Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [87]
The following day, Guacanagarí sent his brother to invite the Admiral himself to visit. “The Admiral went ashore along with most of the leaders and so well-dressed that they would have drawn praise even in a great city,” in Chanca’s words. Columbus took care to bring a few trinkets to reciprocate for the gold he and his men had received. They found Guacanagarí regally suspended in his hammock, accompanied by his wife, twelve ladies-in-waiting—all naked, or nearly so—various companions, and guards reclining watchfully on the ground: the Indian royal court. They had prepared carefully for their visitors.
“He did not get up,” Chanca said of the wily Indian leader. “He addressed us with a gesture of courtesy as best he could and showed deep emotion to the point of tears for the Christians’ deaths, and began talking about that, saying as best he could that a few died because of illness and others had gone to Caonabó’s territory to find the gold mine in the city and were killed there, while the rest had been seized and killed in their own camp.” As if to wish away the tragedy, or in recompense for lives lost, Guacanagarí presented Columbus with more gifts—gold, always gold—and belts and headgear adorned with semiprecious stones. The jewels twinkled, they glittered, and the crown was solid and substantial in his hands, conferring the illusion of power and mastery on its grateful, wide-eyed recipient. Guacanagarí then bestowed still more gifts: “eight hundred small figured white, green, and red stone beads together with one hundred figured gold beads, a royal gold crown, and three little gourds filled with gold grains,” said Columbus’s son Ferdinand.
For the moment, the Admiral was more stunned and flattered than bent on revenge for the deaths of his men, and appeared only too willing to cooperate with his host. The brilliance of gold put the lives of the barely mourned, practically anonymous men who had lost their lives at La Navidad into the shadows of obscurity. A leader who valued gold above the security of his men could be counted on to aspire to great accomplishments at great cost.
Columbus offered Guacanagarí the services of Chanca, the fleet’s physician, and the surgeon, both in attendance. Chanca stepped forward and indicated that he needed to inspect the chief ’s wound in the light of day; it was too dark inside the dwelling. The injured chieftain complied, limping and leaning on Chanca’s shoulder. “After he was seated, the surgeon approached him and started taking the bandages off.” Guacanagarí explained that the wound had been caused by a weapon made of stone. “When the leg was unbound, we gathered to examine it. It was obvious he felt no more pain in it than in the other leg, although he cleverly tried to show it hurt him very much.” Columbus and his men began to suspect that his men had lost their lives not through their own recklessness, or disease, or even starvation (an unlikely occurrence in this fertile land), but had been murdered, every last one of them, by Indians. Nevertheless, he decided the best course was to pretend that he still believed the chieftain’s improbable story, to the point of inviting him to dine aboard ship that evening.
Guacanagarí received all the attention he could wish. “When he got to the Admiral’s ship,” said Guillermo Coma, “he was piped aboard with great pomp, welcomed by the beating of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the flashing bombardment of the ship’s cannon.” He took his seat on the deck before a table “sumptuously” set with cakes, confections, and delicacies from