Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [179]
On September 16, in Ferdinand’s words, “the Admiral sent the ship’s boats toward a river that seemed to be deep and easy of entrance. But as they came out, the onshore wind having freshened, and the sea becoming heavy, such a surf built up at the mouth that one boat was swamped, and her crew drowned.” Columbus named the unhappy stream in which two men had died Río de Desastres, as its banks were lined with “canes as thick as a man’s thigh.”
Nine days later, at an island named Quiribirí, the ships anchored tentatively before shaping a course to Cariay (most likely Puerto Limón), off the coast of Costa Rica, whose vistas made an indelible impression on the lad. “Here we found the best country and people that we had yet seen; because the land was high and abounded in rivers and great trees, and the island itself was very verdant, full of groves of lofty trees, palms,” and a “great number of Indians, many armed with bows and arrows, others with palmtree spears black as pitch and hard as bone and tipped with fish bones, and still others with macanas or clubs.” With his customary composure, he added, “They seemed determined to resist our landing.”
Columbus’s men signaled that they came in peace rather than war, whereupon the Indians jumped into the water and swam out to the ships to “trade their weapons, cotton cloaks and shirts, and the guanín pendants which they hang about their necks.” Volatile as ever, the Admiral refused on this occasion, preferring to demonstrate that he and his men “did not covet their possessions.” To emphasize his point, he ordered presents from Spain to be distributed. The less interest the Europeans exhibited in trading, the more the Indians showed, and they boldly invited the visitors to go ashore by making signs and “holding up their cloaks like banners.” But the Europeans, obeying the Admiral, stayed aboard ship, spoiling the fun. The Indians responded by tying all the trinkets they had received into a neat bundle, which they left on the boat landing for the Spaniards to discover.
On September 25, on Cariay, said Columbus, “I stopped to repair the ships and replenish my victuals and rest the crews, which were very sick, and myself, having, as I said, been many times at the point of death.” But he was not too sick to learn about the “gold mines of the region of Çiamba, which I was seeking. Two Indians led me to Carabarú, where the people went naked and wore a gold disk hanging from the neck, which they were unwilling to sell or trade.” As mesmerized by gold as ever, Columbus forgot about his suffering at sea, and debriefed the Indians about gold and gold mines.
The Indians treated the Europeans with caution. “Thinking that we distrusted them, the Indians sent aboard an old Indian of venerable presence bearing a banner tied to a stick; two girls, one eight and the other fourteen years old, accompanied him,” Ferdinand wrote. In reply, Columbus dispatched a skiff to retrieve water from the mainland. Before they returned to the ship, “the Indians urged them by signs to take the girls.” By all accounts, Columbus treated them well, ordering them to be clothed and fed, and then he sent them ashore, where they rushed into the welcoming arms of the Indian elder and more than fifty others. Later that day, the Indians returned all the gifts given to them by the Europeans, the hawk’s bells and other