Part 32 (1/2)
At this suggestion, all the navigators a.s.sembled on board the Santa Maria, and each man made his calculations, sticking a pin in the rude chart--rude as to accuracy, but beautiful as to execution--that the admiral, with the lights he then possessed, had made of the Atlantic ocean. Vicente Yanez, and his companions of the Nina, placed their pin most in advance, after measuring off four hundred and forty marine leagues from Gomera. Martin Alonzo varied a little from this, setting his pin some twenty leagues farther east. When it was the turn of Columbus, he stuck a pin twenty leagues still short of that of Martin Alonzo, his companions having, to all appearance, like less skilful calculators, thus much advanced ahead of their true distance. It was then determined what was to be stated to the crews, and the pilots returned to their respective vessels.
It would seem that Columbus really believed he was then pa.s.sing between islands, and his historian, Las Casas, affirms that he was actually right in his conjecture; but if islands ever existed in that part of the ocean, they have long since disappeared; a phenomenon which, while it is not impossible, can scarcely be deemed probable. It is said that breakers have been seen, even within the present century, in this vicinity, and it is not unlikely that extensive banks do exist, though Columbus found no bottom with two hundred fathoms of line. The great collection of weeds, is a fact authenticated by some of the oldest records of human investigations, and is most probably owing to some effect of the currents which has a tendency to bring about such an end; while the birds must be considered as stragglers lured from their usual haunts by the food that would be apt to be collected by the union of weeds and fish. Aquatic birds can always rest on the water, and the animal that can wing its way through the air at the rate of thirty, or even fifty miles the hour, needs only sufficient strength, to cross the entire Atlantic in four days and nights.
Notwithstanding all these cheering signs, the different crews soon began to feel again the weight of a renewed despondency. Sancho, who was in constant but secret communication with the admiral, kept the latter properly advised of the state of the people, and reported that more murmurs than usual prevailed, the men having pa.s.sed again, by the suddenness of the reaction, from the most elastic hope, nearly to the verge of despair. This fact was told Columbus just at sunset on the evening of the 20th, or on that of the eleventh day after the fleet lost sight of land, and while the seaman was affecting to be busy on the p.o.o.p, where he made most of his communications.
”They complain, your Excellency,” continued Sancho, ”of the smoothness of the water; and they say that when the winds blow at all, in these seas, they come only from the eastward, having no power to blow from any other quarter. The calms, they think, prove that we are getting into a part of the ocean where there is no wind; and the east winds, they fancy, are sent by Providence to drive those there who have displeased Heaven by a curiosity that it was never intended that any who wear beards should possess.”
”Do thou encourage them, Sancho, by reminding the poor fellows that calms prevail, at times, in all seas; and, as for the east winds, is it not well known that they blow from off the African sh.o.r.es, in low lat.i.tudes, at all seasons of the year, following the sun in his daily track around the earth? I trust thou hast none of this silly apprehension?”
”I endeavor to keep a stout heart, Senor Don Almirante, having no one before me to disgrace, and leaving no one behind me to mourn over my loss. Still, I should like to hear a little about the riches of those distant lands, as I find the thoughts of their gold and precious stones have a sort of religious charm over my weakness, when I begin to muse upon Moguer and its good cheer.”
”Go to, knave; thy appet.i.te for money is insatiable; take yet another dobla, and as thou gazest on it thou mayst fancy what thou wilt of the coin of the Great Khan; resting certain that so great a monarch is not without gold, any more than he is probably without the disposition to part with it, when there is occasion.”
Sancho received his fee, and left the p.o.o.p to Columbus and our hero.
”These ups and downs among the knaves,” said Luis, impatiently, ”were best quelled, Senor, by an application of the flat of the sword, or, at need, of its edge.”
”This may not be, my young friend, without, at least, far more occasion than yet existeth for the severity. Think not that I have pa.s.sed so many years of my life in soliciting the means to effect so great a purpose, and have got thus far on my way, in unknown seas, with a disposition to be easily turned aside from my purpose. But G.o.d hath not created all alike; neither hath he afforded equal chances for knowledge to the peasant and the n.o.ble. I have vexed my spirit too often, with arguments on this very subject, with the great and learned, not to bear a little with the ignorance of the vulgar. Fancy how much fear would have quickened the wits of the sages of Salamanca, had our discussion been held in the middle of the Atlantic, where man never had been, and whence no eyes but those of logic and science could discover a safe pa.s.sage.”
”This is most true, Senor Almirante; and yet, methinks the knights that were of your antagonists should not have been wholly unmanned by fear.
What danger have we here? this is the wide ocean, it is true, and we are no doubt distant some hundreds of leagues from the known islands, but, we are not the less safe. By San Pedro! I have seen more lives lost in a single onset of the Moors, than these caravels could hold in bodies, and blood enough spilt to float them!”
”The dangers our people dread may be less turbulent than those of a Moorish fray, Don Luis, but they are not the less terrible. Where is the spring that is to furnish water to the parched lip, when our stores shall fail; and where the field to give us its bread and nourishment? It is a fearful thing to be brought down to the dregs of life, by the failure of food and water, on the surface of the wide ocean, dying by inches, often without the consolations of the church, and ever without Christian sepulture. These are the fancies of the seaman, and he is only to be driven from them violently when duty demands extreme remedies for his disease.”
”To me it seemeth, Don Christopher, that it will be time to reason thus, when our casks are drained, and the last biscuit is broken. Until then, I ask leave of your Excellency to apply the necessary logic to the _outside_ of the heads of these varlets, instead of their insides, of which I much question the capacity to hold any good.”
Columbus too well understood the hot nature of the young n.o.ble to make a serious reply; and they both stood some time leaning against the mizen-mast, watching the scene before them, and musing on the chances of their situation. It was night, and the figures of the watch, on the deck beneath, were visible only by a light that rendered it difficult to distinguish countenances. The men were grouped; and it was evident by the low but eager tones in which they conversed, that they discussed matters connected with the calm, and the risks they ran. The outlines of the Pinta and Nina were visible, beneath a firmament that was studded with brilliants, their lazy sails hanging in festoons, like the drapery of curtains, and their black hulls were as stationary as if they both lay moored in one of the rivers of Spain. It was a bland and gentle night, but the immensity of the solitude, the deep calm of the slumbering ocean, and even the occasional creaking of a spar, by recalling to the mind the actual presence of vessels so situated, rendered the scene solemn, almost to sublimity.
”Dost thou detect aught fluttering in the rigging, Luis?” the admiral cautiously inquired. ”My ear deceiveth me, or I hear something on the wing. The sounds, moreover, are quick and slight, like those produced by birds of indifferent size.”
”Don Christopher, you are right. There are little creatures perched on the upper yards, and that of a size like the smaller songsters of the land.”
”Hark!” interrupted the admiral. ”That is a joyous note, and of such a melody as might be met in one of the orange groves of Seville, itself!
G.o.d be praised for this sign of the extent and unity of his kingdom, since land cannot well be distant, when creatures, gentle and frail as these, have so lately taken their flight from it!”
The presence of these birds soon became known to all on deck, and their songs brought more comfort than the most able mathematical demonstration, even though founded on modern learning, could have produced on the sensitive feelings of the common men.
”I told thee land was near,” cried Sancho, turning with exultation to Martin Martinez, his constant disputant; ”here thou hast the proof of it, in a manner that none but the traitor will deny. Thou hearest the songs of orchard birds--notes that would never come from the throats of the tired; and which sound as gaily as if the dear little feathered rogues were pecking at a fig or a grape in a field of Spain.”
”Sancho is right!” exclaimed the seamen. ”The air savors of land, too; and the sea hath a look of the land; and G.o.d is with us--blessed be his Holy name--and honor to our lord the king, and to our gracious mistress, Dona Isabella!”
From this moment concern seemed to leave the vessel, again. It was thought, even by the admiral himself, that the presence of birds so small, and which were judged to be so feeble of wing, was an unerring evidence that land was nigh; and land, too, of generous productions, and a mild, gentle climate; for these warblers, like the softer s.e.x of the human family, best love scenes that most favor their gentle propensities and delicate habits.
Investigation has since proved that, in this particular, however plausible the grounds of error, Columbus was deceived. Men often mistake the powers of the inferior animals of creation, and at other times they overrate the extent of their instinct. In point of fact, a bird of light weight would be less liable to perish on the ocean, and in that low lat.i.tude, than a bird of more size, neither being aquatic. The sea-weed itself would furnish resting-places without number for the smaller animals, and, in some instances, it would probably furnish food. That birds, purely of the land, should take long flights at sea, is certainly improbable; but, apart from the consequence of gales, which often force even that heavy-winged animal the owl, hundreds of miles from the land, instinct is not infallible; whales being frequently found embayed in shallow waters, and birds sailing beyond the just limits of their habits. Whatever may have been the cause of the opportune appearance of these little inhabitants of the orchard on the spars of the Santa Maria, the effect was of the most auspicious kind on the spirits of the men. As long as they sang, no amateurs ever listened to the most brilliant pa.s.sages from the orchestra with greater delight than those rude seamen listened to their warbling; and while they slept, it was with a security that had its existence in veneration and grat.i.tude. The songs were renewed with the dawn, shortly after which the whole went off in a body, taking their flight toward the south-west. The next day brought a calm, and then an air so light, that the vessels could with difficulty make their way through the dense ma.s.ses of weeds, that actually gave the ocean the appearance of vast inundated meadows. The current was now found to be from the west, and shortly after daylight a new source of alarm was reported by Sancho.
”The people have got a notion in their heads, Senor Almirante, which partaketh so much of the marvellous, that it findeth exceeding favor with such as love miracles more than they love G.o.d. Martin Martinez, who is a philosopher in the way of terror, maintaineth that this sea, into which we seem to be entering deeper and deeper, lieth over sunken islands, and that the weeds, which it would be idle to deny grow more abundant as we proceed, will shortly get to be so plentiful on the surface of the water, that the caravels will become unable to advance or to retreat.”
”Doth Martin find any to believe this silly notion?”
”Senor Don Almirante, he doth; and for the plain reason that it is easier to find those who are ready to believe an absurdity, than to find those who will only believe truth. But the man is backed by some unlucky chances, that must come of the Powers of Darkness, more particularly as they can have no great wish to see your Excellency reach Cathay, with the intention of making a Christian of the Great Khan, and of planting the tree of the cross in his dominions. This calm sorely troubleth many, moreover, and the birds are beginning to be looked upon as creatures sent by Satan himself, to lead us whither we can never return. Some even believe we shall tread on shoals, and lie forever stranded wrecks in the midst of the wide ocean!”