While the terrible storm that wrecked the great gold fleet of the
governor was raging so furiously, Columbus with his four ships was lying
as near shore as he dared in a little bay farther down the coast of
Hayti. Here he escaped the full fury of the gale, but still his ships
suffered greatly, and came very near being shipwrecked. They became
separated in the storm, but the caravels met at last after the storm was
over and steered away for the island of Jamaica.
For several days they sailed about among the West India Islands; then
they took a westerly course, and on the thirtieth of July, Columbus
saw before him the misty outlines of certain high mountains which he
supposed to be somewhere in Asia, but which we now know were the Coast
Range Mountains of Honduras. And Honduras, you remember, is a part of
Central America.
Just turn to the map of Central America in your geography and find
Honduras. The mountains, you see, are marked there; and on the northern
coast, at the head of a fine bay, you will notice the seaport town of
Truxillo. And that is about the spot where, for the first time, Columbus
saw the mainland of North America.
As he sailed toward the coast a great canoe came close to the ship. It
was almost as large as one of his own caravels, for it was over forty
feet long and fully eight feet wide. It was paddled by twenty-five
Indians, while in the middle, under an awning of palm-thatch sat the
chief Indian, or cacique, as he was called. A curious kind of sail had
been rigged to catch the breeze, and the canoe was loaded with fruits
and Indian merchandise.
This canoe surprised Columbus very much. He had seen nothing just like
it among the other Indians he had visited. The cacique and his people,
too, were dressed in clothes and had sharp swords and spears. He thought
of the great galleys of Venice and Genoa; he remembered the stories that
had come to him of the people of Cathay; he believed that, at last, he
had come to the right place. The shores ahead of him were, he was sure,
the coasts of the Cathay he was hunting for, and these people in "the
galley of the cacique" were much nearer the kind of people he was
expecting to meet than were the poor naked Indians of Hayti and Cuba.
In a certain way he was right. These people in the big canoe were,
probably, some of the trading Indians of Yucatan, and beyond them, in
what we know to-day as Mexico, was a race of Indians, known as Aztecs,
who were what is called half-civilized; for they had cities and temples
and stone houses and almost as much gold and treasure as Columbus hoped
to find in his fairyland of Cathay. But Columbus was not to find Mexico.
Another daring and cruel Spanish captain, named Cortez, discovered the
land, conquered it for Spain, stripped it of its gold and treasure, and
killed or enslaved its brave and intelligent people.
After meeting this canoe, Columbus steered for the distant shore. He
coasted up and down looking for a good harbor, and on the seventeenth of
August, 1502, he landed as has been told you, near what is now the town
of Truxillo, in Honduras. There, setting up the banner of Castile, he
took possession of the country in the name of the king and queen of
Spain.
For the first time in his life Columbus stood on the real soil of the
New World. All the islands he had before discovered and colonized were
but outlying pieces of America. Now he was really upon the American
Continent.
But he did not know it. To him it was but a part of Asia. And as the
main purpose of this fourth voyage was to find a way to sail straight to
India--which he supposed lay somewhere to the south--he set off on his
search. The Indians told him of "a narrow place" that he could find by
sailing farther south, and of a "great water." beyond it. This "narrow
place" was the Isthmus of Panama, and the "great water" beyond it was,
of course, the Pacific Ocean. But Columbus thought that by a "narrow
place" they meant a strait instead of an isthmus. If he could but find
that strait, he could sail through it into the great Bay of Bengal
which, as you know and as he had heard, washes the eastern shore of
India.
So he sailed along the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua trying to find
the strait he was hunting for. Just look at your map and see how near he
was to the way across to the Pacific that men are now digging out, and
which, as the Nicaragua Canal, will connect the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans. And think how near he was to finding that Pacific Ocean over
which, if he could but have got across the Isthmus of Panama, he could
have sailed to the Cathay and the Indies he spent his life in trying to
find. But if he had been fortunate enough to get into the waters of the
Pacific, I do not believe it would have been so lucky for him, after
all. His little ships, poorly built and poorly provisioned, could never
have sailed that great ocean in safety, and the end might have proved
even more disastrous than did the Atlantic voyages of the Admiral.
He soon understood that he had found a richer land than the islands he
had thus far discovered. Gold and pearls were much more plentiful
along the Honduras coast than they were in Cuba and Hayti, and Columbus
decided that, after he had found India, he would come back by this route
and collect a cargo of the glittering treasures.
The land was called by the Indians something that sounded very much like
Veragua. This was the name Columbus gave to it; and it was this name,
Veragua, that was afterward given to the family of Columbus as its
title; so that, to-day, the living descendant of Christopher Columbus in
Spain is called the Duke of Veragua.
But as Columbus sailed south, along what is called "the Mosquito Coast,"
the weather grew stormy and the gales were severe. His ships were crazy
and worm-eaten; the food was running low; the sailors began to grumble
and complain and to say that if they kept on in this way they would
surely starve before they could reach India.
Columbus, too, began to grow uneasy. His youngest son, Ferdinand, a
brave, bright little fellow of thirteen, had come with him on this
voyage, and Columbus really began to be afraid that something might
happen to the boy, especially if the crazy ships should be wrecked, or
if want of food should make them all go hungry. So at last he decided
to give up hunting for the strait that should lead him into the Bay of
Bengal; he felt obliged, also, to give up his plan of going back to the
Honduras coast for gold and pearls. He turned his ships about and headed
for Hayti where he hoped he could get Governor Ovando to give him better
ships so that he could try it all over again.
Here, you see, was still another disappointing defeat for Columbus. For
after he had been on the American coast for almost a year; after he
had come so near to what he felt to be the long-looked-for path to the
Indies; after most wonderful adventures on sea and land, he turned his
back on it all, without really having accomplished what he set out to do
and, as I have told you, steered for Hayti.
But it was not at all easy to get to Hayti in those leaky ships of his.
In fact it was not possible to get there with them at all; for on the
twenty-third of June, 1503, when he had reached the island of Jamaica
he felt that his ships would not hold out any longer. They were full
of worm-holes; they were leaking badly; they were strained and battered
from the storms. He determined, therefore, to find a good harbor
somewhere on the island of Jamaica and go in there for repairs. But he
could not find a good one; his ships grew worse and worse; every day's
delay was dangerous; and for fear the ships would sink and carry the
crews to the bottom of the sea, Columbus decided to run them ashore
anyhow. This he did; and on the twelfth of August, 1503, he deliberately
headed for the shore and ran his ships aground in a little bay on the
island of Jamaica still known as Sir Christopher's Cove. And there the
fleet was wrecked.
The castaways lashed the four wrecks together; they built deck-houses
and protections so as to make themselves as comfortable as possible, and
for a whole year Columbus and his men lived there at Sir Christopher's
Cove on the beautiful island of Jamaica.
It proved anything but beautiful for them, however. It makes a good deal
of difference, you know, in enjoying things whether you are well and
happy. If you are hungry and can't get anything to eat, the sky does not
look so blue or the trees so green as if you were sitting beneath them
with a jolly picnic party and with plenty of lunch in the baskets.
It was no picnic for Columbus and his companions. That year on
the island of Jamaica was one of horror, of peril, of sickness, of
starvation. Twice, a brave comrade named Diego Mendez started in an
open boat for Hayti to bring relief. The first time he was nearly
shipwrecked, but the second time he got away all right. And then for
months nothing was heard of him, and it was supposed that he had been
drowned. But the truth was that Governor Ovando, had an idea that the
king and queen of Spain were tired of Columbus and would not feel very
bad if they never saw him again. He promised to send help, but did not
do so for fear he should get into trouble. And the relief that the poor
shipwrecked people on Jamaica longed for did not come.
Then some of the men who were with Columbus mutinied and ran away.
In fact, more things happened during this remarkable fourth voyage of
Columbus than I can begin to tell you about. The story is more wonderful
than is that of Robinson Crusoe, and when you are older you must
certainly read it all and see just what marvelous adventures Columbus
and his men met with and how bravely the little Ferdinand Columbus went
through them all. For when Ferdinand grew up he wrote a life of his
father, the Admiral, and told the story of how they all played Robinson
Crusoe at Sir Christopher's Cove.
At last the long-delayed help was sent by Governor Ovando, and one day
the brave Diego Mendez came sailing into Sir Christopher's Cove. And
Columbus forgave the rebels who had run away; and on the twenty-eighth
of June, 1504, they all sailed away from the place, that, for a year
past, had been almost worse than a prison to them all.
On the fifteenth of August, the rescued crews sailed into the harbor of
Santo Domingo. The governor, Ovando, who had reluctantly agreed to send
for Columbus, was now in a hurry to get him away. Whether the governor
was afraid of him, or ashamed because of the way he had treated him, or
whether he felt that Columbus was no longer held so high in Spain, and
that, therefore, it was not wise to make much of him, I cannot say. At
any rate he hurried him off to Spain, and on the twelfth of September,
1504, Columbus turned his back forever on the new world he had
discovered, and with two ships sailed for Spain.
He had not been at sea but a day or two before he found that the ship
in which he and the boy Ferdinand were sailing was not good for much. A
sudden storm carried away its mast and the vessel was sent back to Santo
Domingo. Columbus and Ferdinand, with a few of the men, went on board
the other ship which was commanded by Bartholomew Columbus, the
brother of the Admiral, who had been with him all through the dreadful
expedition. At last they saw the home shores again, and on the seventh
of November, 1504, Columbus sailed into the harbor of San Lucar, not far
from Cadiz.
He had been away from Spain for fully two years and a half. He had
not accomplished a single thing he set out to do. He had met with
disappointment and disaster over and over again, and had left the four
ships that had been given him a total wreck upon the shores of Jamaica.
He came back poor, unsuccessful, unnoticed, and so ill that he could
scarcely get ashore.
And so the fourth voyage of the great Admiral ended. It was his last.
His long sickness had almost made him crazy. He said and did many odd
things, such as make us think, nowadays, that people have, as we call
it, "lost their minds." But he was certain of one thing--the king and
queen of Spain had not kept the promises they had made him, and he was
determined, if he lived, to have justice done him, and to make them do
as they said they would.
They had told him that only himself or one of his family should be
Admiral of the Ocean Seas and Viceroy of the New Lands; they had sent
across the water others, who were not of his family, to govern what he
had been promised for his own. They had told him that he should have a
certain share of the profits that came from trading and gold hunting in
the Indies; they had not kept this promise either, and he was poor when
he was certain he ought to be rich.
So, when he was on land once more, he tried hard to get to court and see
the king and queen. But he was too sick.
He had got as far as beautiful Seville, the fair Spanish city by the
Guadalquivir, and there he had to give up and go to, bed. And then came
a new disappointment. He was to lose his best friend at the court. For
when he had been scarcely two weeks in Spain, Queen Isabella died.
She was not what would be considered in these days either a particularly
good woman, or an especially good queen. She did many cruel things; and
while she talked much about doing good, she was generally looking out
for herself most of all. But that was not so much her fault as the fault
of the times in which she lived. Her life was not a happy one; but she
had always felt kindly toward Columbus, and when he was where he could
see her and talk to her, he had always been able to get her to side with
him and grant his wishes.
Columbus was now a very sick man. He had to keep his bed most of the
time, and this news of the queen's death made him still worse, for he
felt that now no one who had the "say" would speak a good word for the
man who had done so much for Spain, and given to the king and queen the
chance to make their nation great and rich and powerful.