THE DEATH OF LA COSA.
Meanwhile there was great alarm on the ships at the non-arrival of the seventy men [pg 311]who had adventured into the forests on this mad expedition. Parties were sent ashore and round the coasts, where they fired signal guns and sounded trumpets, but in vain. At length some of them arrived at a great thicket of mangrove trees, amid the entanglements of which they caught a glimpse of a man in Spanish attire. Approaching, they found that it was their commander, buckler on shoulder and sword in hand, but so weak with hunger and fatigue that he could not utter a word. When he was a little revived by the fire they made on the shore, and the food and wine they gave him, he told the story of how he had escaped from the savage bands, how he had hidden every day, and struggled forward at night among rocks and thickets and matted forests till he reached the coast. As another proof of the special protection of the Virgin he showed them his buckler bearing the marks of 300 arrows, while he had received no wound whatever.
Just as this transpired, the fleet of Nicuesa arrived, and Ojeda was much troubled in mind, remembering his late rash challenge. He ordered his men to return to the ships, and leave him on the shore till his rival should depart. Some of the men went to Nicuesa and intreated him not to take advantage of Ojeda’s misfortunes. But there was no need for this, and Nicuesa blushed with indignation that they should think him a gentleman so unworthy the name. He told them to bring their commander to him, and when they met he received his late foe with every show of friendship. “It is not,” said he, “for hidalgoes, like men of vulgar souls, to remember past differences when they behold one another in distress. Henceforth, let all that has occurred between us be forgotten. Command me as a brother. Myself and my men are at your orders, to follow you wherever you please, until the deaths of Juan de la Cosa and his comrades are revenged.” This noble offer was not one of words only, and the two commanders became fast friends. Four hundred men, with several horses, were landed, and they approached the village, which had cost them seventy lives, in the dead of the night, their near approach being heralded by the numerous parrots in the woods, which made a great outcry. The Indians paid no attention, however, believing that the Spaniards had been exterminated, and they found their village in flames before they took the alarm. The Spaniards either killed them at their doors or drove them back into the flames. The horses, which they supposed to be savage monsters, caused great alarm. The carnage was something fearful, for no quarter was given. While ranging about in search of booty they found the body of La Cosa tied to a tree, swollen and discoloured in a hideous manner by the poison of the Indian arrows. “This dismal spectacle had such an effect upon the common men that not one would remain in that place during the night.” The spoil in gold and other valuables was so great that the share of Nicuesa and his men amounted to 37,281 dollars.
ARRIVAL OF OJEDA AND HIS FOLLOWERS AT THE INDIAN VILLAGE.
Ojeda now, somewhat late in the day, took the advice of his late faithful lieutenant, and steered for the Gulf of Uraba, where he formed a settlement which he named St. Sebastian. The Indians of the surrounding country proved unfriendly and hostile, and at length their provisions began to fail. “In one of their expeditions they were surprised by an ambuscade of savages in a gorge of the mountains, and attacked with such fury and effect that they were completely routed, and pursued with yells and howlings to the very gates of St. Sebastian. Many died in excruciating agony of their wounds, and others recovered with extreme difficulty. Those who were well no longer dared to venture forth [pg 312]in search of food, for the whole forest teemed with lurking foes. They devoured such herbs and roots as they could find without regard to their quality. Their bodies became corrupted, and various diseases, combined with the ravages of famine, daily thinned their numbers. The sentinel who feebly mounted guard at night was often found dead at his post in the morning. Some stretched themselves on the ground, and expired of mere famine and debility; nor was death any longer regarded as an evil, but rather as a welcome relief from a life of horror and despair.” Such is the chronicler’s mournful account.
We have seen that Ojeda felt unbounded confidence in his charm—the picture of the Holy Virgin—and he had so long escaped unscathed that the Indians also believed him to bear a charmed life. They determined one day to test the question, and placed four of their most expert archers in ambush, with directions to single him out, while a number more advanced to the fort sounding their conches and drums, and yelling with hideous noises. Ojeda sallied forth to meet them, and the Indians fled to the ambuscade. The archers waited till he was full in front, and then discharged their poisoned arrows. Three he warded off by his buckler, but the fourth pierced his thigh. Ojeda was carried back to the fort, more despondent than he had ever yet been, for his talisman seemed to have failed him, and thrilling pains shot through his body. But he was not to be thus defeated. He caused two plates of iron to be made [pg 313]red hot, and ordered a surgeon to apply them to each orifice of his wound. The surgeon, fearful that should he die the death would be laid to his door, shudderingly refused, whereupon Ojeda threatened to hang him if he did not obey, and he was obliged to comply. Ojeda refused to be held or tied down, and endured the agony without moving a muscle. This violent remedy so inflamed his system that he had to be wrapped in sheets steeped in vinegar to allay the fever, and it is said that a barrel of vinegar was consumed in this way. But he lived, and his wounds healed; “the cold poison,” says Las Casas, “was consumed by the vivid fire.”
At this time their provisions were again becoming scarce, and the arrival of a strange ship, commanded by one Bernardino de Talavera, a desperate pirate, was welcomed, as it brought some relief, although supplies were only furnished for large prices in gold. Some dissatisfaction was expressed at the division of the food, and shortly afterwards serious factions arose. At last Ojeda volunteered to go himself to San Domingo in quest of necessary supplies, to which his followers agreed, and he embarked on board Talavera’s ship. They had scarcely put to sea when a serious quarrel arose between the freebooter and Ojeda; the latter, apparently, having acted on board as though he were commander instead of passenger. He was actually put in irons, where “he reviled Talavera and his gang as recreants, traitors, pirates, and offered to fight the whole of them successively, provided they would give him a clear deck and come on two at a time.” They left him fuming and raging in his chains until a violent gale arose, and they bethought themselves that Ojeda was a skilful navigator. They then parleyed, offering him his liberty if he would pilot the ship, and he consented, but all his skill was unavailing, and he was obliged to run her on the southern coast of Cuba—then as yet uncolonised, except by runaway slaves from Hayti. Here they made a toilsome march through forests and morasses, crossing mountains and rivers, in a nearly starved condition. One morass, entangled by roots and creeping vines, and cut up by sloughs and creeks, occupied them thirty days to cross, at the end of which time only thirty-five men survived out of seventy that had left the ship. At last they reached an Indian village. “The Indians gathered round and gazed at them with wonder, but when they learnt their story, they exhibited a humanity that would have done honour to the most professing Christians. They bore them to their dwellings, set meat and drink before them, and vied with each other in discharging the offices of the kindest humanity. Finding that a number of their companions were still in the morass, the cacique sent a large party of Indians with provisions for their relief, with orders to bring on their shoulders such as were too feeble to walk.... The Spaniards were brought to the village, succoured, cherished, consoled, and almost worshipped as if they had been angels.” And now Ojeda prepared to carry out a vow he had made on his journey, that if saved, he would erect a little hermitage or oratory, with an altar, above which he would place the picture to which he attributed his wonderful escape. The cacique listened with attention to his explanations regarding the beneficence of the Virgin, whom he represented as the mother of the Deity who reigned above, and acquired a profound veneration for the picture. Long after, when the Bishop Las Casas, who has recorded these facts, arrived at the same village, he found the chapel preserved with [pg 314]religious care. But when he offered—wishing to obtain possession of the relic—to exchange it for an image of the Virgin, the chief made an evasive reply, and next morning was missing, having fled with the picture in his possession. It was all in vain that Las Casas sent messages after him, “assuring him that he should not be deprived of the relic, but, on the contrary, that the image should likewise be presented to him.” The cacique would not return to the village till he knew that the Spaniards had departed.
We find Ojeda next in Jamaica, and afterwards in San Domingo, where he inquired earnestly after the Bachelor Enciso, who had, it will be remembered, promised to aid him with reinforcements and supplies. He was assured that that ambitious lawyer had sailed for the settlement, which was a fact. Next we find the sanguine Ojeda endeavouring to set on foot another armament, but the failure of his colony was too well understood, and there were no more volunteers, either as regards personal service or pecuniary aid. The poor adventurer was destined never again to see his settlement, the subsequent history of which is a series of intrigues and disasters. He died in abject poverty in San Domingo, and “so broken in spirit that, with his last breath, he intreated his body might be buried in the monastery of St. Francisco, just at the portal, in humble expiation of his past pride, that every one who entered might tread upon his grave.” Nicuesa, after many vicissitudes, was lost at sea. The Bachelor Enciso was rather snubbed when he arrived at Ojeda’s colony, but made some fortunate ventures, and plundered a village on the banks of a river named Darien, collecting great quantities of gold ornaments, bracelets, anklets, plates, and what not, with food and cotton to the value of ten thousand castillanos, or about ten thousand seven hundred pounds sterling. Among the men who for a time served with Enciso was Vasco Nuñez de Balbao, afterwards the discoverer of the Pacific from the Isthmus of Darien, of whom these pages have already furnished some account. He joined the expedition of Enciso in a very curious manner. He had been a man of very loose and prodigal habits, but had settled down on a farm in Hispaniola, where he soon became hopelessly involved in debt. The proposed armament gave him the opportunity he sought of running away from his creditors. He concealed himself in a cask, which was taken on board the vessel as though containing provisions. When the vessel was fairly out at sea “Nuñez emerged like an apparition from his cask, to the great surprise of Enciso, who had been totally ignorant of the stratagem. The Bachelor was indignant at being thus outwitted, even though he gained a recruit by the deception, and, in the first ebullition of his wrath, gave the fugitive debtor a very rough reception, threatening to put him on shore on the first uninhabited island they should encounter. Vasco Nuñez, however, succeeded in pacifying him, ‘for God,’ says the venerable Las Casas, ‘reserved him for greater things.’ ” It was Nuñez who afterwards directed Enciso to the village where he obtained so much plunder.
Another remarkable man of that age was Juan Ponce de Leon, the conqueror of Porto Rico, and the discoverer of Florida. He had amassed a considerable amount of wealth in the former place, and, like many of the active discoverers of that energetic age, was ambitious for new triumphs. By accident he met with some Indians who assured him “that far to the [pg 315]north, there existed a land abounding in gold and in all manner of delights; but, above all, possessing a river of such wonderful virtue, that whoever bathed in it would be restored to youth! They added that in times past, before the arrival of the Spaniards, a large party of the natives of Cuba had departed northward in search of this happy land and this river of life, and, having never returned, it was concluded that they were flourishing in renewed youth, detained by the pleasures of that enchanting country.” Others told him that in a certain island of the Bahamas, called Bimini, there was a fountain possessing the same marvellous and inestimable qualities, and that whoever drank from it would secure perennial youth. Juan Ponce listened to these fables with credulity, and actually fitted out three vessels at his own expense to prosecute the discovery, and obtained numerous volunteers to assist him. “It may seem incredible,” says Irving, “at the present day, that a man of years and experience could yield any faith to a story which resembles the wild fiction of an Arabian tale; but the wonders and novelties breaking upon the world in that age of discovery almost realised the illusions of fable, and the imaginations of the Spanish voyagers had become so heated that they were capable of any stretch of credulity.” A similar statement was made by an eminent man of learning, Peter Martyr, to Leo X., then Bishop of Rome. Juan Ponce left Porto Rico on the 3rd March, 1512, for the Bahama Islands, on his search for the Fountain of Youth, but all his inquiries and explorations failed in its discovery. Still he persevered, and was rewarded in discovering on the mainland a country in the fresh bloom of spring, the trees gay with blossoms and abounding with flowers. He took possession of it in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, and gave it the name of Florida, which it still retains. He subsequently discovered a group of islands, where his sailors, in the course of one night, caught one hundred and seventy turtles. He appropriately named them the Tortugas, or Turtles, the title they also still bear. Disheartened by the failure of his special mission, he gave up the command to a trusty captain, and returned to Porto Rico, “where he arrived infinitely poorer in purse and wrinkled in brow, by this cruise after inexhaustible riches and perpetual youth.” His captain arrived soon after with the news that he had discovered the island of Bimini, and that it abounded in crystal springs and limpid streams, which kept the island ever fresh and verdant; “but none that could restore to an old man the vernal greenness of his youth.” As late as 1521 we find old Juan Ponce engaged in a new expedition to Florida, where, in an encounter with the Indians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. He retired to Cuba, where he died shortly afterwards. The Spaniards said of him that he was a lion by name, and still more by nature.