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Updated: August 29, 2024
And so when he scanned the horizon next morning and saw no Nina, and when he kept peering all that day through the storm and the little Nina never came in sight, a mean idea made its way into Captain Pinzon's brain; and it grew and grew until it became a definite, well- arranged plan. "The Admiral has gone down with all aboard," he reasoned to himself.
While Pinzon's fleet was in the mouth of the river, it came a second time near being wrecked. Pinzon was, of course, in strange waters. He did not know that twice each month the tide does not rise in the usual way, but rushes up the mouth of the Amazon with great force. The tide, as a rule, is about six hours in rising and six hours in falling.
These pilots were men who understood how to use the astrolabe and to tell the course of the ship at sea. Pinzon's fleet sailed toward the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and after passing them its course was southwest across the Atlantic. At length the fleet crossed the equator, and Pinzon was the first explorer to cross the line in the western Atlantic.
So no more of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, whose end was inglorious, but whose courage and enterprise were later remembered gratefully by Spain; for Charles V., Queen Isabella's grandson, made public acknowledgment of Pinzon's great services in discovering the New World. And now to pleasanter things. What has the Admiral been doing since the Palos bells pealed out their joyous welcome to him?
This was so pleasing to the people that they returned thanks to God for the pleasing discovery; and, although the admiral was by no means satisfied of the truth of Pinzon's observation, yet to please the men, and that they might not obstruct the voyage, he altered his course and stood in that direction a great part of the night.
But on the 12th of February a storm overtook them, and became more and more furious, until, on the 14th, it rose to a hurricane, before which Pinzon's vessel could only drift helplessly, while the Nina was able to set a close-reefed foresail, which kept her from being buried in the trough of the sea.
It was one of the few times when Columbus's good judgment in navigation deserted him; for had he kept west he might have learned from the natives that what we call Florida lay beyond, and Florida was the continent; or, even if the natives had nothing to communicate, west would have been the logical direction for him to take after leaving the extremity of Cuba, had he fully shared Pinzon's belief that Asia lay beyond the islands.
He was grateful to Martin Pinzon who had aided him from his first coming to Palos, and also I think he loved the younger man's great blond strength and beauty. He had all of Italy's quickness to beauty, be it of land or sea, forest, flower, animal or man. But now and again, even so early as this, he must put out hand to check Pinzon's impetuous advice.
Pinzon's men further claim that they have found huge trees in that country which sixteen men holding hands and forming a circle could scarcely encompass with their arms. An extraordinary animal inhabits these trees, of which the muzzle is that of the fox, while the tail resembles that of a marmoset, and the ears those of a bat. Its hands are like man's, and its feet like those of an ape.
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