Book: Christopher Columbus, Volume 4
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Filson Young >> Christopher Columbus, Volume 4
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
AND THE NEW WORLD OF HIS DISCOVERY
A NARRATIVE BY FILSON YOUNG
Volume 4
CHAPTER IV
THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH
From the moment when Columbus set foot on Spanish soil in the spring of
1493 he was surrounded by a fame and glory which, although they were
transient, were of a splendour such as few other men can have ever
experienced. He had not merely discovered a country, he had discovered a
world. He had not merely made a profitable expedition; he had brought
the promise of untold wealth to the kingdom of Spain. He had not merely
made himself the master of savage tribes; he had conquered the
supernatural, and overcome for ever those powers of darkness that had
been thought to brood over the vast Atlantic. He had sailed away in
obscurity, he had returned in fame; he had departed under a cloud of
scepticism and ridicule, he had come again in power and glory. He had
sailed from Palos as a seeker after hidden wealth, hidden knowledge; he
returned as teacher, discoverer, benefactor. The whole of Spain rang
with his fame, and the echoes of it spread to Portugal, France, England,
Germany, and Italy; and it reached the ears of his own family, who had
now left the Vico Dritto di Ponticello in Genoa and were living at
Savona.
His life ashore in the first weeks following his return was a succession
of triumphs and ceremonials. His first care on landing had been to go
with the whole of his crew to the church of Saint George, where a Te Deum
was sung in honour of his return; and afterwards to perform those vows
that he had made at sea in the hour of danger. There was a certain
amount of business to transact at Palos in connection with the paying of
the ships' crews, writing of reports to the Sovereigns, and so forth; and
it is likely that he stayed with his friends at the monastery of La
Rabida while this was being done. The Court was at Barcelona; and it was
probably only a sense of his own great dignity and importance that
prevented Christopher from setting off on the long journey immediately.
But he who had made so many pilgrimages to Court as a suitor could revel
in a position that made it possible for him to hang back, and to be
pressed and invited; and so when his business at Palos was finished he
sent a messenger with his letters and reports to Barcelona, and himself,
with his crew and his Indians and all his trophies, departed for Seville,
where he arrived on Palm Sunday.
His entrance into that city was only a foretaste of the glory in which he
was to move across the whole of Spain. He was met at the gates of the
city by a squadron of cavalry commanded by an envoy sent by Queen
Isabella; and a procession was formed of members of the crew carrying
parrots, alive and stuffed, fruits, vegetables, and various other
products of the New World.
In a prominent place came the Indians, or rather four of them, for one
had died on the day they entered Palos and three were too ill to leave
that town; but the ones that took part in the procession got all the more
attention and admiration. The streets of Seville were crowded; crowded
also were the windows, balconies, and roofs. The Admiral was entertained
at the house of the Count of Cifuentes, where his little museum of dead
and live curiosities was also accommodated, and where certain favoured
visitors were admitted to view it. His two sons, Diego and Ferdinand,
were sent from Cordova to join him; and perhaps he found time to visit
Beatriz, although there is no record of his having been to Cordova or of
her having come to Seville.
Meanwhile his letters and messengers to the King and Queen had produced
their due effect. The almost incredible had come to pass, and they saw
themselves the monarchs not merely of Spain, but of a new Empire that
might be as vast as Europe and Africa together. On the 30th of March
they despatched a special messenger with a letter to Columbus, whose eyes
must have sparkled and heart expanded when he read the superscription:
"From the King and Queen to Don Christoval Colon, their Admiral of the
Ocean Seas and Viceroy and Governor of the Islands discovered in the
Indies." No lack of titles and dignities now! Their Majesties express a
profound sense of his ability and distinction, of the greatness of his
services to them, to the Church, and to God Himself. They hope that he
will lose no time, but repair to Barcelona immediately, so that they can
have the pleasure of hearing from his own lips an account of his
wonderful expedition, and of discussing with him the preparations that
must immediately be set on foot to fit out a new one. On receiving this
letter Christopher immediately drew up a list of what he thought
necessary for the new expedition and, collecting all his retinue and his
museum of specimens, started by road for Barcelona.
Every one in Spain had by this time heard more or less exaggerated
accounts of the discoveries, and the excitement in the towns and villages
through which he passed was extreme. Wherever he went he was greeted and
feasted like a king returning from victorious wars; the people lined the
streets of the towns and villages, and hung out banners, and gazed their
fill at the Indians and at the strange sun-burned faces of the crew. At
Barcelona, where they arrived towards the end of April, the climax of
these glittering dignities was reached. When the King and Queen heard
that Columbus was approaching the town they had their throne prepared
under a magnificent pavilion, and in the hot sunshine of that April day
they sat and waited the--coming of the great man. A glittering troop of
cavalry had been sent out to meet him, and at the gates of the town a
procession was formed similar to that at Seville. He had now six natives
with him, who occupied an important place in the procession; sailors
also, who carried baskets of fruit and vegetables from Espanola, with
stuffed birds and animals, and a monstrous lizard held aloft on a stick.
The Indians were duly decked out in all their paint and feathers; but if
they were a wonder and marvel to the people of Spain, what must Spain
have been to them with its great buildings and cities, its carriages and
horses, its glittering dresses and armours, its splendour and luxury!
We have no record of what the Indians thought, only of what the crowd
thought who gaped upon them and upon the gaudy parrots that screeched and
fluttered also in the procession. Columbus came riding on horseback, as
befitted a great Admiral and Viceroy, surrounded by his pilots and
principal officers; and followed by men bearing golden belts, golden
masks, nuggets of gold and dust of gold, and preceded by heralds,
pursuivants, and mace-bearers.
What a return for the man who three years before had been pointed at and
laughed to scorn in this same brilliant society! The crowds pressed so
closely that the procession could hardly get through the streets; the
whole population was there to witness it; and the windows and balconies
and roofs of the houses, as well as the streets themselves, were thronged
with a gaily dressed and wildly excited crowd. At length the procession
reaches the presence of the King and Queen and, crowning and
unprecedented honour! as the Admiral comes before them Ferdinand and
Isabella rise to greet him. Under their own royal canopy a seat is
waiting for him; and when he has made his ceremonial greeting he is
invited to sit in their presence and give an account of his voyage.
He is fully equal to the situation; settles down to do himself and his
subject justice; begins, we may be sure, with a preamble about the
providence of God and its wisdom and consistency in preserving the
narrator and preparing his life for this great deed; putting in a deal of
scientific talk which had in truth nothing to do with the event, but was
always applied to it in Columbus's writings from this date onwards; and
going on to describe the voyage, the sea of weeds, the landfall, his
intercourse with the natives, their aptitude for labour and Christianity,
and the hopes he has of their early conversion to the Catholic Church.
And then follows a long description of the wonderful climate, "like May
in Andalusia," the noble rivers, and gorgeous scenery, the trees and
fruits and flowers and singing birds; the spices and the cotton; and
chief of all, the vast stores of gold and pearls of which the Admiral had
brought home specimens. At various stages in his narrative he produces
illustrations; now a root of rhubarb or allspice; now a raw nugget of
gold; now a piece of gold laboured into a mask or belt; now a native
decorated with the barbaric ornaments that were the fashion in Espanola.
These things, says Columbus, are mere first-fruits of the harvest that is
to come; the things which he, like the dove that had flown across the sea
from the Ark and brought back an olive leaf in its mouth, has brought
back across the stormy seas to that Ark of civilisation from which he had
flown forth.
It was to Columbus an opportunity of stretching his visionary wings and
creating with pompous words and images a great halo round himself of
dignity and wonder and divine distinction,--an opportunity such as he
loved, and such as he never failed to make use of.
The Sovereigns were delighted and profoundly impressed. Columbus wound
up his address with an eloquent peroration concerning the glory to
Christendom of these new discoveries; and there followed an impressive
silence, during which the Sovereigns sank on their knees and raised hands
and tearful eyes to heaven, an example in which they were followed by the
whole of the assembly; and an appropriate gesture enough, seeing what was
to come of it all. The choir of the Chapel Royal sang a solemn Te Deum
on the spot; and the Sovereigns and nobles, bishops, archbishops,
grandees, hidalgos, chamberlains, treasurers, chancellors and other
courtiers, being exhausted by these emotions, retired to dinner.
During his stay at Barcelona Columbus was the guest of the
Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, and moved thus in an atmosphere of
combined temporal and spiritual dignity such as his soul loved. Very
agreeable indeed to him was the honour shown to him at this time. Deep
down in his heart there was a secret nerve of pride and vanity which
throughout his life hitherto had been continually mortified and wounded;
but he was able now to indulge his appetite for outward pomp and honour
as much as he pleased. When King Ferdinand went out to ride Columbus
would be seen riding on one side of him, the young Prince John riding on
the other side; and everywhere, when he moved among the respectful and
admiring throng, his grave face was seen to be wreathed in complacent
smiles. His hair, which had turned white soon after he was thirty, gave
him a dignified and almost venerable appearance, although he was only in
his forty-third year; and combined with his handsome and commanding
presence to excite immense enthusiasm among the Spaniards. They forgot
for the moment what they had formerly remembered and were to remember
again--that he was a foreigner, an Italian, a man of no family and of
poor origin. They saw in him the figure-head of a new empire and a new
glory, an emblem of power and riches, of the dominion which their proud
souls loved; and so there beamed upon him the brief fickle sunshine of
their smiles and favour, which he in his delusion regarded as an earnest
of their permanent honour and esteem.
It is almost always thus with a man not born to such dignities, and who
comes by them through his own efforts and labours. No one would grudge
him the short-lived happiness of these summer weeks; but although he
believed himself to be as happy as a man can be, he appears to quietly
contemplating eyes less happy and fortunate than when he stood alone on
the deck of his ship, surrounded by an untrustworthy crew, prevailing by
his own unaided efforts over the difficulties and dangers with which he
was surrounded. Court functions and processions, and the companionship
of kings and cardinals, are indeed no suitable reward for the kind of
work that he did. Courtly dignities are suited to courtly services; but
they are no suitable crown for rough labour and hardship at sea, or for
the fulfilment of a man's self by lights within him; no suitable crown
for any solitary labour whatsoever, which must always be its own and only
reward.
It is to this period of splendour that the story of the egg, which is to
some people the only familiar incident in Columbian biography, is
attributed. The story is that at a banquet given by the Cardinal-Arch
bishop the conversation ran, as it always did in those days when he was
present, on the subject of the Admiral's discoveries; and that one of the
guests remarked that it was all very well for Columbus to have done what
he did, but that in a country like Spain, where there were so many men
learned in science and cosmography, and many able mariners besides, some
one else would certainly have been found who would have done the same
thing. Whereupon Columbus, calling for an egg, laid a wager that none of
the company but him self could make it stand on its end without support.
The egg was brought and passed round, and every one tried to make it
stand on end, but without success. When it came to Columbus he cracked
the shell at one end, making a flat surface on which the egg stood
upright; thus demonstrating that a thing might be wonderful, not because
it was difficult or impossible, but merely because no one had ever
thought of doing it before. A sufficiently inane story, and by no means
certainly true; but there is enough character in this little feat,
ponderous, deliberate, pompous, ostentatious, and at bottom a trick and
deceitful quibble, to make it accord with the grandiloquent public manner
of Columbus, and to make it easily believable of one who chose to show
himself in his speech and writings so much more meanly and pretentiously
than he showed himself in the true acts and business of his life.
But pomp and parade were not the only occupation of these Barcelona days.
There were long consultations with Ferdinand and Isabella about the
colonisation of the new lands; there were intrigues, and parrying of
intrigues, between the Spanish and Portuguese Courts on the subject of
the discoveries and of the representative rights of the two nations to be
the religious saviours of the New World. The Pope, to whose hands the
heathen were entrusted by God to be handed for an inheritance to the
highest and most religious bidder, had at that time innocently divided
them into two portions, to wit: heathen to the south of Spain and
Portugal, and heathen to the west of those places. By the Bull of 1438,
granted by Pope Martin V., the heathen to the west had been given to the
Spanish, and the heathen to the south to the Portuguese, and the two
crowns had in 1479 come to a working agreement. Now, however, the
existence of more heathen to the west of the Azores introduced a new
complication, and Ferdinand sent a message to Pope Alexander VI. praying
for a confirmation of the Spanish title to the new discoveries.
This Pope, who was a native of Aragon and had been a subject of
Ferdinand, was a stolid, perverse, and stubborn being; so much is
advertised in his low forehead, impudent prominent nose, thick sensual
lips, and stout bull neck. This Pope considers the matter; considers,
by such lights as he has, to whom he shall entrust the souls of these new
heathen; considers which country, Spain or Portugal, is most likely to
hold and use the same for the increase of the Christian faith in general,
the furtherance of the Holy Catholic Church in special, and the
aggrandisement of Popes in particular; and shrewdly decides that the
country in which the. Inquisition can flourish is the country to whom
the heathen souls should be entrusted. He therefore issues a Bull, dated
May 3, 1493, granting to the Spanish the possession of all lands, not
occupied by Christian powers, that lie west of a meridian drawn one
hundred leagues to the westward of the Azores, and to the Portuguese
possession of all similar lands lying to the eastward of that line. He
sleeps upon this Bull, and has inspiration; and on the morrow, May 4th,
issues another Bull, drawing a line from the arctic to the antarctic
pole, and granting to Spain all heathen inheritance to the westward of
the same. The Pope, having signed this Bull, considers it
further-assisted, no doubt, by the Portuguese Ambassador at the Vatican,
to whom it has been shown; realises that in the wording of the Bull an
injustice has been done to Portugal, since Spain is allowed to fix very
much at her own convenience the point at which the line drawn from pole
to pole shall cut the equator; and also because, although Spain is given
all the lands in existence within her territory, Portugal is only given
the lands which she may actually have occupied. Even the legal mind of
the Pope, although much drowsed and blunted by brutish excesses,
discerns faultiness in this document; and consequently on the same day
issues a third Bull, in which the injustice to Portugal is redressed.
Nothing so easy, thinks the Pope, as to issue Bulls; if you make a
mistake in one Bull, issue another; and, having issued three Bulls in
twenty-four hours, he desists for the present, having divided the
earthly globe.
Thus easy it is for a Pope to draw lines from pole to pole, and across
the deep of the sea. Yet the poles sleep still in their icy virginal
sanctity, and the blue waves through which that papal line passes shift
and shimmer and roll in their free salt loneliness, unaffected by his
demarcation; the heathen also, it appears, since that distant day, have
had something to say to their disposition. If he had slept upon it
another night, poor Pope, it might have occurred to him that west and
east might meet on a meridian situated elsewhere on the globe than one
hundred miles west of the Azores; and that the Portuguese, who for the
moment had nothing heathen except Africa left to them, might according to
his demarcation strike a still richer vein of heathendom than that
granted to Spain. But the holy Pontiff, bull neck, low forehead,
impudent prominent nose, and sensual lips notwithstanding, is exhausted
by his cosmographical efforts, and he lets it rest at that. Later, when
Spain discovers that her privileges have been abated, he will have to
issue another Bull; but not to-day. Sufficient unto the day are the
Bulls thereof. For the moment King proposes and Pope disposes; but the
matter lies ultimately in the hands of the two eternal protagonists, man
and God.
In the meantime here are six heathen alive and well, or at any rate well
enough to support, willy-nilly, the rite of holy baptism. They must have
been sufficiently dazed and bewildered by all that had happened to them
since they were taken on board the Admiral's ship, and God alone knows
what they thought of it all, or whether they thought anything more than
the parrots that screamed and fluttered and winked circular eyes in the
procession with them. Doubtless they were willing enough; and indeed,
after all they had come through, a little cold water could not do them
any harm. So baptized they were in Barcelona; pompously baptized with
infinite state and ceremony, the King and Queen and Prince Juan
officiating as sponsors. Queen Isabella, after the manner of queens,
took a kindly feminine interest in these heathen, and in their brethren
across the sea. She had seen a good deal of conquest, and knew her
Spaniard pretty intimately; and doubtless her maternal heart had some
misgivings about the ultimate happiness of the gentle, handsome creatures
who lived in the sunshine in that distant place. She made their souls
her especial care, and honestly believed that by providing for their
spiritual conversion she was doing them the greatest service in her
power. She provided from her own private chapel vestments and altar
furniture for the mission church in Espanola; she had the six exiles in
Barcelona instructed under her eye; and she gave Columbus special orders
to inflict severe punishments on any one who should offer the natives
violence or injustice of any kind. It must be remembered to her credit
that in after days, when slavery and an intolerable bloody and brutish
oppression had turned the paradise of Espanola into a shambles, she
fought almost singlehanded, and with an ethical sense far in advance of
her day, against the system of slavery practised by Spain upon the
inhabitants of the New World.
The dignities that had been provisionally granted to Columbus before his
departure on the first voyage were now elaborately confirmed; and in
addition he was given another title--that of Captain-General of the large
fleet which was to be fitted out to sail to the new colonies. He was
entrusted with the royal seal, which gave him the right to grant letters
patent, to issue commissions, and to Appoint deputies in the royal name.
A coat-of-arms was also granted to him in which, in its original form,
the lion and castle of Leon and Castile were quartered with islands of
the sea or on a field azure, and five anchors or on a field azure. This
was changed from time to time, chiefly by Columbus himself, who
afterwards added a continent to the islands, and modified the blazonry of
the lion and castle to agree with those on the royal arms--a piece of
ignorance and childish arrogance which was quite characteristic of him.
[A motto has since been associated with the coat-of-arms, although
it is not certain that Columbus adopted it in his lifetime. In one
form it reads:
"Por Castilla e por Leon
Nueva Mundo hallo Colon."]
(For Castile and Leon Columbus found a New World.)
And in the other:
"A Castilla y a Leon
Nuevo Mundo dio Colon."
(To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a New World.)
Equally characteristic and less excusable was his acceptance of the
pension of ten thousand maravedis which had been offered to the member of
the expedition who should first sight land. Columbus was granted a very
large gratuity on his arrival in Barcelona, and even taking the product
of the islands at a tenth part of their value as estimated by him, he
still had every right to suppose himself one of the richest men in Spain.
Yet he accepted this paltry pension of L8. 6s. 8d. in our modern
money (of 1900), which, taking the increase in the purchasing power of
money at an extreme estimate, would not be more than the equivalent of
$4000 now. Now Columbus had not been the first person to see land; he
saw the light, but it was Rodrigo de Triana, the look-out man on the
Pinta, who first saw the actual land. Columbus in his narrative to the
King and Queen would be sure to make much of the seeing of the light, and
not so much of the actual sighting of land; and he was on the spot, and
the reward was granted to him. Even if we assume that in strict equity
Columbus was entitled to it, it was at least a matter capable of
argument, if only Rodrigo de Triana had been there to argue it; and what
are we to think of the Admiral of the Ocean Seas and Viceroy of the
Indies who thus takes what can only be called a mean advantage of a poor
seaman in his employ? It would have been a competence and a snug little
fortune to Rodrigo de Triana; it was a mere flea-bite to a man who was
thinking in eighth parts of continents. It may be true, as Oviedo
alleges, that Columbus transferred it to Beatriz Enriquez; but he had no
right to provide for her out of money that in all equity and decency
ought to have gone to another and a poorer man. His biographers, some of
whom have vied with his canonisers in insisting upon seeing virtue in his
every action, have gone to all kinds of ridiculous extremes in accounting
for this piece of meanness. Irving says that it was "a subject in which
his whole ambition was involved"; but a plain person will regard it as an
instance of greed and love of money. We must not shirk facts like this
if we wish to know the man as he really was. That he was capable of
kindness and generosity, and that he was in the main kind-hearted, we
have fortunately no reason to doubt; and if I dwell on some of his less
amiable characteristics it is with no desire to magnify them out of their
due proportion. They are part of that side of him that lay in shadow, as
some side of each one of us lies; for not all by light nor all by shade,
but by light and shade combined, is the image of a man made visible to
us.
It is quite of a piece with the character of Columbus that while he was
writing a receipt for the look-out man's money and thinking what a pretty
gift it would make for Beatriz Enriquez he was planning a splendid and
spectacular thank-offering for all the dignities to which he had been
raised; and, brooding upon the vast wealth that was now to be his, that
he should register a vow to furnish within seven years an expedition of
four thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the rescue of the Holy
Sepulchre, and a similar force within five years after the first if it
should be necessary. It was probable that the vow was a provisional one,
and that its performance was to be contingent on his actual receipt and
possession of the expected money; for as we know, there was no money and
no expedition. The vow was in effect a kind of religious flourish much
beloved by Columbus, undertaken seriously and piously enough, but
belonging rather to his public than to his private side. A much more
simple and truly pious act of his was, not the promising of visionary but
the sending of actual money to his old father in Savona, which he did
immediately after his arrival in Spain. The letter which he wrote with
that kindly remittance, not being couched in the pompous terms which he
thought suitable for princes, and doubtless giving a brief homely account
of what he had done, would, if we could come by it, be a document beyond
all price; but like every other record of his family life it has utterly
perished.