Sail.

  CHAPTER VI.
    The Voyage.

  CHAPTER VII.
    The Discovery.

  CHAPTER VIII.
    Adventures on Land.

  CHAPTER IX.
    The Homeward Voyage.

  CHAPTER X.
    His Reception, and Preparation For a Second Expedition.

  CHAPTER XI.
    Explorations in the West Indies.

  CHAPTER XII.
    Attempts at Colonization.

  CHAPTER XIII.
    Search For China.--subjugation of Hispaniola.

  CHAPTER XIV.
    Difficulties and Discouragements.

  CHAPTER XV.
    His Third Expedition.

  CHAPTER XVI.
    His Return in Disgrace.

  CHAPTER XVII.
    His Fourth Expedition.

  CHAPTER XVIII.
    His Last Years.

  CHAPTER XIX.
    His Character and Achievements.




CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.


                                                           [Æt. 0; 1436]

Christopher Columbus was born at more places and to a greater extent
than any other eminent man known to history. He was born at frequent
intervals from 1436 to 1446, and at Cogoletto, Genoa, Finale, Oneglia,
Savona, Padrello, and Boggiasco. Learned historians have conclusively
shown that he was born at each one of the places, and each historian
has had him born at a different date from that fixed upon by a rival
historian. To doubt their demonstrations would be to treat history and
historians with gross irreverence, and would evince a singular lack
of business tact on the part of one proposing to add another to the
various histories of Columbus.

Perhaps the majority of people believe that Columbus was born
exclusively at Cogoletto; but no one retains that belief after having
once visited Cogoletto, and drank the painfully sour wine produced at
that wretched little village. It is true that Mr. Tennyson, who remarks
that he once

    “Stay’d the wheels at Cogoletto,
     And drank, and loyally drank, to him,”

still believes that it was the birthplace of the great Admiral. But
this fact simply shows that Mr. Tennyson drank out of his own flask.
Few people who visit Cogoletto take this wise precaution, and the
result is that, after drinking to the memory of Columbus, they go on
their way firmly convinced that wherever else he was born, he certainly
was not born at Cogoletto.

It was the opinion of the late Washington Irving that Genoa was the
real birthplace of Columbus. This opinion was what might have been
expected from a man of such unfailing good taste.

The production of infants is to this day one of the leading industries
of Genoa, and as it is a large and beautiful city, we cannot do better
than to adopt Mr. Irving’s opinion that it was Columbus’s favorite
birthplace. At the same time we might as well select the year 1436 as
the year of his birth, with the determination of adhering to it, for
it adds much to the symmetry of a biography if the subject thereof is
given a definite and fixed birthday.

At his birth Christopher Columbus was simply Cristoforo Colombo, and it
was not until he arrived at manhood that he was translated into Latin,
in which tongue he has been handed down to the present generation.
At a still later period he translated himself into Spanish, becoming
thereby Christoval Colon. We can not be too thankful that he was never
translated into German, for we could scarcely take pride in a country
discovered by one =Kolompo=.

                                                           [Æt. 1; 1442]

The father of Columbus was Domenico Colombo, a wool-comber by
occupation. Whose wool he combed, and why he combed it, and whether
wool-combing is preferable to wool-gathering as an intellectual
pursuit, are questions that have never been satisfactorily decided.

Of Mrs. Colombo we simply know that her Christian name was
Fontanarossa, or Red Fountain, a name more suitable to a Sioux Indian
than a Christian woman, though perhaps, poor creature! it was not her
fault.

Young Christopher was at an early age thoughtfully provided with
two younger brothers--who were afterwards very useful to him--and a
younger sister. The former were Giacomo, afterward known as Diego, and
Bartolommeo, who has been translated into English as Bartholomew. The
sister does not appear to have had any name, though her mother might
have spared three or four syllables of her own name without feeling the
loss of them. This anonymous sister married one Giacomo Bavarello, and
promptly vanished into an obscurity that history cannot penetrate.

                                                           [Æt. 6; 1443]

From his earliest years Christopher was an unusual and remarkable
boy. One day when he was about six years of age he was sent by his
mother, early in the morning, to the store to purchase a pound of
“blueing” for washing purposes. The morning grew to noon, and the
afternoon waned until evening--processes which are not peculiar to
the climate of Genoa--but the boy did not return, and his mother was
unable to wash the family clothes. The truant had forgotten all about
the “blueing,” and was spending the entire day in company with the
McGinnis boys, watching a base-ball match in the City Hall Park between
the Genoese Nine and the Red-legs of Turin. At dusk he returned, and
his broken-hearted mother handed him over to his stern father, who
invited him into the woodshed. As Christopher was removing his coat and
loosening his other garments so as to satisfy his father that he had no
shingles or school-atlases concealed about his person, he said:

“Father, I stayed to witness that base-ball match, not because of a
childish curiosity, nor yet because I had any money on the game, but
solely in order to study the flight of the ball, hoping thereby to
obtain some hints as to the law of projectiles that would enable me to
improve the science of gunnery, which is now by no means in an advanced
state. If, in view of these circumstances, you still think me worthy of
punishment, I will submit with all the fortitude I can summon.”

The father, deeply moved at this frank confession, wore out two
apple-tree switches in connection with his son, and informed him that
if he ever went with those McGinnis boys again he would “let him know.”

At another time, when Christopher was about eight years old, his
father sent him to a news company’s office to get the last number of
the _Wool-Combers’ Trade Review_; but, as before, the boy failed to
return, and after a prolonged search was given up as lost, and his
parents decided that he had been run over by the horse-cars. Late in
the evening Christopher was detected in the act of trying to sneak
into the house through the kitchen windows, and was warmly received by
his father, who stood him up in the middle of the kitchen, and without
releasing his ear, demanded to know what he had to say for himself.

Christopher, with a saddened expression of face, replied:

“Father, I find it a matter of extreme difficulty to depart from the
truth, even at this trying moment. Candor compels me to admit that I
have spent the day in company with Michael and Patrick McGinnis, in
studying the meteorological laws which affect the flight of kites. With
the aid of the last number of the _Wool-Combers’ Trade Review_ and a
few sticks, I made a beautiful kite, and I can confidently say that--”

Here the old gentleman, exclaiming, “That will do! Your explanation
is worse than your other crime,” applied a rattan cane to the future
explorer, and afterwards sent him to bed supperless.

                                                           [Æt. 8; 1449]

There is not a word of truth in these two anecdotes, but they are
introduced in order to afford the reader a slight glimpse of the
boyhood of Columbus. They probably compare favorably, in point of
veracity, with the average anecdotes of the boyhood of great men, and
they show us that even while Columbus was only six and eight years old
he was interested in scientific pursuits, and already gave promise of
great tediousness. Still, it would be unwise for any one to believe
them, and we will pass on to the more prosaic but truthful facts of
Columbus’s life.

Young Christopher early conceived a prejudice against wool-combing,
although it was his father’s earnest desire that he should adopt that
profession. Fernando Columbus, the son of the admiral, evidently felt
ashamed of his noble father’s early wool-combing exploits, and says
that Domenico Colombo, so far from desiring his son to comb wool,
sent him at the age of thirteen to the University of Pavia to study
navigation, with a view of ultimately sending him to sea. Now, although
the United States Government does undertake to teach seamanship with
the aid of textbooks to young men at the Annapolis Naval Academy,
the idea that a young man could become a sailor without going to sea
had never occurred to the Genoese, and old Domenico never could have
been stupid enough to send his son to the Pavia University with the
expectation that he would graduate with the marine degree of “A. B.”
Undoubtedly Christopher went to Pavia, but it is conceded that he
remained there a very short time. If we suppose that, instead of
studying his Livy, his Anabasis, and his Loomis’s Algebra, he spent his
time in reading Marryat’s sea stories, and dime novels illustrative of
piracy, we can understand why his university course came to a sudden
end, and why Domenico remarked to his friends that Christopher studied
navigation while at Pavia.

                                                          [Æt. 14; 1459]

We are told that from his earliest years Christopher desired to be a
sailor. We also know that at that period the Mediterranean swarmed
with pirates. From these two facts any modern boy with sufficient
reasoning powers to be able to put a dog, a string, and a tin can
together, will deduce the conclusion that Christopher Columbus must
have wanted to be a pirate. As to this there can be but little doubt.
When he left Pavia and returned home to comb the paternal wool, he was
doubtless fully determined to run away at the earliest opportunity, and
become a Red Revenger of the seas.

With this clue, we can readily find in the conduct of the astute
Domenico a wise determination to effect a compromise with his
adventurous son. He did not want to be the father of a Red Revenger,
but he knew that he could not compel his son to comb wool. He therefore
induced him to consent to go to sea as a scourge and enemy of pirates;
and accordingly in his fourteenth year young Christopher went to sea
on board a vessel commanded by a distant relative, who was at one
time an admiral in the Genoese service. In what capacity he shipped,
whether as a first-class or a second-class boy, or as an acting third
assistant cook, or an ordinary cabin-boy, we do not know. Fernando
Columbus preserves a discreet silence as to this matter, and as to the
first voyage of his father generally. Of course this silence means
something, and perhaps Christopher had good reasons for never speaking
of the voyage even to his son. Probably he was deathly sea-sick, and in
that condition was severely kicked for not being able to lay his hand
at a moment’s warning upon the starboard main-top-gallant-studding-sail
tripping-line, or other abstruse rope. At all events, he always
abstained from telling stories beginning, “I reck’lect on my first
v’yge;” and we may be sure that he would never have put such an
unseamanlike constraint upon his tongue unless he knew that the less he
said about that voyage the better.

                                                       [Æt. 23; 1459–70]

He had been a sailor for some years when he joined a vessel forming
part of an expedition fitted out in Genoa in 1459 by a certain Duke of
Calabria named John of Anjou, who wanted to steal the kingdom of Naples
in order to give it to his father, René, Count of Provence. So pious
a son naturally commanded universal respect, and Genoa provided him
with ships and lent him money. The expedition was very large, and the
old Admiral Colombo, with whom Christopher sailed, probably commanded
the Genoese contingent. The fleet cruised along the Neapolitan coast,
and sailed in and out the Bay of Naples any number of times, but
owing to a fear of the extortions of the Neapolitan hack-drivers and
_valets-de-place_, there seems to have been no attempt made to land at
Naples. For four years John of Anjou persevered in trying to conquer
Naples, but in vain; and at the end of that time he must have had a
tremendous bill to pay for his Genoese ships.

While engaged in this expedition, Christopher was sent in command of
a vessel to Tunis, where he was expected to capture a hostile galley.
Carefully reading up his “Midshipman Easy” and his “Blunt’s Coast
Pilot,” he set sail; but on reaching the island of San Pedro, which can
easily be found on any map where it is mentioned by name, he learned
that there were also in the harbor of Tunis two ships and a carrick;
whereupon his crew remarked that they did not propose to attack an
unlimited quantity of vessels, but that if Columbus would put into
Marseilles and lay in a few more ships to accompany them, they would
gladly cut out all the vessels at Tunis. Columbus was determined not to
go to Marseilles,--though he does not definitely say that he owed money
to the keeper of a sailor boarding-house there,--but he was unable
to shake the resolution of his crew. He therefore pretended to yield
to their wishes and set sail again, ostensibly for Marseilles. The
next morning, when the crew came on deck, they found themselves near
the Cape of Carthagena, and perceived that their wily commander had
deceived them.

                                                    [Æt. 23–34; 1459–70]

This story is told by Columbus himself, and it awakens in the mind of
the intelligent reader some little doubt of the narrator’s veracity.
In the first place, he admits that he deceived his sailors, and hence
we have no certainty that he was not trying to deceive the public when
telling the story of the alleged deception. In the second place, it is
scarcely probable that all the crew promptly “turned in” at sunset,
leaving Columbus himself at the wheel; but unless this was done, the
compass or the stars must have told them that the ship was not laying
the proper course for Marseilles. Finally, Columbus, in his exultation
at having deceived his crew, does not so much as mention Tunis, or the
hostile vessels which it was his duty to attack, nor does he tell us
what business he had at the Cape of Carthagena. We are thus justified
in assuming that the story is not entirely credible. Years afterward,
on his first transatlantic voyage, Columbus deceived his men concerning
the number of leagues they had sailed, and this exploit was so warmly
commended by his admirers that he may have been tempted to remark
that he always made a point of deceiving sailors, and may thereupon
have invented this earlier instance as a case in point. Still, let us
not lightly impugn his veracity. Perhaps he really did tell the truth
and deceive his sailors; but whether he did or not, we should still
remember that many of us are merely human, and that had we been in the
place of Columbus we might have said and done a variety of different
things.

What became of Columbus during several subsequent years, we have no
trustworthy account. In all probability he continued to follow the
sea, and perhaps caught up with it now and then. We know, however,
that at one time he commanded a galley belonging to a squadron under
the command of Colombo the Younger, a son of the Colombo with whom
Christopher sailed in the Neapolitan expedition. This squadron,
falling in with a Venetian fleet somewhere off the Portuguese coast,
immediately attacked it, Venice and Genoa being at that time at war.
In the course of the battle the galley of Columbus was set on fire, and
as he had no available small-boats--a fact which must forever reflect
disgrace upon the Genoese Navy Department--he was compelled to jump
overboard with all his crew. He seems to have lost all interest in the
battle after the loss of his galley, and he therefore decided to go
ashore. He was six miles from land, but with the help of an oar which
he put under his breast he swam ashore without difficulty, and when we
consider that he was dressed in a complete suit of armor, it is evident
that he must have been a very fine swimmer.

It should be mentioned that, although this story is told by Fernando
Columbus, certain carping critics have refused to believe it, on the
paltry pretext that, inasmuch as the naval fight in question took place
several years after Columbus is known to have taken up his residence in
Portugal, he could not have landed in that country for the first time
immediately after the battle. This is mere trifling. If Columbus could
swim six miles in a suit of heavy armor, and, in all probability, with
his sword in one hand and his speaking-trumpet in the other, he could
easily have performed the simpler feat of residing in Portugal several
years before he reached that country. The truth is, that historians
are perpetually casting doubt upon all legends of any real merit or
interest. They have totally exploded the story of Washington and the
cherry-tree, and they could not be expected to concede that Fernando
Columbus knew more about his father than persons living and writing
four hundred years later could know. As to Columbus’s great swimming
feat, they have agreed to disbelieve the whole story, and of course the
public agrees with them.




CHAPTER II.

FIRST PLANS OF EXPLORATION.


                                                          [Æt. 34; 1470]

It is at Lisbon that we are able for the first time to put our finger
decisively upon Columbus. The stray glimpses which we catch of him
before that time, whether at Genoa, Pavia, Naples, or Cape Carthagena,
are fleeting and unsatisfactory; his trustworthy biography begins
with his residence at Lisbon. He reached there, we do not know by
what route, in the year 1470, having no money and no visible means of
support. Instead of borrowing money and buying an organ, or calling on
the leader of one of the Lisbon political “halls” and obtaining through
his influence permission to set up a peanut stand, he took a far bolder
course--he married. Let it not be supposed that he represented himself
to be an Italian count, and thereby won the hand of an ambitious
Portuguese girl. The fact that he married the daughter of a deceased
Italian navigator proves that he did not resort to the commonplace
devices of the modern Italian exile. Doña Felipa di Perestrello was not
only an Italian, and as such could tell a real count from a Genoese
sailor without the use of litmus paper or any other chemical test, but
she was entirely without money and, viewed as a bride, was complicated
with a mother-in-law. Thus it is evident that Columbus did not engage
in matrimony as a fortune-hunter, and that he must have married Doña
Felipa purely because he loved her. We may explain in the same way
her acceptance of the penniless Genoese; and the fact that they lived
happily together--if Fernando Columbus is to be believed--makes it
clear that neither expected anything from the other, and hence neither
was disappointed.

The departed navigator, Di Perestrello, had been in the service of
the Portuguese king, and had accumulated a large quantity of maps
and charts, which his widow inherited. She does not appear to have
objected to her daughter’s marriage, but the depressed state of
Columbus’s fortunes at this period is shown by the fact that he and his
wife went to reside with his mother-in-law, where he doubtless learned
that fortitude and dignity when exposed to violence and strong language
for which he afterwards became renowned. Old Madame Perestrello did
him one really good turn by presenting him with the maps, charts, and
log-books of her departed husband, and this probably suggested to him
the idea which he proceeded to put into practice, of making and selling
maps.

Map-making at that time offered a fine field to an imaginative man,
and Columbus was not slow to cultivate it. He made beautiful charts of
the Atlantic Ocean, putting Japan, India, and other desirable Asiatic
countries on its western shore, and placing quantities of useful
islands where he considered that they would do the most good. These
maps may possibly have been somewhat inferior in breadth of imagination
to an average _Herald_ map, but they were far superior in beauty;
and the array of novel animals with which the various continents and
large islands were sprinkled made them extremely attractive. The man
who bought one of Columbus’s maps received his full money’s worth, and
what with map-selling, and occasional sea voyages to and from Guinea at
times when Madame Perestrello became rather too free in the use of the
stove-lid, Columbus managed to make a tolerably comfortable living.

The island of Porto Santo, then recently discovered, lay in the track
of vessels sailing between Portugal and Guinea, and must have attracted
the attention of Columbus while engaged in the several voyages which he
made early in his married life.

It so happened that Doña Felipa came into possession, by inheritance,
of a small property in Porto Santo, and Columbus thereupon abandoned
Lisbon and with his family took up his residence on that island. Here
he met one Pedro Correo, a bold sailor and a former governor of Porto
Santo, who was married to Doña Felipa’s sister. Columbus and Correo
soon became warm friends, and would sit up together half the night,
talking about the progress of geographical discovery and the advantages
of finding some nice continent full of gold and at a great distance
from the widow Perestrello.

At that time there were certain unprincipled mariners who professed
to have discovered meritorious islands a few hundred miles west of
Portugal; and though we know that these imaginative men told what
was not true, Columbus may have supposed that their stories were not
entirely without a basis of truth. King Henry of Portugal, who died
three years after Columbus arrived at Lisbon, had a passion for new
countries, and the fashion which he set of fitting out exploring
expeditions continued to prevail after his death.

There is no doubt that there was a general feeling, at the period when
Columbus and Correo lived at Porto Santo, that the discovery of either
a continent on the western shore of the Atlantic, or a new route to
China, would meet a great popular want. Although the Portuguese had
sailed as far south as Cape Bojador, they believed that no vessel could
sail any further in that direction without meeting with a temperature
so great as to raise the water of the ocean to the boiling-point, and
it was thus assumed that all future navigators desirous of new islands
and continents must search for them in the west. The more Columbus
thought of the matter, the more firmly he became convinced that he
could either discover valuable islands by sailing due west, or that
at all events he could reach the coast of Japan, China, or India; and
that it was clearly the duty of somebody to supply him with ships and
money and put him in command of an exploring expedition. With this
view Correo fully coincided, and Columbus made up his mind that he
would call on a few respectable kings and ask them to fit out such an
expedition.

                                                          [Æt. 34; 1474]

Fernando Columbus informs us that his father based his conviction that
land could be found by sailing in a westerly direction, upon a variety
of reasons. Although many learned men believed that the earth was
round, the circumference of the globe was then unknown; and as every
one had therefore a right to call it what he chose, Columbus assumed
that it was comparatively small, and that the distance from the Cape
Verde Islands eastward to the western part of Asia was fully two thirds
of the entire circumference. He also assumed that the remaining third
consisted in great part of the eastern portion of Asia, and that hence
the distance across the Atlantic, from Portugal to Asia, was by no
means great. In support of this theory he recalled the alleged fact
that various strange trees and bits of wood, hewn after a fashion
unknown in Europe, had from time to time been cast on the European
shores, and must have come out of the unknown west.

This theory, founded as it was upon gratuitous assumptions, and
supported by driftwood of uncertain origin and doubtful veracity, was
regarded by Columbus as at least the equal of the binomial theorem in
credibility, and he felt confident that the moment he should bring it
to the attention of an enterprising king, that monarch would instantly
present him with a fleet and make him Governor-General of all lands
which he might discover.

It was the invariable custom of Columbus to declare that his chief
reason for desiring to discover new countries was, that he might carry
the Gospel to the pagan inhabitants thereof, and also find gold enough
to fit out a new crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.
Whether old Pedro Correo winked when Columbus spoke in this pious
strain, or whether Doña Felipa, with the charming frankness of her sex,
remarked “fiddlesticks!” we shall never know.

                                                          [Æt. 38; 1474]

Perhaps Columbus really thought that he wanted to dispense the Gospel
and fight the Mahometans, and that he did not care a straw about
becoming a great explorer and having the State capital of Ohio named
for him; but his fixed determination not to carry a particle of Gospel
to the smallest possible pagan, except upon terms highly advantageous
to his pocket and his schemes of personal aggrandizement, is scarcely
reconcilable with his pious protestations. His own church decided,
not very long ago, that his moral character did not present available
materials for the manufacture of a saint, and it is only too probable
that the church was right.

It is a curious illustration of the determination of his biographers
to prove him an exceptionally noble man, that they dwell with much
emphasis upon his stern determination not to undertake any explorations
except upon his own extravagant terms. To the unprejudiced mind his
conduct might seem that of a shrewd and grasping man, bent upon making
a profitable speculation. The biographers, however, insist that it was
the conduct of a great and noble nature, caring for nothing except
geographical discovery and the conversion of unlimited heathen.

About this time Columbus is believed to have written a great many
letters to various people, asking their candid opinion upon the
propriety of discovering new continents or new ways to old Asiatic
countries. Paulo Toscanelli, of Florence, a leading scientific person,
sent him, in answer to one of his letters, a map of the Atlantic and
the eastern coast of Asia, which displayed a bolder imagination than
Columbus had shown in any of his own maps, and which so delighted him
that he put it carefully away, to use in case his dream of exploration
should be realized. Toscanelli’s map has proved to be of much more use
to historians than it was to Columbus, for the letter in which it was
enclosed was dated in the year 1474, and it thus gives us the earliest
date at which we can feel confident Columbus was entertaining the idea
of his great voyage.

                                                          [Æt. 45; 1481]

How long Columbus resided at Porto Santo we have no means of knowing;
neither do we know why he left that place. It is certain, however, that
he returned to Lisbon either before or very soon after the accession of
King John II. to the Portuguese throne, an event which took place in
1481. Meanwhile, as we learn from one of his letters, he made a voyage
in 1477 to an island which his biographers have agreed to call Iceland,
although Columbus lacked inclination--or perhaps courage--to call it
by that name. He says he made the voyage in February, and he does not
appear to have noticed that the water was frozen. The weak point in his
narrative--provided he really did visit Iceland--is his omission to
mention how he warmed the Arctic ocean so as to keep it free of ice in
February. Had he only given us a description of his sea-warming method,
it would have been of inestimable service to the people of Iceland,
since it would have rendered the island easily accessible at all times
of the year, and it would also have materially lessened the difficulty
which explorers find in sailing to the North Pole. It is probable that
Columbus visited some warmer and easier island than Iceland--say one of
the Hebrides. In those days a voyage from southern Europe to Iceland
would have been a remarkable feat, and Columbus would not have failed
to demand all the credit due him for so bold an exploit.

The immediate predecessor of King John--King Alfonso--preferred war to
exploration, and as he was occupied during the latter part of his reign
in a very interesting war with Spain, it is improbable that Columbus
wasted time in asking him to fit out a transatlantic expedition. There
is a rumor that, prior to the accession of King John II., Columbus
applied to Genoa for assistance in his scheme of exploration, but the
rumor rests upon no evidence worth heeding.

Genoa, as every one knows, was then a republic. It needed all its
money to pay the expenses of the administration party at elections,
to improve its inland harbors and subterranean rivers, and to defray
the cost of postal routes in inaccessible parts of the country. Had
Columbus asked for an appropriation, the Genoese politicians would have
denounced the folly and wickedness of squandering the people’s money on
scientific junketing expeditions, and would have maintained that a free
and enlightened republic ought not to concern itself with the effete
and monarchical countries of Asia, to which Columbus was anxious to
open a new route.

Moreover, Columbus had been absent from Genoa for several years. He had
no claims upon any of the Genoese statesmen, and was without influence
enough to carry his own ward. An application of any sort coming from
such a man would have been treated with deserved contempt; and we may
be very sure that, however much Columbus may have loved the old Genoese
flag and desired an appropriation, he had far too much good sense to
dream of asking any favors from his fellow-countrymen. Undoubtedly he
was as anxious to start in search of America while he lived at Porto
Santo as he was at a later period, but he knew that only a king would
feel at liberty to use public funds in what the public would consider a
wild and profitless expedition; and as there was no king whom he could
hope to interest in his scheme, he naturally waited until a suitable
king should appear.

The death of Alfonso provided him with what he imagined would prove to
be a king after his own heart, for King John was no sooner seated on
the throne than he betrayed an abnormal longing for new countries by
sending explorers in search of Prester John.

                                                       [Æt. 45; 1481–82]

This Prester John was believed to be a Presbyterian deacon who ruled
over a civilized and Christian kingdom which he kept concealed
either about his person or in some out-of-the-way part of the world.
The wonderful credulity of the age is shown by this belief in a
Presbyterian king whom no European had ever seen, and in a kingdom
of which no man knew the situation. It ought to have occurred to the
Portuguese king that, even if he could find this mythical monarch,
he would not take any real pleasure in his society, unless he were
to burn him. King John II. was a pious Roman Catholic, and, next
to a Methodist, a Presbyterian king would have been about the most
uncongenial acquaintance he could have made. Nevertheless, this
Presbyterian myth was indirectly of great service to Columbus.

King John, in order to facilitate his search for Prester John, asked
a scientific commission to invent some improvements in navigation,
the result of which was the invention of the astrolabe, a sort of
rudimentary quadrant, by means of which a navigator could occasionally
find his latitude. This invention was hardly inferior in value to that
of the compass, and it is generally said to have provided Columbus with
the means of finding his way across the Atlantic and back to Europe.

                                                    [Æt. 45–46; 1482–84]

Next to the discovery of Prester John, the Portuguese king
desired to discover a route by sea to India. He believed with
his deceased grand-uncle, Prince Henry, that Africa could be
circumnavigated--provided the circumnavigators could avoid being
boiled alive south of Cape Bojador--and that a road to India could
thus be found. It was manifest that he was just the sort of monarch
for Columbus’s purposes. He was so anxious to make discoveries that
he would have been delighted even to find a Presbyterian. He was
particularly bent upon finding a route to India, and he was only
twenty-five years old. He was the very man to listen to a solemn and
oppressive mariner with his pockets full of maps and his mind full of
the project for a transatlantic route to India. Columbus was now about
forty-six years old, and his beard was already white. He had dwelt
so long upon the plan of crossing the Atlantic that he resembled the
Ancient Mariner in his readiness to button-hole all sorts of people
and compel them to listen to his project. Mrs. Perestrello appears to
have been safely dead at this time, and Pedro Correo had probably been
talked to death by his relentless brother-in-law. Still, Columbus was
as anxious to carry out his plan as ever. He marked young King John as
his prey, and finally obtained an audience with him.




CHAPTER III.

IN SEARCH OF A PATRON.


                                                    [Æt. 45–46; 1482–84]

We have two accounts of the interview between Columbus and the
King--one written by Fernando Columbus, and the other by Juan de
Barros, an eminent geographer. Fernando says that the King listened
with great delight to the project of Columbus, and only refrained from
instantly giving him the command of an expedition because he did not
feel ready to consent to Columbus’s conditions. De Barros says that
King John finally professed that he approved of Columbus’s views merely
to get rid of that persistent mariner.

However this may be, the King referred the whole matter to a committee,
with power to send for maps and things. The committee consisted of
two geographers--who of course hated Columbus with true scientific
hatred--and the King’s confessor, the Bishop of Ceuta. It did not take
very long for the committee to decide that Columbus was a preposterous
person, and that his project was impracticable. The King then referred
the matter to his council, where it was hotly debated. The Bishop of
Ceuta took the broad, general ground that exploration was an idle and
frivolous occupation; that no men of sense wanted any new countries;
and that if the King must have amusement, the best thing he could do
would be to make war upon the Moors.

Don Pedro de Meneses replied with much vigor, hurling back the
Bishop’s accusations against exploration, and nailing his reverence’s
misstatements as boldly as if the two were rival Congressmen. As for
himself, Don Pedro said, he liked new continents, and believed that
Portugal could not have too many of them. He considered Columbus a
great man, and felt that it would be a precious privilege for other
people to aid in the proposed transatlantic scheme.

Nevertheless, the council decided against it, much, we are told, to the
King’s disappointment.

The Bishop of Ceuta, in spite of his remarks at the meeting of the
committee, evidently thought there might be something in Columbus’s
plan after all. He therefore proposed to the King that Columbus should
be induced to furnish written proposals and specifications for the
discovery of transatlantic countries, and that with the help of the
information thus furnished the King should secretly send a vessel to
test the practicability of the scheme. This was done, but the vessel
returned after a few days, having discovered nothing but water.

                                                       [Æt. 46–48; 1484]

As soon as Columbus heard of this trick he became excessively angry,
and resolved that King John should never have a square foot of new
territory, nor a solitary heathen soul to convert, if he could help it.
Accordingly, he broke off his acquaintance with the King, and proposed
to leave Lisbon, in the mean time sending his brother Bartholomew to
England to ask if the English King would like to order a supply of new
islands or a transatlantic continent. His wife had already succumbed
to her husband’s unremitting conversation concerning explorations,
and died, doubtless with much resignation. Madame Perestrello, Pedro
Correo, and Mrs. Columbus were probably only a few of the many unhappy
Portuguese who suffered from the fatal conversational powers of
Columbus, and Portugal may have become rather an unsafe place for him.
This would account for the stealthy way in which he left that kingdom,
and is at least as probable as the more common theory that he ran away
to escape his creditors.

It was in the year 1484 that Columbus, accompanied by his son Diego,
shook the dust of Portugal from his feet and climbed over the
back-fence into Spain, in the dead of night, instead of openly taking
the regular mail-coach. The King of England had refused to listen
to Bartholomew’s proposals, and King John had been guilty of conduct
unbecoming a monarch and a gentleman. This may have given Columbus a
prejudice against kings, for he made his next applications to the Dukes
of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi--two noblemen residing in the south
of Spain.

                                                       [Æt. 48; 1484–87]

Medina Sidonia listened to Columbus with much interest, and evidently
regarded him as an entertaining kind of lunatic; but after a time he
became seriously alarmed at the Italian’s inexhaustible capacity for
talk, and courteously got rid of him before sustaining any permanent
injury. The Duke of Medina Celi was a braver man, and not only invited
Columbus to come and stay at his house, but actually spoke of lending
him ships and money. He changed his mind, however, and told Columbus
that he really could not take the liberty of fitting out an expedition
which ought to be fitted out by a king. Columbus then remarked that
he would step over to France and speak to the French King about it;
whereupon the Duke hastily wrote to Queen Isabella, of Castile and
Aragon, mentioning that he had a mariner of great merit in his house,
whom she really ought to see. The Queen graciously wrote, requesting
the Duke to forward his ancient mariner to the royal palace at Cordova,
which he accordingly did, furnishing Columbus at the same time with a
letter of introduction to Her Majesty.

Spain was then merely a geographical expression. Ferdinand, King of
Aragon, had recently married Isabella, Queen of Castile, and their
joint property was called the Kingdom of Castile and Aragon; for,
inasmuch as the Moors still ruled over the southern part of the
peninsula, it would have been indelicate for Ferdinand and his queen to
pretend that they were the monarchs of all Spain.

When Columbus reached Cordova he found that their majesties were on the
point of marching against the Moors, and had no time to listen to any
plans of exploration. Before starting, however, the Queen deposited
Columbus with Alonzo de Quintanilla, the treasurer of Castile, and,
we may presume, took a receipt for him. Quintanilla, an affable old
gentleman, was much pleased with Columbus, and soon became a warm
advocate of his theories. He introduced the navigator to several
influential friends, and Columbus passed the summer and winter very
pleasantly.

At Cordova he also met a young person named Beatrix Enriquez, to whom
he became much attached, and who was afterward the mother of his son
Fernando. She probably had her good qualities; but as Columbus was
so much preoccupied with his transatlantic projects he forgot to
marry her, and hence she is scarcely the sort of young person to be
introduced into a virtuous biography.

                                                    [Æt. 48–51; 1484–87]

During the same winter the King and Queen held their court at
Salamanca, after having made a very brilliant foray into the Moorish
territory, and having also suppressed a rebellion in their own
dominions. Columbus went to Salamanca, where he made the acquaintance
of Pedro Gonsalvez de Mendoza, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, who
was decidedly the most influential man in the kingdom. When Columbus
first mentioned his project, the Cardinal told him the Scriptures
asserted that the earth was flat, and that it would be impious for
him to prove it was round; but Columbus soon convinced him that the
Church would be greatly benefited by the discovery of gold-mines all
ready to be worked, and of heathen clamoring to be converted, and thus
successfully reconciled science and religion. The Cardinal heartily
entered into his scheme, and soon obtained for him an audience with the
King.

Columbus says that on this occasion he spoke with an eloquence and
zeal that he had never before displayed. The King listened with great
fortitude, and when Columbus temporarily paused in his oration had
still strength enough left to dismiss him with a promise to refer
the matter to a scientific council. In pursuance of this promise he
directed Fernando de Talavera, the Queen’s confessor, to summon the
most learned men of the kingdom to examine Columbus thoroughly and
decide upon the feasibility of his plan. As for the Queen, she does not
appear to have been present at the audience given to Columbus, either
because her royal husband considered the female mind incapable of
wrestling with geography, or because he did not think her strong enough
to endure Columbus’s conversation.

The scientific Congress met at Salamanca without any unnecessary delay,
and as few people except priests had any learning whatever at that
period, the Congress consisted chiefly of different kinds of priests.
They courteously gave Columbus his innings, and listened heroically
to his interminable speech, after which they proceeded to demonstrate
to him that he was little better than a combined heretic and madman.
They quoted the Bible and the opinions of the Fathers of the church in
support of the theory that the earth was flat instead of round.

When Columbus in his turn proved that the Bible and the Fathers must
be understood in a figurative sense, the priests then took the ground
that if the world was round, Columbus could not carry enough provisions
with him to enable him to sail around it, and that he could not sail
back from his alleged western continent unless his vessels could sail
up-hill.

Gradually the more sensible members of the congress came to the
conclusion that it would be better to agree to everything Columbus
might propose, rather than listen day after day to his appalling
eloquence. Still, the majority were men of ascetic lives and great
physical endurance, and they showed no disposition to yield to argument
or exhaustion. The sessions of the Congress were thus prolonged from
day to day, and Columbus was kept in a painful state of suspense.
Little did he imagine that in the land which he was destined to
discover, another Congress would meet, not quite four hundred years
later, and would even surpass the Congress of Salamanca in the
tediousness and uselessness of its debates.




CHAPTER IV.

HE RECEIVES HIS COMMISSION.


                                                          [Æt. 51; 1489]

The spring of 1487 arrived, and the Council of Salamanca had not
yet made its report. The King and Queen, who seem to have required
an annual Moorish war in order to tone up their systems, set out to
besiege Malaga early in the spring, taking De Talavera with them, so
that he might be on hand to confess the Queen in case she should find
it desirable to commit a few sins and require subsequent absolution.
The departure of De Talavera interrupted the sittings of the Council,
and left Columbus without any regular occupation. During the siege of
Malaga he was more than once summoned to the camp, ostensibly to confer
with the court upon his famous project, but the proposed conferences
never took place. He became so tired of the suspense in which he was
kept, that he wrote to King John of Portugal, giving him one more
chance to accede to his transatlantic plans. Not only did King John
answer his letter and ask him to come to Lisbon, but King Henry VII. of
England also wrote to him, inviting him to come to England and talk the
matter over. At least, Columbus says that those two kings wrote to him;
though the fact that he did not accept their invitations, but preferred
to waste his time in Spain, casts a little doubt upon his veracity. It
is certainly improbable that he would have waited for years in the hope
of another interview with Ferdinand and Isabella, if at the same time
two prominent kings were writing to him and urging him to bring his
carpet-bag and make them a nice long visit.

In the spring of 1489 Columbus was summoned to Seville, and was
positively assured that this time he should have a satisfactory
conference with a new assortment of learned men. But no sooner had he
reached Seville than the King and Queen suddenly remembered that they
had not had their usual spring war, and thereupon promptly started
to attack the Moors. Columbus went with them, and fought with great
gallantry. Probably it was in some measure due to a dread of his awful
conversational powers that the Moorish king surrendered, and it is
to the honor of the Christian monarchs that they did not abuse their
victory by permitting Columbus to talk to the royal prisoner.

Another year passed away, and still Columbus was waiting for a decision
upon the feasibility of his plan. In the spring of 1491 he finally
became so earnest in demanding a decision, that the King directed De
Talavera and his learned friends to make their long-delayed report.
They did so, assuring the King that it would be absurd for him to waste
any money whatever in attempting to carry out the Italian’s utterly
ridiculous plan. Still Ferdinand did not care to drive Columbus to
despair, but politely informed him that after he should have finished
the annual Moorish war upon which he was just about to enter, he would
really try to think of the propriety of fitting out an expedition.

Columbus had now been nearly seven years in Spain, waiting for the
King to come to a final decision; and this last postponement exhausted
his patience. The court had from time to time supplied him with money;
but he was not willing to spend his life as a pensioner on the royal
bounty, while the western continent was vainly calling to him to come
over and discover it. He therefore left Seville, with the resolution to
have nothing further to do with Spain, but to proceed to France and try
what he could do with the French king.

He seems to have journeyed on foot, for the very next time we hear
of him is as a venerable and imposing tramp, accompanied by an
unidentified small-boy, and asking for food--presumably buckwheat
cakes, and eggs boiled precisely three minutes--at the gate of the
convent of Santa Maria de Rabida.

                                                          [Æt. 55; 1491]

The Prior of the convent, Juan Perez de Marchena, happened to notice
him, and entered into conversation with him. Columbus told him his
name, and mentioned that he was on his way to a neighboring town to
find his brother-in-law; from which we learn that four hundred years
ago the myth of a brother-in-law in the next town was as familiar
to the tramps of that period as it is to those of the present day.
As the Prior listened to this story without making any remarks upon
its improbability, Columbus was tempted to launch into general
conversation, and in a few moments told him all about his desire to
find a transatlantic continent, and his intention of offering to the
King of France the privilege of assisting him.

Doubtless the good friar found his convent life rather monotonous,
and perceiving vast possibilities of conversation in Columbus, he
determined to ask him to spend the night with him. Columbus, of course,
accepted the invitation, and, the Prior sending for the village doctor,
the three spent a delightful evening.

The next day both the Prior and the doctor agreed that Columbus was
really a remarkable man, and that it would be disgraceful if the French
king were to be allowed to assist in discovering a new continent. The
Prior sent for several ancient mariners residing in the neighboring
port of Palos, and requested them to give their opinion of the matter.
With one accord, they supported the scheme of Columbus with arguments
the profundity of which Captain Bunsby himself might have envied;
and one Martin Alonzo Pinzon, in particular, was so enthusiastic
that he offered to pay the expenses of Columbus while making another
application to the court, and to furnish and take command of a vessel
in case the application should be successful.

                                                       [Æt. 55; 1491–92]

The religious interests of the convent must have suffered somewhat
from the Prior’s geographical soirées. It must have required a great
deal of punch to bring those ancient seafaring men into unanimity upon
any subject, and the extent to which Columbus unquestionably availed
himself of the opportunity for unrestrained conversation must have left
the Prior no time whatever for prayers. He may have excused himself
to his own conscience by pretending that to listen to Columbus was a
means of mortifying the flesh; but, plausible as this excuse was, it
could not justify the introduction of punch, seafaring men, and village
doctors into a professedly religious house.

The upshot of the matter was, that the Prior resolved to write a letter
to the Queen, and old Sebastian Rodriguez, a veteran sailor, staked the
future integrity of his personal eyes upon his delivery of the letter
into the hands of Isabella. The Prior had been formerly the Queen’s
confessor, and of course he knew how to awaken her interest by little
allusions to the sinful secrets that she had committed to his holy
keeping.

The letter was written, and in two weeks’ time Rodriguez brought back
an answer summoning the Prior to court. The good old man was overjoyed,
and immediately went to Santa Fé, where the King and Queen were
stopping, on their way to another Moorish war. When he was admitted to
the Queen’s presence, he conducted himself with so much discretion, and
made so favorable an impression, that Isabella gave him the magnificent
sum of twenty thousand maravedies, and told him to hand it over to
Columbus, and to send that persistent navigator immediately to her.
It is somewhat of a disappointment to learn that the twenty thousand
maravedies were in reality worth only seventy-two dollars; still they
were enough to enable Columbus to buy a mule and a new spring overcoat,
and thus to appear at court in an impressive manner.

The particular Moorish war upon which the King and Queen were then
engaged was the very last one of the series, and it was confessedly
of so much importance that Columbus did not try to obtain an audience
until it was finished. In the mean time he lived with his old friend
Alonzo de Quintanella, the treasurer.

                                                    [Æt. 55–56; 1491–92]

At last the day came when, the war being ended, Columbus was summoned
to meet a committee of which De Talavera appears to have been the
chairman. This time the feasibility of his scheme was admitted, and
it only remained to settle the terms upon which he would agree to
furnish Spain with new continents. Though Columbus expected to reach
the eastern coast of Asia by crossing the Atlantic, that part of
Asia was so wholly unknown to Europeans, that its discovery by means
of a transatlantic voyage would have enabled the discoverer to take
possession of it as a new continent; and it was hence quite proper
for Columbus to speak of discovering a new world when he was really
intending to discover the eastern half of what we now call the Old
world.

It is all very well to have a good opinion of one’s self, but Columbus
really did put what seems to unprejudiced people a tremendous price
upon his services. Not only did he demand one tenth of whatever
profits might be derived from his discoveries, but he insisted that
he should be made an admiral, and viceroy over every country that he
might discover. One of the committee justly remarked that the proposed
arrangement was one by which Columbus had everything to gain and
nothing to lose, and that if he made no discoveries whatever he would
still be a Spanish admiral, and would outrank scores of deserving
officers who had spent their lives in the service of their country.
Columbus thereupon modified his terms by consenting to take only an
eighth of the profits, and to furnish one eighth of the expenses.

It so happened that some member of the committee knew that one eighth
was more, instead of less, than one tenth. We need not wonder,
therefore, that the committee reported that the terms proposed were
inadmissible. De Talavera told the Queen that he had met with a good
deal of “cheek” in his time, but the cheek of Columbus was positively
monumental, and that nature designed him not for an explorer but for a
life-insurance agent.

The result was that the Queen decided to have no more to do with the
affair, and Columbus, in a tremendous rage, climbed upon his mule and
rode out of Santa Fé, remarking that he wouldn’t discover a continent
for the Spanish monarchs if continents were as thick as blackberries.
He furthermore declared that he would go straight to France and make a
contract with the French king, and that the Spaniards would never cease
to regret their short-sighted economy.

As the extremity of the Columbian mule vanished through the city
gate, Luis de St. Angel, treasurer of the Church funds of the kingdom
of Aragon, and the much-suffering Quintanella--who did not believe
that Columbus would really go to France, and were convinced that the
true way in which to be permanently rid of him was to send him on his
proposed expedition--hastened to the palace, and told the monarchs that
they were risking the loss of a new continent because they were afraid
to risk two ships and a comparatively small sum of money, and because
they hesitated to give the title of Admiral to an explorer who, if he
did not succeed, would in all probability never return to Spain.

The Queen was much impressed by this straightforward statement of
facts, and admitted that she would like to employ Columbus upon his
own terms. The King, instead of saying, “Certainly, my dear; do so, by
all means!” began to speak of the emptiness of the treasury and the
necessity for economy. Of course this made Isabella indignant, and she
rose up and exclaimed, “I will undertake the enterprise in behalf of
Castile, and will raise the money if I have to pawn my jewels.”

                                                       [Æt. 55–56; 1492]

Quintanella and St. Angel applauded this resolution, and the latter
offered to advance the necessary money without any security whatever.
Inasmuch as the money in St. Angel’s hands belonged to Aragon, this
was a remarkably neat way of saddling the whole expense upon King
Ferdinand’s private dominions; and there are few ladies who will not
concede that it served the King right.

A messenger was at once sent to recall Columbus, and that astute
person, grimly smiling at the success of his threat to go to France,
prevailed upon his mule to turn back and reënter Santa Fé. He was
immediately given an audience with the Queen, and a contract was drawn
up in which his utmost demands were recognized. He was to have a tenth
of everything, and to rank with the High Admiral of Castile, while
instead of his being required to contribute an eighth of the cost of
the expedition, it was simply specified that he might make such a
contribution if he should feel so inclined. The contract was signed
on the 17th of April, 1492, and Columbus’s commission as Admiral and
Viceroy was immediately made out and given to him.

                                                          [Æt. 56; 1492]

From 1474 to 1492, or precisely eighteen years, Columbus had been
seeking for assistance to cross the Atlantic. During that entire
period he was without money, without any visible means of support,
and without powerful friends. Nevertheless, he finally obtained
from Ferdinand and Isabella a full compliance with demands that to
nearly every Spaniard seemed wildly preposterous. To what did he
owe his success? It seems very plain that it must have been due to
his unparalleled powers of conversation. We know that most of those
persons with whom he was on familiar terms when he first conceived
his scheme soon died, and the inference that they were talked to
death is irresistible. Beyond any doubt, these were only a few of his
victims. Columbus talked in Portugal until he was compelled to fly the
kingdom, and he talked in Spain until the two monarchs and a few other
clear-headed persons felt that if he could be got out of the country
by providing him with ships, money, and titles, it must be done. We
can readily understand why the news that he was actually about to
leave Spain, and to undertake a voyage in the course of which it was
universally believed he would be drowned, was received by the Spaniards
with unanimous delight. Women wept tears of joy, and strong men went
into secluded corners and stood on their heads in wild hilarity. The
day of their deliverance was at hand, and the devastating career of the
terrible talker was nearly at an end.




CHAPTER V.

HE IS COMMISSIONED, AND SETS SAIL.


                                                          [Æt. 56; 1492]

On the 12th of May, 1492, Columbus left Santa Fé for Palos, the seaport
from which his expedition was to sail. He left his small-boy, Diego,
behind him, as page to Prince Juan, the heir of Castile and Aragon.
Diego was the son of his lawful wife, and it is pleasant to find that,
in spite of this fact, Columbus still remembered him. His favorite son
was of course Fernando, who, with his mother, Beatrix, seems to have
been sent away to board in the country during Columbus’s absence at sea.

As soon as he arrived at Palos, Columbus called on his worthy friend
the Prior, and on the next day the two went to the church of St.
George, where the royal order directing the authorities of Palos to
supply Columbus with two armed ships, and calling upon everybody to
furnish the expedition with all necessary aid, was read aloud by a
notary-public. The authorities, as well as the other inhabitants of
Palos, were naturally only too glad to do everything in their power
to hasten the departure of Columbus; but it was found extremely
difficult to procure ships or sailors for the expedition. The merchants
very justly said that, much as they might desire to have Columbus
drowned, they did not care to furnish ships at their own expense for
an enterprise in the interest of all classes of the community. The
sailors declared that they were ready to ship for any voyage which
might be mentioned, but that it was a little too much to ask them to
go to sea with Columbus as their captain, since he would undoubtedly
use his authority to compel them to listen to a daily lecture on “Other
Continents than Ours,” thus rendering their situation far worse than
that of ordinary slaves.

The King and Queen, learning of the failure of Columbus to obtain
ships and men, and fearing that he might return to court, ordered the
authorities of Palos to seize eligible vessels by force, and to kidnap
enough sailors to man them. This would probably have provided Columbus
with ships and men, had not the short-sighted monarch appointed one
Juan de Peñalosa to see that the order was executed, and promised him
two hundred maravedies a day until the expedition should be ready. De
Peñalosa was perhaps not the intellectual equal of the average American
office-holder, but he had sense enough to appreciate his situation,
and of course made up his mind that it would take him all the rest of
his natural life to see that order carried out. Accordingly, he drew
his pay with great vigor and faithfulness, but could not find any
ships which, in his opinion, were fit to take part in the proposed
expedition. The people soon perceived the state of affairs, and
despaired of ever witnessing the departure of Columbus.

Doubtless De Peñalosa would have gone on for years failing to find
the necessary ships, had not two noble mariners resolved to sacrifice
themselves on the altar of their country. Martin Alonzo Pinzon and
Vincente Yanez Pinzon, his brother, were the two marine patriots in
question. They offered a ship and crew, and the magistrates, emulating
their patriotism, seized two other ships and ordered them to be fitted
for service.

These vessels were under one hundred tons’ burthen each, and only one
of them, the _Santa Maria_, was decked over. In model they resembled
the boats carved by small inland boys, and their rig would have brought
tears to the eyes of a modern sailor--provided, of course, a way of
bringing a modern sailor to Palos to inspect them could have been
devised. If we can put any faith in woodcuts, the _Santa Maria_ and
her consorts were two-masted vessels carrying one or two large square
sails on each mast, and remotely resembling dismasted brigs rigged with
jury-masts by some passengers from Indiana who had studied rigging
and seamanship in Sunday-school books. The pretence that those vessels
could ever beat to windward cannot be accepted for a moment. They must
have been about as fast and weatherly as a St. Lawrence “pin flat,”
and in point of safety and comfort they were even inferior to a Staten
Island ferry-boat.

The _Pinta_ was commanded by Martin Pinzon, and the _Niña_ by Vincente
Pinzon. No less than four pilots were taken, though how four pilots
could have been equally divided among three ships without subjecting at
least one pilot to a subdivision that would have seriously impaired his
efficiency, can not readily be comprehended. Indeed, no one has ever
satisfactorily explained why Columbus wanted pilots, when he intended
to navigate utterly unknown seas. It has been suggested that he had
bound himself not to talk to an intemperate extent to his officers or
men, and that he laid in a supply of private pilots purely for the
purpose of talking to them. It is much more probable that a law of
compulsory pilotage existed at that time in Spain,--for it was a dark
and ignorant age,--and that, inasmuch as Columbus would have had to
pay the pilots whether he took them with him or not, he thought he
might as well accept their services. Besides, he may have remembered
that a vessel rarely runs aground unless she is in charge of a pilot,
and hence he may have imagined that pilots possessed a peculiar skill
in discovering unexpected shores at unlooked-for moments, and might
materially help him in discovering a new continent by running the fleet
aground on its coast.

A royal notary was also sent with the expedition, so that if any one
should suddenly desire to swear or affirm, as the case might be, it
could be done legally. The three vessels carried ninety sailors, and
the entire expeditionary force consisted of one hundred and twenty men.

The ship-carpenters and stevedores, doubtless at the instigation of
Peñalosa, made all the delay they possibly could, and at the last
moment a large number of sailors deserted. Other sailors were procured,
and finally everything was in readiness for the departure of the
fleet. On Friday the 3d of August, 1492, Columbus and his officers and
men confessed themselves and received the sacrament, after which the
expedition put to sea.

In spite of the knowledge that Columbus was actually leaving Spain with
a very slight prospect of ever returning, the departure of the ships
cast a gloom over Palos. The people felt that to sacrifice one hundred
and nineteen lives, with three valuable vessels, was a heavy price to
pay, even for permanently ridding Spain of the devastating talker.
Still, we are not told that they permitted sentiment to overpower their
patriotism, and they were probably sustained by the reflection that
it was better that one hundred and nineteen other people should be
drowned, than that they themselves should be talked to death.

It is universally agreed that it is impossible not to admire the
courage displayed by Columbus and his associates. The ships of the
expedition were small and unseaworthy. They were not supplied with
ice-houses, hot water, electric bells, saloons amidships where the
motion is least perceptible, smoking and bath rooms, or any of the
various other devices by which the safety of modern steamships is
secured. The crew knew that they were bound to an unknown port, and
that if their vessels managed to reach it there was no certainty that
they would find any rum. Columbus had employed eighteen years in
convincing himself that if he once set sail he would ultimately arrive
somewhere; but now that he was finally afloat, his faith must have
wavered somewhat. As he was an excellent sailor, he could not but have
felt uncomfortable when he remembered that he had set sail on Friday.
However, he professed to be in the very best of spirits, and no one can
deny that he was as brave as he was tedious.

On the third day out, the _Pinta_ unshipped her rudder, and soon
after began to leak badly. Her commander made shift partially to
repair the disaster to the rudder, but Columbus determined to put into
the Canaries, and charter another vessel in her place. He knew that
he was then not far from the Canaries, although the pilots, either
because their minds were already weakening under the strain of their
commander’s conversation, or because they were ready to contradict him
at every possible opportunity, insisted that the islands were a long
way off. Columbus was right, and on the 9th of August they reached the
Canaries, where we may suppose the pilots were permitted to go ashore
and obtain a little rest.

For three weeks Columbus waited in hopes of finding an available ship,
but he was disappointed. The _Pinta_ was therefore repaired to some
extent, and the _Niña_ was provided with a new set of sails. A report
here reached Columbus that three Portuguese men-of-war were on their
way to capture him--doubtless on the charge of having compassed
the death of several Portuguese subjects with violent and prolonged
conversation. He therefore set sail at once, and as he passed the
volcano, which was then in a state of eruption, the crews were so much
alarmed that they were on the point of mutiny. Columbus, however, made
them a speech on the origin, nature, and probable object of volcanoes,
which soon reduced them to the most abject state of exhaustion.

Nothing was seen of the Portuguese men-of-war, and it has been supposed
that some practical joker alarmed the Admiral by filling his mind with
visions of hostile ships, when the only Portuguese men-of-war in that
part of the Atlantic were the harmless little jelly-fish popularly
known by that imposing title.

It was the 6th day of September when the expedition left the Canaries,
but owing to a prolonged calm it was not until the 9th that the last of
the islands was lost sight of. We can imagine what the devoted pilots
must have suffered during those three days in which Columbus had
nothing to do but talk; but they were hardy men, and they survived it.
They remarked to one another that they could die but once; that care
had once killed a vague and legendary cat; and in various other ways
tried to reconcile themselves to their fate.

The crew on losing sight of land became, so we are told, utterly cast
down, as they reflected upon the uncertainty of ever again seeing
a Christian grog-shop, or joining with fair ladies in the cheerful
fandango. Mr. Irving says that “rugged seamen shed tears, and some
broke into loud lamentation,” and that Columbus thereupon made them a
long speech in order to reconcile them to their lot. The probability
is that Mr. Irving reversed the order of these two events. If Columbus
made a long speech to his crew, as he very likely did, there is no
doubt that they shed tears, and lamented loudly.

Lest the crew should be alarmed at the distance they were rapidly
putting between themselves and the spirituous liquors of Spain,
Columbus now adopted the plan of daily falsifying his reckoning. Thus
if the fleet had sailed one hundred miles in any given twenty-four
hours, he would announce that the distance sailed was only sixty
miles. Meanwhile he kept a private log-book, in which he set down the
true courses and distances sailed. This system may have answered its
purpose, but had the fleet been wrecked, and had the false and the true
log-books both fallen into the hands of the underwriters, Columbus
would not have recovered a dollar of insurance, and would probably
have been indicted for forgery with attempt to lie. The lawyer for
the insurance company would have put in evidence the two entries for,
let us say, the 10th of September; the one reading, “Wind E.S.E.,
light and variable; course W. by N.; distance by observation since
noon yesterday, 61 miles;” and the other, or true entry, reading,
“Wind E.S.E.; course W. by N.; distance by observation since noon
yesterday, 117 miles. At seven bells in the morning watch, furled
main-top-gallant sails, and put a single reef in all three topsails.
This day ends with a strong easterly gale.” With such evidence as this,
he would easily have proved that Columbus was a desperate villain, who
had wrecked his vessels solely to swindle the insurance companies.
Thus we see that dishonesty will vitiate the best policy, provided the
underwriters can prove it.

It was perhaps this same desire to lead his crew into the belief that
the voyage would not be very long, which led Columbus to insert in the
sailing directions given to the two Pinzons an order to heave-to every
night as soon as they should have sailed seven hundred leagues west
of the Canaries. He explained that unless this precaution were taken
they would be liable to run foul of China in the night, in case the
latter should not happen to have lights properly displayed. This was
very thoughtful, but there is no reason to think that it deceived the
Pinzons. They knew perfectly well that Columbus had not the least idea
of the distance across the Atlantic, and they probably made remarks
to one another in regard to the difficulty of catching old birds with
chaff, which the Admiral would not have enjoyed had he heard them.

Thus cheerfully cheating his sailors, and conversing with his pilots,
Columbus entered upon his voyage. A great many meritorious emotions
are ascribed to him by his biographers, and perhaps he felt several of
them. We have, however, no evidence on this point, and the probability
is that he would not have expressed any feeling but confidence in his
success to any person. He had long wanted to sail in quest of new
continents, and his wish was now gratified. He ought to have been
contented, and it is quite possible that he was.




CHAPTER VI.

THE VOYAGE.


                                                          [Æt. 56; 1492]

In those days everybody supposed that the needle always pointed due
north. Great was the astonishment of Columbus when, a few days after
leaving the Canaries, he noticed what is now called the variation
of the compass. Instead of pointing to the north, the needle began
to point somewhat to the west of north; and the farther the fleet
sailed to the west, the greater became the needle’s variation from
the hitherto uniform direction of all respectable needles. Of course
Columbus at first supposed that his compass was out of order, but
he soon found that every compass in the fleet was conducting itself
in the same disreputable way. The pilots also noticed the startling
phenomenon, and said it was just what they had expected. In seas so
remote from the jurisdiction of Spain, who could expect that the
laws of Nature would be observed? They did not like to grumble, but
still they must say that it was simply impious to sail in regions
where even the compass could not tell the truth. But Columbus was not
the man to be put to confusion by remarks of this kind. He calmly
told the pilots that the compass was all right; it was the North Star
that was wrong, and he never had felt much confidence in that star,
anyway. Then inviting the pilots to come down into his cabin and
take a little--well, lunch, he explained to them with such profound
unintelligibility the astronomical habits and customs of the North
Star, that they actually believed his explanation of the variation of
the compass. There are those who hold that Columbus really believed
the North Star was leaving its proper place; but the theory does gross
injustice to the splendid mendacity of the Admiral. The man who could
coolly assert that if his compass differed from the stars the latter
were at fault, deserves the wonder and admiration of even the most
skilful editor of a campaign edition of an American party organ.

The sailors would probably have grumbled a good deal about the conduct
of the compass had they noticed it; but it does not appear that they
had any suspicion that it had become untrustworthy. Besides, the fleet
was now fairly in the trade-wind, and very little labor was required
in the management of the vessels. The sailors, having little to do,
were in good spirits, and began to see signs of land. A large meteor
was seen to fall into the sea, and soon after a great quantity of
sea-weed was met, among which tunny-fish made their home. The Admiral
also caught a small crab. Crabs, tunny-fish, sea-weed, and meteors must
have been, in those days, exclusively products of the land; otherwise,
there was no reason why Columbus and his men should have regarded them
as proofs of the vicinity of land. They did, however, meet with a bird
of a variety--so the oldest mariners asserted--that never sleeps except
on a good substantial roosting-place. This really did give them some
reason to imagine that land was not very far off; but as the result
showed, the bird was painfully untrustworthy.

Day after day the so-called signs of land were seen. A large reward was
offered to the first person who should see the sought-for continent,
and consequently everybody was constantly pretending that a distant
cloud or fog-bank was land, and then finding fault with the Admiral
because he would not change his course. One day a pair of boobies--a
bird singularly misnamed, in view of the fact that it rarely flies out
of sight of land--rested in the rigging. Another day three birds of a
kind--which, every one knows, were even better than two pairs--came on
board one of the ships in the morning, and flew away again at night,
and it was the universal opinion that they sang altogether too sweetly
for sea-birds; the voices of the gull, the stormy petrel, and the
albatross being notoriously far from musical.

After a time these signs ceased to give the crews any comfort. As they
forcibly observed, “What is the use of all your signs of land, so
long as you don’t fetch on your land?” They became convinced that the
sea was gradually becoming choked up with sea-weed, and that the fact
that the surface of the water remained unruffled, although there was
a steady breeze from the east, was proof that something was seriously
wrong. We now know that the expedition was in the Sargasso Sea, a
region of sea-weed and calms, and that in point of fact Columbus was
lucky in not being becalmed for a year or two without any means of
bringing his vessels to a more breezy region. This, however, he did not
know, and he explained the quiet of the sea by asserting that the fleet
was already in the lee of the unseen land.

The men nevertheless continued to be discontented, and declined any
longer to believe that land was near. Even the sight of a whale--which,
as every one knows, is a land animal--failed to raise their spirits,
although Columbus told them that, now that he had seen a whale, he
knew they must be very near the shore. The sailors would not listen
to his argument, and openly insulted his whale. They said he had
brought them to a region where the wind either blew steadily from the
east or scarcely blew at all; in either case opposing an insuperable
obstacle to sailing back to Spain, for which reason, with the charming
consistency of sailors, they wanted to turn back immediately and steer
for Palos. Still, they did not break into open mutiny, but confined
themselves to discussing the propriety of seizing the vessels, throwing
Columbus overboard, and returning to Spain, where they could account
for the disappearance of the Admiral by asserting that he had been
pushed overboard by the cat, or had been waylaid, robbed, and murdered
by the James boys; or by inventing some other equally plausible story.
Happily, the wind finally sprang up again, and the sailors, becoming
more cheerful, postponed their mutiny.

The typical biographer always begs us to take notice that Columbus
must have been a very great man, for the reason that he prosecuted his
great voyage in spite of the frequent mutinies of the sailors; and
as we shall hereafter see, Columbus was troubled by mutinies during
other voyages than his first one. At the present day, however, the
ability of a sea-captain would not be estimated by the number of times
his crew had mutinied. If Columbus was really an able commander, how
did it happen that he ever allowed a mutiny to break out? Very likely
his flag-ship was short of belaying-pins and handspikes, but did not
the Admiral wear a sword and carry pistols? and was he not provided
with fists and the power to use them? Instead of going on deck at the
first sign of mutinous conduct on the part of any one of the crew,
and striking terror and discipline into the offender with the first
available weapon, he seems to have waited quietly in the cabin until
the sailors had thrown off all authority, and then to have gone on deck
and induced them to resume work by delivering a lecture on geography
and the pleasures of exploration. But we should remember that he was in
command of Spanish vessels, and that Spanish views of seamanship and
discipline are peculiar.

On the 25th of September, Martin Pinzon, whose vessel happened to be
within hailing distance of Columbus, suddenly shouted that he saw land
in the south-west, and wanted that reward. The alleged land rapidly
became clearly visible, and seemed to be a very satisfactory piece of
land, though it was too far off to show any distinctively Japanese,
Chinese, or East Indian features. Columbus immediately called his men
together, made a prayer, and ordered them to sing a psalm. The fleet
then steered toward the supposed land, which soon proved to be an
exasperating fog-bank, whereupon the sailors unanimously agreed that
Columbus had trifled with the holiest feelings of their nature, and
that they could not, with any self-respect, much longer postpone the
solemn duty of committing his body to the deep.

About this time a brilliant idea occurred to the Pinzons. It was that
the true direction in which to look for land was the south-west, and
that Columbus ought to give orders to steer in that direction. As
they had no conceivable reason for this belief, and could advance no
argument whatever in support of it, they naturally adhered to it with
great persistency. Columbus declined to adopt their views--partly
because they were the independent views of the Pinzons, and, as is well
known, no subordinate officer has any right to independent views, and
partly because they were entirely worthless. The Pinzons were therefore
compelled to console themselves by remarking that of course the Admiral
meant well, but they were sadly afraid he was a grossly incompetent
discoverer. On the 7th of October the spirits of the sailors were
temporarily raised by a signal from the _Niña_, which was a short
distance in advance, announcing that land was positively in sight. This
also proved to be a mistake, and doubts began to be entertained as to
whether, in case land should be discovered, it would wait for the fleet
to come up with it, or would melt away into invisibility.

Although Columbus would not change his course at the request of the
Pinzons, he now announced that he had seen several highly respectable
birds flying south-west, and that he had made up his mind to follow
them. This may have pleased the Pinzons, but it did not satisfy the
sailors. They came aft to the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck, and
informed Columbus that they were going home. Unhappy men! The Admiral
instantly began a speech of tremendous length, in which he informed
them that he should continue the voyage until land should be reached,
no matter how long it might last. The more the men clamored, the more
persistently Columbus continued his speech, and the result was that
they finally went back to their quarters, exhausted and quite unable to
carry out their intention of throwing him overboard.

The very next morning a branch of a thorn-bush; a board which had
evidently been subjected to the influences of some sort of saw-mill,
and a stick which bore the marks of a jack-knife, floated by. There
could be no doubt now that land was near at last, and the mutinous
sailors became cheerful once more.

It was certainly rather odd that those branches, boards, and sticks
happened to come in sight just at the moment when they were needed
to revive the spirits of the men, and that during the entire voyage,
whenever a bird, a whale, a meteor, or other sign of land was wanted,
it always promptly appeared. Columbus expresses in his journal the
opinion that this was providential, and evidently thought that, on
the whole, it was a handsome recognition of his transcendent merits.
Concerning this we are not required to give any decision.

The wind blew freshly from the east, and the fleet sailed rapidly
before it. In the evening Columbus fancied that he saw a light, which
he assumed to be a lantern in the hands of some one on land. He
called the attention of a sailor to it, who of course agreed with his
commander that the light was a shore light. At about two o’clock on the
following morning--the 12th of October--a sailor on board the _Pinta_,
named Rodrigo de Triana, positively saw land--this time without any
postponement.

Most of us have been taught to believe that the discovery of the New
World was signalized by the joyful cry of “Land ho! from the _Pinta_.”
A little reflection will show the gross impossibility that this
exclamation was ever made by anybody connected with the expedition. In
the first place, “Land ho! from the _Pinta_” is an English sentence,
and, so far as is known, neither Columbus nor any of his officers
or men knew a word of English. Then the expression would have been
meaningless. What was “Land ho! from the _Pinta_”? and why should the
sailors have referred to vague and unintelligible land of that nature,
when their thoughts were fixed on the land which lay on the near
horizon? Obviously this story is purely mythical, and should no longer
have a place in history.

As soon as it was certain that land was in sight, the fleet hove-to and
waited for daylight. The voyage was ended at last. Columbus was about
to set foot on transatlantic soil, and the sailors were full of hope
that the rum of the strange land would be cheap and palatable. Perhaps
the only unhappy man on board the fleet was Rodrigo de Triana, who
first saw the land but did not receive the promised reward; Columbus
appropriating it to himself, on the ground that, having fancied he saw
a hypothetical lantern early in the evening, he was really the first
to see land, and had honestly and fairly earned the reward. Let us hope
that he enjoyed it, and felt proud whenever he thought of his noble
achievement.




CHAPTER VII.

THE DISCOVERY.


                                                          [Æt. 56; 1492]

When the day dawned, an island was seen to be close at hand, and
the desire to go ashore was so keen that in all probability little
attention was paid to breakfast. The officers put on all their best
clothes, and Columbus and the two Pinzons, each bearing flags with
appropriate devices, entered the boats and were rowed ashore. What were
considered appropriate devices to be borne on banners such as were
used on the occasion of the landing of Columbus, we do not know, the
historians having forgotten to describe the banners with minuteness.
Perhaps “Heaven bless our Admiral” and “Cuba Libre” were the so-called
appropriate devices.

The natives, assuming that Columbus and his companions had a brass
band with them, which would begin to play when the boats should reach
the shore, precipitately fled, and concealed themselves. As soon as
he landed, Columbus threw himself on his knees, kissed the earth, and
recited a prayer. He then took possession of the island in due form,
and announced that it was called San Salvador; though how he had thus
early discovered its name we are not told. Everybody was then made to
take an oath of allegiance to Columbus as Viceroy, in the presence of
the notary whom he had so thoughtfully brought with him.

Business being thus properly attended to, the sailors were allowed to
amuse themselves by tasting the strange fruits which they saw before
them, and by searching earnestly but without success for a wine-shop.

The natives gradually took courage and approached the strangers, whom
they decided to be emigrants from heaven. Columbus smiled sweetly on
them, and gave them beads, pocket-knives, pin-cushions, back numbers
of the _Illustrated London News_, and other presents such as are
popularly believed to soothe the savage breast. As, however, they did
not seem to appreciate the Admiral’s speeches, and as the sailors could
find no rum, the order was given to return to the ships. The natives
thereupon launched their canoes and paddled out to the vessels to
return the visit of the Spaniards. They brought with them specimens of
a novel substance now known as cotton, and a few small gold ornaments,
which created much enthusiasm among the sailors. The Admiral promptly
proclaimed that gold, being a royal monopoly, he only had the right to
buy it, and that, in view of the immense importance which he foresaw
that cotton would assume in dressmaking and other industries, he should
conduct the cotton speculations of that expedition himself. As the
natives, when the conversation turned upon gold, mentioned that, though
there was no gold in San Salvador, the islands farther south were full
of it, Columbus only waited to lay in wood and water, improving the
time by a boat expedition along the coast, and then set sail in search
of fresh discoveries.

During the next few days a number of small islands were discovered,
all of which were flowing with copper-colored natives and wild fruit,
but they did not appear to produce gold. The natives were in all cases
amiable and full of respect for the supposed heavenly visitors, but
they stoutly denied that they had any gold. Indeed, had they been
questioned about chills and fever, instead of gold, they could not
have been more unanimous in asserting that their particular island was
entirely free from it, but that it abounded in the next island farther
south.

All these islands belonged to the Bahama group, but Columbus assumed
that they were in the neighborhood of Japan, and that the mainland of
Asia must be within a few days’ sail. As soon therefore as the sameness
of constantly discovering new islands began to pall upon him, he set
sail for Cuba, where, as the natives told him, there was a king whose
commonest articles of furniture were made of gold. He thought it would
be well to visit this deserving monarch, and buy a few secondhand
tables and bedsteads from him, and then to sail straight to Asia; and
so accomplish the real purpose of his voyage.

It is a pity that we are not told whether the natives talked Spanish,
or whether Columbus spoke the copper-colored language. When so many
discussions on the subject of gold were had, it is evident that
somebody must have made rapid progress in learning one language or the
other, and from what we know of the Admiral’s conversational powers,
it is quite probable that he mastered the San Salvadorian grammar and
spelling-book, and was able to read, write, and speak the language
within the first twenty-four hours after landing.

On the 28th of October Columbus reached Cuba, having picked up a host
of small islands on the way. He was delighted with its appearance, and
decided that, instead of being an island, it must be the mainland.
For days he coasted along the shore, frequently landing and examining
the deserted huts from which the inhabitants had fled on his approach.
Judging from the entries made by Columbus in his journal, there was
never such another island since the world began; but he is compelled
to admit that the natives were not sociable. In fact, he never
exchanged words with them until the interpreter whom he had brought
from San Salvador threw himself overboard and swam ashore. The natives,
regarding him as less ferocious and dangerous than a boat, permitted
him to land, and listened to his account of the Spaniards. They were
even induced to launch their canoes and visit the ships, where they
were received by Columbus, who assured them that he had no connection
with the Emperor of China--a statement which must have struck them as
somewhat irrelevant and uncalled for.

The place where this interview was held is now known as Savanna la Mar.
The harbor being a safe one, Columbus decided to remain and repair his
ships, and to send an embassy by land to Pekin, which he was confident
could not be more than two days’ journey into the interior. Two
Spaniards and the San Salvadorian native were selected as ambassadors,
and supplied with a letter and presents for the Chinese Emperor, and
Columbus with much liberality gave them six days in which to go to
Pekin and return.

After they had departed, the ships were careened and caulked, and
other little jobs were invented to keep the men out of mischief. As to
gold, the natives told the old story. There was none of it in their
neighborhood, but there was an island farther south where it was as
common and cheap as dirt. Seeing how the description pleased the
Admiral, they kindly threw in a tribe of natives with one eye in their
forehead, and a quantity of select cannibals, and thus increased his
desire to visit so remarkable an island.

In six days the ambassadors returned. They had found neither Pekin
nor the Chinese Emperor--nothing, in fact, except a small village, a
naked chief, and a community of placid savages who had no gold and were
entirely devoid of interest. They brought back with them a few cold
potatoes, a vegetable hitherto unknown to Europeans, and they casually
mentioned that they had seen natives in the act of smoking rolls of
dark-colored leaves, but they attached no importance to the discovery,
and regarded it as a curious evidence of pagan degradation. Little
did they know that the dark-colored leaves were tobacco, and that the
natives were smoking Partagas, Villar-y-Villar, Intimidads, and other
priceless brands of the Vuelt Abajo. The sailors were cursing the
worthlessness of a new continent which produced neither rum, wine, nor
beer, and yet it was the native land of tobacco! Thus does poor fallen
human nature fix its gaze on unattainable rum and Chinese Emperors, and
so overlook the cigars that are within its reach.




CHAPTER VIII.

ADVENTURES ON LAND.


                                                          [Æt. 56; 1492]

On the 12th of November Columbus set sail in search of the gold- and
cannibal-bearing island described by the natives and called Babeque. He
took with him a few pairs of Cubans for the Madrid Zoological Garden,
whom he intended to convert to Christianity in his leisure hours.
Babeque was said to be situated about east-by-south from Cuba, and
accordingly the fleet steered in that direction, skirting the Cuban
coast. Two days later a head-wind and a heavy sea induced Columbus to
put back to Cuba, where he waited for a fair wind. On the 19th he again
put to sea, but was soon compelled for the second time to return.

When Martin Alonzo Pinzon, on board the _Pinta_, which was in the
advance, saw the Admiral’s signal of recall, he promptly and with
great energy paid no attention to it. He astutely observed that as
there might not be gold and cannibals enough in Babeque for the
whole fleet, it would save trouble if he were to take in privately
a full cargo, and thus avoid the hard feelings which might result
from an attempt to divide with the crews of the other vessels. Pinzon
therefore kept the _Pinta_ on her course, and the next morning she
was out of sight of the flag-ship. Columbus, not understanding the
excellent intentions of his subordinate, was greatly vexed, and feared
that Pinzon would sail back to Spain and claim the whole credit of
discovering the New World. However, pursuit was out of the question,
the _Pinta_ being the fastest vessel of the fleet; and the Admiral
therefore sailed back to Cuba, and while awaiting a change of wind
renewed his exploration of the coast.

On the 5th of December, the weather having improved, Columbus started
for the third time in search of Babeque. He soon sighted a large and
beautiful island, at which his Cubans besought him not to land, since
it was inhabited by one-eyed cannibals who made it a point to eat all
visitors, either from motives of hunger or as a mark of respect. The
Cubans admitted that the island contained gold as well as cannibals,
but maintained that it was not Babeque, but Bohio.

Of course Columbus disregarded their advice, and, after anchoring for
a night in a convenient harbor, proceeded to sail along the coast,
landing from time to time. He found that it was a very respectable
island, but the natives refused to have anything to do with him, and
fled into the forest as soon as his boats touched the shore. One day,
however, his men succeeded in capturing a young woman--with the usual
amount of eyes, and fashionably dressed in a gold nose-ring--whom they
carried before the Admiral. The latter, putting on a pair of thick
blue goggles in the interests of propriety, spoke kindly to the young
person, and gave her some clothes. It may be doubted whether the
Admiral’s old coats and trousers were particularly becoming to the
fair prisoner; but as they were novelties in dress, she was greatly
pleased with them, and agreed to accompany a party of middle-aged and
discreet sailors to her father’s village. Thus friendly relations were
at last established with the natives, and Columbus, seeing the effect
of clothing on the female mind, was so closely reminded of the women of
Spain that he named the new island Hispaniola.

The absence of both gold and one-eyed cannibals convinced him that
Hispaniola could not be Babeque, and on December 14th he once more set
sail in search of that mythical island. He found nothing but the little
island of Tortugas, and was finally compelled by head-winds to sail
back to Hispaniola. He now made up his mind that Babeque was the Mrs.
Harris of islands, and that in fact there was no such place. It pained
him to give up all hope of seeing the one-eyed cannibals; but after
all he must have perceived that, even if he had found them, they could
not have been any real comfort to him, unless he could have seen them
sitting down to dine off the faithless Pinzon.

On the 16th of December we find him anchored near Puerto de Paz,
enjoying the society of a cacique, or native chief, who told him the
old, old story of gold-bearing islands farther south, and in other
ways did his best to meet the Admiral’s views. Six days later, when
near the Bay of Acul, the flag-ship was met by a canoe containing an
envoy of the cacique Guacanagari, the most powerful of the native
chiefs of that region. Guacanagari sent Columbus presents of cotton
cloth, dolls, parrots of great resources in point of profanity, and
other welcome articles. He invited Columbus to visit him at his palace,
which invitation was accepted, and the cacique and the Admiral became
warm friends. A few bits of gold were given to the Spaniards, and the
usual story concerning Babeque was told; but Columbus had now pledged
himself to total abstinence from Babeque in every form, and paid no
attention to it.

Guacanagari’s village was situated a few miles east of the Bay of Acul,
and thither Columbus resolved to bring his ships. About midnight on
Christmas eve Columbus went below, because, as he alleged, there was
a dead calm and his presence on deck was not required. The judicial
mind will, however, note the fact that it is not unusual for mariners
to feel the need of sleep after the festivities of Christmas eve.
Following the example of their commander, the entire crew hastened to
fall asleep, with the exception of a small-boy to whom the wheel was
confided by a drowsy quartermaster. A current steadily drifted the
vessel toward the land, and in a short time the boy at the wheel loudly
mentioned that the ship had struck. The Admiral was soon on deck--which
shows that perhaps, after all, it was nothing stronger than claret
punch--and in time succeeded in awakening the crew. The ship was
hard and fast on a reef, and he ordered the mast to be cut away, and
dispatched a boat to the _Niña_ for assistance. It soon became evident
that the _Santa Maria_ would go to pieces, and accordingly Columbus and
all his men sought refuge on board the other vessel.

Guacanagari was full of grief at the disaster, and sent his people to
assist in saving whatever of value the wreck contained. He came on
board the _Niña_ and invited the Spaniards to come to his village and
occupy houses which he had set apart for them. Here he entertained
them with games--base-ball, pedestrian matches, and such like pagan
spectacles--while the Spaniards, not to be outdone in politeness, fired
off a cannon, and thereby nearly frightened the natives to death.
Meanwhile Columbus kept up a brisk trade, exchanging rusty nails for
gold, of which latter metal the natives now produced considerable
quantities. The cacique, finding that gold was the one thing which,
above all others, distracted the Admiral’s mind from his unfortunate
shipwreck, sent into the interior and collected so much that the
Spaniards imagined that at last they had really reached the golden
island of Babeque.

The sailors were delighted with the place. To be sure, there was no
rum; but with that exception they had everything that the seafaring
heart could desire. They spent their time lying in the shade, waited
on by obsequious natives and fed with turtle-soup and roast chicken.
The longer they tried this sort of life, the more they perceived the
folly of going back to the forecastle and its diet of salt horse. They
therefore proposed to Columbus that, instead of building a new ship, he
should leave half of his men on the island as colonists. The Admiral
was pleased with the plan. It would be cheaper to leave two or three
dozen men behind him than to carry them back to Spain, and if he had a
real colony in his newly discovered western world, it would add to his
importance as Viceroy. So he announced that he had decided to colonize
the island, and ordered his men to build a fort with the timbers of the
wrecked flag-ship. The natives lent their aid, and in a short time a
substantial fort, with a ditch, drawbridge, flag-staff, and everything
necessary to the comfort of the garrison, was erected. It was mounted
with two or three spare cannons, and Guacanagari was told that it was
designed to defend his people from the attacks of the Caribs, a tribe
which frequently made war on the peaceful islanders. The fort was
then dignified with the title of “La Navidad,”--which is the Spanish
way of spelling “nativity,” although it does not do the Spaniards
much credit,--and the flag of Castile and Aragon was hoisted on the
flag-staff.

Thirty-nine men, under the command of Diego de Arana, the notary, were
selected to garrison La Navidad. Among them were a tailor, a carpenter,
a baker, and a shoemaker, while De Arana in his capacity of notary was
of course able to draw up wills, protest bills of exchange, and take
affidavits. Columbus did not venture to leave a plumber behind him,
justly fearing that if he did the plumber would send in bills to the
natives which would goad them into an indiscriminate massacre of the
whole colony. All other necessary trades were, however, represented
among the colonists, from which circumstance we gather that the Spanish
marine was manned chiefly by mechanics.

Having organized his colony, Columbus determined to hasten back
to Spain, lest Pinzon should reach home before him and publish an
unauthorized work with some such striking title as “How I found the
New World,” and thereby injure the reputation of the Admiral and the
sale of the only authentic account of the expedition. There were rumors
that Pinzon’s vessel had been seen lying at anchor on the eastern side
of the island, but all efforts to find him failed. It was only too
probable that he was on his way back to Spain, and it was important
that he should not arrive home before his rightful commander.

Before sailing, Columbus made a farewell address to the colonists,
closely modelled upon the Farewell Address of Washington. He warned
them to beware of entangling alliances with the native women, and to
avoid losing the affection and respect of Guacanagari and his people.
The sailors promised to behave with the utmost propriety, and winked
wickedly at one another behind the Admiral’s back. The Spaniards then
gave a grand farewell entertainment to the estimable cacique, who once
more wept on the bosom of the Admiral, and finally, on the 4th of
January, 1493, Columbus sailed for Spain.




CHAPTER IX.

THE HOMEWARD VOYAGE.


                                                          [Æt. 57; 1493]

The wind, as usual, was dead ahead, and the _Niña_ made slow progress.
For two days she lay at anchor in a quiet bay, but the Admiral was so
anxious to reach Spain in advance of Pinzon that he would not wait any
longer for a change of wind. Before he had succeeded in getting out
of sight of land, the missing _Pinta_ was sighted, and, Columbus’s
anxiety being partially relieved, the two ships put back and anchored
at the mouth of a river. The interview between Pinzon and the Admiral
must have been interesting. It is evident from many things that, since
his great voyage had been successful, Columbus had ceased to be the
conversational bane of humanity, and had become a reasonably taciturn
man. On this occasion Pinzon found him painfully silent. That troubled
mariner attempted to account for his desertion by saying it was all an
accident, and that he had lain awake night after night bewailing the
cruel fate which had separated him from his beloved commander. He was
ready to swear all sorts of maritime oaths that he had never meant to
part company and cruise alone.

The Admiral gloomily remarked that, while no man should be held
accountable for an accident, he felt that it was his duty to mention
that hereafter any officer found guilty of the commission of a similar
accident would be court-martialled and hanged, after which Pinzon was
permitted to return to his ship.

In view of the fact that Pinzon commanded the larger ship and could
probably have beaten the _Niña_, in a fair fight, the Admiral was
wise in accepting his excuses and affecting to believe his story. He
afterward learned that Pinzon had really been at anchor on the eastern
side of the island, where it was reported that he had been seen, and
that he had secured a large quantity of gold; but it was judged
injudicious to ask him to surrender the gold to the Admiral. Thus
harmony between Columbus and Pinzon was thoroughly restored, and they
hated and distrusted each other with great vigor.

The meeting of the _Pinta_ and the _Niña_ was, we may presume,
celebrated in due form, for Columbus, although he was a very abstemious
man, asserts in his journal that at this time he saw several mermaids.
We do not know what Pinzon saw; but if the abstemious Admiral saw
mermaids, the less decorous Pinzon probably saw a sea-serpent and a
procession of green monkeys with spiked Prussian helmets on their heads.

On the 9th of January the ships again weighed anchor and sailed along
the coast, stopping from time to time to trade with the natives.
At Samana Bay the Spaniards found a tribe of fierce savages, with
whom they had a skirmish which resulted in wounding two of the
enemy. Nevertheless, the local cacique made peace the next day, and
told Columbus a very meritorious and picturesque lie concerning an
island inhabited by a tribe of Amazons. Recent events indicate that
in fighting and lying the present inhabitants of Samana Bay are no
unworthy representatives of those whom Columbus met.

When, on the 16th of January, Columbus made positively his last
departure for Spain, he intended to stop on the way and discover
Porto Rico, which lay a little southward of his true course. To this,
however, the sailors strongly objected. They had discovered as many
islands as, in their opinion, any reasonable man could desire, and they
pined for Palos and its rum-shops. They did not break out into mutiny,
but they expressed their feelings so plainly, by singing “Home Again”
and other depressing songs, that Columbus felt the wisdom of gratifying
them--especially in view of the probability that Pinzon would again
give him the slip at the first opportunity. The sailors were therefore
ordered to square away the yards, and the ships were put before the
fair west wind with their several bowsprits pointing straight toward
Palos. Joy filled the bosoms and heightened the ruddy tint of the noses
of the crew. That night they thought more highly of Columbus than ever
before, and remarked among themselves that they were glad to see that
the old man could restrain his unnatural thirst for islands when it
became clearly necessary for him to do so.

It was not long before the fleet--if two vessels can be regarded as a
fleet, except in the United States Navy--came into the region where
the trade-winds constantly blow from the east. Columbus may not have
recognized them as trade-winds, but he perfectly understood that
they were head-winds, and with a view of avoiding them steered in a
northerly direction. He succeeded in getting out of the region of
perpetual east winds, but he reached the latitude where storms-centres
moving rapidly to the east and south, together with areas of depression
in the region of the lakes and rain in the New England and Middle
States--in short, all the worst varieties of weather in the repertoire
of the Signal Service Bureau--prevail. The pilots soon lost all idea of
the course which the vessels had sailed, and as each one entertained a
different opinion about the matter, while Columbus differed from them
all and made it a practice to confuse their minds with opinions on
navigation of the most intricate character, there was a certain lack of
cordial and intelligent agreement among the navigators of the fleet.

About the middle of February a succession of tremendous tempests
overtook the vessels. For days they drove before a gale which carried
them in a north-easterly direction and threatened every moment to
sink them and hide all vestiges of the great transatlantic expedition
beneath the waves. Pinzon, owing to the injured condition of his mast,
had no control over his ship, and was soon carried out of sight of
Columbus. The latter felt that the time had come to employ all his
knowledge of seamanship. An ordinary prosaic ship-captain of the
present day, finding himself in a like situation, would have brought
his ship down to a close-reefed maintopsail, and, bringing the wind
on his starboard quarter, would have steered about east by south,
and so carried the ship out of the cyclone in two or three hours.
Columbus, however, was far too scientific a navigator to adopt any such
commonplace expedient. He mustered his crew, and ordered them to draw
lots to see who should vow to make pilgrimages in case they should
succeed in reaching land. He himself drew a lot which required him to
make one pilgrimage to Santa Clara de Moguer, and another to Santa
Maria de Guadalupe, and, in addition, to pay for a series of masses and
to present candles to the Blessed Virgin.

As this manœuvre, which was at that time regarded as one of the
most abstruse known to mariners, unaccountably failed to better the
condition of the ship, the entire crew vowed to march to the first
available church bare-footed and clad only in their shirts. The
frightful nature of the storm may be imagined from the fact that,
in spite of this splendid display of Spanish seamanship, the _Niña_
continued to exhibit a determined propensity to go to pieces or to
founder. Having thus done everything that a sailor could do, and all
without avail, Columbus yielded to the promptings of superstition,
and filling a quantity of empty casks with sea-water placed them in
the hold, where he hoped they would render the ship somewhat stiffer.
The _Niña_ at once became steadier and ceased to try to lie over on
her side, and it is quite possible that Columbus believed that his
superstitious use of casks had more to do with the salvation of the
ship than all the combined vows of the Admiral and his men.

While in imminent danger of drowning, Columbus had the cool forethought
to write a full account of his discoveries. He enclosed the manuscript
in a water-tight barrel, which he threw overboard after having attached
to it a written request that the finder would return it to Christopher
Columbus, or his representatives at Cadiz, Spain, where he would be
suitably rewarded. It has not yet been found, but it is the intention
of Dr. Schliemann, the discoverer of the personal jewelry of Helen
of Troy, to discover it whenever he can spare a few days from more
important discoveries.

On the 15th of February land was sighted. It was the island of St.
Mary’s, one of the Azores, but no one except Columbus had any idea that
the _Niña_ was farther north than the latitude of Lisbon. No sooner had
the land been sighted than the wind changed to the north-east, and it
was two days before the _Niña_ could reach the island and anchor under
its lee.

As for the _Pinta_, it was believed that in her crippled condition
she must have perished in the storm, and as a matter of course
Columbus felt extremely sorry that Pinzon could no longer display
his insubordinate and unprincipled want of respect for his superior
officer.

Of course everybody was anxious to go ashore at once. The sailors
anticipated that rum could be found on the island, it being inhabited
by civilized and Christian people, and Columbus, who, we may suppose,
was not very well satisfied that he had been selected by lot to make
two pilgrimages and spend a quantity of money in masses and candles,
was anxious to see the crew parade for attendance on divine worship
in their shirts. But the Azores belonged to Portugal, and though
the Portuguese king had refused to assist Columbus in his plans of
exploration, he was very indignant that any other monarch should have
helped the Italian adventurer, and felt that Columbus had treated him
disrespectfully by accepting Spanish help. Knowing all this, Columbus
remained on shipboard and sent a boat ashore to inquire if there was a
church near at hand.

The inhabitants of the island were greatly astonished to learn that
the weather-beaten ship lying at anchor was the remnant of the
exploring expedition which had sailed six months earlier from Palos.
The Governor of the island, Juan de Casteneda, had been ordered by the
Portuguese king to arrest Columbus, in case he should visit the Azores,
for the offence of discovering continents without a license from the
Portuguese. De Casteneda therefore was anxious to induce Columbus to
land, but by too great zeal he overreached himself.

As soon as it was ascertained that there was a shrine on the island,
Columbus ordered his men to fulfil their vow by marching in procession
to it in their untrammelled shirts. One half the crew were detailed
for this pious duty, and the Admiral intended to march with the other
half as soon as the first division should return. The hasty Governor
waited till the procession had entered the shrine, and then arrested
every one of its members, on the frivolous plea of dressing in a way
adapted to outrage the feelings of the public and to excite a breach
of the peace. When Columbus found his men did not return, he weighed
anchor and stood in toward the shore. He was met by a boat containing
the Governor, who declined to come on board the _Niña_, and conducted
himself generally in such a suspicious way that Columbus lost his
temper and called him unpleasant names. He held up his commission with
its enormous seal, and told the Governor to look at it and comprehend
that sealing-wax was not lavished in that way except upon officers
of distinguished merit. The Governor not only insulted Columbus, but
he spoke derisively of the sealing-wax, and then rowed back to land,
resolved to keep his shirt-clad prisoners until he could add Columbus
himself to the collection.

The usual gale soon after sprang up, and the _Niña_ was driven out to
sea and kept there in very unpleasant circumstances for several days.
When at length Columbus again returned to his anchorage, De Casteneda
sent two priests and a notary to inspect his papers. They found that
his commission was properly made out, that the ship had a clean bill
of health, and that her clearance from Guacanagari’s custom-house was
without a flaw. They then informed him that the Governor had been
compelled to exercise a little caution lest vessels arriving from the
West Indies should introduce yellow fever into the Azores, but that he
was now entirely satisfied and would be glad to have Columbus call on
him. The next morning he liberated the men whom he had made prisoners,
and let them return to their ship and their trousers, it being evident
that he could not hope to arrest Columbus, now that the latter was on
his guard.

Having regained possession of his men, Columbus set sail for home on
the 24th of the month. In about a week another storm, more violent than
any which had preceded it, struck the unhappy voyagers. Once more the
splendid seamanship of the commander was displayed by an order for all
hands to draw lots for pilgrimages. This time the loser was to walk
barefooted to the shrine of Santa Maria de la Cueva, and when Columbus
found that he had once more drawn the losing lot, he must have made a
private vow to play henceforth some other game in which he might have
some little chance to win something. It is impossible to repress the
suspicion that the vow afterward made by the crew to eat nothing but
bread and drink nothing but water for a week, was made in accordance
with the determination of the Admiral that he should not be the only
person to perform painful and difficult feats of practical seamanship.

During the worst of the storm, and in the middle of the night, land
was seen, and the ship had a narrow escape from being dashed upon it.
When daylight appeared, it was found that the mouth of the Tagus was
close at hand; and although it was obviously dangerous for Columbus
to venture into Portuguese waters, he sailed into the river and
anchored in a sheltered place near the rock of Cintra. He lost no
time in sending letters, by the District Telegraph messengers of the
period, to the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, and asked of the latter
permission to sail up the river to Lisbon. This request was obviously a
hollow form. Lisbon was the last place to which the Admiral would have
been willing to take his ship, but he wanted to convince the Portuguese
king that he had the utmost confidence in him.




CHAPTER X.

HIS RECEPTION, AND PREPARATION FOR A SECOND EXPEDITION.


                                                          [Æt. 57; 1493]

Everybody who could hire a horse or a boat came from the surrounding
country to see the ship that had crossed the Atlantic. The Portuguese
nobly forgot the years in which Columbus had lived in Portugal and
talked their fellow-countrymen into untimely graves, and they gave him
as enthusiastic reception as an American town gives to a successful
pedestrian. Presently there came a letter from King John of Portugal,
inviting Columbus to come to his palace at Valparaiso, near Lisbon.
The crew of the _Niña_, having reached a Christian country where, by
the orders of the King, they were supplied with wine without limit and
without price, were perfectly contented to defer returning to their
families at Palos, and were, on the whole, rather anxious that their
commander should leave them for a few days. Columbus, much against his
will, felt compelled to accept the King’s invitation, and was kindly
received at Valparaiso.

Of course Columbus, when he described the results of his voyage, could
not deny himself the pleasure of reminding King John that he might have
had the glory of sending out the expedition. He told the King that he
was really sorry for him, and hoped it would be a lesson to him never
to refuse an offer made by a meritorious Genoese to find new continents
for him. King John expressed his pleasure at the success of Columbus,
but incidentally remarked that he presumed his seafaring friend was
aware that, by the provisions of an ancient treaty and a papal bull,
all the countries that Columbus had discovered undoubtedly belonged to
Portugal.

This conversation was not altogether satisfactory to Columbus, but he
would have been still more dissatisfied had he known the advice which
the King’s councillors gave him. They said there was not the least
doubt that the native Indians on board the _Niña_ had been stolen from
the Portuguese East Indies, and that Columbus ought to be immediately
killed. The King did not favor the death of Columbus, but suggested
that the truly honorable course to pursue would be to dismiss Columbus
in the respectful manner due to his gallant conduct, and to send
immediately a secret expedition to take possession of the countries
which he had discovered. In accordance with this decision, Columbus was
treated with great politeness, and returned to his ship, quite ignorant
of his narrow escape from death, and in excellent spirits with the
exception of a slight uneasiness as to the amount of truth that might
exist in the King’s remark about ancient treaties and papal bulls.
Sailing from the Tagus, he reached Palos in two days, and landed on the
15th of March.

The return of Columbus created immense surprise, and with the exception
of the wives of his sailors, who, having assumed that their husbands
never would return, had married again, everybody received him with
enthusiasm. The shops were closed, all the boys in the schools were
given a half-holiday, and the entire population flocked to the church
whither Columbus and his men betook themselves as soon as they landed,
to return thanks for their preservation. Columbus was no longer, in
public estimation, the tedious foreigner who ought to be sent out of
the country at any cost; he was one of the most remarkable men in
Spain, who deserved all sorts of honors. There were any number of men
who now recollected that they had always said he was a great man and
would certainly discover a first-class continent, and there were very
few persons in all Palos who were not confident that the encouragement
which they had given to Columbus had been one of the chief causes of
his success.

The King and Queen were at Barcelona, but the Admiral, having had all
the sea-voyaging that his system seemed to require, decided to go
to Barcelona by land instead of by water, and after writing to the
monarchs, announcing his arrival, he set out for Seville, to wait for
orders.

The same day on which Columbus landed, and about twelve hours later,
the _Pinta_ arrived. Pinzon had been driven by the storm which
separated him from the _Niña_ into Bayonne. Making up his mind that
Columbus was safely drowned, he wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella,
announcing that he had made remarkably valuable discoveries; that he
would hasten to Spain to report to them in person; and that he was
sorry to say that Columbus had found a watery grave. When he entered
the harbor of Palos, and saw the _Niña_ at anchor, he felt that life
was a hollow mockery. He went quietly to his own house, and wrote to
the monarchs a letter which, we may assume, differed somewhat in its
tone from the one he had written from Bayonne. The reply was extremely
cold, and forbade Pinzon to present himself at court.

The people of Palos, having already celebrated, to the utmost of
their power, the arrival of Columbus, were rather annoyed at Pinzon’s
appearance, and thought that on the whole it was an unwarrantable
liberty. That Pinzon was a really intelligent man is proved by the fact
that he hastened to die a few days after he had received the monarch’s
unpleasant letter. There was obviously nothing else left for him to do,
and he deserves credit for thus clearly perceiving his duty.

Columbus, soon after his arrival at Seville, received a flattering
letter from Ferdinand and Isabella, who thanked him for his services,
invited him to come to court, and mentioned that the sooner he could
fit out a new expedition the better it would be. Accompanied by six
Indians and a quantity of parrots, together with a collection of
stuffed animals and specimens of novel trees and late West Indian
designs in minerals, the Admiral proceeded to Barcelona, exciting
immense enthusiasm at every town on the road, and being mistaken by
the youth of Spain for some new kind of circus. On his arrival at
court, the monarchs received him in great state, and asked him to take
a chair and make himself at home; this being the first time within the
memory of man that they had ever asked any one to be seated.

As has been said, Columbus had greatly improved in point of reticence
after his discovery of the New World, but on this occasion he appears
to have relapsed into his old habits. At any rate, the lecture which
he proceeded to deliver was of such appalling length that when it was
finished the King and Queen both fell on their respective knees in
thankful prayer, and afterward ordered the _Te Deum_ to be sung.

There was a slight portion of truth in the remarks made by King John
of Portugal to Columbus concerning a papal bull assigning certain
countries to the Portuguese Crown. It was conceded by all Christian
nations of that period that the Pope owned in fee simple all the
heathen countries wheresoever situated. One of the Popes had assigned
to the Portuguese all those certain heathen lands situate, lying,
and being in the continent of Africa, together with all and singular
the heathen and other objects thereunto belonging or in any wise
appertaining. This was the bull to which King John referred. It is true
that it did not give him any right to lands and heathen in America, but
the Spanish monarchs thought it would be wise to obtain a bull formally
assigning America to them. They therefore wrote to Pope Alexander
VI., informing him that they had discovered a new continent full of
desirable heathen admirably fitted for conversion, and requesting a
formal grant thereof. At the same time, Columbus, in order to prove the
pious character of his expedition, ordered his six best Indians to be
baptized.

The Pope issued the desired bull, and, in order to avoid any objection
on the part of the Portuguese, divided the Atlantic by a meridian one
hundred miles west of the Azores, giving to the Portuguese all the
heathen lands which they might discover east of this meridian, and to
the Spaniards all that they might discover west of it. This was very
handsome on the part of the Pope, and showed that he was liberal and
open-handed.

The news of the return of Columbus filled every European monarch with
the conviction that the discovery of new continents was the only proper
occupation for a monarch of spirit, and with the determination to make
discoveries first and to call on the lawyers to find flaws in the
Pope’s bull afterward. It was therefore important that there should be
no delay in sending out a second Spanish expedition. Orders were issued
by the monarchs of Castile and Aragon, authorizing Columbus to buy,
hire, or seize any vessels that he might find in the ports of Andalusia
that were suited for exploring purposes, and to impress any officers or
sailors that might suit his fancy. For ships, provisions, stores, and
men thus seized fair prices were to be paid, and money was raised for
this purpose from all available sources, though no man seems to have
thought of the expedient of printing paper-money, and thus creating out
of nothing currency enough to defray the cost of a voyage to America,
and to move the West India gold and slave crops.

To assist Columbus and to conduct the business of exploration and
colonization, Archdeacon Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca was made a sort of
Secretary of Exploration and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and was
given very extensive powers. It may seem to us strange that a priest
should have received this appointment, but priests were as numerous in
Spain as Colonels now are in South Carolina, and probably all the men
who were not priests were either in jail or had volunteered to join
Columbus as sailors and gold-hunters. It was this able Archdeacon who
chiefly organized the second expedition of Columbus, and he engaged
twelve active priests well acquainted with the screw, the pulley, the
wheel, and the other theologico-mechanical powers, and commanded by
the Apostolic Vicar Rev. Bernardo Boyle, to convert the heathen as fast
as they should be discovered.

It would violate all precedent if the story of Columbus and the egg
were to be spared the readers of this volume. It is briefly as follows:
Soon after his return to Spain he dined with Cardinal de Mendoza, an
eminent clergyman with a talent for dinner. An objectionable young man
who was present, and who undoubtedly had taken more champagne than
was good for his fellow-diners, asked the Admiral if he did not think
that if he had not discovered the New World some one else would very
shortly have discovered it. He was unquestionably an impertinent young
man, but he was undoubtedly right in assuming that sooner or later
the Atlantic would have been crossed, even if Columbus had never been
born. Historians tell us that Columbus, in reply, asked the young man
if he could stand an egg on its little end; and when the young man,
after rudely inquiring what Columbus was giving him, was constrained
to admit that he could not perform the feat in question, the great
explorer simply flattened the little end of the egg by knocking it
against the table, and then easily made it stand upright. The whole
company instantly burst into tears, and exclaimed that Columbus was the
greatest and noblest of mankind.

If this trick of flattening an egg was really regarded as a brilliant
repartee, by which the impertinent young man ought to have been utterly
withered up, it gives us a melancholy view of the state of the art of
repartee among the Spaniards. The real facts of the case are probably
these: Cardinal De Mendoza, the dinner, and the impertinent young man
doubtless existed in the form and manner specified; and the impertinent
young man, in an advanced state of champagne, probably said something
insulting to the Admiral. The latter, disdaining to notice the affront
by words, and reluctant to cause any unpleasant scene at the Cardinal’s
dinner-table, merely threw an egg at the offender’s head, and pursued
his conversation with his host. Subsequent writers, determined to give
a profoundly scientific character to everything the Admiral did, built
up from this slight basis of fact the egg-balancing story. In point of
fact, any one can balance an egg on its little end by the exercise of
little care and patience, and it is rather more easy to do this with an
egg that has not been flattened than with one that has.

There is another contemporaneous story which is far more credible,
and requires no explanation. While Columbus was enjoying the honors
which were everywhere lavished upon him, and was on visiting terms
with the King and Queen, and dining with Cardinals and Aldermen and
Chambers of Commerce, the unhappy sailor who first saw land, but whose
promised reward was appropriated by Columbus, went to Africa and turned
Mahometan, in disgust at his treatment. Probably Columbus thought that,
in the circumstances, this was a delicate and considerate act, for
the sight of the man could hardly have given much satisfaction to the
Admiral who had pocketed the reward.

Meanwhile King John of Portugal was busy fitting out an expedition
ostensibly to explore the coast of Africa, but really to discover
transatlantic countries. He tried to induce the Pope to give him the
islands discovered by Columbus, and informed Ferdinand and Isabella
that he was advised by his counsel that, under the authority of the
early bull already referred to, any countries that might be discovered
south of a line drawn westward from the Canaries were, in the eye of
the law, a part of Africa, and as such would belong to Portugal. The
Spanish monarchs conducted the diplomatic dispute with him in the
ablest manner, sending to Portugal their most tedious ambassadors, and
thus prolonging the negotiations as long as possible.

Columbus, refusing all offers to lecture before the Spanish lyceums,
hurried forward his own expedition so as to sail before the Portuguese
fleet could be made ready. With the aid of Fonseca and the latter’s
two chief assistants, Francisco Pinelo and Juan de Soria, he collected
seventeen ships, their crews, and a large company of colonists, and all
the supplies and live-stock needed for planting an imposing colony.
There was no lack of volunteers. Every man who thirsted for adventure,
and every ruined nobleman who wanted to repair his broken fortunes,
was eager to accompany Columbus; and even the small-boys, excited
by a desire to scalp Indians, were anxious to run away and ship as
cabin-boys on board the fleet. No less than fifteen hundred persons
were either accepted as volunteers or accompanied the expedition as
stowaways, and among them was as fine and varied a collection of
scoundrels as had ever set sail from an alleged Christian country.

The expedition was not organized without several disputes between
Columbus and Fonseca. The latter complained that the Admiral wanted
too many servants, including footmen, coachmen, and other gaudy and
useless followers; while the Admiral, in his turn, insisted that the
Archdeacon could not be made to understand that footmen were absolutely
necessary to the work of exploration. The King, when appealed to,
always decided that Columbus was right; but it is doubtful if Fonseca’s
affection for the Admiral was thereby greatly increased. Finally all
was ready, and on the 25th of September, 1493, the second personally
conducted transatlantic expedition of Christopher Columbus set sail
from Cadiz.




CHAPTER XI.

EXPLORATIONS IN THE WEST INDIES.


                                                          [Æt. 57; 1493]

The voyage was smooth and prosperous. The expedition reached the
Canaries on the 1st of October, where Columbus laid in a supply of
chickens, sheep, goats, calves, and pigs. It is interesting to know
that these were the pioneer pigs of America. They were eight in number,
and from them descended most of the pigs that now inhabit the West
India islands. On October 7th the fleet again weighed anchor, and by
order of its Admiral steered in a rather roundabout direction for
the islands which were supposed to lie south of Hispaniola. Columbus
was determined--of course for the noblest and most public-spirited
reasons--that no one but himself should know the true route to the New
World; but his trick of steering first in one direction and then in
another could not have had the desired effect of puzzling any really
intelligent sailor. This time whales, floating bushes, and other signs
of land were not needed to cheer the crews, and consequently they
were not seen--a circumstance that strengthens in the minds of some
persons the belief that Columbus on his first voyage secretly dropped
these signs of land overboard from the bow of his vessel, and then
called his men to look at them. In the latter part of the voyage a
heavy thunder-storm occurred, and while it was in progress lights were
seen at the tops of the masts and elsewhere aloft. These electrical
phenomena, called by the sailors “St. Elmo’s candles,” were received
with much satisfaction as evident tokens that the saint was busily
taking care of the vessels. As he is an able and careful saint, it is
perhaps impertinent to criticise his methods, but it does seem rather
odd that he cannot take care of a ship without running the risk of
setting her on fire by the reckless use of naked and unprotected
lights. This was the only storm of consequence that was met on the
passage, and, thanks to St. Elmo! it does not seem to have done any
harm.

On the 3d of November, which was Sunday, the island of Dominica was
sighted, and the usual hymns were sung and prayers were said. So many
islands soon came in sight that it was difficult to select one on which
to land. In this embarrassment of riches, the Admiral finally landed on
an island which he called Marigalante, after the name of the flag-ship.
It was a fair average sort of island, but after taking formal
possession of it and of all other islands, visible and invisible,
belonging to the same group, Columbus left it and sailed to the island
of Guadalupe, a few miles distant, where he landed on November 4th.

There was a village near the shore, but the inhabitants fled as the
Spaniards landed, leaving behind them only a few useless babies.
Searching the houses, Columbus discovered the stern-post of a European
vessel, which must have drifted across the Atlantic, since it was
much too large to have been sent through the Post Office, even if we
assume--which is grossly improbable--that any native had written to
Europe and ordered a stern-post. From the number of human bones which
were found in the ash-barrels and garbage-boxes at this village, it was
suspected that the people were cannibals, as in fact they were, being
no other than the fierce and cruel Caribs.

Pursuing his voyage along the coast, Columbus again landed and explored
more deserted villages, capturing a woman and a boy who had lingered
a little too long behind the absconding villagers. On returning to
his ship, the Admiral was pained to learn that one of his officers,
Captain Diego Marque, and eight men, who had gone ashore without
orders, had not yet returned, and were probably already undergoing
preparation for a Caribbean dinner. Alonzo de Ojeda, a young nobleman
who afterward became famous as one of the ablest and most cruel of
Spanish explorers, was sent on shore in command of a detachment to
search for the missing men, and to bring back as much of them as
might remain uneaten. Ojeda searched in vain, and returned with the
report that Marque and his comrades could not be found, even in the
unsatisfactory shape of cold victuals. Several women who came on board
the fleet, announcing that they were runaway slaves, told frightful
stories of the atrocities perpetrated by the Caribs, and the missing
men were universally believed to have been killed and eaten. At last,
after several days, Marque and his men appeared on the shore, extremely
ragged and hungry. They had merely lost themselves in the woods, and
had not seen a single cannibal. Of course some indignation was felt at
this trivial end of what had been mistaken for a terrible tragedy, and
Columbus promptly punished the delinquents, ostensibly for being absent
without leave.

On the 14th of November, after sailing hither and thither through
the Caribbean archipelago, the fleet anchored at the island of Santa
Cruz. The natives fled into the interior as usual, but a canoe-load of
Indians made its appearance a little later, and, on being chased by one
of the Spanish boats, shot showers of poisoned arrows at the pursuers.
After a lively battle, in which a Spaniard was fatally wounded and
one of the Indians was killed, the canoe was sunk and the survivors
captured. They were so fierce and ugly in appearance that they were
instantly judged to be cannibals of the deepest dye, and were loaded
with chains and afterward sent to Spain as curiosities.

So many new islands were now sighted that Columbus, whose stock of
names was growing small, called one of them St. Ursula, and the others
her eleven thousand virgins. It is true that there were not eleven
thousand islands; but as St. Ursula never had eleven thousand virgins,
the name was not so extremely inappropriate. The exact number of these
islands was finally ascertained to be fifty.

Discovering Porto Rico, and devoting two days to exploring its
coast-line, Columbus steered for Hispaniola, which he reached on the
22d of November. The natives came off to the fleet in boats, and were
remarkably polite; but Columbus did not land until he reached Samana
Bay. Here he sent one of his converted Indians on shore, dressed in the
best Spanish fashion, with instructions to lecture to the natives on
the grandeur of Spain; but whether the lecturer was tedious and met a
deserved death at the hands of his first audience, or whether he seized
the opportunity to return to the comforts of naked paganism, was never
known. In any case, he never returned, and it is greatly to be feared
that in his case the trouble and expense of conversion were wasted.

On the 25th the expedition anchored in a harbor to which the Admiral
gave the name of Monte Christo, in honor of M. Alexandre Dumas.
On landing, the Spaniards were shocked to find four bodies, one of
which was recognized by its beard as the body of a Spaniard. The
circumstances in which these bodies were found showed that they had
been the victims of violence, and it was at once feared that the colony
of La Navidad had met with a disaster. The natives said they knew
nothing about the bodies, and were so innocent in their demeanor that
no one cared to suspect them of murder. The Admiral, in an anxious
frame of mind, made haste to arrive at La Navidad, which he reached on
the 27th, but at too late an hour to venture to land. Guns were fired
and Coston night-signals burned on board the fleet, but there was no
sign of life from the fort. That night a suspicion dawned upon the
minds of some of the fifteen hundred adventurers that the New World was
not worth finding, and that colonization was a delusion and a snare.

Before morning a canoe containing a cousin of Guacanagari came out
to the fleet in search of Columbus, bringing for him some valuable
presents. The visitors reported that Caribs had invaded the island,
and that Guacanagari had been wounded in battle with them, and was at
a distant village under the care of a doctor,--whose certificate to
that effect, however, he failed to produce. As to the colony of La
Navidad, he did not seem to know very much about it. He said it was his
impression that the colonists had been sick; he believed some of them
had moved away; and he had a vague idea that they had fought a little
among themselves. Having thus cheered up the Admiral, the friendly
native returned to the shore, and the Spaniards waited anxiously for
daylight.

When the day finally dawned, and the Spaniards prepared to land, they
were surprised to find that not a native was visible. On landing,
they were still more surprised to find that the colonists had totally
disappeared, that the fort was in ruins, and that Guacanagari’s village
was a heap of ashes. From the appearance of the fort, it was evident
that it had been captured and sacked. Further search resulted in the
discovery of the buried bodies of eleven Spaniards, while in the native
houses farther in the interior, from which the inhabitants hastily
fled, were found articles which had formerly been the property of the
missing colonists.

Gradually the natives overcame their fears, and came to meet Columbus.
They told a story which was intrinsically probable, and doubtless true.
The colonists had conducted themselves as sailors left to themselves in
a tropical climate, among gentle savages, might have been expected to.
They refused to work, they adopted polygamy as their chief occupation,
and, not content with quarrelling among themselves, they insulted and
outraged the natives until the latter began to feel seriously provoked.
After a time the two lieutenants of Don Diego de Arana, the Governor,
headed a rebellion against him, but, being defeated, marched off
with nine men and a large supply of wives to search for gold in the
interior. Reaching the dominions of the cacique Caonabo, a powerful
chief of Carib birth, they were pleasantly welcomed and cheerfully put
to death. Being of the opinion that there were still more Spaniards on
the island than were really needed, Caonabo formed an alliance with
another chief of like views, and, falling upon the fort at night,
captured it and massacred every colonist with the exception of a few
who saved themselves by rushing into the sea and drowning in privacy.
The friendly natives further said that they fought under the leadership
of Guacanagari on the side of the Spaniards, and were badly beaten.

A coasting expedition having discovered the village where Guacanagari
was residing, Columbus went to see him. He found the cacique lying
in bed, surrounded by seven wives and suffering greatly. Guacanagari
repeated the story of the capture of the fort, and put in evidence his
wounded leg, marked “Exhibit A,” as proof of the truth of his story.
Unfortunately, no wound was visible, and although the cacique insisted
that his leg had been utterly ruined by a heavy stone which had struck
it, the Spanish surgeon was of opinion that nothing was the matter.
Father Boyle, who was a most zealous ecclesiastic, held that this was
an excellent opportunity for showing the islanders the merits of the
Christian religion, and recommended that Guacanagari should be promptly
burned at the stake. But the Admiral, although he admitted that it was
difficult to explain the cacique’s leg in a satisfactory way, argued
that he would be much more useful raw than he would if roasted, and to
prove this assertion exchanged a large quantity of glass beads with the
cacique for merely their weight in gold. This demonstration satisfied
the Spaniards temporarily, with the exception of Father Boyle, who was
pained to find Columbus apparently subordinating Christian duty to a
love of gain.

                                                          [Æt. 57; 1494]

Guacanagari went on board the flag-ship with the Admiral, where he was
much pleased with the horses, which he saw for the first time, and
pronounced to be very able and ingenious animals. He was also observed
to take altogether too much interest in ten women whom Columbus had
carried off from the Caribbean islands. The conversation between
Guacanagari and the Spaniards is said to have been constrained and
awkward, as indeed it doubtless was, for no one could converse easily
and pleasantly with a cacique who was constantly gazing in admiration
at ten different women. Columbus, as a token of good-will, hung an
image of the Virgin around Guacanagari’s neck, who, when he learned
that the Christians worshipped it, said he would rather not wear
it, lest he should become a Christian and covet his neighbor’s wife
and break his neighbor’s skull, like the late Christian colonists.
Father Boyle was more anxious to burn him than ever after hearing
this blasphemous remark; but Columbus very properly said it was
inhospitable and unjustifiable to burn visitors, except in the case
of a surprise-party, and that the cacique should go on shore safely,
which he shortly did.

The next day Guacanagari did not return to the ship, but in his place
sent his brother, who paid a great deal of attention to the Carib
women, talking with them--as he said--on scientific matters. That
night the ten Carib women jumped overboard and swam ashore, and when
the Spaniards landed in the morning to search for them, no trace could
be found either of the women or of Guacanagari. It was too evident
that the cacique had fallen in love ten deep, and had eloped with his
ten heart’s idols. The Spaniards, who of course took no interest in
the women, were shocked at the painful example of immorality set by
Guacanagari, and agreed that they were now convinced that he and his
hypocritical savages had either betrayed the colonists to Caonabo, or
had slaughtered them and then invented Caonabo and laid the blame upon
him.




CHAPTER XII.

ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION.


                                                          [Æt. 58; 1494]

Guacanagari, in his last interview with Columbus, had advised him
not to plant a new colony at La Navidad. He said that, while he was
extremely anxious to have the Spaniards as neighbors, duty compelled
him to admit that the locality was an unhealthy one, and that
foreigners settling there were sure to contract chills and fever.
Columbus shared the opinion that it was an unhealthy place, but he
thought that colonists would be more apt to contract bloodthirsty
native chiefs than peaceful malarious fever. At any rate, he was clear
that it would be unwise to repeat the experiment of colonization at a
place with such unpleasant associations.

Expeditions were sent along the coast to find a new location, but as
no eligible building spots were found, the fleet set sail for Monte
Christo. About thirty miles east of Monte Christo a fine harbor was
found, and, on landing, the Admiral was so pleased with the place that
he resolved to build a city without further delay. The ships were
unloaded, and the animals were set on shore. A nice city, called the
city of Isabella, was then laid out, with a church, a government-house,
a town-pump, a custom-house, a jail, and everything that could make the
colonists feel comfortable and at home.

This done, the Spaniards, including Columbus, fell sick with great
unanimity. Most of them felt that they could have been sick to more
advantage in Spain, and that, on the whole, they wanted their money
back. If exploration consisted in crossing an inexcusably wide ocean
merely to build houses among unsociable savages, and to contract
marsh-fever, they were confident that they had had quite enough of it.
Columbus knew that he must soon send the fleet back to Spain for fresh
supplies of food, medicine, and clothing; but he disliked to send
home the unsatisfactory report that the first set of colonists were
all dead, and the second all sick. He therefore ordered Ojeda to get
together a few comparatively well men, and to march into the interior
and discover something that could be mentioned to advantage in his
official report.

With a small force Ojeda marched across the mountain range that lay
back of Isabella, and descended into a delightful plain, where every
prospect pleased him, and the natives were less than usually vile. Gold
was found to be really plentiful, and when Ojeda returned Columbus saw
his way clear to writing a brilliant report, and the colonists’ spirits
revived.

Twelve of the ships were immediately got ready for sea and loaded with
specimens of plants for the Agricultural Bureau, gold for the Spanish
monarchs, and Caribs for the church. Columbus, in his report, passed
lightly and skilfully over the unpleasant features of the expedition,
and dwelt eloquently upon the beauty of the island, the healthful
situation of the city, and the enormous wealth of the gold-mines. He
also forcibly pointed out the great need which the cannibal Caribs had
of being promptly converted. He proposed that Spain should send out
ships laden with supplies, which he would pay for with Carib slaves,
and that when the slaves reached Spain they could be converted at
little expense, and made to do a great deal of work. Thus the cause of
missions could be carried on at a profit of at least a hundred per cent
and a joint stock company for the enslavement and conversion of Caribs
would be able to declare large and frequent dividends.

Columbus had always maintained that his chief object in discovering
America was to spread the Gospel, and this proposal to enslave the
Caribs shows that he was sincere. Nevertheless, Queen Isabella said
it would be a shame to make the poor Caribs slaves, and that she
was surprised that Columbus should think of such a thing. Thus the
Admiral’s great missionary scheme proved abortive, but his arguments
were afterward used with great success in defence of the slave-trade
which stocked the Georgian and South Carolinian plantations.

On the 2d of February, 1494, the twelve ships set sail for Spain, and
Columbus felt that unless the officers should prove indiscreet and
tell unpleasant truths, his report would be accepted as a proof of the
success of his second great expedition.

The colonists’ spirits had been raised by the sight of the gold brought
back by Ojeda, but they fell to a very low ebb when the ships departed.
The prospect of remaining behind to die of fever, while their more
fortunate companions could go home and tell magnificent stories with no
one to contradict them, was very depressing. In vain did Father Boyle
celebrate the very highest kind of mass in the church, and in vain did
Columbus put the jail in the best possible order. Nothing could make
the colonists feel contented and happy.

In these circumstances, they naturally abused the Admiral. They said
he was only an Italian, any way, and had no right to command Spanish
gentlemen. They even went so far as to make personal and disparaging
remarks concerning organ-grinders, and expressed the opinion that an
organ-grinder should stick to his monkey and refrain from meddling with
exploration. There was an alleged scientific person among them--one
Fermin Cedo--who pretended there were no gold-mines on the island. He
said he had analyzed the gold brought back by Ojeda, and it was grossly
adulterated. He admitted that the Indians did have a little real gold,
but maintained that they had inherited it from their ancestors and
could not find any more even if they were to try. The malcontents,
under the leadership of Bernal Diaz, the comptroller, who appears to
have had all the obstinacy and wrong-headedness that pertain to that
office in our own day, resolved to seize the remaining ships and return
to Spain, leaving Columbus to enjoy the fever by himself. Columbus,
however, discovered the plot and immediately recovered his health
sufficiently to arrest Diaz, to punish the least respectable of his
followers, and thus to suppress the mutiny.

In order to divert his men from thoughts of fever and mutiny, the
Admiral now prepared to lead an expedition into the interior. He
appointed his brother Diego Governor of Isabella during his absence,
and with four hundred men--all, in fact, who were well enough to
march--he set out for the gold-bearing mountains of Cibao. Following
the route taken by Ojeda the party crossed the nearest range of
mountains, and entered the fertile plain previously mentioned. The
natives were at first greatly frightened by the horsemen; and when they
discovered that a horse and his rider were not made in one piece, but
could be taken apart, they were more than ever filled with admiration
at the mechanical ingenuity of the Spaniards.

Crossing the plain, Columbus penetrated into the mountainous region of
Cibao, over which the Carib chief Caonabo ruled. Nothing, however, was
seen of him, and the natives were as friendly as those of the plain.
They brought gold-dust and small nuggets to Columbus, and assured him
that at the distance of about a day’s march gold could be found in
nuggets of the size of a piece of chalk.

This originally meritorious story had now become so old that Columbus
paid no attention to it, knowing that if he were to march all the rest
of his life, the richest gold-mines would always be a little farther
off. So he selected a convenient mountain, where he built a fort,
calling it St. Thomas, which he garrisoned with fifty-six men commanded
by Pedro Margarite. There appears not to have been any reason for
building and garrisoning this fort, unless it was a desire on the part
of the Admiral to station Margarite and his men where they could not
take part in any future mutiny in Isabella.

Returning with the rest of the force, Columbus reached Isabella on the
29th of March, stopping by the way to trade with the natives and to
learn their method of living. He found the people whom he had left at
Isabella in a more gloomy state than ever. Their stock of medicines
was nearly exhausted, and their provisions were growing scarce. He
was compelled to put them on half rations, and to build a mill for
grinding corn. The mill was a happy thought; but when it was built, the
colonists unanimously agreed that Spanish gentlemen could not grind
corn without losing their self-respect. Columbus said he rather thought
they could, and he compelled every man to take his turn at grinding,
thereby confirming them in the opinion that no Italian accustomed to
grind out “Annie Laurie” and “Baby Mine” could possibly understand the
feelings of a gentleman.

A messenger soon arrived from Fort St. Thomas, announcing that
Caonabo was about to attack it. Ojeda was therefore put in command
of three hundred and ninety-six men, and ordered to capture Caonabo
and inaugurate the new jail with him. Ojeda promptly started, and on
his way met a Spaniard who had been robbed. Being a just man, Ojeda
thereupon seized the cacique of the province, his son, and nephew, and
sent them to Isabella, where Columbus, filled with horror at the crime
which they had not committed, sentenced them to death--a sentence which
he afterward revoked in order to show his clemency.

As nearly all the able-bodied colonists were now in the interior,
Columbus thought it would be safe to undertake a small exploring
voyage, and so, leaving Don Diego in charge of the city, he took
three of the ships and sailed for Cuba. Had he been a selfish and
heartless man, he might have imagined that during his absence the sick
at Isabella would die, and the Spaniards in the interior would either
starve to death or be killed by Caonabo--thus ridding him of much care
and vexation. As he was not this kind of man, we can only wonder at
his simplicity in dividing his forces in the face of a cruel enemy,
and then calmly sailing away with the most useful of the ships. He
left reams of written instructions to Margarite, Ojeda and Don Diego,
pointing out to them the wickedness of quarrelling, and recommending
them not to allow Caonabo to exterminate them. He also left Father
Boyle behind him, probably because that zealous ecclesiastic’s longing
to burn somebody made him an unsafe person to take to sea, where the
utmost caution in regard to fire is necessary.




CHAPTER XIII.

SEARCH FOR CHINA.--SUBJUGATION OF HISPANIOLA.


                                                          [Æt. 58; 1494]

On the 24th of April Columbus set sail, determined this time to reach
the Empire of China. He anchored for a night at La Navidad, but saw
nothing of Guacanagari. Sailing thence, he reached Cuba and began to
coast along the south side of the island. The natives ran away as
usual, and were afterward coaxed back with beads. They told him, with
some variations, the familiar story of a gold-bearing island farther
south, and Columbus decided to give them one more chance to prove its
truth. He steered south in search of the mythical Babeque, and when he
came within sight of a fine large island, he began to hope that Babeque
was found at last; but it proved to be only Jamaica.

Instead of running away, the natives came out in canoes to welcome
the Spaniards with bloody lances to hospitable drowning-places.
Without stopping to fight the first batch of seventy canoes, the fleet
sailed on in search of a good harbor. When an apparently eligible
place for anchoring was found, a boat was sent to make soundings,
and was attacked by the natives, who swarmed on the beach. A force
was therefore landed to convince the natives that their conduct was
impolite; and after many of them had been shot and the rest driven
into the woods in terror, with a savage dog in hot pursuit, they were
convinced of their error. The local cacique sent envoys and negotiated
a treaty, after which the Spaniards were permitted to repair their
vessels and take in water in peace. Columbus explored the coast for
some little distance to the westward, but finding no signs of gold, or
of the rum for which it afterward became famous, returned to Cuba and
resumed his search for China.

Day after day he sailed slowly westward, keeping near the coast and
frequently landing to inquire if China was close at hand. Sometimes the
information he received gave him great encouragement. For example, one
able and imaginative cacique told him of a tribe of men with tails.
As it was notorious that men with tails inhabited a part of Asia,
Columbus naturally thought the cacique’s story referred to them, and
that he would soon reach the region described by the veracious Sir John
Mandeville. Another cacique told him of a king who habitually wore a
white garment and was called a saint. This king Columbus immediately
identified with Prester John, though he ought to have remembered that
no true Presbyterian would dream of wearing white robes except in the
seclusion of his bedchamber. Encouraged by these stories, the hopeful
explorer sailed on toward China, now narrowly escaping shipwreck in the
maze of small islands known to us as the “Keys,” and now learning with
astonishment what violent thunder-storms the West Indies can produce
when they are needed. At one time the sea became the color of milk,
which greatly alarmed the sailors. They said that putting milk into
the sea was a defiance of the laws of nature, which provide that water
should always be put into milk, and that they did not like to cruise in
latitudes where so unnatural a practice was followed. Still, Columbus
persevered. Cuba seemed really to have no end, or to be, in other
words, a continent.

Finally, at the end of fifty days, when not a particle of China
had been found, and the vessels were so strained as to be entirely
unseaworthy, the sailors informed Columbus that this thing had gone
quite far enough, and that it was time to turn back. The Admiral was
so sure that Pekin must be within a few days’ sail that he was very
anxious to pursue the voyage, but he finally agreed to compromise the
matter. He said he would turn back, provided every officer, sailor,
and boy would make an affidavit that Cuba was a part of the mainland
of Asia. This they consented to do with much alacrity, and when every
affidavit had been duly sworn in the presence of a notary, Columbus
announced that any person who should at any time express the view that
Cuba was an island would be judged guilty of perjury and punished by
a fine of ten thousand maravedies, or by a hundred lashes and the
amputation of the tongue.

Having thus conclusively ascertained that Cuba was Asia, he steered
south-east, and on the 13th of June anchored at the Isle of Pines. Had
he only kept on his voyage westward a day or two longer, he would have
reached the western extremity of Cuba, and would have learned that it
was an island.

The voyage back along the Cuban coast was laborious, the weather being
often boisterous and the winds adverse. The sailors became so worn out
that Columbus was compelled to anchor in a convenient harbor and live
on shore with his men for more than a week, in order that they might
rest. Here he met with a venerable cacique, who gave him excellent
advice as to his future conduct, and assured him that if he did not
treat the natives justly he would be punished in a future world.
Judging from the report of the cacique’s sermon, he was almost as good
a Christian as Father Boyle.

When his men were sufficiently repaired, Columbus sailed to Jamaica
and resumed the exploration of its coast-line. He circumnavigated
the island without meeting with any hostile demonstrations from the
natives, and, although he saw no gold, he was kind enough to speak
well of Jamaica in his official report. He was rather embarrassed
by a particularly gorgeous cacique, arrayed in a cotton helmet and
a necklace of green stones, who with his entire family boarded the
flag-ship and informed the Admiral that he intended to go to Spain with
him. Columbus had some difficulty in declining the cacique’s company,
but he finally convinced him that if he wished to take passage he must
apply at the office of the company and provide himself with tickets in
the usual way. The truth is, the female part of the cacique’s family
was numerous and beautiful, and the judicious Admiral feared that the
presence of the ladies would seriously interfere with the duties of his
officers.

On the 20th of August the fleet reached Hispaniola, but Columbus did
not recognize it, and fancied that he had discovered a new island.
A day or two later a cacique came off to meet him in a canoe, and,
addressing him in broken Spanish, informed him of his true locality.
Columbus therefore landed nine of his men, with orders to proceed to
Isabella and report to Don Diego, and then continued his voyage along
the south coast of the island. The winds, however, persistently opposed
him, and he was compelled to lie at anchor for many days. This slow
progress, added to the toils and cares which he had lately experienced,
told heavily on the Admiral’s health, already enfeebled by his illness
at Isabella. He kept on his feet till the last moment, but on the 24th
of September was struck down by an attack which rendered him totally
insensible, and in that condition he remained for several days, while
the fleet pursued its way and finally reached Isabella.

One of the first to welcome the Admiral when he landed was his brother
Bartholomew. Years before, when Columbus was seeking some monarch who
would take an interest in exploration, he sent Bartholomew to England
to see if King Henry VII. was that kind of king. Either the Post Office
of the period was badly managed, or Christopher Columbus was so much
occupied with thoughts of exploration that he forgot the existence of
Bartholomew. At any rate, neither brother appears to have heard a word
from the other until Bartholomew accidentally learned that the Admiral
had actually discovered the New World and was on the point of fitting
out a second expedition. Bartholomew had at last induced King Henry
to agree to give his brother the command of an exploring expedition,
but of course the news from Spain rendered this agreement useless.
Bartholomew hastened to Spain by the most rapid route, and when he
found on arriving that his brother had already sailed, he called on
Ferdinand and Isabella, who immediately gave him three ships and sent
him with supplies to the new colony.

There is no doubt that Bartholomew Columbus was an able man, to whom
full justice has never been done. He was sent to England on an errand,
and he stayed till it was accomplished, although it took him ten years
to do it. Where is the man of the present day who would execute the
wishes of a brother with this strict and patient fidelity, especially
if during the whole time he should never receive a letter or a telegram
from home? That Bartholomew was a bold and skilful sailor is proved by
the fact that he found his way across the Atlantic to Isabella without
any sailing directions, and in spite of the care that Christopher
had taken to conceal the knowledge of the direct route. Evidently
Bartholomew could both obey and command, and there is no reason to
suppose that he was in any way inferior to his more famous brother.

The Admiral appears to have recalled without much difficulty the
fact that he had once had a brother Bartholomew, and to have readily
recognized him. Probably he explained that, owing to a pressure of
business, Bartholomew had escaped his memory, and he certainly showed
that he was glad to see him by appointing him Adelentado, or Deputy
Governor, of Hispaniola. As he was still confined to his bed, the
arrival of his brother was a very fortunate thing, affairs in the
colony being in a precarious and dangerous state.

When Ojeda and his army had reached Fort St. Thomas, Margarite, as
ranking officer assumed the supreme command, and, leaving Ojeda with
fifty men to garrison the fort, he set out, ostensibly to explore the
island and intimidate Caonabo and other hostile chiefs. Instead of
carrying out this plan, he descended to the fertile plain at the foot
of the mountains, where he quartered his troops on the natives and
began to enjoy himself. Following his example, the soldiers conducted
themselves after the usual manner of idle and dissolute soldiers,
and in a short time earned the enthusiastic hatred of the natives.
Don Diego sent a remonstrance to Margarite, which that high-spirited
gentleman regarded as an unwarrantable liberty. He refused to
acknowledge Diego’s authority, and, supported by his officers, set him
at defiance. When it was evident that the patience of the natives would
soon be exhausted, Margarite and some of his friends, including Father
Boyle--who had become worn out by vainly waiting for an opportunity
to experiment with a combustible heretic--seized one of the ships and
sailed away to Spain.

The soldiers, being left without any commander, lost all organization,
and the army melted away. The natives found steady and pleasant
employment in killing them in small quantities at a time, and about a
hundred of them took refuge with our old friend Guacanagari. Caonabo
thought this would be a good opportunity for capturing Fort St. Thomas,
and accordingly he besieged it with a large force, but after thirty
days withdrew, completely baffled by the bravery of Ojeda and his
handful of men. He then undertook to unite the caciques in a league
against the Spaniards, and succeeded in inducing all of them to join
him, with the exception of Guacanagari. The latter went to Isabella
soon after Columbus arrived, and warned him that an overwhelming force
was about to attack the city. Troops were sent out to attack the
nearest of the hostile caciques, who was soon reduced to submission.

In the mean time, Ojeda with a small escort went to Caonabo’s village
and invited the cacique to visit Columbus and make a treaty with him,
pledging him a safe-conduct. The cacique, weakly believing Ojeda’s
promise, accepted the invitation and started with a small army of
followers. On the march Ojeda showed the cacique a pair of handcuffs,
which he said were a decoration which the Spanish King conferred only
on the most eminent of his subjects. Such, however, was the high
opinion that the King had of Caonabo, that Ojeda was authorized to
confer this splendid distinction upon him. As a preliminary, it would
be necessary for Caonabo to mount on horseback, the bracelets being
conferred only on mounted knights. Caonabo, feeling himself highly
honored, climbed on Ojeda’s horse, behind that astute officer, and
submitted to be manacled. No sooner was this done than Ojeda, and his
escort galloped away and brought the captive cacique to Isabella, where
he was safely lodged in jail.

That Ojeda’s conduct in this affair was treacherous and dishonorable
there can be no question. Indeed, had he been the United States
Government, and had Caonabo been a Black Hill Sioux, he could hardly
have conducted himself more dishonorably than he did.

The native league was thus temporarily broken up, and the arrival of
four ships from Spain, bringing, besides colonists and stores, a doctor
and an entire apothecary’s shop, gave Columbus strength enough to get
out of bed before the doctor could begin operations on him. The King
and Queen sent Columbus a letter, announcing that they took their
several pens in hand to say that they were well and hoped Columbus was
enjoying the same blessing, and that they had the utmost confidence
in him. This letter completed the Admiral’s cure, and he immediately
organized an expedition against the natives, who were about to resume
hostilities under the leadership of a brother of Caonabo.

Before setting out, he sent Diego back to Spain, ostensibly to look
after his interests. Perhaps the true reason was that Diego was of
very little use and was extremely unpopular. He was a well-meaning
man, but his true sphere in life was that of a justice of the peace in
Connecticut; and as Connecticut was not yet ready for him, Columbus
thought he had better go home and wait until a good opening in East
Lyme or Falls Village should present itself. At the same time, five
hundred natives were sent to Spain to be sold as slaves, Columbus
remarking that he hoped in this way to prepare their precious souls for
the humanizing influence of the Gospel.

Having seen Diego safely started, Columbus, with Bartholomew, two
hundred and twenty Spaniards, and twenty other bloodhounds, started to
attack the savages. He met a hundred thousand of them--so the story
goes--and defeated them with great slaughter. It is very probable that
the number of the enemy was exaggerated, and that there were not more
than ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-six, with perhaps
two small-boys. There is no doubt, however, that they were shot down
by the soldiers, ridden down by the horses, and mangled by the dogs
to an immense extent, and that the battle was a glorious triumph of
civilization over barbarism.

The victory was followed up by Columbus with energy. He marched through
almost the entire length and breadth of the island, and compelled the
caciques to make peace and pay a heavy tribute to the Spaniards. Every
native was taxed either a certain amount of gold or its equivalent
in cotton, according to Columbus’s view of their relative value; and
to secure his conquest, the Admiral built and garrisoned forts in
different parts of the island, the most important of which was called
Fort Concepcion, and was situated in the beautiful plain lying back of
Isabella. Even Guacanagari and his people, who had remained faithful
to Columbus, were taxed as heavily as the hostile natives, and that
amiable cacique was so disgusted by this reward of his fidelity that
he resigned his chieftainship and died of what in the case of a white
monarch would be called a broken heart.

The yoke that the Spaniards had put on the native neck was too heavy to
be borne. The savages resolved to starve their oppressors, and with
this view destroyed their crops and retired to the mountains, to live
on roots until the Spaniards should die of starvation. The plan was
not successful. The Spaniards hunted the natives with dogs and dragged
them back to work as slaves. Within a few months the free and happy
people who had welcomed the Spaniards to the island, and were ready to
worship them as superior beings, were converted into a horde of cowed
and wretched slaves.

In later years, when Columbus had seen his own authority in Hispaniola
set aside, and the island under the control of his rivals and enemies,
he protested that the sight of the sufferings of the unhappy natives
filled him with grief and horror. It was, however, to his political
advantage at just that time to have his heart bleed for the poor
savages, and the unprejudiced reader must regret that it did not bleed
at an earlier period. It was under the immediate rule of Columbus
that the natives of Hispaniola were first reduced to slavery, and it
was Columbus who made his old friend and faithful ally, Guacanagari,
suffer the same fate as the chiefs who had rebelled against the
Spaniards. Then it cannot be forgotten that, in spite of the direct and
repeated commands of Queen Isabella, Columbus sent cargo after cargo
of slaves to Spain. He may have been very sorry to see the natives
oppressed by Spaniards whom he disliked, but he certainly oppressed
them quite as vigorously as did any of his successors. The contrast
between his pious and humane protestations and his acts as an oppressor
and a slave-trader is not easily explicable if we adopt the usual
theory that he was one of the most sincere and noble of men. We may
concede that he was naturally kind-hearted, and that he would have
preferred gold-mining to slave-hunting; but when his interest urged
him to cruelty, he usually listened to it with respectful attention,
and straightway showed by his conduct that, although he was not a
countryman of Ojeda and Pizarro, he was not altogether unfit to hold a
Spanish commission.




CHAPTER XIV.

DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS.


                                                          [Æt. 59; 1495]

Margarite and Father Boyle, as has been mentioned, had sailed for Spain
while Columbus was absent on his cruise in search of China. Arriving in
Spain, they told a series of able and effective falsehoods, judiciously
seasoned with a little genuine truth. They said it gave them the
greatest pain to speak in disparaging terms of their superior officer,
but a stern sense of duty compelled them to say that the misguided
man was a liar and a scoundrel. All the Admiral’s stories of fertile
islands, rich gold-mines, delightful climate, and amiable heathens
clamoring for conversion, were without any foundation. Hispaniola was a
wretched, fever-stricken place, wholly unfit for colonization. As for
Columbus and his brother Bartholomew, they were cruel tyrants, who
required Spanish gentlemen to work and made sick men get out of their
beds, where they were comparatively comfortable, in order to engage in
ridiculous expeditions after gold that never existed. Of the two, Don
Bartholomew was perhaps the more objectionable, which was unfortunate,
inasmuch as the Admiral, having put to sea in search of more of his
worthless islands, had undoubtedly been drowned.

It must be confessed that, in one respect, Margarite and Boyle did tell
the truth. There were chills and fever in the new colony, and when
the King and Queen saw the returned colonists visibly shaking before
them, they believed in the unhealthfulness of Hispaniola and all the
accompanying lies told by the malicious and malarious complainants.
They therefore resolved to send one Diego Carillo to Hispaniola as an
investigating committee, to ascertain if there was anybody capable of
telling the exact truth about the state of affairs.

But before Carillo could sail, Don Diego Columbus arrived, and as he
brought considerable gold with him, the monarchs formed the opinion
that he had the air of a man of strict veracity. He admitted that
there was a part of the island of Hispaniola, a long distance from the
colony, where it was said that chills and fever prevailed, and he was
inclined to believe that the report was true. As for the climate of
Isabella and its vicinity, he regarded it as exceptionally healthful.
He reported that the Admiral had positively been to the mainland of
China, and regretted that he had thoughtlessly forgotten to bring back
confirmatory tea-chests.

Don Diego further assured the King and Queen that since the fortunate
departure from Hispaniola of two objectionable persons whom he would
not name, but who, he was informed, had recently arrived in Spain with
a full cargo of assorted falsehoods, the affairs of the colony had
been very prosperous. Of course, to bold and restless spirits there
was a certain monotony in swinging in hammocks all day long, and
eating delicious fruit, in a climate that was really perfect, and there
were men who even grew tired of picking up nuggets of gold; but Don
Diego was confident that, with a very few exceptions, the colonists
enjoyed their luxurious life and, on the whole, preferred Hispaniola to
Paradise.

Ferdinand and Isabella weighed the gold brought by Don Diego, and
decided to believe him. They thereupon cancelled Carillo’s appointment,
and appointed in his place Juan Aguado, a personal friend of Columbus,
who, it was understood, would go to Hispaniola in the character of a
visiting statesman, and, after examining such witnesses as Columbus
might introduce to him, would return home and make a report that would
completely satisfy the Admiral.

In spite of this apparently friendly action, they gave Columbus just
cause of complaint by throwing open the business of exploration, the
monopoly of which they had formally given to him. They authorized any
Spaniard to fit out exploring expeditions, under certain restrictions,
and to discover continents, islands, and seas, without any limitation
as to number; the discoverers to pay the Crown one third of all the
gold they might find. Columbus was greatly grieved at this, not only
because he feared that injudicious explorers would discover unhealthy
islands, and would thus bring exploration into disrepute, but because
it was a distinct breach of faith on the part of the King and Queen. As
for the gracious permission which they gave him to freight a vessel to
trade with the New World whenever any other explorer should freight one
for the like purpose, he evidently did not trust himself to express his
opinion of such a hollow mockery of his rights.

In August, 1495, Don Juan Aguado sailed for Hispaniola with a fleet
loaded with supplies and a pocket filled with a royal decree, written
on the best of parchment and ordering that the colony of Isabella
should consist of not over five hundred people. The astute monarchs
had perceived that the larger the colony might be the more numerous
and contradictory would be the complaints which the colonists would
make, and hence they resolved to limit the complaint-producing capacity
of the colony, and to render it impossible for more than five hundred
distinct accounts of the infamy of Columbus and the climate to be
brought to their royal ears.

As Aguado was supposed to be a firm friend of the Admiral, Don Diego
Columbus decided to return with him to Isabella, which he accordingly
did, arriving some time in October. We can imagine how glad Columbus
must have been to find that his good though tedious brother’s affection
forbade him to desert his own dear Christopher. The latter was in the
interior when Aguado arrived, and that officer immediately proceeded
to astonish Don Bartholomew by putting on what Bartholomew rightly
characterized as airs. Aguado announced that he had come to put things
to rights, and that the colonists now had a real friend to whom they
could complain when insulted and oppressed by domineering Italians. As
Isabella was undoubtedly a dull place, the colonists eagerly availed
themselves of the new occupation of making complaints against Columbus
and his brother, and displayed a promptness and industry of which they
had never before given any signs. Don Bartholomew instantly sent word
to his brother that a new and alarming kind of lunatic had arrived
from Spain, with a royal commission authorizing him to raise the great
adversary of mankind, and that the sooner the Admiral returned the
better.

Columbus hastened to Isabella, where he greeted Aguado with such
overwhelming politeness that the fellow became wretchedly unhappy.
He had hoped to be able to report that Columbus had insulted him and
treated the royal commission with contempt, but he was disappointed.
He was a little cheered up, however, by a tremendous hurricane which
wrecked all the Spanish ships except one, and kept the air for a time
full of Spanish colonists, natives, and fragments of ruined buildings.
This he thought would read very well in his intended report on the
general infamy of the climate, and, despairing of obtaining anything
better, he resolved to return to Spain as soon as a new vessel could
be built. The Admiral announced that he intended to return with him, a
piece of news that greatly discontented Aguado, who foresaw that after
he had made his report concerning Columbus the latter would be entirely
capable of making a report concerning Aguado.

                                                          [Æt. 60; 1496]

About this time a young Spaniard arrived from the interior with a most
welcome story. He had run away from Isabella on account of having
nearly killed a fellow-colonist, and had met a beautiful female cacique
living on the river Ozema, near the present site of San Domingo, who
had fallen violently in love with him. From her he had learned of rich
gold-mines, and he humbly trusted that Columbus would condescend to
look at them and to overlook his little indiscretion in the matter of
his fellow-colonist. The Admiral, secretly feeling that any man who
killed one of his colonists was a benefactor of the human race, kindly
forgave him and went with him to inspect the mines, which he found to
be apparently so rich that he instantly overhauled his Old Testament
and his Geography, and decided that he had found the original land of
Ophir.

A new scientific person, who had been sent out to supersede the
worthless Fermin Cedo, was ordered to take his crucibles, transit
instruments, and other apparatus, and make a satisfactory assay of the
mines. He did so, and, being a clever man, reported to the Admiral that
the gold was unusually genuine, and that the ore would probably average
three hundred dollars to the ton. At least, that is what he would have
reported had he been a modern expert investigating mining property in
behalf of British capitalists, and we need not suppose that there were
no able assayers prior to the discovery of silver in Colorado. Columbus
read the report, expressed a high opinion of the scientific abilities
of the assayer, and ordered a fort to be built in the neighborhood of
the mines.

Carrying with him specimens of gold from the new mines, and the report
of the scientific person, Columbus sailed for Spain, in company with
Aguado, on the 10th of March, 1496. He left Don Bartholomew as Governor
during his absence, and took with him the captive chief Caonabo, either
as a specimen of the kind of heathen produced by the island, or because
he thought it might be possible to convert the chief with the help of
the many appliances in the possession of the church at home. He wisely
refrained from taking any slaves, Don Diego having informed him that
the Queen had ordered his previous consignment of five hundred to be
sent back to Hispaniola and set at liberty.

The homeward-bound fleet consisted of only two vessels, but they
met with as much head-wind as if they had been a dozen ships of the
largest size, and on the 10th of April they were compelled to stop at
Guadaloupe for water and provisions. Here they were attacked by armed
women as well as men. Several of these early American advocates of the
equality of the sexes were captured, and set at liberty again when the
ships sailed. One of them, however, improved the time by falling in
love with Caonabo, whom she insisted upon accompanying, and Columbus
consented to carry her to Spain as a beautiful illustration of the
affectionate character of the Western heathen.

It was the 20th of April when the fleet left Guadaloupe, and Cadiz
was not reached until the 11th of June. The provisions were so nearly
exhausted that during the latter part of the voyage the sailors were
almost in a state of starvation. Of course, when the provisions were
scarce and the men were put on short allowance, the prisoner Caonabo
and his affectionate female friend received their share of food, for
Columbus would never have permitted the unfortunate pair to starve.
Still, it did happen that Caonabo died on the voyage, and history is
silent as to what became of his companion.

                                                    [Æt. 60–62; 1496–98]

The returned colonists told dismal stories of their sufferings,
but their stories were superfluous. Their wretched appearance;
the way in which they clung to the lamp-posts and shook them till
the glass rattled; and the promptness with which they rushed
into the drug-stores and demanded--each for himself, in a single
breath--“Six-dozen-two-grain-quinine-pills-and-be-quick-about-it!”
furnished sufficient evidence of the sort of climate in which they
had lived. It was useless for Columbus and his friends to say
that the appearance and conduct of the shaking colonists were due
to sea-sickness and long confinement on shipboard without proper
provisions. The incredulous public of Cadiz could not be thus imposed
upon, and the visible facts as to the colonists offset in the popular
mind the magnificent stories of the mines of Ophir which the Admiral
circulated as soon as he landed. The monarchs sent him a courteous
invitation to visit the court, but he was in great doubt as to the kind
of reception which Margarite, Father Boyle, and Aguado would prepare
for him. In order to show that he felt himself greatly humiliated
by the credence which had been given to the reports against him, he
dressed himself in a Franciscan’s coarse gown, and let his beard grow.
On his way to court he paraded some thirty Indians whom he had brought
with him, dressed principally in gold bracelets, and thereby created
the false and alarming impression on the public mind that the Black
Crook had broken out with much violence.

The King and Queen, when they saw the gold that Columbus had brought,
and read the scientific person’s certificates that it was genuine,
decided to disregard all the complaints against the Admiral. Aguado
had nothing to repay him for his long voyage, and no one would listen
to his report. It is believed that he finally published it as an
advertisement at so much a line in the local Cadiz paper, and sent
marked copies to all his friends. If so, he benefited no one but the
printers, and did Columbus no apparent injury.

                                                       [Æt. 60; 1496–98]

Columbus was promised eight ships for a third exploring expedition,
but the money was not in the treasury, or, at all events, the King and
Queen could not make up their minds to spare it. They were engaged
in two or three expensive wars and one or two difficult marriages,
and were really quite pinched for money. At last, however, they gave
Columbus an order for the amount; but before it was paid, Pedro Alonzo
Niño, who had been sent with supplies to Hispaniola, returned to Cadiz
and announced that his ships were filled with gold. The monarchs
therefore recalled their order, and in its stead gave Columbus a draft
on Niño, to be paid from his cargo of gold. Further investigation
showed that Niño had spoken figuratively, and that he had no actual
gold, but only a cargo of slaves, who, he estimated, would bring more
or less gold if sold in the market.

Meanwhile the monarchs had appropriated all their ready money for
purposes of slaughter and matrimony, and so were compelled to decline
advancing funds for the new expedition until their business should
improve.

Columbus had already lost much of his original popularity, and was
daily losing what remained. That he had discovered new countries
nobody denied; but the complaint was that he had selected cheap and
undesirable countries. The Queen, however, still admired and trusted
him, for the Admiral was a man of remarkably fine personal appearance.
She confirmed all the previous honors and privileges that had been
promised to him, which looks as if in those days a royal promise
became outlawed, as the lawyers say, in one or two years unless it
was renewed--a rule which must have greatly simplified the practice of
diplomacy. Inasmuch as there had been a vast excess of expenses over
receipts in the exploration business, Columbus was released from the
obligation to pay an eighth of the cost of every expedition, and was
given a large tract of land in Hispaniola, with the title of Duke,
which title he refused, since it was inferior in rank to his title of
Admiral.

                                                          [Æt. 62; 1498]

While waiting for the expedition to be made ready, Columbus improved
the time by making his will. In this document he committed the task of
recovering the Holy Sepulchre to his son Diego, and directed him to
save up his money by putting it in the savings bank, until he should
have enough to pay for a crusade. Curiously enough, Don Diego never
was able to accumulate the necessary sum, and the Holy Sepulchre is
still waiting to be delivered. It was wise, however, in the Admiral
to delegate this great duty to his son, and thus to free himself
from an obligation which could not but interfere with the business of
exploration. The more we can shift our burdens upon our descendants,
the better time we shall have. This is the great principle upon which
all enlightened nations base their financial policy.

Early in 1498 the royal business had so far improved that two vessels
loaded with supplies were sent to Hispaniola, and preparations were
made for fitting out a fleet of six ships and a force of five hundred
men. The five hundred men were not easily found. It was the popular
belief that chills and fever were not worth the trouble of so long
a voyage, and that there was little else to be got by serving under
Columbus. In this emergency, the sentences of criminals in the Spanish
jails were commuted to transportation to the New World, and a pardon
was offered to all persons for whom the police were looking--with the
exception of heretics and a few other choice criminals--who should
surrender themselves and volunteer to join the fleet. In this way
the required number of men was gradually obtained. In point of moral
character the expedition might have competed with an equal number
of Malay pirates or New York plumbers. We are even told that some
hardened and habitual musicians were thus carried by Columbus to the
once peaceful and happy island of Hispaniola, taking with them their
accordions and guitars. This is a blot upon the Admiral’s character
which his most ardent admirers cannot overlook.




CHAPTER XV.

HIS THIRD EXPEDITION.


                                                          [Æt. 62; 1498]

The perseverance of Columbus triumphed over all obstacles. The
expedition was finally ready, and on the 30th of May, 1498, the Admiral
went on board the flag-ship and, after remarking “All ashore that’s
goin’!” and “All aboard!” rang the final bell and started once more for
the New World. Just as he was about to embark, one Breviesca, a clerk
in the Indian Agents’ Bureau, met him on the wharf and told Columbus
that he would never return.

“What, never?” exclaimed the astonished Admiral.

“Well, hardly ever,” replied the miscreant.

Of course Columbus instantly knocked him down, and went on board
his vessel in a just but tremendous rage. He wrote to the Queen,
informing her of the affair, and sincerely regretting that he had lost
his temper. Long afterwards his enemies were accustomed to refer to
the brutal way in which he had attacked an estimable and inoffensive
gentleman, as a proof of his ungovernable temper, his Italian fondness
for revenge, and his general unfitness for any post of responsibility.

The fleet steered first for Madeira, and then for the Canary Islands,
touching at both places; and at the latter surprising--as historians
assure us--a French privateer with two Spanish prizes. What there
was about Columbus or his fleet that was so surprising, has, of
course, been left to our imagination, in accordance with the habit of
historians to omit mentioning details of real interest. The Frenchman
was attacked by the Spaniards, but managed to escape together with one
of his prizes. The other prize was retaken by the Spanish prisoners on
board of her, and given up to Columbus, who turned the vessel over to
the local authorities.

From the Canaries the fleet sailed to the Cape Verde Islands, where the
Admiral divided his forces. Three ships he sent direct to Hispaniola,
and with the other three he steered in a south-westerly direction, to
make new discoveries. He soon discovered the hottest region in which he
had ever yet been--the great champion belt of equatorial calms. There
was not a breath of wind, and the very seams of the ships opened with
the intense heat. It was evident to the sailors that they must be very
close to the region where, according to the scientific persons of the
period, the sea was perpetually boiling, and they began to fear that
they would be roasted before the boiling process could begin. Luckily,
a gentle breeze finally sprung up, and Columbus, abandoning the rash
attempt to sail farther south, steered directly west, and soon passed
into a comforting, cool, and pleasant climate.

On the 31st of July he discovered the island of Trinidad, and in view
of the fact that his ships were leaky, his water almost gone, and his
body alternately shaken by fever and twisted by gout, it was high time
that land should have been found.

The following day the flag-ship was suddenly attacked by a canoe full
of fierce natives, who threw spears and other unpleasant things at
the Spaniards, and fought with great bravery. Columbus, determined to
strike terror into the enemy, ordered his musicians to assemble on deck
and play familiar airs--probably from “Pinafore.” The result surpassed
his most sanguine expectations. The unhappy natives fled in wild dismay
as soon as the music began, and yelled with anguish when the first
cornet blew a staccato note, and the man with the bass trombone played
half a tone flat. When we remember that the good Queen Isabella had
particularly ordered Columbus to treat the natives kindly, we must
earnestly hope that this cruel incident never came to her presumably
pretty ears.

The fleet was now off the south shore of Trinidad, and the mainland
was in plain sight farther west. Columbus at first supposed that
the mainland was only another island, and after taking in water he
sailed west, with the intention of sailing beyond it. Passing through
the narrow strait between Trinidad and the continent, he entered the
placid Gulf of Paria, where to his astonishment he found that the
water was fresh. Sailing along the shore, he landed here and there and
made friendly calls on the natives, whom he found to be a pleasant,
light-colored race, with a commendable fondness for exchanging pearls
for bits of broken china and glass beads. No opening could be found
through which to sail farther westward, and Columbus soon came to the
opinion that he had this time reached the continent of Asia.

One thing greatly astonished him. He had been fully convinced that the
nearer he should approach the equator the blacker would be the people
and the hotter the climate. Yet the people of Paria were light-colored,
and the climate was vastly cooler than the scorching regions of the
equatorial calms. Remembering also the remarkable conduct of the stars,
which had materially altered their places since he had left the Cape
Verde Islands, and reflecting upon the unusual force of the currents
which had latterly interfered severely with the progress of the ship,
Columbus proceeded to elaborate a new and attractive geographical
theory. He wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella that, in his opinion, the
world was not exactly round, like a ball or an orange, as he had
hitherto maintained, but that it was shaped like a large yellow pear.
He assumed that the region which he had now reached corresponded to the
long neck of the pear, near the stem, as it appears when the pear is
resting on its larger end. He had consequently sailed up a steep ascent
since leaving Spain, and had by this means reached a cool climate and
found light-colored heathen.

This was a very pretty theory, and one which ought to have satisfied
any reasonable inventor of geographical theories; but Columbus,
warming with his work, proceeded still further to embellish it. He
maintained that the highest point of the earth was situated a short
distance west of the coast of Paria, and that on its apex the Garden
of Eden could be found. He expressed the opinion that the Garden was
substantially in the same condition as when Adam and Eve left it. Of
course a few weeds might have sprung up in the neglected flower-beds,
but Columbus was confident that the original tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, and the conversationally disposed animals, were all
to be found in their accustomed places. As for the angel with the
two-edged sword, who had been doing sentry duty at the gate for several
thousand years, there could be no doubt that should an explorer present
to him a written pass signed by the Pope, the angel would instantly
admit him into the Garden.

Columbus now felt that, whatever failures might seem to characterize
his new exploring expedition, he had forever secured the gratitude
and admiration of the pious Queen. To have almost discovered the
Garden of Eden in a nearly perfect state of repair was certainly more
satisfactory than the discovery of any amount of gold would have been.
Still, he thought it could do no harm to mention in his letter to the
Queen that pearls of enormous value abounded on the coast, and that
the land was fertile, full of excellent trees and desirable fruits,
and populous with parrots of most correct conversational habits, and
monkeys of unusual moral worth and comic genius.

Although Columbus failed to visit the Garden of Eden, either because
he had no pass from the Pope or because he could not spare the time,
it must not be imagined that he did not believe his new and surprising
theory. In those happy days men had a capacity for belief which they
have since totally lost, and Columbus himself was probably capable of
honestly believing even wilder theories than the one which gave to the
earth the shape of a pear and perched the Garden on the top of an
imaginary South American mountain.

As the provisions were getting low, and the Admiral’s fever was getting
high--not to speak of his gout, which manifested a tendency to rise to
his stomach--he resolved to cease exploring for a time, and to sail for
Hispaniola. He arrived there on the 19th of August, after discovering
and naming a quantity of new islands. The currents had drifted him
so far out of his course, that he reached the coast of Hispaniola a
hundred and fifty miles west of Ozima, his port of destination. Sending
an Indian messenger to warn Bartholomew of his approach, he sailed for
Ozima, where he arrived on the 30th of August, looking as worn out and
haggard as if he had been engaged in a prolonged pleasure-trip to the
Fishing Banks.

Don Bartholomew received his brother with the utmost joy, and proceeded
to make him happy by telling him how badly affairs had gone during his
absence. Bartholomew had followed the Admiral’s orders, and had proved
himself a gallant and able commander. He had built a fort and founded
a city at the mouth of the Ozima, which is now known as San Domingo.
Leaving Don Diego Columbus in command of the colony, he had marched
to Xaragua, the western part of the island, and induced the Cacique
Behechio and his sister Anacaona, the widow of Caonabo, to acknowledge
the Spanish rule and to pay tribute. He had also crushed a conspiracy
of the natives, which was due chiefly to the burning of several Indians
at the stake who had committed sacrilege by destroying a chapel. These
were the first Indians who were burnt for religious purposes, and it
is a pity that Father Boyle had not remained in Hispaniola long enough
to witness the ceremony which he had so often vainly urged the Admiral
to permit him to perform. Probably Don Bartholomew was not responsible
for the burning of the savages, for he evidently sympathized with
the revolted natives, and suppressed the conspiracy with hardly any
bloodshed.

                                                  [Æt. 62–64; 1498–1500]

The colonists, both old and new, were of course always discontented,
and cordially disliked the two brothers of the Admiral. The chief judge
of the colony, Francisco Roldan, undertook to overthrow the authority
of the Adelentado, and to make himself the ruler of the island. After
much preliminary rioting and strong language Roldan openly rebelled,
and with his followers besieged Don Bartholomew in Fort Concepcion, in
which he had taken refuge, and from which he did not dare to sally,
not feeling any confidence in his men. Roldan was unable to capture
the fort, but he instigated the natives to throw off Bartholomew’s
authority, and convinced them that he, and not the Adelentado, was
their real friend.

The opportune arrival of the two supply ships, which sailed from Spain
while Columbus was fitting out his third expedition, probably saved the
authority and the life of Don Bartholomew. He immediately left the fort
and, going to San Domingo, took command of the newly arrived troops,
and proclaimed Roldan a traitor, which greatly relieved his mind. The
traitor thereupon marched with his men to Xaragua, where they led a
simple and happy life of vice and immorality. The discord among the
Spaniards induced the natives to make another attempt to gain their
liberty, but the Adelentado, in a brilliant campaign, once more reduced
them to subjection. Two native insurrections, a Spanish rebellion, and
unusual discontent were thus the chief features of the pleasant story
with which Columbus was welcomed to Hispaniola.

Before he could take any active measures against Roldan, except to
issue a proclamation expressly confirming Don Bartholomew’s assertion
that he was a traitor, the three ships which he had sent direct to
Hispaniola when he divided his fleet at the Cape Verde Islands, arrived
off the coast of Xaragua, and perceiving Spaniards on the shore,
imagined that they were respectable colonists. Roldan fostered that
delusion until he had obtained arms and supplies, when he admitted
that from the holiest motives he had rebelled against the tyranny of
the Adelentado.

The men of the fleet, learning that Roldan’s followers were a set of
reckless scoundrels, were inclined to think that perhaps transportation
was not such a terrible affair after all, and began to desert with
great alacrity, and to join the rebels. The ships therefore put to sea,
and their commander, on arriving at San Domingo, informed Columbus that
Roldan would probably surrender if it was made an object to him to do
so.

The Admiral was anxious to march on Xaragua, capture Roldan, and make
an example of him; but his unpopularity and that of his brothers was
so great that he did not dare to risk leaving San Domingo, lest it
should rebel as soon as his back was turned. In order to rid himself
of some of the malcontents, he fitted out five vessels, and offered
a free passage to Spain to every one who wished to return. The ships
sailed, carrying letters from both Columbus and Roldan, in which each
described the other in uncomplimentary terms.

Columbus would now have marched against Roldan, but he could not find
more than seventy men who felt well enough to march with him. The rest
said they had headaches, or had sprained their ankles, and really
must be excused. There was nothing left to do but to negotiate with
the rebel leader, and compromise matters. Columbus began by offering
a free pardon to Roldan if he would immediately surrender. Roldan,
in his turn, offered to pardon Columbus if he would agree to certain
conditions. These negotiations were continued for a long time, and
after various failures the Admiral succeeded in obtaining a compromise.
He agreed to reappoint Roldan Chief Judge of the colony; to grant him
a certificate that all the charges which had been made against him
were malicious lies; to give him and his followers back pay, slaves,
and compensation for their property which had been destroyed; to send
back to Spain such of the rebels as might wish to return, and to give
the remainder large grants of land. On these conditions Roldan agreed
to overlook what had passed and to rejoin the colony. This successful
compromise served years afterwards as a model for Northern Americans
when dealing with their dissatisfied brethren, and entitles Columbus to
the honor of being the first great American compromiser.

Having thus settled the dispute, the Admiral wrote to Spain, explaining
that the conditions to which he had agreed had been extorted by force
and were therefore not binding, and that on Roldan’s massive cheek
deserved to be branded the legend _Fraud first triumphant in American
History_. He asked that a commissioner should be sent out to arrest
and punish the rebel chief, and to take the place of Chief Judge now
fraudulently held by Roldan.

There is of course no doubt that Columbus would have hung Roldan with
great pleasure had he been able to do so. He was compelled by force of
circumstances to yield to all the rebel’s demands, but nevertheless
it was hardly fair for him to claim that his acts and promises were
not binding. Still, it should be remembered that he was suffering from
malarial fever, and it is notorious that even the best of men will tell
lies without remorse if they live in a malarious region and have houses
for sale or to let.

The Admiral, having thus restored order, was about to return to Spain
to explain more fully his conduct and that of Don Bartholomew, when
he heard that four ships commanded by Alonzo de Ojeda had arrived at
Xaragua. He immediately suspected that something was wrong, and that in
Ojeda he would have a new and utterly unscrupulous enemy to deal with.
Foreseeing that an emergency was about to occur in which a skilful
scoundrel might be of great assistance to him, he gave Roldan the
command of two ships, and sent him to ascertain what Ojeda intended to
do. The wily Roldan anchored just out of sight of Ojeda’s fleet, while
the latter, with fifteen men only, was on shore. Landing with a strong
force, and placing himself between Ojeda and his ships, he waited for
the latter to meet him and explain matters.

Ojeda soon appeared, and was delighted to see a gentleman of whom he
had heard such favorable reports. He said he was on his way to San
Domingo, and had merely landed for supplies. He had been authorized to
make discoveries by Fonseca, the Secretary of Indian Affairs, and his
expedition had been fitted out with the assistance of Amerigo Vespucci
and other enterprising merchants. He had been cruising in the Gulf of
Paria, and had his ships loaded with slaves. As soon as he could he
intended to visit Columbus, who, he regretted to say, was probably
the most unpopular man in Spain, and would soon be removed from his
command. Roldan returned to San Domingo with this information, and both
he and the Admiral agreed that they did not believe anything that
Ojeda had said.

Meanwhile Ojeda, having met with many of Roldan’s former adherents,
who still lingered in Xaragua, was informed by them that Columbus had
not given them their back pay. Ojeda said that such injustice made
his blood boil, and that if they would join him he would march to San
Domingo and put an end to the base Italian tyrant. The new rebellion
was prevented by the arrival of Roldan with a respectable array of
troops, and Ojeda promptly went on board his flag-ship. Roldan wrote
to him asking for an interview, and reminding him that rebellion was a
crime which every good man ought to abhor. Ojeda, replied that such was
precisely his opinion, and he must refuse to have anything to do with a
man who had lately been a rebel.

Soon afterward Ojeda sailed away in a northerly direction, keeping
near the shore, and Roldan marched along the coast to intercept him
in case he should land. Arriving at a place called by the natives
Cahay, Ojeda sent a boat ashore, which was captured by Roldan, and in
order to regain it he was finally forced to consent to parley with his
antagonist. The result was that Ojeda promised to sail immediately
for Spain. Having made this promise he naturally landed soon after on
another part of the island, but being followed by Roldan he finally
abandoned Hispaniola and sailed for Cadiz with his cargo of slaves.

The Admiral was greatly pleased at this signal illustration of the
wisdom of the proverb about setting a rogue to catch a rogue, and
writing Roldan a complimentary letter, requested him to remain for a
little while in Xaragua.

While Ojeda’s ships were at Xaragua, Columbus had passed sentence of
banishment on Hernando de Guevara, a dissolute young Spaniard, and sent
him to embark on board one of Ojeda’s vessels. He arrived at Xaragua
after the ships had left, and Roldan ordered him to go into banishment
at Cahay. Guevara, however, had fallen in love with an Indian maid, the
daughter of Anacaona, and wanted to remain in Xaragua and marry her.
Roldan would not listen to him, and the unhappy youth went to Cahay,
where he stayed three days and then returned. There was a spirited
quarrel between him and Roldan, and the latter finally yielded and
allowed Guevara to remain.

The grateful young man immediately conspired against Roldan and the
Admiral. He had a cousin, De Mexica, a former associate of Roldan’s in
rebellion, who immediately took up the cause of the exile. De Mexica
soon convinced his ex-rebel friends that the spectacle of Roldan, as
an upright, law-abiding man, was simply revolting, and that he and
Columbus ought to be killed. He had gathered a small force together,
when he and his chief associates were suddenly surprised by the
Admiral, arrested, tried, and hanged before they had time to realize
that anything was the matter.

Don Bartholomew was dispatched to Xaragua to aid Roldan, and the two,
after arresting Guevara, stamped out the new rebellion with remorseless
energy. This time there was no compromise, and a suspicion began to
prevail that rebellion was not so safe and profitable an industry as it
had been hitherto.




CHAPTER XVI.

HIS RETURN IN DISGRACE.


                                                          [Æt. 64; 1500]

On the 23d of August, 1500, two ships arrived at San Domingo, commanded
by Don Francisco de Bobadilla, who had been sent out by the Spanish
monarchs as a commissioner to investigate the state of the colony. The
enemies of Columbus had at last succeeded in prejudicing Ferdinand and
Isabella against him. Ojeda, the returned colonists, Roldan’s rebels,
and the letters of Roldan himself, all agreed in representing the
Admiral as a new kind of fiend, with Italian improvements, for whom no
punishment could be sufficiently severe.

Ferdinand calculated the total amount of gold which Columbus had either
carried or sent to Spain, and, finding it smaller than he had expected,
could no longer conceal his conviction that Columbus was a cruel,
tyrannical, and wicked man. Isabella had hitherto believed in the
Admiral, and had steadily stood by him while under fire, but in face
of the evidence which had latterly been submitted to her, and in view
of the cargo of slaves that had been sent from Hispaniola to Spain in
spite of her orders, she was compelled to admit that an investigation
should be made, and sanctioned the appointment of Bobadilla, with the
understanding that he would let no guilty man escape.

The average historian is always very indignant with the monarchs for
sending Bobadilla to San Domingo, and regards that act as a wanton
persecution of a great and good man. But the cold and sceptical
inquirer will ask how it happened that every person who came under the
Admiral’s authority, with the exception of his two brothers, invariably
made complaints against him. It is true that the majority of the
colonists were men whose word was unworthy of credit, but had Columbus
been a just and able ruler, surely some one outside of his own family
would have spoken favorably of him. We need not suppose that he was
responsible for the chills and fever which harassed the colonists, or
that he originated all the hurricanes and earthquakes that visited the
island; but there is sufficient reason to believe that he was not well
fitted to win the obedience or respect of the colonists, and in the
circumstances we may restrain our indignation at the appointment of the
investigating commissioner.

Ferdinand and Isabella evidently had confidence in the judgment and
integrity of Bobadilla, for they gave him three or four different
commissions, with authority to use any or all of them, as he might see
fit. As the event proved, he was unworthy of this confidence; but it
would not be fair to accuse the monarchs of deliberate cruelty because
they overrated their commissioner’s intelligence.

Bobadilla arrived at San Domingo just after the suppression of Mexica’s
rebellion, and while Columbus was still absent at Fort Concepcion. As
he entered the river he saw two gibbets decorated with rebel corpses,
and the sight was not adapted to remove the impression, which he
undoubtedly had, that Columbus was cruel and tyrannical.

His first act was to publish a proclamation that he had come to redress
grievances, and that every one in San Domingo who had any cause of
complaint against Columbus or his brothers should at once speak out,
or ever after hold his peace. The entire population, with the solitary
exception of those who were locked up in jail, at once hastened to
Bobadilla and told their grievances.

The commissioner, appalled at the flood of accusation which he had
set loose, strengthened his mind by attending mass, and then caused
his commission appointing him to inquire into the late rebellion to
be read. This having been done, he demanded that Don Diego Columbus,
who was in command of San Domingo, should surrender to him Guevara
and the other rebel prisoners. Don Diego said that he held the
prisoners subject to the Admiral’s order, and must therefore decline to
surrender them. Bobadilla next produced a second commission appointing
him Governor of the New World, and remarked that perhaps Don Diego
would now condescend to give up the prisoners. Don Diego conceded
that the commission was a very pretty one, especially in point of
seals and ribands, but maintained that his brother had a better one,
and that, on the whole, he must decline to recognize Bobadilla as
Governor. Exasperated by this obstinacy, Bobadilla now produced a third
commission, ordering the Admiral and his brothers to surrender all
the forts, public buildings, and public property to him, and forcibly
argued that since Guevara was in a fort, the surrender of the fort
would include the surrender of Guevara, in accordance with the axiom
that the greater includes the less. Don Diego calmly insisted that
this was not a case in which mathematics were concerned, and that he
proposed to obey the Admiral’s orders, no matter if Bobadilla should
keep on producing new commissions at the rate of sixty a minute for the
rest of his natural life.

Bobadilla, finding that Don Diego’s obstinacy was proof against
everything, went to the fort and called on the commander to give up his
prisoners, and when the commander refused, broke into the fort, at the
head of the delighted colonists, and seized on Guevara and his rebel
companions. He then took possession of all the property and private
papers belonging to the Admiral, and, moving into his house, proceeded
to assume the duties of Governor and investigator.

Columbus, when he heard of these proceedings, was somewhat astonished,
and remarked to his friends that he feared this Bobadilla was a little
rash and impolitic. He wrote to him, welcoming him to the island, and
suggesting that it would be well if he were to draw it mild--or words
to that effect. In reply, Bobadilla sent him an order to appear before
him at once, and enclosed a letter from the sovereigns, ordering
Columbus to obey the combined Governor and Commissioner in all things.
Being wholly without means of resistance, Columbus perceived that
magnanimity was what posterity would expect of him, and therefore
immediately went to San Domingo and presented himself before Bobadilla.

                                                          [Æt. 64; 1500]

That amiable and delicate person received the Admiral as if he were
an Italian brigand for whom a reward of $25,000 had been offered,
and ordered him and his brother, Don Diego, to be put in irons. As
a striking instance of the irony of fate, it may be mentioned that
the man who placed the irons on Columbus was his former cook, whose
self-respect had often been wounded when his master complained that the
maccaroni was burned or that the roast pork was insufficiently cooked.
Now the cook had his revenge, and we can imagine with what zest he
remarked, after the fetters were riveted, that he hoped that for once
the Admiral would admit that the job was well done, and would notice
the rare pleasure with which his ex-cook had performed it, whatever
might have been that humble but honest individual’s previous sins in
respect to pork and maccaroni. Undoubtedly he said something of the
kind, for a man who could put chains on Columbus was surely bad enough
to make puns without shame or remorse. At the command of Bobadilla,
Columbus wrote to Don Bartholomew, who was in Xaragua, inviting him
to come and share the fetters of his illustrious brother and the
well-meaning Don Diego--which the Adelentado accordingly did.

Having the entire Columbus family thus safely in his power, Bobadilla
proceeded to take testimony against them, with all the enthusiasm of
a partisan Senate committee preparing material for a Presidential
campaign. There was no lack of testimony. The colonists made affidavits
with a wealth of imagination and fervency of zeal which a professional
detective employed to furnish evidence in an Indiana divorce case
might emulate but could not surpass. Columbus was accused of nearly
all modern and ancient crimes, from stealing pearls and gold-dust up
to the crowning infamy of requiring Spanish gentlemen to work. It was
conclusively shown that he was the worst man then living, with the
possible exception of the Adelentado, and that Guevara and the other
rebels were patent, direct-acting saints, who deserved every possible
honor. Having made up an effective campaign document from this mass of
brilliant testimony, Bobadilla sent it, together with Columbus and his
two brothers, to Spain.

Don Alonzo de Villejo, who commanded the vessel on board of which was
the fallen Admiral, was a gallant sailor, and, as soon as the ship was
safely out of the harbor, said, in the strongest seafaring language,
that he would consent to the immediate condemnation of his personal
eyes if the Admiral should wear those doubly condemned chains another
moment. But Columbus courteously and firmly refused to be liberated.
He said the chains had been put on him by order of the King and
Queen, and that the King and Queen would have to take them off, or
he would wear them to his dying day, and serve them right. This was
a stout-hearted resolution, but, perhaps just to gratify Villejo,
Columbus consented now and then to slip one wrist out of his fetters,
which he must have found very inconvenient when he was engaged in
writing letters.

The voyage was uneventful, and in the early part of October the ship
reached Cadiz and Columbus was delivered to the local authorities.
The moment it was known that he had been brought home in irons he
became immensely popular, as indeed the man who made so unexpected and
brilliant a sensation deserved to be. Everybody said it was an outrage,
and that Bobadilla was clearly the beast spoken of in the Apocalypse.

Columbus did not venture to write to the Queen, but he wrote a long
and eloquent account of his bad treatment to one of the ladies of
the court, who he knew would instantly read it to Isabella. That
estimable sovereign was greatly shocked, and Ferdinand felt that, as
a prudent husband, he must share his wife’s indignation. The royal
pair immediately wrote a letter expressing the warmest sympathy for
Columbus, inviting him to court, and enclosing a check for nearly
$8500 to pay his travelling expenses and enable him to buy a few clean
collars and other necessaries.

                                                     [Æt. 64–66; 1500–2]

The Admiral, taking off his chains and putting them in his trunk
as souvenirs of royal favor, went to Granada, where the court was
then held, and being admitted to the royal presence fell at the feet
of Isabella, which he appears to have carefully distinguished from
Ferdinand’s feet, and burst into tears. The monarchs personally raised
him up, in spite of his weight, and Isabella told him it was a perfect
shame, and that Bobadilla’s conduct was quite too awfully horrid.
Ferdinand behaved very properly, and agreed with Isabella that all
the rights and honors of Columbus should be restored to him, and that
he could feel perfectly easy as to the future. Bobadilla’s elaborate
campaign document was tossed aside with as little attention as if it
had been a Patent Office Report, and his attempt to fire the royal
Spanish heart was a complete failure.

Columbus now expected that he would be directed to return immediately
to San Domingo, and to send Bobadilla home in disgrace; but the
monarchs delayed to issue the desired orders. Ferdinand had evidently
made up his mind to do nothing of the sort. He considered himself a
deeply injured king. In the confident expectation that Columbus would
be drowned, he had consented to grant him unprecedented honors and
privileges, in the improbable contingency of the discovery of a new
road to Asia or a new continent. Columbus had meanly taken advantage
of this to discover a continent and innumerable islands, and had, as
Ferdinand felt, cheated him out of a splendid title and a handsome
revenue. Now that Columbus had temporarily lost these ill-gotten
advantages, Ferdinand did not think it necessary to restore them. He
therefore informed the Admiral that it would be best for him to remain
in Spain for, say, ten years, until things could be made pleasant for
him in Hispaniola. In the mean time Don Nicholas de Ovando would be
sent out to supersede Bobadilla and to ascertain what damages Columbus
and his brothers had sustained, so that full payment could be made.
He assured the Admiral that everything should be arranged to his
satisfaction, and that he should lose nothing by remaining in Spain.

                                                     [Æt. 64–66; 1500–2]

There is no reason to suppose that Columbus was deceived by the King’s
attenuated explanation, but he could not well find fault with it.
De Ovando sailed for San Domingo with a fleet of thirty vessels and
twenty-five hundred men. Columbus took lodgings in Granada, and to
employ his time resolved to attend to the little matter of recovering
the Holy Sepulchre, a duty which he had long neglected and had
recently bequeathed to his son. He drew up a long memorial, urging the
King and Queen to organize a new crusade for the capture of Jerusalem.
He demonstrated to his own satisfaction that he had been born in order
to discover a new world and to redeem the Holy Sepulchre. He had
fulfilled the first of these duties, and was now ready for the second.
All that he required was an army and a sufficient supply of money.

Ferdinand did not embrace the suggestion with much enthusiasm. He said
he would see about it, and hinted that as crusading was an expensive
business, it might be well to ascertain whether the Sultan would be
willing to look at the matter from a business point of view and make
some arrangement in regard to the Holy Sepulchre which would settle the
matter in an amicable and inexpensive way.

                                                       [Æt. 64–66; 1502]

The crusading scheme being a failure, the Admiral devised a new plan of
exploration. He wrote another memorial, setting forth the advantages
of discovering the Panama Canal. He admitted that either China had
been moved, or else it lay farther west of Spain than he had at first
supposed. At any rate, it had become clear to his mind that there was a
continent which blocked up the direct route to China, and that the only
way to get through this obstacle was to discover a canal _à niveau_,
cutting the Isthmus of Panama. He had not the least doubt that the
canal was there, and that he could find it with perfect ease were he to
be supplied with ships and men, and were a proper reward to be offered
for its discovery. Now that he had time for reflection, he was inclined
to think the market had latterly been overstocked with new countries--a
result which he had feared when the sovereigns so injudiciously--if he
might be allowed the expression--gave to everybody the privilege of
exploration. In regard to the Panama Canal, however, he was confident
that it would meet a great public want, and that its discovery would
be warmly applauded by everybody, with the possible exception of the
inhabitants of Bohemia, who, although they had no commerce, might
insist that the canal should not be discovered unless the discoverer
would agree to present it to them.

The plan pleased Ferdinand and Isabella. A fleet of four ships was
ordered to be made ready, and Columbus was authorized to take with him
his brother Don Bartholomew and his personal son, Diego. The monarchs
also wrote Columbus a letter, in which they said many pleasant and
inexpensive things, and promised him the restoration of all his rights.
He was now so enfeebled by age and hardship that it seemed safe to
promise him anything, provided the promises were not to be fulfilled
until after his return from his intended voyage.




CHAPTER XVII.

HIS FOURTH EXPEDITION.


                                                          [Æt. 66; 1502]

On the 9th of May, 1502, Columbus once more sailed from Cadiz. The
passage across the Atlantic was in no way remarkable. The fleet touched
as usual at the Canaries, and on the 15th of June arrived at one of
the smaller Caribbean islands. Columbus had been strictly forbidden
to touch at San Domingo, because it was feared that he would get into
trouble with the local authorities, and would then come back to Spain
to defend himself against false accusations. However, as one of his
ships was unseaworthy, he convinced himself that it was a matter of
necessity and mercy for him to go to San Domingo and obtain a better
vessel.

He arrived in due time at the forbidden port, but Ovando refused
to permit him to land, and ordered him to put to sea immediately.
Columbus then informed Ovando that a hurricane was approaching, and
begged permission to lie at anchor in the shelter of the harbor until
fair weather should appear; but his petition was refused. Ovando said
there was not the least sign of an approaching hurricane, and that he
was a bird far too advanced in years to be caught by the Admiral’s
meteorological chaff.

There was at the time a large fleet of vessels lying in the harbor,
and on the point of sailing for Spain. On board of the fleet were
Roldan, Bobadilla, many discontented colonists, and a large quantity
of gold. Now Columbus, who was learned in weather, was in earnest when
he prophesied a hurricane, and he felt sad in view of the danger which
threatened the gold on board the fleet in case the ships should put to
sea before the hurricane arrived. He warned Ovando not to let the fleet
depart, but Ovando and everybody else laughed to scorn “Old Italian
Probabilities,” and mocked at his areas of barometrical depression and
approaching storm-centres.

Columbus sailed away and sought shelter under the lee of the island,
and the fleet with Bobadilla and the gold put to sea. Two days later
a hurricane that the New York _Herald_ would have been proud to
launch against the shores of Great Britain wrecked the fleet, drowned
Bobadilla and Roldan, and sunk the gold to the bottom of the sea. A few
vessels managed to work their way back to San Domingo, but only one
reached Spain. The fortunate vessel had on board a quantity of gold
belonging to Columbus, and in his opinion this fact was all that saved
her.

The Admiral’s vessels rode out the storm safely, though they were much
damaged, and, after it was over, put into Port Hermoso to refit. Having
patched up the vessels, Columbus set sail for the Panama Canal, and
after a voyage of about six weeks he reached a group of small islands
on the coast of Honduras. Here he met a large canoe filled with the
ablest natives he had yet seen. They had hatchets and other tools made
of copper, and were dressed in cotton garments woven by themselves.
They were probably from Yucatan, for they claimed to belong to a
civilized country situated farther west and possessing magnificent
cities. The Admiral said he was not looking for cities as much as he
had been, that he was on his way to India, and that he had no time to
go to Yucatan. Thus he lost the chance of discovering the curious and
fantastic Maya and Aztec civilization which Cortez afterward found and
destroyed.

There was little in the early part of the Admiral’s voyage along the
Central American coast which deserves especial notice. He coasted
Honduras and Costa Rica, finding an oppressive sameness of savages
and bad weather. The savages were peaceful, but the weather was not.
It rarely condescended to indulge in anything less violent than a
hurricane, and always blew from precisely the direction in which the
Spaniards wished to steer. The Costa Rican savages told Columbus that
the Ganges was a few days’ journey farther west, and that vessels
carrying cannons frequently came to the large city of Ciguari, which
was still nearer than the Ganges.

                                                          [Æt. 66; 1503]

This was, on the whole, the most able and satisfactory aboriginal
lie which had yet been told to Columbus, and it made him confident
that he would arrive in India in a few days. Lest the savages should
receive too much credit for inventive genius, it should be mentioned
that they must have been greatly assisted by leading questions put
by the Spaniards, otherwise they could not have hit upon the name of
the Ganges. The mention of the ships armed with cannon which came
to the mythical city of Ciguari was, however, a master-stroke for
which the natives are entitled to full credit. Travellers who have
visited Central America in our day would perhaps find it easier to
understand the habits and customs of the people, were it generally
known that their remote Indian ancestors were likewise men of brilliant
imagination and utter fearlessness of assertion.

Leaving these mendacious but encouraging savages, Columbus came to
Veragua, a country lying farther south and really abounding in gold.
But now that he had finally reached a place where gold was abundant,
the precious metal for which Columbus had searched so long and eagerly
seemed to have lost its charm. He was too anxious to reach the Ganges
to be willing to stop for anything; so, after laying in a few gold
plates, he stood on his southward course.

The ships and the Admiral were by this time greatly in want of repairs.
Columbus was suffering from gout, fever, and old age, while the
ships, in addition to the latter complaint, were leaky and covered
with barnacles. The crews began to grumble loudly, and on the 5th
of December, Columbus having failed to find the Ganges, the city of
Ciguari, or the Panama Ship-Canal, thought it best to yield to the
force of public opinion before it should express itself with handspikes
and knives. He therefore consented to abandon his search and turn
back to Veragua, where he hoped to be able to collect enough gold
to convince Ferdinand and Isabella of his wisdom in postponing his
intended geographical discoveries.

No sooner had the ships turned and stood to the northward, than the
wind, with a vicious display of ill-temper, shifted and became once
more a head-wind. It blew if anything harder from its new quarter than
it had blown before, and it was not until early in January that the
fleet reached Veragua and anchored in the river Belen.

                                                          [Æt. 67; 1503]

The sailors were glad to go ashore; for, though there was nothing to
drink, there was gold to be got, and while on shore they were rid of
the task of sailing clumsy and leaking ships. The Admiral, in his
feeble health, was greatly in need of rest, and he was not aware that
he had found precisely the worst locality in the Western Hemisphere
for fever and mosquitoes. The Adelentado was sent with a large force
to explore the surrounding country, from which he returned with the
report that the natives had a great deal of gold in their possession.
Of course the Spanish soldiers merely looked at this gold, and
complimented the natives on their possession of so valuable an article;
we need not suppose they were so wicked as to steal it, and thus
convert the friendly Costa Ricans into enemies.

Being satisfied with the Adelentado’s report, Columbus decided to leave
most of his men to found a colony on the banks of the Belen, while he
should return to Spain for supplies.

The natives had hitherto been peaceable; but when they saw the
Spaniards building houses on their land, they felt that it was time
to take proceedings for dispossession. Columbus received information
that the local cacique, Quibian, was collecting an army to attack the
colony, and he sent Diego Mendez to investigate the matter.

Quibian’s village was on the river Veragua, not far from the Belen, and
Mendez soon found his way thither. He was told that the cacique was
confined to his house with a wounded leg. Mendez immediately said that
he was a doctor, and would repair the leg; but Quibian’s son said, Oh
no, he rather thought Mendez would not repair that particular leg just
then. As the savage followed up this remark by hitting Mendez over the
head, the latter admitted that perhaps he was mistaken, and hurriedly
remembered that he had an engagement which would require his immediate
return to the colony.

There was now no doubt that Quibian intended to fight, and the
Adelentado, remarking that a cacique in the hand was better than
several in the bush, proposed to go in person and capture Quibian.
Taking seventy-four men with him, Don Bartholomew managed to obtain an
interview with the cacique, whom he instantly seized and bound. The
natives offered no resistance, and the Adelentado, gathering up the
wives and children of Quibian, prepared to return.

The cacique was laid in the bottom of a boat, and pretended to suffer
so much pain that the officer in charge of the boat loosened his bonds.
Quibian thereupon jumped overboard and, as it was now night, escaped
safely to land; while the Spaniards believed that he had been drowned.

The danger of an attack by the savages being thus, in the opinion of
the Admiral, at an end, he prepared to depart for Spain. The water
on the bar at the mouth of the river was so low that the ships could
not pass over it without being lightened. Their stores were therefore
disembarked, and after getting into deep water the ships were anchored
and the stores were brought back to them in boats.

When the fleet was nearly ready to sail, Columbus sent Diego Tristan
and eleven men ashore to obtain water. As they neared the settlement,
they saw a horde of savages rush out of the jungle and attack the
colonists. The savages were led by Quibian, who, being a heathen
and a barbarian, imagined that he had more right to his wives and
children than the Spaniards had. Tristan was an excellent old sailor,
who held that it was the first duty of man to obey orders. He had been
sent for water and not for blood, and accordingly he never thought of
interfering in the fight, but rowed steadily up the river in search of
fresh water. The Spaniards fought bravely, and repulsed the attack of
the natives; but the latter, instead of appreciating Tristan’s fidelity
to duty, fell upon him and killed him and his whole party, with the
exception of one man, who fled to the settlement with his sanguinary
story.

The Spaniards were now convinced that they had no more use for Central
America, and rushed to the ship that lay in the river, determined to
return to Spain with the Admiral. The ship, however, could not be got
over the bar, and the terrified colonists consented to listen to the
Adelentado’s advice, and to attempt to fortify the settlement. They
went on shore again, and threw up barricades--which, as every one knows
who is familiar with French politics, consist of boxes, paving-stones,
omnibuses, news-stands, and other heterogeneous articles piled together.

The barricades were better than nothing as defensive works, but they
were miserably weak. Eleven Spaniards had been killed and several
more wounded, including Don Bartholomew, and as the savages vastly
outnumbered them, the prospect that any of the colonists would escape
was extremely small.

Columbus could not understand why Tristan did not return. He knew that
Tristan was a faithful and obedient man, and that there was no rum to
be had at the settlement, so that he finally began to fear that the
natives had been acting in a disorderly way. This fear was increased
by the conduct of Quibian’s wives and children, who were on board one
of the vessels. During the night after Tristan’s departure these hasty
and ill-bred prisoners began to commit suicide by hanging themselves
or by jumping overboard, and continued this recreation so persistently
that by morning not one of them was left. If women and children could
do such an uncivil thing as this, it was only too probable that the men
of the same race were capable of creating riot and bloodshed ashore.

There was only one available small boat at the command of the Admiral,
and the sea on the bar was so heavy when the disappearance of the
Quibian family was discovered that Columbus did not dare to send the
boat ashore. Fortunately, one of the pilots, Pedro Ledesma, offered
to swim ashore if the boat would carry him part of the way. His offer
was of course accepted, and when the boat was a short distance from
the shore Ledesma sprang overboard and successfully swam through the
boiling surf. He returned in a short time, bringing the news that the
colonists were in immediate danger of being massacred.

Unless the sea should go down, Columbus could give no assistance to the
men on shore, and there was no prospect that the sea would go down.

Most men in the position of the Admiral would have been at a loss
what to do, but Columbus was a man of uncommon resources. He promptly
had a vision. A voice spoke to him in the best Scriptural style, and
assured him that everything was all right; that the colonists would
be saved, and that no one need feel any uneasiness. It is probable
that this was the voice of a sainted and remote ancestor of the late
William H. Seward, and it filled the Admiral with confidence--which
confidence it is possible was shared by the sailors when the story of
the vision was told to them. The voice proved to be a veracious one,
for the next morning there was a dead calm, and the colonists, with all
their portable property, were safely rafted on board the ships, which
immediately set sail for San Domingo in order to refit.

It was now the end of April, but the weather declined to improve.
Probably Columbus, like a skilful commander, made his men draw lots
with a view to pilgrimages, and encouraged them to vow to attend church
in their shirts; but there is no mention of these manœuvres in the
Admiral’s log. The ships were nearly eaten up by the teredo and could
with difficulty be kept afloat. One was abandoned, and the crew taken
on board the other two. These reached the islands lying south of Cuba
which Columbus had discovered on his second voyage, where they were
detained nearly a week by violent storms. When the voyage was resumed
the head-winds promptly resumed also, and finally, with his ships
leaking like sieves out of repair, and his provisions nearly exhausted,
Columbus bore up for Jamaica, which he reached on the 23d of June. The
next day he entered the harbor of Port Santa Gloria, where his decrepit
vessels were run ashore to keep them from sinking, and were firmly
lashed together.




CHAPTER XVIII.

HIS LAST YEARS.


                                                          [Æt. 67; 1503]

The ships were now hopeless wrecks, and there was nothing more to be
done with them except to abandon them to the underwriters and claim a
total loss. The only chance that the Spaniards could avoid laying their
bones in the bake-ovens of the Jamaican natives was in communicating
with San Domingo, but in the absence of any efficient postal service
this chance seemed very small. Diego Mendez, who was the captain of
one of the vessels, and who had earned the confidence of Columbus by
the skill with which he superintended the escape of the beleaguered
colonists from Quibian’s hordes, volunteered to take a canoe and, with
the help of Indian paddlers, make his way across the one hundred and
twenty miles of sea which stretched between Jamaica and Hispaniola.
He started on his voyage, and skirted the shore of Jamaica, so that he
could land from time to time and take in provisions.

It struck the natives that they might as well improve the opportunity
to lay in provisions for themselves, and accordingly they attacked
Mendez with great energy and appetite, and made him and his Indian
paddlers prisoners. There being in all seven prisoners, a dispute arose
as to the fairest way of dividing them, and the savages agreed to
settle it by a game of chance--which was probably “seven-up.” Mendez
took advantage of the quarrelling to which the game gave rise, and ran
away. At the end of a fortnight he appeared before the Admiral and
announced that all was lost except honor and his canoe.

The bold Mendez was not disheartened, but volunteered to make a
second attempt. This time he was joined by Fresco, the captain of the
other wreck, together with twelve Spaniards and twenty Indians. The
expedition started in two large canoes, and the Adelentado, with an
armed force, marched along the shore as far as the extreme eastern
point of the island to protect the canoes from any attack by the
natives. Mendez and his companions suffered terribly from exposure and
thirst, and many of the Indian paddlers died--a fact which shows either
that the Spaniards could endure thirst better than the Indians, or that
the latter had less water to drink than the former.

The expedition finally reached Hispaniola, having formed a very low
opinion of canoeing as an athletic sport. According to the original
plan, Mendez was to induce Ovando to send a ship to Columbus, and
Fresco was to return with the news that Mendez was at San Domingo,
hard at work inducing the Governor to send the ship; but as the
surviving Indian paddlers said they were satiated with paddling and
did not intend to return to Jamaica, Fresco was compelled to remain in
Hispaniola.

Ovando, hearing that Columbus was in Jamaica, thought he had better
stay there, and instead of sending a vessel to his relief, constantly
promised to do so at the earliest possible moment, and constantly took
good care that no such moment should arrive.

Meanwhile the shipwrecked men were becoming very discontented. When a
man has nothing to do but to think of what he is to have for dinner,
and then never has it, he is reasonably sure to exhibit a fretful
spirit. This was the condition of the Spaniards at Port Santa Gloria.
They were living on board the wrecked vessels because they did not care
to tempt the appetites of the natives by living on shore; and as the
Admiral was confined to his cabin with the gout, and could not overhear
them, they naturally relieved their minds by constantly abusing him,
one to another.

Francesco de Porras, who had been a captain of one of the ships--and
it really seems as if there were as many captains in proportion to the
size of the fleet as there are in the United States navy--thought this
was a favorable time for mutiny, and accordingly proceeded to mutiny.
He reminded the men that Columbus was unpopular in Spain, and was
forbidden to land in San Domingo. This being true, why should he ever
leave Jamaica, where he had nothing to do except to lie in his cabin
and enjoy the pleasures of gout? He insisted that Mendez and Fresco
would never return, and that they were either drowned or had gone to
Spain. In short, by lucid arguments such as these he convinced the
crews that Columbus intended to keep them in Jamaica for the rest of
their lives.

Having thus induced the crews to mutiny, Porras went into the Admiral’s
state-room and demanded that he should instantly lead the Spaniards
back to Spain. Columbus took the ground that this was an unreasonable
demand, since an ocean voyage could not be successfully made without
vessels; but Porras, disgusted with such heartless quibbling, rushed
on deck and called on his followers to embark in canoes and start
for Cadiz without a moment’s delay. His proposal was enthusiastically
received, and a tumult ensued which brought the crippled Admiral
on deck on his hands and knees, in the vain hope of enforcing his
authority.

It was hardly to be expected that in such an attitude he could strike
the mutinous sailors with awe. Indeed, the probability that they would
strike him instead was so great that the Adelentado had his brother
carried back to the cabin, and there stood on guard over him as coolly
as if he were not at the mercy of an armed mob.

The mutineers, to the number of fifty, seized on a fleet of canoes
and started for Spain by way of San Domingo. Twice they were driven
back, and the second time they gave up the attempt. They then wandered
through the island, robbing the natives and alleging that they were
very sorry to do so, but they were acting under express orders from
Columbus, and that, as disinterested friends of the noble Jamaicans,
their advice was that the Admiral should be killed without delay.

Weeks and months passed by, and no word came from Mendez and Fresco.
The natives, finding the Spaniards at their mercy, made a corner in
provisions and refused to sell except at an exorbitant price. Thus
famine began to threaten the unfortunate explorers. It was then that
Columbus performed his celebrated eclipse feat. He summoned the
caciques, and told them that in view of the enormity of their conduct
it had been decided to withdraw the moon from heaven, and that this
purpose would be carried out at the end of three days. The Admiral had,
of course, looked into his Public Ledger Almanac, and had noticed that
a total eclipse of the moon, visible throughout the Gulf States and the
West Indies, would take place on the night in question.

When the third night came, and the eclipse began, the Indians were
terribly frightened, and begged the Admiral to forgive them and give
them back their beloved moon. At first he refused to listen to them,
but when the eclipse reached its period of greatest obscuration he
relented, and informed them that, for the sake of the young men and
young women of Jamaica, to whom the moon was almost indispensable,
he would give them one more chance. The natives, overwhelmed with
gratitude, and determined not to lose the moon if they could help it,
brought all the provisions that the Spaniards wanted.

This was the first instance of turning American celestial phenomena to
practical uses; but the example of Columbus has since been followed
with great success by our scientific men, who induce the government
to send them at vast expense to all parts of the world, under the
plausible pretext of superintending total eclipses and transits of
Venus.

Mendez had been gone eight months when a small vessel entered the
harbor where the shipwrecked vessels were lying. It carried Don Diego
de Escobar, bearer of despatches from Ovando to Columbus. Ovando wrote
promising to send a ship to rescue Columbus and his companions as soon
as he could find one suitable for the purpose. Having delivered this
message and received an answer, De Escobar instantly sailed away, to
the immense disgust of everybody. He was not altogether a nice person,
having been one of Roldan’s gang whom Bobadilla had released from
prison. The Admiral could not help thinking that it was hardly delicate
in Ovando to select such a messenger, but it was still a satisfaction
to know that Mendez had reached San Domingo, and that in the course of
a few years Ovando might find it convenient to send the promised ship.

Columbus now thought it was a good time to offer an amnesty to Porras
and his companions, on condition that they would return to duty. Porras
rejected the offer with disdain. He informed his men that it was only
a trap set by the wily Italian to get them once more in his power.
When they timidly suggested that a messenger from Ovando had really
visited the Admiral, and that this looked as if negotiations were in
progress for the purpose of arranging for the rescue of the expedition,
Porras boldly insisted that the alleged messenger and the vessel in
which he was said to have arrived had no existence. They were simply
“materialized” by Columbus, who was a powerful spiritual medium, and
they had already vanished into the nothingness from which they had been
called.

Convinced by this able address, the mutineers decided to remain
under the leadership of Porras, who immediately marched with them to
attack the Admiral and to seize the stores that still remained. Don
Bartholomew met them, and after a hard fight completely defeated them,
taking Porras prisoner. The survivors gladly surrendered, and Columbus
magnanimously forgave them.

In June, 1503, two ships arrived from San Domingo. One had been fitted
out by Mendez, and the other by Ovando, who saw that Columbus would be
rescued, and that he might as well earn part of the credit therefor.
The Spaniards hurriedly embarked, and on the 23d of the month, after
a stay of more than a year in Jamaica, they sailed for San Domingo,
where they arrived after a voyage of about six weeks. Ovando professed
to be exceedingly glad to meet the Admiral, and told him that for the
last six or eight months he had been steadily occupied in wasting
to a mere shadow, so anxious had he been to find a favorable moment
for deciding upon the propriety of sending a vessel to the rescue
of his distinguished friend. Columbus received his explanation with
politeness, remarking “Ha!” and also “Hum!” at appropriate intervals,
just to intimate that, while he did not care to argue with Ovando, he
was not quite so credulous as some people imagined. The populace were
disposed to overlook their bad treatment of their former Governor,
inasmuch as his arrival at San Domingo was an interruption of the
monotony of their life; so they cheered him when he passed through
the street, and gave the old man the last glimpse of anything like
popularity which he was to see.

                                                     [Æt. 67; 1503–1506]

Columbus was not anxious to remain long in the island. His business
affairs were in an intricate state of confusion, and though a large
sum of money was due to him, he could not collect it. The condition of
the Indians filled him with grief. Under the rule of Ovando they had
been constantly driven to revolt by oppression, and then mercilessly
massacred, while the Spanish priests had expended a great deal of
firewood and worn out several full sets of controversial implements,
such as racks and thumbscrews, in converting them to Christianity.
Columbus saw that his discovery of Hispaniola had led to the ruin and
misery of its people, and he could not remain in any comfort amid so
much suffering. Porras had already been sent as a prisoner to Spain,
and on September 12th Columbus followed him. Ovando had supplied two
vessels, one commanded by Columbus and the other by Don Bartholomew,
but one of them was soon sent back as being unseaworthy. After a stormy
voyage the ship arrived at San Lucas on November 7th, and the sick and
crippled Admiral was carried to Seville, where he intended to rest
before proceeding to court.

This time he was not received with any enthusiasm. He had so often
returned from voyages to China without bringing with him so much as a
broken tea-cup as a sample of the Celestial Kingdom, that the public
had lost all interest in him. People who read in their newspapers among
the list of hotel arrivals the name of Columbus, merely remarked, “So
he’s back again it seems,” and then proceeded to read the criticism
upon the preceding night’s bullfight. The popular feeling was, that
Columbus had entirely overdone the matter of returning home from
profitless explorations. There were other explorers who came back to
Spain with stories much more imaginative than those which Columbus
could tell, and the Spanish public had turned its attention from
Prester John and the Emperor of China to the Amazonian warriors of
South America and the Fountain of Youth which explorers of real
enterprise were ready to discover.

Had there been any knowledge of the science of politics in Spain,
Columbus would have been a person of considerable importance in his
old age. The Radicals would have rallied around him, and would have
denounced the atrocious manner in which a treacherous and reactionary
monarchy had treated him. Columbian clubs would have been established
everywhere, and he would have been made to serve as the stalking-horse
of an unprincipled and reckless faction.

                                                  [Æt. 67–70; 1503–1506]

When we compare the way in which the Italian republicans have used the
name and fame of Garibaldi as the most effective weapon in striking
at the monarchy which has made United Italy possible, we cannot but
despise the ignorance of politics shown by the Spaniards in the
beginning of the sixteenth century.

Columbus, though utterly worn out, was still able to write letters. He
wrote to the King, to the Queen, to everybody who had any influence,
asking that his honors and privileges should be restored, and hinting
that he was ready to be sent back to San Domingo as Governor. No
one paid any attention to him. Other men were fitting out exploring
expeditions, and Columbus, with his splendid dreams and his peculiar
mixture of religion and geography, was regarded as a foolish old
man who had outlived his original usefulness. He was too sick to
visit the court and personally explain why he had not discovered the
Panama Canal, and the King, having failed to keep his own promises,
was naturally not at all anxious to see him. Perhaps Isabella would
have still remained faithful to her old protégé, but she was on her
deathbed, and died without seeing him.

In May, 1505, Columbus managed to go to Segovia, where Ferdinand held
his court. He saw the King, but got very little pleasure thereby.
Ferdinand was now a widower and his own master; and his manner plainly
showed Columbus that, whatever the King might promise, he never
intended to keep his word and do justice to the man who had given him a
new world.

                                                          [Æt. 70; 1506]

The end was now drawing near, and Columbus made a codicil to his will,
expressing his last wishes. Beatrix Enriquez was still alive, though
whether she too had forsaken Columbus we are not told. It is pleasant
to find that the Admiral remembered her, and in the codicil to his will
ordered his son Diego to see that she was properly cared for, adding,
“and let this be done for the discharge of my conscience, for it weighs
heavy on my soul.” He had neglected to marry Beatrix, and, unlike most
men in like circumstances, the neglect burdened his conscience. This
codicil was almost the last act of his busy life; and on the 20th of
May, 1506, repeating the Latin words, _In manus tuas, Domine, commendo
spiritum meum_, he died with the calmness of a brave man and the peace
of a Christian. He had lived seventy years, and had literally worn
himself out in the service of the royal hound whose miserable little
soul rejoiced when he heard that the great Italian was dead.

Columbus was buried almost as much as he was born. His first burial was
in the convent of St. Francisco. Seven years later he was buried some
more in the Carthusian convent in Seville. In 1536 he was carried to
San Domingo and buried in the Cathedral, and afterward he was, to some
extent, buried in Havana. Whether Havana or San Domingo has at present
the best claim to his grave, is a disputed point.




CHAPTER XIX.

HIS CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS.


Hitherto we have proceeded upon the assumption that Columbus was a real
historical person. It is one of the limitations of biography that the
writer must always assume the existence of the subject of his sketch.
There are, however, grave reasons for doubting whether Christopher
Columbus ever lived. There is the matter of his birthplace. Is it
credible that he was born in seven distinct places? Nobody claims
that George Washington was born in all our prominent cities, or that
Robinson Crusoe, who was perhaps the most absolutely real person to
be found in the whole range of biography, was born anywhere except at
York. Can we believe that the whole of Columbus was simultaneously
buried in two different West Indian cities? If we can accept any
such alleged fact as this, we can no longer pretend that one of the
two Italian cities which boast the possession of the head of John the
Baptist is the victim of misplaced confidence.

And then the character of Columbus as portrayed by his admiring
biographers is quite incredible, and his alleged treatment by the King
and Queen whom he served is to the last degree improbable. The story of
Columbus is without doubt an interesting and even fascinating one; but
can we, as fearless and honest philosophers, believe in the reality of
that sweet Genoese vision--the heroic and noble discoverer of the New
World?

There are strong reasons for believing that the legend of Christopher
Columbus is simply a form of the Sun myth. We find the story in the
Italian, Spanish, and English languages, which shows, not that Colombo,
Colon, and Columbus ever lived, breathed, ate dinner, and went to bed,
but that the myth is widely spread among the Indo-Germanic races.
Columbus is said to have sailed from the east to the west, and to have
disappeared for a time beyond the western horizon, only to be found
again in Spain, whence he had originally sailed. Even in Spain, he was
said to have had his birthplace in some vague locality farther east,
and to have reached Spain only when near his maturity.

This is a beautiful allegorical description of the course of the sun
as it would appear to an unlearned and imaginative Spaniard. He would
see the sun rising in the distant east, warming Spain with his mature
and noonday rays, setting beyond the western horizon in the waters of
the Atlantic, and again returning to Spain to begin another voyage, or
course, through the heavens. The clouds which at times obscure the sun
are vividly represented by the misfortunes which darkened the career
of Columbus, and his imprisonment in chains by Bobadilla is but an
allegorical method of describing a solar eclipse. The colonists who
died of fever under his rule, like the Greeks who fell under the darts
of the Sun God, remind us of the unwholesome effects produced by the
rays of a tropical sun upon decaying vegetation; and the story that
Columbus was buried in different places illustrates the fact that the
apparent place of sunset changes at different points of the year.

There is very much to be said in favor of the theory that Columbus is a
personification of the Sun, but that theory cannot be accepted either
by a biographer or by any patriotic American. The one would have to put
his biography of the Great Admiral in the fire, and the other would
lose all certainty as to whether America had ever been discovered. We
must resolve to believe in the reality of Columbus, no matter what
learned sceptics may tell us; and we shall find no difficulty in so
doing if we found our belief on a good strong prejudice instead of
reasonable arguments.

Let us then permit no man to destroy our faith in Christopher
Columbus. We can find fault with him if we choose; we can refuse to
accept Smith’s or Brown’s or Jones’s respective estimates of his
character and deeds: but let us never doubt that Columbus was a real
Italian explorer; that he served an amiable Spanish Queen and a
miserable Spanish King; and that he sailed across a virgin ocean to
discover a virgin continent.

There prevails to a very large extent the impression that the voyages
of Columbus prove that he was a wonderfully skilful navigator, and
it is also commonly believed that the compass and the astrolabe were
providentially invented expressly in order to assist him in discovering
America. There was, of course, a certain amount of practical seamanship
displayed in keeping the _Santa Maria_ and her successors from being
swamped by the waves of the Atlantic; but it may be safely asserted
that only a very slight knowledge of navigation was either exhibited or
needed by Columbus. The ships of the period could do nothing except
with a fair wind. When the wind was contrary they drifted slowly to
leeward, and when the wind was fair a small-boy with a knowledge of the
elements of steering could have kept any one of them on her course. The
compass was a handy thing to have on board a ship, since it gave to the
sailors the comfortable feeling which an ignorant man always has in the
presence of any piece of mechanism which he fancies is of assistance
to him; but for all practical purposes the sun and the stars were as
useful to Columbus as was his compass with its unintelligible freaks of
variation. So, too, the astrolabe must have impressed the sailors as a
sort of powerful and beneficent fetish, but the log-book of Columbus
would have testified that the astrolabe was more ornamental than useful.

The system of navigation followed by Columbus was to steer as nearly
west as practicable on the way to America, and to steer as nearly east
as possible on his way back to Spain. In the one case he would be sure
to hit some part of the New World if he sailed long enough, and in the
other case persistent sailing would be sure to bring him within sight
of either Europe or Africa. In neither case could he so far overrun his
reckoning as to arrive unexpectedly at some point in the interior of
a continent. The facts prove that this was precisely the way in which
Columbus navigated his ship. When steering for America he never knew
where he would find land, and was satisfied if he reached any one of
the countless large and small West India islands; and on returning to
Spain there was as much probability that he would find himself at the
Azores or at the mouth of the Tagus as at any Spanish port.

The truth is, that neither the seamanship of Columbus nor the invention
of the compass or the astrolabe made his first voyage successful.
Probably any one of the thousands of contemporary Italian sailors could
have found the West Indies as easily as Columbus found them, provided
the hypothetical sailor had possessed sufficient resolution to sail
westward until the land should stop his way. What we should properly
be called upon to admire in Columbus as a navigator of unknown seas is
the obstinacy with which he adhered to his purpose of sailing due west
until land should be found, no matter if it should take all summer. It
was an obstinacy akin to that with which our great Union General fought
his last campaign. Such obstinacy will sometimes accomplish greater
results than the most skilful navigator or the profoundest strategist
could accomplish. Had the man who discovered our country or the man who
saved it been less obstinate, American history would have been widely
different from what it has been.

As the astrolabe has been mentioned several times in the course of
this narrative, it may be well to describe it, especially as it is
now obsolete. It was an instrument of considerable size, made of some
convenient material--usually either metal or wood, or both--and fitted
with various contrivances for the purpose of observing the heavenly
bodies. When a navigator took an observation with the astrolabe he
immediately went below and “worked it up” with the help of a slate and
pencil, and in accordance with the rules of arithmetic and algebra.
The result was a series of figures which greatly surprised him, and
which he interpreted according to the humor in which he happened to
find himself. A skilful navigator who could guess his latitude with
comparative accuracy generally found that an observation taken with the
astrolabe would give him a result not differing more than eighty or
ninety degrees from the latitude in which he had previously imagined
his ship to be, and if he was an ingenious man he could often find some
way of reconciling his observation with his guesses. Thus the astrolabe
gave him employment and exercised his imagination, and was a great
blessing to the lonesome and careworn mariner.

It is our solemn duty, as Americans, to take a warm interest in
Christopher Columbus, for the reason that he had the good taste and
judgment to discover our beloved country. Efforts have frequently been
made to deprive him of that honor. It has been urged that he was not
the first man who crossed the Atlantic, that he never saw the continent
of North America, and that he was not the original discoverer of
South America. Most of this is undoubtedly true. It is now generally
conceded the Norwegians landed on the coast of New England about six
hundred years before Columbus was born; that Americus Vespuccius was
the first European to discover the South American continent; that
Sebastian Cabot rediscovered North America after the Norwegians had
forgotten all about it; and that Columbus never saw any part of what is
now the United States of America. For all that, Columbus is properly
entitled to be called the discoverer of the New World, including the
New England, Middle, Gulf, Western, and Pacific States. Who invented
steamboats? And who invented the magnetic telegraph? Every patriotic
American echo will answer, “Fulton and Morse.” There were nevertheless
at least four distinct men who moved vessels by machinery driven by
steam before Fulton built his steamboat, and nearly twice that number
of men had sent messages over a wire by means of electricity before
Morse invented the telegraph. The trouble with the steamboats invented
by the pre-Fultonians, and the telegraphs invented by the predecessors
of Morse, was that their inventions did not stay invented. Their
steamboats and telegraphs were forgotten almost as soon as they were
devised; but Fulton and Morse invented their steamboats and telegraphs
so thoroughly that they have stayed invented ever since.

Now, the Norwegians discovered America in such an unsatisfactory way
that the discovery came to nothing. They did not keep it discovered.
They came and looked at New England, and, deciding that they had no
use for it, went home and forgot all about it. Columbus, who knew
nothing of the forgotten voyage of the Norwegians, discovered the West
India islands and the route across the Atlantic in such a workmanlike
and efficient way that his discoveries became permanent. He was the
first man to show people the way to San Domingo and Cuba, and after
he had done this it was an easy thing for other explorers to discover
the mainland of North and South America. He thus discovered the United
States as truly as Fulton discovered the way to drive the _City of
Rome_ from New York to Liverpool, or Morse discovered the method of
sending telegrams over the Atlantic cable.

We need not be in the least disturbed by the learned men who
periodically demonstrate that Leif Ericson, as they familiarly call
him, was the true discoverer of our country. We need never change
“Hail Columbia” into “Hail Ericsonia,” and there is not the least
danger Columbia College will ever be known as Leifia University.
We can cheerfully admit that Leif Ericson--or, to give him what was
probably his full name, Eliphalet B. Ericson--and his Norwegians
landed somewhere in New England, and we can even forgive the prompt
way in which they forgot all about it, by assuming that they landed
on Sunday or on a fast-day, and were so disheartened that they never
wanted to hear the subject spoken of again. We can grant all this, and
still cherish the memory of Columbus as the true and only successful
discoverer of America.

Most biographers have written of Columbus in much the same way that
a modern campaign biographer writes the life of the Presidential
candidate from whom he hopes to receives an office. They forget that
he was never nominated by any regular party convention, and that it is
therefore wrong to assume, without any sufficient evidence, that he
was the greatest and best man that ever lived. He was undoubtedly a
bold sailor, but he lived in an age when bold sailors were produced in
quantities commensurate with the demands of exploration, and we cannot
say that he was any bolder or better sailor than the Cabots or his own
brother Bartholomew. He was certainly no braver soldier than Ojeda,
and his conquests were trifling in comparison with those of Cortez and
Pizarro.

As a civil ruler he was a conspicuous failure. It is true that the
colonists over whom he was placed were, many of them, turbulent
scoundrels; but the unanimity with which they condemned his
administration, and the uniformity with which every commissioner
appointed to investigate his conduct as a ruler condemned him, compel
us to believe that he was not an able governor either of Spanish
colonists or contiguous Indians. He was not habitually cruel, as was
Pizarro, but he insisted upon enslaving the Indians for his own profit,
though Queen Isabella had forbidden him to enslave them or to treat
them harshly.

He could be magnanimous at times, but he would not undertake a voyage
of discovery except upon terms which would ensure him money and rank,
and he did not hesitate to claim for himself the reward which was
offered, during his first voyage, to the man who should first see the
land, and which was fairly earned by one of his sailors.

As an explorer, he failed to find a path to India, and he died under
the delusion that Pekin was somewhere in Costa Rica. His first voyage
across the broad Atlantic seems to us a wonderful achievement, but in
either difficulty or danger it cannot be compared with Stanley’s march
across the African continent. We must concede to Columbus a certain
amount of boldness and perseverance, but we cannot shut our eyes to the
faults of his conduct and character.

And yet Columbus was a true hero. Whatever flaws there may have been in
the man, he was of a finer clay than his fellows, for he could dream
dreams that their dull imaginations could not conceive. He belonged
to the same land which gave birth to Garibaldi, and, like the Great
Captain, the Great Admiral lived in a high, pure atmosphere of splendid
visions, far removed from and above his fellow-men. The greatness of
Columbus cannot be argued away. The glow of his enthusiasm kindles our
own, even at the long distance of four hundred years, and his heroic
figure looms grander through successive centuries.


THE END.




INDEX.


  Aguado, Juan, appointed investigator, 185;
    investigates, 188;
    makes nothing by it, 195.

  Angel, Luis de St., 56;
    offers to advance money, 57.

  Astrolabe, invented, 32;
    description of, 276.


  Black Crook, thought to have broken out in Spain, 194.

  Bobadilla, Francisco de, arrives in Hispaniola, 221;
    arrests Columbus, 228;
    sends Columbus to Spain, 229.

  Boyle, Father Bernardo, 133;
    desires to burn somebody, 150, 163;
    is disappointed, 174.


  Caonabo, 160;
    captured, 175;
    dies, 193.

  Cedo, Fermin, alleged scientific person, 158.

  Cogoletto, alleged birthplace of Columbus, 1.

  Columbus, Bartholomew, born and translated, 4;
    is sent to England, 38;
    arrives at Hispaniola, 171;
    made Governor of Isabella, 191;
    able commander, 209;
    arrested, 228;
    sails with fourth exploring expedition, 236;
    defeats Porras, 261.

  Columbus, Christopher, born, 1;
    translated, 3;
    anecdotes of boyhood, 5;
    goes to Pavia, 9;
    becomes sailor, 11;
    engages in Neapolitan expedition, 12;
    deceives sailors or posterity, 13;
    does not arrive in Portugal, 16;
    does arrive there, 18;
    marries, 19;
    makes maps, 20;
    lives at Porto Santo, 21;
    goes to Iceland or elsewhere, 28;
    talks to King John, 35;
    goes to Spain, 38;
    deposited with Quintanilla, 41;
    meets Scientific Congress, 43;
    goes to Convent of Rabida, 49;
    meets committee on exploration, 54;
    starts for France, 56;
    goes to Palos, 61;
    sails on first voyage, 67;
    keeps false reckoning, 72;
    discovers San Salvador, 89;
    sails for Spain, 97;
    wrecked, 102;
    founds colony, 105;
    sees Mermaids, 110;
    displays seamanship, 115;
    arrives at Azores, 116;
    arrives at Palos, 125;
    flattens egg, 135;
    sails on second voyage, 138;
    discovers Dominica, 141;
    returns to Spain, 191;
    loses popularity, 196;
    sails on third voyage, 200;
    discovers Trinidad, 204;
    invents ingenious theory, 205;
    arrives at Hispaniola, 208;
    arrested, 228;
    sent to Spain, 229;
    arrives in Spain, 230;
    sails on fourth voyage, 237;
    reaches Honduras, 240;
    searches for Panama Canal, 240;
    founds colony at Veragua, 243;
    sails away, 250;
    reaches Jamaica, 251;
    manages lunar eclipse, 258;
    reaches Hispaniola, 262;
    returns to Spain, 264;
    dies, 268;
    is extensively buried, 268;
    perhaps is a sun-myth, 269;
    character, 284.

  Columbus, Diego, born, 4;
    Governor of Isabella, 162;
    sent to Spain to wait for opening in Connecticut, 177;
    returns to Hispaniola, 187;
    arrested by Bobadilla, 227.

  Columbus, Dominico, combs wool, 3.

  Compass, variation of, 55.

  Congress of Salamanca, 46;
    its tediousness, 45.

  Correo, Pedro, 21;
    he winks, 25;
    is talked to death, 34.


  Enriquez, Beatrix, loves not wisely but too well, 41;
    is mentioned in Columbus’s will, 267.

  Ericson, Eliphalet B., discovers America, 281.

  Eclipse, story of, 258.

  Egg, story of, 135.


  Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 40.


  Guacanagari, his affection for Columbus, 101;
    his suspicious leg, 150;
    falls extensively in love, 152;
    protects Spaniards, 175.


  Isabella, Queen of Castile, 41.


  John, King of Portugal, 29;
    his dishonorable conduct, 34.


  La Navidad, founded, 105;
    destroyed, 148.

  Ledesma, Pedro, swims ashore, 249.


  Marchena, Juan Perez de, prior of a convent, 50;
    makes a night of it with Columbus, 51.

  Margarite, rebels, 174.

  Mendez, Diego, tries to reach Hispaniola from Jamaica, 252;
    succeeds, 254.

  Mendoza, Cardinal de, gives dinner, 135.

  Mexica, De, rebels, 219.


  Ojeda, Alonzo de, is a just man, 158;
    captures Caonabo, 175;
    arrives at Xaragua, 215;
    his interview with Roldan, 216.

  Ovando, Nicholas de, sent to Hispaniola, 233;
    refuses to let Columbus land, 237;
    delays to send aid to Columbus, 255;
    finally does send it, 262.


  Perestrello, Mrs., mother-in-law of Columbus, 20;
    her use of the stove-lid, 21.

  Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, fits out ship to join Columbus, 56;
    has a brilliant idea, 83;
    deserts, 97;
    met by Columbus, 108;
    reaches Palos, 127;
    displays good sense, 128.

  Pinzon, Vincente Yanez, fits out ship to join Columbus, 56.

  Porras, Francisco de, mutinies, 256;
    defeated and captured, 261.

  Prester John, who he was, 31;
    who he was not, 166.


  Quibian, attacks colony, 246.

  Quintanilla, receives Columbus on deposit, 41.


  Roldan, Francisco, rebels, 210;
    compromises, 215;
    outwits Ojeda, 216;
    drowned, 239.


  Ships, rigged by Indianians, 64.


  Talavera, De, the Queen’s confessor, 43.

  Triana, De, discovers land, 86;
    is disgusted, 87.


  Villejo, Alonzo de, risks his eyes, 229.




Transcriber’s Notes


“Æt.” is an abbreviation for the Latin “aetatis”, which means “At the
age of”. In the original book, this was printed with Columbus’ age as
running headers on the left-hand pages, and the corresponding years
were printed as running headers on the right-hand pages. In this eBook,
they have been combined, aligned on the right margin, and included
at the beginning of each chapter, as well as whenever they change.
Consecutive duplicates within chapters have been deleted. Apparent
inconsistencies between the ages and the years have not been changed.

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references, but a few errors were corrected.

Page 3: “Kolompo” was printed in Fraktur.

Page 239: The phrase “Panama Canal” is in the original book, even
though the year was 1502 and the book was published in 1881.