The Discovery of America Part 36

[Sidenote: Exploration of Cibao.]

This was a gloomy welcome to the land of promise. There was nothing to be done but to build new fortifications and found a town. The site chosen for this new settlement, which was named Isabella, was at a good harbour about thirty miles east of Monte Christi. It was chosen because Columbus understood from the natives that it was not far from there to the gold-bearing mountains of Cibao, a name which still seemed to signify c.i.p.ango. Quite a neat little town was presently built, with church, marketplace, public granary, and dwelling-houses, the whole encompa.s.sed with a stone wall. An exploring party led by Ojeda into the mountains of Cibao found gold dust and pieces of gold ore in the beds of the brooks, and returned elated with this discovery. Twelve of the s.h.i.+ps were now sent back to Spain for further supplies and reinforcements, and specimens of the gold were sent as an earnest of what was likely to be found. At length, in March, 1494, Columbus set forth, with 400 armed men, to explore the Cibao country. The march was full of interest. It is upon this occasion that we first find mention of the frantic terror manifested by Indians at the sight of horses. At first they supposed the horse and his rider to be a kind of centaur, and when the rider dismounted this separation of one creature into two overwhelmed them with supernatural terror. Even when they had begun to get over this notion they were in dread of being eaten by the horses.[561] These natives lived in houses grouped into villages, and had carved wooden idols and rude estufas for their tutelar divinities. It was ascertained that different tribes tried to steal each other's idols and even fought for the possession of valuable objects of "medicine."[562] Columbus observed and reported the customs of these people with some minuteness.

There was nothing that agreed with Marco Polo's descriptions of c.i.p.ango, but so far as concerned the discovery of gold mines, the indications were such as to leave little doubt of the success of this reconnaissance. The Admiral now arranged his forces so as to hold the inland regions just visited and gave the general command to Margarite, who was to continue the work of exploration. He left his brother, Diego Columbus, in charge of the colony, and taking three caravels set sail from Isabella on the 24th of April, on a cruise of discovery in these Asiatic waters.

[Footnote 561: For an instance of 400 hostile Indians fleeing before a single armed horseman, see _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. lii.; Las Casas, _Hist._ tom. ii. p. 46.]

[Footnote 562: Compare the Fisherman's story of Drogio, above, pp. 246, 252.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Discoveries made by Columbus in his first and second voyages.]

[Sidenote: Cape Alpha and Omega.]

A brief westward sail brought the little squadron into the Windward Pa.s.sage and in sight of Cape Mayzi, which Columbus on his first voyage had named Cape Alpha and Omega as being the easternmost point on the Chinese coast. He believed that if he were to sail to the right of this cape he should have the continent on his port side for a thousand miles and more, as far as Quinsay and Cambaluc (Peking). If he had sailed in this direction and had succeeded in keeping to the east of Florida, he would have kept a continent on his port side, and a thousand miles would have taken him a long way toward that Vinland which our Scandinavian friends would fondly have us believe was his secret guiding-star, and the geographical position of which they suppose him to have known with such astounding accuracy. But on this as on other occasions, if the Admiral had ever received any information about Vinland, it must be owned that he treated it very cavalierly, for he chose the course to the left of Cape Mayzi. His decision is intelligible if we bear in mind that he had not yet circ.u.mnavigated Hayti and was not yet cured of his belief that its northern sh.o.r.e was the sh.o.r.e of the great c.i.p.ango. At the same time he had seen enough on his first voyage to convince him that the relative positions of c.i.p.ango and the mainland of Cathay were not correctly laid down upon the Toscanelli map. He had already inspected two or three hundred miles of the coast to the right of Cape Mayzi without finding traces of civilization; and whenever inquiries were made about gold or powerful kingdoms the natives invariably pointed to the south or southwest. Columbus, therefore, decided to try his luck in this direction. He pa.s.sed to the left of Cape Mayzi and followed the southern coast of Cuba.

[Sidenote: Discovery of Jamaica.]

By the 3d of May the natives were pointing so persistently to the south and off to sea that he changed his course in that direction and soon came upon the northern coast of the island which we still know by its native name Jamaica. Here he found Indians more intelligent and more warlike than any he had as yet seen. He was especially struck with the elegance of their canoes, some of them nearly a hundred feet in length, carved and hollowed from the trunks of tall trees. We may already observe that different tribes of Indians comported themselves very differently at the first sight of white men. While the natives of some of the islands prostrated themselves in adoration of these sky-creatures, or behaved with a timorous politeness which the Spaniards mistook for gentleness of disposition, in other places the red men showed fight at once, acting upon the brute impulse to drive away strangers. In both cases, of course, dread of the unknown was the prompting impulse, though so differently manifested. As the Spaniards went ash.o.r.e upon Jamaica, the Indians greeted them with a shower of javelins and for a few moments stood up against the deadly fire of the cross-bows, but when they turned to flee, a single bloodhound, let loose upon them, scattered them in wildest panic.[563]

[Footnote 563: Bernaldez, _Reyes Catolicos_, cap. cxxv.

Domesticated dogs were found generally in aboriginal America, but they were very paltry curs compared to these fierce hounds, one of which could handle an unarmed man as easily as a terrier handles a rat.]

[Sidenote: Coasting the south side of Cuba.]

Finding no evidences of civilization upon this beautiful island, Columbus turned northward and struck the Cuban coast again at the point which still bears the name he gave it, Cape Cruz. Between the general contour of this end of Cuba and that of the eastern extremity of Cathay upon the Toscanelli map there is a curious resemblance, save that the direction is in the one case more east and west and in the other more north and south. Columbus pa.s.sed no cities like Zaiton, nor cities of any sort, but when he struck into the smiling archipelago which he called the Queen's Gardens, now known as Cayos de las Doce Leguas, he felt sure that he was among Marco Polo's seven thousand spice islands.

On the 3d of June, at some point on the Cuban coast, probably near Trinidad, the crops of several doves were opened and spices found in them. None of the natives here had ever heard of an end to Cuba, and they believed it was endless.[564] The next country to the west of themselves was named Mangon, and it was inhabited by people with tails which they carefully hid by wearing loose robes of cloth. This information seemed decisive to Columbus. Evidently this Mangon was Mangi, the province in which was the city of Zaiton, the province just south of Cathay. And as for the tailed men, the book of Mandeville had a story of some naked savages in eastern Asia who spoke of their more civilized neighbours as wearing clothes in order to cover up some bodily peculiarity or defect. Could there be any doubt that the Spanish caravels had come at length to the coast of opulent Mangi?[565]

[Footnote 564: As a Greek would have said, [Greek: epeiros], a continent.]

[Footnote 565: Bernaldez, _Reyes Catolicos_, cap. cxxvii, Mr.

Irving, in citing these same incidents from Bernaldez, could not quite rid himself of the feeling that there was something strange or peculiar in the Admiral's method of interpreting such information: "Animated by one of the pleasing illusions of his ardent imagination, Columbus pursued his voyage, with a prosperous breeze, along the supposed continent of Asia."

(_Life of Columbus_, vol. i. p. 493.) This lends a false colour to the picture, which the general reader is pretty sure to make still falser. To suppose the southern coast of Cuba to be the southern coast of Toscanelli's Mangi required no illusion of an "ardent imagination." It was simply a plain common-sense conclusion reached by sober reasoning from such data as were then accessible (i. e. the Toscanelli map, amended by information such as was understood to be given by the natives); it was more probable than any other theory of the situation likely to be devised from those data; and it seems fanciful to us to-day only because knowledge acquired since the time of Columbus has shown us how far from correct it was. Modern historians abound in unconscious turns of expression--as in this quotation from Irving--which project modern knowledge back into the past, and thus destroy the historical perspective. I shall mention several other instances from Irving, and the reader must not suppose that this is any indication of captiousness on my part toward a writer for whom my only feeling is that of sincerest love and veneration.]

[Sidenote: The "people of Mangon."]

[Sidenote: The Golden Chersonese.]

Under the influence of this belief, when a few days later they landed in search of fresh water, and a certain archer, on the lookout for game, caught distant glimpses of a flock of tall white cranes feeding in an everglade, he fled to his comrades with the story that he had seen a party of men clad in long white tunics, and all agreed that these must be the people of Mangon.[566] Columbus sent a small company ash.o.r.e to find them. It is needless to add that the search was fruitless, but footprints of alligators, interpreted as footprints of griffins guarding h.o.a.rded gold,[567] frightened the men back to their s.h.i.+ps. From the natives, with whom the Spaniards could converse only by signs, they seemed to learn that they were going toward the realm of Prester John;[568] and in such wise did they creep along the coast to the point, some fifty miles west of Broa Bay, where it begins to trend decidedly to the southwest. Before they had reached Point Mangles, a hundred miles farther on, inasmuch as they found this southwesterly trend persistent, the proof that they were upon the coast of the Asiatic continent began to seem complete. Columbus thought that they had pa.s.sed the point (lat.

23, long. 145 on Toscanelli's map) where the coast of Asia began to trend steadily toward the southwest.[569] By pursuing this coast he felt sure that he would eventually reach the peninsula (Malacca) which Ptolemy, who knew of it only by vague hearsay, called the Golden Chersonese.[570] An immense idea now flitted through the mind of Columbus. If he could reach and double that peninsula he could then find his way to the mouth of the Ganges river; thence he might cross the Indian ocean, pa.s.s the Cape of Good Hope (for Dias had surely shown that the way was open), and return that way to Spain after circ.u.mnavigating the globe! But fate had reserved this achievement for another man of great heart and lofty thoughts, a quarter of a century later, who should indeed accomplish what Columbus dreamed, but only after crossing another Sea of Darkness, the most stupendous body of water on our globe, the mere existence of which until after Columbus had died no European ever suspected.[571] If Columbus had now sailed about a hundred miles farther, he would have found the end of Cuba, and might perhaps have skirted the northern sh.o.r.e of Yucatan and come upon the barbaric splendours of Uxmal and Campeche. The excitement which such news would have caused in Spain might perhaps have changed all the rest of his life and saved him from the worst of his troubles. But the crews were now unwilling to go farther, and the Admiral realized that it would be impossible to undertake such a voyage as he had in mind with no more than their present outfit. So it was decided to return to Hispaniola.

[Footnote 566: These tropical birds are called _soldados_, or "soldiers," because their stately att.i.tudes remind one of sentinels on duty. The whole town of Angostura, in Venezuela, was one day frightened out of its wits by the sudden appearance of a flock of these cranes on the summit of a neighbouring hill. They were mistaken for a war-party of Indians. Humboldt, _Voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent_, tom.

ii. p. 314.]

[Footnote 567: See above, p. 287, note.]

[Footnote 568: For these events, see Bernaldez, _Reyes Catolicos_, cap. cxxiii.; F. Columbus, _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. lvi.; Munoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_, lib. v. - 16; Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. iv. pp. 237-263; Irving's _Columbus_, vol. i. pp. 491-504.]

[Footnote 569: That is to say, he thought he had pa.s.sed the coast of Mangi (southern China) and reached the beginning of the coast of Champa (Cochin China; see Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. ii. p. 213). The name Champa, coming to European writers through an Italian source, was written Ciampa and Ciamba. See its position on the Behaim and Toscanelli maps, and also on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. ii. p. 114. Peter Martyr says that Columbus was sure that he had reached the coast of Gangetic (i. e. what we call Farther) India: "Indiae Gangetidis continentem eam (Cubae) plagam esse contendit Colonus." _Epist._ xciii. _ad Bernardinum_. Of course Columbus understood that this region, while agreeing well enough with Toscanelli's lat.i.tude, was far from agreeing with his longitude. But from the moment when he turned eastward on his first voyage he seems to have made up his mind that Toscanelli's longitudes needed serious amendment. Indeed he had always used different measurements from Toscanelli.]

[Footnote 570: For an account of Ptolemy's almost purely hypothetical and curiously distorted notions about southeastern Asia, see Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. ii.

pp. 604-608.]

[Footnote 571: See below, vol. ii. pp. 200-210.]

Upon consultation with La Cosa and others, it was unanimously agreed that they were upon the coast of the continent of Asia. The evidence seemed conclusive. From Cape Mayzi (Alpha and Omega) they had observed, upon their own reckoning, 335 leagues, or about 1,000 geographical miles, of continuous coast running steadily in nearly the same direction.[572] Clearly it was too long for the coast of an island; and then there was the name Mangon = Mangi. The only puzzling circ.u.mstance was that they did not find any of Marco Polo's cities. They kept getting sc.r.a.ps of information which seemed to refer to gorgeous kingdoms, but these were always in the dim distance. Still there was no doubt that they had discovered the coast of a continent, and of course such a continent could be nothing else but Asia!

[Footnote 572: The length of Cuba from Cape Mayzi to Cape San Antonio is about 700 English miles. But in following the sinuosities of the coast, and including tacks, the estimate of these pilots was probably not far from correct.]

[Sidenote: A solemn expression of opinion.]

Such unanimity of opinion might seem to leave nothing to be desired. But Columbus had already met with cavillers. Before he started on this cruise from Isabella, some impatient hidalgos, disgusted at finding much to do and little to get, had begun to hint that the Admiral was a humbug, and that his "Indies" were no such great affair after all. In order to silence these ill-natured critics, he sent his notary, accompanied by four witnesses, to every person in those three caravels, to get a sworn statement. If anybody had a grain of doubt about this coast being the coast of Asia, so that you could go ash.o.r.e there and walk on dry land all the way to Spain if so disposed, let him declare his doubts once for all, so that they might now be duly considered. No one expressed any doubts. All declared, under oath, their firm belief.

It was then agreed that if any of the number should thereafter deny or contradict this sworn statement, he should have his tongue slit;[573]

and if an officer, he should be further punished with a fine of 10,000 maravedis, or if a sailor, with a hundred lashes. These proceedings were embodied in a formal doc.u.ment, dated June 12, 1494, which is still to be seen in the Archives of the Indies at Seville.[574]

[Footnote 573: "e cortada la lengua;" "y le cortarian la lengua." Irving understands it to mean cutting off the tongue.

But in those days of symbolism slitting the tip of that unruly member was a recognized punishment for serious lying.]

[Footnote 574: It is printed in full in Navarrete, torn. ii.

pp. 143-149.]

Having disposed of this solemn matter, the three caravels turned eastward, touching at the Isle of Pines and coasting back along the south side of Cuba. The headland where the Admiral first became convinced of the significance of the curvature of the coast, he named Cape of Good Hope,[575] believing it to be much nearer the goal which all were seeking than the other cape of that name, discovered by Dias seven years before.

[Footnote 575: It is given upon La Cosa's map; see below, vol.

ii., frontispiece.]

[Sidenote: Vicissitudes of theory.]

It will be remembered that the Admiral, upon his first voyage, had carried home with him two theories,--first, that in the Cuban coast he had already discovered that of the continent of Asia, secondly that Hispaniola was c.i.p.ango. The first theory seemed to be confirmed by further experience; the second was now to receive a serious shock.

Leaving Cape Cruz the caravels stood over to Jamaica, leisurely explored the southern side of that island, and as soon as adverse winds would let them, kept on eastward till land appeared on the port bow. n.o.body recognized it until an Indian chief who had learned some Spanish hailed them from the sh.o.r.e and told them it was Hispaniola. They then followed that southern coast its whole length, discovering the tiny islands, Beata, Saona, and Mona. Here Columbus, overcome by long-sustained fatigue and excitement, suddenly fell into a death-like lethargy, and in this sad condition was carried all the way to Isabella, and to his own house, where he was put to bed. Hispaniola had thus been circ.u.mnavigated, and either it was not c.i.p.ango or else that wonderland must be a much smaller affair than Toscanelli and Martin Behaim had depicted it.[576] There was something truly mysterious about these Strange Coasts!

[Footnote 576: Hispaniola continued, however, for many years to be commonly identified with c.i.p.ango. See note D on Ruysch's map, 1508, below, vol. ii. p. 114.]

[Sidenote: Arrival of Bartholomew Columbus.]

When Columbus, after many days, recovered consciousness, he found his brother Bartholomew standing by his bedside. It was six years since they had last parted company at Lisbon, whence the younger brother started for England, while the elder returned to Spain. The news of Christopher's return from his first voyage found Bartholomew in Paris, whence he started as soon as he could for Seville, but did not arrive there until just after the second expedition had started. Presently the sovereigns sent him with three s.h.i.+ps to Hispaniola, to carry supplies to the colony; and there he arrived while the Admiral was exploring the coast of Cuba. The meeting of the two brothers was a great relief to both. The affection between them was very strong, and each was a support for the other. The Admiral at once proceeded to appoint Bartholomew to the office of Adelantado, which in this instance was equivalent to making him governor of Hispaniola under himself, the Viceroy of the Indies. In making this appointment Columbus seems to have exceeded the authority granted him by the second article of his agreement of April, 1492, with the sovereigns;[577] but they mended the matter in 1497 by themselves investing Bartholomew with the office and dignity of Adelantado.[578]

[Footnote 577: See above, p. 417.]

[Footnote 578: Las Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. ii. p.

80.]

[Sidenote: Mutiny in Hispaniola; desertion of Boyle and Margarite.]

Columbus was in need of all the aid he could summon, for, during his absence, the island had become a pandemonium. His brother Diego, a man of refined and studious habits, who afterwards became a priest, was too mild in disposition to govern the hot-heads who had come to Hispaniola to get rich without labour. They would not submit to the rule of this foreigner. Instead of doing honest work they roamed about the island, abusing the Indians and slaying one another in silly quarrels. Chief among the offenders was King Ferdinand's favourite, the commander Margarite; and he was aided and abetted by Friar Boyle. Some time after Bartholomew's arrival, these two men of Aragon gathered about them a party of malcontents and, seizing the s.h.i.+ps which had brought that mariner, sailed away to Spain. Making their way to court, they sought pardon for thus deserting the colony, saying that duty to their sovereigns demanded that they should bring home a report of what was going on in the Indies. They decried the value of Columbus's discoveries, and reminded the king that Hispaniola was taking money out of the treasury much faster than it was putting it in; an argument well calculated to influence Ferdinand that summer, for he was getting ready to go to war with France over the Naples affair. Then the two recreants poured forth a stream of accusations against the brothers Columbus, the general purport of which was that they were gross tyrants not fit to be trusted with the command of Spaniards.

[Sidenote: The government of Columbus was not tyrannical.]

No marked effect seems to have been produced by these first complaints, but when Margarite and Boyle were once within reach of Fonseca, we need not wonder that mischief was soon brewing. It was unfortunate for Columbus that his work of exploration was hampered by the necessity of founding a colony and governing a parcel of unruly men let loose in the wilderness, far away from the powerful restraints of civilized society.

Such work required undivided attention and extraordinary talent for command. It does not appear that Columbus was lacking in such talent. On the contrary both he and his brother Bartholomew seem to have possessed it in a high degree. But the situation was desperately bad when the spirit of mutiny was fomented by deadly enemies at court. I do not find adequate justification for the charges of tyranny brought against Columbus. The veracity and fairness of the history of Las Casas are beyond question; in his divinely beautiful spirit one sees now and then a trace of tenderness even for Fonseca, whose conduct toward him was always as mean and malignant as toward Columbus. One gets from Las Casas the impression that the Admiral's high temper was usually kept under firm control, and that he showed far less severity than most men would have done under similar provocation. Bartholomew was made of sterner stuff, but his whole career presents no instance of wanton cruelty; toward both white men and Indians his conduct was distinguished by clemency and moderation. Under the government of these brothers a few scoundrels were hanged in Hispaniola. Many more ought to have been.