much wrong and misery in the world. Considering that the greater the number of these cannibal pagans transferred to the Catholic soil of Spain, the greater would be the number of souls put in the way of salvation, he proposed to establish an exchange of them as slaves, against live stock, to be furnished by merchants to the colony. The ships to bring such stock were to land nowhere but at the Island of Isabella, where the Carib captives would be ready for delivery. A duty was to be levied on each slave for the benefit of the royal revenue. In this way the colony would be furnished with all kinds of live stock free of expense; the peaceful islanders would be freed from warlike and inhuman neighbors; the royal treasury would be greatly enriched; and a vast number of souls would be snatched from perdition, and carried, as it were, by main force to heaven. Such is the strange sophistry by which upright men may sometimes deceive themselves. Columbus feared the disappointment of the sovereigns in respect to the product of his enterprises, and was anxious to devise some mode of lightening their expenses until he could open some ample source of profit. The conversion of infidels, by fair means or foul, by persuasion or force, was one of the popular tenets of the day; and in recommending the enslaving of the Caribs, Columbus thought that he was obeying the dictates of his conscience, when he was in reality listening to the incitements of his interest. It is but just to add, that the sovereigns did not accord with his ideas, but ordered that the Caribs should be converted like the rest of the islanders; a command which emanated from the merciful heart of Isabella, who ever showed herself the benign protectress of the Indians.

The fleet put to sea on the 2d of February, 1494. Though it brought back no wealth to Spain, yet expectation was kept alive by the sanguine letter of Columbus, and the specimens of gold which he transmitted; his favorable accounts were corroborated by letters from Friar Boyle, Doctor Chanca, and other persons of credibility, and by the personal reports of Gorvalan. The sordid calculations of petty spirits were as yet overruled by the enthusiasm of generous minds, captivated by the lofty nature of these enterprises. There was something wonderfully grand in the idea of thus introducing new races of animals and plants, of building cities, extending colonies, and sowing the seeds of civilization and of enlightened empire in this beautiful but savage world. It struck the minds of learned and classical men with admiration, filling them with pleasant dreams and reveries, and seeming to realize the poetical pictures of the olden time. Columbus, says old Peter Martyr, has begun to build a city, as he has lately written to me, and to sow our seeds and propagate our animals! Who of us shall now speak with wonder of Saturn, Ceres, and Triptolemus, travelling about the earth to spread new inventions among mankind? Or of the Phonicians who built Tyre or Sidon? Or of the Tyrians themselves, whose roving desires led them to migrate into foreign lands, to build new cities, and establish new communities ?"*

66

Such were the comments of enlightened and benevolent men, who hailed with enthusiasm the discovery of the New World, not for the wealth it would bring to Europe, but for the field it would open for glorious and benevolent enterprise, and the blessings and improvements of civilized life,

Letter 153 to Pomponius Lætus.

which it would widely dispense through barbarous and uncultivated regions.

NOTE.

Isabella at the present day is quite overgrown with forest, in the midst of which are still to be seen, partly standing, the pillars of the church, some remains of the king's storehouses, and part of the residence of Columbus, all built of hewn stone. The small fortress is also a prominent ruin; and a little north of it is a cicular pillar about ten feet high and as much in diameter, of solid masonry, nearly entire; which appears to have had a wooden gallery or battlement round the top for the convenience of room, and in the centre of which was planted the flagstaff. Having discovered the remains of an iron clamp imbedded in the stone, which served to secure the flagstaff itself, I tore it out, and now consign to you this curious relic of the first foothold of civilization in the New World, after it has been exposed to the elements nearly three hundred and fifty years.—From the Letter of T S. Heneken, Esq.

CHAPTER VIII.

DISCONTENTS AT ISABELLA-MUTINY OF BERNAL DIAZ DE PISA.

[1494.]

THE embryo city of Isabella was rapidly assuming a form. A dry stone wall surrounded it, to protect it from any sudden attack of the natives, although the most friendly disposition was evinced by the Indians of the vicinity, who brought supplies of their simple articles of food, and gave them in exchange for European trifles. On the day of the Epiphany, the 6th of February, the church being sufficiently completed, high mass was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony, by Friar Boyle and the twelve ecclesiastics. The affairs of the settlement being thus apparently in a regular train, Columbus, though still confined by indisposition, began to make arrangements for his contemplated expedition to the mountains of Cibao, when an unexpected disturbance in his little community for a time engrossed his attention.

The sailing of the fleet for Spain had been a melancholy sight to many whose terms of enlistment compelled them to remain on the island. Disappointed in their expectations of immediate wealth, disgusted with the labors imposed on them, and appalled by the maladies prevalent throughout the community, they began to look with horror upon the surrounding wilderness, as destined to be the grave of their hopes and of themselves. When the last sail disappeared, they felt as if completely severed from their country: and the tender recollections of home, which had been checked for a time by the novelty and bustle around them, rushed with sudden force upon their minds. To return to Spain became their ruling idea, and the same want of reflection which had hurried them into the enterprise, without inquiring into its real nature, now prompted them to extricate themselves from it, by any means however desperate.

Where popular discontents prevail there is seldom wanting some daring spirit to give them a dangerous direction. One Bernard Diaz de Pisa, a man of some importance, who had held a civil office about the court, had come out with the expedition as comptroller; he seems to have presumed upon his official powers, and to have had early differences with the admiral. Disgusted with his employment in the colony, he soon made

a faction among the discontented, and proposed that they should take advantage of the indisposition of Columbus, to seize upon some or all of the five ships in the harbor, and return in them to Spain. It would be easy to justify their clandestine return, by preferring a complaint against the admiral, representing the fallacy of his enterprises, and accusing him of gross deceptions and exaggerations in his accounts of the countries he had discovered. It is probable that some of these people really considered him culpable of the charges thus fabricated against him; for in the disappointment of their avaricious hopes, they overlooked the real value of those fertile islands, which were to enrich nations by the produce of their soil. Every country was sterile and unprofitable in their eyes that did not immediately teem with gold. Though they had continual proofs in the specimens brought by the natives to the settlement, or furnished to Ojeda and Gorvalan, that the rivers and mountains in the interior abounded with ore, yet even these daily proofs were falsified in their eyes. One Fermin Cedo, a wrong-headed and obstinate man, who had come out as assayer and purifier of metals, had imbibed the same prejudice against the expedition with Bernal Diaz. He pertinaciously insisted that there was no gold in the island; or at least that it was found in such inconsiderable quantities as not to repay the search. He declared that the large grains of virgin ore brought by the natives had been melted; that they had been the slow accumulation of many years, having remained a long time in the families of the Indians, and handed down from generation to generation; which in many instances was probably the case. Other specimens of a large size he pronounced of a very inferior quality, and debased with brass by the natives. The words of this man outweighed the evidence of facts, and many joined him in the belief that the island was really destitute of gold. It was not until some time afterward that the real character of Fermin Cedo

was ascertained, and the discovery made that his ignorance was at least equal to his obstinacy and presumption; qualities apt to enter largely into the compound of a meddlesome and mischievous

man.*

Encouraged by such substantial co-operation, a number of turbulent spirits concerted to take immediate possession of the ships and make sail for Europe. The influence of Bernal Diaz de Pisa at court would obtain for them a favorable hearing, and they trusted to their unanimous representations, to prejudice Columbus in the opinion of the public, ever fickle in its smiles, and most ready to turn suddenly and capriciously from the favorites it has most idolized.

Fortunately this mutiny was discovered before it proceeded to action. Columbus immediately ordered the ringleaders to be arrested. On making investigations, a memorial or information against himself, full of slanders and misrepresentations, was found concealed in the buoy of one of the ships. It was in the handwriting of Bernal Diaz. The admiral conducted himself with great moderation. Out of respect to the rank and station of Diaz, he forbore to inflict any punishment; but confined him on board one of the ships, to be sent to Spain for trial, together with the process or investigation of his offence, and the seditious memorial which had been discovered. Several of the inferior mutineers were punished according to the degree of their culpability, but not with the

* Cura de los Palacios, cap. 120, 122, MS.

severity which their offence deserved. To guard against any recurrence of a similar attempt, Columbus ordered that all the guns and naval munitions should be taken out of four of the vessels, and put into the principal ship, which was given in charge to persons in whom he could place implicit confidence.*

This was the first time Columbus exercised the right of punishing delinquents in his new government, and it immediately awakened the most violent animadversions. His measures, though necessary for the general safety, and characterized by the greatest lenity, were censured as arbitrary and vindictive. Already the disadvantage of being a foreigner among the people he was to govern was clearly manifested. He had national prejudices to encounter, of all others the most general and illiberal. He had no natural friends to rally round him; whereas the mutineers had connections in Spain, friends in the colony, and met with sympathy in every discontented mind. An early hostility was thus engendered against Columbus, which continued to increase throughout his life, and the seeds were sown of a series of factions and mutinies which afterward distracted the island.

CHAPTER IX.

EXPEDITION OF COLUMBUS TO THE MOUNTAINS OF CIBAO. [1494.]

HAVING at length recovered from his long illness, and the mutiny at the settlement being effectually checked, Columbus prepared for his immediate departure for Cibao. He intrusted the command of the city and the ships, during his absence, to his brother Don Diego, appointing able persons to counsel and assist him. Don Diego is represented by Las Casas, who knew him personally, as a man of great merit and discretion, of a gentle and pacific disposition, and more characterized by simplicity than shrewdness. He was sober in his attire, wearing almost the dress of an ecclesiastic, and Las Casas thinks he had secret hopes of preferment in the church; † indeed Columbus intimates as much when he mentions him in his will.

As the admiral intended to build a fortress in the mountains, and to form an establishment for working the mines, he took with him the necessary artificers, workmen, miners, munitions, and implements. He was also about to enter the territories of the redoutable Caonabo; it was important, therefore, to take with him a force that should not only secure him against any warlike opposition, but should spread through the country a formidable idea of the power of the white men, and deter the Indians from any future violence, either toward communities or wandering individuals. Every healthy person, therefore, who could be together with all the cavalry that could be musspared from the settlement, was put in requisition, tered; and every arrangement was made to strike the savages with the display of military splendor.

On the 12th of March Columbus set out at the head of about four hundred men well armed and equipped, with shining helmets and corselets; with

*Herrera, Hist. Ind., decad. i. lib. ii. cap. II Hist. del Almirante, cap. 50.

Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 82, Ms.

arquebuses, lances, swords, and cross-bows, and followed by a multitude of the neighboring Indians. They sallied from the city in martial array, with banners flying, and sound of drum and trumpet. Their march for the first day was across the plain between the sea and the mountains, fording two rivers, and passing through a fair and verdant country. They encamped in the evening, in the midst of pleasant fields, at the foot of a wild and rocky pass of the mountains.

The ascent of this rugged defile presented formidable difficulties to the little army, incumbered as it was with various implements and munitions. There was nothing but an Indian footpath, winding among rocks and precipices, or through brakes and thickets, entangled by the rich vegetation of a tropical forest. A number of high-spirited young cavaliers volunteered to open a route for the army. They had probably learnt this kind of service in the Moorish wars, where it was often necessary on a sudden to open roads for the march of troops, and the conveyance of artillery across the mountains of Granada. Throwing themselves in advance with laborers and pioneers, whom they stimulated by their example, as well as by promises of liberal reward, they soon constructed the first road formed in the New World, and which was called El Puerto de los Hidalgos, or The Gentlemen's Pass, in honor of the gallant cavaliers who effected it.*

On the following day the army toiled up this steep defile, and arrived where the gore of the mountain opened into the interior. Here a land of promise suddenly burst upon their view. It was the same glorious prospect which had delighted Ojeda and his companions. Below lay a vast and delicious plain, painted and enamelled, as it were, with all the rich variety of tropical vegetation. The magnificent forests presented that mingled beauty and majesty of vegetable forms known only to these generous climates. Palms of prodigious height, and spreading mahogany trees, towered from amid a wilderness of variegated foliage. Freshness and verdure were maintained by numerous streams, which meandered gleaming through the deep bosom of the woodland; while various villages and hamlets, peeping from among the trees, and the smoke of others rising out of the midst of the forests, gave signs of a numerous population. The luxuriant landscape extended as far as the eye could reach, until it appeared to melt away and mingle with the horizon. The Spaniards gazed with rapture upon this soft, voluptuous country, which seemed to realize their ideas of a terrestrial paradise; and Columbus, struck with its vast extent, gave it the name of the Vega Real, or Royal Plain.†

* Hist. del Almirante, cap. 50. Hidalgo, i... Hijo de Algo, literally, "a son of somebody," in contradistinction to an obscure and low-born man, a son of nobody.

Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 90, Ms. Extract of a Letter from T. S. Heneken, Esq., dated Santiago (St. Domingo), 20th September, 1847. The route over which Columbus traced his course from Isabella to the mountains of Cibao exists in all its primitive rudeness. The Puerto de los Hidalgos is still the narrow rugged footpath winding among rucks and precipices, leading through the only prac ticable defile which traverses the Monte Christi range of mountains in this vicinity, at present called the Pass of Marney; and it is somewhat surprising that, of this first and remarkable footprint of the white man in the New World, there does not at the present day

Having descended the rugged pass, the army issued upon the plain, in martial style, with great clangor of warlike instruments. When the Indians beheld this shining band of warriors, glittering in steel, emerging from the mountains with prancing steeds and flaunting banners, and heard, for the first time, their rocks and forests echoing to the din of drum and trumpet, they might well have taken such a wonderful pageant for a supernatural vision.

In this way Columbus disposed of his forces whenever he approached a populous village, placing the cavalry in front, for the horses inspired a mingled terror and admiration among the natives. Las Casas observes that at first they supposed the rider and his horse to be one animal, and nothing could exceed their astonishment at seeing the horsemen dismount, a circumstance which shows that the alleged origin of the ancient fable of the centaurs is at least founded in nature. On the approach of the army the Indians generally fled with terror, and took refuge in their houses. Such was their simplicity, that they merely put up a slight barrier of reeds at the portal, and seemed to consider themselves perfectly secure. Columbus, pleased to meet with such artlessness, ordered that these frail barriers should be scrupulously respected, and the inhabitants allowed to remain in their fancied security. By degrees their fears were allayed through the mediation of interpreters and the distribution of trifling presents. Their kindness and gratitude could not then be exceeded, and the march of the army was continually retarded by the hospitality of the numerous villages through which it passed. Such was the frank communion among these people that the Indians who accompanied the army entered without ceremony into the houses, helping themselves to anything of which they stood in need, without exciting surprise or anger in the inhabitants; the latter offered to do the same with respect to the Spaniards, and seemed astonished when they met a repulse. This, it is probable, was the case merely with respect to articles of food; for we are told that the Indians were not careless in their notions of property, and the crime of theft was one of the few which were punished among them with great severity. Food, however, is generally open to free participation in savage life, and is rarely made an object of barter, until habits of trade

exist the least tradition of its former name or impor

tance.

The spring of cool and delightful water met with in the gorge, in a deep dark glen overshadowed by palm and mahogany trees. near the outlet where the magnificent Vega breaks upon the view, still continues to quench the thirst of the weary traveller. When I drank from this lonely little fountain, I could hardly realize the fact that Columbus must likewise have partaken of its sparkling waters, when at the height of his glory, surrounded by cavaliers attired in the gorgeous costumes of the age, and warriors recently from the Moorish wars.

Judging by the distance stated to have been travelled over the plain, Columbus must have crossed the Yaqu near or at Ponton; which very likely received its name from the rafts or pontoons employed to cross the river. Abundance of reeds grow along its banks, and the remains of an Indian village are still very distinctly to be traced in the vicinity. By this route he avoided two large rivers, the Amina and the Mar, which discharge their waters into the Yaqui opposite Esperanza.

The road from Ponton to the River Hanique passes through the defiles of La Cuesta and Nicayagua. *Las Casas, lib. sup. li. cap. 90.

have been introduced by the white men. The untutored savage in almost every part of the world scorns to make a traffic of hospitality.

After a march of five leagues across the plain, they arrived at the banks of a large and beautiful stream, called by the natives Yagui, but to which the admiral gave the name of the River of Reeds. He was not aware that it was the same stream, which, after winding through the Vega, falls into the sea near Monte Christi, and which, in his first voyage, he had named the River of Gold. On its green banks the army encamped for the night, animated and delighted with the beautiful scenes through which they had passed. They bathed and sported in the waters of the Yagui, enjoying the amenity of the surrounding landscape, and the delightful breezes which prevail in that genial season. "For though there is but little difference," observes Las Casas, "from one month to another in all the year in this island, and in most parts of these Indias, yet in the period from September to May, it is like living in paradise.'

"'*

On the following morning they crossed this stream by the aid of canoes and rafts, swimming the horses over. For two days they continued their march through the same kind of rich level country, diversified by noble forests and watered by abundant streams, several of which descended from the mountains of Cibao, and were said to bring down gold dust mingled with their sands. To one of these, the limpid waters of which ran over a bed of smooth round pebbles, Columbus gave the name of Rio Verde, or Green River, from the verdure and freshness of its banks. Its Indian name was Nicayagua, which it still retains.† In the course of this march they passed through numerous villages, where they experienced generally the same reception. The inhabitants fled at their approach, putting up their slight barricadoes of reeds, but, as before, they were easily won to familiarity, and tasked their limited means to entertain the strangers.

Thus penetrating into the midst of this great island, where every scene presented the wild luxuriance of beautiful but uncivilized nature, they arrived on the evening of the second day at a chain of lofty and rugged mountains, forming a kind of barrier to the Vega. These Columbus was told were the golden mountains of Cibao, whose region commenced at their rocky summits. The country now beginning to grow rough and difficult, and the people being wayworn, they encamped for the night at the foot of a steep defile, which led up into the mountains, and pioneers were sent in advance to open a road for the army. From this place they sent back mules for a supply of bread and wine, their provisions beginning to grow scanty, for they had not as yet accustomed themselves to the food of the natives, which was afterward found to be of that light digestible kind suitable to the climate.

On the next morning they resumed their march up a narrow and steep glen, winding among craggy rocks, where they were obliged to lead the horses. Arrived at the summit, they once more enjoyed a prospect of the delicious Vega, which here presented a still grander appearance, stretching far and wide on either hand, like a vast verdant lake. This noble plain, according to Las Casas, is eighty leagues in length, and from

*Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 90, MS.

The name of Rio Verde was afterward given to a small stream which crosses the road from Santiago to La Vega, a branch of the River Yuna.

twenty to thirty in breadth, and of incomparable beauty.

They now entered Cibao, the famous region of gold, which, as if nature delighted in contrarieties, displayed a miser-like poverty of exterior, in proportion to its hidden treasures. Instead of the soft luxuriant landscape of the Vega, they beheld chains of rocky and sterile mountains, scantily clothed with lofty pines. The trees in the valleys also, instead of possessing the rich tufted foliage common to other parts of the island, were meagre and dwarfish, excepting such as grew on the banks of streams. The very name of the country bespoke the nature of the soil-Cibao, in the language of the natives, signifying a stone. Still, however, there were deep glens and shady ravines among the mountains, watered by limpid rivulets, where the green herbage and strips of woodland were the more delightful to the eye from the neighboring sterility. But what consoled the Spaniards for the asperity of the soil, was to observe among the sands of those crystal streams glittering particles of gold, which, though scanty in quantity, were regarded as earnests of the wealth locked up within the mountains.

He

The natives having been previously visited by the exploring party under Ojeda, came forth to meet them with great alacrity, bringing food, and, above all, grains and particles of gold collected in the brooks and torrents. From the quantities of gold dust in every stream, Columbus was convinced there must be several mines in the vicinity. He had met with specimens of amber and lapis lazuli, though in very small quantities, and thought that he had discovered a mine of copper. He was now about eighteen leagues from the settlement; the rugged nature of the mountains made a communication, even from this distance, laborious. gave up the idea, therefore, of penetrating farther into the country, and determined to establish a fortified post in this neighborhood, with a large number of men, as well to work the mines as to explore the rest of the province. He accordingly selected a pleasant situation on an eminence almost entirely surrounded by a small river called the Yanique, the waters of which were as pure as if distilled, and the sound of its current musical to the ear. In its bed were found curious stones of various colors, large masses of beautiful marble, and pieces of pure jasper. From the foot of the height extended one of those graceful and verdant plains, called savannas, which was freshened and fertilized by the river.*

On this eminence Columbus ordered a strong fortress of wood to be erected, capable of defence against any attack of the natives, and protected by a deep ditch' on the side which the river did not secure. To this fortress he gave the name of St. Thomas, intended as a pleasant, though pious, reproof of the incredulity of Firmin Cedo and his doubting adherents, who obstinately refused to believe that the island produced gold, until they beheld it with their eyes and touched it with their hands.†

* Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 90, Ms. + Ibid.

From the Letter of T. S. Heneken, Esq., 1847. Traces of the old fortress of St. Thomas still exist, though, as has happened to the Puerta de los Hidalgos, all tradition concerning it has long been lost.

Having visited a small Spanish village known by the name of Hanique, situated on the banks of that stream, I heard by accident the name of a farm at no great distance, called La Fortaleza. This excited my