Chapter XXI: Part 21

After recruiting his flotilla at Azua, Columbus put in at Jaquimo and refitted his four vessels; and on the 14th of July 1502 he steered for Jamaica. For several days the ships wandered painfully among the keys and shoals he had named the Garden of the Queen, and only an opportune easterly wind prevented the crews from open mutiny. The first land sighted (July 30th) was the islet of Guanaja, about 40 m. east of the coast of Honduras. Here he got news from an old Indian of a rich and vast country lying to the eastward, which he at once concluded must be the long-sought-for empire of the grand khan. Steering along the coast of Honduras, great hardships were endured, but nothing approaching his ideal was discovered. On the 12th of September Cape Gracias-a-Dios was rounded. The men had become clamorous and insubordinate; not until the 5th of December, however, would he tack about and retrace his course. It now became his intention to plant a colony on the river Veragua, which was afterwards to give his descendants a title of nobility; but he had hardly put about when he was caught in a storm, which lasted eight days, wrenched and strained his crazy, worm-eaten ships severely, and finally, on Epiphany Sunday 1503, blew him into an embouchure which he named Belem or Bethlehem. Gold was very plentiful in this place, and here he determined to found his settlement. By the end of March 1503 a number of huts had been run up, and in these the _adelantado_ (Bartholomew Columbus), with 80 men, was to remain, while Christopher returned to Spain for men and supplies. Quarrels, however, arose with the natives; the cacique was made prisoner, but escaped again; and before Columbus could leave the coast he had to abandon a caravel, to take the settlers on board, and to relinquish the enterprise of colonization. Steering eastwards, he left a second caravel at Puerto Bello; he thence bore northwards for Cuba, where he obtained supplies from the natives. From Cuba he bore up for Jamaica, and there, in the harbour of San Gloria, now St Ann's Bay, he ran his ships aground in a small inlet still called Don Christopher's Cove (June 23rd, 1503).

The expedition was received with great kindness by the natives, and here Columbus remained upwards of a year, awaiting the return of his lieutenant Diego Mendez, whom he had despatched to Ovando for assistance. During his critical sojourn here, the admiral suffered much from disease and from the lawlessness of his followers, whose misconduct had alienated the natives, and provoked them to withhold their accustomed supplies, until he dexterously worked upon their superstitions by prognosticating an eclipse. Two vessels having at last arrived for his relief, Columbus left Jamaica on the 28th of June 1504, and, after calling at Hispaniola, set sail for Spain on the 12th of September. After a tempestuous voyage he landed once more at San Lucar on the 7th of November 1504.

As he was too ill to go to court, his son Diego was sent thither in his place, to look after his interests and transact his business. Letter after letter followed the young man from Seville--one by the hands of Amerigo Vespucci. A licence to ride on muleback was granted him on the 23rd of February 1505; and in the following May he was removed to the court at Segovia, and thence again to Valladolid. On the landing of Philip and Juana at Coruna (25th of April 1506), although "much oppressed with the gout and troubled to see himself put by his rights," he is known to have sent off the _adelantado_ to pay them his duty and to assure them that he was yet able to do them extraordinary service. The last documentary note of him is contained in a final codicil to the will of 1498, made at Valladolid on the 19th of May 1506. By this the old will is confirmed; the _mayorazgo_ is bequeathed to his son Diego and his heirs male, failing these to Fernando, his second son, and failing these to the heirs male of Bartholomew; only in case of the extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to the females of the family; and those into whose hands it may fall are never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means possible. The head of the house is to sign himself "The Admiral." A tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribution among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed for the saying of masses. Beatriz Enriquez is left to the care of the young admiral. Among other legacies is one of "half a mark of silver to a Jew who used to live at the gate of the Jewry, in Lisbon." The codicil was written and signed with the admiral's own hand. Next day (20th of May 1506) he died.

After the funeral ceremonies at Valladolid, Columbus's remains were transferred to the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, Seville, where the bones of his son Diego, the second admiral, were also laid. Exhumed in 1542, the bodies of both father and son were taken over sea to Hispaniola and interred in the cathedral of San Domingo. In 1795-1796, on the cession of that island to the French, the relics were re-exhumed and transferred to the cathedral of Havana, whence, after the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the loss of Cuba, they were finally removed to Seville cathedral, where they remain. The present heir and representative of Columbus belongs to the Larreategui family, descendants of the discoverer through the female line, and retains the titles of admiral and duke of Veragua.

The interpretation of the seven-lettered cipher, accepting the smaller letters of the second line as the final ones of the words, seems to be _Salve Christus, Maria, Yosephus_. The name _Christopher_ (_Christoferens_) appears in the last line.]

In person Columbus was tall and shapely. The only authentic portrait of him is that which once belonged to Paulus Jovius, and is still in the possession of the de Orchi family (related to Jovius by female descent) at Como. It shows us a venerable man with clean-shaven face, thin grey hair, high forehead, sad thoughtful eyes. It bears the inscription _Columbus Lygur. novi orbis repertor_.

AUTHORITIES.--Fernando Columbus, _Historie del Signor Don Fernando
Colombo ... e vera relatione della vita ... dell' Ammiraglio D.
Christoforo Colombo_ (the Spanish original of this, written before
1539, is lost; only the Italian version remains, first published at
Venice in 1571; a good edition appeared in London in 1867); Bartolome
de las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, written 1527-1561, but first
printed at Madrid in 1875, after remaining in manuscript more than
three centuries; Andres Bernandez, _Historia de los Reyes Catolicos_
(contemporary with Fernando Columbus's _Historie_, but first printed
at Granada in 1856; best edition, Seville, 1870); Gonzalo Fernandez
Oviedo y Valdes, _Historia general de las Indias_ (Seville, 1535; best
edition, Madrid, 1851-1855); Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, _Opus
Epistolarum_, first published in 1530, and _De Orbe Novo_ (_Decades_),
printed in 1511 and 1530; Francisco Lopez de Gomara, _Historia general
de las Indias_ (Saragossa, 1552-1553, and Antwerp, 1554); Antonio de
Herrera, _Historia general de las Indias occidentales_ (publication
first completed in 1615, but best edition perhaps that of 1730,
Madrid); Juan Bautista Munoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_ (Madrid,
1793); Martin Fernandez Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viages y
descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espanoles_ (Madrid,
1825-1837); Washington Irving, _History of the Life and Voyages of
Christopher Columbus_ (London, 1827-1828); Alex. von Humboldt, _Examen
critique_ (Paris, 1836-1839); R. H. Major, _Select Letters of_
_Columbus_ (London, Hakluyt Society, 1847); Fernandez Duro, _Colon y
Pinzon_ (Madrid, 1883); Henry Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_ (Paris,
1884), and _Christophe Colomb devant l'histoire_ (Paris, 1892); Justin
Winsor, _Christopher Columbus_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1891); Jose Maria
Asensio, _Cristoval Colon_ (Barcelona, 1892); Clements R. Markham,
_Life of Christopher Columbus_ (London, 1892); John Fiske, _Discovery
of America_ (Boston and New York, 1892); E. J. Payne, _History of the
New World called America_, vol. i. (Oxford, 1892); Paul Gaffarel,
_Histoire de la decouverte de l'Amerique_ (Paris, 1892); Charles I.
Elton, _Career of Columbus_ (London, 1892); _Raccolta Colombiana_
(1892, &c.); Sophus Ruge, _Columbus_ (Berlin, 1902); John Boyd
Thatcher, _Christopher Columbus_ (New York, 1903-1904); Henry Vignaud,
_La Lettre et la carte de Toscanelli_ (Paris, 1901), and _Etudes
critiques sur la vie de Colomb avant ses decouvertes_ (Paris, 1905);
Filson Young, _Christopher Columbus and the New World of his
discovery_ (London, 1906). (C. R. B.)