Dr. Shea in a paper which he published in 1876, in the first volume of the American Catholic Quarterly, has emphasized the help which the Roman nomenclature of Saints' days, given to rivers and headlands, affords to the geographical student in tracking the early explorers along the coasts of the New World. This method of tracing the progress of maritime discovery suggested itself early to Oviedo, and has been appealed to by Henry C. Murphy and other modern authorities on this subject.
1492. December 14.
Tortuga.
Finally, on Friday, December 14, they sailed out of the harbor toward Tortuga. He found this island to be under extensive cultivation like a plain of Cordoba. The wind not holding for him to take the course which he wished to run, Columbus returned to his last harbor, the Puerto de la Concepcion. Again on Saturday he left it, and standing across to Tortuga once more, he went towards the shore and proceeded up a stream in his boats. The inhabitants fled as he approached, and burning fires in Tortuga as well as in Española seemed to be signals that the Spaniards were moving.
Babeque.
During the night, proceeding along the channel between the two islands, the Admiral met and took on board a solitary Indian in his canoe. The usual gifts were put upon him, and when the ships anchored near a village, he was sent ashore with the customary effect. The beach soon swarmed with people, gathered with their king, and some came on board. The Spaniards got from them without difficulty the bits of gold which they wore at their ears and noses. One of the captive Indians who talked with the king told this "youth of twenty-one," that the Spaniards had come from heaven and were going to Babeque to find gold; and the king told the Admiral's messenger, who delivered to him a present, that if he sailed in a certain course two days he would arrive there. This is the last we hear of Babeque, a place Columbus never found, at least under that name. Humboldt remarks that Columbus mentions the name of Babeque more than fourteen times in his journal, but it cannot certainly be identified with Española, as the Historie of 1571 declares it to be. D'Avezac has since shared Humboldt's view. Las Casas hesitatingly thought it might have referred to Jamaica.
Then the journal describes the country, saying that the land is lofty, but that the highest mountains are arable, and that the trees are so luxuriant that they become black rather than green. The journal further describes this new people as stout and courageous, very different from the timid islanders of other parts, and without religion. With his usual habit of contradiction, Columbus goes on immediately to speak of their pusillanimity, saying that three Spaniards were more than a match for a thousand of them. He prefigures their fate in calling them "well-fitted to be governed and set to work to till the land and do whatsoever is necessary."
1492. December 17.
Cannibals.
It was on Monday, December 17, while lying off Española, that the Spaniards got for the first time something more than rumor respecting the people of Caniba or the cannibals. These new evidences were certain arrows which the natives showed to them, and which they said had belonged to those man-eaters. They were pieces of cane, tipped with sticks which had been hardened by fire.