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return, or at least not for a good while! But they did not wish to spend that good while upon the ship. It was a good land, and the heathen also good. The heathen might all be going to burn in hell, unless Fray Ignatio could get them baptized in time, and so numerous were they that seemed hardly possible! Almost all might have to go to hell. But in the meantime, here on earth, they had their uses, and one could even grow fond of them -- certainly fond of the women. The heathen were eager to work for us, catch us coneys, bring us gold, put hammocks for us between trees and say "Sleep, seņor, sleep!" Here even Tomaso Passamonte was "seņor" and "Don." And as for the women -- only the skin is dark -- they were warm-hearted! Gold and women and never any cold nor hunger nor toil! The heathen to toil for you -- and they could be taught to make wine, with all these grapes dangling everywhere? Heathen could do the gathering and pressing, and also the gold hunting in rocks and streams. Spain would furnish the mind and the habit of command. It were well to stay and cultivate Hispaniola! The Admiral and those who wanted to might take home the ships. Of course the Admiral would come again, and with him ships and many men. No one wanted, of course, never to see again Castile and Palos and his family! But to stay in Hispaniola a while and rest and grow rich, -- that was what they wanted. And no one could justly call them idle! If they found out all about the land and where were the gold and the spices, was there not use in that, just as much use as wandering forever on the Santa Maria? 

   Mother earth was kind, kind, here, and she didn't have a rod like mother country and Mother Church! They did not say this last, but it was what they meant. 

   "You don't see the rod, that is all," said Juan Lepe. 

   But there had eventually to be colonies, and I knew that the Admiral was revolving in his head the leaving in this new world certain of our men, seed corn as it were, organs also to gather knowledge against his speedy return with 



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power of ships and men. For surely Spain would be grateful, -- surely, surely! But he was not ready yet to set sail for Spain. He meant to discover more, discover further, come if by any means he could to the actual wealth of great, main India; come perhaps to Zaiton, where are more merchants than in all the rest of the world, and a hundred master ships laden with pepper enter every year; or to Quinsai of the marble bridges. No, he was not ready to turn prow to Spain, and he was not likely to bleed himself of men, now or for many days to come. All these who would lie in hammocks ashore must wait awhile, and even when they made their colony, that is not the way that colonies live and grow. 

   Beltran said, "Some of you would like to do a little good, and some are for a sow's life!" 

   It was Christmas Eve, and we had our vespers, and we thought of the day at home in Castile and in Italy. Dusk drew down. Behind us was the deep, secure water of St. Thomas, his harbor. The Admiral had us sound and the lead showed no great depth, whereupon we stood a little out to avoid shoal or bar. 

   For some nights the Admiral had been wakeful, suffering, as Juan Lepe knew, with that gout which at times troubled him like a very demon. But this night he slept. Juan de la Cosa set the watch. The helmsman was Sancho Ruiz than whom none was better, save only that he would take a risk when he pleased. All others slept. The day had been long, so warm, still and idle, with the wooded shore stealing so slowly by. 

   Early in the night Sancho Ruiz was taken with a great cramp and a swimming of the head. He called to one of the watch to come take the helm for a little, but none answered; called again and a ship boy sleeping near, uncurled himself, stretched, and came to hand. "It's all safe, and the Admiral sleeping and the master sleeping and the watch also!" said the boy. Pedro Acevedo it was, a well-enough meaning young wretch. 



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   Sancho Ruiz put helm in his hand. "Keep her so, while I lie down here for a little. My head is moving faster than the Santa Maria!" 

   He lay down, and the swimming made him close his eyes, and closed eyes and the disappearance of his pain, and pleasant resting on deck caused him to sleep. Pedro Acevedo held the wheel and looked at the moon. Then the wind chose to change, blowing still very lightly but bearing us now toward shore, and Pedro never noticing this grow larger. He was looking at the moon, he afterwards said with tears, and thinking of Christ born in Bethlehem. 

   The shore came nearer and nearer. Sancho Ruiz slept. Pedro now heard a sound that he knew well enough. Coming back to here and now, he looked and saw breakers upon a long sand bar. The making tide was at half, and that and the changed wind carried us toward the lines of foam. The boy cried, "Steersman! Steersman!" Ruiz sat up, holding his head in his hands. "Such a roaring in my ears!" But "Breakers! Breakers!" cried the boy. "Take the helm!" 

   Ruiz sprang to it, but as he touched it the Santa Maria grounded. The shock woke most on board, the immediate outcry and running feet the rest. 

   The harm was done, and no good now in recriminations! It was never, I bear witness, habit of Christopherus Columbus. 

   The Santa Maria listed heavily, the sea pounding against her, driving her more and more upon the sand. But order arrived with the Admiral. The master grew his lieutenant, the mariners his obedient ones. Back he was at thirty, with a shipwreck who had seen many and knew how to toil with hands and with head. Moreover, the great genius of the man shone in darkness. He could encourage; he could bring coolness. 

   We tried to warp her off, but it was not to be done. We cut away mast to lighten her, but more and more she grew fast to the bank, the waves striking all her side, pushing her 



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over. Seams had opened, water was coming in. The Niņa a mile away took our signal and came nearer, lay to, and sent her boat. 

   The Santa Maria, it was seen, was dying. Nothing more was to be done. Her mariners could only cling to her like bees to comb. We got the two boats clear and there was the boat of the Niņa. Missioned by the Admiral, Juan Lepe got somehow into cabin, together with Sancho and Luis Torres, and we collected maps and charts, log, journal, box with royal letters and the small bags of gold, and the Admiral's personal belongings, putting all into a great sack and caring for it, until upon the Niņa we gave it into his hand. Above us rang the cry, "All off!" 

   From Christopherus Columbus to Pedro Acevedo all left the Santa Maria and were received by the Niņa. Crowded, crowded was the Niņa! Down voyaged the moon, up came with freshness the rose-chapleted dawn. A wreck lay the Santa Maria, painted against the east, about her a low thunder of breakers. Where was the Pinta no man knew! Perhaps halfway back to Spain or perhaps wrecked and drowned like the flagship. The Niņa, a small, small ship and none too seaworthy, carried all of Europe and Discovery. 



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Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII 
    IN the small, small cabin of the Niņa Christopherus Columbus sat for a time with his head bowed in his arms, then rose and made up a mission to go to the cacique Guacanagari and, relating our misfortune, request aid and shelter until we had determined upon our course. There went Diego de Arana and Pedro Gutierrez with Luis Torres and one or two more, and they took Diego Colon and the two St. Thomas Indians. It was now full light, the shore and mountains green as emerald, the water its old unearthly blue. 

   The Niņa swung at anchor just under the land and the now receding tide uncovered more and more those sands where the Santa Maria lay huddled and dying. The Admiral gazed, and the tears ran down his face. He was so great that he never thought to hide just emotion. He spoke as though to himself. "Many sins have I, many, many! But thou wilt not, O God, cast me utterly away because of them! I will not doubt Thee, nor my calling!" 

   There was little space about him. The Niņa seemed to quiver, packed and dark with men. His deep voice went on, and they could hear him, but he did not seem to know that they were there. "As though upon a raft, here a thousand leagues in Ocean-Sea! Yet wilt Thou care for thy Good News. I will come to Spain, and I will tell it. Chosen, and almost by very name pointed out in Thy Book! The first Christian shore that I touch I will walk barefoot and in my shirt at the head of twelve to the first shrine. And, O my Lord, never more will I forget that that tomb in which 



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thou didst rest, still, still is held by the infidel!" He beat his breast. "Mea culpa! mea culpa!" 

   His voice sank, he looked at the sky, then with a turn of the wrist at the wheel he put that by and became again the vigilant Admiral of a fleet of one. "She will hold together yet a while! When the tide is out, we can get to her and empty her. Take all ashore that can be carried or floated and may be of use. Up and down -- down and up!" 

   The inhabitants of Hispaniola were now about us in canoes or swimming. They seemed to cry out in distress and sympathy, gazing at the Santa Maria as though it were a god dying there. Their own canoes were living things to them as is any ship to a mariner, and by analogy our great canoe was a Being dying, more of a Being than theirs, because it had wings and could open and fold them. And then back came our boat with Diego de Arana and the others, and they had with them that same brother of the cacique who had come to us in St. Thomas Harbor. And had we been wrecked off Palos, not Palos could have showed more concern or been more ready to help than were these men. 

   We had three boats and the Indian canoes and hands enough, white and copper-hued. Now at low tide, we could approach and enter the Santa Maria. A great breach bad been made and water was deep in her hold, but we could get at much of casks and chests, and could take away sails and cordage, even her two cannon. Eventually, as she broke up, we might float away to shore much of her timber. When I looked from the wreck to the little Niņa, I could see, limned as it were in air, the Viceroy's first colony, set in Hispaniola, beside Guacanagari's town. All Christmas day we toiled and the Indians at our side. We found them ready, not without skill, gay and biddable. 

   Toward sunset came Guacanagari. All the little shore was strewn and heaped with our matters. And here I will say that no Indian stole that day though he might have stolen, and though our possessions seemed to him great wonders and treasure beyond estimation. What was brought from 



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the Santa Maria lay in heaps and our men came and went. The most of our force was ashore or in the boats; only so many on the Niņa. The Admiral, just returned to the ship, stretched himself upon the bench in her small cabin. Powerful was his frame and constitution, and powerfully tried all his life with a thousand strains and buffetings! It seemed still to hold; he looked a muscular, sinewy, strong and ruddy man. But there were signs that a careful eye might find. He lay upon the bench in the cabin and I, who was his physician, brought him wine and biscuit and made him eat and drink who, I knew, had not touched food since the evening before; after which I told him to close eyes and go away to Genoa and boyhood. He shut them, and I sitting near brought my will as best I could to the quieting of all heavy and sorrowful waves. 

   But then the cacique came. So small was the Niņa that we could hear well enough the word of his arrival. The Admiral opened his eyes and sat stiffly up. He groaned and took his head into his hands, then dropped these and with a shake of his shoulders resumed command. So many and grievous a sea had dashed over him and retreated and he had stood! What he said now was, "The tide of the spirit goes out; the tide comes back in. Let it come back a spring tide!" 

   Guacanagari entered. This cacique, whose fortunes now began to be intertwined with ours, had his likeness, so far as went state and custom, to that Cuban chieftain whom Luis Torres and I had visited. But this was an easier, less strongly fibred person, a big, amiable, indolent man with some quality of a great dog who, accepting you and becoming your friend, may never be estranged. He was brave after his fashion, gifted enough in simple things. In Europe he would have been an. easy, well-liked prince or duke of no great territory. He kept a simple state, wore some slight apparel of cotton and a golden necklet. He brought gifts and an unfeigned sympathy for that death upon the sand bar. 



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   He and the Admiral sat and talked together. "Gods from heaven?" -- "Christian men and from Europe," and we could not make him, at this time, understand that that was not the same thing. We began to comprehend that "heaven" was a word of many levels, and that they ascribed to it everything that they chose to consider good and that was manifestly out of the range of their experience. 

   In his turn the Admiral was ready for all that Guacanagari could tell him. "Gold?" His eyes were upon the Indian's necklet. Removing it, the cacique laid it in the god's hand. All Indians now. understood that we made high magic with gold, getting out of it virtues beyond their comprehension. In return the Admiral gave him a small brazen gong and hammer. "Where did they get the gold?" Again like the Cuban chief this cacique waved his hand to the mountains. "Cibao!" and then turning he too pointed to the south. "Much gold there," said Diego Colon. "Inland, in the mountains," quoth the Admiral, "and evidently, in very great quantity, in some land to the south! This is not Cipango, but I think that Cipango lies to the south." He asked who ruled Hayti that we called Hispaniola. We understood that there were a number of caciques, but that for a day's journey every way it was Guacanagari's country. 

   "A cacique who ruled them all?" No, there was no such thing. 

   "Had ships like ours and clothed men ever before come to them?" 

   No, never! But then he seemed to say that there was undoubtedly a tradition. Gods had come, and would come again, and when they did so great things would follow! But no cacique nor priest nor any knew when the gods had come. 

   The Admiral made some question of Caribs. Again there was gesture southward, though it seemed to us that something was said of folk within this great island who were at least like Caribs. And where was the most gold and the greatest other wealth that they knew of? Again south, 



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though this time we thought it rather south by west. The Admiral sighed, and spoke of Cuba. Yes, Guacanagari knew of Cuba. Had it end far yonder to the westward, or no end? Had any one ever come to its end? The cacique thought not, or knew not and assumed deliberation. Luis and I agreed that we had not met among these Indians any true notion of a continent. To them Hayti was vast, Cuba was vast, the lands of the Caribs, wherever they were, were vast, and vast whatever other islands there might be. To them this was the OEcumene, the inhabited and inhabitable world, Europe -- Asia -- Africa? Their faces stayed blank. Were these divisions of heaven? 

   Guacanagari would entertain and succor us. This canoe -- oh, the huge marvel! -- was too crowded! Yonder lay his town. All the houses that we might want were ours, all the hammocks, all the food. And he would feast the gods. That had been preparing since yesterday, A feast with dancing. He hoped the great cacique and his people from far nearer heaven than was Guacanagari would live as long as might be in his town. Guarico was his town. A big, easy, amiable, likeable man, he sat in nakedness only not utter, save for that much like a big hidalgo offering sympathy and shelter to some fire-ousted or foe-ousted prince! As for the part of prince it was not hard for the Admiral to play it. He was one naturally. 

   He thanked the cacique to whom, I could see, be had taken liking. Seven houses would be enough. To-night some of us would sleep upon the beach beside the heaped goods. To-morrow we would visit Guacanapri. The big, lazy, peaceable man expressed his pleasure, then with a wide and dignified gesture dismissing all that, asked to be shown marvels.



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Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII 
    GUACANAGARI'S town was much perhaps as was Goth town, Frank town, Saxon town, Latin town, sufficient time ago. As for clothed and unclothed, that may be to some degree a matter of cold or warm weather. We had not seen that ever it was cold in this land. 

   Guacanagari feasted us with great dignity and earnestness, for he and his people held it a momentous thing our coming here, our being here. Utias we had and iguana, fish, cassava bread, potato, many a delicious fruit, and that mild drink that they made. And we had calabashes, trenchers and fingers, stone knives with which certain officers of the feast decorously divided the meat, small gourds for cups, water for cleansing, napkins of broad leaves. It was a great and comely feast. But before the feast, as in Cuba, the dance. 

   I should say that three hundred young men and maidens danced. They advanced, they retreated, they cowered, they pressed forward. They made supplication, arms to heaven or forehead to ground, they received, they were grateful, they circled fast in ease of mind, they hungered again and were filled again, they flowed together, they made a great square, chanting proudly! 

   Fray Ignatio beside me glowered, so far as so good a man could glower. But Juan Lepe said, "It is doubt and difficulty, approach, reconciliation holy triumph! They are acting out long pilgrimages and arrivals at sacred cities and hopes for greater cities. It is much the same as in 



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Seville or Rome!" Whereupon he looked at me in astonishment, and Jayme de Marchena said to Juan Lepe, "Hold thy tongue!" 

   Dance and the feast over, it became the Admiral's turn. He was set not to seem dejected, not to give any Spaniard nor any Indian reason to say, "This Genoese -- or this god -- does not sustain misfortune!" But he sat calm, pleased with all; brotherly, fatherly, by that big, easy, contented cacique. Now he would furnish the entertainment! Among us we had one Diego Minas, a huge man and as mighty a bowman as any in Flanders or England. Him the Admiral now put forward with his great crossbow and long arrows. A stir ran around. "Carib! Carib!" We made out that those mysterious Caribs had bows and arrows, though not great ones like this. Guacanagari employed gestures and words that Luis Torres and I strove to understand. We gathered that several times in the memory of man the Caribs had come in many canoes, warred dreadfully, killed and taken away. More than that, somewhere in Hayti or Quisquaya or Hispaniola were certain people who knew the weapon. "Caonabo!" He repeated the name with respect and disliking. "Caonabo, Caonabo! Perhaps the Caribs had made a settlement. 

   Diego fastened a leaf upon the bark of a tree and from a great distance transfixed it with an arrow, then in succession sent four others against the trunk, making precisely the form of a cross. The Indians cried, "Hai! Hai!" But when the four harquebus men set up their iron rests, fixed the harquebuses, and firing cut leaves and twigs from the same tree, there was a louder crying. And when there was dragged forth, charged with powder and fired, one of the lombards taken from the Santa Maria, wider yet sprang the commotion. Pedro Gutierrez and a young cavalier from the Niņa deigned to show lance play, and Vicente Pinzon who had served against the Moors took a great sword and with it carved calabashes and severed green boughs. The sword was very marvelous to them. We might have danced 



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for them for Spain knows how to dance, or we might have sung for them, for our mariners sing at sea. But these were not the superior things we wished to show them. 

   Guacanagari, big and easy and gentle, said, "Live here, you who are so great and good! We will take you into the people. We shall be brothers." We understood them that the great white heron was their guardian spirit and would be ours. I said, "They do not think of it as just those stalking, stilly standing birds! It is a name for something hovering, brooding, caring for them." 

   The Viceroy spoke with energy. "Tell them of Father, Son and Holy Ghost!" 

   Fray Ignatio stood and spoke, gentle and plain. Diego Colon made what headway he could. Guacanagari listened, attentive. The Franciscan had a certainty that presently he might begin to baptize. His face glowed. I heard him say to the Admiral, "If it be possible, seņor, leave me here when you return to Spain! I will convert this chief and all his people -- by the time you come again there shall be a church!" 

   "Let me ponder it yet a while," answered the other. 

   He was thoughtful when he went back to the Niņa. Vicente Pinzon, too, was anxious for light. "This ship is crowded to sinking! If we meet wretched weather, or if sickness break out, returning, we shall be in bad case!" Roderigo Sanchez also had his word. "Is it not very important, seņor, that we should get the tidings to the Sovereigns? And we have now just this one small ship, and so far to go, and all manner of dangers!" 

   "Aye, it is important!" said the Admiral. "Let me think it out, seņor." 

   He had not slept at all, thought Juan Lepe, when next morning he came among us. But be looked resolved, hardy to accomplish. He had his plan, and he gave it to us in his deep voice that always thrilled with much beside the momentary utterance. We would build a fort here on shore, hard by this village, felling wood for it and using also the 



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timbers of the Santa Maria. We would mount there her two guns and provide an arsenal with powder, shot, harquebuses and bows. Build a fort and call it La Navidad, because of Christmas day when was the wreck. It should have a garrison of certainly thirty men, a man for each year of Our Lord's life when He began his mission. So many placed in Hispaniola would much lighten the Niņa, which indeed must be lightened in order with safety to re-cross Ocean-Sea. For yes, we would go back to Palos! Go, and come again with many and better ships, with hidalgos and missionary priests, and very many men! In the meantime so many should stay at La Navidad. 

   "In less than a year -- much less, I promise it -- I the Admiral will be here again at La Navidad, when will come happy greeting between brothers in the greatest service of our own or many ages! Sea and land, God will keep us so long as we are His!" 

   All loved Christopherus Columbus that day. None was to be forced to stay at La Navidad. It was easy to gain thirty; in the end there tarried thirty-eight. 

   The building of the fort became a pleasurable enterprise. We broke up with singing the Santa Maria, and with her bones built the walls. Guacanagari and his people helped. All was hurried. The Admiral and Viceroy, now that his mind was made up, would depart as soon as might be. 

   We built La Navidad where it might view the sea, upon a hillside above a brown river sliding out to ocean. Beyond the stream, in the groves, a quarter-league away, stood the hundred huts of Guarico. We built a tower and storehouse and wall of wood and we digged around all some kind of moat, and mounted three lombards. All that we could lift from the Santa Maria and what the Niņa could spare us of arms, conveniences and food went into our arsenal and storehouse. We had a bubbling spring within the enclosure. When all was done the tower of La Navidad, though an infant beside towers of Europe, might suffice 


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for the first here of its brood. It was done in a week from that shipwreck. 

   Who was to be left at La Navidad? Leave was given to volunteer and the mariners' list was soon made up, good men and not so good. From the poop there volunteered Pedro Gutierrez and Roderigo de Escobedo. The Admiral did not block their wish, but he gave the command not to Escobedo who wished it, but to Diego de Arana whom he named to stay, having persuaded him who would rather have returned with the Niņa. But he could trust Diego de Arana, and, with reason, he was not sure of those other hidalgos. De Arana stayed and fulfilled his trust, and died a brave man. Fray Ignatio would stay. "Bring me back, Seņor, a goodly bell for the church of La Navidad! A bell and a font." 

   Juan Lepe would stay. There needed a physician. But also Jayme de Marchena would stay. He thought it out. Six months had not abolished the Holy Office nor converted to gentleness Don Pedro nor the Dominican. 

   But the Admiral had assigned me to return with the Niņa. I told him in the evening between the sunset and the moonrise what was the difficulty. He was a man profoundly religious, and also a docile son of the Church. But I knew him, and I knew that he would find reasons in the Bible for not giving me up. The deep man, the whole man, was not in the grasp of bishop or inquisitor or papal bull. 

   He agreed. "Aye, it is wiser! I count two months to Spain, seeing that we may not have so favorable a voyage. Three or maybe four there, for our welcome at court, and for the gathering a fleet -- easy now to gather for all will flock to it, and masters and owners cry, `Take my ship -- and mine!' Two months again to recross. Look for me it may be in July, it may be in August, it may be in September!" 

   The Viceroy spoke to us, gathered by our fort, under the banner of Castile, with behind us on hill brow a cross 



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gleaming. Again, all that we had done for the world and might further do! Again, we returning on the Niņa or we remaining at La Navidad were as crusaders, knights of the Order of the Purpose of God! "Cherish good -- oh, men of the sea and the land, cherish good! Who betrays here betrays almost as Judas! The Purpose of God is Strength with Wisdom and Charity which only can make joy! Therefore be ye here at La Navidad strong, wise and charitable!" 

   He said more, and he gave many an explicit direction, but that was the gist of all. Strength, wisdom and charity. 

   Likewise he spoke to the Indians and they listened and promised and meant good. An affection had sprung between Guacanagari and Christopherus Columbus. So different they looked! and yet in the breast of each dwelled much guilelessness and the ability to wonder and revere. The Viceroy saw in this big, docile ruler of Guarico however far that might extend, one who would presently be baptized and become a Christian chief, man of the Viceroy of Hispaniola, as the latter was man of the Sovereigns of Spain. All his people would follow Guacanagari. He saw Christendom here in the west, and a great feudal society, acknowledging Castile for overlord, and Alexander the Sixth as its spiritual ruler. 

   Guacanagari may have seen friends in the gods, and especially in this their cacique, who with others that they would bring, would be drawn into Guarico and made one and whole with the people of the heron. But he never saw Guacanagari displanted -- never saw Europe armed and warlike, hungry and thirsty. 

   The Niņa and La Navidad bade with tears each the other farewell. It was the second of January, fourteen hundred and ninety-three. We had mass under the palm trees, by the cross, above the fort. Fray Iginatio blessed the going, blessed the staying. We embraced, we loved one another, we parted. The Niņa was so small a ship, even there just before us on the blue water! So soon, so soon, the wind 



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blowing from the land, she was smaller yet, smaller, smaller, a cock boat, a chip, gone! 

   Thirty-eight white men watched her from the hill above the fort, and of the thirty-eight Juan Lepe was the only one who saw the Admiral come again.


