Part 22 (1/2)
fired a bombard and hoisted a flag as a signal that she saw land, but it proved a delusion. Observing towards evening a flock of birds flying to the southwest, the Admiral yielded to Pinzon's belief, and s.h.i.+fted his course to follow the birds. He records as a further reason for it that it was by following the flight of birds that the Portuguese had been so successful in discovering islands in other seas.
[Sidenote: c.i.p.ango.]
Columbus now found himself two hundred miles and more farther than the three thousand miles west of Spain, where he supposed c.i.p.ango to lie, and he was 25-1/2 north of the equator, according to his astrolabe. The true distance of c.i.p.ango or j.a.pan was sixty-eight hundred miles still farther, or beyond both North America and the Pacific. How much beyond that island, in its supposed geographical position, Columbus expected to find the Asiatic main we can only conjecture from the restorations which modern scholars have made of Toscanelli's map, which makes the island about 10 east of Asia, and from Behaim's globe, which makes it 20. It should be borne in mind that the knowledge of its position came from Marco Polo, and he does not distinctly say how far it was from the Asiatic coast. In a general way, as to these distances from Spain to China, Toscanelli and Behaim agreed, and there is no reason to believe that the views of Columbus were in any noteworthy degree different.
[Sidenote: Relations of Pinzon to the change of course.]
In the trial, years afterwards, when the Fiscal contested the rights of Diego Colon, it was put in evidence by one Vallejo, a seaman, that Pinzon was induced to urge the direction to be changed to the southwest, because he had in the preceding evening observed a flight of parrots in that direction, which could have only been seeking land. It was the main purpose of the evidence in this part of the trial to show that Pinzon had all along forced Columbus forward against his will.
How pregnant this change of course in the vessels of Columbus was has not escaped the observation of Humboldt and many others. A day or two further on his westerly way, and the Gulf Stream would, perhaps, insensibly have borne the little fleet up the Atlantic coast of the future United States, so that the banner of Castile might have been planted at Carolina.
[Sidenote: October 7.]
[Sidenote: October 8-10.]
On the 7th of October, Columbus was pretty nearly in lat.i.tude 25 50',--that of one of the Bahama Islands. Just where he was by longitude there is much more doubt, probably between 65 and 66. On the next day the land birds flying along the course of the s.h.i.+ps seemed to confirm their hopes. On the 10th the journal records that the men began to lose patience; but the Admiral rea.s.sured them by reminding them of the profits in store for them, and of the folly of seeking to return, when they had already gone so far.
[Sidenote: Story of a mutiny.]
It is possible that, in this entry, Columbus conceals the story which later came out in the recital of Oviedo, with more detail than in the _Historie_ and Las Casas, that the rebellion of his crew was threatening enough to oblige him to promise to turn back if land was not discovered in three days. Most commentators, however, are inclined to think that this story of a mutinous revolt was merely engrafted from hearsay or other source by Oviedo upon the more genuine recital, and that the conspiracy to throw the Admiral into the sea has no substantial basis in contemporary report. Irving, who has a dramatic tendency throughout his whole account of the voyage to heighten his recital with touches of the imagination, nevertheless allows this, and thinks that Oviedo was misled by listening to a pilot, who was a personal enemy of the Admiral.
The elucidations of the voyage which were drawn out in the famous suit of Diego with the Crown in 1513 and 1515, afford no ground for any belief in this story of the mutiny and the concession of Columbus to it.
It is not, however, difficult to conceive the recurrent fears of his men and the incessant anxiety of Columbus to quiet them. From what Peter Martyr tells us,--and he may have got it directly from Columbus's lips,--the task was not an easy one to preserve subordination and to instill confidence. He represents that Columbus was forced to resort in turn to argument, persuasion, and enticements, and to picture the misfortunes of the royal displeasure.
[Sidenote: 1492. October 11.]
The next day, notwithstanding a heavier sea than they had before encountered, certain signs sufficed to lift them out of their despondency. These were floating logs, or pieces of wood, one of them apparently carved by hand, bits of cane, a green rush, a stalk of rose berries, and other drifting tokens.
[Sidenote: 1492. October 11. Steer west.]
[Sidenote: Columbus sees a light.]
Their southwesterly course had now brought them down to about the twenty-fourth parallel, when after sunset on the 11th they s.h.i.+fted their course to due west, while the crew of the Admiral's s.h.i.+p united, with more fervor than usual, in the _Salve Regina_. At about ten o'clock Columbus, peering into the night, thought he saw--if we may believe him--a moving light, and pointing out the direction to Pero Gutierrez, this companion saw it too; but another, Rodrigo Sanchez, situated apparently on another part of the vessel, was not able to see it. It was not brought to the attention of any others. The Admiral says that the light seemed to be moving up and down, and he claimed to have got other glimpses of its glimmer at a later moment. He ordered the _Salve_ to be chanted, and directed a vigilant watch to be set on the forecastle. To sharpen their vision he promised a silken jacket, beside the income of ten thousand maravedis which the King and Queen had offered to the fortunate man who should first descry the coveted land.
This light has been the occasion of much comment, and nothing will ever, it is likely, be settled about it, further than that the Admiral, with an inconsiderate rivalry of a common sailor who later saw the actual land, and with an ungenerous a.s.surance ill-befitting a commander, pocketed a reward which belonged to another. If Oviedo, with his prejudices, is to be believed, Columbus was not even the first who claimed to have seen this dubious light. There is a common story that the poor sailor, who was defrauded, later turned Mohammedan, and went to live among that juster people. There is a sort of retributive justice in the fact that the pension of the Crown was made a charge upon the shambles of Seville, and thence Columbus received it till he died.
Whether the light is to be considered a reality or a fiction will depend much on the theory each may hold regarding the position of the landfall.
When Columbus claimed to have discovered it, he was twelve or fourteen leagues away from the island where, four hours later, land was indubitably found. Was the light on a canoe? Was it on some small, outlying island, as has been suggested? Was it a torch carried from hut to hut, as Herrera avers? Was it on either of the other vessels? Was it on the low island on which, the next morning, he landed? There was no elevation on that island sufficient to show even a strong light at a distance of ten leagues. Was it a fancy or a deceit? No one can say.
It is very difficult for Navarrete, and even for Irving, to rest satisfied with what, after all, may have been only an illusion of a fevered mind, making a record of the incident in the excitement of a wonderful hour, when his intelligence was not as circ.u.mspect as it might have been.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LANDFALL OF COLUMBUS, 1492.
[After Ruge.]]
[Sidenote: 1492, October 12, land discovered.]
[Sidenote: Guanahani.]
Four hours after the light was seen, at two o'clock in the morning, when the moon, near its third quarter, was in the east, the ”Pinta” keeping ahead, one of her sailors, Rodrigo de Triana, descried the land, two leagues away, and a gun communicated the joyful intelligence to the other s.h.i.+ps. The fleet took in sail, and each vessel, under backed sheets, was pointed to the wind. Thus they waited for daybreak. It was a proud moment of painful suspense for Columbus; and br.i.m.m.i.n.g hopes, perhaps fears of disappointment, must have accompanied that hour of wavering enchantment. It was Friday, October 12, of the old chronology, and the little fleet had been thirty-three days on its way from the Canaries, and we must add ten days more, to complete the period since they left Palos. The land before them was seen, as the day dawned, to be a small island, ”called in the Indian tongue” Guanahani. Some naked natives were descried. The Admiral and the commanders of the other vessels prepared to land. Columbus took the royal standard and the others each a banner of the green cross, which bore the initials of the sovereign with a cross between, a crown surmounting every letter. Thus, with the emblems of their power, and accompanied by Rodrigo de Escoveda and Rodrigo Sanchez and some seamen, the boat rowed to the sh.o.r.e. They immediately took formal possession of the land, and the notary recorded it.