turned south-westward to the Canaries. Wherever his object it was somewhere on the 28th degree, and with a fine air he assures his men that it is exactly seven
hundred leagues due west.
The narrative of the voyage, summarised by Las Casas (unfortunately the original has disappeared) is the
prettiest document in the literature of discovery. For this Columbus if you have not yet suspected it, was a poet. Even if his journal had been completely lost, the
concourse of all the characteristics is irresistible—his snobbery, his deceptive power, especially over himself, his exorbitancy—very different to that of the hard business man, his essential outsiderism. America was discovered by a poet; Fate would not allow such a prize to go to anyone less, or better. Read how he describes a shooting star on the night of the nth of September—“ At the
beginning of this night, we saw falling from heaven, four or five leagues off our ships, a marvellous branch of fire.” 18th September—“ This day the sea was as calm and quiet as under the bridges of Seville.” 20th September—“ The air was sweet and very pleasant; only lacked the song of nightingales ; and the sea was as smooth as a river.” 8th October—“ The air this day was so perfumed that it was a delight to breathe.” On the night of the 8th of October he writes, “ All night we heard birds flying over.” Let him who still doubts, discover the whole journal for himself.
Three features of the march of events need to be commented. For the Admiral’s yam that every day he falsified the log book “ so that the men might not
know how far they had come and be discouraged,” which has been uncritically admired by generations of historians as a ruse equal to any of Ulysses’, it is perhaps enough to say that it is incredible and could only occur to the
imagination of a land-lubber. Christopher did not and could not take
the reckoning; if he had he could not have deceived his officers; and the mystification is contradicted by
another passage in which he says he gave instructions to the pilots “ not to sail at night after seven hundred leagues had been reached.” The next matter is the legendary
account of the crew’s mutiny and his promise to find land if they would give him three days more. The only passage in his journal which can relate to this is as follows: “ io October. This day the seamen complained of the length of the voyage and did not want to go further. But the
Admiral (he writes in the third person) comforted them as best he could in giving them a good hope of the profits they would get.” It is the last of a series of references to the bad state of morale which the Admiral notes. But this grumbling was only aboard the Santa Maria: aboard the other two ships the utmost peace reigned from beginning to end. We have also the evidence of the sailors.
Admiral, in his evidence in the case cited, states that the Admiral complained once to Martin Pinzon, who drew his vessel alongside; the ship-owner replied hardily: “ All is quiet on my ship and on the Nina. If you have trouble please hang half a dozen of your men, or if you like I and my brothers will come aboard and do it for you.”
The third matter is still more curious. On the same day — 6th, and not the ioth, according to the same witness
— Columbus asked counsel of Martin Alonzo on the course. Can it be that he himself was discouraged? They had come the 700 leagues and no land sighted. Martin replied that they must have missed Antilia, and urged that they should turn south-west to proceed towards Zipangu. “ But that was much further.” The admiral hesitated; then agreed, still disputing the distance, which he said could not possibly be much further than a few leagues
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS III
(as by his theory Antilia was off the Coast of China). The course was changed accordingly. At two in the morning of the i ath October, 1492, a seaman on the look-out,
one Rodrigo, perceived in the moonlight a white tongue of sand. He fired the bombard that had been
sails, until daylight. America was discovered.
It was certainly one of the Bahamas, which, the poetry of Columbus makes it for ever impossible to decide,
though Watling Island is for some official reason the favourite. Hear the Admiral’s description : “ I feared at first because I had under my eyes an immense mountainous rock which completely surrounds that Island. It forms however a hollow and a port capable of holding all the fleets of Europe, but the entrance is very narrow. It is certain that there are many depths in this breakwater, but the sea has no more motion there than the water at the bottom of a well.” In another passage he states that “ There are gardens there, the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life, and sweet water in profusion.” Let the habitants of the Bahamas, not one of which is surrounded by a reef, let alone an immense mountain, decide which had the honour of exalting the poetic imagination of the Admiral to such heights.
From this unidentifiable San , as he named it, the fleet went on to other islands, finding everywhere
charming natives, parrots, cotton loin-cloths and hammocks, but no gold, and no spices. The Admiral relates long and complicated conversations he had with them, one a very touching theological discussion—on sin and redemption— all done by signs. At last they came to Cuba (28th October). Here he is profoundly perplexed: he
decides at first that it is certainly Zipangu—“ the gold- tiled palace must be the other side.” He writes afterwards however :
TWELVE AGAINST THE GODS
112
“ I believe that all these countries are nothing but lands at war with the Great Khan of China. It is certain that
this place the natives call Cuba, where I am, is opposite Quinsay and Zayto (Hang-kow and Amoy), one hundred leagues from each and both of these two cities. This I know because the sea comes here in a different manner from what it has done until now . . .”
In this opinion he sent the learned Jew—let those whom the genealogy of colonisation amuses remember that a Jew was there but no Englishman or German—Luiz de Torres, with the Queen’s letter to the Emperor of China, to try to deliver it. After a vain search in the jungle of the island for the monarch, he returned and was scolded. But on second thoughts the Admiral began to imagine that this Cuba must be India and not Japan or China; so he was much less circumspect in looking for gold ; India notoriously being governed by less terrible monarchs than the Great Khan. Every native met with was asked by signs for a gold mine; everyone was understood to reply
that there was a big one, but further on. One was
successful in communicating, by nods and waves, that a whole island of solid gold was near by, but could not make himself understood as to the exact direction. The peaceful Caribs performed all the ritual explorers expect; they took them for gods, and cried with delight when the invariable beads and mirrors were produced. The
Admiral was delighted with them. He considered that since “ they were very docile and easy to persuade,” a glorious field of missionary effort was open.
Meanwhile Pinzon took the Vint a and cruised on his own account. On reflection the Admiral liked this
independence little, and by the third day of absence became a prey to the gloomiest thoughts, seeing himself betrayed and fearing that Pinzon had simply returned to Spain to rob him of the