[CHAPTER XI.]
COLUMBUS IN SPAIN AGAIN; MARCH TO SEPTEMBER, 1493.
Peter Martyr tells us of the common ignorance and dread pervading the ordinary ranks of society, before and during the absence of Columbus, in respect to all that part of the earth's circumference which the sun looked upon beyond Gades, till it again cast its rays upon the Golden Chersonesus. During this absence from the known and habitable regions of the globe, that orb was thought to sweep over the ominous and foreboding Sea of Darkness. No one could tell how wide that sea was. The learned disagreed in their estimates. A conception, far under the actual condition, had played no small part in making the voyage of Columbus possible. Men possessed legends of its mysteries. Fables of its many islands were repeated; but no one then living was credibly thought to have tested its glooms except by sailing a little beyond the outermost of the Azores.
Palos aroused at the return of Columbus.
It calls for no stretch of the imagination to picture the public sentiment in little Palos during the months of anxiety which many households had endured since that August morning, when in its dim light Columbus, the Pinzons, and all their companions had been wafted gently out to sea by the current and the breeze. The winter had been unusually savage and weird. The navigators to the Atlantic islands had reported rough passages, and the ocean had broken wildly for long intervals along the rocks and sands of the peninsular shores. It is a natural movement of the mind to wrap the absent in the gloom of the present hour; and while Columbus had been passing along the gentle waters of the new archipelago, his actual experiences had been in strange contrast to the turmoil of the sea as it washed the European shores. He had indeed suffered on his return voyage the full tumultuousness of the elements, and we can hardly fail to recognize the disquiet of mind and falling of heart which those savage gales must have given to the kin and friends of the untraceable wanderers.
The stories, then, which we have of the thanksgiving and jubilation of the people of Palos, when the "Nina" was descried passing the bar of the river, fall readily among the accepted truths of history. We can imagine how despondency vanished amid the acclaims of exultation; how multitudes hung upon the words of strange revelations; how the gaping populace wondered at the bedecked Indians; and how throngs of people opened a way that Columbus might lead the votive procession to the church. The canonizers of course read between the lines of the records that it was to the Church of Rabida that Columbus with his men now betook themselves. It matters little.
There was much to mar the delight of some in the households. Comforting reports must be told of those who were left at La Navidad. No one had died, unless the gale had submerged the "Pinta" and her crew. She had not been seen since the "Nina" parted with her in the gale.
The story of her rescue has already been told. She entered the river before the rejoicings of the day were over, and relieved the remaining anxiety.
The Court at Barcelona.