Don Alvaro was overjoyed. He was convinced that we had reached the Isles of Solomon ten days sooner than he had promised, and at his desire everyone on board—soldiers, sailors, settlers and officers—went down on their knees and thanked God for His great mercy in leading us home, while the priests sang the Te Deum Laudamus. He named the island La Magdalena, because this was the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen.
That night there was more than the usual boasting and drunkenness among our soldiers, and I saw that they were no longer dicing for maravedis, or reals, as had been their custom, but for notes of hand: pledging themselves to pay, on being assigned their estates, so many pigs, serfs, or ounces of gold. I cannot say that the officers behaved in a more Christian manner; indeed, by their wild talk and riotous conduct, they might have been Sallee pirates making ready for a slave raid on Naples or the coast of Sicily.
When the pages had saluted the dawn, every man, woman and child ran on deck and all strained their eyes impatiently for a view of the land, though a smart shower of rain was falling. The men climbed into the shrouds and perched there like a flock of starlings. As the light broadened a cry of delight went up: there was the island, not half a league ahead of us, and it appeared to be inhabited. We steered for its southernmost point, and since no reefs nor rocks were showing, kept close inshore. The other vessels had orders to follow us at a respectable distance, and not to parley with the natives; for Don Alvaro was anxious, he said, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
Though not large, the island was by no means of contemptible size, perhaps ten leagues in circumference, well-wooded and engrandized by lofty hills scored with ravines. Green palm-trees waved in the breeze, smoke rose blue from unseen villages, and the broad beaches were crowded with natives who shouted and blew whistles. The rain had ceased, and from behind a promontory to the east scores of small canoes shot out. Some held only three Indians, some as many as ten, but each was hollowed from a single tree-trunk, with a carved figure-head, its stern terminating in a narrow up-curved fin. I counted as many as seventy. They carried triangular white sails and were prevented from capsizing by outriggers on either side, in the form of log-floats secured by cane cross-pieces. But their crews did not rely entirely on sails: they also used broad-bladed paddles. The number of savages was perhaps four hundred, counting those who swam or were towed behind the canoes; and every one of them, though well-tattooed with designs of plants and fish, especially about the face, was as naked as he was born. Don Alvaro eyed them with attention and ‘Myn,’ he said to his negro, ‘do you think that this is the same race of men we saw in our isles?’
‘No, no, master!’ answered Myn. ‘These are white. Myn saw no white men in the Isles of Solomon; nothing but wild black savages with bushy hair and bows and arrows. Myn sees no bows nor arrows now. These must be Christians, very naked, painted Christians!’
‘I agree with you, Myn,’ said Don Alvaro, swallowing his disappointment. ‘This is not the same place, though none the less a happy discovery. All is different here; I would not say better.’ He turned to the Chief Pilot: ‘These islands have been given us for our refreshment and recreation; but our work lies ahead.’
The savages were indeed remarkably white: and so closely resembled Spaniards in shape and feature that the Captain of Artillery felt shame that his wife should see them stark naked, and sent her below at once. ‘If they were monkeys,’ he said, ‘or African negroes, it would be a different matter, but it is shameful even for a married woman to be confronted by such indecent sights.’ Doña Ysabel and her sister, however, hung over the poop-rail and watched the scene below them without a flutter of their eyelids. The men were of graceful build: tall, muscular, clear-skinned, with good legs, slender fingers, the best teeth that ever I saw, and long curly hair, some of it very fair and arranged in fantastic coils and plaits.
‘God’s death!’ I heard the Colonel cry. ‘If these are the men, their women must be beautiful indeed!’
I was standing by the side of the Chief Pilot, gazing with pleasure at these novelties, when a small canoe came close under the stern: it was handsomely carved and decorated with a shining inlay of pearl shell. In it were three young boys who seemed to be chieftains’ sons and kept their eyes intently fixed on ours. One of them was about ten years of age with elaborately dressed locks, as fair as any Dane’s, and angelic features in which beauty and nobility of spirit were so happily reconciled that Pedro Fernandez clutched my arm and cried: ‘Little Andrés, my friend, it strikes me to the very heart to think that so lovely a child should be left to perdition, unbaptized and uninstructed.’
The other natives now paddled closer, pointing to the harbour from which they had come and shouting in a language which none of us understood; they used the words atalut and analut most often, as if to invite us there. In token of friendship they brought us coconuts and rolls of a doughy food, done up in leaves, which they called tutao but which we did not relish, also fine ripe bananas and fresh water in joints of bamboo as thick as a man’s leg. These they reached up to us but feared to come aboard, uncertain whether we were ghosts or living men.
There was a sudden hoarse cheer from the soldiers when they noticed two grown girls swimming well away from the canoes, and behind them a cluster of perhaps twenty more: all mother-naked, with slim waists and small, firm breasts, and not disfigured by tattoo marks, except for a narrow blue ribbon on the fall of each shoulder. The soldiers wildly waved their caps and shouted obscenities to which the girls responded as though they understood what was said, and made gestures of such lubricity that they would have inflamed the passions of Saint Anthony himself. Don Alvaro soon put a stop to this by-play; he told the Colonel to have two of the soldiers fastened in the stocks; and then, forgetting in his indignation that he was no longer on his estate at Guanaco, he abused the mermaids in the language of Peru, threatening them with the lash and shaking his fist; after which he clapped his hands smartly and bade them be off. They turned and fled in a school, weeping for terror, and a long-drawn Ah! of disappointment broke from the crowd at the bulwarks.
The native warriors greeted our ladies in a very different fashion. They recognized them as women of a sort, but showed them no gallantry whatsoever. All they did was to point at them and laugh at their costumes, never in their lives having seen women wearing French hoods, starched ruffs and coloured clothes; their own were content, as we found later, with a short, plain skirt. It may also have been that they were surprised to see women afloat; their wives and daughters being forbidden so much as to rest their hands on a canoe.
Doña Ysabel flushed to the neck and said to Don Lorenzo: ‘Pray, brother, order an arquebusier to load his piece with bird-shot and pepper the legs of these rude fellows. They must be taught a lesson in courtesy!’ Don Alvaro, chancing to overhear this, intervened with great heat. ‘Is this the way to carry the Cross among the heathen?’ he cried to Don Lorenzo. ‘Those are children of innocence! They laugh for affection, not insolence; and none of our ladies is under obligation to stay on deck if she feels offended in her modesty.’
She shrugged, sighed, and turned to her sister with a look that seemed to say: ‘What is a woman to do when her husband is too devout to protect her honour?’ Her brothers took the General’s intervention very ill and gathered in a knot, talking in low voices, frowning and fidgeting with their sword-hilts.
Meanwhile the Boatswain, with jovial face and gentle words, had persuaded a native to touch the hull of the ship, by knocking on her side to show that she was solid and no illusion. With a little more coaxing he was persuaded to climb a rope and step on deck. This was a warrior of about thirty years of age, intricately tattooed, and wearing a beard of novel fashion: a strip had been shaved down the middle of his chin and the hair spread on either side in tresses threaded with dogs’ teeth. He wore a tall head-dress made from the tail-feathers of a cock, a red flower over one ear, and an ivory disc with a spike stuck through the lobe of the other. I noticed that, like his fellows, he was circumciz
ed. Soon he began to strut about the deck, juggling a couple of pointed sling-bolts with his left hand and twirling the sling, which was of plaited fibre, with the other, as if to show that he had no fear; though it was plain that we needed only to say Boh! and he would have leaped over the rails in terror.
The General, now seated in a chair over which a crimson cloth was spread, received him graciously, and handed me an old cambric shirt and a coachman’s hat, with which I was ordered to clothe him. The Indian accepted these gifts with dignity, allowing me to button him in the shirt as though this were an everyday occurrence and, removing his head-dress, presented it to the General in exchange for the hat. When he jumped on the bulwarks and showed himself to his companions they laughed uproariously, but he did not lose his composure. He waved to them and shouted something in an urgent voice, as if to say: ‘There are many fine things to be had here for the asking, and without danger.’
At this, some forty more clambered eagerly aboard and made us feel a stunted race by comparison: one warrior stood head and shoulders above Ensign Tomás de Ampuero, our tallest man, whom we had thought little less than a giant, and his feathered head-dress made him seem taller still. After some hesitation they began to walk about the main deck with great boldness, taking hold of whatever caught their fancy, but sentries had been posted to prevent them from swarming over the other decks. They appeared to be uncertain whether our soldiers were men like themselves, and kept peering closely into their faces and cautiously prodding their clothes with a finger.
One targeteer, to oblige them, opened his doublet and shirt and exposed his bare chest; another pulled down his stockings and rolled up his sleeves. Assured that we were human after all, they at once lost all fear and made themselves at home; indeed, it was as difficult to persuade them to go as it had been to coax them aboard. The General handed out a few more shirts and some toys, including a looking-glass which caused great awe and excitement; then the soldiers began to follow his example, but this proved to be a mistake. Our visitors called out loudly to their friends in the canoes to climb up too and collect their gifts.
‘No, no, you greedy wretches!’ cried the General, shooing them away. ‘Be off with you all, quick! You have been well paid for your gifts. Boatswain, let no more come aboard!’ He frowned at the natives, clapped his hands repeatedly and pointed at the canoes.
They laughed happily at his gestures but showed no signs of leaving us and took even greater liberties than before. Some of them invaded the cook-room, admired the pewter dishes and tried to steal them. The cook drove them out with a faggot, but not before they had snatched a flitch of bacon from a hook. Climbing into the long-boat with it, they cut off pieces with knives made from slivers of cane, which they stuffed into their mouths, laughing and chattering all the time.
Don Alvaro followed them there and spoke very severely, commanding them to hand over what was left of the bacon and leave the ship at once. When they continued to laugh and even thrust out their tongues at him he ordered a falconet to be fired with a blank charge. They watched the gunner ram his charge home and light the match, and flocked around him to see what new trick this might be; then the spark caught the powder and the piece went off with a roar, blackening their faces with smoke and filling their nostrils with its acrid stench. They leaped overboard with a great splash, frightened nearly out of their wits, like frogs disturbed by the pond-side.
Meanwhile some of the Indians in the canoes had made fast a finely laid cable to our bowsprit and bent another to the end of it, hoping to tow us to their harbour by vigorous use of their paddles; but when the falconet went off they abruptly let the ropes go. The only native now remaining in the ship was the boy whose angelic face had so moved the Chief Pilot. Having climbed into the bows by their cable, he was trying with a toothed club to knock a piece from the gilt scroll-work of the bowsprit pillow. This was reported to Don Diego who ran there, sword in hand, and shouted to him to be off; but the boy would not obey and clung to the harness-tables. Don Diego struck at him with his sword, wounding him severely in the hand, so that he cried out and dropped into the water. He was pulled into a canoe by a white-bearded man, profusely tattooed and wearing a shining disc of pearl shell on his forehead.
The old man showed indignation at the assault and paddled away to a larger canoe in which sat a stately warrior with beard and hair dyed in three different colours—white, red and blue—and carrying a sunshade of palm-leaves, who seemed to be their Chieftain. After much shouting all the canoes formed up in a half-circle about fifty paces away from us, while the old man glared at us fiercely, placed his hands to his chin, martially cocked his moustaches, and called on his companions to avenge the boy. At this they took their spears from the side-rests in the canoes, rose like one man and brandished them threateningly until they vibrated from butt to point. Others then loaded their slings and let fly a volley of bolts, while the rest paddled to within spear-throw, shouting discordant war-cries.
The Colonel, suddenly recovering his vigour in the face of the enemy, gave the order ‘Present pieces!’ in a firm voice, then ‘Give fire!’ Every man’s arquebus was trained on the canoes; but the rain had wetted the powder and not a shot was heard. Meanwhile Sergeant Andrada had his front teeth knocked out by a sling-bolt and a number of spears whistled through the rigging or were warded off by the targeteers.
‘Reload!’ cried the Colonel, and pretty soon there was firing all along the bulwarks. The old man fell dead, the ornament at his forehead shattered by a well-aimed ball, and five or six more were killed, including the chieftain with the sunshade; several others were wounded.
In an instant all was confusion. Some of the savages leaped into the water; some tried to shelter behind their companions. The rest turned about and paddled away as fast as they could, with many collisions and much fouling of outriggers.
The General had watched the scene with despair. ‘Ah, Don Diego, Don Diego!’ he cried. ‘Why did you wound that pretty boy?’
‘To teach the imp manners,’ Don Diego answered boldly, ‘a lesson of which this insolent race stands in need. But, my lord, I think it exceedingly odd that you permitted them to insult my sisters. As you will have seen for yourself: give them a trotter, and they claim the whole sheep.’
The Vicar, who was too humble and unassuming to expect that the miracle of Tumbes would be repeated in his person, went to Don Alvaro. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘I do not believe that these wild people are in a mood to receive the Cross. Let us sail on and leave them to ponder the moral of their greed and obstinacy. It may please Our Lord to fetch us this way again; but if not, there are souls a-plenty to save at the end of our journey.’
The General agreed with much sorrow, and though presently a canoe appeared with three old natives in it, one of whom waved a green branch and a white cloth in token of peace, he kept to his resolution. Gratefully accepting the coconuts which they brought, he declined their invitation to land.
***
We left La Magdalena in our wake, and soon sighted another island ten leagues to the N.N.W., which appeared to be smaller by two-thirds, with much forest and no high mountains; at its eastern end, not far from the shore, a large rock rose steeply from the sea. Because of the rock and in joint honour of the Colonel and the Chief Pilot, both of whom were called Pedro, Don Alvaro anticipated by a few days the feast of Saint Peter in Chains, and named our new discovery San Pedro. The Colonel expressed his thanks in flowery and well-chosen words, yet seemed offended that he was to share this glory with another. ‘Let the Chief Pilot take the rock,’ he said, ‘and leave me the island.’
‘I am content with that, my lord,’ the Chief Pilot returned at once, as one who runs to strike back a tennis-ball, ‘and may your lordship’s barge never run against my rock!’
We passed San Pedro by, without so much as sending a boat ashore, having sighted two more islands five leagues to the north-west, separated by a narrow channel. The General named the smaller in honour of Saint Cristina, whose
eve this was; the larger, more northerly, one he named Dominica, in honour of Saint Domingo, to whom he had made intercession at Lima. Both were beautiful isles with broad plains and high mountains and many plantations of fruit-trees, and they seemed thickly inhabited. Because Don Alvaro had undertaken to give the Viceroy’s name to the first land of importance that we should discover, he called the whole group ‘Las Islas Marquesas del Virrey Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza,’ a resounding appellation soon shortened to its first three words.
Tacking on and off, we searched for a harbour on the coast of Dominica, which has a circumference of fifteen leagues, but did not find one. As we rounded its southernmost point, many canoes came to meet us, built in the same style as those of La Magdalena, and though their crews were darker-skinned, they too greeted us with cheerful laughter and kept their weapons in the rests. A herald stood in one canoe, waving a green branch and pointed to the land in invitation. We happened that moment to complete a tack and the ship was put about. The herald, thinking that we had rejected his overtures, looked offended and renewed his gestures with greater insistence, pacifically pulling down his moustaches, and making eloquent signs with his hands.
The General favoured his plea and told the Chief Pilot to launch the long-boat, first stowing in her bottom the tall wooden cross made by the carpenter that morning; but suddenly the wind freshened and since there was no headland behind which we could shelter, we sailed on, the herald yelling after us. The only close contact that our people made with those of Dominica was when the frigate, which had kept close inshore, was boarded by two natives who swam out to her. One of them was of huge stature and, seeming to despise the soldiers, roved the deck in search of a memento to take back with him. Nothing would satisfy him except Doña Ysabel’s brindled calf, at which he gazed in wonder, there being no four-footed animals in the Marquesas Islands, except rats, pigs and small dogs. The calf was well grown and must have weighed nearly two hundredweight; yet he lifted it up by one ear and was about to carry it away when an arquebus was let off close to his ear. He fled empty-handed, whereas his companion had been given a sail-needle and, what caused him even greater pleasure, the Queen of Cups from an old pack of cards.
The Islands of Unwisdom Page 13