Читать книгу The History of Cuba (Vol. 1-5) - Willis Fletcher Johnson - Страница 8

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We have already quoted the enthusiastic encomium of Columbus upon Cuba at his first sight of and landing upon its shore. His diary and his narrative to the sovereigns of Leon and Castile on his return to Spain abound with similar expressions, as well as with informing bits of description of Cuba as they then found it. In the very first days of his first visit he found villages of houses "made like booths, very large, and looking like tents in a camp without regular streets but one here and another there. Within they were clean and well swept, with furniture well made. All were of palm branches, beautifully constructed. They found many images in the shape of women, and many heads like masks, very well carved. It was not known whether these were used as ornaments, or were to be worshipped."

The waters abounded in fish, and the people of the coast regions were apparently nearly all fishermen. The only domestic animals were the "dogs which never barked," and birds in cages. There were seen, however, skulls like those of cows, on which account Columbus assumed that inland there were herds of cattle. All night the air was vocal with the songs of birds and the chirping of crickets and other insects, which lulled the voyagers to rest. Along the shore and in the mouths of rivers were found large shells, unlike any that he had known in Spain, but no pearls were in them. The air was soft and salubrious, and the nights were neither hot nor cold. On the other islands which he had visited the heat was oppressive, a circumstance which he attributed to the flat and low-lying land; while Cuba was mountainous and therefore was blessed with cooling breezes.

At some point on the northeastern coast, probably in the neighborhood of Point Sama, a month after his first landing, he imagined that he had discovered deposits of gold. It was in the bed of a river, near its mouth, that he saw stones shining, as if with gold, and he had them gathered, to take home to Spain and to present to the sovereigns. At the same point some of the sailors called his attention to the pine trees on a neighboring hill. They were "so wonderfully large that he could not exaggerate their height and straightness, and he perceived that in them was material for great stores of planks and masts for the largest ships of Spain."

Further on, probably in the neighborhood of Baracoa, "they came to the largest inhabited place that they had yet seen, and a vast concourse of people came down to the beach with loud shouts, all naked, with darts in their hands." Columbus desired to have speech with them, and accordingly anchored his ships and sent boats ashore, bearing gifts for the natives. The people at first seemed inclined to resist any landing, but when the Spaniards in the boats pressed on and began to land, without manifesting any fear, they abandoned their hostile attitude and began to withdraw. The Spaniards who landed called to them and strove to lure them back, but without success. They all ran away. In consequence of this and similar incidents, Columbus wrote:

"I have not been able to see much of the natives, because they take to flight. But now, if Our Lord pleases, I will see as much as possible, and will proceed little by little, learning and comprehending; and I will make some of my followers learn the language—for I have perceived that there is only one language up to this point. After they understand the advantages I shall labor to make all these people Christians. They will readily become such, because they have no religion nor idolatry; and Your Highnesses"—he was addressing the sovereigns, in his journal—"will send orders to build a city and fortress, and to convert these people.

"It does not appear to me," he continued, "that there can be a more fertile country or a better climate under the sun, with more abundant supplies of water. This is not like the rivers of Guinea, which are all pestilential. I thank Our Lord that up to this time there has not been a person of my company who has had so much as a head-ache, except one old man who has suffered from stone all his life, and he was well again in two days. I speak of all three vessels. If it should please God that Your Highness should send learned men out here, they will see the truth of all I have said."

While in the neighborhood of Baracoa, at the end of November and beginning of December, 1492, he saw a canoe made of the hole of a single tree, 95 palms long and capable of carrying 150 persons. "Leaving the river, they came to a cove in which there were five large canoes, so well constructed that it was a pleasure to look at them. They were under spreading trees, and a path led to them from a very well built boathouse, so thatched that neither sun nor rain could do any harm. Within it there was another canoe made out of a single tree like the others, like a galley with 17 benches. It was a pleasant sight to look upon such goodly work.

"The Admiral ascended a mountain, and afterward found the country level and cultivated with many things. In the middle there was a large village, and they came upon the people suddenly, but as soon as they were seen the men and women took to flight. The Admiral made the Indian from on board, who was with him, give them bells, copper ornaments, and glass beads, green and yellow, with which they were well content. He saw that they had no gold nor any other precious thing, and that it would suffice to leave them in peace. The whole district was well peopled. … No arms are carried by them except wands, on the point of which a short piece of wood is fixed, hardened by fire, and these they are very ready to exchange.

"Returning to where he had left the boats, he sent back some men up the hill, because he fancied he had seen a large apiary. Before those he had sent could return, they were joined by many Indians, and they went to the boats, where the Admiral was waiting with all his people. One of the natives advanced into the river near the stern of the boat and made a long speech, which the Admiral did not understand. At intervals the other Indians raised their hands to heaven and shouted. The Admiral thought that the orator was assuring him that he was pleased at his arrival. But he saw the Indian who came from the ship change the color of his face and turn as yellow as wax, trembling much and indicating to the Admiral by signs that he should leave the river, as they were going to kill him. The Admiral then pointed to a cross-bow which one of his followers had, and showed it to the Indians, making them understand that they would all be slain, because that weapon killed people at a great distance. He also drew a sword from its sheath and showed it to them, telling them that it, too, would slay them. Thereupon they all took to flight; while the Indian from the ship still trembled from cowardice, though he was a tall, strong man."

Columbus then determined to seek further acquaintance with the natives, and accordingly had his boat rowed to a point on the shore of the river where they were assembled in great numbers. They were naked, and painted; some wearing tufts of feathers on their heads, and all carrying bundles of darts. "I came to them," said Columbus, "and gave them bread, asking for the darts, in exchange for which I gave copper ornaments, bells and glass beads. This made them peaceable, so that they came to the boats again and gave us what they had. The sailors had killed a turtle, and the shell was on the boat, cut into pieces, some of which the sailors gave them in exchange for a bundle of darts. They were like the other people we had seen, with the same belief that we had come from heaven." They were ready, he added, to give anything that they had in exchange for any trifle, which they would accept without saying that it was little, and Columbus believed that they would thus give away gold and spices, if they had had any. In one of the houses which he entered "shells and other things were fastened to the ceiling." He thought that it was a temple, and he inquired, by signs, if such was the case and if prayers were there offered. The natives replied in the negative, and one of them climbed up to take down the ceiling ornaments and give them to Columbus, who accepted a few of them.

It was early in November, 1492, that one of the most noteworthy discoveries in relation to Cuba was made. At that time Columbus sent inland from the port at the mouth of the Rio de Mares two men, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, to explore the inland country and to find if possible the high road to the capital and palace of the Great Khan. These men did not find what they had been sent for, but something else, which proved in after years to be of incalculable value to Cuba and to the world. To quote Las Casas:

"They met on the road many men and women, passing to their villages, the men always with half-burned brands in their hands and certain herbs for smoking. These herbs are dry and are placed in a dry leaf made in the shape of the paper tubes which the boys make at Easter. Lighted at one end, at the other the smoke is sucked or drawn in with the breath. The effect of it is to make them sleepy and as it were intoxicated, and they say that using it relieves the feeling of fatigue. These rolls they call 'tabacos.'" Some of Columbus's men, when it was reported to them, tried smoking the "tabacos," and the habit soon became prevalent among the Spanish colonists in Hispaniola.

These few items, then, compose practically the sum and substance of the knowledge which Columbus acquired of that land which was, second to only the continent, by far the most important of all his discoveries. They are few and meagre. It is indeed doubtful if history records an even approximately comparable instance of the disappearance of a numerous and capable people from a country of vast interest and importance, leaving behind them so few traces of themselves and so little information concerning them. For these things are not merely all that Columbus learned about Cuba. They are all that his successors learned and that the world has ever learned about Cuba as it existed prior to and at the time of the great discovery. Tobacco, hammocks, canoes, and the name of the island and the names of various places on it which have persisted in spite of the repeated attempts to substitute a new nomenclature; these are the world's memorials of pre-Columbian Cuba.

The brief visits and superficial inspection which we have recorded were not, however, destined to be the full compass of the Discoverer's personal relationship to Cuba. While he did not again visit the island in life, nor give to it any of the attention which ampler knowledge would have shown him it deserved, his mortal remains were conveyed thither, and there remained for a considerable period; though by a strange fatality this fact, well authenticated as it is, has been persistently and elaborately disputed, until the tomb of Columbus has in the minds of many become almost as much a matter of speculation and uncertainty as the place of his birth.

It was on Ascension Day, May 20, 1506, that Columbus died at Valladolid, in Spain, and there his body was laid to rest in the parish church of Santa Maria de la Antigua, a church of the Franciscan Fathers. The date of the first removal is unknown, and is much disputed. Some have placed it as late as the year 1513, while others, as the result of later and more assured research, declare it to have been within a year or two, or at most within three years, of his death. Of the new place of sepulture, however, there is no question. It was in a chapel of the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, at Seville; where also, years afterward, were laid the remains of his son, Diego, who died at Montalban on February 23, 1526.

But as in life, so in death Columbus must needs be a wanderer. In 1542 the city of Santo Domingo, the capital of that island colony of Hispaniola to which Columbus's chief attention had been given, demanded to be made the repository of the body of its founder. Accordingly, Charles I decreed the removal, and the bodies of Christopher Columbus and his son Diego were both transferred from Seville to a double tomb in the cathedral of Santo Domingo, hard by the fortress in which the Discoverer had once been confined by Bobadilla as a prisoner. Thus far the record was and is clear; and for two and a half centuries the tomb remained inviolate. Indeed, it was so little meddled with that its precise location became a matter of doubt, save that it was somewhere "in the main sanctuary" of the cathedral.

The first attempt to determine it was made about 1783 by the French politician and writer, Moreau de Saint-Mery, a kinsman of the Empress Josephine and a member of the Colonial Council of Santo Domingo. Diligent inquiry, without actual exhumation, resulted in the information that the remains of Christopher Columbus, enclosed first in a leaden casket and then in a massive coffin of stone, lay underneath the Gospel side of the sanctuary, and that those of his brother, Bartholomew Columbus, similarly enclosed, lay underneath the Epistle side. This was contrary, in one respect, to the understanding of years before, which was that it was the body of Columbus's grandson Luis which lay under the Epistle side of the sanctuary. The problem was complicated by the fact that the cathedral had been so remodelled that the tomb of Columbus was underneath its wall, where actual examination was difficult; and in fact no exhumation was then attempted.

In 1795, however, the island was transferred to French sovereignty, and the Spanish governor, on relinquishing his rule, requested permission to remove the remains of Columbus to Havana, Cuba, in order that they might continue to rest beneath the Spanish flag. This was granted to him, and accordingly, in January, 1796, the tomb beneath the wall on the Gospel side of the sanctuary of the cathedral of Santo Domingo was opened, and the coffin found within was reverently removed and borne to Havana, where it was deposited in a new tomb in the cathedral—formerly the Church of the Jesuits—where its presence was indicated by a medallion and inscription on the wall of the chancel. For many years that was indubitably regarded as the tomb of the Discoverer.

It was not until 1877 that doubt of this fact arose. In that year repairs were made to the cathedral of Santo Domingo, in the course of which the rector, the Rev. Francis Navier Billini, insisted upon reopening the tomb underneath the Epistle side of the sanctuary, which had of old been reputed to contain the coffin of Luis Columbus, but which Saint-Mery had been informed contained the remains of Bartholomew Columbus. There was discovered a leaden casket, which, like that which had been taken to Havana, bore no inscription. But upon or close by it there lay a sheet of lead bearing the words, "The Admiral Don Luis Colon, Duke of Veragua and Marquis of. … " The remainder was undecipherable. The casket was therefore accepted as that of Columbus's grandson; confirming the common belief before the time of Saint-Mery.

Not content with this discovery, the enterprising rector continued his excavations, and presently the finding of another leaden casket was announced, which was reported to bear an inscription, much abbreviated, which, amplified, ran thus: "Discoverer of America; First Admiral." This created a great sensation, and stimulated Dominican pride. The rector at once sent for the President of Santo Domingo and other dignitaries of state and church, including various foreign diplomats and consuls, and in their presence continued the examination of the treasure trove. Upon opening the casket, the inner side of the lid was found also to bear an inscription, greatly abbreviated, which was interpreted as reading: "Illustrious and Noble Man, Don Cristoval Colon." This the Dominicans joyfully proclaimed to be proof positive that the remains of the Discoverer were still in their possession, and that the casket which had been taken to Havana contained the bones of some other member of the Columbus family.

From that event arose a controversy which probably will never be settled to universal satisfaction. The Dominicans marshalled to the support of their claims various historical and antiquarian authorities, and the Cubans and the Spanish government secured at least an equal array in support of their claim that the remains of Columbus had been transferred to Havana. A strongly convincing report to the latter effect was made to the Spanish government by Señor Colmeiro, of the Spanish Royal Academy of History, and his judgment was generally accepted throughout Cuba and Spain. It was pointed out that the inscriptions contained various anachronisms indicating that they must have been written at a much later date than that of the death and interment of Columbus.

Havana therefore continued confidently to pride itself upon being the repository of the dust of the Great Admiral, and his tomb in the ancient cathedral was thus recognized and revered by countless visitors. But at last, in 1899, after the independence of Cuba from Spain had been accomplished, a request was made by the Spanish Government for the transfer of the casket and its precious contents back to Spain, where historically they belonged. It was indeed pointed out that the transfer to Havana in 1796 had been intended to be only temporary, pending a fitting opportunity for a further removal to Spain. This request was granted, and the dust of the Discoverer was finally reinterred in the cathedral of Seville.

THE HAVANA CATHEDRAL

Originally the church of the Jesuits, this imposing edifice was built in 1656, though not completed until 1724, and took the place of the first cathedral in 1762. Within a tomb within its walls the remains of Columbus rested from 1796, when they were taken thither from Santo Domingo, to 1899, when they were conveyed to Spain.