Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [135]
Suffering from painful gout and disorienting heatstroke, unable to sleep, scarcely able to breathe, Columbus forced himself to conjure a course to more temperate weather. He took heart from the sight of black and white rooks, birds that he believed did not stray far from land. By July 19, the heat was even more intense, and the suffering greater. But then a zephyr filled the ships’ sails, a few uncertain puffs at first, followed by more convincing gusts, until the sheets bulged and the air pulsed with vitality once again. “It pleased Our Lord at the end of these eight days to grant me a good wind from the east,” Columbus noted, “and I went west . . . always westward on the parallel of Sierra Leone with the intention of not changing course until I reached the location where I thought I would find land and repair the ships and replenish, if possible, our victuals and take on the water I needed.” He followed his westward course for seventeen days, believing that he would eventually arrive at a point due south of Hispaniola.
But first he had to find land. His ships were coming apart at the seams, and in urgent need of repair, and their stores were equally in need of replenishment. Sunday, July 22, brought birds flying from the west southwest to the northeast . . . still more birds traversing the skies on Monday . . . and, later that week, a pelican perched proudly on the flagship, suggesting the proximity of land, and drinking water, but where?
Veering north, he made for the big island of Dominica, whose coast he had skirted on the second voyage. Because of its reputation as a cannibal haven, he had chosen to avoid it on that occasion, but now he was so desperate for water and respite from the torments of the sea that he was willing to risk a landfall. Before he did, he sent his servant, Alonso Pérez, up to the mainmast. From his vantage point, “he saw land to the west, fifteen leagues away,” Columbus noted. “What appeared were three knolls or mountains.” They formed an unexpected deliverance from the anthropophagi. He named the outcroppings Trinidad, after their tripartite nature. As he approached, they appeared to him as “three mountains all at one time, in a single view.” Not since encountering land during his first voyage had he felt so relieved. “It is certain that finding this land in this place was a great miracle,” he recorded. He had just sighted one of the two islands that comprise today’s Trinidad, the southernmost landmass of the Caribbean, only seven miles from the coast of Venezuela and South America. The Spaniards on board rejoiced and chanted the “Salve Regina” as the others nodded in fervent agreement.
He made for a cape that had caught his attention. It seemed to resemble a galley under sail, and so he named it Cabo de la Galera, where, according to his records, he arrived at the hour of Compline, at day’s end. In search of a safe harbor, he coasted past miles of shoreline cloaked in forests that “reached to the sea.” Finally, Columbus caught sight of a canoe: his first contact with the people of Trinidad. Rather than expressing relief or curiosity, he brushed off the overtures of a small tribe approaching them in canoes. Stressed from the voyage, suffering from aches and pains, and even near blindness, and puzzled that the canoes did not carry Chinese, as expected, he avoided both their friendly gestures and hostile arrows. In reality, he was no closer to India than before, and had happened upon a local community related to the Taíno and Carib tribes.
The next morning, his fleet, rationed to a single cask of water, proceeded along a southerly course until dropping anchor at Point Erin, where the men gratefully refilled their supply of fresh water and cleaned themselves and their garments in heartfelt rites of renewal.
Aboard their