AT first, the day before, we had not made out that the Indians had
boats. Later, straying here and there, we had seen them drawn upon the
shore and covered with boughs of trees. They called them “canoes”, made
them, large and small, out of trunks of trees, hollowed by fire, and
with their stone knives. We had seen one copper knife. Asked about that,
they pointed to the south and seemed to say that yonder dwelled men who
had all they wished of most things.
From dark the east grew pale, from pallor put on roses. This day no
mariner grumbled at the call to awake. Here still lay our Fortunate
Isle, our San Salvador; here our ivory beach, our green wood. Up went
the little curls of smoke.
We had breakfast. So great was now the deference to him who three days
ago had been “madman” and “black magician”, “dreaming fool” and “spinner
without thread!” Now it was “Admiral”, “Excellency”, and “What shall we
do next?” and “What is your opinion, sir?”
The immediate thing to do proved to be to come forth from cabin and mark
the beach thronging with thrice the number of yesterday, and the canoes
putting off to us. We counted eight. Only one was a long craft, holding
twenty men; the others came in cockle boats, with one or two or three.
Not only canoes, but they came swimming, men and boys, all a dark grace
in the cerulean, lucid sea. They were so fearless--for we came from
heaven and would not harm them. We were going to make them rich; we were
going to “save” them.
A score perhaps were helped aboard the _Santa Maria_. The Pinta, the
Nina, had others. They were like children, touching, staring, excitedly
talking and gesturing among themselves, or gazing in a kind of fixed
awe, asking of the least sailor with all reverence, bowing themselves
before the Admiral, the over-god. The Admiral moved richly dressed, rapt
and benignant, yet sparing a part of himself to keep all order, measure,
rightness on the ship, and another part to find out with keen pains,
“What of other lands? What of folk who must be your superiors?”
They had brought offerings. Half a dozen parrots perched around, very
gorgeously colored, loquacious in a speech we did not know. We had
stacks of the large round thin cakes baked on stones which afterwards
we called cassava, and great gourds, “calabashes” filled with fruit, and
balls of cotton in a rude thread. We gave beads, bits of cloth, little
purses, and the small bells that caused extravagant delight. But ever
the Admiral looked for signs of gold, for he must find for princes and
nobles and merchants gold or silver, or precious stones or spice, or all
together. If he found them not, half his fortunes fell; a half-wind only
would henceforth fill his sails.
And at last came in a canoe with three a young Indian who wore in his
ear a knob of gold. Roderigo Sanchez saw this first and brought him to
the Admiral. The latter, taking up an armlet of green glass and a hawk
bell, touched the gold in the ear. “Do you trade?” Glad enough was the
Indian to trade. It lay in the Admiral’s palm, a piece of gold as great
as a filbert.
Juan Lepe watched him make inquisition, Diego de Arana, Sanchez and
Escobedo at his elbow. He did it to admiration, with look, gesture and
tone ably translating his words. “Gold--gold?” The Indian said, or we
put down in this wise what he said, “Harac.”
Was there more harac on the island? We would give heavenly things for
harac. The Indian was doubtful; he thought proudly that he had the only
harac. “Where did he get it?” He indicated the south.
“Little island like this one?”
“No. Great land. Harac there in many ears. Much harac.”
So we understood him. “Cipango!” breathed the Admiral. “Or neighbor to
Cipango, increasingly rich and civilized as we go.”
He took a case of small boxes, each box filled with merchandise of spice
which he desired. Cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, saffron, cloves and others.
He made the islander smell and taste. “Had they aught like these?”
The Indian seemed to say they had not, but would like to have. He looked
about for something with which to trade, a parrot, or heap of cakes, or
ball of cotton. I thought that it was the box of boxes that he extremely
wished, but the Admiral thought it was the spicery, and that he must
have known them wherever he got the gold. “Were they found yonder?”
The Admiral stretched arm out over blue sea and the Indian followed his
gesture. He shot out his own arm, “South--southwest--west,” nodded the
Admiral. “Many islands, or the mainland. Gates open before us!”
“Had the Indian been to these lands?” No, it seemed, but one had come in
a boat, wearing this knob of gold, and he had told them. Was he living?
No, he was not living. What kind of a person was he? Such as us?
Emphatically no. Not such as us! Much, we gathered, as was the Indian
himself. “Pearls have come from Queen’s neck to Queen’s neck,” quoth the
Admiral, “by a thousand rude hands and twisting ways!”
There was one woman among the visitors to the _Santa Maria_, a young
woman, naked, freely moving and smiling. Eyes dwelled on her, eyes
followed her. She was with an Indian who might be brother or husband.
The Admiral gave her a worked, Moorish scarf. She tied it about her
head, and the bright ends fell down beside her long, black, braided
hair. None touched her, but they were woman-starved, and they looked at
her hungrily. She had beauty in her way, and a kind of innocence both
frank and shy. She was like a doe in the green forest, come silently
upon at dawn.
Fed full of marvel at last, these Indians left us. But no sooner
had they reached land and told of great kindness on the part of the
inhabitants of heaven than other canoes and other swimmers put forth.
This might go on all day, so we checked it by ourselves going ashore.
This day we filled our water casks and took aboard much fruit and all
the cakes that they brought us. Moreover we explored the island, finding
two villages of a piece with the first, and in the middle land a fair
pool of water. This day like yesterday was blissful wine.
All blessed Christopherus Columbus. No man now but, for a while, did his
bidding with an open heart.
In the morning we sailed away, not without plentiful promises of return.
When we put up our white sails they cried out and pointed to the cloud
sierra. No! We would not go back to heaven--or if we did so we would
come again, loving so our gentle friends upon earth! We sailed, and in
all our after wanderings we never came back to this island. And never
again, I think, while Columbus voyaged, did there come to us just the
bright, exquisite thrill of that first land after long doubt and no
land. San Salvador--Holy Saviour Island!