Part 10 (2/2)
Just below Gracias Cape the current divided into two, one part flowing west, the other south; this latter was followed. Sailing down the Mosquito Coast they came, toward the end of September, to a pleasant spot which Columbus called ”The Garden,” or El Jardin (p.r.o.nounced Khar- deen'), and where the natives appeared to be more intelligent than any he had yet seen. Continuing south, he came to Caribaro Bay, where the people wore many flat ornaments of beaten gold. As if they could detect, from afar, the gold l.u.s.t in the European eye, the poor creatures brandished their weapons to keep the strange-looking visitors from landing; but it was of no avail. Land they did, and traded seventeen gold disks for just three tinkly bells! The voyagers asked, of course, where the gold came from, and were told from Veragua, a little farther south. For once the sign language was correctly understood. Veragua actually existed. The Spaniards found it just west of the Isthmus of Darien.
Here plenty more gold was seen. ”In two days,” wrote Columbus, ”I saw more indications of near-by gold mines than I had seen in four years in Hispaniola.” Not only did he see the precious metal, but he heard that ”ten days inland” lived tribes who possessed quant.i.ties of gold and silver. And then the natives spoke of something far more wonderful, had Columbus but known it, than gold; for they said, also, that ten days'
tramp westward lay a vast sea. This, Columbus concluded, must be the immense river Ganges; and his tired brain began figuring how, by a little ”tramping west,” and a little river boating, and then some more tramping, a Spaniard could get from Darien back to Spain, provided the Moslems did not murder him on the way!
But he was not seeking for gold on this trip. He did not march ten days inland. He turned a deaf ear to it and to all his importuning crew and went searching for his ”strait”; by which steadfastness of purpose he just missed discovering the Pacific Ocean. It has been said that Fate was always a little n.i.g.g.ardly with Columbus, and never was it truer than at this moment when she at last deafened his ear to the tale of gold and sent him south.
All November and December he continued coasting along South America. But his greedy crew could never forget the sight of those Veragua natives actually smelting gold. The men became sulky and clamored to go back; and furthermore, the s.h.i.+ps were too worm-eaten and too covered with barnacles to proceed. On December 5, in order to take the gold-seekers back to Darien, he reluctantly gave over his search for the pa.s.sage to the Indian Ocean. But the minute he turned north new gales began to blow. These continued so furiously that in a whole month they progressed barely a hundred miles. All this time they were nearly starved; about the only provisions left were their rotten biscuits and these were, as Fernando tells us, so disgusting to look upon that ”many waited till night to eat their sop.”
At last the famished party got back to Veragua. Eighty men landed with the idea of forming a settlement under Bartolome Colon. They had the good sense to act in the friendliest manner to the native chief; but he was not the simple-minded creature that Guacanagari was, over in Haiti.
He saw at once that they wanted gold, so he nodded obligingly, and indicated by signs that he would lead them to the gold mines. And he did; but they proved to be the small, worked-out mines of a neighboring chief who drove the intruders off. Back they went to the first chief's land and began to build a stockade. The first chief still appeared friendly enough, but a very clever young Spaniard named Diego Mendez happened to prowl through the undergrowth to the Indian village and saw the warriors sharpening their knives and making ready to attack the uninvited settlers. Off rushed Diego to tell Don Bartolome; and he, believing that ”the best defense is a sharp attack,” rushed to the village, captured the chief and many warriors, and sent them captive aboard the waiting caravels. The chief, however, succeeded in jumping over the side, diving to the bottom, and swimming ash.o.r.e.
It was then quite dark and none saw him come to the surface, but the next day he had another force ready to defy them. Of his fellow- prisoners who had been thrust into the hold, some managed to throw open a hatchway, overpower the guard, and likewise plunge into the sea. The sailors hurriedly pushed back the hatchway so that no more might climb out on deck; but next morning it was discovered that all those who had not escaped were dead. They had committed suicide rather than be carried off by the ruthless strangers.
All this time there was such a rough sea that no small boats could get ash.o.r.e from the caravels to obtain news of the eighty colonists under Bartolome. At last a sailor offered to swim to land; when he came back, it was with the news that this settlement had gone the way of Isabella and San Domingo, for half its men had mutinied. The gold did not seem worth fighting for where natives were so hostile that a man could not even pick fruit from a tree and eat it! Columbus saw that there was nothing to do but get the men back on the boats and abandon all thought of colonizing what he had already named Costa Rica (Rich Coast).
But to carry out this decision for a while appeared impossible; the waves were too high for any boat to venture out; but at last the clever Diego Mendez, by las.h.i.+ng two canoes together into a sort of raft, got near enough to sh.o.r.e to rescue Don Bartolome and his men and stores.
When Diego had succeeded in this perilous task, his Admiral was so grateful that, in the presence of all the men, he kissed him on both cheeks, a mark of great respect in those days. Ah, if only Christopher had found such a stanch, capable friend earlier in his career!
Ever since they reached the mainland Columbus had been suffering torments with rheumatism. Now to add to his agonies a fever attacked him. Along with these ills, and the murmurings of his hungry men, one of the s.h.i.+ps was wrecked; and after they had rescued its men and provisions, and were about to find room for them on another s.h.i.+p, this other s.h.i.+p was discovered to be too worm-eaten and disabled to continue the voyage. Columbus, in all his pain, directed the removal of men and goods to the best two caravels. This done, he started for San Domingo, turning his back on his last chance to find the pa.s.sage to India--the broad Pacific Ocean--if only he had crossed the isthmus between!
CHAPTER XX
THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ
At last they were clear of the most disastrous landing that Columbus had ever made. What you have read is but the bare sketch of a chapter in his life that was crowded thick with misfortunes and even horrors. And yet, strange to say, on this detestable coast is the only settlement in the New World that perpetuates the great discoverer's name, the town of Colon, at the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Ca.n.a.l.
The Admiral's health was now ruined, for fevers, sleeplessness, gout, and eyestrain kept him in constant pain, and at times made even that strong mind of his a little queer and wobbly. But on one point at least it remained alert and lucid,--he still could think out his course clearly. With a view to avoiding the treacherous winds and coastwise currents that had previously wrought such havoc with his s.h.i.+ps, he set his rudders due east on leaving Veragua; his idea being to sail first east and then north to San Domingo.
Straightway the crews became alarmed, thinking he meant to return direct to Spain, in spite of the fact that the s.h.i.+ps were too rotten for the long trip. But no; the Admiral hoped, besides escaping currents, to mystify them as to the geographical position of the gold coast.
Remembering how Alonzo de Ojeda had gone back and reaped riches from the pearl coast, and how Pedro Nino, that captain who brought slaves to Cadiz and sent word that he had brought a cargo of gold, and also been to Paria, Christopher decided to zigzag about in such a manner that no one could ever find his way back to the gold country ten days inland from Darien. Suffering and misfortune were surely telling on the Admiral's mind, else he would never have written this childish note: ”None of them [the crew] could explain whither I went nor whence I came; they did not know the way to return thither.”
But all the time his men grumbled, and could not understand why they were starting for Spain on crazy, crumbling s.h.i.+ps, when San Domingo lay so much nearer. Every day they murmured louder, till at last the Admiral foolishly humored them by heading due north; the result was that he turned too soon and found himself in a new current he had never met before. This current carried them past Hispaniola westward again to those same ”Gardens of the Queen.” The series of storms that here overtook the two battered little s.h.i.+ps were almost as bad as those that met them on their last approach to Hispaniola. Anchors were lost and the men kept the s.h.i.+ps from sinking only by the constant use of ”three pumps and all their pots and kettles.” By the 23d of June they had drifted over to Jamaica. The crews were worn out by their hard work to keep afloat. It seemed as if human endurance could stand no more. Many were badly bruised from being dashed down on the decks like bits of wood before the gales; they had had no dry clothing on for days; their hearts were faint, their stomachs fainter, for they had had nothing to eat and drink for some time but black wormy bread and vinegar. How, we ask ourselves as we sit in our comfortable, solid houses, did they endure it? And yet there was even worse to come!
The Admiral saw that even ”three pumps and all their pots and kettles”
could not keep the water bailed out of the leaky boats. The only thing he could do was to run his s.h.i.+ps aground. The first harbor he tried was so barren on every side that starvation stared them in the face; so they pushed on a little farther, the exhausted men again bailing steadily, till they entered a greener spot, now called Don Christopher's Cove. Not a minute too soon did they reach it. Once the s.h.i.+ps were grounded on the sandy beach, the tide soon filled the hulls with water. The weary men had to turn to and build cabins on the forecastles; and here at last they managed to keep dry, and to lie down and rest.
Their first thought was how to get food. The resourceful Diego Mendez offered to tramp over the island and trade whatever personal articles the sailors had left for foodstuffs. In this he was successful; he secured more than food; he exchanged the clothing on his own back for a large canoe and six rowers, and returned by sea. The next aid Mendez rendered the s.h.i.+pwrecked men showed even finer heroism than his las.h.i.+ng the canoes together to rescue Bartholomew. He offered to go in an open rowboat all the way from Jamaica to Haiti and ask Ovando to send a rescue vessel!
Look at a map of the West Indies and see what this offer meant! Two hundred miles to the western point of Haiti, two hundred more to the governor at San Domingo, and this, too, across a sea frequented by perilous hurricanes. It was a magnificent piece of volunteer work! Not one chance in a hundred did Diego Mendez have of reaching his destination, and he knew it; yet he offered to take the risk. One of his s.h.i.+pmates caught some of his valorous spirit and offered to accompany him; and the six native rowers, of course, had no choice but to go.
Mendez was as practical and ingenious as he was brave. He fastened weatherboards along the rim of the canoe to prevent s.h.i.+pping water; he fitted it with a mast and sail, and coated it with tar; and while he was doing it the Admiral wrote a brief, businesslike letter to Ovando, telling of the sad plight they were in; he also wrote a long, rambling letter, full of evidence of feeble-mindedness, to the monarchs. These letters Mendez was to take with him.
But Mendez, to every one's dismay, came back again in a few days,--came back alone and with boat and oars smashed. While waiting at the eastern point of Jamaica for a favorable wind to take them over to Haiti, they were surrounded by hostile natives and captured. The six rowers escaped, and the companion of Mendez was probably killed instantly; but while the savages were debating how to kill and cook Mendez, he managed to dash away, jump in his huge canoe, and push off!
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