OUR LADY OF LA RABIDA
It is a long road from Santa Fe to Huelva, a long journey to make on
foot, and the company of a sad heart and a little talking boy, prone to
sudden weariness and the asking of innumerable difficult questions, would
not make it very much shorter. Every step that Christopher took carried
him farther away from the glittering scene where his hopes had once been
so bright, and were now fallen to the dust; and every step brought him
nearer that unknown destiny as to which he was in great darkness of mind,
and certain only that there was some small next thing constantly to be
done: the putting down of one foot after another, the request for food
and lodging at the end of each short day’s march, the setting out again
in the morning. That walk from Santa Fe, so real and painful and
wearisome and long a thing to Christopher and Diego, is utterly blank and
obliterated for us. What he thought and felt and suffered are things
quite dead; what he did-namely, to go and do the immediate thing that it
seemed possible and right for him to do--is a living fact to-day, for it
brought him, as all brave and honest doing will, a little nearer to his
destiny, a little nearer to the truthful realisation of what was in him.
At about a day’s journey from Huelva, where the general slope of the land
begins to fall towards the sea, two small rivers, the Odiel and the
Tinto, which have hitherto been making music each for itself through the
pleasant valleys and vineyards of Andalusia, join forces, and run with a
deeper stream towards the sea at Palos. The town of Palos lay on the
banks of the river; a little to the south of it, and on the brow of a
rocky promontory dark with pine trees, there stood the convent of Our
Lady of La Rabida. Stood, on this November evening in the year 1491;
had stood in some form or other, and used for varying purposes, for many
years and centuries before that, even to the time of the Romans; and
still stands, a silent and neglected place, yet to be visited and seen by
such as are curious. To the door of this place comes Christopher as
darkness falls, urged thereto by the plight of Diego, who is tired and
hungry. Christopher rings the bell, and asks the porter for a little
bread and water for the child, and a lodging for them both. There is
some talk at the door; the Franciscan lay brother being given, at all
times in the history of his order, to the pleasant indulgence of
gossiping conversation, when that is lawful; and the presence of a
stranger, who speaks with a foreign accent, being at all times a incident
of interest and even of excitement in the quiet life of a monastery. The
moment is one big with import to the human race; it marks a period in the
history of our man; the scene is worth calling up. Dark night, with sea
breezes moaning in the pine trees, outside; raying light from within
falling on the lay brother leaning in the doorway and on the two figures
standing without: on Christopher, grave, subdued, weary, yet now as
always of pleasant and impressive address, and on the small boy who
stands beside him round-eyed and expectant, his fatigue for the moment
forgotten in curiosity and anticipation.
While they are talking comes no less a person than the Prior of the
monastery, Friar Juan Perez, bustling round, good-natured busybody that
he is, to see what is all this talk at the door. The Prior, as is the
habit of monks, begins by asking questions. What is the stranger’s name?
Where does he come from? Where is he going to? What is his business?
Is the little boy his son? He has actually come from Santa Fe? The
Prior, loving talk after the manner of his kind, sees in this grave and
smooth-spoken stranger rich possibilities of talk; possibilities that
cannot possibly be exhausted to-night, it being now hard on the hour of
Compline; the stranger must come in and rest for tonight at least, and
possibly for several nights. There is much bustle and preparation; the
travellers are welcomed with monkish hospitality; Christopher, we may be
sure, goes and hears the convent singing Compline, and offers up devout
prayers for a quiet night and for safe conduct through this vale of
tears; and goes thankfully to bed with the plainsong echoing in his ears,
and some stoic sense that all days, however hard, have an evening, and
all journeys an end.
Next morning the talk begins in earnest, and Christopher, never a very
reserved man, finds in the friendly curiosity of the monks abundant
encouragement to talk; and before very long he is in full swing with his
oft-told story. The Prior is delighted with it; he has not heard
anything so interesting for a long time. Moreover, he has not always
been in a convent; he was not so long ago confessor to Queen Isabella
herself, and has much to communicate and ask concerning that lady.
Columbus’s proposal does not strike him as being unreasonable at all;
but he has a friend in Palos, a very learned man indeed, Doctor Garcia
Hernandez, who often comes and has a talk with him; he knows all about
astronomy and cosmography; the Prior will send for him. And meanwhile
there must be no word of Columbus’s departure for a few days at any rate.
Presently Doctor Garcia Hernandez arrives, and the whole story is gone
over again. They go at it hammer and tongs, arguments and
counter-arguments, reasons for and against, encouragements, and
objections. The result is that Doctor Garcia Hernandez, whose learning
seems not yet quite to have blinded or deafened him, thinks well of the
scheme; thinks so well of it that he protests it will be a thousand
pities if the chance of carrying it out is lost to Spain. The worthy
Prior, who has been somewhat out of it while the talk about degrees and
latitudes has been going on, here strikes in again; he will use his
influence. Perhaps the good man, living up here among the pine trees
and the sea winds, and involved in the monotonous round of Prime, Lauds,
Nones, Vespers, has a regretful thought or two of the time when he moved
in the splendid intricacy of Court life; at any rate he is not sorry to
have an opportunity of recalling himself to the attention of Her
Majesty, for the spiritual safety of whose soul he was once responsible;
perhaps, being (in spite of his Nones and Vespers) a human soul, he is
glad of an opportunity of opposing the counsels of his successor,
Talavera. In a word, he will use his Influence. Then follow much
drafting of letters, and laying of heads together, and clatter of
monkish tongues; the upshot of which is that a letter is written in
which Perez urges his daughter in the Lord in the strongest possible
terms not to let slip so glorious an opportunity, not only of fame and
increment to her kingdom, but of service to the Church and the kingdom
of Heaven itself. He assures her that Columbus is indeed about to
depart from the country, but that he (Perez) will detain him at La
Rabida until he has an answer from the Queen.
A messenger to carry the letter was found in the person of Sebastian
Rodriguez, a pilot of the port, who immediately set off to Santa Fe.
It is not likely that Columbus, after so many rebuffs, was very hopeful;
but in the meantime, here he was amid the pious surroundings in which the
religious part of him delighted, and in a haven of rest after all his
turmoils and trials. He could look out to sea over the flecked waters of
that Atlantic whose secrets he longed to discover; or he could look down
into the busy little port of Palos, and watch the ships sailing in and
out across the bar of Saltes. He could let his soul, much battered and
torn of late by trials and disappointments, rest for a time on the rock
of religion; he could snuff the incense in the chapel to his heart’s
content, and mingle his rough top-gallant voice with the harsh croak of
the monks in the daily cycle of prayer and praise. He could walk with
Diego through the sandy roads beneath the pine trees, or through the
fields and vineyards below; and above all he could talk to the company
that good Perez invited to meet him--among them merchants and sailors
from Palos, of whom the chief was Martin Alonso Pinzon, a wealthy
landowner and navigator, whose family lived then at Palos, owning the
vineyards round about, and whose descendants live there to this day.
Pinzon was a listener after Columbus’s own heart; he not only believed in
his project, but offered to assist it with money, and even to accompany
the expedition himself. Altogether a happy and peaceful time, in which
hopes revived, and the inner light that, although it had now and then
flickered, had never gone out, burned up again in a bright and steady
flame.
At the end of a fortnight, and much sooner than had been expected, the
worthy pilot returned with a letter from the Queen. Eager hands seized
it and opened it; delight beamed from the eyes of the good Prior. The
Queen was most cordial to him, thanked him for his intervention, was
ready to listen to him and even to be convinced by him; and in the
meantime commanded his immediate appearance at the Court, asking that
Columbus would be so good as to wait at La Rabida until he should hear
further from her. Then followed such a fussing and fuming, such a
running hither and thither, and giving and taking of instructions and
clatter of tongues as even the convent of La Rabida had probably never
known. Nothing will serve the good old busybody, although it is now near
midnight, but that he must depart at once. He will not wait for
daylight; he will not, the good honest soul! wait at all. He must be off
at once; he must have this, he must have that; he will take this, he
will leave that behind; or no, he will take that, and leave this behind.
He must have a mule, for his old feet will not bear him fast enough;
ex-confessors of Her Majesty, moreover, do not travel on foot; and after
more fussing and running hither and thither a mule is borrowed from one
Juan Rodriguez Cabezudo of Moguer; and with a God-speed from the group
standing round the lighted doorway, the old monk sets forth into the
night.
It is a strange thing to consider what unimportant flotsam sometimes
floats visibly upon the stream of history, while the gravest events are
sunk deep beneath its flood. We would give a king’s ransom to know
events that must have taken place in any one of twenty years in the life
of Columbus, but there is no sign of them on the surface of the stream,
nor will any fishing bring them to light. Yet here, bobbing up like a
cork, comes the name of Juan Rodriguez Cabezudo of Moguer, doubtless a
good worthy soul, but, since he has been dead these four centuries and
more, of no interest or importance to any human being; yet of whose life
one trivial act, surviving the flood of time which has engulfed all else
that he thought important, falls here to be recorded: that he did,
towards midnight of a day late in December 1491 lend a mule to Friar Juan
Perez.
Of that heroic mule journey we have no record; but it brought results
enough to compensate the good Prior for all his aching bones and
rheumatic joints. He was welcomed by the Queen, who had never quite lost
her belief in Columbus, but who had hitherto deferred to the apathy of
Ferdinand and the disapproval--of her learned advisers. Now, however,
the matter was reopened. She, who sometimes listened to priests with
results other than good, heard this worthy priest to good purpose. The
feminine friends of Columbus who remembered him at Court also spoke up
for him, among them the Marquesa de Moya, with whom he had always been a
favourite; and it was decided that his request should be granted and
three vessels equipped for the expedition, “that he might go and make
discoveries and prove true the words he had spoken.”--Moreover, the
machinery that had been so hard to move before, turned swiftly now.
Diego Prieto, one of the magistrates of Palos, was sent to Columbus at La
Rabida, bearing 20,000 maravedis with which he was to buy a mule and
decent clothing for himself, and repair immediately to the Court at Santa
Fe. Old Perez was in high feather, and busy with his pen. He wrote to
Doctor Garcia Hernandez, and also to Columbus, in whose letter the
following pleasant passage occurs:
“Our Lord has listened to the prayers of His servant. The wise and
virtuous Isabella, touched by the grace of Heaven, gave a favourable
hearing to the words of this poor monk. All has turned out well.
Far from despising your project, she has adopted it from this time,
and she has summoned you to Court to propose the means which seem
best to you for the execution of the designs of Providence. My
heart swims in a sea of comfort, and my spirit leaps with joy in the
Lord. Start at once, for the Queen waits for you, and I much more
than she. Commend me to the prayers of my brethren, and of your
little Diego. The grace of God be with you, and may Our Lady of La
Rabida accompany you.”
The news of that day must have come upon Columbus like a burst of
sunshine after rain. I like to think how bright must have seemed to him
the broad view of land and sea, how deeply the solemn words of the last
office which he attended must have sunk into his soul, how great and glad
a thing life must have been to him, and how lightly the miles must have
passed beneath the feet of his mule as he jogged out on the long road to
Santa Fe.