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CHAPTER XL
THE Indians called it Guanaja, but the Admiral, the Isle of Pines. Itwas far, far, from Hispaniola, far, far, from Jamaica, over a wide andstormy sea, reached after many days of horrible weather. Guanaja, small,lofty, covered with rich trees among which stood in numbers the pines weloved because they talked of home. To the south, far off, across leaguesof water, we made out land. Mainland it seemed to us, stretching acrossthe south, losing itself in the eastern haze. The weather suddenlybecame blissful. We had sweet rest in Guanaja.
A few Indians lived upon this small island, like, yet in some waysunlike all those we knew. But they were rude and simple and they talkedalways of gods _to the west_. We had rested a week when there came atrue wonder to us _from the west_.
That was a canoe, of the mightiest length we had yet seen, long asa tall tree, eight feet wide, no less, with twenty-five rowingIndians--tall, light bronze men--with cotton cloth about their loins.Middle of this giant canoe was built a hut or arbor, thatched with palm.Under this sat a splendid barbarian, tall and strong, with a crown offeathers and a short skirt and mantle of cotton. Beside him sat twowomen wrapped in cotton mantles, and at their feet two boys and a youngmaid. All these people wore golden ornaments about their necks.
It was in a kind of amaze that we watched this dragon among canoes drawnear to and pass the ships and to the shore where we had built a hut forthe Admiral and the Adelantado and the youth Fernando, and to shelterthe rest of us a manner of long booth. It seemed that it was upon aconsiderable voyage, and wanting water, put in here. The Guanaja Indianscried, "Yucatan! Yucatan!"
The Admiral stepped down to meet these strangers. His face glowed. Hereat last was difference beyond the difference of the Paria folk!
We found that they were armed,--the newcomers. Strangely made swords ofwood and flint, lances, light bucklers and _hatchets of true copper_.They were strong and fearless, and they seemed to say, "Here before usis great wonder, but wonder does not subdue our minds!"
Their language had, it is true, the flow and clink of Indian tongues,yet was greatly different. We had work to understand. But they were pastmasters of gesture.
The Admiral sent for presents. Again, these did not ravish, thoughthe cacique and his family and the rowers regarded with interest suchstrange matters. But they seemed to say, "You yourselves and yourfantastic high canoes made, it is evident, of many trees, are thewonder!"
But we, the Spaniards, searching now through ten years--long as theWar of Troy--for Asia in which that Troy and all wealth beside had beenplaced, thought that at last we had come upon traces. In that canoe weremany articles of copper, well enough wrought; a great copper bell,a mortar and pestle, hatchets and knives. Moreover in Yucatan werepotters! In place of the eternal calabash here were jars and bowls ofbaked clay, well-made, well-shaped, marked with strange painted figures.They had pieces of cotton cloth, well-woven and great as a sail. Surely,with this stuff, before long the notion of a sail would arise in theseminds! We saw cotton mantles and other articles of dress, both white andgayly dyed or figured. Clothing was not to them the brute amaze wehad found it with our eastern Indians. Matters enough, strange to ourexperience, were being carried in that great canoe. We found they had abread, not cassava, but made from maize, and a drink much like Englishale, and also a food called cacao.
Gold! All of them wore gold, disks of it, hanging upon their breasts.The cacique had a thin band of gold across his forehead; together with afillet of cotton it held the bright feathers of his head dress.
They traded the gold--all except the coronal and a sunlike plate uponthe breast of the cacique--willingly enough.
Whence? Whence?
It seemed from Yucatan, on some embassy to another coast or island.Yucatan. West--west! And beyond Yucatan richer still; oh, great riches,gold and clothing and--we thought it from their contemptuous signstoward our booths and their fingers drawn in the air--true houses andtemples.
Farther on--farther on--farther west! Forever that haunting, deludingcry--the cry that had deluded since Guanahani that we called SanSalvador. Now many of our adventurers and mariners caught fire from thatcacique's wide gestures. The Adelantado no less. "Cristoforo, it lookssatisfaction at last!" And the young Fernando,--"Father, let us sailwest!"
The Admiral was trying to come at that Strait. Earnestly, through JuanLepe and through a Jamaican that we had with us, he strove to give andtake light. Yucatan? Was there sea beyond Yucatan? Did sea like a rivercut Yucatan? Might a canoe--might canoes like ours--go by it from thissea to that sea?
But nothing did we get save that Yucatan was a great country with seahere and sea there. "A point of the main like Cuba!" said the Admiral.Behind it, to the north of it, it seemed to us, the greater countrywhere were the gold, the rich clothing, the temples. But we made outthat Yucatan from sea to sea was many days' march. And as for thecountry beyond it, that went on, they thought, forever. They called thiscountry Anahuac and they meant the same that years afterward HernandoCortes found. But we did not know this. We did not know that strangepeople and their great treasure.
The Admiral looked out to sea. "I have cried, 'West--west--west!'through a-many years! Yucatan! But I make out no sea-passage thence intoVasco da Gama's India! And I am sworn to the Queen and King Ferdinandthis time to find it. So it's south, it's south, brother and son!"
So, our casks being full, our fruit gathered, the sky clear and the windfair, we left the west to others and sailed to find the strait inthe south. When we raised our sails that dragon canoe cried out andmarveled. But the cacique with the coronal asked intelligent questions.The Admiral showed him the way of it, mast and spar and sail cloth, andhow we made the wind our rower. He listened, and at the last he gaveChristopherus Columbus for that instruction the gold disk from hisbreast. I do not know--Yucatan might have gone on from that and itselfdeveloped true ship. If it had long enough time! But Europe was at itsdoors.
The canoe kept with us for a little, then shouted to see the fair breezefill our sails and carry us from them.
It was mid-August. We came to a low-lying land with hills behind. Herewe touched and found Indians, though none such as Yucatan seemed tobreed. It was Sunday and under great trees we had mass, having with usthe Franciscan Pedro of Valencia. From this place we coasted three days,when again we landed. Here the Indians were of a savage aspect, paintedwith black and white and yellow and uttering loud cries. We thought thatthey were eaters of men's flesh. Likewise they had a custom of wearingearrings of great weight, some of copper, some of that mixed gold wecalled guanin. So heavy were these ornaments that they pulled the eardown to mid-throat. The Admiral named this place the Coast of the Ear.
On we sailed, and on, never out of sight of land to starboard. Dayby day, along a coast that now as a whole bent eastward. And yet nostrait--no way through into the sea into which poured the Ganges.