The Earthly Paradise Revisited - 1

The Earthly Paradise Revisited - 1

On the 25th November 1493, Columbus once more dropped his anchor in the harbour of
Monte Christi, and a party was sent ashore to prospect for a site suitable for the new town
which he intended to build, for he was not satisfied with the situation of La Navidad.
There was a large river close by; and while the party was surveying the land they came
suddenly upon two dead bodies lying by the river-side, one with a rope round its neck
and the other with a rope round its feet. The bodies were too much decomposed to be
recognisable; nevertheless to the party rambling about in the sunshine and stillness of that
green place the discovery was a very gruesome one. They may have thought much, but
they said little. They returned to the ship, and resumed their search on the next day, when
they found two more corpses, one of which was seen to have a large quantity of beard. As
all the natives were beardless this was a very significant and unpleasant discovery, and
the explorers returned at once and reported what they had seen to Columbus. He
thereupon set sail for La Navidad, but the navigation off that part of the coast was
necessarily slow because of the number of the shoals and banks, on one of which the
Admiral's ship had been lost the year before; and the short voyage occupied three days.
They arrived at La Navidad late on the evening of the 27th—too late to make it advisable
to land. Some natives came out in a canoe, rowed round the Admiral's ship, stopped and
looked at it, and then rowed away again. When the fleet had anchored Columbus ordered
two guns to be fired; but there was no response except from the echoes that went rattling
among the islands, and from the frightened birds that rose screaming and circling from
the shore. No guns and no signal fires; no sign of human habitation whatever; and no
sound out of the weird darkness except the lap of the water and the call of the birds . . . .
The night passed in anxiety and depression, and in a certain degree of nervous tension,
which was relieved at two or three o'clock in the morning by the sound of paddles and the
looming of a canoe through the dusky starlight. Native voices were heard from the canoe
asking in a loud voice for the Admiral; and when the visitors had been directed to the
Marigalante they refused to go on board until Columbus himself had spoken to them, and
they had seen by the light of a lantern that it was the Admiral himself. The chief of them
was a cousin of Guacanagari, who said that the King was ill of a wound in his leg, or that
he would certainly have come himself to welcome the Admiral. The Spaniards? Yes, they
were well, said the young chief; or rather, he added ominously, those that remained were
well, but some had died of illness, and some had been killed in quarrels that had arisen
among them. He added that the province had been invaded by two neighbouring kings
who had burned many of the native houses. This news, although grave, was a relief from
the dreadful uncertainty that had prevailed in the early part of the night, and the Admiral's
company, somewhat consoled, took a little sleep.
In the morning a party was sent ashore to La Navidad. Not a boat was in sight, nor any
native canoes; the harbour was silent and deserted. When the party had landed and gone
up to the place where the fort had been built they found no fort there; only the blackened
and charred remains of a fort. The whole thing had been burned level with the ground,
and amid the blackened ruins they found pieces of rag and clothing. The natives, instead
of coming to greet them, lurked guiltily behind trees, and when they were seen fled away
into the woods. All this was very disquieting indeed, and in significant contrast to their
behaviour of the year before. The party from the ship threw buttons and beads and bells
to the retiring natives in order to try and induce them to come forward, but only four
approached, one of whom was a relation of Guacanagari. These four consented to go into
the boat and to be rowed out to the ship. Columbus then spoke to them through his
interpreter; and they admitted what had been only too obvious to the party that went
ashore—that the Spaniards were all dead, and that not one of the garrison remained. It
seemed that two neighbouring kings, Caonabo and Mayreni, had made an attack upon the
fort, burned the buildings, and killed and wounded most of the defenders; and that
Guacanagari, who had been fighting on their behalf, had also been wounded and been
obliged to retire. The natives offered to go and fetch Guacanagari himself, and departed
with that object.
In the greatest anxiety the Admiral and his company passed that day and night waiting for
the King to come. Early the next morning Columbus himself went ashore and visited the
spot where the settlement had been. There he found destruction whole and complete, with
nothing but a few rags of clothing as an evidence that the place had ever been inhabited
by human beings. As Guacanagari did not appear some of the Spaniards began to suspect
that he had had a hand in the matter, and proposed immediate reprisal; but Columbus,
believing still in the man who had "loved him so much that it was wonderful" did not
take this view, and his belief in Guacanagari's loyalty was confirmed by the discovery
that his own dwelling had also been burned down.
Columbus set some of his party searching in the ditch of the fort in case any treasure
should have been buried there, as he had ordered it should be in event of danger, and
while this was going on he walked along the coast for a few miles to visit a spot which he
thought might be suitable for the new settlement. At a distance of a mile or two he found
a village of seven or eight huts from which the inhabitants fled at his approach, carrying
such of their goods as were portable, and leaving the rest hidden in the grass. Here were
found several things that had belonged to the Spaniards and which were not likely to have
been bartered; new Moorish mantles, stockings, bolts of cloth, and one of the Admiral's
lost anchors; other articles also, among them a dead man's head wrapped up with great
care in a small basket. Shaking their own living heads, Columbus and his party returned.
Suddenly they came on some suspicious-looking mounds of earth over which new grass
was growing. An examination of these showed them to be the graves of eleven of the
Spaniards, the remains of the clothing being quite sufficient to identify them. Doctor
Chanca, who examined them, thought that they had not been dead two months.
Speculation came to an end in the face of this eloquent certainty; there were the dead
bodies of some of the colonists; and the voyagers knelt round with bare heads while the
bodies were replaced in the grave and the ceremony of Christian burial performed over
them.