THE SECOND VOYAGE.
1493-1494.
[Sidenote: The embarkation.]
The last day in port was a season of solemnity and gratulation. Coma, a
Spaniard, who, if not an eyewitness, got his description from observers,
thus describes the scene in a letter to Scillacio in Pavia: "The
religious rites usual on such occasions were performed by the sailors;
the last embraces were given; the ships were hung with brilliant cloths;
streamers were wound in the rigging; and the royal standard flapped
everywhere at the sterns of the vessels. The pipers and harpers held in
mute astonishment the Nereids and even the Sirens with their sweet
modulations. The shores reëchoed the clang of trumpets and the braying
of clarions. The discharge of cannon rolled over the water. Some
Venetian galleys chancing to enter the harbor joined in the jubilation,
and the cheers of united nations went up with prayers for blessings on
the venturing crews."
[Sidenote: 1493. September 25. The fleet sails.]
Night followed, calm or broken, restful or wearisome, as the case might
be, for one or another, and when the day dawned (September 25, 1493) the
note of preparation was everywhere heard. It was the same on the three
great caracks, on the lesser caravels, and on the light craft, which had
been especially fitted for exploration. The eager and curious mass of
beings which crowded their decks were certainly a motley show. There
were cavalier and priest, hidalgo and artisan, soldier and sailor. The
ambitious thoughts which animated them were as various as their habits.
There were those of the adventurer, with no purpose whatever but
pastime, be it easy or severe. There was the greed of the speculator,
counting the values of trinkets against stores of gold.
[Sidenote: Columbus's character.]
There was the brooding of the administrators, with unsolved problems of
new communities in their heads. There were ears that already caught the
songs of salvation from native throats. There was Columbus himself,
combining all ambitions in one, looking around this harbor of Cadiz
studded with his lordly fleet, spreading its creaking sails, lifting its
dripping anchors. It was his to contrast it with the scene at Palos a
little over a year before. This needy Genoese vested with the
viceroyalty of a new world was more of an adventurer than any. He was a
speculator who overstepped them all in audacious visions and golden
expectancies. He was an administrator over a new government, untried and
undivined. To his ears the hymns of the Church soared with a militant
warning, dooming the heathen of the Indies, and appalling the Moslem
hordes that imperiled the Holy Sepulchre.
[Sidenote: 1493. October 1. Canaries.]
Under the eye of this one commanding spirit, the vessels fell into a
common course, and were wafted out upon the great ocean under the lead
of the escorting galleys of the Venetians. The responsibility of the
captain-general of the great armament had begun. He had been instructed
to steer widely clear of the Portuguese coast, and he bore away in the
lead directly to the southwest. On the seventh day (October 1) they
reached the Gran Canaria, where they tarried to repair a leaky ship. On
the 5th they anchored at Gomera. Two days were required here to complete
some parts of their equipment, for the islands had already become the
centre of great industries and produced largely. "They have enterprising
merchants who carry their commerce to many shores," wrote Coma to
Scillacio.
There were wood and water to be taken on board. A variety of domestic
animals, calves, goats, sheep, and swine; some fowls, and the seed of
many orchard and garden fruits, oranges, lemons, melons, and the like,
were gathered from the inhabitants and stowed away in the remaining
spaces of the ships.
[Sidenote: 1493. October 13. At sea.]
On the 7th the fleet sailed, but it was not till the 13th that the
gentle winds had taken them beyond Ferro and the unbounded sea was about
the great Admiral. He bore away much more southerly than in his first
voyage, so as to strike, if he could, the islands that were so
constantly spoken of, the previous year, as lying southeasterly from
Española.
[Sidenote: St. Elmo's light.]
His ultimate port was, of course, the harbor of La Navidad, and he had
issued sealed instructions to all his commanders, to guide any one who
should part company with the fleet. The winds were favorable, but the
dull sailing of the Admiral's ship restrained the rest. In ten days they
had overshot the longitude of the Sargossa Sea without seeing it,
leaving its floating weeds to the north. In a few days more they
experienced heavy tempests. They gathered confidence from an old belief,
when they saw St. Elmo waving his lambent flames about the upper
rigging, while they greeted his presence with their prayers and songs.
"The fact is certain," says Coma, "that two lights shone through the
darkness of the night on the topmast of the Admiral's ship. Forthwith
the tempest began to abate, the sea to remit its fury, the waves their
violence, and the surface of the waves became as smooth as polished
marble." This sudden gale of four hours' duration came on St. Simon's
eve.
The same authority represents that the protracted voyage had caused
their water to run low, for the Admiral, confident of his nearness to
land, and partly to reassure the timid, had caused it to be served
unstintingly. "You might compare him to Moses," adds Coma, "encouraging
the thirsty armies of the Israelites in the dry wastes of the
wilderness."
[Sidenote: 1493. November 2.]
[Sidenote: November 3.]
[Sidenote: Dominica Island.]
[Sidenote: Marigalante.]
[Sidenote: 1493. November 3. Guadaloupe.]
On Saturday, November 2, the leaders compared reckonings. Some thought
they had come 780 leagues from Ferro; others, 800. There were anxiety
and weariness on board. The constant fatigue of bailing out the leaky
ships had had its disheartening effect. Columbus, with a practiced eye,
saw signs of land in the color of the water and the shifting winds, and
he signaled every vessel to take in sail. It was a waiting night. The
first light of Sunday glinted on the top of a lofty mountain ahead,
descried by a watch at the Admiral's masthead. As the island was
approached, the Admiral named it, in remembrance of the holy day,
Dominica. The usual service with the _Salve Regina_ was chanted
throughout the fleet, which moved on steadily, bringing island after
island into view. Columbus could find no good anchorage at Dominica, and
leaving one vessel to continue the search, he passed on to another
island, which he named from his ship, Marigalante. Here he landed, set
up the royal banner in token of possession of the group,--for he had
seen six islands,--and sought for inhabitants. He could find none, nor
any signs of occupation. There was nothing but a tangle of wood in every
direction, a sparkling mass of leafage, trembling in luxurious beauty
and giving off odors of spice. Some of the men tasted an unknown fruit,
and suffered an immediate inflammation about the face, which it required
remedies to assuage. The next morning Columbus was attracted by the
lofty volcanic peak of another island, and, sailing up to it, he could
see cascades on the sides of this eminence.
[Illustration: GUADALOUPE, MARIE GALANTE, AND DOMINICA.
[From Henrique's _Les Colonies Françoises_, Paris, 1889.]]
"Among those who viewed this marvelous phenomena at a distance from the
ships," says Coma, "it was at first a subject of dispute whether it were
light reflected from masses of compact snow, or the broad surface of a
smooth-worn road. At last the opinion prevailed that it was a vast
river."
[Sidenote: November 4.]
Columbus remembered that he had promised the monks of Our Lady of
Guadaloupe, in Estremadura, to place some token of them in this strange
world, and so he gave this island the name of Guadaloupe. Landing the
next day, a week of wonders followed.
[Sidenote: Cannibals.]
The exploring parties found the first village abandoned; but this had
been done so hastily that some young children had been left behind.
These they decked with hawks' bells, to win their returning parents. One
place showed a public square surrounded by rectangular houses, made of
logs and intertwined branches, and thatched with palms. They went
through the houses and noted what they saw. They observed at the
entrance of one some serpents carved in wood. They found netted
hammocks, beside calabashes, pottery, and even skulls used for utensils
of household service. They discovered cloth made of cotton; bows and
bone-tipped arrows, said sometimes to be pointed with human shin-bones;
domesticated fowl very like geese; tame parrots; and pineapples, whose
flavor enchanted them. They found what might possibly be relics of
Europe, washed hither by the equatorial currents as they set from the
African coasts,--an iron pot, as they thought it (we know this from the
_Historie_), and the stern-timber of a vessel, which they could have
less easily mistaken. They found something to horrify them in human
bones, the remains of a feast, as they were ready enough to believe, for
they were seeking confirmation of the stories of cannibals which
Columbus had heard on his first voyage. They learned that boys were
fattened like capons.
[Illustration: [From Philoponus's _Nota Typis Transacta Navigatio_.]]
The next day they captured a youth and some women, but the men eluded
them. Columbus was now fully convinced that he had at last discovered
the cannibals, and when it was found that one of his captains and eight
men had not returned to their ship, he was under great apprehensions. He
sent exploring parties into the woods. They hallooed and fired their
arquebuses, but to no avail. As they threaded their way through the
thickets, they came upon some villages, but the inhabitants fled,
leaving their meals half cooked; and they were convinced they saw human
flesh on the spit and in the pots. While this party was absent, some
women belonging to the neighboring islands, captives of this savage
people, came off to the ships and sought protection. Columbus decked
them with rings and bells, and forced them ashore, while they begged to
remain. The islanders stripped off their ornaments, and allowed them to
return for more. These women said that the chief of the island and most
of the warriors were absent on a predatory expedition.
[Sidenote: Ojeda's expedition.]
The party searching for the lost men returned without success, when
Alonso de Ojeda offered to lead forty men into the interior for a more
thorough search. This party was as unsuccessful as the other. Ojeda
reported he had crossed twenty-six streams in going inland, and that the
country was found everywhere abounding in odorous trees, strange and
delicious fruits, and brilliant birds.
While this second party was gone, the crews took aboard a supply of
water, and on Ojeda's return Columbus resolved to proceed, and was on
the point of sailing, when the absent men appeared on the shore and
signaled to be taken off. They had got lost in a tangled and pathless
forest, and all efforts to climb high enough in trees to see the stars
and determine their course had been hopeless. Finally striking the sea,
they had followed the shore till they opportunely espied the fleet. They
brought with them some women and boys, but reported they had seen no
men.
[Sidenote: Cannibals.]
Among the accounts of these early experiences of the Spaniards with the
native people, the story of cannibalism is a constant theme. To
circulate such stories enhanced the wonder with which Europe was to be
impressed.
[Sidenote: Caribs.]
The cruelty of the custom was not altogether unwelcome to warrant a
retaliatory mercilessness. Historians have not wholly decided that this
is enough to account for the most positive statements about man-eating
tribes. Fears and prejudices might do much to raise such a belief, or at
least to magnify the habits. Irving remarks that the preservation of
parts of the human body, among the natives of Española, was looked upon
as a votive service to ancestors, and it may have needed only prejudice
to convert such a custom into cannibalism when found with the Caribs.
The adventurousness of the nature of this fierce people and their
wanderings in wars naturally served to sharpen their intellects beyond
the passive unobservance of the pacific tribes on which they preyed; so
they became more readily, for this reason, the possessors of any passion
or vice that the European instinct craved to fasten somewhere upon a
strange people.
[Sidenote: Caribs and Lucayans.]
The contiguity of these two races, the fierce Carib and the timid tribes
of the more northern islands, has long puzzled the ethnologist. Irving
indulged in some rambling notions of the origin of the Carib, derived
from observations of the early students of the obscure relations of the
American peoples. Larger inquiry and more scientific observation has
since Irving's time been given to the subject, still without bringing
the question to recognizable bearings. The craniology of the Caribs is
scantily known, and there is much yet to be divulged. The race in its
purity has long been extinct. Lucien de Rosny, in an anthropological
study of the Antilles published by the French Society of Ethnology in
1886, has amassed considerable data for future deductions. It is a
question with some modern examiners if the distinction between these
insular peoples was not one of accident and surroundings rather than of
blood.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1493. November 10. Columbus leaves Guadaloupe.]
When Columbus sailed from Guadaloupe on November 10, he steered
northwest for Española, though his captives told him that the mainland
lay to the south. He passed various islands, but did not cast anchor
till the 14th, when he reached the island named by him Santa Cruz, and
found it still a region of Caribs. It was here the Spaniards had their
first fight with this fierce people in trying to capture a canoe filled
with them. The white men rammed and overturned the hollowed log; but
the Indians fought in the water so courageously that some of the Spanish
bucklers were pierced with the native poisoned arrows, and one of the
Spaniards, later, died of such a wound inflicted by one of the savage
women. All the Caribs, however, were finally captured and placed in
irons on board ship. One was so badly wounded that recovery was not
thought possible, and he was thrown overboard. The fellow struck for the
shore, and was killed by the Spanish arrows. The accounts describe their
ferocious aspect, their coarse hair, their eyes circled with red paint,
and the muscular parts of their limbs artificially extended by tight
bands below and above.
[Sidenote: Porto Rico.]
Proceeding thence and passing a group of wild and craggy islets, which
he named after St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins, Columbus at
last reached the island now called Porto Rico, which his captives
pointed out to him as their home and the usual field of the Carib
incursions. The island struck the strangers by its size, its beautiful
woods and many harbors, in one of which, at its west end, they finally
anchored. There was a village close by, which, by their accounts, was
trim, and not without some pretensions to skill in laying out, with its
seaside terraces. The inhabitants, however, had fled. Two days later,
the fleet weighed anchor and steered for La Navidad.
[Sidenote: 1493. November 22. Española.]
It was the 22d of November when the explorers made a level shore, which
they later discovered to be the eastern end of Española. They passed
gently along the northern coast, and at an attractive spot sent a boat
ashore with the body of the Biscayan sailor who had died of the poisoned
arrow, while two of the light caravels hovered near the beach to protect
the burying party. Coming to the spot where Columbus had had his armed
conflict with the natives the year before, and where one of the Indians
who had been baptized at Barcelona was taken, this fellow, loaded with
presents and decked in person, was sent on shore for the influence he
might exert on his people. This supposable neophyte does not again
appear in history. Only one of these native converts now remained, and
the accounts say that he lived faithfully with the Spaniards. Five of
the seven who embarked had died on the voyage.
[Sidenote: 1493. November 25.]
[Sidenote: 1493. November 27. Off La Navidad.]
On the 25th, while the fleet was at anchor at Monte Christo, where
Columbus had found gold in the river during his first voyage, the
sailors discovered some decomposed bodies, one of them showing a beard,
which raised apprehensions of the fate of the men left at La Navidad.
The neighboring natives came aboard for traffic with so much readiness,
however, that it did much to allay suspicion. It was the 27th when,
after dark, Columbus cast anchor opposite the fort, about a league from
land. It was too late to see anything more than the outline of the
hills. Expecting a response from the fort, he fired two cannons; but
there was no sound except the echoes. The Spaniards looked in vain for
lights on the shore. The darkness was mysterious and painful. Before
midnight a canoe was heard approaching, and a native twice asked for the
Admiral. A boat was lowered from one of the vessels, and towed the canoe
to the flag-ship. The natives were not willing to board her till
Columbus himself appeared at the waist, and by the light of a lantern
revealed his countenance to them. This reassured them. Their leader
brought presents--some accounts say ewers of gold, others say masks
ornamented with gold--from the cacique, Guacanagari, whose friendly
assistance had been counted upon so much to befriend the little garrison
at La Navidad.
[Sidenote: Its garrison killed.]
These formalities over, Columbus inquired for Diego de Arana and his
men. The young Lucayan, now Columbus's only interpreter, did the best he
could with a dialect not his own to make a connected story out of the
replies, which was in effect that sickness and dissension, together with
the withdrawal of some to other parts of the island, had reduced the
ranks of the garrison, when the fort as well as the neighboring village
of Guacanagari was suddenly attacked by a mountain chieftain, Caonabo,
who burned both fort and village. Those of the Spaniards who were not
driven into the sea to perish had been put to death. In this fight the
friendly cacique had been wounded. The visitors said that this
chieftain's hurt had prevented his coming with them to greet the
Admiral; but that he would come in the morning. Coma, in his account of
this midnight interview, is not so explicit, and leaves the reader to
infer that Columbus did not get quite so clear an apprehension of the
fate of his colony.
When the dawn came, the harbor appeared desolate. Not a canoe was seen
where so many sped about in the previous year. A boat was sent ashore,
and found every sign that the fort had been sacked as well as destroyed.
Fragments of clothing and bits of merchandise were scattered amid its
blackened ruins. There were Indians lurking behind distant trees, but no
one approached, and as the cacique had not kept the word which he had
sent of coming himself in the morning, suspicions began to arise that
the story of its destruction had not been honestly given. The new-comers
passed a disturbed night with increasing mistrust, and the next morning
Columbus landed and saw all for himself. He traveled farther away from
the shore than those who landed on the preceding day, and gained some
confirmation of the story in finding the village of the cacique a mass
of blackened ruins. Cannon were again discharged, in the hopes that
their reverberating echoes might reach the ears of those who were said
to have abandoned the fort before the massacre. The well and ditch were
cleaned out to see if any treasure had been cast into it, as Columbus
had directed in case of disaster. Nothing was found, and this seemed to
confirm the tale of the suddenness of the attack. Columbus and his men
went still farther inland to a village; but its inmates had hurriedly
fled, so that many articles of European make, stockings and a Moorish
robe among them, had been left behind, spoils doubtless of the fort.
Returning nearer the fort, they discovered the bodies of eleven men
buried, with the grass growing above them, and enough remained of their
clothing to show they were Europeans. This is Dr. Chanca's statement,
who says the men had not been dead two months. Coma says that the bodies
were unburied, and had lain for nearly three months in the open air; and
that they were now given Christian burial.
[Sidenote: Guacanagari and Caonabo.]
Later in the day, a few of the natives were lured by friendly signs to
come near enough to talk with the Lucayan interpreter. The story in much
of its details was gradually drawn out, and Columbus finally possessed
himself of a pretty clear conception of the course of the disastrous
events. It was a tale of cruelty, avarice, and sensuality towards the
natives on the part of the Spaniards, and of jealousy and brawls among
themselves. No word of their governor had been sufficient to restrain
their outbursts of passionate encounter, and no sense of insecurity
could deter them from the most foolhardy risks while away from the
fort's protection. Those who had been appointed to succeed Arana, if
there were an occasion, revolted against him, and, being unsuccessful in
overthrowing him, they went off with their adherents in search of the
mines of Cibao. This carried them beyond the protection of Guacanagari,
and into the territory of his enemy, Caonabo, a wandering Carib who had
offered himself to the interior natives as their chieftain, and who had
acquired a great ascendency in the island. This leader, who had learned
of the dissensions among the Spaniards, was no sooner informed of the
coming of these renegades within his reach than he caused them to be
seized and killed. This emboldened him to join forces with another
cacique, a neighbor of Guacanagari, and to attempt to drive the
Spaniards from the island, since they had become a standing menace to
his power, as he reasoned. The confederates marched stealthily, and
stole into the vicinity of the fort in the night. Arana had but ten men
within the stockade, and they kept no watch. Other Spaniards were
quartered in the adjacent village. The onset was sudden and effective,
and the dismal ruins of the fort and village were thought to confirm the
story.
[Sidenote: Doña Catalina.]
Other confirmations followed. A caravel was sent to explore easterly,
and was soon boarded by two Indians from the shore, who invited the
captain, Maldonado, to visit the cacique, who lay ill at a neighboring
village. The captain went, and found Guacanagari laid up with a bandaged
leg. The savage told a story which agreed with the one just related, and
on its being repeated to Columbus, the Admiral himself, with an imposing
train, went to see the cacique. Guacanagari seemed anxious, in repeating
the story, to convince the Admiral of his own loyalty to the Spaniards,
and pointed to his wounds and to those of some of his people as proof.
There was the usual interchange of presents, hawks' bells for gold, and
similar reckonings. Before leaving, Columbus asked to have his surgeon
examine the wound, which the cacique said had been occasioned by a stone
striking the leg. To get more light, the chieftain went out-of-doors,
leaning upon the Admiral's arm. When the bandage was removed, there was
no external sign of hurt; but the cacique winced if the flesh was
touched. Father Boyle, who was in the Admiral's train, thought the wound
a pretense, and the story fabricated to conceal the perfidy of the
cacique, and urged Columbus to make an instant example of the traitor.
The Admiral was not so confident as the priest, and at all events he
thought a course of pacification and procrastination was the better
policy. The interview did not end, according to Coma, without some
strange manifestations on the part of the cacique, which led the
Spaniards for a moment to fear that a trial of arms was to come. The
chief was not indisposed to try his legs enough to return with the
Admiral to his ship that very evening. Here he saw the Carib prisoners,
and the accounts tell us how he shuddered at the sight of them. He
wondered at the horses and other strange creatures which were shown to
him. Coma tells us that the Indians thought that the horses were fed on
human flesh. The women who had been rescued from the Caribs attracted,
perhaps, even more the attention of the savage, and particularly a lofty
creature among them, whom the Spaniards had named Doña Catalina.
Guacanagari was observed to talk with her more confidingly than he did
with the others.
Father Boyle urged upon the Admiral that a duress similar to that of
Catalina was none too good for the perfidious cacique, as the priest
persisted in calling the savage, but Columbus hesitated. There was,
however, little left of that mutual confidence which had characterized
the relations of the Admiral and the chieftain during the trying days of
the shipwreck, the year before. When the Admiral offered to hang a cross
on the neck of his visitor, and the cacique understood it to be the
Christian emblem, he shrank from the visible contact of a faith of which
the past months had revealed its character. With this manifestation they
parted, and the cacique was set ashore. Coma seems to unite the
incidents of this interview on the ship with those of the meeting
ashore.
[Sidenote: The cacique and Catalina.]
There comes in here, according to the received accounts, a little
passage of Indian intrigue and gallantry. A messenger appeared the next
day to inquire when the Admiral sailed, and later another to barter
gold. This last held some talk with the Indian women, and particularly
with Catalina. About midnight a light appeared on the shore, and
Catalina and her companions, while the ship's company, except a watch,
were sleeping, let themselves down the vessel's side, and struck out
for the shore. The watch discovered the escape, but not in time to
prevent the women having a considerable start. Boats pursued, but the
swimmers touched the beach first. Four of them, however, were caught,
but Catalina and the others escaped.
When, the next morning, Columbus sent a demand for the fugitives, it was
found that Guacanagari had moved his household and all his effects into
the interior of the island. The story got its fitting climax in the
suspicious minds of the Spaniards, when they supposed that the fugitive
beauty was with him. Here was only a fresh instance of the savage's
perfidy.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Columbus abandons La Navidad.]
Columbus had before this made up his mind that the vicinity of his
hapless fort was not a good site for the town which he intended to
build. The ground was low, moist, and unhealthy. There were no building
stones near at hand. There was need of haste in a decision. The men were
weary of their confinement on shipboard. The horses and other animals
suffered from a like restraint. Accordingly expeditions were sent to
explore the coast, and it soon became evident that they must move beyond
the limits of Guacanagari's territory, if they would find the conditions
demanded. Melchior Maldonado, in command of one of these expeditions,
had gone eastward until he coasted the country of another cacique. This
chief at first showed hostility, but was won at last by amicable signs.
From him they learned that Guacanagari had gone to the mountains. From
another they got the story of the massacre of the fort, almost entirely
accordant with what they had already discovered.
[Sidenote: Isabella founded.]
[Sidenote: Cibao gold mines.]
Not one of the reports from these minor explorations was satisfactory,
and December 7, the entire fleet weighed anchor to proceed farther east.
Stress of weather caused them to put into a harbor, which on examination
seemed favorable for their building project. The roadstead was wide. A
rocky point offered a site for a citadel. There were two rivers winding
close by in an attractive country, and capable of running mills. Nature,
as they saw it, was variegated and alluring. Flowers and fruits were in
abundance. "Garden seeds came up in five days after they were sown,"
says Coma of their trial of the soil, "and the gardens were speedily
clothed in green, producing plentifully onions and pumpkins, radishes
and beets." "Vegetables," wrote Dr. Chanca, "attain a more luxuriant
growth here in eight days than they would in Spain in twenty." It was
also learned that the gold mines of the Cibao mountains were inland from
the spot, at no great distance.
The disembarkation began. Days of busy exertion followed. Horses,
livestock, provisions, munitions, and the varied merchandise were the
centre of a lively scene about their encampment. This they established
near a sheet of water. Artificers, herdsmen, cavaliers, priests,
laborers, and placemen made up the motley groups which were seen on all
sides.
[Sidenote: Sickness in the colony.]
In later years, the Spaniards regulated all the formalities and
prescribed with precision the proceedings in the laying out of towns in
the New World, but Columbus had no such directions. The planting of a
settlement was a novel and untried method. It was a natural thought to
commemorate in the new Christian city the great patroness of his
undertaking, and the settlement bore from the first the name of
Isabella. His engineers laid out square and street. A site for the
church was marked, another for a public storehouse, another for the
house of the Admiral,--all of stone. The ruins of these three buildings
are the most conspicuous relics in the present solitary waste. The great
mass of tenements, which were stretched along the streets back from the
public square, where the main edifice stood, were as hastily run up as
possible, to cover in the colony. It was time enough for solider
structures later to take their places. Parties were occupied in clearing
fields and setting out orchards. There were landing piers to be made at
the shore. So everybody tasked bodily strength in rival endeavors. The
natural results followed in so incongruous a crowd. Those not accustomed
to labor broke down from its hardships. The seekers for pleasure, not
finding it in the common toil, rushed into excesses, and imperiled all.
The little lake, so attractive to the inexperienced, was soon, with its
night vapors, the source of disease. Few knew how to protect themselves
from the insidious malaria. Discomfort induced discouragement, and the
mental firmness so necessary in facing strange and exacting
circumstances gave way.
[Sidenote: Columbus sick.]
Forebodings added greater energy to the disease. It was not long before
the colony was a camp of hospitals, about one half the people being
incapacitated for labor. In the midst of all this downheartedness
Columbus himself succumbed, and for some weeks was unable to direct the
trying state of affairs, except as he could do so in the intervals of
his lassitude.
But as the weeks went on a better condition was apparent. Work took a
more steady aspect. The ships had discharged their burdens. They lay
ready for the return voyage.
[Sidenote: Sends Ojeda to seek the Cibao mines.]
Columbus had depended on the exertions of the little colony at La
Navidad to amass a store of gold and other precious commodities with
which to laden the returning vessels. He knew the disappointment which
would arise if they should carry little else than the dismal tale of
disaster. Nothing lay upon his mind more weightily than this
mortification and misfortune. There was nothing to be done but to seek
the mines of Cibao, for the chance of sending more encouraging reports.
Gold had indeed been brought in to the settlement, but only scantily;
and its quantity was not suited to make real the gorgeous dreams of the
East with which Spain was too familiar.
So an expedition to Cibao was organized, and Ojeda was placed in
command. The force assigned to him was but fifteen men in all, but each
was well armed and courageous. They expected perils, for they had to
invade the territory of Caonabo, the destroyer of La Navidad.
[Sidenote: 1494. January. First mass.]
The march began early in January, 1494; perhaps just after they had
celebrated their first solemn mass in a temporary chapel on January 6.
For two days their progress was slow and toilsome, through forests
without a sign of human life, for the savage denizens had moved back
from the vicinity of the Spaniards. The men encamped, the second night,
on the top of a mountain, and when the dawn broke they looked down on
its further side over a broad valley, with its scattered villages. They
boldly descended, and met nothing but hospitality from the villagers.
Their course now lay towards and up the opposite slope of the valley.
They pushed on without an obstacle.
[Sidenote: Gold found.]
[Sidenote: Gorvalan's expedition.]
The rude inhabitants of the mountains were as friendly as those of the
valley. They did not see nor did they hear anything of the great
Caonabo. Every stream they passed glittered with particles of gold in
its sand. The natives had an expert way of separating the metal, and the
Spaniards flattered them for their skill. Occasionally a nugget was
found. Ojeda picked up a lump which weighed nine ounces, and Peter
Martyr looked upon it wonderingly when it reached Spain. If all this was
found on the surface, what must be the wealth in the bowels of these
astounding mountains? The obvious answer was what Ojeda hastened back to
make to Columbus. A similar story was got from a young cavalier,
Gorvalan, who had been dispatched in another direction with another
force. There was in all this the foundation of miracles for the glib
tongue and lively imagination. One of these exuberant stories reached
Coma, and Scillacio makes him say that "the most splendid thing of all
(which I should be ashamed to commit to writing, if I had not received
it from a trustworthy source) is that, a rock adjacent to a mountain
being struck with a club, a large quantity of gold burst out, and
particles of gold of indescribable brightness glittered all around the
spot. Ojeda was loaded down by means of this outburst." It was stories
like these which prepared the way for the future reaction in Spain.
[Sidenote: Columbus writes to the sovereigns.]
There was material now to give spirit to the dispatch to his sovereigns,
and Columbus sat down to write it. It has come down to us, and is
printed in Navarrete's collection, just as it was perused by the King
and Queen, who entered in the margins their comments and orders.
Columbus refers at the beginning to letters already written to their
Highnesses, and mentions others addressed to Father Buele and to the
treasurer, but they are not known. Then, speaking of the expeditions of
Ojeda and Gorvalan, he begs the sovereigns to satisfy themselves of the
hopeful prospects for gold by questioning Gorvalan, who was to return
with the ships. He advises their Highnesses to return thanks to God for
all this. Those personages write in the margin, "Their Highnesses return
thanks to God!" He then explains his embarrassment from the sickness of
his men,--the "greater part of all," as he adds,--and says that the
Indians are very familiar, rambling about the settlement both day and
night, necessitating a constant watch. As he makes excuses and gives his
reasons for not doing this or that, the compliant monarchs as
constantly write against the paragraphs, "He has done well." Columbus
says he is building stone bulwarks for defense, and when this is done he
shall provide for accumulating gold. "Exactly as should be done," chime
in the monarchs. He then asks for fresh provisions to be sent to him,
and tells how much they have done in planting. "Fonseca has been ordered
to send further seeds," is the comment. He complains that the wine casks
had been badly coopered at Seville, and that the wine had all run out,
so that wine was their prime necessity. He urges that calves, heifers,
asses, working mares, be sent to them; and that above all, to prevent
discouragement, the supplies should arrive at Isabella by May, and that
particularly medicines should come, as their stock was exhausted. He
then refers to the cannibals whom he would send back, and asks that they
may be made acquainted with the true faith and taught the Spanish
tongue. "His suggestions are good," is the marginal royal comment.
[Sidenote: Columbus proposes a trade in slaves.]
Now comes the vital point of his dispatch. We want cattle, he says. They
can be paid for in Carib slaves. Let yearly caravels conduct this trade.
It will be easy, with the boats which are building, to capture a plenty
of these savages. Duties can be levied on these importations of slaves.
On this point he urges a reply. The monarchs see the fatality of the
step, and, according to the marginal comment, suspend judgment and ask
the Admiral's further thoughts. "A more distinct suggestion for the
establishment of a slave trade was never proposed," is the modern
comment of Arthur Helps. Columbus then adds that he has bought for the
use of the colony certain of the vessels which brought them out, and
these would be retained at Isabella, and used in making further
discoveries. The comment is that Fonseca will pay the owners. He then
intimates that more care should be exercised in the selection of
placemen sent to the colony, for the enterprise had suffered already
from unfitness in such matters. The monarchs promise amends. He
complains that the Granada lancemen, who offered themselves in Seville
mounted on fine horses, had subsequently exchanged these animals to
their own personal advantage for inferior horses. He says the footmen
made similar exchanges to fill their own pockets.
[Sidenote: 1404. January 30. Signs his letter.]
[Sidenote: Gold, the Christians' God!]
[Sidenote: 1494. February 2. The fleet returns to Spain.]
[Sidenote: Chanca's narrative.]
So, dating this memorial on January 30, 1494, the man who was ambitious
to become the first slave-driver of the New World laid down his quill,
praising God, as he asked his sovereigns to do. The poor creatures who
wandered in and about among the cabins of the Spaniards were fast
forming their own comments, which were quite as astute as those of the
Admiral's royal masters. Holding up a piece of gold, the natives learned
to say,--and Columbus had given them their first lesson in such
philosophy,--"Behold the Christians' God!" Benzoni, the first traveler
who came among them with his eyes open, and daring to record the truth,
heard them say this. Intrusting his memorial to Antonio de Torres, and
putting him in command of the twelve ships that were to return to Spain,
Columbus saw the fleet sail away on February 2, 1494. There would seem
to have been committed to some one on the ships two other accounts of
the results of this second voyage up to this time, which have come down
to us. One of these is a narrative by Dr. Chanca, the physician of the
colony, whom Columbus, in his memorial to the monarchs, credits with
doing good service in his profession at a sacrifice of the larger
emoluments which the practice of it had brought to him in Seville. The
narrative of Chanca had been sent by him to the cathedral chapter of
Seville. The original is thought to be lost; but Navarrete used a
transcript which belonged to a collection formed by Father Antonio de
Aspa, a monk of the monastery of the Mejorada, where Columbus is known
to have deposited some of his papers. Major has given us an English
translation of it in his _Select Letters of Columbus_. Major's text will
also be found in the late James Lenox's English version of the other
account, which he gave to scholars in 1859.
[Sidenote: Coma's narrative.]
There is a curious misconception in this last document, which represents
that Columbus had reached these new regions by the African route of the
Portuguese,--a confusion doubtless arising from the imperfect knowledge
which the Italian translator, Nicholas Scillacio, had of the current
geographical developments. A Spaniard, Guglielmo Coma, seems to have
written about the new discoveries in some letters, apparently revived in
some way from somebody's personal observation, which Scillacio put into
a Latin dress, and published at Pavia, or possibly at Pisa. This little
tract is of the utmost rarity, and Mr. Lenox, considering the suggestion
of Ronchini, that the blunder of Scillacio may have caused the
destruction of the edition, replies by calling attention to the fact
that it is scarcely rarer than many other of the contemporary tracts of
Columbus's voyage, about which there exists no such reason.
[Sidenote: Verde's letters.]
We get also some reports by Torres himself on the affairs of the colony
in various letters of a Florentine merchant, Simone Verde, to whom he
had communicated them. These letters have been recently (1875) found in
the archives of Florence, and have been made better known still later by
Harrisse.