The Voyage Home - 3

The Voyage Home - 3

On the Tuesday evening three men hailed them from the shore, and when they were

brought off to the ship delivered a message from the Portuguese Governor of the island,

Juan de Castaneda, to the effect that he knew the Admiral very well, and that he was

delighted to hear of his wonderful voyage. The next morning Columbus, remembering

the vow that had been made in the storm, sent half the crew ashore in their shirts to a little

hermitage, which was on the other side of a point a short distance away, and asked the

Portuguese messenger to send a priest to say Mass for them. While the members of the

crew were at their prayers, however, they received a rude surprise. They were suddenly

attacked by the islanders, who had come up on horses under the command of the

treacherous Governor, and taken prisoners. Columbus waited unsuspectingly for the boat

to come back with them, in order that he and the other half of the crew could go and

perform their vow.

When the boat did not come back he began to fear that some accident must have

happened to it, and getting his anchor up he set sail for the point beyond which the

hermitage was situated. No sooner had he rounded the point than he saw a band of

horsemen, who dismounted, launched the boat which was drawn up on the beach, and

began to row out, evidently with the intention of attacking the Admiral. When they came

up to the Nina the man in command of them rose and asked Columbus to assure him of

personal safety; which assurance was wonderingly given; and the Admiral inquired how

it was that none of his own people were in the boat? Columbus suspected treachery and

tried to meet it with treachery also, endeavouring with smooth words to get the captain to

come on board so that he could seize him as a hostage. But as the Portuguese would not

come on board Columbus told them that they were acting very unwisely in affronting his

people; that in the land of the Sovereigns of Castile the Portuguese were treated with

great honour and security; that he held letters of recommendation from the Sovereigns

addressed to every ruler in the world, and added that he was their Admiral of the Ocean

Seas and Viceroy of the Indies, and could show the Portuguese his commission to that

effect; and finally, that if his people were not returned to him, he would immediately

make sail for Spain with the crew that was left to him and report this insult to the Spanish

Sovereigns. To all of which the Portuguese captain replied that he did not know any

Sovereigns of Castile; that neither they nor their letters were of any account in that island;

that they were not afraid of Columbus; and that they would have him know that he had

Portugal to deal with—edging away in the boat at the same time to a convenient distance

from the caravel. When he thought he was out of gunshot he shouted to Columbus,

ordering him to take his caravel back to the harbour by command of the Governor of the

island. Columbus answered by calling his crew to witness that he pledged his word not to

descend from or leave his caravel until he had taken a hundred Portuguese to Castile, and

had depopulated all their islands. After which explosion of words he returned to the

harbour and anchored there, "as the weather and wind were very unfavourable for

anything else."

He was, however, in a very bad anchorage, with a rocky bottom which presently fouled

his anchors; and on the Wednesday he had to make sail towards the island of San Miguel

if order to try and find a better anchorage.

But the wind and sea getting up again very badly he was obliged to beat about all night in

a very unpleasant situation, with only three sailors who could be relied upon, and a rabble

of gaol-birds and longshoremen who were of little use in a tempest but to draw lots and

vow pilgrimages. Finding himself unable to make the island of San Miguel he decided to

go back to Santa Maria and make an attempt to recover his boat and his crew and the

anchor and cables he had lost there.

In his Journal for this day, and amid all his anxieties, he found time to note down one of

his curious visionary cosmographical reflections. This return to a region of storms and

heavy seas reminded him of the long months he had spent in the balmy weather and calm

waters of his discovery; in which facts he found a confirmation of the theological idea

that the Eden, or Paradise, of earth was "at the end of the Orient, because it is a most

temperate place. So that these lands which he had now discovered are at the end of the

Orient." Reflections such as these, which abound in his writings, ought in themselves to

be a sufficient condemnation of those who have endeavoured to prove that Columbus was

a man of profound cosmographical learning and of a scientific mind. A man who would

believe that he had discovered the Orient because in the place where he had been he had

found calm weather, and because the theologians said that the Garden of Eden must be in

the Orient since it is a temperate place, would believe anything.

Late on Thursday night, when he anchored again in the harbour of San Lorenzo at Santa

Maria, a man hailed them from the rocks, and asked them not to go away. Presently a

boat containing five sailors, two priests, and a notary put off from the beach; and they

asked for a guarantee of security in order that they might treat with the Admiral. They

slept on board that night, and in the morning asked him to show them his authority from

the Spanish Sovereigns, which the Admiral did, understanding that they had asked for

this formality in order to save their dignity. He showed them his general letter from the

King and Queen of Spain, addressed to "Princes and Lords of High Degree"; and being

satisfied with this they went ashore and released the Admiral's people, from whom he

learned that what had been done had been done by command of the King of Portugal, and

that he had issued an order to the Governors of all the Portuguese islands that if

Columbus landed there on his way home he was to be taken prisoner.