The weather continued delightful; dolphins were now seen in great numbers, and flying fish in every quarter; these for a time diverted the attention, and amused the crew, but only for a time; loud murmurs and menaces were again too frequently heard, until at last Columbus and his crew were at open defiance and his situation became really desperate. Matters could not remain much longer as they were; but fortunately, ere a mutiny actually broke out, the vicinity to land became so manifest as no longer to admit of doubt. Quantities of fresh weeds, such as grow in rivers, made their appearance; a few green fish, found only in the neighbourhood of rocks, were caught; then a branch of thorn, with berries on it, floated past the ship; and at last a staff, artificially carved, was picked up, which more than anything else suggested their vicinity to some inhabited country.[750] The spirits of the crew revived. Columbus felt certain that land must now be close at hand. Appearances now authorized the precaution that they should not sail after midnight. At sunset of the day on which he had issued this precautionary order, the ships were running rapidly before a strong easterly wind. When night approached, Columbus took his station on the highest portion of the castle or poop of his own vessel; hardly an eye in either vessel closed that night. About ten o’clock he thought he saw a light glimmering in the distance, but it soon disappeared. Again it appeared in a sudden and passing gleam. Others saw it as well as himself; it looked like the torch of some fishing boat, rising and falling with the roll of the ocean. Steadily they proceeded on their course till midnight. Soon afterwards the loom of land could be faintly traced. With feelings of the most intense anxiety they waited for the dawn. As the first rays of the morning light broke slowly through the clouds and haze which hung. about the horizon, the land became clearly visible. The life-inspiring cry of “Land” now rang from ship to ship, till at last there was no deception: the land lay not more than two leagues distant. On the morning of Friday, 12th of October, 1492, the great navigator first beheld one of the many islands which lie contiguous to a new and now mighty world.
Land discovered, 12th Oct. 1492.
The land thus discovered proved to be Guanahani, one of the south-eastern of the great cluster of the Lucayos or Bahama Islands,[751] which stretch south-east and north-west from the coast of Florida to Hispaniola, covering the northern coast of Cuba. There are few islands more naturally rich or beautiful. The verdure everywhere is green and luxuriant, and the whole island from the sea looks like a highly cultivated garden. Well might every one on board of the expedition feel grateful to Columbus. After all their trials and dangers, they had at last reached, they thought, the fabled land of Cathay. We well know how pleasing are our sensations when we again see green fields and luxuriant trees after a long sea voyage, and therefore we can conceive the exquisite sense of enjoyment and delight of Columbus and his crew, when they cast anchor in the roadstead and surveyed the island they had, at length, reached. It was thickly inhabited. The natives knew not what to make of the strangers who had come among them, richly attired, while they were in a state of perfect nudity. From their attitudes and gestures, as they timidly issued from the woods, and approached the shore, they were apparently lost in wonder. The ships they had intently watched from the earliest dawn of day were supposed to be huge monsters of the sea and their crews supernatural beings. When the boats landed, they fled in great trepidation; but by means of friendly signs, and other tokens of goodwill, a few of the boldest of them were induced to draw near Columbus and his captains when he unfurled the standard of Spain, and took formal and solemn possession of the island in the name of the Castilian sovereigns.
Columbus takes possession of the island of Guanahani, in the name of Spain.
Columbus, from his commanding height, authoritative manner, and splendid dress, attracted more especially the admiration of the natives, who frequently prostrated themselves on the earth before him with signs of adoration. Nor were his men who, only a few days before, had concocted schemes for massacring him, less subservient. They thronged around him before he left the ship in their overflowing zeal, some embracing him, others kissing his hands. Abject spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, now crouched at his feet; and those who had been the most mutinous during the voyage were now as humble and as ready to lick the dust from his feet as the most terrified of the natives. The natives soon recovered from their terror, as no attempt was made to pursue or molest them. Extremely artless and simple in themselves, the slightest acts of kindness were received with gratitude, and the toys and trinkets presented for their acceptance were accepted as gifts from heaven. Beyond cotton yarn, which they possessed in abundance, and parrots, which were domesticated in great numbers among them, they had little or nothing to give in return. Their boats consisted entirely of canoes, formed and hollowed, like those of the earliest on record, from a single tree, and capable of carrying from one to fifty persons. Columbus mentions that he saw one which could have contained one hundred and fifty persons, yet made from the trunk of a single tree.[752]
The first impressions of the natives on Columbus.
The state in which Columbus found the natives is nowhere so well described as in his own language. Writing to the treasurer of Ferdinand and Isabella an account of his first voyage[753]—“As soon,” says he, “as they saw our near approach, they would flee with such precipitation, that a father would not even stop to protect his son; and this not because any harm had been done to any of them, for, from the first, wherever I went and got speech with them, I gave them of all that I had, such as cloth, and many other things, without receiving anything in return; but they are, as I have described, incurably timid. It is true that when they are reassured, and have thrown off this fear, they are guileless, and so liberal of all they have, that no one would believe it who had not seen it. They never refuse anything that they possess when it is asked of them; on the contrary, they offer it themselves, and they exhibit so much loving-kindness that they would even give their hearts; and, whether it be something of value or of little worth that is offered to them, they are satisfied.
“I forbade that worthless things, such as pieces of broken glass, and ends of straps, should be given to them; although, when they succeeded in obtaining them, they thought they possessed the finest jewel in the world.... They took even bits of the broken hoops of the wine barrels, and gave, like fools, all that they possessed in exchange, insomuch that I thought it was wrong, and forbade it. I gave away a thousand good and pretty articles which I had brought with me, in order to win their affections, and that they might be led to become Christians and be well inclined to love and serve their Highnesses and the whole Spanish nation, and that they might aid us by giving us things of which we stand in need, and which they possess in abundance.
“They are not acquainted with any form of worship, and are not idolaters, but believe that all power and, indeed, all good things, are in heaven; and they are firmly convinced that I, with my vessels and crews, came from heaven, and with this belief received me at every place at which I touched, after they had overcome their apprehension. And this does not spring from ignorance, for they are very intelligent, and navigate all these seas, and relate everything to us, so that it is astonishing what a good account they are able to give of everything; but they have never seen men with clothes on, nor vessels like ours.”
Such was the character of the natives whom Columbus found in the islands of the numerous Archipelago off the south coast of Cuba, and in those of St. Catharine and Hispaniola, all of which he visited in his first great voyage of discovery, and claimed as the property of his sovereigns. In these formal proclamations and in the erection of the fort, which was afterwards raised on the island of Hispaniola, the innocent natives took an active part, rendering every assistance in their power, little dreaming that these acts were the forerunners of bondage, and of that horrible system of slavery which so long prevailed in those islands, and still contaminates the soil of the largest of them all, the only one that now remains in the possession of the crown of Spain.