Ups And Downs - 2

Ups And Downs - 2

Columbus was never backward in fitting a story and a theory to whatever phenomena

surrounded him; and in this case he was certain that the excavations were the work of

Solomon, and that he had discovered the gold of Ophir. "Sure enough," thinks the

Admiral, "I have hit it this time; and the ships came eastward from the Persian Gulf round

the Golden Chersonesus, which I discovered this very last winter." Immediately, as his

habit was, Columbus began to build castles in Spain. Here was a fine answer to Buil and

Margarite! Without waiting a week or two to get any of the gold this extraordinary man

decided to hurry off at once to Spain with the news, not dreaming that Spain might, by

this time, have had a surfeit of news, and might be in serious need of some simple, honest

facts. But he thought his two caravels sufficiently freighted with this new belief—the

belief that he had discovered the Ophir of Solomon.

The Admiral sailed on March 10th, 1496, carrying with him in chains the vanquished

Caonabo and other natives. He touched at Marigalante and at Guadaloupe, where his

people had an engagement with the natives, taking several prisoners, but releasing them

all again with the exception of one woman, a handsome creature who had fallen in love

with Caonabo and refused to go. But for Caonabo the joys of life and love were at an end;

his heart and spirit were broken. He was not destined to be paraded as a captive through

the streets of Spain, and it was somewhere in the deep Atlantic that he paid the last tribute

to the power that had captured and broken him. He died on the voyage, which was longer

and much more full of hardships than usual. For some reason or other Columbus did not

take the northerly route going home, but sailed east from Gaudaloupe, encountering the

easterly trade winds, which delayed him so much that the voyage occupied three months

instead of six weeks.

Once more he exhibited his easy mastery of the art of navigation and his extraordinary

gift for estimating dead-reckoning. After having been out of sight of land for eight weeks,

and while some of the sailors thought they might be in the Bay of Biscay, and others that

they were in the English Channel, the Admiral suddenly announced that they were close

to Cape Saint Vincent.

No land was in sight, but he ordered that sail should be shortened that evening; and sure

enough the next morning they sighted the land close by Cape Saint Vincent. Columbus

managed his landfalls with a fine dramatic sense as though they were conjuring tricks;

and indeed they must have seemed like conjuring tricks, except that they were almost

always successful.