Part 36 (1/2)
When we were so hara.s.sed with our troubles at sea, some of our men imagined that we were under the influence of sorcery, and even to this day entertain the same notion. Some of the people whom I discovered eat men, as was evidenced by the brutality of their countenances. They say that there are great mines of copper in the country, of which they make hatchets[411-1] and other elaborate articles both cast and soldered; they also make of it forges, with all the apparatus of the goldsmith, and crucibles. The inhabitants go clothed; and in that province I saw some large sheets of cotton very elaborately and cleverly worked, and others very delicately painted in colors.[411-2] They tell me that more inland towards Cathay they have them interwoven with gold. For want of an interpreter we were able to learn but very little respecting these countries, or what they contain. Although the country is very thickly peopled, yet each nation has a very different language; indeed so much so, that they can no more understand each other than we understand the Arabs. I think, however, that this applies to the barbarians on the sea-coast, and not to the people who live more inland. When I discovered the Indies, I said that they composed the richest lords.h.i.+p in the world; I spoke of gold and pearls and precious stones, of spices and the traffic that might be carried on in them; and because all these things were not forthcoming at once I was abused. This punishment causes me to refrain from relating anything but what the natives tell me. One thing I can venture upon stating, because there are so many witnesses of it, viz., that in this land of Veragua I saw more signs of gold in the first two days than I saw in Espanola during fours years,[TN-10] and that there is not a more fertile or better cultivated country in all the world, nor one whose inhabitants are more timid; added to which there is a good harbor, a beautiful river, and the whole place is capable of being easily put into a state of defence. All this tends to the security of the Christians and the permanency of their sovereignty, while it affords the hope of great increase and honor to the Christian religion; moreover the road hither will be as short as that to Espanola, because there is a certainty of a fair wind for the pa.s.sage. Your Highnesses are as much lords of this country as of Xerez or Toledo; your s.h.i.+ps if they should go there, go to your own house. From there they will take gold; in other lands to have what there is in them, they will have to take it by force or retire empty-handed, and on the land they will have to trust their persons in the hands of a savage.[412-1]
Of the other [matter] that I refrain from saying, I have already said why I kept silent. I do not speak so, neither [do I say] that I make a threefold affirmation in all that I have ever said or written nor that I am at the source.[412-2] The Genoese, Venetians and all other nations that possess pearls, precious stones, and other articles of value, take them to the ends of the world to exchange them for gold. Gold is most excellent; gold is treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise. They say that when one of the lords of the country of Veragua dies, they bury all the gold he possessed with his body. There were brought to Solomon at one journey[412-3] six hundred and sixty-six quintals of gold, besides what the merchants and sailors brought, and that which was paid in Arabia. Of this gold he made two hundred lances[412-4] and three hundred s.h.i.+elds, and the flooring[412-5] which was to be above them was also of gold, and ornamented with precious stones; many other things he made likewise of gold, and a great number of vessels of great size, which he enriched with precious stones. This is related by Josephus in his Chronicle _De Antiquitatibus_; mention is also made of it in the Chronicles and in the Book of Kings.[413-1] Josephus thinks that this gold was found in the Aurea;[413-2] if it were so, I contend that these mines of the Aurea are identical with those of Veragua, which, as I have said before, extends westward twenty days' journey, and they are at an equal distance from the Pole and the Line.[413-3] Solomon bought all of it,--gold, precious stones, and silver,--but your Majesties need only send to seek them to have them at your pleasure. David, in his will, left three thousand quintals of Indian gold to Solomon, to a.s.sist in building the Temple; and, according to Josephus, it came from these lands.[413-4] Jerusalem and Mount Sion are to be rebuilt by the hands of Christians, who it is to be G.o.d told by the mouth of His prophet in the fourteenth Psalm.[413-5]
The Abbot Joaquim said that he who should do this was to come from Spain;[414-1] Saint Jerome showed the holy woman the way to accomplish it;[414-2] and the emperor of Cathay, a long time ago, sent for wise men to instruct him in the faith of Christ.[414-3] Who will offer himself for this work?[414-4] Should any one do so, I pledge myself, in the name of G.o.d, to convey him safely thither, provided the Lord permits me to return to Spain.
The people who have sailed with me have pa.s.sed through incredible toil and danger, and I beseech your Highnesses, since they are poor, to pay them promptly, and to be gracious to each of them according to their respective merits; for I can safely a.s.sert, that to my belief they are the bearers of the best news that ever was carried to Spain. With respect to the gold which belongs to the Quibian of Veragua, and other chiefs in the neighboring country, although it appears by the accounts we have received of it to be very abundant, I do not think it would be well or desirable, on the part of your Highnesses, to take possession of it in the way of plunder; by fair dealing, scandal and disrepute will be avoided, and all the gold will thus reach your Highnesses' treasury without the loss of a grain.
With one month of fair weather I shall complete my voyage. As I was deficient in s.h.i.+ps, I did not persist in delaying my course; but in everything that concerns your Highnesses' service, I trust in Him who made me, and I hope also that my health will be re-established. I think your Highnesses will remember that I had intended to build some s.h.i.+ps in a new manner, but the shortness of the time did not permit it. I had certainly foreseen how things would be. I think more of this opening for commerce, and of the lords.h.i.+p over such extensive mines, than of all that has been done in the Indies.[415-1] This is not a child to be left to the care of a stepmother.
I never think of Espanola, and Paria, and the other countries, without shedding tears. I thought that what had occurred there would have been an example for others; on the contrary, these settlements are now in a languid state, although not dead, and the malady is incurable, or at least very extensive. Let him who brought the evil come now and cure it, if he knows the remedy, or how to apply it; but when a disturbance is on foot, every one is ready to take the lead. It used to be the custom to give thanks and promotion to him who placed his person in jeopardy; but there is no justice in allowing the man who opposed this undertaking, to enjoy the fruits of it with his children. Those who left the Indies, avoiding the toils consequent upon the enterprise, and speaking evil of it and me, have since returned with official appointments,--such is the case now in Veragua: it is an evil example, and profitless both as regards the business in which we are embarked, and as respects the general maintenance of justice. The fear of this, with other sufficient considerations, which I clearly foresaw, caused me to beg your Highnesses, previously to my coming to discover these islands and mainland, to grant me permission to govern in your royal name. Your Highnesses granted my request; and it was a privilege and treaty granted under the royal seal and oath, by which I was nominated viceroy, and admiral, and governor-general of all: and your Highnesses limited the extent of my government to a hundred leagues beyond the Azores and Cape Verde islands, by a line pa.s.sing from one pole to the other, and gave me ample power over all that I might discover beyond this line; all which is more fully described in the official doc.u.ment.[416-1]
But the most important affair of all, and that which cries most loudly for redress, remains inexplicable to this moment. For seven years was I at your royal court, where every one to whom the enterprise was mentioned treated it as ridiculous; but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer. There is reason to believe, that they make the voyage only for plunder, and that they are permitted to do so, to the great disparagement of my honor, and the detriment of the undertaking itself.[416-2] It is right to give G.o.d His own,--and to Caesar[416-3] that which belongs to him.[416-4] This is a just sentiment, and proceeds from just feelings. The lands in this part of the world, which are now under your Highnesses' sway, are richer and more extensive than those of any other Christian power, and yet, after that I had, by the Divine will, placed them under your high and royal sovereignty, and was on the point of bringing your majesties into the receipt of a very great and unexpected revenue; and while I was waiting for s.h.i.+ps, to convey me in safety, and with a heart full of joy, to your royal presence, victoriously to announce the news of the gold that I had discovered, I was arrested and thrown, with my two brothers, loaded with irons, into a s.h.i.+p, stripped, and very ill-treated, without being allowed any appeal to justice.[417-1]
Who could believe, that a poor foreigner would have risen against your Highnesses, in such a place, without any motive or argument on his side; without even the a.s.sistance of any other prince upon which to rely; but on the contrary, amongst your own va.s.sals and natural subjects, and with my sons staying at your royal court? I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your Highnesses' service,[417-2] and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray; my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor. I cannot but believe that this was done without your royal permission. The rest.i.tution of my honor, the reparation of my losses, and the punishment of those who have inflicted them, will redound to the honor of your royal character; a similar punishment also is due to those who plundered me of my pearls, and who have brought a disparagement upon the privileges of my admiralty. Great and unexampled will be the glory and fame of your Highnesses, if you do this; and the memory of your Highnesses, as just and grateful sovereigns, will survive as a bright example to Spain in future ages. The honest devotedness I have always shown to your Majesties' service, and the so unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, will not allow my soul to keep silence, however much I may wish it: I implore your Highnesses to forgive my complaints. I am indeed in as ruined a condition as I have related; hitherto I have wept over others;--may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me. With regard to temporal things, I have not even a blanca,[418-1] for an offering; and in spiritual things, I have ceased here in the Indies from observing the prescribed forms of religion. Solitary in my trouble, sick, and in daily expectation of death, surrounded by a million of hostile savages full of cruelty, and thus separated from the blessed sacraments of our holy Church, how will my soul be forgotten if it be separated from the body in this foreign land? Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice! I did not come out on this voyage to gain to myself honor or wealth; this is a certain fact, for at that time all hope of such a thing was dead. I do not lie when I say, that I went to your Highnesses with honest purpose of heart, and sincere zeal in your cause. I humbly beseech your Highnesses, that if it please G.o.d to rescue me from this place, you will graciously sanction my pilgrimage to Rome and other holy places. May the Holy Trinity protect your Highnesses' lives, and add to the prosperity of your exalted position.
Done in the Indies, in the island of Jamaica, on the seventh of July, in the year one thousand five hundred and three.
FOOTNOTES:
[389-1] The punctuation of this first paragraph has been changed in the light of the contemporary Italian translation known as the _Lettera Rarissima_, which is given in facsimile and English translation in Thacher's _Christopher Columbus_, II. 671 _et seqq._
[389-2] June 29. Las Casas, III. 29.
[390-1] By the letter of the King and Queen, March 14, 1502, Columbus had been forbidden to call at Espanola on the outward voyage. Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, III. 26.
[390-2] The new governor, Ovando, who had been sent out to supersede Bobadilla, had reached Santo Domingo in April of this year, 1502.
[390-3] Columbus was accompanied by his younger son Ferdinand and his elder brother Bartholomew. Las Casas, III. 25.
[390-4] The translation here follows Lollis's emendation of the text which changed the printed text, ”_habia, echado a la mar, por escapar, fasta la isola la Gallega; perdio la barca_,” etc., to ”_habia echado a la mar, por escapar fasta la isla; la Gallega perdio la barca_.” One of the s.h.i.+ps was named _La Gallega_, and there is no island of that name in that region.
[391-1] Columbus set forth from the harbor of Santo Domingo in the storm, Friday, July 1. The s.h.i.+ps found refuge in the harbor of Azua on the following Sunday, July 3. (Ferdinand Columbus in the _Historie_, ed.
1867, pp. 286-287.) Azua is about 50 miles west of Santo Domingo in a straight line, but much farther by water. After a rest and repairs the Admiral sailed to Yaquimo, the present Jacmel in the territory of Hayti, into which port he went to escape another storm. He left Yaquimo, July 14. (Las Casas, III. 108; Ferdinand Columbus, _Historie_, p. 289.) He then pa.s.sed south of Jamaica, and was carried by the currents northwest till he reached the Queen's Garden, a group of many small islands south of Cuba and east of the Isle of Pines, so named by him in 1494 on his exploration of the coast of Cuba.
[391-2] From the Queen's Garden he sailed south July 27 (the Porras narrative of this voyage, Navarrete, II. 283; in English in Thacher, _Columbus_, II. 640 _et seqq._), and after a pa.s.sage of ninety leagues sighted an island Sat.u.r.day, July 30. (Porras in Thacher, II. 643.) This was the island of Guanaja about twelve leagues north of Trujillo, Honduras. (Las Casas, III. 109.) Here a landing was made and a canoe was encountered which was covered with an awning and contained Indians well clothed and a load of merchandise. Notwithstanding these indications of a more advanced culture than had hitherto been found, the Admiral decided not to explore the country of these Indians, which would have led him into Yucatan and possibly Mexico, but to search for the strait which he supposed separated Asia from the continental ma.s.s he had discovered on his third voyage (Paria, South America). He struck the mainland near Trujillo, naming the point Caxinas. At or near this place they landed Sunday, August 14, to say ma.s.s. (Las Casas, III. 112; Ferdinand Columbus, _Historie_, p. 295.) From this point he coasted very slowly, sailing in sight of land by day and anchoring at night, distressed by storms and headwinds, some days losing as much ground as could be gained in two, till September 12, when he reached Cape Gracias a Dios. (Las Casas, III.
113; _Historie_, p. 297; Porras narrative in Thacher, _Columbus_, II.
644.) It will be seen from this collation of the sources that the statements in our text are far from exact, that they are in fact a very general and greatly exaggerated recollection of a most trying experience.
It will be remembered that Ferdinand was on this voyage, but his narrative says nothing of any storm between July 14 when he left the Queen's Gardens and the arrival at Guanaja, a pa.s.sage which Porras says took three days. This pa.s.sage, however, Las Casas describes apparently on the basis of this letter as having taken sixty days (_Historia_, III.
108). Next the text of the _Historie_ presents a difficulty, for it places the tedious stormy voyage of _sixty_ leagues and _seventy_ days between Caxinas (Trujillo) and Cape Gracias a Dios (_Historie_, p. 296), although in another place it gives the beginning of this coasting as after August 14 and the date of arrival at the Cape as September 12. This last chronological difficulty may perhaps be accounted for in this way: The original ma.n.u.script of the _Historie_ may have had ”x.x.x dias,” which a copyist or the Italian translator may have taken for ”LXX dias.”
[392-1] A review of the chronology of the voyage in the preceding note will show that no such storm of eighty-eight days' duration could have occurred in the first part of this voyage. Columbus was only seventy-four days in going from Santo Domingo to Cabo Gracias a Dios. Either the text is wrong or his memory was at fault. The most probable conclusion is that in copying either Lx.x.xVIII got subst.i.tuted for XXVIII or _Ochenta y ocho_ for _Veinte y ocho_. In that case we should have almost exactly the time spent in going from Trujillo to Cape Gracias a Dios, August 14 to September 12, and exact agreement between our text, the _Historie_, and the Porras narrative.
[393-1] Twenty years, speaking approximately. This letter was written in 1503, and Columbus entered the service of Spain in 1485.
[393-2] Diego was the heir of his father's t.i.tles. He was appointed governor of the Indies in 1508, but a prolonged lawsuit was necessary to establish his claims to inherit his father's rights.
[393-3] Their course was down the Mosquito coast. Cariay was near the mouth of the San Juan River of Nicaragua. Las Casas gives the date of the arrival at Cariari, as he gives the name, as September 17 (III. 114). The _Historie_ gives the date as September 5 and the name as Cariai (p. 297).
[393-4] Peter Martyr, _De Rebus Oceanicis_ (ed. 1574), p. 239, says that Columbus called Ciamba the region which the inhabitants called Quiriquetana, a name which it would seem still survives in Chiriqui Lagoon just east of Almirante Bay. The name ”Ciamba” appears on Martin Behaim's globe, 1492, as a province corresponding to Cochin-China. It is described in Marco Polo under the name ”Chamba”; see Yule's _Marco Polo_, II. 248-252 (bk. III., ch. V.).
[393-5] Carambaru is the present Almirante Bay, about on the border between Costa Rica and Panama. Las Casas describes the bay as six leagues long and over three broad with many islands and coves. He gives the name as Caravaro (III. 118). Ferdinand Columbus's account is practically identical.