Part 26 (2/2)

[Sidenote: In the Tagus.]

[Sidenote: Sends letter to the king of Portugal.]

On Sunday, the 24th, the s.h.i.+p again put out to sea; on Wednesday, they encountered another gale; and on the following Sunday, they were again in such peril that they made new vows. At daylight the next day, some land which they had seen in the night, not without gloomy apprehension of being driven upon it, proved to be the rock of Cintra. The mouth of the Tagus was before them, and the people of the adjacent town, observing the peril of the strange s.h.i.+p, offered prayers for its safety.

The entrance of the river was safely made and the mult.i.tude welcomed them. Up the Tagus they went to Rastelo, and anch.o.r.ed at about three o'clock in the afternoon. Here Columbus learned that the wintry roughness which he had recently experienced was but a part of the general severity of the season. From this place he dispatched a messenger to Spain to convey the news of his arrival to his sovereigns, and at the same time he sent a letter to the king of Portugal, then sojourning nine leagues away. He explained in it how he had asked the hospitality of a Portuguese port, because the Spanish sovereigns had directed him to do so, if he needed supplies. He further informed the king that he had come from the ”Indies,” which he had reached by sailing west. He hoped he would be allowed to bring his caravel to Lisbon, to be more secure; for rumors of a lading of gold might incite reckless persons, in so lonely a place as he then lay, to deeds of violence.

[Sidenote: Name of India.]

The _Historie_ says that Columbus had determined beforehand to call whatever land he should discover, India, because he thought India was a name to suggest riches, and to invite encouragement for his project.

While this letter to the Portuguese king was in transit, the attempt was made by certain officers of the Portuguese navy in the port of Rastelo to induce Columbus to leave his s.h.i.+p and give an account of himself; but he would make no compromise of the dignity of a Castilian admiral. When his resentment was known and his commission was shown, the Portuguese officers changed their policy to one of courtesy.

The next day, and on the one following, the news of his arrival being spread about, a vast mult.i.tude came in boats from all parts to see him and his Indians.

[Sidenote: 1493. March 8.]

[Sidenote: Columbus visits the king.]

On the third day, a royal messenger brought an invitation from the king to come and visit the court, which Columbus, not without apprehension, accepted. The king's steward had been sent to accompany him and provide for his entertainment on the way. On the night of the following day, he reached Val do Paraiso, where the king was. This spot was nine leagues from Lisbon, and it was supposed that his reception was not held in that city because a pest was raging there. A royal greeting was given to him.

The king affected to believe that the voyage of Columbus was made to regions which the Portuguese had been allowed to occupy by a convention agreed upon with Spain in 1479. The Admiral undeceived him, and showed the king that his s.h.i.+ps had not been near Guinea.

We have another account of this interview at Val do Paraiso, in the pages of the Portuguese historian, Barros, tinged, doubtless, with something of pique and prejudice, because the profit of the voyage had not been for the benefit of Portugal. That historian charges Columbus with extravagance, and even insolence, in his language to the king. He says that Columbus chided the monarch for the faithlessness that had lost him such an empire. He is represented as launching these rebukes so vehemently that the attending n.o.bles were provoked to a degree which prompted whispers of a.s.sa.s.sination. That Columbus found his first harbor in the Tagus has given other of the older Portuguese writers, like Faria y Sousa, in his _Europa Portuguesa_, and Vasconcelles and Resende, in their lives of Joo II., occasion to represent that his entering it was not so much induced by stress of weather as to seek a triumph over the Portuguese king in the first flush of the news. It is also said that the resolution was formed by the king to avail himself of the knowledge of two Portuguese who were found among Columbus's men. With their aid he proposed to send an armed expedition to take possession of the new-found regions before Columbus could fit out a fleet for a second voyage.

Francisco de Almeida was even selected, according to the report, to command this force. We hear, however, nothing more of it, and the Bull of Demarcation put an end to all such rivalries.

If, on the contrary, we may believe Columbus himself, in a letter which he subsequently wrote, he did not escape being suspected in Spain of having thus put himself in the power of the Portuguese in order to surrender the Indies to them.

[Sidenote: 1493. March 11. Columbus leaves the court.]

[Sidenote: Sails from the Tagus.]

[Sidenote: Reaches Palos, March 15, 1493.]

Spending Sunday at court, Columbus departed on Monday, March 11, having first dispatched messages to the King and Queen of Spain. An escort of knights was provided for him, and taking the monastery of Villafranca on his way, he kissed the hand of the Portuguese queen, who was there lodging, and journeying on, arrived at his caravel on Tuesday night. The next day he put to sea, and on Thursday morning was off Cape St.

Vincent. The next morning they were off the island of Saltes, and crossing bar with the flood, he anch.o.r.ed on March 15, 1493, not far from noon, where he had unmoored the ”Santa Maria” over seven months before.

”I made the pa.s.sage thither in seventy-one days,” he says in his published letter; ”and back in forty-eight, during thirteen of which number I was driven about by storms.”

[Sidenote: The ”Pinta's” experiences.]

The ”Pinta,” which had parted company with the Admiral on the 14th of February, had been driven by the gale into Bayona, a port of Gallicia, in the northwest corner of Spain, whence Pinzon, its commander, had dispatched a messenger to give information of his arrival and of his intended visit to the Court. A royal order peremptorily stayed, however, his projected visit, and left the first announcement of the news to be proclaimed by Columbus himself. This is the story which later writers have borrowed from the _Historie_.

[Sidenote: She reaches Palos.]

[Sidenote: Death of Pinzon.]

Oviedo tells us that the ”Pinta” put to sea again from the Gallician harbor, and entered the port of Palos on the same day with Columbus, but her commander, fearing arrest or other unpleasantness, kept himself concealed till Columbus had started for Barcelona. Not many days later Pinzon died in his own house in Palos. Las Casas would have us believe that his death arose from mortification at the displeasure of his sovereigns; but Harrisse points out that when Charles V. bestowed a coat-armor on the family, he recognized his merit as the discoverer of Espanola. There is little trustworthy information on the matter, and Munoz, whose lack of knowledge prompts inferences on his part, represents that it was Pinzon's request to explain his desertion of Columbus, which was neglected by the Court, and impressed him with the royal displeasure.

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