USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 3
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" This expedition has been sent out by your sovereign ; and, come what may, I am determined, by the help of God, to accom- plish the object of the voyage."
It rests only upon the evidence of Oviedo, for Irving tells us that Las Casas and Navarr do not mention the incident that Columbus at length, driven to a compromise, yields in some measure to his mutinous crew, and promises if within three days
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no land is discovered he will return to Spain. If it were so (and, deeply dramatic as it is, we are inclined to doubt the accuracy of the statement), how great must have been the confidence of the daring navigator, founded on close calculations and watch- fulness of the signs, now thickening upon the sea, of his near- ness to the goal of his hopes -- the long-looked-for coast -- the only thing which could render his extorted promise a dead let- ter. If it were so, how awful must have been his anxiety lest some untoward accident, some hindrance of storm or calm should exhaust the period of probation without solving the problem ! Did space permit, it might be both curious and instructive to attempt to diagnose the moods of mind and conditions of feel- ing through which Columbus must have passed during this purgatory of trial, the fever of hope alternating with the chill of fear. There must have been moments when in the secret cham- bers of his heart he may have doubted the reality of his own theories and the exactness of his calculations. If so, he kept his counsel well, never for an instant permitting a look of dis- couragement to increase that of his faint-hearted crew. But the hour of his triumph was at hand. They threatened in vain to cast him into the sea and return to Spain ; they even, it is said, were about to execute their threat when that God in whom he trusted sends yet other tokens to quiet their disorders and renew their expectations of ultimate success. A coast fish glides by- a branch of thorn with berries-a cane carved by some savage hand that little knew the outcome of its labor. Columbus is saved, and again the voyage goes on-the half-assured crew obeying, though surlily. Take courage, brave pilot into the unknown ! Your troubles are nearly ended ; your deliverance is at hand. The ever-famous 12th of October, 1492, is about to dawn, and in the fulness of time open a hundred harbored ports to untold millions yet to be. The prophetic voice you heard so long ago in dreams spoke not in vain : " God is about to make thy name to be wonderfully resounded through the earth, and will indeed give thee the keys of the gates of the ocean ;" but " the chains," alas ! are reserved for thy sole reward.
We might essay in vain to find a more graphic narrative of that most memorable night so fraught with gloom of anxiety and doubt, so glorious in its sunrise of perfect realization, than is recorded in a recent work, based upon the diary of Columbus,
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entitled " With the Admiral." Strange that his should have been the first eye to discover that faint and feeble gleam upon the unknown shore for which through so many weary years he had been industriously searching. What was its purpose, and by what native kindled, who little dreamed that his careless hand was lighting a beacon which should lead to the extinction of his race ! And yet its momentary gleam linked the old with the new-a civilized with a savage world. But to our quota- tions :
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" At ten o'clock his quick eye caught a gleam of light out to sea which almost instantly disappeared. Fixing his eye on the quarter whence it had vanished, he called to Pedro Gutierrez and Rodrigo Sanchez, who were near by, and asked if they could not see it as well ; then raising his voice, he hailed the lookout on the bows : 'Ola, in the prow there, see you not a light yon- der off the port-bow ?' As the ship rose on a billow, Pedro Gutierrez saw the light plainly, and so told the captain, but Rodrigo Sanchez could not catch sight of it from where he stood. Up from the bows, too, came an answering hail which left the matter still in doubt : 'No, Señor Captain, we see no light from here !' Once or twice more, however, the wavering spark showed itself to Columbus's intent gaze and then sank out of sight.
"Sweeping swiftly to the west, for half a gale was blowing, the fleet held on its way, the Pinta leading, with the Nina next, and the flagship last of all. Hour after hour went by without incident of any kind. At midnight the watch was changed, and fresh lookouts took the place of those who had been straining their eyes so far in vain ; but still the troubled surface of the ocean was all that met their sight. On board the Santa Maria the silence was unbroken except by the swash of the waves against the ship's hull, and the low voices of the sailors as now and then they muttered some remark to one another. Just as the watch was again changing, toward two o'clock, the clouds which had been hiding the moon blew off, and the whole sea for leagues around was bathed in a flood of clear white light. Scarcely had the last shadows swept over the rolling sea when a brilliant flash of fire was seen in the direction of the Pinta, and the dull roar of a cannon was borne down the winds to the vessels astern. It was the signal for land in sight, and the flag-
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ship pressed forward to join her foremost consorts. As her impatient sailors neared the Pinta they had no need to ask for news, for directly before them, not more than a couple of miles away, lay the low and rounded summits of what were clearly sand-hills, while on the beach below a heavy surf was dashing in lines of snowy foam. At the very moment the moon emerged from the clouds, Juan Rodriguez Beruejo, one of the Pinta's sea- men, from a little village near Seville, had seen the first beams fall on the glittering sand and the frothy breakers, and had hur- riedly fired a gun, with excited cries of 'The land ! the land !' Had the moon remained hidden but a few moments longer there would have been a shipwreck to report.
" The great mystery of the ocean was revealed ; his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly estab- lished, and Columbus had thus secured to himself a glory as enduring as the world itself."
Although doubt has rested upon the exact island of the group on which Columbus first landed, the burden of proof favors Guanahani (its original Indian name), which its discoverer- mindful, doubtless, of the sorrows through which it had been reached, and the Divine Providence which had so signally led him on-immediately called San Salvador (Holy Saviour). It is now known as Watling Island.
So ends our record of Columbus and his eventful voyage. If it appear lengthy, let the reader remember that the fourth centennial of that great discovery is at hand, and the eyes of the civilized world are turned, as with one accord, to reverence and do honor to his memory.
He stood out like a volcanic mountain against the sky from the age in which he flourished, whose darkness favored him; for it cannot be denied that just in proportion as civilization ad- vances does heroship cease to become conspicuous ; attracting less attention in the increase of general light, just as stars grow most brilliant in the deepest gloom, to pale and finally fade out with the coming of the dawn. Hence it was that, in the obscu- rity of the dark ages, men became planets of the first magnitude who in the brighter skies of our greater enlightenment would attract but passing notice.
Yet another word as to the much-discussed character of Columbus, which, seen through the haze of four centuries and
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the record of pens, ofttimes inimical, it is no easy task to esti- mate justly. Reserving our own and quoting the opinions of others, we may well say, " Who shall decide where so many learned authorities diametrically disagree ?" for no less than six hundred authors have written his biography. His dis- covery, the greatness of which he never realized, brought him more foes than friends ; the rich regions he opened to others gave poverty to himself.
Carlyle, little given to extravagant praise, calls him "the royalist sea king of all ;" Humboldt, "a giant standing on the confines between mediæval and modern times, making by his existence one of the great epochs in the history of the world." Irving tells us that " the magnanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career." Bancroft, less flattering, remarks, " As a mariner and discoverer, Columbus had no superior ; as a colonist and governor he proved himself a failure." Again we say, "Who shall decide ?" This at least they cannot alter : the New World is his everlasting monu- ment and will preserve his fame till time shall cease to be.
It is now our task to hang beside the description of Colum- bus's achievement as dramatic a picture as we may of that event, most important, though in a secondary degree, considered with relation to the settlement of the Northwest coast-the discovery of the Pacific by Balboa, with the voyage through the strait, which so properly bears his name, of the adventurous Magellan. 3
CHAPTER III.
THE OPENING OF THE SECOND DOOR, BEING THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC BY BALBOA.
" He was the first who ever burst Into that silent sea."
VASCO NUÑEZ DE BALBOA, the discoverer of the Pacific, was no ordinary man. He was gifted with great personal magnet- ism, courage, and perseverance of a high order, and a nobility of spirit which preferred fame to gold. He rises far above the ordinary Spanish mercenaries who sought the New World only to satisfy their greed. Like others of his race, Balboa was a strange mixture of good and evil, passing triumphantly through many a wild and bloody scene to die at last upon the scaffold, through the indirect influence of the native mistress whom he seemed to have loved, and for a crime of which he was certainly innocent ; for when the crier who preceded him to the block proclaimed him a traitor, Balboa indignantly repudiated the charge, saying, “ It is false !· Never did such a crime enter into my mind. I have ever served my king with truth and loyalty, and sought to augment his dominions." He perished in 1517, in the prime of his life (being but forty-one years old), a man whose name is as enduringly linked with the discovery of the Pacific as that of Columbus with the continent on which we dwell. Well was it for the treacherous governor and his adher- ents who condemned him that the little band, then awaiting his return on the Pacific, knew nothing of their leader's extrem- ity, or, says Headley, " they would have descended with their old battle-cry of 'Santiago !' and swept his enemies into the sea."
A romance almost Oriental in its details surrounds the story of his Darien experience-his marriage (if such it may be called) with the daughter of the cacique, whom he had traitorously overcome, who, after reproaching him in moving terms with his perfidy, gave the young and beautiful captive maid, as she stood
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trembling and dejected before him, to be his wife, with these words :
" Behold my daughter. I give her to thee as a pledge of friendship. Take her for thy wife, and be assured of the fidelity of her family and her people."
Irving tells us that Balboa felt the full force of his words, and knowing the importance of forming a strong alliance with the natives, looked upon her, and she, like Rebecca of old, found favor in his sight. He omits, however, to state whether the charms of the daughter or the influence of her father was the strongest factor in bringing about this left-handed alliance, or what the French would term mariage de convenance. We find him, then, possibly by way of wedding reception, treating his new father-in-law to a grand military display, the details of his ships, his war horses, armor, and equipments, to which he judiciously adds, in the language of the historian, "Lest he should be too much daunted by these warlike spectacles, he caused the musicians to perform a harmonious concert on their instruments, at which the cacique was lost in admiration." Having thus sufficiently impressed him with his power, and loaded him with presents, he suffered his new friend to depart. It will be observed that the mother-in-law does not appear to have played so prominent a part in those days as in our later and more degenerate times.
True to his promise to the father of this Indian beauty, Bal- boa makes war against the cacique's enemies and returns laden with the spoil-a considerable one-of their villages. It will be seen that one indirect effect of this native marriage was to direct his attention to the Pacific, of whose existence he had not yet heard. So that, after all, it was the feeble hand of an untutored Indian girl that pointed her steel-clad European lover to the goal which was to link his memory with undying reputation by making him the discoverer of that mighty sea which bounds our western shore.
Old Peter Martyr tells us that the eldest son of a cacique, Comagie, one of Careta's allies, to whom the new-made Bene- dict made a friendly visit-a chief who commanded three thou- sand warriors-perceiving. that the Spaniards were a " wander- ing kind of men, living only by shifts and spoil," sought to gain their favor by gratifying their avarice. He himself gave four
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thousand ounces of gold, with sixty slaves-captives taken in battle. Balboa ordered the gold weighed, setting aside one fifth for the crown, and dividing the remainder among his followers. In the division a violent quarrel arose among them as to the value and size of their respective shares. The high-minded sav- age was disgusted at this sordid brawl among those whom he had learned to reverence as superior beings. In the impulse of his disdain, says Irving, he struck the scales with his fist and scattered the glittering pieces about the porch. "Why," said he, " should you quarrel for such a trifle ? If this gold is so precious to your eyes that for it you abandon your homes, invade the peaceful lands of others, and expose yourselves to such suffering and peril, I will tell you of a region. where you may gratify your wishes to the utmost. Behold those lofty mountains !" continued he, pointing to the south. "Beyond them lies a mighty sea, which may be observed from their sum- mit. It is navigated by people who have vessels almost as large as yours, and furnished, like them, with sails and oars. All the streams which flow down the southern side of those mountains into that sea abound in gold, and the kings who reign upon its borders eat and drink out of golden vessels. Gold, in fact, is as plentiful and common among those people of the south as iron is among you Spaniards."
Need it be said that Balboa eagerly asked as to the means of penetrating so opulent a region ? He was told of the dangers of the way, those which did exist and some which existed only in the imagination ; for their narrators spoke of fierce and evil cannibals, who were probably a myth. But the warlike cacique Tubanama, with his fierce following, was probably real enough. The territories of this redoubtable chief were, it seemed, distant but six days' journey, and reputed richest of all in gold-a fact which probably more than balanced any dread of his prowess in the minds of the soldiers of Balboa. The cacique concluded by declaring that it would require at least a thousand soldiers armed like the Spaniards to effect its conquest, yet at the same time offered, as a proof of his thoughtfulness, to accompany the expedition at the head of his warriors. Surely Balboa had a wonderful talent for making friends among these children of the wilderness !
This revelation, the first intimation he had received of the
EngamyF G Kernan, N.Y
Isaac, Cathcart
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existence of this, to Europeans, unknown and entirely unsus- pected sea, appears to have wrought a revolution in Balboa's whole character. The hitherto wandering and desperate man had a road opened to his utmost ambition which, if followed to success, would place him among the great captains and discor- erers of earth. Henceforth the discovery of the Pacific, "the sea beyond the mountains," was the sole object of his thoughts, rousing and ennobling a spirit set on higher aims. He hastened his return to Darien to make the necessary preparations for this splendid enterprise. "Before departing," says the historian, " he baptized the cacique by the name of Don Carlos, and per- formed the same ceremony for his sons and several of his sub- jects. Thus strangely did avarice and religion go hand in hand in the conduct of the Spanish discoveries."
Lacking provisions on his return to Darien, we find him sending, in his extremity, a second time to Hispaniola for sup- plies. He writes also to Don Diego Columbus, who governed at San Domingo, informing him of the great sea and opulent region beyond the mountains, and entreating his influence with the king to obtain a thousand men to prosecute his quest. Strongest argument of all to win imperial favor, he sent fifteen thousand crowns in gold to be remitted to the king as his royal fifth of the sums already gathered. Many of his followers like- wise sent money to their creditors at home-greatly, as we must imagine, to the wonder. of those to whom they were indebted.
Meanwhile a complication of difficulties had terminated in serious complaints against Balboa at the Spanish court which roused the indignation of the king and obtained a sentence against him involving costs and damages. It was, moreover, determined to recall him to Spain to answer to criminal charges. Learning this by his private advices, and in daily expectation of official action which might deprive him of his government, Balboa determines, while still master of his own actions, to obtain restoration to his sovereign's favor by a " bold achieve- ment-the discovery of the southern sea. He dared not wait for reinforcements from Spain, but determined, with the hand- ful of men at his command, to undertake the task, desperate as it appeared." To linger was to be lost. "Selecting one hun- dred and ninety picked men devoted to his person, he armed them with swords, targets, crossbows, and arquebuses ; he did
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not conceal from them the danger of the enterprise into which he was about to lead them ;"' but there was gold for the finding, and with such a stimulus he might well rely upon the bravery of his adventurers. He also took with him a number of trained bloodhounds, which had been found terrible allies in Indian warfare.
One of these hounds -- Balboa's special bodyguard and con- stant companion, a dog named Leoncico-is thus minutely de- scribed by Oviedo :
" He was of middle size, but immensely strong ; of a dull yellow or reddish color, with a black muzzle, and his body was scarred all over with wounds received in innumerable battles with the Indians. Balboa always took him with him on his expeditions, and sometimes lent him to others, receiving for his services the same share of booty allotted to an armed man. In this way he gained by him, in the course of his campaigns, upward of a thousand crowns. The Indians, it is said, had con- ceived such terror of this animal that the very sight of him was sufficient to put a host of them to flight."
He also, in addition to these forces, took with him a number of Darien Indians, whom he had won over by his kindness, and whose services as guides and from their general knowledge of native habits and resources made them valuable allies in the field, greatly to be counted on. "Such," says Irving, " was the motley armament that set forth from the little colony of Darien under the guidance of a daring, if not desperate, com- mander in quest of the great Pacific Ocean."
We find our adventurer embarking " on the first of Septem- ber with his followers, in a brigantine and nine large canoes or pirogues, followed by the cheers and good wishes of those who remained in the settlement." Standing northwest, he arrives safely at Coyba, the dominion of his cacique father-in-law. The Indian beauty, we are told, had acquired a great influence over her lord, and his friendship with her people appears to have been sincere. Here he was received with open arms and fur- nished both with guides and warriors. He leaves half his men here to guard the canoes, and departs to penetrate the wilder- ness. Before setting out, however-being, doubtless, deeply impressed both with the solemnity and danger of his mission- he causes high mass to be performed, and offers up prayers to
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God for the success of his perilous enterprise. It was on the sixth day of September that he struck for the mountains. " Their march," says the author from whom we so often quote, " was difficult and dangerous. The Spaniards, encumbered with the weight of their armor and weapons, and oppressed by the heat of a tropical climate, were obliged to climb rocky preci- pices and to struggle through close and tangled forests. Their Indian allies aided them by carrying their ammunition and pro- visions, and by guiding them to the most practicable paths." September Sth finds them at the village of Ponca, the ancient enemy of Careta. All is lifeless, the people having fled. Here they remain for several days to recruit. Guides are needed, and the retreat of Ponca being at length discovered, he is prevailed on, though reluctantly, to come to his enemy, Balboa, by whom he is kindly received and speedily won over. (This Spaniard seems to have been endowed with some special power of fascina- tion, or these natives were easily persuaded.) This Ponca be- comes his friend, assures him of the existence of the sea, gives him ornaments of gold, and even points out the mountain from whose summit the ocean is visible.
Fired with new zeal, Balboa procures fresh guides and pre- pares to ascend the mountain. He returns his sick to Coyba, taking with him only the vigorous. On September 20th we see him again setting forth through a broken, rocky country, cov- ered with matted forests and intersected by deep and turbulent streams, many of which he is obliged to raft. So difficult is their path that in four days they make only ten leagues of prog- ress, and, withal, suffer from hunger. Then follows a battle with the natives, in which the firearms of the Spaniards are, of course, victorious. After this bloody conflict they take the vil- lage of Quaraqua, where they find good booty of gold. They reach, in the conquest of this village, the foot of the last moun- tain to be climbed. Here some of the Spaniards, disabled by wounds, or exhausted by hunger and fatigue, are reluctantly compelled to remain. But sixty-seven of his own men remain to accompany their leader in his final effort. These he orders to retire early to repose, that they might be able to march with the freshness of the dawn so as to reach the wished-for summit be- fore the noontide heat.
The day has scarcely dawned-a day so momentous that its
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light reaches even to our own history as it opens the second door to northwest discovery-when Balboa sets forth from the Indian village with his followers to climb the final height. The way is hard and rugged ; but, sustained by the nearness of their goal, their hearts beat high with hope and expectancy. At ten o'clock they emerge from the forest and reach an airy height. The summit alone remains to be ascended, from whence his guides declare the ocean may be seen. Balboa halts his men with the command, " Let no man leave his place !" Who shall measure the emotions of this wonderful man as he nears the spot ? The gambler stands inwardly trembling as he watches the turn of the card or the falling of the dice on which he has staked his fortune ; the captive waits the sentence of death or liberty ; the lover, the crisis of disease which shall give or take away all that is dearest upon earth. How, then, must it have been with this bold gamester for honor and fame ; this captive to a secret fear of enemies at home ; this lover, sitting by the bedside of a hope now to be proved real or fallacious ? He goes alone beneath the sun of that tropic morning. He will have no witnesses but God and nature to the exultation of his triumph or the bitterness of his defeat. For a moment he hesitates ; the last eminence is at hand-a step will bring him there. Well may the heart that never quailed in battle grow faint and sick with anxiety. But disappointment itself is less terrible than suspense ; he nerves himself for the trial, and gains the eyrie from which his eagle eye is to behold what through the ages no European has gazed upon before. The Pacific, with its myriad billows sparkling in the sunshine, its fleecy clouds resting on its far-off horizon, is before him-the mighty sea which is to become the conserver of his fame, even as the continent will tell the story of Columbus-the sea that still bears the name, wher- ever its billows break, or on whatever shores, however distant, with which he so appropriately baptized it-the Pacific. Be- hind him lay the mountains, the wilderness crossed with such loss and toil ; before him the wild chaos of rock and forest, silver threads of wandering streams, savannas clothed in the rich ver- dure of the tropic wild, and beyond all the sparkling of the sea.
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