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Updated: June 5, 2025
It is a long road from Santa Fe to Huelva, a long journey to make on foot, and the company of a sad heart and a little talking boy, prone to sudden weariness and the asking of innumerable difficult questions, would not make it very much shorter.
It was difficult to man the ships, sailors generally being frightened at the enterprise, but at last the captains succeeded in getting together one hundred and twenty men, and on Friday, August 3rd, 1492, the admiral crossing at eight o'clock in the morning the bar of Saltez, off the town of Huelva, in Andalusia, adventured himself with his three half-decked caravels upon the Atlantic waves.
You get away a little; drop your anchor a little. Then three felucca com' alongside, and you'se been hoist bales. Then you 'se go where agent say you. Very big thing. Five thousand sovereign." "What is it? tobacco?" "That been it." "Where for?" "Huelva." "I'm not going out of Portuguese waters at no price." "Ah, no, no, Cheesu, Capeetan no! Five mile. We have felucca there ready.
On Sunday, March 3rd, the wind rose to the force of a hurricane, and, on a sudden gust of violent wind splitting all the sails, the unhappy crew gathered together again and drew more lots and made more vows. This time the pilgrimage was to be to the shrine of Santa Maria at Huelva, the pilgrim to go as before in his shirt; and the lot fell to the Admiral.
Still the fleet went on without seeing land, and, as it was in want of fresh water, the admiral was thinking of changing his course, and, indeed, on Thursday, the 31st of July, had commenced steering northwards for some hours, when, to use his own words, "as God had always been accustomed to show mercy to him," a certain mariner of Huelva, a follower of the admiral's, named Alonzo Perez, happened to go up aloft upon the maintop-sail of the admiral's ship, and suddenly saw land towards the south-west, about fifteen leagues off.
They also said that the Indians had slain Orantes, Valdivieso, Huelva, Esquibel, and Mendez ; but that the three who still lived were very ill used, especially by the boys, who kicked, beat, and abused them for their amusement. At this time the Indians treated Cabeza and Oviedo very ill, so that Oviedo went back along with some of the natives, but Cabeza stayed and they two never met more.
Such men were undesirable, not only because of their lawless character, but also because they had never before sailed on a ship; and the more this class rallied to the front, the more the respectable sailors of Palos, Moguer, Huelva, and other adjacent towns hung back. To go forth into the unknown was bad enough; to go there in the society of malefactors was even worse.
In the afternoon of that day the admiral's servant, Alonzo Perez of Huelva, went to the masthead, and reported land in the shape of three separate peaks. Columbus had declared his intention of naming the first land sighted after the Holy Trinity, and the coincidence of its appearing in the form of three peaks made a deep impression on his mind. The island of Trinidad retains its name to this day.
Such the fêtes, aptly called by the French "Fêtes de Gènes," Fait accompli, good luck, ça nous gêne trop! But never say die; now Huelva goes on, New York follows, steady and sober, And Chicago makes ready for more derned, dog gone Fêtes to last till, at least, next October!
One by one they succumbed to weakness and illness, until one only, a pilot from Huelva, was left. He also was sinking, and when it was obvious that his end was near at hand, he beckoned his good host to his bedside, and, in gratitude for all his kindness, imparted to him some singular knowledge which he had acquired, and with which, if he had lived, he had hoped to win distinction for himself.
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