The Third Voyage - 2

The Third Voyage - 2

There were showers of rain sometimes, but the moisture in that baking atmosphere only

added to its stifling and enervating effects. All the while, however, the great slow current

of the Atlantic was moving westward, and there came a day when a heavenly breeze,

stirred in the torrid air and the musical talk of ripples began to rise again from the weedy

stems of the ships. They sailed due west, always into a cooler and fresher atmosphere; but

still no land was sighted, although pelicans and smaller birds were continually seen

passing from south-west to north-east. As provisions were beginning to run low,

Columbus decided on the 31st July to alter his course to north-by-east, in the hope of

reaching the island of Dominica. But at mid-day his servant Alonso Perez, happening to

go to the masthead, cried out that there was land in sight; and sure enough to the

westward there rose three peaks of land united at the base. Here was the kind of

coincidence which staggers even the unbeliever. Columbus had promised to dedicate the

first land he saw to the Trinity; and here was the land, miraculously provided when he

needed it most, three peaks in one peak, in due conformity with the requirements of the

blessed Saint Athanasius. The Admiral was deeply affected; the God of his belief was

indeed a good friend to him; and he wrote down his pious conviction that the event was a

miracle, and summoned all hands to sing the Salve Regina, with other hymns in praise of

God and the Virgin Mary. The island was duly christened La Trinidad. By the hour of

Compline (9 o'clock in the evening) they had come up with the south coast of the island,

but it was the next day before the Admiral found a harbour where he could take in water.

No natives were to be seen, although there were footprints on the shore and other signs of

human habitation.

He continued all day to sail slowly along the shore of the island, the green luxuriance of

which astonished him; and sometimes he stood out from the coast to the southward as he

made a long board to round this or that point. It must have been while reaching out in this

way to the southward that he saw a low shore on his port hand some sixty miles to the

south of Trinidad, and that his sight, although he did not know it, rested for the first time

on the mainland of South America. The land seen was the low coast to the west of the

Orinoco, and thinking that it was an island he gave it the name of Isla Sancta.

On the 2nd of August they were off the south-west of Trinidad, and saw the first

inhabitants in the shape of a canoe full of armed natives, who approached the ships with

threatening gestures. Columbus had brought out some musicians with him, possibly for

the purpose of impressing the natives, and perhaps with the idea of making things a little

more cheerful in Espanola; and the musicians were now duly called upon to give a

performance, a tambourine-player standing on the forecastle and beating the rhythm for

the ships' boys to dance to. The effect was other than was anticipated, for the natives

immediately discharged a thick flight of arrows at the musicians, and the music and

dancing abruptly ceased. Eventually the Indians were prevailed upon to come on board

the two smaller ships and to receive gifts, after which they departed and were seen no

more. Columbus landed and made some observations of the vegetation and climate of

Trinidad, noticing that the fruits and-trees were similar to those of Espanola, and that

oysters abounded, as well as "very large, infinite fish, and parrots as large as hens."

He saw another peak of the mainland to the northwest, which was the peninsula of Paria,

and to which Columbus, taking it to be another island, gave the name of Isla de Gracia.

Between him and this land lay a narrow channel through which a mighty current was

flowing—that press of waters which, sweeping across the Atlantic from Africa, enters the

Caribbean Sea, sprays round the Gulf of Mexico, and turns north again in the current

known as the Gulf Stream. While his ships were anchored at the entrance to this channel

and Columbus was wondering how he should cross it, a mighty flood of water suddenly

came down with a roar, sending a great surging wave in front of it. The vessels were

lifted up as though by magic; two of them dragged their anchors from the bottom, and the

other one broke her cable. This flood was probably caused by a sudden flush of fresh

water from one of the many mouths of the Orinoco; but to Columbus, who had no

thought of rivers in his mind, it was very alarming. Apparently, however, there was

nothing for it but to get through the channel, and having sent boats on in front to take

soundings and see that there was clear water he eventually piloted his little squadron

through, with his heart in his mouth and his eyes fixed on the swinging eddies and

surging circles of the channel. Once beyond it he was in the smooth water of the Gulf of

Paria. He followed the westerly coast of Trinidad to the north until he came to a second

channel narrower than the first, through which the current boiled with still greater

violence, and to which he gave the name of Dragon's Mouth. This is the channel between

the northwesterly point of Trinidad and the eastern promontory of Paria. Columbus now

began to be bewildered, for he discovered that the water over the ship's side was fresh

water, and he could not make out where it came from. Thinking that the peninsula of

Paria was an island, and not wishing to attempt the dangerous passage of the Dragon's

Mouth, he decided to coast along the southern shore of the land opposite, hoping to be

able to turn north round its western extremity.

Sweeter blew the breezes, fresher grew the water, milder and more balmy the air, greener

and deeper the vegetation of this beautiful region. The Admiral was ill with the gout, and

suffering such pain from his eyes that he was sometimes blinded by it; but the excitement

of the strange phenomena surrounding him kept him up, and his powers of observation,

always acute, suffered no diminution. There were no inhabitants to be seen as they sailed

along the coast, but monkeys climbed and chattered in the trees by the shore, and oysters

were found clinging to the branches that dipped into the water. At last, in a bay where

they anchored to take in water, a native canoe containing three, men was seen cautiously

approaching; and the men, who were shy, were captured by the device of a sailor jumping

on to the gunwale of the canoe and overturning it, the natives being easily caught in the

water, and afterwards soothed and captivated by the unfailing attraction of hawks' bells.

They were tall men with long hair, and they told Columbus that the name of their country

was Paria; and when they were asked about other inhabitants they pointed to the west and

signified that there was a great population in that direction.

On the 10th of August 1498 a party landed on this coast and formally took possession of

it in the name of the Sovereigns of Spain. By an unlucky chance Columbus himself did

not land. His eyes were troubling him so much that he was obliged to lie down in his

cabin, and the formal act of possession was performed by a deputy. If he had only

known! If he could but have guessed that this was indeed the mainland of a New World

that did not exist even in his dreams, what agonies he would have suffered rather than

permit any one else to pronounce the words of annexation! But he lay there in pain and

suffering, his curious mystical mind occupied with a conception very remote indeed from

the truth.