CHAPTER XXXI
THE island, we learned, was named Jamaica. The Admiral called itSantiago, but it also rests Jamaica.
Of all these lands, outside of the low, small islands to which we camefirst, Cuba seemed to us the peaceable land. Jamaica gave us almostCarib welcome. Its folk had the largest canoes, the sharpest, toughestlances. Perhaps they had heard from some bold sea rover that we hadcome, but that we were not wholly gods!
Our crossbow men shot amongst them. The arrows failed to halt them,but when we sent a bloodhound the dog did our work. It was to them whatgriffon or fire-breathing dragon might be to a Seville throng. When thecreature sprang among them they uttered a great cry and fled. Jamaica ismost beautiful.
For not a few days we visited, sailing and anchoring, lifting againand stopping again. Once the people were pacified, they gave us kindlyenough welcome, trading and wondering. We slipped by bold coasts andheadlands which we must double, mountains above us. They ran by inlandpaths, saving distance, telling village after village. When we madeharbor, here was the thronged beach. Some of these people wore a slightdress of woven grass and palm leaves, and they used crowns of brightfeathers. We got from them in some quantity golden ornaments. But southfor gold, south--south, they always pointed south!
The _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_ set sail out of theHarbor of Good Weather, in Santiago or Jamaica. A day and a night ofpleasant sailing, then we saw the great Cuba coast rise blue in thedistance. The weather wheeled.
There was first a marvelous green hush, while clouds formed out ofnothing. We heard a moaning sound and we did not know its quarter. Thesea turned dead man's color. Then burst the wind. It was more thanwind; it seemed the movement of a world upon us. Bare of all sails,we labored. We were driven, one from the other. The mariners fell topraying.
A strange light was around us, as though the tempest itself made alight. By it I marked the Admiral, upright where he could best commandthe whole. He had lashed himself there, for the ship tossed excessively.His great figure stood; his white, blowing hair, in that strange light,made for him a nimbus. It was strange, how the light seemed to seizethat and his brow and his gray-blue eyes. Below the eyes his lips moved.He was shouting encouragement, but only the intention could be heard.The intention was heard. He looked what he was, something more than abold man and a brave sea captain, and there streamed from him comfort.It touched his mariners; it came among them like tongues of flame.
Darkness increased. We were now among lightnings like javelins and loudthunder. Then fell the rain, in torrents, in drops large as plums. Itwas as though another ocean was descending upon us.
It lasted and we endured. After long while came lessening in that weightof rain, and then cessation. Suddenly the tempest was over. There shonea star--three stars and on topmast and bowsprit Saint Elmo's lights.
Our mariners shouted, "Safe--safe! Saint Elmo!"
Suddenly, over all the sky, were stars shining. The Admiral raised hisgreat voice. "Sing, all of us!
'Stella Maris--Sancta Maria!'"
With the morning the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, beaten about,some injury done, but alive! And the coast of Cuba, nearer, nearer, talland blue--and at last very tall and green and gold.
Off Cuba and still off Cuba, the southern coast now, as against thenorthern that once we tried for a while. Sail and come to land, stay abit, and shake out sails once more!
Wherever we tarried we found peaceable if vastly excited Indians.But still naked, but still unwise as to gold and spices, traders andmarkets. Cambalu, Quinsai and Zaiton of the marble bridges!
"'Somewhere,' saith Messer Marco, 'in part the country is savage, filledwith mountains, and here come few strangers, for the king will not havethem, in order that his treasures and certain matters of his kingdomcome not into the world's knowledge.' And again he saith, 'The folk hereare naked.'--What wonder then," said the Admiral, "that we find thesethings! Yea, I feel surprised at the incessancy, but I check myself andthink, how vast is Asia, and what variousness must needs be!"
But we moved in a cloud of differences, and while on the one hand thisworld was growing familiar, on the other the sense increased. "How vastindeed must be Asia, if all this and yet we come not--and now it isgoing on two years--to any clear hint of other than this!"
He himself, the Admiral, began to feel this strangeness. Or rather,he had long felt it and fought the feeling, but now strongly it camecreeping over.
We were among the hugest number of small islands. Starboard loomed,until it was lost in the farness, that coast that we were following, butthe three ships were in a half-land, half-water world. We wandered inthis labyrinth, keeping with difficulty our way, so crooked and narrowthe channels, so many the sandbars. From deck it minded me of that seaof weed we met in the first passage.
Waves of fragrance struck us. "Ha!" cried the Admiral. "Can you notsmell cinnamon, spikenard, nutmeg, cloves and galingal?" His faith wasso strong that we did smell. From one of these islands, the _Cordera_lying at anchor and a boat going ashore, we took a number of pigeons. Sounafraid were these birds that our men approached them easily and beatthem down with a pike. We had them for supper, and when their cropswere opened, the cook found and brought to the Admiral a number ofbrown seeds. The Admiral dropped them into clear water, then smelled andtasted. "Cloves? Are they not cloves?" He gave to Juan de la Cosa and tome who also tasted and thought they might be cloves. But we did not findtheir tree, and we saw no signs of ever a merchant of Cathay or Mangi orInd.
Christopherus Columbus leaned upon the rail of the _Cordera_. In thisislet world we lay at anchor for the night. "Do you know what it is," heasked, "to have a word color the whole day long?" He glanced around, butnone was very near. "My Word to-day is _magic_. I'd not give it to anybut you, and I drop my voice in saying it. I'll sail on through magicand against magic, for I have Help from Above! But I'll not lay afearsome word among those who are not so accorded! All say India hathhigh magic, and the Grand Khan takes from that country his astrologersand sorcerers. I have read that at Shandu, if there be long raining,they will mount a tower by the palace and wave it back, so that thefalling rain makes but a pleasant wall around the king's fair gardenthat itself rests in sunshine. Also that without touching them theycause the golden flagons to fill with red wine and to move through air,with no hand upon them, to the king's table. That was long ago. We havehad no news of them of late. They may do now more marvelous, vasterthings."
"And the moral?"
"I said, 'They do them there.' Perhaps this is there."
"I take you!" I said and half-laughed. "We may be in Cathay all thiswhile, under the golden roofs, with the bells strung from the eaves.Yonder line of cranes standing in the shallow water, watching us, may,God wot, be tall magicians in white linen and scarlet silk!"
He crossed himself. The cranes had lifted themselves and flown away. "Ifthey heard--"
"Are you in earnest?"
He put his hands over his eyes. "Sometimes I think it may be fact,sometimes not! Sorcery is a fact, and who knows how far it may go? Attimes my brain is like to crack, I have so cudgeled it!"
That he cudgeled it was true, and though his brain never cracked andto the end was the best brain in a hundred, yet from this time forth Ibegan to mark in him an unearthliness.
These islands we named the Queen's Gardens, and escaping from them cameagain to clean coast. On we went for two days, and this part of Cuba hadmany villages, at sea edge or a little from the water, and all men andwomen were friendly and brought us gifts.
I remember a moonlight night. All were aboard the _Cordera_, the _SantaClara_ and the _San Juan_, for we meant to sail at dawn. We had lefta village yet dancing and feasting. The night was a miracle of silver.Again I stood beside Christopherus Columbus; from land streamed theirsinging and their thin, drumming and clashing music. At hand it israther harsh than sweet, but distance sweetened it.
"What will be here in the future--if there are not already here, a
fteryour notion, great cities and bridges and shipping, and only our eyesholden and our hands and steps made harmless? Or nearly harmless, for wehave slain some Indians!"
He had made a gesture of deprecation. "Ah, that, I hardly doubt, was myfancy! But in the future I see them, your cities!"
"Do you see them, from San Salvador onward and everywhere,--Spanishcities?"
"Necessarily--seeing that the Holy Father hath given the whole of theland to Spain." He looked at the moon that was so huge and bright, andlistened to the savage music. "If we go far enough--walking afar--whoknoweth what we shall find?" He stood motionless. "_I_ do not know. Itis in God's hands!"
"Do you see," I asked, "a great statue of yourself?"
"Yes, I see that."
The moon shone so brightly it was marvel. Land breeze brought perfumefrom the enormous forest. "It is too fair to sleep!" said the Admiral."I will sit here and think."
He slept little at any time. His days were filled with action. Neverwas any who had more business to attend to! Yet he was of those to whomsolitude is as air,--imperiously a necessity. Into it he plunged throughevery crack and cranny among events. He knew how to use the spacein which swim events. But beside this he must make for himself wideholdings, and when he could not get them by day he took from night.
We came again to a multitude of islets like to the Queen's Gardens. Andthese were set in a strange churned and curdled sea, as white as milk.Making through it as best we might, we passed from that silverness andbroken land into a great bay or gulf, so deep that we might hardly findbottom, and here we anchored close to a long point of Cuba covered thickwith palms.
We went ashore for water and fruit. Solitary--neither man nor woman! Wefound tracks upon the sand that some among us would have it were madeby griffons. One of our men had the thought that he might procure somelarge bird for the Admiral's table. Taking a crossbow he passed alonethrough the palms into the deeper wood. He was gone an hour, and when hereturned it was in haste, with a chalk face and great eyes. I was seatedin the boat with the master of the _Cordera_ and heard his tale. He hadfound what he thought a natural aisle of the forest and had stolendown it, looking keenly for pigeon or larger bird. A tree with droopingbranches stood across the aisle, he said. He went around the trunk,which was a great one, and it was as though he had turned into the naveof the cathedral. There was space, but trees like pillars on eitherside, and at the end three great trees covered to the tops with vine andpurple grapes. And here he saw before him, under the greatest tree,a man in a long white gown like a White Friar. The sight halted him,turned him, he averred, to stone. Two more men in white dresses butshorter than that of the first, came from among the trees and he sawbehind these a number in like clothing. He could not tell, now hethought of it, if they were carrying lances or palms. We had looked solong for clothed folk that it was the white clothes he thought of. Thesame with their faces--he could not tell about them--he thought theywere fair. Suddenly, it seemed, Pan had fallen upon him and put himforth in terror. He had turned and raced through the forest, here to thesea. He did not think the white-clad men had seen him.
We took him to the Admiral who listened, then brought his handstogether. "Hath it not--hath it not, I ask you--sound of Prester John?"
With the dawn he had men ashore, and there he went himself, withhim Juan de la Cosa and Juan Lepe. The crossbowman--it was FelipeGarcia--showed the way. We found indeed the forest aisle and nave, andthe three trees and the purple grapes, a vast vine with heavy clusters,but we found no men and no sign of men.
The Admiral was not discouraged. "If he truly saw then, and I believe hedid, then are they somewhere--"
We beat all the neighborhood. Solitary, solitary! He divided the mostdetermined of us--so many from each ship--into two bands and sent intwo directions. We were to search, if necessary, through ten leagues.We went, but returned empty of news of clothed men. We found desolateforest, and behind that a vast, matted, low growth, impenetrable andextending far away. At last we determined that Felipe Garcia had seenwhite cranes. Unless it were magic--
We sailed on and we sailed on. The _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ andthe _San Juan_ were in bad case, hurt in that storm between Jamaica andCuba, and wayworn since in those sandy seas, among those myriad islets.Our seamen and our shipmasters now loudly wished return to Isabella.He pushed us farther on and farther on, and still we did not come toanything beyond those things we had already reached, nor did we comeeither to any end of Cuba. And what was going on in Hispaniola--inIsabella? We had sailed in April and now it was July.
It became evident to him at last that he must turn. The Viceroy and theAdmiral warred in him, had long warred and would war. Better for him hadhe never insisted upon viceroyship! Then, single-minded, he might havediscovered to the end of his days.
We turned, the _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, andstill he believed that the long, long coast of Cuba was the coast of theAsia main. He saw it as a monster cape or prolongation, sprouting intoOcean-Sea as sprouts Italy into Mediterranean. Back--back--the waywe had come, entering again that white sea, entangled again among athousand islets!
At last we came again to that Cape of the Cross to which we had escapedin the Jamaica tempest. One thing he would yet do in this voyage andthat was to go roundabout homeward by Jamaica and find out furtherthings of that great and fair island. We left Cuba that still we thoughtwas the main. Santiago or Jamaica rose before us, dark blue mountainsout of the dark blue sea. For one month we coasted this island, foralways the weather beat us back when we would quit it, setting our sailsfor Hispaniola.
We came to Hayti upon the southern side, and because of somemisreckoning failed of knowing that it was Hayti, until an Indian in acanoe below us, called loudly "El Almirante!" And yet Isabella was thethickness of the island from us, and the weather becoming foul, we beatabout for long days, struggling eastward and pushed back, and againparting upon a stormy night one ship from the others. The _Cordera_anchored by a tall, rocky islet and rode out the storm. Here, when itwas calm, we went ashore, but found no man, only an unreckonable numberof pigeons. The Admiral lay on clean, warm sand and rested with his eyesshut. I was glad we were nigh to Isabella and his house there, for I didnot think him well. He sat up, embracing his great knees and looking atthe sea and the _Cordera_. "I have been thinking, Doctor."
"For your health, my Admiral, I wish you could rest a while fromthinking!"
"We were upon the south side of Mangi. I am assured of that! Could I,this time, have sailed on--Now I see it!"
He dropped his hands from his knees and turned full toward me. I sawthat lying thus for an hour he had gathered strength and now was passed,as he was wont to pass after quiet, into a high degree of vision,accompanied by forth-going energy. "Now I see, and as soon as I may,I will do! Beyond Mangi, Champa. Beyond Champa, the coast trendingsouthward, India of the Ganges and the Golden Chersonese. Land ofGold--Land of Gold!--are they not forever pointing southward? But itis not of gold--or wholly gold--that now I think! _Aurea Chersonesus_maketh a vast peninsula, greater maybe than Italy, Greece and Spaintaken together. But I will round it, and I will come to the mouth ofGanges! Then again, I read, we go southward! There is the Kingdom ofMaabar where Saint Thomas is buried, and the Kingdom of Monsul where thediamonds are found. Then we come to the Island of Zeilan, where is theTomb of our Father Adam. Here are sapphires, amethysts, topaz, garnetand rubies. There is a ruby here beyond price, large as a man's twofists and a well of red fire. But what I should think most of would beto stand where Adam laid him down.--Now from the Island of Zeilan I sailacross the India sea. And I go still south, three hundred leagues, and Ifind the great island of Madagascar whose people are Saracens and thereis the rukh-bird that can lift an elephant, and they cut the red sandalthere and find ambergris. Then lifteth Zanzibar whose women are monstersand where the market is in elephant teeth. And so I come at last tothe extremity of Africa which Bartholomew Diaz found--my brother, DonBartholomew being with him--and named Good
Hope. So I round Good Hope,and I come home by Cape Bojador which I myself have seen. I will passFez and Ercilla and the straits and Cadiz. I will enter the River Sagresat Palos, for there was where I first put forth. The bells of La Rabidawill ring, for a thing is done that was never done before, and thatwill not cease to resound! I shall have sailed around the earth.Christopherus Columbus. Ten ships. Ten chances of there being one inwhich I may come home!"
"There have been worse dreams!" said Juan Lepe.
"I warrant you! But I am not dreaming."
He rose and stood with arms outstretched, crosswise.
"'Nought is hid,' saith Scripture, 'but shall be found!' Here is Earth.Do you not think that one day we shall go all about it? Aye, freely,freely! With zest and joy, discovering that it is a loved home. Forevery road some man or men broke the clods!"
They hailed us from the _Cordera_. One had seen from topmast the _SantaClara_.
Still we sailed by the south coast of Hispaniola. We knew now that itwas not Cipango. But it was a great island, natheless, and one day mightbe as Cipango. Beata, Soana, Mona were the little islands that we found.We sailed between them and our great island, and at last we came to thecorner and turned northward, and again after days to another corner andsailed west once more, with hopes now of Isabella. It was the first weekin September.
In a great red dawn, Roderigo, the Admiral's servant, roused Juan Lepe."Come--come--come, Doctor!"
I sprang from my bed and followed him. Christopherus Columbus lay in adeep swoon. Round he came from that and said, "Roderigo, tell them thatI am perfectly well, but wish to see no one!" From that, he came torecognize me. "Doctor, I am tired. God and Our Lady only know how tiredI am!"
His eyes shut, his head sank deep into the bed. He said not anotherword, that day nor the next nor the next. Roderigo and I forced him toswallow a little food and wine, and once he rose and made as if to goon deck. But we laid him down again and he sank into movelessness and asleep of all the faculties. Juan de la Cosa took care of the _Cordera_.So we sighted Isabella and in the harbor four caravels that had not beenthere when we had sailed in April.