At the isthmus.
Still the caravels went on. The same scene of startled natives, in defiant attitude, soon soothed by the trinkets was repeated everywhere. In one place the Spaniards found what they had never seen before, a wall laid of stone and lime, and Columbus began to think of the civilized East again. Coast peoples are always barbarous, as he says; but it is the inland people who are rich. As he passed along this coast of Veragua, as the name has got to be written, though his notary at the time caught the Indian pronunciation as Cobraba, his interpreters pointed out its villages, and the chief one of all; and when they had passed on a little farther they told him he was sailing beyond the gold country. Columbus was not sure but they were trying to induce him to open communication again with the shore, to offer chances for their escape. The seeker of the strait could not stop for gold. His vision led him on to that marvelous land of Ciguare, of which these successive native tribes told him, situated ten days inland, and where the people reveled in gold, sailed in ships, and conducted commerce in spices and other precious commodities. The women there were decked, so they said, with corals and pearls. "I should be content," he says, "if a tithe of this which I hear is true." He even fancied, from all he could understand of their signs and language, that these Ciguare people were as terrible in war as the Spaniards, and rode on beasts. "They also say that the sea surrounds Ciguare, and that ten days' journey from thence is the river Ganges." Humboldt seems to think that in all this Columbus got a conception of that great western ocean which was lying so much nearer to him than he supposed. It may be doubted if it was quite so clear to Columbus as Humboldt thinks; but there is good reason to believe that Columbus imagined this wonderful region of Ciguare was half-way to the Ganges. If, as his canonizers fondly suppose, he had not mistaken in his visions an isthmus for a strait, he might have been prompted to cross the slender barrier which now separated him from his goal.
1502. November 2.
Porto Bello.
Nombre de Dios.
On the 2d of November, the ships again anchored in a spacious harbor, so beautiful in its groves and fruits, and with such deep water close to the shore, that Columbus gave it the name of Puerto Bello (Porto Bello),—an appellation which has never left it. It rained for seven days while they lay here, doing nothing but trading a little with the natives for provisions. The Indians offered no gold, and hardly any was seen. Starting once more, the Spaniards came in sight of the cape known since as Nombre de Dios, but they were thwarted for a while in their attempts to pass it. They soon found a harbor, where they stayed till November 23; then going on again, they secured anchorage in a basin so small that the caravels were placed almost beside the shore. Columbus was kept here by the weather for nine days. The basking alligators reminded him of the crocodiles of the Nile. The natives were uncommonly gentle and gracious, and provisions were plenty. The ease with which the seamen could steal ashore at night began to be demoralizing, leading to indignities at the native houses. The savage temper was at last aroused, and the Spanish revelries were brought to an end by an attack on the ships. It ceased, as usual, after a few discharges of the ships' guns.
Bastidas's exploration of this coast.
Columbus had not yet found any deflection of that current which sweeps in this region towards the Gulf of Mexico. He had struggled against its powerful flow in every stage of his progress along the coast. Whether this had brought him to believe that his vision of a strait was delusive does not appear. Whether he really knew that he had actually joined his own explorations, going east, to those which Bastidas had made from the west is equally unknown, though it is possible he may have got an intimation of celestial and winged monsters from the natives. If he comprehended it, he saw that there could be no strait, this way at least. Bastidas, as we have seen, was on board Bobadilla's fleet when Columbus lay off Santo Domingo. There is a chance that Columbus's messenger who went ashore may have seen him and his charts, and may have communicated some notes of the maps to the Admiral. Some of the companions of Bastidas on his voyage had reached Spain before Columbus sailed, and there may have been some knowledge imparted in that way. If Columbus knew the truth, he did not disclose it.