Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [8]
Late on October 16, Columbus’s modest altruistic gesture paid generous dividends. The fleet happened to be in search of anchorage, frustrated by the inability of soft coral reefs to provide a reliable stay against the agitation of the sea. The man whom he had given water, nourishment, and transport noticed the situation. “He had given such a good account of us that all this night aboard the ship [that] there was no want of dugouts, which brought us water and what they had. I ordered each to be given something, if only a few beads, 10 or 12 glass ones on a thread, and some brass jingles, such as are worth in Castile a maravedí each”—a Spanish coin worth about twelve cents.
Overcoming his reluctance to disembark, Columbus went ashore on Long Island, and was pleasantly surprised by the inhabitants, “a somewhat more domestic people, and tractable, and more subtle, because I observe that in bringing cotton to the ship and other things, they know better how to drive a bargain than the others.” To his relief, the islanders wore clothing, which seemed to reflect their sophistication and civility. “I saw clothes of cotton made like short cloaks, and the people are better disposed, and the women wear in front of their bodies a small piece of cotton which barely covers their genitals.”
Lush, dark vegetation blanketed the island. Impenetrable mangroves overhung ledges, casting dismal shadows. Spiky beach plums obstructed the way to the island’s interior. Those able to hack a path through the brush might come upon a basin of murky water swaying within a deep blue hole. In another part of the island, caves tempted the bravest or most foolhardy to explore their depths. It was all strange and different from anything the men had ever witnessed. “I saw many trees very unlike ours,” Columbus marveled, “and many of them have their branches of different kinds, and all on one trunk, and one twig is of one kind and another of another, and so unlike that it is the greatest wonder of the world. How great is the diversity of one kind from the other!” He had stumbled across flora following a separate evolutionary path from its European counterparts. Catching his breath, he resumed, “For instance, one branch has leaves like a cane, others like mastic; and thus on one tree five or six kinds, and all so different.” How could this be? They were not grafted by human hands, “for one can say the grafting is spontaneous.” No matter what plant Columbus was describing, his astonishment was apparent. The same wild proliferation could be found among fish—“so unlike ours that it is marvelous; they have some like dories, of the brightest colors in the world, blue, yellow, red, and of all colors, and others painted in a thousand ways; and the colors are so bright, that there is no man would not marvel and would not take great delight in seeing them; also there are whales.” Sheer surprise and enchantment hijacked his grandiose agenda. Or were the snares of this world leading him fatally astray?
Columbus, normally so purposeful, wandered through the Bahamas for a full week, as if through a dreamscape. “I discovered a very wonderful harbor with one mouth, or rather one might say two mouths, for it has an island in the middle, and both are very narrow, and within it is wide enough for 100 ships, if it were deep and clean,” he recorded on October 17 as he approached Cape Santa María. “During this time I walked among some trees which were the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen, viewing as much verdure in so great development as in the month of May in Andalusia, and all the trees were as different from ours as day from night.” He was charmed and baffled by the spectacle. “Nobody could say what they were, nor compare them to others of Castile.” The sights of so many unidentifiable trees and plants and flowers caused him “great grief,” almost as if he were blind or speechless.
Only gold roused him from his reveries. The moment he spotted a man “who had in his nose a gold stud” engraved with