1492 by Mary Johnston (highly illogical behavior TXT) đź“–
- Author: Mary Johnston
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The third day from the town we came to the sea and the ships. All seemed well. Our companions had felt the storm, had tales to tell of wrenched anchors and the Pinta’s boat beat almost to pieces, uprooted trees, wind, lightning, thunder and rain. But they cut short their recital, wishing to know what we had found.
Luis and I made report to the Admiral. He sat under a huge tree and around gathered the Pinzons, Fray Ignatio, Diego de Arana, Roderigo Sanchez and others. We related; they questioned, we answered; there was discussion; the Admiral summed up.
But later I spoke to him alone. We were now on ship, making ready for sailing. We would go eastward, around this point of Asia, since from what all said it must be point, and see what was upon the other side. “They all gesture south! They say `Babeque—Babeque! Bohio!’ “
I asked him, “Why is it that these Indians here seem glad for us to go?”
He sighed impatiently, drawing one hand through the other, with him a recurring gesture. “It is the women! Certain of our men—” I saw him look at Gutierrez who passed.
“Tomaso Passamonte, too,” I said.
“Yes. And others. It is the old woe! Now they have only to kill a man!”
He arraigned short-sightedness. I said, “But still we are from heaven?”
“Still. But some of the gods—just five or six, say— have fearful ways!” He laughed, sorrowfully and angrily. “And you think there is little gold, and that we are very far from clothed and lettered Asia?”
“So far,” I answered, “that I see not why we call these brown, naked folk Indians.”
“What else would you call them?”
“I do not know that.”
“Why, then, let us still call them Indians.” He drummed upon the rail before him, then broke out, “Christ! I think we do esteem hard, present, hand-held gold too much!”
“I say yes to that!”
He said, “We should hold to the joy of Discovery and great use hereafter—mounting use!”
“Aye.”
“Here is virgin land, vast and beautiful, with a clime like heaven, and room for a hundred colonies such as Greece and Rome sent out! Here is a docile, unwarlike people ready to be industrious servitors and peasants, for which we do give them salvation of their souls! It is all Spain’s, the banner is planted, the names given! We are too impatient! We cannot have it between dawn and sunset! But look into the future—there is wealth beyond counting! No great amount of gold, but enough to show that there is gold.”
I followed the working of his mind. It was to smile somewhat sorrowfully, seeing his great difficulties. He was the born Discoverer mightily loving Discovery, and watching the Beloved in her life through time. But he had to serve Prince Have-it-now, in the city Greed. I said, “Senor, do not put too much splendor in your journal for the King and Queen and the Spanish merchants and the Church and all the chivalry that the ended war releases! Or, if you prophesy, mark it prophecy. It is a great trouble in the world that men do not know when one day is talked of or when is meant great ranges of days! Otherwise you will have all thirsty Spain sailing for Ophir and Golden Chersonesus, wealth immediate, gilding Midas where he stands! If they find disappointment they will not think of the future; they will smite you!”
I knew that he was writing in that book too ardently, and that he was even now composing letters to great persons to be dispatched from what Spanish port he should first enter, coming back east from west, over Ocean-Sea, from Asia!
But he had long, long followed his own advice, stood by his own course. The doing so had so served him that it was natural he should have confidence. Now he said only, “I do the best I can! I have little sea room. One Scylla and Charybdis? Nay, a whole brood of them!”
I could agree to that. I saw it coming up the ways that they would give him less and less sea room. He went on, “Merchandise has to be made attractive! The cook dresses the dish, the girl puts flowers in her hair… . Yet, in the end the wares are mighty beyond description! The dish is for Pope and King—the girl is a bride for a paladin!”
Again he was right afar and over the great span. But they would not see in Spain, or not many would see, that the whole span must be taken. But I was not one to chide him, seeing that I, too, saw afar, and they would not see with me either in Spain.
WE sailed for two days east by south. But the weather that had been perfection for long and long again from Palos, now was changed. Dead winds delayed us, the sea ridged, clouds blotted out the blue. We held on. There was a great cape which we called Cape Cuba. Off this a storm met us. We lived it out and made into one of those bottle harbors of which, first and last, we were to find God knows how many in Cuba!
The Admiral named it Puerto del Principe, and we raised on shore here a very great cross. We had done this on every considerable island since San Salvador and now twice on this coast. There were behind us seven or eight crosses. The banner planted was the sign of the Sovereignty of Spain, the cross the sign of Holy Church, Sovereign over sovereigns, who gave these lands to Spain, as she gave Africa and the islands to Portugal. We came to a great number of islets, rivers of clear blue sea between. The ships lay to and we took boat and went among these. The King’s Gardens, the Admiral called them, and the calm sea between them and mainland the Sea of Our Lady. They were thickly wooded, and we thought we found cinnamon, aloes and mastic. Two lovely days we had in this wilderness of isles and channels where was no man nor woman at all, then again we went east and south, the land trending that way. Very distant, out of eastern waste, rose what seemed a large island. The Admiral said that we should go discover, and we changed course toward it, but in three hours’ time met furious weather. The sea rose, clouds like night closed us in. Night came on without a star and a contrary wind blew always. When the dawn broke sullenly we were beaten back to Cuba, and a great promontory against which truly we might have been dashed stood to our north and shut out coast of yesterday. Here we hung a day and night, and then the wind lulling and the sea running not so high, we made again for that island which might be Babeque. We had Indians aboard, but the sea and the whipping and groaning of our masts and rigging and sails and the pitching of the ship terrified them, and terror made them dull. They sat with knees drawn up and head buried in arms and shivered, and knew not Babeque from anything else.
Christopherus Columbus could be very obstinate. Wishing strongly to gain that island, through all this day he had us strive toward it. But the wind was directly ahead and strong as ten giants. The master and others made representations, and at last he nodded his gray head and ordered the Santa Maria put about and the Pinta and the Nina signaled. The Nina harkened and turned, but the Pinta. at some distance seemed deaf and blind. Night fell while still we signaled. We were now for Cuba, and the wind directly behind us, but yet as long as we could see, the Pinta chose not to turn. We set lights for signals, but her light fell farther and farther astern. She was a swifter sailer than we; there was no reason for that increasing distance. We lay to, the Nina beside us. Ere long we wholly lost the Pinta’s light. Night passed. When morning broke Captain Martin Alonso Pinzon and the Pinta were gone.
The sea, though rough, was not too perilous, and never a signal of distress had been seen nor heard.
“Lost? Is the Pinta lost?”
“Lost! No!—But, yes. Willfully lost!”
It was Roderigo Sanchez who knew not much of the sea who asked, and the Admiral answered. But having spoken it that once, he closed his strong lips and coming down from deck said he would have breakfast. All that day was guessing and talk enough upon the Santa Maria; silent or slurred talk at last, for toward noon the Admiral gave sharp order that the Pinta should be left out of conversation. Captain Martin Pinzon was an able seaman. Perhaps something (he reminded us of the rudder before the Canaries) had gone wrong. Captain Pinzon may have thought the island was the nearer land, or he may have returned to Cuba, but more to the north than were we. He looked for the Pinta. again in a reasonable time. In the meantime let it alone!
So soon as the sea allowed, Vicente Pinzon came in his boat to the Santa Maria, but he seemed as perplexed as we. He did not know his brother’s mind. But Martin Pinzon forever and always was a good sea captain and a Castilian of his word, knowing what was proper observance to his Admiral. If he did this or that, it would be for good reasons. So Vicente, and the Admiral was cordial with him, and saw him over rail and down side with cheerful words. He was cheerful all that day in his speech, cheerful and suave and prophesying good in many directions. But I knew the trouble behind that front.
In some ways the Pinta was the best of our ships. Martin Pinzon was a bold and ready man, and those aboard with him devoted to his fortunes. He did not lack opinions of his own, and often they countered the Admiral’s. He was ambitious, and the Admiral’s rights were so vast and inclusive that there seemed not much room to make name and fame. Much the same with riches! What Martin Pinzon had loaned would come back to him beyond doubt, back with high interest and a good deal more. But still it would seem to him that room was needed. In his mind he had said perhaps many times to the Admiral, “Do not claim too much soil! Do not forget that other trees want to grow!”
Martin Pinzon might have put back to Spain, but who knew the man would not think that likely. Far more probable that he might be doing discovery of his own. Perhaps he would rejoin us later with some splendid thing to his credit, claim that Spain could not deny!
Cuba coast rose high and near. It is a shore of the fairest harbors! We made one of these into which emptied a little river. He named haven and river Saint Catherine. In the bed of this stream, when we went ashore, we found no little gold. He took in his hand grains and flakes and one or two
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