Surely he deserves them, if ever an honourable gentleman did.

CHAPTER VII

THE HERITAGE OF HATRED

Although the journey from Jamaica to Espanola had been accomplished in

four days by Mendez in his canoe, the caravels conveying the party

rescued from Puerto Santa Gloria were seven weary weeks on this short

voyage; a strong north-west wind combining with the west-going current to

make their progress to the north-west impossible for weeks at a time. It

was not until the 13th of August 1503 that they anchored in the harbour

of San Domingo, and Columbus once more set foot, after an absence of more

than two years, on the territory from the governorship of which he had

been deposed.

He was well enough received by Ovando, who came down in state to meet

him, lodged him in his own house, and saw that he was treated with the

distinction suitable to his high station. The Spanish colony, moreover,

seemed to have made something of a hero of Columbus during his long

absence, and they received him with enthusiasm. But his satisfaction in

being in San Domingo ended with that. He was constantly made to feel

that it was Ovando and not he who was the ruler there;--and Ovando

emphasised the difference between them by numerous acts of highhanded

authority, some of them of a kind calculated to be extremely mortifying

to the Admiral. Among these things he insisted upon releasing Porras,

whom Columbus had confined in chains; and he talked of punishing those

faithful followers of Columbus who had taken part in the battle between

Bartholomew and the rebels, because in this fight some of the followers

of Porras had been killed. Acts like these produced weary bickerings and

arguments between Ovando and Columbus, unprofitable to them, unprofitable

to us. The Admiral seems now to have relapsed into a condition in which

he cared only for two things, his honours and his emoluments. Over every

authoritative act of Ovando’s there was a weary squabble between him and

the Admiral, Ovando claiming his right of jurisdiction over the whole

territory of the New World, including Jamaica, and Columbus insisting

that by his commission and letters of authority he had been placed in

sole charge of the members of his own expedition.

And then, as regards his emoluments, the Admiral considered himself (and

not without justice) to have been treated most unfairly. By the

extravagant terms of his original agreement he was, as we know, entitled

to a share of all rents and dues, as well as of the gold collected; but

it had been no one’s business to collect these for him, and every one’s

business to neglect them. No one had cared; no one had kept any accounts

of what was due to the Admiral; he could not find out what had been paid

and what had not been paid. He accused Ovando of having impeded his

agent Carvajal in his duty of collecting the Admiral’s revenues, and of

disobeying the express orders of Queen Isabella in that matter; and so

on-a state of affairs the most wearisome, sordid, and unprofitable in

which any man could be involved.

And if Columbus turned his eyes from the office in San Domingo inland to

that Paradise which he had entered twelve years before, what change and

ruin, dreary, horrible and complete, did he not discover! The birds

still sang, and the nights were still like May in Cordova; but upon that

happy harmony the sound of piteous cries and shrieks had long since

broken, and along and black December night of misery had spread its pall

over the island. Wherever he went, Columbus found the same evidence of

ruin and desolation. Where once innumerable handsome natives had

thronged the forests and the villages, there were now silence and smoking

ruin, and the few natives that he met were emaciated, terrified, dying.

Did he reflect, I wonder, that some part of the responsibility of all

this horror rested on him? That many a system of island government, the

machinery of which was now fed by a steady stream of human lives, had

been set going by him in ignorance, or greed of quick commercial returns?

It is probable that he did not; for he now permanently regarded himself

as a much-injured man, and was far too much occupied with his own wrongs

to realise that they were as nothing compared with the monstrous stream

of wrong and suffering that he had unwittingly sent flowing into the

world.

In the island under Ovando’s rule Columbus saw the logical results of his

own original principles of government, which had recognised the right of

the Christians to possess the persons and labours of the heathen natives.

Las Casas, who was living in Espanola as a young priest at this time, and

was destined by long residence there and in the West Indies to qualify

himself as their first historian, saw what Columbus saw, and saw also the

even worse things that happened in after years in Cuba and Jamaica; and

it is to him that we owe our knowledge of the condition of island affairs

at this time. The colonists whom Ovando had brought out had come very

much in the spirit that in our own day characterised the rush to the

north-western goldfields of America. They brought only the slightest

equipment, and were no sooner landed at San Domingo than they set out

into the island like so many picnic parties, being more careful to carry

vessels in which to bring back the gold they were to find than proper

provisions and equipment to support them in the labour of finding it.

The roads, says Las Casas, swarmed like ant-hills with these adventurers

rushing forth to the mines, which were about twenty-five miles distant

from San Domingo; they were in the highest spirits, and they made it a

kind of race as to who should get there first. They thought they had

nothing to do but to pick up shining lumps of gold; and when they found

that they had to dig and delve in the hard earth, and to dig

systematically and continuously, with a great deal of digging for very

little gold, their spirits fell. They were not used to dig; and it

happened that most of them began in an unprofitable spot, where they

digged for eight days without finding any gold. Their provisions were

soon exhausted; and in a week they were back again in San Domingo, tired,

famished, and bitterly disappointed. They had no genius for steady

labour; most of them were virtually without means; and although they

lived in San Domingo, on what they had as long as possible, they were

soon starving there, and selling the clothes off their backs to procure

food. Some of them took situations with the other settlers, more fell

victims to the climate of the island and their own imprudences and

distresses; and a thousand of them had died within two years.

Ovando had revived the enthusiasm for mining by two enactments. He

reduced the share of discovered gold payable to the Crown, and he

developed Columbus’s system of forced labour to such an extent that the

mines were entirely worked by it. To each Spaniard, whether mining or

farming, so many natives were allotted. It was not called slavery; the

natives were supposed to be paid a minute sum, and their employers were

also expected to teach them the Christian religion. That was the plan.

The way in which it worked was that, a body of native men being allotted

to a Spanish settler for a period, say, of six or eight months--for the

enactment was precise in putting a period to the term of slavery--the

natives would be marched off, probably many days’ journey from their

homes and families, and set to work under a Spanish foreman. The work,

as we have already seen, was infinitely harder than that to which they

were accustomed; and most serious of all, it was done under conditions

that took all the heart out of the labour. A man will toil in his own

garden or in tilling his own land with interest and happiness, not

counting the hours which he spends there; knowing in fact that his work

is worth doing, because he is doing it for a good reason. But put the

same man to work in a gang merely for the aggrandisement of some other

over-man; and the heart and cheerfulness will soon die out of him.

It was so with these children of the sun. They were put to work ten

times harder than any they had ever done before, and they were put to it

under the lash. The light diet of their habit had been sufficient to

support them in their former existence of happy idleness and dalliance,

and they had not wanted anything more than their cassava bread and a

little fish and fruit; now, however, they were put to work at a pressure

which made a very different kind of feeding necessary to them, and this

they did not get. Now and then a handful of pork would be divided among

a dozen of them, but they were literally starved, and were accustomed to

scramble like dogs for the bones that were thrown from the tables of the

Spaniards, which bones they ground up and mixed with their, bread so that

no portion of them might be lost. They died in numbers under these hard

conditions, and, compared with their lives, their deaths must often have

been happy. When the time came for them to go home they were generally

utterly worn out and crippled, and had to face a long journey of many

days with no food to support them but what they could get on the journey;

and the roads were strewn with the dead bodies of those who fell by the

way.

And far worse things happened to them than labour and exhaustion. It

became the custom among the Spaniards to regard the lives of the natives

as of far less value than those of the dogs that were sometimes set upon

them in sport. A Spaniard riding along would make a wager with his

fellow that he would cut the head off a native with one stroke of his

sword; and many attempts would be laughingly made, and many living bodies

hideously mutilated and destroyed, before the feat would be accomplished.

Another sport was one similar to pigsticking as it is practised in India,

except that instead of pigs native women and children were stuck with the

lances. There was no kind of mutilation and monstrous cruelty that was

not practised. If there be any powers of hell, they stalked at large

through the forests and valleys of Espanola. Lust and bloody cruelty, of

a kind not merely indescribable but unrealisable by sane men and women,

drenched the once happy island with anguish and terror. And in payment

for it the Spaniards undertook to teach the heathen the Christian

religion.

The five chiefs who had ruled with justice and wisdom over the island of

Espanola in the early days of Columbus were all dead, wiped out by the

wave of wild death and cruelty that had swept over the island. The

gentle Guacanagari, when he saw the desolation that was beginning to

overwhelm human existence, had fled into the mountains, hiding his face

in shame from the sons of men, and had miserably died there. Caonabo,

Lord of the House of Gold, fiercest and bravest of them all, who first

realised that the Spaniards were enemies to the native peace, after

languishing in prison in the house of Columbus at Isabella for some time,

had died in captivity during the voyage to Spain. Anacaona his wife, the

Bloom of the Gold, that brave and beautiful woman, whose admiration of

the Spaniards had by their bloody cruelties been turned into detestation,

had been shamefully betrayed and ignominiously hanged. Behechio, her

brother, the only cacique who did not sue for peace after the first

conquest of the island by Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus, was dead

long ago of wounds and sorrow. Guarionex, the Lord of the Vega Real, who

had once been friendly enough, who had danced to the Spanish pipe and

learned the Paternoster and Ave Maria, and whose progress in conversion

to Christianity the seduction of his wives by those who were converting

him had interrupted, after wandering in the mountains of Ciguay had been

imprisoned in chains, and drowned in the hurricane of June 30, 1502.

The fifth chief, Cotabanama, Lord of the province of Higua, made the last

stand against Ovando in defence of the native right to existence, and was

only defeated after severe battles and dreadful slaughters. His

territory was among the mountains, and his last insurrection was caused,

as so many others had been, by the intolerable conduct of the Spaniards

towards the wives and daughters of the Indians. Collecting all his

warriors, Cotabanama attacked the Spanish posts in his neighbourhood.

At every engagement his troops were defeated and dispersed, but only to

collect again, fight again with even greater fury, be defeated and

dispersed again, and rally again against the Spaniards. They literally

fought to the death. After every battle the Spaniards made a massacre of

all the natives they could find, old men, children, and pregnant women

being alike put to the sword or burned in their houses. When their

companions fell beside them, instead of being frightened they became more

furious; and when they were wounded they would pluck the arrows out of

their bodies and hurl them back at the Spaniards, falling dead in the

very act. After one such severe defeat and massacre the natives

scattered for many months, hiding among the mountains and trying to

collect and succour their decimated families; but the Spaniards, who with

their dogs grew skilful at tracking the Indians and found it pleasant

sport, came upon them in the places of refuge where little groups of them

were sheltering their women and children, and there slowly and cruelly

slaughtered them, often with the addition of tortures and torments in

order to induce them to reveal the whereabouts of other bands. When it

was possible the Spaniards sometimes hanged thirteen of them in a row in

commemoration of their Blessed Saviour and the Twelve Apostles; and while

they were hanging, and before they had quite died, they would hack at

them with their swords in order to test the edge of the steel. At the

last stand, when the fierceness and bitterness of the contest rose to a

height on both sides, Cotabanama was captured and a plan made to broil

him slowly to death; but for some reason this plan was not carried out,

and the brave chief was taken to San Domingo and publicly hanged like a

thief.

After that there was never any more resistance; it was simply a case of

extermination, which the Spaniards easily accomplished by cutting of the

heads of women as they passed by, and impaling infants and little

children on their lances as they rode through the villages. Thus, in the

twelve years since the discovery of Columbus, between half a million and

a million natives, perished; and as the Spanish colonisation spread

afterwards from island to island, and the banner of civilisation and

Christianity was borne farther abroad throughout the Indies, the same

hideous process was continued. In Cuba, in Jamaica, throughout the

Antilles, the cross and the sword, the whip-lash and the Gospel advanced

together; wherever the Host was consecrated, hideous cries of agony and

suffering broke forth; until happily, in the fulness of time, the dire

business was complete, and the whole of the people who had inhabited this

garden of the world were exterminated and their blood and race wiped from

the face of the earth . . . . Unless, indeed, blood and race and hatred

be imperishable things; unless the faithful Earth that bred and reared

the race still keeps in her soil, and in the waving branches of the trees

and the green grasses, the sacred essences of its blood and hatred;

unless in the full cycle of Time, when that suffering flesh and blood

shall have gone through all the changes of substance and condition, from

corruption and dust through flowers and grasses and trees and animals

back into the living body of mankind again, it shall one day rise up

terribly to avenge that horror of the past. Unless Earth and Time

remember, O Children of the Sun! for men have forgotten, and on the soil

of your Paradise the African negro, learned in the vices of Europe,

erects his monstrous effigy of civilisation and his grotesque mockery of

freedom; unless it be through his brutish body, into which the blood and

hatred with which the soil of Espanola was soaked have now passed, that

they shall dreadfully strike at the world again.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ADMIRAL COMES HOME

On September 12, 1504., Christopher Columbus did many things for the last

time. He who had so often occupied himself in ports and harbours with

the fitting out of ships and preparations for a voyage now completed at

San Domingo the simple preparations for the last voyage he was to take.

The ship he had come in from Jamaica had been refitted and placed under

the command of Bartholomew, and he had bought another small caravel in

which he and his son were to sail. For the last time he superintended

those details of fitting out and provisioning which were now so familiar

to him; for the last time he walked in the streets of San Domingo and

mingled with the direful activities of his colony; he looked his last

upon the place where the vital scenes of his life had been set, for the

last time weighed anchor, and took his last farewell of the seas and

islands of his discovery. A little steadfast looking, a little straining

of the eyes, a little heart-aching no doubt, and Espanola has sunk down

into the sea behind the white wake of the ships; and with its fading away

the span of active life allotted to this man shuts down, and his powerful

opportunities for good or evil are withdrawn.

There was something great and heroic about the Admiral’s last voyage.

Wind and sea rose up as though to make a last bitter attack upon the man

who had disclosed their mysteries and betrayed their secrets. He had

hardly cleared the island before the first gale came down upon him and

dismasted his ship, so that he was obliged to transfer himself and his

son to Bartholomew’s caravel and send the disabled vessel back to

Espanola. The shouting sea, as though encouraged by this triumph, hurled

tempest after tempest upon the one lonely small ship that was staggering

on its way to Spain; and the duel between this great seaman and the vast

elemental power that he had so often outwitted began in earnest. One

little ship, one enfeebled man to be destroyed by the power of the sea:

that was the problem, and there were thousands of miles of sea-room, and

two months of time to solve it in! Tempest after tempest rose and drove

unceasingly against the ship. A mast was sprung and had to be cut away;

another, and the woodwork from the forecastles and high stern works had

to be stripped and lashed round the crazy mainmast to preserve it from

wholesale destruction. Another gale, and the mast had to be shortened,

for even reinforced as it was it would not bear the strain; and so

crippled, so buffeted, this very small ship leapt and staggered on her

way across the Atlantic, keeping her bowsprit pointed to that region of

the foamy emptiness where Spain was.

The Admiral lay crippled in his cabin listening to the rush and bubble of

the water, feeling the blows and recoils of the unending battle,

hearkening anxiously to the straining of the timbers and the vessel’s

agonised complainings under the pounding of the seas. We do not know

what his thoughts were; but we may guess that they looked backward rather

than forward, and that often they must have been prayers that the present

misery would come somehow or other to an end. Up on deck brother

Bartholomew, who has developed some grievous complaint of the jaws and

teeth--complaint not known to us more particularly, but dreadful enough

from that description--does his duty also, with that heroic manfulness

that has marked his whole career; and somewhere in the ship young

Ferdinand is sheltering from the sprays and breaking seas, finding his

world of adventure grown somewhat gloomy and sordid of late, and feeling

that he has now had his fill of the sea . . . . Shut your eyes and

let the illusions of time and place fade from you; be with them for a

moment on this last voyage; hear that eternal foaming and crashing of

great waves, the shrieking of wind in cordage, the cracking and slatting

of the sails, the mad lashing of loose ropes; the painful swinging, and

climbing up and diving down, and sinking and staggering and helpless

strivings of the small ship in the waste of water. The sea is as empty

as chaos, nothing for days and weeks but that infinite tumbling surface

and heaven of grey storm-clouds; a world of salt surges encircled by

horizons of dim foam. Time and place are nothing; the agony and pain of

such moments are eternal.

But the two brothers, grim and gigantic in their sea power, subtle as the

wind itself in their sea wit, win the battle. Over the thousands of

miles of angry surges they urge that small ship towards calm and safety;

until one day the sea begins to abate a little, and through the spray and

tumult of waters the dim loom of land is seen. The sea falls back

disappointed and finally conquered by Christopher Columbus, whose ship,

battered, crippled, and strained, comes back out of the wilderness of

waters and glides quietly into the smooth harbour of San Lucar, November

7, 1504. There were no guns or bells to greet the Admiral; his only

salute was in the thunder of the conquered seas; and he was carried

ashore to San Lucar, and thence to Seville, a sick and broken man.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST DAYS

Columbus, for whom rest and quiet were the first essentials, remained in

Seville from November 1504 to May 1505, when he joined the Court at

Segovia and afterwards at Salamanca and Valladolid, where he remained

till his death in May 1506. During this last period, when all other

activities were practically impossible to him, he fell into a state of

letter-writing--for the most part long, wearisome complainings and

explainings in which he poured out a copious flood of tears and self-pity

for the loss of his gold.

It has generally been claimed that Columbus was in bitter penury and want

of money, but a close examination of the letters and other documents

relating to this time show that in his last days he was not poor in any

true sense of the word. He was probably a hundred times richer than any

of his ancestors had ever been; he had, money to give and money to spend;

the banks honoured his drafts; his credit was apparently indisputable.

But compared with the fabulous wealth to which he would by this time have

been entitled if his original agreement with the Crown of Spain had been

faithfully carried out he was no doubt poor. There is no evidence that

he lacked any comfort or alleviation that money could buy; indeed he

never had any great craving for the things that money can buy--only for

money itself. There must have been many rich people in Spain who would

gladly have entertained him in luxury and dignity; but he was not the

kind of man to set much store by such things except in so far as they

were a decoration and advertisement of his position as a great man. He

had set himself to the single task of securing what he called his rights;

and in these days of sunset he seems to have been illumined by some

glimmer of the early glory of his first inspiration. He wanted the

payment of his dues now, not so much for his own enrichment, but as a

sign to the world that his great position as Admiral and Viceroy was

recognised, so that his dignities and estates might be established and

consolidated in a form which he would be able to transmit to his remote

posterity.

Since he wrote so copiously and so constantly in these last days, the

best picture of his mood and condition is afforded in his letters to his

son Diego; letters which, in spite of their infinitely wearisome

recapitulation and querulous complaint, should be carefully read by those

who wish to keep in touch with the Admiral to the end.

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,

November 21, 1504.

“VERY DEAR SON,--I received your letter by the courier. You did

well in remaining yonder to remedy our affairs somewhat and to

employ yourself now in our business. Ever since I came to Castile,

the Lord Bishop of Palencia has shown me favour and has desired that

I should be honoured. Now he must be entreated that it may please

him to occupy himself in remedying my many grievances and in

ordering that the agreement and letters of concession which their

Highnesses gave me be fulfilled, and that I be indemnified for so

many damages. And he may be certain that if their Highnesses do

this, their estate and greatness will be multiplied to them in an

incredible degree. And it must not appear to him that forty

thousand pesos in gold is more than a representation of it; because

they might have had a much greater quantity if Satan had not

hindered it by impeding my design; for, when I was taken away from

the Indies, I was prepared to give them a sum of gold incomparable

to forty thousand pesos. I make oath, and this may be for thee

alone, that the damage to me in the matter of the concessions their

Highnesses have made to me, amounts to ten millions each year, and

never can be made good. You see what will be, or is, the injury to

their Highnesses in what belongs to them, and they do not perceive

it. I write at their disposal and will strive to start yonder. My

arrival and the rest is in the hands of our Lord. His mercy is

infinite. What is done and is to be done, St. Augustine says is

already done before the creation of the world. I write also to

these other Lords named in the letter of Diego Mendez. Commend me

to their mercy and tell them of my going as I have said above. For

certainly I feel great fear, as the cold is so inimical to this, my

infirmity, that I may have to remain on the road.

“I was very much pleased to hear the contents of your letter and

what the King our Lord said, for which you kissed his royal hands.

It is certain that I have served their Highnesses with as much

diligence and love as though it had been to gain Paradise, and more,

and if I have been at fault in anything it has been because it was

impossible or because my knowledge and strength were not sufficient.

God, our Lord, in such a case, does not require more from persons

than the will.

“At the request of the Treasurer Morales, I left two brothers in the

Indies, who are called Porras. The one was captain and the other

auditor. Both were without capacity for these positions: and I was

confident that they could fill them, because of love for the person

who sent them to me. They both became more vain than they had been.

I forgave them many incivilities, more than I would do with a

relation, and their offences were such that they merited another

punishment than a verbal reprimand. Finally they reached such a

point that even had I desired, I could not have avoided doing what I

did. The records of the case will prove whether I lie or not. They

rebelled on the island of Jamaica, at which I was as much astonished

as I would be if the sun’s rays should cast darkness. I was at the

point of death, and they martyrised me with extreme cruelty during

five months and without cause. Finally I took them all prisoners,

and immediately set them free, except the captain, whom I was

bringing as a prisoner to their Highnesses. A petition which they

made to me under oath, and which I send you with this letter, will

inform you at length in regard to this matter, although the records

of the case explain it fully. These records and the Notary are

coming on another vessel, which I am expecting from day to day. The

Governor in Santo Domingo took this prisoner.--His courtesy

constrained him to do this. I had a chapter in my instructions in

which their Highnesses ordered all to obey me, and that I should

exercise civil and criminal justice over all those who were with me:

but this was of no avail with the Governor, who said that it was not

understood as applying in his territory. He sent the prisoner to

these Lords who have charge of the Indies without inquiry or record

or writing. They did not receive him, and both brothers go free.

It is not wonderful to me that our Lord punishes. They went there

with shameless faces. Such wickedness or such cruel treason were

never heard of. I wrote to their Highnesses about this matter in

the other letter, and said that it was not right for them to consent

to this offence. I also wrote to the Lord Treasurer that I begged

him as a favour not to pass sentence on the testimony given by these

men until he heard me. Now it will be well for you to remind him of

it anew. I do, not know how they dare to go before him with such an

undertaking. I have written to him about it again and have sent him

the copy of the oath, the same as I send to you and likewise to

Doctor Angulo and the Licentiate Zapata. I commend myself to the

mercy of all, with the information that my departure yonder will

take place in a short time.

“I would be glad to receive a letter from their Highnesses and to

know what they order. You must procure such a letter if you see the

means of so doing. I also commend myself to the Lord Bishop and to

Juan Lopez, with the reminder of illness and of the reward for my

services.

“You must read the letters which go with this one in order to act in

conformity with what they say. Acknowledge the receipt of his

letter to Diego Mendez. I do not write him as he will learn

everything from you, and also because my illness prevents it.

“It would be well for Carbajal and Jeronimo--[Jeronimo de Aguero, a

landowner in Espanola and a friend of Columbus]--to be at the-Court

at this time, and talk of our affairs with these Lords and with the

Secretary.

“Done in Seville, November 21.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

“I wrote again to their Highnesses entreating them to order that

these people who went with me should be paid, because they are poor

and it is three years since they left their homes. The news which

they bring is more than extraordinary. They have endured infinite

dangers and hardships. I did not wish to rob the country, so as not

to cause scandal, because reason advises its being populated, and

then gold will be obtained freely without scandal. Speak of this to

the Secretary and to the Lord Bishop and to Juan Lopez and to

whomever you think it advisable to do so.”

The Bishop of Palencia referred to in this letter is probably Bishop

Fonseca--probably, because it is known that he did become Bishop of

Palencia, although there is a difference of opinion among historians as

to whether the date of his translation to that see was before or after

this letter. No matter, except that one is glad to think that an old

enemy--for Fonseca and Columbus had bitter disagreements over the fitting

out of various expeditions--had shown himself friendly at last.

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, November 28,

1504.

“VERY DEAR SON,--I received your letters of the 15th of this month.

It is eight days since I wrote you and sent the letter by a courier.

I enclosed unsealed letters to many other persons, in order that you

might see them, and having read them, seal and deliver them.

Although this illness of mine troubles me greatly, I am preparing

for my departure in every way. I would very much like to receive

the reply from their Highnesses and wish you might procure it: and

also I wish that their Highnesses would provide for the payment of

these poor people, who have passed through incredible hardships and

have brought them such great news that infinite thanks should be

given to God, our Lord, and they should rejoice greatly over it.

If I [lie ?] the ‘Paralipomenon’--[ The Book of Chronicles]--and

the Book of Kings and the Antiquities of Josephus, with very many

others, will tell what they know of this. I hope in our Lord to

depart this coming week, but you must not write less often on that

account. I have not heard from Carbajal and Jeronimo. If they are

there, commend me to them. The time is such that both Carbajals

ought to be at Court, if illness does not prevent them. My regards

to Diego Mendez.

“I believe that his truth and efforts will be worth as much as the

lies of the Porras brothers. The bearer of this letter is Martin de

Gamboa. I am sending by him a letter to Juan Lopez and a letter of

credit. Read the letter to Lopez and then give it to him. If you

write me, send the letters to Luis de Soria that he may send them

wherever I am, because if I go in a litter, I believe it will be by

La Plata.--[The old Roman road from Merida to Salamanca.]--May our

Lord have you in His holy keeping. Your uncle has been very sick

and is now, from trouble with his jaws and his teeth.

“Done in Seville, November 28.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

Bartholomew Columbus and Ferdinand were remaining with Christopher at

Seville; Bartholomew probably very nearly as ill as the Admiral, although

we do not hear so many complaints about it. At any rate Diego, being ay

Court, was the great mainstay of his father; and you can see the sick man

sitting there alone with his grievances, and looking to the next

generation for help in getting them redressed. Diego, it is to be

feared, did not receive these letters with so much patience and attention

as he might have shown, nor did he write back to his invalid father with

the fulness and regularity which the old man craved. It is a fault

common to sons. Those who are sons will know that it does not

necessarily imply lack of affection on Diego’s part; those who are

fathers will realise how much Christopher longed for verbal assurance of

interest and affection, even though he did not doubt their reality. News

of the serious illness of Queen Isabella had evidently reached Columbus,

and was the chief topic of public interest.

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,

December 1, 1504.

“VERY DEAR SON,--Since I received your letter of November 15 I have

heard nothing from you. I wish that you would write me more

frequently. I would like to receive a letter from you each hour.

Reason must tell you that now I have no other repose. Many couriers

come each day, and the news is of such a nature and so abundant that

on hearing it all my hair stands on end; it is so contrary to what

my soul desires. May it please the Holy Trinity to give health to

the Queen, our Lady, that she may settle what has already been

placed under discussion. I wrote you by another courier Thursday,

eight days ago. The courier must already be on his way back here.

I told you in that letter that my departure was certain, but that

the hope of my arrival there, according to experience, was very

uncertain, because my sickness is so bad, and the cold is so well

suited to aggravate it, that I could not well avoid remaining in

some inn on the road. The litter and everything were ready. The

weather became so violent that it appeared impossible to every one

to start when it was getting so bad, and that it was better for so

well-known a person as myself to take care of myself and try to

regain my health rather than place myself in danger. I told you in

those letters what I now say, that you decided well in remaining

there (at such a time), and that it was right to commence occupying

yourself with our affairs; and reason strongly urges this. It

appears to me that a good copy should be made of the chapter of that

letter which their Highnesses wrote me where they say they will

fulfil their promises to me and will place you in possession of

everything: and that this copy should be given to them with another

writing telling of my sickness, and that it is now impossible for me

to go and kiss their Royal feet and hands, and that the Indies are

being lost, and are on fire in a thousand places, and that I have

received nothing, and am receiving nothing, from the revenues

derived from them, and that no one dares to accept or demand

anything there for me, and I am living upon borrowed funds. I spent

the money which I got there in bringing those people who went with

me back to their homes, for it would be a great burden upon my

conscience to have left them there and to have abandoned them. This

must be made known to the Lord Bishop of Palencia, in whose favour

I have so much confidence, and also to the Lord Chamberlain.

I believed that Carbajal and Jeronimo would be there at such a time.

Our Lord is there, and He will order everything as He knows it to be

best for us.

“Carbajal reached here yesterday. I wished to send him immediately

with this same order, but he excused himself profusely, saying that

his wife was at the point of death. I shall see that he goes,

because he knows a great deal about these affairs. I will also

endeavour to have your brother and your uncle go to kiss the hands

of Their Highnesses, and give them an account of the voyage if my

letters are not sufficient. Take good care of your brother. He has

a good disposition, and is no longer a boy. Ten brothers would not

be too many for you. I never found better friends to right or to

left than my brothers. We must strive to obtain the government of

the Indies and then the adjustment of the revenues. I gave you a

memorandum which told you what part of them belongs to me. What

they gave to Carbajal was nothing and has turned to nothing.

Whoever desires to do so takes merchandise there, and so the eighth

is nothing, because, without contributing the eighth, I could send

to trade there without rendering account or going in company with

any one. I said a great many times in the past that the

contribution of the eighth would come to nothing. The eighth and

the rest belongs to me by reason of the concession which their

Highnesses made to me, as set forth in the book of my Privileges,

and also the third and the tenth. Of the tenth I received nothing,

except the tenth of what their Highnesses receive; and it must be

the tenth of all the gold and other things which are found and

obtained, in whatever manner it may be, within this Admiralship, and

the tenth of all the merchandise which goes and comes from there,

after the expenses are deducted. I have already said that in the

Book of Privileges the reason for this and for the rest which is

before the Tribunal of the Indies here in Seville, is clearly set

forth.

“We must strive to obtain a reply to my letter from their

Highnesses, and to have them order that these people be paid. I

wrote in regard to this subject four days ago, and sent the letter

by Martin de Gamboa, and you must have seen the letter of Juan Lopez

with your own.

“It is said here that it has been ordered that three or four Bishops

of the Indies shall be sent or created, and that this matter is

referred to the Lord Bishop of Palencia. After having commended me

to his Worship, tell him that I believe it will best serve their

Highnesses for me to talk with him before this matter is settled.

“Commend me to Diego Mendez, and show him this letter. My illness

permits me to write only at night, because in the daytime my hands

are deprived of strength. I believe that a son of Francisco Pinelo

will carry this letter. Entertain him well, because he does

everything for me that he can, with much love and a cheerful

goodwill. The caravel which broke her mast in starting from Santo

Domingo has arrived in the Algarves. She brings the records of the

case of the Porras brothers. Such ugly things and such grievous

cruelty as appear in this matter never were seen. If their

Highnesses do not punish it, I do not know who will dare to go out

in their service with people.

“To-day is Monday. I will endeavour to have your uncle and brother

start to-morrow. Remember to write me very often, and tell Diego

Mendez to write at length. Each day messengers go from here yonder.

May our Lord have you in His Holy keeping.

“Done in Seville, December 1.

“Your father who loves you as himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

The gout from which the Admiral suffered made riding impossible to him,

and he had arranged to have himself carried to Court on a litter when he

was able to move. There is a grim and dismal significance in the

particular litter that had been chosen: it was no other than the funeral

bier which belonged to the Cathedral of Seville and had been built for

Cardinal Mendoza. A minute of the Cathedral Chapter records the granting

to Columbus of the use of this strange conveyance; but one is glad to

think that he ultimately made his journey in a less grim though more

humble method. But what are we to think of the taste of a man who would

rather travel in a bier, so long as it had been associated with the

splendid obsequies of a cardinal, than in the ordinary litter of

every-day use? It is but the old passion for state and splendour thus

dismally breaking out again.

He speaks of living on borrowed funds and of having devoted all his

resources to the payment of his crew; but that may be taken as an

exaggeration. He may have borrowed, but the man who can borrow easily

from banks cannot be regarded as a poor man. One is nevertheless

grateful for these references, since they commemorate the Admiral’s

unfailing loyalty to those who shared his hardships, and his unwearied

efforts to see that they received what was due to them. Pleasant also

are the evidences of warm family affection in those simple words of

brotherly love, and the affecting advice to Diego that he should love his

brother Ferdinand as Christopher loved Bartholomew. It is a pleasant

oasis in this dreary, sordid wailing after thirds and tenths and eighths.

Good Diego Mendez, that honourable gentleman, was evidently also at Court

at this time, honestly striving, we may be sure, to say a good word for

the Admiral.

Some time after this letter was written, and before the writing of the

next, news reached Seville of the death of Queen Isabella. For ten years

her kind heart had been wrung by many sorrows. Her mother had died in

1496; the next year her only son and heir to the crown had followed; and

within yet another year had died her favourite daughter, the Queen of

Portugal. Her other children were all scattered with the exception of

Juana, whose semi-imbecile condition caused her parents an anxiety

greater even than that caused by death. As Isabella’s life thus closed

sombrely in, she applied herself more closely and more narrowly to such

pious consolations as were available. News from Flanders of the

scandalous scenes between Philip and Juana in the summer of 1504 brought

on an illness from which she really never recovered, a kind of feverish

distress of mind and body in which her only alleviation was the

transaction of such business as was possible for her in the direction of

humanity and enlightenment. She still received men of intellect and

renown, especially travellers. But she knew that her end was near, and

as early as October she had made her will, in which her wishes as to the

succession and government of Castile were clearly laid down. There was

no mention of Columbus in this will, which afterwards greatly mortified

him; but it is possible that the poor Queen had by this time, even

against her wish, come to share the opinions of her advisers that the

rule of Columbus in the West Indies had not brought the most humane and

happy results possible to the people there.

During October and November her life thus beat itself away in a

succession of duties faithfully performed, tasks duly finished,

preparations for the great change duly made. She died, as she would have

wished to die, surrounded by friends who loved and admired her, and

fortified by the last rites of the Church for her journey into the

unknown. Date, November 26, 1504, in the fifty-fourth year of her age.

Columbus had evidently received the news from a public source, and felt

mortified that Diego should not have written him a special letter.

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,

December 3, 1504.

“VERY DEAR SON,--I wrote you at length day before yesterday and sent

it by Francisco Pinelo, and with this letter I send you a very full

memorandum. I am very much astonished not to receive a letter from

you or from any one else, and this astonishment is shared by all who

know me. Every one here has letters, and I, who have more reason to

expect them, have none. Great care should be taken about this

matter. The memorandum of which I have spoken above says enough,

and on this account I do not speak more at length here. Your

brother and your uncle and Carbajal are going yonder. You will

learn from them what is not said here. May our Lord have you in His

Holy keeping.

“Done in Seville, December 3.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

Document of COLUMBUS addressed to his Son, DIEGO, and intended to

accompany the preceding letter.

“A memorandum for you, my very dear son, Don Diego, of what occurs

to me at the present time which must be done:--The principal thing

is, affectionately and with great devotion to commend the soul of

the Queen, our Lady, to God. Her life was always Catholic and Holy

and ready for all the things of His holy service, and for this

reason it must be believed that she is in His holy glory and beyond

the desires of this rough and wearisome world. Then the next thing

is to be watchful and exert one’s self in the service of the King,

our Lord, and to strive to keep him from being troubled. His

Highness is the head of Christendom. See the proverb which says

that when the head aches, all the members ache. So that all good

Christians should entreat that he may have long life and health: and

those of us who are obliged to serve him more than others must join

in this supplication with great earnestness and diligence. This

reason prompts me now with my severe illness to write you what I am

writing here, that his Highness may dispose matters for his service:

and for the better fulfilment I am sending your brother there, who,

although he is a child in days, is not a child in understanding; and

I am sending your uncle and Carbajal, so that if this, my writing,

is not sufficient, they, together with yourself, can furnish verbal

evidence. In my opinion there is nothing so necessary for the

service of his Highness as the disposition and remedying of the

affair of the Indies.

“His Highness must now have there more than 40,000 or 50,000 gold

pieces. I learned when I was there that the Governor had no desire

to send it to him. It is believed among the other people as well

that there will be 150,000 pesos more, and the mines are very rich

and productive. Most of the people there are common and ignorant,

and care very little for the circumstances. The Governor is very

much hated by all of them, and it is to be feared that they may at

some time rebel. If this should occur, which God forbid, the remedy

for the matter would then be difficult: and so it would be if

injustice were used toward them, either here or in other places,

with the great fame of the gold. My opinion is that his Highness

should investigate this affair quickly and by means of a person who

is interested and who can go there with 150 or 200 people well

equipped, and remain there until it is well settled and without

suspicion, which cannot be done in less than three months: and that

an endeavour be made to raise two or three forces there. The gold

there is exposed to great risk, as there are very few people to

protect it. I say that there is a proverb here which says that the

presence of the owner makes the horse fat. Here and wherever I may

be, I shall serve their Highnesses with joy, until my soul leaves

this body.

“Above I said that his Highness is the head of the Christians, and

that it is necessary for him to occupy himself in preserving them

and their lands. For this reason people say that he cannot thus

provide a good government for all these Indies, and that they are

being lost and do not yield a profit, neither are they being handled

in a reasonable manner. In my opinion it would serve him to intrust

this matter to some one who is distressed over the bad treatment of

his subjects.

“I wrote a very long letter to his Highness as soon as I arrived

here, fully stating the evils which require a prompt and efficient

remedy at once. I have received no reply, nor have I seen any

provision made in the matter. Some vessels are detained in San

Lucar by the weather. I have told these gentlemen of the Board of

Trade that they must order them held until the King, our Lord, makes

provision in the matter, either by some person with other people,

or by writing. This is very necessary and I know what I say. It is

necessary that the authorities should order all the ports searched

diligently, to see that no one goes yonder to the Indies without

licence. I have already said that there is a great deal of gold

collected in straw houses without any means of defence, and there

are many disorderly people in the country, and that the Governor is

hated, and that little punishment is inflicted and has been

inflicted upon those who have committed crimes and have come out

with their treasonable conduct approved.

“If his Highness decides to make some provision, it must be done at

once, so that these vessels may not be injured.

“I have heard that three Bishops are to be elected and sent to

Espanola. If it pleases his Highness to hear me before concluding

this matter, I will tell in what manner God our Lord may be well

served and his Highness served and satisfied.

“I have given lengthy consideration to the provision for Espanola:”

Yes, the Queen is in His Holy Glory, and beyond the desires of this rough

and wearisome world; but we are not; we are still in a world where fifty

thousand gold pieces can be of use to us, and where a word spoken in

season, even in such a season of darkness, may have its effect with the

King. A strange time to talk to the King about gold; and perhaps Diego

was wiser and kinder than his father thought in not immediately taking

this strange document to King Ferdinand.

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,

December 13, 1504

“VERY DEAR SON,--It is now eight days since your uncle and your

brother and Carbajal left here together, to kiss the royal hands of

his Highness, and to give an account of the voyage, and also to aid

you in the negotiation of whatever may prove to be necessary there.

“Don Ferdinand took from here 150 ducats to be expended at his

discretion. He will have to spend some of it, but he will give you

what he has remaining. He also carries a letter of credit for these

merchants. You will see that it is very necessary to be careful in

dealing with them, because I had trouble there with the Governor, as

every one told me that I had there 11,000 or 12,000 castellanos, and

I had only 4000. He wished to charge me with things for which I am

not indebted, and I, confiding in the promise of their Highnesses,

who ordered everything restored to me, decided to leave these

charges in the hope of calling him to account for them. If any one

has money there, they do not dare ask for it, on account of his

haughtiness. I very well know that after my departure he must have

received more than 5000 castellanos. If it were possible for you to

obtain from his Highness an authoritative letter to the Governor,

ordering him to send the money without delay and a full account of

what belongs to me, by the person I might send there with my power

of attorney, it would be well; because he will not give it in any

other manner, neither to my friend Diaz or Velasquez, and they dare

not even speak of it to him. Carbajal will very well know how this

must be done. Let him see this letter. The 150 ducats which Luis

de Soria sent you when I came are paid according to his desire.

“I wrote you at length and sent the letter by Don Ferdinand, also a

memorandum. Now that I have thought over the matter further, I say

that, since at the time of my departure their Highnesses said over

their signature and verbally, that they would give me all that

belongs to me, according to my privileges--that the claim for the

third or the tenth and eighth mentioned in the memorandum must be

relinquished, and instead the chapter of their letter must be shown

where they write what I have said, and all that belongs to me must

be required, as you have it in writing in the Book of Privileges, in

which is also set forth the reason for my receiving the third,

eighth, and tenth; as there is always an opportunity to reduce the

sum desired by a person, although his Highness says in his letter

that he wishes to give me all that belongs to me. Carbajal will

understand me very well if he sees this letter, and every one else

as well, as it is very clear. I also wrote to his Highness and

finally reminded him that he must provide at once for this affair of

the Indies, that the people there may not be disturbed, and also

reminding him of the promise stated above. You ought to see the

letter.

“With this letter I send you another letter of credit for the said

merchants. I have already explained to you the reasons why expenses

should be moderated. Show your uncle due respect, and treat your

brother as an elder brother should treat a younger. You have no

other brother, and praised be our Lord, he is such a one as you need

very much. He has proved and proves to be very intelligent. Honour

Carbajal and Jeronimo and Diego Mendez. Commend me to them all. I

do not write them as there is nothing to write and this messenger is

in haste. It is frequently rumoured here that the Queen, whom God

has, has left an order that I be restored to the possession of the

Indies. On arrival, the notary of the fleet will send you the

records and the original of the case of the Porras brothers. I have

received no news from your uncle and brother since they left. The

water has been so high here that the river entered the city.

“If Agostin Italian and Francisco de Grimaldo do not wish to give

you the money you need, look for others there who are willing to

give it to you. On the arrival here of your signature I will at

once pay them all that you have received: for at present there is

not a person here by whom I can send you money.

“Done to-day, Friday, December 13, 1504

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO,

December 21, 1504.

“VERY DEAR SON, The Lord Adelantado and your brother and Carbajal

left here sixteen days ago to go to the Court. They have not

written me since. Don Ferdinand carried 150 ducats. He must spend

what is necessary, and he carries a letter, that the merchants may

furnish you with money. I have sent you another letter since, with

the endorsement of Francisco de Ribarol, by Zamora, the courier, and

told you that if you had made provision for yourself by means of my

letter, not to use that of Francisco de Ribarol. I say the same now

in regard to another letter which I send you with this one, for

Francisco Doria, which letter I send you for greater security that

you may not fail to be provided with money. I have already told you

how necessary it is to be careful in the expenditure of the money,

until their Highnesses give us law and justice. I also told you

that I had spent 1200 castellanos in bringing these people to

Castile, of which his Highness owes me the greater part, and I wrote

him in regard to it asking him to order the account settled.

“If possible I should like to receive letters here each day. I

complain of Diego Mendez and of Jeronimo, as they do not write me:

and then of the others who do not write when they arrive there. We

must strive to learn whether the Queen, whom God has in His keeping,

said anything about me in her will, and we must hurry the Lord

Bishop of Palencia, who caused the possession of the Indies by their

Highnesses and my remaining in Castile, for I was already on my way

to leave it. And the Lord Chamberlain of his Highness must also be

hurried. If by chance the affair comes to discussion, you must

strive to have them see the writing which is in the Book of

Privileges, which shows the reason why the third, eighth, and tenth

are owing me, as I told you in another letter.

“I have written to the Holy Father in regard to my voyage, as he

complained of me because I did not write him. I send you a copy of

the letter. I would like to have the King, our Lord, or the Lord

Bishop of Palencia see it before I send the letter, in order to

avoid false representations.

“Camacho has told a thousand falsehoods about me. To my regret I

ordered him arrested. He is in the church. He says that after the

Holidays are past, he will go there if he is able. If I owe him, he

must show by what reason; for I make oath that I do not know it, nor

is it true.

“If without importunity a licence can be procured for me to go on

mule-back, I will try to leave for the Court after January, and I

will even go without this licence. But haste must be made that the

loss of the Indies, which is now imminent, may not take place. May

our Lord have you in His keeping.

“Done to-day, December 21.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

“This tenth which they give me is not the tenth which was promised

me. The Privileges tell what it is, and there is also due me the

tenth of the profit derived from merchandise and from all other

things, of which I have received nothing. Carbajal understands me

well. Also remind Carbajal to obtain a letter from his Highness for

the Governor, directing him to send his accounts and the money I

have there, at once. And it would be well that a Repostero of his

Highness should go there to receive this money, as there must be a

large amount due me. I will strive to have these gentlemen of the

Board of Trade send also to say to the Governor that he must send my

share together with the gold belonging to their Highnesses. But the

remedy for the other matter must not be neglected there on this

account. I say that 7000 or 8000 pesos must have passed to my

credit there, which sum has been received since I left, besides the

other money which was not given to me.

“To my very dear son Don Diego at the Court.”

All this struggling for the due payment of eighths and tenths makes

wearisome reading, and we need not follow the Admiral into his

distinctions between one kind of tenth and another. There is something

to be said on his side, it must be remembered; the man had not received

what was due to him; and although he was not in actual poverty, his only

property in this world consisted of these very thirds and eighths and

tenths. But if we are inclined to think poorly of the Admiral for his

dismal pertinacity, what are we to think of the people who took advantage

of their high position to ignore consistently the just claims made upon

them?

There is no end to the Admiral’s letter-writing at this time.

Fortunately for us his letter to the Pope has been lost, or else we

should have to insert it here; and we have had quite enough of his

theological stupors. As for the Queen’s will, there was no mention of

the Admiral in it; and her only reference to the Indies showed that she

had begun to realise some of the disasters following his rule there, for

the provisions that are concerned with the New World refer exclusively to

the treatment of the natives, to whose succour, long after they were past

succour, the hand of Isabella was stretched out from the grave. The

licence to travel on mule-back which the Admiral asked for was made

necessary by a law which had been passed forbidding the use of mules for

this purpose throughout Spain. There had been a scarcity of horses for

mounting the royal cavalry, and it was thought that the breeding of

horses had been neglected on account of the greater cheapness and utility

of mules. It was to encourage the use and breeding of horses that an

interdict was laid on the use of mules, and only the very highest persons

in the land were allowed to employ them.

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO,

December 29, 1504.

“VERY DEAR SON,--I wrote you at length and sent it by Don Ferdinand,

who left to go yonder twenty-three days ago to-day, with the Lord

Adelantado and Carbajal, from whom I have since heard nothing.

Sixteen days ago to-day I wrote you and sent it by Zamora, the

courier, and I sent you a letter of credit for these merchants

endorsed by Francisco de Ribarol, telling them to give you the money

you might ask for. And then, about eight days ago, I sent you by

another courier a letter endorsed by Francisco Soria, and these

letters are directed to Pantaleon and Agostin Italian, that they may

give it to you. And with these letters goes a copy of a letter

which I wrote to the Holy Father in regard to the affairs of the

Indies, that he might not complain of me any more. I sent this copy

for his Highness to see, or the Lord Bishop of Palencia, so as to

avoid false representations. The payment of the people who went

with me has been delayed. I have provided for them here what I have

been able. They are poor and obliged to go in order to earn a

living. They decided to go yonder. They have been told here that

they will be dealt with as favourably as possible, and this is

right, although among them there are some who merit punishment more

than favours. This is said of the rebels. I gave these people a

letter for the Lord Bishop of Palencia. Read it, and if it is

necessary for them to go and petition his Highness, urge your uncle

and brother and Carbajal to read it also, so that you can all help

them as much as possible. It is right and a work of mercy, for no

one ever earned money with so many dangers and hardships and no one

has ever rendered such great service as these people. It is said

that Camacho and Master Bernal wish to go there--two creatures for

whom God works few miracles: but if they go, it will be to do harm

rather than good. They can do little because the truth always

prevails, as it did in Espanola, from which wicked people by means

of falsehoods have prevented any profit being received up to the

present time. It is said that this Master Bernal was the beginning

of the treason. He was taken and accused of many misdemeanours,

for each one of which he deserved to be quartered. At the request

of your uncle and of others he was pardoned, on condition that if he

ever said the least word against me and my state the pardon should

be revoked and he should be under condemnation. I send you a copy

of the case in this letter. I send you a legal document about

Camacho. For more than eight days he has not left the church on

account of his rash statements and falsehoods. He has a will made

by Terreros, and other relatives of the latter have another will of

more recent date, which renders the first will null, as far as the

inheritance is concerned: and I am entreated to enforce the latter

will, so that Camacho will be obliged to restore what he has

received. I shall order a legal document drawn up and served upon

him, because I believe it is a work of mercy to punish him, as he is

so unbridled in his speech that some one must punish him without the

rod: and it will not be so much against the conscience of the

chastiser, and will injure him more. Diego Mendez knows Master

Bernal and his works very well. The Governor wished to imprison him

at Espanola and left him to my consideration. It is said that he

killed two men there with medicines in revenge for something of less

account than three beans. I would be glad of the licence to travel

on muleback and of a good mule, if they can be obtained without

difficulty. Consult all about our affairs, and tell them that I do

not write them in particular on account of the great pain I feel

when writing. I do not say that they must do the same, but that

each one must write me and very often, for I feel great sorrow that

all the world should have letters from there each day, and I have

nothing, when I have so many people there. Commend me to the Lord

Adelantado in his favour, and give my regards to your brother and to

all the others.

“Done at Seville, December 29.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.

.S.A.S.

XMY

Xpo FERENS.”

“I say further that if our affairs are to be settled according to

conscience, that the chapter of the letter which their Highnesses wrote

me when I departed, in which they say they will order you placed in

possession, must be shown; and the writing must also be shown which is in

the Book of Privileges, which shows how in reason and in justice the

third and eighth and the tenth are mine. There will always be

opportunity to make reductions from this amount.”

Columbus’s requests were not all for himself; nothing could be more

sincere or generous than the spirit in which he always strove to secure

the just payment of his mariners.

Otherwise he is still concerned with the favour shown to those who were

treasonable to him. Camacho was still hiding in a church, probably from

the wrath of Bartholomew Columbus; but Christopher has more subtle ways

of punishment. A legal document, he considers, will be better than a

rod; “it will not be so much against the conscience of the chastiser, and

will injure him (the chastised) more.”

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,

January 18, 1505.

“VERY DEAR SON,--I wrote you at length by the courier who will

arrive there to-day, and sent you a letter for the Lord Chamberlain.

I intended to inclose in it a copy of that chapter of the letter

from their Highnesses in which they say they will order you placed

in possession; but I forgot to do it here. Zamora, the courier,

came. I read your letter and also those of your uncle and brother

and Carbajal, and felt great pleasure in learning that they had

arrived well, as I had been very anxious about them. Diego Mendez

will leave here in three or four days with the order of payment

prepared. He will take a long statement of everything and I will

write to Juan Velasquez. I desire his friendship and service. I

believe that he is a very honourable gentleman. If the Lord Bishop

of Palencia has come, or comes, tell him how much pleased I have

been with his prosperity, and that if I go there I must stop with

his Worship even if he does not wish it, and that we must return to

our first fraternal love. And that he could not refuse it because

my service will force him to have it thus. I said that the letter

for the Holy Father was sent that his Worship might see it if he was

there, and also the Lord Archbishop of Seville, as the King might

not have opportunity to read it. I have already told you that the

petition to their Highnesses must be for the fulfilment of what they

wrote me about the possession and of the rest which was promised me.

I said that this chapter of the letter must be shown them and said

that it must not be delayed, and that this is advisable for an

infinite number of reasons. His Highness may believe that, however

much he gives me, the increase of his exalted dominions and revenue

will be in the proportion of 100 to 1, and that there is no

comparison between what has been done and what is to be done. The

sending of a Bishop to Espanola must be delayed until I speak to his

Highness. It must not be as in the other cases when it was thought

to mend matters and they were spoiled. There have been some cold

days here and they have caused me great fatigue and fatigue me now.

Commend me to the favour of the Lord Adelantado. May our Lord guard

and bless you and your brother. Give my regards to Carbajal and

Jeronimo. Diego Mendez will carry a full pouch there. I believe

that the affair of which you wrote can be very easily managed. The

vessels from the Indies have not arrived from Lisbon. They brought

a great deal of gold, and none for me. So great a mockery was never

seen, for I left there 60,000 pesos smelted. His Highness should

not allow so great an affair to be ruined, as is now taking place.

He now sends to the Governor a new provision. I do not know what it

is about. I expect letters each day. Be very careful about

expenditures, for it is necessary.

“Done January 18.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

There is playful reference here to Fonseca, with whom Columbus was

evidently now reconciled; and he was to be buttonholed and made to read

the Admiral’s letter to the Pope. Diego Mendez is about to start, and is

to make a “long statement”; and in the meantime the Admiral will write as

many long letters as he has time for. Was there no friend at hand, I

wonder, with wit enough to tell the Admiral that every word he wrote

about his grievances was sealing his doom, so far as the King was

concerned? No human being could have endured with patience this

continuous heavy firing at long range to which the Admiral subjected his

friends at Court; every post that arrived was loaded with a shrapnel of

grievances, the dull echo of which must have made the ears of those who

heard it echo with weariness. Things were evidently humming in Espanola;

large cargoes of negroes had been sent out to take the place of the dead

natives, and under the harsh driving of Ovando the mines were producing

heavily. The vessels that arrived from the Indies brought a great deal

of gold; “but none for me.”

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO,

February 5, 1505.

“VERY DEAR SON,--Diego Mendez left here Monday, the 3rd of this

month. After his departure I talked with Amerigo Vespucci, the

bearer of this letter, who is going yonder, where he is called in

regard to matters of navigation. He was always desirous of pleasing

me. He is a very honourable man. Fortune has been adverse to him

as it has been to many others. His labours have not profited him as

much as reason demands. He goes for me, and is very desirous of

doing something to benefit me if it is in his power. I do not know

of anything in which I can instruct him to my benefit, because I do

not know what is wanted of him there. He is going with the

determination to do everything for me in his power. See what he can

do to profit me there, and strive to have him do it; for he will do

everything, and will speak and will place it in operation: and it

must all be done secretly so that there may be no suspicion.

“I have told him all that could be told regarding this matter, and

have informed him of the payment which has been made to me and is

being made. This letter is for the Lord Adelantado also, that he

may see how Amerigo Vespucci can be useful, and advise him about it.

His Highness may believe that his ships went to the best and richest

of the Indies, and if anything remains to be learned more than has

been told, I will give the information yonder verbally, because it

is impossible to give it in writing. May our Lord have you in his

Holy keeping.

“Done in Seville, February 5.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

This letter has a significance which raises it out of the ruck of this

complaining correspondence. Amerigo Vespucci had just returned from his

long voyage in the West, when he had navigated along an immense stretch

of the coast of America, both north and south, and had laid the

foundations of a fame which was, for a time at least, to eclipse that of

Columbus. Probably neither of the two men realised it at this interview,

or Columbus would hardly have felt so cordially towards the man who was

destined to rob him of so much glory. As a matter of fact the practical

Spaniards were now judging entirely by results; and a year or two later,

when the fame of Columbus had sunk to insignificance, he was merely

referred to as the discoverer of certain islands, while Vespucci, who

after all had only followed in his lead, was hailed as the discoverer of

a great continent. Vespucci has been unjustly blamed for this state of

affairs, although he could no more control the public estimate of his

services than Columbus could. He was a more practical man than Columbus,

and he made a much better impression on really wise and intelligent men;

and his discoveries were immediately associated with trade and colonial

development, while Columbus had little to show for his discoveries during

his lifetime but a handful of gold dust and a few cargoes of slaves. At

any rate it was a graceful act on the part of Vespucci, whose star was in

the ascendant, to go and seek out the Admiral, whose day was fast verging

to night; it was one of those disinterested actions that live and have a

value of their own, and that shine out happily amid the surrounding murk

and confusion.

Letter signed by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,

February 25, 1505.

“VERY DEAR SON,--The Licientiate de Zea is a person whom I desire to

honour. He has in his charge two men who are under prosecution at

the hands of justice, as shown by the information which is inclosed

in this letter. See that Diego Mendez places the said petition with

the others, that they may be given to his Highness during Holy Week

for pardon. If the pardon is granted, it is well, and if not, look

for some other manner of obtaining it. May our Lord have you in His

Holy keeping. Done in Seville, February 25, 1505. I wrote you and

sent it by Amerigo Vespucci. See that he sends you the letter

unless you have already received it.

“Your father.

Xpo FERENS.//”

This is the last letter of Columbus known to us otherwise an entirely

unimportant document, dealing with the most transient affairs. With it

we gladly bring to an end this exposure of a greedy and querulous period,

which speaks so eloquently for itself that the less we say and comment on

it the better.

In the month of May the Admiral was well enough at last to undertake the

journey to Segovia. He travelled on a mule, and was accompanied by his

brother Bartholomew and his son Ferdinand. When he reached the Court he

found the King civil and outwardly attentive to his recitals, but

apparently content with a show of civility and outward attention.

Columbus was becoming really a nuisance; that is the melancholy truth.

The King had his own affairs to attend to; he was already meditating a

second marriage, and thinking of the young bride he was to bring home to

the vacant place of Isabella; and the very iteration of Columbus’s

complaints and demands had made them lose all significance for the King.

He waved them aside with polite and empty promises, as people do the

demands of importunate children; and finally, to appease the Admiral and

to get rid of the intolerable nuisance of his applications, he referred

the whole question, first to Archbishop DEA, and then to the body of

councillors which had been appointed to interpret Queen Isabella’s will.

The whole question at issue was whether or not the original agreement

with Columbus, which had been made before his discoveries, should be

carried out. The King, who had foolishly subscribed to it simply as a

matter of form, never believing that anything much could come of it, was

determined that it should not be carried out, as it would give Columbus a

wealth and power to which no mere subject of a crown was entitled. The

Admiral held fast to his privileges; the only thing that he would consent

to submit to arbitration was the question of his revenues; but his titles

and territorial authorities he absolutely stuck to. Of course the

council did exactly what the King had done. They talked about the thing

a great deal, but they did nothing. Columbus was an invalid and broken

man, who might die any day, and it was obviously to their interest to

gain time by discussion and delay--a cruel game for our Christopher, who

knew his days on earth to be numbered, and who struggled in that web of

time in which mortals try to hurry the events of the present and delay

the events of the future. Meanwhile Philip of Austria and his wife

Juana, Isabella’s daughter, had arrived from Flanders to assume the crown

of Castile, which Isabella had bequeathed to them. Columbus saw a chance

for himself in this coming change, and he sent Bartholomew as an envoy to

greet the new Sovereigns, and to enlist their services on the Admiral’s

behalf. Bartholomew was very well received, but he was too late to be of

use to the Admiral, whom he never saw again; and this is our farewell to

Bartholomew, who passes out of our narrative here. He went to Rome after

Christopher’s death on a mission to the Pope concerning some fresh

voyages of discovery; and in 1508 he made, so far as we know, his one

excursion into romance, when he assisted at the production of an

illegitimate little girl--his only descendant. He returned to Espanola

under the governorship of his nephew Diego, and died there in 1514

--stern, valiant, brotherly soul, whose devotion to Christopher must be

for ever remembered and honoured with the name of the Admiral.

From Segovia Columbus followed the Court to Salamanca and thence to

Valladolid, where his increasing illness kept him a prisoner after the

Court had left to greet Philip and Juana. He had been in attendance upon

it for nearly a year, and without any results: and now, as his infirmity

increased, he turned to the settling of his own affairs, and drawing up

of wills and codicils--all very elaborate and precise. In these

occupations his worldly affairs were duly rounded off; and on May 19,

1506, having finally ratified a will which he had made in Segovia a year

before, in which the descent of his honours was entailed upon Diego and

his heirs, or failing him Ferdinand and his heirs, or failing him

Bartholomew and his heirs, he turned to the settlement of his soul.

His illness had increased gradually but surely, and he must have known

that he was dying. He was not without friends, among them the faithful

Diego Mendez, his son Ferdinand, and a few others. His lodging was in a

small house in an unimportant street of Valladolid, now called the “Calle

de Colon”; the house, .No. 7, still standing, and to be seen by curious

eyes. As the end approached, the Admiral, who was being attended by

Franciscan monks, had himself clothed in a Franciscan habit; and so, on

the 20th May 1506, he lay upon his bed, breathing out his life.

. . . And as strange thoughts

Grow with a certain humming in my ears,

About the life before I lived this life,

And this life too, Popes, Cardinals, and priests,

Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes

And new-found agate urns fresh as day . . .

. . . we do not know what his thoughts were, as the shadows grew

deeper about him, as the sounds of the world, the noises from the sunny

street, grew fainter, and the images and sounds of memory clearer and

louder. Perhaps as he lay there with closed eyes he remembered things

long forgotten, as dying people do; sounds and smells of the Vico Dritto

di Ponticelli, and the feel of the hot paving-stones down which his

childish feet used to run to the sea; noises of the sea also, the

drowning swish of waters and sudden roar of breakers sounding to

anxiously strained ears in the still night; bright sunlit pictures of

faraway tropical shores, with handsome olive figures glistening in the

sun; the sight of strange faces, the sound of strange speech, the smell

of a strange land; the glitter of gold; the sudden death-shriek breaking

the stillness of some sylvan glade; the sight of blood on the grass

. . . The Admiral’s face undergoes a change; there is a stir in the

room; some one signs to the priest Gaspar, who brings forth his sacred

wafer and holy oils and administers the last sacraments. The wrinkled

eyelids flutter open, the sea-worn voice feebly frames the responses;

the dying eyes are fixed on the crucifix; and--“In manus tuas Domine

commendo spiritum meum.” The Admiral is dead.

He was in his fifty-sixth year, already an old man in body and mind; and

his death went entirely unmarked except by his immediate circle of

friends. Even Peter Martyr, who was in Valladolid just before and just

after it, and who was writing a series of letters to various

correspondents giving all the news of his day, never thought it worth

while to mention that Christopher Columbus was dead. His life flickered

out in the completest obscurity. It is not even known where he was first

buried; but probably it was in the Franciscan convent at Valladolid.

This, however, was only a temporary resting-place; and a few years later

his body was formally interred in the choir of the monastery of Las

Cuevas at Seville, there to lie for thirty years surrounded by continual

chauntings. After that it was translated to the cathedral in San

Domingo; rested there for 250 years, and then, on the cession of that

part of the island to France, the body was removed to Cuba. But the

Admiral was by this time nothing but a box of bones and dust, as also

were brother Bartholomew and son Diego, and Diego’s son, all collected

together in that place. There were various examinations of the

bone-boxes; one, supposed to be the Admiral’s, was taken to Cuba and

solemnly buried there; and lately, after the conquest of the island in

the Spanish-American War, this box of bones was elaborately conveyed to

Seville, where it now rests.

But in the meanwhile the Chapter of the cathedral in San Domingo had made

new discoveries and examinations; had found another box of bones, which

bore to them authentic signs that the dust it contained was the Admiral’s

and not his grandson’s; and in spite of the Academy of History at Madrid,

it is indeed far from unlikely that the Admiral’s dust does not lie in

Spain or Cuba, but in San Domingo still. Whole books have been written

about these boxes of bones; learned societies have argued about them,

experts have examined the bones and the boxes with microscopes; and

meantime the dust of Columbus, if we take the view that an error was

committed in the transference to Cuba, is not even collected all in one

box. A sacrilegious official acquired some of it when the boxes were

opened, and distributed it among various curiosity-hunters, who have

preserved it in caskets of crystal and silver. Thus a bit of him is worn

by an American lady in a crystal locket; a pinch of him lies

in a glass vial in a New York mansion; other pinches in the Lennox

Library, New York, in the Vatican, and in the University of Pavia. In

such places, if the Admiral should fail to appear at the first note of

their trumpets, must the Angels of the Resurrection make search.

CHAPTER X

THE MAN COLUMBUS

It is not in any leaden box or crystal vase that we must search for the

true remains of Christopher Columbus. Through these pages we have

traced, so far as has been possible, the course of his life, and followed

him in what he did; all of which is but preparation for our search for

the true man, and just estimate of what he was. We have seen, dimly,

what his youth was; that he came of poor people who were of no importance

to the world at large; that he earned his living as a working man; that

he became possessed of an Idea; that he fought manfully and diligently

until he had realised it; and that then he found himself in a position

beyond his powers to deal with, not being a strong enough swimmer to hold

his own in the rapid tide of events which he himself had set flowing; and

we have seen him sinking at last in that tide, weighed down by the very

things for which he had bargained and stipulated. If these pages had

been devoted to a critical examination of the historical documents on

which his life-story is based we should also have found that he

continually told lies about himself, and misrepresented facts when the

truth proved inconvenient to him; that he was vain and boastful to a

degree that can only excite our compassion. He was naturally and

sincerely pious, and drew from his religion much strength and spiritual

nourishment; but he was also capable of hypocrisy, and of using the

self-same religion as a cloak for his greed and cruelty. What is the

final image that remains in our minds of such a man? To answer this

question we must examine his life in three dimensions. There was its

great outline of rise, zenith, and decline; there was its outward

history in minute detail, and its conduct in varying circumstances; and

there was the inner life of the man’s soul, which was perhaps simpler

than some of us think. And first, as to his life as a single thing. It

rose in poverty, it reached a brief and dazzling zenith of glory, it set

in clouds and darkness; the fame of it suffered a long night of eclipse,

from which it was rescued and raised again to a height of glory which

unfortunately was in sufficiently founded on fact; and as a reaction

from this, it has been in danger of becoming entirely discredited, and

the man himself denounced as a fraud. The reason for these surprising

changes is that in those fifty-five years granted to Columbus for the

making of his life he did not consistently listen to that inner voice

which alone can hold a man on any constructive path. He listened to it

at intervals, and he drew his inspiration from it; but he shut his ears

when it had served him, when it had brought him what he wanted. In his

moments of success he guided himself by outward things; and thus he was

at one moment a seer and ready to be a martyr, and at the next moment he

was an opportunist, watching to see which way the wind would blow, and

ready to trim his sails in the necessary direction. Such conduct of a

man’s life does not make for single light or for true greatness; rather

for dim, confused lights, and lofty heights obscured in cloud.

If we examine his life in detail we find this alternating principle of

conduct revealed throughout it. He was by nature clever, kind-hearted,

rather large-souled, affectionate, and not very honest; all the acts

prompted by his nature bear the stamp of these qualities. To them his

early years had probably added little except piety, sharp practice, and

that uncomfortable sense, often bred amid narrow and poor surroundings,

that one must keep a sharp look-out for oneself if one is to get a share

of the world’s good things. Something in his blood, moreover, craved for

dignity and the splendour of high-sounding titles; craved for power also,

and the fulfilment of an arrogant pride. All these things were in his

Ligurian blood, and he breathed them in with the very air of Genoa. His

mind was of the receptive rather than of the constructive kind, and it

was probably through those long years spent between sea voyages and brief

sojourns with his family in Genoa or Savona that he conceived that vague

Idea which, as I have tried to show, formed the impulse of his life

during its brief initiative period. Having once received this Idea of

discovery and like all other great ideas, it was in the air at the time

and was bound to take shape in some human brain--he had all his native

and personal qualities to bring to its support. The patience to await

its course he had learned from his humble and subordinate life. The

ambition to work for great rewards was in his blood and race; and to

belief in himself, his curious vein of mystical piety was able to add the

support of a ready belief in divine selection. This very time of waiting

and endurance of disappointments also helped to cultivate in his

character two separate qualities--an endurance or ability to withstand

infinite hardship and disappointment; and also a greedy pride that

promised itself great rewards for whatever should be endured.

In all active matters Columbus was what we call a lucky man. It was luck

that brought him to Guanahani; and throughout his life this element of

good luck continually helped him. He was lucky, that is to say, in his

relation with inanimate things; but in his relations with men he was

almost as consistently unlucky. First of all he was probably a bad judge

of men. His humble origin and his lack of education naturally made him

distrustful. He trusted people whom he should have regarded with

suspicion, and he was suspicious of those whom he ought to have known he

could trust. If people pleased him, he elevated them with absurd

rapidity to stations far beyond their power to fill, and then wondered

that they sometimes turned upon him; if they committed crimes against

him, he either sought to regain their favour by forgiving them, or else

dogged them with a nagging, sulky resentment, and expected every one else

to punish them also. He could manage men if he were in the midst of

them; there was something winning as well as commanding about his actual

presence, and those who were devoted to him would have served him to the

death. But when he was not on the spot all his machineries and affairs

went to pieces; he had no true organising ability; no sooner did he take

his hand off any affair for which he was responsible than it immediately

came to confusion. All these defects are to be attributed to his lack of

education and knowledge of the world. Mental discipline is absolutely

necessary for a man who would discipline others; and knowledge of the

world is essential for one who would successfully deal with men, and

distinguish those whom he can from those whom he cannot trust. Defects

of this nature, which sometimes seem like flaws in the man’s character,

may be set down to this one disability--that he was not educated and was

not by habit a man of the world.

All his sins of misgovernment, then, may be condoned on the ground that

governing is a science, and that Columbus had never learned it. What we

do find, however, is that the inner light that had led him across the

seas never burned clearly for him again, and was never his guide in the

later part of his life. Its radiance was quenched by the gleam of gold;

for there is no doubt that Columbus was a victim of that baleful

influence which has caused so much misery in this world. He was greedy

of gold for himself undoubtedly; but he was still more greedy of it for

Spain. It was his ambition to be the means of filling the coffers of the

Spanish Sovereigns and so acquiring immense dignity and glory for

himself. He believed that gold was in itself a very precious and

estimable thing; he knew that masses and candles could be bought for it,

and very real spiritual privileges; and as he made blunder after blunder,

and saw evil after evil heaping itself on his record in the New World, he

became the more eager and frantic to acquire such a treasure of gold that

it would wipe out the other evils of his administration. And once

involved in that circle, there was no help for him.

The man himself was a simple man; capable, when the whole of his various

qualities were directed upon one single thing, of that greatness which is

the crown of simplicity. Ambition was the keynote of his life; not an

unworthy keynote, by any means, if only the ambition be sound; but one

serious defect of Columbus’s ambition was that it was retrospective

rather than perspective. He may have had, before he sailed from Palos,

an ambition to be the discoverer of a New World; but I do not think he

had. He believed there were islands or land to be discovered in the West

if only he pushed on far enough; and he was ambitious to find them and

vindicate his belief. Afterwards, when he had read a little more, and

when he conceived the plan of pretending that he had all along meant to

discover the Indies and a new road to the East, he acted in accordance

with that pretence; he tried to make his acts appear retrospectively as

though they had been prompted by a design quite different from that by

which they had really been prompted. When he found that his discovery

was regarded as a great scientific feat, he made haste to pretend that it

had all along been meant as such, and was in fact the outcome of an

elaborate scientific theory. In all this there is nothing for praise or

admiration. It indicates the presence of moral disease; but fortunately

it is functional rather than organic disease. He was right and sound at

heart; but he spread his sails too readily to the great winds of popular

favour, and the result was instability to himself, and often danger of

shipwreck to his soul.

The ultimate test of a man’s character is how he behaves in certain

circumstances when there is no great audience to watch him, and when

there is no sovereign close at hand with bounties and rewards to offer.

In a word, what matters most is a man’s behaviour, not as an admiral, or

a discoverer, or a viceroy, or a courtier, but as a man. In this respect

Columbus’s character rings true. If he was little on little occasions,

he was also great on great occasions. The inner history of his fourth

voyage, if we could but know it and could take all the circumstances into

account, would probably reveal a degree of heroic endurance that has

never been surpassed in the history of mankind. Put him as a man face to

face with a difficulty, with nothing but his wits to devise with and his

two hands to act with, and he is never found wanting. And that is the

kind of man of whom discoverers are made. The mere mathematician may

work out the facts with the greatest accuracy and prove the existence of

land at a certain point; but there is great danger that he may be knocked

down by a club on his first landing on the beach, and never bring home

any news of his discovery. The great courtier may do well for himself

and keep smooth and politic relations with kings; the great administrator

may found a wonderful colony; but it is the man with the wits and the

hands, and some bigness of heart to tide him over daunting passages, that

wins through the first elementary risks of any great discovery. Properly

considered, Columbus’s fame should rest simply on the answer to the

single question, “Did he discover new lands as he said he would?” That

was the greatest thing he could do, and the fact that he failed to do a

great many other things afterwards, failed the more conspicuously because

his attempts were so conspicuous, should have no effect on our estimate

of his achievement. The fame of it could no more be destroyed by himself

than it can be destroyed by us.

True understanding of a man and estimate of his character can only be

arrived at by methods at once more comprehensive and more subtle than

those commonly employed among men. Everything that he sees, does, and

suffers has its influence on the moulding of his character; and he must

be considered in relation to his physical environment, no less than to

his race and ancestry. Christopher Columbus spent a great part of his

active life on the sea; it was sea-life which inspired him with his great

Idea, it was by the conquest of the sea that he realised it; it was on

the sea that all his real triumphs over circumstance and his own weaker

self were won. The influences at work upon a man whose life is spent on

the sea are as different from those at work upon one who lives on the

fields as the environment of a gannet is different from the environment

of a skylark: and yet how often do we really attempt to make due

allowance for this great factor and try to estimate the extent of its

moulding influence?

To live within sound or sight of the sea is to be conscious of a voice or

countenance that holds you in unyielding bonds. The voice, being

continuous, creeps into the very pulses and becomes part of the pervading

sound or silence of a man’s environment; and the face, although it never

regards him, holds him with its changes and occupies his mind with its

everlasting riddle. Its profound inattention to man is part of its power

over his imagination; for although it is so absorbed and busy, and has

regard for sun and stars and a melancholy frowning concentration upon the

foot of cliffs, it is never face to face with man: he can never come

within the focus of its great glancing vision. It is somewhere beyond

time and space that the mighty perspective of those focal rays comes to

its point; and they are so wide and eternal in their sweep that we should

find their end, could we but trace them, in a condition far different

from that in which our finite views and ethics have place. In the man

who lives much on the sea we always find, if he be articulate, something

of the dreamer and the mystic; that very condition of mind, indeed, which

we have traced in Columbus, which sometimes led him to such heights, and

sometimes brought him to such variance with the human code.

A face that will not look upon you can never give up its secret to you;

and the face of the sea is like the face of a picture or a statue round

which you may circle, looking at it from this point and from that, but

whose regard is fixed on something beyond and invisible to you; or it is

like the face of a person well known to you in life, a face which you

often see in various surroundings, from different angles, now

unconscious, now in animated and smiling intercourse with some one else,

but which never turns upon you the light of friendly knowledge and

recognition; in a word, it is unconscious of you, like all elemental

things. In the legend of the Creation it is written that when God saw

the gathering together of the waters which he called the Seas, he saw

that it was good; and he perhaps had the right to say so. But the man

who uses the sea and whose life’s pathway is laid on its unstable surface

can hardly sum up his impressions of it so simply as to say that it is

good. It is indeed to him neither good nor bad; it is utterly beyond and

outside all he knows or invents of good and bad, and can never have any

concern with his good or his bad. It remains the pathway and territory

of powers and mysteries, thoughts and energies on a gigantic and

elemental scale; and that is why the mind of man can never grapple with

the unconsciousness of the sea or his eye meet its eye. Yet it is the

mariner’s chief associate, whether as adversary or as ally; his attitude

to things outside himself is beyond all doubt influenced by his attitude

towards it; and a true comprehension of the man Columbus must include a

recognition of this constant influence on him, and of whatever effect

lifelong association with so profound and mysterious an element may have

had on his conduct in the world of men. Better than many documents as an

aid to our understanding of him would be intimate association with the

sea, and prolonged contemplation of that face with which he was so

familiar. We can never know the heart of it, but we can at least look

upon the face, turned from us though it is, upon which he looked. Cloud

shadows following a shimmer of sunlit ripples; lines and runes traced on

the surface of a blank calm; salt laughter of purple furrows with the

foam whipping off them; tides and eddies, whirls, overfalls, ripples,

breakers, seas mountains high-they are but movements and changing

expressions on an eternal countenance that once held his gaze and wonder,

as it will always hold the gaze and wonder of those who follow the sea.

So much of the man Christopher Columbus, who once was and no longer is;

perished, to the last bone and fibre of him, off the face of the earth,

and living now only by virtue of such truth as there was in him; who once

manfully, according to the light that he had, bore Christ on his

shoulders across stormy seas, and found him often, in that dim light, a

heavy and troublesome burden; who dropped light and burden together on

the shores of his discovery, and set going in that place of peace such a

conflagration as mankind is not likely to see again for many a

generation, if indeed ever again, in this much-tortured world, such

ancient peace find place.

PG ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

A man standing on the sea-shore

Absent for a little time, and his organisation went to pieces

All days, however hard, have an evening, and all journeys an end

Amerigo Vespucci

And every one goes naked and unashamed

At last extricate himself from the theological stupor

Attempts that have been made to glorify him socially

Bede, in the eighth century, established it finally (sphericity)

Began to offer bargains to the Almighty

Believed that the Spaniards came from heaven

Biography which obscures the truth with legends and pretences

Cannibal epicures did not care for the flesh of women and boys

Christian era denied the theory of the roundness of the earth

Columbus, calling for an egg, laid a wager

Columbus never once mentions his wife

Columbus’s habit of being untruthful in regard to his own past

Cooling off in his enthusiasm as the pastime became a task

Desire to get a great deal of money without working for it

Diminishing object to the wet eyes of his mother, sailed away

Dogs wagged their tails, but that never barked

Establishment of ten footmen and twenty other servants

Exchanging the natives for cattle

First known discovery of tobacco by Europeans

First organised transaction of slavery on the part of Columbus

Freed by force and with guns

Having issued three Bulls in twenty-four hours, he desisted

He had a way of rising above petty indignities

He was a great stickler for the observances of religion

Hearts quick to burn, quick to forget

Heretics were being burned every year by the Grand Inquisitor

High time, indeed, that they should be taught to wear clothing

Idea of importing black African labour to the New World

Ideas to him were of more value than facts

If there were no results, there would be no rewards

Inclined to be pompous

Irving: so inaccurate, so untrue to life, and so profoundly dull

Islands in that sea had their greatest length east and west

Juan Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida

Learn the blessings of Christianity under the whip

Lives happily in our dreams, as blank as sunshine

Logic is irresistible if you only grant the first little step

Loose way in which the term India was applied in the Middle Ages

Man with a Grievance

Man of single rather than manifold ideas

More than a touch of crafty and elaborate dissimulation

Nautical phrase “make it so.”

Never to deal with subordinates

No more troubled by any wonder, sleeps at last

No Spanish women accompanied it (2d expedition)

Nothing so ludicrous as an Idea to those who do not share it

Only confirmative evidence remained

Patience which holds men back from theorising

Presence of the owner makes the horse fat

Professors of Christ brought not peace, but a sword

Religion has in our days fallen into decay

Saw potatoes also, although they did not know what they were

Sea of Darkness

Seeking to hire the protection of the Virgin

She must either sin or be celibate

Shifts and deceits that he practised

Spaniards sometimes hanged thirteen of them in a row

Spaniards undertook to teach the heathen the Christian religion

St. Chrysostom opposed the theory of the earth’s roundness

Stayed till night to eat their sop for fear of seeing (weevils)

Stuffed so full indeed that eyes and ears are closed

Tasks that are the common heritage of all small boys

Terror and amazement; they had never seen horses before

The cross and the sword, the whip-lash and the Gospel

The great thing in those days was to discover something

The missionary walked beside the slave-driver

The terrified seamen making vows to the Virgin

Theologians, however, proved equal to the occasion

There is deception and untruth somewhere

They saw the past in the light of the present

Took himself and the world very seriously

Vague longing and unrest that is the life-force of the world

When the pot boils the scum rises to the surface

Who never could meet any trouble without grumbling

End of Project Gutenberg’s Christopher Columbus, Complete, by Filson Young