Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [18]
Columbus continued to praise his newly discovered land, evoking “nine very remarkable harbors which all seamen considered wonders, and five great rivers . . . very high and beautiful mountains . . . the most beautiful valleys . . . thick with high and leafy trees, which were glorious to see.” The one gnawing concern in this paradise was “tremendous fear” of cannibals, rumored to launch raiding parties in which they captured the land’s timid inhabitants. The Indians he had brought on board as passenger-captives were horrified when they realized he was headed for their domain, “lest they make a meal of them, nor could he quiet their fears.” Instead, they babbled about the cannibals’ single eyes and “dogs’ faces.” Columbus chose to deal with the rumors thus: “The Admiral believed they were lying, and thought that those who had captured them must be under the sovereignty of the Grand Khan.”
On November 27, from Baracoa, near the easternmost end of Cuba, he composed his most comprehensive summary yet. He revised his estimate of his findings upward, always upward, partly because he was convinced of the region’s strategic value, even if it was not China, and partly to distract the Sovereigns from the embarrassing circumstance that he had not accomplished what he had promised to do. “A thousand tongues would not suffice, nor his hand to write, for it appeared that it was enchanted,” he wrote of Cuba and its neighbors. Did anyone doubt the truth of his observations? “It is certain, Lord Princes, that when there are such lands there should be profitable things without number; but I tarried not in any harbor.” His justification for sailing across the Atlantic at great risk and expense, only to pass over exactly what he sought, was not entirely convincing: “I sought to see the most countries that I could, to give the story of them to Your Highnesses,” adding in passing, “and I do not know the language, and the people of the lands do not understand me nor I them, nor does anyone on board.”
This observation did not square with the many conversations with Indians that he had already recorded in his diary, in which he described how Indians told him about gold, or trees, or harbors. Even allowing for significant misunderstanding, some inevitable, and some willful, between the two parties, there was no doubt that Columbus and his men had been carrying on multiple dialogues with their Indian hosts about trading, religion, Christianity, and local geography ever since the fleet’s first landfall on October 12. Each party confirmed the other’s mystical and religious prophecies and fantasies. The Indians thought Columbus’s fleet fulfilled the longstanding, widely held belief that divine or divinely inspired creatures like them would visit the islands, and Columbus believed that whatever he encountered was intended by God, even though the Taínos were not exactly what he had in mind. Mutual recognition vied with mutual confusion. But the unspoken potential behind the discovery varied greatly for each party. For the Indians, it meant a visitation from above, and implied being uplifted rather than degraded. For Columbus, it implied the possibility of exploitation and enslavement, and the acquisition of limitless personal wealth.
To communicate with the Indians, he relied on his translator, Luis de Torres, but it quickly became apparent that he lacked the languages necessary to communicate in these islands. In his stead, Columbus enticed Indians aboard ship to act as guides and interpreters, only to realize that “these Indians whom I took along I