Coasting eastward, the Pinta sailed away and left the other vessels, and it was with deep chagrin that Columbus saw no attention paid his signals to return. Pinzon had heard of gold-fields in advance of him, and he was going to reap them. The wreck of the Santa María a month afterward, leaving the admiral only the little Niña, made his situation all the more critical, and made him feel more keenly than ever the desertion. Nor was this the first indication of mutiny and disruption among his people during the voyage. If the truth must be told, the character of the man, though inured to the cruel hardihood of the age, seems here to be undergoing change; else it was not originally as either he or his friends have estimated. The new and varied experiences amidst the new and varied phenomena attending the idea and its consummation make it a matter of no wonder that his head began to be a little turned. He had pondered painfully on what Aristotle taught regarding the sphericity of the earth, on what Seneca said about sailing to the Indies westwardly, and on the terrestrial paradise placed by Dante at the antipodes of the holy city; and now he was here among those happy regions of which so long ago philosophers had spoken and poets sung. Under the inspiration of rare intelligence, and by wonderful courage and force of will, this Genoese sailor had brought to his own terms the world's proudest sovereigns. Success, in his mind the most perfect, the most complete, was by this time proved beyond peradventure. At the outset he had suspected himself the special agent of the supernatural; now he was sure of it. It was meet, therefore, that all men should fear and obey him. Impelled to activity, he was impelled, if necessary, to severity. During the passage he had deemed it expedient several times to mislead the sailors, who were consequently backward about reposing in him the respect and confidence due a commander. Suspicious of the Spanish sovereigns from the first, his fears constantly increased as the magnitude of his discovery slowly unfolded before him, that he should eventually be robbed of it. He was jealous lest any of those who had shared with him the perils of the adventure should secure to themselves some part of the honor or profit attending it. He had quarrelled with the Pinzons, who, having staked their money and lives on what was generally regarded a mad risk, thought some consideration from the commander their due. The admiral's temper was tamed somewhat by the very boldness of Pinzon's act; for when the Pinta returned from her cruisings, little was then said about it; but if ever the opportunity should come, her commander must pay dearly for his disobedience.
SAILING AMONG THE ISLANDS.
Cuba failed to display any opulent oriental city, but furnished tobacco and maize, gifts from savagism to civilization as comforting, perhaps, as any received in return. The mariners next discovered and coasted Hayti, or Española, thus occupying the greater part of December. On the northern side of the island, out of the wrecked Santa María and her belongings, Columbus built and equipped a fortress, which he called La Navidad; and leaving there thirty-nine men under command of Diego de Arana, with Pedro Gutierrez and Rodrigo de Escobedo, lieutenants, on the 4th of January, 1493, he embarked for Spain. Those left behind were expected by the ardent-minded admiral, during his absence, to obtain, in trade, a ton of gold, beside discovering mines and spices.
Violent storms attended the homeward voyage; but on the 15th of March the expedition reached Palos in safety, after touching at the Azores and the coast of Portugal. Then followed rejoicings. Over Spain, over Europe, the tidings flew: A New World to the westward! Bells rang and choirs pealed hosannas. A New World for Spain; now were their Catholic Majesties well paid for their losses and trials in connection with Mahometans and Jews!
With six natives, and divers birds and plants and other specimens from the Islands, Columbus set out for Barcelona, then the residence of the Spanish sovereigns. Throughout the journey, the highway and houses were thronged with spectators eager for a glimpse of the strange spectacle. Arrived at court, the great mariner was most graciously received, being permitted even to be seated in the presence of royalty. He told his tale. It is said that all present wept. Columbus was as much excited as any. In a delirium of joy he vowed within seven years to appoint an army of four thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the rescue of Jerusalem, and to pay the cost out of his own pocket; but, unfortunately, he never found himself in funds sufficient to fulfil his pious promise. The original compact between the sovereigns and the discoverer was confirmed, and to the latter was granted a family coat of arms. While Columbus was fêted by the nobles, and all the world resounded with his praises, Martin Alonso Pinzon lay a-dying; the reward for his invaluable services, exceeding a hundred-fold all that Isabella and Ferdinand together had done, being loss of property, loss of health, the insults of the admiral, the scorn of the queen, all now happily crowned by speedy death.
A HAPPY PEOPLE.
Never had nature made, within historic times, a paradise more perfect than this Cuba and this Hayti that the Genoese had found. Never was a sylvan race more gentle, more hospitable than that which peopled this primeval garden. Naked, because they needed not clothing; dwelling under palm-leaves, such being sufficient protection; their sustenance the spontaneous gifts of the ever generous land and sea; undisturbed by artificial curbings and corrections, and tormented by no ambitions, their life was a summer day, as blissful as mortals can know. It was as Eden; without work they might enjoy all that earth could give. Disease and pain they scarcely knew; only death was terrible. In their social intercourse they were sympathizing, loving, and decorous, practising the sublimest religious precepts without knowing it, and obeying Christ more perfectly than many who profess to serve him. With strangers the men were frank, cordial, honest; the women artless and compliant. Knowing no guile, they suspected none. Possessing all things, they gave freely of that which cost them nothing. Having no laws, they broke none; circumscribed by no conventional moralities, they were not immoral. If charity be the highest virtue, and purity and peace the greatest good, then were these savages far better and happier beings than any civilization could boast. That they possessed any rights, any natural or inherent privileges in regard to their lands or their lives; that these innocent and inoffensive people were not fit subjects for coercion, treachery, robbery, enslavement, and slaughter, was a matter which seems never to have been questioned at that time by either discoverer, adventurer, or ruler. However invalid in any of the Spanish courts might have been the argument of a house-breaker, that in the room he entered he discovered a purse of gold, and took it, Spaniards never thought of applying such logic to themselves in regard to the possessions of the natives in the new lands their Genoese had found.
What Spain required now was a title such as the neighboring nations of Europe should recognize as valid. So far as the doctrine was concerned, of appropriating to themselves the possessions of others, they were all equally sound in it. Europe with her steel and saltpetre and magnetic needle was stronger than naked barbarians, whose possessions were thereupon seized as fast as found. The right to such robbery has been held sacred since the earliest records of the human race; and it was by this time legalized by the civilized nations. Savagism had no rights which civilization was bound to respect. The world belonged not to Christian or Mahometan, but to whatever idea, principle, or power could take it. In none of their pretended principles, in none of their codes of honor or ethics, was there any other ultimate appeal than brute force; their deity they made to fit the occasion, whatever that might be. This they did not know, however. They thought themselves patterns of justice and fair morality; and all that troubled them was in what attitude they would stand toward each other with regard to their several discoveries and conquests. But while such was the recognized condition of affairs at the beginning of the sixteenth century among the reckless adventurers of Spain, such were not the teachings of the Church, nor the views of the intelligent and right thinking men of the time. True, the army of fortune-seekers who first rushed to the new world in search of gold came for lust and plunder, but with them, and inspired with very different motives, came the missionaries of the cross, pointing the savages to civilization and a purer religion than their own. But civilization and religion, it must be confessed, had little to recommend them in the examples of unprincipled men who were ever present to give the lie to the teachings of the priests.
THE WORLD PARTITIONED BY THE POPE.
Thus it was that the Spanish sovereigns, being Christian, applied for a confirmation of title to Alexander VI., then sovereign pontiff of Christendom, at the same time insinuating, in a somewhat worldly fashion, that learned men regarded the rights of their Catholic Majesties secure enough even without such confirmation. No valid objections before the holy tribunal could be raised against Christian princes powerful enough to sustain their pretensions to ownership while propagating the true faith in heathen lands; but Pope Eugene IV. and his successors had already granted Portugal all lands discovered by Portuguese from Cape Bojador to the Indies. In order, therefore, to avoid conflict, the bull issued the 2d of May, 1493, ceding Spain the same rights respecting discoveries already granted Portugal, was on the day following defined to this effect:—An imaginary line of demarcation should be drawn from pole to pole, one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands; all lands discovered east of that line should be Portugal's, while west of that line all should belong to Spain. Thus by a very mortal breath and the flourish of a pen, the unknown world, with all its multitudes of interests and inhabitants, was divided between these two sovereignties, occupying the peninsula of south-western Europe; though in their wisdom they forgot that if the world was round, Portugal in going east and Spain in going west must somewhere meet, and might yet quarrel on the other side. Subsequently, that is to say on the 7th of June, 1494, by treaty between Spain and Portugal the papal line of partition was removed, making it three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, Portugal having complained of want of sea-room for southern enterprise. This removal ultimately gave the Portuguese Brazil. And ecclesiastics claim that care was ever exercised by the Spanish crown to comply with the obligations thus laid upon it by this holy sanction.