Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 23

[Sidenote: Grand Turk Island.]

An elaborate attempt to identify Samana as the landfall was made by the late Capt. Gustavus Vasa Fox, in an appendix to the _Report of the United States Coast Survey_ for 1880. Varnhagen, in 1864, selected Mariguana, and defended his choice in a paper. This island fails to satisfy the physical conditions in being without interior water. Such a qualification, however, belongs to the Grand Turk Island, which was advocated first by Navarrete in 1826, whose views have since been supported by George Gibbs, and for a while by Major.

It is rather curious to note that Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng, who undertook to examine this question in the _North American Review_, under the guidance of Navarrete's theory, tried the same backward method which has been later applied to the problem, but with quite different results from those reached by more recent investigators. He says, "By setting out from Nipe [which is the point where Columbus struck Cuba] and proceeding in a retrograde direction along his course, we may surely trace his path, and shall be convinced that Guanahani is no other than Turk's Island."

CHAPTER X.

AMONG THE ISLANDS AND THE RETURN VOYAGE.

[Sidenote: The natives of Guanahani.]

We learn that, after these ceremonies on the sh.o.r.e, the natives began fearlessly to gather about the strangers. Columbus, by causing red caps, strings of beads, and other trinkets to be distributed among them, made an easy conquest of their friends.h.i.+p. Later the men swam out to the s.h.i.+p to exchange their b.a.l.l.s of thread, their javelins, and parrots for whatever they could get in return.

The description which Columbus gives us in his journal of the appearance and condition of these new people is the earliest, of course, in our knowledge of them. His record is interesting for the effect which the creatures had upon him, and for the statement of their condition before the Spaniards had set an impress upon their unfortunate race.

They struck Columbus as, on the whole, a very poor people, going naked, and, judging from a single girl whom he saw, this nudity was the practice of the women. They all seemed young, not over thirty, well made, with fine shapes and faces. Their hair was coa.r.s.e, and combed short over the forehead; but hung long behind. The bodies of many were differently colored with pigments of many hues, though of some only the face, the eyes, or the nose were painted. Columbus was satisfied that they had no knowledge of edged weapons, because they grasped his sword by the blade and cut themselves. Their javelins were sticks pointed with fishbones. When he observed scars on their bodies, they managed to explain to him that enemies, whom the Admiral supposed to come from the continent, sometimes invaded their island, and that such wounds were received in defending themselves. They appeared to him to have no religion, which satisfied him that the task of converting them to Christianity would not be difficult. They learned readily to p.r.o.nounce such words as were repeated to them.

[Sidenote: 1492. October 13.]

[Sidenote: Affinities of the Lucayans.]

On the next day after landing, Sat.u.r.day, Columbus describes again the throng that came to the sh.o.r.e, and was struck with their broad foreheads. He deemed it a natural coincidence, being in the lat.i.tude of the Canaries, that the natives had the complexion prevalent among the natives of those islands. In this he antic.i.p.ated the conclusions of the anthropologists, who have found in the skulls preserved in caves both in the Bahamas and in the Canaries, such striking similarities as have led to the supposition that ocean currents may have borne across the sea some of the old Guanche stock of the Canaries, itself very likely the remnant of the people of the European river-drift.

Professor W. K. Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins University, who has recently published in the _Popular Science Monthly_ (November, 1889) a study of the bones of the Lucayans as found in caves in the Bahamas, reports that these relics indicate a muscular, heavy people, about the size of the average European, with protuberant square jaws, sloping eyes, and very round skulls, but artificially flattened on the forehead,--a result singularly confirming Columbus's description of broader heads than he had ever seen.

[Sidenote: Hammocks.]

"The Ceboynas," says a recent writer on these Indians, "gave us the hammock, and this one Lucayan word is their only monument," for a population larger than inhabits these islands to-day were in twelve years swept from the surface of the earth by a system devised by Columbus.

[Sidenote: Canoes.]

The Admiral also describes their canoes, made in a wonderful manner of a single tree-trunk, and large enough to hold forty or forty-five men, though some were so small as to carry a single person only. Their oars are shaped like the wooden shovels with which bakers slip their loaves into ovens. If a canoe upsets, it is righted as they swim.

[Sidenote: Gold among them.]

Columbus was attracted by bits of gold dangling at the nose of some among them. By signs he soon learned that a greater abundance of this metal could be found on an island to the south; but they seemed unable to direct him with any precision how to reach that island, or at least it was not easy so to interpret any of their signs. "Poor wretches!"

exclaims Helps, "if they had possessed the slightest gift of prophecy, they would have thrown these baubles into the deepest sea."

[Sidenote: Columbus traffics with them.]

They pointed in all directions, but towards the east as the way to other lands; and implied that those enemies who came from the northwest often pa.s.sed to the south after gold. He found that broken dishes and bits of gla.s.s served as well for traffic with them as more valuable articles, and b.a.l.l.s of threads of cotton, grown on the island, seemed their most merchantable commodity.

[Sidenote: 1492. October 14, sails towards c.i.p.ango.]

With this rude foretaste, Columbus determined to push on for the richer c.i.p.ango. On the next day he coasted along the island in his boats, discovering two or three villages, where the inhabitants were friendly.

They seemed to think that the strangers had come from heaven,--at least Columbus so interpreted their prostrations and uplifted hands. Columbus, fearful of the reefs parallel to the sh.o.r.e, kept outside of them, and as he moved along, saw a point of land which a ditch might convert into an island. He thought this would afford a good site for a fort, if there was need of one.

[Sidenote: 1492. October 14.]

[Sidenote: Columbus proposes to enslave the natives.]

[Sidenote: 1492. October 15.]

[Sidenote: 1492. October 16.]

It was on this Sunday that Columbus, in what he thought doubtless the spirit of the day in dealing with heathens, gives us his first intimation of the desirability of using force to make these poor creatures serve their new masters. On returning to the s.h.i.+ps and setting sail, he soon found that he was in an archipelago. He had seized some natives, who were now on board. These repeated to him the names of more than a hundred islands. He describes those within sight as level, fertile, and populous, and he determined to steer for what seemed the largest. He stood off and on during the night of the 14th, and by noon of the 15th he had reached this other island, which he found at the easterly end to run five leagues north and south, and to extend east and west a distance of ten leagues. Lured by a still larger island farther west he pushed on, and skirting the sh.o.r.e reached its western extremity.

He cast anchor there at sunset, and named the island Santa Maria de la Concepcion. The natives on board told him that the people here wore gold bracelets. Columbus thought this story might be a device of his prisoners to obtain opportunities to escape. On the next day, he repeated the forms of landing and taking possession. Two of the prisoners contrived to escape. One of them jumped overboard and was rescued by a native canoe. The Spaniards overtook the canoe, but not till its occupants had escaped. A single man, coming off in another canoe, was seized and taken on board; but Columbus thought him a good messenger of amity, and loading him with presents, "not worth four maravedis," he put him ash.o.r.e. Columbus watched the liberated savage, and judged from the wonder of the crowds which surrounded him that his ruse of friends.h.i.+p had been well played.

[Sidenote: Columbus sees a large island.]

Another large island appeared westerly about nine leagues, famous for its gold ornaments, as his prisoners again declared. It is significant that in his journal, since he discovered the bits of gold at San Salvador, Columbus has not a word to say of reclaiming the benighted heathen; but he constantly repeats his hope "with the help of our Lord,"

of finding gold. On the way thither he had picked up a second single man in a canoe, who had apparently followed him from San Salvador. He determined to bestow some favors upon him and let him go, as he had done with the other.

[Sidenote: 1492. October 16.]

This new island, which he reached October 16, and called Fernandina, he found to be about twenty-eight leagues long, with a safer sh.o.r.e than the others. He anch.o.r.ed near a village, where the man whom he had set free had already come, bringing good reports of the stranger, and so the Spaniards got a kind reception. Great numbers of natives came off in canoes, to whom the men gave trinkets and mola.s.ses. He took on board some water, the natives a.s.sisting the crew. Getting an impression that the island contained a mine of gold, he resolved to follow the coast, and find Samaot, where the gold was said to be. Columbus thought he saw some improvement in the natives over those he had seen before, remarking upon the cotton cloth with which they partly covered their persons. He was surprised to find that distinct branches of the same tree bore different leaves. A single tree, as he says, will show as many as five or six varieties, not done by grafting, but a natural growth. He wondered at the brilliant fish, and found no land creatures but parrots and lizards, though a boy of the company told him that he had seen a snake. On Wednesday he started to sail around the island. In a little haven, where they tarried awhile, they first entered the native houses.

[Sidenote: Hammocks.]

They found everything in them neat, with nets extended between posts, which they called _hamacs_,--a name soon adopted by sailors for swinging-beds. The houses were shaped like tents, with high chimneys, but not more than twelve or fifteen together. Dogs were running about them, but they could not bark. Columbus endeavored to buy a bit of gold, cut or stamped, which was hanging from a man's nose; but the savage refused his offers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN BEDS.]

[Sidenote: 1492. October 19.]

The s.h.i.+ps continued their course about the island, the weather not altogether favorable; but on October 19 they veered away to another island to the west of Fernandina, which Columbus named Isabella, after his Queen. This he p.r.o.nounced the most beautiful he had seen; and he remarks on the interior region of it being higher than in the other islands, and the source of streams. The breezes from the sh.o.r.e brought him odors, and when he landed he became conscious that his botanical knowledge did not aid him in selecting such dyestuffs, medicines, and spices as would command high prices in Spain. He saw a hideous reptile, and the canonizers, after their amusing fas.h.i.+on, tell us that "to see and attack him were the same thing for Columbus, for he considered it of importance to accustom Spanish intrepidity to such warfare."

[Sidenote: To find gold Columbus's main object.]

[Sidenote: 1492. October 21.]

The reptile proved inoffensive. The signs of his prisoners were interpreted to repeat here the welcome tale of gold. He understood them to refer to a king decked with gold. "I do not, however," he adds, "give much credit to these accounts, for I understand the natives but imperfectly." "I am proceeding solely in quest of gold and spices," he says again.

[Sidenote: Cuba heard of.]

[Sidenote: 1492. October 24. Isabella.]

On Sunday they went ash.o.r.e, and found a house from which the occupants had recently departed. The foliage was enchanting. Flocks of parrots obscured the sky. Specimens were gathered of wonderful trees. They killed a snake in a lake. They cajoled some timid natives with beads, and got their help in filling their water cask. They heard of a very large island named Colba, which had s.h.i.+ps and sailors, as the natives were thought to say. They had little doubt that these stories referred to c.i.p.ango. They hoped the native king would bring them gold in the night; but this not happening, and being cheered by the accounts of Colba, they made up their minds that it would be a waste of time to search longer for this backward king, and so resolved to run for the big island.

[Sidenote: October 26.]

Starting from Isabella at midnight on October 24, and pa.s.sing other smaller islands, they finally, on Sunday, October 26, entered a river near the easterly end of Cuba.

[Sidenote: Cuba.]