CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

 AND THE NEW WORLD OF HIS DISCOVERY

 A NARRATIVE BY FILSON YOUNG

 Volume 8

CHAPTER VI

RELIEF OF THE ADMIRAL

There was no further difficulty about provisions, which were punctuallybrought by the natives on the old terms; but the familiar, spirit ofsedition began to work again among the unhappy Spaniards, and once more amutiny, led this time by the apothecary Bernardo, took form--theintention being to seize the remaining canoes and attempt to reachEspanola. This was the point at which matters had arrived, in March1504, when as the twilight was falling one evening a cry was raised thatthere was a ship in sight; and presently a small caravel was seenstanding in towards the shore. All ideas of mutiny were forgotten, andthe crew assembled in joyful anticipation to await, as they thought, thecoming of their deliverers. The caravel came on with the evening breeze;but while it was yet a long way off the shore it was seen to be lying to;a boat was lowered and rowed towards the harbour. 

As the boat drew near Columbus could recognise in it Diego de Escobar, whom he remembered having condemned to death for his share in therebellion of Roldan. He was not the man whom Columbus would have mostwished to see at that moment. The boat came alongside the hulks, and abarrel of wine and a side of bacon, the sea-compliment customary on suchoccasions, was handed up. Greatly to the Admiral's surprise, however, Escobar did not come on board, but pushed his boat off and began to speakto Columbus from a little distance. He told him that Ovando was greatlydistressed at the Admiral's misfortunes; that he had been much occupiedby wars in Espanola, and had not been able to send a message to himbefore; that he greatly regretted he had no ship at present large enoughto bring off the Admiral and his people, but that he would send one assoon as he had it. In the meantime the Admiral was to be assured thatall his affairs in Espanola were being attended to faithfully, and thatEscobar was instructed to bring back at once any letters which theAdmiral might wish to write. 

The coolness and unexpectedness of this message completely took awaythe breath of the unhappy Spaniards, who doubtless stood looking inbewilderment from Escobar to Columbus, unable to believe that the caravelhad not been sent for their relief. Columbus, however, with aself-restraint which cannot be too highly praised, realised that Escobarmeant what he said, and that by protesting against his action or tryingto interfere with it he would only be putting himself in the wrong. Hetherefore retired immediately to his cabin and wrote a letter to Ovando, in which he drew a vivid picture of the distress of his people, reportedthe rebellion of the Porras brothers, and reminded Ovando that he reliedupon the fulfilment of his promise to send relief. The letter washanded over to Escobar, who rowed back with it to his caravel andimmediately sailed away with it into the night. 

Before he could retire to commune with his own thoughts or to talk withhis faithful brother, Columbus had the painful duty of speaking to hispeople, whose puzzled and disappointed faces must have cost him someextra pangs. He told them that he was quite satisfied with the messagefrom Ovando, that it was a sign of kindness on his part thus to send themnews in advance that relief was coming, that their situation was nowknown in San Domingo, and that vessels would soon be here to take themaway. He added that he himself was so sure of these things that he hadrefused to go back with Escobar, but had preferred to remain with themand share their lot until relief should come. This had the desiredeffect of cheering the Spaniards; but it was far from representing thereal sentiments of Columbus on the subject. The fact that Escobar hadbeen chosen to convey this strange empty message of sympathy seemed tohim suspicious, and with his profound distrust of Ovando Columbus beganto wonder whether some further scheme might not be on foot to damage himin the eyes of the Sovereigns. He was convinced that Ovando had meant tolet him starve on the island, and that the real purpose of Escobar'svisit had been to find out what condition the Admiral was in, so thatOvando might know how to act. It is very hard to get at the truth ofwhat these two men thought of each other. They were both suspicious, each was playing for his own hand, and Ovando was only a little moreunscrupulous than Columbus; but there can be no doubt that whatever hismotives may have been Ovando acted with abominable treachery and crueltyin leaving the Admiral unrelieved for nearly nine months. 

Columbus now tried to make use of the visit of Escobar to restore toallegiance the band of rebels that were wandering about in theneighbourhood under the leadership of the Porras brothers. Why he shouldhave wished to bring them back to the ships is not clear, for by allaccounts he was very well rid of them; but probably his pride as acommander was hurt by the thought that half of his company had defied hisauthority and were in a state of mutiny. At any rate he sent out anambassador to Porras, offering to receive the mutineers back without anypunishment, and to give them a free passage to Espanola in the vesselswhich were shortly expected, if they would return to their allegiancewith him. 

The folly of this overture was made manifest by the treatment which itreceived. It was bad enough to make advances to the Porras brothers, butit was still worse to have those advances repulsed, and that is whathappened. The Porras brothers, being themselves incapable of anysingle-mindedness, affected not to believe in the sincerity of theAdmiral's offer; they feared that he was laying some kind of trap forthem; moreover, they were doing very well in their lawless way, andliving very comfortably on the natives; so they told Columbus'sambassadors that his offer was declined. At the same time theyundertook to conduct themselves in an amicable and orderly manner oncondition that, when the vessels arrived, one of them should beapportioned to the exclusive use of the mutineers; and that in themeantime the Admiral should share with them his store of provisionsand trinkets, as theirs were exhausted. 

This was the impertinent decision of the Porras brothers; but it did notquite commend itself to their followers, who were fearful of the possibleresults if they should persist in their mutinous conduct. They were verymuch afraid of being left behind in the island, and in any case, havingattempted and failed in the main object of their mutiny, they saw noreason why they should refuse a free pardon. But the Porras brotherslied busily. They said that the Admiral was merely laying a trap inorder to get them into his power, and that he would send them home toSpain in chains; and they even went so far as to assure theirfellow-rebels that the story of a caravel having arrived was not reallytrue; but that Columbus, who was an adept in the arts of necromancy, hadreally made his people believe that they had seen a caravel in the dusk;and that if one had really arrived it would not have gone away sosuddenly, nor would the Admiral and his brother and son have failed totake their passage in it. 

To consolidate the effect of these remarkable statements on the stillwavering mutineers, the Porras brothers decided to commit them to an openact of violence which would successfully alienate them from the Admiral. They formed them, therefore, into an armed expedition, with the idea ofseizing the stores remaining on the wreck and taking the Admiralpersonally. Columbus fortunately got news of this, as he nearly alwaysdid when there was treachery in the wind; and he sent Bartholomew to tryto persuade them once more to return to their duty--a vain and foolishmission, the vanity and folly of which were fully apparent toBartholomew. He duly set out upon it; but instead of mild words he tookwith him fifty armed men--the whole available able-bodied force, infact--and drew near to the position occupied by the rebels. 

The exhortation of the Porras brothers had meanwhile produced its effect, and it was decided that six of the strongest men among the mutineersshould make for Bartholomew himself and try to capture or kill him. Thefierce Adelantado, finding himself surrounded by six assailants, whoseemed to be directing their whole effort against his life, swung hissword in a berserk rage and slashed about him, to such good purpose thatfour or five of his assailants soon lay round him killed or wounded. Atthis point Francisco de Porras rushed in and cleft the shield held byBartholomew, severely wounding the hand that held it; but the sword. Stuck in the shield, and while Porras was endeavouring to draw it outBartholomew and some others closed upon him, and after a sharp struggletook him prisoner. The battle, which was a short one, had been meanwhileraging fiercely among the rest of the forces; but when the mutineers sawtheir leader taken prisoner, and many of their number lying dead orwounded, they scattered and fled, but not before Bartholomew's force hadtaken several prisoners. It was then found that, although the rebels hadsuffered heavily, none of Bartholomew's men were killed, and only oneother besides himself was wounded. The next day the mutineers all camein to surrender, submitting an abject oath of allegiance; and Columbus, always strangely magnanimous to rebels and insurgents, pardoned them allwith the exception of Francisco de Porras, who, one is glad to know, wasconfined in irons to be sent to Spain for trial. 

This submission, which was due to the prompt action of Bartholomew ratherthan to the somewhat feeble diplomacy of the Admiral, took place on March20th, and proved somewhat embarrassing to Columbus. He could put nofaith in the oaths and protestations of the mutineers; and he was verydoubtful about the wisdom of establishing them once more on the wreckswith the hitherto orderly remnant. He therefore divided them up intoseveral bands, and placing each under the command of an officer whom hecould trust, he supplied them with trinkets and despatched them todifferent parts of the island, for the purpose of collecting provisionsand carrying on barter with the natives. By this means the last month ortwo of this most trying and exciting sojourn on the island of Jamaicawere passed in some measure of peace; and towards the end of June it wasbrought to an end by the arrival of two caravels. One of them was theship purchased by Diego Mendez out of the three which had arrived fromSpain; and the other had been despatched by Ovando in deference, it issaid, to public feeling in San Domingo, which had been so influenced byMendez's account of the Admiral's heroic adventures that Ovando dared notneglect him any longer. Moreover, if it had ever been his hope that theAdmiral would perish on the island of Jamaica, that hope was now doomedto frustration, and, as he was to be rescued in spite of all, Ovando nodoubt thought that he might as well, for the sake of appearances, have ahand in the rescue. 

The two caravels, laden with what was worth saving from the two abandonedhulks, and carrying what was left of the Admiral's company, sailed fromJamaica on June 28, 1504. Columbus's joy, as we may imagine, was deepand heartfelt. He said afterwards to Mendez that it was the happiest dayof his life, for that he had never hoped to leave the place alive. 

The mission of Mendez, then, had been successful, although he had had towait for eight months to fulfil it. He himself, in accordance withColumbus's instructions, had gone to Spain in another caravel of thefleet out of which he had purchased the relieving ship; and as he passesout of our narrative we may now take our farewell of him. Among the manymen employed in the Admiral's service no figure stands out so brightly asthat of Diego Mendez; and his record, almost alone of those whose serviceof the Admiral earned them office and distinction, is unblotted by anystain of crime or treachery. He was as brave as a lion and as faithfulas a dog, and throughout his life remained true to his ideal of serviceto the Admiral and his descendants. He was rewarded by King Ferdinandfor his distinguished services, and allowed to bear a canoe on hiscoat-of-arms; he was with the Admiral at his death-bed at Valladolid, and when he himself came to die thirty years afterwards in the sameplace he made a will in which he incorporated a brief record of theevents of the adventurous voyage in which he had borne the principalpart, and also enshrined his devotion to the name and family ofColumbus. His demands for himself were very modest, although there isreason to fear that they were never properly fulfilled. He wascuriously anxious to be remembered chiefly by his plucky canoe voyage;and in giving directions for his tomb, and ordering that a stone shouldbe placed over his remains, he wrote: "In the centre of the said stonelet a canoe be carved, which is a piece of wood hollowed out in whichthe Indians navigate, because in such a boat I navigated three hundredleagues, and let some letters be placed above it saying: Canoa. " Theepitaph that he chose for himself was in the following sense:

 Here lies the Honourable Gentleman

 DIEGO MENDEZ

 He greatly served the royal crown of Spain in the discovery and conquest of the Indies with the Admiral Don Christopher Columbus of glorious memory who discovered them, and afterwards by himself, with his own ships, at his own expense. He died, etc. He begs from charity a PATERNOSTER and an AVE MARIA. 

Surely he deserves them, if ever an honourable gentleman did. 

CHAPTER VII

THE HERITAGE OF HATRED

Although the journey from Jamaica to Espanola had been accomplished infour days by Mendez in his canoe, the caravels conveying the partyrescued from Puerto Santa Gloria were seven weary weeks on this shortvoyage; a strong north-west wind combining with the west-going current tomake their progress to the north-west impossible for weeks at a time. Itwas not until the 13th of August 1503 that they anchored in the harbourof San Domingo, and Columbus once more set foot, after an absence of morethan two years, on the territory from the governorship of which he hadbeen deposed. 

He was well enough received by Ovando, who came down in state to meethim, lodged him in his own house, and saw that he was treated with thedistinction suitable to his high station. The Spanish colony, moreover, seemed to have made something of a hero of Columbus during his longabsence, and they received him with enthusiasm. But his satisfaction inbeing in San Domingo ended with that. He was constantly made to feelthat it was Ovando and not he who was the ruler there;--and Ovandoemphasised the difference between them by numerous acts of highhandedauthority, some of them of a kind calculated to be extremely mortifyingto the Admiral. Among these things he insisted upon releasing Porras, whom Columbus had confined in chains; and he talked of punishing thosefaithful followers of Columbus who had taken part in the battle betweenBartholomew and the rebels, because in this fight some of the followersof Porras had been killed. Acts like these produced weary bickerings andarguments between Ovando and Columbus, unprofitable to them, unprofitableto us. The Admiral seems now to have relapsed into a condition in whichhe cared only for two things, his honours and his emoluments. Over everyauthoritative act of Ovando's there was a weary squabble between him andthe Admiral, Ovando claiming his right of jurisdiction over the wholeterritory of the New World, including Jamaica, and Columbus insistingthat by his commission and letters of authority he had been placed insole charge of the members of his own expedition. 

And then, as regards his emoluments, the Admiral considered himself (andnot without justice) to have been treated most unfairly. By theextravagant terms of his original agreement he was, as we know, entitledto a share of all rents and dues, as well as of the gold collected; butit had been no one's business to collect these for him, and every one'sbusiness to neglect them. No one had cared; no one had kept any accountsof what was due to the Admiral; he could not find out what had been paidand what had not been paid. He accused Ovando of having impeded hisagent Carvajal in his duty of collecting the Admiral's revenues, and ofdisobeying the express orders of Queen Isabella in that matter; and soon-a state of affairs the most wearisome, sordid, and unprofitable inwhich any man could be involved. 

And if Columbus turned his eyes from the office in San Domingo inland tothat Paradise which he had entered twelve years before, what change andruin, dreary, horrible and complete, did he not discover! The birdsstill sang, and the nights were still like May in Cordova; but upon thathappy harmony the sound of piteous cries and shrieks had long sincebroken, and along and black December night of misery had spread its pallover the island. Wherever he went, Columbus found the same evidence ofruin and desolation. Where once innumerable handsome natives hadthronged the forests and the villages, there were now silence and smokingruin, and the few natives that he met were emaciated, terrified, dying. Did he reflect, I wonder, that some part of the responsibility of allthis horror rested on him? That many a system of island government, themachinery of which was now fed by a steady stream of human lives, hadbeen set going by him in ignorance, or greed of quick commercial returns?It is probable that he did not; for he now permanently regarded himselfas a much-injured man, and was far too much occupied with his own wrongsto realise that they were as nothing compared with the monstrous streamof wrong and suffering that he had unwittingly sent flowing into theworld. 

In the island under Ovando's rule Columbus saw the logical results of hisown original principles of government, which had recognised the right ofthe Christians to possess the persons and labours of the heathen natives. Las Casas, who was living in Espanola as a young priest at this time, andwas destined by long residence there and in the West Indies to qualifyhimself as their first historian, saw what Columbus saw, and saw also theeven worse things that happened in after years in Cuba and Jamaica; andit is to him that we owe our knowledge of the condition of island affairsat this time. The colonists whom Ovando had brought out had come verymuch in the spirit that in our own day characterised the rush to thenorth-western goldfields of America. They brought only the slightestequipment, and were no sooner landed at San Domingo than they set outinto the island like so many picnic parties, being more careful to carryvessels in which to bring back the gold they were to find than properprovisions and equipment to support them in the labour of finding it. The roads, says Las Casas, swarmed like ant-hills with these adventurersrushing forth to the mines, which were about twenty-five miles distantfrom San Domingo; they were in the highest spirits, and they made it akind of race as to who should get there first. They thought they hadnothing to do but to pick up shining lumps of gold; and when they foundthat they had to dig and delve in the hard earth, and to digsystematically and continuously, with a great deal of digging for verylittle gold, their spirits fell. They were not used to dig; and ithappened that most of them began in an unprofitable spot, where theydigged for eight days without finding any gold. Their provisions weresoon exhausted; and in a week they were back again in San Domingo, tired, famished, and bitterly disappointed. They had no genius for steadylabour; most of them were virtually without means; and although theylived in San Domingo, on what they had as long as possible, they weresoon starving there, and selling the clothes off their backs to procurefood. Some of them took situations with the other settlers, more fellvictims to the climate of the island and their own imprudences anddistresses; and a thousand of them had died within two years. 

Ovando had revived the enthusiasm for mining by two enactments. Hereduced the share of discovered gold payable to the Crown, and hedeveloped Columbus's system of forced labour to such an extent that themines were entirely worked by it. To each Spaniard, whether mining orfarming, so many natives were allotted. It was not called slavery; thenatives were supposed to be paid a minute sum, and their employers werealso expected to teach them the Christian religion. That was the plan. The way in which it worked was that, a body of native men being allottedto a Spanish settler for a period, say, of six or eight months--for theenactment was precise in putting a period to the term of slavery--thenatives would be marched off, probably many days' journey from theirhomes and families, and set to work under a Spanish foreman. The work, as we have already seen, was infinitely harder than that to which theywere accustomed; and most serious of all, it was done under conditionsthat took all the heart out of the labour. A man will toil in his owngarden or in tilling his own land with interest and happiness, notcounting the hours which he spends there; knowing in fact that his workis worth doing, because he is doing it for a good reason. But put thesame man to work in a gang merely for the aggrandisement of some otherover-man; and the heart and cheerfulness will soon die out of him. 

It was so with these children of the sun. They were put to work tentimes harder than any they had ever done before, and they were put to itunder the lash. The light diet of their habit had been sufficient tosupport them in their former existence of happy idleness and dalliance, and they had not wanted anything more than their cassava bread and alittle fish and fruit; now, however, they were put to work at a pressurewhich made a very different kind of feeding necessary to them, and thisthey did not get. Now and then a handful of pork would be divided amonga dozen of them, but they were literally starved, and were accustomed toscramble like dogs for the bones that were thrown from the tables of theSpaniards, which bones they ground up and mixed with their, bread so thatno portion of them might be lost. They died in numbers under these hardconditions, and, compared with their lives, their deaths must often havebeen happy. When the time came for them to go home they were generallyutterly worn out and crippled, and had to face a long journey of manydays with no food to support them but what they could get on the journey;and the roads were strewn with the dead bodies of those who fell by theway. 

And far worse things happened to them than labour and exhaustion. Itbecame the custom among the Spaniards to regard the lives of the nativesas of far less value than those of the dogs that were sometimes set uponthem in sport. A Spaniard riding along would make a wager with hisfellow that he would cut the head off a native with one stroke of hissword; and many attempts would be laughingly made, and many living bodieshideously mutilated and destroyed, before the feat would be accomplished. Another sport was one similar to pigsticking as it is practised in India, except that instead of pigs native women and children were stuck with thelances. There was no kind of mutilation and monstrous cruelty that wasnot practised. If there be any powers of hell, they stalked at largethrough the forests and valleys of Espanola. Lust and bloody cruelty, ofa kind not merely indescribable but unrealisable by sane men and women, drenched the once happy island with anguish and terror. And in paymentfor it the Spaniards undertook to teach the heathen the Christianreligion. 

The five chiefs who had ruled with justice and wisdom over the island ofEspanola in the early days of Columbus were all dead, wiped out by thewave of wild death and cruelty that had swept over the island. Thegentle Guacanagari, when he saw the desolation that was beginning tooverwhelm human existence, had fled into the mountains, hiding his facein shame from the sons of men, and had miserably died there. Caonabo, Lord of the House of Gold, fiercest and bravest of them all, who firstrealised that the Spaniards were enemies to the native peace, afterlanguishing in prison in the house of Columbus at Isabella for some time, had died in captivity during the voyage to Spain. Anacaona his wife, theBloom of the Gold, that brave and beautiful woman, whose admiration ofthe Spaniards had by their bloody cruelties been turned into detestation, had been shamefully betrayed and ignominiously hanged. Behechio, herbrother, the only cacique who did not sue for peace after the firstconquest of the island by Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus, was deadlong ago of wounds and sorrow. Guarionex, the Lord of the Vega Real, whohad once been friendly enough, who had danced to the Spanish pipe andlearned the Paternoster and Ave Maria, and whose progress in conversionto Christianity the seduction of his wives by those who were convertinghim had interrupted, after wandering in the mountains of Ciguay had beenimprisoned in chains, and drowned in the hurricane of June 30, 1502. 

The fifth chief, Cotabanama, Lord of the province of Higua, made the laststand against Ovando in defence of the native right to existence, and wasonly defeated after severe battles and dreadful slaughters. Histerritory was among the mountains, and his last insurrection was caused, as so many others had been, by the intolerable conduct of the Spaniardstowards the wives and daughters of the Indians. Collecting all hiswarriors, Cotabanama attacked the Spanish posts in his neighbourhood. At every engagement his troops were defeated and dispersed, but only tocollect again, fight again with even greater fury, be defeated anddispersed again, and rally again against the Spaniards. They literallyfought to the death. After every battle the Spaniards made a massacre ofall the natives they could find, old men, children, and pregnant womenbeing alike put to the sword or burned in their houses. When theircompanions fell beside them, instead of being frightened they became morefurious; and when they were wounded they would pluck the arrows out oftheir bodies and hurl them back at the Spaniards, falling dead in thevery act. After one such severe defeat and massacre the nativesscattered for many months, hiding among the mountains and trying tocollect and succour their decimated families; but the Spaniards, who withtheir dogs grew skilful at tracking the Indians and found it pleasantsport, came upon them in the places of refuge where little groups of themwere sheltering their women and children, and there slowly and cruellyslaughtered them, often with the addition of tortures and torments inorder to induce them to reveal the whereabouts of other bands. When itwas possible the Spaniards sometimes hanged thirteen of them in a row incommemoration of their Blessed Saviour and the Twelve Apostles; and whilethey were hanging, and before they had quite died, they would hack atthem with their swords in order to test the edge of the steel. At thelast stand, when the fierceness and bitterness of the contest rose to aheight on both sides, Cotabanama was captured and a plan made to broilhim slowly to death; but for some reason this plan was not carried out, and the brave chief was taken to San Domingo and publicly hanged like athief. 

After that there was never any more resistance; it was simply a case ofextermination, which the Spaniards easily accomplished by cutting of theheads of women as they passed by, and impaling infants and littlechildren on their lances as they rode through the villages. Thus, in thetwelve years since the discovery of Columbus, between half a million anda million natives, perished; and as the Spanish colonisation spreadafterwards from island to island, and the banner of civilisation andChristianity was borne farther abroad throughout the Indies, the samehideous process was continued. In Cuba, in Jamaica, throughout theAntilles, the cross and the sword, the whip-lash and the Gospel advancedtogether; wherever the Host was consecrated, hideous cries of agony andsuffering broke forth; until happily, in the fulness of time, the direbusiness was complete, and the whole of the people who had inhabited thisgarden of the world were exterminated and their blood and race wiped fromthe face of the earth . . . . Unless, indeed, blood and race and hatredbe imperishable things; unless the faithful Earth that bred and rearedthe race still keeps in her soil, and in the waving branches of the treesand the green grasses, the sacred essences of its blood and hatred;unless in the full cycle of Time, when that suffering flesh and bloodshall have gone through all the changes of substance and condition, fromcorruption and dust through flowers and grasses and trees and animalsback into the living body of mankind again, it shall one day rise upterribly to avenge that horror of the past. Unless Earth and Timeremember, O Children of the Sun! for men have forgotten, and on the soilof your Paradise the African negro, learned in the vices of Europe, erects his monstrous effigy of civilisation and his grotesque mockery offreedom; unless it be through his brutish body, into which the blood andhatred with which the soil of Espanola was soaked have now passed, thatthey shall dreadfully strike at the world again. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE ADMIRAL COMES HOME

On September 12, 1504. , Christopher Columbus did many things for the lasttime. He who had so often occupied himself in ports and harbours withthe fitting out of ships and preparations for a voyage now completed atSan Domingo the simple preparations for the last voyage he was to take. The ship he had come in from Jamaica had been refitted and placed underthe command of Bartholomew, and he had bought another small caravel inwhich he and his son were to sail. For the last time he superintendedthose details of fitting out and provisioning which were now so familiarto him; for the last time he walked in the streets of San Domingo andmingled with the direful activities of his colony; he looked his lastupon the place where the vital scenes of his life had been set, for thelast time weighed anchor, and took his last farewell of the seas andislands of his discovery. A little steadfast looking, a little strainingof the eyes, a little heart-aching no doubt, and Espanola has sunk downinto the sea behind the white wake of the ships; and with its fading awaythe span of active life allotted to this man shuts down, and his powerfulopportunities for good or evil are withdrawn. 

There was something great and heroic about the Admiral's last voyage. Wind and sea rose up as though to make a last bitter attack upon the manwho had disclosed their mysteries and betrayed their secrets. He hadhardly cleared the island before the first gale came down upon him anddismasted his ship, so that he was obliged to transfer himself and hisson to Bartholomew's caravel and send the disabled vessel back toEspanola. The shouting sea, as though encouraged by this triumph, hurledtempest after tempest upon the one lonely small ship that was staggeringon its way to Spain; and the duel between this great seaman and the vastelemental power that he had so often outwitted began in earnest. Onelittle ship, one enfeebled man to be destroyed by the power of the sea:that was the problem, and there were thousands of miles of sea-room, andtwo months of time to solve it in! Tempest after tempest rose and droveunceasingly against the ship. A mast was sprung and had to be cut away;another, and the woodwork from the forecastles and high stern works hadto be stripped and lashed round the crazy mainmast to preserve it fromwholesale destruction. Another gale, and the mast had to be shortened, for even reinforced as it was it would not bear the strain; and socrippled, so buffeted, this very small ship leapt and staggered on herway across the Atlantic, keeping her bowsprit pointed to that region ofthe foamy emptiness where Spain was. 

The Admiral lay crippled in his cabin listening to the rush and bubble ofthe water, feeling the blows and recoils of the unending battle, hearkening anxiously to the straining of the timbers and the vessel'sagonised complainings under the pounding of the seas. We do not knowwhat his thoughts were; but we may guess that they looked backward ratherthan forward, and that often they must have been prayers that the presentmisery would come somehow or other to an end. Up on deck brotherBartholomew, who has developed some grievous complaint of the jaws andteeth--complaint not known to us more particularly, but dreadful enoughfrom that description--does his duty also, with that heroic manfulnessthat has marked his whole career; and somewhere in the ship youngFerdinand is sheltering from the sprays and breaking seas, finding hisworld of adventure grown somewhat gloomy and sordid of late, and feelingthat he has now had his fill of the sea . . . . Shut your eyes andlet the illusions of time and place fade from you; be with them for amoment on this last voyage; hear that eternal foaming and crashing ofgreat waves, the shrieking of wind in cordage, the cracking and slattingof the sails, the mad lashing of loose ropes; the painful swinging, andclimbing up and diving down, and sinking and staggering and helplessstrivings of the small ship in the waste of water. The sea is as emptyas chaos, nothing for days and weeks but that infinite tumbling surfaceand heaven of grey storm-clouds; a world of salt surges encircled byhorizons of dim foam. Time and place are nothing; the agony and pain ofsuch moments are eternal. 

But the two brothers, grim and gigantic in their sea power, subtle as thewind itself in their sea wit, win the battle. Over the thousands ofmiles of angry surges they urge that small ship towards calm and safety;until one day the sea begins to abate a little, and through the spray andtumult of waters the dim loom of land is seen. The sea falls backdisappointed and finally conquered by Christopher Columbus, whose ship, battered, crippled, and strained, comes back out of the wilderness ofwaters and glides quietly into the smooth harbour of San Lucar, November7, 1504. There were no guns or bells to greet the Admiral; his onlysalute was in the thunder of the conquered seas; and he was carriedashore to San Lucar, and thence to Seville, a sick and broken man. 

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST DAYS

Columbus, for whom rest and quiet were the first essentials, remained inSeville from November 1504 to May 1505, when he joined the Court atSegovia and afterwards at Salamanca and Valladolid, where he remainedtill his death in May 1506. During this last period, when all otheractivities were practically impossible to him, he fell into a state ofletter-writing--for the most part long, wearisome complainings andexplainings in which he poured out a copious flood of tears and self-pityfor the loss of his gold. 

It has generally been claimed that Columbus was in bitter penury and wantof money, but a close examination of the letters and other documentsrelating to this time show that in his last days he was not poor in anytrue sense of the word. He was probably a hundred times richer than anyof his ancestors had ever been; he had, money to give and money to spend;the banks honoured his drafts; his credit was apparently indisputable. But compared with the fabulous wealth to which he would by this time havebeen entitled if his original agreement with the Crown of Spain had beenfaithfully carried out he was no doubt poor. There is no evidence thathe lacked any comfort or alleviation that money could buy; indeed henever had any great craving for the things that money can buy--only formoney itself. There must have been many rich people in Spain who wouldgladly have entertained him in luxury and dignity; but he was not thekind of man to set much store by such things except in so far as theywere a decoration and advertisement of his position as a great man. Hehad set himself to the single task of securing what he called his rights;and in these days of sunset he seems to have been illumined by someglimmer of the early glory of his first inspiration. He wanted thepayment of his dues now, not so much for his own enrichment, but as asign to the world that his great position as Admiral and Viceroy wasrecognised, so that his dignities and estates might be established andconsolidated in a form which he would be able to transmit to his remoteposterity. 

Since he wrote so copiously and so constantly in these last days, thebest picture of his mood and condition is afforded in his letters to hisson Diego; letters which, in spite of their infinitely wearisomerecapitulation and querulous complaint, should be carefully read by thosewho wish to keep in touch with the Admiral to the end. 

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son, November 21, 1504. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --I received your letter by the courier. You did well in remaining yonder to remedy our affairs somewhat and to employ yourself now in our business. Ever since I came to Castile, the Lord Bishop of Palencia has shown me favour and has desired that I should be honoured. Now he must be entreated that it may please him to occupy himself in remedying my many grievances and in ordering that the agreement and letters of concession which their Highnesses gave me be fulfilled, and that I be indemnified for so many damages. And he may be certain that if their Highnesses do this, their estate and greatness will be multiplied to them in an incredible degree. And it must not appear to him that forty thousand pesos in gold is more than a representation of it; because they might have had a much greater quantity if Satan had not hindered it by impeding my design; for, when I was taken away from the Indies, I was prepared to give them a sum of gold incomparable to forty thousand pesos. I make oath, and this may be for thee alone, that the damage to me in the matter of the concessions their Highnesses have made to me, amounts to ten millions each year, and never can be made good. You see what will be, or is, the injury to their Highnesses in what belongs to them, and they do not perceive it. I write at their disposal and will strive to start yonder. My arrival and the rest is in the hands of our Lord. His mercy is infinite. What is done and is to be done, St. Augustine says is already done before the creation of the world. I write also to these other Lords named in the letter of Diego Mendez. Commend me to their mercy and tell them of my going as I have said above. For certainly I feel great fear, as the cold is so inimical to this, my infirmity, that I may have to remain on the road. 

 "I was very much pleased to hear the contents of your letter and what the King our Lord said, for which you kissed his royal hands. It is certain that I have served their Highnesses with as much diligence and love as though it had been to gain Paradise, and more, and if I have been at fault in anything it has been because it was impossible or because my knowledge and strength were not sufficient. God, our Lord, in such a case, does not require more from persons than the will. 

 "At the request of the Treasurer Morales, I left two brothers in the Indies, who are called Porras. The one was captain and the other auditor. Both were without capacity for these positions: and I was confident that they could fill them, because of love for the person who sent them to me. They both became more vain than they had been. I forgave them many incivilities, more than I would do with a relation, and their offences were such that they merited another punishment than a verbal reprimand. Finally they reached such a point that even had I desired, I could not have avoided doing what I did. The records of the case will prove whether I lie or not. They rebelled on the island of Jamaica, at which I was as much astonished as I would be if the sun's rays should cast darkness. I was at the point of death, and they martyrised me with extreme cruelty during five months and without cause. Finally I took them all prisoners, and immediately set them free, except the captain, whom I was bringing as a prisoner to their Highnesses. A petition which they made to me under oath, and which I send you with this letter, will inform you at length in regard to this matter, although the records of the case explain it fully. These records and the Notary are coming on another vessel, which I am expecting from day to day. The Governor in Santo Domingo took this prisoner. --His courtesy constrained him to do this. I had a chapter in my instructions in which their Highnesses ordered all to obey me, and that I should exercise civil and criminal justice over all those who were with me: but this was of no avail with the Governor, who said that it was not understood as applying in his territory. He sent the prisoner to these Lords who have charge of the Indies without inquiry or record or writing. They did not receive him, and both brothers go free. It is not wonderful to me that our Lord punishes. They went there with shameless faces. Such wickedness or such cruel treason were never heard of. I wrote to their Highnesses about this matter in the other letter, and said that it was not right for them to consent to this offence. I also wrote to the Lord Treasurer that I begged him as a favour not to pass sentence on the testimony given by these men until he heard me. Now it will be well for you to remind him of it anew. I do, not know how they dare to go before him with such an undertaking. I have written to him about it again and have sent him the copy of the oath, the same as I send to you and likewise to Doctor Angulo and the Licentiate Zapata. I commend myself to the mercy of all, with the information that my departure yonder will take place in a short time. 

 "I would be glad to receive a letter from their Highnesses and to know what they order. You must procure such a letter if you see the means of so doing. I also commend myself to the Lord Bishop and to Juan Lopez, with the reminder of illness and of the reward for my services. 

 "You must read the letters which go with this one in order to act in conformity with what they say. Acknowledge the receipt of his letter to Diego Mendez. I do not write him as he will learn everything from you, and also because my illness prevents it. 

 "It would be well for Carbajal and Jeronimo--[Jeronimo de Aguero, a landowner in Espanola and a friend of Columbus]--to be at the-Court at this time, and talk of our affairs with these Lords and with the Secretary. 

 "Done in Seville, November 21. 

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

 "I wrote again to their Highnesses entreating them to order that these people who went with me should be paid, because they are poor and it is three years since they left their homes. The news which they bring is more than extraordinary. They have endured infinite dangers and hardships. I did not wish to rob the country, so as not to cause scandal, because reason advises its being populated, and then gold will be obtained freely without scandal. Speak of this to the Secretary and to the Lord Bishop and to Juan Lopez and to whomever you think it advisable to do so. "

The Bishop of Palencia referred to in this letter is probably BishopFonseca--probably, because it is known that he did become Bishop ofPalencia, although there is a difference of opinion among historians asto whether the date of his translation to that see was before or afterthis letter. No matter, except that one is glad to think that an oldenemy--for Fonseca and Columbus had bitter disagreements over the fittingout of various expeditions--had shown himself friendly at last. 

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, November 28, 1504. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --I received your letters of the 15th of this month. It is eight days since I wrote you and sent the letter by a courier. I enclosed unsealed letters to many other persons, in order that you might see them, and having read them, seal and deliver them. Although this illness of mine troubles me greatly, I am preparing for my departure in every way. I would very much like to receive the reply from their Highnesses and wish you might procure it: and also I wish that their Highnesses would provide for the payment of these poor people, who have passed through incredible hardships and have brought them such great news that infinite thanks should be given to God, our Lord, and they should rejoice greatly over it. If I [lie ?] the 'Paralipomenon'--[ The Book of Chronicles]--and the Book of Kings and the Antiquities of Josephus, with very many others, will tell what they know of this. I hope in our Lord to depart this coming week, but you must not write less often on that account. I have not heard from Carbajal and Jeronimo. If they are there, commend me to them. The time is such that both Carbajals ought to be at Court, if illness does not prevent them. My regards to Diego Mendez. 

 "I believe that his truth and efforts will be worth as much as the lies of the Porras brothers. The bearer of this letter is Martin de Gamboa. I am sending by him a letter to Juan Lopez and a letter of credit. Read the letter to Lopez and then give it to him. If you write me, send the letters to Luis de Soria that he may send them wherever I am, because if I go in a litter, I believe it will be by La Plata. --[The old Roman road from Merida to Salamanca. ]--May our Lord have you in His holy keeping. Your uncle has been very sick and is now, from trouble with his jaws and his teeth. 

 "Done in Seville, November 28. 

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

Bartholomew Columbus and Ferdinand were remaining with Christopher atSeville; Bartholomew probably very nearly as ill as the Admiral, althoughwe do not hear so many complaints about it. At any rate Diego, being ayCourt, was the great mainstay of his father; and you can see the sick mansitting there alone with his grievances, and looking to the nextgeneration for help in getting them redressed. Diego, it is to befeared, did not receive these letters with so much patience and attentionas he might have shown, nor did he write back to his invalid father withthe fulness and regularity which the old man craved. It is a faultcommon to sons. Those who are sons will know that it does notnecessarily imply lack of affection on Diego's part; those who arefathers will realise how much Christopher longed for verbal assurance ofinterest and affection, even though he did not doubt their reality. Newsof the serious illness of Queen Isabella had evidently reached Columbus, and was the chief topic of public interest. 

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son, December 1, 1504. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --Since I received your letter of November 15 I have heard nothing from you. I wish that you would write me more frequently. I would like to receive a letter from you each hour. Reason must tell you that now I have no other repose. Many couriers come each day, and the news is of such a nature and so abundant that on hearing it all my hair stands on end; it is so contrary to what my soul desires. May it please the Holy Trinity to give health to the Queen, our Lady, that she may settle what has already been placed under discussion. I wrote you by another courier Thursday, eight days ago. The courier must already be on his way back here. I told you in that letter that my departure was certain, but that the hope of my arrival there, according to experience, was very uncertain, because my sickness is so bad, and the cold is so well suited to aggravate it, that I could not well avoid remaining in some inn on the road. The litter and everything were ready. The weather became so violent that it appeared impossible to every one to start when it was getting so bad, and that it was better for so well-known a person as myself to take care of myself and try to regain my health rather than place myself in danger. I told you in those letters what I now say, that you decided well in remaining there (at such a time), and that it was right to commence occupying yourself with our affairs; and reason strongly urges this. It appears to me that a good copy should be made of the chapter of that letter which their Highnesses wrote me where they say they will fulfil their promises to me and will place you in possession of everything: and that this copy should be given to them with another writing telling of my sickness, and that it is now impossible for me to go and kiss their Royal feet and hands, and that the Indies are being lost, and are on fire in a thousand places, and that I have received nothing, and am receiving nothing, from the revenues derived from them, and that no one dares to accept or demand anything there for me, and I am living upon borrowed funds. I spent the money which I got there in bringing those people who went with me back to their homes, for it would be a great burden upon my conscience to have left them there and to have abandoned them. This must be made known to the Lord Bishop of Palencia, in whose favour I have so much confidence, and also to the Lord Chamberlain. I believed that Carbajal and Jeronimo would be there at such a time. Our Lord is there, and He will order everything as He knows it to be best for us. 

 "Carbajal reached here yesterday. I wished to send him immediately with this same order, but he excused himself profusely, saying that his wife was at the point of death. I shall see that he goes, because he knows a great deal about these affairs. I will also endeavour to have your brother and your uncle go to kiss the hands of Their Highnesses, and give them an account of the voyage if my letters are not sufficient. Take good care of your brother. He has a good disposition, and is no longer a boy. Ten brothers would not be too many for you. I never found better friends to right or to left than my brothers. We must strive to obtain the government of the Indies and then the adjustment of the revenues. I gave you a memorandum which told you what part of them belongs to me. What they gave to Carbajal was nothing and has turned to nothing. Whoever desires to do so takes merchandise there, and so the eighth is nothing, because, without contributing the eighth, I could send to trade there without rendering account or going in company with any one. I said a great many times in the past that the contribution of the eighth would come to nothing. The eighth and the rest belongs to me by reason of the concession which their Highnesses made to me, as set forth in the book of my Privileges, and also the third and the tenth. Of the tenth I received nothing, except the tenth of what their Highnesses receive; and it must be the tenth of all the gold and other things which are found and obtained, in whatever manner it may be, within this Admiralship, and the tenth of all the merchandise which goes and comes from there, after the expenses are deducted. I have already said that in the Book of Privileges the reason for this and for the rest which is before the Tribunal of the Indies here in Seville, is clearly set forth. 

 "We must strive to obtain a reply to my letter from their Highnesses, and to have them order that these people be paid. I wrote in regard to this subject four days ago, and sent the letter by Martin de Gamboa, and you must have seen the letter of Juan Lopez with your own. 

 "It is said here that it has been ordered that three or four Bishops of the Indies shall be sent or created, and that this matter is referred to the Lord Bishop of Palencia. After having commended me to his Worship, tell him that I believe it will best serve their Highnesses for me to talk with him before this matter is settled. 

 "Commend me to Diego Mendez, and show him this letter. My illness permits me to write only at night, because in the daytime my hands are deprived of strength. I believe that a son of Francisco Pinelo will carry this letter. Entertain him well, because he does everything for me that he can, with much love and a cheerful goodwill. The caravel which broke her mast in starting from Santo Domingo has arrived in the Algarves. She brings the records of the case of the Porras brothers. Such ugly things and such grievous cruelty as appear in this matter never were seen. If their Highnesses do not punish it, I do not know who will dare to go out in their service with people. 

 "To-day is Monday. I will endeavour to have your uncle and brother start to-morrow. Remember to write me very often, and tell Diego Mendez to write at length. Each day messengers go from here yonder. May our Lord have you in His Holy keeping. 

 "Done in Seville, December 1. 

 "Your father who loves you as himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

The gout from which the Admiral suffered made riding impossible to him, and he had arranged to have himself carried to Court on a litter when hewas able to move. There is a grim and dismal significance in theparticular litter that had been chosen: it was no other than the funeralbier which belonged to the Cathedral of Seville and had been built forCardinal Mendoza. A minute of the Cathedral Chapter records the grantingto Columbus of the use of this strange conveyance; but one is glad tothink that he ultimately made his journey in a less grim though morehumble method. But what are we to think of the taste of a man who wouldrather travel in a bier, so long as it had been associated with thesplendid obsequies of a cardinal, than in the ordinary litter ofevery-day use? It is but the old passion for state and splendour thusdismally breaking out again. 

He speaks of living on borrowed funds and of having devoted all hisresources to the payment of his crew; but that may be taken as anexaggeration. He may have borrowed, but the man who can borrow easilyfrom banks cannot be regarded as a poor man. One is neverthelessgrateful for these references, since they commemorate the Admiral'sunfailing loyalty to those who shared his hardships, and his unweariedefforts to see that they received what was due to them. Pleasant alsoare the evidences of warm family affection in those simple words ofbrotherly love, and the affecting advice to Diego that he should love hisbrother Ferdinand as Christopher loved Bartholomew. It is a pleasantoasis in this dreary, sordid wailing after thirds and tenths and eighths. Good Diego Mendez, that honourable gentleman, was evidently also at Courtat this time, honestly striving, we may be sure, to say a good word forthe Admiral. 

Some time after this letter was written, and before the writing of thenext, news reached Seville of the death of Queen Isabella. For ten yearsher kind heart had been wrung by many sorrows. Her mother had died in1496; the next year her only son and heir to the crown had followed; andwithin yet another year had died her favourite daughter, the Queen ofPortugal. Her other children were all scattered with the exception ofJuana, whose semi-imbecile condition caused her parents an anxietygreater even than that caused by death. As Isabella's life thus closedsombrely in, she applied herself more closely and more narrowly to suchpious consolations as were available. News from Flanders of thescandalous scenes between Philip and Juana in the summer of 1504 broughton an illness from which she really never recovered, a kind of feverishdistress of mind and body in which her only alleviation was thetransaction of such business as was possible for her in the direction ofhumanity and enlightenment. She still received men of intellect andrenown, especially travellers. But she knew that her end was near, andas early as October she had made her will, in which her wishes as to thesuccession and government of Castile were clearly laid down. There wasno mention of Columbus in this will, which afterwards greatly mortifiedhim; but it is possible that the poor Queen had by this time, evenagainst her wish, come to share the opinions of her advisers that therule of Columbus in the West Indies had not brought the most humane andhappy results possible to the people there. 

During October and November her life thus beat itself away in asuccession of duties faithfully performed, tasks duly finished, preparations for the great change duly made. She died, as she would havewished to die, surrounded by friends who loved and admired her, andfortified by the last rites of the Church for her journey into theunknown. Date, November 26, 1504, in the fifty-fourth year of her age. 

Columbus had evidently received the news from a public source, and feltmortified that Diego should not have written him a special letter. 

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son, December 3, 1504. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --I wrote you at length day before yesterday and sent it by Francisco Pinelo, and with this letter I send you a very full memorandum. I am very much astonished not to receive a letter from you or from any one else, and this astonishment is shared by all who know me. Every one here has letters, and I, who have more reason to expect them, have none. Great care should be taken about this matter. The memorandum of which I have spoken above says enough, and on this account I do not speak more at length here. Your brother and your uncle and Carbajal are going yonder. You will learn from them what is not said here. May our Lord have you in His Holy keeping. 

 "Done in Seville, December 3. 

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

 Document of COLUMBUS addressed to his Son, DIEGO, and intended to accompany the preceding letter. 

 "A memorandum for you, my very dear son, Don Diego, of what occurs to me at the present time which must be done:--The principal thing is, affectionately and with great devotion to commend the soul of the Queen, our Lady, to God. Her life was always Catholic and Holy and ready for all the things of His holy service, and for this reason it must be believed that she is in His holy glory and beyond the desires of this rough and wearisome world. Then the next thing is to be watchful and exert one's self in the service of the King, our Lord, and to strive to keep him from being troubled. His Highness is the head of Christendom. See the proverb which says that when the head aches, all the members ache. So that all good Christians should entreat that he may have long life and health: and those of us who are obliged to serve him more than others must join in this supplication with great earnestness and diligence. This reason prompts me now with my severe illness to write you what I am writing here, that his Highness may dispose matters for his service: and for the better fulfilment I am sending your brother there, who, although he is a child in days, is not a child in understanding; and I am sending your uncle and Carbajal, so that if this, my writing, is not sufficient, they, together with yourself, can furnish verbal evidence. In my opinion there is nothing so necessary for the service of his Highness as the disposition and remedying of the affair of the Indies. 

 "His Highness must now have there more than 40, 000 or 50, 000 gold pieces. I learned when I was there that the Governor had no desire to send it to him. It is believed among the other people as well that there will be 150, 000 pesos more, and the mines are very rich and productive. Most of the people there are common and ignorant, and care very little for the circumstances. The Governor is very much hated by all of them, and it is to be feared that they may at some time rebel. If this should occur, which God forbid, the remedy for the matter would then be difficult: and so it would be if injustice were used toward them, either here or in other places, with the great fame of the gold. My opinion is that his Highness should investigate this affair quickly and by means of a person who is interested and who can go there with 150 or 200 people well equipped, and remain there until it is well settled and without suspicion, which cannot be done in less than three months: and that an endeavour be made to raise two or three forces there. The gold there is exposed to great risk, as there are very few people to protect it. I say that there is a proverb here which says that the presence of the owner makes the horse fat. Here and wherever I may be, I shall serve their Highnesses with joy, until my soul leaves this body. 

 "Above I said that his Highness is the head of the Christians, and that it is necessary for him to occupy himself in preserving them and their lands. For this reason people say that he cannot thus provide a good government for all these Indies, and that they are being lost and do not yield a profit, neither are they being handled in a reasonable manner. In my opinion it would serve him to intrust this matter to some one who is distressed over the bad treatment of his subjects. 

 "I wrote a very long letter to his Highness as soon as I arrived here, fully stating the evils which require a prompt and efficient remedy at once. I have received no reply, nor have I seen any provision made in the matter. Some vessels are detained in San Lucar by the weather. I have told these gentlemen of the Board of Trade that they must order them held until the King, our Lord, makes provision in the matter, either by some person with other people, or by writing. This is very necessary and I know what I say. It is necessary that the authorities should order all the ports searched diligently, to see that no one goes yonder to the Indies without licence. I have already said that there is a great deal of gold collected in straw houses without any means of defence, and there are many disorderly people in the country, and that the Governor is hated, and that little punishment is inflicted and has been inflicted upon those who have committed crimes and have come out with their treasonable conduct approved. 

 "If his Highness decides to make some provision, it must be done at once, so that these vessels may not be injured. 

 "I have heard that three Bishops are to be elected and sent to Espanola. If it pleases his Highness to hear me before concluding this matter, I will tell in what manner God our Lord may be well served and his Highness served and satisfied. 

 "I have given lengthy consideration to the provision for Espanola:"

Yes, the Queen is in His Holy Glory, and beyond the desires of this roughand wearisome world; but we are not; we are still in a world where fiftythousand gold pieces can be of use to us, and where a word spoken inseason, even in such a season of darkness, may have its effect with theKing. A strange time to talk to the King about gold; and perhaps Diegowas wiser and kinder than his father thought in not immediately takingthis strange document to King Ferdinand. 

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son, December 13, 1504

 "VERY DEAR SON, --It is now eight days since your uncle and your brother and Carbajal left here together, to kiss the royal hands of his Highness, and to give an account of the voyage, and also to aid you in the negotiation of whatever may prove to be necessary there. 

 "Don Ferdinand took from here 150 ducats to be expended at his discretion. He will have to spend some of it, but he will give you what he has remaining. He also carries a letter of credit for these merchants. You will see that it is very necessary to be careful in dealing with them, because I had trouble there with the Governor, as every one told me that I had there 11, 000 or 12, 000 castellanos, and I had only 4000. He wished to charge me with things for which I am not indebted, and I, confiding in the promise of their Highnesses, who ordered everything restored to me, decided to leave these charges in the hope of calling him to account for them. If any one has money there, they do not dare ask for it, on account of his haughtiness. I very well know that after my departure he must have received more than 5000 castellanos. If it were possible for you to obtain from his Highness an authoritative letter to the Governor, ordering him to send the money without delay and a full account of what belongs to me, by the person I might send there with my power of attorney, it would be well; because he will not give it in any other manner, neither to my friend Diaz or Velasquez, and they dare not even speak of it to him. Carbajal will very well know how this must be done. Let him see this letter. The 150 ducats which Luis de Soria sent you when I came are paid according to his desire. 

 "I wrote you at length and sent the letter by Don Ferdinand, also a memorandum. Now that I have thought over the matter further, I say that, since at the time of my departure their Highnesses said over their signature and verbally, that they would give me all that belongs to me, according to my privileges--that the claim for the third or the tenth and eighth mentioned in the memorandum must be relinquished, and instead the chapter of their letter must be shown where they write what I have said, and all that belongs to me must be required, as you have it in writing in the Book of Privileges, in which is also set forth the reason for my receiving the third, eighth, and tenth; as there is always an opportunity to reduce the sum desired by a person, although his Highness says in his letter that he wishes to give me all that belongs to me. Carbajal will understand me very well if he sees this letter, and every one else as well, as it is very clear. I also wrote to his Highness and finally reminded him that he must provide at once for this affair of the Indies, that the people there may not be disturbed, and also reminding him of the promise stated above. You ought to see the letter. 

 "With this letter I send you another letter of credit for the said merchants. I have already explained to you the reasons why expenses should be moderated. Show your uncle due respect, and treat your brother as an elder brother should treat a younger. You have no other brother, and praised be our Lord, he is such a one as you need very much. He has proved and proves to be very intelligent. Honour Carbajal and Jeronimo and Diego Mendez. Commend me to them all. I do not write them as there is nothing to write and this messenger is in haste. It is frequently rumoured here that the Queen, whom God has, has left an order that I be restored to the possession of the Indies. On arrival, the notary of the fleet will send you the records and the original of the case of the Porras brothers. I have received no news from your uncle and brother since they left. The water has been so high here that the river entered the city. 

 "If Agostin Italian and Francisco de Grimaldo do not wish to give you the money you need, look for others there who are willing to give it to you. On the arrival here of your signature I will at once pay them all that you have received: for at present there is not a person here by whom I can send you money. 

 "Done to-day, Friday, December 13, 1504

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO, December 21, 1504. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, The Lord Adelantado and your brother and Carbajal left here sixteen days ago to go to the Court. They have not written me since. Don Ferdinand carried 150 ducats. He must spend what is necessary, and he carries a letter, that the merchants may furnish you with money. I have sent you another letter since, with the endorsement of Francisco de Ribarol, by Zamora, the courier, and told you that if you had made provision for yourself by means of my letter, not to use that of Francisco de Ribarol. I say the same now in regard to another letter which I send you with this one, for Francisco Doria, which letter I send you for greater security that you may not fail to be provided with money. I have already told you how necessary it is to be careful in the expenditure of the money, until their Highnesses give us law and justice. I also told you that I had spent 1200 castellanos in bringing these people to Castile, of which his Highness owes me the greater part, and I wrote him in regard to it asking him to order the account settled. 

 "If possible I should like to receive letters here each day. I complain of Diego Mendez and of Jeronimo, as they do not write me: and then of the others who do not write when they arrive there. We must strive to learn whether the Queen, whom God has in His keeping, said anything about me in her will, and we must hurry the Lord Bishop of Palencia, who caused the possession of the Indies by their Highnesses and my remaining in Castile, for I was already on my way to leave it. And the Lord Chamberlain of his Highness must also be hurried. If by chance the affair comes to discussion, you must strive to have them see the writing which is in the Book of Privileges, which shows the reason why the third, eighth, and tenth are owing me, as I told you in another letter. 

 "I have written to the Holy Father in regard to my voyage, as he complained of me because I did not write him. I send you a copy of the letter. I would like to have the King, our Lord, or the Lord Bishop of Palencia see it before I send the letter, in order to avoid false representations. 

 "Camacho has told a thousand falsehoods about me. To my regret I ordered him arrested. He is in the church. He says that after the Holidays are past, he will go there if he is able. If I owe him, he must show by what reason; for I make oath that I do not know it, nor is it true. 

 "If without importunity a licence can be procured for me to go on mule-back, I will try to leave for the Court after January, and I will even go without this licence. But haste must be made that the loss of the Indies, which is now imminent, may not take place. May our Lord have you in His keeping. 

 "Done to-day, December 21. 

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

 "This tenth which they give me is not the tenth which was promised me. The Privileges tell what it is, and there is also due me the tenth of the profit derived from merchandise and from all other things, of which I have received nothing. Carbajal understands me well. Also remind Carbajal to obtain a letter from his Highness for the Governor, directing him to send his accounts and the money I have there, at once. And it would be well that a Repostero of his Highness should go there to receive this money, as there must be a large amount due me. I will strive to have these gentlemen of the Board of Trade send also to say to the Governor that he must send my share together with the gold belonging to their Highnesses. But the remedy for the other matter must not be neglected there on this account. I say that 7000 or 8000 pesos must have passed to my credit there, which sum has been received since I left, besides the other money which was not given to me. 

 "To my very dear son Don Diego at the Court. "

All this struggling for the due payment of eighths and tenths makeswearisome reading, and we need not follow the Admiral into hisdistinctions between one kind of tenth and another. There is somethingto be said on his side, it must be remembered; the man had not receivedwhat was due to him; and although he was not in actual poverty, his onlyproperty in this world consisted of these very thirds and eighths andtenths. But if we are inclined to think poorly of the Admiral for hisdismal pertinacity, what are we to think of the people who took advantageof their high position to ignore consistently the just claims made uponthem?

There is no end to the Admiral's letter-writing at this time. Fortunately for us his letter to the Pope has been lost, or else weshould have to insert it here; and we have had quite enough of histheological stupors. As for the Queen's will, there was no mention ofthe Admiral in it; and her only reference to the Indies showed that shehad begun to realise some of the disasters following his rule there, forthe provisions that are concerned with the New World refer exclusively tothe treatment of the natives, to whose succour, long after they were pastsuccour, the hand of Isabella was stretched out from the grave. Thelicence to travel on mule-back which the Admiral asked for was madenecessary by a law which had been passed forbidding the use of mules forthis purpose throughout Spain. There had been a scarcity of horses formounting the royal cavalry, and it was thought that the breeding ofhorses had been neglected on account of the greater cheapness and utilityof mules. It was to encourage the use and breeding of horses that aninterdict was laid on the use of mules, and only the very highest personsin the land were allowed to employ them. 

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO, December 29, 1504. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --I wrote you at length and sent it by Don Ferdinand, who left to go yonder twenty-three days ago to-day, with the Lord Adelantado and Carbajal, from whom I have since heard nothing. Sixteen days ago to-day I wrote you and sent it by Zamora, the courier, and I sent you a letter of credit for these merchants endorsed by Francisco de Ribarol, telling them to give you the money you might ask for. And then, about eight days ago, I sent you by another courier a letter endorsed by Francisco Soria, and these letters are directed to Pantaleon and Agostin Italian, that they may give it to you. And with these letters goes a copy of a letter which I wrote to the Holy Father in regard to the affairs of the Indies, that he might not complain of me any more. I sent this copy for his Highness to see, or the Lord Bishop of Palencia, so as to avoid false representations. The payment of the people who went with me has been delayed. I have provided for them here what I have been able. They are poor and obliged to go in order to earn a living. They decided to go yonder. They have been told here that they will be dealt with as favourably as possible, and this is right, although among them there are some who merit punishment more than favours. This is said of the rebels. I gave these people a letter for the Lord Bishop of Palencia. Read it, and if it is necessary for them to go and petition his Highness, urge your uncle and brother and Carbajal to read it also, so that you can all help them as much as possible. It is right and a work of mercy, for no one ever earned money with so many dangers and hardships and no one has ever rendered such great service as these people. It is said that Camacho and Master Bernal wish to go there--two creatures for whom God works few miracles: but if they go, it will be to do harm rather than good. They can do little because the truth always prevails, as it did in Espanola, from which wicked people by means of falsehoods have prevented any profit being received up to the present time. It is said that this Master Bernal was the beginning of the treason. He was taken and accused of many misdemeanours, for each one of which he deserved to be quartered. At the request of your uncle and of others he was pardoned, on condition that if he ever said the least word against me and my state the pardon should be revoked and he should be under condemnation. I send you a copy of the case in this letter. I send you a legal document about Camacho. For more than eight days he has not left the church on account of his rash statements and falsehoods. He has a will made by Terreros, and other relatives of the latter have another will of more recent date, which renders the first will null, as far as the inheritance is concerned: and I am entreated to enforce the latter will, so that Camacho will be obliged to restore what he has received. I shall order a legal document drawn up and served upon him, because I believe it is a work of mercy to punish him, as he is so unbridled in his speech that some one must punish him without the rod: and it will not be so much against the conscience of the chastiser, and will injure him more. Diego Mendez knows Master Bernal and his works very well. The Governor wished to imprison him at Espanola and left him to my consideration. It is said that he killed two men there with medicines in revenge for something of less account than three beans. I would be glad of the licence to travel on muleback and of a good mule, if they can be obtained without difficulty. Consult all about our affairs, and tell them that I do not write them in particular on account of the great pain I feel when writing. I do not say that they must do the same, but that each one must write me and very often, for I feel great sorrow that all the world should have letters from there each day, and I have nothing, when I have so many people there. Commend me to the Lord Adelantado in his favour, and give my regards to your brother and to all the others. 

 "Done at Seville, December 29. 

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

 . S. . S. A. S. XMY Xpo FERENS. "

"I say further that if our affairs are to be settled according toconscience, that the chapter of the letter which their Highnesses wroteme when I departed, in which they say they will order you placed inpossession, must be shown; and the writing must also be shown which is inthe Book of Privileges, which shows how in reason and in justice thethird and eighth and the tenth are mine. There will always beopportunity to make reductions from this amount. "

Columbus's requests were not all for himself; nothing could be moresincere or generous than the spirit in which he always strove to securethe just payment of his mariners. 

Otherwise he is still concerned with the favour shown to those who weretreasonable to him. Camacho was still hiding in a church, probably fromthe wrath of Bartholomew Columbus; but Christopher has more subtle waysof punishment. A legal document, he considers, will be better than arod; "it will not be so much against the conscience of the chastiser, andwill injure him (the chastised) more. "

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son, January 18, 1505. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --I wrote you at length by the courier who will arrive there to-day, and sent you a letter for the Lord Chamberlain. I intended to inclose in it a copy of that chapter of the letter from their Highnesses in which they say they will order you placed in possession; but I forgot to do it here. Zamora, the courier, came. I read your letter and also those of your uncle and brother and Carbajal, and felt great pleasure in learning that they had arrived well, as I had been very anxious about them. Diego Mendez will leave here in three or four days with the order of payment prepared. He will take a long statement of everything and I will write to Juan Velasquez. I desire his friendship and service. I believe that he is a very honourable gentleman. If the Lord Bishop of Palencia has come, or comes, tell him how much pleased I have been with his prosperity, and that if I go there I must stop with his Worship even if he does not wish it, and that we must return to our first fraternal love. And that he could not refuse it because my service will force him to have it thus. I said that the letter for the Holy Father was sent that his Worship might see it if he was there, and also the Lord Archbishop of Seville, as the King might not have opportunity to read it. I have already told you that the petition to their Highnesses must be for the fulfilment of what they wrote me about the possession and of the rest which was promised me. I said that this chapter of the letter must be shown them and said that it must not be delayed, and that this is advisable for an infinite number of reasons. His Highness may believe that, however much he gives me, the increase of his exalted dominions and revenue will be in the proportion of 100 to 1, and that there is no comparison between what has been done and what is to be done. The sending of a Bishop to Espanola must be delayed until I speak to his Highness. It must not be as in the other cases when it was thought to mend matters and they were spoiled. There have been some cold days here and they have caused me great fatigue and fatigue me now. Commend me to the favour of the Lord Adelantado. May our Lord guard and bless you and your brother. Give my regards to Carbajal and Jeronimo. Diego Mendez will carry a full pouch there. I believe that the affair of which you wrote can be very easily managed. The vessels from the Indies have not arrived from Lisbon. They brought a great deal of gold, and none for me. So great a mockery was never seen, for I left there 60, 000 pesos smelted. His Highness should not allow so great an affair to be ruined, as is now taking place. He now sends to the Governor a new provision. I do not know what it is about. I expect letters each day. Be very careful about expenditures, for it is necessary. 

 "Done January 18. "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

There is playful reference here to Fonseca, with whom Columbus wasevidently now reconciled; and he was to be buttonholed and made to readthe Admiral's letter to the Pope. Diego Mendez is about to start, and isto make a "long statement"; and in the meantime the Admiral will write asmany long letters as he has time for. Was there no friend at hand, Iwonder, with wit enough to tell the Admiral that every word he wroteabout his grievances was sealing his doom, so far as the King wasconcerned? No human being could have endured with patience thiscontinuous heavy firing at long range to which the Admiral subjected hisfriends at Court; every post that arrived was loaded with a shrapnel ofgrievances, the dull echo of which must have made the ears of those whoheard it echo with weariness. Things were evidently humming in Espanola;large cargoes of negroes had been sent out to take the place of the deadnatives, and under the harsh driving of Ovando the mines were producingheavily. The vessels that arrived from the Indies brought a great dealof gold; "but none for me. "

 Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO, February 5, 1505. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --Diego Mendez left here Monday, the 3rd of this month. After his departure I talked with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this letter, who is going yonder, where he is called in regard to matters of navigation. He was always desirous of pleasing me. He is a very honourable man. Fortune has been adverse to him as it has been to many others. His labours have not profited him as much as reason demands. He goes for me, and is very desirous of doing something to benefit me if it is in his power. I do not know of anything in which I can instruct him to my benefit, because I do not know what is wanted of him there. He is going with the determination to do everything for me in his power. See what he can do to profit me there, and strive to have him do it; for he will do everything, and will speak and will place it in operation: and it must all be done secretly so that there may be no suspicion. 

 "I have told him all that could be told regarding this matter, and have informed him of the payment which has been made to me and is being made. This letter is for the Lord Adelantado also, that he may see how Amerigo Vespucci can be useful, and advise him about it. His Highness may believe that his ships went to the best and richest of the Indies, and if anything remains to be learned more than has been told, I will give the information yonder verbally, because it is impossible to give it in writing. May our Lord have you in his Holy keeping. 

 "Done in Seville, February 5. 

 "Your father who loves you more than himself. 

This letter has a significance which raises it out of the ruck of thiscomplaining correspondence. Amerigo Vespucci had just returned from hislong voyage in the West, when he had navigated along an immense stretchof the coast of America, both north and south, and had laid thefoundations of a fame which was, for a time at least, to eclipse that ofColumbus. Probably neither of the two men realised it at this interview, or Columbus would hardly have felt so cordially towards the man who wasdestined to rob him of so much glory. As a matter of fact the practicalSpaniards were now judging entirely by results; and a year or two later, when the fame of Columbus had sunk to insignificance, he was merelyreferred to as the discoverer of certain islands, while Vespucci, whoafter all had only followed in his lead, was hailed as the discoverer ofa great continent. Vespucci has been unjustly blamed for this state ofaffairs, although he could no more control the public estimate of hisservices than Columbus could. He was a more practical man than Columbus, and he made a much better impression on really wise and intelligent men;and his discoveries were immediately associated with trade and colonialdevelopment, while Columbus had little to show for his discoveries duringhis lifetime but a handful of gold dust and a few cargoes of slaves. Atany rate it was a graceful act on the part of Vespucci, whose star was inthe ascendant, to go and seek out the Admiral, whose day was fast vergingto night; it was one of those disinterested actions that live and have avalue of their own, and that shine out happily amid the surrounding murkand confusion. 

 Letter signed by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son, February 25, 1505. 

 "VERY DEAR SON, --The Licientiate de Zea is a person whom I desire to honour. He has in his charge two men who are under prosecution at the hands of justice, as shown by the information which is inclosed in this letter. See that Diego Mendez places the said petition with the others, that they may be given to his Highness during Holy Week for pardon. If the pardon is granted, it is well, and if not, look for some other manner of obtaining it. May our Lord have you in His Holy keeping. Done in Seville, February 25, 1505. I wrote you and sent it by Amerigo Vespucci. See that he sends you the letter unless you have already received it. 

 "Your father. Xpo FERENS. //"

This is the last letter of Columbus known to us otherwise an entirelyunimportant document, dealing with the most transient affairs. With itwe gladly bring to an end this exposure of a greedy and querulous period, which speaks so eloquently for itself that the less we say and comment onit the better. 

In the month of May the Admiral was well enough at last to undertake thejourney to Segovia. He travelled on a mule, and was accompanied by hisbrother Bartholomew and his son Ferdinand. When he reached the Court hefound the King civil and outwardly attentive to his recitals, butapparently content with a show of civility and outward attention. Columbus was becoming really a nuisance; that is the melancholy truth. The King had his own affairs to attend to; he was already meditating asecond marriage, and thinking of the young bride he was to bring home tothe vacant place of Isabella; and the very iteration of Columbus'scomplaints and demands had made them lose all significance for the King. He waved them aside with polite and empty promises, as people do thedemands of importunate children; and finally, to appease the Admiral andto get rid of the intolerable nuisance of his applications, he referredthe whole question, first to Archbishop DEA, and then to the body ofcouncillors which had been appointed to interpret Queen Isabella's will. The whole question at issue was whether or not the original agreementwith Columbus, which had been made before his discoveries, should becarried out. The King, who had foolishly subscribed to it simply as amatter of form, never believing that anything much could come of it, wasdetermined that it should not be carried out, as it would give Columbus awealth and power to which no mere subject of a crown was entitled. TheAdmiral held fast to his privileges; the only thing that he would consentto submit to arbitration was the question of his revenues; but his titlesand territorial authorities he absolutely stuck to. Of course thecouncil did exactly what the King had done. They talked about the thinga great deal, but they did nothing. Columbus was an invalid and brokenman, who might die any day, and it was obviously to their interest togain time by discussion and delay--a cruel game for our Christopher, whoknew his days on earth to be numbered, and who struggled in that web oftime in which mortals try to hurry the events of the present and delaythe events of the future. Meanwhile Philip of Austria and his wifeJuana, Isabella's daughter, had arrived from Flanders to assume the crownof Castile, which Isabella had bequeathed to them. Columbus saw a chancefor himself in this coming change, and he sent Bartholomew as an envoy togreet the new Sovereigns, and to enlist their services on the Admiral'sbehalf. Bartholomew was very well received, but he was too late to be ofuse to the Admiral, whom he never saw again; and this is our farewell toBartholomew, who passes out of our narrative here. He went to Rome afterChristopher's death on a mission to the Pope concerning some freshvoyages of discovery; and in 1508 he made, so far as we know, his oneexcursion into romance, when he assisted at the production of anillegitimate little girl--his only descendant. He returned to Espanolaunder the governorship of his nephew Diego, and died there in 1514--stern, valiant, brotherly soul, whose devotion to Christopher must befor ever remembered and honoured with the name of the Admiral. 

From Segovia Columbus followed the Court to Salamanca and thence toValladolid, where his increasing illness kept him a prisoner after theCourt had left to greet Philip and Juana. He had been in attendance uponit for nearly a year, and without any results: and now, as his infirmityincreased, he turned to the settling of his own affairs, and drawing upof wills and codicils--all very elaborate and precise. In theseoccupations his worldly affairs were duly rounded off; and on May 19, 1506, having finally ratified a will which he had made in Segovia a yearbefore, in which the descent of his honours was entailed upon Diego andhis heirs, or failing him Ferdinand and his heirs, or failing himBartholomew and his heirs, he turned to the settlement of his soul. 

His illness had increased gradually but surely, and he must have knownthat he was dying. He was not without friends, among them the faithfulDiego Mendez, his son Ferdinand, and a few others. His lodging was in asmall house in an unimportant street of Valladolid, now called the "Callede Colon"; the house, . No. 7, still standing, and to be seen by curiouseyes. As the end approached, the Admiral, who was being attended byFranciscan monks, had himself clothed in a Franciscan habit; and so, onthe 20th May 1506, he lay upon his bed, breathing out his life. 

 . . . And as strange thoughts Grow with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, Popes, Cardinals, and priests, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes And new-found agate urns fresh as day . . . 

. . . We do not know what his thoughts were, as the shadows grewdeeper about him, as the sounds of the world, the noises from the sunnystreet, grew fainter, and the images and sounds of memory clearer andlouder. Perhaps as he lay there with closed eyes he remembered thingslong forgotten, as dying people do; sounds and smells of the Vico Drittodi Ponticelli, and the feel of the hot paving-stones down which hischildish feet used to run to the sea; noises of the sea also, thedrowning swish of waters and sudden roar of breakers sounding toanxiously strained ears in the still night; bright sunlit pictures offaraway tropical shores, with handsome olive figures glistening in thesun; the sight of strange faces, the sound of strange speech, the smellof a strange land; the glitter of gold; the sudden death-shriek breakingthe stillness of some sylvan glade; the sight of blood on the grass. . . The Admiral's face undergoes a change; there is a stir in theroom; some one signs to the priest Gaspar, who brings forth his sacredwafer and holy oils and administers the last sacraments. The wrinkledeyelids flutter open, the sea-worn voice feebly frames the responses;the dying eyes are fixed on the crucifix; and--"In manus tuas Dominecommendo spiritum meum. " The Admiral is dead. 

He was in his fifty-sixth year, already an old man in body and mind; andhis death went entirely unmarked except by his immediate circle offriends. Even Peter Martyr, who was in Valladolid just before and justafter it, and who was writing a series of letters to variouscorrespondents giving all the news of his day, never thought it worthwhile to mention that Christopher Columbus was dead. His life flickeredout in the completest obscurity. It is not even known where he was firstburied; but probably it was in the Franciscan convent at Valladolid. This, however, was only a temporary resting-place; and a few years laterhis body was formally interred in the choir of the monastery of LasCuevas at Seville, there to lie for thirty years surrounded by continualchauntings. After that it was translated to the cathedral in SanDomingo; rested there for 250 years, and then, on the cession of thatpart of the island to France, the body was removed to Cuba. But theAdmiral was by this time nothing but a box of bones and dust, as alsowere brother Bartholomew and son Diego, and Diego's son, all collectedtogether in that place. There were various examinations of thebone-boxes; one, supposed to be the Admiral's, was taken to Cuba andsolemnly buried there; and lately, after the conquest of the island inthe Spanish-American War, this box of bones was elaborately conveyed toSeville, where it now rests. 

But in the meanwhile the Chapter of the cathedral in San Domingo had madenew discoveries and examinations; had found another box of bones, whichbore to them authentic signs that the dust it contained was the Admiral'sand not his grandson's; and in spite of the Academy of History at Madrid, it is indeed far from unlikely that the Admiral's dust does not lie inSpain or Cuba, but in San Domingo still. Whole books have been writtenabout these boxes of bones; learned societies have argued about them, experts have examined the bones and the boxes with microscopes; andmeantime the dust of Columbus, if we take the view that an error wascommitted in the transference to Cuba, is not even collected all in onebox. A sacrilegious official acquired some of it when the boxes wereopened, and distributed it among various curiosity-hunters, who havepreserved it in caskets of crystal and silver. Thus a bit of him is wornby an American lady in a crystal locket; a pinch of him liesin a glass vial in a New York mansion; other pinches in the LennoxLibrary, New York, in the Vatican, and in the University of Pavia. Insuch places, if the Admiral should fail to appear at the first note oftheir trumpets, must the Angels of the Resurrection make search. 

CHAPTER X

THE MAN COLUMBUS

It is not in any leaden box or crystal vase that we must search for thetrue remains of Christopher Columbus. Through these pages we havetraced, so far as has been possible, the course of his life, and followedhim in what he did; all of which is but preparation for our search forthe true man, and just estimate of what he was. We have seen, dimly, what his youth was; that he came of poor people who were of no importanceto the world at large; that he earned his living as a working man; thathe became possessed of an Idea; that he fought manfully and diligentlyuntil he had realised it; and that then he found himself in a positionbeyond his powers to deal with, not being a strong enough swimmer to holdhis own in the rapid tide of events which he himself had set flowing; andwe have seen him sinking at last in that tide, weighed down by the verythings for which he had bargained and stipulated. If these pages hadbeen devoted to a critical examination of the historical documents onwhich his life-story is based we should also have found that hecontinually told lies about himself, and misrepresented facts when thetruth proved inconvenient to him; that he was vain and boastful to adegree that can only excite our compassion. He was naturally andsincerely pious, and drew from his religion much strength and spiritualnourishment; but he was also capable of hypocrisy, and of using theself-same religion as a cloak for his greed and cruelty. What is thefinal image that remains in our minds of such a man? To answer thisquestion we must examine his life in three dimensions. There was itsgreat outline of rise, zenith, and decline; there was its outwardhistory in minute detail, and its conduct in varying circumstances; andthere was the inner life of the man's soul, which was perhaps simplerthan some of us think. And first, as to his life as a single thing. Itrose in poverty, it reached a brief and dazzling zenith of glory, it setin clouds and darkness; the fame of it suffered a long night of eclipse, from which it was rescued and raised again to a height of glory whichunfortunately was in sufficiently founded on fact; and as a reactionfrom this, it has been in danger of becoming entirely discredited, andthe man himself denounced as a fraud. The reason for these surprisingchanges is that in those fifty-five years granted to Columbus for themaking of his life he did not consistently listen to that inner voicewhich alone can hold a man on any constructive path. He listened to itat intervals, and he drew his inspiration from it; but he shut his earswhen it had served him, when it had brought him what he wanted. In hismoments of success he guided himself by outward things; and thus he wasat one moment a seer and ready to be a martyr, and at the next moment hewas an opportunist, watching to see which way the wind would blow, andready to trim his sails in the necessary direction. Such conduct of aman's life does not make for single light or for true greatness; ratherfor dim, confused lights, and lofty heights obscured in cloud. 

If we examine his life in detail we find this alternating principle ofconduct revealed throughout it. He was by nature clever, kind-hearted, rather large-souled, affectionate, and not very honest; all the actsprompted by his nature bear the stamp of these qualities. To them hisearly years had probably added little except piety, sharp practice, andthat uncomfortable sense, often bred amid narrow and poor surroundings, that one must keep a sharp look-out for oneself if one is to get a shareof the world's good things. Something in his blood, moreover, craved fordignity and the splendour of high-sounding titles; craved for power also, and the fulfilment of an arrogant pride. All these things were in hisLigurian blood, and he breathed them in with the very air of Genoa. Hismind was of the receptive rather than of the constructive kind, and itwas probably through those long years spent between sea voyages and briefsojourns with his family in Genoa or Savona that he conceived that vagueIdea which, as I have tried to show, formed the impulse of his lifeduring its brief initiative period. Having once received this Idea ofdiscovery and like all other great ideas, it was in the air at the timeand was bound to take shape in some human brain--he had all his nativeand personal qualities to bring to its support. The patience to awaitits course he had learned from his humble and subordinate life. Theambition to work for great rewards was in his blood and race; and tobelief in himself, his curious vein of mystical piety was able to add thesupport of a ready belief in divine selection. This very time of waitingand endurance of disappointments also helped to cultivate in hischaracter two separate qualities--an endurance or ability to withstandinfinite hardship and disappointment; and also a greedy pride thatpromised itself great rewards for whatever should be endured. 

In all active matters Columbus was what we call a lucky man. It was luckthat brought him to Guanahani; and throughout his life this element ofgood luck continually helped him. He was lucky, that is to say, in hisrelation with inanimate things; but in his relations with men he wasalmost as consistently unlucky. First of all he was probably a bad judgeof men. His humble origin and his lack of education naturally made himdistrustful. He trusted people whom he should have regarded withsuspicion, and he was suspicious of those whom he ought to have known hecould trust. If people pleased him, he elevated them with absurdrapidity to stations far beyond their power to fill, and then wonderedthat they sometimes turned upon him; if they committed crimes againsthim, he either sought to regain their favour by forgiving them, or elsedogged them with a nagging, sulky resentment, and expected every one elseto punish them also. He could manage men if he were in the midst ofthem; there was something winning as well as commanding about his actualpresence, and those who were devoted to him would have served him to thedeath. But when he was not on the spot all his machineries and affairswent to pieces; he had no true organising ability; no sooner did he takehis hand off any affair for which he was responsible than it immediatelycame to confusion. All these defects are to be attributed to his lack ofeducation and knowledge of the world. Mental discipline is absolutelynecessary for a man who would discipline others; and knowledge of theworld is essential for one who would successfully deal with men, anddistinguish those whom he can from those whom he cannot trust. Defectsof this nature, which sometimes seem like flaws in the man's character, may be set down to this one disability--that he was not educated and wasnot by habit a man of the world. 

All his sins of misgovernment, then, may be condoned on the ground thatgoverning is a science, and that Columbus had never learned it. What wedo find, however, is that the inner light that had led him across theseas never burned clearly for him again, and was never his guide in thelater part of his life. Its radiance was quenched by the gleam of gold;for there is no doubt that Columbus was a victim of that balefulinfluence which has caused so much misery in this world. He was greedyof gold for himself undoubtedly; but he was still more greedy of it forSpain. It was his ambition to be the means of filling the coffers of theSpanish Sovereigns and so acquiring immense dignity and glory forhimself. He believed that gold was in itself a very precious andestimable thing; he knew that masses and candles could be bought for it, and very real spiritual privileges; and as he made blunder after blunder, and saw evil after evil heaping itself on his record in the New World, hebecame the more eager and frantic to acquire such a treasure of gold thatit would wipe out the other evils of his administration. And onceinvolved in that circle, there was no help for him. 

The man himself was a simple man; capable, when the whole of his variousqualities were directed upon one single thing, of that greatness which isthe crown of simplicity. Ambition was the keynote of his life; not anunworthy keynote, by any means, if only the ambition be sound; but oneserious defect of Columbus's ambition was that it was retrospectiverather than perspective. He may have had, before he sailed from Palos, an ambition to be the discoverer of a New World; but I do not think hehad. He believed there were islands or land to be discovered in the Westif only he pushed on far enough; and he was ambitious to find them andvindicate his belief. Afterwards, when he had read a little more, andwhen he conceived the plan of pretending that he had all along meant todiscover the Indies and a new road to the East, he acted in accordancewith that pretence; he tried to make his acts appear retrospectively asthough they had been prompted by a design quite different from that bywhich they had really been prompted. When he found that his discoverywas regarded as a great scientific feat, he made haste to pretend that ithad all along been meant as such, and was in fact the outcome of anelaborate scientific theory. In all this there is nothing for praise oradmiration. It indicates the presence of moral disease; but fortunatelyit is functional rather than organic disease. He was right and sound atheart; but he spread his sails too readily to the great winds of popularfavour, and the result was instability to himself, and often danger ofshipwreck to his soul. 

The ultimate test of a man's character is how he behaves in certaincircumstances when there is no great audience to watch him, and whenthere is no sovereign close at hand with bounties and rewards to offer. In a word, what matters most is a man's behaviour, not as an admiral, ora discoverer, or a viceroy, or a courtier, but as a man. In this respectColumbus's character rings true. If he was little on little occasions, he was also great on great occasions. The inner history of his fourthvoyage, if we could but know it and could take all the circumstances intoaccount, would probably reveal a degree of heroic endurance that hasnever been surpassed in the history of mankind. Put him as a man face toface with a difficulty, with nothing but his wits to devise with and histwo hands to act with, and he is never found wanting. And that is thekind of man of whom discoverers are made. The mere mathematician maywork out the facts with the greatest accuracy and prove the existence ofland at a certain point; but there is great danger that he may be knockeddown by a club on his first landing on the beach, and never bring homeany news of his discovery. The great courtier may do well for himselfand keep smooth and politic relations with kings; the great administratormay found a wonderful colony; but it is the man with the wits and thehands, and some bigness of heart to tide him over daunting passages, thatwins through the first elementary risks of any great discovery. Properlyconsidered, Columbus's fame should rest simply on the answer to thesingle question, "Did he discover new lands as he said he would?" Thatwas the greatest thing he could do, and the fact that he failed to do agreat many other things afterwards, failed the more conspicuously becausehis attempts were so conspicuous, should have no effect on our estimateof his achievement. The fame of it could no more be destroyed by himselfthan it can be destroyed by us. 

True understanding of a man and estimate of his character can only bearrived at by methods at once more comprehensive and more subtle thanthose commonly employed among men. Everything that he sees, does, andsuffers has its influence on the moulding of his character; and he mustbe considered in relation to his physical environment, no less than tohis race and ancestry. Christopher Columbus spent a great part of hisactive life on the sea; it was sea-life which inspired him with his greatIdea, it was by the conquest of the sea that he realised it; it was onthe sea that all his real triumphs over circumstance and his own weakerself were won. The influences at work upon a man whose life is spent onthe sea are as different from those at work upon one who lives on thefields as the environment of a gannet is different from the environmentof a skylark: and yet how often do we really attempt to make dueallowance for this great factor and try to estimate the extent of itsmoulding influence?

To live within sound or sight of the sea is to be conscious of a voice orcountenance that holds you in unyielding bonds. The voice, beingcontinuous, creeps into the very pulses and becomes part of the pervadingsound or silence of a man's environment; and the face, although it neverregards him, holds him with its changes and occupies his mind with itseverlasting riddle. Its profound inattention to man is part of its powerover his imagination; for although it is so absorbed and busy, and hasregard for sun and stars and a melancholy frowning concentration upon thefoot of cliffs, it is never face to face with man: he can never comewithin the focus of its great glancing vision. It is somewhere beyondtime and space that the mighty perspective of those focal rays comes toits point; and they are so wide and eternal in their sweep that we shouldfind their end, could we but trace them, in a condition far differentfrom that in which our finite views and ethics have place. In the manwho lives much on the sea we always find, if he be articulate, somethingof the dreamer and the mystic; that very condition of mind, indeed, whichwe have traced in Columbus, which sometimes led him to such heights, andsometimes brought him to such variance with the human code. 

A face that will not look upon you can never give up its secret to you;and the face of the sea is like the face of a picture or a statue roundwhich you may circle, looking at it from this point and from that, butwhose regard is fixed on something beyond and invisible to you; or it islike the face of a person well known to you in life, a face which youoften see in various surroundings, from different angles, nowunconscious, now in animated and smiling intercourse with some one else, but which never turns upon you the light of friendly knowledge andrecognition; in a word, it is unconscious of you, like all elementalthings. In the legend of the Creation it is written that when God sawthe gathering together of the waters which he called the Seas, he sawthat it was good; and he perhaps had the right to say so. But the manwho uses the sea and whose life's pathway is laid on its unstable surfacecan hardly sum up his impressions of it so simply as to say that it isgood. It is indeed to him neither good nor bad; it is utterly beyond andoutside all he knows or invents of good and bad, and can never have anyconcern with his good or his bad. It remains the pathway and territoryof powers and mysteries, thoughts and energies on a gigantic andelemental scale; and that is why the mind of man can never grapple withthe unconsciousness of the sea or his eye meet its eye. Yet it is themariner's chief associate, whether as adversary or as ally; his attitudeto things outside himself is beyond all doubt influenced by his attitudetowards it; and a true comprehension of the man Columbus must include arecognition of this constant influence on him, and of whatever effectlifelong association with so profound and mysterious an element may havehad on his conduct in the world of men. Better than many documents as anaid to our understanding of him would be intimate association with thesea, and prolonged contemplation of that face with which he was sofamiliar. We can never know the heart of it, but we can at least lookupon the face, turned from us though it is, upon which he looked. Cloudshadows following a shimmer of sunlit ripples; lines and runes traced onthe surface of a blank calm; salt laughter of purple furrows with thefoam whipping off them; tides and eddies, whirls, overfalls, ripples, breakers, seas mountains high-they are but movements and changingexpressions on an eternal countenance that once held his gaze and wonder, as it will always hold the gaze and wonder of those who follow the sea. 

So much of the man Christopher Columbus, who once was and no longer is;perished, to the last bone and fibre of him, off the face of the earth, and living now only by virtue of such truth as there was in him; who oncemanfully, according to the light that he had, bore Christ on hisshoulders across stormy seas, and found him often, in that dim light, aheavy and troublesome burden; who dropped light and burden together onthe shores of his discovery, and set going in that place of peace such aconflagration as mankind is not likely to see again for many ageneration, if indeed ever again, in this much-tortured world, suchancient peace find place.