The Life of Columbus

by Sir Arthur Helps

CAPE GUACIAS A DIOS.

Steering along the coast of Honduras, on the 12th of September, he reached Cape Gracias a Dios, to which he gave this name in pious thankfulness for the southerly turn taken by the land at that point, so that the east winds, which had hitherto obstructed him, were now favourable to his course along the coast. A month later he entered several bays on the Isthmus of Panama, where he was able to procure provisions and to refit his vessels, but failed to obtain any intelligence either of the kingdom of the Khan, or of the strait which he fancied would lead him there. The natives whom he encountered were generally disposed to be friendly; but, in one instance, when the depth of water in a creek obliged him to moor his vessels close to the shore, an attack of the Indians was only repulsed by the use of artillery, the thunder and lightning of which seemed always to possess, in the eyes of the savages, a supernatural and therefore awful character. On another occasion, when a conference was held with one of the tribes, great alarm was caused by a notary, who attended to take notes of the conversation. The savages had never before seen the operation of writing; and they regarded it as a spell which was to have some magic effect upon them, and which they must neutralize by various mystic fumigations which they believed to act as counter-charms. "They were themselves skilled sorcerers," says Columbus,—whose credulity in such matters was only that of his age.

EASTERLY COURSE ABANDONED; THE BETHLEHEM RIVER.

It was not until the 5th of December that the admiral could resolve to abandon his easterly course, although the conviction had been gradually forcing itself upon him that the condition of his ships was such as to render a prosecution of his voyage almost impossible. He had scarcely turned back, intending to found a settlement on the river Veragua, before he encountered a storm which tried his worm-eaten caravels very severely. The thunder and lightning wore incessant; the waterspouts (the first they had seen) threatened to engulph them; huge crests of waves burst in phosphorescent floods over them; and their escape, if we consider the smallness of the caravels, and the force of a tropical cyclone, was little less than miraculous. At last, after eight days' tossing to and fro, the admiral gained the mouth of a river, which he named the Bethlehem, because he entered it on the day of the Epiphany.

A SETTLEMENT FORMED.

In this neighbourhood there was a powerful cacique, named Quibia, whose territory contained much gold, and with whom, therefore, the Spaniards were anxious to treat. But he outwitted them. Offering to supply them with guides to conduct them to his gold mines, he really sent them, not to his own mines, but to those of a rival cacique, of Urira. Here, however, they succeeded in acquiring, by barter and by actual discovery, large quantities of the precious metal, which seemed to be so abundant, that the admiral made sure that he had come to the very Aurea Chersonesus from which Solomon had obtained the gold for the temple at Jerusalem. He had seen more signs of gold here in two days, he said, than he had seen in St. Domingo in four years. His first step was to form a settlement to provide a depot for the gold which might be collected. A convenient site was found near the mouth of the river Bethlehem, and by the end of March the Adelantado had built a village of huts, in which it was proposed that he should remain, with about eighty followers, while Columbus returned to Spain for supplies.

ATTACK BY INDIANS.

But rumours soon reached the Adelantado of a projected attack on the settlement by the natives, and he took measures to seize Quibia in his own palace. The Indians, dismayed at the capture of their cacique, offered large quantities of gold for his ransom, but the Adelantado preferred to keep him as a hostage for peace. However, as he was being conveyed down the river, on board one of the boats, he managed, although bound hand and foot, and in the custody of one of the most powerful of the Spaniards, to spring overboard and to make his escape, swimming under water to the shore. Henceforward, as might have been expected, there was war to the knife between the natives and the settlers. An attempt was made to burn down the village by means of blazing arrows. A boat's crew of eleven Spaniards, who had proceeded some distance up the river, were attacked by savages in canoes, and only one man escaped to carry to the settlement the news of the massacre of his companions.

SETTLEMENT ABANDONED.

The admiral, with three of the caravels, was in the offing, awaiting a wind favourable for his departure, but the dry weather had made the river so shallow that it was impossible for the caravel left with the settlers to cross the bar, and as they had no boat strong enough to weather the surf, it seemed impossible for them to carry to him tidings of their condition. They were in despair; for if they were left, they knew that they were left to perish. The admiral, on his part, had become uneasy, not knowing that their failure to communicate with him was owing to the fact that their only seaworthy boat had been destroyed by the Indians. His own boats were small and scarcely weathertight. But some of Quibia's family who had been taken on board the squadron as prisoners, had made their escape by swimming to the shore, three miles off; and this feat encouraged a bold pilot of Seville, named Ledesma, who was on board the admiral's caravel, to attempt a similar exploit. Never was bearer of reprieve for the condemned more welcome. Ledesma communicated with the Adelantado, and conveyed to the admiral intelligence of the desperate state of affairs. The result was, that when in a few days the wind moderated, all the settlers were taken on board the squadron, which now only consisted of three ships, as it was found necessary to abandon the caravel which had been left inside the harbour bar.