Sunday, October 28, 1492, was the natal day of Cuba; the day of its
advent into the ken of the civilized world. At the island which he
called Isabella--either Long Island or Crooked Island--Columbus had
heard of a very great land which the natives called Cuba, and which, the
wish being father to the thought, he instantly identified with Cipango.
Toward it, therefore, his course had thereafter been directed. Progress
was slow, because of contrary winds and calms, and there were numerous
small islands along the way to engage at least passing attention.
Particularly was there a group of seven or eight, lying in a row
extending north and south, which he called the Islas de Arena, and which
we may confidently identify with the Mucaras. Early on the morning of
Saturday, October 27, he had left the last of the Sandy Isles behind,
and from a point considerably to the eastward of them, probably near
what is now known as Rocky Heads, he had set his course a little west of
south for the shore of Cuba. Thus he had passed across the southeastern
end of the Great Bahama Bank, since most appropriately called the
Columbus Bank, until just at nightfall he had seen looming before him on
the southern horizon the mountainous form of a vast land. It was too
late, however, to continue the voyage that night, so he lay to, and at
earliest daybreak of Sunday morning, leaving behind him the islet
fittingly called Caya Santo Domingo, completed his course to the land
which he fondly but vainly hailed as the much-sought Cipango.
The coast at the point at which he reached it seemed specially designed
by nature for his favorable and auspicious reception. There lay before
him what seemed the estuary of a large and beautiful river, free from
rocks or other impediments, and with a very gentle current. It had an
ample depth of water for his vessels, and was sufficiently broad, even
at a considerable distance inland, for them to beat about in. It was
encircled by lofty and picturesque hills, the aspect of which reminded
him of the "Pena de los Enamorados" near Granada, in Spain; and upon the
summit of one of them was what he described as another little hill,
shaped like a graceful mosque. Enchanted with the vision, and gratified
beyond expression at what he confidently assumed to be the reaching of
his goal and the vindication of his enterprise, he gave to the spot a
repetition of the name which he had devoutly bestowed upon his first
landfall, calling the port San Salvador.
The identity of this spot has been much questioned and disputed; perhaps
even more than that of Columbus's first landing in the Bahamas; and it
is not to be regarded as entirely certain. Washington Irving pretty
confidently placed it at Caravelas Grandes, far to the west of Nuevitas
del Principe, while others insist that it was at Nuevitas itself.
Navarrete, on the other hand, with his theory that the first landfall
was at Grand Turk Island, held that Cuba was reached at Nipe Bay, east
of Holguin; while Las Casas and Herrera insisted that the port of San
Salvador was at Baracoa, near Cape Maysi, at the extreme eastern end of
the island. Midway between the extremes, that most scholarly and
judicious of geographers, Sir Clements Markham, selected the natural
harbor of Naranjo, a little to the west of Punta Lucrecia and Punta
Mulas. Other historians and geographers, after painstaking research,
declare that they do not believe the place can be determined.
With this, in the ultimate analysis, I would agree. It is probably
impossible to establish indisputably the identity of the place. Yet it
does seem to me that the arguments in favor of Naranjo, as selected by
Markham, are so strong as to be all but entirely convincing, and that it
will be judicious, therefore, to assume that it was there that the
Admiral first reached the shore of Cuba. A glance at the map shows this
to be the region which was nearest and which he was likeliest to reach
first, coming from either Long Island or Crooked Island, eastward of the
Mucaras, on a south-southwest course, which, we are told, is what he
steered. The port of Naranjo answers to his description in depth and
breadth more nearly than any other on that part of the coast. It is the
estuary of a considerable river, as was Columbus's San Salvador, though
how large the river really was he does not appear to have undertaken to
ascertain, though he did ascend the stream some little distance on his
first day's visit. Finally, it is to be observed that Naranjo is girt
about by hills, precisely as was his San Salvador, and on the crest of
one of them there is a huge rock, jutting up like "another little hill"
and roughly resembling in shape a mosque, because of which the hill is
called "Loma del Temple." This, then, and not Nuevitas, Nipe, nor
Baracoa, I believe to have been the scene of Columbus's discovery of
Cuba.
[Illustration: QUEEN ISABELLA]
We have seen that Columbus at first unhesitatingly believed it to be
Cipango which he had reached. Despite that fact, and also despite the
fact that the natives called it Cuba, he insisted upon renaming it. In
accordance with his previous practice in nomenclature, it must have a
very noble and distinguished name. His first landfall he had named for
the Holy Saviour Himself; the second for the Holy Virgin; the third for
the King, and the fourth for the Queen of Leon and Castile. The next
name in order, in dignity and distinction, was that of the heir to the
dual throne, wherefore he named the land Juana. Most writers, including
Irving, have made the curious but facile mistake of saying that this
name was given "in honor of Prince Juan, the son of Ferdinand and
Isabella." It was, in fact, in honor of Princess Juana, the daughter of
those sovereigns. She was that unhappy princess who because of her
insanity was called "La Loca," and who by her marriage with Philip of
Burgundy and of Hapsburg brought a new dynasty to the Spanish throne and
greatly involved the monarchy in the politics and wars of Central
Europe. Juana was mentally incompetent to succeed to the throne of
Castile which she inherited upon the death of her mother, wherefore she
was compelled to relinquish it to the regency of her father; and when he
united Castile with Aragon, and conquered and annexed Navarre and
Granada, and thus became the first King of Spain, Cuba was renamed in
his honor and known no longer as Juana but as Ferdinandina, or
Fernandina. Still later it was called San Diego, or Santiago; and again
Ave Maria Alfa y Omega. But these names were transitory. The natives
never accepted one of them, but clung to the old name of Cuba, and there
was a fine touch of poetic justice in the fact that that name survived
the extinction of the race that had cherished it. Under the ruthless
rule of the Conquistadores the aboriginal population of the island
almost entirely vanished, and with them practically all traces of their
existence save four. These were the name and use of tobacco, the name
and use of hammocks, the name and use of canoes, and the name of the
island itself.
It would not have been surprising, and it would have been quite
pardonable, had Columbus seen everything in the New World through
glasses of _couleur de rose_. Naturally of a romantic and imaginative
temperament, he experienced in the realization of his long-cherished
ambition such a degree of spiritual and mental exaltation as seldom has
come to mortal man. Yet quite apart from this, the native beauty of
Cuba, as seen to our eyes to-day, abundantly justifies the rhapsodies in
which he indulged in describing it. On that first memorable Sunday he
wrote in his diary, "This is the most beautiful land ever beheld by
human eyes." From the quarter-deck of the _Santa Maria_ he gazed with
rapture upon the profuse verdure of the shore and of the hills which
rose in the back-ground, observing with admiration and surprise that the
trees grew down to the very water's edge, as did also the herbage, as he
had never seen it elsewhere. The palms and other trees were largely of
different kinds from those which he had seen in Spain, in Guinea, and
elsewhere, and they bore flowers and fruit in great profusion, while
among them were innumerable birds, beautiful to the eye and with songs
entrancing to the ear.
Two canoes, containing each several natives, put out from a recess in
the harbor shore to meet the Spanish ships, but when a boat was lowered
from one of the latter, to proceed ahead and take soundings, they
incontinently fled. Columbus himself then entered a small boat and went
ashore, where he found two houses, which he assumed to belong to the
owners of the two canoes. No persons were to be found upon the premises,
and the only living things were "a kind of dog that never barks," which
we may assume to have been some small animal of the ant bear tribe, now
probably extinct or at any rate no longer domesticated. The houses were
notably neat and clean, and were evidently the abode of fishermen, since
in them were nets and cordage of palm fibre, fish-hooks of horn, and
harpoons of bone. All about the houses the herbage was as profuse, at
the end of October, as it was in Andalusia in May. Most of the herbs as
well as the trees were strange to Columbus, but he found some wild
amaranth, and much common purslane. He went some distance up the harbor,
or river as he called it, at every step or stroke of the oars seeing
something new to excite his admiration.
The natives of Guanahani whom he had brought on his ship informed him
that Cuba was a very large island, which could not be circumnavigated in
twenty days; that it contained ten large rivers and that its whole
expanse was well watered. They were also understood by Columbus to say
that gold mines and pearls were to be found in the island, and that
large ships came thither from the mainland domains of the Grand Khan,
ten days' sail away. The bulk of this "information" was of course quite
mistaken by Columbus, his vivid imagination and his eager desires easily
misleading him into interpreting anything which the natives might say,
largely in sign language, as meaning just what he wished to be true.
The next day Columbus left San Salvador and sailed westward along the
coast. That was the direction in which, according to the natives of
Guanahani, the mainland and the capital of the King or the Grand Khan
were to be found. That, too, was the direction in which Mangi and Cathay
were to be found according to the map of Toscanelli, assuming Cuba to be
Cipango: which Columbus at this stage of his enterprise confidently
believed. Of the researches of the great voyager along the Cuban coast
we have a detailed account in his journal. Unfortunately, there is no
certain means of identifying the points at which he landed. They are
described as being so many leagues from his starting point, San
Salvador; wherefore it is obvious that all depends upon the identity of
the latter. Yet it seems to me that his account of his coastwise
explorations strongly confirms the theory that his San Salvador was Port
Naranjo and not Nuevitas. For we are told that six leagues westward he
found a cape or point of land extending toward the northwest; ten
leagues further another point, extending toward the east; one league
further a small river, which he called the Rio de la Luna; and beyond it
another much larger river, which he called the Rio de Mares. This latter
river had for its estuary a broad basin resembling a lake, and its
entrance was marked by two round mountains on the one side and a lofty
promontory on the other.
Now, making reasonable allowance for lack of accuracy in measurements
and for discrepancies in descriptions, this account may readily be
applied to the coast westward from Port Naranjo to Nuevitas, while it is
altogether inapplicable to the coast westward from Nuevitas. For a
score of leagues westward from Naranjo there are capes and mountains and
rivers, and there is more than one river with precisely such a
lagoon-like estuary as that which Columbus found at his Rio de Mares.
Indeed, Port Padre, with its extensive lagoon into which several rivers
flow, or Port Manati, with the Cramal and Yarigua rivers, might either
of them be identified, in approximate distance and in topography, with
the Rio de Mares. On the other hand, if we were to assume Nuevitas to
have been the starting point, what should we find? Either he must have
been skirting the outer side of the Sabinal and Romano keys, and Guajaba
Island, which do not at all coincide with the description given, or he
must have been navigating the great littoral lagoon between those keys
and the mainland of Cuba; in which latter case it is to be observed that
that part of the Cuban coast does not correspond with his description,
and that it is certainly extraordinary that he made no mention of his
voyage having been in what is practically an inland sea. That he could
have passed in through the Nuevitas Channel, or the Carebelas Channel,
or the Guajaba Channel, without observing and remarking upon Sabinal
Key, Guajaba Island, or Romano Key, is simply not supposable. Such a
feature of "Cipango" could not have escaped notice on his first arrival
there, though it might easily have been ignored or passed over as of no
special significance in subsequent explorations.
On Tuesday of that memorable week, October 30, Columbus left the Rio de
Mares and sailed to the northwest for fifteen leagues, and there
discovered a point which he named the Cape of Palms. Beyond it was a
river, the entrance of which was said to be four days' journey from what
the natives called Cubanacan, meaning the heart of the island, the
centre of Cuba. With his characteristic habit of interpreting native
names and statements in accordance with his own desires, Columbus at
once assumed this to mean Kublai Khan, or the City of the Khan, of which
he was in quest; and accordingly he bent all his energies and gave all
his attention to getting thither, disregarding the things which he
passed by on the way. It was probably at this time, therefore, that he
sailed through one of the channels among the keys, and entered the great
coastal sound which stretches from Nuevitas to Caibarien, if not indeed
to Cardenas. He reached the river on Wednesday, but found it too shallow
for his ships, and therefore, after some fruitless cruisings, returned
to the Rio de Mares.
It was on November 12 that he again sailed from the Rio de Mares, and on
the next day that he sailed south-westward into a great gulf, which he
supposed to divide Cuba from another island called by the natives
"Bohio"--the word really meaning not an island at all but "home."
Thereafter for some time he was obviously cruising around Guajaba Island
and Romano Key, which, with Sabinal Key, he supposed to be the mythical
"Bohio." Some port, possibly Boca de la Yana, he called Puerto Principe,
and the water, presumably between Thiguano Island and Cocos Key, he
called the Mar de la Nuestra Senora. Rounding Guillermo Key, as we may
suppose, he swung into the Old Bahama Channel, and by wind and tide was
carried backward to Guajaba Island and perhaps to Nuevitas. Thence he
made his way westward and southward, rounding Point Sama and Point
Lucrecia, and reaching Port Nipe and Port Banes on the morning of
November 27. Those two capacious bays he did not attempt to enter. He
regarded them indeed not as bays but as straits, or arms of the sea, and
the promontory between them he supposed to be an island. At Taco he
landed for a few moments, and then pursued his way, and at nightfall
dropped anchors at what he called Puerto Santo, which we may probably
identify with the modern Baracoa. There he remained until December 4,
when he sailed to the southeast, and the following day passed out of
sight of Cape Maysi and left Cuba behind him; crossing the Windward
Passage to reach "Bohio" or "Babeque," where there were said to be
pearls and gold, and reaching Hayti, or Santo Domingo, which he called
Espagnola. He did not revisit Cuba during the remainder of his first
American voyage.
Espagnola, Latinized by us into Hispaniola, became thereafter the chief
care of the Admiral. It was there that he planted, on his second voyage,
the first European colony in the western hemisphere. But after various
operations in Hayti, marked with both trials and triumphs, during his
second American expedition he returned to the Cuban coast for further
explorations of what he still thought to be Cipango. It was at the end
of April, 1494, that he sailed from Mole St. Nicholas, Hayti, across the
Windward Passage toward Cape Maysi, which he himself had called Cape
Alpha and Omega. Instead, however, of retracing his way to Baracoa and
along the north coast, he went to the left of Cape Maysi and began
skirting the southern coast of Cuba. This route would, according to
Toscanelli's map, take him to the southward of Mangi and Cathay, but it
would lead him to the Golden Chersonesus, around the southern shore of
Asia, and so home to Europe by circumnavigating the globe.
The points visited by him on this excursion are more easily and surely
to be identified than those of his first voyage. His first landing was
at Guantanamo, which he called Puerto Grande. He found an entrance
passage, winding but deep, leading in to a spacious land-locked lagoon,
surrounded by hills covered with verdure. Here he established friendly
relations with the natives, and remained for two or three days. Thence
he sailed westward, as close to the shore as safety would permit, and
frequently entered into friendly intercourse with the natives who
thronged the strand to gaze in wonderment at his strange ships. At
Santiago de Cuba he spent a night, and during his stay he diligently
inquired of the natives for the land in which gold was to be found. They
indicated it to lie farther to the south and west, doubtless meaning
South America. Columbus thereupon set sail in that direction, partly
because gold was most desirable to obtain, and partly because he
assumed the land of gold to be the land of the Great Khan, which he was
still intent upon reaching. The result was his discovery of Jamaica. A
fortnight later, however, on May 18, he returned to Cuba, reaching it at
Cabo de la Cruz, or Cape Cruz. Here he found a large village, whose
chief and indeed all whose inhabitants had heard of him as one descended
from heaven. He was hospitably received, and was able to make many
inquiries about the country. He was told that Cuba was an island, but of
so vast extent that nobody had ever sailed around it. He thereupon set
out to circumnavigate it and sailed from Cape Cruz northward into the
Gulf of Guacanabo. There he found a multitude of small islands, which he
named the Queen's Gardens, and there, remembering that Marco Polo and
Sir John Mandeville had both reported the coast of Asia to be fringed
with a crowded archipelago, he was again confirmed in his belief that he
was approaching the shore either of Cathay or of the Golden Chersonesus.
Navigation among these islands, however, was difficult, dangerous and
slow, particularly when tropical thunderstorms were raging, as they then
were almost daily, and it was with much relief that the expedition at
last reached the Cuban coast, probably at or near Santa Cruz del Sur.
There they were told that they were in the province of Ornofay; the
province which they had formerly visited, at Cape Cruz, was Macaca; and
to the west there lay the important province of Mangon, where they could
secure much fuller information on all subjects. They were again assured
that Cuba was an island, but so vast in extent that nobody could hope
ever to go around it. The mention of the province of Mangon again
stimulated the hopes and fancy of Columbus. He identified it with Mangi,
the southernmost and richest province of the Great Khan, and in this he
was confirmed by the fantastic statement of the natives, that the people
of Mangon had tails and wore long robes to conceal them! Columbus
recalled that Sir John Mandeville had related a similar story as
current among some tribes in Eastern Asia. He therefore set out with
renewed eagerness and expectation for the coast of Mangon.
Emerging from the archipelago, he sailed for many miles along the
southern coast of Cuba, through an open sea, with the mountain ranges of
Santa Clara at his right hand and at his left the open expanse of the
Caribbean, its intense blue attesting its depth. After passing the Gulf
of Xagua, however, there came a sudden change. The sea became shallow,
and thickly dotted with small islands, keys, and banks, while the water
was white as milk. The voyagers had crossed the Gulf of Cazones and were
among the Juan Luis Keys, where the water is shallow and where at times
the agitation of the water by storms causes it to be whitened and
rendered opaque with the calcareous deposit with which the sea floor is
there thickly covered. This character of the bottom also made it
impossible for the vessels to find anchorage. The anchors dragged and
the water became more white and turbid. To the members of the crews
these phenomena caused great terror, which was by no means ill founded,
since there was imminent danger of the vessels being driven ashore and
wrecked. To Columbus, in his state of mental exaltation and high
expectancy, however, they were full of inspiration and encouragement to
proceed, indicating to him that he was entering strange regions where
extraordinary discoveries were to be made. For we must remember that,
far as he was in advance of his time in geographical vision, he still
thought that the earth was not globular but pear-shaped, and he expected
to find tribes of men with tails, and with only one eye and with their
heads growing beneath their shoulders!
Finding anchorage at last upon the shore of a small island, he sent the
smallest of his vessels forward to explore the archipelago and also to
visit the coast of the mainland. The report which was brought back to
him was that the archipelago was as dense and as intricate as the
Gardens of the Queen which they had left behind them, and that the
coast of the mainland was flat, marshy, and covered with almost
impenetrable mangrove forests, far beyond which fertile uplands and
mountain ranges were to be seen, while numerous columns of smoke
ascending gave token of a considerable population. At this the entire
expedition proceeded, to retrace the course which had been pursued by
the pilot caravel, and after much difficulty and occasional groundings
of the vessels, the coast of Cuba was reached, doubtless near the
eastern extremity of the great Zapata Peninsula. The vast marshes gave
little encouragement for landing, and the expedition continued eastward
until Punta Gorda was reached, to which Columbus gave the name of Punta
Serafina.
Rounding this point and heading northward, the fine expanse of Broa Bay
confronted them, with the coast of the Province of Havana far beyond,
and with another archipelago at the west. The mountains which lie between
Guines and Matanzas fringed the horizon, and toward them the Admiral
steered, presently reaching good anchorage off a most inviting coast. The
mangrove swamps of Zapata had been left behind, and here the shore was
high and dry, and covered with groves of palm and other trees. Here a
landing was made, and copious supplies of fresh water were found for the
refilling of their casks, while some of the archers strayed into the
forest in quest of game. One of the latter presently returned in haste
and fear, crying for help. He reported that he had seen in a forest
glade three men of white complexion, clad in long white tunics, leading
a company of about thirty more, armed with clubs and spears. They did
not attack him, but one of them advanced alone as if to speak with him;
whereupon he fled. At this report all his companions joined him in
hastening back to the ships for safety.
When Columbus heard these things he was much pleased. He saw in them
confirmation of what he had been told about the Province of Mangon, with
its men who had tails and who wore long robes to hide them. He at once
sent a strongly armed party inland to seek these men and parley with
them; directing them to go as much as forty miles inland, if necessary,
to find them, and to find the populous cities which he confidently
believed to exist in that region. These explorers readily enough
traversed the open palm forest which bordered the coast. But then they
came to extensive open upland plains or savannahs, with few trees but
with rank grass and other herbage as high as their heads and so dense as
to be almost impenetrable. No roads or paths were to be found, and it
was necessary to cut a trail through the herbage. For a mile they
struggled on, and then gave up the attempt and returned to the ships.
The next day another party was sent in another direction, with no better
results. Its members found fine open forests, abounding with grapevines
laden with fruit, and they saw flocks of cranes which they described as
twice the size of those of Europe. But they also saw on the ground the
footprints, as they supposed, of lions and of griffins, which so alarmed
them that they beat a hasty retreat.
Lions, and indeed all large beasts of prey, were never known to exist in
Cuba, and the griffin was of course never anything but imaginary--unless
a tradition of some prehistoric monster, ages ago extinct. But huge
alligators or caymans abounded in Cuban waters, and the footprints which
frightened Columbus's explorers were doubtless made by them. The
observation of large cranes suggests, also, an explanation of the
panic-stricken archer's story of men clothed in white robes. A flock of
those huge birds, standing erect and in line, with their leader advanced
before them, as is their custom, in the semi-gloom of a strange forest,
might well have given him the impression of a company of white-robed
men. Of course, no men of that description were ever found in Cuba, nor
were there traces of any.
It did not take Columbus long to explore Broa Bay sufficiently to
ascertain that it was not an arm of the sea, but a mere coastal
indentation; whereupon he resumed his westward cruising. A little
further on, probably in the neighborhood of Batabano, he found the shore
inhabited, and though neither he nor his interpreters could understand
the language of the natives, they contrived to hold some communication
with them by means of signs. He gleaned from them in this manner the
information that far to westward, among the mountains, there was a great
king, ruling in magnificence over many provinces; that he wore long
white robes and was considered a semi-divine personage, and that he
never spoke but conveyed his decrees in signs, which nobody dared to
disobey. To what extent this was really intended by the natives, and to
what extent was the mere figment of the Admiral's lively imagination, it
is impossible to say. It is entirely conceivable, however, that the
Cubans had some knowledge of the Aztecs and Toltecs of Mexico, and the
Mayas of Yucatan, and were referring to them. Certainly they could not
have referred to anybody in Cuba. But Columbus, as ever fondly believing
whatever he wished to be true, confidently assumed that they were
telling him of the mythical Prester John, and that he was on the shores
of that potentate's domain. The mountains of which the natives spoke, he
supposed, were those of Pinar del Rio, which were already in sight on
the northwestern horizon.
Concerning the extent of Cuba, and of the coast along which he was
sailing, Columbus could get little information. He was told that the
coast extended westward for at least twenty days' journey, but whether
it then ended, and how it ended, he could not learn. He therefore took
one of the natives with him as a guide, and resumed his voyage. Almost
immediately, however, he plunged into another archipelago, almost as
dense and troublesome as that through which he had passed a few days
before. Making his way through it with great difficulty, he reached the
coast of Pinar del Rio, and effected a landing amid swamps and forests,
only to find the region uninhabited, though frequent columns of smoke
rising inland indicated to him the presence of a considerable
population. For some time he made his way along that inhospitable coast,
which trended steadily toward the southwest, a direction agreeing with
his conceptions of the Asian coast as described by Marco Polo. Surely,
he thought, he was on the coast of Indo-China, headed straight for the
Golden Chersonesus. If he persisted, he would cross the Indian Ocean and
reach the Red Sea, whence he could complete his journey to Europe
overland by way of Palestine; or he could steer southward along the
African coast and around that continent, and so reach home by
circumnavigating the globe.
These fancies appear to have been shared by his companions, among whom
were several accomplished navigators and geographers. The delusions were
of course largely due to the erroneous estimate of the size of the
globe, which made its circumference too little by some thousands of
miles. But his companions could not be persuaded to approve his scheme
of going on to circumnavigate the globe. The glamor of that vision did
not blind their eyes to the worn and dilapidated condition of the ships,
the lack of supplies, and the weariness of the crews. They were in no
condition, they insisted, to proceed further through unknown regions. It
was already satisfactorily demonstrated, they held, that they had
reached the Asian coast. The part of prudence was to turn back to
Isabella, if not to Spain, and refit their vessels for another and
longer voyage.
These counsels finally prevailed upon Columbus himself, at the time when
his flotilla lay at anchor in the Bay of Cortez, near the western
extremity of Cuba. He was indeed so near that extremity that a day or
two more of sailing would have brought him to Cape San Antonio and would
have shown him that Cuba was an island. Or from the top of some tall
tree, or even from the mast head, he might have looked across the lakes
and lowlands of that region and seen the waters of Guadiana Bay, on the
north side of the island. But this was not to be. Instead, he required
every member of his company, from sailing master to cabin boy, to swear
to and sign a formal declaration to the effect that the land which they
had discovered and explored was a part of the Indies and of the Asian
continent. Then, on June 13, he turned his course toward the southeast,
only to enter another archipelago, the San Felipe and Indian keys.
Beyond lay a large land, with mountains, to which he gave the name of
Evangelista. It was, of course, the Isle of Pines, which he reached a
little south of Point Barcos. Taking in a supply of water and wood, he
skirted the coast southward, with the result that he ran into the
land-locked recesses of the Bay of Sunianea. Finding no thoroughfare in
that direction, he sailed back almost to the Bay of Cortez, and then
made his way along the Cuban coast, through the archipelagoes, milky
seas and what not which had given him so much trouble on his westward
trip.
It was on July 7 that the next landing in Cuba was made, at a point on
the southeastern coast of Camaguey, and at the mouth of a fine river
which Columbus called the Rio de la Missa but the identity of which is
now uncertain. It may have been the San Juan de Najasa or the Sevilla,
or one of the several streams between those two. There, in a most genial
and fruitful region, they spent some days and established friendly
relations with the chief of a considerable community. In the presence of
this chief and his retainers an altar was erected beneath a great tree,
and mass was celebrated. An aged native, apparently a priest, watched
this proceeding with much interest, and at its close approached Columbus
and addressed him, saying:
"This which thou hast done is, I perceive, thy method of worshipping thy
God; which is well. I am told that thou hast come hither with a strong
force, and hast subdued many lands, filling the people with great fear.
Be not, however, vainglorious. The souls of men after these bodies are
dead have, according to our belief, one of two journeys to pursue. One
is to a place that is dismal, foul and dark, which is prepared for those
who have been cruel and unjust to their fellow men. The other is to a
place of light and joy, prepared for those who have practised peace and
justice. Therefore if thou art mortal, and must some time die, and dost
expect that all men are to be rewarded according to the deeds done in
their bodies, see that thou work justice and do no harm to those who
have done no harm to thee."
In this address was revealed the most that we know of the religion of
the Cuban aborigines. Columbus listened to it with surprise and
gratification, not having supposed that any such faith or such knowledge
of the future life existed among the natives of Cuba. He responded
through his interpreter sympathetically, assuring the old man that he
had been sent forth by his sovereigns to teach the true faith and to do
good and no evil, and that all innocent and peaceable men might
confidently look to him for friendship and protection. He also had his
interpreter tell the people of the greatness, riches and splendor of
Spain; to which they listened in credulous bewilderment. Then, on July
16, he sailed away from Cuba again, amid expressions of regret by the
chief and his comrades; taking with him one of the young men whom he
afterward sent to the Spanish court. But a storm struck his feeble
vessels and nearly wrecked them. On July 18 they anchored near Cape Cruz
for repairs, and were most hospitably received by the natives. At last,
on July 22, they departed for Jamaica, whence they returned to Isabella.
Never again did Columbus visit Cuba, though he approached its southern
shore on his fourth voyage, on his way to the coast of Central America.
To the end of his life, presumably, he believed Cuba to be a part of the
Asian continent, continuous with Honduras and Veragua.