GUACANAGARI’S town was much perhaps as was Goth town, Frank town, Saxon
town, Latin town, sufficient time ago. As for clothed and unclothed,
that may be to some degree a matter of cold or warm weather. We had not
seen that ever it was cold in this land.
Guacanagari feasted us with great dignity and earnestness, for he and
his people held it a momentous thing our coming here, our being here.
Utias we had and iguana, fish, cassava bread, potato, many a delicious
fruit, and that mild drink that they made. And we had calabashes,
trenchers and fingers, stone knives with which certain officers of the
feast decorously divided the meat, small gourds for cups, water for
cleansing, napkins of broad leaves. It was a great and comely feast. But
before the feast, as in Cuba, the dance.
I should say that three hundred young men and maidens danced. They
advanced, they retreated, they cowered, they pressed forward. They made
supplication, arms to heaven or forehead to ground, they received, they
were grateful, they circled fast in ease of mind, they hungered again
and were filled again, they flowed together, they made a great square,
chanting proudly!
Fray Ignatio beside me glowered, so far as so good a man could
glower. But Juan Lepe said, “It is doubt and difficulty, approach,
reconciliation, holy triumph! They are acting out long pilgrimages and
arrivals at sacred cities and hopes for greater cities. It is much the
same as in Seville or Rome!” Whereupon he looked at me in astonishment,
and Jayme de Marchena said to Juan Lepe, “Hold thy tongue!”
Dance and the feast over, it became the Admiral’s turn. He was set not
to seem dejected, not to give any Spaniard nor any Indian reason to say,
“This Genoese--or this god--does not sustain misfortune!” But he
sat calm, pleased with all; brotherly, fatherly, by that big, easy,
contented cacique. Now he would furnish the entertainment! Among us
we had one Diego Minas, a huge man and as mighty a bowman as any in
Flanders or England. Him the Admiral now put forward with his great
crossbow and long arrows. A stir ran around. “Carib! Carib!” We made out
that those mysterious Caribs had bows and arrows, though not great ones
like this. Guacanagari employed gestures and words that Luis Torres and
I strove to understand. We gathered that several times in the memory of
man the Caribs had come in many canoes, warred dreadfully, killed
and taken away. More than that, somewhere in Hayti or Quisquaya or
Hispaniola were certain people who knew the weapon. “Caonabo!” He
repeated the name with respect and disliking. “Caonabo, Caonabo!”
Perhaps the Caribs had made a settlement.
Diego fastened a leaf upon the bark of a tree and from a great distance
transfixed it with an arrow, then in succession sent four others against
the trunk, making precisely the form of a cross. The Indians cried,
“Hai! Hai!” But when the four harquebus men set up their iron rests,
fixed the harquebuses, and firing cut leaves and twigs from the same
tree, there was a louder crying. And when there was dragged forth,
charged with powder and fired, one of the lombards taken from the _Santa
Maria_, wider yet sprang the commotion. Pedro Gutierrez and a young
cavalier from the _Nina_ deigned to show lance play, and Vicente Pinzon
who had served against the Moors took a great sword and with it carved
calabashes and severed green boughs. The sword was very marvelous to
them. We might have danced for them for Spain knows how to dance, or we
might have sung for them, for our mariners sing at sea. But these were
not the superior things we wished to show them.
Guacanagari, big and easy and gentle, said, “Live here, you who are so
great and good! We will take you into the people. We shall be brothers.”
We understood them that the great white heron was their guardian spirit
and would be ours. I said, “They do not think of it as just those
stalking, stilly standing birds! It is a name for something hovering,
brooding, caring for them.”
The Viceroy spoke with energy. “Tell them of Father, Son and Holy
Ghost!”
Fray Ignatio stood and spoke, gentle and plain. Diego Colon made what
headway he could. Guacanagari listened, attentive. The Franciscan had a
certainty that presently he might begin to baptize. His face glowed. I
heard him say to the Admiral, “If it be possible, senor, leave me
here when you return to Spain! I will convert this chief and all his
people--by the time you come again there shall be a church!”
“Let me ponder it yet a while,” answered the other.
He was thoughtful when he went back to the _Nina_. Vicente Pinzon, too,
was anxious for light. “This ship is crowded to sinking! If we meet
wretched weather, or if sickness break out, returning, we shall be
in bad case!” Roderigo Sanchez also had his word. “Is it not very
important, senor, that we should get the tidings to the Sovereigns? And
we have now just this one small ship, and so far to go, and all manner
of dangers!”
“Aye, it is important!” said the Admiral. “Let me think it out, senor.”
He had not slept at all, thought Juan Lepe, when next morning he came
among us. But he looked resolved, hardy to accomplish. He had his plan,
and he gave it to us in his deep voice that always thrilled with much
beside the momentary utterance. We would build a fort here on shore,
hard by this village, felling wood for it and using also the timbers
of the _Santa Maria_. We would mount there her two guns and provide an
arsenal with powder, shot, harquebuses and bows. Build a fort and call
it La Navidad, because of Christmas day when was the wreck. It should
have a garrison of certainly thirty men, a man for each year of Our
Lord’s life when He began his mission. So many placed in Hispaniola
would much lighten the _Nina_, which indeed must be lightened in order
with safety to recross Ocean-Sea. For yes, we would go back to Palos!
Go, and come again with many and better ships, with hidalgos and
missionary priests, and very many men! In the meantime so many should
stay at La Navidad.
“In less than a year--much less, I promise it--I the Admiral will be
here again at La Navidad, when will come happy greeting between brothers
in the greatest service of our own or many ages! Sea and land, God will
keep us so long as we are His!”
All loved Christopherus Columbus that day. None was to be forced to
stay at La Navidad. It was easy to gain thirty; in the end there tarried
thirty-eight.
The building of the fort became a pleasurable enterprise. We broke
up with singing the Santa Maria, and with her bones built the walls.
Guacanagari and his people helped. All was hurried. The Admiral and
Viceroy, now that his mind was made up, would depart as soon as might
be.
We built La Navidad where it might view the sea, upon a hillside above
a brown river sliding out to ocean. Beyond the stream, in the groves, a
quarter-league away, stood the hundred huts of Guarico. We built a tower
and storehouse and wall of wood and we digged around all some kind of
moat, and mounted three lombards. All that we could lift from the Santa
Maria and what the _Nina_ could spare us of arms, conveniences and food
went into our arsenal and storehouse. We had a bubbling spring within
the enclosure. When all was done the tower of La Navidad, though an
infant beside towers of Europe, might suffice for the first here of its
brood. It was done in a week from that shipwreck.
Who was to be left at La Navidad? Leave was given to volunteer and the
mariners’ list was soon made up, good men and not so good. From the poop
there volunteered Pedro Gutierrez and Roderigo de Escobedo. The Admiral
did not block their wish, but he gave the command not to Escobedo who
wished it, but to Diego de Arana whom he named to stay, having persuaded
him who would rather have returned with the _Nina_. But he could
trust Diego de Arana, and, with reason, he was not sure of those other
hidalgos. De Arana stayed and fulfilled his trust, and died a brave man.
Fray Ignatio would stay. “Bring me back, Senor, a goodly bell for the
church of La Navidad! A bell and a font.”
Juan Lepe would stay. There needed a physician. But also Jayme de
Marchena would stay. He thought it out. Six months had not abolished the
Holy Office nor converted to gentleness Don Pedro nor the Dominican.
But the Admiral had assigned me to return with the _Nina_. I told him in
the evening between the sunset and the moonrise what was the difficulty.
He was a man profoundly religious, and also a docile son of the Church.
But I knew him, and I knew that he would find reasons in the Bible for
not giving me up. The deep man, the whole man, was not in the grasp of
bishop or inquisitor or papal bull.
He agreed. “Aye, it is wiser! I count two months to Spain, seeing that
we may not have so favorable a voyage. Three or maybe four there, for
our welcome at court, and for the gathering a fleet--easy now to gather
for all will flock to it, and masters and owners cry, ‘Take my ship--and
mine!’ Two months again to recross. Look for me it may be in July, it
may be in August, it may be in September!”
The Viceroy spoke to us, gathered by our fort, under the banner of
Castile, with behind us on hill brow a cross gleaming. Again, all that
we had done for the world and might further do! Again, we returning on
the _Nina_ or we remaining at La Navidad were as crusaders, knights of
the Order of the Purpose of God! “Cherish good--oh, men of the sea and
the land, cherish good! Who betrays here betrays almost as Judas! The
Purpose of God is Strength with Wisdom and Charity which only can make
joy! Therefore be ye here at La Navidad strong, wise and charitable!”
He said more, and he gave many an explicit direction, but that was the
gist of all. Strength, wisdom and charity.
Likewise he spoke to the Indians and they listened and promised
and meant good. An affection had sprung between Guacanagari and
Christopherus Columbus. So different they looked! and yet in the breast
of each dwelled much guilelessness and the ability to wonder and revere.
The Viceroy saw in this big, docile ruler of Guarico however far that
might extend, one who would presently be baptized and become a Christian
chief, man of the Viceroy of Hispaniola, as the latter was man of the
Sovereigns of Spain. All his people would follow Guacanagari. He saw
Christendom here in the west, and a great feudal society, acknowledging
Castile for overlord, and Alexander the Sixth as its spiritual ruler.
Guacanagari may have seen friends in the gods, and especially in this
their cacique, who with others that they would bring, would be drawn
into Guarico and made one and whole with the people of the heron. But
he never saw Guacanagari displanted--never saw Europe armed and warlike,
hungry and thirsty.
The _Nina_ and La Navidad bade with tears each the other farewell. It
was the second of January, fourteen hundred and ninety-three. We had
mass under the palm trees, by the cross, above the fort. Fray Ignatio
blessed the going, blessed the staying. We embraced, we loved one
another, we parted. The _Nina_ was so small a ship, even there just
before us on the blue water! So soon, so soon, the wind blowing from the
land, she was smaller yet, smaller, smaller, a cock boat, a chip, gone!
Thirty-eight white men watched her from the hill above the fort, and
of the thirty-eight Juan Lepe was the only one who saw the Admiral come
again.