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Updated: May 2, 2025
"Vicente Pinzon is here; his ship the Cordera yonder. What's the stir now? The Admiral will go to see Guacanagari?" That, it seemed, was what it was, and presently came word that Juan Lepe should go with him. A body of cavaliers sumptuously clad, some even wearing shining corselet, greaves and helm, was forming about him who was himself in a magnificent dress.
Roderigo and I forced him to swallow a little food and wine, and once he rose and made as if to go on deck. But we laid him down again and he sank into movelessness and a sleep of all the faculties. Juan de la Cosa took care of the Cordera. So we sighted Isabella and in the harbor four caravels that had not been there when we had sailed in April.
The Admiral lay on clean, warm sand and rested with his eyes shut. I was glad we were nigh to Isabella and his house there, for I did not think him well. He sat up, embracing his great knees and looking at the sea and the Cordera. "I have been thinking, Doctor." "For your health, my Admiral, I wish you could rest a while from thinking!" "We were upon the south side of Mangi. I am assured of that!
Francisco Nino went once more with the Admiral as pilot, and the faithful Juan de la Cosa was taken to draw charts; one of the monks also, to act as chaplain. The Admiral had a steward, a secretary, ten seamen and six boys to complete the company on the Nina. The San Juan was commanded by Alonso Perez Roldan and the Cordera by Christoval Nino.
It was his weakness, and maybe, too, his strength. The sunset hung over this roadstead and the shore. The mountains glowed in it, the nearer wood fell dark, the beach showed milky white, a knot of palms upon a horn of land caught full gold and shone as though they were in heaven. Over upon the Cordera they were singing. The long cacique-canoe shot out from the shadow of the Marigalante.
Some of these people wore a slight dress of woven grass and palm leaves, and they used crowns of bright feathers. We got from them in some quantity golden ornaments. But south for gold, south south, they always pointed south! The Cordera, the Santa Clara and the San Juan set sail out of the Harbor of Good Weather, in Santiago or Jamaica.
I was seated in the boat with the master of the Cordera and heard his tale. He had found what he thought a natural aisle of the forest and had stolen down it, looking keenly for pigeon or larger bird. A tree with drooping branches stood across the aisle, he said. He went around the trunk, which was a great one, and it was as though he had turned into the nave of the cathedral.
He gave authority in Isabella to Don Diego, and made him a council where sat Father Buil, Caravajal, Coronel and Juan de Luxan. Then out of five ships we took the Cordera, the Santa Clara and the San Juan, and we set sail on April the twenty-fourth. THE island, we learned, was named Jamaica. The Admiral called it Santiago, but it also rests Jamaica.
We found desolate forest, and behind that a vast, matted, low growth, impenetrable and extending far away. At last we determined that Felipe Garcia had seen white cranes. Unless it were magic We sailed on and we sailed on. The Cordera, the Santa Clara and the San Juan were in bad case, hurt in that storm between Jamaica and Cuba, and wayworn since in those sandy seas, among those myriad islets.
We got him from the Cordera to Hispaniola shore, and so in a litter to his own house in Isabella. All our town was gathered to see him carried there. He began to improve. The second day he said to Don Bartholomew, "You shall be my lieutenant and deputy. Adelantado I name you Adelantado." Don Bartholomew said bluntly, "Is not that hard upon Diego?"
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