The Voyage Home - 4

The Voyage Home - 4

He sailed again on Sunday, February 24th, encountering heavy winds and seas, which

troubled him greatly with fears lest some disaster should happen at the eleventh hour to

interfere with his, triumph. On Sunday, March 3rd, the wind rose to the force of a

hurricane, and, on a sudden gust of violent wind splitting all the sails, the unhappy crew

gathered together again and drew more lots and made more vows. This time the

pilgrimage was to be to the shrine of Santa Maria at Huelva, the pilgrim to go as before in

his shirt; and the lot fell to the Admiral. The rest of them made a vow to fast on the next

Saturday on bread and water; but as they all thought it extremely unlikely that by that

time they would be in need of any bodily sustenance the sacrifice could hardly have been

a great one. They scudded along under bare poles and in a heavy cross sea all that night;

but at dawn on Monday they saw land ahead of them, which Columbus recognised as the

rock of Cintra at Lisbon; and at Lisbon sure enough they landed some time during the

morning. As soon as they were inside the river the people came flocking down with

stories of the gale and of all the wrecks that there had been on the coast. Columbus

hurried away from the excited crowds to write a letter to the King of Portugal, asking him

for a safe conduct to Spain, and assuring him that he had come from the Indies, and not

from any of the forbidden regions of Guinea.

The next day brought a visit from no less a person than Bartholomew Diaz. Columbus

had probably met him before in 1486, when Diaz had been a distinguished man and

Columbus a man not distinguished; but now things were changed. Diaz ordered

Columbus to come on board his small vessel in order to go and report himself to the

King's officers; but Columbus replied that he was the Admiral of the Sovereigns of

Castile, "that he did not render such account to such persons," and that he declined to

leave his ship. Diaz then ordered him to send the captain of the Nina; but Columbus

refused to send either the captain or any other person, and otherwise gave himself airs as

the Admiral of the Ocean Seas. Diaz then moderated his requests, and merely asked

Columbus to show him his letter of authority, which Columbus did; and then Diaz went

away and brought back with him the captain of the Portuguese royal yacht, who came in

great state on board the shabby little Nina, with kettle-drums and trumpets and pipes, and

placed himself at the disposal of Columbus. It is a curious moment, this, in which the two

great discoverers of their time, Diaz and Columbus, meet for an hour on the deck of a

forty-ton caravel; a curious thing to consider that they who had performed such great

feats of skill and bravery, one to discover the southernmost point of the old world and the

other to voyage across an uncharted ocean to the discovery of an entirely new world,

could find nothing better to talk about than their respective ranks and glories; and found

no more interesting subject of discussion than the exact amount of state and privilege

which should be accorded to each.

During the day or two in which Columbus waited in the port crowds of people came

down from Lisbon to see the little Nina, which was an object of much admiration and

astonishment; to see the Indians also, at whom they greatly marvelled. It was probably at

this time that the letter addressed to Luis de Santangel, containing the first official

account of the voyage, was despatched.