Their return to Jamaica, which is the island lying south and near to Cuba and Hispaniola was accomplished with great difficulty, for their ships had been so eaten by bromas,––to use a Spanish word––that they were like sieves and almost went to pieces during the voyage. The men saved themselves by working incessantly, bailing out the water that rushed in through great fissures in the ship's side and finally, exhausted by fatigue, they succeeded in reaching Jamaica. Their ships sank; and leaving them there stranded, they passed six months in the power of the barbarians, a more wretched existence than that of Alcimenides as described by Virgil. They were forced to live on what the earth produced or what it pleased the natives to give them. The mortal enmities existing amongst the savage caciques were of some service to the Spaniards; for to secure their alliance the caciques distributed bread to the starving whenever they were about to undertake a campaign. O how sad and wretched it is, Most Holy Father, to eat the bread of charity! Your Holiness may well understand, especially when man is deprived of wine, meat, different kinds of cheeses, and of everything to which from their infancy the stomachs of Europeans are accustomed.
Under the stress of necessity the Admiral resolved to tempt fortune. Desiring to know what destiny God reserved for him, he took counsel with his intendant, Diego Mendez,[11] and two islanders of Jamaica who were familiar with those waters. Mendez started in a canoe, although the sea was already ruffled. From reef to reef and from rock to rock, his narrow skiff tossed by the waves, Diego nevertheless succeeded in reaching the extreme point of Hispaniola which is some forty leagues distant from Jamaica. The two natives returned joyously, anticipating the reward promised them by Columbus. Mendez made his way on foot to Santo Domingo, the capital of the island, where he rented two boats and set out to rejoin his commander. All the Spaniards returned together to Hispaniola, but in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion from their privations. I do not know what has since happened to them.[12] Let us now resume our narrative.
[Note 11: The events of this fourth voyage are related in the interesting Relacion hecha par Diego Mendez de algunos aconticimientos del ultimo viaje del Almirante Don Christobal Colon. King Ferdinand afterwards granted Mendez a canoe in his armorial bearings, in memory of the services he had rendered.]
[Note 12: Columbus reached Santo Domingo on August 18th, and there rested until September 12th, when he embarked for Spain landing at San Lucar on November 7.]
According to his letters and the reports of his companions, all the regions explored by Columbus are well wooded at all seasons of the year, shaded by leafy green trees. Moreover, what is more important, they are healthy. Not a man of his crew was ever ill or exposed to the rigours of cold nor the heats of summer throughout the whole extent of fifty leagues between the great harbour of Cerabaro and the Hiebra and Veragua rivers.
All the inhabitants of Cerabaro and the neighbourhood of Hiebra and Veragua only seek gold at certain fixed periods. They are just as competent as our miners who work the silver and iron mines. From long experience, from the aspect of the torrent whose waters they divert, from the colour of the earth and various other signs, they know where the richest gold deposits are; they believe in a tradition of their ancestors which teaches that there is a divinity in gold, and they take care only to look for this metal after purifying themselves. They abstain from carnal and other pleasures, also eating and drinking in great moderation, during the time they seek gold. They think that men live and die just like animals, and have, therefore, no religion. Nevertheless they venerate the sun, and salute the sunrise with respect.
Let us now speak of the mountains and the general aspect of the continent.
Lofty mountains[13] which end in a ridge extending from east to west are seen in the distance towards the south from all along the coast. We believe this range separates the two seas of which we have already spoken at length, and that it forms a barrier dividing their waters just as Italy separates the Tyrrhenian from the Adriatic Sea. From wherever they sail, between Cape San Augustins, belonging to the Portuguese and facing the Atlas, as far as Uraba and the port of Cerabaro and the other western lands recently discovered, the navigators behold during their entire voyage, whether near at hand or in the distance mountain ranges; sometimes their slopes are gentle, sometimes lofty, rough, and rocky, or perhaps clothed with woods and shrubbery. This is likewise the case in the Taurus, and on the slopes of our Apennines, as well as on other similar ranges. As is the case elsewhere, beautiful valleys separate the mountain peaks. The peaks of the range marking the frontier of Veragua are believed to rise above the clouds, for they are very rarely visible because of the almost continuous density of mists and clouds.
[Note 13: The Cordilleras on the Isthmus of Panama.]
The Admiral, who first explored this region, believes these peaks rise to a height of forty miles, and he says that at the base of the mountains there is a road leading to the South Sea. He compares its position with that of Venice in relation to Genoa, or Janua, as the inhabitants who boast that Janus was their founder, call their city. The Admiral believes that this continent extends to the west and that the greater part of its lands lies in that direction. In like manner we observe that the leg forming Italy branches out beyond the Alps into the countries of the Gauls, the Germans, the Pannonians, and ultimately those of the Sarmats and the Scythians extending to the Riphe Mountains and the glacial sea, not to mention Thrace, all Greece, and the countries ending towards the south at Cape Malea and the Hellespont, and north at the Euxine and the Palus Maeotidus. The Admiral believes that on the left and west, this continent joins on to the India of the Ganges, and that towards the right it extends northwards to the glacial sea and the north pole, lying beyond the lands of the Hyperboreans; the two seas, that is to say the southern and the northern ocean, would thus join one another at the angles of this continent. I do not believe all its coasts are washed by the ocean, as is our Europe which the Hellespont, the Tanais, the glacial ocean, the Spanish sea and the Atlantic completely surround. In my opinion the strong ocean currents running towards the west prevent these two seas from being connected, and I suppose, as I have said above, that it does join on to northern lands.