The Lost Diary of Christopher Columbus's Lookout

by Clive Dickinson

OK – I was beginning to have a few doubts. I’m the first to admit it. And if Master Isaac ever reads that bit above, I’ll be happy to apologize to him.

  As for the Captain General – sorry, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea (the King and Queen promised him that rank if he discovered land to the west) – he looks as if he’s just jumped over the moon.

  It all started happening yesterday. There were the usual flights of birds, but I’d given up on them as a sure sign of land. Then sailors started picking up reeds, canes and bits of wood floating on the surface. One looked as if it had been carved by something with a sharp edge – a knife, perhaps?

  At sunset the ships came together as usual, and this time the Admiral was really excited. He reminded everyone about the huge reward and said he’d add a doublet of silk to the Queen’s money for the first man to sight land.

  I climbed into the rigging and didn’t get a wink of sleep. Some time before midnight I heard the Captain General talking to the two men from the Royal Court sent along on the voyage by Their Majesties. I overheard them discussing a faint light like a candle far away in the darkness.

  The Captain General and one of the courtiers had seen this light. The other said he hadn’t. I squinted into the night, but I couldn’t decide by that time whether or not my eyes were playing tricks.

  It was probably another false alarm – or so I thought.

  About three hours later, my eyelids were starting to droop when I heard my name being called from the Pinta, which was sailing in front of us, as usual. “Give it a break,” I shouted back. “Don’t you know what time it is?”

  “Look! Land ho!” shouted the voice from the darkness again, followed immediately by the boom of a cannon – the signal that land really had been sighted!

  That brought everyone to the side of the ship. At first I couldn’t see anything different. Then a thin white line came into view two leagues from us – waves crashing on a beach.

  It was Juan – sorry, one – of the Juans on the Pinta who saw land first, so he’s won the reward and the silk doublet. But I’m not complaining. We’ve found the Indies by sailing west. We’ll be famous for the rest of time!

  12 October 1492 – evening in the Indies

  It’s been a funny sort of day, but I suppose that’s what this discovery business is all about – dealing with the unexpected.

  We lowered the sails and waited offshore until sunrise. After sailing all this way, it would have been a shame to have run on to rocks and sunk the ships.

  As soon as it was light, the Admiral (the Captain General wants us to call him this now), the two Pinzon captains, the two men from the Royal Court, the fleet’s lawyer and a couple of others rowed ashore in the Santa Maria’s boat. They carried the flag of the King and Queen and the flags of the three ships, and after erecting a wooden cross and saying a few prayers, the Admiral claimed the new land for Their Majesties – he has named it San Salvador.

  What puzzles me is that if we’ve arrived in the same Asia where all our silks and precious stones and spices come from, it must belong to someone already. So why is the Admiral claiming it for our King and Queen?

  An even bigger puzzle was waiting for us. While we were watching the Admiral and the others rowing towards the shore, a crowd of people were also watching them from the beach. Maybe they’d just been for a swim, or perhaps it’s one of those special holiday camps where people walk about in the all-together. Whatever this place is, these people aren’t what we expected to find, because none of them are wearing any clothes!

  I’ve read Marco Polo’s book about Asia and the land of the Great Khan from cover to cover, and he never mentions people not wearing clothes. I can’t make it out.

  On top of this, they don’t seem to know anything about weapons. When one of them was shown a sword, he grabbed the sharp blade with his hand and seemed very surprised that he cut himself. Yet the land of the Great Khan is famous for its fine swords and other weapons.

  However, the Admiral came back to the ship very pleased with himself. Apparently we’ve landed on an island. He says it’s one of the islands off the mainland of Asia, which the natives call Guanahani. It seems that we must have sailed past the island of Cipangu and ended up here instead.

  He didn’t mention gold roofs and precious jewels, but something’s going on, because he’s claimed the Queen’s reward for himself. Juan on the Pinta had a few things to say about this. Still, the Admiral is the Admiral, and if he reckons that little light he saw last night was the first sighting of land, there’s not much Juan can do about it.

  Later in the day, many of the island people swam out to our ships bringing gifts. Cotton thread wound up in balls, spears, brightly-coloured feathers – the sort of things people usually buy on holiday. They also offered us bunches of dried leaves, which was pretty weird. Not as tacky as some souvenirs I’ve seen, but still.

  In return we gave them coloured glass beads, the little bells that hunting hawks wear, and red caps. They thought these were brilliant. But after sailing all this way, we’re hoping there’s more than just spears and leaves on offer. We’re hoping to find gold and the other precious things we get from Asia.

  Still, this is only an island. The Admiral says we’ll find what we’re looking for when we get to the mainland.

  13 October 1492 – San Salvador

  I was worrying about this island all last night and then I twigged!

  I know what this place is. I should have guessed sooner, because the only people here are young adults and teenagers. It’s one of those holiday resorts for people under thirty! That must be why so many of them go round with their face and bodies painted black, red or white – it must be their way of preventing sunburn.

  It’s certainly a great place for a holiday – sunny, sandy, with crystal-clear water, beautiful green forests and all kinds of fruit I’ve never seen before.

  As well as swimming, there are great watersports. They don’t have boats like ours, using oars and sails. Their boats are long and narrow and look as if they’ve been hollowed out from tree trunks.

  Some of their boats are only big enough to carry one or two people, while others are massive, with room for forty or fifty! They’re all moved along in the same way, with paddles shaped like the ones a baker uses for taking bread out of a hot oven – and can they move! They’d leave all of our boats standing.

  Even the Admiral is impressed with these boats, though he does seem more interested in finding gold. I don’t think he’ll have much luck on this island. The people I’ve seen only wear small bits of gold hanging from holes in their noses. Maybe they don’t wear a lot of jewellery when they’re on the beach.

  16 October 1492 – at sea again

  I could tell the Admiral was getting itchy feet at San Salvador.

  Yesterday he took the ship’s boat along the coast to explore the island, but what he found looked just the same as the place where we landed: more warm clear water, golden beaches, tall green forests and handsome people running around with no clothes on.

  One of the sailors said it reminded him of Paradise, and the people on the beaches must have been having similar thoughts, because some of them pointed to the Admiral and then pointed to the sky. They think we’ve dropped down from heaven.

  Several ‘Indians’, as we have started calling them, are staying on board our ship. Not that they have much choice about sailing with us – the Admiral wants them to help him find his way to Cipangu and the mainland of Cathay.

  They named over a hundred islands we could sail to, so the Admiral decided to head for the biggest. We went there yesterday, named it after the Virgin Mary, handed out more glass beads and hawks’ bells to the Indians who met us (they don’t any wear clothes either) and then sailed off again.

  Today we overtook a man in a canoa8, the wooden boat they paddle around in here. He was on his way to the same island as us (the Admiral is going to name this one after King Ferdinand). In his canoa he had a string of our beads and some small Spanish
coins, which means he must have come from San Salvador.

  He also had a bunch of the same sort of dried leaves we were given when we arrived. There must be something very special about them, because people keep presenting them to us. I can’t think why. If you ask me, the only thing dried leaves are good for is going up in smoke.

  24 October 1492 – at sea once more

  We’ve been ‘discovering’ islands all week and still the Admiral hasn’t found Cipangu. For that matter he hasn’t found any gold worth speaking about either.

  The islands are all very beautiful and the people are all very friendly, but the sailors are beginning to wonder exactly where we are. Maps of the world show masses of islands off the coast of Asia, and the Admiral thinks we are sailing round these.

  For the last few days the Indians with us have been talking about a big island they call Colba9. The Admiral has decided that this is Cipangu so that’s where we’re off to now.

  28 October 1492 – in the mouth of a river in the island of Juana (the Admiral has given Colba this name. Don’t ask me why. I thought he thought it was Cipangu.)

  The Indians on board say this island has ten large rivers and is so big it takes more than twenty days to sail round it. That’s why the Admiral is sure it’s Cipangu, even though he’s decided to give it another name.

  Apparently the Indians are telling us there are gold mines here and places where they gather pearls on the seabed.

  I can’t make head or tail of what they are saying, but the Admiral thinks he can understand. From what they’ve told him, ships sail here from the Great Khan himself. They come to trade with a powerful king who reigns in this land. So it couldn’t be anywhere but Cipangu, could it?

  At last we can spend some time on shore. We’re going to make camp here while we make contact with the king. There’s a small village, very like ones we’ve seen on other islands, but the people had run away by the time we came ashore. That gave me the chance to have forty winks in one of their houses, and very comfortable it was too.

  The houses aren’t as solid as the ones at home. They have walls made of wood or canes bound close together. Thick palm leaves cover the tall roofs and from the outside they look like big tents. All the houses I’ve seen are clean and airy and what I really like are the beds. After sleeping on the open deck of the Santa Maria for more weeks than I like to remember, this is real luxury.

  An Indian bed is unlike any bed I’ve ever seen. For a start it doesn’t touch the ground. There isn’t any sort of frame for a mattress either. In fact there isn’t a mattress. You sort of sleep in the air, which sounds odd but is really comfortable when you get used to it (and when you finally get in). That’s the only tricky thing about these Indian hamaca10 is climbing into them – it’s the best way of describing going to bed.

  The hamaca is a like a large net, big enough to hold a man. It’s tied by ropes at either end to two of the posts that hold up the roof. To go to sleep, you have to lower your body on to the net and then lie down. I worked this out after I’d fallen out a couple of times and got my hands and feet stuck through holes in the net like a fish. Once you’re inside, though, it’s brilliant. I had the best sleep since leaving Palos.

  These hamacas would make great beds for sailors, because they wouldn’t slide about like a solid bed, even if the ship moved from side to side. I reckon I’ll take one home and show it around. I could be on to a winner with this.

  29 October 1492 – somewhere along the coast from where we were last night

  I’m glad I didn’t take that hamaca I slept in. The Admiral gave me a real telling off when he found out I’d had a snooze in an Indian house. He’s warned us not to steal or damage anything that belongs to the Indians.

  I don’t see how he squares these orders with keeping the Indians from San Salvador on board. But he’s the Admiral and he knows best.

  2 November 1492 – further west along the coast

  Now the Admiral’s decided that this isn’t Cipangu after all. Apparently, it’s the mainland of Cathay, the land of the Great Khan. In fact he has worked out that we are only a hundred leagues from Zayto and Quinsai, two of the great cities of Asia I remember from Master Isaac’s maps.

  This is why he sent the two officials from the Royal Court and Luis the interpreter to visit the local king. They have taken a letter from our King and Queen and samples of the spices we’re looking for. With them are a couple of Indians and one of the sailors who knows all about expeditions like this, because he has been on several Portuguese voyages to the coast of Africa.

  The Admiral has been to Africa too, and he expects to start trading with the Indies in the same way as the Portuguese trade in Africa. This must be the reason he’s brought loads of the glass beads, hawks’ bells and cheap cloth caps on the voyage. They’re what the Portuguese use when they are trading in Africa.

  I can’t help thinking that there’s something odd going on. Gifts like these are fine for people who don’t have beads and bells, but surely the people of Cathay must have plenty of cheap things of their own? After all, they send us loads of valuables that are far more expensive than this stuff. If the Admiral expects to trade with the rich merchants of Cathay, why didn’t he bring the sort of precious gifts that would interest them? I can’t work this out.

  6 November 1492 – same place

  It looks as if we’ll be on the move again before long. The men the Admiral sent to meet the king came back last night. They found a big village of about fifty huts, where the Indians gave them food and made them very welcome, but this wasn’t the great city with fine buildings they were hoping for.

  They did find something pretty crazy, though. They saw people doing the strangest thing with those dried leaves we keeping getting as presents. Men and women go around with a bunch of them in their hands, on fire! Not flaming hot, burn-your-hand fire, but burning just enough to send up a small cloud of smoke, which they breathe in for enjoyment!

  Of all the amazing things we’ve come across, this has got to be the weirdest. I can see the Indian beds and boats, and the fruit and other foods we’ve discovered catching on at home – but these smoking leaves, no chance.

  12 November 1492 – somewhere off the coast of who knows where

  We’ve been in the Indies for exactly one month and, I have to say, they’re nothing like the Indies I was expecting from reading Master Isaac’s books.

  First we’d sailed past Cipangu. Then we’d found Cipangu. Then our Cipangu wasn’t Cipangu, but, according to the Admiral, the mainland of Cathay. Now the Admiral thinks the mountains we’re sailing past remind him of the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean!

  We’ve found less gold than we’d come across in a market at home. The dogs don’t bark. The meat the Indians like best comes from a strange-looking lizard11.

  Even the plants which look like plants we know from Asia aren’t the same. Yesterday I popped a fruit like a large strawberry into my mouth and my head nearly exploded. It was like eating fire. This pepper, or whatever it is, is hotter than anything I’ve ever tasted.

  Now the Admiral is starting to talk about somewhere the Indians call Baneque. According to him, this is where gold can be found on the beach. He’s convinced there’s so much of it that people collect it at night in the sand by candlelight and then hammer it into bars.

  I’ll believe that when I see it.

  21 November 1492 – off the coast again, not far from where we were ten days ago

  Everyone’s feeling fed up. The winds have been against us, so we had to give up the idea of sailing south-eastwards to Baneque.

  On all three ships, sailors have been asking what was going to happen next. And today, Martin Alonso Pinzon disobeyed the Admiral’s orders and sailed away in the Pinta.

  There was nothing the Admiral could do to stop him, but caramba, is he angry! I’ve heard him calling Captain Pinzon “greedy” under his breath. I think he’s seriously worried that Captain Pinzon will find gold before he does and, worse
still, will sail home ahead of us and claim that he’s the first to discover the Indies. I wouldn’t want to be in his place when the Admiral catches up with him.

  23 November 1492 – further along the coast from two days ago

  Just as things were looking as bad as they could be after Captain Pinzon left us, the Indians on board have begun telling us about a nearby island called Bohio. It seems that this is the home of a band of scary people who have one eye in the centre of their foreheads. They sound just like the Cyclops of ancient legends – the ones who captured sailors and ate them alive.

  The Indians are also scared stiff of the people of Caniba, who they call Cannibals. They are very warlike and also eat their prisoners.

  Out of the dozens of islands around here, wouldn’t it be our luck to land up as some one-eyed monster’s supper in Bohio, or be served as the main course to the people of Caniba?

  7 December 1492 – the island of Española12

  Perhaps we’ll find better luck here.

  For the last ten days we’ve been sailing along the coast of Colba/Juana. The scenery has been wonderful, but we haven’t found gold and the Indians are terrified we’re going to the lands of the one-eyed monsters and the Cannibals.

  However, the day before yesterday, we spotted land across the sea, sailed over to it and haven’t spotted a monster or a Cannibal anywhere.

  The scenery is different to the mountains and green forests on other islands. This land has open plains and hills like the ones in Spain, which is why the Admiral has decided to call it Española. We recognized oaks and strawberry plants like those at home.

  We’ve caught skate and sole, just as we do around the Spanish coast, and the Admiral says he’s even heard nightingales singing just like they do at home.

  I wonder how much he knows about birds?

  13 December 1492 – Española

  Nine of us were sent ashore today to visit a large village inland. We found the village in a wide valley. There must be a thousand houses there, but all the people ran away when they saw us coming.

  One of the Indians from the ship called them to come back, explaining that we wouldn’t do them any harm, and soon we were surrounded by hundreds of people, patting us on the head, which is their way of being friendly. I wondered if I was supposed to bark in return?