give them, at the first glance, the semblance of human figures. Whether the story originated in error or in falsehood, it made a deep impression on the mind of Columbus, who was predisposed to be deceived, and to believe every thing that favored the illusion of his being in the vicinity of a civilized country.

After he had explored the deep bay to the east, and ascertained that it was not an arm of the sea, he continued westward, and proceeding about nine leagues, came to an inhabited shore, where he had communications with several of the natives. They were naked as usual; but that he attributed to their being mere fishermen inhabiting a savage coast; he presumed the civilized regions to lie in the interior. As his Lucayan interpreter did not understand the language, or rather dialect, of this part of Cuba, all the information which he could obtain from the natives was necessarily received through the erroneous medium of signs and gesticulations. Deluded by his own favorite hypothesis, he understood from them that, among certain mountains which he saw far off to the west, there was a powerful king, who reigned in great state over many populous provinces; that he wore a white garment which swept the ground; that he was called a saint;* that he never spoke, but communicated his orders to his subjects by signs, which were implicitly obeyed. In all this we see the busy imagination of the admiral interpreting every thing into unison with his preconceived ideas. Las Casas assures us that there was no cacique ever known in the island who wore garments, or answered in other respects to this description. This king, with a saintly title, was probably nothing more than a

* Que le Llamaban santo e que traia tunica blanca que le arastra por el suelo.-Cura de los Palacios, cap. 128.

+ Herrera, Hist. Ind, dec. i. lib. ii. cap. 14.

reflected image haunting the mind of Columbus, of that mysterious potentate, Prester John, who had long figured in the narrations of all eastern travelers, sometimes as a monarch, sometimes as a priest, the situation of whose empire and court was always a matter of doubt and contradiction, and had recently become again an object of curious inquiry.

The information derived from these people concerning the coast to the westward was entirely vague. They said that it continued for at least twenty days' journey, but whether it terminated there they did not know. They appeared but little informed of any thing out of their immediate neighborhood. Taking an Indian from this place as a guide, Columbus steered for the distant mountains, said to be inhabited by this cacique in white raiment, hoping they might prove the confines of a more civilized country. He had not gone far before he was involved in the usual perplexities of keys, shelves, and sandbanks. The vessels frequently stirred up the sand and slime from the bottom of the sea; at other times they were almost imbedded in narrow channels, where there was no room to tack, and it was necessary to haul them forward by means of the capstan, to their great injury. At one time they came to where the sea was almost covered with tortoises; at another time flights of cormorants and wood-pigeons darkened the sun, and one day the whole air was filled with clouds of gaudy butterflies, until dispelled by the evening shower.

When they approached the mountainous regions, they found the coast bordered by drowned lands or morasses, and beset by such thick forests, that it was impossible to penetrate to the interior. They were several days seeking fresh water, of which they were in great want. At length they found a spring in a grove of

palm-trees, and near it shells of the pearl oyster, from which Columbus thought there might be a valuable pearl-fishery in the neighborhood.

While thus cut off from all intercourse with the interior by a belt of swamp and forests, the country appeared to be well peopled. Columns of smoke ascended from various parts, which grew more frequent as the vessels advanced, until they rose from every rock and woody height. The Spaniards were at a loss to determine whether these arose from villages and towns, or whether from signal fires, to give notice of the approach of the ships, and to alarm the country; such as were usual on European seashores, when an enemy was descried hovering in the vicinity.

For several days Columbus continued exploring this perplexed and lonely coast, whose intricate channels are seldom visited, even at the present day, excepting by the solitary and lurking bark of the smuggler. As he proceeded, however, he found that the coast took a general bend to the southwest. This accorded precisely with the descriptions given by Marco Polo of the remote coast of Asia. He now became fully assured that he was on that part of the Asiatic continent which is beyond the boundaries of the Old World as laid down by Ptolemy. him but continue his coast, he thought, and he must surely arrive to the point where this range of coast terminated in the Aurea Chersonesus of the ancients.*

Let

The ardent imagination of Columbus was always sallying in the advance, and suggesting some splendid track of enterprise. Combining his present conjectures as to his situation with the imperfect lights of geography, he conceived a triumphant route for his return to Spain. Doubling the Aurea Chersonesus, he should

* The present peninsula of Malacca.

emerge into the seas frequented by the ancients, and bordered by the luxurious nations of the East. Stretching across the gulf of the Ganges, he might pass by Taprobana, and continuing on to the straits of Babelmandel, arrive on the shores of the Red Sea. Thence he might make his way by land to Jerusalem, take shipping at Joppa, and traverse the Mediterranean to Spain. Or should the route from Ethiopia to Jerusalem be deemed too perilous from savage and warlike tribes, or should he not choose to separate from his vessels, he might sail round the whole coast of Africa, pass triumphantly by the Portuguese, in their midway groping along the shores of Guinea, and after having thus circumnavigated the globe, furl his adventurous sails at the Pillars of Hercules, the ne plus ultra of the ancient world! Such was the soaring meditation of Columbus, as recorded by one of his intimate associates; nor is there any thing surprising in his ignorance of the real magnitude of our globe. The mechanical admeasurement of a known part of its circle has rendered its circumference a familiar fact in our day; but in his time it still remained a problem with the most profound philosophers.

*Cura de los Palacios, cap. 123, MS.

CHAPTER V.

RETURN OF COLUMBUS ALONG THE SOUTHERN COAST OF CUBA.

[1494.]

THE opinion of Columbus, that he was coasting the continent of Asia, and approaching the confines of eastern civilization, was shared by all his fellow-voyagers, among whom were several able and experienced navigators. They were far, however, from sharing his enthusiasm. They were to derive no glory from the success of the enterprise, and they shrunk from its increasing difficulties and perils. The ships were strained and crazed by the various injuries they had received, in running frequently aground. Their cables and rigging were worn, their provisions were growing scanty, a great part of the biscuit was spoiled by the seawater, which oozed in through innumerable leaks. The crews were worn out by incessant labor, and disheartened at the appearance of the sea before them, which continued to exhibit a mere wilderness of islands. They remonstrated, therefore, against persisting any longer in this voyage. They had already followed the coast far enough to satisfy their minds that it was a continent, and though they doubted not that civilized regions lay in the route they were pursuing, yet their provisions might be exhausted, and their vessels disabled, before they could arrive at them.