Columbus kept sailing on from one island to another. Each new island
he found would, he hoped, bring him nearer to Cathay and to the marble
temples and golden palaces and splendid cities he was looking for. But
the temples and palaces and cities did not appear. When the Admiral came
to the coast of Cuba he said: This, I know, is the mainland of Asia. So
he sent off Louis, the interpreter, with a letter to the "great Emperor
of Cathay." Louis was gone several days; but he found no emperor, no
palace, no city, no gold, no jewels, no spices, no Cathay--only frail
houses of bark and reeds, fields of corn and grain, with simple people
who could tell him nothing about Cathay or Cipango or the Indies.
So day after day Columbus kept on his search, sailing from island to
island, getting a little gold here and there, or some pearls and silver
and a lot of beautiful bird skins, feathers and trinkets.
Then Captain Alonso Pinzon, who was sailing in the Pinta, believed he
could do better than follow the Admiral's lead. I know, he said, if I
could go off on my own hook I could find plenty of gold and pearls, and
perhaps I could find Cathay. So one day he sailed away and Columbus did
not know what had become of him.
At last Columbus, sailing on and troubled at the way Captain Alonso
Pinzon had acted, came one day to the island of Hayti. If Cuba was
Cathay (or China), Hayti, he felt sure, must be Cipango (or Japan). So
he decided to sail into one of its harbors to spend Christmas Day. But
just before Christmas morning dawned, the helmsman of the Santa Maria,
thinking that everything was safe, gave the tiller into the hands of a
boy--perhaps it was little Pedro the cabin boy--and went to sleep. The
rest of the crew also were asleep. And the boy who, I suppose, felt
quite big to think that he was really steering the Admiral's flagship,
was a little too smart; for, before he knew it, he had driven the Santa
Maria plump upon a hidden reef. And there she was wrecked. They worked
hard to get her off but it was no use. She keeled over on her side, her
seams opened, the water leaked in, the waves broke over her, the masts
fell out and the Santa Maria had made her last voyage.
Then Columbus was in distress. The Pinta had deserted him, the Santa
Maria was a wreck, the Nina was not nearly large enough to carry all his
men back to Spain. And to Spain he must return at once. What should he
do?
Columbus was quick at getting out of a fix. So in this case he speedily
decided what to do. He set his men at work tearing the wreck of the
Santa Maria to pieces. Out of her timbers and woodwork, helped out with
trees from the woods and a few stones from the shore, he made quite
a fort. It had a ditch and a watch-tower and a drawbridge. It proudly
floated the flag of Spain. It was the first European fort in the new
world. On its ramparts Columbus mounted the cannons he had saved from
the wreck and named the fort La Navidad--that is, Fort Nativity, because
it was made out of the ship that was wrecked on Christmas Day-the day of
Christ's nativity, his birthday.
He selected forty of his men to stay in the fort until he should return
from Spain. The most of them were quite willing to do this as they
thought the place was a beautiful one and they would be kept very busy
filling the fort with gold. Columbus told them they must have at least a
ton of gold before he came back. He left them provisions and powder
for a year, he told them to be careful and watchful, to be kind to the
Indians and to make the year such a good one that the king and queen of
Spain would be glad to reward them. And then he said good-by and sailed
away for Spain.
It was on the fourth of January, 1493, that Columbus turned the little
Nina homeward. He had not sailed very far when what should he come
across but the lost Pinta. Captain Alonso Pinzon seemed very much
ashamed when he saw the Admiral, and tried to explain his absence.
Columbus knew well enough that Captain Pinzon had gone off gold hunting
and had not found any gold. But he did not scold him, and both the
vessels sailed toward Spain.
The homeward voyage was a stormy and seasick one. Once it was so rough
that Columbus thought surely the Nina would be wrecked. So he copied
off the story of what he had seen and done, addressed it to the king and
queen of Spain, put it into a barrel and threw the barrel overboard.
But the Nina was not shipwrecked, and on the eighteenth of February
Columbus reached the Azores. The Portuguese governor was so surprised
when he heard this crazy Italian really had returned, and was so angry
to think it was Spain and not Portugal that was to profit by his voyage
that he tried to make Columbus a prisoner. But the Admiral gave this
inhospitable welcomer the slip and was soon off the coast of Portugal.
Here he was obliged to land and meet the king of Portugal--that same
King John who had once acted so meanly toward him. King John would
have done so again had he dared. But things were quite different now.
Columbus was a great man. He had made a successful voyage, and the king
and queen of Spain would have made it go hard with the king of Portugal
if he dared trouble their admiral. So King John had to give a royal
reception to Columbus, and permit him to send a messenger to the king
and queen of Spain with the news of his return from Cathay.
Then Columbus went on board the Nina again and sailed for Palos. But his
old friend Captain Alonso Pinzon had again acted badly. For he had left
the Admiral in one of the storms at sea and had hurried homeward. Then
he sailed into one of the northern ports of Spain, and hoping to get all
the credit for his voyage, sent a messenger post-haste to the king and
queen with the word that he had returned from Cathay and had much to
tell them. And then he, too, sailed for Palos.
On the fifteenth of March, 1493, just seven months after he had sailed
away to the West, Columbus in the Nina sailed into Palos Harbor. The
people knew the little vessel at once. And then what a time they made!
Columbus has come back, they cried. He has found Cathay. Hurrah! hurrah!
And the bells rang and the cannons boomed and the streets were full
of people. The sailors were welcomed with shouts of joy, and the
big stories they told were listened to with open mouths and many
exclamations of surprise. So Columbus came back to Palos. And everybody
pointed him out and cheered him and he was no longer spoken of as "that
crazy Italian who dragged away the men of Palos to the Jumping-off
place."
And in the midst of all this rejoicing what should sail into the harbor
of Palos but the Pinta, just a few hours late! And when Captain Alonso
Pinzon heard the sounds of rejoicing, and knew that his plans to take
away from Columbus all the glory of what had been done had all gone
wrong, he did not even go to see his old friend and ask his pardon. He
went away to his own house without seeing any one. And there he found a
stern letter from the king and queen of Spain scolding him for trying
to get the best of Columbus, and refusing to hear or see him. The way
things had turned out made Captain Alonso Pinzon feel so badly that he
fell sick; and in a few days he died.
But Columbus, after he had seen his good friend Juan Perez, the friar at
Rabida, and told him all his adventures, went on to Barcelona where King
Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were waiting for him. They had already sent
him letters telling him how pleased they were that he had found Cathay,
and ordering him to get ready for a second expedition at once. Columbus
gave his directions for this, and then, in a grand procession that
called everybody to the street or window or housetop, he set off for
Barcelona. He reached the court on a fine April day and was at once
received with much pleasure by the king and queen of Spain.
Columbus told them where he had been and what he had seen; he showed
them the gold and the pearls and the birds and curiosities he had
brought to Spain as specimens, of what was to be found in Cathay; he
showed them the ten painted and "fixed-up" Indians he had stolen and
brought back with him.
And the king and queen of Spain said he had done well. They had him
sit beside them while he told his story, and treated this poor Italian
wool-weaver as they would one of their great princes or mighty lords.
They told him he could put the royal arms alongside his own on his
shield or crest, and they bade him get together at once ships and
sailors for a second expedition to Cathay--ships and sailors enough,
they said, to get away up to the great cities of Cathay, where the
marble temples and the golden palaces must be. It was their wish, they
said, to gain the friendship of the great Emperor of Cathay, to trade
with him and get a good share of his gold and jewels and spices. For,
you see, no one as yet imagined that Columbus had discovered America.
They did not even know that there was such a continent. They thought he
had sailed to Asia and found the rich countries that Marco Polo had told
such big stories about.
Columbus, you may be sure, was "all the rage" now. Wherever he went the
people followed him, cheering and shouting, and begging him to take them
with him on his next voyage to Cathay.
He was as anxious as any one to get back to those beautiful islands
and hunt for gold and jewels. He set to work at once, and on the
twenty-fifth of September, 1493, with a fleet of seventeen ships and a
company of fifteen hundred men, Columbus the Admiral set sail from Cadiz
on his second voyage to Cathay and Cipango and the Indies. And this time
he was certain he should find all these wonderful places, and bring
back from the splendid cities unbounded wealth for the king and queen of
Spain.