CHAPTER V.
HE IS COMMISSIONED, AND SETS SAIL.
[Æt. 56; 1492]
On the 12th of May, 1492, Columbus left Santa Fé for Palos, the seaport from which his expedition was to sail. He left his small-boy, Diego, behind him, as page to Prince Juan, the heir of Castile and Aragon. Diego was the son of his lawful wife, and it is pleasant to find that, in spite of this fact, Columbus still remembered him. His favorite son was of course Fernando, who, with his mother, Beatrix, seems to have been sent away to board in the country during Columbus’s absence at sea.
As soon as he arrived at Palos, Columbus called on his worthy friend the Prior, and on the next day the two went to the church of St. George, where the royal order directing the authorities of Palos to supply Columbus with two armed ships, and calling upon everybody to furnish the expedition with all necessary aid, was read aloud by a notary-public. The authorities, as well as the other inhabitants of Palos, were naturally only too glad to do everything in their power to hasten the departure of Columbus; but it was found extremely difficult to procure ships or sailors for the expedition. The merchants very justly said that, much as they might desire to have Columbus drowned, they did not care to furnish ships at their own expense for an enterprise in the interest of all classes of the community. The sailors declared that they were ready to ship for any voyage which might be mentioned, but that it was a little too much to ask them to go to sea with Columbus as their captain, since he would undoubtedly use his authority to compel them to listen to a daily lecture on “Other Continents than Ours,” thus rendering their situation far worse than that of ordinary slaves.
The King and Queen, learning of the failure of Columbus to obtain ships and men, and fearing that he might return to court, ordered the authorities of Palos to seize eligible vessels by force, and to kidnap enough sailors to man them. This would probably have provided Columbus with ships and men, had not the short-sighted monarch appointed one Juan de Peñalosa to see that the order was executed, and promised him two hundred maravedies a day until the expedition should be ready. De Peñalosa was perhaps not the intellectual equal of the average American office-holder, but he had sense enough to appreciate his situation, and of course made up his mind that it would take him all the rest of his natural life to see that order carried out. Accordingly, he drew his pay with great vigor and faithfulness, but could not find any ships which, in his opinion, were fit to take part in the proposed expedition. The people soon perceived the state of affairs, and despaired of ever witnessing the departure of Columbus.
Doubtless De Peñalosa would have gone on for years failing to find the necessary ships, had not two noble mariners resolved to sacrifice themselves on the altar of their country. Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vincente Yanez Pinzon, his brother, were the two marine patriots in question. They offered a ship and crew, and the magistrates, emulating their patriotism, seized two other ships and ordered them to be fitted for service.
These vessels were under one hundred tons’ burthen each, and only one of them, the Santa Maria, was decked over. In model they resembled the boats carved by small inland boys, and their rig would have brought tears to the eyes of a modern sailor—provided, of course, a way of bringing a modern sailor to Palos to inspect them could have been devised. If we can put any faith in woodcuts, the Santa Maria and her consorts were two-masted vessels carrying one or two large square sails on each mast, and remotely resembling dismasted brigs rigged with jury-masts by some passengers from Indiana who had studied rigging and seamanship in Sunday-school books. The pretence that those vessels could ever beat to windward cannot be accepted for a moment. They must have been about as fast and weatherly as a St. Lawrence “pin flat,” and in point of safety and comfort they were even inferior to a Staten Island ferry-boat.
The Pinta was commanded by Martin Pinzon, and the Niña by Vincente Pinzon. No less than four pilots were taken, though how four pilots could have been equally divided among three ships without subjecting at least one pilot to a subdivision that would have seriously impaired his efficiency, can not readily be comprehended. Indeed, no one has ever satisfactorily explained why Columbus wanted pilots, when he intended to navigate utterly unknown seas. It has been suggested that he had bound himself not to talk to an intemperate extent to his officers or men, and that he laid in a supply of private pilots purely for the purpose of talking to them. It is much more probable that a law of compulsory pilotage existed at that time in Spain,—for it was a dark and ignorant age,—and that, inasmuch as Columbus would have had to pay the pilots whether he took them with him or not, he thought he might as well accept their services. Besides, he may have remembered that a vessel rarely runs aground unless she is in charge of a pilot, and hence he may have imagined that pilots possessed a peculiar skill in discovering unexpected shores at unlooked-for moments, and might materially help him in discovering a new continent by running the fleet aground on its coast.
A royal notary was also sent with the expedition, so that if any one should suddenly desire to swear or affirm, as the case might be, it could be done legally. The three vessels carried ninety sailors, and the entire expeditionary force consisted of one hundred and twenty men.
The ship-carpenters and stevedores, doubtless at the instigation of Peñalosa, made all the delay they possibly could, and at the last moment a large number of sailors deserted. Other sailors were procured, and finally everything was in readiness for the departure of the fleet. On Friday the 3d of August, 1492, Columbus and his officers and men confessed themselves and received the sacrament, after which the expedition put to sea.
In spite of the knowledge that Columbus was actually leaving Spain with a very slight prospect of ever returning, the departure of the ships cast a gloom over Palos. The people felt that to sacrifice one hundred and nineteen lives, with three valuable vessels, was a heavy price to pay, even for permanently ridding Spain of the devastating talker. Still, we are not told that they permitted sentiment to overpower their patriotism, and they were probably sustained by the reflection that it was better that one hundred and nineteen other people should be drowned, than that they themselves should be talked to death.
It is universally agreed that it is impossible not to admire the courage displayed by Columbus and his associates. The ships of the expedition were small and unseaworthy. They were not supplied with ice-houses, hot water, electric bells, saloons amidships where the motion is least perceptible, smoking and bath rooms, or any of the various other devices by which the safety of modern steamships is secured. The crew knew that they were bound to an unknown port, and that if their vessels managed to reach it there was no certainty that they would find any rum. Columbus had employed eighteen years in convincing himself that if he once set sail he would ultimately arrive somewhere; but now that he was finally afloat, his faith must have wavered somewhat. As he was an excellent sailor, he could not but have felt uncomfortable when he remembered that he had set sail on Friday. However, he professed to be in the very best of spirits, and no one can deny that he was as brave as he was tedious.
On the third day out, the Pinta unshipped her rudder, and soon after began to leak badly. Her commander made shift partially to repair the disaster to the rudder, but Columbus determined to put into the Canaries, and charter another vessel in her place. He knew that he was then not far from the Canaries, although the pilots, either because their minds were already weakening under the strain of their commander’s conversation, or because they were ready to contradict him at every possible opportunity, insisted that the islands were a long way off. Columbus was right, and on the 9th of August they reached the Canaries, where we may suppose the pilots were permitted to go ashore and obtain a little rest.
For three weeks Columbus waited in hopes of finding an available ship, but he was disappointed. The Pinta was therefore repaired to some extent, and the Niña was provided with a new set of sails. A report here reached Columbus that three Portuguese men-of-war were on their way to capture him—doubtless on the charge of having compassed the death of several Portuguese subjects with violent and prolonged conversation. He therefore set sail at once, and as he passed the volcano, which was then in a state of eruption, the crews were so much alarmed that they were on the point of mutiny. Columbus, however, made them a speech on the origin, nature, and probable object of volcanoes, which soon reduced them to the most abject state of exhaustion.
Nothing was seen of the Portuguese men-of-war, and it has been supposed that some practical joker alarmed the Admiral by filling his mind with visions of hostile ships, when the only Portuguese men-of-war in that part of the Atlantic were the harmless little jelly-fish popularly known by that imposing title.
It was the 6th day of September when the expedition left the Canaries, but owing to a prolonged calm it was not until the 9th that the last of the islands was lost sight of. We can imagine what the devoted pilots must have suffered during those three days in which Columbus had nothing to do but talk; but they were hardy men, and they survived it. They remarked to one another that they could die but once; that care had once killed a vague and legendary cat; and in various other ways tried to reconcile themselves to their fate.
The crew on losing sight of land became, so we are told, utterly cast down, as they reflected upon the uncertainty of ever again seeing a Christian grog-shop, or joining with fair ladies in the cheerful fandango. Mr. Irving says that “rugged seamen shed tears, and some broke into loud lamentation,” and that Columbus thereupon made them a long speech in order to reconcile them to their lot. The probability is that Mr. Irving reversed the order of these two events. If Columbus made a long speech to his crew, as he very likely did, there is no doubt that they shed tears, and lamented loudly.
Lest the crew should be alarmed at the distance they were rapidly putting between themselves and the spirituous liquors of Spain, Columbus now adopted the plan of daily falsifying his reckoning. Thus if the fleet had sailed one hundred miles in any given twenty-four hours, he would announce that the distance sailed was only sixty miles. Meanwhile he kept a private log-book, in which he set down the true courses and distances sailed. This system may have answered its purpose, but had the fleet been wrecked, and had the false and the true log-books both fallen into the hands of the underwriters, Columbus would not have recovered a dollar of insurance, and would probably have been indicted for forgery with attempt to lie. The lawyer for the insurance company would have put in evidence the two entries for, let us say, the 10th of September; the one reading, “Wind E.S.E., light and variable; course W. by N.; distance by observation since noon yesterday, 61 miles;” and the other, or true entry, reading, “Wind E.S.E.; course W. by N.; distance by observation since noon yesterday, 117 miles. At seven bells in the morning watch, furled main-top-gallant sails, and put a single reef in all three topsails. This day ends with a strong easterly gale.” With such evidence as this, he would easily have proved that Columbus was a desperate villain, who had wrecked his vessels solely to swindle the insurance companies. Thus we see that dishonesty will vitiate the best policy, provided the underwriters can prove it.
It was perhaps this same desire to lead his crew into the belief that the voyage would not be very long, which led Columbus to insert in the sailing directions given to the two Pinzons an order to heave-to every night as soon as they should have sailed seven hundred leagues west of the Canaries. He explained that unless this precaution were taken they would be liable to run foul of China in the night, in case the latter should not happen to have lights properly displayed. This was very thoughtful, but there is no reason to think that it deceived the Pinzons. They knew perfectly well that Columbus had not the least idea of the distance across the Atlantic, and they probably made remarks to one another in regard to the difficulty of catching old birds with chaff, which the Admiral would not have enjoyed had he heard them.
Thus cheerfully cheating his sailors, and conversing with his pilots, Columbus entered upon his voyage. A great many meritorious emotions are ascribed to him by his biographers, and perhaps he felt several of them. We have, however, no evidence on this point, and the probability is that he would not have expressed any feeling but confidence in his success to any person. He had long wanted to sail in quest of new continents, and his wish was now gratified. He ought to have been contented, and it is quite possible that he was.