The Third Voyage - 3

The Third Voyage - 3

For in that fertile hotbed of imagination, the Admiral's brain, a new and staggering theory

had gradually been taking shape. As his ships had been wafted into this delicious region,

as the airs had become sweeter, the vegetation more luxuriant, and the water of the sea

fresher,—he had solemnly arrived at the conclusion that he was approaching the region of

the true terrestrial Paradise: the Garden of Eden that some of the Fathers had declared to

be situated in the extreme east of the Old World, and in a region so high that the flood

had not overwhelmed it. Columbus, thinking hard in his cabin, blood and brain a little

fevered, comes to the conclusion that the world is not round but pear-shaped. He knows

that all this fresh water in the sea must come from a great distance and from no ordinary

river; and he decides that its volume and direction have been acquired in its fall from the

apex of the pear, from the very top of the world, from the Garden of Eden itself. It was a

most beautiful conception; a theory worthy to be fitted to all the sweet sights and sounds

in the world about him; but it led him farther and farther away from the truth, and blinded

him to knowledge and understanding of what he had actually accomplished.

He had thought the coast of Cuba the mainland, and he now began to consider it at least

possible that the peninsula of Paria was mainland also—another part of the same

continent. That was the truth—Paria was the mainland—and if he had not been so

bemused by his dreams and theories he might have had some inkling of the real wonder

and significance of his discovery. But no; in his profoundly unscientific mind there was

little of that patience which holds men back from theorising and keeps them ready to

receive the truth. He was patient enough in doing, but in thinking he was not patient at

all. No sooner had he observed a fact than he must find a theory which would bring it into

relation with the whole of his knowledge; and if the facts would not harmonise of

themselves he invented a scheme of things by which they were forced into harmony. He

was indeed a Darwinian before his time, an adept in the art of inventing causes to fit

facts, and then proving that the facts sprang from the causes; but his origins were

tangible, immovable things of rock and soil that could be seen and visited by other men,

and their true relation to the terrestrial phenomena accurately established; so that his very

proofs were monumental, and became themselves the advertisements of his profound

misjudgment. But meanwhile he is the Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and can "make it so";

and accordingly, in a state of mental instability, he makes the Gulf of Paria to be a slope

of earth immediately below the Garden of Eden, although fortunately he does not this

time provide a sworn affidavit of trembling ships' boys to confirm his discovery.

Meanwhile also here were pearls; the native women wore ropes of them all over their

bodies, and a fair store of them were bartered for pieces of broken crockery. Asked as

usual about the pearls the natives, also as usual, pointed vaguely to the west and southwest,

and explained that there were more pearls in that direction. But the Admiral would

not tarry. Although he believed that he was within reach of Eden and pearls, he was more

anxious to get back to Espanola and send the thrilling news to Spain than he was to push

on a little farther and really assure himself of the truth. How like Christopher that was!

Ideas to him were of more value than facts, as indeed they are to the world at large; but

one is sometimes led to wonder whether he did not sometimes hesitate to turn his ideas

into facts for very fear that they should turn out to be only ideas. Was he, in his relations

with Spain and the world, a trader in the names rather than the substance of things? We

have seen him going home to Spain and announcing the discovery of the Golden

Chersonesus, although he had only discovered what he erroneously supposed to be an

indication of it; proclaiming the discovery of the Ophir of Solomon without taking the

trouble to test for himself so tremendous an assumption; and we now see him hurrying

away to dazzle Spain with the story that he has discovered the Garden of Eden, without

even trying to push on for a few days more to secure so much as a cutting from the Tree

of Life.

These are grave considerations; for although happily the Tree of Life is now of no

importance to any human being, the doings of Admiral Christopher were of great

importance to himself and to his fellow-men at that time, and are still to-day, through the

infinite channels in which human thought and action run and continue thoughout the

world, of grave importance to us. Perhaps this is not quite the moment, now that the poor

Admiral is lying in pain and weakness and not quite master of his own mind, to consider

fully how he stands in this matter of honesty; we will leave it for the present until he is

well again, or better still, until his tale of life and action is complete, and comes as a

whole before the bar of human judgment.

On August 11th Columbus turned east again after having given up the attempt to find a

passage to the north round Paria. There were practical considerations that brought him to

this action. As the water was growing shoaler and shoaler he had sent a caravel of light

draft some way further to the westward, and she reported that there lay ahead of her a

great inner bay or gulf consisting of almost entirely fresh water. Provisions, moreover,

were running short, and were, as usual, turning bad; the Admiral's health made vigorous

action of any kind impossible for him; he was anxious about the condition of Espanola—

anxious also, as we have seen, to send this great news home; and he therefore turned back

and decided to risk the passage of the Dragon's Mouth. He anchored in the neighbouring

harbour until the wind was in the right quarter, and with some trepidation put his ships

into the boiling tideway. When they were in the middle of the passage the wind fell to a

dead calm, and the ships, with their sails hanging loose, were borne on the dizzy surface

of eddies, overfalls, and whirls of the tide. Fortunately there was deep water in the

passage, and the strength of the current carried them safely through. Once outside they

bore away to the northward, sighting the islands of Tobago and Grenada and, turning

westward again, came to the islands of Cubagua and Margarita, where three pounds of

pearls were bartered from the natives. A week after the passage of the Dragon's Mouth

Columbus sighted the south coast of Espanola, which coast he made at a point a long way

to the east of the new settlement that he had instructed Bartholomew to found; and as the

winds were contrary, and he feared it might take him a long time to beat up against them,

he sent a boat ashore with a letter which was to be delivered by a native messenger to the

Adelantado. The letter was delivered; a few days later a caravel was sighted which

contained Bartholomew himself; and once more, after a long separation, these two friends

and brothers were united.

The see-saw motion of all affairs with which Columbus had to do was in full swing. We

have seen him patching up matters in Espanola; hurrying to Spain just in time to rescue

his damaged reputation and do something to restore it; and now when he had come back

it was but a sorry tale that Bartholomew had to tell him. A fortress had been built at the

Hayna gold-mines, but provisions had been so scarce that there had been something like a

famine among the workmen there; no digging had been done, no planting, no making of

the place fit for human occupation and industry. Bartholomew had been kept busy in

collecting the native tribute, and in planning out the beginnings of the settlement at the

mouth of the river Ozema, which was at first called the New Isabella, but was afterwards

named San Domingo in honour of old Domenico at Savona. The cacique Behechio had

been giving trouble; had indeed marched out with an army against Bartholomew, but had

been more or less reconciled by the intervention of his sister Anacaona, widow of the late

Caonabo, who had apparently transferred her affections to Governor Bartholomew. The

battle was turned into a friendly pagan festival—one of the last ever held on that once

happy island—in which native girls danced in a green grove, with the beautiful

Anacaona, dressed only in garlands, carried on a litter in their midst.