The Third Voyage - 1

The Third Voyage - 1

Columbus was at sea again; firm ground to him, although so treacherous and unstable to
most of us; and as he saw the Spanish coast sinking down on the horizon he could shake
himself free from his troubles, and feel that once more he was in a situation of which he
was master. He first touched at Porto Santo, where, if the story of his residence there be
true, there must have been potent memories for him in the sight of the long white beach
and the plantations, with the Governor's house beyond. He stayed there only a few hours
and then crossed over to Madeira, anchoring in the Bay of Funchal, where he took in
wood and water. As it was really unnecessary for him to make a port so soon after
leaving, there was probably some other reason for his visit to these islands; perhaps a
family reason; perhaps nothing more historically important than the desire to look once
more on scenes of bygone happiness, for even on the page of history every event is not
necessarily big with significance. From Madeira he took a southerly course to the Canary
Islands, and on June 16th anchored at Gomera, where he found a French warship with
two Spanish prizes, all of which put to sea as the Admiral's fleet approached. On June
21st, when he sailed from Gomera, he divided his fleet of six vessels into two squadrons.
Three ships were despatched direct to Espanola, for the supplies which they carried were
urgently needed there. These three ships were commanded by trustworthy men: Pedro de
Arana, a brother of Beatriz, Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, and Juan Antonio Colombo—
this last no other than a cousin of Christopher's from Genoa. The sons of Domenico's
provident younger brother had not prospered, while the sons of improvident Domenico
were now all in high places; and these three poor cousins, hearing of Christopher's
greatness, and deciding that use should be made of him, scraped together enough money
to send one of their number to Spain. The Admiral always had a sound family feeling,
and finding that cousin Antonio had sea experience and knew how to handle a ship he
gave him command of one of the caravels on this voyage—a command of which he
proved capable and worthy. From these three captains, after giving them full sailing
directions for reaching Espanola, Columbus parted company off the island of Ferro. He
himself stood on a southerly course towards the Cape Verde Islands.
His plan on this voyage was to find the mainland to the southward, of which he had heard
rumours in Espanola. Before leaving Spain he had received a letter from an eminent
lapidary named Ferrer who had travelled much in the east, and who assured him that if he
sought gold and precious stones he must go to hot lands, and that the hotter the lands
were, and the blacker the inhabitants, the more likely he was to find riches there. This
was just the kind of theory to suit Columbus, and as he sailed towards the Cape Verde
Islands he was already in imagination gathering gold and pearls on the shores of the
equatorial continent.
He stayed for about a week at the Cape Verde Islands, getting in provisions and cattle,
and curiously observing the life of the Portuguese lepers who came in numbers to the
island of Buenavista to be cured there by eating the flesh and bathing in the blood of
turtles. It was not an inspiriting week which he spent in that dreary place and enervating
climate, with nothing to see but the goats feeding among the scrub, the turtles crawling
about the sand, and the lepers following the turtles. It began to tell on the health of the
crew, so he weighed anchor on July 5th and stood on a southwesterly course.
This third voyage, which was destined to be the most important of all, and the material
for which had cost him so much time and labour, was undertaken in a very solemn and
determined spirit. His health, which he had hoped to recover in Spain, had been if
anything damaged by his worryings with officialdom there; and although he was only
forty-seven years of age he was in some respects already an old man. He had entered,
although happily he did not know it, on the last decade of his life; and was already
beginning to suffer from the two diseases, gout and ophthalmia, which were soon to
undermine his strength and endurance. Religion of a mystical fifteenth-century sort was
deepening in him; he had undertaken this voyage in the name of the Holy Trinity; and to
that theological entity he had resolved to dedicate the first new land that he should sight.
For ten days light baffling winds impeded his progress; but at the end of that time the
winds fell away altogether, and the voyagers found themselves in that flat equatorial calm
known to mariners as the Doldrums. The vertical rays of the sun shone blisteringly down
upon them, making the seams of the ships gape and causing the unhappy crews mental as
well as bodily distress, for they began to fear that they had reached that zone of fire
which had always been said to exist in the southern ocean.
Day after day the three ships lay motionless on the glassy water, with wood-work so hot
as to burn the hands that touched it, with the meat putrefying in the casks below, and the
water running from the loosened casks, and no one with courage and endurance enough
to venture into the stifling hold even to save the provisions. And through all this the
Admiral, racked with gout, had to keep a cheerful face and assure his prostrate crew that
they would soon be out of it.