Chapter 6. Third Voyage Of Columbus--A.D. 1498

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_ CHAPTER SIX. THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS--A.D. 1498

Columbus, after many delays, fits out another squadron, and sails on his third voyage, 30th May, 1498--Touches at Gomara--Retakes a prize to a French privateer--Off the Cape de Verdes--Sends three of his ships to Hispaniola, and steers south-west with the remainder--Long becalmed--Steers west and sights Trinidad--Sees mainland of South America--Natives come off--Alarmed by music--A bore threatens to destroy the ships--Enters the Serpent's Mouth--Sails up the Gulf of Paria--Mistakes the promontory for an island--Anchors at the mouth of the river--Natives come off--Pearls seen among them--Large quantities procured--Passes through the Dragon's Mouth--Natives seen fishing for pearls--Three pounds weight obtained--His eyesight failing, steers for Hispaniola--Makes the land fifty leagues more to the west than he had expected--Reaches Isabella--Disastrous state of the settlement--Bobadilla sent out to supersede Columbus--Summoned to Isabella--Columbus and his brothers sent in chains to Spain--Arrival--Reaction in his favour--Honourably received at Court--Ovando sent out to supersede Bobadilla--The belief of Columbus that a passage into the Indian Ocean was to be found--Obtains authority to fit out another fleet.

It was not without numerous wearying delays that Columbus at length succeeded in getting another squadron fitted out to prosecute his discoveries. He at length obtained six vessels, with which he set sail on the 30th of May, 1498. Having heard that a French squadron was cruising off Cape Saint Vincent, he first stood to the south-west, touching at the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, and then continued his course to the Canary Islands. As he approached Gomara on the 19th of June, he saw at anchor a French privateer with two Spanish prizes. The former put to sea in all haste, followed by her prizes, one of which had only four men on board, besides six Spanish prisoners. Though he sent three of his vessels in pursuit, the privateer and one of the prizes escaped, but the six Spaniards on board the other, rising on their captors, she was retaken and brought back to the port.

Leaving Gomara, Columbus dispatched three of his ships to carry supplies to Hispaniola, and with the three remaining vessels prosecuted his voyage towards the Cape de Verde Islands. Though suffering from sickness, he continued to keep his reckoning and make his observations with his usual minuteness.

Touching at the Cape de Verdes, he was disappointed at not obtaining the goats, sheep, and cattle he had expected. The weather was sultry and depressing, and he and his crew suffered greatly. Steering south-west for about one hundred and twenty leagues, he reached the fifth degree of north latitude, the region known among seamen by the name of the "calm latitudes." Suddenly the wind fell, a dead calm commenced, which lasted for eight days. The air was like a furnace, the tar melted, the seams of the ships yawned, the salt meat became putrid, the wheat was parched, the hoops round some of the casks of wine and water shrank, while others burst, letting out their contents.

To get out of this latitude he steered to the south-west, hoping to find a milder temperature farther on. In this he was not disappointed. At length a cool breeze filled the sails of the vessels, and they again made good progress.

Columbus intended to have stood first to the south and then westward, but the heat had made the vessels leak so excessively that it was necessary to find a harbour as soon as possible. The provisions were also spoiled, and the water nearly exhausted. On the 31st of July but one cask of water remained in each ship, when about midday a seaman at the masthead hailed that he saw the summits of three mountains rising above the horizon.

Columbus had before determined to give the name of the Trinity to the first land he should behold, and was struck by the appearance of these three mountains united in one. He therefore called the island La Trinidad. Steering to its eastern extremity, he saw a rock resembling a galley under sail off a headland, which, in consequence, he called Punta de la Galera. No safe anchorage appearing, he coasted westward in search of a harbour and water. Instead of a sterile land, he saw the country covered with groves of palm-trees, cultivated in many places, and enlivened by hamlets and scattered habitations, while streams came rushing down the hill-sides.

At length anchoring, abundance of water was obtained from a limpid brook, and traces of animals were seen, which must have been those of deer, though supposed to be those of goats.

When coasting the island, he now for the first time saw, stretching away to the south, that mighty continent of which he had so long been in search, it being the land near the many mouths of the Oronoco; supposing it, however, to be an island, he called it La Isla Santa. On the 2nd of August he cast anchor near the south-west portion of Trinidad. As the ships approached this place, a large canoe, with five and twenty Indians on board, put off from the shore.

He in vain tried to induce the savages to come on board, by offering them looking-glasses, glass, beads of polished metal, and glittering trinkets. They remained gazing in mute wonder at the ships, but kept their paddles ready to make off at the least attempt to approach them. They were young, well formed, and naked, excepting fillets of cotton bound round their heads, and coloured cloths about their loins. Besides their bows and arrows, they carried bucklers,--an article of armour now first seen among the inhabitants of the New World.

Believing that they might be affected by music, Columbus ordered the band to strike up; but the Indians, mistaking the sounds as a sign of hostility, seized their bows and let fly a shower of arrows. The discharge of a couple of crossbows, however, put them to flight. They afterwards approached the other ships, but had conceived an especial fear of that of the Admiral.

Columbus, supposing himself to be in the seventh degree of latitude, though actually in the tenth, expected to find the inhabitants similar to the natives of Africa, under the same parallel,--black, with crisp hair,--and was astonished at finding these natives even fairer than those met with farther north.

The ships brought up at Point Arenal, the nearest to the mainland, between which and the island Columbus observed, night and day, a current flowing at a tremendous speed, boiling and raging to such a degree that he thought it was crossed by a reef of rocks. From its dangerous appearance he gave to it the name of Boca del Sierpe--the Serpent's Mouth. He feared that the current from the east would prevent his return, while his ships might be lost on the supposed rocks, should he attempt a passage.

That night, while kept awake by his illness, he heard a terrible roaring from the south, and beheld the sea heaped up and covered with foam, like a huge watery ridge the height of the ships, rolling towards them. As this furious surge approached, rendered more terrible in appearance by the obscurity of night, he trembled for the safety of his vessels. His own ship was lifted up to such a height that he feared she would be overturned, while another was torn from her anchorage. The crews expected to be swallowed up, but the surge passed on and gradually subsided.

Early in the morning he sent the boats to sound the water at the Serpent's Mouth, and to his great joy several fathoms were found; the currents and tides setting both ways, either to enter or return. A favourable breeze springing up, he entered the tranquil expanse between Trinidad and the mainland of Paria, and, to his great surprise, he here found the water fresh.

He continued northward towards a mountain at the north-west point of the island, and here beheld two lofty capes, one projecting from the island of Trinidad, the other at the end of the long promontory of Paria, which, supposing it to be an island, he named Isla de Gracia. Between these capes was another channel beset with rocks, among which the current forced its way with roaring turbulence, to which he gave the name of Boca del Dragon.

Not wishing to encounter it, he steered along the inner side of the promontory, round which, fancying that it was an island, he expected to get, and then to be able to strike northward for Hispaniola.

The country appeared to be cultivated in some places, and in others covered with fruit-trees and plants, and abounding with monkeys. He was, however, greatly astonished at finding the water still fresh, and that it became more and more so the farther he proceeded. It was that season, however, when the rivers which empty themselves into the Gulf of Paria are swollen by rains. He was surprised also at the calmness of the sea, not being aware that the only two entrances were by the Serpent's and Dragon's Mouths into this large expanse of water.

For some time no inhabitants were met with. At length the ships brought up at the mouth of the river, and immediately a canoe with three Indians came off to the caravel anchored nearest the shore, when the captain, springing in, upset her, and the people, as they were swimming, were secured. Being brought to the Admiral, they were presented with beads, hawks' bells, and sugar. The report they gave in consequence, on returning on shore, induced many other natives to come off. They were tall, finely formed, and graceful in their movements, being armed with bows and arrows and targets. The men wore cotton cloths of various colours about their heads and loins, but the women were destitute of clothing. They brought maize and other eatables, with beverages, some white, made from maize, others green, expressed from various fruits. They judged of everything by the sense of smell. As they came near they smelt the boat, then smelt the people, as they did all the articles offered them. Although setting little value on the beads, they were delighted with the hawks' bells, and still more so with anything of brass. Taking some of the people as guides, he proceeded west for eight leagues, to a point which he called the Needle. So beautiful was the country, that he gave it the name of The Garden.

Here many natives came off, and invited the Admiral on shore in the name of their King. Many wore collars and burnished plates of that inferior kind of gold, called by the Indians _guanin_, and they pointed to a land in the west, from whence they said it came; but the cupidity of the Spaniards was excited by strings of pearls round the arms of some of them. These, they said, were procured at the sea-coast on the northern side of Paria, and they showed the mother-of-pearl shells from which they were taken.

To secure specimens to be sent to Spain, Columbus dispatched some boats to that part of the shore. Numbers of the natives came down, and treating the Spaniards as beings of a superior order, regaled them with bread and various fruits of excellent flavour. They had among them tame parrots, one of light green with a yellow neck, and the tips of the wings of a bright red, others of a vivid scarlet, except some azure feathers in the wing. These they gave to the Spaniards, who, however, cared for nothing but pearls, many necklaces and bracelets of which were given by the Indian women in exchange for hawks' bells or articles of brass.

The Spaniards returned on board highly delighted at the way they had been treated, while the quantity of pearls seen among the natives raised the sanguine anticipations of Columbus, who was anxious to send the finest specimens to the sovereigns.

Still believing the peninsula of Paria to be an island, he sailed on westward until compelled, by finding the water more shallow as he advanced, to anchor, when he sent a caravel to explore. She returned the following day with a report that at the end of the gulf there was an opening of two leagues, which led into an inner gulf, into which flowed a quantity of fresh water by four openings. It was in reality the mouth of the large river now called the Paria. To the inner gulf Columbus gave the name of the Gulf of Pearls.

Finding no passage to the westward, the ships proceeded in an opposite direction for the Boca del Dragon. On the 13th of August they anchored in a fine harbour, to which Columbus gave the name of Puerto de Gatos. Here also were seen mangroves growing in the water with oysters clinging to the branches, their mouths open, as the Spaniards supposed, to receive the dew which was afterwards thought to be transformed into pearls. That they were thus formed was believed until comparatively late years.

The passage through which he was about to pass is extremely dangerous after the rainy season, and the water which rushes through it foams and roars as if breaking on rocks. Scarcely had the ships entered than the wind died away, and shipwreck appeared imminent, but they were at length carried through by the current of fresh water into the open sea.

Columbus now stood to the westward, running along the northern coast of Paria, still supposing it to be an island, intending to visit the Gulf of Pearls. To the north-east he saw the two islands of Tobago and Granada, and on the 15th those of Margarita and Cubagua, afterwards famed for their pearl fishing.

On approaching the latter, a number of Indians were seen fishing for pearls. A boat being sent to communicate with them, a seaman offered a broken piece of gaily-painted porcelain to a woman who had round her neck a string of pearls, which she readily gave in exchange.

On this the Admiral sent people on shore, who with beads and hawks' bells soon procured three pounds weight of pearls, some of very large size.

The coast still trending to the westward, and rising into lofty ranges of mountains, Columbus began to suspect that he was off the mainland of India; but his eyesight failing, he was reluctantly compelled to steer for Hispaniola to seek for needed rest. On making land, after a sail of five days, he found that he was fifty leagues to the westward of his destination, having been driven across by the strong steady current which sets in from the east, and assists to give an impetus to the Gulf Stream.

Sending on shore for an Indian messenger to take a letter to his brother the Adelantado, a canoe came off with several Indians, one of whom carried a Spanish crossbow. As this was not an article of traffic, the Admiral feared that fresh troubles had arisen, and that the weapon had fallen into the Indian's hands by the death of a Spaniard.

Sailing, he arrived near the mouth of the river on the 30th of August, when a caravel, appeared, on board of which came the Adelantado. The brothers met with mutual joy, but the latter grieved to see the great navigator so broken down in health, a mere wreck of himself, though with his spirit still rising superior to all bodily affliction.

Though considerable progress had been made in the building of Isabella, now called San Domingo, at the mouth of the Ozema, the Adelantado had sad accounts to give of the state of the island. Rebellion had been rife among the colonists in all directions. The Indians had been barbarously treated, and all authority had been set at defiance. Attempts had been made to murder the Adelantado, and the leaders had sent home the most serious accusations against him and Columbus and their brother Diego. They had succeeded too well in raising suspicions in the mind of Ferdinand as to the loyalty of Columbus, and an officer of the royal household, Don Francisco de Bobadilla, was sent out nominally to investigate the causes of the rebellion, but with power to arrest the persons and sequestrate the effects of those he might consider guilty; while he was to take upon himself the government of the island, and to demand the surrender of all fortresses, ships, and other royal property.

Columbus had gone into the interior to arrange matters, while the Adelantado and his brother had almost succeeded in overcoming the rebellion, when Bobadilla, accompanied by a guard of twenty-five men and six friars, who had charge of a number of Indians sent back to their country, appeared off Saint Domingo on the 23rd of August, 1500. Landing, without stopping to investigate the conduct of Columbus and his brothers, he instantly commenced the most arbitrary proceedings. He took up his residence in the house of Columbus, of whose whole property, gold, plate, jewels, horses, together with his public and even private letters and manuscripts, he at once possessed himself.

Don Diego was seized, thrown into irons, and confined on board a caravel. Columbus was summoned to San Domingo; he came, almost unattended, when, being at once seized, Bobadilla gave orders that he should be put in irons, and confined him in the fortress.

When the irons were brought, every one present shrank at the task of putting them on the limbs of the venerable and illustrious prisoners, either from a sentiment of compassion at so great a reverse of fortune, or out of habitual reverence for his person. A wretched cook named Espinosa was the only person found to rivet the fetters. The great navigator conducted himself with the magnanimity which might have been expected. The injustice and ingratitude of the sovereigns alone wounded his spirit, and he bore all his present misfortunes in silence.

Though the Adelantado was at the head of a strong force when summoned to San Domingo, he returned unattended, and was treated as his brother had been. Columbus had expected to have suffered on the scaffold, and was greatly relieved when he found himself conducted on board a caravel commanded by a worthy captain--Alonzo de Villejo--who told him that he had orders to carry him to Spain.

He and his brother embarked, amidst the scoffs and shouts of a miscreant rabble, who took a brutal joy in heaping insult on his venerable head.

Villejo, touched by the sufferings of Columbus, treated him with much respect, and would have relieved him of his shackles, but he answered, "No: their Majesties commanded me to submit to whatever Bobadilla might devise; by their authority he has put upon me these shackles. I will wear them until they direct them to be taken off, and I will preserve them as relics and memorials, as the reward of my services."

The page of history presents no sadder picture than Columbus in chains crossing the ocean from those lands discovered by his genius, boldness, and perseverance.

The voyage was favourable and of moderate duration. In a short time the ship, with her illustrious prisoner on board, arrived at Cadiz. Columbus a prisoner and in chains produced almost as great a sensation as his triumphant return from his first voyage. A reaction took place, and a strong sympathy was expressed, against which it would have been odious for the Government to contend. The ignominious manner in which Columbus had been treated created murmurs of astonishment at the Court at Grenada, and a letter written by him on board reached the noble-minded Isabella before the document sent home by Bobadilla. She saw how grossly Columbus had been wronged and the royal authority abused, and her heart was filled with mingled sympathy and indignation.

The Queen and Ferdinand instantly sent off to Cadiz, directing that the prisoners should be set at liberty and treated with all distinction; and they wrote a letter to Columbus, expressing their grief at what he had suffered, and inviting him to Court. Conscious of his integrity, his heart was cheered, and he anticipated an immediate restitution of all his rights and dignities.

He appeared in Grenada, not as a disgraced man, but richly dressed, and attended by a noble retinue. He was received with unqualified favour and distinction, and as he beheld tears in the benign eyes of Isabella, he threw himself on his knees, and for some time could not utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbing. Enabled to speak, he defended himself fully; indeed, the imputations of his enemies had been his best advocate.

Meantime the Pinzons and several other explorers had sailed forth, chiefly in search of pearls and gold.

While we feel indignant at the treatment received by Columbus, we must not forget the miseries of the helpless natives his discoveries had brought within the power of so-called civilised Europeans.

The excellent Las Casas gives a vivid and faithful picture of the tyranny exercised over the Indians by worthless Spaniards; wretches who in their own country had been the vilest of the vile, but had in the New World assumed the tone of grand cavaliers. Over much of their conduct it is necessary to draw the veil. Their very pleasures were attended with cruelty. At the least freak of ill humour they inflicted blows, and lashes, and even death itself, on their helpless slaves.

Such were some of the evils which had sprung up under the rule of Bobadilla. The wrongs of the natives reaching the benevolent heart of Isabella, she urged that a new governor, Don Nicolas de Ovando, should be sent out to supersede him, to inquire into the conduct of Columbus. Ovando shortly afterwards sailed in command of one of the largest fleets that had yet proceeded to the New World.

We should always bear in mind the lofty enthusiastic aspirations which influenced the mind of the great navigator. He had hoped by the wealth he should obtain to win the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels, but more practical schemes soon occupied him. The wealth brought from the East, owing to the discoveries of the Portuguese, aroused him to emulation. He had found a strong current setting westward, through the Caribbean Sea, between the coasts of Paria on the south and Cuba on the north, the latter, as he believed, being a part of the Asiatic continent stretching onwards in the same direction. He believed therefore that there must be a straight opening into the Indian Sea, and, could he discover it, he believed that he should be able to reach India by a far more easy route than any yet followed.

His plan was listened to with attention by the sovereigns, and he was authorised to fit out another armament.

He asked permission to touch at Hispaniola for supplies on the outward voyage, but the sovereigns, knowing that he had many enemies in the island, forbade him doing so. They, however, to soothe his feelings, wrote him a letter dated the 14th of March, 1502, solemnly assuring him that all his dignities should be enjoyed by him and his sons after him, and that they would bestow further honours and rewards upon him and them as well as upon his excellent brothers. _

Read next: Chapter 7. Fourth And Last Voyage Of Columbus--A.D. 1502

Read previous: Chapter 5. Second Voyage Of Columbus Continued--A.D. 1494

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