HEROIC ADVENTURES BY LAND AND SEA
No man ever had a better excuse for his superstitions than the Admiral;
no sooner had he got done with his Vision than the wind dropped, the sun
came out, the sea fell, and communication with the land was restored.
While he had been sick and dreaming one of his crew, Diego Mendez, had
been busy with practical efforts in preparation for this day of fine
weather; he had made a great raft out of Indian canoes lashed together,
with mighty sacks of sail cloth into which the provisions might be
bundled; and as soon as the sea had become calm enough he took this raft
in over the bar to the settlement ashore, and began the business of
embarking the whole of the stores and ammunition of Bartholomew's
garrison. By this practical method the whole establishment was
transferred from the shore to the ships in the space of two days, and
nothing was left but the caravel, which it was found impossible to float
again. It was heavy work towing the raft constantly backwards and
forwards from the ships to the shore, but Diego Mendez had the
satisfaction of being the last man to embark from the deserted
settlement, and to see that not an ounce of stores or ammunition had been
lost.
Columbus, always quick to reward the services of a good man, kissed Diego
Mendez publicly--on both cheeks, and (what doubtless pleased him much
better) gave him command of the caravel of which poor Tristan had been
the captain.
With a favourable wind they sailed from this accursed shore at the end of
April 1503. It is strange, as Winsor points out, that in the name of
this coast should be preserved the only territorial remembrance of
Columbus, and that his descendant the Duke of Veragua should in his title
commemorate one of the most unfortunate of the Admiral's adventures. And
if any one should desire a proof of the utterly misleading nature of most
of Columbus's writings about himself, let him know that a few months
later he solemnly wrote to the Sovereigns concerning this very place that
"there is not in the world a country whose inhabitants are more timid;
and the whole place is capable of being easily put into a state of
defence. Your people that may come here, if they should wish to become
masters of the products of other lands, will have to take them by force
or retire empty-handed. In this country they will simply have to trust
their persons in the hands of the savages." The facts being that the
inhabitants were extremely fierce and warlike and irreconcilably hostile;
that the river was a trap out of which in the dry season there was no
escape, and the harbour outside a mere shelterless lee shore; that it
would require an army and an armada to hold the place against the
natives, and that any one who trusted himself in their hands would
share the fate of the unhappy Diego Tristan. One may choose between
believing that the Admiral's memory had entirely failed him (although he
had not been backward in making a minute record, of all his sufferings)
or that he was craftily attempting to deceive the Sovereigns. My own
belief is that he was neither trying to deceive anybody nor that he had
forgotten anything, but that he was simply incapable of uttering the bare
truth when he had a pen in his hand.
From their position on the coast of Veragua Espanola bore almost due
north; but Columbus was too good a seaman to attempt to make the island
by sailing straight for it. He knew that the steady west-going current
would set him far down on his course, and he therefore decided to work up
the coast a long way to the eastward before standing across for Espanola.
The crew grumbled very much at this proceeding, which they did not
understand; in fact they argued from it that the Admiral was making
straight for Spain, and this, in the crazy condition of the vessels,
naturally alarmed them. But in his old high-handed, secret way the
Admiral told them nothing; he even took away from the other captains all
the charts that they had made of this coast, so that no one but himself
would be able to find the way back to it; and he took a kind of pleasure
in the complete mystification thus produced on his fellow-voyagers.
"None of them could explain whither I went nor whence I came; they did
not know the way to return thither," he writes, somewhat childishly.
But he was not back in Espanola yet, and his means for getting there were
crumbling away beneath his feet. One of the three remaining caravels was
entirely riddled by seaworms and had to be abandoned at the harbour
called Puerto Bello; and the company was crowded on to two ships. The
men now became more than ever discontented at the easterly course, and on
May 1st, when he had come as far east as the Gulf of Darien, Columbus
felt obliged to bear away to the north, although as it turned out he had
not nearly made enough easting. He stood on this course, for nine days,
the west-going current setting him down all the time; and the first land
that he made, on May 10th, was the group of islands off the western end
of Cuba which he had called the Queen's Gardens.
He anchored for six days here, as the crews were completely exhausted;
the ships' stores were reduced to biscuits, oil, and vinegar; the vessels
leaked like sieves, and the pumps had to be kept going continually. And
no sooner had they anchored than a hurricane came on, and brought up a
sea so heavy that the Admiral was convinced that his ships could not live
within it. We have got so accustomed to reading of storms and tempests
that it seems useless to try and drive home the horror and terror of
them; but here were these two rotten ships alone at the end of the world,
far beyond the help of man, the great seas roaring up under them in the
black night, parting their worn cables, snatching away their anchors from
them, and finally driving them one upon the other to grind and strain and
prey upon each other, as though the external conspiracy of the elements
against them both were not sufficient! One writes or reads the words,
but what does it mean to us? and can we by any conceivable effort of
imagination realise what it meant to this group of human beings who lived
through that night so many hundred years ago--men like ourselves with
hearts to sink and faint, capable of fear and hunger, capable of misery,
pain, and endurance? Bruised and battered, wet by the terrifying surges,
and entirely uncomforted by food or drink, they did somehow endure these
miseries; and were to endure worse too before they were done with it.
Their six days' sojourn amid the Queen's Gardens, then, was not a great
success; and as soon as they were able they set sail again, standing
eastward when the wind permitted them. But wind and current were against
them and all through the month of May and the early part of June they
struggled along the south coast of Cuba, their ships as full of holes as
a honeycomb, pumps going incessantly, and in addition the worn-out seamen
doing heroic labour at baling with buckets and kettles. Lee helm! Down
go the buckets and kettles and out run the wretched scarecrows of seamen
to the weary business of tacking ship, letting go, brailing up, hauling
in, and making fast for the thousandth time; and then back to the pumps
and kettles again. No human being could endure this for an indefinite
time; and though their diet of worms represented by the rotten biscuit
was varied with cassava bread supplied by friendly natives, the Admiral
could not make his way eastward further than Cape Cruz. Round that cape
his leaking, strained vessels could not be made to look against the wind
and the tide. Could hardly indeed be made to float or swim upon the
water at all; and the Admiral had now to consider, not whether he could
sail on a particular point of the compass, but whether he could by any
means avoid another course which the fates now proposed to him--namely, a
perpendicular course to the bottom of the sea. It was a race between the
water and the ships, and the only thing the Admiral could think of was to
turn southward across to Jamaica, which he did on June 23rd, putting into
Puerto Bueno, now called Dry Harbour. But there was no food there, and
as his ships were settling deeper and deeper in the water he had to make
sail again and drive eastwards as far as Puerto Santa Gloria, now called
Don Christopher's Cove. He was just in time. The ships were run ashore
side by side on a sandy beach, the pumps were abandoned, and in one tide
the ships were full of water. The remaining anchor cables were used to
lash the two ships together so that they would not move; although there
was little fear of that, seeing the weight of water that was in them.
Everything that could be saved was brought up on deck, and a kind of
cabin or platform which could be fortified was rigged on the highest part
of the ships. And so no doubt for some days, although their food was
almost finished, the wretched and exhausted voyagers could stretch their
cramped limbs, and rest in the warm sun, and listen, from their safe
haven on the firm sands, to the hated voice of the sea.
Thanks to careful regulations made by the Admiral, governing the
intercourse between the Spaniards and the natives ashore, friendly
relations were soon established, and the crews were supplied with cassava
bread and fruit in abundance. Two officials superintended every purchase
of provisions to avoid the possibility of any dispute, for in the event
of even a momentary hostility the thatched-roof structures on the ships
could easily have been set on fire, and the position of the Spaniards,
without shelter amid a hostile population, would have been a desperate
one. This disaster, however, was avoided; but the Admiral soon began to
be anxious about the supply of provisions from the immediate
neighbourhood, which after the first few days began to be irregular.
There were a large number of Spaniards to be fed, the natives never kept
any great store of provisions for themselves, and the Spaniards were
entirely at their mercy for, provisions from day to day. Diego Mendez,
always ready for active and practical service, now offered to take three
men and make a journey through the island to arrange for the purchase of
provisions from different villages, so that the men on the ships would
not be dependent upon any one source. This offer was gratefully
accepted; and Mendez, with his lieutenants well supplied with toys and
trinkets, started eastward along the north coast of Jamaica. He made no
mistakes; he was quick and clever at ingratiating himself with the
caciques, and he succeeded in arranging with three separate potentates to
send regular supplies of provisions to the men on the ships. At each
place where he made this arrangement he detached one of his assistants
and sent him back with the first load of provisions, so that the regular
line of carriage might be the more quickly established; and when they had
all gone he borrowed a couple of natives and pushed on by himself until
he reached the eastern end of the island. He made friends here with a
powerful cacique named Amerro, from whom he bought a large canoe, and
paid for it with some of the clothing off his back. With the canoe were
furnished six Indians to row it, and Mendez made a triumphant journey
back by sea, touching at the places where his depots had been established
and seeing that his commissariat arrangements were working properly. He
was warmly received on his return to the ships, and the result of his
efforts was soon visible in the daily supplies of food that now regularly
arrived.
Thus was one difficulty overcome; but it was not likely that either
Columbus himself or any of his people would be content to remain for ever
on the beach of Jamaica. It was necessary to establish communication
with Espanola, and thence with Spain; but how to do it in the absence of
ships or even boats? Columbus, pondering much upon this matter, one day
calls Diego Mendez aside; walks him off, most likely, under the great
rustling trees beyond the beach, and there tells him his difficulty.
"My son," says he, "you and I understand the difficulties and dangers of
our position here better than any one else. We are few; the Indians are
many; we know how fickle and easily irritated they are, and how a
fire-brand thrown into our thatched cabins would set the whole thing
ablaze. It is quite true that you have very cleverly established a
provision supply, but it is dependent entirely upon the good nature of
the natives and it might cease to-morrow. Here is my plan: you have a
good canoe; why should some one not go over to Espanola in it and send
back a ship for us?"
Diego Mendez, knowing very well what is meant, looks down upon the
ground. His spoken opinion is that such a journey is not merely
difficult but impossible journey in a frail native canoe across one
hundred and fifty miles of open and rough sea; although his private
opinion is other than that. No, he cannot imagine such a thing being
done; cannot think who would be able to do it.
Long silence from the Admiral; eloquent silence, accompanied by looks no
less eloquent.
"Admiral," says Mendez again, "you know very well that I have risked my
life for you and the people before and would do it again. But there are
others who have at least as good a right to this great honour and peril
as I have; let me beg of you, therefore, to summon all the company
together, make this proposal to them, and see if any one will undertake
it. If not, I will once more risk my life."
The proposal being duly made to the assembled crews, every one, as
cunning Mendez had thought, declares it impossible; every one hangs back.
Upon which Diego Mendez with a fine gesture comes forward and volunteers;
makes his little dramatic effect and has his little ovation. Thoroughly
Spanish this, significant of that mixture of vanity and bravery, of
swagger and fearlessness, which is characteristic of the best in Spain.
It was a desperately brave thing to venture upon, this voyage from
Jamaica to Espanola in a native canoe and across a sea visited by
dreadful hurricanes; and the volunteer was entitled to his little piece
of heroic drama.
While Mendez was making his preparations, putting a false keel on the
canoe and fixing weather boards along its gunwales to prevent its
shipping seas, fitting a mast and sail and giving it a coat of tar, the
Admiral retired into his cabin and busied himself with his pen. He wrote
one letter to Ovando briefly describing his circumstances and requesting
that a ship should be sent for his relief; and another to the Sovereigns,
in which a long rambling account was given of the events of the voyage,
and much other matter besides, dismally eloquent of his floundering in
the quag. Much in it--about Solomon and Josephus, of the Abbot Joachim,
of Saint Jerome and the Great Khan; more about the Holy Sepulchre and the
intentions of the Almighty in that matter; with some serious practical
concern for the rich land of Veragua which he had discovered, lest it
should share the fate of his other discoveries and be eaten up by idle
adventurers. "Veragua," he says, "is not a little son which may be given
to a stepmother to nurse. Of Espanola and Paria and all the other lands
I never think without the tears falling from my eyes; I believe that the
example of these ought to serve for the others." And then this passage:
"The good and sound purpose which I always had to serve your
Majesties, and the dishonour and unmerited ingratitude, will not
suffer the soul to be silent although I wished it, therefore I ask
pardon of your Majesties. I have been so lost and undone; until now
I have wept for others that your Majesties might have compassion on
them; and now may the heavens weep for me and the earth weep for me
in temporal affairs; I have not a farthing to make as an offering in
spiritual affairs. I have remained here on the Indian islands in
the manner I have before said in great pain and infirmity, expecting
every day death, surrounded by innumerable savages full of cruelty
and by our enemies, and so far from the sacraments of the Holy
Mother Church that I believe the soul will be forgotten when it
leaves the body. Let them weep for me who have charity, truth and
justice. I did not undertake this voyage of navigation to gain
honour or material things, that is certain, because the hope already
was entirely lost; but I did come to serve your Majesties with
honest intention and with good charitable zeal, and I do not lie."
Poor old heart, older than its years, thus wailing out its sorrows to
ears none too sympathetic; sad old voice, uplifted from the bright shores
of that lonely island in the midst of strange seas! It will not come
clear to the head alone; the echoes of this cry must reverberate in the
heart if they are to reach and animate the understanding.
At this time also the Admiral wrote to his friend Gaspar Gorricio. For
the benefit of those who may be interested I give the letter in English.
REVEREND AND VERY DEVOUT FATHER:
"If my voyage should be as conducive to my personal health and the
repose of my house as it seems likely to be conducive to the
aggrandisement of the royal Crown of the King and Queen, my Lords,
I might hope to live more than a hundred years. I have not time to
write more at length. I hope that the bearer of this letter may be
a person of my house who will tell you verbally more than can be
told in a thousand papers, and also Don Diego will supply
information. I beg as a favour of the Father Prior and all the
members of your religious house, that they remember me in all their
prayers.
"Done on the island of Jamaica, July 7, 1503.
"I am at the command of your Reverence.
.S.
.S.A.S. XMY
Xpo FERENS."
Diego Mendez found some one among the Spaniards to accompany him, but his
name is not recorded. The six Indians were taken to row the canoe. They
had to make their way at first against the strong currents along the
northern coast of Jamaica, so as to reach its eastern extremity before
striking across to Espanola. At one point they met a flotilla of Indian
canoes, which chased them and captured them, but they escaped. When they
arrived at the end of the easterly point of Jamaica, now known as Morant
Point, they had to wait two or three days for calm weather and a
favourable wind to waft them across to Espanola, and while thus waiting
they were suddenly surrounded and captured by a tribe of hostile natives,
who carried them off some nine or ten miles into the island, and
signified their intention of killing them.
But they began to quarrel among themselves as to how they should divide
the spoils which they had captured with the canoe, and decided that the
only way of settling the dispute was by some elaborate trial of hazard
which they used. While they were busy with their trial Diego Mendez
managed to escape, got back to the canoe, and worked his way back in it
alone to the harbour where the Spaniards were encamped. The other
Spaniard who was with him probably perished, for there is no record of
what became of him--an obscure life lost in a brave enterprise.
One would have thought that Mendez now had enough of canoe voyages, but
he had no sooner got back than he offered to set out again, only
stipulating that an armed force should march along the coast by land to
secure his safety until he could stand across to Espanola. Bartholomew
Columbus immediately put himself at the head of a large and well-armed
party for this purpose, and Bartolomeo Fieschi, the Genoese captain of
one of the lost caravels, volunteered to accompany Mendez in a second
canoe. Each canoe was now manned by six Spanish volunteers and ten
Indians to row; Fieschi, as soon as they had reached the coast of
Espanola, was to bring the good news to the Admiral; while Mendez must go
on to San Domingo, procure a ship, and himself proceed to Spain with the
Admiral's letters. The canoes were provisioned with water, cassava
bread, and fish; and they departed on this enterprise some time in August
1503.
Their passage along the coast was protected by Bartholomew Columbus, who
marched along with them on the shore. They waited a few days at the end
of the island for favourable weather, and finally said farewell to the
good Adelantado, who we may be sure stood watching them until they were
well out of sight.
There was not a cloud in the sky when the canoes stood out to sea; the
water was calm, and reflected the blistering heat of the sun. It was not
a pleasant situation for people in an open boat; and Mendez and Fieschi
were kept busy, as Irving says, "animating the Indians who navigated
their canoes, and who frequently paused at their labour." The poor
Indians, evidently much in need of such animation, would often jump into
the water to escape the intolerable heat, and after a short immersion
there would return to their task. Things were better when the sun went
down, and the cool night came on; half the Indians then slept and half
rowed, while half of the Spaniards also slept and the other half, I
suppose, "animated." Irving also says that the animating half "kept
guard with their weapons in hand, ready to defend themselves in the case
of any perfidy on the part of their savage companions"; such perfidy
being far enough from the thoughts of the savage companions, we may
imagine, whose energies were entirely occupied with the oars.
The next day was the same: savage companions rowing, Spaniards animating;
Spaniards and savage companions alike drinking water copiously without
regard for the smallness of their store. The second night was very hot,
and the savage companions finished the water, with the result that on the
third day the thirst became a torment, and at mid-day the poor companions
struck work. Artful Mendez, however, had concealed two small kegs of
water in his canoe, the contents of which he now administered in small
doses, so that the poor Indians were enabled to take to their oars again,
though with vigour much abated. Presumably the Spaniards had put up
their weapons by this time, for the only perfidy shown on the part of the
savage companions was that one of them died in the following night and
had to be thrown overboard, while others lay panting on the bottom of the
canoes; and the Spaniards had to take their turn at the oars, although
they were if anything in a worse case than the Indians.
Late in the night, however, the moon rose, and Mendez had the joy of
seeing its lower disc cut by a jagged line which proved to be the little
islet or rock of Navassa, which lies off the westerly end of Espanola.
New hope now animated the sufferers, and they pushed on until they were
able to land on this rock, which proved to be without any vegetation
whatsoever, but on the surface of which there were found some precious
pools of rain-water. Mendez was able to restrain the frantic appetites
of his fellow-countrymen, but the savage companions were less wise, and
drank their fill; so that some of them died in torment on the spot, and
others became seriously ill. The Spaniards were able to make a fire of
driftwood, and boil some shell-fish, which they found on shore, and they
wisely spent the heat of the day crouching in the shade of the rocks, and
put off their departure until the evening. It was then a comparatively
easy journey for them to cross the dozen miles that separated them from
Espanola, and they landed the next day in a pleasant harbour near Cape
Tiburon. Fieschi, true to his promise, was then ready to start back for
Jamaica with news of the safe accomplishment of the voyage; but the
remnant of the crews, Spaniards and savage companions alike, had had
enough of it, and no threats or persuasions would induce them to embark
again. Mendez, therefore, left his friends to enjoy some little repose
before continuing their journey to San Domingo, and, taking six natives
of Espanola to row his canoe; set off along the coast towards the
capital. He had not gone half-way when he learned that Ovando was not
there, but was in Xaragua, so he left his canoe and struck northward
through the forest until he arrived at the Governor's camp.
Ovando welcomed Mendez cordially, praised him for his plucky voyage, and
expressed the greatest concern at the plight of the Admiral; but he was
very busy at the moment, and was on the point of transacting a piece of
business that furnished a dismal proof of the deterioration which had
taken place in him. Anacaona--the lady with the daughter whom we
remember--was now ruling over the province of Xaragua, her brother having
died; and as perhaps her native subjects had been giving a little trouble
to the Governor, he had come to exert his authority. The narrow official
mind, brought into contact with native life, never develops in the
direction of humanity; and Ovando had now for some time made the great
discovery that it was less trouble to kill people than to try to rule
over them wisely. There had evidently always been a streak of Spanish
cruelty in him, which had been much developed by his residence in
Espanola; and to cruelty and narrow officialdom he now added treachery of
a very monstrous and horrible kind.
He announced his intention of paying a state visit to Anacaona, who
thereupon summoned all her tributary chiefs to a kind of levee held in
his honour. In the midst of the levee, at a given signal, Ovando's
soldiers rushed in, seized the caciques, fastened them to the wooden
pillars of the house, and set the whole thing on fire; the caciques being
thus miserably roasted alive. While this was going on the atrocious work
was completed by the soldiers massacring every native they could see
--children, women, and old men included--and Anacaona herself was taken
and hanged.
All these things Diego Mendez had to witness; and when they were over,
Ovando still had excuses for not hurrying to the relief of the Admiral.
He had embarked on a campaign of extermination against the natives, and
he followed up his atrocities at Xaragua by an expedition to the eastern
end of Espanola, where very much the same kind of business was
transacted. Weeks and months passed in this bloody cruelty, and there
was always an excuse for putting off Mendez. Now it was because of the
operations which he dignified by the name of wars, and now because he had
no ship suitable for sending to Jamaica; but the truth was that Ovando,
the springs of whose humanity had been entirely dried up during his
disastrous reign in Espanola, did not want Columbus to see with his own
eyes the terrible state of the island, and was callous enough to leave
him either to perish or to find his own way back to the world. It was
only when news came that a fleet of caravels was expected from Spain that
Ovando could no longer prevent Mendez from going to San Domingo and,
purchasing one of them.
Ovando had indeed lost all but the outer semblance of a man; the soul or
animating part of him had entirely gone to corruption. He had no
interest in rescuing the Admiral; he had, on the contrary, great interest
in leaving him unrescued; but curiosity as to his fate, and fear as to
his actions in case he should return to Espanola, induced the Governor to
make some effort towards spying cut his condition. He had a number of
trained rascals under his command--among them Diego de Escobar, one of
Roldan's bright brigade; and Ovando had no sooner seen Mendez depart on
his journey to San Domingo than he sent this Escobar to embark in a small
caravel on a visit to Jamaica in order to see if the Admiral was still
alive. The caravel had to be small, so that there could be no chance of
bringing off the 130 men who had been left to perish there; and various
astute instructions were given to Escobar in order to prevent his arrival
being of any comfort or assistance to the shipwrecked ones. And so
Escobar sailed; and so, in the month of March 1504, eight months after
the vanishing of Mendez below the eastern horizon, the miserable company
encamped on the two decaying ships on the sands at Puerto Santa Gloria
descried with joyful excitement the sails of a Spanish caravel standing
in to the shore.