1503. July, August. His ships stranded
Finding neither water nor food here, he went on the next day to Port San Gloria, known in later days as Don Christopher's Cove. Here he found it necessary, a little later (July 23 and August 12), to run his sinking ships, one after the other, aground, but he managed to place them side by side, so that they could be lashed together. They soon filled with the tide. Cabins were built on the forecastles and sterns to live in, and bulwarks of defense were reared as best they could be along the vessels' waists. Columbus now took the strictest precautions to prevent his men wandering ashore, for it was of the utmost importance that no indignity should be offered the natives while they were in such hazardous and almost defenseless straits.
It became at once a serious question how to feed his men. Whatever scant provisions remained on board the stranded caravels were spoiled. His immediate savage neighbors supplied them with cassava bread and other food for a while, but they had no reserved stores to draw upon, and these sources were soon exhausted.
Mendez seeks food for the company.
Diego Mendez now offered, with three men, carrying goods to barter, to make a circuit of the island, so that he could reach different caciques, with whom he could bargain for the preparation and carriage of food to the Spaniards. As he concluded his successive impromptu agreements with cacique after cacique, he sent a man back loaded with what he could carry, to acquaint the Admiral, and let him prepare for a further exchange of trinkets. Finally, Mendez, left without a companion, still went on, getting some Indian porters to help him from place to place. In this way he reached the eastern end of the island, where he ingratiated himself with a powerful cacique, and was soon on excellent terms with him. From this chieftain he got a canoe with natives to paddle, and loading it with provisions, he skirted westerly along the coast, until he reached the Spaniards' harbor. His mission bade fair to have accomplished its purpose, and provisions came in plentifully for a while under the arrangements which he had made.
Mendez prepares to go to Española.
Columbus's next thought was to get word, if possible, to Ovando, at Española, so that the governor could send a vessel to rescue them. Columbus proposed to Mendez that he should attempt the passage with the canoe in which he had returned from his expedition. Mendez pictured the risks of going forty leagues in these treacherous seas in a frail canoe, and intimated that the Admiral had better make trial of the courage of the whole company first. He said that if no one else offered to go he would shame them by his courage, as he had more than once done before. So the company were assembled, and Columbus made public the proposition. Every one hung back from the hazards, and Mendez won his new triumph, as he had supposed he would. He then set to work fitting the canoe for the voyage. He put a keel to her. He built up her sides so that she could better ward off the seas, and rigged a mast and sail. She was soon loaded with the necessary provisions for himself, one other Spaniard, and the six Indians who were to ply the paddles.