The Earthly Paradise -3

The Earthly Paradise -3

At present, you see, they are but poor happy heathens, living in a paradise of their own,

where the little birds sing all through the warm nights, and the rivers murmur through

flowery meadows, and no one has any knowledge of arms or desire of such knowledge,

and every one goes naked and unashamed. High time, indeed, that they should be taught

to wear clothing and observe our customs.

The local chief came on a visit of state to the ship; and the Admiral paid him due honour,

telling him that he came as an envoy from the greatest sovereigns in the world. But this

charming king, or cacique as they called him, would not believe this; he thought that

Columbus was, for reasons of modesty, speaking less than the truth—a new charge to

bring against our Christopher! He believed that the Spaniards came from heaven, and that

the realms of the sovereigns of Castile were in the heavens and not in this world. He took

some refreshment, as his councillors did also, little dreaming, poor wretches, what in

after years was to come to them through all this palavering and exchanging of presents.

The immediate result of the interview, however, was to make intercourse with the natives

much freer and pleasanter even than it had been before; and some of the sailors went

fishing with the natives. It was then that they were shown some cane arrows with

hardened points, which the natives said belonged to the people of 'Caniba', who, they

alleged, came to the island to capture and eat the natives. The Admiral did not believe it;

his sublime habit of rejecting everything that did not fit in with his theory of the moment,

and accepting everything that did, made him shake his head when this piece of news was

brought to him. He could not get the Great Khan out of his head, and his present theory

was that this island, being close to the mainland of Cathay, was visited by the armies of

the Great Khan, and that it was his men who had used the arrows and made war upon the

natives. It was no good for the natives to show him some of their mutilated bodies, and to

tell him that the cannibals ate them piecemeal; he had no use for such information. His

mind was like a sieve of which the size of the meshes could be adjusted at will;

everything that was not germane to the idea of the moment fell through it, and only

confirmative evidence remained; and at the moment he was not believing any stories

which did not prove that the Great Khan was, so to speak, just round the corner. If they

talked about gold he would listen to them; and so the cacique brought him a piece of gold

the size of his hand and, breaking it into pieces, gave it to him a bit at a time. This the

Admiral took to be sign of great intelligence. They told him there was gold at Tortuga,

but he preferred to believe that it came from Babeque, which may have been Jamaica and

may have been nothing at all.

But his theory was that it existed on Espanola only in small pieces because that country

was so rich that the natives had no need for it; an economic theory which one grows

dizzy in pondering. At any rate "the Admiral believed that he was very near the

fountainhead, and that Our Lord was about to show him where the gold originates."

On Tuesday, December 18th, the ships were all dressed in honour of a religious

anniversary, and the cacique, hearing the firing of the lombards with which the festival

was greeted, came down to the shore to see what was the matter. As Columbus was

sitting at dinner on deck beneath the poop the cacique arrived with all his people; and the

account of his visit is preserved in Columbus's own words.

"As he entered the ship he found that I was eating at the table below the stern forecastle,

and he came quickly to seat himself beside me, and would not allow me to go to meet

him or get up from the table, but only that I should eat. I thought that he would like to eat

some of our viands and I then ordered that things should be brought him to eat. And when

he entered under the forecastle, he signed with his hand that all his people should remain

without, and they did so with the greatest haste and respect in the world, and all seated

themselves on the deck, except two men of mature age whom I took to be his counsellors

and governors, and who came and seated themselves at his feet: and of the viands which I

placed before him he took of each one as much as may be taken for a salutation, and then

he sent the rest to his people and they all ate some of it, and he did the same with the

drink, which he only touched to his mouth, and then gave it to the others in the same way,

and it was all done in wonderful state and with very few words, and whatever he said,

and those two according to what I was able to understand, was very formal and prudent,

looked in his face and spoke for him and with him, and with great respect.