Heroic Adventures By Land And Sea - 1

Heroic Adventures By Land And Sea - 1

No man ever had a better excuse for his superstitions than the Admiral; no sooner had he
got done with his Vision than the wind dropped, the sun came out, the sea fell, and
communication with the land was restored. While he had been sick and dreaming one of
his crew, Diego Mendez, had been busy with practical efforts in preparation for this day
of fine weather; he had made a great raft out of Indian canoes lashed together, with
mighty sacks of sail cloth into which the provisions might be bundled; and as soon as the
sea had become calm enough he took this raft in over the bar to the settlement ashore, and
began the business of embarking the whole of the stores and ammunition of
Bartholomew's garrison. By this practical method the whole establishment was
transferred from the shore to the ships in the space of two days, and nothing was left but
the caravel, which it was found impossible to float again. It was heavy work towing the
raft constantly backwards and forwards from the ships to the shore, but Diego Mendez
had the satisfaction of being the last man to embark from the deserted settlement, and to
see that not an ounce of stores or ammunition had been lost.
Columbus, always quick to reward the services of a good man, kissed Diego Mendez
publicly—on both cheeks, and (what doubtless pleased him much better) gave him
command of the caravel of which poor Tristan had been the captain.
With a favourable wind they sailed from this accursed shore at the end of April 1503. It is
strange, as Winsor points out, that in the name of this coast should be preserved the only
territorial remembrance of Columbus, and that his descendant the Duke of Veragua
should in his title commemorate one of the most unfortunate of the Admiral's adventures.
And if any one should desire a proof of the utterly misleading nature of most of
Columbus's writings about himself, let him know that a few months later he solemnly
wrote to the Sovereigns concerning this very place that "there is not in the world a
country whose inhabitants are more timid; and the whole place is capable of being easily
put into a state of defence. Your people that may come here, if they should wish to
become masters of the products of other lands, will have to take them by force or retire
empty-handed. In this country they will simply have to trust their persons in the hands of
the savages." The facts being that the inhabitants were extremely fierce and warlike and
irreconcilably hostile; that the river was a trap out of which in the dry season there was
no escape, and the harbour outside a mere shelterless lee shore; that it would require an
army and an armada to hold the place against the natives, and that any one who trusted
himself in their hands would share the fate of the unhappy Diego Tristan. One may
choose between believing that the Admiral's memory had entirely failed him (although he
had not been backward in making a minute record, of all his sufferings) or that he was
craftily attempting to deceive the Sovereigns. My own belief is that he was neither trying
to deceive anybody nor that he had forgotten anything, but that he was simply incapable
of uttering the bare truth when he had a pen in his hand.
From their position on the coast of Veragua Espanola bore almost due north; but
Columbus was too good a seaman to attempt to make the island by sailing straight for it.
He knew that the steady west-going current would set him far down on his course, and he
therefore decided to work up the coast a long way to the eastward before standing across
for Espanola. The crew grumbled very much at this proceeding, which they did not
understand; in fact they argued from it that the Admiral was making straight for Spain,
and this, in the crazy condition of the vessels, naturally alarmed them. But in his old
high-handed, secret way the Admiral told them nothing; he even took away from the
other captains all the charts that they had made of this coast, so that no one but himself
would be able to find the way back to it; and he took a kind of pleasure in the complete
mystification thus produced on his fellow-voyagers. "None of them could explain whither
I went nor whence I came; they did not know the way to return thither," he writes,
somewhat childishly.
But he was not back in Espanola yet, and his means for getting there were crumbling
away beneath his feet. One of the three remaining caravels was entirely riddled by
seaworms and had to be abandoned at the harbour called Puerto Bello; and the company
was crowded on to two ships. The men now became more than ever discontented at the
easterly course, and on May 1st, when he had come as far east as the Gulf of Darien,
Columbus felt obliged to bear away to the north, although as it turned out he had not
nearly made enough easting. He stood on this course, for nine days, the west-going
current setting him down all the time; and the first land that he made, on May 10th, was
the group of islands off the western end of Cuba which he had called the Queen's
Gardens.
He anchored for six days here, as the crews were completely exhausted; the ships' stores
were reduced to biscuits, oil, and vinegar; the vessels leaked like sieves, and the pumps
had to be kept going continually. And no sooner had they anchored than a hurricane came
on, and brought up a sea so heavy that the Admiral was convinced that his ships could not
live within it. We have got so accustomed to reading of storms and tempests that it seems
useless to try and drive home the horror and terror of them; but here were these two
rotten ships alone at the end of the world, far beyond the help of man, the great seas
roaring up under them in the black night, parting their worn cables, snatching away their
anchors from them, and finally driving them one upon the other to grind and strain and
prey upon each other, as though the external conspiracy of the elements against them
both were not sufficient! One writes or reads the words, but what does it mean to us? and
can we by any conceivable effort of imagination realise what it meant to this group of
human beings who lived through that night so many hundred years ago—men like
ourselves with hearts to sink and faint, capable of fear and hunger, capable of misery,
pain, and endurance? Bruised and battered, wet by the terrifying surges, and entirely
uncomforted by food or drink, they did somehow endure these miseries; and were to
endure worse too before they were done with it.