Chapter
4 - How the Admiral Sailed Away
The agreement made between Columbus
and the king and queen of
Spain was signed on the seventeenth of April, 1492. But
it was
four months before he was quite ready to sail away.
He selected the town of Palos as the place to sail from,
because
there, as you know, Captain Pinzon lived; there, too, he
had
other acquaintances, so that he supposed it would be easy
to get
the sailors he needed for his ships. But in this he was
greatly
mistaken.
As soon as the papers had been signed that held the queen
to her
promise, Columbus set off for Palos. He stopped at the
Convent of
Rabida to tell the Friar Juan Perez how thankful he was
to him
for the help the good priest had given him, and how everything
now looked promising and successful.
The town of Palos, as you can see from your map of Spain,
is
situated at the mouth of the river Tinto on a little bay
in the
southwestern part of Spain, not far from the borders of
Portugal.
To-day the sea has gone away from it so much that it is
nearly
high and dry; but four hundred years ago it was quite a
seaport,
when Spain did not have a great many sea towns on the Atlantic
coast.
At the time of Columbus's voyage the king and queen of
Spain were
angry with the port of Palos for something its people had
done
that was wrong--just what this was we do not know. But
to punish
the town, and because Columbus wished to sail from there,
the
king and queen ordered that Palos should pay them a fine
for
their wrong-doing. And this fine was to lend the king and
queen
of Spain, for one year, without pay, two sailing vessels
of the
kind called caravel's, armed and equipped "for the
service of the
crown"-- that is, for the use of the king and queen
of Spain, in
the western voyage that Columbus was to make.
When Columbus called together the leading people of Palos
to meet
him in the church of St. George and hear the royal commands,
they
came; but at first they did not understand just what they
must
do. But when they knew that they must send two of their
ships and
some of their sailing men on this dreadful voyage far out
upon
the terrible Sea of Darkness, they were terribly distressed.
Nobody was willing to go. They would obey the commands
of the
king and queen and furnish the two ships, but as for sailing
off
with this crazy sea captain --that they would not do.
Then the king's officers went to work. They seized some
sailors
(impressed is the word for this), and made them go; they
took
some from the jails, and gave them their freedom as a reward
for
going; they begged and threatened and paid in advance,
and still
it was hard to get enough men for the two ships. Then Captain
Pinzon, who had promised Columbus that he would join him,
tried
his hand. He added a third ship to the Admiral's "fleet." He
made
big promises to the sailors, and worked for weeks, until
at last
he was able to do what even the royal commands could not
do, and
a crew of ninety men was got together to man the three
vessels.
The names of these three vessels were the Capitana (changed
before it sailed to the Santa Maria), the Pinta and the
Nina or
Baby. Captain de la Cosa commanded the Santa Maria, Captain
Martin Alonso Pinzon the Pinta and his brother, Captain
Vincent
Pinzon, the Nina. The Santa Maria was the largest of the
three
vessels; it was therefore selected as the leader of the
fleet--the flag-ship, as it is called--and upon it sailed
the
commander of the expedition, the Admiral Don Christopher
Columbus.
When we think of a voyage across the Atlantic nowadays,
we think
of vessels as large as the big three-masted ships or the
great
ocean steamers--vessels over six hundred feet long and
fifty feet
wide. But these "ships" of Columbus were not
really ships. They
were hardly larger than the "fishing smacks" that
sail up and
down our coast to-day. Some of them were not so large.
The Santa
Maria was, as I have told you, the largest of the three,
and she
was only sixty-three feet long, twenty feet wide and ten
and a
half feet deep. Just measure this out on the ground and
see how
small, after all, the Admiral's "flag-ship" really
was. The Pinta
was even smaller than this, while the little Nina was hardly
anything more than a good-sized sail boat. Do you wonder
that the
poor people of Palos and the towns round about were frightened
when they thought of their fathers and brothers and sons
putting
out to sea, on the great ocean they had learned to dread
so much,
in such shaky little boats as these?
But finally the vessels were ready. The crews were selected.
The
time had come to go. Most of the sailors were Spanish men
from
the towns near to the sea, but somehow a few who were not
Spaniards joined the crew.
One of the first men to land in America from one of the
ships of
Columbus was an Irishman named William, from the County
Galway.
And another was an Englishman named either Arthur Laws
or Arthur
Larkins. The Spanish names for both these men look very
queer,
and only a wise scholar who digs among names and words
could have
found out what they really were. But such a one did find
it out,
and it increases our interest in the discovery of America
to know
that some of our own northern blood--the Irishman and the
Englishman--were in the crews of Columbus.
The Admiral Columbus was so sure he was going to find
a rich and
civilized country, such as India and Cathay were said to
be, that
he took along on his ships the men he would need in such
places
as he expected to visit and among such splendid people
as he was
sure he should meet. He took along a lawyer to make out
all the
forms and proclamations and papers that would have to be
sent by
the Admiral to the kings and princes he expected to visit;
he had
a secretary and historian to write out the story of what
he
should find and what he should do. There was a learned
Jew, named
Louis, who could speak almost a dozen languages, and who
could,
of course, tell him what the people of Cathay and Cipango
and the
Indies were talking about. There was a jeweler and silversmith
who knew all about the gold and silver and precious stones
that
Columbus was going to load the ships with; there was a
doctor and
a surgeon; there were cooks and pilots, and even a little
fellow,
who sailed in the Santa Maria as the Admiral's cabin boy,
and
whose name was Pedro de Acevedo.
Some scholars have said that it cost about two hundred
and thirty
thousand dollars to fit out this expedition. I do not think
it
cost nearly so much. We do know that Queen Isabella gave
sixty-seven thousand dollars to help pay for it. Some people,
however, reckoning the old Spanish money in a different
way, say
that what Queen Isabella gave toward the expedition was
not over
three or four thousand dollars of our money. Perhaps as
much more
was borrowed from King Ferdinand, although he was to have
no
share in the enterprise in which Queen Isabella and Columbus
were
partners.
It was just an hour before sunrise on Friday, the third
of
August, 1492, that the three little ships hoisted their
anchors
and sailed away from the port of Palos. I suppose it was
a very
sorry and a very exciting morning in Palos. The people
probably
crowded down on the docks, some of them sad and sorrowful,
some
of them restless and curious. Their fathers and brothers
and sons
and acquaintances were going--no one knew where, dragged
off to
sea by a crazy old Italian sailor who thought there was
land to
be found somewhere beyond the Jumping-off place. They all
knew he
was wrong. They were certain that nothing but dreadful
goblins
and horrible monsters lived off there to the West, just
waiting
to devour or destroy the poor sailors when these three
little
ships should tumble over the edge.
But how different Columbus must have felt as he stepped,
into the
rowboat that took him off to his "flag-ship," the
Santa Maria.
His dreams had come true. He had ships and sailors under
his
command, and was about to sail away to discover great and
wonderful things. He who had been so poor that he could
hardly
buy his own dinner, was now called Don and Admiral. He
had a
queen for his friend and helper. He was given a power that
only
the richest and noblest could hope for. But more than all,
he was
to have the chance he had wished and worked for so long.
He was
to find the Indies; he was to see Cathay; he was to have
his
share in all the wealth he should discover and bring away.
The
son of the poor wool-weaver of Genoa was to be the friend
of
kings and princes; the cabin boy of a pirate was now Admiral
of
the Seas and Governor of the Colonies of Spain! Do you
wonder
that he felt proud?
So, as I have told you, just before sunrise on a Friday
morning
in August, be boarded the Santa Maria and gave orders to
his
captains "to get under way." The sailors with
a "yo heave ho!"
(or whatever the Spanish for that is) tugged at the anchors,
the
sails filled with the morning breeze, and while the people
of
Palos watched them from the shore, while the good friar,
Juan
Perez, raised his hands to Heaven calling down a blessing
on the
enterprise, while the children waved a last good- by from
the
water-stairs, the three vessels steered out from Palos
Harbor,
and before that day's sun had set, Columbus and his fleet
were
full fifty miles on their way across the Sea of Darkness.
The
westward voyage to those wonderful lands, the Indies and
Cathay,
had at last begun. |