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THE LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 ■uSi^ 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE OF COLUMBUS, 
 
 r 
 
 THE DISCOVERER OF 
 AMERICA. 
 
 CHIEFLY BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS, K. C. B. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE SPANISH CONQUEST IN AMEKICA," 
 " FKIENDS IN COUNCIL," ETC. 
 
 EIGHTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, 
 
 COVENT GAEDEN. 
 
 1883. 
 
UNiVEnSflY 
 .. LiBRARV 
 
 CHISWICK press: — C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE, 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY STONE, 
 
 THIS LIFE or COLUMBUS 
 
 IS DEDICATED 
 ■WITH SINCBHB ESTEEM AND KEGABD 
 BY HIS AEEECTIONATB 
 VRIESD, 
 
 Abthdb Helps. 
 London, October, 1868. 
 

 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 HIS Life of Columbus is one of a 
 series of biographies prepared under 
 my superintendence, and for the most 
 part taken verbatim from my " History of the 
 Spanish Conquest in America." 
 
 That work was written chiefly with a view 
 to illustrate the history of slavery, and not to 
 give full accounts of the deeds of the discoverers 
 and conquerors of the New World, much less to 
 give a condensed memoir of each of them. 
 
 It has, therefore, been necessary to re-arrange 
 and add considerably to these materials, and for 
 this assistance I am indebted to the skill and 
 research of Mr. Herbert Preston Thomas. 
 
 Perhaps there are few of the great personages 
 
viii PBEFACE. 
 
 ia history who have been more talked about and 
 written about than Christopher Columbus, the 
 discoverer of America. It might seem, there- 
 fore, that there is very little that is new to be 
 said about him. I do not think, however, that 
 this is altogether the case. Absorbed in, and to 
 a certain extent overcome by the contemplation 
 of the principal event, we have sometimes, per- 
 haps, been mistaken as to the causes which led 
 to it. We are apt to look upon Columbus as 
 a person who knew that there existed a great 
 undiscovered continent, and who made his way 
 directly to the discovery of that continent — 
 springing at one bound from the known to the un- 
 known. Whereas, the dream of Columbus's life 
 was to make his way by an unknown route to 
 what was known, or to what he considered to be 
 known. He wished to find out an easy pathway 
 to the territories of Kublai Khan, or Prester- 
 John. 
 
 Neither were his motives such as have been 
 generally supposed. They were, for the most 
 part, purely religious. With the gold gained 
 from potentates such as Kublai Khan, the Holy 
 Sepulchre was to be rebuilt, and the Catholic 
 
PRE FACE. ix 
 
 Faith was to be spread over the remotest parts 
 of the earth. 
 
 Columbus had all the spirit of a crusader, and, 
 at the same time, the investigating nature of a 
 modern man of science. The Arabs have a pro- 
 verb that a man is more the son of the age in 
 which he lives than of his own father. This was 
 not so with Columbus ; he hardly seems to 
 belong at all to his age. At a time when there 
 was never more of worldliness and self-seeking; 
 when Alexander Borgia was Pope ; when Louis 
 the Eleventh reigned in France, Henry the Se- 
 venth in England, and Ferdinand the Catholic 
 in Arragon and Castille — about the three last 
 men in the world to become crusaders — Colum- 
 bus was penetrated with the ideas of the twelfth 
 century, and would have been a worthy com- 
 •panion of Saint Louis in that pious king's cru- 
 sade. 
 
 Again, at a time when Aristotle and " the 
 Ano-elic Doctor " ruled the minds of men with an 
 almost unexampled tyranny: when science was 
 more dogmatic than theology; when it was thought 
 a sufficient and satisfactory explanation to say that 
 bodies falling to the earth descended because it is 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 their nature to descend — Columbus regarded 
 natural phenomena with the spirit of inductive 
 philosophy that would belong to a follower of 
 Lord Bacon. 
 
 Perhaps it will be found that a very great man 
 seldom does belong to his period, as other men 
 do to theirs. Machiavelli* says that the way to 
 renovate states is always to go back to first prin- 
 ciples, especially to the first principles upon which 
 those states were founded. The same law, if law 
 it be, may hold good as regards the renovation of 
 any science, art, or mode of human action. The 
 man who is too closely united in thought and 
 feeling with his own age, is seldom the man 
 inclined to go back to these first principles. 
 
 It is very noticeable in Columbus that he was 
 a most dutiful, unswerving, and un-inquiring son 
 of the Church. The same man who would have, 
 taken nothing for granted in scientific research, 
 and would not have held himself bound by the 
 authority of the greatest names in science, never 
 
 * Machiavelli was contemporary with Columbus. No 
 two men could have been more dissimilar; and Machia- 
 velli was thoroughly a product of his age, and a man who 
 entirely belonged to it. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 ventured for a moment to trust himself as a dis- 
 coverer on the perilous sea of theological inves- 
 tigation. 
 
 In this respect Las Casas, though a church- 
 man, was very different from Columbus. Such 
 doctrines as that the Indians should be somewhat 
 civilized before being converted, and that even 
 baptism might be postponed to instruction, — 
 doctrines that would have found a ready accept- 
 ance from the good bishop — would have met with 
 small response from the soldierly theology of 
 Columbus. 
 
 The whole life of Columbus shows how rarely 
 men of the greatest insight and foresight, and 
 also of the greatest perseverance, attain the exact 
 ends they aim at. In this respect all such men 
 partake the career of the alchemists, who did 
 not transmute other metals into gold, but made 
 valuable discoveries in chemistry. So, with 
 Columbus. He did not rebuild the Holy Sepul- 
 chre ; he did not lead a new crusade ; he did not 
 find his Kublai Khan, or his Prester John ; but 
 he brought Into relation the New "World and the 
 Old. 
 
 It is impossible to read without the deepest 
 
xLi PREFACE. 
 
 interest the account from day to day of his voy- 
 ages. It has always been a favourite speculation 
 with historians, and, indeed, with all thinking men, 
 to consider what would have happened from a slight 
 change of circumstances in the course of things 
 which led to great events. This may be an idle 
 and a useless speculation, but it is an inevitable 
 one. Never was there such a field for this kind 
 of speculation as in the voyages, especially the 
 first one, of Columbus. The first point of land 
 that he saw, and landed at, is as nearly as possible 
 the central point of what must once have been the 
 United Continent of North and South America. 
 The least change of circumstance might have made 
 an immense difference in the result. The going 
 to sleep of the helmsman, the unshipping of the 
 rudder, (which did occur in the case of " The 
 Pinzon,") the slightest mistake in taking an ob- 
 servation, might have made, and probably did 
 make, considerable change in the event. During 
 that memorable first voyage of Columbus, the 
 gentlest breeze carried with it the destinies of 
 future empires. Had he made his first discovery 
 of land at a point much southward of that which 
 he did discover. South America might have been 
 
PREFACE. xUi 
 
 colonized by the Spaniards with all the vigour 
 that belonged to their first efforts at colonization ; 
 and, being a continent, . might not afterwards 
 have been so easily wrested from their sway by 
 the maritime nations. 
 
 On the other hand, had some breeze, big with 
 the fate of nations, carried Columbus northwards, 
 it would hardly have been left for the English, 
 more than a century afterwards, to found those 
 Colonies which have proved to be the seeds of 
 the greatest nation that the world is likely to 
 behold. 
 
 It was, humanly speaking, singularly unfor- 
 tunate for Spanish dominion in America, that the 
 earliest discoveries of the Spaniards were those of 
 the West India Islands. A multiplicity of go- 
 vernors introduced confusion, feebleness, and want 
 of system, into colonial government. The num- 
 bers, comparatively few, of the original inha- 
 bitants in each island, were rapidly removed from 
 the scene of action ; and the Spaniards lacked, at 
 the beginning, that compressing force which 
 would have been found in the existence of a 
 body of natives who could not have been re- 
 
xlv PREFACE. 
 
 moved by the outrages of Spanish cruelty, the 
 strength of Spanish liquors, or the virulence of 
 Spanish diseases.* 
 
 The Monarchs of Spain, too, would have been 
 compelled to treat their new discoveries and con- 
 quests more seriously. To have held the country 
 at all, they must have held it well. It would not 
 have been Ovandos, Bobadillas, Nicuesas and 
 Ojedas who could have been employed to go- 
 vern, discover, conquer, colonize — and ruin by 
 their folly — the Spanish possessions in the Indies. 
 The work of discovery and conquest, begun by 
 Columbus, must then have been entrusted to men 
 like Cortes, the Pizarros, Yasco Nuiiez, or the 
 President Gasca; and a colony or a kingdom 
 founded by any of these men might well havi 
 remained a great colony, or a great kingdom, to 
 the present day. 
 
 Aethue Helps. 
 
 London, October, 1868. 
 
 * The small- pox, for instance, was a disease introduced 
 by the Spaniards, which the comparatively feeble consti- 
 tution of the Indians could not withstand. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Page 
 ARLY Discoveries in the Fifteenth Cen- 
 tury ...... 1 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Early Years of Columbus 
 
 . 47 
 
 Chapter III. 
 Columbus in Spain 63 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 First Voyage 
 
 83 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Homeward bound 
 
 111 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Cbapteb VI. 
 
 Second Voyage of Discovery . . . .129 
 
 Chapteb VII. 
 Illness; Further Discoveries; Plots against Columbus 142 
 
 Chaptee VIII. 
 
 Criminals sent to the Indies ; Repartimientos ; Insur- 
 rection ....... 160 
 
 Chaptee IX. 
 Columbus's Third Voyage 172 
 
 Chaptee X. 
 Arrival at Hispaniola; Bad Treatment by Bobadilla 190 
 
 Chaptee XI. 
 
 Columbus pleads his Cause at Court ; New Enter- 
 prise; Ovando 204 
 
 Chaptee XII. 
 Remarkable Despatch; Mutiny; Eclipse predicted, 
 
 and its influence ; Mutiny quelled . . . 237 
 
 Chaptee XIII. 
 Falling Fortunes ; Conclusion .... 255 
 
THE LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Early Discoveries in the Fifteenth Century. 
 
 iODERN familiarity with navigation 
 renders it difficult for us to appreciate 
 adequately the greatness of the enter- 
 prise which was undertaken by the discoverers 
 of the New World. Seen by the light of science 
 and of experience, the ocean, if it has some real 
 terrors, has no imaginary ones. But it was quite 
 otherwise in the fifteenth century. Geographical 
 knowledge was but just awakening, after ages 
 of slumber ; and throughout those ages the wildest 
 dreams had mingled fiction with fact. Legends 
 telling of monsters of the deep, jealous of invasion 
 of their territory ; of rocks of loadstone, powerful 
 B 
 
2 LEGENDS OF THE SEA. 
 
 enough to extract every particle of iron from a 
 passing ship ; of stagnant seas and fiery skies ; of 
 wandering saints and flying islands ; all combined 
 to invest the unknown with the terrors of the 
 supernatural, and to deter the explorer of the 
 great ocean. The half-decked vessels that crept 
 along the Mediterranean shores were but ill-fitted 
 to bear the brunt of the furious waves of the 
 Atlantic. The now indispensable sextant was 
 but clumsily anticipated by the newly invented 
 astrolabe. The use of the compass had scarcely 
 become familiar to navigators, who indeed but 
 imperfectly understood its properties. And who 
 could tell, it was objected, that a ship which 
 might succeed in sailing down the waste of waters 
 would ever be able to return, for would not the 
 voyage home be a perpetual journey up a moun- 
 tain of sea ? 
 
 But the same tradition which set forth the 
 difficulties of reaching the undiscovered countries 
 promised a splendid reward to the successful 
 voyager. Rivers rolling down golden sand, 
 mountains shining with priceless gems, forests 
 fragrant with rich spices were among the sub- 
 stantial advantages to be expected as the result 
 
INCITEMENTS TO DISCOVERY. 3 
 
 of the enterprise. " Our quest there," said Peter 
 Martyr, " is not for the vulgar products of Eu- 
 rope." The proverb Onine ignotum pro magni- 
 fico was abundantly illustrated. And there was 
 another object, besides gain, which was predomi- 
 nant in the minds of almost all the early explorers, 
 namely, the spread of the Christian religion. This 
 desire of theirs, too, seems to have been thoroughly 
 genuine and deep-seated ; and it may be doubted 
 whether the discoveries would have been made 
 at that period but for the impulse given to them 
 by the most religious minds longing to promote, 
 by all means in their power, the spread of what, 
 to them, was the only true and saving faith. 
 " I do not," says a candid historian* of that age, 
 " imagine that I shall persuade the world that our 
 intent was only to be preachers ; but on the other 
 hand the world must not fancy that our intent 
 was merely to be traders." There is much to 
 blame in the conduct of the first discoverers in 
 Africa and America ; it is, however, but just to 
 acknowledge that the love of gold was by no 
 means the only motive which urged them to such 
 
 * Faria y Sousa 
 
4 EARLY ADVENTURERS. 
 
 endeavours as theirs. To appreciate justly the 
 intensity of their anxiety for the conversion of the 
 heathen, we must keep in our minds the views 
 then universally entertained of the merits and effi- 
 cacy of mere formal communion with the Church, 
 and the fatal consequences of not being within 
 that communion. 
 
 This will go a long way towards explaining the 
 wonderful inconsistency, as it seems to us, of the 
 most cruel and wicked men believing themselves 
 to be good Christians and eminent promoters of 
 the faith, if only they baptized, before they slew, 
 their fellow-creatures. And the maintenance of 
 such church principles will altogether account 
 for the strange oversights which pure and high 
 minds have made in the means of carrying out 
 those principles, fascinated as they were by the 
 brilliancy and magnitude of the main object they 
 had in view. 
 
 But while piety, sometimes debased into reli- 
 gious fanaticism, had a large part in these under- 
 takings, doubtless the love of adventure and the 
 craving for novelty had their influence also. And 
 what adventure it was! New trees, new men, 
 new animals, new stars; nothing bounded, nothing 
 
MEDIJEVAL MAP OF THE WORLD. 5 
 
 trite, nothing which had the bloom taken off it 
 by much previous description ! The early voy- 
 agers, moreover, were like children coming out 
 to take their first gaze into the world, with ready 
 credulity and unlimited fancy, willing to believe 
 in fairies and demons, Amazons and mystic islands, 
 " forms of a lower hemisphere," and fountains of 
 perpetual youth. 
 
 The known world, in the time of Prince 
 Henry of Portugal (at whose discoveries it will 
 be convenient to take a preliminary glance), was 
 a very small one indeed. The first thing for us 
 to do is to study our maps and charts. Without 
 frequent reference to these, a narrative like the 
 present forms In our mind only a mirage of names 
 and dates and facts, is wrongly apprehended even 
 while we are regarding it, and soon vanishes away. 
 The map of the world being before us, let us re- 
 duce It to the proportions It filled In Prince Henry's 
 time ; let us look at our Infant world. First take 
 away those two continents, for so we may almost 
 call them, each much larger than a Europe, to 
 the far west. Then cancel that square massive- 
 looking piece to the extreme south-east ; Its days 
 of penal settlements and of golden fortunes are 
 
6 THE ROMAN DOMINION. 
 
 yet to come. Then turn to Africa; instead of 
 that form of inverted cone which it presents, and 
 which we now know there are physical reasons 
 for its presenting, make a scimetar shape of it, by 
 running a slightly curved line from Juba on the 
 eastern side to Cape Nam on the western. De- 
 clare all below that line unknown. Hitherto, we 
 have only been doing the work of destruction; 
 but now scatter emblems of hippogriffs and anthro- 
 pophagi on the outskirts of what is left on the 
 map, obeying a maxim, not confined to the ancient 
 geographers only : " Where you know nothing, 
 place terrors." Looking at the map thus com- 
 pleted, we can hardly help thinking to ourselves, 
 with a smile, what a small space, comparatively 
 speaking, the known history of the world has 
 been transacted in, up to the last four hundred 
 years. The idea of the universality of the Roman 
 dominion shrinks a little ; and we begin to think 
 that Ovid might have escaped his tyrant.* The 
 
 "■ But the empire of the Romans filled the world ; and 
 when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the 
 world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. 
 The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was condemned 
 to drag the gilded chain in Rome and his senate, or to wear 
 
THE WORLD. 
 
 THE WORLD KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. 
 
8 PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL. 
 
 ascertained confines of the world were now, how- 
 ever, to be more than doubled in the course of one 
 century ; and to Prince Henry of Portugal, as the 
 first promoter of these vast discoveries, our atten- 
 tion must be directed. 
 
 This prince was born in 1394. He was the 
 third son of John the First of Portugal and Phi- 
 lippa, the daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of 
 Lancaster. That good Plantagenet blood on the 
 mother's side was, doubtless, not without avail to 
 a man whose life was to be spent in continuous 
 and insatiate efforts to work out a great idea. 
 Prince Henry was with his father at the memo- 
 rable capture of Ceuta, the ancient Seplem, in the 
 year 1415. This town, which lies opposite to 
 Gibraltar, was of great magnificence, and one of 
 the principal marts in that age for the productions 
 
 out a life of exile on the barren rocks of Seriphus, or the 
 frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent 
 despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. 
 On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of 
 sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse with- 
 out being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated 
 master. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. i. p. 97, Oxford 
 Edition. 
 
HIS MOTIVES FOR DISCOVERY. 9 
 
 of the eastern world. It was here that the Portu- 
 guese first planted a firm foot in Africa ; and the 
 date of this town's capture may, perhaps, be taken 
 as that from which Prince Henry began to medi- 
 tate further and far greater conquests. His aims, 
 however, were directed to a point long beyond 
 the range of the mere conquering soldier. He 
 was especially learned, for that age of the world, 
 being skilled in mathematical and geographical 
 knowledge. He eagerly acquired from Moors of 
 Fez and Morocco, such scanty information as 
 could be gathered concerning the remote districts 
 of Africa. The shrewd conjectures of learned 
 men, the confused records of Arabic geographers, 
 the fables of chivalry, were not without their in- 
 fluence upon an enthusiastic mind. The especial 
 reason which impelled the prince to take the 
 burden of discovery on himself was that neither 
 mariner nor merchant would be likely to adopt 
 an enterprise in which there was no clear hope 
 of profit. It belonged, therefore, to great men 
 and princes ; and amongst such, he knew of no 
 one but himself who was inclined to it. This is 
 not an uncommon motive. A man sees some- 
 thing that ought to be done, knows of no one that 
 
)0 
 
 MAP OF AFRICAN COAST. 
 
 will do it but himself, and so is driven to the 
 enterprise even should it be repugnant to him. 
 Prince Henry, then, having once the vrell- 
 
IMPORTANT EXPEDITION. 11 
 
 grounded idea in his mind that Africa did not 
 end, according to the common belief, at Cape 
 Nam,* but that there was a region beyond that 
 forbidding negative, seems never to have rested 
 until he had made known that quarter of the 
 world to his own. He fixed his abode upon the 
 promontory of Sagres, at the southern part of 
 Portugal, whence, for many a year, he could 
 watch for the rising specks of white sail bringing 
 back his captains to tell him of new countries and 
 new men. 
 
 One night, in the year 1418, he is thought to 
 have had a dream of promise, for on the ensuing 
 morning he suddenly ordered two vessels to be 
 got ready forthwith, and placed them under the 
 command of two gentlemen of his household, 
 Zarco and Vaz, whom he directed to proceed 
 down the Barbary coast on a voyage of discovery. 
 A contemporary chronicler, Azurara, tells the 
 story more simply, and merely states that these 
 captains were young men, who, after the ending 
 of the Ceuta campaign, were as eager for employ- 
 ment as the prince for discovery ; and that they 
 
 * Portuguese for Not. 
 
12 DISCOVERY OF PORTO SANTO. 
 
 were ordered on a voyage having for its object 
 the general molestation of the Moors as well as the 
 prosecution of discoveries beyond Cape Nam. 
 
 The Portuguese mariners had a proverb about 
 the Cape, " He who would pass Cape Not either 
 will return or not,'' Quern passar o Cabo de Nam, 
 ou tornara ou nam, intimating that if he did not 
 turn before passing the Cape he would never return 
 at all. On this occasion it was not destined to be 
 passed, for the two captains were driven out of their 
 course by storms, and accidentally discovered a 
 little island, where they took refuge, and which, 
 from that circumstance, they called Porto Santo. 
 On their return their master was delighted with 
 the news they brought him, more on account of its 
 promise than its substance. In the same year he 
 sent them out again with a third captain, Bartho- 
 lomew Perestrelo, to convey a supply of seeds and 
 animals for the newly-found island. Unfortunately, 
 however, among the animals were some rabbits, 
 which multiplied so rapidly that they overspread 
 the whole island, and, by devouring every plant 
 and blade of grass which grew there, soon changed 
 a fruitful land into a bare wilderness. 
 
 In the following year, Zarco and Vaz, seeing 
 
MADEIRA DISCOVERED. 13 
 
 from Porto Santo something that seemed like a 
 cloud, but yet different (the origin of so much 
 discovery, noting the difference in the likeness), 
 built two boats, and, making for this cloud, soon 
 found themselves alongside a beautiful island 
 abounding in many things, but most of all in 
 trees, on which account they gave it the name 
 of Madeira (wood). The two discoverers landed 
 upon the island in different places. The prince, 
 their master, afterwards rewarded them with the 
 captaincies of the districts adjacent to those places. 
 To Perestrelo he gave the island of Porto Santo, 
 to colonize it. Perestrelo, however, did not make 
 much of his captaincy ; and spent his life in en- 
 deavouring to make head against the rabbits, which 
 were as destructive as a plague of locusts, and 
 which by their fecundity resisted all his efforts to 
 exterminate them. This captain has a place in 
 history, as being the father-in-law of Columbus, 
 who, indeed, lived at Porto Santo for some time, 
 and here, on new found land, studied the cosmo- 
 graphical works which Perestrelo had been at 
 pains to accumulate ; meditating far bolder dis- 
 coveries. 
 
 Zarco and Vaz began the cultivation of their 
 
14 AFRICAN COAST EXFLOBED. 
 
 island of Madeira, but met with an untoward 
 event at first. In clearing the wood, they kindled 
 a fire amongst it, which burned for seven years, 
 we are told; and, in the end, that which had 
 given its name to the island, and which, in the 
 words of the historian, overshadowed the whole 
 land, became the most deficient commodity. The 
 captains founded churches in the island, and the 
 King of Portugal, Don Duart, gave the tempo- 
 ralities to Prince Henry, and all the spiritualities 
 to the Knights of Christ. 
 
 From this time forth. Prince Henry prose- 
 cuted his explorations with a fixity of purpose 
 which could not but ensure success. Through 
 every discouragement he persevered still. Many 
 a Swiss peak has gone through three phases. It 
 has been pronounced, first, " inaccessible," then, 
 "a very dangerous ascent," and finally, "a pleasant 
 excursion." So it was with each fresh headland 
 which seemed to bar the way down the African 
 coast. And the travellers who came last, in each 
 case, found it next to impossible to imagine what 
 were the difficulties and dangers that had seemed 
 so formidable to their predecessors. 
 
 Eor a long time Cape Bojador, which is situate 
 
BARRIER OF ROCKS. 15 
 
 seventy leagues to the south of Cape Nam, was 
 the extreme limit of discovery. This cape was 
 formidable in itself, being terminated by a ridge 
 of rocks, with fierce currents running round 
 them; but was much more formidable from the 
 fancies which the mariners had formed of the sea 
 and land beyond it. " It is clear," they were 
 wont to say, " that beyond this cape there are 
 no people whatever ; the land is as bare as Libya- 
 no water, no trees, no grass in it; the sea so 
 shallow, that at a league from the land it is only 
 a fathom deep; the currents so fierce, that the 
 ship which passes that cape will never return ; " 
 and thus their theories were brought in to justify 
 their fears. 
 
 This outstretcher (for such is the meaning of 
 the word Bojador) was therefore as a bar drawn 
 across that advance in maritime discovery, which 
 had for so long a time been the first object of 
 Prince Henry's life. 
 
 For twelve years the prince had been sending 
 forth ships and men, with little approbation, from 
 the public — the discovery of Madeira and Porto 
 Santo serving to whet his appetite for further 
 enterprise, but not winning the common voice in 
 
16 POPULAR OBJECTIONS. 
 
 favour of his projects. The people at home, im- 
 proving upon the reports of the sailors, said that 
 " the land which the prince sought after was 
 merely some sandy place like the deserts of 
 Libya ; that princes had possessed the empire 
 of the world, and yet had not undertaken such 
 designs as his, nor shown such anxiety to find 
 new kingdoms ; that the men who arrived in those 
 foreign parts (if they did arrive) turned from white 
 into black men; that the king, Don John, the 
 prince's father, had endowed foreigners with land 
 in his kingdom, to break it up and cultivate it, — 
 a thing very different from taking the people out 
 of Portugal, which had need of them, to bring 
 them amongst savages to be eaten, and to place 
 them upon lands of which the mother country had 
 no need ; that the Author of the world had pro- 
 vided these islands solely for the habitation of 
 wild beasts, of which an additional proof was that 
 those rabbits which the discoverers themselves 
 had introduced were now dispossessing them of 
 the island." 
 
 There is much here of the usual captiousness 
 CO be found in the criticism of bystanders upon 
 action, mixed with a great deal of false assertion 
 
MISGIVINGS OF PRINCE HENRY. 17 
 
 and assumed knowledge of the ways of Providence. 
 Still, it were to be wished that most criticism 
 upon action was as wise; for that part of the 
 common talk which spoke of keeping their own 
 population to bring out their own resources, had 
 a wisdom in it which the men of future centuries 
 were yet to discover throughout the Peninsula. 
 
 Prince Henry, as may be seen by his perse- 
 verance up to this time, was not a man to have 
 his purposes diverted by such criticism, much of 
 which must have been, in his eyes, worthless and 
 inconsequent in the extreme. Nevertheless, he 
 had his own misgivings. His captains came back 
 one after another, with no good tidings of dis- 
 covery, but with petty plunder gained as they 
 returned from incursions on the Moorish coast. 
 The prince concealed from them his chagrin at 
 the fruitless nature of their attempts, but pro- 
 bably did not feel it less on that account. He 
 began to think. Was it for him to hope to dis- 
 cover that land which had been hidden from so 
 many princes? Still he felt within himself the 
 incitement of " a virtuous obstinacy," which would 
 not let him rest. Would it not, he thought, be 
 ingratitude to God, who thus moved his mind to 
 c 
 
18 GIL EANNES. 
 
 these attempts, if he were to desist from his work, 
 or be negligent in it ? He resolved, therefore, to 
 send out again Gil Eannes, one of his household, 
 who had been sent the year before, but had re- 
 turned, like the rest, having discovered nothing. 
 He had been driven to the Canary Islands, and 
 had seized upon some of the natives there, whom 
 he brought back. With this transaction the prince 
 had shown himself dissatisfied ; and Gil Eannes, 
 now entrusted again with command, resolved to 
 meet all dangers, rather than to disappoint the 
 wishes of his master. Before his departure, the 
 prince called him aside and said, " You cannot 
 meet with such peril that the hope of your re- 
 ward shall not be much greater ; and, in truth, I 
 wonder what imagination this is that you have all 
 taken up — in a matter, too, of so little certainty ; 
 for if these things which are reported bad any 
 authority, however little, I would not blame you 
 so much. But you quote to me the opinions of 
 four mariners, who, as they were driven out of 
 their way to Frandes or to some other ports to 
 which they commonly navigated, had not, and 
 could not have used, the needle and the chart : 
 but do you go, however, and make your voyage 
 
HIS SUCCESSFUL VOYAGE. 19 
 
 without regard to their opinion, and, by the grace 
 of God, you will not bring out of it anything but 
 honour and profit." 
 
 We may well imagine that these stirring words 
 of the prince must have confirmed Gil Eannes in 
 his resolve to efface the stain of his former mis- 
 adventure. And he succeeded in doing so; for 
 he passed the dreaded Cape Bojador — a great 
 event in the history of African discovery, and one 
 that in that day was considered equal to a labour 
 of Hercules. Gil Eannes returned to a grateful 
 and most delighted master. He informed the 
 prince that he had landed, and that the soil ap- 
 peared to him unworked and fruitful ; and, like a 
 prudent man, he could not only tell of foreign 
 plants, but had brought some of them home with 
 him in a barrel of the new-found earth, plants 
 much like those which bear, in Portugal, the roses 
 of Santa Maria. The prince rejoiced to see them, 
 and gave thanks to God, " as if they had been 
 the fruit and sign of the promised land; and 
 besought our Lady, whose name the plants bore, 
 that she would guide and set forth the doings in 
 this discovery to the praise and glory of God, and 
 to the increase of His holy faith." 
 
•20 ANTONIO GONCALVEZ. 
 
 The old world had now obtained a glimpge 
 beyond Cape Bojador. The fearful " outstretcher " 
 had no longer much interest for them, being a thing 
 that was overcome, and which was to descend from 
 an impossibility to a landmark, from which, by 
 degrees, they would almost silently steal down the 
 coast, counting their miles by thousands, until 
 Vasco de Gama should boldly carry them round 
 to India. But now came stormy times for the 
 Portuguese kingdom, and the troubles of the 
 regency occupied the prince's attention to the 
 exclusion of cosmography. 
 
 In 1441, however, there was a voyage which 
 led to very important consequences. In that 
 year Antonio Gon9alvez, master of the robes to 
 Prince Henry, was sent out with a vessel to load 
 it with skins of " sea-wolves," a number of them 
 having been seen, during a former voyage, at the 
 mouth of a river about a hundred and fifty miles 
 beyond Cape Bojador. Gon9alvez resolved to sig- 
 nalize his voyage by a feat that should gratify his 
 master more than the capture of sea-wolves ; and 
 he accordingly planned and executed successfully 
 an expedition for seizing some Azeneghi Moors, 
 in order, as he told his companions, to take home 
 
RTS CAPTURJE OF MOORS. 21 
 
 " some of the language of that country." Tris- 
 tam, another of Prince Henry's captains, after- 
 wards falling in with Gon^alvez, a further capture 
 of Moors was made, and Gon^alvez returned to 
 Portugal with the spoil. This voyage seems to 
 have prompted the application which Prince Henry 
 made, in the same year, to Pope Martin the Fifth, 
 praying that his holiness would grant to the Por- 
 tuguese crown all that should be conquered, from 
 Cape Bojador to the Indies, together with plenary 
 indulgence for those who should die while engaged 
 in such conquests. The pope granted these re- 
 quests ; though afterwards, as we shall see, the 
 Spanish discoveries of Columbus and his successors 
 rendered it necessary that the terms of the grant 
 should be modified, " And now," says a Portu- 
 guese historian, " with this apostolic grace, with 
 the breath of royal favour, and already with the 
 applause of the people, the prince pursued his 
 purpose with more courage, and with greater 
 outlay." 
 
 One proof of this popular approval was fur- 
 nished by the formation of a company at Lagos, 
 in 1444, who received permission from the prince 
 to undertake discovery along the coast of Africa, 
 
22 COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 paying him a certain portion of any gains which 
 they might make. Whether the company was 
 expressly founded for slave traffic may be doubt- 
 ful; but it is certain that this branch of their 
 business was soon found to be the most lucra- 
 tive one, and that from this time Europe may 
 be said to have made a distinct beginning in 
 the slave-trade, henceforth to spread on all 
 sides, like the waves on troubled water, and not, 
 like them, to become fainter and fainter as the 
 circles widen. For slavery was now assuming an 
 entirely new phase. Hitherto, the slave had been 
 merely the captive in war, " the fruit of the spear," 
 as he has figuratively been called, who lived in the 
 house of his conqueror, and laboured at his lands. 
 Now, however, the slave was no longer an acci- 
 dent of war. He had become the object of war. 
 He was no longer a mere accidental subject of 
 barter. He was to be sought for, to be hunted 
 out, to be produced ; and this change accordingly 
 gave rise to a new branch of commerce. 
 
 Some time before 1454 a Portuguese factory 
 was established at one of the Arguim islands, and 
 this factory soon systematized the slave-trade. 
 Thither came all kinds of merchandize from Per- 
 
THE SLAVE TRADE. 23 
 
 tugal, and gold and slaves were taken back in 
 return ; the number of the latter sent home an- 
 nually, at the time of Ca da Mosto's visit in 1454, 
 being between seven and eight hundred. 
 
 The narrative of the Portuguese voyages along 
 the African coast is, for the most part, rather un- 
 inviting. It abounds with names, and dates, and 
 facts ; but the names are often hard to pronounce, 
 the dates have sometimes an air of uncertainty 
 about them, and the facts stand out in hard relief, 
 dry and unattractive. Could we recall, however, 
 the voyagers themselves, and listen to their story, 
 we should find it animating enough. Each en- 
 terprise, as we have it now, with its bare statistics, 
 seems a meagre affair ; but it was far otherwise to 
 the men who were concerned in it. Of the mo- 
 tives* impelling men to engage in such expe- 
 
 * " They err who regard the conquistadores as led only 
 by a thirst for gold, or even exclusively by religious fana- 
 ticism. Dangers always exalt the poetry of life, and more- 
 over, the powerful age which we here seek to depict in 
 regard to its influence on the development of cosmical 
 ideas, gave to all enterprises, as well as to the impressions 
 of nature offered by distant voyages, the charm of novelty 
 
24 AIM OF THE ADVENTURERS. 
 
 ditions, something has already been said. But 
 besides the hopes and fears of each individual of 
 the crew, the conjoint enterprise had in it a life 
 to be lived, and a career to be worked out. It 
 started to do something ; fulfilled its purpose, or 
 at least some purpose ; and then came back, 
 radiant with success — from that time forward to 
 be a great fact in history. Or, on the other hand, 
 there was some small failure or mischance, per- 
 haps early in the voyage ; the sailors then began 
 to reckon up ill omens, and to say that little good 
 would come of this business. Further on, some 
 serious misadventure happened which made them 
 turn, or from the mere lapse of time they were 
 obliged to bethink themselves of getting back. 
 Safety, not renown or profit, now became their 
 object ; and then hope was at last but the nega- 
 tive of some fear. Thereupon, no doubt, ensued 
 a good deal of recrimination amongst themselves, 
 for very few people are magnanimous enough to 
 
 and surprise, which begins to be wanting to our present 
 more learned age in the many regions of the earth which 
 are now open to us." — Humboldt's Kosmos. Sabine's trans- 
 lation, 1848, vol. ii. p. 272. 
 
CA DA MOSTO. 25 
 
 share ill-success kindly together. Then, in the 
 long dull evenings of their voyage homewards, as 
 they sat looking on the waters, they thought what 
 excuses and explanations they would make to 
 their friends at home, and how shame and vexa- 
 tion would mingle with their joy at returning. 
 
 This transaction, teeming, as it did, with anxious 
 life, makes but a poor show in some chronicle : — 
 they sailed, and did something, or failed in doing, 
 and then came back, and this was in such a year : 
 — brief records, like the entry in an almanack, or 
 the few emphatic words on a tombstone. 
 
 At the period, however, we are now entering 
 upon, the annals of maritime discovery are fortu- 
 nately enriched by the account of a voyager who 
 could tell more of the details of what he saw than 
 we have hitherto heard from other voyagers, and 
 who was himself his own chronicler. 
 
 In 1454, Ca da Mosto, a young Venetian, who 
 had already gained some experience in voyaging, 
 happened to be on board a Venetian galley that 
 was detained by contrary winds at Cape St. Vin- 
 cent. Prince Henry was then living close to the 
 Cape. He sent his secretary and the Venetian 
 consul on board the galley. They told of the 
 
26 CA DA MOSTO. 
 
 great things the prince had done, showed samples 
 of the commodities that came from the lands dis- 
 covered by him (Madeira sugars, dragon's blood, 
 and other articles), and spoke of the gains made 
 by Portuguese voyagers being as great as 700 or 
 1000 per cent. Ca da Mosto expressed his wish 
 to be employed, was informed of the terms that 
 would be granted, and heard that a Venetian 
 would be well received by the prince, " because 
 he was of opinion, that spices and other rich 
 merchandise might be found in those parts, and 
 knew that the Venetians understood these commo- 
 dities better than any other nation." 
 
 In fine, Ca da Mosto saw the prince, and was 
 evidently much impressed by his noble bearing. 
 He obtained his wishes, and being furnished with 
 a caravel, he embarked his merchandise in it, and 
 set oflP on a voyage of discovery. There was now, 
 for the first time, an intelligent man on board one 
 of these vessels, giving us his own account of the 
 voyage. 
 
 From Ca da Mosto the reader at once learns 
 the state of things with regard to the slave-trade. 
 The Portuguese factory at Arguim was the head 
 quarters of the trade. Thither came all kinds 
 
TRADE WITH THE ARABS. 27 
 
 of merchandise ; and gold and slaves were taken 
 back in return. The "Arabs" of that district 
 (Moors, the Portuguese would have called them) 
 were the middle men in this affair. They took 
 their Barbary horses to the negro country, and 
 "there bartered with the great men for slaves," 
 getting from ten to eighteen slaves for each horse. 
 They also brought silks of Granada and Tunis, 
 and silver, in exchange for which they received 
 slaves and gold. These Arabs, or Moors, had a 
 place of trade of their own, called Hoden, behind 
 Cape Blanco. There the slaves were brought, 
 " from whence," Ca da Mosto says, " they are 
 sent to the mountains of Barka, and from thence 
 to Sicily ; part of them are also brought to Tunis, 
 and along the coast of Barbary, and the rest 
 to Argin, and sold to the licensed Portuguese. 
 Every year between seven and eight hundred 
 slaves are sent from Argin to Portugal." 
 
 " Before this trade was settled," says Ca da 
 Mosto, " the Portuguese used to seize upon the 
 Moors themselves (as appears occasionally from 
 the evidence that has before been referred to), 
 and also the Azenegues, who live further towards 
 the south ; but now peace is restored to all, and 
 
28 THE SENEGAL RIVER. 
 
 the Infante suffers no further damage to be done 
 to these people. He is In hopes, that by con- 
 versing with Christians, they may easily be brought 
 over to the Romish faith, as they are not, as yet, 
 well established in that of Mohammed, of which 
 they know nothing but by hear-say." 
 
 No doubt the prince's good intentions were 
 greatly furthered by the convenience of this mode 
 of trading. In short, gain made for itself its usual 
 convenient channels to work in, and saved itself 
 as much as it could the trouble of discovery, or 
 of marauding. Ca da Mosto being, as was said 
 before, the first modern European visiting Africa 
 who himself gives an account of it, and being, 
 moreover, an honest and intelligent man, possess- 
 ing the rare combination of keen observation and 
 clear narrative power, all that he writes is most 
 valuable. He notices the difierences, both as re- 
 gards the people and the country, to be found 
 on the opposite sides of the Senegal River. On 
 the northern side he finds the men small, spare 
 and tawny, the country arid and barren ; on the 
 southern side, the men " exceeding black, tall, 
 corpulent and well made ; the country green, and 
 full of green trees." This latter is the country 
 
KING BUDOMEL. 29 
 
 of Jalofj the same that Prince Henry first heard 
 of in his intercourse with the Moors. Both men 
 and women, Ca da Mosto says, wash themselves 
 four or five times a day, being very cleanly as to 
 their persons, but not so in eating, in which they 
 observe no rule. They are full of words, and 
 never have done talking; and are, for the most 
 part, liars and cheats. Yet, on the other hand, 
 they are very charitable ; for they give a dinner 
 or a night's lodging and a supper, to all strangers 
 who come to their houses, without expecting any 
 return. 
 
 Leaving the country of the Jalofs, Ca da Mosto 
 proceeded eight hundred miles further, as he says, 
 (but he must, I think, have over-estimated his 
 reckoning,) to the country of a negro potentate, 
 called King Budomel. Here it appears that the 
 religion, of the court at least, was Mohammedan, 
 and Ca da Mosto records a conversation which 
 he had with Budomel upon the subject. " The 
 king asked him to give his opinion of their 
 manner of worship, and also some account of 
 his own religion. Hereupon Ca da Mosto told 
 him, in presence of his doctors, that the religion 
 of Mohammed was false, and the Romish the true 
 
30 THE RIVER GAMBRA. 
 
 one. This made the Arabs mad, and Budomel 
 laugh; who, on this occasion, said that he looked 
 upon the religion of the Europeans to be good, 
 for that none but God could have given them so 
 much riches and understanding. He added, hov7- 
 ever, that the Mohammedan law must be also 
 good ; and that he believed the negroes were 
 more sure of salvation than the Christians; be- 
 cause God was a just Lord, and therefore, as He 
 had given the latter Paradise in this world, it 
 ought to be possessed in the Avorld to come by 
 the negroes, who had scarcely anything here, in 
 comparison with the others." 
 
 From Budomel's country the voyagers, sailing 
 southwards, came to the river Gambra (now called 
 Gambia), which they entered, but could not suc- 
 ceed in conciliating the natives, who attacked 
 them with signal valour, and maintained the con- 
 test with almost unparalleled bravery, considering 
 that the arms used by the Europeans were totally 
 unknown to their opponents. 
 
 During their stay in this river Ca da Mosto 
 and his companions saw the constellation of the 
 southern cross for the first time. Finding that 
 the natives would have nothing to do with them, 
 
FURTHER DISCOVERIES. 31 
 
 for they believed that the Christians were very 
 bad people, and bought negroes to eat them, Ca 
 da Mosto and the other commanders wished to 
 proceed a hundred miles further up the river; 
 but the common sailors would not hear of it, and 
 the expedition forthwith returned to Portugal. 
 
 Two years later, in 1456, Ca da Mosto made 
 another voyage, in the course of which he dis- 
 covered the Cape de Verde Islands. Leaving 
 them, he went again to the Gambia River, which 
 he ascended much further than he had done during 
 his previous expedition, and he also succeeded on 
 this occasion in conciliating the natives. Then 
 he went down the coast, passed Cape E,oxo, and 
 afterwards sailed up the EIo Grande, but, from 
 want of any knowledge of the language of the 
 people, was unable to prosecute his explorations 
 among them. 
 
 Some time between 1460 and 1464, an expe- 
 dition went out under Pedro de Cintra, one of the 
 King of Portugal's gentlemen, to make further dis- 
 coveries along the African coast. These voyagers, 
 whose story is briefly told by Ca da Mosto, dis- 
 covered Sierra Leone (so called on account of the 
 roaring thunder heard there), and went a little 
 
32 DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY. 
 
 beyond Cape Mesurado. The precise date of 
 this voyage is uncertain, but we may fairly con- 
 sider Sierra Leone as being the point attained at, 
 or about, the death of Prince Henry in 1463, of 
 whose character, before parting with him, some- 
 thing deserves to be said. 
 
 This great leader of maritime discovery re- 
 sembled Columbus strongly in one thing, namely, 
 his unity of purpose. He resembled him, too, in 
 his patience and in his unvarying confidence of 
 success, even under disappointment. " He was 
 bold and valorous in war, versed in arts and 
 letters ; a skilful fencer ; in the mathematics 
 superior to all men of his time ; generous in the 
 extreme ; most zealous for the increase of the 
 faith. No bad habit was known in him. His 
 memory was equal to the authority he bore, and 
 his prudence equal to his memory."* And to this 
 character the chrnnicler, Azurara, who evidently 
 knew the prince well, and speaks with perfect 
 honesty about him, adds two or three of those 
 little niceties of description which give life and 
 reality to the picture. He says that the prince 
 
 * Faria y Sousa. 
 
HIS CHARACTER. 33 
 
 was a man of great counsel and authority, wise 
 and of good memory, but in some things slow, 
 whether it was through the prevalence of the 
 phlegmatic temperament in his constitution, or 
 from intentional deliberation, being moved to 
 some end which men did not perceive. 
 
 It was this temperament, probably, that made 
 the prince incapable of " ill-will against any per- 
 son, however great the injury he had received 
 from him," so that this placidity of disposition 
 seemed an actual fault in him. He was accord- 
 ingly thought " deficient in distributive justice." 
 There are instances in his conduct which bear 
 out this, and one especially, in which he is stated 
 to have overlooked the desertion of his banner, 
 on an occasion of great peril to himself, and after- 
 wards to have unjustly favoured the persons who 
 had thus been found wanting in courage. This, 
 no doubt, was an error on his part, but at least it 
 was an heroic one, such as belonged to the first 
 Caesar ; and in the estimation of the prince's fol- 
 lowers, it probably added to their liking for the 
 man what little it may have taken away from 
 their confidence in the precision of his justice as a 
 commander. 
 
 D 
 
34 PRINCE HENRY'S CHARACTER. 
 
 We learn, from the same authority, that hia 
 house was the resort of all the good men of the 
 kingdom, and of foreigners, and that he was a 
 man of intense labour and study. " Often the 
 sun found him in the same place where it had 
 left him the day before, he having watched 
 throughout the whole arc of the night without 
 any rest." 
 
 Altogether, whether we consider this prince's 
 motives, his objects, his deeds, or his mode of life, 
 we must acknowledge him to be one of the most 
 notable men, not merely of his own country and 
 period, but of modern times and of all nations, 
 and one upon whose shoulders might worthily 
 rest the arduous beginnings of continuous mari- 
 time discovery. Would that such men remained 
 to govern the lands they have the courageous 
 foresight to discover ! Then, indeed, they might 
 take to themselves the motto talant de Men faire, 
 which this prince, their great leader, caused to be 
 inscribed by his captains in many a land, that 
 as yet, at least, has not found much good from its 
 introduction, under his auspices, to the civilization 
 of an older world. 
 
 Hurrying over this preliminary sketch, we may 
 
PRESTER JOHN. 35 
 
 briefly note that about six years after Prince 
 Henry's death, the Gold Coast was explored by 
 Fernando Gomez, and the Portuguese fort was 
 built there which Columbus afterwards visited; 
 that Fernando Po discovered an island which was 
 then called Formosa, but which is now known by 
 the name of its discoverer; and that Diego Cam, ac- 
 companied, it is said, by Martin Behaim (Martin of 
 Bohemia), the most celebrated geographer of those 
 times — to whom, by the way, some of the credit 
 exclusively due to Columbus has been rather un- 
 fairly given — discovered the kingdom of Congo. 
 About this time an ambassador sent to the King 
 of Portugal by the sovereign of Benin, a territory 
 between the Gold Coast and Congo, happened to 
 speak about a greater power in Africa than his 
 master, to whom indeed his master was but the 
 vassal. This instantly set the Portuguese king 
 thinking about Prester John, of whom legends 
 spoke as a Christian king ruling over a Christian 
 nation somewhere in what was vaguely called 
 the Indies; and the search after whom is, in 
 maritime discovery, what the alchemist's pur- 
 suit after the philosopher's stone was in che- 
 mistry. The king concluded that this " greater 
 
36 BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS. 
 
 power" must be Prester John ; and accordingly 
 Bartholomew Diaz and two other captains were 
 sent out on further discovery. They did not 
 find Prester John, but made their way southwards 
 along a thousand and fifty miles of new coast, as 
 far as a cape which, from experience, they called 
 Cape Stormy, but which their master, seeing in 
 its discovery an omen of better things, renamed 
 as the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 It is a fact of great historical interest, and a 
 singular link between African and American dis- 
 covery, that Bartholomew Columbus, brother of 
 Christopher, was engaged in this voyage. The 
 authority for this important statement is Las 
 Casas, who says that he found, in a book be- 
 longing to Christopher Columbus, being one of 
 the works of Cardinal Aliaco, a note "in Bar- 
 tholomew Colon's handwriting," (which he knew 
 well, having several of the letters and papers 
 concerning the expedition in his own posses- 
 sion), which note gives a short account, in bad 
 Latin, of the voyage, mentions the degree of 
 latitude of the Cape, and concludes with the 
 words " in quiSus omnibus interfui." 
 
 In fiction, too, this voyage of Bartholomew 
 
PASSAGE IN THE "ZUSIADAS." 37 
 
 Diaz was very notable, as it presented an occa- 
 sion for the writing of one of the most celebrated 
 passages in modern poetry, a passage not easily to 
 be surpassed for its majesty and tenderness, and 
 for a beauty which even those tiresome allusions 
 to the classics, that give a faded air to so much 
 of the poetry of the sixteenth century, cannot 
 seriously disfigure nor obscure. 
 
 It is to be found in the Lusiadas of Camoens, 
 and indicates the culminating point of Portu- 
 guese discovery in Africa, as celebrated by the 
 national poet. 
 
 Just as the mariners approach the Cape, a 
 cloud rises, darkens the air, and then discloses a 
 monstrous giant, with deep-set, caverned eyes, of 
 rugged countenance, and pallid earthy colour, vast 
 as that statue of Apollo, the colossal wonder of 
 the world. In solemn language, this awful shape 
 pours forth disastrous prophecies, and threatens 
 his highest vengeance on those who have dis- 
 covered him — maledictions which, alas! may be 
 securely uttered against those who accomplish 
 aught that is bolder than has hitherto been at- 
 tempted by their fellow men. 
 
 When vexed by the question "Who art thou?" 
 
38 PASSAGE IN THE "LUSIADAS." 
 
 the "stupendous body" harshly and mournfully 
 replies, that he is that great stormy Cape, hitherto 
 hidden from mankind, whom their boldness in 
 discovering much offends. 
 
 He then relates the touching story of his love: 
 how he was Adamastor, of the race of Titans, 
 and how he loved Thetis, the fairest being of the 
 sea; and how, deceived by the (magic) arts of her 
 " who was the life of his body," he found himself 
 caressing a rough and horrid crag instead of her 
 sweet, soft countenance; and how, crazed by grief 
 and by dishonour, he wandered forth to seek 
 another world, where no one should behold him 
 and mock his misery ; how still the vengeance of 
 the gods pursued him ; and how he felt his flesh 
 gradually turning into rock, and his members 
 extending themselves among the long waves; and 
 how, for ever to Increase his agony, the beautiful 
 Thetis still encircled him. 
 
 Having told his grief, he made himself into a 
 dark cloud (^Desfez-se a mcvem negro), and the sea 
 roared far off with a sonorous sound. And then 
 the Portuguese mariner lifted up his hands in 
 prayer to the sacred chorus of angels, who had 
 guided the vessel so long on its way, and prayed 
 
COVILHAM AND PAIVA. 39 
 
 God to remove the fulfilment of the evil thinss 
 which Adamastor had prophesied against his 
 nation. 
 
 The Genius of the Stormy Cape might have 
 taken up a direr song of prophecy against the 
 inhabitants of the unfortunate land of which he 
 formed so conspicuous and mournful a promi- 
 nence. 
 
 Maritime discovery had now, by slow and pain- 
 ful degrees, proceeded down the coast of Africa, 
 nearly to the southernmost point, and from thence 
 will soon be curving round in due course to India. 
 But expeditions by sea were not the only modes 
 of discovery undertaken by the Portuguese in 
 the reign of John the Second of Portugal. Pedro 
 de Covilham and Alfonso de Paiva went on an 
 enterprise of discovery mainly by land. The 
 latter died at Cairo, the former made his way to 
 Cananor, Calecut, and Goa, and thence back to 
 Cairo, where he found that his companion had 
 died. He then set out again, and eventually 
 came into the kingdom of Shoa,* to the court of 
 
 * A country in the south of Abyssinia. Tegulet, the 
 ancient capital of Shoa, is in 38° 40' E. long., and 9° 45' 
 
 N. lat. 
 
40 BEMOIN, PRINCE OF JALOF. 
 
 " the King of Habbesh," who fulfilled sufficiently 
 in Covilham's eyes, the idea of Prester John, and 
 was accordingly called so. It is a curious coin- 
 cidence, that an ambassador from the King of 
 Habbesh, called Lucas Marcos, a priest of that 
 country, came about this time to Eome^ and after- 
 wards to Lisbon, which circumstance gave a new 
 impetus to all the King of Portugal's "hopes, 
 wishes, and endeavours." 
 
 A more remarkable person even than an am- 
 bassador from Prester John arrived nearly at the 
 same time at Lisbon. This was Bemoin, Prince 
 of Jalof. Bemoin came to seek the protection of 
 the King of Portugal, and the reason of his 
 coming was as follows. He was the brother, 
 on the mother's side, of Brian, King of Jalof. 
 This king was inert and vicious. He had, 
 however, the wisdom to make Bemoin prime 
 minister, and to throw all the cares and troubles 
 of governing upon him. Nothing was heard in 
 the kingdom but of Bemoin. But he, seeing, 
 perhaps, the insecurity of his position, diligently 
 made friends with the Portuguese, keeping aloof, 
 however, from becoming a convert, though he 
 listened respectfully to those who expounded the 
 
HIS RECEPTION AT LISBON. 41 
 
 Christian faith to him. Cibitab, a brother of the 
 inert Brian, by the father's side, became jealous 
 of Bemoin, revolted, killed Brian, and vanquished 
 Bemoin, who thereupon threw himself upon the 
 protection of his Portuguese friends, and came to 
 Lisbon. 
 
 Bemoin was received magnificently by King 
 John of Portugal. The negro prince had for- 
 merly alleged that one of his reasons for not 
 becoming a Christian was the fear of disgusting 
 his followers ; but, being in Portugal, that reason 
 no longer held good, and he became a convert, 
 being baptized as Don John Bemoin, having King 
 John for a godfather. Twenty-four of Bemoin's 
 gentlemen received baptism after him. This is 
 the account of his reception. " Bemoin, because 
 he was a man of large size and fine presence, about 
 forty years old, with a long and weU-arranged 
 beard, appeared indeed not like a barbarous 
 pagan, but as one of our own princes, to whom 
 all honour and reverence were due. With equal 
 majesty and gravity of demeanour he commenced 
 and finished his oration, using such inducements 
 to make men bewail his sad fortune in exile, that 
 only seeing these natural signs of sorrow, people 
 
42 BJEMOIN'S RECEPTION. 
 
 comprehended what the Interpreter afterwards 
 said. Havinff finished the statement of his case 
 as a good orator would, in declaring that his only 
 remedy and only hope was in the greatness and 
 generosity of the king, with whom he spoke aside 
 for a short time, he was answered hy the king in 
 few words, so much to his satisfaction that imme- 
 diately it made a change in his whole look, spirits, 
 and bearing, rendering him most joyous. Taking 
 leave of the king, he went to kiss the queen's 
 hand, and then that of the prince, to whom he 
 said a few words, at the end of which he prayed 
 the prince that he would intercede in his favour 
 with the king. And thence he was conducted 
 to his lodgings by all the nobility that had ac- 
 companied him." 
 
 After this, Bemoin had many conversations 
 with the king, and always acquitted himself well. 
 Amongst other things, he gave information re- 
 specting various African nations, and especially of 
 the king of a Jewish people, who in many things 
 resembled Christians. Here again the Portu- 
 guese monarch was delighted at finding himself 
 upon the traces of Prester John. 
 
 It must not be forgotten to mention, that the 
 
HIS FATE. 43 
 
 king made great rejoicings in honour of Bemoin's 
 conversion, on which occasion the negro prince's 
 attendants performed singular feats on liorseback. 
 
 Bemoin maintained his favour at the Portu- 
 guese court, and succeeded in his object of obtain- 
 ing military assistance. He was sent back to 
 his own country with a Portuguese squadron of 
 twenty caravels, which had for its instructions, 
 besides his restitution, to found a fort on the 
 banks of the river Senegal. 
 
 The Portuguese arrived at the river, and began 
 building the fort, but are said to have chosen an 
 unhealthy spot to build on. Whether they could 
 have chosen a healthy one is doubtful. The 
 commander, however, Pedro Vaz, thought that 
 there was treachery on Bemoin's part, and killed 
 him with the blow of a dagger on board his 
 vessel. The building was discontinued, and 
 Pedro Vaz returned to Portugal, where he found 
 the king excessively vexed and displeased at the 
 fate of Bemoin. 
 
 The historian may now stop in his task of 
 tracing Portuguese discovery along the coast of 
 Africa. "We have seen it making its way with 
 quiet perseverance, for seventy years, from Cape 
 
44 PRINCE HENRY'S PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 Nam to the Cape of Good Hope, a distance of 
 some six thousand miles. This long course of 
 discovery has been almost entirely thrown into 
 shade by the more daring and brilliant discovery 
 of America, which we have now to enter upon. 
 Yet these proceedings on the African coast had 
 in them all the energy, perseverance, and courage 
 which distinguished American discovery. Prince 
 Henry himself was hardly a less personage than 
 Columbus. They had different elements to con- 
 tend in. But the man whom princely wealth and 
 position, and the temptation to intrigue which 
 there must have been in the then state of the 
 Portuguese court, never induced to swerve from 
 the one purpose which he maintained for forty 
 years, unshaken by popular clamour, however 
 sorely vexed he might be with inward doubts 
 and misgivings; who passed laborious days and 
 watchful nights in devotion to this one purpose, 
 enduring the occasional short-comings of his 
 agents with that forbearance which springs from 
 a care for the enterprise in hand, so deep as to 
 control private vexation (the very same motive 
 which made Columbus bear so mildly with insult 
 and contumely from his followers), — such a man is 
 
SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE. 45 
 
 worthy to be put in comparison with the other great 
 discoverer who worked out his enterprise through 
 poverty, neglect, sore travail, and the vicissitudes 
 of courts. Moreover, it must not be forgotten 
 that Prince Henry was undoubtedly the father 
 of modern geographical discovery, and that the 
 result of his exertions must have given much 
 impulse to Columbus, Lf it did not first move 
 him to his great undertaking. After the above 
 eulogium on Prince Henry, which is not the least 
 more than he merited, his kinsmen, the contem- 
 porary Portuguese monarchs, should come in for 
 their share of honourable mention, as they seem 
 to have done their part in African discovery with 
 much vigour, without jealousy of Prince Henry, 
 and with high and noble aims. It would also be 
 but just to include, in some part of this praise, the 
 many brave captains who distinguished themselves 
 in these enterprises. 
 
 How far the great discoverer, on whose career 
 we are about to enter, was himself actually con- 
 cerned in these African expeditions we have no 
 means of deciding. But there can be little doubt 
 that this raising the curtain of the unknown, this 
 glimpse of new countries, gave a keen stimulus 
 
46 SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE. 
 
 to the researches of geographers, and, in fact, 
 set the fashion of discovery. Men's minds were 
 drawn into this special channel ; and it remained 
 for Christopher Columbus first to form a sound 
 theory out of the conflicting views of the cos- 
 mographers, and finally to carry out that theory 
 with the boldness and resolution which have made 
 his name one of those beacon-fires which carry 
 on from period to period the tidings of the world's 
 great history through successive ages. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 nearly Years of Columbus. 
 
 \HE question of Columbus's birthplace 
 has been almost as hotly contested as 
 that of Homer's. A succession of pam- 
 phleteers had discussed the pretensions of half a 
 dozen different Italian villages to be the birth- 
 place of the great navigator; but still archse- 
 ologists were divided on the subject, when, at 
 a comparatively recent period, the discovery 
 of the will in which Columbus bequeathed part 
 of his property to the Bank of Genoa, conclu- 
 sively settled the point in favour of that city. 
 "Thence I came," he says, "and there was I 
 born." As to the date of his birth there is no 
 such direct evidence; and conjectures and infer- 
 ences, founded on various statements in his own 
 writings, and in those of his contemporaries, range 
 
48 BIRTH OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 over- the twenty- years _from 1436 to 1456, in 
 attempting to assign the precise time of his ap- 
 pearance in the world. Mr. Irving adopts the 
 earlier of these two dates, upon the authority of 
 a remark by Bernaldez, the curate of Los Pala- 
 cios, which speaks of the death of Columbus in 
 the year 1506, " at a good old age, being seventy 
 years old, a little more or less." But this state- 
 ment has an air of vagueness, and is, moreover, 
 inconsistent with several passages in Columbus's 
 own letters.* And the evidence of the ancient 
 authorities who seem most to be relied on, points 
 rather to the year 1447 or 1448 as the probable 
 date. 
 
 His father was a wool- carder; but this fact 
 does not necessarily imply, in a city of traders like 
 Genoa, that his family was of particularly humble 
 origin. At any rate, like most others, when the 
 light of a great man's birth is thrown upon its 
 records, real and possible, it presents some other 
 names not altogether unworthy to be inscribed 
 
 * " His hair," says his son Fernando, " turned white be- 
 fore he was thirty." This would add to his apparent age, 
 and might have deceived Bernaldez. 
 
HIS EDUCATION. 49 
 
 among the great man's ancestors, Christopher 
 was not, he says in a letter to a lady of the Spanish 
 court, the first admiral of his family — referring, 
 evidently, to two naval commanders bearing his 
 name, who had attained some distinction in the 
 maritime service of Genoa and France, and the 
 younger of whom, Colombo el Mozo, was in com- 
 mand of a French squadron in the expedition 
 undertaken by John of Anjou against Naples for 
 the recovery of the Neapolitan crown. But his 
 relationship with these Colombos, if traceable at 
 all, was probably only a very distant one, and his 
 son, in admitting this, wisely says that the glory 
 of Christopher is quite enough, without there 
 being a necessity to borrow any from his an- 
 cestors. 
 
 At a very early age he became a student at the 
 University of Pavia, where he laid the founda- 
 tions of that knowledge of mathematics and na- 
 tural science, which stood him in good stead 
 throughout his life. At Genoa he would natu- 
 rally regard the sea as the great field of enter- 
 prise which produced harvests of rich wares and 
 spoils of glorious victories; and he may have heard, 
 now and then, news of the latest conclusions of 
 
 E 
 
60 EARLY VOYAGES 
 
 the Arabic geographers at Senaar, and rumours of 
 explorations down the African coast, which would 
 be sure to excite interest among the maritime 
 population of his birthplace. It is not wonderful 
 that, exposed to such influences, he preferred a 
 life of adventure on the sea to the drudgery of 
 his father's trade in Genoa. Accordingly, after 
 finishing his academical course at Pavia, he spent 
 but a few irksome months as a carder of wool 
 (tector ■panni) and actually entered on his nautical 
 career before he was fifteen years old. 
 
 Of his many voyages, which of them took place 
 before, and which after, his coming to Portugal, 
 we have no distinct record ; but are sure that he 
 traversed a large part of the known world, that 
 he visited England, that he made his way to Ice- 
 land and Friesland* (where he may possibly have 
 
 * The account of this voyage to the north of Europe, as 
 commonly quoted, furnishes a singular instance of the in- 
 accuracy of translators in the matter of figures. Columbus 
 is there made to say, that at the Ultima Thule, which 
 he reached, "the tides were so great as to rise and fall 
 twenty-six fathoms," i. e. 156 feet. Of course this is an 
 absurdity ; for no tides in Europe rise much above 
 fifty feet. We have no record of the exact words used 
 by Columbus, but in the extant Italian translation he 
 
OF COLUMBUS. 51 
 
 heard vague tales of the discoveries by the North- 
 men in North America), that he had been at El 
 Mina, on the coast of Guinea, and that he had 
 seen the Islands of the Grecian Archipelago. " I 
 have been seeking out the secrets of nature for 
 forty years," he says, "and wherever ship has 
 sailed, there have I voyaged." But beyond a few 
 vague allusions of this kind, we know scarcely 
 anything of these early voyages. However, he 
 mentions particularly his having been employed 
 by King Kene of Provence to intercept a Vene- 
 tian galliot. And this exploit furnishes illustra- 
 tions both of his boldness and his tact. During 
 the voyage the news was brought that the galliot 
 was convoyed by three other vessels. Thereupon 
 the crew were unwilling to hazard an engagement, 
 and insisted that Columbus should return to 
 
 is made to speak of the rise being venti sei hracchia, i.e. 
 twenty-six ells (not fathoms), or about fifty-two feet. But 
 even this reduced estimate must be excessive. Except 
 in the Bristol Channel there is no rise of tide in the seas of 
 Northern Europe which at all approaches this limit. At 
 Reikiavik (Iceland) the rise is seventeen and a half feet. 
 In Greenland it varies from a minimum of seven feet at 
 Julianshaab to a maximum of twelve and a half feet at 
 Frederikshaab. 
 
52 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Marseilles for re-inforcement. Columbus made 
 a feint of acquiescence, but craftily arranged the 
 compass so that it appeared that they were re- 
 turning, while they were really steering their 
 original course, and so arrived at Carthagena on 
 the next morning, thinking all the while that they 
 were in full sail for Marseilles. 
 
 Considering how much more real the hero of a 
 biography appears if we can picture him accu- 
 rately in our mind's eye, and see him " in his 
 habit as he lived," it is singularly unfortunate that 
 the personal appearance of Columbus has been so 
 variously described by the old historians that it is 
 impossible to speak with certainty on the subject. 
 Strangely enough, too, no well-authenticated por- 
 trait of the great discoverer exists. Ferdinand 
 Columbus, who would be a good authority, fails 
 to give us, in describing his father, any of those 
 little touches which make up a good literary 
 photograph. We learn, however, that he had 
 a commanding presence, that he was above the 
 middle height, with a long countenance, rather 
 full cheeks, an aquiline nose, and light grey 
 eyes full of expression. His hair was naturally 
 light in colour, but, as has been already stated. 
 
OF COLUMBUS. 53 
 
 it turned nearly white ■while he was still a young 
 man. 
 
 The peculiar characteristics of his mind are 
 such as we might naturally expect to find in the 
 originator of such a work as the discovery of 
 America, — who was, indeed, one of the great 
 spirits of the earth ; but still of the same order of 
 soul to which great inventors and discoverers 
 have mostly belonged. Lower down, too, in man- 
 kind, there is much of the same nature leading to 
 various kinds of worthy deeds, though there are 
 no more continents for it to discover. 
 
 But to return to the renowned personage of 
 whom we are speaking. There was great simpli- 
 city about him, and much loyalty and veneration. 
 The truly great are apt to believe in the great- 
 ness of others, and so to be loyal in their relations 
 here ; while, for what is beyond here, a large 
 measure of veneration belongs to them, as having 
 a finer and more habitually present conscious- 
 ness than most men of something infinitely above 
 what even their imaginations can compass. He 
 was as magnanimous as it was possible, perhaps, 
 for so sensitive and impassioned a person to be. 
 He was humane, self-denying, courteous. He 
 
54 COLUMBUS'S DESIRE 
 
 had an intellect of that largely inquiring kind 
 which may remind us of our great English philo- 
 sopher, Bacon. He was singularly resolute and 
 enduring. The Spaniards have a word, longani- 
 midad, which has been well applied in describing 
 him, as it signifies greatness and constancy of 
 mind in adversity. He was rapt in his designs, 
 having a ringing for ever in his ears of great pro- 
 jects, making him deaf to much, perhaps, that 
 prudence might have heeded : — one to be loved 
 by those near him, and likely by his presence 
 to inspire favour and respect. 
 
 At what precise period his great idea came 
 into his mind we have no means of ascertaining. 
 The continuous current of Portuguese discoveries 
 had, as we have seen, excited the mind of Europe, 
 and must have greatly influenced Columbus, living 
 In the midst of them. This may be said without 
 in the least detracting from his merits as a dis- 
 coverer. In real life people do not spring from 
 something baseless to something substantial, as 
 people in sick dreams. A great invention or dis- 
 covery is often like a daring leap, but it is from 
 land to land, not from nothing to something ; and 
 if we look at the subject with this consideration 
 
FOR DISCOVERY. 55 
 
 fully before us, we shall probably admit that 
 Columbus had as large a share in the merit of 
 his discovery as most inventors or discoverers can 
 lay claim to. If the idea which has rendered him 
 famous was not in his mind at the outset of his 
 career of investigation, at any rate he had from 
 the first a desire for discovery, or, as he says 
 himself, the wish to know the secrets of this 
 world. It may be a question whether this im- 
 pulse soon brought him to his utmost height of 
 survey, and that he then only applied to learning 
 to confirm his first views ; or whether the impulse 
 merely carried him along with growing perception 
 of the great truth he was to prove, into deep 
 thinking upon cosmographical studies, Portuguese 
 discoveries, the dreams of learned men, the labours 
 of former geographers, the dim prophetic notices 
 of great unknown lands, and vague reports amongst 
 mariners of driftwood seen on the seas. But at 
 any rate we know that he arrived at a fixed con- 
 clusion that there was a way by the west to the 
 Indies; that he could discover this way, and so 
 come to Cipango, Cathay, the Grand Khan, and all 
 he had met with in the gorgeous descriptions of 
 Marco Polo and other ancient authorities. We 
 
56 COLUMBUS'S THEORY. 
 
 may not pretend to lay down the exact chrono- 
 logical order of the formation of the idea in his 
 mind, in fact, to know more about it than he 
 would probably have been able to tell us himself. 
 And it must not be forgotten that his enterprise, 
 as compared with that of the Portuguese along 
 the coast of Africa, was as an invention compared 
 to an improvement. Each new discovery then 
 was but a step beyond that which had preceded 
 it; Columbus was the first to steer boldly from 
 shore into the waste of waters, an originator, not 
 a mere improver. 
 
 Fernando Columbus divides into three classes 
 the grounds on which his father's theory was 
 based ; namely, reasons from nature, the authority 
 of writers, and the testimony of sailors. He be- 
 lieved the world to be a sphere ; he under-esti- 
 mated its size ; he over-estimated the size of the 
 Asiatic continent. The farther that continent 
 extended to the eastward the nearer it came 
 round towards Spain. And this, in a greater 
 or less degree, had been the opinion of the ancient 
 geographers. Both Aristotle and Seneca thought 
 that a ship might sail "in a few days" from Cadiz 
 to India. Strabo, too, believed that it might be 
 
CARDINAL ALIACO'S '' COSMO GRAPHTA." 57 
 
 possible to navigate on the same parallel of lati- 
 tude, due west from the coast of Africa or Spain 
 to that of India. The accounts given by Marco 
 Polo and Sir John Maundeville of their explo- 
 rations towards China confirmed the exaggerated 
 idea of the extent of Eastern Asia. 
 
 But of all the works of learned men, that which, 
 according to Ferdinand Columbus, had most 
 weight with his father, was the " Cosmographia " 
 of Cardinal Aliaco. And this book affords a 
 good illustration of the then state of scientific 
 knowledge. Learned arguments are interspersed 
 with the most absurd fables of lion-bodied men and 
 dog-faced women ; grave, and sometimes tolerably 
 sound, disquisitions on the earth's surface are mixed 
 up with the wildest stories of monsters and sala- 
 manders, of giants and pigmies. It is here that 
 we find the original of our modern acquaintance, 
 the sea-serpent, described as being " of huge size, 
 so that he kills and devours large stags, and is 
 able to cross the ocean ; " and the wonders of the 
 unknown world are enunciated with a circum- 
 stantial minuteness which must have easily won 
 the credence of a willing disciple like Columbus. 
 He was also confirmed in his views of the exist 
 
58 EVIDENCES OF 
 
 ence of a western passage to the Indies by Paulo 
 Toscanelli, the Florentine philosopher, to whom 
 much credit is due for the encouragement he 
 afforded to the enterprise. That the notices, 
 however, of western lands were not such as to 
 have much weight with other men is sufficiently 
 proved by the difficulty which Columbus had in 
 contending with adverse geographers and men of 
 science in general, of whom, he says, he never 
 was able to convince any one. After a new 
 world had been discovered, many scattered indi- 
 cations were then found to have foreshown it. 
 " When he promised a new hemisphere," writes 
 Voltaire, "people maintained that it could not 
 exist, and when he had discovered it, that it had 
 been known a long time." It was to confute 
 such detractors that he resorted to the well- 
 known expedient for making an egg stand on 
 end ; an illustration of the meaning of originality 
 which, by the way, was not itself original, as 
 Brunelleschi had already employed it when his 
 merit in devising a plan for raising the cupola 
 of Florence cathedral was questioned. 
 
 Of the amount of evidence furnished by the 
 ficstimony of sailors, it is difficult to speak with 
 
A WESTERN WORLD. 59 
 
 any degree of accuracy, Kumours of drift-wood, 
 apparently carved with some savage implements ; 
 of mammoth reeds, corresponding with Ptolemy's 
 account of those indigenous to India ; even of two 
 corpses, cast up on one of the Azores, and pre- 
 senting an appearance quite unlike that of any 
 race of Europe or Africa ; all seem to have come 
 to the willing ears of Columbus, and to have been 
 regarded by him as " confirmations, strong aa 
 proofs of holy writ," of the great theory. 
 
 About the year 1470 Columbus arrived at 
 Lisbon. According to the account given by his 
 son, and adopted by the historian Bossi, he had 
 sailed with Colombo el Mozo (the nephew of that 
 " first Admiral of the family " of whom we have 
 already heard) on a cruise to intercept some Vene- 
 tian merchantmen on their way home from Flan- 
 ders. At break of day the battle began, off Cape 
 St. Vincent, and lasted till nightfall. The priva- 
 teer commanded by Columbus grappled a huge 
 Venetian galley, which, after a hand-to-hand 
 struggle, caught fire, and the flames spread to the 
 privateer. Friends and enemies alike sought 
 safety in the sea, and Columbus, supporting him- 
 self on an oar, succeeded, when nearly exhausted. 
 
eo COLUMBUS AT PORTO SANTO. 
 
 in gaining the land, which was at some six miles' 
 distance. God preserved him, says his son, for 
 greater things. 
 
 It was probably not long after this that he mar- 
 ried Donna Felipa Munnis Perestrelo, who was 
 residing at the convent of All Saints, in Lisbon, 
 where he was a regular attendant at the services 
 of the church. She was a daughter of that cap- 
 tain of Prince Henry's who has been already men- 
 tioned as the first governor of Porto Santo. On 
 that island, after a short residence in the Portu- 
 guese capital, Columbus took up his abode, busying 
 himself with the papers of his deceased father-in- 
 law, and earning a livelihood by making maps 
 and charts for sale. It is a curious fact that the 
 great chief of American discoverers should thus 
 have inhabited a spot which was the first advanced 
 outpost in African discovery. He was here on 
 the high road to Guinea, and being in constant 
 communication with the explorers of the new 
 regions, it was likely that he would become im- 
 bued with some of their enthusiasm "for adven- 
 ture. 
 
 Shrouded in obscurity as this period of his life 
 remains, we are only able to find vague traditions 
 
THE BISHOP OF CEUTA. 61 
 
 of the unsuccessful effort which Columbus made 
 to induce the Senate of Genoa to take up his 
 project. From the Portuguese crown he could 
 scarcely look for help, embroiled as it was in 
 costly wars, and having already a field for disco- 
 very along the African coast, which it would 
 scarcely be wise to forsake for an undertaking 
 similar in kind, but more hazardous and less defi- 
 nite. However, King John the Second, to whom 
 Columbus applied, seems to have listened with 
 attention to the exposition of his scheme, and in- 
 deed, according to the account of Fernando, to 
 have given a sort of qualified promise of his sup- 
 port, but to have disagreed with Columbus as to 
 terms. The king referred the matter to a Com- 
 mittee of Council for Geographical Affairs, before 
 whom Columbus laid his plans; but it is pos- 
 sible that even in the fifteenth century Boards 
 had come to regard projectors as their natural 
 enemies, and the report of the Committee was 
 entirely adverse to the scheme for Atlantic dis- 
 covery. But it seems that the king was not 
 satisfied yet, whereupon the Bishop of Ceuta 
 (who had headed the opposition to Columbus in 
 the Council) suggested that a caravel should be 
 
62 RETURN OF THE CARAVEL. 
 
 secretly equipped and sent out, with instructions 
 founded on the plan laid before the committee. 
 And this piece of episcopal bad faith was actually 
 perpetrated. The caravel, however, returned 
 without having accomplished anything, the sailors 
 not having had heart to adventure far enough 
 westward. It was not an enterprise to be carried 
 out successfully by men who had only stolen the 
 idea of it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Columbus in Spain. 
 
 COLUMBUS, disgusted at the treatment 
 he had received from the Portuguese 
 Court, quitted Lisbon for Spain, pro- 
 bably in the year 1485, with his son Diego, the 
 only issue of his marriage with Donna Pelipa, now 
 no longer living. Here he addressed himself to 
 the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and to the Duke of 
 Medina Celi, whose extensive possessions along 
 the coasts of Spain were likely to incline them in 
 favour of a maritime expedition. There is some 
 uncertainty as to the degree of encouragement 
 which he received from them ; but long after- 
 wards, when Columbus had succeeded, the Duke 
 of Medina Celi wrote to the Cardinal of Spain, 
 showing that he (the duke) had maintained Co- 
 lumbus two years in his house, and was ready to 
 
64 LETTER TO QUEEN ISABELLA. 
 
 have undertaken the enterprise, but that he saw 
 it was one for the queen herself, and even then he 
 wished to have had a part in it. Probably, any man 
 in whose house Columbus resided for two years 
 would have caught some portion of his enthu- 
 siasm, and have been ready to take up his project. 
 It may be conjectured, however, that none of the 
 nobles of the Spanish court would have been 
 likely to undertake the matter without some sanc- 
 tion from the king or queen. To the queen, 
 accordingly, the Duke of Medina Cell addressed a 
 letter, of which Columbus was himself the bearer, 
 commending his enterprise to the royal favour. 
 But the juncture was singularly inopportune for 
 the consideration of any peaceful project. The 
 war with the Moors was raging more and more 
 furiously, as they were driven back, contesting 
 every inch of ground, farther and farther from the 
 heart of the kingdom. The court was now at 
 Cordova, actively preparing for the campaign 
 which was to result in that subjugation of the 
 crescent to the cross, throughout the Peninsula, 
 which was completed by the conquest of Granada 
 some six years later. Amid the clang of arms 
 and the bustle of warlike preparation, Columbus 
 
COLUMBUS AT COURT. 65 
 
 was not likely to obtain more than a slight and 
 superficial attention to a matter which must have 
 seemed remote and uncertain. Indeed, when it is 
 considered that the most pressing internal affairs 
 of kingdoms are neglected by the wisest rulers in 
 times of war, it is wonderful that he succeeded in 
 obtaining any audience at all. However, he was 
 fortunate enough to find at once a friend in the 
 Treasurer of the Household, Alonso de Quinta- 
 nilla, a man who, like himself, " took delight in 
 great things," and who obtained a hearing for him 
 from the Spanish monarchs. Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella did not dismiss him abruptly. On the con- 
 trary, it is said, they listened kindly ; and the 
 conference ended by their referring the business 
 to the Queen's Confessor, Fra Hernando de Tala- 
 vera, who was afterwards Archbishop of Granada. 
 This important functionary summoned a junta of 
 cosmographers (not a promising assemblage !) to 
 consult about the affair, and this junta was con- 
 vened at Salamanca, in the summer of the year 
 1487. Here was a step gained; the cosmographers 
 were to consider his scheme, and not merely to 
 consider whether it was worth taking into consi- 
 deration. But it was impossible for the jury to 
 
 F 
 
66 JUNTA OF COSMOORAPHERS. 
 
 be unprejudiced. All inventors, to a certain ex- 
 tent, insult their contemporaries by accusing them 
 of stupidity and of ignorance. And the cosmo- 
 graphical pedants, accustomed to beaten tracks, 
 resented the insult by which this adventurer was 
 attempting to overthrow the belief of centuries. 
 They thought that so many persons wise in nau- 
 tical matters as had preceded the Genoese mariner 
 never could have overlooked such an idea as this 
 which had presented itself to his mind. More- 
 over, as the learning of the middle ages resided 
 for the most part in the cloister, the members of 
 the junta were principally clerical, and combined 
 to crush Columbus with theological objections. 
 Texts of Scripture were adduced to refute his 
 theory of the spherical shape of the earth, and the 
 weighty authority of the Fathers of the Church 
 was added to overthrow the "foolish idea of 
 the existence of antipodes; of people who walk, 
 opposite to us, with their heels upwards and 
 their heads hanging down ; where everything is 
 topsy turvy, where the trees grow with their 
 branches downwards, and where it rains, hails, 
 and snows upwards." King David, St. Paul, 
 St. Augustine, Lactantius, and a host of other 
 
DECISION OF THE JUNTA. 67 
 
 theological authorities were all put in evidence 
 against the Genoese mariner: he was confronted 
 by the " conservatism of lawyers united to the 
 bigotry of priests." Las Casas displays his usual 
 acuteness when he says that the great difficulty of 
 Columbus was, not that of teaching, but that of 
 unteaching : not of promulgating his own theory, 
 but of eradicating the erroneous convictions of 
 the judges before whom he had to plead his cause. 
 In fine, the junta decided that the project was "vain 
 and impossible, and that it did not belong to the 
 majesty of such great princes to determine any- 
 thing upon such weak grounds of information." 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella seem not to have taken 
 the extremely unfavourable view of the matter 
 entertained by the junta of cosmographers, or at 
 least to have been willing to dismiss Columbus 
 gently, for they merely said that, with the wars 
 at present on their hands, and especially that of 
 Granada, they could not undertake any new ex- 
 penses, but when that war was ended, they would 
 examine his plan more carefully. 
 
 Thus terminated a solicitation at the court 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella which, according to 
 some authorities, lasted five years ; for the facts 
 
68 TEDLOUSNESS OF COLUMBUS'S SUIT 
 
 above mentioned, though short in narration, occu- 
 pied no little time in transaction. During the 
 whole of this period, Columbus appears to have 
 followed the sovereigns in the movements which 
 the war necessitated, and to have been treated by 
 them with much- consideration. Sums were from 
 time to time granted from the royal treasury for 
 his private expenses, and he was billeted as a 
 public functionary in the various towns of Anda- 
 lusia, where the court rested. But his must have 
 been a very up-hill task. Las Casas, who, from 
 an experience larger even than that which fell to 
 the lot of Columbus, knew what it was to endure 
 the cold and indolent neglect of superficial men 
 in small authority, and all the vast delay, which 
 cannot be comprehended except by those who 
 have suffered under It, that belongs to the trans- 
 action of any affair in which many persons have 
 to co-operate, compares the suit of Columbus to 
 a battle, " a terrible, continuous, painful, prolix 
 battle." The tide of this long war (for war it 
 was, rather than a battle) having turned against 
 him, Columbus left the court, and went to Seville 
 " with much sadness and discomfiture." Durin? 
 
 o 
 
 this dreary period of a suitor's life — which, how- 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT OF FRIENDS. 69 
 
 ever, has been endured by some of the greatest 
 men the world has seen, which was well known 
 by close observation, or bitter experience, to 
 Spenser, Camoens, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ba- 
 con — one joy at least was not untasted by 
 Columbus, namely, that of love. His beloved 
 Beatrice, whom he first met at Cordova, must 
 have believed in him, even if no one else had 
 done so; but love was not sui36cient to retain 
 at her side a man goaded by a great idea, or 
 perhaps that love d^d but impel him to still greater 
 efforts for her sake, as is the way with lovers of 
 the nobler sort. 
 
 Other friends, too, shared his enthusiasm, and 
 urged him onward. Juan Perez de la Mar- 
 chena, guardian of the monastery of La Eabida, 
 in Andalusia, had been the confessor of Queen 
 Isabella, but had exchanged the bustle of the 
 court for the learned leisure of the cloister. The 
 little town of Palos, with its seafaring population 
 and maritime interests, was near the monastery, 
 and the principal men of the place were glad to 
 pass the long win.ter evenings in the society of 
 Juan Perez, discussing questions of cosmography 
 and astronomy. Among these visitors were Martin 
 
ro GARCIA HERNANDEZ. 
 
 Alonzo Pinzon, the chief shipowner of Palos, and 
 Garcia Hernandez, the village doctor; and one 
 can fancy how the schemes of Columbus must 
 have appeared to the little conclave as a ray of 
 sunlight in the dulness of their simple life. Her- 
 nandez, especially, who seems to have been some- 
 what skilled in physical science, and therefore 
 capable of appreciating the arguments of Colum- 
 bus, became a warm believer in his project. It is 
 worthy of notice that a person who appears only 
 once, as it were, in a sentence in history, should 
 have exercised so much influence upon it as 
 Garcia Hernandez, who was probably a man of 
 far superior attainments to those around him, and 
 was in the habit of deploring, as such men do, 
 his hard lot in being placed where he could be so 
 little understood. Now, however, he was to do 
 more at one stroke than many a man who has 
 been all his days before the world. Columbus 
 had abandoned his suit at court in disgust, and 
 had arrived at the monastery before quitting 
 Spain to fetch his son Diego, whom he had left 
 with Juan Perez to be educated. All his griefs 
 and struggles he confided to Perez, who could 
 not bear to hear of his intention to leave the 
 
pi:bez writes to the queen, ri 
 
 country for France or England, and to make a 
 foreign nation greater by allowing it to adopt 
 his project. The three friends — the monk, the 
 learned physician, and the skilled cosmographer — 
 discussed together the propositions so unhappily 
 familiar to the last named member of their little 
 council. The affection of Juan Perez and the 
 learning of Hernandez were not slow to follow 
 in the track which the enthusiasm of the great 
 adventurer made out before them ; and they 
 became, no doubt, as convinced as Columbus 
 himself of the feasibility of his undertaking. The 
 difficulty, however, was not in becoming believers 
 themselves, but in persuading those to believe 
 who would have power to further the enterprise. 
 Their discussions upon this point ended in the 
 conclusion that Juan Perez, who was known to 
 the queen, having acted as her confessor, should 
 write to her highness. He did so ; and the result 
 was favourable. The queen sent for him, heard 
 what he had to say, and in consequence remitted 
 money to Columbus to enable him to come to 
 court and renew his suit. He attended the 
 court again; his negotiations were resumed, but 
 were again broken off on the ground of the large- 
 
72 COLUMBUS'S CONDITIONS. 
 
 ness of the conditions which he asked for. His 
 opponents said that these conditions were too large 
 if he succeeded, and if he should not succeed and 
 the conditions should come to nothing, they thought 
 that there was an air of trifling in granting such 
 conditions at all. And, indeed, they were very 
 large; namely, that he was to be made an ad- 
 miral at once, to be appointed viceroy of the 
 countries he should discover, and to have an 
 eighth of the profits of the expedition. The 
 only probable way of accounting for the extent 
 of these demands and his perseverance in making 
 them, even to the risk of total failure, is that the 
 discovering of the Indies was but a step in his 
 mind to greater undertakings, as they seemed to 
 him, which he had in view, of going to Jerusalem 
 with an army and making another crusade. For 
 Columbus carried the chivalrous ideas of the 
 twelfth century into the somewhat self-seeking 
 fifteenth. The negotiation, however, failed a 
 second time, and Columbus resolved again to go 
 to France, when Alonzo de Quintanilla and Juan 
 Perez contrived to obtain a hearing for the great 
 adventurer from Cardinal Mendoza, who was 
 pleased with him. Columbus then offered, in 
 
SANTANGEL'S ADDRESS. 73 
 
 order to meet the objections of his opponents, 
 to pay an eighth part of the expense of the 
 expedition. Still nothing was done. And now, 
 finally, Columbus determined to go to France, 
 and indeed had actually set off one day in January 
 of the year 1492, when Luis de Santangel, re- 
 ceiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of the crown 
 of Aragon, a person much devoted to the plans 
 of Columbus, addressed the queen with all the 
 energy that a man throws into his words when he 
 is aware that it is his last time for speaking in 
 favour of a thing which he has much at heart. 
 He told her that he wondered that, as she always 
 had a lofty mind for great things, it should be 
 wanting to her on this occasion. He endeavoured 
 to pique her jealousy as a monarch, by suggesting 
 that the enterprise might fall into the hands of 
 other princes. Then he said something in behalf 
 of Columbus himself, and the queen was not un- 
 likely to know well the bearing of a great man. 
 He intimated to her highness that what was an 
 impossibility to the cosmographers, might not be 
 so in nature. Nor, continued he, should any 
 endeavour in so great a matter be attributed to 
 lightness, even though the endeavour should fail ; 
 
74 SUCCESS OF THE ADDRESS. 
 
 for it is the part of great and generous princes to 
 ascertain the secrets of the world. Other princes 
 (he did not mention those of neighbouring Por- 
 tugal) had gained eternal fame this way. He 
 concluded by saying that all the aid Columbus 
 wanted to set the expedition afloat, was but a 
 million of maravedis (equivalent to about ^308, 
 English money of the period) ; and that so great 
 an enterprise ought not to be abandoned for the 
 sake of such a trifling sum. These well addressed 
 arguments, falling in, as they did, with those of 
 Quintanilla, the treasurer, who had great influence 
 with the queen, prevailed. She thanked these 
 lords for their counsel, and said she would adopt 
 it, but they must wait until the finances had 
 recovered a little from the drain upon them oc- 
 casioned . by the conquest of Granada, or if they 
 thought that the plan must be forthwith carried 
 out, she would pledge her jewels to raise the 
 necessary funds. Santangel and Quintanilla 
 kissed her hands, highly delighted at succeeding ; 
 and Santangel offered to advance the money re- 
 quired. Upon this the queen sent an alguazil to 
 overtake Columbus and bring him back to the 
 court. He was overtaken at the bridge of Pinos, 
 
THE AGREEMENT SETTLED. 75 
 
 two leagues from Granada ; returned to Santa Fe, 
 where the sovereigns were encamped before Gra- 
 nada ; was well received by Isabella ; and finally 
 the agreement between him and their catholic 
 highnesses was settled with the secretary, Co- 
 loma. 
 
 Not much is seen of King Ferdinand in all 
 these proceedings ; and it is generally understood 
 that he looked rather coldly upon the propositions 
 of Columbus. We cannot say that he was at all 
 unwise in so doing. His great compeer, Henry 
 the Seventh, did not hasten to adopt the same 
 project submitted to him by Bartholomew Colum- 
 bus, sent into England* for that purpose by his 
 
 * It is difficult to determine how the project brought be- 
 fore Henry the Seventh's notice by Bartholomew Columbus 
 was received. Some say it was made a mockery of at the 
 English court ; others speak of it as actually accepted. 
 Lord Bacon states that Bartholomew was taken by pirates 
 on his voyage to England, which delayed him so much that 
 "before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for 
 his brother, the enterprise by him was achieved." It is 
 probable that Henry listened with interest to Bartholomew 
 Columbus, who was a man of much intelligence and great 
 maritime knowledge. But it seems unlikely that the nego- 
 tiation went very far, considering the rigid manner in which 
 Columbus insisted upon his exact conditions being accepted 
 
76 FATE OF PROJECTORS' PLANS 
 
 brother Christopber ; and it bas not been thougbt 
 to derogate from tbe Englisb king's sagacity. 
 Tbose wbo govern are in all ages surrounded by 
 projectors, and have to clear the way about them 
 as well as they can, and to take care that they get 
 time and room for managing their own immediate 
 affairs. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if 
 good plans should sometimes share the fate which 
 ought to attend, and must attend, the great mass 
 of all projects submitted to men in power. Here, 
 however, the ultimate event would justify the 
 monarch's caution ; for it would be hard to prove 
 that Spain has derived aught but a golden weak- 
 ness from her splendid discoveries and possessions 
 in the new world. 
 
 by the Spanish court. No such bargain, at a dlstance,with 
 a reserved and parsimonious monarch, was likely, therefore, 
 to have been concluded. It appears, however, from a 
 despatch from the Spanish ambassador to his sovereigns, 
 dated the 25th July, 1498, that the English were not behind 
 other nations in a thirst for discovery. "Merchants of 
 Bristol," he says, " have for the last seven years sent out 
 annually some ships in search of the island of Brazil and 
 the Seven Cities." If this assertion is accurate, England 
 must have anticipated Spain in the search for, though not 
 in the discovery of, the western world. 
 
FERDINAND'S COLDNESS. 77 
 
 Moreover, the characters of the two men being 
 essentially opposed, it is probable that Ferdinand 
 felt something like contempt for the uncontrolled 
 enthusiasm of Columbus ; and, upon the whole, it 
 is rather to be wondered that the king consented 
 to give the powers he did, than that he did not do 
 more. Had it been a matter which concerned his 
 own kingdom of Aragon, he might not have gone 
 so far ; but the expenses were to be eventually 
 charged on Castille, and perhaps he looked upon 
 the whole affair as another instance of Isabella's 
 good natured sympathy with enthusiasts. His 
 own cool and wary nature must have distrusted 
 this " pauper pilot, promising rich realms."* 
 
 The agreement between Columbus and their 
 Catholic highnesses is to the following effect : — ■ 
 
 The favours which Christopher Columbus has 
 asked from the King and Queen of Spain in re- 
 compense of the discoveries which he has made 
 in the ocean seas, and as recompense for the voy- 
 age which he is about to undertake, are the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 ♦ "Nudo nocchier, promettitor di regni." — Chiabrera. 
 
78 . COLUMBUS'S AGBEEMENT WITH 
 
 1. He wishes to be made admiral of the seas 
 and countries which he is about to discover. He 
 desires to hold this dignity during his life, and 
 that it should descend to his heirs. 
 
 This request is granted by the king and queen. 
 
 2. Christopher Columbus wishes to be made 
 viceroy of all the continents and islands. 
 
 Granted by the king and queen. 
 
 3. He wishes to have a share, amounting to 
 a tenth part, of the profits of all merchandise, be 
 it pearls, jewels, or any other things, that may be 
 found, gained, bought, or exported from the coun- 
 tries which he is to discover. 
 
 Granted by the king and queen. 
 
 4. He wishes, in his quality of admiral, to 
 be made sole judge of all mercantile matters that 
 may be the occasion of dispute in the countries 
 which he is to discover. 
 
 Granted by the king and queen, on the condition, 
 however, that this jurisdiction should belong to the 
 office of admiral, as held by Don Enriquez and 
 other admirals. 
 
 5. Christopher Columbus wishes to have the 
 right to contribute the eighth part of the expenses 
 of all ships which traffic with the new countries, 
 
THE COURT OF SPAIN. 79 
 
 and in return to earn the eighth part of the 
 profits. 
 
 Granted hy the king and qxieen, 
 Santa Fe, in the Vega of Granada, 
 April 17, 1492. 
 
 This agreement is signed by the Secretary Co- 
 loma and written by Almazan. 
 
 Then there is a sort of passport or commenda- 
 tory letter intended for presentation to the Grand 
 Khan, Prester John, or any other oriental poten- 
 tate at whose territories Columbus might ar- 
 rive : — 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella to King . 
 
 The sovereigns have heard that he and his 
 subjects entertain great love for them and for 
 Spain. They are moreover informed that he and 
 his subjects very much* wish to hear news from 
 Spain ; and send, therefore, their admiral, Ch. Co- 
 lumbus, who will tell them that they are in good 
 health and perfect prosperity. 
 
 Granada, April 30, 1492. 
 
 * This crediting the unknown ruler with an anxiety for 
 the welfare of the Spanish sovereigns is really a delicious 
 piece of diplomatic affectation. 
 
80 COLUMBUS GOES TO PALOS. 
 
 Armed with these royal commissions, Colum- 
 bus left the court for Pales ; and we may be sure 
 that the knot of friends at the monastery were 
 sufficiently demonstrative in their delight at the 
 scheme on which they had pinned their faith 
 being fairly launched. There was no delay in 
 furnishing the funds for the expedition. From 
 an entry in an account-book belonging to the 
 Bishopric of Palencia, it appears that one million 
 one hundred and forty thousand maravedis were 
 advanced by Santangel in May, 1492, " being the 
 sum he lent for paying the caravels which their 
 highnesses ordered to go as the armada to the 
 Indies, and for paying Christopher Columbus, who 
 goes in the said armada." The town of Palos 
 was ordered to provide two vessels.* But there 
 
 * The requisition to the municipality of Palos runs 
 thus : " In consequence of the offence which we received 
 at your hands, you were condemned by our council to 
 render us the service of two caravels, armed, at your own 
 expense, for the space of twelve months, whenever and 
 wherever it should be our pleasure to demand the same." 
 (30th April, 1492.) A proclamation of immunity from civil 
 and criminal process- to persons taking service in the 
 expedition was issued at the same time. The ship of 
 Columbus was, therefore, a refuge for criminals and run- 
 
ORDER TO PRESS MEN. 81 
 
 was still a weighty diflSculty to be surmounted. 
 It was no easy matter to obtain crews for such 
 an expedition. The sovereigns Issued an order 
 authorizing Columbus to press men into the ser- 
 vice, but still the numbers were incomplete, for 
 the mariners of Palos held aloof, unwilling to 
 risk their lives in what seemed to them the crazy 
 project of a monomaniac. But Juan Perez was 
 active in persuading men to embark. The 
 Pinzons, rich men and skilful mariners of Palos, 
 joined in the undertaking personally, and aided 
 it with their money, and, by these united exer- 
 tions, three vessels were manned with ninety 
 mariners, and provisioned for a year. 
 
 The vessels were all of small size, probably of 
 not more than one hundred tons' burden each, and, 
 therefore, not larger than the American yachts, 
 whose ocean race from New York to Cowes was 
 regarded as an example of immense hardihood, 
 even in the year 1867, But Columbus considered 
 them very suitable for the undertaking. The 
 
 away debtors, a cave of Adullam for the discontented and 
 ihe desperate. To have to deal with such a community was 
 not one of the least of Columbus's difficulties. 
 
82 CHARACTER OF VESSELS AND CREWS. 
 
 Santa Maria, which Columbus himself com- 
 manded, was the only one of the three that was 
 decked throughout. The official persons and the 
 crew on board her were sixteen in number. The 
 two other vessels were of the class called caravels, 
 and were decked fore and aft, but not amidships, 
 the stem and the stern being built so as to rise 
 high out of the water. One of them, the "Pinta," 
 was manned by a crew of thirty, commanded by 
 Martin Alonzo Pinzon. The other, the " Nina," 
 had Vincent Yanez Pinzon for captain, and a 
 crew of twenty-four men. The whole number 
 of adventurers amounted to a hundred and twenty 
 persons, men of various nationalities, including, 
 by the way, among them, two natives of the 
 British Isles. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 First Voyage. 
 
 ^T length all the preparations were com- 
 plete, and on a Friday (not inauspicious 
 in this case), the 3rd of August, 1492, 
 after they had all confessed and received the 
 sacrament, they set sail from the Bar of Saltes, 
 making for the Canary Islands. One can fancy 
 how the men and the women of Palos watched 
 the specks of white sails vanishing in the west, 
 and how, as each frail bark in turn disappeared 
 in the great ocean, mothers and sisters turned 
 weepingly away as if from a last farewell at the 
 grave of their sailor kinsmen. 
 
 Columbus was now fairly afloat, and we may 
 say with Milton, that — 
 
 The world was all before him, where to choose. 
 And Providence his guide. 
 
84 CANARY ISLANDS REACHED. 
 
 His choice was made, however; and his Guide 
 did not fail him. 
 
 He was about to change the long-continued, 
 weary, dismal life of a suitor, for the sharp in- 
 tense anxiety of a struggle in which there was no 
 alternative to success but deplorable, ridiculous, 
 fatal failure. Speaking afterwards of the time 
 he spent as a suitor at court, he says, " Eight 
 years I was torn with disputes, and in a word, my 
 proposition was a thing for mockery." It was 
 now to be seen what mockery was in it. The 
 following account of the voyage is mainly taken 
 from an abridgment of Columbus's own diary 
 made by Las Casas, who in some places gives 
 the admiral's own words. 
 
 The little squadron reached the Canary Islands 
 in a few days, with no event worth recording, 
 except that the caravel " Pinta," commanded by 
 Martin Alonzo Pinzon, unshipped her rudder. 
 This was supposed to be no accident, but to have 
 been contrived by the owners of the vessel, who 
 did not like the voyage. The admiral (from 
 henceforth Columbus is called "the admiral") was 
 obliged to stay some time at the Canary Islands, 
 to refit the " Pinta," and to make some change in 
 the cut of her sails. While this vyas being done, 
 
RUMOURS OF LAND SEEN. 85 
 
 news was brought that three Portuguese govern- 
 ment vessels were cruising in the ofEng with the 
 intention of preventing the expedition. How- 
 ever, on the 6th of September, Columbus set 
 sail from Gomera, and struck boldly out to sea, 
 without meeting with any of his supposed ene- 
 mies. 
 
 In the abridgment of the diary, under the date 
 of the 19th of August, the admiral remarks that 
 many Spaniards of these islands, " respectable 
 men," swear that each year they see land; and 
 he remembers how, in the year 1484, some one 
 came from the island of Madeira to the King of 
 Portugal to beg a caravel in order to go and dis- 
 cover that land which he declared he could see 
 each year, and in the same manner. Had not 
 the admiral been conscious of the substantial 
 originality of his proceedings, he would hardly 
 have been careful to collect these scattered notices 
 which might afterwards be used, as many like 
 them were used, to depreciate that originality. 
 There is no further entry in the diary until the 
 6th of September, when they set out from Gomera 
 (one of the Canary Islands), on their unknown 
 way. For many days, what we have of the diary 
 is little more than a log-book, giving the rate of 
 
86 PLAINS OF SEAWEED. 
 
 sailing, or rather two rates, one for Columbus's 
 own private heed, and the other for the sailors. 
 On the 13th of September it is noted that the 
 needle declined in the evening to the north-west, 
 and on the ensuing morning, to the north-east, 
 the first time that such a variation had been 
 observed, or, at least recorded by Europeans. 
 On the 14th, the sailors of the caravel " Nina " 
 saw two tropical birds, which they said were 
 never wont to be seen at more than fifteen or 
 twenty leagues from shore. On the 15th they 
 all saw a meteor fall from heaven, which made 
 them very sad. On the 16th, they first came 
 upon those immense plains of seaweed (the 
 fucus nutans), ■which constitute the Mar de Sar- 
 gasso, and which occupy a space in the Atlantic 
 almost equal to seven times the extent of France. 
 The aspect of these plains greatly terrified the 
 sailors, who thought they might be coming upon 
 submerged lands and rocks ; but finding that the 
 vessels cut their waj well through this sea-weed, 
 the sailors thereupon took heart. On the 17th, 
 they see more of these plains of seaweed, and 
 thinking themselves to be near land, they are 
 almost in good spirits, when finding that the 
 
SIGNS OF LAND. 87 
 
 needle declines to the west a whole point of the 
 compass and more, their hopes suddenly sink again : 
 they begin " to murmur between their teeth," and 
 to wonder whether they are not in another world. 
 Columbus, however, orders an observation to be 
 taken at day-break, when the needle is found to 
 point to the north again; moreover he is ready 
 with a theory sufficiently ingenious for that time, 
 to account for the phenomenon of variation which 
 had so disturbed the sailors, namely, that it was 
 caused by the north star moving round the pole. 
 The sailors are, therefore, quieted upon this head. 
 In the morning of the same day they catch a 
 crab, from which Columbus infers that they 
 cannot be more than eighty leagues distant from 
 land. The 18th, they see many birds, and a 
 cloud in the distance; and that night they expect 
 to see land. On the 19th, in the morning, comes 
 a pelican (a bird not usually seen twenty leagues 
 from the coast) ; in the evening, another ; also 
 drizzling rain without wind, a certain sign, as the 
 diary says, of proximity to land. 
 
 The admiral, however, will not beat about for 
 land, as he concludes that the land which these 
 various natural phenomena give token of, can 
 
88 CONSPIRACY AMONG THE MEN. 
 
 only be islands, as indeed it proved to be. He 
 will see them on bis return; but now he must 
 press on to the Indies. This determination shows 
 his strength of mind, and indicates the almost sci- 
 entific basis on which his great resolve reposed. 
 
 Accordingly, he was not to be diverted from 
 the main design by any partial success, though by 
 this time he knew well the fears of his men, some 
 of whom had already come to the conclusion, 
 " that it would be their best plan to throw him 
 quietly into the sea, and say he unfortunately fell 
 in, while he stood absorbed in looking at the 
 stars." Indeed, three days after he had resolved 
 to pass on to the Indies, we find him saying, for 
 Las Casas gives his words, " Very needful for me 
 was this contrary wind, for the people were very 
 much tormented with the idea that there were no 
 winds on these seas that could take them back to 
 Spain." 
 
 On they go, having signs occasionally in the 
 presence of birds and grass and fish that land 
 must be near ; but land does not come. Once, 
 too, they are all convinced that they see land: 
 they sing the " Gloria in excelsis ;" and even the 
 admiral goes out of his course towards this land. 
 
HIS DETERMINATION TO PROCEED. 89 
 
 which turns out to be no land. They are like men 
 listening to a dreadful discourse or oration, that 
 seems to have many endings which end not : so 
 that the hearer listens at last in grim despair, 
 thinking that all things have lost their meaning, 
 and that ending is but another form of beginning. 
 These mariners were stout-hearted, too; but 
 what a daring thing it was to plunge, down-hiU as 
 it were, into 
 
 " A world of waves, a sea without a shore. 
 Trackless, and vast, and wild,* 
 
 mocked day by day with signs of land that neared 
 not. And these men had left at home all that is 
 dearest to man, and did not bring out any great 
 idea to uphold them, and had already done enough 
 to make them important men in their towns, and 
 to furnish ample talk for the evenings of their 
 lives. Still we find Columbus, as late as the 3rd 
 of October, saying, " that he did not choose to 
 stop beating about last week during those days 
 that they had such signs of land, although he had 
 knowledge of there being certain islands in that 
 neiofhbourhood, because he would not suffer any 
 
 * Rogers, 
 
90 STGNS OF LAND AGAIN. 
 
 detention, since his object was to go to the Indies; 
 and if he should stop on the way, it would show a 
 want of mind." 
 
 Meanwhile, he had a hard task to keep his men 
 in any order. Peter Martyr, who knew Colum- 
 bus well, and had probably been favoured with a 
 special account from him of these perilous days, 
 describes his way of dealing with the refractory 
 mariners, and how he contrived to win them on- 
 wards from day to day ; now soothing them with 
 soft words, now carrying their minds from thought 
 of the present danger by spreading out large 
 hopes before them, not forgetting to let them 
 know what their princes would say to them if 
 they attempted aught against him, or would not 
 obey his orders. With this untutored crowd of 
 wild, frightened men around him, with mocking 
 hopes, not knowing what each day would bring 
 to him, on went Columbus. At last came the 
 11th of October, and with it indubitable signs of 
 land. The diary mentions their finding on that 
 day a table-board and a carved stick, the carving 
 apparently wrought by some iron instrument. 
 Moreover, the men in one of the vessels saw a 
 branch of a haw tree with fruit on it. Now, in- 
 
LIGHTS ON SHORE. 91 
 
 deed, tliey must be close to land. The sun went 
 down upon the same weary round of waters 
 which for so long a time their eyes had ached to 
 see beyondj when, at ten o'clock, Columbus, 
 standing on the poop of his vessel, saw a light, 
 and called to him, privately, Pedro Gutierrez, a 
 groom of the king's chamber, who saw it also. 
 Then they called Kodrigo Sanchez, who had been 
 sent by their highnesses as overlooker. I imagine 
 him to have been a cold and cautious man, of the 
 kind that are sent by jealous states to accompany 
 and curb great generals, and who are not usually 
 much loved by them. Sanchez did not see the light 
 at first, because, as Columbus says, he did not stand I 
 in the place where it could be seen ; but at last even' 
 he sees it, and it may now be considered to have 
 been seen officially. " It appeared like a candle 
 that went up and down, and Don Christopher did 
 not doubt that it was true light, and that it was 
 on land ; and so it proved, as it came from people 
 passing with lights from one cottage to another." 
 Their highnesses had promised a pension of ten 
 thousand maravedis to the fortunate man who 
 should see land first. The "Pinta" was the fore- 
 most vessel ; and it was from her deck, at two 
 
92 THE PROMISED PENSION. 
 
 o'clock in the morning, that land was first seen by 
 Eodrigo de Triana. We cannot but be sorry for 
 this poor common sailor, who got no reward, and 
 of whom they tell a story, that in sadness and 
 despite, he passed into Africa, after his return to 
 Spain, and became a Mahometan. The pension was 
 adjudged to the admiral : it was charged, some- 
 what ominously, on the shambles of Seville, and 
 was paid him to the day of his death ; for, says 
 the historian Herrera, " he saw light in the midst 
 of darkness, signifying the spiritual light which 
 was introduced amongst these barbarous people, 
 God permitting that, the war being finished with 
 the Moors, seven hundred and twenty years after 
 they had set foot in Spain, this work (the conver- 
 sion of the Indians) should commence, so that the 
 Princes of Castille and Leon might always be 
 occupied in bringing infidels to the knowledge of 
 the Holy Catholic faith." 
 
 These last words are notable. They are such 
 as Columbus himself would probably have made 
 use of in describing this, the crowning event of 
 his life. In the preface to his diary, which is an 
 address to Ferdinand and Isabella, he speaks at 
 large of the motives of their highnesses. He be- 
 
RELIGIOUS MOTIVES. 93 
 
 gins by saying how, in this present year of 1492, 
 their highnesses had concluded their war with the 
 Moors, having taken the great city of Granada, 
 at the siege of which he was present, and saw the 
 royal banners placed upon the towers of the Al- 
 hambra. He then tells how he had given infor- 
 mation to their highnesses of the lands of India, 
 and of a prince, called the Grand Khan, who had 
 sent ambassadors to Home, praying for doctors to 
 instruct him in the faith; and how the Holy 
 Father had never provided him with these doc- 
 tors; and that great towns were perishing, from 
 the belief of their inhabitants in idolatry, and 
 from receiving amongst them " sects of perdi- 
 tion." After the above statement, he adds, "Your 
 highnesses, as Catholic Christians and princes, 
 lovers and furtherers of the Christian faith, and 
 enemies of the sect of Mahomet, and of all idola- 
 tries and heresies, thought to send me, Chris- 
 topher Columbus, to the aforesaid provinces of 
 India to see the aforesaid princes, the cities and 
 lands, and the disposition of them and of every- 
 thing about them, and the way that should be 
 taken to convert them to our holy faith." 
 
 Columbus then speaks of the expulsion of the 
 
94 GOOD FAITH OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 Jews from Spain as occurring at the same 
 time as that in which he received orders to 
 pursue a westerly course to India, thus com- 
 bining the two transactions together, no doubt as 
 proofs of the devout intentions of their high- 
 nesses : and, indeed, throughout the document, he 
 ascribes no motives to the monarchs but such as 
 were religious. 
 
 The diary to which this address was prefixed is 
 probably one of the books which their high- 
 nesses allude to in a letter to Columbus, as being 
 in their possession, and which they assured him 
 they had not shown to anybody. I see no reason 
 to doubt the perfect good faith of Columbus in 
 making such a statement as that just referred to ; 
 and it is well to remark upon it, because we shall 
 never come to a right understanding of those 
 times and of the question of slavery as connected 
 with them, unless we fully appreciate the good as 
 well as the bad motives which guided the most 
 important persons of that era. 
 
 As for Queen Isabella, there can be no doubt 
 about her motives. Even in the lamentably unjust 
 things in which she was but too often concernedj 
 she had what, to her mind, was compelling reason 
 
CHARACTER OF THE QUEEN. 95 
 
 to act as she did. Perhaps there is hardly any 
 great personage whose name and authority are 
 found in connection with so much that is 
 strikingly evil, all of it done, or rather assented 
 to, upon the highest and purest motives. Whether 
 we refer to the expulsion of the Jews, the treat- 
 ment of the Moorish converts, or the establish- 
 ment of the Inquisition, all her proceedings in 
 these matters were entirely sincere and noble- 
 minded. Methinks I can still see her beautiful 
 majestic face (with broad brow, and clear, honest, 
 loving eye), as it looks down upon the beholder 
 from one of the chapels in the cathedral at Gra- 
 nada: a countenance too expressive and indivi- 
 dual to be what painters give as that of an angel, 
 and yet the next thing to it. Now, I could 
 almost fancy, she looks down reproachfully, and 
 yet with conscious sadness. What she would say 
 in her defence, could we interrogate her, is, that 
 she obeyed the voice of heaven, taking the wise 
 and good men of her day as its interpreters. 
 Oh! that she had but persisted in listening to 
 it, as it spoke in her own kindly heart, when with 
 womanly pity she Avas wont to intercede in favour 
 of the poor cooped-up inmates of some closely 
 
96 LANDING IN THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 beleaguered town or fortress ! But at least 
 the poor Indian can utter nothing but blessings 
 on her. He might have needed no other " pro- 
 tector" had she lived; nor would slavery have 
 found in his fate one of the darkest and most 
 fatal chapters in its history. 
 
 But now, from Granada, and our fancies there, 
 the narrative brings us back to the first land 
 touched by Columbus. The landing of Columbus 
 in the New World must ever be a conspicuous 
 fact in the annals of mankind, and it was celebrated 
 by a ceremonial worthy of the occasion. On the 
 ensuing morning, after the light had been ob- 
 served from the ships, being a Friday, the 12th of 
 October, 1492, Columbus, clad in complete armour, 
 and carrying in his hand the royal banner of 
 Spain, descended upon the level shores of the 
 small island* which had first greeted him, and 
 which he found to be very fruitful — fresh and 
 verdant, and "like a garden full of trees." The 
 other captains accompanied him, each of them 
 bearing a banner with a green cross depicted upon 
 it, and with the initials of Ferdinand and Isabella 
 
 * San Salvador, one of the Bahamas. 
 
THEIR GRATITUDE. 97 
 
 surmounted by their respective crowns — a device 
 that well expressed the loyalty and devotion of 
 Columbus, and had been chosen by him. These 
 chief officers were followed by a large retinue 
 from their crews. In numerous lines along the 
 shore stood the simple islanders, looking on with 
 innocent amazement. 
 
 On touching land, Columbus and all the Spa- 
 niards who were present fell upon their knees, and 
 with tears — tears of that deepest kind which men 
 do not know the cause of — poured forth their 
 "immense thanksgivings to Almighty God." 
 
 The man who, of all that embassage, if we may 
 call it so, from the Old to the New World, was 
 certainly the least surprised by all he saw, was, at 
 the same time, the most affected. For thus it is, 
 that the boldness of a great design is never fully 
 appreciated by the designer himself until he has 
 apparently accomplished his work, when he is apt, 
 if it be indeed a great work, to look back with 
 shuddering awe at his own audacity in having pro- 
 posed it to mankind. The vast resolve which has 
 sustained such a man throughout his long and diffi- 
 cult enterprise, having for the moment nothing to 
 struggle against, dies away, leaving a strange 
 H 
 
98 GENERAL RECONCILIATION. 
 
 sinking at the heart : and thus the greatest suc- 
 cesses are often accompanied by a peculiar and 
 bewildering melancholy. New difficulties, how- 
 ever, bred from success (for nothing is complete 
 in life), soon arise to summon forth again the 
 discoverer's energies, and to nerve him for fresh 
 disappointments and renewed endeavours. Co- 
 lumbus will not fail to have his full share of such 
 difficulties. 
 
 The followers of the great man, whose occa- 
 sional faintheartedness must often have driven 
 all sleep from his weary eyelids throughout the 
 watches of the night, now began to think with 
 remorse how much suffering they had needlessly 
 inflicted upon their greatly-enduring leader. They 
 sought his pardon with tears, and, subdued for the 
 moment by his greatness when illustrated by suc- 
 cess, expressed in loving terms their admiration, 
 their gratitude, and their assurances of fidelity. 
 The placable Columbus received their gracious 
 sayings with all the warmth and tenderness that 
 belonged to his large-hearted and amiable cha- 
 racter. 
 
 The great business of the day then commenced ; 
 and Columbus, with the due legal formalities, took 
 possession, on behalf of the Spanish monarchs, of 
 
THEY TAKE LEGAL POSSESSION: 99 
 
 the Island Guanahani, which he forthwith named 
 San Salvador. The gravity of the proceeding 
 must have astonished the beholding islanders. 
 Their attention, however, was soon turned to the 
 Spaniards themselves; and they approached the 
 strangers, wondering at their whiteness and at 
 their beards. Columbus, as being the noblest- 
 looking personage there present, and also from 
 wearing a crimson scarf over his armour, at- 
 tracted especial attention, and justly seemed, 
 as he was, the principal figure in this great 
 spectacle. 
 
 Columbus is for the present moment radiant 
 with success. Our interest passes now from him 
 to the new people he was amongst. And what 
 were they like ? Were they worthy of the efforts 
 which the Old World had made to find them? 
 Was there mind and soul enough in them for 
 them to become good Christians ? What says 
 the greatest of the men who first saw them? 
 What impression did they make on him? Let 
 him answer for himself : — 
 
 " Because they had much friendship for us, 
 and because I knew they were people that would 
 deliver themselves better to the Christian faith, 
 and be converted more through love than by 
 
100 CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS. 
 
 force, I gave to some of them some coloured 
 caps and some strings of glass beads for their 
 necks, and many other things of little value, 
 with which they were delighted, and were so 
 entirely ours that it was a marvel to see. The 
 same afterwards came swimming to the ship's 
 boats where we were, and brought us parrots, 
 cotton threads in balls, darts and many other 
 things, and bartered them with us for things 
 which we gave them, such as bells and small 
 glass beads. In fine, they took and gave all of 
 whatever they had with good will. But it ap- 
 peared to me they were a people very poor in 
 everything. They went totally naked, as naked 
 as their mothers brought them into the world." 
 
 Then Columbus goes on to say that these 
 Indians were well made, with very good counte- 
 nances, but hair like horsehair, their colour yellow ; 
 and that they painted themselves. They neither 
 carried arms, nor understood such things, for 
 when he showed them swords, they took hold of 
 them by the blade, and hurt themselves. Their 
 darts were without iron; but some had a fish's 
 tooth at the end. In concluding his description, 
 he says, " they ought to make faithful servants, 
 
THEIR HOUSES AND IMPLEMENTS. 101 
 
 and of good understanding, for I see that very 
 quickly they repeat all that is said to them, and 
 I believe they would easily be converted to 
 Christianity, for it appeared to me that they had 
 no creed." 
 
 A little further on, the admiral says of the 
 people of a neighbouring island, that they were 
 more domestic and tractable than those of San 
 Salvador, and more intelligent, too, as he saw in 
 their way of reckoning for the payment of the 
 cotton they brought to the ships. At the mouth 
 of the Rio de Mares, some of the admiral's men, 
 whom he had sent to reconnoitre, brought him 
 word that the houses of the natives were the best 
 they had seen. They were made, he says, like 
 " Alfaneques (pavilions), very large, and appeared 
 as royal tents without an arrangement of streets, 
 except one here and there, and within they were 
 very clean, and well swept, and their furniture 
 very well arranged. All these houses were made 
 of palm branches, and were very beautiful. Our 
 men found in these houses many statues of women, 
 and several heads fashioned like masks, and very 
 well wrought. I do not know, he adds, whether 
 they have these for the love of the beautiful, or 
 
102 DISCOVERY OF TOBACCO. 
 
 for purposes of worship." The Spaniards found 
 also excellent nets, fish-hooks, and fishing-tackle. 
 There were tame birds about the houses, and dogs 
 which did not bark. " Mermaids," too, the admiral 
 saw on the coasts, but thought them " not so like 
 ladies as they are painted." 
 
 Speaking of the Indians of the coast near the 
 E.io del Sol, he says that they are " very gentle, 
 without knowing what evil is, neither killing nor 
 stealing." He describes the frank generosity of the 
 people of Marien, and the honour they thought it 
 to be asked to give anything, in terms which 
 may remind his readers of the doctrines main- 
 tained by Christians in respect of giving. 
 
 It is interesting to observe the way in which, 
 at this point of the narrative, a new product is 
 introduced to the notice of the old world, a pro- 
 duct that was hereafter to become, not only an 
 unfailing source of pleasure to a large section of 
 the male part of mankind, from the highest to 
 the lowest, but was also to distinguish itself as 
 one of those commodities for revenue, which are 
 the delight of statesmen, the great financial re- 
 source of modern nations, and which afford a 
 means of indirect taxation that has, perhaps. 
 
ITS PECULIAR EFFECTS. 103 
 
 nourished many a war, and prevented many a 
 revolution. Two discoverers, whom the admiral 
 had sent out from the Puerto de Mares (one of 
 them being a learned Jew, who could speak 
 Hebrew, Chaldee, and some Arabic, and would 
 have been able to discourse, as Columbus pro- 
 bably thought, with any of the subjects of the 
 Grand Khan, if he had met them), found that the 
 men of the country they came to investigate, 
 indulged in a "fumigation" of a peculiar kind. 
 The smoke in question was absorbed into the 
 mouth through a charred stick, and was caused 
 by burning certain herbs wrapped in a dry leaf, 
 which outer covering was called " tabaco," Las 
 Casas, who carefully describes this process of 
 imbibing smoke, mentions that the Indians, when 
 questioned about it, said that it took away fatigue, 
 and that he has known Spaniards in the island of 
 Hispaniola who adopted the same habit, and who, 
 being reproved for it as a vice, replied that it was 
 not in their power to leave it off. " I do not 
 know," he adds, " what savour or profit they 
 found in them " (tabacos). I cannot help think- 
 ing that there were several periods in his own 
 life, when these strange fumigations would have 
 
104 GOLD ORNAMENTS OBSERVED. 
 
 afforded him singular soothing and comfort. 
 However that may be, there can be no doubt of 
 the importance, financially and commercially 
 speaking, of this discovery of tobacco ; a discovery 
 which, in the end, proved more productive to the 
 Spanish Crown, than that of the gold mines of the 
 Indies, 
 
 The excellent relations that existed between 
 the expedition of Columbus and the inhabitants 
 of Cuba may be seen from the fact that these two 
 Christians, who were the first witnesses of tobacco- 
 smoking, and who travelled with only two Indian 
 attendants, were everywhere well and reverently 
 received. 
 
 Resuming the thread of the history, it remains 
 to be seen what more Columbus did and suffered 
 in this voyage. The first Indians he met with 
 had some few gold ornaments about them — poor 
 wretches, if they had possessed the slightest gift 
 of prophecy, they would have thrown these 
 baubles into the deepest sea; — and they were 
 asked whence came this gold? From a race, 
 they said, living southwards, where there was a 
 great king, who had much gold. On another 
 occasion, other Indians being asked the same 
 
FURTHER EXPLORATIONS. 105 
 
 question, answered, "Cubanacan, Cubanacan." 
 They meant the middle of Cuba; but their words 
 at once suggested to Columbus the idea that he 
 was now upon the traces of his long-looked-for 
 friend, Kublai Kaan, the Khan of Khans. In- 
 deed, it is almost ludicrous to see, throughout, 
 how Columbus is possessed with the notions 
 borrowed from his reading of Marco Polo and 
 other travellers. He asks for " his Cipango," as 
 Herrera slily puts it; and the natives at once 
 point out to hira the direction where that is. 
 They thought he meant Cibao, where afterwards 
 the best mines of gold were found. The admiral, 
 bent on discovery, and especially on finding 
 the terra Jirma, which adjoined "his" India, did 
 not stay long anywhere. Proceeding southwards 
 from San Salvador, he discovered an island, or 
 rather a group of islands, to which he gave the 
 name of Santa Maria de la Concepcion ; he then 
 discovered Cuba, and coasted along the north- 
 eastern part of that island ; and afterwards, in 
 due course, came to Hispaniola, called by the 
 natives Hayti, in which island he landed upon 
 the territory of King Guacanagari, where he was 
 received most cordially. 
 
106 INSUBORDINATION OF MARINERS. 
 
 Various conjectures have been made as to the 
 different results which would have followed, both 
 for the New and for the Old World, if Columbus 
 had steered a little to the northward, or the south- 
 ward, of the course which he actually took. One 
 thing, however, is obvious, that in arriving at 
 Hispaniola he came to a central point, not only 
 of the West Indies, but of the whole of the New 
 World, and a point, therefore, most felicitously 
 situated for the spreading of future discovery and 
 conquest. 
 
 It may be mentioned here, that Martin Alonzo 
 Pinzon had wilfully parted company from the 
 admiral while on the coast of Cuba : covetousness 
 being probably the cause of this most undutiful 
 proceeding. But, indeed, there is another instance 
 of the insubordination of the mariners, which makes 
 the wonder only still greater how Columbus could 
 have brought them across the Atlantic at all. 
 One evening the admiral, after paying a visit to 
 Guacanagari, seeing the sea quite calm, betook 
 himself to rest. As he had not slept for two days 
 and a night, it is probable his slumber was deep. 
 Meanwhile, the steersman, contrary to the distinct 
 orders of the admiral, gave the helm to a common 
 
WRECK OF ADMIRAL'S VESSEL. 107 
 
 sailor, a youth. All the sailors went to sleep. 
 The sea was as calm " as water in a dish." 
 Little by little the ship drifted on to a shoal. 
 Directly they touch, the sailor-boy at the helm 
 starts from his dream, and gives the alarm. The 
 admiral jumps up first (for the responsibility 
 of command seldom goes quite to sleep); then 
 the officer whose watch it ought to have been 
 hurries up, and the admiral orders him to lower 
 the boat which they carried on the poop, and to 
 throw out an anchor astern. Instead of obeying 
 the admiral, this cowardly villain, with others like 
 him, sprang into the boat and made off for the 
 other vessel, which was about half a league off. 
 The other vessel would not receive them, and they 
 rowed back again. But it was too late. The 
 admiral did what he could in the emergency : he 
 cut down the mast, lightened the vessel as best 
 he might, took out his people and went with them 
 to the other caravel, sending his boat to Guaca- 
 nagari to inform him of the misfortune. The 
 good Guacanagari was moved to tears by this 
 sad affair. He gave not only sympathy, however, 
 but assistance. His people went out with their 
 canoes, and in a few moments cleared the vessel 
 
108 KINDNESS OF INDIAN CHIEF. 
 
 of all the goods in it. Guacanagari was very 
 careful that nothing should be lost. He himself 
 stood guard over the things which had been taken 
 out of the ship. Then he sent comforting mes- 
 sages to the admiral, saying that he would give 
 him what he had to make up for the loss. He 
 put all the effects under shelter, and placed guards 
 round them. The wrecker's trade might flourish 
 in Cornwall ; but, like other crimes of civilization, 
 it was unknown in St. Domingo. The admiral 
 was evidently touched to the heart, as well he 
 might be, by the kindness of these Indians. He 
 thus expresses himself, " They are a loving, un- 
 covetous people, so docile in all things, that I 
 assure your highnesses I believe in all the world 
 there is not a better people, or a better country ; 
 they love their neighbours as themselves, and they 
 have the sweetest and gentlest way of talking in 
 the world, and always with a smile." 
 
 The admiral resolved to found a colony in 
 Guacanagari's land, "having found such good 
 will and such signs of gold." In relating this, 
 the Spanish historian, Herrera, makes some cu- 
 rious reflections. He looks upon the loss of the 
 vessel as providential, in order that the true faith 
 
A COLONY FOUNDED. 109 
 
 might be preached in that country. Then he 
 says, how providence causes its work to be done, 
 not on high motives only, but also on the ordinary 
 ones which influence mankind. He concludes by 
 observing that providence dealt with the Indians 
 as a prudent father who has an ugly daughter, 
 but makes up for her ugliness by the help of a 
 large dowry. By the ugliness in this case he 
 means the seas to be traversed, the hunger to be 
 endured, and the labours to be undertaken, which 
 he considers no other nation but the Spaniards 
 would have encountered, even with the hope of 
 greater booty. 
 
 With the timber of the unfortunate " Santa 
 Maria" Columbus built a fort, and called it La 
 Navidad, because he entered the port near there, 
 on Christmas-day. He remained on very friendly 
 terms with the good Cacique Guacanagari; and 
 might have established himself most advantage- 
 ously in that part of the country, if he could 
 have been content to be a settler. But from the 
 first moment of his discovery he doubtless had an 
 anxious desire to get back to Spain, and to tell 
 what he knew ; and at times, perhaps, was fearful 
 lest his grand secret, through some mischance to 
 
no THE ADMIRAL RETURNS. 
 
 the expedition, should still perish with him. The 
 great discoverer, therefore, now prepared to return 
 homewards. He left his fort in trust to a small 
 body of his followers,* whom he commended to 
 the good offices of Guacanagari, not forgetting to 
 impress upon them the excellent advice, to do no 
 violence to man or woman, and, in short, to make 
 their actions conformable to the idea (which the 
 Indians first entertained of them) that they had 
 come from heaven : then, having received the ne- 
 cessary provisions for his vessel from the friendly 
 cacique, the admiral set sail for Spain on the 4th 
 of January, 1493. 
 
 * They were forty in number, and it would be strange to 
 find, but for the well-known fact that nothing brings men 
 of different races together more than maritime and com- 
 mercial enterprise, that in this small list there is an Irish- 
 man, " Guillermo Ires" {Qy- William Herries, or Kice) 
 "natural de Galney, en Irlanda;" and an Englishman, 
 " Tallarte de Lajes" (Qy. Arthur Lake) "ingles." — Navab- 
 RETE, Col. Dip., Num. 13. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Homeward bound. 
 
 &0B. two days Columbus stood to the east- 
 ward, but was met by a head-wind which 
 prevented him from making much pro- 
 gress. On doubling the promontory of Monte 
 Christo, however, the look-out at the mast-head 
 made an announcement which was worth more 
 than a fair wind to the voyagers, since it assured 
 them that the homeward voyage of the " Niria" 
 was not to be made without a consort ; that the 
 chance of the tidings of success being safely con- 
 veyed to Europe was not to depend upon the for- 
 tunes of a single ship. For, sailing down swiftly 
 before the breeze which had detained Columbus, 
 the " Pinta" hove in sight, and the two vessels 
 
112 PINZON'S EXPLANATION. 
 
 steered together into the bay of Monte Christo, 
 which Columbus had recently quitted. Pinzon, as 
 soon as the weather permitted, went on board the 
 admiral's caravel to account for his desertion, 
 which he stated to have been the accidental re- 
 sult of a storm which had driven him out of his 
 course and out of sight of his leader. The ad- 
 miral accepted this explanation, as a quarrel with 
 Pinzon, whose townsmen and relations formed a 
 large proportion of the crews, might cause a 
 mutiny which would be fatal to the undertaking ; 
 but he did not fail to note in his diary his con- 
 viction of Pinzon's bad faith. The fact was, that 
 Pinzon had heard from the natives of a certain 
 island, whence all the gold was said to come, and he 
 had wished to anticipate Columbus in the discovery 
 of this El Dorado, and to secure the profits for 
 himself. He had not found this home of the 
 gold, but had met with some natives from whom 
 he had obtained, by barter, a large quantity of 
 the precious metal. Half of this he had appro- 
 priated : the other half he had distributed among 
 his crew as a bribe to them to say nothing about 
 the matter. 
 
 After a few days spent in refitting the vessels, 
 
AFFRAY WITH ABORIGINES. 113 
 
 and preparing for the homeward voyage, the 
 Nina and her consort again set sail, coasting St. 
 Domingo in an easterly direction as far as the 
 Gulf of Samana. It was in this neighbourhood 
 that the first affray with the aborigines took 
 place, in consequence of an attack made by them 
 upon an exploring expedition which Columbus 
 had sent out. But so anxious was he to preserve 
 a good understanding with the natives, that he 
 did not leave the scene of the encounter until 
 he had come to an amicable agreement with them. 
 Another instance of the wise and humane policy 
 by which he was actuated, is to be found in the 
 fact, that on discovering that Pinzon had carried 
 on board six natives to be taken to Spain, and 
 there sold as slaves, he insisted on their release, 
 dismissing them, moreover, with presents of such 
 glittering toys as their kinsmen would be likely 
 to appreciate, and as might predispose them in 
 favour of the Europeans. 
 
 On the 16th of January, Columbus left the 
 Gulf of Samana on his homeward course, from 
 which, however, he deviated at first in the hope 
 of finding the island, peopled with Amazons, 
 described by Marco Polo, of which he had under- 
 I 
 
114 SEARCH FOR AMAZONIANS. 
 
 stood the natives of St. Domingo to give him 
 intelligence. Such a discovery would be, he con- 
 sidered, a conclusive proof of the identity of his 
 new country with Marco Polo's Indies, and when 
 four natives offered to act as his guides, he 
 thought it worth while to steer (in the direction 
 of Martinique) in quest of the fabulous Ama- 
 zonians. But the breeze blew towards Spain ; 
 home-sickness took possession of the crews; 
 murmurs arose at the prolongation of the voyage 
 among the currents and reefs of those strange 
 seas ; and, in deference to the universal wish of 
 his companions, Columbus soon abandoned all 
 idea of further discovery, and resumed his course 
 for Europe. 
 
 At first the voyage was tranquil enough, though 
 the adverse trade-winds, and the bad sailing of 
 the Pinta,* retarded the progress of both vessels. 
 But on the 12th of February a storm overtook 
 
 " This was occasioned by the defective condition of her 
 mast, whereupon the admiral remarks in his diary, that "if 
 Pinzon had exerted himself as much to provide himself 
 with a new mast in the Indies, where there are so many 
 fine trees, as he had in running away from him in the hope 
 of loading his vessel with gold, they would not have 
 laboured under that inconvenience." 
 
STORM ENCOUNTERED. 115 
 
 them, and became more and more furious, until, 
 on the 14th, it rose to a hurricane, before which 
 Pinzon's vessel could only drift helplessly, while 
 the Nina was able to set a close-reefed foresail, 
 which kept her from being buried in the trough 
 of the sea. In the evening both caravels were 
 scudding under bare poles, and when darkness 
 fell, and the signal light of the " Pinta " gleamed 
 farther and farther off, through the blinding spray, 
 until at last it could be seen no more, when his 
 panic-stricken crew gave themselves up to despair, 
 as the winds howled louder and louder, and the 
 seas burst over his frail \ essel — then, indeed, 
 without a single skilled navigator to advise or to 
 aid him, Columbus must have felt himself alone 
 with the tempest and the night. But his brave 
 heart bore him up, and his wonderful capacity for 
 devising expedients on sudden emergencies did not 
 forsake him. As the stores were consumed, the 
 Nina felt the want of the ballast which Columbus 
 had intended to take on board at the Amazonian 
 Island. " Fill the empty casks with water," he 
 said, " and let them serve as ballast," an expedient 
 which has grown common enough now, but which 
 then was probably original. 
 
116 THE PROMISED PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Nor, while he did all that human skill could 
 suggest for the safBty of his vessel, did Columbus 
 neglect to invoke the aid of that Higher Power, 
 at whose special instigation he believed himself 
 to have undertaken the expedition. "With his 
 whole crew he drew lots to choose one of their 
 number to perform a pilgrimage to the shrine of 
 Our Lady of Guadaloupe. The admiral was 
 chosen. Twice more were lots drawn with a 
 similar object, and once again the lot fell to the 
 admiral. Afterwards, he and all the crew made 
 a vow to go in procession, clothed in penitential 
 garments, to the first church, dedicated to the 
 Virgin, which they should meet with on arriving 
 at land ; and this vow, as we shall see presently, 
 was followed by quite unexpected consequences. 
 
 When the chances of weathering the storm had 
 become small indeed, Columbus determined that, 
 if possible, the tidings of his discovery should 
 not perish with him. He wrote a short account 
 of his voyage on parchment, and this he enclosed 
 in wax, and placed in a cask,* which he com- 
 
 * About tne year 1852 a paragraph went the round of 
 the English press announcing the discovery of this cask on 
 
NARBATIVE INCLOSED IN CASK. 117 
 
 mitted to the waves. Thinking, probably, that 
 his crew would interpret this as an abandonment 
 of all hope, he concealed from them the real nature 
 of the contents of the cask, so that they believed 
 that their commander was performing some reli- 
 gious rite which might assuage the fury of the 
 elements. 
 
 On the 15th of February the storm abated to 
 some extent, and at last they came in sight of 
 some land on the E.N.E., which the pilots held 
 to be the Rock of Lisbon, but which the admiral 
 more accurately determined to be one of the 
 Azores. Vainly endeavouring, however, to make 
 head against the wind and the sea, they lost sight 
 of this island, but came in sight of another, lying 
 more to the south, round which they sailed on the 
 night of the 17th, but lost an anchor in endea- 
 vouring to bring up near the land. On the fol- 
 lowing day they cast anchor, and succeeded in 
 communicating with the inhabitants, from whom 
 
 the African coast, by the barque " Chieftain," of Boston 
 (Mass). Lamartine has accepted this story as correct, but 
 it has never been authenticated, and there is a strong pre- 
 sumption in favour of its having been invented by some 
 ingeniously circumstantial newspaper correspondent. 
 
118 THE PILGRIMS CAPTURED. 
 
 they learned that they had reached the island 
 of St. Mary, belonging to the Portuguese, The 
 governor sent amicable messages to Columbus, 
 and announced his intention of visiting him. But 
 when, in fulfilment of their vow, half the crew 
 went, barefoot and in their shirts, on a pilgrimage 
 to the chapel of St. Mary, which was not far from 
 the harbour, the governor and his satellites lay in 
 ambush on the road, and captured the whole band 
 of pilgrims. The crowns of Portugal and Castile 
 were still at peace, but it appears that this " man, 
 dressed in a little brief authority," thought that 
 the capture would gratify his sovereign. The 
 remonstrances of the admiral were of no avail; 
 and as the weather would not allow of his re- 
 maining in his present anchorage, he was forced to 
 stand out to sea, and to run nearly to St. Michael's, 
 with a crew which comprised only three able sea- 
 men. On the 21st of February he returned to 
 St. Mary's., and eventually, as the governor was 
 unable to seize Columbus himself, he decided on 
 recognizing the royal commission which he pro- 
 duced, and restoring his crew. On the 24th the 
 " Nina" again steered for Spain, but another 
 tempest supervened, and continued with mor© 
 or less fury for more than a week. 
 
ARRIVAL IN THE TAOUS. 119 
 
 In this last storm, which raged with destructive 
 violence along the west coast of the whole Con- 
 tinent of Europe, and which drove the " Pinta" 
 almost helplessly towards a lee-shore, the dangers 
 of the voyage reached their climax. " I escaped," 
 says the admiral, " by the greatest miracle in the 
 world," Fortunately, however, his seamanship 
 was equal to the emergency, and on the after- 
 noon of the fourth of March he came to anchor 
 in the Tagus. To the King of Portugal, who 
 happened to be at no great distance, he sent a 
 despatch announcing his arrival and the result 
 of his voyage, and, in reply, received a pressing 
 invitation to court. With this he thought proper 
 to comply, " in order not to show mistrust, al- 
 though he disliked it," and was received by the 
 king with the highest honours. This must have 
 been almost too much of a triumph for a generous 
 mind, considering that the court before which he 
 was displaying the signs of a new world had re- 
 fused the opportunity of securing the discovery 
 for itself. The king, however, now took occasion 
 to put in a claim to the newly found countries, 
 basincr it on that papal bull which has been men- 
 tioned in a previous chapter but, although Co- 
 
i;iO RECEPTION AT PALOS. 
 
 lumbus, in the Interest of his sovereigns, took 
 care to repudiate this claim as decidedly as pos- 
 sible, his royal host continued to entertain him 
 with the utmost consideration. Possibly mis- 
 trusting the seamanship of his subordinates, Co- 
 lumbus refused the offer of safe conduct and means 
 of transport to Spain by land; and on the 13th 
 of March, in the teeth of a north-westerly wind 
 and a heavy sea, left the Tagus for the bar of 
 Saltes, and safely reached his starting-point at 
 Pales on the 15th, again a Friday. The enthu- 
 siasm and excitement aroused by the success of 
 the expedition were unbounded. At Palos, espe- 
 cially, where few families had not a personal 
 interest in some of the band of explorers, the 
 little community was filled with extraordinary 
 delight. Not an individual member of the expe- 
 dition but was elevated into a hero, — not a debtor 
 or a criminal whom the charter of immunity had 
 led, rather than bear the ills he had, to fly to 
 others that he knew not of, — but had expiated his 
 social misdeeds, and had become a person of con- 
 sideration and an object of enthusiasm. The 
 court was at Barcelona. Immediately on his 
 arrival Columbus despatched a letter to the king 
 
BAD FAITH OF PINZON. 121 
 
 and queen, stating in general terms the success 
 of his project; and proceeded forthwith to pre- 
 sent himself in person to their highnesses. Almost 
 at the same time, the " Pinta," which had been 
 separated from her consort in the first . storm 
 which they encountered, made the port of Ba- 
 yonne, whence Pinzon had forwarded a letter 
 to the sovereigns, announcing "his" discoveries, 
 and proposing to come to court and give full in- 
 telligence as to them. Columbus, whom he pro- 
 bably supposed to have perished at sea, he seems 
 to have ignored utterly, and when he received a 
 reply from the king and queen, directing him not 
 to go to court without the admiral, chagrin and 
 grief overcame hira to such an extent that he 
 took to his bed ; and if any man ever died from 
 mental distress and a broken heart, that man was 
 Martin Alonzo Pinzon. 
 
 Herrera tells us that the admiral now " entered 
 into the greatest reputation," and the historian 
 goes on to explain to his readers what the meaning 
 of "reputation" is. "It does not consist," he tells 
 us, " in success, but in doing something which 
 cannot be easily comprehended, which compels 
 men to think over and over again about it." And 
 
122 SOLEMN RECEPTION. 
 
 certainly, this definition makes the word particu- 
 larly applicable to the achievement of Columbus. 
 The court prepared a solemn reception for the 
 admiral at Barcelona, where the people poured 
 out in such numbers to see him that the streets 
 could not contain them. A triumphal procession 
 like his the world had not yet seen : it was a thing 
 to make the most incurious alert, and even the 
 sad and solitary student content to come out and 
 mingle with the mob. The captives that accom- 
 panied a Roman general's car might be strange 
 barbarians of a tribe from which Rome had not 
 before had slaves. But barbarians were not un- 
 known creatures. Here, with Columbus, were 
 beings of a new world. Here was the conqueror, 
 not of man but of nature, not of flesh and blood but 
 of the fearful unknown, of the elements, and, more 
 than all, of the prejudices of centuries. We may 
 imagine the rumours that must have gone before 
 his coming. And now he was there. Ferdinand 
 and Isabella had their thrones placed in the pre- 
 sence of the assembled court. Columbus approached 
 the monarchs, and then, " his countenance beaming 
 with modest satisfaction," knelt at the king's feet, 
 and begged leave to kiss their highnesses' hands, 
 
MARKS OF APPROBATION. 1Q3 
 
 They gave their hands ; then they bade him rise 
 and be seated before them. He recounted briefly 
 the events of his voyage — a story more interesting 
 than the tale told in the court of Dido by ^neas, 
 ]ike whom he had almost perished close to home, — 
 — and he concluded his unpretending narrative by 
 showing what new things and creatures he had 
 brought with him. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella fell on their knees, 
 giving thanks to God with many tears ; and then 
 the choristers of the royal chapel closed the grand 
 ceremonial by singing the " Te Deum." After- 
 wards men walked home grave and yet happy, 
 having seen the symbol of a great work, some- 
 thing to be thought over for many a generation. 
 
 Other marks of approbation for Columbus were 
 not wanting. The agreement between him and the 
 sovereigns was confirmed. An appropriate coat 
 of arms, then a thing of much significance, was 
 granted to him in augmentation of his own. In 
 the shield are conspicuously emblazoned the Royal 
 Arms of Castile and Leon. Nothing can better 
 serve to show the immense favour which Colum- 
 bus had obtained at court by his discovery than 
 such a grant; and it is but a trifling addition 
 
124 GRANT BY THE POPE. 
 
 to make, in recounting his new honours, that 
 the title of Don was given to him and his 
 descendants, and also to his brothers. He 
 rode by the king's side ; was served at table 
 as a grandee ; " All hail ! " was said to him on 
 state occasions ; and the men of his age, happy 
 in that, had found out another great man to 
 honour. 
 
 The more prosaic part of the business had then 
 to be attended to. The Sovereigns applied to 
 the Pope Alexander the Sixth, to confer on the 
 crowns of Castile and Leon the lands discovered 
 and to be discovered in the Indies. To this 
 application they soon received a favourable 
 answer. The Pope granted to the Princes of 
 Castile and Leon, and to their successors, the 
 sovereign empire and principality of the Indies, 
 and of the navigation there, with high and royal 
 jurisdiction and imperial dignity and lordship 
 over all that hemisphere. To preserve the peace 
 between Spain and Portugal, the Pontiff divided 
 the Spanish and Portuguese Indian sovereignties 
 by an imaginary line drawn from pole to pole, one 
 hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape 
 de Verde Islands. 
 
aJ^COND VOYAGE PLANNED. 125 
 
 Meanwhile the preparations were being made 
 for a second voyage to be undertaken by the 
 admiral. After the arrival of the apostolic bulls, 
 and before the departure of Columbus from Bar- 
 celona, the nine Indians brought by him were 
 baptized. Here, parenthetically, we may take 
 note of something which, if the fact did cor- 
 respond with what the Spaniards thought about 
 it, would, indeed, be notable. One of the Indians, 
 after being baptized, died, and was, we are told,* 
 the first of that nation, according to pious belief, 
 who entered heaven. 
 
 "We cannot help thinking of the hospitable and 
 faithful Guacanagari, and imagining that, if his 
 race had been like him, some one might already 
 have reached the regions of the blessed. I do 
 not, however, refer to this passage of Herrera 
 for its boldness or its singularity, but because it 
 brings before us again the profound import 
 attached to baptism in those times, and may help 
 to account for many seeming inconsistencies in 
 the conduct of the Spaniards to the Indians. 
 
 In the conduct, however, of Ferdinand and 
 
 * Herrera. 
 
126 COLONIAL DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Isabella towards the Indians there was nothing 
 equivocal, but all that they did showed the ten- 
 derness and religious care of these monarchs for 
 their new subjects. A special department for the 
 control of colonial affairs was placed under the 
 charge of Juan de Fonseca, an eminent eccle- 
 siastic who was high in the royal favour, and on 
 whom was eventually conferred the title of 
 Patriarch of the Indies. But, unfortunately for 
 the poor savages whose fate he was now to 
 influence so largely, Fonseca's character had in 
 it but little of the mild and forbearing spirit of 
 Christianity. A shrewd man of business, a hard 
 task-master, an implacable enemy, he displayed, 
 during his long administration of Indian aflPairs, 
 all the qualities of an unscrupulous tyrant, and 
 was instrumental in inflicting on the islanders 
 keener miseries than ever have been brought by 
 conqueror upon a subject race. 
 
 Jealous of the rivalry of Portugal, the sovereigns 
 took every means of hastening the preparations 
 for a second voyage to be undertaken by the 
 admiral. Twelve caravels and five smaller vessels 
 were made ready, and were laden with horses 
 and other animalsj and with plants, seeds, and 
 
HOME OF THE GOLD. 127 
 
 agricultural implements for the cultivation of the 
 new countries. Artificers of various trades were 
 engaged, and a quantity of merchandize and 
 gaudy trifles, fit for bartering with the natives, 
 were placed on board. There was no need to 
 press men into the service now ; volunteers for 
 the expedition were only too numerous. The 
 fever for discovery was universal. Columbus was 
 confident that he had been on the outskirts of 
 Cathay, and that the scriptural land of Havi- 
 lah, the home of gold, was not far off. Untold 
 riches were to be acquired, and probably there 
 was not one of the 1500 persons who took ship 
 in the squadron that did not anticipate a pro- 
 digious fortune as the reward of the voyage. 
 Nor was one of the great objects of these dis- 
 coveries uncared for. Twelve missionaries, easjer 
 to enlighten the spiritual darkness of the western 
 lands, were placed under the charge of Bernard 
 Bull, a Benedictine monk, who was specially 
 appointed by the Pope, in order to ensure an 
 authorized teaching of the faith, to superintend 
 the religious education of the Indians. The in- 
 structions to Columbus, dated the 29th of May, 
 1493, are the first strokes upon that obdurate 
 
128 THE ADMIRAL'S INSTRUCTIONS. 
 
 mass of colonial difficulty which at last, by in- 
 cessant working of great princes, great church- 
 men, and great statesmen, was eventually to be 
 hammered into some righteous form of wisdom 
 and of mercy. In the course of these instruc- 
 tions, the admiral is ordered to labour in all 
 possible ways to bring the dwellers in the Indies 
 to a knowledge of the Holy Catholic Faith. And 
 tliat this may the more easily be done, all the ar- 
 mada is to be charged to deal " lovingly" with the 
 Indians; the admiral is to make them presents, 
 and to " honour them much ; " and if by chance 
 any person or persons should treat the Indians 
 ill, in any manner whatever, the admiral is to 
 chastise such ill-doers severely. 
 
 Even at this early period of his administration, 
 Fonseca appears to have made some attempts to 
 thwart the admiral's wishes, attempts which 
 Columbus, now at the zenith of royal favour, 
 had no difficulty in baffling. As regards the 
 household, for instance, Fonseca demurred to the 
 number of footmen which the admiral proposed 
 for his domestic establishment. The admiral 
 appealed to the sovereigns, who allowed his claim, 
 and reproved Fonseca for objecting. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Second Voyage of Discovery. 
 
 |N the 25th of September, all the pre- 
 parations being complete, the squadron 
 left Cadiz for the Canary Islands, and, 
 after taking in provisions there, sailed from Ferro 
 on the 13th of October. The voyage was singu- 
 larly prosperous. There was but one storm, and 
 that of not more than a few hours' duration ; and 
 favouring breezes wafted them over calm seas 
 with a rapidity that brought the ships within 
 sight of land on the 3rd of November, having 
 made the voyage " by the goodness of God, and 
 the wise management of the admiral, in as straight 
 a track as if they had sailed by a well-known and 
 frequented route." It was Sunday, and accord- 
 
 K 
 
130 ISLAND OF GUADALOUPE. 
 
 ingly the name of Dominica was given to the first 
 island to which the admiral came. 
 
 From Dominica, where no aborigines were 
 found, the admiral stood northward, naming one 
 small island Maria Galante, after his own flag- 
 ship, and calling a second and much larger one 
 Guadaloupe, after a certain monastery in Estra- 
 madura. This island was peopled by a race of 
 cannibals; and, in the houses of the natives, human 
 flesh was found roasting at the fire. An exploring 
 party from one of the ships penetrated into the 
 interior, but so thickly was it wooded that they 
 lost their way in the jungle, and only regained 
 the ships after four days' wanderings, and when 
 their safety was despaired of by their companions, 
 who feared that they had become food for the 
 savages. Fortunately, however, the men of the 
 island were absent on some warlike expedition, 
 and the white men only met with women and 
 children in the course of their dangerous ex- 
 plorations. 
 
 Anxious to revisit the colony at La Navidad, 
 the admiral proceeded north-westward as speedily 
 as possible, and after passing and naming Mont- 
 serrat, Antigua, St. Martin, and Santa Cruz, ar- 
 
DESTRUCTION OF LA N AVID AD. 131 
 
 rived at a beautiful and fertile island which he 
 called St. John, but which has since received the 
 name of Porto Rico. Here were found houses 
 aud roads constructed after a civilized fashion ; 
 but proofs that the inhabitants were cannibals 
 abounded everywhere. On the 22nd of Novem- 
 ber the admiral reached the eastern end of 
 Hispaniola, and sailed along the northern shore 
 towards La Navidad, where a profound dis- 
 appointment awaited him. The little colony 
 which he had founded had been entirely de- 
 stroyed. The fort was razed to the ground. 
 Not one of the settlers was alive to tell the 
 tale. The account which Guacanagari gave to 
 Columbus, and which there seems no reason to 
 doubt, is, that the Spaniards who had been left 
 at La Navidad took to evil courses, quarrelled 
 amongst themselves, straggled about the country, 
 and finally were set upon, when weak and few in 
 numbers, by a neighbouring Indian chief named 
 Caonabo, who burned the tower and killed or 
 dispersed the garrison, none of whom were ever 
 discovered. It was in Caonabo's country that 
 the o"old mines were reported to exist, and it is 
 probable that both the cupidity and the profligacy 
 
132 LICENTIOUSNESS OF SETTLERS. 
 
 of the colonists were so gross as to draw down 
 upon them the not unreasonable vengeance of the 
 natives. Guacanagari, the friendly cacique, who 
 had received the admiral amicably on his first 
 voyage, declared that he and his tribe had done 
 their utmost in defence of the Europeans, in proof 
 of which he exhibited recent wounds which had 
 evidently been inflicted by savage weapons, He 
 was, naturally, scarcely so friendly as before, but 
 communication with him was made easy by the 
 aid of one of the Indians whom Columbus had 
 taken to Spain, and who acted as interpreter. 
 Guacanagari was willing that a second fort should 
 be built on the site of the first, but the admiral 
 thought it better to seek a new locality, both 
 because the position of the old fort had been un- 
 healthy, and because the disgusting licentiousness 
 of the settlers had offended the Indians to such 
 an extent that whereas they had at first regarded 
 the white men as angels from heaven, now they 
 considered them as debased profligates and dis- 
 turbers of the peace, against whom they had to 
 defend their honour and their lives. 
 
 Sailing along the coast of Hayti, Columbus 
 selected a site for his projected settlement, about 
 
COLONY FOUNDED AT ISABELLA. 133 
 
 forty miles to the east of the present Cape Hay- 
 tien. This he called Isabella, after his royal 
 mistress. Here the ships of his squadron dis- 
 charged their stores, and the Spaniards laboured 
 actively in the construction of the first town built 
 by Europeans in the New World. But the work 
 did not progress prosperously. Diseases prevailed 
 among the colonists. The fatigues and discomforts 
 of a long sea voyage were not the best prepara- 
 tions for hard physical labour. The number ol' 
 men which the admiral had brought out with him 
 was disproportionate to his means of sustaining 
 them. Provisions and medicines began to fail. 
 And, worst of all, none of the golden dreams were 
 realized, under the influence of which they had 
 left Spain. Only small samples of the precious 
 metal could be procured from the natives, and 
 the vaguely indicated gold mines of Cibao had 
 not been reached. Anxiety, responsibility, and 
 labour began to tell upon the iron constitution of 
 the admiral, and for some time be was stretched 
 upon a bed of sickness. 
 
 Some idea of the difficulties which had to be 
 encountered at this period may be conceived from 
 an account of the state of his colony which Co- 
 
134 COLUMBUS'S DESPATCH 
 
 lumbus sent home in January 1494. It is in 
 the form of instructions to a certain Antonio de 
 Torres, the Receiver of the Colony, who was to 
 proceed to the court of Spain and inform the 
 monarchs of such things as were written in these 
 instructions, and doubtless to elucidate them by 
 discourse, as in the present day we send a despatch 
 to be read by an ambassador to the foreign minister 
 of the power we are treating with. There remains 
 a copy, made at the time, of this document, and 
 of the notes in the margin containing the reso- 
 lutions of the sovereigns. The original, thus 
 noted, was taken back to Columbus. It is a most 
 valuable document, very illustrative of the cau- 
 tious and wise dealing of the catholic sovereigns. 
 
 The document begins with the usual strain 
 of complimentary address to great personages. 
 " Their Highnesses hold it for good service" is 
 the marginal remark. 
 
 The next paragraph consists of a general state- 
 ment of the discoveries that have been made. 
 " Their Highnesses give much thanks to God, and 
 hold as very honoured service all that the admiral 
 has done." 
 
 Then follow the admiral's reasons why he has 
 
TO THE COURT OF SPAIN. 135 
 
 not been able to send home more gold. His 
 people have been ill : it was necessary to keep 
 guard, &c. " He has done well " is in the mar- 
 gin. 
 
 He suggests the building of a fortress near the 
 place where gold can be got. Their Highnesses 
 approve; and the note in the margin is, " This 
 is well, and so it must he done.'" 
 
 Then comes a paragraph about provisions, and 
 a marginal order from the sovereigns, " that Juan 
 de Fonseca is to provide for that matter." 
 
 Again, there comes another paragraph about 
 provisions, complaining, amongst other things, that 
 the casks, in which the wine for the armada had 
 been put, were leaky. Their Highnesses make 
 an order in the margin, " that Juan de Fonseca is 
 to find out the persons who played this cheat with 
 the wine casks, and to make good from their pockets 
 the loss, and to see that the canes " (sugar canes for 
 planting, possibly) " are good, and that all that is 
 here asked for, be provided immediately." 
 
 So far, nothing can run more pleasantly with 
 the main document than the notes in the margin. 
 Columbus now touches upon a matter which inti- 
 mately concerns the subject of slavery. He desires 
 
136 CASTILIAN INTERPRETERS. 
 
 bis agent to inform their Highnesses that he has 
 sent home some Indians from the Cannibal Islands 
 as slaves, to be taught Castilian, and to serve 
 afterwards as interpreters, so that the work of con- 
 version may go on. His arguments in support of 
 this proceeding are weighty. He speaks of the 
 good that it will be to take these people away 
 from cannibalism and to have them baptized, for 
 so they will gain their souls, as he expresses it. 
 Then, too, with regard to the other Indians, he 
 remarks, " we shall have great credit from them, 
 seeing that we can capture and make slaves of 
 these cannibals, of whom they (the peaceable 
 Indians) entertain so great a fear." Such argu- 
 ments must be allowed to have much force in 
 them ; and it may be questioned whether many 
 of those persons who, in these days, are the 
 strongest opponents of slavery, would then have 
 had that perception of the impending danger of 
 its introduction which the sovereigns appear to 
 have entertained, from their answer to this part 
 of the document. " This is very well, and so it 
 must be done; but let the admiral see whether it 
 could not be managed there" (i. e. in the Cannibal 
 Islands) "that they should he brought to our Holv 
 
SLAVJiRY PROPOSED. 137 
 
 Catholic Faith, and the same thing with the Indians 
 of those islands where he is." 
 
 The admiral's despatch goes much further: in 
 the next paragraph he boldly suggests that, for 
 the advantage of the souls of these cannibal In- 
 dians, the more of them that could be taken the 
 better; and that, considering what quantities of 
 live-stock and other things are required for the 
 maintenance of the colony, a certain number of 
 caravels should be sent each year with these ne- 
 cessary things, and the cargoes be paid for in 
 slaves taken from amongst the cannibals. He 
 touches again on the good that will be done to 
 the cannibals themselves ; alludes to the customs 
 duties that their Highnesses may levy upon them ; 
 and concludes by desiring Antonio de Torres to 
 send, or bring, an answer, " because the prepara- 
 tions here (for capturing these cannibals) may be 
 carried on with more confidence, if the scheme 
 seem good to their Highnesses." 
 
 At the same time that we must do Columbus 
 the justice tcj believe that his motives were right 
 in his own eyes, it must be admitted that a more 
 distinct suggestion for the establishment of a 
 slave-trade was never proposed. To their hon- 
 
138 THE PROPOSAL REJECTED. 
 
 our, Ferdinand and Isabella thus replied: "As 
 regards this matter, it is suspended for the pre- 
 sent, until there come some other way of doing it 
 there, and let the admiral write what he thinks 
 of this." 
 
 This Is rather a confused answer, as often 
 happens, when a proposition from a valued friend 
 or servant is disapproved of, but has to be rejected 
 kindly. The Catholic sovereigns would have 
 been very glad to have received some money 
 from the Indies : money was always welcome to 
 King Ferdinand; the purchase of wine, seeds, 
 and cattle for the colonists had hitherto proved 
 anything but a profitable outlay ; the prospect 
 of conversion was probably dear to the hearts 
 of both these princes, certainly to one of them : 
 but still this proposition for the establishment 
 of slavery was wisely and magnanimously set 
 aside. 
 
 While Antonio de Torres was absent from 
 Hispanlola, laying these propositions before Los 
 Eeyes, Columbus was busy about .the affairs of 
 the colony, which were in a most distracted state. 
 Scant fare and hard work were having their 
 effect; sickness pervaded the whole armament; 
 
FORT ST. THOMAS FOUNDED. 139 
 
 and men of all ranks and stations, hidalgoes, 
 people of the court and ecclesiastics, were obliged 
 to labour manually under regulations strictly 
 enforced. The rage and vexation of these men, 
 many of whom had come out with the notion of 
 finding gold ready for them on the sea shore, 
 may be imagined ; and complaints of the admiral's 
 harsh way of dealing with those under him (pro- 
 bably no harsher than was absolutely necessary 
 to save them), now took their rise, and pursued 
 him ever after to his ruin. A mutiny, headed 
 by Bernal Diaz, a man high in authority, was 
 detected and quelled before the mutineers could 
 effect their intention of seizing the ships. Diaz 
 was sent for trial to Spain. The colonists, how- 
 ever, were somewhat cheered after a time by 
 hearing of gold mines, and seeing specimens of 
 ore brought from thence; and the admiral went 
 himself and founded the Fort of St, Thomas, in 
 the mining district of Cibao. But the Spaniards 
 gained very little real advantage from these gold 
 mines, which they began to work before they 
 had consolidated around them the means of liv- 
 ing ; In fact, dealing with the mines of His- 
 panlola as if they had been discovered in an 
 
140 DESIRE FOR DISCOVERY. 
 
 old country, where the means of transit and 
 supplies of provisions can, with certainty, be 
 procured. 
 
 There was also another evil, besides that of 
 inconsiderate mining, and, perhaps, quite as mis- 
 chievous a one, which stood in the way of the 
 steady improvement of these early Spanish colonies. 
 The Catholic sovereigns had unfortunately im- 
 pressed upon Columbus their wish that he should 
 devote himself to further discovery, a wish but 
 too readily adopted and furthered by his enter- 
 prising spirit. The hankering of the Spanish 
 monarchs for further discovery was fostered by 
 their jealousy of the Portuguese. The Portu- 
 guese were making their way towards India, 
 going eastward. They, the Spaniards, thought 
 they were discovering India, going westward. 
 The more rapidly, therefore, each nation could 
 advance and plant its standard, the more of much- 
 coveted India it would hereafter be able to claim. 
 Acting upon such views, Columbus now pro- 
 ceeded onwards, bent upon further discovery, 
 notwithstanding that his little colonies at Isabella 
 and St. Thomas must have needed all his sagacity 
 to protect them, and all his authority to restrain 
 
A COUNCIL APPOINTED. 141 
 
 them. He nominated a council to manage the 
 government during his absence, with his brother 
 Don Diego as president of it ; he appointed 
 a certain Don Pedro Margarite as captain- 
 general ; and then put to sea on the 24th of 
 April, 1494. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 [N the course of the voyage that then 
 ensued, the admiral made many impor- 
 tant discoveries, amongst them Jamaica, 
 and the cluster of little islands called the " Gar- 
 den of the Queen." The navigation amongst 
 these islands was so diflScult, that the admiral is 
 said to have been thirty-two days without sleep- 
 ing. Certain it is, that after he had left the 
 island called La Mona, and when he was ap- 
 proaching the island of San Juan, a drowsiness, 
 which Las Casas calls " pestilential," but which 
 might reasonably be attributed to the privations, 
 cares, and anxieties which the admiral had now 
 undergone for many months, seized upon him, 
 and entirely deprived him for a time of the use 
 of his senses. 
 
ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS. 143 
 
 The object in going to San Juan was to cap- 
 ture cannibals there, and Las Casas looks upon 
 this lethargical attack as a judgment upon the 
 admiral for so unjust a manner of endeavouring to 
 introduce Christianity. The mariners turned the 
 fleet homewards to Isabella, where they arrived 
 the 29th of September, 1494, bearing with them 
 their helpless commander. 
 
 On Columbus's arrival at Isabella, where he 
 remained ill for five months, he found his brother, 
 Bartholomew Columbus, whose presence glad- 
 dened him exceedingly. His brothers were very 
 dear to the admiral, as may be gathered from a 
 letter to his eldest son Diego, in which he bids 
 him make much ofi his brother Ferdinand, the 
 son of Beatrice, " for," says he, " ten brothers 
 would not be too many for you. I have never 
 found better friends, on my right hand and on 
 my left, than my brothers." Afterwards came 
 Antonio de Torres with provisions, and all things 
 needful for the colony. But nothing, we are 
 told, delighted the admiral so much as the 
 despatches from court, for he was a faithful, loyal 
 man, who loved to do his duty to those who 
 employed him, and to have his faithfulness re- 
 
144 DISOUGANIZATION OF THE COLONY. 
 
 cognized. Peace or delight, however, was not at 
 any time to be long enjoyed by Columbus. He 
 found his colony in a sad state of disorganization : 
 the Indians were in arms against the Spaniards ; 
 and Father Bull, Don Pedro Margarlte, and other 
 principal persons had gone home to Spain in the 
 ship which had brought Bartholomew Columbus. 
 
 The admiral, before his departure, had given 
 a most injudicious command to Margarite, namely, 
 to put himself at the head of four hundred men 
 and go through the country, with the twofold 
 object of impressing upon the natives a respect 
 for the power of the Spaniards, and of freeing the 
 colony from supporting these four hundred men. 
 The instructions to Margarine were, to observe 
 the people and the natural productions of the 
 country through which he should pass; to do 
 rigorous justice, so that the Spaniards should be 
 prevented from injuring the Indians, or the In- 
 dians the Spaniards ; to treat the Indians kindly ; 
 to obtain provisions by purchase, if possible, if 
 not, by any other means ; and to capture Caonabo 
 and his brothers, either by force or artifice. 
 
 The proceedings of the men under Margarite 
 were similar to those of the Spaniards formerly 
 
OPPnESSION OF INDIANS. 143 
 
 left at La Navidad. They went straggling over 
 the country : they consumed the provisions of the 
 poor Indians, astonishing them by their voracious 
 appetites : • waste, rapine, injury and insult fol- 
 lowed in their steps ; and from henceforth there 
 was but little hope of the two races living peace- 
 ably together in those parts, at least upon equal 
 terms. The Indians were now swarming about 
 the Spaniards with hostile intent : as a modern 
 historian describes the situation, " they had passed 
 from terror to despair ;" and but for the oppor- 
 tune arrival of the admiral, the Spanish settle- 
 ments in Hispaniola might again have been en- 
 tirely swept away. 
 
 Caonabo, the cacique who, in former days, had 
 put to death the garrison at La Navidad, was now 
 threatening that of St. Thomas, the fort which 
 the admiral had caused to be built in the mining 
 district of Cibao. Guatignana, the cacique of 
 Macorix, who had killed eight Spanish soldiers 
 and set fire to a house where there were forty ill, 
 was now within two days' march of Isabella, be- 
 sieging the fort of Magdalena. Columbus started 
 up forthwith, went off to Magdalena, engaged the 
 Indians, and routed them utterly. He took a 
 L 
 
146 TRANSMISSION OF SLAVES 
 
 large part of them for slaves, and reduced to 
 obedience the whole of the province of Macorix. 
 Returning to Isabella, he sent back, on the 24th 
 of February, 1495, the four ships which Antonio 
 de Torres had brought out, chiefly laden with 
 Indian slaves. It is rather remarkable that the 
 very ships which brought that admirable reply 
 from Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, begging 
 him to seek some other way to Christianity than 
 through slavery, even for wild man-devouring 
 Caribs, should come back full of slaves taken from 
 amongst the wild islanders of Hispaniola. 
 
 Caonabo, not daunted by the fate of Guatig- 
 nand, still continued to molest St. Thomas, The 
 admiral accordingly sallied out with two hundred 
 men against this cacique. On the broad plains of 
 the Vega Ileal the Spaniards found an immense 
 number of Indians collected together, amounting, 
 it is said, to one hundred thousand men. The 
 admiral divided his forces into two bands, giving 
 the command of one to his brother Bartholomew, 
 and leading the other himself; and when the 
 brothers made an attack upon the Indians at the 
 same time from different quarters, this numerous 
 host was at once and utterly put to flight. In 
 
SLAUGHTER OF NATIVES. 147 
 
 speaking of such a defeat, the modern reader 
 must not be lavish of the words " cowardly," 
 " pusillanimous," and the like, until, at least, he 
 has well considered what it is to expose naked 
 bodies to firearms, to the charge of steel-clad 
 men on horseback, and to the clinging ferocity 
 of bloodhounds. A "horrible carnage" ensued 
 upon the flight of the Indians. Many of them, 
 less fortunate, perhaps, than those who were slain, 
 being taken alive, were condemned to slavery. 
 Caonabo, however, who was besieging the fortress 
 of St. Thomas at the time of the battle on the 
 Yega Eeal, remained untaken. The admiral re- 
 solved to secure the person of this cacique by 
 treachery ; and sent Ojeda (who afterwards be- 
 came a conspicuous actor in the sad drama of 
 conquest and depopulation in the West Indies) 
 to cajole Caonabo into coming to a friendly meet- 
 ing. There are some curious instructions of Co- 
 lumbus's to Margarite in 1494, respecting a plot 
 to take this formidable Caonabo. They are as 
 thoroughly base and treacherous as can well be 
 imagined. This time the admiral's pliin was com- 
 pletely successful. 
 
 The story which was current in the colonies, 
 
148 CUNNING CAPTURE OF 
 
 of the manner in which Ojeda captured the reso- 
 lute Indian chief, is this. Ojeda carried with him 
 gyves and manacles, the latter of the kind called 
 by the Spaniards, somewhat satirically, esposas 
 (wives), and all made of brass or steel, finely 
 wrought, and highly polished. The metals of 
 Spain were prized by the Indians in the same 
 way that the gold of the Indies was by the Spa- 
 niards. Moreover, amongst the Indians, there was 
 a strange rumour of talking brass, that arose from 
 their listening to the church bell at Isabella, which, 
 summoning the Spaniards to mass, was thought 
 by the simple Indians to converse with them. 
 Indeed the natives of Hispaniola held the Spanish 
 metals in such estimation that they applied to them 
 an Indian word, Turey, which seems to have sig- 
 nified anything that descends from heaven. When, 
 therefore, Ojeda brought these ornaments to Cao- 
 nabo, and told him they were Biscayan Turey, 
 and that they were a great present from the ad- 
 miral, and that he would show him how to put 
 them on, and that when they were put on Cao- 
 nabo should set himself on Ojeda's horse and be 
 shown to his admiring subjects, as, Ojeda said, 
 the kings of Spain were wont to show themselves 
 
INDIAN CHIEF. U9 
 
 to theirs, the incautious Indian is said to have 
 fallen entirely into the trap. Going with Ojeda, 
 accompanied by only a small escort, to a river 
 a short distance from his main encampment. 
 Caonabo, after performing ablutions, suffered the 
 crafty young Spaniard to put the heaven-de- 
 scended fetters on him, and to set him upon the 
 horse. Ojeda himself got up behind the Indian 
 prince, and then whirling a few times round, like 
 a pigeon before it takes its determined flight, 
 making the followers of Caonabo imagine that 
 this was but display, (they all the while keeping 
 at a respectful distance from the horse, an animal 
 they much dreaded,) he darted off for Isabella, 
 and after great fatigues, now keeping to the main 
 track, now traversing the woods in order to evade 
 pursuit, brought Caonabo bound into the presence 
 of Columbus. The unfortunate cacique was after- 
 wards sent to Spain* to be judged there ; and his 
 forces were presently put to flight by a troop of 
 Spaniards under the command of this same Ojeda. 
 Some were killed; some taken prisoners; some 
 fled to the forests and the mountains ; some 
 
 * He (lied on the voyage, however. 
 
150 GO^D TRIBUTE IMPOSED. 
 
 yielded, " oiFering themselves to the service of the 
 Christians, if they would allow them to live in 
 their own ways." 
 
 Never, perhaps, were little skirmishes, for such 
 they were on the part of the Spaniards, of greater 
 permanent importance than those above narrated, 
 which took place in the early part of the year 
 1495. They must be looked upon as the origin 
 in the Indies of slavery, vassalage, and the system 
 of repartlmientos. We have seen that the ad- 
 miral, after his first victory, sent off four ships 
 with slaves to Spain. He now took occasion to 
 impose a tribute upon the whole population of 
 Hispaniola. It was thus arranged. Every In- 
 dian above fourteen years old, who was in the 
 provinces of the mines, or near to these provinces, 
 was to pay every three months a little bellful of 
 gold ; all other persons in the island were to pay 
 at the same time an arroha of cotton for each 
 person. Certain brass or copper tokens were 
 made — different ones for each tribute time — and 
 were given to the Indians when they paid tribute ; 
 and these tokens, being worn about their necks, 
 were to show who had paid tribute. A remarkable 
 proposal was made upon this occasion to the ad- 
 
REMARKABLE INDIAN SCHEME. 151 
 
 miral by Guarionex, cacique of the Vega Keal, 
 namely, that he would institute a huge farm for 
 the growth of corn and the manufacture of bread, 
 stretching from Isabella to St. Domingo (1. e. from 
 *ea to sea) which would suffice to maintain all 
 Castile with bread. The cacique would do this 
 on condition that his vassals were not to pay 
 tribute in gold, as they did not know how to 
 collect that. But this proposal was not accepted, 
 because Columbus wished to have tribute in such 
 things as he could send over to Spain. 
 
 This tribute is considered to have been a most 
 unreasonable one in point of amount, and Colum- 
 bus was obliged to modify his demands upon these 
 poor Indians, and in some instances to change the 
 nature of them. It appears that, in 1496, service 
 instead of tribute was demanded of certain Indian 
 villages; and as the villagers were ordered to 
 make (and work) the farms in the Spanish settle- 
 ments, this may be considered as the beginning 
 of the system of repartimientos, or encomiendas, 
 as they were afterwards called. 
 
 We must not, however, suppose that Indian 
 slavery would not have taken place by means of 
 Columbus, even if these uprisings and defeats of 
 
I5S> VISWS OF COLUMBUS 
 
 the Indiand in the course of the year 1495 had 
 never occurred. Very early indeed we see what 
 the admiral's views were with regard to the In- 
 dians. In the diary which he kept of his first 
 voyage, on the 14th of October, three days after 
 discovering the New World, he describes a posi- 
 tion which he thinks would be a very good one 
 for a fort ; and he goes on to say, " I do not 
 think that it (the fort) will be necessary, for this 
 people is very simple in the use of arms (as youi 
 highnesses will see from seven of them that I have 
 taken in order to bring them to you, to learn our 
 language and afterwards to take them back) ; so 
 that when your highnesses command, you can 
 have them all taken to Castille or kept in the 
 island as captives." 
 
 Columbus was not an avaricious, nor a cruel 
 man ; and certainly he was a very pious one ; 
 but early in life he had made voyages along the 
 coast of Africa, and he was accustomed to a slave 
 trade. Moreover, he was anxious to reduce the 
 expenses of these Indian possessions to the Catholic 
 sovereigns, to prove himself in the right as to all 
 he had said respecting the advantages that would 
 flow to Spain from the Indies, and to confute his 
 enemies at Court. 
 
ON SLAVERY. 153 
 
 Those who have read the Instructions to Co- 
 lumbus given by the Catholic monarchs will na- 
 turally be curious to know how the news of the 
 arrival of these vessels laden with slaves, the fruit 
 of the admiral's first victory over the Indians, was 
 received by the Sovereigns, recollecting how tender 
 they had been about slavery before. This, how- 
 ever, was a very different case from the former 
 one. Here were people taken in what would be 
 called rebellion — prisoners of war. Still we find 
 that Ferdinand and Isabella were heedful in their 
 proceedings in this matter. There is a letter of 
 theirs to Bishop Fonseca, who managed Indian 
 affairs, telling him to withhold receiving the mo- 
 ney for the sale of these Indians that Torres had 
 brought with him until their Highnesses should be 
 able to inform themselves from men learned in 
 the law, theologians and canonists, whether with 
 a good conscience these Indians could be ordered 
 to be sold or not. The historian Munoz, who has 
 been indefatigable in his researches amongst the 
 documents relating to Spanish America, declares 
 that he cannot find that the point was decided ; 
 and if he has failed, we are not likely to discover 
 any direct evidence about the decision. We shall 
 
}54 nrSTRESS OF NATIVES. 
 
 hereafteij however, find something which may 
 enable us to conjecture what the decision practi- 
 cally came to be. 
 
 Many of the so-called free Indians in His- 
 paniola had, perhaps, even a worse fate than that 
 which fell to the lot of their brethren condemned 
 to slavery. These free men, seeing the Spaniards 
 quietly settling down in their island, building 
 houses, and making forts, and no vessels in the 
 harbour of Isabella to take them away, fell into 
 the profoundest sadness, and bethought them of 
 the desperate remedy of attempting to starve the 
 Spaniards out, by not sowing or planting any- 
 thing. But this is a shallow device, when under- 
 taken on the part of the greater number, in any 
 country, against the smaller. The scheme re- 
 acted upon themselves. They had intended to 
 gain a secure though scanty sustenance in the 
 forests and upon the mountains ; but though the 
 Spaniards suffered bitterly from famine, they were 
 only driven by it to further pursuit and molesta- 
 tion of the Indians, who died in great numbers, 
 of hunger, sickness, and misery. 
 
 About this period there arrived in the Indies 
 from the Court of Spain a Commissioner of In- 
 
SPANISH COMMISSIONER. 155 
 
 qulry, his mission being doubtless occasioned by 
 the various complaints made against the admiral 
 by Father Buil, Margarite, and the Spaniards 
 who had returned from Hispaniola. The name 
 of this commissioner was Juan Aguado, and his 
 powers were vouched for by the following letter 
 from the sovereigns : — 
 
 " The King and the Queen. 
 " Cavaliers, Esquires and other persons, who 
 by our command are in the Indies : we send you 
 thither Juan Aguado, our Gentleman of the 
 Chamber, who will speak to you on our part: 
 we command that you give him faith and cre- 
 dence. 
 
 " I the King : I the Queen. 
 
 " By command of the King and Queen, our Lords. 
 
 " HerjSTand Alvaeez. 
 
 " Madrid, the ninth of April, one thousand 
 four hundred and ninety-five." 
 
 The royal commissioner arrived at Isabella in 
 October, 1495, and his proceedings in the colony, 
 together with the fear of what he might report 
 on his return, quickened the admiral's desire to 
 return to Court, that he might fight his own 
 
1.-56 PLOTS TO UNDERMINE AND 
 
 battles there himself. For the tide of his fortune 
 was turning, and this appeared by several notable 
 signs. Strong as was the confidence which the 
 Sovereigns reposed in him, the representations of 
 Margarite and Buil — the rough soldier and the 
 wily Benedictine — had produced their effect. 
 They complained of the despotic rule of Colum- 
 bus ; of the disregard of distinctions of rank which 
 he had manifested by placing the hidalgoes on the 
 same footing as the common men, as regards work 
 and rations, during the construction of the settle- 
 ment ; and of his mania for discovery, which 
 made him abandon the colony already formed, 
 in the unremunerative search for new coun- 
 tries. The commissioner who was sent to in- 
 vestigate these charges, as well as to report on 
 the condition of the colony, found no difficulty in 
 collecting evidence to substantiate them. An 
 unsuccessful man is generally persuaded that 
 somebody else has caused his failure. And the 
 " somebody else," in the case of the colonists, 
 was, by universal consent, the foreign sea-captain 
 who had deluded Spanish hidalgoes by his wild 
 projects, and had become a grandee under false 
 pretences. The Indians, too, w)io were glad to 
 
BUIN THE ADMIRAL. 157 
 
 lay their miseries at the door of somebody, and 
 who were told that Aguado was the new admiral, 
 and had come to supplant the old one, were not 
 slow to add their quota to the charges against 
 Columbus. To rebut these accusations, as well as 
 to protest against the issue of licences, to private 
 adventurers, to trade in the new countries inde- 
 pendently of the admiral (a measure which, in 
 violation of Columbus's charter, had lately been 
 adopted by Fonseca) he quitted Isabella on the 
 10th of March, 1496, in the " Niiia," while 
 Aguado took ship in another caravel. Many 
 of the colonists, who had been rudely awakened 
 from their golden dreams, seized this opportunity 
 of returning to Spain ; and the Cacique Caonabo 
 was also on board, probably with a view of im- 
 pressing upon him an overwhelming conviction 
 of Spanish power, and of the futility of any efforts 
 to resist it. 
 
 The voyage was a miserable one. Contrary 
 winds prevailed until provisions began to run 
 short, and rations were doled out in pittances 
 which grew scantier and scantier until all the 
 admiral's authority was needed to prevent his 
 ravenous shipmates from killing and eating the 
 
158 WRETCHED VOYAGE HOME 
 
 Caribs who were on board, — in retribution, so ran 
 the grim jest, for their cannibalism. At last, 
 when famine was imminent, after a voyage of three 
 months' duration, the two caravels entered the 
 Bay of Cadiz on the 11th of June, 1496. After 
 about a month's delay, Columbus received a sum- 
 mons to proceed to the Court, which was then at 
 Burgos. In the course of his journey thither he 
 adopted the same means of dazzling the eyes of 
 the populace, by the display of gold and the ex- 
 hibition of his captives, as on his return from his 
 first voyage; but so many unsuccessful colonists 
 had returned, sick at heart and ruined in health, 
 to tell the tale of failure to their countrymen, that 
 this triumphal procession was very unlike the 
 last as regards the welcome accorded by the 
 public. However the Sovereigns seem to have 
 given the admiral a kind reception, and instead 
 of placing him on his defence against the charges 
 which had been brought forward by Father Buil, 
 they listened with sympathy to his story of the dif- 
 ficulties which had beset him, and heard with 
 sanguine satisfaction of the recent discovery of the 
 mines from which it was said that the natives 
 procured most of the gold that had been found 
 
RECEPTION AT COURT. 159 
 
 in their possession, and which promised an in- 
 calculably rich harvest. Presently, in apparent 
 confirmation of this belief, one Pedro Nino, a 
 captain of the admiral's, announced his arrival at 
 Cadiz, with a quantity of " gold in bars " on board 
 his ship. It was not until great expectations had 
 been raised at Court, and the wildest ideas con- 
 ceived of the magnitude of this supposed first 
 instalment of the riches of the newly found gold 
 mines, that it turned out that this Nino was 
 merely a miserable maker of jokes, and that the 
 "gold in bars" was only represented by the Indians 
 who composed his cargo, whose present captivity 
 was secured by " bars," and whose future sale 
 was to furnish gold. This absurdity naturally 
 caused Columbus and his friends no slight morti- 
 fication, and added a fresh weapon to the shafts 
 of ridicule which his enemies were for ever 
 launching at his extravagant theories and his 
 expensive projects. 
 
CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 ^UEINGr the two years that elapsed from 
 the Admiral's leaving Hispaniola in 1496 
 to his return there in 1498, many things 
 happened on both sides the Atlantic, which need 
 recording. In 1496 we find, that Don Bartho- 
 lomew Columbus sent to Spain three hundred 
 slaves from Hispaniola. He had previously in- 
 formed the Sovereigns that certain caciques were 
 killing the Castilians, and their Highnesses had 
 given orders in reply, that all those who should 
 be found guilty should be sent to Spain. If this 
 meant the common Indians as well as the caciques, 
 then it seems probable that the question about 
 selling them with a safe conscience was already 
 decided. 
 
 In 1497, two very injudicious edicts were pub- 
 
CRIMINALS SENT TO THE INDIES. 161 
 
 llshed by the Catholic SovereignSj upon the advice, 
 as we are told, of Columbus ; one, authorizing 
 the judges to transport criminals to the Indies ; 
 the other, giving an indulgence to all those who 
 had committed any crime (with certain excep- 
 tions, among which heresy, lese majeste, and trea- 
 son, find a place) to go out at their own expense 
 to Hispaniola, and to serve for a certain time under 
 the orders of the admiral. The remembrance of 
 this advice on his part, might well have shamed 
 Columbus from saying, as he did three years 
 afterwards, in his most emphatic manner, " I 
 swear that numbers of men have gone to the 
 Indies who did not deserve water from God or 
 man." It is but fair, however, to mention, that 
 Las Casas, speaking of the colonists who went 
 out under these conditions, says, " I have known 
 some of them in these islands, even of those who 
 had lost their ears, whom I always found suffi- 
 ciently honest men." 
 
 In 1497, letters patent were issued from the 
 Sovereigns to the admiral, authorizing him to grant 
 repartimientos of the lands in the Indies to the 
 Spaniards. It is noticeable that in this document 
 there is no mention of Indians, so that they had 
 
 M 
 
1 62 " REPAR TIMIENTOSr 
 
 not come to form portion of a repartimiento at this 
 period. The document in question is of a formal 
 character, expressed in the style of legal docu- 
 ments of the present day, by virtue of which the 
 fortunate Spaniard who gets the land is "to have, 
 and to hold, and to possess," and so forth ; and is 
 enabled " to sell and to give, and to present, and 
 to traffic with, and to exchange, and to pledge, 
 and to alienate, and to do with it and in it all 
 that he likes or may think good." 
 
 While the acts of legislation above narrated, 
 which cannot be said to have been favourable to 
 good government in the Indies, were being framed 
 at the Court of Spain, Don Bartholomew Co- 
 lumbus was doing much in his administration of 
 Hispaniola that led to very mischievous results. 
 
 Before the admiral left the island, he had dis- 
 covered some mines to the southward, and had 
 thought of choosing a port in their vicinity, where 
 he might establish a colony. He had spoken 
 about this in his letters to the Government at 
 home. As he entered the Bay of Cadiz on his 
 return, he met some vessels there, which were 
 bound for Hispaniola, and which contained letters 
 from their Highnesses approving of his suggestion. 
 
XARAGUA PENETRATEB. 163 
 
 By these ships, therefore, he sent orders to his 
 brother to make this southern settlement; and 
 the " Adelantado " accordingly proceeded south- 
 wards, and fixed upon a port at the entrance of 
 the river Ozama. lie sent for artizans from 
 Isabella, and commenced building a fortress, 
 which he called St. Domingo, and which after- 
 wards became the chief port of the island. 
 
 There was one part of Hispaniola into which 
 the Spaniards had not yet penetrated :. it was 
 called Xaragua, and was reigned over by a Caci- 
 que named Bohechio, whose sister, Anacaona, the 
 wife of Caonabo, and a noted beauty, seems also 
 to have had much authority in those parts. The 
 Adelantado, after seeing the works at St. Do- 
 mingo commenced, resolved to enter the kingdom 
 of Xaragua, whither he proceeded at the head of 
 one hundred men. Arriving at the river Neyba, 
 he found an immense army of Indians drawn up 
 there to oppose his progress. Don Bartholomew 
 made signs to them that his errand was peaceful ; 
 and the good-natured Indians accepting his proffers 
 of amity, he was conducted some thirty leagues 
 further to the city of Xaragua, where he was re- 
 ceived with processions of dancing and singing 
 
164 TRIBUTE IMPOSED 
 
 women, and feasted magnificently. After having 
 been well entertained by these Indians, the " Ade- 
 lantado" proceeded to business, and, in plain 
 terms, demanded tribute of them. Bohechio 
 pleaded that there was no gold in his dominions, 
 to which the Adelantado replied that he did not 
 wish to impose tribute upon any people, except 
 of the natural productions to be found in their 
 country. It was finally settled that Bohechio 
 should pay tribute in cotton and cazabi-bread. 
 He acceded to this agreement very willingly; and 
 the Adelantado and this cacique parted on the most 
 friendly terms. 
 
 Don Bartholomew then returned to Isabella, 
 where he found that about three hundred men 
 had died from disease, and that there was great 
 dearth of provisions. He distributed the sick 
 men in his fortresses, and in the adjacent Indian 
 villages, and afterwards set out on a journey to 
 his new fort of St. Domingo, collecting tribute by 
 the way. In all these rapid and energetic pro- 
 ceedings of the Adelantado, and still more from 
 causes over which he had no control, the Spaniards 
 must have suflPered much; and, doubtless, those 
 complaints on their part, which were soon to break 
 
UPON THE INDIANS. 165 
 
 out very menacingly, were not unheard at the 
 present time. 
 
 If the Spaniards, however, complained of the 
 labours which Don Bartholomew imposed upon 
 them, the Indians complained still more, and far 
 more justly, of the tribute imposed upon them. 
 Several of the minor chiefs, upon this occasion 
 of collecting tribute, complained to the great 
 Cacique Guarionex, and suggested a rising of the 
 Indians. This cacique seems to have been a 
 peaceful, prudent man, and well aware of the 
 power of the Spaniards. But he now consented 
 to place himself at the head of an insurrection, 
 which, however, the lieutenant-governor, soon 
 made aware of it, quelled at once by a battle in 
 which he was victorious over Guarionex, taking 
 him and other principal persons captive. The 
 chief movers of the revolt were put to death; 
 but Guarionex was delivered up to his people, 
 who flocked by thousands to his place of imprison- 
 ment, clamouring for his restitution. 
 
 About this time messengers came from Bohe- 
 chio and Anacaona, informing the Adelantado 
 that the tribute of that country was ready for 
 him, and he accordingly went to fetch it. During 
 
166 DISCONTENT OF THE 
 
 his absence from the seat of government, and 
 under the less vigorous administration of Don 
 Diego Columbus, who had been left at the head 
 of affairs at Isabella, those discontents among the 
 Spaniards, which had no doubt been rife for a 
 long time, broke out in a distinct manner. I 
 allude to the well-known insurrection of Eoldan, 
 whom the admiral, on his departure, had left as 
 chief justice in the island. The disputes between 
 the chief justice and the governor were to form the 
 first of a series of similar proceedings to take place 
 afterwards in many colonies even down to our own 
 times. It may be imagined that the family of 
 Columbus were a hard race to deal with ; and any 
 one observing that the admiral was very often en- 
 gaged in disputes, and almost always in the right, 
 might conjecture that he was one of those persons 
 who pass through life proving that all people about 
 them are wrong, and going a great way to make 
 them so. This would have been an easy mode 
 of explaining many things, and therefore very 
 welcome to a narrator, but it would not be at 
 all just towards Columbus to saddle upon him 
 any such character. Here were men who had 
 come out with very grand expectations, and who 
 
SPANISH COLONISTS. 167 
 
 found themselves pinched with hunger, having 
 dire storms to encounter, and vast labours to un- 
 dergo ; who were restrained within due bounds by 
 no pressure of society ; who were commanded by a 
 foreigner, or by members of his family, whom they 
 knew to have many enemies at court; who thought 
 that the Sovereigns themselves could scarcely reach 
 them at this distance ; and who imagined that 
 they had worked themselves out of all law and 
 order, and that they deserved an Alsatian immu- 
 nity. With such men (many of them, perhaps, 
 "not worthy of water,") the admiral and his 
 brothers had to get useful works of all kinds 
 done ; and did contrive to get vessels navigated, 
 forts built, and some ideas of civilization main- 
 tained. But it was an arduous task at all times : 
 and this Koldan did not furnish the least of the 
 troubles which the admiral and his brothers had 
 to endure. 
 
 Roldan, too, if we could hear him, would pro- 
 bably have something to say. He wished, it ap- 
 pears, to return to Spain, as Father Bull and 
 Margarite had done; and urged that a certain 
 caravel which the Governor Don Bartholomew 
 Columbus had built, might be launched for that 
 
168 INSURRECTION OF ROLDAN. 
 
 purpose. Such Is the account of Ferdinand Co- 
 lumbus, who maintains that the said caravel could 
 not be launched for want of tackle. He also 
 mentions that Eoldan complained of the restless 
 life the Adelantado led his men, building forts 
 and towns ; and said that there was no hope of 
 the admiral coming back to the colony with sup- 
 plies. Without going into these squabbles — and 
 indeed it is very difficult when a quarrel of this 
 kind arises, taking it up at the point where it 
 breaks out, to judge it upon that only, since the 
 stream of ill-will may have run underground for 
 a long time — suffice it to say, that Roldan and his 
 men grew more and more insubordinate ; were not 
 at all quelled by the presence of the Adelantado 
 on his return from Xaragua ; and finally quitted 
 Isabella in a body. The Adelantado contrived to 
 keep some men faithful to him, promising them, 
 amongst other things, two slaves each. Negotia- 
 tions then took place between the Adelantado 
 and Roldan, which must be omitted for the pre- 
 sent, to enter upon the further dealing of Don 
 Bartholomew with the Indians. 
 
 These poor islanders were now harassed both 
 by the rebels and by the loyal Spaniards, whom 
 
FLIGHT OF GUARIONEX. 169 
 
 the Adelantado could not venture to curb much, 
 for fear of their going over to the other party. 
 The Indians were also tempted by Eoldan to join 
 him, as he contended that tribute had been un- 
 justly imposed upon them. From all these diffi- 
 culties, Guarionex made his escape by flying to 
 the territories of Maiobanex, the cacique of a 
 hardy race, who inhabited the hilly country to- 
 wards Cabron. This flight of Guarionex was a 
 very serious affair, as it threatened the extinction 
 of tribute in that cacique's territory ; and Don 
 Bartholomew accordingly pursued the fugitive. 
 After some skirmishes with the troops of Maio- 
 banex, in which, as usual, the Spaniards were 
 victorious, the Adelantado sent a messenger to 
 Maiobanex, telling him that the Spaniards did not 
 seek war with him, but that he must give up 
 Guarionex, otherwise his own territory would be 
 destroyed by fire and sword. Maiobanex replied, 
 that every one knew that Guarionex was a good 
 man, endowed with all virtue, wherefore he judged 
 him to be worthy of assistance and defence, but 
 that they, the Spaniards, were violent and bad 
 men, and that he would have neither friendship 
 nor commerce with them. 
 
170 MAIOBANEX AND HIS GUEST. 
 
 Upon rceelving this answer, the Adelantado 
 burnt several villages, and approached nearer to 
 the camp of Maiobanex. Fresh negotiations were 
 entered into : Maiobanex convoked an assembly 
 of his people ; and they contended that Gruarionex 
 ought to be given up, and cursed the day when 
 first he came amongst them. Their noble chief, 
 however, said, " that Guarionex was a good man, 
 and deserved well at his hands, for he had given 
 him many royal gifts when he came to him, and 
 had taught him and his wife to join in choral songs 
 and to dance, of which he made no little account, 
 and for which he was grateful: wherefore, he 
 would be party to no treaty to desert Guarionex, 
 since he had fled to him, and he had pledged him- 
 self to take care of the fugitive ; and would rather 
 suffer all extremities than give detractors a cause 
 for speaking ill, to say that he had delivered up 
 his guest." The assemblage of the people being 
 dismissed, Maiobanex informed his guest that he 
 would stand by him to the last. 
 
 The fugitive cacique, however, finding that 
 Maiobanex's people were ill-disposed towards him, 
 quitted, of his own accord, their territory ; but by 
 so doing, he was not enabled to save his generous 
 
THEIR CAPTURE. 171 
 
 host, who, with his family, was surprized and 
 taken ; and Guarionex himself being shortly after- 
 wards captured and put in chains at Fort Concep- 
 tion, the two caciques probably shared the same 
 prison. Thus concludes a story, which, if it had 
 been written by some Indian Plutarch, and the 
 names had been more easy to pronounce, might 
 have taken its just place amongst the familiar and 
 household stories which we tell our children, to 
 make them see the beauty of great actions. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GOOD starting-point for that important 
 part of the narrative which comes next 
 — namely, the discovery of the Ameri- 
 can continent by Columbus — will be a recital of 
 the first clause in the instructions given by Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella to the admiral, in the year 
 1497, previously to his undertaking his third 
 voyage — a voyage which, though not to be com- 
 pared to his first one, is still very memorable, on 
 account of the discoveries he made, and the suf- 
 ferings he experienced in the course of it. 
 
 The first clause of the instructions is to the 
 effect, that the Indians of the islands are to be 
 brought into peace and quietude, being reduced 
 into subjection " benignantly ; " and also, as the 
 principal end of the conquest, that they be con- 
 
COLUMBUS'S THIBD VOYAGE. 173 
 
 verted to the sacred Catholic Faith, and have the 
 holy Sacraments administered to them. 
 
 It will he needless to recount the vexations of 
 that "much-enduring man," Columbus, before his 
 embarkation. SuiBce it to say, that he set sail 
 from the port of San Lucar on the 30th of May, 
 1498, with six vessels, and two hundred men, in 
 addition to the sailors that were necessary to 
 navigate the vessels. In the course of his voyage 
 he was obliged to avoid a French squadron which 
 was cruizing in those seas, as France and Spain 
 were then at war. From Gomera, one of the 
 Canary islands, he despatched three of his ships 
 directly to Hispaniola, declaring in his instruc- 
 tions to their commanders, that he was going to 
 the Cape Verde islands, and thence, "in the name 
 of the Sacred Trinity," intended to navigate to 
 the south of those islands, until he should arrive 
 under the equinoctial line, in the hope of being 
 "guided by God to discover something which 
 may be to His service, and to that of our Lords, 
 the King and Queen, and to the honour of Christ- 
 endom;" "for, I believe," he adds, "that no one 
 has ever traversed this way, and that this sea is 
 nearly unknown." 
 
174 CAPH VERDE ISLANDS. 
 
 With one ship, therefore, and two caravels, the 
 great admiral made for the Cape Verde islands, 
 " a false name," as he observes, for nothing was 
 to be seen there of a green colour. He reached 
 these islands on the 27th of June, and quitted 
 them on the 4th of July, having been in the midst 
 of such a dense fog all the time, that, he says, 
 " it might have been cut with a knife." Thence 
 he proceeded to the south-west, intending after- 
 wards to take a westerly direction. "When he 
 had gone, as he says, one hundred and twenty 
 leagues, he began to find those floating fields of 
 sea-weed which he had encountered in his first 
 voyage. Here he took an observation at night- 
 fall, and found that the north star was in five 
 degrees. The wind suddenly abated, and the 
 heat was intolerable; so much so, that nobody 
 dared to go below deck to look after the wine and 
 the provisions. This extraordinary heat lasted 
 eight days. The first day was clear, and if the 
 others had been like it, the admiral says, not a 
 man would have been left alive, but they would 
 all have been burnt up. 
 
 At last a favourable breeze sprang up, enabling 
 the admiral to take a westerly course, the one he 
 
COLUMBUS SAILS WESTWARD. 175 
 
 most desired, as he had before noticed in his voy- 
 ages to the Indies that about a hundred miles west 
 of the Azores there was always a sudden change of 
 temperature.* On Sunday, the 22nd of July, in 
 the evening, the sailors saw innumerable birds 
 going from the south-west to the north-east, 
 which flight of birds was a sign that land was not 
 far off. For several successive days birds were 
 seen, and an albatross perched upon the admiral's 
 vessel. Still the fleet went on without seeing 
 land, and, as it was in want of fresh water, the 
 admiral was thinking of changing his course, and, 
 indeed, on Thursday, the 31st of July, had com- 
 menced steering northwards for some hours, when, 
 to use his own words, " as God had always been 
 accustomed to show mercy to him," a certain 
 mariner of Huelva, a follower of the admiral's, 
 named Alonzo Perez, happened to go up aloft 
 upon the maintop-sail of the admiral's ship, and 
 suddenly saw land towards the south-west, about 
 
 * I suppose he came into or out of one of those warm 
 ocean rivers which have so great an effect in modifying the 
 temperature of the earth — perhaps into the one which comes 
 from the south of Africa through the Gulf of Mexico, to 
 our own shores, and on which we so much depend. 
 
1T6 TRINIDAD SEEN. 
 
 fifteen leagues off. This land which he described 
 was in the form of three lofty hills or mountains. It 
 would be but natural to conjecture that, as Colum- 
 bus had resolved to name the first land he should 
 discover " Trinidad," it was by an effort of the 
 will, or of the imagination, that these three emi- 
 nences were seen first ; but it is exceedingly pro- 
 bable that such eminences were to be seen from 
 the point whence Alonzo Perez first saw land.* 
 
 The sailors sang the " Salve Eegina," with 
 other pious hymns in honour of God and " Our 
 Lady," according to the custom of the mariners of 
 Spain, who, in terror or in joy, were wont to find 
 an expression for their feelings in such sacred 
 canticles. 
 
 The admiral's course, when he was going north- 
 wards, had been in the direction of the Carib 
 islands, already well known to him; but with 
 great delight he now turned towards Trinidad, 
 making for a cape, which, from the likeness of a 
 little rocky islet near it to a galley in full sail, he 
 
 * Cape Cashepou is backed by three peaked mountains, 
 of which a representation is given in Day's West Indies, 
 vol. 2, p. 31. 
 
THE PEARL COAST. 
 
 177 
 
 named "La Galera."* There he arrived "at the 
 hour of complines," but, not finding the port suf- 
 
 THE 
 PEARL COAST. 
 
 C^R J B B E A JV sj^ 
 
 ficiently deep for his vessels to enter, he pro- 
 ceeded westwards. 
 
 * This point is sometimes placed at the north-east of 
 Trinidad; but wrongly so. It is now Cape Galeota. — See 
 Humbolt's Examen Critique, vol. i. p. 310. 
 
178 FIRST VIEW OF 
 
 The first thing noticeable as he neared these 
 shores, was that the trees grew well on the mar- 
 gin of the sea. There were houses and people, 
 — and Yery beautiful lands, which reminded him, 
 from their beauty and their verdure, of the 
 gardens of Valencia as seen in the month of 
 March. It was also to be observed that these 
 lands were well cultivated. 
 
 On the following morning he continued in a 
 westerly direction in search of a port, where he 
 might take in water, and refit his ships, the 
 timber of which had shrunk, from extreme heat, 
 so that they sadly needed caulking. He did not 
 find a port, but came to deep soundings some- 
 where near Point Alcatraz, where he brought to, 
 and took in fresh water. This was on a Wednes- 
 day, the first of August. From the point where 
 he now was, the low lands of the Orinoco must 
 have been visible, and Columbus must have be- 
 held the continent of America for the first time.* 
 He supposed it to be an island of about twenty 
 leagues in extent, and he gave it the somewhat 
 insignificant name of Zeta. 
 
 ' The northern part of the continent had been discovered 
 bj Sebastian Cabot, on the 24th of June, 1497. 
 
AMERICAN CONTINENT. 179 
 
 The same signs of felicity which greeted his 
 eyes on his first sight of land, continued to mani- 
 fest themselves. Farms and populous places* 
 were visible above the water as he coasted on- 
 wards; with the trees flourishing close to the 
 sea — a sure sign of the general mildness of the 
 weather, wherever it occurs. 
 
 The next day he proceeded westwards along 
 the southern part of Trinidad, until he arrived 
 at the westernmost point, which he called " La 
 punta de Arenal;" and now he beheld the gulf of 
 Paria, which he called " La Balena " (the gulf of 
 the whale). It was just after the rainy season, 
 and the great rivers which flow into that gulf 
 were causing its waters to rush with impetuosity 
 out of the two openings f which lead into the 
 open sea. The contest between the fresh water 
 and the salt water produced a ridge of waters, on 
 the top of which the admiral was borne into the 
 gulf at such risk, that, writing afterwards of this 
 event to the Spanish court, he says, "Even to-day 
 
 ♦ " Vido muchas labranzas por luengo de Costa ymuchaa 
 Poblaciones." — Las Casas, Hist, de las Indias, MS., lib. i, 
 cap. 132. 
 
 f The Boca del Drago and the Boca de la Sierpe 
 
180 COLUMBUS MISTAKES THE 
 
 I shudder lest the waters should have upset the 
 vessel when they came under its bows." 
 
 Previously to entering the gulf, the admiral 
 had sought to make friends with some Indiana 
 who approached him in a large canoe, by ordering 
 his men to come upon the poop, and dance to the 
 sound of a tambourine; but this, naturally enough, 
 appears to have been mistaken for a warlike de- 
 monstration, and it was answered by a flight of 
 arrows from the Indians. 
 
 The admiral, still supposing that he was 
 amongst islands, called the land to the left of him, 
 as he moved up the gulf, the island of Gracia; 
 and he continued to make a similar mistake 
 throughout the whole of his course up the gulf, 
 taking the various projections of the indented 
 coast for islands. Throughout his voyage in the 
 gulf, Columbus met with nothing but friendly 
 treatment from the natives. At last he arrived 
 at a place which the natives told him was called 
 Paria, and where they also informed him that, to 
 the westward, the country was more populous. 
 He took four of these natives, and went onwards^ 
 until he came to a point which he named Punto 
 de Aguja (Needle Point), where, he says, he found 
 
CONTINENT FOR ISLANDS. 181 
 
 the most beautiful lands in the world, very popu- 
 lous, and whence, to use his own words, "an in- 
 finite number of canoes came off to the ships." 
 
 Proceeding onwards, the admiral came to a 
 place where the women had pearl bracelets, and, 
 on his enquiring where these came from, they 
 made signs, directing him out of the Gulf of 
 Paria towards the island of Cubagua. Here he 
 sent some of his men on shore, who were very 
 well received and entertained by two of the prin- 
 cipal Indians. It is needless to dwell upon this 
 part of the narrative. Very few of the places 
 retain the names which the admiral gave tbem, 
 and, consequently, it is difficult to trace his pro- 
 gress. He began to conjecture, from the im- 
 mense amount of fresh water brought down by 
 the rivers .into the Gulf of Paria, that the land 
 which he had been calling the island of Gracia 
 was not an island, but a continent, of which fact 
 he afterwards became more convinced. But little 
 time was given him for research of any kind. 
 He was anxious to reach Hispaniola, in order to 
 see after his colonists there, and to bring them 
 the stores which he had in charge; and so, after 
 passing through the "Boca del Drago," andrecon- 
 
182 THE ADMIRALS REASONING 
 
 noitring the island of Margarita, which he named, 
 he was compelled to go on his way to Hispaniola. 
 We are hardly so much concerned with what the 
 admiral saw and heard, as with what he after- 
 wards thought and reported. To understand this, 
 it will be desirable to enter somewhat into the 
 scientific questions which occupied the mind of 
 this great mariner and most observant man. 
 
 The discovery of the continent of America by 
 Columbus, in his third voyage, was the result of 
 a distinct intention on his part to discover some 
 new land, and cannot be attributed to chance. 
 It would be difficult to define precisely the train 
 of ideas which led Columbus to this discovery. 
 The Portuguese navigations were one compelling 
 cause. Then the change, already alluded to, which 
 Columbus had noticed in his voyages to the Indies, 
 on passing a line a hundred leagues west of the 
 Azoreg, was in his mind, as it was in reality, a 
 circumstance of great moment * and significance. 
 
 * It is the opinion of Humboldt, as mentioned before, 
 that the celebrated division, made by Alexander the Sixth 
 between the Castilian and Portuguese monarchs, was 
 adopted in reference to these phenomena which Columbus, 
 had noticed ; and, if the line of no variation were a " con- 
 stant," no better marine boundary could well be suggested. 
 
ABOUT THE CONTINENT. 183 
 
 It was not a change of temperature alone that he 
 noticed, but a change in the heavens, the air, the 
 sea, and the magnetic current. 
 
 In the first place, the needles of the compass, 
 instead of north-easting, north-wested at this line ; 
 and that remarkable phenomenon occurred just 
 upon the passage of the line, as if, Columbus says, 
 one passed a hill. Then, the sea there was full of 
 sea-weed like small pine-branches, laden with a 
 fruit similar to pistachio nuts. Moreover, on 
 passing this imaginary line, the admiral had in- 
 variably found that the temperature became agree- 
 able, and the sea calm. Accordingly, in the course 
 of this voyage, when they were sufiering from that 
 great heat which has been mentioned, he deter- 
 mined to take a westerly course, which led, as we 
 have seen, to his discovering the beautiful land of 
 Paria.* 
 
 Now Columbus was one of those men of di- 
 
 * Las Casas, who had other authentic information about 
 this voyage besides the manuscripts of Columbus, says, that 
 the admiral intended to have gone southwards, after he had 
 taken a westerly course, on quitting the place where he was 
 becalmed. Had he done so, which the state of his ships 
 would not permit, he might have been the discoverer of 
 Brazil. 
 
184 PECULIAR THEORY OF THE 
 
 vining minds, who must have general theories on 
 which to thread their observations ; and, as few 
 persons have so just a claim to theorize as those 
 who have added largely to the number of ascer- 
 tained facts (a privilege which they generally 
 make abundant use of), so Columbus may well be 
 listened to, when propounding his explanation of 
 the wonderful change in sea, air, sky, and mag- 
 netic current, which he discerned at this distance 
 of a hundred leagues from the Azores. 
 
 His theory was, that the earth was not a per- 
 fect sphere, but pear-shaped ; and he thought that, 
 as he proceeded westwards in this voyage, the sea 
 went gradually rising, and his ships rising too, 
 until they came nearer to the heavens; It is very 
 possible that this theory had been long in his 
 mind, or, at any rate, that he held it before he 
 reached the coast of Paria. When there, new 
 facts struck his mind, and were combined with 
 his theory. He found the temperature much 
 more moderate than might have been expected 
 so near the equinoctial line, far more moderate 
 than on the opposite coast of Africa. In the 
 evenings, indeed, it was necessary for him to 
 wear an outer garment of fur. Then, the natives 
 
SHAPE OF THE EARTH. 185 
 
 ■were llgliter coloured, more astute, and braver 
 than those of the islands. Their hair, too, was 
 different. 
 
 Then, again, he meditated upon the immense 
 volume of fresh waters which descended into the 
 Gulf of Paria. And, in fine, the conclusion which 
 his pious mind came to, was, that when he reached 
 the land which he called the island of Gracia, he 
 was at the base of the earthly Paradise. He also, 
 upon reflection, concluded that it was a continent 
 which he had discovered, the same continent of 
 the east which he had always been in search 
 of; and that the waters, which we now know to 
 be a branch of the river Orinoco, formed one of 
 the four great rivers which descended from the 
 garden of Paradise. 
 
 Very different were the conjectures of the pilots. 
 Some said that they were in the Sea of Spain ; 
 others, in that of Scotland, and, being in despair 
 about their whereabouts, they concluded that they 
 had been under the guidance of the Devil. The 
 admiral, however, was not a man to be much in- 
 fluenced by the sayings of the unthoughtful and the 
 unlearned. He fortified himself by references to 
 St. Isidro, Beda, Strabo, St. Ambrose, and Duns 
 
18S GRACEFUL BEARING OF NATIVES. 
 
 Scotus, and held stoutly to the conclusion that he 
 had discovered the site of the earthly Paradise. 
 It is said, that he exclaimed to his men, that they 
 were in the richest country in the world. 
 
 Columbus did not forget to claim, with all due 
 formalities, the possession of this approach to 
 Paradise, for his employers, the Catholic Sove- 
 reigns. _ Accordingly, when at Paria, he had 
 landed and taken possession of the coast in their 
 names, erecting a great cross upon the shore, 
 which, he tells Ferdinand and Isabella, he was 
 in the habit of doing at every headland, the re- 
 ligious aspect of the conquest being one which 
 always bad great influence with the admiral, as 
 he believed it to have with the Catholic monarchs. 
 In communicating this discovery, he reminds them 
 how they bade him go on with the enterprise, if 
 he should discover only stones and rocks, and 
 had told him that they counted the cost for 
 nothing, considering that the Faith would be in- 
 creased, and their dominions widened. 
 
 It was, however, no poor discovery of mere 
 " rocks and stones " which the admiral had now 
 made. It will be interesting to see his first im- 
 pressions of the men and the scenery of this con- 
 
BEAUTY OF THE LAND. 187 
 
 tinent which he had now, unconsciously, for the 
 first time, discovered. He says, " I found some 
 lands, the most beautiful in the world, and very 
 populous." The lands in the island of Trinidad 
 he had previously compared to Valencia, in Spain, 
 during the month of March. It is also noticeable 
 that he had observed that the fields were culti- 
 vated. Of the people, he says, " They are all of 
 good stature, well made, and of very graceful 
 bearing, with much and smooth hair ; " and he 
 mentions that on their heads they wore the beau- 
 tiful Arab head-dress (called keffeli), made of 
 worked and coloured handkerchiefs, which ap- 
 peared in the distance as if they were silken. 
 
 The description given by Columbus of the 
 natives whom he encounters in his voyages is 
 almost always favourable. Indeed, the descrip- 
 tion of any man or thing depends as much on the 
 person describing, as on the thing or person de- 
 scribed. Those little differences In look or dress, 
 which excite the ready mockery of the untravelled 
 rustic, appear very slight indeed to the man who, 
 like Columbus or Las Casas, has seen many lands, 
 and travelled over many minds. The rude Spanish 
 common soldier perceived a far greater dlflference 
 
188 THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 
 
 between himself and the Indian, than did the most 
 accomplished man who visited the Indies, when 
 he made to himself a similar comparison. Occa- 
 gionally, in a narrow nature, however cultivated, 
 the commonest prejudices hold their ground ; but, 
 in general, knowledge sees behind and beyond 
 disgust, and suffices to conquer it. 
 
 Columbus, however, found the men, the country, 
 and the products, equally admirable. It is some- 
 what curious that he does not mention his dis- 
 covery of pearls to the Catholic monarchs, and he 
 afterwards makes a poor excuse for this. The 
 real reason I conjecture to have been a wish to 
 pi-eserve this knowledge to himself, that the fruits 
 of this enterprise might not be prematurely 
 snatched from him. His shipmates, however, 
 were sure to disperse the intelligence ; and the 
 gains to be made on the Pearl Coast were, pro- 
 bably, the most tempting bait for future navi- 
 gators to follow in the track of Columbus, and 
 complete the discovery of the earthly Paradise. 
 
 Of the delights of this Paradise Columbus 
 himself was to have but a slight and mocking 
 foretaste. He had been constantly ill during the 
 voyage, suffering from the gout and from an in- 
 
ILLNJESS OF COLUMBUS. 189 
 
 flammation in his eyes which rendered him almost 
 blind. His new colony in HIspaniola demanded 
 his attention, and must often have been the cause 
 of anxious thought to him; and the grave but 
 glowing enthusiast made his way to St. Domingo, 
 and afterwards returned to Spain, to be vexed 
 henceforth by those mean miseries and small dis- 
 putes which afflicted him for the remainder of his 
 days — miseries the more galling, as they were so 
 disproportionately small in comparison with the 
 greatness of such a man, and with the aims and 
 hopes which they effectually hindered. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ^T was on the 30th of August, 1498, that 
 Columbus arrived at Hispaniola, where 
 he found the state of his colony far 
 from cheering, the defection of E,oldan and his 
 followers having put everything into confusion. 
 The admiral supposed at first that the enmity of 
 Roldan's party was chiefly directed against his 
 brother, the Adelantado, and the admiral hoped 
 that, now he had arrived, some agreement would 
 speedily be concluded with Roldan, of which he 
 might inform the catholic sovereigns by the ves- 
 sels which he purposed to send back immediately 
 to Spain. This was very far, however, from being 
 the case. These vessels, five in number, left the 
 port of St. Domingo bearing no good news of 
 peace and amity amongst the Spaniards, but laden 
 
SLAVES AND LOGWOOD. 191 
 
 with many hundreds of Indian slaves, which had 
 been taken in the following manner. Some ca- 
 cique failed to perform the personal services im- 
 posed upon him and his people, and fled to the 
 forests ; upon which, orders were given to pur- 
 sue him, and a large number of slaves were cap- 
 tured and put into these ships. Columbus, in his 
 letters to the sovereigns, enters into an account of 
 the pecuniary advantage that will arise from these 
 slave-dealing transactions, and from the sale of 
 logwood. He estimates, that " in the name of the 
 sacred Trinity" there may be sent as many slaves 
 as sale could be found for in Spain, and that the 
 value of the slaves, for whom there would be a 
 demand to the number of four thousand, as he 
 calculated from certain information, and of the 
 logwood, would amount to forty cuentos (i. e. forty 
 million maravedis). The number of slaves who 
 were sent in these five ships was six hundred, of 
 which two hundred were given to the masters of 
 the vessels in payment of freight. In the course 
 of these letters, throughout which Columbus 
 speaks after the fashion of a practised slave- 
 dealer, he alludes to the intended adoption, on 
 behalf of private individuals, of a system of ex- 
 
192 PLAN OF SLAVE BARTER. 
 
 change of slaves for goods wanted from the 
 mother country. The proposed arrangement was 
 as follows : — The masters of vessels were to 
 receive slaves from the colonists, were to carry 
 them to Spain, and to pay for their maintenance 
 during the voyage ; they were then to allow the 
 colonists so much money, payable at Seville, in 
 proportion to the number of slaves brought over. 
 This money they would expend according to the 
 orders of the colonists, who would thus be able 
 to obtain, such goods as they might stand in need 
 of. It was upon the same occasion of writing 
 home to Spain that the admiral strongly urged 
 upon the Catholic Sovereigns that the Spanish 
 colonists should be allowed to make use of the 
 services of the Indians for a year or two until 
 the colony should be in a settled state, a proposal 
 which he did not wait for their highnesses' au- 
 thority to carry out, and which led to a new form ' 
 of the repartimiento . But this brings us back to 
 Eoldan's story, being closely connected with it. 
 
 After great trouble and many attempts at 
 agreement, in which mention is more than once 
 made of slaves, the dispute between E-oldan's 
 party, rebels they might almost be called, and 
 
CONTENTION WITH MOLD AN. 193 
 
 Columbus, was at last, after two years' negotia- 
 tion, brought to a close. Eoldan kept his chief- 
 justiceship; and his friends received lands and 
 slaves. It brings to mind the conclusion of many 
 a long war in the old world, in which two great 
 powers have been contending against each other, 
 with several small powers on each side, the latter 
 being either ruined in the course of the war, or 
 sacrificed at the end. The admiral gave reparti- 
 mientos to those followers of Eoldan who chose 
 to stay in the island, which were constituted in 
 the following manner. The admiral placed under 
 such a cacique so many thousand matas (shoots of 
 the cazabi), or, which came to the same thing, so 
 many thousand montones (small mounds a foot and 
 a half high, and ten or twelve feet round, on each 
 of which a cazabi shoot was planted) ; and Co- 
 lumbus then ordered that the cacique or his people 
 should till these lands for whomsoever they were 
 assigned to. The repartimiento had now grown 
 to its second state — not lands only, but lands and 
 the tillage of them. We shall yet find that there 
 is a further step in this matter, before the re- 
 partimiento assumes its utmost development. It 
 seems, too, that in addition to these repartimientos, 
 o 
 
194 THE QUEEN'S ANGER. 
 
 Columbus gave slaves to those partizans of Kol- 
 dan who stayed in the island. Others of Eoldan's 
 followers, fifteen iu number, chose to return to 
 Spain ; they received a certain number of slaves, 
 some one, some two, some three ; and the admiral 
 sent them home in two vessels which left the 
 port of St. Domingo at the beginning of October, 
 1499. 
 
 On the arrival in Spain of these vessels, the 
 Queen was in the highest degree angered by the 
 above proceedings, and said that the admiral had 
 received no authority from her to give her vassals 
 to any one. She accordingly commanded pro- 
 clamation to be made at Seville, Granada, and 
 other places, that all persons who were in pos- 
 session of Indians, given to them by the admiral, 
 should, under pain of death, send those Indians 
 back to Hispaniola, " and that particularly they 
 should send back those Indians, and not the others 
 who had been brought before, because she was in- 
 formed that the others had been taken in just war." 
 The former part of this proclamation has been 
 frequently alluded to, and no doubt it deserves 
 much praise ; but from the latter part it is clear 
 that there were some Indians who could justly. 
 
PARTIAL RELEASE OF SLAVES. 195 
 
 according to Queen Isabella, be made slaves. By 
 this time, therefore, at any rate the question had 
 been solved, whether by the learned in the law, 
 theologians and canonists, I know not, but cer- 
 tainly in practice, that the Indians taken In war 
 could be made slaves. The whole of this trans- 
 action is very remarkable, and, in some measure, 
 inexplicable, on the facts before us. There is 
 nothing to show that the slaves given to Eoldan's 
 followers were made slaves in a different way 
 from those who had been sent over on former 
 occasions, both by the admiral and his brother, 
 for the benefit of the crown. And yet the Queen, 
 whom no one has ever accused of condescending 
 to state craft, seems to deal with this particular case 
 as if it were something quite new. It cannot be 
 said that the crown was favoured, for the question 
 is put upon the legitimacy of the original capture; 
 and to confirm this, there is a letter from the So- 
 vereigns to one of their household, from which it 
 may be inferred, though the wording is rather 
 obscure, that they, too, gave up the slaves which 
 had come over for them on this 'occasion. 
 
 Every body would be sorry to take away any 
 honour from Isabella ; and all who are conversant 
 
196 THE ADMIRAL'S ENEMIES 
 
 with that period must wish that her proclamation 
 could be proved to have gone to the root of the 
 matter; and that it had forbidden the sending 
 Indians to Spain as slaves, on any pretext what- 
 ever. 
 
 To return to the affairs of Hispaniola. Co- 
 lumbus had now settled the Roldan revolt and 
 other smaller ones ; he had now, too, reduced the 
 Indians into subjection ; the mines were pros- 
 pering ; the Indians were to be brought together 
 in populous villages, that so they might better be 
 taught the Christian faith, and serve as vassals to 
 the crown of Castile ; the royal revenues (always 
 a matter of much concern to Columbus) would, 
 he thought, in three years amount to sixty millions 
 of reals ; and now there was time for him to sit 
 down, and meditate upon the rebuilding of the 
 temple of Jerusalem, or the conversion of Cathay. 
 If there had been any prolonged quiet for him, 
 such great adventures would probably have begun 
 to form the staple of his high thoughts. But he 
 had hardly enjoyed more than a month of re- 
 pose, when that evil came down upon him, which 
 " poured the juice of aloes into the remaining 
 portion of his life." 
 
WORKING AT COURT. 197 
 
 The Catholic sovereigns had hitherto, upon the 
 whole, behaved well to Columbus. He had bitter 
 enemies at court. People were for ever suggest- 
 ing to the monarchs that this foreigner was doing 
 wrong. The admiral's son, Ferdinand, gives a vivid 
 picture of some of the complaints preferred against 
 his father. He says, " When I was at Granada, at 
 the time the most serene Prince Don Miguel died, 
 more than fifty of them (Spaniards who had re- 
 turned from the Indies), as men without shame, 
 bought a great quantity of grapes, and sat them- 
 selves down in the court of the Alhambra, utterins: 
 loud cries, saying, that their Highnesses and the 
 admiral made them live in this poor fashion on 
 account of the bad pay they received, with many 
 other dishonest and unseemly things, which they 
 kept repeating. Such was their effrontery that 
 when the Catholic king came forth they all sur- 
 rounded him, and got him into the midst of them, 
 saying, ' Pay ! pay ! ' and if by chance I and my 
 brother, who were pages to the most serene Queen, 
 happened to pass where they were, they shouted 
 to the very heavens saying, ' Look at the sons of 
 the admiral of Mosquitoland, of that man who 
 has discovered the lands of deceit and disappoint- 
 
198 SERIOUS DISSATISFACTION. 
 
 ment, a place of sepulchre and wretchedness to 
 Spanish hidalgoes : ' adding many other insulting 
 expressions, on which account we excused our- 
 selves from passing by them." 
 
 Unjust clamour, like the above, would not 
 alone have turned the hearts of the Catholic sove- 
 reigns against Columbus ; but this clamour was 
 supported by serious grounds for dissatisfaction in 
 the state and prospects of the colony : and when 
 there is a constant stream of enmity and prejudice 
 against a man, his conduct or his fortune will, some 
 day or other, offer an opportunity for it to rush 
 in upon him. However this may be, soon after 
 the return of the five vessels from St. Domingo, 
 mentioned above, which first told the news of the 
 revolt of Koldan, Ferdinand and Isabella appear to 
 have taken into serious consideration the question 
 of suspending Columbus. He had, himself, in the 
 letters transmitted by these ships, requested that 
 some one might be sent to conduct the affairs of 
 justice in the colony ; but if Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella began by merely looking out for such an 
 officer, they ended in resolving to send one who 
 should take the civil as well as judicial authority 
 into his own hands. This determination was not. 
 
COLUMBUS SUPERSEDED. ]99 
 
 however, acted upon hastily. On the 21st of 
 March, 1499, they authorized Francis de Boba- 
 dilla " to ascertain what persons have raised 
 themselves against justice in the island of Hispa- 
 niola, and to proceed against them according to 
 law." On the 21st of May, 1499, they conferred 
 upon this officer the government, and signed an 
 order that all arms and fortresses in the Indies 
 should be given up to him. On the 26th of the 
 same month, they gave him the following remark- 
 able letter to Columbus : — 
 
 '' Don Christopher Columbus, our Admiral of 
 the Ocean : We have commanded the Comen- 
 dador Francis de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, 
 that he speak to you on our part some things 
 which he will tell you : we pray you give him 
 faith and credence, and act accordingly. 
 " I the King, I the Queen, 
 
 " By their command, 
 
 " Miguel Peeez de Almazan." 
 
 Bobadilla, however, was not sent from Spain 
 until the beginning of July, 1500, and did not 
 make his appearance in Hispaniola till the 23rd 
 
200 HARSH TREATMENT OF 
 
 of August of the same year. Their Highnesses, 
 therefore, must have taken time before carrying 
 their resolve into execution ; and what they meant 
 by it is dubious. Certainly, not that the matter 
 should have been transacted in the coarse way 
 which Bobadilla adopted. It is a great pity, and 
 a sad instance of mistaken judgment, that they 
 fixed upon him for their agent. I imagine him to 
 have been such a man as may often be met with, 
 who, from his narrowness of mind and distinctness 
 of prejudice, is supposed to be high-principled and 
 direct in his dealings ; and whose untried reputa- 
 tion has great favour with many people : until, 
 placed in power some day, he shows that to rule 
 ■ well requires other things than one-sidedness in 
 the ruling person ; and is fortunate if he does 
 not acquire that part of renown which consists in 
 notoriety, by committing some colossal blunder, 
 henceforth historical from its largeness. 
 
 The first thing that Bobadilla did on arriving 
 at St. Domingo was to take possession of the 
 admiral's house (he being at the fort La Con- 
 cepcion), and then to summon the admiral before 
 him, sending him the royal letter. Neither the 
 admiral nor his brothers attempted to make any 
 
COLUMBUS AND HIS BROTHERS. 201 
 
 resistance ; and Bobadilla, with a stupid brutality, 
 which I suppose he took for vigour, put them in 
 chains, and sent them to Spain. There is no 
 doubt that the Castilian population of Hispaniola 
 were rejoiced at Bobadilla's coming, and that they 
 abetted him in his Tiolence. Accusations came 
 thickly against Columbus: " the stones rose up 
 against him and his brothers," says the historian 
 Herrera, emphatically. The people told how he 
 had made them work, even sick men, at his for- 
 tresses, at his house, at the mills, and other build- 
 ings ; how he had starved them ; how he had 
 condemned men to be whipped for the slightest 
 causes, as, for instance, for stealing a peck of 
 wheat when they were dying of hunger. Consi- 
 dering the difficulties he had to deal with, and the 
 scarcity of provisions, many of these accusations, 
 if rightly examined, would probably have not 
 merely failed in producing anything against Co- 
 lumbus, but would have developed some proofs 
 of his firmness and sagacity as a governor. Then 
 his accusers went on to other grounds, such as his 
 not having baptized Indians " because he desired 
 slaves rather than Christians:" moreover, that 
 he had entered into war unjustly with the 
 
202 COLUMBUS SENT HOME 
 
 Indians, and that he had made many slaves, in 
 order to send them to Castile. It is highly 
 unlikely that these latter charges were preferred 
 by a single colonist, unless, perhaps, by some man 
 in religious orders. The probability is, that they 
 came from the other side of the water ; and this 
 does give considerable strength to the report, that 
 the displeasure of the court with respect to the 
 Admiral's proceedings against the Indians had to 
 do with his removal from the government of the 
 Indies. If so, it speaks largely for the continued 
 admirable intentions of the Spanish court in this 
 matter. 
 
 Poor Columbus ! His chains lay very heavily 
 upon him. He insisted, however, upon not having 
 them taken off, unless by royal command, and 
 would ever keep them by him, ("I always saw them 
 in his room," says his son Ferdinand), ordering 
 that they should be buried with him. He did 
 not know how many wretched beings would have 
 to traverse those seas, in bonds much worse than 
 his, with no room allowed them for writing, as 
 was his case, — not even for standing upright; 
 nor did he foresee, I trust, that some of his doings 
 would further all this coming misery. In these 
 
BY BOBADILLA IN CHAINS. 203 
 
 chains Columbus is of more interest to us than 
 when in full power as governor of the Indies; 
 for so it is, that the most infelicitous times of a 
 man's life are those which posterity will look to 
 most, and love him most for. This very thought 
 may have comforted him; but happily he had 
 other sources of consolation in the pious aspira- 
 tions which never deserted him. 
 
 We have come now to the end of Columbus's 
 administration of the Indies. Whatever we may 
 think of his general policy, we cannot but regret 
 his removal at the present time, when there ap- 
 peared some chance of solidity in his government : 
 though we must honestly admit, that the Catholic 
 Sovereigns, with such evidence as they had before 
 them, were far from wrong in recalling him, had 
 it been done in a manner worthy of his and of 
 their greatness. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 \ HE career of Columbus had already been 
 marked by strong contrasts. First, a 
 " pauper pilot," then the viceroy of 
 a new world ; alternately hoping, and fearing, 
 despondent, and triumphant, he had passed 
 through strange vicissitudes of good and evil for- 
 tune. But no two events in his life stand out in 
 stronger contrast to each other than his return to 
 Spain after his first voyage, and his return now. 
 He was then a conqueror ; he was now a prisoner. 
 He was then the idol of popular favour ; he was 
 now the unpopular victim of insidious maligners. 
 In truth, the contrast was so startling as to strike 
 home to the hearts of the common people, even 
 of those — and there were many such — who had 
 lost kinsmen or friends in that fatal quest for gold 
 which the admiral had originated and stimulated. 
 
BE ACTION AT COURT. 205 
 
 The broad fact was this: Columbus had given 
 Spain a new world ; Spain loaded him with fetters 
 in return. There was a reaction. The current 
 of public opinion began to turn in his favour. 
 The nation became conscious of ingratitude to 
 its benefactor. The nobility were shocked at the 
 insult to one of their own order. And no sooner 
 had the Sovereigns learned from Columbus of his 
 arrival, and of his disgrace, than they issued im- 
 mediate orders for his liberation, and summoned 
 him to their court at Grenada, forwarding money 
 to enable him to proceed there in a style befitting 
 his rank. They then received him with all pos- 
 sible signs of distinction ; repudiated Bobadilla'e 
 arbitrary proceedings ; and promised the admiral 
 compensation and satisfaction. As a mark of 
 their disapprobation of the way in which Boba- 
 dilla had acted under their commission, they 
 pointedly refused to enquire into the charges 
 asrainst Columbus, and dismissed them as not 
 worthy of investigation. 
 
 But though the Sovereigns acted thus promptly 
 on the admiral's behalf, there is no doubt that one 
 of them, at least, was in no wise displeased at his 
 beine removed from his government. At each 
 
206 COLUMBUS PLEADS HIS CAUSE 
 
 fresh discovery, Ferdinand had repented more and 
 more of the concession by which Columbus was 
 to receive an eighth part of the profits of the 
 newly-found countries, and to be their governor- 
 general. He probably apprehended that this 
 viceroy, when once master of the boundless 
 wealth which was supposed to be nearly within 
 his grasp, would become more powerful than his 
 master, and might finally throw off his allegiance 
 altogether. But here was an opportunity, with- 
 out any flagrant breach of faith, of eluding the 
 bargain, by refusing, on very plausible grounds 
 of policy, to reinstate Columbus immediately in 
 his viceroyalty. Isabella, who had always been 
 his firm friend, would probably have refused to 
 acquiesce in any scheme for absolutely depriving 
 him of his rights, but it was sufficiently obvious 
 that just at present, while the colonists were ex- 
 cited against him, it would be prudent that some 
 one else should take the reins of government. 
 
 The Queen granted Columbus a private au- 
 dience. He told his story with much simple 
 eloquence — so pathetically, indeed, that his warm- 
 hearted mistress is said to have been moved to 
 tears at the recital. He described the difficulties 
 which he had encountered and the machinations 
 
BEFORE THE QUEEN. 207 
 
 of the enemies who had been constantly thwarting 
 him. He pleaded that he had been obliged to 
 create a line of conduct for himself, having to 
 deal with an entirely new combination of circum- 
 stances without any precedent to guide him. And 
 he implored the Queen to believe that the accusa- 
 tions which had, of late, poured In against him, 
 were prompted by the disappointed ambition and 
 the jealousy of his enemies, and had not any solid 
 foundation in fact. 
 
 Isabella replied in a very sensible speech, telling 
 him that, while she fully appreciated his services, 
 and knew the rancour of his enemies, she was 
 afraid that he had given some cause for complaint. 
 " Common report," she said,* " accuses you of act- 
 ing with a degree of severity quite unsuitable for an 
 infant colony, and likely to excite rebellion there. 
 But the matter as to which I find it hardest to give 
 you my pardon, is your conduct in reducing to 
 slavery a number of Indians who had done no- 
 thing to deserve such a fate. This was contrary 
 to my express orders. As your ill fortune willed 
 it, just at the time when I heard of this breach 
 of my instructions, everybody was complaining of 
 
 * Charlevoix. 
 
208 THE QUEEN'S DECISION. 
 
 you, and no one spoke a word in your favour. 
 And I felt obliged to send to the Indies a com- 
 missioner to investigate matters, and give me a 
 true report ; and, if necessary, to put limits to the 
 authority which you were accused of overstepping. 
 If you were found guilty of the charges, he was 
 to relieve you of the government and to send you 
 to Spain to give an account of your stewardship. 
 This was the extent of his commission. I find 
 that I have made a bad choice in my agent ; and 
 1 will take care to make an example of Bobadilla, 
 which shall serve as a warning to others not to 
 exceed their powers. I cannot, however, promise 
 to re-instate you at once in your government. 
 People are too much inflamed against you, and 
 must have time to cool. As to your rank of 
 admiral, I never intended to deprive you of it. 
 But you must bide your time and trust in me." 
 
 It was arranged that the appointment of the 
 new governor should be for two years only, at 
 the expiration of which period, as Isabella thought, 
 the administration of the colonies might be again 
 entrusted to Columbus; while Ferdinand doubt- 
 less considered that some pretext might be found 
 
BOBADILLA'S TYRANNY. 209 
 
 in the meantime for omitting to re-appoint him at 
 all. And though Columbus may have been told 
 verbally that it was their Highnesses' intention to 
 re-instate him after the lapse of two years, it is 
 noteworthy that the document appointing Ovando 
 makes no mention of any limitation of the term 
 of his (Ovando's) government. The words are, 
 "that he is to be governor as long as it is their 
 Highnesses' will and pleasure." Bobadilla, fortu- 
 nately for the islanders, was forthwith to be super- 
 seded ; for, if Columbus had chastised them with 
 whips, Bobadilla was chastising them with scor- 
 pions. His first object was the discovery of gold; 
 and to secure this he took a census of the natives, 
 and assigned them all as slaves to the colonists. A 
 large proportion of the latter, as we have seen, 
 were simply the scourings of Spanish prisons; 
 and the brutality with which these men treated 
 their wretched helots was very terrible. Some 
 estimate of the amount of pressure employed may 
 be formed from the fact that, although Bobadilla 
 had reduced the royalty payable to the Sovereigns 
 from one-third to one-eleventh of the gold found, 
 this smaller proportion produced a larger revenue. 
 In other words, about four times as much gold 
 p 
 
210 OVANDO AS GOVERNOR 
 
 was discovered under Bobadilla's system as under 
 that of Columbus. 
 
 But when the Sovereigns heard of the cruelties 
 which that system involved, they urged forward 
 the departure of Ovando, whom they had selected 
 as governor, and who, to judge from his previous 
 career, was a man eminently fitted to rule justly 
 and mercifully. He was well known to Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella, having been chosen by the 
 Queen as one of the companions for her eldest 
 son, Prince John. With regard to his personal 
 appearance, we are told that he was of moderate 
 stature, and had a " vermilion-coloured beard," 
 which fact hardly conveys much to our minds ; but 
 it is added, in general terms, that his presence ex- 
 pressed authority. With respect to his mental 
 qualifications, we learn that he was a friend to 
 justice, an honourable person both in words and 
 deeds, and that he held all avarice and covetous- 
 ness in much aversion. He was humble, too, 
 they say, and when he was appointed Commen- 
 dador Mayor of the Order of Alcantara, he would 
 never allow himself to be addressed by the title 
 of " Lordship," which belonged to that office. 
 
 Previous to Ovando's departure from court. 
 
HTS INSTRUCTIONS. 211 
 
 the monarchs were particular in giving him in- 
 structions both verbal and written. Among these 
 instructions was one which Isabella especially in- 
 sisted on, namely, "that all the Indians in His- 
 paniola should be free from servitude and be un- 
 molested by any one, and that they should live as 
 free vassals, governed and protected by justice, 
 as were the vassals of Castile." Like the vassals 
 in Spain, the Indians were to pay tribute ; they 
 were also to assist in getting gold, but for this 
 they were to be paid daily wages. Other com- 
 mands were given at the same time for the con- 
 version of the Indians, and to insure their being 
 treated kindly. 
 
 Respecting the general government of the 
 country, it was arranged that on Ovando's going 
 out, all those who received pay from the govern- 
 ment in the Indies, as well those who had ac- 
 companied Bobadilla as those who had come out 
 originally with Columbus, should return to Spain, 
 and that a new set to replace them should go out 
 with Ovando. This was done because most 
 of these soldiers and officials had necessarily been 
 connected with the late troubles in the colony, 
 and it would be a good plan to start afresh, as it 
 
212 ADVICE TO OVANDO ON" 
 
 were. At the same time it was provided that no 
 Jews, Moors, or new converts were to go to the 
 Indies, or be permitted to remain there ; but 
 negro slaves " born in the power of Christians, 
 were to be allowed to pass to the Indies, and the 
 officers of the royal revenue were to receive the 
 money to be paid for their permits." This is the 
 first notice with respect to negroes going to the 
 Indies. These instructions were given in the 
 year 1501. 
 
 On Ovando's arrival in the colony, Bobadilla 
 was to undergo the ordeal of a " resideneia,^'' a 
 kind of examination well known and constantly 
 practised in Spain, to which Authorities were sub- 
 ject on going out of office — being of the nature of 
 a general impeachment. It is satisfactory to find, 
 that amongst the orders given to Ovando, there are 
 some for the restitution of the admiral's property, 
 and the maintenance of his mercantile rights. 
 
 Just before Ovando took leave of the king, he 
 received a formal lecture upon the duties of a 
 governor. The King, the Queen, and a privy 
 councillor, Antonio de Fonseca, were the persons 
 present ; and, as I imagine, the latter addressed 
 Ovando on the part of their Highnesses. As it ia 
 
THE DUTIES OF A GOVERNOR. 213 
 
 not often that we have an opportunity of hearing 
 a didactic lecture on the modes and duties of 
 government given in the presence of a great 
 master of that art, and probably looked over, if 
 not prepared, by him, we must enter the royal 
 cabinet, and hear some part of this discourse. 
 
 The first point which Fonseca impresses upon 
 Ovando is, that before all things, he is to look to 
 what concerns the reverence of God and His 
 worship. Then he is to examine into the life 
 and capacity of the men about him, and to put good 
 men into office ; taking care, however, not to 
 leave all the authority in the hands of subordinates 
 {here we may well imagine Ferdinand nodded ap- 
 provingly^, to the diminution of his own power, 
 " nor to make them so great that they shall have 
 occasion to contrive novelties," in order to make 
 themselves greater. Also, let there be change 
 of authorities, so that many may have a share of 
 profit and honour, and be made skilful in affairs. 
 
 That he should use moderation in making 
 repartimientos and tributes, not overtaxing the 
 people, which moderation would be furthered by 
 his taking care that his personal and his house- 
 hold expenses were within due bounds. {Here, 
 
214 ADVICE TO OVANDO ON 
 
 I fancy, the monarchs looked at each other, thought 
 of theh- own frugal way of living, and Isabella 
 smiled.^ 
 
 That he should not make himself judge in a 
 cause, but let culprits be tried in the ordinary 
 way. Thus he will avoid unpopularity, for " the 
 remembrance of the crime perishes : not so that of 
 the punishment." (^This aphorism must, I think, 
 have been composed by Ferdinand himself. His 
 writing is always exceedingly concise and to the 
 purpose.') 
 
 That he should not listen to tale-bearers, {par- 
 leros) either of his own household or to those out 
 of it ; nor take vengeance upon anybody who had 
 spoken ill of him, it being " an ugly thing to be- 
 lieve that anybody could speak ill of one who did 
 ill to no one, but good to all." That it is one of 
 the conditions of bad governors, " moved therein 
 by their own consciences" to give heed to what 
 they hear is said of them, and to take ill that, 
 which if it had been said, they had better not 
 have heard. Rather let injurious sayings be 
 overcome by magnanimity. 
 
 That it would be good for him to give free 
 audience to all, and to hear what they had to say ; 
 and if their counsel turned out ill, not to look 
 
THE DUTIES OF A GOVERNOR. 215 
 
 coldly upon them for that. The same in war, or 
 in any other undertaking : his agents must not 
 have to fear punishment for failure, nor calumny 
 for success : " for there were many persons who, 
 to avoid the envy of their superiors, sought rather 
 to lose a victory than to gain it." (^Here Fer- 
 dinand ought to have looked a little ashamed, 
 heing conscious that his own practice by no means 
 came up to what he perceives to he noble and wise 
 policy in the matter.^ 
 
 That he (Ovando) should look to what example 
 he gives both in word and deed, — governors living, 
 as in a theatre, in the midst of the world. If he 
 does ill, even those who follow him in that, will 
 not the less disesteem him. 
 
 That although it is necessary for him to know 
 the life of every one, yet he must not be over- 
 inquisitive about it, nor rout up offences which 
 are not brought before him officially. " Since 
 if all offences were looked into, few men, or none, 
 would be without punishment." Besides, for 
 secret faults men may correct themselves : if 
 those faults are made known, and especially if 
 they are punished in excess, shame is lost, and 
 men give way to their bad impulses. 
 
 That he is to encourage those who work, and 
 
216 ADVICE TO OVANDO. 
 
 to discourage the idle, as the universal Father 
 does. 
 
 That, as regards liberality, he should so con- 
 duct himself, that men should not dare to ask 
 him for things which they would know he must 
 deny : this would be a great restraint upon 
 them, and a great proof of good reputation in a 
 governor. 
 
 That, in fine, all that had been said consisted 
 in this, that he was to govern as he would be 
 governed : and that " it behoved him to be intent 
 in business, to show courage in difEculties, and 
 management in all things, brevity in executing 
 useful determinations, yet not as if carried away 
 by passion, but always upon good counsel; con- 
 sidering much what a charge was upon him, for 
 this thought would be useful to him at all times : 
 and above all things he was to take heed (in order 
 that the same thing might not happen to him 
 which had happened to the admiral) that when 
 any occasion for dealing briefly with an offence 
 occurred, he should have swift recourse to punish- 
 ment, for in such cases the remedy ought to be 
 like a thunderbolt." 
 
 After reading the above, we cannot say that 
 
HE ABRIVES AT ST. DOMINGO. 217 
 
 the Catholic monarchs were Inattentive to the 
 government of their Indian possessions, nor can 
 the sagacity which directed that attention be for 
 a moment questioned. Indeed that sagacity is so 
 remarkable, that it may naturally occur to the 
 learned reader to inquire, whether Machiavelli's 
 " Prince " had yet been published, and whether 
 King Ferdinand could have read that much-abused 
 manual of crafty statesmen. It was, however, 
 about twelve years after this memorable audience 
 granted by Ferdinand and Isabella to Ovando 
 that " The Prince " is alluded to by Machiavelli, 
 and described as a small unpublished work. 
 
 Charged with these instructions, then, Nicholas 
 de Ovando left the port of San Lucas on the 13th 
 of February, 1502, to take possession of his new 
 government, having under him a gallant company 
 of two thousand five hundred persons, a large 
 proportion of them being hidalgoes. On his way 
 he met with a terrible storm, in which one of his 
 largest vessels foundered, and he had some diffi- 
 culty in reaching St. Domingo at all. This, 
 however, he succeeded in doing on the 15th of 
 April, and entered at once upon the reforms 
 which he was commissioned to institute. 
 
218 OVANDO'S ADMINISTBATION. 
 
 He announced the residencia of Bobadilla, and 
 placed Roldan under arrest. He exerted himself 
 to found settlements along the coast, and at first, 
 no doubt, he endeavoured to carry out the mer- 
 ciful directions which he had received with regard 
 to the Indians. But, like Bobadilla, he was a 
 knight of a religious order, with a certain narrow 
 way of looking at things incident to his profession, 
 with no especial culture that we know of, and with 
 little originality of character. In these respects 
 he presented a remarkable contrast to Columbus, 
 who was a man of various accomplishments, large 
 minded, enthusiastic, fluent, affectionate, inventive. 
 And so, whereas Columbus had always treated the 
 natives with consideration and humanity, Ovando 
 soon began to rule them with a rod of iron. We 
 must not linger too long over his administration 
 of what we may call Columbus's kingdom, but 
 there is one sad episode which it is worth while 
 to recount, if only to make the policy of Columbus 
 stand out in brighter relief. 
 
 When Anacaona, the Queen of Xaragua, had 
 received the admiral's brother, Don Bartolome, 
 on a former occasion, the Spaniards affirmed her 
 to be a wise woman, of good manners, and plea- 
 
AN INDIAN RECEPTION. 219 
 
 sant address; and she is said to have earnestly 
 entreated her brother to take warning by the 
 fate of her husband, Caonabo, and to love and 
 obey the Christians. As she was now to play 
 the hostess again, this time to Ovando, we may 
 refer to the account of her former reception of a 
 Spanish governor, the Adelantado, of which there 
 are some details furnished by Peter Martyr. 
 
 After mentioning that the queen and her bro- 
 ther received the lieutenant with all courtesy and 
 honour, he says : " They brought our men to their 
 common hall, into which they come together as 
 often as t^iey make any notable games or triumphs, 
 as we have said before. Here, after many dancings, 
 singings, maskings, runnings, wrestlings, and other 
 trying of masteries, suddenly there appeared in a 
 large plain near unto the hall, two great armies 
 of men of war, which the king for his pastime had 
 caused to be prepared, as the Spaniards use the 
 play with reeds, which they call Juffa de Canias. 
 As the armies drew near together, they assailed 
 the one the other as fiercely as if mortal enemies 
 with their banners spread should fight for their 
 goods, their lands, their lives, their liberty, their 
 country, their wives and their children, so that 
 
220 OVANDO VISITS XARAGUA. 
 
 within the moment of an hour, four men were 
 slain, and many wounded. The battle also would 
 have continued longer, if the king had not, at the 
 request of our men, caused them to cease." 
 
 At this time, in the year 1503, some of Rol- 
 dan's former partizans were settled in the province 
 of Xaragua, and were a great trouble to the 
 colony. Herrer^ says, in a quiet sarcastic way, 
 " they lived in the discipline they had learnt from 
 Eoldan ; " and the governing powers of Xaragua 
 found them " intolerable." He also adds that 
 Anacaona's people were in policy, in language, 
 and in other things superior to all the ,other in- 
 habitants of the island. As might be expected, 
 there were constant disturbances between these 
 Spaniards and the adjacent Indians-; and the 
 Spaniards took care to inform the governor that 
 their adversaries, the Indians of Xaragua, intended 
 to rebel. Perhaps they did so intend. Ovando 
 resolved, after much consultation, to take a journey 
 to Xaragua. It must be said, in justice to Ovando, 
 that this does not look as if he thought the matter 
 were a light one. Xaragua was seventy leagues 
 from St. Domingo. The governor set out well 
 accompanied, with seventy horsemen and three 
 
HIS RECEPTION BY ANACAONA. 221 
 
 hundred foot-soldiers. Anacaona, who had some 
 suspicion of his intentions, summoned all her 
 feudatories around her " to do honour" to him, 
 when she heard of his coming. She went out to 
 meet Ovando with a concourse of her subjects, 
 and with the same festivities of singing and dancing 
 as in former days she had adopted when she went 
 to receive the Adelantado. Various pleasures and 
 amusements were provided for the strangers, and 
 probably Anacaona thought that she had suc- 
 ceeded in soothing and pleasing this severe-look- 
 ing governor, as she had done the last. But the 
 former followers of Eoldan were about the gover- 
 nor, telling him that there certainly was an in- 
 surrection at hand, that if he did not look to it now, 
 and suppress it at once, the revolt would be far 
 more difficult to quell when it did break out. Thus 
 they argued, using all those seemingly wise argu- 
 ments of wickedness which from time immemo- 
 rial have originated and perpetuated treachery. 
 Ovando listened to these men; indeed he must 
 have been much inclined to believe them, or he 
 would hardly have come all this way. He was 
 now convinced that an insurrection was intended. 
 With these thoughts in his mind, he ordered 
 
222 PRETENDED TOURNAMENT. 
 
 that, on a certain Sunday, after dinner, all the 
 cavalry should get to horse, on the pretext of a 
 tournament. The infantry, too, he caused to be 
 ready for action. He himself, a Tiberius in dis- 
 sembling, went to play at quoits, and was dis- 
 turbed by his men coming to him and begging 
 him to look on at their sports. The poor Indian 
 queen hurried with the utmost simplicity into the 
 snare prepared for her. She told the governor 
 that her caciques, too, would like to see this 
 tournament, upon which, with demonstrations of 
 pleasure, he bade her come with all her caciques 
 to his quarters, for he wanted to talk to them, 
 intimating, as I conjecture, that he would explain 
 the festivity to them. Meanwhile, he gave his 
 cavalry orders to surround the building ; he 
 placed the infantry at certain commanding posi- 
 tions ; and told his men, that when, in talking 
 with the caciques, he should place his hand upon 
 the badge of knighthood which hung upon his 
 breast, they should rush in and bind the caciques 
 and Anacaona. It fell out as he had planned. 
 All these deluded Indian chiefs and their queen 
 were secured. She alone was led out of Ovando's 
 quarters, which were then set fire to, and all the 
 
MASSACRE OF INDIAN CHIEFS. 223 
 
 chiefs burnt alive. Anacaona was afterwards 
 hanged and the province was desolated. 
 
 Humanity does not gain nauch, after all, by 
 this man's not taking the title of " Lordship " 
 which he had a right to. 
 
 Finally, the governor collected the former fol- 
 lowers of Roldan in Xaragua, and formed a town 
 of their settlement, which he named " the city of 
 the true peace " i^La villa de la vera Paz), but 
 which a modern chronicler well says might more 
 properly have been named " Aceldama, the field 
 of blood." I observe that the arms assigned to 
 this new settlement were a dove with the olive- 
 branch, a rainbow, and a cross. 
 
 But it is time to return to Columbus, who in 
 the mean time was chafing at the inactivity which 
 had been forced upon him. His was a restless 
 spirit, perhaps too restless for an organizer, who 
 ought to possess an inexhaustible amount of pa- 
 tience, and to be able to wait as well as to labour. 
 He had formed a theory that some strait existed 
 through which a passage might be made from the 
 neighbourhood of St. Domingo to those regions 
 in Asia from which the Portuguese were just 
 
224 FERDINAND'S LETTER TO COLUMBUS. 
 
 beginning to reap a large profit, and which must 
 be very near that home of the gold which had 
 always occupied his thoughts. He pressed the 
 Sovereigns to provide him with ships for an expe- 
 dition having for its special object the discovery 
 of this strait ; and on the occurrence of some 
 delay as to the equipment of vessels for the pur- 
 pose, he seems to have written to Ferdinand, re- 
 proaching him with the treatment which he had 
 received, and with the want of confidence mani- 
 fested towards him now. To this Ferdinand 
 answered in a letter which was certainly well 
 calculated to soothe the Admiral's indignation. 
 It was to the following effect, " You ought to 
 be convinced of our displeasure at your captivity, 
 for we lost not a moment in setting you free. 
 Your innocence is well known ; you are aware 
 of the consideration and friendship with which we 
 have treated you ; the favours which you have re- 
 ceived from us shall not be the last that you will 
 receive ; we assure to you your privileges, and are 
 desirous that you and your children may enjoy 
 them. We offer to confirm them to you again, 
 and to put your eldest son In possession of all 
 your offices, whenever you wish. . . . We beg 
 you to set out as soon as possible." 
 
NEW ENTERPRISE. 225 
 
 On the 9th of May the preparations were com- 
 plete, and Columbus set sail from Cadiz with his 
 brother, Don Bartholomew, and his second son, 
 Fernando. As an instance of the admiral's chival- 
 rous love of adventure, it may be mentioned that 
 upon hearing that the Portuguese fortress of Ar- 
 zilla, on the African coast, was besieged by the 
 Moors, he first proceeded thither, quite volun- 
 tarily, to its relief. When he reached it, how- 
 ever, he found that the siege had been raised ; 
 and his services were not, therefore, called into 
 requisition. 
 
 After a singularly prosperous voyage, he reached 
 Martinique on the 13th of June. His instruc- 
 tions from the Sovereigns expressly interdicted 
 him from visiting St. Domingo ; but, on finding 
 that his largest ship required some repairs to 
 make her seaworthy, he boldly disregarded the 
 prohibition, and sent a boat to ask Ovando to 
 furnish him with another vessel in place of the 
 damaged one, and to allow his squadron to take 
 refuge in the harbour during a hurricane which 
 he foresaw to be imminent. Ovando refused both 
 requests. His commission set forth that Colum- 
 bus was not to visit the island ; and the contin- 
 
 Q 
 
226 COLUMBUS REFUSED SHELTER. 
 
 gfincy of hurricanes was not provided for. Be- 
 sides, the governor believed that this prediction of 
 a hurricane was a mere pretext of the admiral's for 
 obtaining admission to the harbour. To an eye 
 unaccustomed to tropical changes, the weather ap- 
 peared to be " set fair." Scarcely a ripple passed 
 over the sea ; scarcely a breath stirred the luxuriant 
 foliage on shore. Ovando repulsed with scorn the 
 admiral's suggestion that, at any rate, the depar- 
 ture of the fleet for Spain should be delayed. 
 This fleet was the richest in cargo that had ever 
 left the islands. It contained all the gold which 
 had been wrung out of the natives by Bobadilla's 
 harsh measures. Of one nugget, especially, the 
 old chroniclers speak in the most glowing terms. 
 According to them, it was the largest piece of 
 virgin gold ever discovered. It had been found 
 accidentally, by an Indian woman at the mines, 
 while listlessly moving her rake to and fro in 
 the water one day during dinner time. Its value 
 was estimated at 1,350,000 maravedis;* and in 
 the festivities which took place on the occasion, it 
 was used as a dish for a roast pig, the miners 
 
 * Equivalent to about i£416. 
 
DESTRUCTIVE TORNADO. 227 
 
 saying that no king of Castile had ever feasted 
 from a dish of such value. We do not find that 
 the poor Indian woman had any part in the good 
 fortune. Indeed, as Las Casas observes, she was 
 fortunate if she had any portion of the meat, not 
 to speak of the dish. Bobadilla had purchased 
 the nugget for Ferdinand and Isabella, and had 
 shipped it with other treasure valuable enough to 
 go a long way towards compensating the sove- 
 reigns for all their expenditure on the new co- 
 lony — if the fleet could only reach Spain in 
 safety. 
 
 But on the second day after its departure the 
 Admiral's prediction became terribly verified. A 
 tornado of unexampled fury swept over the seas ; 
 and those on shore could judge of the fate that 
 was likely to befall the unfortunate squadron, as 
 many of the buildings and trees on the island 
 were levelled with the ground by the force of 
 the tempest. Of all the ships, only one — and 
 that the frailest of the fleet — was able to accom- 
 plish the voyage to Spain. A few vessels ma- 
 naged to return, in dire distress, to the island ; 
 but by far the greater number foundered at sea. 
 The historians of the period do not fail to 
 
228 JAMAICA PASSED. 
 
 remark that, while the ship which reached Spain 
 safely was the one carrying the admiral's property, 
 a special providence decreed that his enemies — 
 Bobadilla, Roldan, and their associates in cruelty 
 and plunder — should perish with their ill-gotten 
 gains. 
 
 Like Cassandra, Columbus witnessed the dis- 
 comfiture of the disbelievers in his prophecy : like 
 her he was denied the right of sanctuary upon 
 the occurrence of the disaster which he had fore- 
 told. Repulsed from port by Ovando, however, 
 the admiral sailed along the coast, and succeeded 
 in bringing his own ship under the lee of the land 
 when the storm came on. . But the three other 
 caravels were in no little danger (particularly the 
 disabled one, which was commanded by the Ade- 
 lantado), and some days elapsed before the little 
 squadron was re-united in the port of Azua, to 
 the west of San Domingo, Thence he proceeded 
 to Jaquimo, on the extremity of the same coast, 
 and after refitting his ships, set sail for Jamaica 
 on the 14th of July, 1502. Passing that island, 
 he met with light and varying winds, and con- 
 trary currents, in the archipelago of reefs and 
 keys which he had previously named the Queen's 
 Garden. 
 
INSUBORDINATION OF CREWS. 229 
 
 For about nine weeks he made so little pro- 
 gress that his crews began to clamour for the 
 abandonment of the expedition. The ships were 
 worm-eaten and leaky. Provisions were running 
 short. The seamen had seen their commander 
 thrust away from what might be called his own 
 door ; and the sight of his powerlessness had 
 strengthened their independence until it amount- 
 ed to insubordination. Fortunately, however, be- 
 fore the discontent broke out into open mutiny, 
 a breeze sprang up from the east, and the admiral 
 easily persuaded his unruly crews that it was better 
 to prosecute their voyage than to remain beating 
 about the islets waiting to return home. 
 
 They were soon gladdened by the sight of the 
 pine-clad slopes of the little island of Guanaja, 
 lying about forty miles from Truxillo, on the 
 coast of Honduras. Here there appeared a canoe, 
 much more like the ships of the old world than 
 any they had seen before, manned by twenty-five 
 Indians who had come from the continent on a 
 trading voyage among the islands. Their cargo 
 consisted of cotton fabrics, iron- wood swords, flint 
 knives, copper axe-heads, and a fruit called by 
 the natives cacao, to which the Spaniards were 
 
230 AN INDIAN PILOT. 
 
 now introduced for the first time, but the merits 
 of which, as a beverage, they were not slow to 
 appreciate. The admiral treated these people 
 with much kindness, and won their confidence at 
 once by presenting them with some of the glit- 
 tering toys which never failed to dazzle a bar- 
 barian eye. 
 
 One old Indian, whom Columbus selected as 
 apparently the most intelligent of the band, con- 
 sented to accompany him as pilot, and indicated, 
 by signs, his knowledge of a land, not far distant, 
 where there were ships, and arms, and merchandize, 
 and, in fact, all the marks of civilization which 
 were displayed to him by the Spaniards them- 
 selves, and with which he professed to be per- 
 fectly familiar. Whether be intended to mislead 
 Columbus, or whether, like most of his race, he 
 was merely proud of being impassive, and of 
 being able to repress all indication of astonish- 
 ment at startling novelties, it is certain that his 
 demeanour and his signs were interpreted by the 
 admiral to indicate an acquaintance with a coun- 
 try, rich and civilized, lying towards the east; 
 which country could, of course, be no other than 
 the long sought-for kingdom of the Grand Khan. 
 
CAPE GRACIAS A BIOS. 231 
 
 Had Columbus, in pursuance of his first intention, 
 steered to the west, a few hours would have 
 brought him to the coast of Yucatan; and the 
 riches of Mexico would have rewarded his dis- 
 covery. But this savage, like his evil destiny, 
 crossed his path at the critical moment, and turned 
 him from the road to fortune. 
 
 Steering along the coast of Honduras, on the 
 12th of September, he reached Cape Gracias a 
 Dios, to which he gave this name in pious thank- 
 fulness for the southerly turn taken by the land 
 at that point, so that the east winds, which had 
 hitherto obstructed him, were now favourable to 
 his course along the coast. A month later he 
 entered several bays on the Isthmus of Panama, 
 where he was able to procure provisions and to. 
 refit his vessels, but failed to obtain any intel- 
 ligence either of the kingdom of the Khan, or 
 of the strait which he fancied would lead him 
 there. The natives whom he encountered were 
 generally disposed to be friendly; but, in one 
 instance, when the depth of water in a creek 
 obliged him to moor his vessels close to the shore, 
 an attack of the Indians was only repulsed by the 
 use of artillery, the thunder and lightning of which 
 
232 EASTERLY COURSE ABANDONED. 
 
 seemed always to possess, in the eyes of the sa- 
 vages, a supernatural and therefore awful cha- 
 racter. On another occasion, when a conference 
 was held with one of the tribes, great alarm was 
 caused by a notary, who attended to take notes 
 of the conversation. The savages had never be- 
 fore seen the operation of writing ; and they re- 
 garded it as a spell which was to have some magic 
 effect upon them, and which they must neutralize 
 by various mystic fumigations which they believed 
 to act as counter-charms. " They were themselves 
 skilled sorcerers," says Columbus, — whose credu- 
 lity in such matters was only that of his age. 
 
 It was not until the 5th of December that the 
 admiral could resolve to abandon his easterly 
 course, although the conviction had been gra- 
 dually forcing itself upon him that the condition 
 of his ships was such as to render a prosecu- 
 tion of his voyage almost impossible. He had 
 scarcely turned back, intending to found a settle- 
 ment on the river Veragua, before he encountered 
 a storm which tried his worm-eaten caravels 
 very severely. The thunder and lightning were 
 incessant ; the waterspouts (the first they had 
 seen) threatened to engulph them; huge crests 
 
THE BETHLEHEM RIVER. 233 
 
 of waves burst in phosphorescent floods over 
 them ; and their escape, if we consider the small- 
 ness of the caravels, and the force of a tropical 
 cyclone, was little less than miraculous. At last, 
 after eight days' tossing to and fro, the admiral 
 gained the mouth of a river, which he named the 
 Bethlehem, because he entered it on the day of 
 the Epiphany. 
 
 In this neighbourhood there was a powerful 
 cacique, named Quibia, whose territory contained 
 much gold, and with whom, therefore, the Spa- 
 niards were anxious to treat. But he outwitted 
 them. Offering to supply them with guides to 
 conduct them to his gold mines, he really sent 
 them, not to his own mines, but to those of a 
 rival cacique, of Urira. Here, however, they suc- 
 ceeded in acquiring, by barter and by actual dis- 
 covery, large quantities of the precious metal, 
 which seemed to be so abundant, that the admiral 
 made sure that he had come to the very Aurea 
 Chersonesus from which Solomon had obtained the 
 gold for the temple at Jerusalem. He had seen 
 more signs of gold here in two days, he said, than 
 he had seen in St. Domingo in four years. His 
 first step was to form a settlement to provide a 
 
234 A SETTLEMENT FORMED. 
 
 depot for the gold which might be collected. A 
 convenient site was found near the mouth of the 
 river Bethlehem, and by the end of March the 
 Adelantado had built a village of huts, in which it 
 was proposed that he should remain, with about 
 eighty followers, while Columbus returned to 
 Spain for supplies. 
 
 But rumours soon reached the Adelantado of a 
 projected attack on the settlement by the natives, 
 and he took measures to seize Quibia in his own 
 palace. The Indians, dismayed at the capture 
 of their cacique, offered large quantities of gold 
 for his ransom, but the Adelantado preferred to 
 keep him as a hostage for peace. However, as 
 he was being conveyed down the river, on board 
 one of the boats, he managed, although bound 
 hand and foot, and in the custody of one of the 
 most powerful of the Spaniards, to spring over- 
 board and to make his escape, swimming under 
 water to the shore. Henceforward, as might 
 have been expected, there was war to the knife 
 between the natives and the settlers. An attempt 
 was made to burn down the village by means of 
 blazing arrows. A boat's crew of eleven Spaniards, 
 who had proceeded some distance up the river. 
 
ATTACK BY INDIANS. 235 
 
 were attacked by savages in canoes, and only one 
 man escaped to carry to the settlement the news 
 of the massacre of his companions. 
 
 The admiral, with three of the caravels, was 
 in the ofiBng, awaiting a wind favourable for his 
 departure, but the dry weather had made the 
 river so shallow that it was impossible for the 
 caravel left with the settlers to cross the bar, and 
 as they had no boat strong enough to weather the 
 surf, it seemed impossible for them to carry to him 
 tidings of their condition. They were in despair ; 
 for if they were left, they knew that they were 
 left to perish. The admiral, on his part, had 
 become uneasy, not knowing that their failure 
 to communicate with him was owing to the fact 
 that their only seaworthy boat had been destroyed 
 by the Indians. His own boats were small and 
 scarcely weathertight. But some of Quibia's 
 family who had been taken on board the squa- 
 dron as prisoners, had made their escape by swim- 
 ming to the shore, three miles off; and this feat 
 encouraged a bold pilot of Seville, named Le- 
 desma, who was on board the admiral's caravel, 
 to attempt a similar exploit. Never was bearer 
 of reprieve for the condemned more welcome. 
 
236 SETTLEMENT ABANDONED. 
 
 Ledesma communicated with the Adelantado, and 
 conveyed to the admiral intelligence of the des- 
 perate state of affairs. The result was, that when 
 in a few days the wind moderated, all the settlers 
 were taken on board the squadron, which now 
 only consisted of three ships, as it was found 
 necessary to abandon the caravel which had been 
 left inside the harbour bar. 
 
 And there was no time to spare. The rough 
 weather had severely tried the crazy and worm- 
 eaten vessels ; and anxiety and want of rest were 
 having their effect on Columbus. Making his 
 way first to Porto Bello, where he was obliged 
 to leave another caravel as no longer seaworthy, 
 on the 31st of May he quitted the coast at a point 
 on the west of the Gulf of Darien, and steered 
 northward towards Cuba. A collision between 
 his two remaining ships rendered them still more 
 unfit to cope with the squalls and breakers of 
 the Archipelago ; but at last, in the middle of 
 June, with his crews in despair, nearly all his 
 anchors lost, and his vessels worm-eaten so as to 
 be " as full of holes as a honey-comb," he arrived 
 off the southern coast of Cuba, where he obtained 
 supplies of cassava bread from friendly natives. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 S AILING to make head against the wind 
 so as to reach Hispaniola, Columbus 
 shaped his course for Jamaica, and 
 there, in the harbour which he had named Santa 
 Gloria on his former visit, his voyage was per- 
 force brought to a conclusion. As his ships could 
 not float any longer, he ran them on shore, side 
 by side, and built huts upon the decks for housing 
 the crews. Such a habitation, like the Swiss 
 lake dwellings, afforded remarkable advantages of 
 position in case of attack by a hostile tribe. 
 
 The admiral's first care was to prevent any 
 offence being given to the aborigines which mighu 
 give cause for such an attack. Knowing, by sad 
 experience, the results of permitting free inter- 
 course between the Spaniards and the natives, he 
 enforced strictly a rule forbidding any Spaniard 
 
238 SUPPLY OF PROVISIONS. 
 
 to go ashore without leave ; and took measures 
 for regulating the traffic for food so as to prevent 
 the occurrence of any quarrel. Diego Mendez, 
 who had been his lieutenant, and had shown him- 
 self the boldest of his officers throughout this voy- 
 age, volunteered to proceed into the interior of 
 the island to make arrangements for the periodical 
 supply of provisions from some of the more remote 
 tribes, as it was certain that the sudden addition 
 to the population would soon exhaust the resources 
 of the immediate neighbourhood. This service 
 Mendez performed with great adroitness, and a 
 regular market was established to which the 
 natives brought fish, game and cassava bread, in 
 exchange for Spanish toys and ornaments. 
 
 Although the Spaniards were thus secure from 
 starvation for the present, their position was most 
 critical. The journey to the easternmost ex- 
 tremity of Jamaica would probably not be un- 
 attended with difficulty and danger, for it must be 
 effected through the midst of Indian tribes, hostile 
 to each other, and therefore probably not unanimous 
 in being friendly towards strangers. But the most 
 formidable obstacle to communication with the 
 government of Hispaniola was the strait of forty 
 leagues' breadth, full of tumbling breakers and 
 
A MESSENGER aENT TO O VAN DO. 239 
 
 rushing currents, which separated the two islands. 
 However, it was necessary that the attempt should 
 be made ; and Diego Mendez, though he considered 
 it to be " not merely difficult, but impossible, to 
 cross in so small a vessel as a canoe," volunteered 
 for the service, after all the other Spaniards had 
 declined to undertake it. He was to be the bearer 
 of a letter from the admiral to Ovando, asking 
 him to send a vessel to release the castaways from 
 their imprisonment, and of a despatch to the 
 Sovereigns, giving a detailed account of the 
 Admiral's voyage and a glowing description of 
 the riches of Veragua. This despatch is very 
 characteristic of the writer, bearing, as it does, 
 the marks of strong enthusiasm, of almost fanatical 
 superstition, of confidence in the midst of despair, 
 and of exultation in the face of ruin. Describing 
 his reflections during the storm at the mouth of 
 the river Bethlehem, he breaks into the following 
 rhapsody, which, probably in perfect good faith, 
 dwells on the contrast between the goodness of 
 God and the bad faith of man, in a way which 
 ought to have touched Ferdinand nearly. It is 
 worth quoting at full length, as an example of the 
 wild fervour of a rapt enthusiast. 
 
 " Wearied and sighing," writes Columbus, " I 
 
240 REMARKABLE DESPATCH 
 
 fell into a slumber, when I heard a piteous voice 
 saying to me, ' O fool, and slow to believe and 
 serve thy God, who is the God of all ! What did 
 He more for Moses, or for His servant David, 
 than He has done for thee? From the time of 
 thy birth He has ever had thee under His pecu- 
 liar care. When He saw thee of a fitting age. 
 He made thy name to resound marvellously 
 throughout the earth, and thou wert obeyed in 
 many lands, and didst acquire honourable fame 
 among Christians. Of the gates of the ocean sea, 
 shut up with such mighty chains. He delivered to 
 thee the keys ; the Indies, those wealthy regions 
 of the world. He gave thee for thine own, and 
 empowered thee to dispose of them to others, 
 according to thy pleasure. What did He more for 
 the great people of Israel, when He led them forth 
 from Egypt ? Or for David, whom, from being a 
 shepherd. He made a king in Judaea ? Turn to 
 Him, then, and acknowledge thine error : His 
 mercy is infinite. He has many and vast inherit- 
 ances yet in reserve. Fear not to seek them. 
 Thine age shall be no impediment to any great 
 undertaking. Abraham was above a hundred 
 years when he begat Isaac; and was Sarah 
 
TO THE SOVEREIGNS. 241 
 
 youthful? Thou urgest despondingly for suc- 
 cour. Answer! Who hath afflicted thee so 
 much, and so many times, God, or the world? 
 The privileges and promises which God hath 
 made to thee He hath never broken,* neither hath 
 He said, after having received thy services, that 
 His meaning was different, and to be understood 
 in a different sense. He fulfils all that He pro- 
 mises, and with increase. Such is His custom. 
 I have shown thee what thy Creator hath done 
 for thee, and what He doeth for all. The present 
 is the reward of the toils and perils thou hast 
 endured in serving others.' I heard this," adds 
 Columbus, " as one almost dead, and had no 
 power to reply to words so true, excepting to 
 weep for my errors. Whoever it was that spoke 
 to me finished by saying, ' Fear not ! All these 
 tribulations are written in marble, and not with- 
 out cause.'" 
 
 " Though this be madness, there is method in 
 it;" but still, the whole character of Columbus 
 forbids us to assume that this alleged vision was 
 merely an ingenious device for remonstrating with 
 
 * A sarcasm to " catch the conscience of the king." 
 B 
 
24? RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. 
 
 the Sovereigns. It must not be forgotten that in 
 those times the popular belief as to such matters 
 was very different from that which obtains now ; 
 and that Columbus was as credulous as his co- 
 temporaries on the subject of the supernatural. 
 It was easy for an imagination like his to be 
 wrought upon so as to give to " airy nothings," 
 to the " thousand phantasies that crowd into the 
 memory," the character of special revelations from 
 heaven. In this very despatch his religious fer- 
 vour is displayed again and again. Jerusalem, 
 according to the prophecy, was to be rebuilt by 
 the hand of a Christian. He would be that 
 Christian. Prester John, so said tradition, had 
 asked for missionaries to instruct him in the true 
 faith. He would conduct them to the kingdom 
 of this unknown potentate. Then he goes on to 
 deplore his own hard case ; " surrounded by cruel 
 and hostile savages ; isolated, infirm, expecting 
 each day will be my last ; severed from the holy 
 sacraments of the Church, so that my soul, if 
 parted here from my body, must be for ever 
 
 forgotten If it should please God 
 
 to deliver me hence, I humbly supplicate your 
 majesties to permit me to repair to Rome, and 
 
CAPTURE OF MENDEZ. 243 
 
 perform other pilgrimages." Columbus, then, be- 
 ing really convinced of the fatal consequences of 
 not being within reach of formal communion with 
 the Church, must have felt that he was risking 
 more than his mere bodily life when he wan- 
 dered into those unknown countries ; that he 
 staked both body and soul on his success. 
 
 Laden with these despatches, Mendez and a 
 Spanish comrade set out along the coast in a 
 canoe manned by six Indians. The party arrived 
 safely at the easternmost Cape of Jamaica (now 
 called Point Morant); but while awaiting calm 
 weather for crossing the strait to Hispaniola, 
 they were attacked by a tribe of savages, who 
 overpowered them by sheer force of numbers, 
 and carried them off as captives. The beads and 
 toys, however, which Mendez had taken with 
 him to barter with the natives, were too attrac- 
 tive not to claim the chief share of the attention 
 of his conquerors ; and while they were settling 
 the division of the spoil he managed to effect his 
 escape to his canoe, and to return in it in safety 
 to Santa Gloria. As soon as a second canoe could 
 be procured, Mendez was ready to make a second 
 attempt, but on this occasion he stipulated that he 
 
244 ESCAPE AND SAFE ARRIVAL. 
 
 should be accompanied to the easternmost point of 
 Jamaica by a force sufficient to protect him from 
 the hostile tribes. Accordingly, on the 7 th July, 
 1503, the Adelantado, with an armed escort, 
 proceeded along the shore ; while Mendez, with 
 six Spaniards and ten Indians, in one canoe, and 
 Fieschi (a Genoese, who had commanded one of 
 the caravels), with a like number in the other, 
 made their way by sea to Point Morant. 
 
 After waiting a short time for fine weather, 
 the two canoes started for Hispaniola, and reached 
 a little island called Navazza on the third day, 
 both Spaniards and Indians having suffered ter- 
 ribly from the want of water, with which they 
 were insufficiently supplied. Another day's la- 
 bour at the oar brought them to Cape Tiburon, 
 where Mendez left his companions and proceeded 
 alone to St. Domingo. Here he was informed 
 that the governor had left for Xaragua; and 
 thither he made his way alone, through fifty 
 leagues of wild forest country, to represent to 
 Ovando the necessity of sending relief to the 
 admiral, and that speedily. Ovando seems to 
 have temporized. He dreaded the return of 
 Columbus, as likely to excite the seditious to a 
 
SUSPENSE OF THE ADMIRAL. 245 
 
 revolt against his own government. And so far 
 from taking active steps in the matter himself, 
 it was only with reluctance that he authorized 
 Mendez to proceed to St. Domingo to purchase 
 a caravel on behalf of Columbus, in which Fieschi 
 might return to Santa Gloria, and bring him off. 
 
 Meanwhile, month after month passed by, and 
 the unfortunate castaways at Santa Gloria had no 
 tidings from Hispaniola, and were even ignorant 
 whether their messengers had succeeded in reach- 
 ing that island. At last, in January, 1504, the 
 murmurs against the inaction of Columbus broke 
 out into open mutiny. Francesco Porras, the cap- 
 tain of one of the caravels, headed the mutineers, 
 and going to the admiral, who was confined to his 
 bed by the gout, told him that he, the admiral, 
 evidently was afraid to return to Spain ; but that 
 the people had determined to remain no longer 
 to perish, and intended to depart at once. On 
 this there arose shouts from the followers of Por- 
 ras, "To Castile! We follow!" The admiral 
 made a temperate speech, pointing out the danger 
 of attempting to leave the island in mere canoes, 
 and the absurdity of supposing that he had not a 
 common interest with them in all respects. But 
 
246 MUTINY OF PORRAS. 
 
 Porras was as persistent in his desire to go, as 
 Columbus in his determination to stay; and, taking 
 possession of the canoes which had been purchased 
 from the natives, the mutineers set out on their 
 journey towards Hispaniola, leaving the admiral 
 and his brother with scarcely any adherents ex- 
 cept those whom sickness incapacitated for under- 
 taking the journey. 
 
 The progress of Porras and his followers through 
 the island was marked by a series of outrages on 
 the natives which completely neutralized the effect 
 of the admiral's conciliatory policy. They seized 
 forcibly on whatever provisions could be found, 
 and mockingly referred the owners to Columbus 
 for payment. Three attempts to cross over to 
 Hispaniola failed in consequence of rough wea- 
 ther. On one occasion the canoes were in so 
 much danger of being swamped that the Spaniards 
 cast everything on board into the sea; and, as 
 this did not lighten the canoes sufficiently, they 
 then proceeded to force overboard their unfortu- 
 nate companions, the Indians, who swam after 
 them for a long time, but sank one by one, being 
 prevented by the swords of the Spaniards from 
 approaching. Abandoning, as hopeless, their de- 
 
BAD CONDUCT OF MUTINEERS. 247 
 
 sign of reaching Hispaniola, the mutineers then 
 proceeded to roam over the island, quartering 
 themselves on the Indians, and committing every 
 possible excess. 
 
 Of course the influence of this conduct on the 
 relations between Columbus and the natives, was 
 soon apparent. The trinkets and beads, which 
 had once been so precious in their eyes, had first 
 lost the charm of novelty, then the value of 
 rarity. The circulating medium became so depre- 
 ciated that provisions were scarcely procurable. 
 And, similarly, the personal veneration which the 
 natives had first evinced for the white men, had 
 given way to contempt and to hatred, when fami- 
 liarity had shown how worthless were these " su- 
 perior beings." The Indians refused to minister 
 to their wants any longer ; and famine was immi- 
 nent. 
 
 But just at this last extremity, the admiral, 
 ever fertile in devices, bethought him of an expe- 
 dient for re-establishing his influence over the In- 
 dians. His astronomical knowledge told him that 
 on a certain night an eclipse of the moon would 
 take place. One would think that people living 
 in the open air must be accustomed to see such 
 
248 ECLIPSE PREDICTED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 eclipses sufficiently often, not to be particularly 
 astonished at them. But Columbus judged — and 
 as the event proved, judged rightly — that by pre- 
 dicting the eclipse he would gain a reputation as 
 a prophet, and command the respect and the obe- 
 dience due to a person invested with supernatural 
 powers. He assembled the caciques of the neigh- 
 bouring tribes. Then, by means of an interpreter, 
 he reproached them with refusing to continue to 
 supply provisions to the Spaniards. " The God 
 who protects me," he said, " will punish you. 
 You know what has happened to those of my 
 followers who have rebelled against me ; and the 
 dangers which they encountered in their attempt 
 to cross to Haiti ; while those who went at my 
 command,* made the passage without difficulty. 
 Soon, too, shall the divine vengeance fall on you ; 
 this very night shall the moon change her colour 
 and lose her light, in testimony of the evils which 
 shall be sent upon you from the skies." 
 
 The night was fine : the moon shone down in 
 full brilliancy. But, at the appointed time, the 
 
 • This was a gratuitous assumption : as the admiral had 
 as yet no tidings of the success of Mendez. 
 
EESULT OF PREDICTION. 249 
 
 predicted phenomeaon took place, and the wild 
 howls of the savages proclaimed their abject 
 terror. They came in a body to Columbus, and 
 implored his intercession. They promised to let 
 him want for nothing if only he would avert this 
 judgment : as an earnest of their sincerity they 
 collected hastily a quantity of food, and offered 
 it at his feet. At first, diplomatically hesitating, 
 Columbus presently affected to be softened by 
 their entreaties. He consented to intercede for 
 them; and, retiring to his cabin, performed, as 
 they supposed, some mystic rite which should 
 deliver them from the threatened punishment. 
 Soon the terrible shadow passed away from the 
 face of the moon ; and the gratitude of the savages 
 was as deep as their previous terror. But, being 
 blended with much awe, it was not so evanescent 
 as gratitude often is; and henceforward there 
 was no failure in the regular supply of provisions 
 to the castaways. 
 
 Eight months had passed away without any 
 tidings of Mendez, when, one evening there hove 
 in sight a small caravel which stood in towards 
 the harbour of Santa Gloria, and anchored just 
 outside. A boat which put off from the caravel 
 
250 DESPATCH FROM OVANDO. 
 
 brought on shore her commander, a certain Diego 
 de Escobar, whom Columbus recognized as a per- 
 son whom he had sentenced to be hanged as a 
 ringleader in Roldan's mutiny, and who had been 
 pardoned by Bobadllla. The proceedings of this 
 person — whose reprieve must have now seemed 
 to the admiral particularly Injudicious — were sin- 
 gular enough. Standing at a distance from Co- 
 lumbus, as if the admiral had been In quarantine, 
 he shouted, at the top of his voice, a message from 
 Ovando, to the effect that he (the governor) re- 
 gretted the admiral's misfortunes very keenly ; 
 that he hoped before long to send a ship of suf- 
 ficient size to take him off. He added, that in 
 the meantime, Ovando begged him to accept a 
 slight mark of his friendship. The " slight mark 
 of his friendship" was — a side of bacon, which, 
 with a small cask of wine and a letter from Ovando. 
 he delivered to the admiral ; and rowed off as fast 
 as possible. The whole scheme of this visit, which 
 was probably planned by Ovando with the object 
 of ascertaining the real condition and designs of 
 Columbus, was in the last degree insulting to him 
 and tantalizing to his companions, with whom 
 D'Escobar would not permit any communication 
 
OVERTURES TO MUTINEERS. 251 
 
 to be held. However, the admiral wrote a civil 
 reply to Ovando, describing piteously the hard- 
 ships of his condition, and disclaiming any ulterior 
 design with regard to the government of Hispa- 
 niola. Carrying this missive, D'Escobar set sail 
 at once, and was out of sight, on his return voy- 
 age, before the morning of the day after his 
 arrival. 
 
 This mysterious visit was by no means satis- 
 factory to the admiral's companions. As he alone 
 had held communication with D'Escobar, he was 
 free to give them whatever account he chose of 
 his interview ; and this liberty. It may be paren- 
 thetically observed, he did not scruple to exercise 
 somewhat at the expense of strict truth. He 
 represented himself as having refused to depart 
 with D'Escobar, because the caravel was too small 
 to carry them all away, and he was determined 
 to share their lot, confident in Ovando's assurance 
 of speedy succour. He made overtures for a re- 
 conciliation to Porras, and endeavoured to per- 
 suade the mutineers to return on board the ships. 
 But these overtures were scornfully repulsed and 
 the admiral's messengers were sent back with 
 threats of force. As for the caravel, Porras bad 
 
252 RESORT TO ARMS. 
 
 little difficulty in persuading his credulous fol- 
 lowers that it was merely an apparition which 
 Columbus had conjured up by magic arts; and 
 such was the reputation for sorcery which the 
 admiral had acquired by his astronomical observa- 
 tions, that even the sight and taste of some tan- 
 gible bacon (half of that present from Ovando of 
 which we have heard) which he sent as a peace- 
 offering to the mutineers, failed to convince them 
 of the material character of the supposed phantom 
 ship. 
 
 Soon, however, the diiferences between the 
 rival parties were brought to an issue. The 
 Adelantado received information that Porras was 
 planning a descent on the ships, with the object 
 of seizing the stores and capturing the admiral. 
 Resolving to anticipate this attack, he placed him- 
 self at the head of fifty* devoted partisans of 
 Columbus, and sallied out to engage the muti- 
 neers. A furious struggle ensued ; but the Ade- 
 
 * It would appear from this number that either there 
 had been some defection from the ranks of the mutineers, 
 or that more than half the Spaniards had remained faithful 
 to the admiral. 
 
THE MUTINEERS CONQUERED. 253 
 
 lantado performed prodigies of valour, and his 
 followers were better supplied with fire-arms than 
 the rebels ; so that the latter sustained a complete 
 defeat, and their leader Porras was carried off as 
 a prisoner to the ships. 
 
 The natives, who had been spectators of the 
 affray, were much perplexed. Wiser people than 
 these poor savages have looked with sorrowful 
 wonder on the appeal to brute force to decide the 
 quarrels of nations ; and the Indians, when they 
 saw strife and death among the beings whom they 
 had formerly considered as heaven-descended and 
 immortal, felt that their estimate of these attri- 
 butes ought to be lowered. But when curiosity 
 impelled them to examine the corpses of the 
 Spaniards who had been killed in the encounter, 
 after minutely inspecting several bodies, they 
 came to that of Ledesma — whose name may 
 be remembered as that of the gigantic pilot of 
 Seville who swam through the surf at Bethlehem 
 to the Adelantado's relief — who had now fallen, 
 covered with wounds, fighting on behalf of the 
 mutineers. As the savages proceeded to thrust 
 their fingers into his wounds, Ledesma, who had 
 fainted from pain, recovered consciousness, and 
 
254 PORRAS A PRISONER. 
 
 uttered a stentorian yell which put the Indians 
 to flight, says an ancient chronicler, "as if all the 
 dead men were at their heels." And as Ledesma 
 eventually recovered, notwithstanding his having 
 received wounds sufficient to kill three ordinary 
 persons, the natives must have been inspired by a 
 proper respect for the almost miraculous vitality 
 of the white men. 
 
 The victory gained by the Adelantado was 
 conclusive. The rebels at once submitted to the 
 admiral, who consented to pardon them ; reserving 
 only their ringleader, Porras, for future punish- 
 ment. It was arranged that they should not again 
 take up their habitation on board the ships, but 
 Columbus sent ashore a trusty lieutenant as their 
 commander, and supplied them at the same time 
 with European articles to barter for food with 
 the natives. And so the two bands of castaways 
 — one on ship and one on shore — awaited the 
 promised succour, with the weariness of hope de- 
 ferred. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 [T was not till the 28th of June, 1504, 
 when just a year had elapsed since 
 their arrival at Santa Gloria, that the 
 Spaniards were gladdened by the sight of the 
 two caravels which had been sent — one by Men- 
 dez, the other by Ovando — to their relief. Their 
 embarkation, as may be supposed, was quickly 
 effected; but adverse winds made the voyage 
 to Hispaniola a long one, and the two vessels 
 did not reach St. Domingo before the 13th of 
 August. 
 
 Much to the surprise of the admiral, he found 
 himself treated with the most punctilious courtesy 
 by Ovando, who even proceeded to the harbour, 
 with a numerous suite, to receive him in state 
 upon his arrival. However, differences soon arose 
 
256 CONFLICTING JURISDICTION. 
 
 as to the conflicting jurisdictions of the viceroy 
 and the governor; especially with regard to the 
 case of PorraSj whom Ovando, in opposition to 
 the admiral's wish, insisted upon releasing from 
 custody. Moreover he ^ven announced his in- 
 tention of instituting a general enquiry as to the 
 events which had taken place in Jamaica, in order 
 to decide whether Porras and his associates had 
 been justified in their rebellion. Columbus dis- 
 puted the right of Ovando to take upon himself 
 the office of judge in such a matter ; and remarked 
 that his own authority as viceroy must have sunk 
 very low indeed, if it did not empower him to 
 punish his officers for mutinying against himself. 
 This dispute was unfortunate as regards the pri- 
 vate interests of the admiral, for the revenues 
 arising from his property in the island had been 
 collected under the authority of the governor, 
 who, upon the occurrence of this quarrel, was 
 easily able to raise difficulties in the way of his 
 obtaining a fair account of the proceeds. But he 
 was all the more anxious to return to Spain ; and, 
 within a month from his arrival at St. Domingo, 
 he started homeward in the caravel which had 
 brought him from Jamaica. 
 
FALLING FORTUNES. 257 
 
 But even in this last voyage he was forced to 
 " make head against a sea of troubles." His evil 
 star was in the ascendant. Twice his vessel nearly 
 foundered. Twice her masts were sprung in suc- 
 cessive tempests. His own health was succumbing 
 to the acute attacks of gout which had become 
 more and more frequent for the last few years. 
 And so, prostrated by sickness, nearly ruined in 
 means, and now hopeless of encouragement from 
 the Sovereigns, the discoverer of the New World 
 arrived at Seville, on the 7th of November, 1504, 
 in as miserable a plight as his worst enemy could 
 have wished. 
 
 He could scarcely expect to be received with 
 much favour at court. He had failed in the 
 search for that strait leading to the kingdom ot 
 the Grand Khan, the discovery of which had been 
 the special object of his expedition ; he had lost 
 his ships ; he had brought home wonderful stories 
 of golden lands, but no gold. Porras* was at large, 
 
 * It seems just possible that, as the original narrative 
 of the mutiny of Porras was written by Fernando Colum- 
 bus, who would naturally take his father's side, something 
 is to be said for Porras which has not been said for him by 
 historians 
 
 S 
 
253 DEATH OF THE QUEEN. 
 
 and had influence at court, which enabled him to 
 stimulate the existing prejudice against Columbus. 
 Poor, old, infirm, he had now to receive intel- 
 ligence which was to deepen all his evils. He 
 remained at Seville, too unwell to make a journey 
 himself, but sent his son Diego to court, to manage 
 his affairs for him. The complaints of the admiral, 
 that he had no news from court, are quite touch- 
 ing. He says, he desires to hear news each hour. 
 Couriers are arriving every day, but none for him : 
 his very hair stands on end to hear things so con- 
 trary to what his soul desires. He alludes, I ima- 
 gine, to the state of the Queen's health ; for, in a 
 memorandum of instructions to his son, written at 
 this period, the first thing, he says, to be done is, 
 " to commend aflfectionately, with much devotion," 
 the soul of the Queen to God. Could the poor 
 Indians but have known what a friend to them 
 was dying, one continued wail would have gone 
 up to heaven from Hispaniola and all the western 
 islands. The dread decree, however, had gone 
 forth, and on the 26th of November, 1504, it was 
 only a prayer for the departed that could have 
 been addressed ; for the great Queen was no 
 more. If it be permitted to departing spirits to 
 
OPPRESSION OF THE INDIANS. 2ay 
 
 see those places on earth they yearn much after, 
 we might imagine that the soul o£ Isabella would 
 give " one longing, lingering look " to the far 
 West. 
 
 And if so, what did she see there ? How dif- 
 ferent was the aspect of things from what gover- 
 nors and officers of all kinds had told her : how 
 different from aught that she had thoiight of, or 
 commanded ! She had insisted that the In- 
 dians were to be free : she would have seen their 
 condition to be that of slaves. She had declared 
 that they were to have spiritual instruction : she 
 would have seen them less instructed than the 
 dogs. She had ordered that they should receive 
 payment for their labour : she would have found 
 that all they received was a mockery of wages, 
 just enough to purchase once, perhaps, in the 
 course of the year, some childish trifles from Cas- 
 tile. She had always directed that they should 
 have kind treatment and proper maintenance : she 
 would have seen them literally watching under 
 the tables of their masters, to catch the crumbs 
 which fell there. She would have beheld the In- 
 dian labouring at the mine under cruel buffetings, 
 his family neglected, perishing, or enslaved. She 
 
260 PETITIONS OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 would have marked him on his return, after eight 
 months of dire toil, enter a place which knew him 
 not, or a household that could only sorrow over 
 the gaunt creature who had returned to them, 
 and mingle their sorrows with his ; or, still more 
 sad, she would have seen Indians who had been 
 brought from far distant homes, linger at the 
 mines, too hopeless, or too careless, to return. 
 
 Turning from what might have been seen by 
 Queen Isabella, had her departing gaze pierced 
 to the outskirts of her dominions, we have to 
 record the closing scene of the strange eventful 
 history of Columbus, who did not long survive 
 his benefactress. Ever since his return from his 
 fourth voyage to the Indies, he had done little 
 else than memorialize, and petition, and negotiate 
 about his rights. But Ferdinand, who had always 
 looked coldly on his projects, was disposed to re- 
 gard his claims with still less favour. Columbus 
 professed himself willing to sacrifice the arrears 
 of revenue due to him, but urged strenuously his 
 demand that his son Diego should be made viceroy 
 of the Indies, in accordance with the terms of the 
 grant making that dignity hereditary in his family. 
 Ferdinand did not refuse absolutely : the breach 
 
INJUSTICE OF THE KING. 261 
 
 of faith would have been too flagrant. But he 
 procrastinated, and ended by referring the matter 
 to the significantly named Board of Discharges 
 of the Royal Conscience, which board regulated 
 its proceedings by the known wishes of the king, 
 and procrastinated too. 
 
 The proverb, " Fear old age, for it does not 
 come alone," was especially applicable to Colum- 
 bus, while suffering sickness without the elasticity 
 to bear it, poverty with high station and debt, and 
 all the delay of suitorship, not at the beginning, 
 but at the close, of a career. A similar decline 
 of fortune is to be seen in the lives of many men ; 
 of those, too, who have been most adventurous 
 and successful in their prime. Their fortunes 
 ojrow old and feeble with themselves: and those 
 clouds, which were but white and scattered during 
 the vigour of the day, sink down together, storm- 
 ful and massive, in huge black lines, across the 
 setting sun. 
 
 Shortly after the arrival of Philip and his queen 
 in Spain, Columbus had written to their High- 
 nesses, deploring his inability to come to them, 
 through illness, and saying that, notwithstanding 
 his pitiless disease (the gout), he could yet do 
 
262 DEATH OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 them service the like of which had not been 
 seen. Perhaps he meant service in the way of 
 good advice touching the administration of the 
 Indies ; perhaps, for he was of an indomitable 
 spirit, that he could yet make more voyages of 
 discovery. But there was then only left for him 
 that voyage in which the peasant who has seen 
 but the little district round his home, and the 
 great travellers in thought and deed, are alike 
 to find themselves upon the unknown waters of 
 further life. Looked at in this way, what a 
 great discoverer each of us is to be ! But we 
 must not linger too long, even at the deathbed 
 of a hero. Having received all the sacraments 
 of the Church, and uttering as his last words, 
 " In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum 
 meum" Columbus died, at Valladolid, on Ascen- 
 sion Day, the 20th of May, 1506. His remains 
 were carried to Seville and burled in the monas- 
 tery of Las Cuevas ; afterwards they were re- 
 moved to the cathedral at St. Domingo ; and, in 
 modern times, were taken to the cathedral at 
 Havana, where they now rest. 
 
 THE END. 
 
CHISWICK PRESS '. — C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE.