At Bahia--Meditations on the discoverers--The Caribbees.
At Bahia we refitted, with many necessary provisions, and repaired the
keel, which we found, upon hauling out, had been damaged by the
encounter with the whale at Frio. An iron shoe was now added for the
benefit of all marine monsters wishing to scratch their backs on our
canoe.
Among the many friends whom we met at Bahia were Capt. Boyd and his
family of the bark _H. W. Palmer_. We shall meet the _Palmer_ and the
Boyds again on the voyage. They were old traders to South America and
had many friends at this port who combined to make our visit a pleasant
one. And their little son Rupert was greatly taken with the
"_Rib_erdade," as he called her, coming often to see us. And the
officials of the port taking great interest in our voyage, came often on
board. No one could have treated us more kindly than they.
The venerable _Administradore_ himself gave us special welcome to the
port and a kind word upon our departure, accompanied by a present for my
wife in the shape of a rare white flower, which we cherished greatly as
coming from a true gentleman.
Some strong abolitionists at the port would have us dine in an epicurean
way in commemoration of the name given our canoe, which was adopted
because of her having been put afloat on the thirteenth day of May, the
day on which every human being in Brazil could say, "I have no master
but one." I declined the banquet tendered us, having work on hand,
fortifying the canoe against the ravaging worms of the seas we were yet
to sail through, bearing in mind the straits of my great predecessor
from this as well as other causes on his voyage over the Caribbean Seas.
I was bound to be strengthened against the enemy.
The gout, it will be remembered, seized upon the good Columbus while his
ship had worms, when both ship and admiral lay stranded among menacing
savages; surrounded, too, by a lawless, threatening band of his own
countrymen not less treacherous than the worst of cannibals. His state
was critical indeed! One calamity was from over-high living--this I was
bound to guard against--the other was from neglect on the part of his
people to care for the ship in a seaman-like manner. Of the latter
difficulty I had no risk to run.
Lazy and lawless, but through the pretext of religion, the infected crew
wrought on the pious feelings of the good admiral, inducing him at every
landing to hold mass instead of cleaning the foul ship. Thus through
petty intrigue and grave neglects, they brought disaster and sorrow on
their leader and confusion on their own heads. Their religion, never
deep, could not be expected to keep _Terredo_ from the ship's bottom, so
her timbers were ravished, and ruin came to them all! Poor Columbus! had
he but sailed with his son Diego and his noble brother Bartholomew, for
his only crew and companions, not forgetting the help of a good woman,
America would have been discovered without those harrowing tales of woe
and indeed heartrending calamities which followed in the wake of his
designing people. Nor would his ship have been less well manned than was
the _Liberdade_, sailing, centuries after, over the same sea and among
many of the islands visited by the great discoverer--sailing, too,
without serious accident of any kind, and without sickness or
discontent. Our advantage over Columbus, I say, was very great, not
more from the possession of data of the centuries which had passed than
from having a willing crew sailing without dissent or murmur--sailing in
the same boat, as it were.
A pensive mood comes over one voyaging among the scenes of the New
World's early play-ground. To us while on this canoe voyage of pleasant
recollection the fancied experience of navigators gone before was
intensely thrilling.
Sailing among islands clothed in eternal green, the same that Columbus
beheld with marvellous anticipations, and the venerable Las Casas had
looked upon with pious wonder, brought us, in the mind's eye, near the
old discoverers; and a feeling that we should come suddenly upon their
ships around some near headland took deep hold upon our thoughts as we
drew in with the shores. All was there to please the imagination and
dream over in the same balmy, sleepy atmosphere, where Juan Ponce de
Leon would fain have tarried young, but found death rapid, working side
by side with ever springing life. To live long in this clime one must
obey great Nature's laws. So stout Juan and millions since have found,
and so always it will be.
All was there to testify as of yore, all except the first owners of the
land; they alas! the poor Caribbees, together with their camp fires, had
been extinguished long years before. And no one of human sympathy can
read of the cruel tortures and final extermination of these islanders,
savages though they were, without a pang of regret at the unpleasant
page in a history of glory and civilization.