TWO years! It was March, 1496, when he sailed in the _Nina_. It was the
summer of 1498 when Juan Lepe was sent as physician with two ships
put forth from San Domingo by the Adelantado upon a rumor that the
Portuguese had trespassed, landing from a great carrack upon Guadaloupe.
Five days from Hispaniola we met a hurricane that carried us out of all
reckoning. When stillness came again we were far south. No islands were
in sight; there was only the sea vast and blue. There seemed to breathe
from it a strangeness. We were away and away, said our pilots, from the
curve, like a bent bow, of the Indian islands. A day and a night we hung
in a dead calm. Dawn broke. “Sail, ho! Sail, ho!”
We thought that it might be the Portuguese and made preparation. Three
ships lifted over the blue rim. There was now a light wind; it brought
them nearer, they being better sailers than the _Santa Cruz_ and the
_Santa Clara_. We saw the banner. “Castile!” and a lesser one. “El
Almirante!”
Now we were close together. The masters hailed, “What ships?”--“From
Hispaniola!”--“From Cadiz. The Admiral with us! Come aboard, your
commander!”
That was Luis Mendez, and in the boat with him went Juan Lepe. The ships
were the _Esperanza_, the _San Sebastian_ and the _San Martin_, the
first fairly large and well decked, the others small. They who looked
overside and shouted welcome seemed a medley of gentle and simple,
mariners, husbandmen, fighting men and hidalgos.
The Admiral! His hair was milk-white, his tall, broad frame gaunt as
a January wolf. Two years had written in his face two years’
experience--fully written, for he was sensitive to every wind of
experience. “Excellency!”--“Juan Lepe, I am as glad of you as of a
brother!--And what do you do, senors, here?”
Luis Mendez related. “I think it false news about the Portuguese,” said
the Admiral and gave reasons why. “Then shall we keep with you, sir?”
“No, since you are sent out by my brother and must give him account.
Have you water to spare? We will take that from you. I am bound still
south. I will find out what is there!”
Further talk disclosed that he had left Spain with six ships, but at
the Canaries had parted his fleet in two, sending three under Alonzo de
Caravajal upon the straight course to Hispaniola, and himself with three
sailing first to the Green Cape islands, and thence southwest into an
unknown sea.
So desolate, wide and blue it looked when the next day we parted,--two
ships northward, three southward! But Juan Lepe stayed with the
_Esperanza_ and the Admiral. As long since, between the _Santa Maria_
and the _Pinta_, there had been exchange of physicians, so now again was
exchange between the _Santa Cruz_ and the _Esperanza_.
Days of blue sea. The _Esperanza_ carried a somewhat frank and friendly
crew of mariners and adventurers. Now he would sail south, he said,
until he was under the Equator.
Days of stark blue ocean. Then out of the sea to the south rose a point
of land, becoming presently three points, as it were three peaks. The
Admiral stared. I saw the enthusiasm rise in his face. “Did I not write
and say to the Sovereigns and to Rome that in the Name of the Holy
Trinity, I would now again seek out and find? There! Look you! It is a
sign! Trinidad--we will name it Trinidad.”
The next morning we came to Trinidad, and the palms trooped to the water
edge, and we saw sparkling streams, and from the heights above the sea
curls of smoke from hidden huts. We coasted, seeking anchorage, and
at last came into a clear, small harbor, and landing, filled our water
casks. We knew the country was inhabited for we saw the smokes, but no
canoes came about us, and though we met with footprints upon the sand
the men who made them never returned. We weighed anchor and sailed on
along the southern coast, and now to the south of us, across not many
leagues of blue water, we made out a low shore. Its ends were lost in
haze, but we esteemed it an island, and he named it Holy Island. It was
not island, as now we know; but we did not know it then. How dreamlike
is all our finding, and how halfway only to great truths! Cuba we
thought was the continent, and the shore that was continent, we called
“island.”
Now we came to a long southward running tongue of Trinidad. Point
Arenal, he named it. A corresponding tongue of that low Holy Island
reached out toward it, and between the two flowed an azure strait. Here,
off Point Arenal, the three ships rested at anchor, and now there came
to us from Holy Island a big canoe, filled with Indians. As they came
near the _Esperanza_ we saw that they were somewhat lighter in hue than
those Indians to whom we were used. Moreover they wore bright-colored
loin cloths, and twists of white or colored cotton about their heads,
like slight turbans, and they carried not only bows and arrows to which
we were used, but round bucklers to which we were not used. They looked
at us in amazement, but they were ready for war.
We invited them with every gesture of amity, holding out glass beads and
hawk bells, but they would not come close to us. As they hung upon the
blue water out of the shadow of the ship, the Admiral would have our
musicians begin loudly to play. But when the drums began, the fife and
the castanets, the canoe started, quivered, the paddlers dipped, it
raced back to that shore whence it came, that shore that we thought
island.
“Lighter than Haytiens!” exclaimed the Admiral. “I have thought that as
we neared the Equator we should find them black!”
Afterwards he expanded upon this. “Jayme Ferrer thinks as I think, that
the nearer we come to the Equator the more precious grow all things, the
more gold, the more diamonds, rubies and emeralds, the more prodigal and
delicious the spices! The people are burnt black, but they grow gentler
and more wise, and under the line they are makers of white magic. I have
not told you, Juan Lepe, but I hold that now we begin to come to where
our Mother Earth herself climbs, and climbs auspiciously!”
“That we come to great mountains?”
“No, not that, though there may be great mountains. But I have thought
it out, and now I hold that the earth is not an orb, but is shaped, as
it were, like a pear. It would take an hour to give you all the reasons
that decide me! But I hold that from hereabouts it mounts fairer and
fairer, until under the line, about where would be the stem of the pear,
we come to the ancient Earthly Paradise, the old Garden of Eden!”
I looked to the southward. Certainly there is nowhere where there is not
something!
He gazed over the truly azure and beauteous sea, and the air blew soft
and cool upon our foreheads, and the fragrance which came to us from
land seemed new. “Would you not look for the halcyons? Trinidad! Holy
Island! We approach, I hold, the Holy Mountain of the World. And hark
to me, Juan Lepe, make vow that if it be permitted I will found there
an abbey whence shall arise perpetual orison for the souls of our first
parents!”
We found that night that the ships swung, caught in a current issuing
from the strait before us. In the morning we made sail and prepared to
pass through this narrow way between the two lands, seeing open water
beyond. We succeeded by great skill and with Providence over us, for we
met as it were an under wall of water ridged atop with strong waves. The
ships were tossed as by a tempest, yet was the air serene, the sky blue.
We came hardly through and afterwards called that strait Mouth of the
Serpent. Now we were in a great bay or gulf, and still the sea shook us
and drove us. Calm above, around, but underneath an agitation of waters,
strong currents and boilings. Among our mariners many took fright. “What
is it? Are there witches? We are in a cauldron!”
Christopherus Columbus himself took the helm of the _Esperanza_. Many a
man in these times chose to doubt what kind of Viceroy he made, but no
man who ever sailed with him but at last said, “Child of Neptune, and
the greatest seaman we have!”
We outrode danger and came under land to a quiet anchorage, the _San
Sebastian_ and the _San Martin_ following us as the chickens the hen.
Still before us we saw that current ridge the sea. The Admiral stood
gazing upon the southward shore that hung in a dazzling haze. Now we
thought water, now we thought land. He called to a ship boy and the
lad presently brought him a pannikin of water dipped from the sea. The
Admiral tasted. “Fresh! It is almost fresh!”
He stood with a kindling face. “A river runs into sea from this land!
Surely the mightiest that may be, rushing forth like a dragon and
fighting all the salt water! So great a river could not come from an
island, no, not if it were twice as large as Hispaniola! Such a river
comes downward with force hundreds of leagues and gathers children to
itself as it comes. It is not an island yonder; it is a great main!”
We called the gulf where we were the Gulf of the Whale. Trinidad stood
on the one hand, the unknown continent on the other. After rest in
milky water, we set sail to cross the width of the Whale, and found
glass-green and shaken water, but never so piled and dangerous as at the
Mouth of the Serpent. So we came to that land that must be--we knew not
what! It hung low, in gold sunlight. We saw no mountains, but it was
covered with the mightiest forest.
Anchoring in smooth water, we took out boats and went ashore, and we
raised a cross. “As in Adam we all die, so in Christ we be alive!” said
the Admiral, and then, “What grandeur is in this forest!”
In truth we found trees that we had not found in our islands, and of an
unbelievable height and girth. Upon the boughs sat parrots, and we were
used to them, but we were not used to monkeys which now appeared, to
our mariners’ delight. We met footprints of some great animal, and
presently, being beside a stream, we made out upon a mud bank those
crocodiles that the Indians call “cayman.” And never have I seen so
many and such splendid butterflies. All this forest seemed to us of a
vastness, as the rivers were vast. There rang in our ears “New! New!”
And at last came an Indian canoe--two--three, filled with light-hued,
hardly more than tawny, folk, with cloth of cotton about their middles
and twisted around their heads, with bows and arrows and those new
bucklers. But seeing that we did not wish to fight, they did not wish to
fight either; and there was all the old amaze.
Gods--gods--gods! We sought the Earthly Paradise, and they thought we
came therefrom.
Paria. We made out that they called their country Paria.
They had in their canoes a bread like cassava, but more delicate, we
thought, and in calabashes almost a true wine. We gave them toys, and as
they always pointed westward and seemed to signify that there was _the_
land, we returned after two hours to the ships and set ourselves to
follow the coast. Two or three of this people would go with the gods.
We came to that river mouth that troubled all this sea. What shall I say
but that it was itself a sea, a green sea, a fresh sea? We crossed it
with long labor. The men of Paria made us understand that their season
of rain was lately over, and that ever after that was more river.
Whence did it come? They spoke at length and, Christopherus Columbus was
certain, of some heavenly country.
The dawn came up sweet and red. The country before us had hills and we
made out clearings in the monster forest, and now the blue water was
thronged with canoes. We anchored; they shot out to us fearlessly. The
Jamaica canoe is larger and better than the Haytien, but those of this
land surpass the Jamaican. They are long and wide and have in the middle
a light cabin. The rowers chant as they lift and dip their broad oars.
If we were gods to them, yet they seemed gay and fearless of the gods. I
thought with the Admiral that they must have tradition or rumor, of folk
higher upon the mount of enlightenment than themselves. Perhaps now
and again there was contact. At any rate, we did not meet here the
stupefaction and the prostrations of our first islands. We had again no
common tongue, but they proved masters of gesture. Gold was upon them,
and that in some amount, and what was extraordinary, often enough in
well-wrought shapes of ornament. A seaman brought to the Admiral a
golden frog, well-made, pierced for a red cotton string, worn so about
a copper-colored neck. He had traded for it three hawk bells. The
Admiral’s face glowed. “It has been wrought by those who know how to
work in metals! Tubal-cain!”
Moreover, now we found pearls. There came to us singing a great canoe
and in it a plumed cacique with his wife and daughters. All wore twists
of pearls around throat and arms. They gave them freely for red,
blue and green beads, which to them were indeed rubies, sapphires and
emeralds.--Whence came the pearls? It seemed from the coast beyond and
without this gulf. Whence the gold? It seemed from high mountains far
behind the country of Paria. It was dangerous in the extreme to go
there! “Because of the light which repels all darkness!” said the
Admiral. “When we go there, it must be gently and humbly like shriven
men.”
It was August. He knew that Don Bartholomew in Hispaniola craved
his return. The three ships, too, were weatherworn, with seams that
threatened gaping. And as for our adventurers and the husbandmen and
craftsmen, they were most weary of the sea. The mariners were used to
it, the Admiral had lover’s passion for it, but not they! Here before
us, truly, loomed a promising great land, but it was not our port; our
port was San Domingo! There, there in Hispaniola, were old Castilians
in plenty to greet and show. There were the mines that were actually
working, gold to pick up, and Indians trained to bring it to you! There,
for the enterprising and the lucky, were gifts of land, to each his
_repartimentio_! There was companionship, there was fortune, there was
ease! Others were getting, while we rode before a land we were too few
to occupy. They went in company to the Admiral. We had discovered. Now
let us go onto Hispaniola! The ships--our health.
When it came to health it was he who had most to endure.
The gout possessed him often. His brow knotted with pain; his voice,
by nature measured and deep, a rolling music, became sharp and dry. He
moved with difficulty, now and then must stay in bed, or if on deck in
a great chair which we lashed to the mast. But now a trouble seized his
eyes. They gave him great pain; at times he could barely see. Bathe
them with a soothing medicine, rest them. But when had he rested them,
straining over the ocean since he was a boy? He was a man greatly
patient under adversity, whether of the body or of the body’s
circumstance, but this trouble with the eyes shook him. “If I become
blind--and all that’s yet to do and find! Blessed Mother of God, let not
that happen to me!”
I thought that he should go to Hispaniola, where in the Adelantado’s
house in San Domingo he might submit to bandaging, light and sea shut
out.
At last, “Well, well, we will turn! But first we must leave this gulf
and try it out for some distance westward!”
We left this water by a way as narrow as the entering strait, as narrow
and presenting the like rough confusion of waters, wall against wall.
We called it the Mouth of the Dragon. Mouth of the Dragon, Mouth of the
Serpent, and between them the Gulf of the Whale or of Paria. Now was
open sea, and south of us ran still that coast that he would have mount
to the Equator and to that old, first Garden Land where all things yet
were fair and precious! “I can not stay now, but I will come again!
I will find the mighty last things!” His eyes gave him great pain. He
covered them, then dropped his hands and looked, then must again cover.
A strange thing! We were borne westward ever upon a vast current of the
sea, taking us day and night, so that though the winds were light we
went as though every sail was wholly filled.
Christopherus Columbus talked of these rivers in ocean. “A day will come
when they will be correctly marked. Aye, in the maps of our descendants!
Then ships will say, ‘Now here is the river so and so,’ as to-day the
horseman says, ‘Here is the Tagus, or the Guadalquiver!’”
Another thing he said was that to his mind all the islands that we had
found in six years, from San Salvador to Cubagua, had once been joined
together. Land from this shore to Cuba and beyond. So the peoples were
scattered.
He talked to us much upon this voyage of the great earth and the shape
of it, and its destinies; of the stars, the needle, the Great Circle
and the lesser ones, and the Ocean. He had our time’s learning, gained
through God knows how many nights of book by candle! And he had a mind
that took eagle flights with spread of eagle wings, and in many ways he
had the eagle’s eye.
It was not Cipango and Cathay that now he talked of, but of this great
land-mass before us which he would have rise to Equator and all Wonder.
And he talked also of some water passage, some strait lying to the
westward, by which we might sail between lands and islands to the
further Indian Ocean, and so across to the Sea of Araby, and then around
Africa by Good Hope and then northward, northward, to Spain, coming into
Cadiz with banners, having sailed around the world!
He talked, and all the time his pain ate him, and he must cover eyes to
keep the sword-light out.
In middle August we turned northward from our New Land, and a fortnight
later we came to San Domingo, that Christopherus Columbus had never
seen, though to us in Hispaniola it was an old town, having been builded
above two years.
The Viceroy and the Adelantado clasped hands, embraced; tears ran down
their bronzed cheeks.
Not later than a day after our anchoring, the ships being unladed, all
San Domingo coming and going, trumpets blew and gathered all to our open
place before the Viceroy’s house. Proclamation--Viceregal Proclamation!
First, thanks to God for safe return, and second, hearty approval of the
Adelantado, all his Acts and Measures.
There were two parties in San Domingo, and one now echoed in a shout
approval of the Adelantado, and the other made here a dead silence, and
here a counter-murmur. I heard a man say, “Fool praises fool! Villain
brother upholding villain brother!”
Now I do not think the Adelantado’s every act was wise, nor the
Viceroy’s either, for that matter. But they were far, far, those
brothers, from fool and villain!
The Proclamation arrived at long thunders against Francisco Roldan his
sedition. Here again the place divided as before. Roldan, I had it from
Luis Torres, was in Xaragua, safe and arrogant, harking on Indian war,
undermining everywhere. Our line of forts held for the Adelantado, but
the two or three hundred Spaniards left in Isabella were openly Roldan’s
men. The Viceroy, through the voice of Miguel the Herald, recited,
denounced and warned, then left Francisco Roldan and with suddenness
made statement that within a few days five ships would sail for Spain,
and that all Spaniards whomsoever, who for reasons whatsoever desired
Home, had his consent to go! Consent, Free Passage, and No Questioning!
Whereat the place buzzed loudly, and one saw that many would go.
Many did go upon the ships that sailed not in a few days but a few
weeks. Some went for good reasons, but many for ill. Juan Lepe heard
afar and ahead of time the great tide of talk when they should arrive in
Spain! And though many went who wished the Admiral ill, many stayed, and
forever Roldan made for him more enemies, open or secret.
He sent, it is true, upon those ships friends to plead his cause.
Don Francisco de Las Casas went to Spain and others went. And he sent
letters. Juan Lepe, much in his house, tending him who needed the
physician Long-Rest and Ease-of-Mind, heard these letters read. There
was one to the Sovereigns in which he related with simple eloquence that
discovery to the South, and his assurance that he had touched the
foot of the Mount of all the World. With this letter he sent a hundred
pearls, the golden frog and other gold. Again he took paper and wrote of
the attitude of all things in Hispaniola, of Roldan and evil men, of the
Adelantado’s vigilance, justice and mercy, of natural difficulties and
the need to wait on time, of the Indians. He begged that there be
sent him ample supplies and good men, and withal friars for the Indian
salvation, and some learned, wise and able lawyer and judge, much needed
to give the law upon a thousand complaints brought by childish and
factious men. And if the Sovereigns saw fit to send out some just and
lofty mind to take evidence from all as to their servant Christopherus
Columbus’s deeds and public acts and care of their Majesties’ New
Lands and all the souls therein, such an one would be welcomed by their
Graces’ true servant.
So he himself asked for a commissioner--but he never thought of such an
one as Francisco de Bobadilla!
So the ships sailed. Time passed.